by Mia Marlowe
The curtains parted and she looked up to meet the gray-eyed gaze of Lord Badewyn. He was dressed in his shirtsleeves covered by an unbelted dressing gown—a scandalous state of affairs had they been in London. A man was considered nearly naked without a jacket, but it seemed natural to Meg that he’d make himself comfortable in his own rather drafty home. Then too, they were alone in the library since Mr. Ingfeldt had left to unpack a new shipment of exotic codices and maps. Being found with Lord Badewyn without a chaperone in this cozy little alcove would be enough to ruin her in London.
But they weren’t in London.
“My apologies, Miss Anthony.” He started to turn away. “I didn’t know you were here.”
Obviously. It occurred to her that in order to avoid her so completely, he would have to have taken an inordinate interest in her whereabouts. The thought pleased her more than it should. “Have I taken your favorite reading spot?”
He paused. “Yes, but please don’t stir. I can go elsewhere.”
“Why should you since there is room for two?” She patted the cushion beside her. He might think her shockingly fast, so she cast about for a practical reason for him to stay. “It would be far warmer with two.”
“I wouldn’t wish to impose.”
“How can you impose if I invite you to join me?” Honestly, the man was harder to be near than her friend Lord Westfall’s favorite cactus. “Have I offended you in some way, my lord?”
He shook his head.
“Then please, sit.”
He settled gingerly beside her. Though the small nook was a tight fit, she noticed he took care not to let his thigh touch hers. Still, the warmth of him radiated toward her.
Yes, indeed, those little tingles in my belly are having a party.
She forced herself to breathe normally. It was a wonder Lord Badewyn couldn’t sense how unruly her insides were.
“I see you’ve met Mr. Ingfeldt,” he said.
She looked up into Lord Badewyn’s handsome face. He was almost enough to snatch her breath away, but she managed to ask, “How can you know that?”
“You’re reading the Chaucer Treatise.”
“Trying to read it, is more like,” she admitted.
“That was my first experience with it, as well.” That lightning smile of his sped across his features and then disappeared just as quickly. “Don’t feel you have to stick with it. Ingfeldt likes to bedevil people with the thing. I believe he considers it a test of character.”
“If that’s the case, I’m failing miserably.”
“No, you haven’t. Not until you admit defeat and ask him to explain it to you.”
“Well, then there’s hope for me. Perhaps you can explain it so I won’t have to ask him for help.”
“Wouldn’t that be cheating?”
“As you said, a test of character, but only you and I will know mine is a bit shady,” she said with a grin. “Now, what am I to make of this? Clearly, that Chaucer fellow didn’t put this illustration in among his oddly-spelled waffling on, but I’m ever so glad someone decided to add it.” She pointed to the two page spread of constellations.
They spent the next quarter of an hour poring over the star chart. When the topic was the night sky, his lordship’s tongue was loose enough. Lord Badewyn pointed out the most important stars and better known constellations.
“I don’t understand why one would need an astrolabe if one possesses an accurate star chart,” Meg said. “If I had this beside me on your roof some night, I should be able to find and name all the heavenly bodies for you.”
“Not all.” He shook his head. “The stars are orderly, but they aren’t static. They parade across the heavens in accordance with the times and seasons. Some aren’t even visible here in Wales at certain times of the year. Take Fomalhaut, for example.” He pointed to a fairly bright star that was shown on the chart situated off by itself near the southern horizon. “It only appears during the autumn months.”
“So it’s not here yet.”
“Probably not. The end of August is pushing the edge of its viewing time, though perhaps with luck and a clear night—”
“Then there’s a chance, however small,” she said. “Do you think the sky will be clear tonight?”
He blinked at her. “It has been surprisingly clear of late, but that’s no surety those conditions will continue.”
“So even though the sky’s been clear, you haven’t seen it this year?”
“I wasn’t looking for it.”
“Well, we shall have to take our chances, won’t we?” Meg closed the Chaucer and rose to her feet. “What time shall we meet?”
