The Garden Intrigue

by Lauren Willig

  His hand began the long, slow slide from ankle to knee, beneath skirts, beneath petticoats, traveling along her silk stocking to the ribbon that held her garter in place. “But thirty thousand to the rest—”

  He leaned in to kiss her again, but Emma pulled away, saying, very clearly and distinctly, “Marvel.”

  His finger traced the top of her stocking, the band where silk met flesh. “Yes,” he agreed. “Quite marvelous.”

  She pulled back against his arm, pushing his hand away. “Andrew Marvel. ‘To His Coy Mistress.’”

  Not exactly in keeping with the mood, but, all right, points to her for knowing her seventeenth-century poets.

  “Well spotted,” Augustus murmured, and leaned forward to kiss her again, since her lips were so temptingly red and rosy and this had all been going quite well until…

  “It’s not your own,” Emma said. The writing desk wobbled as she pushed back. She shoved her hair back behind her ears. “Those aren’t your words.”

  “Not my words?” Augustus’s brain was still keeping company with his libido. He couldn’t help but notice that her bosom heaved very nicely and that she hadn’t bothered to pull up her bodice.

  Emma yanked up her bodice. Damn.

  “You wrote poetry for Jane,” she said, and bit down on her lip as though to keep herself from saying anything else.

  Oh? Oh. A glimmer of comprehension broke through the fog of desire.

  He took a deep breath. “My own words aren’t good enough for you. My doggerel was good enough for—well, for an adolescent infatuation, but it’s not good enough for you. You deserve better. You deserve the best.”

  “Marvel?”

  “And Shakespeare and Donne and Scève and Ronsard.”

  Emma pressed her lips together in that way she had when she was thinking. At the familiar gesture, Augustus felt a rush of tenderness as disconcerting as it was surprising. Something in his head stirred and whispered, Emma?

  “I’ve been wooed with Sceve before,” Emma said thoughtfully. “And Ronsard and du Bellay. I’d rather just have you. In prose, if need be.” She looked up at him with that peculiar sort of frankness that was entirely hers, saying, “We did promise each other honesty.”

  I’m a British spy and I’ve been using you to get to your friend’s plans.

  There was a mad moment when Augustus was almost tempted to blurt it out, the whole damnable tangle. He wanted to tell her that he had been using her, but not anymore. That whatever that was, it had nothing to do with this. That he hadn’t ever felt like this before and wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling, but whatever it was, it meant that he wanted her with him for a very long time, not out of ploy or policy, but because she was Emma, and he had got rather accustomed to the Emma-ness of her, to the tilt of her head and the cadence of her voice and the sparkle and glitter of her paste jewels as she blazed her way through the room. He wanted to tell her that he thrilled to the crystalline ring of her laughter, that her bluntness intoxicated him, that her lack of self-deception was a revelation and an inspiration.

  And then what? his thwarted libido murmured. Would this all happen before or after she told him he was crazy and/or stomped out of the room?

  She looked so good, all warm and pink and tousled. All she was waiting for was the word, and all that could be his, the flushed flesh above the low neckline of her dress, the reddened lips that pressed together as she waited for his reply, the blue vein that flickered in the hollow of her throat, just waiting for his lips.

  Revelations could wait.

  “It’s prose you want, then?” Augustus said huskily. “I can give you prose.”

  “That would be…nice,” said Emma. Her eyes were dilated and her chest rose and fell rapidly beneath the barrier of her bodice.

  Augustus brushed a finger lightly across one cheekbone, tracing the lines of her face. “You fascinate me,” he said softly. “You confuse me. You intoxicate me.”

  Emma made a breathy little noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I don’t seem to have done anything to your vocabulary.”

  “Haven’t you?” They were practically nose to nose. “I don’t have the words to describe what you do to me, what you’re doing to me right now. Do you want me to tell you how much I want you?”

  Emma made a little noise in the back of her throat, and for an awful moment, Augustus thought she meant to say no.

  She leaned forward, setting the desk wobbling. Her voice was husky as she said, “I’d rather you show me.”

  Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, even though the sky outside was still blue and the sunlight, unconcerned, dawdled lazily on the corners of the desk. Augustus grabbed her so hard that he heard the breath rush out of her lungs in a whoosh.

  “All right,” croaked Emma. “That’s one way.”

  She was laughing. Augustus had never seen anything so wonderful as that laughter.

  “Hush, you,” he said, and leaned forward to kiss her. “Don’t you know mockery isn’t conducive to passion?”

  Emma wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. “Really?” she said, and the bit of Augustus’s brain that could still comprehend language vaguely registered the word.

  “Mmm,” said Augustus, into her neck. “I might be wrong.”

  She made a little mewing noise. Augustus reclaimed her lips as they staggered unevenly in the direction of the bed. There wasn’t far to stagger.

  “Bed?” he murmured.

  “Bed,” she agreed, and dropped down onto the coverlet, pulling him with her.

  Something crinkled. And crinkled again.

  Oh, hell.

  Augustus froze as Emma rolled over and said curiously but without any of the alarm that was steadily mounting in his own chest, “Is there something under here?”

  “It’s nothing,” he said quickly, and reached for her, but it was too late. Emma drew down the coverlet and pulled out Fulton’s plans.

  She looked up at him with confusion. “But aren’t these… ?”

  Chapter 28

  Sussex, England

  May 2004

  I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Dempster.

  Oh, didn’t he? “My papers,” I said, as much for Colin as Dempster. “Someone’s been going through them. And my e-mail.”

  “I don’t know why anyone would want to read your e-mail,” said Joan, joining us on the stairs. I should have known she couldn’t stay away. Her long skirt whispered against the stair treads. She smiled at Colin over my head. “It must be the strain of the academic life. Scholars are such…special people.”

  Delusional, that smile seemed to say. Americans. What can one expect of them?

  I’d show her special.

  “Ask your boyfriend,” I said, my voice cold and hard. “Ask him what he’s looking for. Ask him why he used you to get in here.”

  Just as he had used Serena before.

  “Colin!” exclaimed Joan. “Tell her—”

  “I warned you,” Colin said to Dempster. “Not again.”

  “The film—” Dempster began, just as his girlfriend said something that included the phrase “obviously disturbed,” before both were drowned out by a clangorous knell that echoed in my ears and made me catch at Colin’s arm for balance. It was a horrible, metallic sound, and it seemed to go on and on, catching the guests in the hall in shimmering waves of sound.

  In the corner of the hall, Cate, sans clipboard, was wielding a mallet against a brass gong with considerable vigor and more than a little relish. The tinkle of a fork against a glass would never have been heard in that din. The gong swept everyone away in its wake. The guests stopped gossiping, the waiters stopped circling. Even Joan shut her mouth, although she shot me a look that promised retribution later—and another one, at Dempster, that made me think that the extra-connubial bed wasn’t going to be all that cozy that night.

  An expectant hush settled on the room, broken only by the swish of fabric against the floor as some
one shifted weight, the click of a glass against someone’s ring, and then even those sounds ceased.

  Dinner?

  No. It was Micah Stone.

  The film star sauntered into the room. The hiss and whisper of conversation faded to nothing beneath the click of his cowboy boots against the marble of the entryway. I was reminded, for no discernible reason, of Charles II making his way between bowing courtiers at Whitehall. Micah Stone had that same sort of lanky grace, that same indefinable saunter, the saunter of a man confident enough to lope rather than stride.

  Stone was taller in real life than he appeared on screen. I’d thought it was usually the other way around. Maybe it was just that they paired him with particularly leggy leading ladies. Either way, he made Jeremy, clinging to his left elbow, seem short, stocky, and overdressed, even though Jeremy was a reasonably tall, reasonably fit man, dressed up by dressing down in dark slacks and sport coat. No sport coats for Stone. He was wearing jeans—acid washed—and a T-shirt. It was, appropriately enough, a DreamStone T-shirt, emblazoned with the company’s logo of a large rock. A dreaming rock, presumably.

