Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 0]

by The Spy

The thought of Lavinia returning unscathed to her life of privilege and wanton pursuits made James feel ill. “But what of my sister’s testimony? Lavinia confessed all in her presence!”

  “Due to her connection with the Liar’s Club, Lady Raines can no more afford scrutiny than you yourself, Cunnington. Your identity has been saved by Lady Winchell’s very refusal to admit to the charges. She cannot expose you without revealing her own treason. You know quite well that the secrecy of the Liar’s Club takes precedence over punishing the machinations of one woman.”

  “Machinations? Our men died, sir!”

  “Indeed. As they would have gladly done rather than reveal the club to the world, would they not?” Liverpool fixed James with a cool gaze which reminded him that the Prime Minister would not hesitate to sacrifice him. Liverpool’s own protégé” Nathaniel Stonewell, Lord Reardon, had been thrown to the wolves of public disgrace in order to conceal a royal indiscretion, despite the man’s deep and abiding loyalty—or perhaps because of it. After all, Nathaniel Stonewell was a member of the Royal Four, a secret and exclusive cadre of lords who served as advisors and shapers of the monarchy. The Four also occasionally acted as the hand that directed the weapon that was the Liar’s Club—which only served to prove that Lord Liverpool would quite readily sacrifice a minor player such as James Cunnington should the need arise.

  As if he needed such a reminder.

  Before he could speak, Liverpool went on. “I therefore must call a halt to the investigation.” He held up one hand against James’s immediate protests. “I give you ten days, Cunnington. Find me evidence. Find me a witness.” For the first time a trace of warmth entered Liverpool’s gaze.

  “I know I owe you my life, Cunnington. So I give you this time, and I give you a bit of advice. Vengeance is unproductive. It reeks of looking backward. One must move ever forward, or one will mire in the past.”

  James watched the Prime Minister go back to his staff. Helpless rage rushed through him.

  Ten days. He turned to Lavinia’s door, his purpose renewed.

  Lavinia Winchell’s cell was the most luxurious one James had ever seen, all supplied by the smitten Lord Winchell. Brocaded hangings protected the massive bedstead from any possible draft, and a fire roared in the spotless fireplace. A pretty young chambermaid assigned by royal order answered Lavinia’s every need, and the room was littered with books, embroidery, and other ladylike ways to occupy one’s time.

  It seemed no lord in the entire government wanted to take responsibility for mistreating a lady—much less hanging one—not even the Prince Regent himself.

  James could hardly blame any of them, for hadn’t he sold his own soul for Lavinia’s charms once upon a time?

  Lavinia herself looked much the same as ever. When one thought of blond perfection, one thought of Lavinia. Graceful and willowy, she now had an imprisonment pallor that only added to her angelic fragility.

  “James! My love, you’ve come to me once more!” She leapt prettily to her feet and ran forward as if to embrace him. James didn’t move, nor did he take his hard gaze from the wide blue eyes that first appealed, then grew attractively wet with unshed tears.

  “You’ve not forgiven me after all.” Lavinia’s shoulders slumped, but the posture only called attention to her gracefully bowed neck.

  She was so beautiful that she had once made James’s male instincts vibrate like a plucked harp string. It was too bad Lady Winchell’s perfect body held the blackened soul of a venomous snake.

  “Enough theatrics, Vinnie.” James walked past her to seat himself in the chair by the fire, ignoring her penitent pose and all good manners in order to warm his chilled soul at the coals.

  “Save your lies for someone who gives a damn, Vinnie. I’m not interested in the story of mad passion you’ve concocted for the court. We both know that bullet was aimed at the Prime Minister, not me. It is only through the intervention of my sister that I was able to get there in time to take it for him.”

  “Agatha!” For a split second, Lavinia’s features twisted into a grimace of pure hatred. Then she covered her face with her hands and made pitiful weeping sounds. “Your sister hates me because she feared I’d take you away from her!”

  The avidly curious maid finally saw fit to leave the room. Lavinia’s sniffling stopped abruptly. She leaned back onto her chaise, laughing.

