by Juliana Gray
And where in all this chaos was the Duchess of Southam?
“Good evening,” said a dark masculine voice, so close to Stefanie’s ear she felt his breath on her jaw.
She pirouetted in shock. “Good heavens, sir! Who the devil are you?”
The man was tall and broad shouldered, as big as Hatherfield, with thick dark hair and a thin-lipped mouth. His eyebrows lifted high above his slender black silk mask. “What indelicate language. Are you a friend of the duke and duchess, or merely an acquaintance of their son?” He said the word acquaintance with a certain delicate emphasis that meant whore.
Stefanie straightened her shoulders and said, in her best state banquet voice, “I am the affianced wife of the Marquess of Hatherfield. You, sir, are not a gentleman.”
He tilted his chin and laughed. Stefanie realized, on closer inspection, that the stranger’s upper lip alone was thin. The bottom lip appeared rather decadently full. In fact, there was something decidedly familiar about him altogether, as if she had just seen him recently, somewhere in the City, that thin upper lip curled in disdain . . .
“Mr. Wright!” she gasped.
His smile disappeared. She couldn’t see his expression properly beneath his mask, but she had the feeling his eyes had narrowed and were staring at her. Calculating her.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he said. “My name is Nathaniel Wright, a friend of Lord Hatherfield’s affianced wife.”
“Really, sir? I don’t recall counting you among my friends.”
“I mean Lady Charlotte Harlowe.”
“How very strange. Everybody here tonight seems to believe that Lord Hatherfield is on the point of announcing his engagement to dear little Lady Charlotte. Everyone, that is, except Hatherfield himself. Perhaps one of you might trouble to ask him about the matter yourselves. You might be taken rather aback at his answer.”
Mr. Wright cast a slow gaze down her length, from the tip of her nose to the hollow between her breasts. “Are you quite certain of that, Miss—? Ah. I beg your pardon. I’m afraid I don’t recall your name.”
“Having accepted his heartfelt proposal scarcely half an hour ago, I have the utmost confidence in my engagement to Lord Hatherfield. Perhaps you have your ladies crossed, Mr. Wright. I’ve often observed that gentlemen who play with sums of money all day long become rather muddled about the relative qualities of the female sex.”
For a moment, Mr. Wright stood absolutely still, regarding Stefanie with unblinking eyes while the crowd eddied about him. “By damn,” he said at last, under his breath.
“If you’ll forgive me, Mr. Wright.” Stefanie turned to leave, but his hand closed around her arm.
“It’s no use, you know,” he said softly. “He’s already gone upstairs with Her Grace to sort it out. The two of you, you’re finished.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean. Kindly remove your hand.”
“I mean we’ve got our man. The engagement will be announced any minute, you’ll see.”
“You’re mad.”
He shrugged his thick shoulders, as if the point were not worth arguing. He brought his masked face in close, until his lips nearly brushed her skin. She tried to yank her arm away, but he held firm. “You’ll survive it. Look at you. You’re too magnificent to let yourself be crushed down for long.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“Let me know when you’re feeling yourself again, my dear. I’ll give you whatever you want. You’ll live like a princess.”
She jerked her arm again. This time he released her, but before she could deliver his prominent cheekbone the stinging slap he deserved, he had melted away into the crowd with astonishing grace for a man so large.
We’ve got our man. What did that mean?
Stefanie struggled to look about her, to find a single familiar face, but there was none. A thread of cold fear wound its way through her ribs. Where was Hatherfield?
He’s already gone upstairs with Her Grace.
What was going on? Surely the duke wasn’t plotting against his own son.
Stefanie turned back toward the doorway to the entrance hall and pushed her way through with irresistible force. The guests fell away before her in their colorful dozens, tossing off expressions of mild contempt for her single-minded determination. She found the hall, the iron-railed staircase reaching upward in a noble curve. With an agile leap she laid her hands on the rail’s base and levered herself around the throng of newly arrived guests pooling on the bottom steps.
