Lady of Intrigue

by Sabrina Darby

  “I need to rest,” she said, letting her very real exhaustion show. “I am not yet myself.”

  It was the truest statement she had said to him that hour, but she wasn’t certain if she would ever again be herself. Now she had secrets, ones she kept from her father. Now she had known something very like love, and had chosen to leave it behind, and that knowledge settled as a constant ache in her chest, in her stomach, and in her throat. Any ideal she had thought she might have had, she had discarded in lieu of something else that she could not yet fully understand.

  “Jane.” Her father stopped her as she was halfway out the door. “I should never have let you travel without me.”

  His pain hurt her and yet it was such a relief to have seen his agony, to know that her father loved her no matter how frugal he was with affectionate words. Again, she considered sitting by him, revealing all that had occurred, but the words stayed swollen in her chest. Instead, she offered her father a smile and shook her head. “Hindsight.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jane’s new gown was relatively simple, gold silk with small puffed sleeves and a strand of tiny pearls along the bodice. With the gilded frames, chandeliers and sconces, and the mirrors that reflected that golden candlelight, the dress allowed her to blend in to the soiree and not stand out more than the nine days’ wonder she already was.

  Her ordeal—the version she told in which a farm wife had taken her in, followed by days of unconsciousness and even more days of immobility—had whet the imagination of all the hangers on, the Viennese socialites, the petty princes and lords attached to delegation, those relatively unimportant in the proceedings, and just below the affairs of Tsar Alexander and Metternich were the salacious thoughts people imposed upon her experience.

  Not that they were entirely wrong. Even though nothing permanent of that month remained other than a slight pain where she still healed and the bruises on her chest, she remembered Gerard’s hands on her body as if his touch had marked her indelibly. But they did not need to know that. Still, people questioned her constantly. Jane bore it because there was some questioning of her own she wished to do.

  After a few days of indulging in absolute inactivity, the like of which she had not known her entire life, she attempted to throw herself into assisting her father, as she had since the age of seventeen when, during the week that her father’s trusted secretary was ill with the ague, she took over the matter of his correspondence. It had seemed as though every experience Jane had to that point had prepared her to be her father’s factotum. It was said that Queen Elizabeth had spoken six languages, corresponded with her cousins (Jane, Edward, and Mary) about matters of religion and philosophy. It was her example Jane sought to emulate when she diligently did all that her governess and tutors asked of her, and then sat up late in the library teaching herself German by flickering candlelight, which was why her father’s sudden unwillingness to entrust much work to her or to include her in several meetings hurt. As a result, passing her days among the men of the British delegation was more tiresome than invigorating, and her mind returned again and again to Gerard.

  He might not be forthcoming about why he killed Lord Powell, but others would know who might wish the man dead. She would be discreet, of course. She didn’t wish anyone to suspect she knew the crash was anything other than an accident. Those who didn’t know such a thing did not need to know, and those who did might not be as generous about her life as Gerard. But she had to know. Was there perhaps an honorable excuse for his actions? Did any of that matter?

  Yet she was compelled.

  Thus she was dancing with Alistair Whitley. She had never paid the man any particular attention before. He was of an age with her, which was why she was making something of a sweep through the junior clerks. It was easy enough to ask small questions about the Powells when talking about her perilous adventure.

  However, Alistair Whitley seemed completely unaware that he had been the focus of Lady Powell’s amorous attentions, and from the first moment Jane showed any interest, Mr. John Penman, younger son of Baron Munset, hovered around her like a bee.

  “Yes, it was a rather harrowing experience,” she said, when the end of the dance brought her to the edge of the floor with both the young men by her side. “By the time I was conscious and able to make any decent decisions, the Brumbles had long given up on me.” The dig was ungenerous of her, but the couple and Sir Joseph Grimsby had called upon her shortly after her arrival in Vienna and the thrust of their conversation had been the distress they had experienced and how wrong she had been to switch carriages. She did wonder that the search for her had not been lengthy and comprehensive. After consulting a map upon her arrival in Vienna, she had ascertained that the abandoned farmhouse where she had stayed with Gerard had not been very far away from the main road at all.

