by Jane Feather
The other two nodded thoughtfully. "Well, I own I've always thought of him as a decent fellow," the captain declared into his now empty glass. "I'm ready enough to give him the benefit of the doubt."
"Good." Neil smiled and refilled his glass just as the door knocker sounded again. He hoped it would be Fortescue, so that by the time Sylvester arrived, everyone would be in agreement as to how to greet him.
The stringy figure of Major Fortescue loomed in the door behind the servant. He was greeted warmly by his friends, a glass pressed into his hand, his questions as to his host's battered countenance answered.
"Gerard's expectin' Gilbraith," the captain said. "D'you remember that rum business about the colors?"
"Yes, and I never believed a word of it," Fortescue declared. "He was a damn fool to resign from the regiment. Made him look guilty."
"He was severely wounded," Neil reminded him.
"True, but he had no call to resign." The major took a deep draft of his wine.
Sylvester heard their voices as he stood in the hall, handing his cape and gloves to the servant. They were well-remembered voices from the past. Gerard hadn't told him who his fellow guests would be, but he'd set up a reunion of old comrades. What the devil was he playing at now? Was this to be some twisted exercise in mortification, despite his previous gestures of friendship?
Sylvester stiffened his shoulders as he prepared to enter the room.
"Lord Stoneridge, sir." The servant announced him.
"Ah, Sylvester, welcome." All smiles, Neil came across the room, hand extended. "Before you ask about my eye, I took a tumble from my horse. Now, you know everyone, of course."
"Of course. But it's been a long time," Sylvester said deliberately.
"Too long," Fortescue declared, grasping his hand in a warm clasp. "Why the hell did you resign in such a hurry, man?"
"A head wound is no light matter, Peter," Sylvester said. "It still plagues me."
His old friend examined him closely. He seemed to be hesitating, and Sylvester guessed he was about to bring up Vimiera, but his eyes were puzzled rather than hostile.
Before he could do so, however, Gerard spoke with brisk heartiness. "A glass of claret, Sylvester, and come to the fire." And the other two men moved forward with their own greeting, and the moment was past.
And it never came again. There was to be no opportunity to air the subject; it was as if it had never happened. For a moment Sylvester thought how easy it would be to settle for that. People were willing to forgive and forget… to give him the benefit of the doubt. He could resume a normal life. Except that he couldn't live with himself any longer; he could no longer live under the shadow of cowardice. And then, of course, there was the fact that Gerard had tried to kill him.
As the evening wore on, he watched Gerard and recognized with the eye of experience the man's fear, the edge of near panic in the flat eyes. How often during their boyhood had he seen it? He was filled with a depthless disgust for the man, a disgust far greater and more potent than simple anger, and realized that he'd always felt it to some extent, even in their schooldays when he'd tried to persuade the boy to stand up to the bullies.
And how had he acquired that black eye and split lip this time? Not in the corridors of Westminster School, certainly, but his face had come into contact with more than the hard ground.
As they sat around the card table, it was clear to everyone that Neil's game of whist was distracted, infuriating the captain, who was his partner. As the party broke up, Major Fortescue voiced the opinion of the group.
"You serve too fine a claret, m'boy, for a man who's not the world's best card player." He flung an arm around Gerard's shoulder. "Damn fine claret it was. Can't say I blame you for over-imbibing."
"Well, I can," the captain grumbled. "Lost me fifty pound clear, you have, Gerard. I should have let Barney have my place."
Sylvester wondered why he had been the only one to notice that Gerard drank little. Deliberately he hung back as the others left.
"Another glass, Sylvester?" Neil didn't sound too enthusiastic as he made the offer out of courtesy.
"Thank you." Sylvester sat down beside the fire, blandly ignoring the reluctant tone. "An excellent evening, Neil. I owe you a debt of gratitude."
Smiling, he accepted a refilled glass and calmly began the hunt. "Tell me, did you discuss Vimiera with our friends before I arrived?"
Neil's eyes shifted and then he smiled stiffly. "A word, perhaps. We're all agreed that the story's dead as the proverbial dodo. No point ruining good friendships over it. You'll not find it mentioned again by anyone."
