He paused in the doorway, said to Maddie, “You know what this means, don’t you?”
Maddie said, blankly, “What?”
“Why, that you are a harp-breaker.” Tony grinned. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.” Before she could throw something at him, he fled.
Maddie turned her attention to her chicken’s feathers, rather in the manner of one seeking answers in tea leaves left in the bottom of a cup. “No other Dianas had golden arrows. That must have been how Fanny Arbuthnot was to recognize Louise. That and the quote from Henry V. Fanny put the documents in my quiver. What was to be done with them, I won’t begin to guess, and I have no idea whether Louise was aware of Fanny’s scheme. I think not, from her behavior. Still, Louise has emerged from this business with a lighter punishment than she deserves.” She pulled a packet of papers from her pocket. “Do you know what these are?”
“I have tried hard not to know. I daresay you are going to tell me, all the same.”
“I believe I’ve earned the right. These letters concern the young Bourbon prince, the duc d’Enghien, last of the House of Condé, and were written while he was residing on a British pension at Ettenheim, across the border from France; just prior to when he was kidnapped and brought from the neutral territory of Baden, found guilty on trumped-up charges of being an émigré spy in the pay of England and of bearing arms against France, and executed by a firing squad. Talleyrand had a hand in the business, as well as Napoleon’s minister of police, Fouché.”
“Talleyrand didn’t want the Bourbons restored to the French throne. Now that the Restoration is in effect, and he will be representing France in the negotiations— One can see why he would go to any lengths to get them back.” Angel held out his hand.
Maddie placed the packet on his palm. “I wonder what Talleyrand will do now that his plan has come to naught.”
“Happily, that is none of our concern. Castlereagh will arrive at the Congress of Vienna both forewarned and forearmed.” Angel set the letters atop the wagon wheel. “Horus will at the least be hanged for murder. He should suffer the penalty for treason, but I expect a great many details will be hushed up. May I?” She handed him the knife.
Angel glanced at the carved hilt. Ankh, symbol of eternal life; ka, spirit or soul; ieb, heart. Fortunate that he was not Egyptian, else he would not fare well during the final judgment, having failed to retain possession of his heart.
He hoped he was not about to get it broke.
Angel placed the weapon on top of the letters. “Are you all right?”
“I am not entirely certain. First I bade Sir Owen to Hades, and now I’ve smashed a harp over a villain’s head.”
Angel said, gravely, “You are a woman to be reckoned with.”
“Do you think so?” Maddie looked pleased.
“I have thought so for some time. Do you wonder why it took me so long to come after you?”
Maddie returned her attention to her chicken. “You said you weren’t my friend.”
“You said that I was not for you, or you for me. We have both uttered a great deal of nonsense.” Angel reached into his coat pocket. “I didn’t arrive sooner because I was arranging for this.”
She stared at the document. “You didn’t! You mustn’t! Oh, blast!”
Whatever reaction Angel had anticipated, it wasn’t her horrified dismay at sight of the special license. He cleared his throat. “I hadn’t thought of marrying again if I was free of Bella — I didn’t think I would ever be free of Bella — but that was before I met you. Now I find that I can settle for nothing less.”
Maddie shook her head. “Don’t you understand? I can’t bear it that you feel you need to be polite!”
Angel stared at her. “Polite? So far am I from feeling polite that I long to shake you until your teeth rattle. Why the devil did you announce that we were têtê-à-têtê when Bella died?”
“Shake me? I wish I might shake you! How dare you put it around that I gave you the cut direct?” More calmly, Maddie added, “I realize you were behaving as you felt you should.”
Angel’s own temper was straining at its leash. “You don’t realize a damned thing,” he said through gritted teeth. “Despite what is said of me, I never before destroyed a woman’s reputation. You did not even require my cooperation. I don’t like the feeling much.”
“Oh?” inquired Maddie, in equally strained tones. “Who were you stealing off to meet that night?”
Who was he—? Angel looked blank. She added, “You must have had good reason to be in that part of Burlington House.”
“An excellent reason: I was bored. Whereas you were following Henry. Which of us was behaving badly in that instance, do you think?”
