A Secret Love

by Stephanie Laurens

  She’d been right about that, but it was too late for regrets. In truth, she wasn’t sure she harbored any.

  That, however, did not alter the fact that she was now in deep trouble.

  He thought they were playing a game—one at which he was an acknowledged expert but which she had never played before. She knew some of the rules, but not all of them; she knew some of the moves, but not enough of them. She’d initiated the charade, but now he’d taken control and was rescripting her role to suit his own needs.

  To suit his own desires.

  She tried to summon a suitable degree of annoyance; the thought that he desired her wouldn’t let annoyance form. The very concept intrigued her, lured her. No serpent had ever been so persuasive; no apple so tempting.

  No knight so invincibly demanding.

  That last made her sigh—changing direction was impossible. She’d started the charade; she’d have to play her part. Her options were severely limited.

  She studied her reflection, then, with her usual deliberation, decided: While alone with him, she wasn’t Lady Alathea Morwellan but his mysterious countess. It was the countess he’d kissed and the countess who’d responded.

  Not her.

  There’d been no harm done; none would be done.

  She lowered the towel. He’d seemed to find her kisses—and the rest of her—quite satisfactory as a reward. She’d sensed his hunger—his appetite; she was certain that was not something he would fabricate. Their interaction was in no way harming him, and while it might be unsettling—even eye-opening—it wasn’t hurting her.

  And the fact that her kisses were enough to satisfy one of the ton’s most exacting lovers was an invisible feather she’d proudly wear in her spinster cap—the cap she’d wear for the rest of her life.

  Refocusing on the mirror, she critically surveyed her face and lips. Almost normal.

  Her lips twisted wryly. Impossible to play the hypocrite and pretend that she hadn’t enjoyed it—that she hadn’t felt a thrill, an excitement beyond anything she’d previously known. In those long minutes when he’d held her in his arms, claiming her, she’d felt a woman whole for the first time in her life.

  Indeed, he made her feel like a woman other than herself—or did he simply make her feel things she shouldn’t, compulsions she’d had no idea she could experience. She was twenty-nine, on the shelf, very definitely an old maid. In his arms, she hadn’t felt old at all—she’d felt alive.

  Driven by necessity, she’d set aside all hope of ever knowing what it was to be a woman with a man. She’d had her longings, but she’d locked them away, telling herself they could never be fulfilled. And they never could be—not all of them, not now. But if, in protecting her family again as she was, the chance was offered to experience just a little of what she’d had to forgo, wasn’t that merely justice?

  And if she knew she was playing with fire? Tempting fate beyond the bounds of all sanity?

  Setting down the towel, she stared into her eyes, then she stood and turned toward the door.

  She couldn’t turn her back on her family, which meant she couldn’t walk away from Gabriel.

  Whether she wished it or not, she was trapped in her charade.

  Heathcote Montague’s office looked down on a small courtyard tucked away behind buildings a stone’s throw from the Bank of England. Standing before the window, Gabriel stared down at the cobbles, his mind fixed on the countess.

  Who was she? Had she been a guest at Osbaldestone House, lips curving with secret laughter as she waltzed past him? Or, knowing he, together with all the Cynsters, would be there, had she slipped in uninvited, waited in the garden until their meeting, then slipped away through the shadows again? If so, she’d taken a considerable risk—who knows whom she might inadvertently have met. He didn’t like her taking risks—that was one point he fully intended to make clear.

  But only after he’d made love to her—after he’d had his fill of her feminine delights and pleasured her into oblivion.

  He had a strong suspicion she didn’t even know what sexual oblivion was. But she would—just as soon as he had her alone again. After last night, that much was certain—he’d already had his fill of restless nights.

  “Hmm. Nothing here.”

  It took him a moment to return to the present, then he turned.

  Heathcote Montague, perennially neat, precise but self-effacing, set the three notes he’d just received to one side of his desk and looked up. “I’ve heard back from nearly everyone. None of us, nor any of our clients, have been approached. Precisely what one would expect if the Central East Africa Gold Company is another of Crowley’s crooked schemes.”

