The prince of pleasure n-5

by Nicole Jordan

  Dare grimaced involuntarily. "Yes."

  "And?" Lucian prompted.

  "And I think she's innocent. I was mistaken about her, I realize now. She was the one who discovered the evidence that exonerates Riddingham. If not for her, I might still be chasing a dead end."

  "So I was right after all?" Lucian's question held an edge of amusement.

  "Yes, damn you," Dare replied good-naturedly. "I admit I allowed my past with her to influence my judgment, just as you accused me of doing. I've since revised my opinion of her. I believe she would make you a good spy after all."

  "Oh? Then you'll approach her about working for us?"

  "If you are still interested."

  "I am. I would ask her myself but I am leaving for Devonshire later today." Lucian paused. "You know my assistant, Philip Barton? If you discover anything at all of importance, contact Philip. He'll know what to do."

  Dare nodded. "Give my love to Brynn," he said absently, his mind already debating how he would broach the subject with Julienne. "By the time you return, I should have something to report."

  Chapter Ten

  Dare allowed nearly a week to pass, however, before approaching Julienne. He forced himself to keep away for several reasons.

  The first and most practical was to let Riddingham think he was winning the beautiful Jewel. Too swift an about-face might raise questions in the viscount's mind and call unwanted attention to his drunken divulgences about his friends and the dead companion.

  The second, Dare calculated, was to increase Julienne's eagerness for their next encounter. She had asked to hear the outcome of his interrogation, and delaying his disclosure would only whet her curiosity.

  And the last, most critical reason was to give himself time to try to control his obsession with her. The effort, however, had been futile, Dare realized as he sat in his box at the Drury Lane Theater watching the current play, Richard III.

  It was a brilliant performance. From the first lines, Edmund Kean's genius shone through as he portrayed the evil Richard, who had murdered his way to a throne and then to his own destruction. But Julienne as Lady Anne was a perfect foil for him as she attempted to avoid Richard's deadly spider's web.

  The wooing scene during the mourning procession for the late king was a public match between two wily opponents, a twisted mating dance rife with almost erotic undercurrents.

  Dare, like the rest of the audience, sat riveted. The scene took on added meaning because of his own public mating dance with Julienne. He frequently felt himself the focus of probing glances from the bejeweled lords and ladies in the adjoining boxes.

  He knew the ending of Shakespeare's play, of course. Lady Anne lost the battle with Richard and her life, poisoned after she had served her turn. But it became stunningly clear to Dare as he watched Julienne's dazzling performance that he was fighting a losing battle himself.

  Your beauty was the cause.… Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep.

  He'd tried to convince himself that in time he would get over her. But she had crawled under his skin again, damn her.

  Nothing could stop him from wanting her constantly, endlessly. Nothing would stop him from pursuing her.

  Not even knowing the pain he might suffer in the end.

  Dare left the theater immediately after the performance, intending to wait for Julienne at her lodgings. A chill wind whipped around his greatcoat as he stood on the street while his town coach was summoned from the long queue of carriages.

  When a footman opened the coach door for him, Dare started to enter. But then he caught sight of a small object resting on the velvet seat, gleaming in the light of the carriage lamps.

  A piece of jewelry. A pin, perhaps. Picking it up, he inspected the design. A flower… with stem and leaves of gold and petals made of pearls. A rose?

  A dark suspicion struck Dare suddenly. What was it Lucian had said as they'd stood over Alice Watson's bloated body? She wore a rose-shaped pearl broach that was thought to be gift from her lover. Was this the broach that had been torn from the dead girl's collar? And how in hell had it come to be on his carriage seat?

  Was it the work of her killer?

  Dare's head whipped around, and he searched the crowds milling in the street in front of the theater. A fortnight ago he'd deliberately announced he was hunting a deadly traitor named Caliban. Was this the response?

  Was Caliban taunting him by leaving clues? Watching him even now? Was Caliban the girl's killer?