. . .When the first shots rang out, someone was saying, but the words hardly registered in Stefanie’s alarmed mind. She rushed up the stairs and found the landing. To the right was the library, where Hatherfield had told her to wait for him. But that was before the duchess took him upstairs, for whatever purpose she had in mind.
If Mr. Wright told the truth.
She hovered between right and left, and had just taken her first steps away from the library when an arm snaked around her waist and hauled her into an immense black-coated chest.
“Stefanie! Thank God!”
Hatherfield. Breathless, heated, his heart pounding against her ear. But here. Still hers.
“Oh, thank God, thank God.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, her fists around his clothes. “I thought something had happened.”
He grasped her by the arms and set her back against the wall. His eyes locked with hers, alert and full of purpose. “Something has happened. Listen to me. This crowd, Stefanie. It’s come from your uncle’s house, from Park Lane. Something’s gone wrong, the whole place erupted into fighting.”
She gripped his lapels. “Emilie!”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. There were shots. The police arrived. Everybody was turned out in the streets, and naturally they came here, the only other party tonight.” He ran a hand through his hair and took her hand. “Come along. I don’t know what the devil’s happened, but I do know I’ve got to get you away from here.”
He tugged her down the hallway at a run. She followed him willingly, dizzy with anxiety. “She’s not hurt, is she? Did anyone say anything about Emilie?”
“Nobody saw her.”
“Is that good?”
“I hope so.”
They had reached the back staircase. Hatherfield flew down the steps, drawing her with him, trusting her to move as swiftly as he did. His handsome face was fixed with grim determination. For a second or two, as they rounded the first landing, Stefanie thought about Mr. Wright’s words, about Lady Charlotte and the duchess, but the question on her lips was instantly quashed by the image of Emilie—dear, gentle, scholarly Emilie—facing down bullets from an assassin’s revolver.
They reached the bottom of the stairs, where a stream of harried servants was issuing from the kitchen with bottles and trays. “This way,” Hatherfield said tersely, and he launched them down the passageway to the rear of the house. A blur of walls and doors went by. She stumbled up a set of steps and through a door, and they were in the garden, running down the pathway to the mews. Hatherfield stopped and let out a shrill three-note whistle.
Silence, backlit by a stream of merriment from the house behind them, by the sounds of the London street beyond.
Then a whistle, identical to the one Hatherfield had just made.
“Come along.” He grasped her hand, led her through the gate and into the mews, and a moment later they were standing on the cobbles and Hatherfield’s hansom cab was drawing up before them.
“To Park Lane,” Stefanie said to the driver.
“To Park Lane,” echoed Hatherfield, swinging in next to her, “but first we stop at Albert Hall Mansions.”
The doors banged shut. “Your rooms?” said Stefanie. “Why on earth are we stopping there? To find a revolver for me? A change of clothes?”
The cab raced down the mews and around the corner to Belgrave Place. Hatherfield settled in beside her and placed his skin-warm tailcoat once more ove
r her shoulders. “Perish the thought,” he said.
“But then why . . .”
“We are not stopping at the Mansions. You are stopping at the Mansions whilst I proceed to Park Lane and find out what’s happened.”
Stefanie uttered an outraged gasp.
“Yes, quite. I thought you’d feel that way. That’s why we’re heading for the Kensington Road instead of Cadogan Square.”
She tossed her head. “What difference does that make? You know I’ll break away and follow you as soon as you’ve left.”
“Because my home contains a generally drunken but nonetheless useful chap by the name of Nelson.” He placed his arm over her shoulders and held her snug against him, as if concerned that she might make a flying bid to escape from his company altogether. “And not even you, my intrepid love, will be able to evade Nelson.”
