SLIGHTLY WICKED

by Mary Balogh

  His eyes smiled at her with that expression that was not quite mockery. “The innkeeper will have your portmanteau sent over as soon as it arrives,” he said. “The coach has a broken axle. The wait for another may be a long one, certainly an overnight one. You might as well wait in comfort.”

  “But I cannot afford—” she began again.

  He set one finger over her lips, startling her into silence.

  “Ah, but I can,” he said. “I can afford the price of one room, at least.”

  For a moment of utter stupidity she did not understand him. And then she did. She wondered that her face did not flame with such heat that she would set his finger on fire.

  She wondered that her knees did not buckle under her while she collapsed into a deep swoon. She wondered that she did not scream and slap his face with all the force of her outrage.

  She did none of those things. Instead she hid behind the worldly mask of Claire Campbell while she felt the full force of temptation. She felt an almost overwhelming yearning to continue her adventure, her stolen dream. He was suggesting that they share a room at the other inn. He must surely intend too that they share a bed. He must intend that they have marital relations there—though marital was quite the wrong word, she supposed.

  Today. Tonight. Within the next few hours.

  She smiled Claire Campbell’s smile and was aware as she did so that no other answer was necessary. She was absolved of having to make any real decision or any verbal commitment. But nonetheless she had made a certain decision, otherwise Claire could not have smiled. Just once in her life she needed, she desperately needed, to do something gloriously outrageous and shocking and daring and ... out of character.

  She might never have another chance.

  “I will go rescue my horse before he settles too comfortably into a stall,” he said, taking a step back from her, looking her over quickly from head to toe, and then turning in the direction of the outer door.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  After all, nothing was final. She would not really go through with the whole scheme. When the time came, she would simply excuse herself and explain to him that he had misunderstood, that she was not that kind of woman. She would sleep on the floor or on a chair or somewhere he was not. He was a gentleman. He would not force her. She was merely extending her adventure by agreeing to go with him. She would not be doing anything irreversibly depraved.

  Oh, yes, you will be, a small voice inside her head told her, unbidden. Oh, yes, you will be, my girl. It spoke in the brisk tones of Judith Law at her most sensible.

  The Rum and Puncheon was a small market inn. It was empty of guests though the taproom was crowded enough. Mr. and Mrs. Bedard were received with jovial hospitality and given the best room in the inn, a square, clean chamber that soon had a fire crackling in the hearth, a welcome buffer against the rain that was pattering against the windows, and a pitcher of hot water steaming on the washstand behind the screen. They would be served their dinner, they were assured, in the small dining parlor that adjoined their bedchamber. They would be cozy and private there, the innkeeper’s wife informed them, beaming at them as if she fully believed them to be a married couple.

  Claire Campbell pushed back the hood of her cloak when they were alone together in their room and stood looking out the window. Rannulf tossed his cloak and hat onto a chair and looked at her. Her hair had lost even more of its pins and was looking considerably disheveled. Her green cloak was dark with damp at the shoulders, slightly muddied at the hem. His intention had been to tumble her into bed as soon as they arrived so that they might slake the first rush of their appetite. But the time did not feel right. He was a lusty man but not one of unbridled passions. Sex, after all, was an art as well as a necessary physical function. The art of sex needed atmosphere.

  All evening and all night stretched before them. There was no hurry.

  “You will wish to freshen up,” he said. “I will have a pint of ale in the taproom and come back up when dinner is ready. I’ll have a pot of tea sent up to you.”

  She turned to him. “That would be kind of you,” she said.

  He almost changed his mind. The color was high in her cheeks again, and her eyelids were slightly drooped in invitation. Her hair was rumpled, as though she had just risen from bed. He wanted to put her back there, himself on top of her and between her thighs and deep inside her.

  Instead he made her a mocking bow and raised one eyebrow.

  “Kind?” he said. “Now kindness is something I am not often accused of, ma’am.”

  He spent all of an hour in the taproom, drinking his ale while a group of townsmen included him hospitably in their circle and asked his opinion of the weather and his observations on the state of the roads while puffing on their pipes and drinking deep from their tankards and agreeing sagely with one another that now they were going to pay for all the hot summer weather they had been enjoying for the past several weeks.

  He went up to the private dining parlor when the landlady informed him that the food was about to be carried up. Claire was there, standing in the doorway between the two rooms, watching a maid set the table and then bring in the food and set it down.

  “It is steak-and-kidney pie,” the girl said with a smile and a curtsy before she left the room and closed the door behind her. “The best for ten miles around, I do declare. Enjoy it. Ring when you want me to remove the dishes.”

  “We will. Thank you,” Claire said.

  Rannulf had been almost afraid to look at her until they were alone together. He had had only glimpses of the muslin dress beneath her cloak. Now he could see that it was a simply styled garment, unexpectedly modest for a woman of her profession. But she had been traveling by stage. She had probably needed to wear something that would not attract too much attention. The dress did nothing to hide the glories of the body beneath it, though. She was not slender even though her long limbs gave that initial impression. She was lusciously curved, her waist small, her hips flaring invitingly. Her breasts, full and firm, were every man’s dream come true.