  “The silly twit’s gone to report to that fat idiot you call your prince. We have a few moments’ privacy, if you’d like to take your frustrations out on my body.” She inspected her nails. “I’ve nothing better to do.”

  James couldn’t imagine touching her. Why would she think he’d want to? Yet Lavinia could easily manipulate the situation to present James as the villain in this piece for trespassing upon Lord Winchell’s marital property as he had. “So you could cry rape? The poor misled wife, now the target of the evil seducer’s revenge?”

  Irritation crossed her expression, then she shrugged. “I simply thought you’d like to make love once more, the way we used to.”

  “We had sex, Lavinia. Hot, sinful, sweaty sex. That is, until you had me kidnapped and tortured. No more sex then. Not that I would have been very enthusiastic, what with being drugged and beaten on a daily basis.”

  She glanced away as if bored. “I had nothing to do with that”

  He laughed. “No, of course not You simply happened to stumble across me tied in that stinking ship once a week to protest your love.”

  “You never saw me there.” Her voice was mocking and cold. “You testified yourself that you have no memory of seeing my face.”

  Frustration ground against fury in James’s stomach. Drugged as he had been, most of his capture had been spent in a hallucinatory state. There had been strange lights and odd sounds and, of course, regular visitations from his own personal viper from hell.

  “No, I do not remember your face. Only your voice railing at me again and again, pushing me always for names and information. Your voice and perhaps a glimpse of your cold and vicious soul.”

  She snorted. “So spiritual, James. You were a tad more earthy back when you used to beg me to use my mouth on you.”

  She turned and moved sinuously toward him. The cool calculation was gone and a mask of lust had taken its place. James felt the impact of her sexuality as if through a shield. Memories washed through his mind to make his stomach clench.

  When she reached a hand to stroke his chest, he caught her wrist in a hard grasp.

  “Don’t,” he said coldly. “I just put on a clean shirt.”

  The insult struck her, finally breaking through her many layers of masks to reveal her true face. She snarled at him with acid in her blue eyes and raised her other hand to claw his face.

  James pushed her away with ease then. She stumbled and caught herself on the chair back. Her expression was one of pure loathing and her beauty was quite gone.

  Lavinia’s fingers tightened on the upholstered chair until James heard threads pop beneath her nails. “You’ll be back,” she hissed. “You cannot stay away from me and you know it. I am everything you want in a woman. I am everything.”

  James managed not to shudder until he was on the far side of the guarded door.

  The bloody hell of it was that Lavinia was quite right. He could not stay away from her. He needed her, but not precisely in the way she thought.

  She alone held the truth behind his own betrayal of the Liars. She alone could help him absolve his guilt and pain. Until he could prove her guilt and send her to the gallows like the murderer she was, he would continue to go back to her.

  Stopping for a moment in the empty hallway, he took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. Relaxing his shoulders by force of will, he felt the shield that he’d raised against her come down brick by brick.

  He could still smell her scent on his palm where he’d grasped her wrist. Once, that soft musky fragrance had driven him wild. She’d known it well—had applied it in places most women wouldn’
t think of scenting.

  He had not been able to get enough of her wild, wicked perfumed body. Often, he’d gone home exhausted and weak-kneed from hours in her bed, only to catch a whiff of her on his clothes and harden instantly once more.

  Now the residual echoes of that lust made him feel sick. James swallowed back his revulsion, fully aware that as much as his disgust was directed at Lavinia, thrice that amount was directed at his own male susceptibility.

  It was time to go home.

  That evening, Phillipa found herself putting Robbie to bed, although she was fairly sure it wasn’t a tutor’s job to do so. Yet if not her, then who?

  Certainly not Mr. Cunnington.

  “He’s goin’ out again.” Robbie’s face was entirely expressionless. The very portrait of accustomed loneliness. “He’s always goin’ out.”

  Phillipa didn’t know what to say. Robbie’s guardian seemed fond enough of the boy, although she hadn’t been about long enough to form an opinion on the subject.