"I do indeed stand in your debt," Sylvester said thoughtfully, his eyes hooded so that his companion couldn't see their sardonic glitter. "I know it's been a long time, but could you tell me again exactly what happened to you that afternoon?"
Gerard's lips thinned. He moved a hand through the air in a vaguely dismissive motion. "It'll do no one any good to go through it again, Sylvester."
"You were coming up in support. Did you see me surrender?"
Gerard closed his eyes as if the memory were too painful. "As I said at the court-martial, I wasn't with you when you surrendered, so I can have no opinion on the matter. The facts spoke for themselves."
"But you were coming up in support?"
"Yes. As it had been agreed at the battle plan."
"With a sizable force?" Sylvester probed slowly.
"A hundred and fifty men."
"Then why in the name of grace would I have surrendered?" Sylvester raised his head and fixed Neil Gerard with a piercing stare. "Goddammit, man. I was told they slaughtered half my men like pigs after they'd taken the colors. They had a damn good try at slaughtering me."
"I don't have the answer, Gilbraith." Neil stood up abruptly. "No one will ever know the truth, so why don't you just let sleeping dogs lie?"
Sylvester rose to his feet also and said deliberately, "I can't do that, Neil. I can't live with the possibility that I might have done something so dastardly. I have to find out what happened." He watched the other man's face closely and saw the panic flare, a naked flame, in Gerard's flat brown eyes.
He set his glass on the table, and the click of glass on mahogany sounded in the silence like the clash of cymbals. He shrugged with an assumption of carelessness.
"Ah, well, I must take my leave. I trust I haven't outstayed my welcome, but it's good to spend an evening like the old days," he said cheerfully, strolling into the hall. "I'll just have to trust that my memory of that half hour, or however long it was, returns." He took his hat and cape from the servant.
"Thank you again, Gerard, for a most pleasant evening." His smile was friendly, his eyes devoid of all expression as he shook his host's hand. Then he frowned. "What was the name of your sergeant? The one who testified at the court-martial. Savage-looking piece of work, but a useful man to have beside one in a fight, I'd imagine."
Gerard shook his head. "I don't recall his name."
"Pity. I might have tracked him down. Well, good night again."
He walked rapidly down the two steps of the narrow house onto the pavement, turned, and raised a hand in farewell. Gerard's face was thrown into relief by the lamplit hall behind him. His expression was one of pure terror, and the fingers of his right hand worried at his black and swollen eye. Then the door closed and the light was gone.
Jud O'Flannery had been the monosyllabic sergeant. Sylvester could see his face with that eye patch and the great scarlet cicatrix slashing his cheek as clearly as if it were yesterday.
And the passing reference to the man had brought that look of terror to Gerard's battered, cowardly face.
Sylvester stood for a minute on the pavement, looking thoughtfully toward the flickering gas jets lighting Piccadilly at the far end of the street, before he turned to walk in the opposite direction to Curzon Street.
Neil Gerard flung on his coat and left the house by the back alley. He strode to Jermyn Street, to a house where he was
well-known, where his tastes were as well-known and readily catered to. The little girl they brought him, dressed in a spotted pinafore, her hair in pigtails, trembled convincingly and wept and screamed most satisfactorily at the appropriate moments. But her eyes were sharp and knowing even through the pain he inflicted with a savage need to make someone pay for his terror.
Chapter Twenty-four
It was after midnight when Foster let the Earl of Stoneridge into the house, and Sylvester was surprised to find his household still busy, the main salons still brightly lit.
"What's to do, Foster?" He sidestepped a servant hurrying from the dining room with a tray of dirty dishes. His mother and sister kept early hours, and the household should have been abed long since.
"Oh, quite a party we've had, sir." Foster beamed, taking his cape and cane. "Quite like old times it was, my lord, to have the family all around the dinner table, and Mr. Edward, too, and Lady Clarry's beau."
He closed the front door, observing judiciously, "That young Mr. Lacey seems a nice gentleman. He and Lady Clarry will be making a match of it before Christmas, you mark my words."