TWENTY-SIX
Stefanie woke up at a quarter past one o’clock in the morning, when some inner alarm warned her that someone had entered the flat.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep at all. She’d spent an hour pacing the five spare rooms of Hatherfield’s home under the gimlet glare and crossed arms of Nelson, who proved as vigilant and barrel-chested as Hatherfield had advised her. Also, not terribly communicative. She had fired off a number of questions, until the last monosyllabic answer made her flounce into Hatherfield’s bedroom and slam the door behind her.
She had gone to the pair of windows on one wall, but the sheer five-story drop offered no opportunity for escape. She’d folded her arms and looked about the room, Hatherfield’s room, his large and neatly made bed and the chest of drawers on the opposite wall, topped by a simple mahogany shaving mirror. A desk and chair, a comfortable armchair upholstered in a rich blue that reminded her achingly of Hatherfield’s eyes. A large wardrobe, its doors shut.
Well, he’d left her here, hadn’t he? Make yourself at home, he’d said, dropping a kiss on her mutinous lips. Run a bath, if you like.
She wasn’t going to run a bath, not with Emilie in imminent danger, her whereabouts unknown, not with Hatherfield risking his life once more for her sake. But—she glanced down at her silvery ball gown, so lush and exquisite a few hours ago, now sadly out of place—she might just change her clothes.
She’d crossed to the wardrobe and opened the door. Several suits, expertly tailored and neatly brushed; a stack of hats on the shelf; shoes, polished to a liquid perfection. Behind the hats, a gleam caught her eye. She pushed aside the felt and straw and found a jumble of plates and cups, engraved with words like Queen’s Prize, Henley 1886, and Winner’s Cup, University Boat Race, J.M. Lambert. James. She’d never been tempted to call him by his given name. James belonged to the duchess, to Lady Charlotte, to the false intimacy of betrayal. What did the M stand for? Perhaps she could call him that, when they were married. When they were husband and wife and curled around each other in bed, and Hatherfield was too long and formal.
She ran her fingers down the shoulder of his brown tweed jacket, the one he’d been wearing last night, the one she’d slipped from his magnificent shoulders with her own two hands.
Hatherfield. The wave of longing struck her so hard and so sudden, she lost her breath. She pressed her hand against her chest and blinked back tears.
Let him be safe. Let them both be safe. Let Hatherfield return to her tonight, whole and brave, so she could take him in her arms and love him, love him.
And never let him go.
She had pulled a forest green dressing gown from a hook and struggled out of her layers of dress and petticoat and unaccustomed corset. She’d wrapped herself in Hatherfield’s robe, and her heart had nearly stopped at the unexpected smell of his shaving soap, rising up from the endless folds of material. The silk lining slid like a caress against her skin, and she had sunk into the armchair in a totality of physical and emotional exhaustion.
Nelson had knocked on the door and pushed it open a watchful crack. “Everything all right, madam?” he said gruffly.
“Yes, quite all right, thank you.”
And in the next instant, she was asleep.
When the sound of a shutting door awoke her a few hours later, she raised her head in confusion. The room was dark, and for an instant, she had no idea where she was.
And then the door opened, and Hatherfield stood before her, surrounded by light from the hallway, still dressed in his formal clothes from the ball.
He lifted one hand to loosen his tie and called over his shoulder, “Nelson, have some cocoa made up, there’s a good fellow.”
“Cocoa?” she whispered blearily.
Hatherfield dropped the tie on the floor, crossed the room, and knelt before her. “Look at you.” He kissed her hands. “Don’t you know what it does to a man, to walk into his home at the end of a shattering day, and find the woman he loves asleep in his chair, wearing his favorite dressing gown?”
“You’re all right.” She took his head in her hands and buried her mouth in his hair. “You’re all right. Thank God.”
“Everything’s fine, love. Everything’s fine.”
“Emilie?”
He paused. “Your uncle will be around tomorrow to explain. It’s all a bit complicated. But your sister is well, she’s alive.”
“Oh, Emilie! Oh, I’m so glad! Then everything’s all right. We’re free.” She pressed kisses into his forehead and cheeks.
