Vanity

by Jane Feather

  “I want you,” he said. But there was no ardor in the statement of passion. It was a cold statement of fact. “I want you, and you want me.”

  His mouth came down on hers, crushing her lips against her teeth, then his tongue pushed into her mouth, drove to the back of her throat, making her gag and bringing tears to her eyes. But she was growing accustomed to these assaultive kisses and swiftly brought her hands around his body, slipping beneath his coat, stroking and patting across his torso.

  And then she felt it. Her fingers stilled. Beneath the tight-fitting waistcoat there was something small and round and hard. But it was beneath the waistcoat. A pocket on the inside? A pocket in his shirt? Impossible to tell. And impossible to explore without removing the waistcoat.

  Her hands dropped from his body and fell to her sides. Her head fell back beneath the pressure of his mouth. She held herself still and submissive as he ravaged her mouth and his fingers tightened for a second on her throat, then moved down to her breasts. Instinctively, Octavia knew that he liked her passive submission. That it excited him more than a vigorous response. And in many ways it was easier to do.

  Her mind raced on its own course. How was she to extract that little pouch from beneath his waistcoat? Perhaps if she did throw herself onto him in an orgy of moaning ardor, scratching and scrabbling at his clothes in her eagerness to get at him, maybe she could reach it. But she couldn’t do that here. Not on the terrace of St. James’s Palace in the middle of a royal reception.

  Philip raised his head, but his hands slipped back up to her throat, holding her just a little too tightly for perfect comfort.

  “You will yield to me, Octavia,” he said. “I’ve been patient … very patient. But the game is played out now. I can wait no longer.”

  “Neither can I, my lord,” she whispered, feeling her throat moving against his thumbs.

  He nodded, and his eyes flared with a satisfaction that turned her blood to ice. “I will send a carriage for you at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You will come to St. James’s Square.”

  “To your house?” She couldn’t help the shocked question.

  “Where else?” he said.

  “But … but your wife … your servants?”

  “My servants are not paid to show interest in my business. And my wife knows better than to do so.” Every word was invested with an icy contempt that Octavia knew touched her as well.

  “Besides,” he added with a laugh of pure derision, “your own reputation, my dear, will be much safer in such a situation. There will be no strangers involved. You will come and go in a closed carriage. Only my household will be aware of you. There will be no one to whisper, to set tongues awagging.”

  Octavia was silent. He still held her throat, and she met his predatory gaze as fearlessly as she could. She would agree because she had to. But surely there would be a way to avoid the ultimate surrender? Something would occur to her. At least she knew now that he had the ring. That she wouldn’t be on a fool’s errand.

  “We should return inside, sir,” she said after a minute, amazed at how calm her voice was. “If we’re to be so careful of my reputation tomorrow, it seems a little pointless to risk it today.”

  He smiled and released his grip on her throat. “How true, ma’am. And perhaps by now your husband will have tired of Lady Drayton … or she of him.”

  Octavia contented herself with a shrug of indifference. But the earl continued smoothly, “I have the impression you find your husband’s dalliance with the lady somewhat annoying.”

  “Whatever could have given you that idea, sir?” She laughed, hiding her shock. How could she possibly have given herself away?

  “Oh, just a look you have when you glance in their direction. I assure you Margaret Drayton can’t hold a candle to you. But, of course, husbands are notoriously unappreciative.”

  He stepped aside so she could precede him through the French door and back into the bright lights of the antechamber.

  He lowered his head to her ear as she passed him. “Giving your husband a pair of horns will be some recompense for his lamentable lack of appreciation.”

  Octavia smiled and inclined her head. Through her revulsion glowed the bright light of her own knowledge that it was Philip Wyndham who was being played for the fool. Philip Wyndham who was falling into Rupert Warwick’s trap.

  Rupert had seen Octavia’s departure with Philip and throughout their absence found himself on tenterhooks even as he flirted with Margaret Drayton and dallied amiably with several other ladies who showed willing.