He turned back to the earl, his beam fading as he took in his lordship's expression, a mixture of chagrin and acute exasperation. "Am I to understand Lady Belmont and the girls were here to dinner?" Sylvester asked slowly. "With my mother and sister?"
"Oh, yes, indeed, sir. But Lady Gilbraith and Miss Gilbraith retired early, before tea. I understand her ladyship does not approve of lottery tickets and such trivial amusements." Foster's voice was now expressionless, his face impassive, except for his eyes, where Sylvester swore he could detect a glimmer of unholy amusement.
"The family do tend to become a little noisy, of course, when playing such games," Foster continued blandly. "Many's the time I've heard Lady Belmont beg them to quieten down, but never too seriously… Will I lock up now, my lord?"
"Yes, I'm going to bed," the earl said curtly, striding to the stairs.
"Oh, by the by, my lord. Miss Gilbraith had to be moved from the Chinese room," Foster intoned. "She found the dragons on the wallpaper made her bilious. Good night, my lord."
Sylvester's lip quivered despite his annoyance, but he managed to keep his amusement from his voice as he bade the butler good night.
He strode upstairs in a seething muddle of acute frustration and reluctant amusement. Instead of suffering a boring and thoroughly disagreeable evening, Theo had obviously had a wonderful time with her favorite people, contriving to exclude his mother and sister into the bargain. He was getting very tired of being outmaneuvered by that ramshackle gypsy.
And then he thought of Mary and the dragons, and a reluctant little chuckle escaped him. Bilious, indeed! He could imagine how his in-laws would have enjoyed it. Even Elinor would have had her quiet smile.
A thin gold line of candlelight showed under Theo's door as he went past to his own room. Presumably, she was relishing the success of her ploy. He marched into his room, letting the door bang shut behind him, hoping it had made her jump… hoping she might even be a little apprehensive, knowing he was back.
Henry never waited up for him, and his own room was lit by the banked fire in the grate and a single lamp, turned down low on the dresser. Yawning, he undressed and was about to climb into bed when he heard a chair scraping across the wooden floor in the room next door.
Theo was still awake. He shrugged into his dressing gown and softly opened his door onto the corridor, where candlelight now flickered from the wall sconces and there was the deep hush of a sleeping house. He glanced down and saw the light still below Theo's door.
He lifted the latch and pushed open the door. Theo was standing at the dresser, her back to him, a glass in her hand. She saw him in the mirror and spun around, placing the glass beside a small brown bottle on the dresser.
"Sylvester!"
"Why aren't you asleep?" he asked, coming into the room.
"I wasn't feeling very sleepy." She pushed her tumbled hair away from her face.
"Too stimulating an evening, perhaps," he observed dryly.
A slight guilty flush tipped her cheekbones. "I thought your mother might enjoy the company."
"Fustian!" he declared.
Theo's flush deepened. She regarded him in silence for a minute, then said with an air of resolution, "I am truly sorry about this afternoon, Sylvester. It was stupid and reckless and anything else you want to call it"
He strode across to her, catching her chin, saying roughly, "What you mean is that forgetting to take your pistol was all of those things. Isn't that what you mean, Theo?
"Isn't that what you mean?" he repeated when she didn't immediately respond.
"I suppose so," she confessed. "I do believe everything would have been fine if I'd thought it through. Only I didn't."
"No, you didn't, and nearly got both yourself and Edward killed." His fingers tightened on her jaw. "Well, it's not going to happen again, Theo. As soon as my mother leaves, you're going back to Stoneridge."
"Alone?" Startled indignation flared in the purple eyes.
"Alone," he confirmed. "I have some unfinished business here. When it's done, I'll come myself."
"Oh, so that's it!" She jerked her head sideways, away from his hold. "You're afraid I might dip my toes in your unfinished business! You don't understand. You just don't understand! I want to be a part of what's troubling you. I want to help you. People who care for people want to help them. But you don't understand that because you don't understand what it is to care for someone." Her voice thickened on an angry sob as she flung away from him.