  “Hey!” he said, and everyone in the hallway gazed at him with rapt attention, as though that casual “hey” were the modern answer to “Friends, Romans, countrymen.” His voice was low and deep and very generically American, neither the surfer drawl of the West Coast or the pseudo-English affectations of certain portions of the East. “I see a lot of familiar faces here. Thanks for making it out here—”

  “To the ass end of nowhere,” I heard someone whisper.

  “—to historic Selwick Hall.” Micah Stone grinned self-deprecatingly, to show he was being silly. Strangely, I felt myself grinning along. Maybe this was what they called charisma? “Where we’ll be filming Much Ado About You. I hope you’re all as excited about this project as I am.”

  “Very!” Jeremy assured him enthusiastically.

  What a douche bag.

  With a nicely calculated head tilt that indicated Jeremy without acknowledging him, Micah Stone said, in that same relaxed, carrying voice, “I’d particularly like to thank the Selwick family, who opened their home for all of us. We all know that having a bunch of film people around is no picnic”—polite titters, some simpers—“but the Selwicks have been nothing but generous.”

  Generous? That was a debatable term. The Selwicks were, in fact, being paid a hefty fee for the use of the hall, somewhat less impressive by being divided three ways, a fact I found massively unfair, given that Colin was the only one put out by it. Colin’s share was being plowed back into the hall; Serena’s to purchase a partnership in the gallery at which she worked; and Jeremy’s—well, let’s just say I didn’t know what Jeremy did with his money and I didn’t particularly want to know, although I’d be willing to bet a lot of it went to designer clothing and first-class airfare.

  “I’d especially like to thank—”

  Micah Stone paused, conducting a leisurely survey of the crowd. Jeremy drew himself up, pre-preening.

  “I’d especially like to thank Colin Selwick, for taking us all in and doing it so graciously. Colin? Where are you, Colin?”

  Wishing himself anywhere but here, if I knew my Colin.

  Colin raised an unenthusiastic hand. He said flatly, “Think nothing of it.”

  Fifty-odd pairs of eyes lifted in our direction. But soft, what movie star from yonder hallway beckoned? We were only a modest five steps up, but it was enough to create a potentially unflattering angle. I resisted the urge to pull my skirt closer to my legs. Next to me, Joan lifted a hand to her perfectly coiffed hair, putting her best profile forward, sidling closer to Colin. Trollop.

  Micah grinned up at the landing. “What are you doing all the way up there? Come on down so we can all give you a hand.”

  I made to step back, but Colin clamped my arm in his, leaving me with no choice but to come along with him. His grip was like a vise. Okay, I got it. He wasn’t doing this alone. As we made our way down the stairs, I resisted the urge to do a QE II wave. Royalty might be trained to wave and walk at the same time, but I didn’t trust my own small motor skills. Even if that might take some of the tension out of the evening, my doing a pratfall down the stairs.

  We made our way through the hall, and the crowd parted for us as it had for Stone, celebrities by extension. I saw Serena press back into the doorway, making herself as small as possible. Joan’s mouth was pursed in a moue of distaste. She was still elevated above the crowd, on the stairs, but the crowd had shifted and their attention with it.

  “Is this Mrs. Selwick?” Micah Stone asked easily, holding out a hand to me.

  “No,” I said quickly, before Jeremy could. “I’m Eloise Kelly, official girlfriend in residence.”

  Micah Stone took my hand. “Nice to meet you, official girlfriend in residence.” From the fringe of the group, Cate grinned at me and gave a little salute with her clipboard. Stone turned back to Colin. “Nice to finally meet you. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cameo in the film?”

  Colin kept his smile in place, but it was the most unconvincing smile I had ever seen. “I don’t perform to strangers.”

  “We’re not strangers here,” Jeremy rushed in. “We’re family! And we’d like to think of DreamStone as part of that family.”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Micah Stone, and I found myself liking him more and more, not just because he was a fellow American in a sea of Brits, but because he managed to cut through Jeremy’s pretensions with two nondescript syllables.

  If we were playing happy families, though, there was someone they’d forgotten.