If she’d bitten him, he couldn’t have looked more surprised. What was the matter with the man? Oh, all right, perhaps if they’d been in London, he’d be right to be scandalized by her suggestion, but they weren’t in London. She meant nothing wrong by it. The tingles in her belly aside, surely there was no harm in a little innocent star-gazing.
“We shall have to go up to the roof of my tower around the time for the dressing gong,” he finally said. “This early in the season, that’s when Fomalhaut reaches its culmination.”
“Its culmi-what?”
“It’ll be highest in the sky then,” he explained, not meeting her gaze. “Are you sure you wish to do this? It may make us late for dinner.”
“Hang dinner,” she said inelegantly. “Why don’t you ask your cook to fix a picnic supper for us and we can eat on the roof while we star-gaze?”
He looked at her as if she’d just suggested they fly off the battlements together. Then his rare smile made a quick reappearance. “You’ll have to dress warmly. Once the sun sets, at this elevation, a clear night is chilly.”
The fire glowing in her belly would be enough, but just in case, she’d bring along one of the blankets from her bed. “I’ll expect you to collect me at seven then.” She pulled back the curtain that hid the alcove and started to leave.
Lord Badewyn caught her by the wrist. “Don’t tell anyone we’re doing this, will you?”
“Of course, I won’t.” What a sweet thing to say. Even in this remote corner of Wales, he had a care for her reputation. “But I shall have to tell Cadwallader. She’ll wonder when I insist on dressing for warmth instead of fine dining.”
“Very well, but no one else. And swear your maid to secrecy.”
“All right. Until this evening, then, my lord.” Meg dropped a shallow curtsy and hurried away before he could change his mind.
She skittered out of the library and up the long stairs, sure her kid soles were barely skimming the old indented stones. Even when she was Finding, Meg had never felt so light, so giddy. She was going to spend an evening under the stars with arguably the most handsome man in the kingdom.
A secret evening.
Why secret? At first she’d been flattered that he was aware of the risk to her good name, but now she realized that couldn’t be his motivation. No one in London, other than the members of the Order, knew she was here, much less planning a roof-top tryst. There were no other guests in residence at Faencaern who might carry tales, so the stringent rules governing her behavior in the city hardly signified here. Besides the help, the only person who might learn of her assignation with his lordship was his Uncle Grigori.
Why did Lord Badewyn wish to hide his time spent with her from Mr. Templeton?
Some of the lightness floated away and Meg suddenly felt very chained to Earth. Men hid time spent with mistresses or game girls, women they didn’t have good intentions toward.
Meg lifted her chin in determination. She’d show his lordship. Perhaps she didn’t have good intentions toward him.
With a deferential bow of his gray pate, Mr. Bernard put the letter from Lord Badewyn into the Duke of Camden’s hand. “Will there be anything else, Your Grace?”
Camden shook his head. “Seek your bed, Bernard. It’s a long way to Wales and back. Once again, you’ve gone above and beyond your duty to this house.
You have my thanks.”
“It is ever my desire to serve Your Grace, and in any case, the journey was no trouble,” the steward said. “If I was of some small assistance to Miss Anthony, that is thanks enough.”
“She is special, isn’t she?” Camden said, glad his steward seemed to sense it, too.
“I thought all the members of your Order were special,” Vesta LaMotte said dryly. She lounged on the chaise in his study, but the candle in the wall sconce nearest Camden flared white-hot for a moment. “Hence the appellation, Extraordinaires.”
Vesta had stayed on after the brief meeting of the Order. There still seemed to be a psychic lull surrounding the royal family. Camden had sensed no object of malicious intent being directed toward the Prince Regent or His Majesty, so no business pressed them. Not that Vesta ever let anything press her, even when they were engrossed in M.U.S.E. intrigues. She was always as serene as a swan. Only Camden knew she was paddling furiously beneath the surface. Their psychic forays on behalf of the royals were a game to her, as much an entertainment as her theatre-going and endless parties.