  What were they doing? The question wouldn’t leave his mind He thought of Octavia locked in his brother’s embrace. Of her lips red and swollen beneath Philip’s. Of her mouth invaded, sullied. Of her ivory damask skin pawed and pressed by his twin’s long, strong fingers, so like his own. The images roiled in his brain, twisting and vile, and he could not endure them. There must be another way to do this.

  “Ah, Warwick, we met your friend this afternoon.” Dirk Rigby called out this greeting as he pushed through the throng, Hector beside him. “Rum fellow, that Thaddeus Nielson.”

  Rupert raised his quizzing glass and subjected the red-faced Dirk to a long stare.

  “Your pardon, Rigby, but you talk in riddles,” he drawled. “You met a friend of mine this afternoon?” His eyebrows crawled into his scalp, and his eyes were so cold and flat, it was as if they had no life.

  Dirk, alas, was slow on the uptake. “Why, yes,” he said, visibly puzzled. “That fellow you mentioned. You remember our little discussion …?” He winked vigorously several times and twitched his nose.

  Rupert’s stare grew increasingly cold and distant. “Forgive me,” he said. “But I have not the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “No, no, of course not!” Hector put in hastily, nudging his friend sharply in the ribs. “Dirk was confusing you with someone else … very forgetful, he is. Aren’t you, dear fellow?”

  The penny seemed to have dropped. Dirk’s expression slowly cleared. “Oh, yes,” he agreed fervently, wiping his perspiring forehead with his handkerchief. “Very forgetful. Can’t think what I was thinkin’ of, Warwick. Confusing you with someone else … yes, that’s it. Sure you were someone else.”

  “Is there a remarkable likeness, then?” Rupert inquired with polite interest.

  “Oh, yes … that’s it.” Dirk seized on this explanation with pathetic enthusiasm. “Yes, most amazing likeness. Could be twins. Don’t you think, Lacross? Veritable twins. Most astonishing resemblance.”

  “Goodness me,” Rupert said. “Do tell me who this double is. Do I know him?”

  “Oh … oh … no, I don’t believe so … um … what was his name, Hector?” Dirk appealed to his friend.

  “No one you would know, Warwick,” Lacross said calmly. “A man we met at the races the other afternoon. He had some business contacts who interested us.” He took snuff. “His contact had a most interesting proposition.”

  Rupert bowed. “How gratifying for you. By ’interesting,’ I assume you mean lucrative?”

  “Possibly.” Hector bowed and moved off, Dirk, after a minute’s confusion, following.

  It was astonishing, Rupert reflected, how someone as fearsomely intellectual as Oliver Morgan could have fallen victim to two such boobies. But, then, as Octavia had said, Oliver lived so much in his own world, he had only a tenuous grasp of the gritty realities other people lived.

  Octavia and Philip had returned to the drawing room. They stood talking together just inside the door; then Octavia curtsied and walked away. Before she could reach Rupert, she was accosted by the Prince of Wales and borne off on his arm like a battle prize.

  Rupert frowned. She was looking drawn and tired, as if the effort of holding her own throughout this tedious evening was getting to be too much. They couldn’t leave before the royal party, however. Had something definitive occurred when she was outside with Philip? The question nagged at him like an aching tooth.r />
  At last there was a rustle of movement around the king and queen, and the buzz of conversation died down. The royal couple progressed through the room, acknowledging the bows and curtsies with faint smiles. Then they passed through the doors, the Prince of Wales perforce accompanying them.

  “Thank God for that!” Octavia breathed at Rupert’s side. “I didn’t think I could bear another minute. Will you take me home? Or should I go myself?”

  The strain around her eves was more pronounced. Rupert, aware of the people around them, resisted the urge to smooth the smudged shadows with his finger. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Must you go on somewhere afterward?” She tried to sound bright, as if she were asking simply for information and not because her whole being ached and she didn’t know whether she wanted to be cuddled and made to feel warm and safe, or lost in the turbulent whirlpool of shared passion that would chase away the specter of the morrow.