  “Us” referred to the select band of “men of business” who handled the financial affairs and investments of the wealthiest families in England.

  “I think”—deserting the window, Gabriel started to pace—“given it is Crowley behind it and he’s avoiding all knowledgeable investors, then we can reasonably conclude the scheme’s a fraud. Furthermore, if the amounts involved are comparable to that on the promissory note I saw, this scheme’s going to cause considerable financial distress if it runs its course.”

  “Indeed.” Montague leaned back. “But you know the law’s view as well as I. The authorities won’t step in until fraud is apparent—”

  “By which time it’s always too late.” Gabriel faced Montague. “I want to shut this scheme down, quickly and cleanly.”

  “That’s going to be difficult with promissory notes.” Montague held his gaze. “I assume you don’t want this note you saw executed.”

  “No.”

  Montague grimaced. “After last time, Crowley’s not going to explain his plans to you.”

  “Not that he explained them to me last time.” Gabriel returned to the window. He and Ranald Crowley had a short but not sweet past history. One of Crowley’s first ventures, floated in the City, had sounded very neat, looked very tempting. It had been poised to draw in a large number of the ton, until he had been asked for his opinion. He’d considered the proposal, asked a few pertinent but not obvious questions, to which there were no good answers, and the pigeons had taken flight. The incident had closed many doors for Crowley.

  “You’re probably,” Montague observed, “one of Crowley’s least favorite people.”

  “Which means I can’t appear or show my hand in any way in this case. And nor can you.”

  “The mere mention of the name Cynster will be enough to raise his hackles.”

  “And his suspicions. If he’s as cunning as his reputation paints him, he’ll know all about me by now.”

  “True, but we’re going need details of the specific proposal made to investors to secure their promissory notes in order to prove fraud.”

  “So we need a trustworthy sheep.”

  Montague blinked. “A sheep?”

  Gabriel met his gaze. “Someone who can believably line up to be fleeced.”

  “Serena!”

  Together with Serena, seated beside her, Alathea turned to see Lady Celia Cynster waving from her barouche drawn up beside the carriageway.

  Waving in reply, Serena spoke to their coachman. “Here, Jacobs—as close as you can.”

  Spine poker straight, Jacobs angled their carriage onto the verge three carriages from Celia’s. By the time Alathea, Mary, and Alice had stepped down to the grass, Celia and her girls were upon them.

  “Wonderful!” Celia watched her daughters, Heather, sixteen, and Eliza, fifteen, greet Mary and Alice. The air was instantly abuzz with chatter and innocent queries. The four girls had the years of their shared childhoods to bind them in much the same way as Alathea, Lucifer, and Gabriel. Celia gestured at her offspring. “They insist on coming for a drive, only to become bored after the first five minutes.”

  “They have yet to learn that social chatter is the . . . comme ca va?—oil that makes the ton’s wheels go around?”

  “Oil that greases the ton’s wheels.” Celia tur
ned to the speaker, a strikingly beautiful older lady who had strolled up in her wake.

  Alathea curtsied deeply. “Your Grace.”

  Serena, still seated in the carriage, bowed and echoed the words.

  Smiling, Helena, Dowager Duchess of St. Ives, put out a gloved hand to tip up Alathea’s face. “You grow more attractive with the years, ma petite.”

  Through her frequent visits to Quiverstone Manor, the Dowager was well known to the Morwellans. Alathea smiled and rose; the Dowager’s brows rose, too. “Not so petite.” Catching Alathea’s eye, she lifted one brow even higher. “Which makes it even more of a mystery why you are not wed, hein?”

  The words were uttered softly; Alathea smiled and refused to be drawn. While she was used to such queries, the intelligence behind the Dowager’s pale green eyes always left her with the uncomfortable feeling that here was one who suspected the truth.

  The carriage rocked as Serena rose, clearly intending to join them. Helena waved her back. “No, no. I will ascend and we can chat in comfort.” She gestured at Celia and Alathea. “These two must stretch their legs in the service of propriety.”