  “I am amazed by your fortitude,” Penman said, admiringly.

  “Fortitude,” she repeated with a laugh. “I traveled with grief heavy in my heart for my lost companions. I was very relieved to learn that Lady Powell is alive and recovering, but I imagine Lord Powell will be much missed by the delegation. Although I was never quite certain what was his area of expertise…”

  “Women,” Penman said.

  “Spices,” said Whitley at exactly the same time.

  “It was a poor jest,” Penman said quickly. “Lord Powell was a great ambassador for England. He spent many years here in Vienna during his youth.”

  Penman’s faux pas tightened his lips and she didn’t get much more from him. In fact, the majority of her interviews progressed no further than that. People recalled Powell as a dry wit, jovial after his first glass and frequently cuttingly cruel when deep into his cups. In London, she would have resources to investigate more deeply—into his finances, his connections. Here in Vienna she was limited. A visit to Powell’s former mistress, Lady Heathland, revealed that the man had dabbled in investments. Shipping, specifically. That he had taken his wife’s dowry and used it to invest in the spice trade, apparently successful enough to be generous with his gifts.

  “But why speak with me if you wish to know more about him. Why not talk to his last mistress?” Lady Heathland pointed across the room. Then she glanced at Jane with a sly look. “Or were you his last?”

  Jane choked on her laughter in surprise.

  “No?” Lady Heathland said. “A pity for you. He was a bit of a fool at times but a rather satisfying lover.”

  Jane wished to ask more about the diminutive blonde across the room, basic things even, such as the woman’s name, but Lady Heathland was far more interested in discussing all the affairs among those presently gathered in Vienna. With that many dignitaries packed into the relatively provincial city of Vienna—it was no cosmopolis like Paris or London—intrigues abounded. Simply beginning her careful questioning uncovered a myriad of ones in which she had no interest. Yet, gossip was currency. A currency that was useful for delicately ascertaining the name of Albertina Abbing in as circuitous a way as to disguise her true interest in the woman. Useful, as well, as an entrée into that interview a day later when a studiously offhand comment about a French comte had her and Mrs. Abbings laughing like old school chums. With no one else about to introduce them, they did so informally.

  “The famous Lady Jane Langley,” Mrs. Abbings said. “Your story of survival and intrepidity has certainly made the rounds.”

  Jane blushed at that, the pleasure of successfully making the connection she wished overshadowed by the guilt of knowing she had survived where this woman’s lover had not. But she could hardly offer her condolences to a near stranger.

  “I assure you, it is not what I would wish to be known for.”

  Mrs. Abbings nodded. “Your father must be beside himself with joy to have you returned safe and sound. I know I would be to be rejoined with a loved one thought dead.”

  Jane smiled vaguely, trying to hide her confusion at the oblique way the woman seemed to reference Lord Powell. Did Mrs. Ab
bings think Jane did or did not know about their affair? She wanted to test the waters but the question was how to do so politely?

  “I believe his assistants are more relieved,” she said.

  “Ah yes. It must be very exciting to be in the thick of all the negotiations. I do enjoy having so much society here in Vienna. One cannot take a step without stumbling upon an interesting person.”

  That much was true, and if Jane had not had her odd excursion with Gerard, and then on her own, she would have enjoyed the scene much more. Those days on the road she had missed the work that had once given her life so much meaning, but now, at her father’s side, even the small amount of work he did send her way no longer interested her in the same way. She did it all perfunctorily.

  “It’s quite stimulating here, but from what I understand there’s a decided lack of negotiations.”

  Mrs. Abbings laughed. “Men, they always take such a circuitous way to get to the point. Take Lord Powell. I was well acquainted with him, did you know? He was a man who liked to tie three or four stories together before coming back to make his final, always brilliant, point.”