  “No.” He frowned down at her, hearing in her question everything she’d tried to conceal. He spoke in a gentle undertone. “You look in need of some nursery comforting, sweeting.”

  The caress in his voice was balm, and she felt the tension sliding away. “How did you guess?”

  “I know you rather well.” For a moment his eyes were soft; then he turned from her, saying cheerfully to the assembled company, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, I fear we must leave you to whatever further dissipation the evening might hold.”

  The sally was greeted with laughter, and Margaret Drayton reached up to brush a speck of dust off his shoulder. “The night is yet young, sir. I can think of many more exciting pursuits than can be found at one’s own fireside.”

  “Ah, there you have me, ma’am.” He bowed over her hand. “I confess I cannot.”

  It was such a direct snub, and yet for a minute Margaret didn’t seem to have heard him aright. She began to smile as if in response to the compliment she’d been expecting; then her jaw went slack. Someone tittered.

  Rupert turned to Octavia. “Shall we go, my dear?” He took her hand and tucked it firmly into his arm.

  “What a set-down!” Octavia murmured as they stood in the antechamber waiting for their carriage. “How could you have said such a thing?”

  “The woman grows tedious,” he replied with an air of bored indifference.

  “And perhaps no longer useful?” Octavia suggested. Though she disliked Margaret Drayton, there was something chilling about Rupert’s cold dismissal.

  Someday she would no longer be useful to Rupert either.

  He smiled lazily. “Perhaps not.”

  “Your plans are in place, then?”

  “Oh, more than that, my dear. Up and running.”

  Octavia adjusted the folds of her satin cloak around her shoulders. She still had no idea what Rupert’s plan was with Hector and Dirk.

  “And what of yours?” he asked, his eyes sharpening, the languid tone vanished.

  For some reason Octavia didn’t immediately reply with her own news.

  “Your coach, Lord Rupert.” The footman spoke before her silence could seem marked.

  “Thank you.” Rupert nodded to the bowing footman and escorted Octavia outside to the light town chaise. He handed her in, then climbed up behind her.

  “So what of your progress?” he asked again, folding his arms, leaning back, resting his head against the thick cushions. “Anything to tell me?”

  “I believe I found the ring, in an inside pocket of his waistcoat.” Was that all she was going to say? Her brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly.

  “Inside? Awkward.” His expression betrayed no sign of a sudden surge of jubilation. He had been certain Philip would carry the ring at all times, but Octavia’s failure to discover it so far had started to make him uneasy.

  “Very. I’ll have to induce him to take the waistcoat off.”

  “That shouldn’t be too difficult at the appropriate moment,” he observed, his voice as dry as the Sahara, even as the vile images again seethed and twisted beneath his calm exterior.

  “No,” Octavia agreed. She twined her hands in her lap. “He beats his wife.”

  “Many men do.”

  “I don’t think it’s a subject for flippancy,” she flared.

  “Curiously, I wasn’t being flippant. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Philip maltreats his wife. It would surprise me if he didn’t.” Octavia couldn’t see his expression in the dark of the carriage but his voice rang with an acid contempt.

  “You know him very well.”

  “Almost as well as I know myself.”

  She sensed an opportunity and pressed on. “How long have you known him?”

  “As long as I’ve known myself.”

  She sat back in frowning puzzlement. He seemed to be talking in riddles. “But he doesn’t know you.”

  “He doesn’t think he does.” He leaned sideways to look out of the window, moving aside the curtain. “He isn’t a fool, Octavia. He won’t treat you in the way he treats his wife.”

  “I’m reassured,” she said ironically. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because he will have no reason to do so. And because you will be coming home to me. However loose he may consider the ties that bind you and me, he knows you’re not unprotected. Philip never takes on a fight with an equal … let alone his superior in strength and courage.”

  This calm rationalization was as hurtful as it was infuriating. Abruptly, she decided not to tell him about tomorrow’s assignation. He had no fears for her. He gave her no details of his own progress. Why should she report to him like a soldier to a commanding officer? As he saw it, it was simply the task of a whore.