“We are both behaving badly now,” sighed Maddie. “I apologize. But I still see no good reason why I should marry you.”
After he was through shaking her, Angel decided, he would kiss her until she squeaked. “So much for being spoiled. You clearly mean to leave me no shred of self-esteem. Shall I tell you how I felt when Kane told me you’d left town? As if the bottom had dropped out of my world. ‘Queen and huntress, chaste and fair—’ Would marriage to me be such an awful fate?”
Maddie risked a glance at his beautiful, worldly face. The lips that had kissed a thousand woman. The lines of laughter and dissipation that crinkled at the corners of his gold-flecked eyes. “Marriage to you would be heaven. And quite likely, hell. I am nothing out of the ordinary, and females drop like ripe olives at your feet. I could not bear it if you— Well.”
“And I cannot bear it if you refuse me.” Angel sat down beside her on the trunk, deposing Clara, who, exhausted by the drama, had settled in for a nice snooze. “You are being absurd, you know: there is nothing ordinary about you at all. When we are wed — and I intend that we shall wed, not because we must, but because we choose; and if it takes me the rest of my life to persuade you, I’ll consider it time well spent — there will be no dallying elsewhere, on either of our parts. I give you my solemn vow that I will never look with lust upon another female. I also promise, should you grow bored with me, to enliven our encounters by whatever means you desire. Even if it involves turtles or a trapeze.”
“Turtles?” Maddie echoed, intrigued.
Angel gazed down on his golden apple, today wrapped up in a vividly striped cambric dress. “I concede. Even turtles, if you insist.”
Maddie smiled, a little bit. “You cannot be certain you won’t grow bored with me.”
“I am positive,” he said, and meant it. “One pair of lips is not like another, my darling, when those lips are yours.”
Dared she believe she was his darling? “Truly?”
“Truly. I have come to realize that I cannot be happy without you in my life. You, and your boys, and even that blasted dog.” Angel clasped her hand in his, and raised it to his lips. “It won’t be easy. The world will watch, and talk, and whisper that the tiger can’t change its stripes. But you may check my boots for olive stains at any time and I swear you will find none. Have pity on me, Maddie. Tell me my feelings are returned.”
He looked endearingly uncertain. She drew his hand to her and rested it against her cheek. “Now it is you who are being absurd. I lost my heart to you during our first meeting. As you must have realized, being familiar with the signs.”
Angel traced a fingertip across her lips. “I realized nothing. I am the merest babe in the woods where you are concerned, having never experienced, or said, these things before. So we will wed?”
Maddie shivered as his fingers skimmed her cheek, her neck, came to rest against the pulse beating at the base of her throat. She longed to feel that skilled touch elsewhere, everywhere, caressing her skin. “Shall I tell you how I felt when I thought the pharaoh was going to kill me? I regretted I would never have the chance to ask your petites amie what I had missed. We have run mad, I think. But yes, I would like very much to marry you.”
Angel choked with laughter? “Ask—”
“I thought of quizzing the contessa,” confessed Maddie. “But Jordan whisked her out of town before I had the chance.” She drew his hand to her breast.
Angel had never known anything sweeter than her heart beating against his palm. Or been gifted with more poignant a request.
He surveyed the tack room. “I don’t believe that I have ever dallied in a coach house before.”
“Are we going to dally?” Maddie inquired, so huskily that his toes curled in his boots.
Angel wasn’t one to leave a lady’s curiosity, most especially this lady’s curiosity, unsatisfied. “We are, indeed.”
He rose, crossed to the door and barred it; returned to Maddie and drew her to her feet. She moved closer to him, wound her arms around his neck. He plucked the remaining pins from her hair, savored the fragrant weight of it sliding across his hands, over her shoulders; lowered his head and nuzzled her, half-drunk on her scent; unbuttoned her cambric dress and slipped it off her shoulders, taking care not to jostle her bruised wrist. She tugged at his jacket, his cravat. Between them they made short work of hooks and buttons, tapes and ties, then paused to regard one another, he in shirtsleeves and boots and breeches, she in corset and chemise.