  Alathea and Celia looked in the direction of Helena’s nod; the four girls, heads together, arms linked, were already strolling the lawn.

  Celia sighed resignedly. “At least we can stroll together and chat.”

  Leaving Helena settling in beside Serena, Alathea and Celia followed the four girls, but with no intention of joining them. They only needed to keep the girls in sight, leaving them free to talk without reserve.

  Celia immediately availed herself of that freedom. “Have you spoken to Rupert since coming up to town?”

  “Yes.” Alathea mentally scrambled to recall the meeting—the one with Rupert, not Gabriel. “We met briefly while the girls and I were out walking.”

  “Well, then. You’ll have seen. What am I to do with him?”

  Alathea swallowed the observation that no one had ever been able to “do” anything with Rupert Melrose Cynster. He was as malleable as granite and always on guard against manipulation. As for Gabriel . . . “I saw nothing unusual. What worries you so?”

  “Him! He!” Celia’s fists clenched on the handle of her parasol. “He’s even more infuriating than his father. At least, by his age, Martin had had the good sense to marry me. But will Rupert turn his mind to the same task?”

  “He’s only thirty.”

  “Which is more than old enough. Demon has married, and Richard, too—Richard’s only a bare year older than Rupert.” A minute later, Celia sighed. “It’s not so much the marrying as his frame of mind. He doesn’t even look at ladies properly, at least not with a view to any legitimate connection. And even the other sort of connection—well, the reports are hardly encouraging.”

  Alathea tried to keep her lips shut, but . . . “Encouraging?”

  Ahead, the four girls burst out laughing; glancing their way, Celia explained, “It is apparently common knowledge that Rupert is cold—even with his mistresses he remains distant and aloof.”

  “He always was . . .” About to say “reserved,” Alathea reconsidered. “Guarded.” That was much closer to the mark. “He always keeps his feelings under very close control.”

  “Control is one thing—true disinterest is another.” Celia’s concern shadowed her eyes. “If he can’t catch fire even in that arena, what chance is there for any acceptable lady to set tinder to his wick?”

  Alathea fought to keep her lips straight. By any standard, their conversation was exceedingly improper, but she and Celia had a decade-long habit of discussing her sons—Alathea’s childhood companions—with a frankness that would have made their subjects’ ears burn. But Rupert cold? It wasn’t an adjective she’d ever associated with him, not as Alathea Morwellan and even less as the countess. “Are you sure you’re getting the true picture? Mightn’t you be hearing solely from those ladies he hasn’t been . . .”—she gestured—“ ‘interested in?’ ”

  “Would that that were so. But my information has frequently come from disgruntled ladies he has been ‘interested in.’ One and all, they’ve despaired of making any serious impression on him. If half the tales told are true, he barely remembers their names!”

  Alathea’s brows rose. Rupert being vague over a name was a sure sign he was not paying attention, which meant he was not truly “interested” at all. “Perhaps,” she said, steering the conversation away from her nemesis, “Alasdair will marry first.”

  “Hah! Don’t be fooled by all that easygoing charm. He’s even worse than Rupert. Oh, not that he’s cold—quite the opposite. But he’s feckless, footloose, and overindulged. He’s busy enjoying himself without any long-term ties—he’s developed a deep-seated conviction he doesn’t need any shackles on his freedom.” Celia’s humph was the definition of disapproving. “All I can do is pray some lady has what it takes to bring him to his knees.” She looked up, checking the girls still strolling ahead. After a moment, she murmured, “But it’s really Rupert who worries me. He’s so detached. Uninvolved.”

  Alathea frowned. Gabriel hadn’t treated the countess as if he were detached or uninvolved. Far from it, but she could hardly reassure Celia with that news. It seemed odd that the portrait Celia was painting was so different from the man she knew, let alone the man she was discovering, the man who had held her in his arms last night.

  Celia sighed. “Put it down to a mother’s concern for her firstborn if you will, but I can’t see how any lady is going to break through Rupert’s defenses.”

