“Not the pewter, my Charles. The crystal, if you please.”
Millbank muttered a low oath as he moved to obey this newest demand.
“Eh bien, this one, she is very nice. I will drink me well of her.” Elegantly, Angélique tipped back the crystal goblet and let its contents spill down her throat. She managed to allow a speck to run onto her chin. “Quelle bêtise. I shall need a serviette, dear Charles,” she purred.
“No linen to touch your lips, hoyden. I’ll take the excess.” He bent across her and ran his tongue over the sherry. “Sweet. But not half so sweet as you are.” With a grunt the Englishman pulled into her arms and made to maneuver her into the elegant little chaise she had coerced from him on his last visit. The wood frame had come from Paris, and the embroidered silk all the way from China.
She gave him a calculated pout. “Not on my so elegant chaise, Charles. It is not at all convenable.” She saw the irritation sweep his face and immediately put on her most seductive smile. “Here, my silly one. On the nice settee before the window.” She patted an ample, if slightly fraying piece of furniture set before a curtained alcove that gave onto a second-story window above the main thoroughfare of Kingsdon Cross.
Nettled, Sir Charles did as directed. “I’ve been waiting half the night, Angélique. I begin to grow unamused with your games. I’m an important man, you know. A man with a vast amount of money.”
The blonde enchantress drew herself to her full, fluffy height of not quite five feet. “You overstep your place, monsieur. I am a courtesan of the highest rank. Such a woman deserves to be treated with a delicatesse that you do not possess. I only seek to teach you the arts of l’amour.” She cuffed him under the chin lightly to take the sting from her words. “But since you have been such a good boy tonight, I shall go to make myself more comfortable.” She gave him a melting look and then rose to her feet, at the same time sliding her white hands over her hips.
Sir Charles’s face turned a mottled red. He reached out for her, eager for the evening’s pleasures to begin, but was treated to naught but a teasing laugh.
“So impatient, are you? But not yet, my dear Charles.” The Frenchwoman tripped off into the adjoining room.
She was most careful to leave the door ajar, however, so her protector could see every tantalizing movement as she went about her disrobing. Every minute Millbank grew more heated.
“Angélique, are you not ready yet?”
Silken laughter greeted him. “A drink, I believe, mon amour. Your choice grows more excellent by the day.” Since the wine had been of Angélique’s own selection and commandeered at vast expense all the way from Bordeaux, this praise was patently unearned.
But this did not rob Sir Charles of any of his pleasure. He preened himself, tugging proudly at the front of his protruding waistcoat, and cleared his throat. “Of course, petite.” He pronounced the word laboriously, managing to sound English in spite of all his effort. After filling another glass, he made to carry it to Angélique.
“No, no, mon chou. You must place it there by the window. Me, I shall be but a moment more. You like this, non?” Since she was wearing little more than a skim of transparent organdy and two pearl earrings at that moment, Sir Charles most decidedly did like.
In fact, he liked so much that the vein at his forehead looked as if it would burst any second.
With unsteady fingers he set down Angélique’s drink and went back to refill his own.
And in that brief interval a hand slid from behind the curtain. Catching up Angélique’s drink, gloved fingers emptied it through the window, then returned it empty to its resting place.
The Frenchwoman sailed through the door and bent to look for her drink, then pouted with displeasure. “Charles, you wicked one. Why do you give me no wine?”
“Wine? Slap me if I didn’t just fill you one, Angélique. Put it right there, so I did!”
“Well, I see me a goblet of glass but no wine inside it, vraiement.”
Sir Charles shrugged, already more than a little fogged by the copious amount of wine he had consumed. Laboriously he refilled the goblet and set it by Angélique, who turned to study her carefully rouged face in the little mirror above the fireplace.
When she did, black-gloved fingers once again emptied the crystal, then returned it to its place.
The Frenchwoman looked down and stamped her feet. “She is one of your plaisanteries, no? Another of your English jokes?”
Sir Charles gaped at his mistress. “What the deuce are you talking about, Angel? Filled it up myself, I did!”