  Dare's mouth tightened grimly. It was difficult to believe the two were unrelated.

  He intended to question his coachman and footmen, but he doubted he would find any leads as to who had placed the broach here. Caliban was too clever.

  This time, however, the treacherous mastermind had overplayed his hand. Caliban might delight in showing his superiority by mocking his opponents and stirring fear in their hearts, Dare thought stonily. But this apparent attempt to intimidate him only strengthened his resolve to find the traitor and bring him to justice.

  It was after midnight when a hackney carriage deposited Julienne in front of her lodgings and then rattled off down the mist-shrouded street.

  When a dark figure stepped out of the shadows, she gasped and fumbled in her reticule for the small but deadly blade she carried for protection.

  "Late night?" Dare asked casually as moonlight illuminated his handsome features.

  Julienne put a hand to her heart. "Dare!" Her tone held both relief and vexation. "You frightened ten years off my life!"

  "The play has been over for hours."

  Frowning, she studied him in the dim light, trying to read his enigmatic expression. "I accepted Riddingham's invitation for supper." When he made no reply, she lowered her voice. "You can hardly object when you yourself asked me to be with him. Moreover, I haven't even seen you in days."

  "Did you miss me?"

  "No," Julienne lied. "But I expected you to contact me sooner-although not at this hour of the night."

  "Will you invite me in?"

  Julienne hesitated. "This is a respectable rooming house. The landlady won't look kindly on my entertaining a gentleman caller, especially one of your notoriety."

  "She doesn't need to know."

  "She is extremely watchful."

  "I came to report on my investigation of Riddingham," Dare said when she still wavered, "but if you prefer I left…"

  "No," Julienne replied in a rough whisper. "Just please keep your voice down."

  "I watched your performance tonight," Dare murmured as he followed her to the front door.

  "I know. I saw you." She didn't add that she had scanned the audience each and every night since that first one, searching for Dare's shining gilt hair. Nor did she confess the leap of gladness that had surged through her when she'd spied him tonight, or her disappointment when he never came backstage to the green room.

  After using her key to unlock the door, Julienne lit a taper in the entrance hall. Quietly she led him up the dark stairway and down a corridor to the rooms she had rented for the season.

  The parlor was chilly, for she preferred to avoid the expense of lighting a fire when she would only be going to bed in a short while. The bedchamber would have coals burning in the grate, though, since she paid the landlady to see to it before her expected return from the theater each night.

  Leaving on her cloak, Julienne offered Dare a seat, but he remained standing. As she lit a lamp, his glance took in the sparse furnishings, and he frowned.

  "So what happened with Riddingham?" Julienne asked, not wanting to defend her modest dwelling or her decision not to spend her salary on greater luxuries. "Did you discover if his friends knew the companion?"

  "Sir Stephen was seen speaking with her at Lady Castlereagh's rout. But there was also a stranger who appeared to claim her interest. I've passed on the information for investigation. With any luck it could put us a step closer to finding Caliban."

  "So what now?"

&nb
sp; "We continue the hunt."

  She gave him a look of exasperation. "Is that all you intend to tell me?"

  "That depends on you, Julienne."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I've been commissioned to offer you a job."

  "A job?"

  "As a spy for the British government."

  Taken aback by his unexpected answer, she stared at him.

  "The gentleman," Dare explained, "who heads intelligence in the Foreign Office believes you could be an asset to the country, since you have entree to the emigre community. If you worked for us, you would be required to glean any information you can on the intrigues of the Royalists and pass it on. The government will pay you, of course."

  His glance took in the shabby parlor, and she could tell what he was thinking: that she could obviously use the income. She remembered as well that Dare thought her greedy and grasping. No doubt he believed there was little she wouldn't do for money.

  Julienne pressed her lips together. "I wonder that your offer comes now," she said coolly. "Is it because I proved my usefulness by helping you with Riddingham?"

  "That, and the fact that your actions seem to absolve you of guilt."

  "Guilt?"