Maddie slipped her hands under his shirt. Angel shuddered at her touch. Lest he fall on her with no more finesse than the late unlamented puff-guts, he gently clasped her arms and drew her onto his lap. She smoothed her hands across his chest.
Angel groaned. Or perhaps it was Maddie who made that desperate, hungry sound. He kissed her slowly, and then not so slowly, with infinite care and thoroughness, until she was half-crazed with wanting and her breath came raggedly; and then there was nothing for it but that she must madden him in turn. These mutual demonstrations of devotion progressed in so satisfactory a manner that, when the participants paused to draw in much-needed breath, they should by rights have found that if the paint wasn’t scorched entirely off the coach house, the tack room walls were at least charred.
Various articles were strewn over the floor, but not Mrs. Tate’s stockings, which Mr. Jarrow had begged she leave in place. Poor Clara goggled and clucked and hid her head beneath her wing.
Maddie disengaged herself long enough to scoop up the chicken, open the window, and deposit her outside.
She closed the window and returned to Angel.
And the song she sang for him then was the sweetest he had ever heard.
In days to come, the gossips would say, and frequently, that Mr. Jarrow was no fit companion for Mrs. Tate and her two sons. Speculation rose to fever pitch when the gentleman and lady wed in a private ceremony attended by Lord Saxe, Mr. and Mrs. Corbin Denny, Viscount Ashcroft but not his mama, Mrs. Tate’s two sons and their tutor, minus her father and the dog; but, when no developments of an even faintly salacious nature followed, interest in them gradually waned. Forgotten by the rumormongers, Angel and his Diana were left in peace to enjoy their long lives together without recourse to either turtle or trapeze, although a masquerade costume was occasionally resurrected and enjoyed.
As for Lord Saxe and Mrs. Kingston and their various associates—
That’s a tale for another day.
Thank you for reading THE PURLOINED HEART. If you enjoyed this book, please consider returning to the website from which you purchased it and leaving a review.
Turn the page for a preview of THE TYBURN WALTZ, book I of The Tyburn Trilogy.
THE TYBURN WALTZ
Chapter One
“More,” she murmured. “Harder. Faster.” Ned eyed the breasts swaying before him, laved one rosy nipple with his tongue. The bedstead creaked beneath them. Lilah was racing hell for leather. He thanked God she didn’t have a riding crop.
He took firmer grip on her slender hips, thrust upward into her, again and again, at a good spanking pace. She gasped and moaned and rode him like the well-seasoned equestrienne that she was. Their bodies were slick with sweat, their image faintly ludicrous in the mirror hung above the bed. An ignoble end for the fifteenth Earl of Dorset: asphyxiated while taking his pleasure amid a whore’s tumbled sheets.
Ned couldn’t die yet. His cousin had been quite clear about the reproductive duties of an earl. He reached down and slid his fingers into Lilah’s damp curls. A skilled caress, and then another. Her body tensed. One more deft manipulation. She shuddered, and groaned. As did he. She collapsed upon his chest.
Moments passed, before she stirred, and slid off him. Ned opened his eyes. Lilah made a pretty picture, stretched beside him on her crimson satin sheets. Her long, thick chestnut hair fanned out on the pillow. Her lavender eyes, as they met his in the mirror, held the cynical expression of one who had no illusions about the world.
Ned sat up and reached for his waistcoat. “I’ve brought you something. You won’t insult me by refusing it.” While it was the custom for patrons of Lilah’s establishment to give her girls a present — which was then passed along to their employer who in turn shared with them a small portion of its worth — Lilah seldom accepted such tokens for herself. He dropped a string of glittering gems on the sheet.
Lilah held the bracelet up to the light, contemplated the quality of the stones, fastened it on her wrist and admired it again. “I wouldn’t dream of insulting you. Or your excellent taste. Thank you, Ned.”
“You know I would be happy to do more.” He began to dress.