  She had not dressed her hair up. She had brushed it back from her face, and it fell in shining ripples over her shoulders and halfway down her back. It was a glorious, almost shocking shade of red with gold highlights that glinted in the late daylight. Her long, oval face had lost its flush of color and was as pale and delicate as porcelain. Her eyes looked startlingly green. And—yes, by Jove—there was something unexpected about the face, something that drew her down into the realm of mortality. He closed the distance between them and ran a finger lightly over her nose, from one cheek to the other.

  “Freckles,” he said. The merest dusting of them.

  Some of the color returned to her cheeks. “They were the bane of my childhood,” she said. “And alas, they have never completely disappeared.”

  “They are charming,” he said. He had always admired goddesses. He had never bedded one. He liked his women made of flesh and blood. He had almost feared when he first came into the room that Claire Campbell was a goddess.

  “I have to cover them with a great deal of paint when I am onstage,” she told him.

  “Almost,” he said, his gaze lowering to her mouth, “you have robbed me of my appetite for food.”

  “Almost,” she said in that brisk voice he had heard once before. “But not quite. How foolish, Mr. Bedard, when your dinner awaits you on the table and you are hungry.”

  “Ralf,” he said. “You had better call me Ralf.”

  “Ralph,” she said. “It is time for dinner.”

  And later they would indulge in dessert, he thought as he seated her at the table and took his place opposite her. A sweet delight that they would savor all night long. His blood hummed in anticipation of good sex. He had no doubt that it would be very good indeed. In the meantime she was right—his body needed to be fed.

  He talked of London at her request since it appeared that she had never been there. He talked about the social s
cene during the Season—about the balls and routs and concerts, about Hyde Park and Carlton House and Vauxhall Gardens. She spoke about the theater at his urging, about the parts she had played and those she longed to play, about her fellow actors and about the directors she had worked with. She described it all slowly, with dreamy eyes and a smile on her lips as if it were a profession she thoroughly enjoyed.

  They ate well. And yet it surprised Rannulf about an hour after they had begun to look down at the table and see that most of the large quantities of food were gone and that the bottle of wine was empty. He could hardly remember the taste of anything, though he had a feeling of general well-being—and a constant spark of anticipation.

  He got to his feet, crossed to the fireplace, and pulled on the bell rope. He had the dishes cleared away and another bottle of wine brought up.

  “More?” he asked Claire, tilting the bottle above her glass.

  She set one hand over the top of it. “Oh, I really ought not,” she said.

  “But you will.” He looked into her eyes.

  She smiled. “But I will.” She removed her hand.

  He leaned back in his chair after filling their glasses and taking a sip. Now was perhaps the moment. The meager light of day was finally fading beyond the windows. The rain pelting against them and the fire crackling in the hearth added an atmosphere of coziness and intimacy, unusual for summer. But there was something else.

  “I want to see you act,” he said.

  “What?” Her eyebrows rose and her hand, holding the wineglass, paused halfway to her mouth.

  “I want to see you act,” he repeated.

  “Here? Now?‘ She set the glass down on the table. ”How absurd. There is no stage, there are no props, no other actors, no script.“

  “A talented, experienced actress surely does not need a script for some parts,” he said. “And no stage or props either. There are any number of famous soliloquies that do not require other actors. Perform one for me, Claire. Please?”

  He raised his glass and held it up to her in a silent toast.

  She stared at him, the flush back in her cheeks. She was embarrassed, he thought in some surprise. Embarrassed to put on a private performance for a man who was about to become her lover. Perhaps it was difficult to think one’s way into a dramatic role under such circumstances.

  “Well, I could do Portia’s famous speech, I suppose,” she said.

  “Portia?”

  “The Merchant of Venice,” she explained. “Surely you know the ‘Quality of Mercy’ speech?”

  “Remind me.”

  “Shylock and Antonio were in court,” she said, leaning slightly across the table toward him, “for it to be decided if Shylock had the right to take a pound of flesh from Antonio. There was no doubt that he had such a right—it was stated clearly in the bond they had both agreed to. But then Portia arrived, intent on saving the dearest friend and benefactor of Bassanio, her love. She came disguised as a lawyer’s clerk and spoke up in Antonio’s defense. At first she appealed to Shylock’s better nature in the famous speech about mercy.”

  “I remember now,” he said. “Do Portia for me, then.”

  She got to her feet and looked around. “This is the courtroom,” she said. “It is no longer an inn dining parlor but a courtroom, in which the very life of a noble man hangs in the balance. It is a desperate situation. There would seem to be no hope. They are all here, all the principal players of the drama. Shylock sits in that chair.” She pointed at the chair Rannulf was occupying.

  “I am Portia,” she said. “But I am disguised as a young man.”

  Rannulf pursed his lips in amusement as she looked around again. She lifted her arms, pulled back her hair, twisted it, and knotted it at the back of her neck. Then she disappeared for a moment into the bedchamber and came back buttoning his caped cloak about her. She still looked about as different as it was possible to be from any man. And then she had finished doing up the buttons and looked up directly into his eyes.