  Dare's green gaze bored into her. "I couldn't be certain of your complicity when I first saw your close association with Riddingham. For all I knew, he was Caliban, and you were in league with him."

  Her breath caught at his implication. "You thought I was in league with… You suspected me of treason!"

  "The possibility did cross my mind." Dare smiled with a hint of mockery. "This isn't the first time your name has been linked with the Bonapartists."

  Julienne felt herself tremble. "Are you speaking of the charges your grandfather laid against me?"

  When he remained silent, a raw upwelling of grief and fury coursed through her. Seven years ago she had been the victim of his grandfather's evil machinations, when she had been completely innocent.

  She heard her own tone turn icy. "Your grandfather accused me of treason. Did you believe him?"

  Dare shrugged, an elegant gesture that told her nothing. "I wasn't sure what to believe then. Given your other lies, I think I would have been justified in assuming the worst about you. And I certainly couldn't trust your loyalties when you might have been Caliban's accomplice."

  His response wounded her to the quick, and Julienne lowered her gaze to hide her bitter hurt. She had betrayed Dare, true. And he had a right to despise her for that. But it was one thing to hate her for playing him false with a lover; quite another to consider her guilty of betraying her country.

  How could he believe something so despicable of her?

  For a moment she stood there shaking, remembering that terrible time seven years ago-the vile rumors that had placed her under suspicion of treason, her defenselessness, her utter inability to refute the charges. Those scurrilous accusations had destroyed her life when she had never done anything to deserve it. When her only crime had been to love Dare.

  He had no right to think her guilty! Dare's admission just now was a betrayal in itself. He should have known the allegations were all lies.

  Julienne raised her head to glare her anger. "Your grandfather falsified those charges in order to intimidate me. I'm surprised you were taken in by him."

  A flash of pain flickered in Dare's eyes before his gaze turned as cool as her own had been. "I was taken in by your wiles, wasn't I? Perhaps I was merely gullible in my youth. Then again, my grandfather could have been right about you."

  His retort set rage unfurling inside Julienne. She looked at Dare through a red mist, wanting to strike back at him, yearning to punish him for his lack of faith. "If you think me such a femme fatale, I wonder that you even risk being here alone with me."

  "I am better armed than I was seven years ago."

  "Are you?" Julienne said, her tone dangerously silken. She would show Dare that he wasn't nearly as well-armed as he thought. "Would you care to put your armor to the test?"

  His gaze made a slow sweep of her body. "What did you have in mind?"

  In answer, she spun on her heel and opened the door to her bedchamber. Pausing, she glanced back at him, her look filled with challenge. "Are you coming?"

  For once, Julienne saw with satisfaction, she had rendered Dare speechless. But he hesitated only a moment before following her.

  It was warmer here, she noted. She stirred the coals in the grate to a cheery blaze and then lit a lamp and set it on the mantel. Dare had shut the door behind him and was surveying the drab room's meager furnishings: a narrow bed, a washstand, a wardrobe and dressing table, and a single wooden chair placed near the hearth.

  "Take off your clothes," Julienne ordered as she shed her cloak and hung it on a wall peg. When she turned, she found Dare watching her with half-lidded eyes, heat and wariness glittering in their depths.

  "Just like that? You expect me to undress with no preliminaries?"

  Her smile was at once seductive and scornful. "Are you afraid, Lord Wolverton?"

  "With you in this mood?" His mouth curled. "I think perhaps I should be."

  "Indeed you should," she taunted with a coy toss of her head.

  Her mind told her she was playing with fire, but she refused to back down from her challenge. The anger driving her was too fierce to ignore. She felt like a powder keg on the verge of explosion. She wanted to punish Dare, to hurt him as he had hurt her. She wanted to conquer him.

  Thus far she had claimed few victories in their battle, but that would change tonight, Julienne vowed. And she would use her body as her weapon.

  "Well?" she asked impatiently, placing her hands on her hips.