The Frenchwoman stamped her satin-shod foot again. “You know that I do not wish to be called by that word.”
“You mean Angel?”
“That word, exactement! You will serve me well not to use it no more.”
“Anymore,” the Englishman muttered, increasingly confused.
“Eh bien, so now you correct my English! I suppose I am not at all good enough for you. Me, Angélique, who have tasted the pleasures of Napoleon and the grand King Louis himself!” Her Gallic ire was rising with every word.
Sir Charles frowned. “Now, now, no need to put yourself into a taking, puss. I only meant—”
“That I am stupide! That I am the very hindquarters of a donkey, non?”
“But I said nothing of the sort, Angél — er, Angélique. I only meant—”
“Tiens, what you meant was of the most perfect clear. And me, I feel no more in the mood for company. So you will go. Now, before I throw this glass at you.”
Sir Charles blanched, recalling the cost of that particular goblet she was clutching so angrily in her white, perfumed fingers. “You mistake me, Angélique. Come, come, let us not quarrel. It was my fault, all my fault. I must have given you the wrong glass.” Seeing her begin to relent, he hastened to hand her another drink. “Let us forget this silly argument.”
His mistress sniffed. “What do you English know? Your weather is bad and your food is even worse. And everything here is of such a wildness! All I hear is of this Blackwood, a sauvage who races the highways, plundering innocent females and seizing whatever he wishes. It is affreux.”
“No more,” Sir Charles said smugly. “In a few more days Lord Blackwood will be gone forever and I will be the most famous man in Norfolk — perhaps even in England.”
His mistress looked unconvinced. She strode back into her boudoir. “Eh bien, now I must check my coiffure. The wind, he is blowing dreadful strong in here.”
“Wind?” Sir Charles by now had learned to mind his tongue around his fiery French temptress. “Yes — er, of course. Meanwhile here’s your wine. Have a sip and all will be right and tight again.” Shaking his head, he turned away to fill his own glass, then emptied half in a gulp.
Frenchwomen. If they weren’t so damned desirable, he’d have nothing to do with them, Millbank thought grimly. Next time he’d set himself up with some nice, biddable young thing from Yorkshire or Dorset. Someone who didn’t throw crystal or enact fiery scenes.
But not yet, he decided. Angélique knew how to do things with her hands, with her hot, scarlet lips, that drove him absolutely wild.
Yes, decidedly not yet, he thought, remembering all that had happened the last time he was in her bed. Hot with desire, he finished his glass and poured himself another.
Once again gloved fingers reached out and emptied Angélique’s goblet.
When Charles turned, Angélique was glaring at him, fire darkening her perfectly rouged cheeks. “Diable!” The blonde beauty shook her ringlets and stamped her little foot. “Me, I like these tricks not at all!”
The florid Englishman scowled at his utterly incomprehensible mistress, feeling his patience wear away. “Enough of these dramatics. I trust I need not remind you exactly who pays for that wine you consume so freely and that crystal you toss about in your tempers. Also that exceedingly expensive gown you have just spilled perfumed powder all over. Now cease this nonsense and come here to kiss your lord and mas
ter as you ought.”
“Lord? Master?” A stream of scalding French assailed his ears. In short order Sir Charles was condemned as the bastard son of a Marseilles pickpocket and a Rouen street prostitute, while his person was portrayed in terms most close to a four-legged ass.
The Englishman spat out an oath. “Enough, Angélique. It is your duty to receive me — to submit to me.” His voice grew cold with arrogance. “And you will do it here and now, do you hear me?”
“Hear you? I expect everyone in this stupid little village has heard you! Oh, comme tu es vulgaire!”
With that she spun about, hurled herself quivering with anger through the door to her boudoir, and slammed it shut.
The bolt slid home with a thump.
“Angélique, enough of this shameless disobedience! I’ll have no more of it, do you hear? Come out now or I’ll—”
At that moment broad shoulders encased in black silk eased from behind the curtained alcove. “Problems, Sir Charles? She is a firebrand, that one. You have all my sympathies.”
Millbank gasped and swung about. His hand went to his throat. “You! By God, is there no end to your effrontery?”