Lilah propped herself up among her pillows to better watch her guest pull on his clothes. The fifteenth Earl of Dorset — to her forever mere Ned Fairchild — was all graceful hard-muscled strength, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, thick hair of a deep auburn shade, and eyes a woman might drown in, had she so little sense. His face was saved from beauty by a slightly aquiline nose and a more-than-slightly wicked month. “Since you are so eager to be of service, you may go downstairs and tell me if my new French chef is worth the fortune I am paying him,” she said.
The moment for any serious conversation had clearly passed. Ned smoothed his hair and gave his cravat one last twitch before he stepped out into the hall.
The Academy was doing a brisk business this evening, its elegant apartments graced with gentlemen in evening dress, women in gowns as fashionable as any worn by ladies of the ton. Ned strolled through the supper room, assured himself that Lilah’s French chef lived up to his reputation; spared a brief glance into another chamber where an enactment of the Tahitian Feast of Venus was underway. This highly imaginative tribute to the anthropological researches of Captain Cook featured live sex acts performed by South Sea Island ‘maidens’ and a dozen well-endowed athletic youths. Flower-wreathed dildos added a whimsical touch.
Ned had seen it all before. And done it, like as not. Once with considerably more enjoyment than now. Everything had changed, and not for the better, since he’d become a bloody earl. He collected his hat and greatcoat from a servant. Perhaps a brisk walk might clear the cobwebs from his head.
King’s Place was situated near the royal palace. Almost all the houses lining the street were dedicated to pleasure, their interiors designed by the likes of the Adam brothers, decorated with furniture in the elegant styles of Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Liveried servants were de rigueur, as well as expensive carriages, for the residents never walked anywhere except in St. James’s Park. Unlike Ned, who pulled up his coat collar and set out for a stroll.
He had not far to travel, yet still far enough that a more prudent man might have chosen not to go afoot. The streets were dark and empty save for the watchman in his box, the occasional carriage that emerged wraith-like from obscuring mist made up of equal parts coal smoke and river fog. A skinny dog snarled at Ned as it slunk into an alleyway. Moodily, he kicked at a pile of rubble, half-wishing that some thugs would try and interfere with him so that he might break their heads.
No one interfered, alas, and at length he reached his destination, an ancient brick structure perched near the river on the north side of the Thames. The old house pleased Ned, for it stood as far beyond the pale a
s he. Wakely Court had been the ancestral home of his grandmother’s family, all now deceased. The ramshackle building stretched three stories above the street, was adorned with turrets and gables and a forest of tall rectangular chimneys, bay and mullioned windows with tiny jeweled diamond panes set in designs of ornamental lead.
Light shone from a great many of those windows, despite the lateness of the hour. Ned approached the front door.
That great portal creaked open to reveal a glum-faced individual of middle years and impressive girth, his old-fashioned livery oddly spattered with damp. “I believe you will find Mistress Clea in the library, my lord,” said Tidcombe, as he took Ned’s hat and coat.
Ned mounted the stair. Although she refused to accept it, Clea at fifteen years of age was not altogether grown up. He wondered what excuse she would have, this time, for being out of bed so late.
Candles blazed in the library, illuminating heavy oak furniture embellished with intricately carved animals and flowers; a chimneypiece featuring Bacchanalian revels rife with nubile maidens and satyrs and a large quantity of grapevines; a ceiling with massive molded beams supporting lesser timbers, the spaces between filled with plastered lath. Dusty velvet draperies hung at the windows. Moth-eaten tapestries adorned the paneled walls. Countless books lined the old shelves, rested tipsily on the floor alongside maps of the world, a calculating board with counters, and a perpetual almanac in a frame. The library was Ned’s favorite chamber. To its clutter, he had added a huge pewter inkstand and an excessively ugly statue that he had brought back from his travels and given place of honor on the old desk.
The first thing Ned noticed as he stepped into the brightly-lit room was that one window lacked a curtain. Second was the aroma of spilt brandy that hung heavy in the air. Third was his sister, perched on the chair behind his desk. She was aglow with excitement. Dirt smeared her muslin nightdress, and one pretty cheek. Cobwebs bedecked her mahogany hair.
The Purloined Heart (The Tyburn Trilogy) Page 22