  This was true. It had been part of the man’s wit and sense of humor. But more importantly, the woman had just offered the perfect opening, as if she had desired to establish more of a bond with Jane and understood using Powell was one way to do so.

  “Did you meet here in Vienna?”

  “No. In London. I promised to show him around my home.” She blinked rapidly as if she were about to cry, but then smiled through the incipient tears to describe a night at Vauxhall. She did an admirable job of hinting at an affair without ever actually mentioning such a thing. It was clear that despite Lady Powell’s presence, she had expected the affair to continue here in Vienna.

  “Ah, I thought perhaps it might have been here, that perhaps business concerns had taken him abroad. Shipping, I believe?”

  Mrs. Abbings shrugged. “I did not concern myself with such things.”

  A few more minutes of conversation suggested this line of questioning was a dead end, but Jane could not dismiss the woman. Mrs. Abbings kept bringing up new topics of conversation.

  Returned to her room in the early hours of the morning, Jane set her thoughts on Powell to pen and paper. She said nothing of Gerard, phrased her interest as stemming from a fictitious offhand comment the Powells had made as they traveled across France, and then sealed the letter. Lord Landsdowne would have been her natural confidant—he already held one of her secrets—but it was entirely possible that he had ordered the Powells’ deaths. Yet if that were the case, then the reason would be political, and honorable, for Landsdowne put England and family above all else. And Gerard refused to admit that his reasons were in any way honorable, which was why she was sending this letter to Lord Landsdowne after all. Because, not knowing Jane’s connection to Gerard, Landsdowne might reveal his own. Or, if Gerard had confided in his grandfather, then…in that case Jane did not know what. It was hard to think through this particular iteration. Everything Gerard had said pointed to the client being someone else, but Jane wanted it to be Landsdowne.

  When she laid her head down on the pillow, she closed her eyes, and despite understanding that she was torturing herself, unnecessarily revisited each moment she had spent with Gerard, from the carriage to his apartment. Her chest ached at the memories that were painful, sweet, and tinged with the darkness of guilt.

  After a few days more, life in Vienna began to fill Jane with a certain malaise. She remembered with some chagrin a conversation she had had only months before with the new Lady Templeton—Gerard’s sister-in-law—in which she had defended the right of the great powers to decide the fate of Poland. But here in this city, the injustice of the jostling for position and power was impossible to deny. Although representatives of nearly all the countries on the continent had gathered, the fate and legitimacy of kingdoms, principalities and duchies fell to a very few, and were variable depending on their treaties and alliances, their personal goals, or romantic liaisons.

  It was not so much that Jane’s opinions had changed, but that the extremity of her practical nature had been broken. Or perhaps not even that. She had shared so many stories of her life with Gerard, ones on which she had rarely thought, had pushed to the side, and in the telling a pattern had emerged. Again and again, she had taken the side of the less powerful.

  The image she had had of herself did not fit with this newer understanding, and the two were hard to reconcile, as it was hard to reconcile her feelings for Gerard. She no longer knew herself, and thus her time in Vienna was unfulfilling. But she went through the motions, assisted her father, attended soirees, balls, and the theater. Packed a month’s worth of a London Season’s outings into a week.

  At the theater one night, in the company of her cousin, Princess von Wolfstein, she stared at the stage where the actors so earnestly, yet ridiculously, engaged in their work and was at once overwhelmed by it all. She excused herself, slipped beyond the velvet curtains of the box, through the well-oiled door, and into the empty corridor. She stared blindly at the wooden floor with its bright red carpet.

  The air shifted. There was barely a sound, nothing more than the slightest scuff of soft leather against wood to alert her that she wasn’t alone. Fear chilled her skin and she started walking, away, away from what she did not dare to face. Footsteps louder, faster and then with a rush that had her gasping for breath, she was swept back against a hard form, a hand clasped over her mouth, an arm around her waist.