“None, I believe,” the Lord of Blackwood said comfortably, leaning back against a silk-covered wall. “But let me give you a little advice about women. It is best not to push them too hard, you know. A bit of sugar here, a soft caress there, and you’ll make much better headway than with a stream of curses.”
“I’ll give you advice! Aye, after I see you hang!”
The highwayman merely twirled his purloined goblet lazily, then emptied it. “A satisfactory wine. I would have preferred something with more character and more staying power, but perhaps this is best suited to your tastes and abilities.” He set the crystal down gently, his dark eyes never leaving Sir Charles’s mottled face.
And then, very slowly, his foil hissed from its sheath and rose to Millbank’s neck.
“But I think you show very poor judgment in the women you harass, my friend.”
“W-women?”
“Alas, I refer to Miss St. Clair.”
“S-Silver? What gives you the right to defend that damnable—” Abruptly, the foil’s point lodged against his throat.
“I don’t believe I heard that. I could not, could I, my so dear friend?”
“Er, n-no. That is, I—”
“Excellent. Now we shall begin again. Miss St. Clair is not to be further disturbed, do you understand me?”
A desperate nod.
“Not good enough, I’m afraid. Say the words.”
“Silver — not to be b-bothered.” Sir Charles was gasping as he spoke.
“And you will cease to visit her at Lavender Close Farm. Ever again.”
“Dash it, man, that’s—” Cold steel flicked lazily against his chin. “Er, that is, I won’t. No more. Lavender Close F-Farm,” he finished hoarsely.
“Very good. You are a man of tolerable sense, I see. And now, I shall trouble you only a moment longer and then you may return to your fetching mistress. You will have your hands full with that one, I think. But first, I’ll have your word that those shipments of copper pipes you’ve been holding up will miraculously be restored to Miss St. Clair tomorrow.”
“Shipments?” the baronet blustered. “Don’t know what in the devil you’re talking about. I’ve nothing to do with—”
Again razor-sharp steel played over Millbank’s person, this time settling low to brush the part of his anatomy that had been hard and clamoring for his mistress. “I suggest you think harder, my friend,” came the silken warning.
“Very well. Yes, I bloody well have been holding them up! Damned improper for the wench to be turning her hand to a common trade. My own sister-in-law! By God, the whole countryside’s laughing at me!”
“And they’ll laugh at you more if you should happen to have an accident, my dear Charles. An accident that deprives you of that part of your flaccid anatomy that is determined to seek its pleasure in Angélique’s bed this night.”
The Englishman blanched. “You — you wouldn’t!”
A slow smile played over the hard lips shadowed by the black mask. “Shall we find out? Here and now?”
Millbank turned the color of day-old oatmeal. “N-no, damn you!”
“Very well. Then I believe that Lavender Close Farm will hereafter be removed from your itinerary.”
After a moment the rotund peer gave a stiff nod.
“I don’t believe I heard that.”
“I shall p-pay no more visits to — to that woman.”
For a moment the highwayman’s eyes took on a dangerous glitter. “That woman? What exactly are you trying to say, my friend? If you have slurs to cast, then you’d best do it clearly so that you can be understood.”
Sir Charles, though a bully and a braggart, was no fool. “It was, er, nothing. None of my business, after all,” he added stiffly. “M’ wife’s sister. Her problem if she—” He caught himself as the highwayman’s blade inched against his neck. “Er, none of my business at all.”
“Exactly,” Blackwood said silkily. “And I suggest you remember that, Millbank. I have ears everywhere, you know. If I should happen to discover that your tongue has been wagging…” His sword flashed.
A fragment of white linen floated to the floor. There it lay, quivering in the wind.
“I trust we understand each other?”
“Er, q-quite.”
“Excellent. Now I have a curiosity to know where you acquired all that gold.”
“What gold?”
Blackwood pulled a fat purse from Millbank’s pocket and tossed it on the rug. “That gold.”
“Er — won it at the gaming tables. Yes, had a streak of luck, so I did.”
“But you haven’t been to the tables,” came the relentless silken voice. “Not tonight. Not last night either.”
