Jo Beverley - Lady Beware

by Jo Beverley

  His tone was unreadable, and a glance showed a face that offered no more clues.

  “You have my parents’ approval, Darien. Last night you were thrust into the inner circle—”

  “Thrust?” He sounded startled and amused.

  “Rammed, if you prefer.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  She glared at him. “Why are you laughing at me? This is a serious matter.”

  He sobered. “Most definitely.”

  “Thank you. As I explained last night, a peculiar betrothal would be counterproductive. It would swell interest and speculation rather than shrinking it. You agree?”

  “To shrinking rather than swelling?” He sounded dubious.

  “You can’t want even more scrutiny.”

  “Can’t I, Goddess?”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “You are a most demanding and unreasonable woman.”

  “I am all reason if you’d only pay attention.” She studied him more closely. “Did you bang your head in that fall?”

  He laughed, which was enough to throw her completely off balance.

  Then he said, “Very well.”

  “Very well, what?”

  “I’m willing to consider your point that a betrothal is unnecessary. But if I release you from your promise—and it was a promise, my lady, don’t deny it—what will you give me in return?”

  “Why, you…!” But Thea knew her opponent. He would require something.

  She might be able to get away with very little in return while he was in this strange mood, but she wanted to nail this shut. And she had promised.

  “My unstinting support,” she said. “I will be your approving companion in public on every possible occasion.”

  He considered her. “Word of a goddess?”

  “Word of aDebenham .”

  “Done.”

  She laughed with relief. “Thank you!”

  “So delighted to jilt me—”

  “Not precisely jilt.”

  “—but your agreeable company will be compensation.”

  “For six weeks only,” she said, wishing she’d made that clear.

  “For six weeks,” he agreed—so easily that she began to worry. What had she overlooked?

  “Good,” she said. “Then let’s consider strategy.”

  “I think you mean tactics.”

  “Do I? What’s the difference?”

  “Strategy is the overall plan. Tactics are specifics when faced with the enemy.”

  “I believe we need both, then.”

  “We have our strategy, drawn up, I think, by your mother, whom you did compare to Wellington. We are the ground troops, putting it into execution. Do you play chess?”

  “No.”

  “Pity. It’s an excellent simulation of war.”

  “This is not precisely war, Darien,” she objected. “It’s more like diplomacy.”

  “You, Lady Thea, have not been feeling the sharp edge of the sword.”

  “Oh, have I not? It’s been extremely uncomfortable, and it’s going to grow worse before it gets better. But you mustn’t think of it as war. Truly. You can’t rampage around killing people—”

  “You have a strange notion of war.”

  “We need to employ subtlety,” she persisted. “A slow invasion rather than a violent thrust.”

  “Or a slow thrust?” he said, and his eyes were bright again.

  “There’s no such thing as a slow thrust,” she said.

  “A slow slide, then?”

  That fall. He truly was, as they said, dicked in the knob, but she’d take advantage of it.

  “If you wish,” she said. “You must be gentle as you enter the inner circle.”

  She heard a choke. “Absolutely. And delightful to contemplate.”

  What did she do if he started to vomit? “No, Darien, it will bedifficult ,” she explained patiently. “There will be resistance, perhaps strong resistance.”

  “Poor lady.”

  “I’m glad you realize how uncomfortable this will be for me.”

  “I wish I could make it otherwise.”

  She looked at him. He sounded sincere. She might be able to gain more concessions, but it seemed like taking unfair advantage of an imbecile.

  “Just do as I say,” she instructed firmly.

  “Your every wish will be my command.” But there was that glint again.

  “Are youdrunk , Darien?” That could explain his fall. Surely cavalry officers were not so easily unhorsed.

  He suddenly laughed. “Only on you, my goddess, only on you. You delight me, always.”

  Something shivered inside Thea, something to do with his casual, fall-roughened appearance and laughing eyes. This wasn’t her image of him and she didn’t want it to be.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t what?”

  Instead of all the reasonable things she could say, “Don’t laugh” escaped her.

  “You are a most unreasonable goddess.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” She looked at him, bewildered. “I meant, don’t flirt with me.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Then what were you doing?”

  His humor faded, perhaps into regret. “You’re right, I was flirting, and that is inappropriate in our situation.”

  They turned off the Mall by Carlton House, into streets filling with delivery carts and barrows where their riding needed attention. It was like moving from a magical place back to the noisy mundane, and a good thing, too. Something had threatened to spin out of control back there.