  Time for a change of subject. “Well you’re not going out anytime soon, Master Robert,” she said, shaking her finger at him. “Not after that jaunt you went on today.”

  His little face paled. “You goin’ to cane me, then?”

  Cane him? For dropping in on Mr. Cunnington’s club for his tea? Good lord, where had this child been?

  Still, she couldn’t let him think he could perform that sort of exploit every day. Propping both fists on her hips, she looked down at him disapprovingly.

  “You, me lad, are about to experience the patented Walters tickle revenge.” She made her fingers into claws in the air.

  Robbie jumped up to run, a giggle already bubbling through his mock fear. Phillipa snapped him up just before he made it to the door. He must not have been trying very hard, for he’d surely learned more speed than that in his years on the streets.

  She swung him yelping into the air and brought him down onto the rug before the fire, her fingers raking his bony little sides.

  Robbie screeched, his rusty laughter another reminder to Phillipa of his short hard life before she’d met him. She bent to her task with all the more vigor at that thought. Robbie had missed most of his childhood, but this she could give him.

  Grinning, she almost let him catch a breath before she began anew. “Robbie the Rebel, are you? Robbie the Great Know-it-all, are you? You look more like Robbie Twitter-on-the-rug, if you ask me!”

  Time to go in for the kill. The volume of Robbie’s screeches rose to full riot level. She heard another sound beyond it, but she didn’t identify it as the thumping of running feet in the hall until the door of the schoolroom crashed open.

  “What the bloody hell are you doing to him?”

  Before Phillipa could turn around, she was lifted by the scruff of her neck and dragged from Robbie.

  She found herself dangling from James Cunnington’s grip, gagging on her cravat—which was apparently auditioning for the role as her brand-new Adam’s apple.

  Then her gaze sharpened on James and her eyes bulged further. It was probably a good thing she couldn’t speak, for the man was more than a little naked. In fact, he was bare but for a towel around his neck and a pair of short drawers that clung to his bath-damp skin like paint.

  He was revealed to her eyes in all his powerful beauty. His wide brawny chest looked like a wall of muscle from this angle, marred only by a star-shaped scar on his shoulder that appeared fairly recent. Her gaze traveled down, over his rippled belly, to the dark trail of hair that led the eye below the sagging waist of his drawers.

  Drawers which did nothing to hide the muscular thighs framing what could only be It.

  Great Greek gods. The faint stirrings of curiosity and attraction that she’d felt over the last two days had apparently been only warnings. Suddenly, she was swept by such a tide of arousal that her mouth went dry and her toes clenched within her boots.

  She desired him. The realization sent fresh strength into her struggles.

  She wanted him, when she couldn’t bear to speak her own name in solitude for fear of discovery. When she couldn’t allow her body so much as a moment of freedom from its bindings and trappings.

  With more strength than she’d known she had, Phillipa twisted herself from James’s grip and staggered out of his reach.

  “Phil were just ticklin’ me, Jamie.” Robbie grinned. “Just like any lad.”

  James laughed, obviously realizing his mistake, and gave her an apologetic grin. Phillipa forced a sickly chuckle to hide her appalling new awareness.

  She lusted for a man who thought she was a man.

  What a fix.

  Chapter Eight

  After Mr. Cunnington—James—had laughingly apologized and had left to finish dressing his rather astonishing body, it took Phillipa quite a while to calm a giddy Robbie.

  “Did ye see him?” Robbie asked again and again in an awed tone. “Came runnin’ in here to rescue me! Did ye see him?”

  “Yes, I saw him,” she answered with a smile each time. Indeed, she had seen a great deal of Mr. James Cunnington of the hewn thighs and the ridged midriff. “Most impressive.”

  Most impressive indeed.

  She was still having a bit of trouble catching her own breath. Not only was Mr. Cunnington exceedingly attractive, she found herself charmed by his defense of Robbie. Was there anything as appealing in a strong man as the habit of protecting those weaker than himself?

  Add to that the ability to laugh at his own mistake . . . now that was charming indeed.