  When she’d performed this whore’s task, she’d drop the ring into his hand without a word, and he’d never know what it had cost her to earn her price.

  Chapter 16

  The chaise drew up in Dover Street. Octavia went into the house feeling fiat and despondent and unutterably weary. “I’m going up to bed.”

  Rupert, handing his cloak to Griffin, said, “Dismiss Nell as soon as she’s unlaced you.”

  “I’m very tired.”

  He smiled. “Nevertheless …”

  For once she wanted to resist that smile, the caressing note in his voice, the promise in his eyes. Her fatigue was of the soul, not of the body, and much harder to overcome. She hesitated, one hand on the newel, then, with a tiny shrug, turned and went up the stairs. She couldn’t persist ill the hall with Griffin standing there. When Rupert came to her, she would send him away.

  “Bring me a cognac, Griffin.” Rupert went into the library. The butler followed him in a few minutes. “Will that be all, my lord?”

  “Yes, thank you. You may lock up.” He took the glass from the tray and sipped. It had been a long and strenuous evening for both of them. The cognac burned down his gullet to join the burning, seething turmoil in his belly.

  Octavia must have submitted to Philip’s embraces again in order to discover the ring hidden so well against his body. Soon Philip would know Octavia’s glorious body in all its rich intimacies. He would put his hands upon her and his flesh within her.

  His glass crashed into the fireplace in a shower of brandy and shards of shattered crystal.

  He couldn’t bear to prostitute her in this way. And that was what he would be doing. He’d tricked Octavia out of her maidenhood so that he could prostitute her. There was no sense in pretending otherwise. It didn’t matter that she’d agreed willingly and enthusiastically. She didn’t really understand what she’d been agreeing to.

  He couldn’t let it happen.

  A great calm swept through him at this final acceptance of something he’d tried to deny for several weeks. He would have to come up with an alternative plan. A highway robbery, perhaps?

  The idea brought a wry smile to his lips, and yet it wasn’t an impossible scheme. He didn’t rely totally on Morris’s information for potential quarry. He kept his own ear to the ground
as he went about social London, and when he heard of a likely heathward excursion by some rich degenerate, he would be there on the heath to greet him. What was to prevent him from waylaying his twin in such fashion?

  Instead of going to Philip’s bed, Octavia would be the bait that would lead Philip to the heath. And on the heath, his twin would be waiting for him.

  The idea bubbled, and he knew he would have to leave it to ferment and take its own shape. In the meantime Octavia was upstairs and waiting for him.

  He left the library, his step light as he took the stairs two at a time. He arrived in Octavia’s bedroom to find her in her nightgown, gazing in astounded repulsion at the bed.

  “Look what Nell’s put there,” she said, gesturing at a hollowed-out wooden board on the pillow. “She assures me that if I put my head carefully on that to sleep, then my coiffure will be barely disturbed and the hairdresser won’t have to come again for at least three weeks! Three weeks, with this filth in my hair!”

  “But, my lady, in my last position my mistress always slept on a wooden pillow,” Nell declared. “Her nightcap covered her coiffure, and it was barely disarranged in the morning.” She sounded thoroughly put out that her foresight was so little appreciated.

  Octavia regarded her in some exasperation. She knew that Nell had difficulties with her present mistress’s generally unconventional appearance and considered that it reflected poorly upon herself, as the one responsible for sending Lady Warwick out into the world suitably attired and adorned. Nell’s delight at the powdering ritual this evening had been exceeded only by Octavia’s disgust.

  “Nell, you should know by now that I have no intention of maintaining my hair in this fashion a moment longer than necessary. In the morning you shall wash it for me, but for now we will take out the pads and the pins, and you will brush it thoroughly to get the worst out.”

  Nell’s mouth screwed into pursed disapproval, but she fetched the silver-backed hairbrush from the dresser.

  “That’s all right, Nell. You may leave this with me,” Lord Rupert said, amusement dancing in his eyes. He took the hairbrush from her. “You may go to bed.”