“Not quite, I’m afraid.” He rose and lifted her effortlessly into his tired arms. “But Olympia will explain.”
“What does that mean? These fiends, they’re still out there?”
“Yes.” He laid her carefully on his bed and shrugged his tailcoat from his shoulders. “But we’ll find them, Stefanie. They’re on the run, now. They can’t hide from me.”
She watched him toss his waistcoat on the floor and unbutton his trousers. She longed to do it for him, but she held back and observed his sinewy legs emerge from the sleek black wool, his broad hands roll down his stockings in impatient strokes. His flawless body, carved with impeccable lean muscle, honed by the river and his own iron discipline.
“What are you going to do?” she asked softly. “What are we going to do?”
“A very good question.” He lifted the shirt over his head and sent it flying to join his waistcoat. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
He knelt above her on the bed, naked and aroused and enormous, and pulled apart the lapels of the dressing gown. “Tonight we make love.”
The cocoa had grown rather less than piping hot by the time Hatherfield rose from the bed to fetch it from the tray left discreetly outside the door by Nelson. He helped Stefanie rise to a sitting position against the pillows and handed her a mug, and then he dragged the armchair next to the bed and sank into it with a contented sigh.
She sipped her cocoa and studied him. When had it happened, that his physical beauty had somehow merged in her mind with the beauty inside him? She had almost forgotten how he actually looked, the objective symmetry of his features, the clean blades of his cheekbones and the angle of his eyebrows, the square line of his chin and jaw, the warm blue shape of his eyes. Now she looked at him, really looked at him, indolent as a lion after a day’s hunting, stretched naked in the chair with his strong legs propped on the edge of the bed and the mug of cocoa resting at the seam of his sensuous lips, and the wonder of him filled her all over again.
He nudged her with his toe. “What is it?”
“You.” The taste of chocolate warmed her mouth. Her body still strummed with release, with the echoing pleasure of his lovemaking.
He smiled and rose from the chair.
“Where are you going?”
He went to his chest of drawers and pulled out a piece of paper from somewhere inside the shaving mirror. He plopped it on her chest and returned to his former position in the armchair, smiling madly.
“What is it?”
“It’s a special license. I’ve carried it about with me for w
eeks, just in case . . .”
She slanted him a look. “Just in case?”
“Just in case we needed it. To protect you. As my wife, you have the right to my name and my body to keep you safe.” He drank his cocoa. “We can be officially married tomorrow, if you like. If you don’t mind marrying the heir to a bankrupt estate, with only his ambition to recommend him.”
She read the few lines on the paper and looked back up at Hatherfield. “You.”
“Me what?”
She folded the paper in precise lines, laid it on the bedside table, and rose to straddle him on the chair. His body was still hot to the touch, still radiant with carnal energy. She cradled the back of his head with her hands. “I love you. I will love you until I die. And then my spirit will rise up from the grave and haunt you with my love, until you give up and join me in the beyond and we will rattle heaven to pieces, you and I, because I love you so much . . .”
He chuckled. “And if I so happen to shuck off this mortal coil before you?”
“Don’t you dare.” She rubbed her cheek against Hatherfield’s raspy golden skin, and closed her eyes. “I couldn’t live without you. How can I live if my own heart stops beating?”
They sat there quietly for a moment, skin on skin, pressed together at every possible point. She breathed in deep and slow, taking giant lungfuls of Hatherfield into her body.
“What does the M stand for?” she said at last.
“What’s that?”
“Your middle name.”
“Oh. Mortimer.”
“Mortimer?”
“My mother’s maiden name.”
“I see.” She cleared her throat. “Er, do you perhaps have any other names? Names by which a wife might call you, in the intimacy of marriage?”
He stroked her back with gentle fingers, up and down, as he might soothe an infant. “My mother called me Jamie, before she died,” he said.
“Jamie.” She lifted her head and kissed him. “I like that.”