  It was possible if one had known him for years and knew where the chinks were. Nevertheless, Alathea inwardly admitted that she could easily see him steadfastly refusing to let any lady close, not in the emotional sense. He didn’t like close—he didn’t like emotional. He and she had been emotionally close all their lives, and look how he reacted to that. If Celia was correct, she was the only female he had ever allowed within his guard . . .

  Everything within her stilled. Had his experience with her, of her, hardened him against all women?

  Then she remembered the countess. With the countess, he was intent, attentive, certainly not distant and cold. Perhaps distant and cold came later? After . . . ?

  Inwardly frowning, she shook aside her thoughts. Looking ahead, she saw the four girls nearing a group of budding dandies. “Perhaps we’d better catch up.”

  Celia looked; her gaze sharpened. “Indeed.”

  Where in London was he to find a suitable sheep?

  Leaving Lucifer and the friends with whom they’d lunched in the smoking room of White’s, Gabriel scanned the occupants of the rooms through which he passed. None fitted his bill. It had to be someone with no obvious connection to the Cynsters, yet someone he could trust. Someone sharp enough to play a part but appear vacuous. Someone willing to take orders from him. Someone reliable.

  Someone with money to invest and some hope of appearing gullible.

  While he had contacts aplenty who would qualify on most counts, that last criterion excused them all. Where was he supposed to find such a someone?

  Pausing on the steps of White’s, he considered, then strolled down and headed for Bond Street.

  It was the height of the Season and the sun was shining—as he’d expected, all the ton and their relatives were strolling the fashionable street. The crowd was considerable, the traffic snarled. He ambled, scanning the faces, noting those he knew, assessing, rejecting, considering alternatives—trying to ignore the female half of the population. He needed a sheep, not a tall lady.

  Even if he saw the countess, he doubted he’d know her. Other than her height and her perfume, he knew so little of her. If he kissed her, he’d know, but he could hardly kiss every possible lady on the off-chance she was his houri. Besides, he’d already determined that the fastest way to get the countess precisely where he wanted her was to learn more about the company—and that necessitated finding a sheep.

  He was halfway along the street when, immediat
ely ahead, four ladies stepped out of a milliner’s shop and congregated on the pavement. In the instant he recognized the Morwellans, Alathea raised her head and looked directly at him. Serena, Mary, and Alice followed her gaze—their faces promptly lit with smiles.

  There was nothing for it but to do the pretty. Sliding into his fashionable persona, he shook Serena’s hand, exchanged nods with Mary and Alice, and lastly, more stiffly, with Alathea. As all four ladies stepped free of the throng by the shop windows, closer to the curb so they could converse more easily, Alathea hung back, then took up a position a good yard away from him, so that they both had their backs to the congested carriageway with Serena, Mary, and Alice strung between, facing them.

  “We met your mother and your sisters only this morning,” Serena informed him.

  “In the park,” Mary added. “We strolled—it was such fun.”

  “There were some silly gentlemen about,” Alice said. “They had monstrous cravats—nothing like yours or Lucifer’s.”

  He responded easily, in truth without thought. Even though Serena, Mary, and Alice ranked high on his list of people to be kind to, with Alathea three feet away, his senses, as always, slewed to her.

  And prickled, and itched.

  Even though he’d barely glanced at her, he knew she was wearing a lavender walking dress and a chip bonnet that covered her haloed hair. Under the bonnet, he was certain, would lurk one of those scraps of lace he found so offensive. He couldn’t comment, not even elliptically, not with Serena before him . . . on the other hand, if he caught Alathea’s eye, she would know what he was thinking.

  With that in mind, he glanced her way.

  The carriage horse behind her reared, kicking over the traces—

  He grabbed Alathea and hauled her to him, swinging around, instinctively shielding her. A hoof whizzed past their heads. The horse screamed, dragged the carriage, then tried to kick again—the rising knee caught him in the back.

  He jerked, but stayed upright.

  Pandemonium ensued. Everybody yelled. Men ran from all over to help. Others called instructions. One lady had hysterics—another swooned. In seconds, they were surrounded by a noisy crowd; the driver of the green horse was the center of attention.