"What do you mean, I don't care?" Sylvester said, taken aback. "Of course I do."
She was standing in front of the fire, and the shape of her body was outlined beneath the almost transparent lawn of her nightgown. He could see the pale swell of her breasts and the darker shadow of her nipples. His body stirred, sprang to life.
"Come here," he said softly, reaching for her hands, drawing her against him. "Let me show you how much I care."
"No!" Theo said fiercely, trying to push him away. "Don't touch me! I don't want you to touch me, Stoneridge. In fact, I don't think I want you to touch me ever again!"
"Now, that's a silly thing to say." And she knew that it was.
He caught her wrists in one hand, clipping them behind her back, pressing her body against his, his other hand tilting her chin so that she had to look up at him. Her eyes were a battlefield of confusion, need, and anger.
She jerked her head aside as he bent to kiss her.
His mouth bumped into her ear, which struck him as good a place as any other. His tongue darted, a hot, moist lance, and Theo struggled in his hold, but he laughed and tightened his grip as his tongue explored the intricate whorls of the dainty shell lying flat against the side of her head.
"I adore your ears," he murmured, his breath a warm and tickling rustle. Theo tried to pull her head free of his grasp, struggling to resist the irresistible. He knew how sensitive her ears were, how after a very few moments she would yield to the tormenting, arousing stimulation that would spread from the spot where his tongue danced right down to her toes.
His teeth nibbled her earlobe, and she bucked and jerked in his hold, every sinuous wriggle increasing his determination to transform her resistance to passion. She was too slender and light to have much muscle power, and he knew her strength lay in the way she could use her body. Swiftly, he adjusted his hold so that he held her sideways across his thighs. She was now unbalanced and could get no leverage. He swung a leg over hers, imprisoning her legs just in case she was contemplating one of her devastating high kicks, and then, confident that he had her firmly secured, he smiled down into her furious, flushed face.
"That's better. Now, are you going to let me get on with giving us both pleasure, or shall we wrestle some more?"
There was something different about him, she thought. Something carefree and impulsive, as if he'd shed some restraints. Desire danc
ed in his eyes, and she could smell brandy sweetness on his breath as he laughed down at her.
"You're foxed," she accused, forgetting her predicament for the moment. It was hard to imagine Sylvester allowing cognac to erode the tight control he kept over himself and his life… and his private concerns, she remembered with a fresh surge of anger.
He shook his head. "Not in the least, my love." He lifted her into his arms. "My dear little gypsy, don't look as if you're going to the gallows." He laid her on the bed and she gazed up at him, her eyes huge and unreadable, her hair a black mantel flowing over the billowing folds of her white nightgown.
He put a knee on the bed beside her and lightly traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertip. Theo didn't move. He ran his thumb over her mouth, expecting her tongue to dart forth in her usual response, flickering against the pad of his thumb. But she continued to lie motionless beneath the caress, although her eyes had darkened and he could read their sensual glow. The glow deepened as he slid his hand down the column of her throat, and his fingers tiptoed into the neck of her nightgown, dancing over the swell of her breast, circling her nipple without touching.
The glow deepened but she didn't move, just lay gazing up at him. There was challenge in her eyes, something he wasn't used to seeing in the bedroom.
He stood up, shrugging out of his dressing gown, letting it fall to the floor before kneeling on the bed again. Theo's eyes darted involuntarily down his body, and he suppressed a smile. He placed a hand on her ankle and smoothed upward over her shin, cupping her rounded kneecap. Pausing, he watched her face. She gazed at the ceiling, but her mouth was soft, a delicate pink blossoming on her cheek.
She wasn't capable of hiding her responses, he thought, allowing his hand to continue its upward journey. Her body tensed, her skin rippled as his fingertips crept into the heated cleft and flickered momentarily against the tight bud of her sex.
He withdrew his hand, and Theo drew a swift breath of surprise and what he hoped was disappointment. Catching up the hem of her nightgown, he began to fold it backward with deliberate care, smoothing each fold before beginning the next, baring her body inch by inch.