Sir Charles began to sweat. “A p-private game, it was.”
“Indeed.” The highwayman’s foil rose.
Then he frowned. Voices were approaching down the hall. “Turn around,” he ordered the sweating baronet.
In one swift movement Blackwood tore a strip of satin from the damask curtains and tied it around Millbank’s eyes. “Now you will count. Up to five hundred, shall we say? And you will not move until you have finished. Is that clear?”
“Very.”
“I am delighted to hear it. You may begin.”
The Englishman began to count, his voice unsteady. After a few moments Blackwood inched into the alcove beside the open window. But not before he had relieved Millbank of half of his gold sovereigns. There were worthier causes that money would go to — starting with Silver St. Clair.
Millbank was at thirty-five when the highwayman slipped into the darkness. He was at ninety when Angélique opened the door of her boudoir. Her rouged lips pursed with surprise when she saw the curtains flapping loosely behind him.
“Charles? Whatever do you do there? And that cover over your eyes — it is more of your silly games, non?”
“Angélique? Is — is there anyone behind me? Anyone else in the room at all?”
“No, of course not. Only me. But why—”
“Then shut up, damn it, and come untie me,” Millbank ordered furiously.
~ ~ ~
“Damned fool whelp. Always were, always will be.” Jonas stared at the dark figure leaning unsteadily against the door. “What deviltry you been up to now, Master Luc?”
“Nothing for you to worry about, Jonas.” The man in black swayed slightly. “Just a bullet from one of Carlisle’s men tonight.” He stripped back his cloak, frowning.
“Not again! You’re bleeding like a pig, boy! What have you got for brains?” Jonas caught Luc as he began to sway. He stared angrily at the reckless figure who had been in his keeping since he was a lad of seven.
“Don’t know how to bend,” he muttered, tugging at the damp linen. “Don’t know how to do nothing but have yer own way. Aye, it’s a D
elamere ye are, through and through. From one end of your stubborn head to the tips of your arrogant toes.”
“Delamere no more,” his half-conscious burden muttered. “Jus’ Black’od. Damned bloody highwayman. Wanted f’m Norwich to Nottingham. Ladies love me, don’ ye know?”
“Ladies, bosh. Light-skirts mebbe. Jes like yer father, ye are. Aye, full of fire and bother, old Andrew was. Till he met yer ma, that is. See if she didn’t turn him right round her little finger though.” The old servant studied the jagged wound he’d uncovered at his ward’s shoulder. “Wish the duchess was here now, damned if I don’t.”
Suddenly hard fingers caught at Jonas’s wrist. “Don’t tell ‘em. Can’t tell ‘em. I’ll bolt if ye do. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Hush yer mewling, Master Luc. They’ll be hearing nothing from Jonas Ferguson. I’ve held my tongue this long, and I reckon I can hold it awhile longer. But the day’ll come when they have to hear. And when it does, see if I don’t plant myself right down beside you so I can watch the fur fly, boy!”
Luc made an unsteady sound that was part gasp and part laugh. “Agreed.”
“Now shut your jabbering so I can have a go at that hunk of lead.”
As the candles danced, the old servant bared Luc’s wound, doused it liberally with brandy, then ran his knife through the candle flame.
Blade in hand, he frowned down at his unmoving ward.
He’d pulled the boy from his first riding accident. He’d picked him up when he’d fallen senseless from his first apple tree.
And he’d put him back together again after a year in the hold of an English prison ship.
Damned if he’d let the boy down now, Jonas vowed fiercely. “Gonna hurt, Master Luc. Reckon you know that.”
His charge, now a hard-muscled man of twenty-eight, cracked one blurring eye. “It always hurts, Jonas. Everything does, don’t y’ know?”
Jonas sighed. For Luc Delamere it had certainly been so. “Happen I’d best get it over with, then. Drink this down.”
Luc’s lips twisted, making his silver scar glint coolly. He tilted the bottle back, swallowing with difficulty. “A good vintage, Jonas. Make y’ m’ compliments. I await your pleasure…”
Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1) Page 15