Or her lovers.
“Of course, you’re all special,” Camden said as Bernard made good his exit. Like Camden, the steward probably sensed fire beneath the smoke of Vesta’s comment. “It’s just that Miss Anthony has risen from such humble beginnings. And of all my Extraordinaires, she is the first one to fall under my care who was already in full possession of her psychic gift.”
“And you believe your role is to help her use it safely.”
“Exactly.”
“Has it occurred to you that Miss Anthony may not want safety? For some, the spice of danger is much to be desired.” Vesta’s lovely eyes were hooded and all the candles in the room suddenly blazed up and then settled to flicker dimly. “Necessary, even.”
“So if you didn’t possess an affinity for flames, you’d still play with fire,” Camden said.
“You’re right. Risk is the only thing that makes a game worth playing. However, I’m not the only one. We all have a personal opiate that calls to us.”
“And what, pray, is mine?” He expected her to say she was his own brand of laudanum. Heaven knew, her body called to his in the language of lust with regularity and his responded in kind.
“You, my dear duke, are addicted to control.”
He swallowed back his surprise. “That comes with the title, I suppose.”
“No, it comes from you, Camden. Had you been born a chimney sweep, you’d still feel the need to direct the lives of others.”
He glanced up at his dead wife’s portrait hanging above his mantel. Had Mercedes felt stifled by his need to assure her safety and well-being by carefully monitoring her activities and associations? Had he driven her to disobey him? Surely she had known it was only because he loved her that he cosseted and protected her. Again, he wished he could talk to her.
Once would be enough.
Camden sank into the wing chair and tore open the missive from Lord Badewyn. As he read, he sat forward, the words on the parchment raising him up.
“Well?” Vesta LaMotte said from her lounging position on the chaise. “What does your mysterious Watcher have to say for himself?”
“Badewyn says he’s Seen a medium worthy of the name a day or so distant from Faencaern. In a village called Gryffydd, to be precise,” Camden said, carefully refolding the missive and secreting it in his waistcoat pocket. He needed to reduce his expectations. All the other mediums he’d tried had proven charlatans of the worst sort, preying on the grieving. “His lordship has extended an invitation to stay with him if I wish to investigate.”
“So if only we’d waited a while, we could have accompanied Meg to Wales.”
“We? No, that would have never done. The whole point of sending Miss Anthony to Faencaern Castle secretly was to distance her from her nefarious relatives. If members of my household had gone to Wales en masse, her relations surely would have taken notice and assumed she was with us.”
Vesta examined her expertly lacquered nails and then smiled with sweetness at him. Deceptive sweetness, if Camden was any judge.
“I am not a member of your household,” she reminded him.
She wasn’t now. Vesta kept her own house in a quiet but fashionable street near St. James Park. But there had been a time when she’d been the center of his lustful world. His dear wife and infant son had been gone for some time, but Camden was still wild with grief. During that horrible period, when he had struggled for the will to rise each morning, Vesta had burst into his life and seduced him into a white-hot affair. She had helped him forget…for a while.
“Are you going to Wales, then?” she asked.
“Yes,” Camden decided on the moment. He’d been desperately seeking the reason for Mercedes’ death for years. A medium seemed the only way to answer his questions. If Lord Badewyn had located someone he believed was legitimate, it was worth Camden’s time to see if the Welsh medium could truly converse with the dead.
Something like hope stirred in his chest.
“You’ll need company,” Vesta said.
“As I said before, we dare not risk exposing Miss Anthony’s whereabouts by having the Order travel to Faencaern.”
“I wasn’t suggesting the entire Order should go,” Vesta said. “Westfall and his bride have yet to return from Scotland. Lord and Lady Stanstead are busy cooing over the new addition to their nursery. You’ll need to leave someone in London, so LeGrand can hold down the fort here. What a pity Paschal can’t be trusted to help him.”