  She knew that hand, she knew the scent of the man behind her. Fear buoyed into a giddy joy. That dreamlike episode after the accident had been real. And he had found her.

  Finally.

  For the first time since the day she left Frankfurt, she realized how much she had wanted him to follow her, to come for her, to prove that his words of love were as lasting as he proclaimed. Unless he came because he saw her as a threat. Yet if so, she had been apart long enough to do damage if she chose to.

  “Don’t scream,” he whispered, and she wanted to laugh.

  “Gerard,” she said, his name barely more than a breath against his skin. She nipped playfully at his fingers, a kiss that made her want to press more upon his skin. He groaned, the sound delicious against her ear. “Don’t you know you should wear gloves at the theater?”

  She turned in his arms. He was handsome, dressed like a gentleman, as he hadn’t been during their time together. If he escorted her out into the open space no one would ever question that he belonged.

  He laughed, and then the look in his eyes darkened. Her pulse quickened. Energy coursed through her, surging up to meet that look.

  “This way,” he said, leading her down the hall. For the briefest moment she wondered if anyone would see them and recognize her. But then there was a door in the fabric-covered paneling of the wall, an easy one to overlook, for storage or some other such thing. He led her inside. It was dark, but a window high up illuminated the small room in shadows. A storage room, indeed, with chairs, and rolled up carpets stacked against the wall. But then she was in his arms again, pulled tight against his body. His head dipped down. The touch of his lips was nothing like the ones shared in the candlelit shadows of the burned-out cottage. There was nothing gentle about him now. He was taking from her, demanding, and she gave him what he wanted, eagerly.

  She lost herself in the taste of him. And then his mouth on her cheek, her jaw, the lobe of her ear.

  “I should abscond with you right now.”

  “I wouldn’t go.”

  “I could force you.” He punctuated his words by pushing her gently against the wall, pinning her there with his body.

  “But you wouldn’t.” She gasped the words out over the overwhelming pleasure of his mouth on her neck, his tongue on her skin. “And you know why I couldn’t stay.”

  “Because you wouldn’t give up your life as the daughter of an earl for love.”

  “Certainly not. At the ver
y least, it would require that I love you.” The words felt dishonest, but they were only the truth. If she did love him, if she did admit to such a thing, she was certain he would never let her go. He caressed her nearly bare shoulder, revealed by the dress she had dared to wear because the signs of her injuries had finally faded. His lips followed and she shivered deliciously under the touch.

  Then his mouth was ravenous and his hands were searching, grabbing at fabric, and caressing her leg through the voluminous cloth of her drawers. She knew what would come next; she remembered the touch of his hand at the center of her, inside her. She remembered it and wanted it. Even here, even at a theater in Vienna, she was his. She didn’t think to stop him, didn’t worry about being found.

  She needed this. Him. If they were found, it would be scandalous, and there would be nothing left for her to protect, no reputation to speak of. Everything would be out of her control.

  From his seat in the pit, Gerard had watched Jane leave her box. An unexpected opening, but he had taken it with alacrity, made his way swiftly up the stairs. He had planned only to speak to her for a few moments, but when he found her standing in the middle of the hallway, looking utterly exhausted and low in spirits, he had wanted nothing more than to sweep her up in his arms, take care of her, take her somewhere safe.

  This dark room, her body against his, his fingers exploring her center, this was not safe. But from the moment she had turned in his arms, plans, intent and reason all fell by the wayside. What he needed was Jane. To make Jane his. She sighed at the touch of his fingers on her, stroking where hair met damp folds. And he parted those too. She squirmed when his finger touched some place more sensitive than the rest, which seemed to grow harder and heavier, fuller at that touch. Heat pulsed through his body.

  She would not admit to love but if this was not love, perhaps he didn’t need that word. He could be satisfied for eternity with the expression on her face, the joy with which she greeted him.