  “There’s one more Selwick you still have to meet,” I said.

  Fine, I knew it wasn’t any of my business, but hadn’t the poor girl been squished enough by seeing her ex here with a new woman? The least I could do was make sure she was introduced to a dashing movie star. Even if Colin was still Not Speaking to her.

  Stone leaned towards me, American to American. “Is this the one they keep in the attic?”

  Give her a few more hours of this.…“No, this is the pretty one,” I said firmly. I waved a hand in the air. “Serena!”

  Serena detached herself reluctantly from the doorframe and made her way slowly forward. Even in the depths of despair, there was a grace about her. There was something about the bruised look around her eyes that made me think of fairy tales and the princesses condemned to dance night after night in the goblin hall beneath the castle. She had the same bewildered air about her as those poor, dancing princesses in my storybook, going through the motions under compulsion, but doing it very prettily all the same.

  I could see Dempster behind her, on the stairs, watching. I marked him down for later. If he thought he was getting off the hook for rifling through my notes, he had another think coming.

  “My cousin, Serena, is part owner of the Selwick estate,” Jeremy jumped in, oozing confidentially towards Stone. Cousin…stepdaughter…But who was counting? He slid an arm around Serena’s shoulders, staking his claim. “Without her, DreamStone wouldn’t be here.”

  He had to remind everyone?

  “Thanks, Serena,” said Micah Stone. In his deep voice, the name was a caress. I could just hear the squealing teenyboppers. “Nice to meet you. I’m glad they saved the best Selwick for last.”

  Serena murmured something inaudible, but socially correct.

  “Nice place you have here,” said Stone.

  “We like it,” said Jeremy, stepping in front of Colin. “And we hope you do, too.”

  I had to give Colin lots of credit. He kept his mouth shut and held on to his temper, even though he was so tightly wound that if you had put a cuckoo in his mouth, he could have struck the hour. As for Serena, she seemed to shrink in on herself even more. Next time I looked, there would be nothing more than a walking pashmina, with no Serena in it at all.

  I looked around longingly. Where was that champagne, again?

  Stone looked from Colin to Jeremy and came to his o
wn conclusions. Gesturing to Cate and her clipboard, he cut the meet-and-greet short with a seemingly casual, “Shall we head to dinner?”

  Under that laid-back exterior, Stone was bright enough to be aware that something was going on, and he didn’t want any part of it. As he raised his hand, I spotted a hemp bracelet on one wrist, the rough strands woven into a braid, like a child’s lower school art project. The entire outfit was designed to make him look young, unthreatening, laid back. But, so far, he was doing a pretty good job of handling Jeremy. I wondered how much of him was for real.

  I looked at Joan, artificially blond, clinging to Dempster’s arm; at Serena, so weak and yet strong enough to sell Colin down the river; and then, of course, Jeremy, our own private Mephistopheles. Everyone putting on a false face, playing a role, perpetually engaged in a masque without a script. There was only one person I could trust to be exactly what he was: Colin. I felt a surge of gratitude towards him. He might not always be the easiest person to deal with, but I knew that he was what he was. Always. Whatever he said, he meant.

  At one point, I had wondered if Colin, like Augustus Whittlesby, was a secret agent, feigning one thing, doing another. I had searched for clues and double meanings. But Colin? I couldn’t believe that of him. He was, whatever his silences, too fundamentally honest.

  I glanced at Colin’s profile as we all moved down the hallway, clustered around the lanky form of Micah Stone, trailing PAs and party guests behind us like streamers. I was going to have to tell him about the job offer, sooner rather than later. If he was honest with me, I should be with him. Wasn’t that part of the growth of the relationship, sharing problems rather than keeping them to oneself? I was very good at the whole getting him to share his problems with me bit, not so good at confiding my own.

  After dinner, I promised myself. When we were both mellow with good wine and the relief of the hideous evening being done. Then I would sit him down, tell him my dilemma, and see if he could help me find a way out of it. As I knew from Augustus and Emma, waiting for these things to come out of their own accord was always a mistake.