  They rode, hooves clattering on cobblestones, to her front door, where he dismounted and used the knocker. The footman came out to hold Thea’s horse until a groom came around. Darien came to help her down.

  “I can manage,” she said, instinctively trying to avoid his touch.

  “With dignity?”

  “With a mounting block,” she admitted.

  She could insist he hold the horse so the footman could assist her, but that would break their new agreement. When he reached up to put his hands on her waist, she didn’t resist. She placed her hands on his wide shoulders as she would with any man and was brought smoothly to ground, breathlessly aware of his strength and control. She stood for a moment, face-to-face with him, body almost to body. As they had been once before.

  His dark eyes were somber. “We’re flint and tinder, Thea, with gunpowder stacked all around us.”

  “Then free me.”

  He stepped back. “I can’t. I only wish we had a safe place in which to explode. Till dinner.”

  He mounted his large horse so smoothly he almost flowed onto it, and then rode away as if he and the horse were one.

  Explode, indeed.

  But parts of her knew exactly what he meant.

  Till dinner.A part of her, most of her, wanted to plead a headache and avoid the event, but she’d made a promise, this time completely of her own free will. Nothing would permit her to break that.

  The unsettling thing was that she no longer feared any dark harm Lord Darien might plan. Instead, she feared the lightness she’d encountered this morning—an ease in his company that could dissolve all the barriers she possessed. She needed every one of them to stay safe.

  Chapter 20

  Thea wanted to think about what had happened, but mornings were the duchess’s time for administering her many good causes, and Thea was expected to help with record keeping and decisions. Then she was dragged into a meeting about tattoos with some eminent men from the Horse Guards.

  After Waterloo, they’d believed Dare dead because of the evidence of an officer who’d seen him fall, and because he hadn’t been found alive. But his body had never been found. They knew why now, but at the time they had assumed it had been stripped of identification by looters and tossed into one of the many mass graves. The agony of that had led Thea’s mother to decide that all soldiers should be tattooed. Nearly everyone
thought it ridiculous, but no one could ignore a duchess.

  Thea plied the three generals with tea, cakes, and charm, leaving the heavy gun work to her mother.

  The generals raised the subject of costs.

  The duchess shot that down with a list of patrons willing to come up with the money.

  General Thraves said it was unwise to put the men in mind of death.

  “I don’t see how death can be out of their minds,” the duchess said, “given their trade.”

  “But we’re at peace now,” General Ellaston said smugly.

  “Then why,” asked the duchess, “have an army at all?”

  Ellaston reddened. “India, Canada…”

  “Do these activities not carry danger?”

  “Well, of course….”

  “And thus risk of death?”

  “Less, your grace, much less!”

  “Gentlemen, if you can assure me we will be free of major warfare for the next thirty years, I will abandon my project. But I will also ask the duke to scrutinize army spending very closely.”

  The men exchanged harried glances, then assured her the project would be considered at the highest levels immediately, and fled. Thea gave in to laughter.

  “Dolts,” the duchess said, picking up her neglected teacup. “Women should administer the army. We’re the ones skilled at feeding, clothing, and caring for people.”

  “At least we’d make sure they had boots to march in and food before a battle.”

  “Don’t they?” Her mother came alert.

  “Only an isolated incident, I’m sure,” Thea said quickly. “And supply lines must be very difficult.”

  “Challenges are made to be overcome. I was not made for a life of idleness, Thea, and nor were you. You should consider that as you choose a husband.”

  Thea picked up a cream puff. “Choose one who’ll be a lot of work?”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it. You might be suited by a man with a cause. A Wilberforce or Ball.”

  “Politics bore me, Mama. I’d much rather deal with practical problems. Hospitals for the sick and refuges for the aged.”

  “Laws often lie beneath such problems, dear, and politics is all about laws. Women would do a better job there, too. I was speaking to Mrs. Beaumont. A most interesting woman. She and Beth Arden are working toward some changes in electoral policy.”

  Oh, Lord. Not social revolution now.“What changes?” Thea asked.

  “To get women the vote.”

  “Mother!”

  “Tell me one reason why women shouldn’t be allowed to vote,” her mother demanded with a new and terrifying militancy.

  “We don’t own property?”

  “Even women who do can’t vote. Ladies who are peeresses in their own right have no vote and are denied their seats in the House of Lords. What justification can there be for that?”

  None, but Thea suppressed a groan at the prospect of her mother on this warpath.