“You know, as well as I, that we are unable to release the time thief at this juncture.” Down in the sub-basement of Camden’s fashionable town house, a being with the ability to siphon years of life from others was held prisoner. Andre-Simon Paschal was an old soul, and a fascinating conversationalist, provided he was safely behind bars. Camden often spent a quiet evening of chess with the fellow. He provided Paschal with books, a harpsichord upon which to exercise his prodigious musical talent, and plenty of food and drink. He respected the time thief’s intellect and hoped one day to be able to release him, provided a guard who was immune to Paschal’s power could be found. But for now, Camden didn’t trust him farther than he could throw him.
“That means you and I are the only ones available. We are overdue for an adventure,” Vesta went on. “So I shall accompany you to Wales.”
“But you loathe travel.”
“I do,” she admitted. “It’s inconvenient and tedious and ever so time consuming, but it so happens that I care more about you than I despise jolting along in your coach for all those miles.”
Even more than the travel, Camden dreaded what he might find at the end of this journey. Lord Badewyn could be wrong. This medium might not be able to reach Mercedes either.
“Thank you for offering to accompany me,” he began. “But—”
“It wasn’t an offer. I was merely stating a fact. If you go to Wales, so shall I.” Fire danced in her eyes. “Granted, it would be more pleasant to travel together, but if I must, I shall hire a conveyance and fol—”
Camden rose and crossed over to her chaise. He knelt and silenced her with two fingers against her lips. “There will be no need for you to hire a coach. We will go together.”
She removed his fingertips from her mouth and held his hand between her two soft ones. “Good. That’s settled then. Now, there is one more item to be agreed upon.”
“And that is?” he asked. All warmth and softness, Vesta’s fingers twined with his. He’d forgotten how good it felt to hold a woman’s hand.
“We must go to Wales by way of Bath.”
“But that’s very much out of the way.”
“It is,” she agreed. “It will be far enough out of the way to deter anyone from following us long enough to arrive at Faencaern Castle and discover Miss Anthony’s whereabouts.”
“Brilliant.”
For once, she seemed disposed not to dispute his word.
“I think it important for London to see us together,” she went on. “That way it will occasion no undo comment when we shake off the dust of the city and go cavorting about the countryside with each other. To that end, I propose that you escort me to the opera this evening, where we may see and be seen.”
Camden squeezed his eyes closed. The opera would turn into a screaming fest between a soprano who’d put him in the mind of a cat in heat and a tenor who sounded as if his balls were caught in a vise. “Very well. If we must.”
“Good, and for the rest of the week, we shall make the rounds of various parties and routs.”
That sounded marginally better, so Camden nodded his assent. “Then when we leave a few days hence, everyone will assume you are my mistress.” He raised her to her feet and drew her into his arms. “I see only one flaw in that plan.”
“And that is?”
“Why should we pretend?”
“You’ve made it abundantly clear that you do not wish to renew our liaison. I took you at your word. Now you must take me at mine. I am accompanying you to Wales because I care about you and want to be there to offer my support when, and if, you learn what befell your family. Nothing more, Edward.”
Camden swallowed hard. When she called him by his Christian name, it made him yearn for the intimacy they used to enjoy. It hadn’t been just physical. He’d told her things. Secret things he’d confided in no one else. They’d laughed together and she’d made him forget he was a bloody duke and peer of the realm. She’d given him a holiday from himself.
But Vesta was right. He did like control. Obviously, he lost it completely where she was concerned.
He thrust his hands behind him so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and take her. “I respect your decision, of course.”
“Of course, you do. You are nothing if not a gentleman. Until this evening, then.” Vesta swanned across the room, her hips swaying with each step. She stopped at the doorway. “And wear that gold brocade waistcoat, would you? It suits you so very well.”
He nodded. “Because you wish it.”
She gave him a feline smile that reduced him to the status of a cat toy. She was definitely not done with him yet.