  He did undress then, albeit more slowly than she would have liked. While she watched, he removed his coat and cravat and draped them over the back of the chair, then drew off his linen shirt. His bare torso gleamed golden in the firelight, rippling with corded muscle.

  He sat to remove his pumps and stockings and reached for the front placket of his breeches. Hesitating, he glanced up at her, as though to see if she was watching.

  Julienne curved her lips in a half smile and met the dark challenge in his eyes. Unfastening his breeches, Dare stood and slowly peeled them down, revealing the hard, flat contours of his belly… the tantalizing pelt of dark gold hair that swept down to his groin… He eased the satin fabric lower. Freed from constraint, his rampant member jerked upward toward his belly, already flushed and engorged in anticipation.

  Julienne's mouth went dry. Despite her determination to remain unmoved, she felt her body respond. But she refused to let Dare know of her weakness.

  "I would say you are rather eager for me," she mocked.

  "I am always eager for you, cherie," Dare retorted wryly. "That is nothing new."

  He drew the garment down farther, exposing the velvety pouch of his heavy testicles, his sinewy thighs and calves. Then he stepped out of his breeches, leaving his lean, powerful body naked.

  He was beautiful, Julienne thought in reluctant awe. Lithe and strong and sensual, the focus of all her fantasies. Desire clawed at her, insistent and sharp, as she moved to stand before him, but she tried to hide it with a mocking smile.

  Deliberately she ran the tip of her finger along his hard-muscled ribs, over his flat belly to his swollen phallus that seemed to beg her for attention.

  Dare's eyes narrowed, but she ignored the danger in his green gaze as she curled her fingers over the silken-steel shaft.

  "Shall we see how long you can resist me?" she asked.

  "Do your worst," he said with maddening nonchalance.

  Oh, I will, Julienne thought darkly. She would break him. She would make him plead with her for mercy…

  She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, but there was nothing tender about her gesture. Instead she bit at his lips, raking her teeth against his flesh.

  She heard his low grunt of surprise as he recognized the primal, dangerous edge to her lovemaking, but other than
the tensing of his body, he made no protest.

  Still holding his arousal in her hand, Julienne nipped at his jaw, the strong column of his throat, the sleek skin of his shoulder, then moved to his chest, to the flat male nipples. When she bit lightly, he drew a sharp breath. With a faint smile of triumph, she spent a long moment on his nipples, licking and suckling and grazing with her teeth, before gliding on.

  When her fiery mouth trailed downward toward his stomach, though, Dare realized her intent and grasped her arms, halting her. "I want you naked first. Unless you're afraid?" he added when she looked up at him.

  Her eyes flashed, but she turned silently to present her back for him to unfasten the buttons of her gown. When she faced him again, their gazes locked, two passionate people determined not to give way.

  Her mouth curved in a half smile then, and she stripped off her garments slowly, one by one, her movements deliberately provocative.

  Her erotic performance held Dare's gaze riveted. He didn't understand the brittle anger that gripped her, the icy disdain, but he fully fathomed the effect her meagerly clad body had on him. Heat burned through him, making his blood pulse with need.

  When her tongue slowly licked her lips in carnal invitation, excitement flared through his senses. It was all he could do to feign indifference when Julienne drew her chemise over her head and stood garbed in nothing more than silk stockings held up by strips of ribbon.

  Bending, she untied the knots of her garters and rolled the silk down her long slender legs, the ripe, full globes of her breasts dangling like luscious fruit.

  Dare felt sweat break out over his skin. God, but he wanted to taste those sweet breasts, to suck on those taut nipples until she was as feverish and aching with need as she had made him.

  She stood again, and the sultry, glittering light in her eyes told him clearly she knew how much her nude body captivated him.

  Against his will, his gaze traveled the length of her… her flawless bosom, her narrow waist, her rounded hips, the dark curls shielding her feminine mound… Julienne ravished his senses, even as jaded as they were. It was a struggle to keep from reaching out and hauling her into his arms and putting a swift end to her teasing.