  She clearly didn’t suppress it well enough.

  “We have great privilege and power, Thea. It is our duty to use it.”

  Thea agreed and escaped to go shopping with friends. Sometimes she envied Maddy, whose mother would never preach such lessons to her.

  Her enjoyment of Bond Street was marred by a great deal of chatter about Caves and Darien, about Mad Marcus and Sweet Mary Wilmott. Caroline Camberley wanted to walk to Hanover Square to see the dreadful house. “I wonder if there’s still blood on the steps,” she asked with a delighted shiver.

  “After six years, Caroline?” Thea said. “Don’t be silly.”

  “Since this morning!” Caroline said. “Didn’t you hear? A maid on an early errand saw it.”

  A chill swept over Thea. “There’s been anothermurder ?”

  “Well, no,” said Caroline. “Not that I’ve heard, anyway.”

  “Then what?” Thea asked.

  “A prank,” said Alesia. “A way of showing Lord Darien he’s not welcome in good society.”

  “He is dining at Yeovil House tonight.” Thea was driven to speak by her promise, but also by natural outrage at all this.

  Three pairs of eyes stared at her.

  “Thea!” Alesia gasped. “Will you have to be there?”

  “Of course, and I won’t mind at all.” Might as well be wholehearted. “I find Lord Darien pleasant company. And he is one of our noble veterans. He deserves better than this.”

  “But…”

  “He’s a hero,” she swept on, and recounted some of his exploits.

  “Very praiseworthy,” Caroline said without conviction.

  Alesia said, “You’ll have much to tell us next time we meet, won’t you, Thea? But rather you than me.”

  Thea seethed all the way home and sought her mother. The duchess already knew about the blood on Darien’s doorstep. It was the gossip everywhere.

  “So petty!”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it petty, Mama.”

  Her mother sighed. “No, you’re right. It sets things back, but that means we must work harder. I hope you corrected any false impression.”

  “As best I could. I tried to trump it with his military record.”

  “Excellent.”

  “I’m surprised Darien didn’t mention it, though. This morning.”

  Her mother stared at her. “This morning?”

  Thea blushed—for no good reason. “I went riding with Cully, and we met him. Cully ran out of time, so Darien escorted me home.”

  If she’d expected concern, she’d been wrong. “Excellent. That will have created exactly the right impression.”

  “I’m not sure anyone saw us. Anyone in the ton, I mean.”

  “Someone will have. Someone always does. Now, go and prepare for dinner, dear. You must look your prettiest.”

  Thea went to her room thoughtfully.

  The blood would only be from a pig or such, but she felt as if everything had become much darker. As if the reestablishment of the Cave name had moved from being a danger of embarrassment to being danger in fact.

  Nonsense, of course, but she changed her mind about her dress. She’d planned to wear her red silk again, perhaps as some sort of private message to Darien, but the color was too much like blood. Instead she had Harriet find a sunshine yellow one from last year.

  It was part of a brief fad last year for “country in Town” and was cut on simple, full-bodied lines with little ornamentation beyond a lacy apron. The aim had been to look as if one was about to wander out with a basket to pick wildflowers, but of course like all fashion the filmy gown would be useless for any practical activity.

  It was a silly creation, but it was the antithesis of dark deeds and malicious blood. Thea completed the look with loose hair threaded with a ribbon and simple silver jewelry, bracing herself for the evening ahead.

  The company would be a carefully assembled group of people with military, political, and diplomatic connections. People likely to appreciate Darien’s qualities and achievements and share some of his interests. That meant, however, that she and he would be two of the youngest there, and thus they were to be partners. Her mother had decided to ignore the convention of pairing by rank.

  “Darien will be one of the highest-ranking gentlemen, dear, and would end up with someone much less compatible than you.”

  It showed no consideration of how she would feel, but Thea was determined to play her promised part.

  Chapter 21

  Darien was aware of Thea as soon as she entered the drawing room. He tried to talk intelligently to Lord Castlereagh about the reconstruction of France while aware of her every move. As she greeted people with easy confidence, he noted the way her yellow dress concealed her figure. It was full, and gathered into the high waistband so that he couldn’t see a single curve. Even the bodice rose high, entirely covering her breasts.

  Did she think dressing like a schoolgirl made her less appealing?

  She arrived at him and smiled. “Lord
Darien. How lovely to see you this evening.”

  Her unstinting support. That’s all it was. Her payment for his mercy.