  Rannulf almost recoiled from the hard, controlled expression on her face.

  “ ‘The quality of mercy is not strained,’ ” she told him in a voice to match the expression.

  For a moment, foolishly, he thought that it was she, Claire Campbell, who was addressing him, Rannulf Bedwyn.

  “ ‘It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath,’ ” she continued, coming closer to him, her expression softening slightly, becoming more pleading.

  Devil take it, he thought, she was Portia, and he was that damned villain, Shylock.

  “ ‘It is twice blest.’ ”

  It was not a very long speech, but by the time she had finished it, Rannulf was thoroughly ashamed of himself and ready to pardon Antonio and even go down on his knees to grovel and beg pardon for having considered cutting a pound of flesh from his body. She was bending over him, tight-lipped and keen eyed, waiting for his answer.

  “By Jove,” he said, “Shylock must have been made of iron.”

  He was, he realized, half aroused. She was very good. She could bring a role alive without any of the fancy theatrics he associated with all the most famous actors and actresses he had ever seen onstage.

  She straightened up and smiled at him, unbuttoning his cloak as she did so.

  “What else can you do?” he asked. “Juliet?”

  She made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “I am two and twenty,” she said. “Juliet was about eight years younger and a pea-goose at that. I have never understood the appeal of that play.”

  He chuckled. She was not a romantic, then.

  “Ophelia?” he suggested.

  She looked pained. “I suppose men like watching weak women,” she said with something like contempt in her voice. “They do not come any weaker than that silly Ophelia. She should simply have snapped her fingers in Hamlet’s face and told him to go and boil his head in oil.”

  Rannulf threw his head back and shouted with laughter. She was looking pink and contrite when he lifted his head again.

  “I’ll do Lady Macbeth,” she said. “She was foolish and could not sustain her wickedness, but she was no weakling for all that.”

  “Her sleepwalking scene?” he asked. “Where she is washing her hands of blood?”

  “There. You see?” She looked contemptuous again as she gestured toward him with one arm. “I suppose most men like that scene best. Wicked woman finally breaks down into madness because typical woman cannot be eternally strong.”

  “Macbeth was hardly sane either by the end,” he reminded her. “I would say Shakespeare was impartial in his judgment of the relative strength of the male and female spirit.”

  “I’ll do Lady Macbeth persuading Macbeth to murder Duncan,” she said.

  And he, Rannulf supposed, was to be a silent Macbeth.

  “But first,” she said, “I will finish my wine.”

  Her glass was two-thirds full. She drained it in one gulp and set down the empty glass. Then she undid the knot of hair at her neck, and shook her hair free.

  “Macbeth has just told his wife, ‘We will proceed no further in this business,’ ” she said. “He is backing out of the planned murder; she is spurring him on.”

  Rannulf nodded, and she turned her back for a moment and stood quite still. Then he watched her hands ball slowly into fists and she turned on him. He almost got up from his chair and retreated behind it. The green eyes pierced him with cold scorn.

  “ ‘Was the hope drunk / Wherein you dress’d yourself?’ ” she asked him quietly. “ ‘Hath it slept since, / And wakes it now, to look so green and pale / At what it did so freely?’ ”

  Rannulf resisted the urge to speak up in his own defense.

  “ ‘From this time / Such I account thy love,’ ” she told him.

  She spoke his lines too, leaning over him to do so and speaking in a low voice, giving him the impression that he was saying the words himself without moving his lips. As Lady Macbeth she whipped into
him with her energy and contempt and wily persuasions. By the time she had finished, Rannulf could fully understand at last why Macbeth had committed such an asinine deed as murdering his king.

  She was panting by the time she came to the end of her persuasions, looking cold and triumphant and slightly mad.

  Rannulf found himself near to panting with desire. As her identification with the role she had played faded from her eyes and her body, they stared at each other, and the air between them fairly sizzled.

  “Well,” he said softly.

  She half smiled. “You must understand,” she said, “that I am somewhat rusty. I have not acted for three months and am out of practice.”

  “Heaven help us,” he said, getting to his feet, “if you were in practice. I might be dashing off into the rain to find the nearest available king to assassinate.”

  “So what do you think?” she asked him.

  “I think,” he said, “that it is time for bed.”

  For a moment he thought she was going to refuse. She stared at him, licked her lips, drew breath as if to say something, then nodded.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He bent his head and kissed her. He was quite ready to tumble her to the floor and take her there and then, but why put them to that discomfort when there was a perfectly comfortable-looking bed in the next room? Besides, there were certain bodily realities to consider.

  “Go and get ready,” he said. “I’ll wander downstairs for ten minutes.”

  Again she hesitated and licked her lips.

  “Yes,” she said and turned away. A moment later the bedchamber door closed behind her.

  The next ten minutes, Rannulf thought, were going to feel like an uncomfortable eternity.

  Devil take it, but she could act.