  She ought to discuss with him what she’d learned today. Although she had promised Robbie not to reveal the depth of his illiteracy, she doubted that Mr. Cunnington was ignorant of it. After all, he’d said as much himself.

  Denny was in the hallway when Phillipa left Robbie’s room. With a series of offended “humphs” he directed her to find Mr. Cunnington in the front parlor downstairs.

  Reminded of Mr. Cunnington’s warning about Denny, Phillipa apologized for the mess in the breakfast room and earned herself a slightly mollified nod. And another “humph.”

  The door to the front parlor stood slightly open. Phillipa was about to knock lightly when she heard Mr. Cunnington speaking to someone within.

  “Are you sure we’re not being too obvious, arriving in the same carriage?”

  Phillipa held still, only turning her head to hear a little better.

  A voice answered Mr. Cunnington, one deeper and more measured. “It doesn’t pay to be too obviously reclusive either, I’ve found. You saved Lord Liverpool’s life practically at my feet that day. I doubt anyone will think twice about my accompanying you.”

  Phillipa’s eyes widened. Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister of England? How utterly fascinating. So did that mean Mr. Cunnington was on the side of good?

  His voice came again. “Liverpool has nothing to thank me for. Neither does the Prince Regent.”

  Hmm. Perhaps not. Her curiosity burned hot and she cursed herself fluently in an obscure Arabic tongue even as she stepped a bit closer to the crack in the door. She could almost hear Papa now. “Ever the curious cat,” he’d say. “Best look out for your tail.”

  “And everyone knows I’m simply his lordship’s shadow,” chimed in another, younger voice. Not James, but with a teasing note in it like James’s voice sometimes had. “The faithful little heir, trotting about behind him with my nose up—”

  “Spare us all that particular image, Collis, I beg of you,” interrupted the voice that must be “his lordship.” “And behave tonight. I’d rather not have to drag you from some sotted wife’s décolletage at the end of the evening.”

  “It’s not my fault,” protested the young man, Collis. “They do so enjoy comforting the wounded soldier.”

  “I shall wound you anew if you start another brawl with a jealous courtier. Prince George finds it amusing at the moment, but I shouldn’t press him if I were you.”

  “Ah, but Prinny understands passion. Just las
t week he was telling me a tale about Lady Br—”

  Out of sheer panic, Phillipa’s hand raised itself and tapped on the door. She would not eavesdrop about a private conversation held with the Prince! That was probably treasonous under some law or another.

  At Mr. Cunnington’s invitation she cleared her throat and stepped into the room, then halted as she took in the array of finely attired masculinity before her.

  Oh, Lord.

  Tall, taller, and tallest.

  What a good thing she wasn’t actually male, for she’d likely take a leap into the Thames from a case of sheer inadequacy . . .

  The two men standing with James were rather similar to each other, obviously related. Brothers? Cousins, perhaps. They were dressed in perfectly fitted and frankly dazzling court finery that made them into veritable princes themselves.

  And James . . .

  Gone was the rumpled farmer. In his place stood a gentleman, polished and flawlessly groomed. His deep blue satin frock coat was sculpted to his broad shoulders to show his manly build to perfection. His pristine knee breeches were snug about his muscled thighs and . . . other areas.

  The glittering gold embroidery festooning the outfit should have feminized it, but on such a fine male animal it only imparted grandeur and a sort of military embellishment.

  He looks like a king. A warrior-king with gentle eyes.

  Her knees went suddenly quite weak.

  Again.

  James must have noted only surprise on her face, for he grinned at her a bit sheepishly and tugged at his satin waistcoat.

  “Rather blinding, wouldn’t you say?” He almost ran a hand through his perfectly groomed hair, then stopped. “I’ve been requested to appear before the Prince Regent with all due pomp and circumstance.”

  The younger stranger grinned. “Yes. I’m Pomp. He’s Circumstance,” he added, cocking a thumb over his shoulder at the other man.

  James slid his gaze sideways, his lips twitching. “He’s Collis actually. Don’t mind him.” He beckoned Phillipa into the room. “Let me introduce you to Circum—his lordship.”