As if on cue, a cool salt breeze drifted through the open doors which led out onto the balcony, bringing with it the sounds of laughter, distant music from the town, and her husband.
“Would you be terribly disappointed, my dear, if we did not attend the ball this evening?” Sir Anthony asked. “Only I find that I am so dreadfully exhausted from the travel of the past few days, and simply do not think I can stay awake for much longer, no matter how tempting the party may be.” The balcony doors were still open; there was a chance they could be heard from below.
“No, I don’t mind,” Beth replied. “It will at least give me a chance to finish my letter. But will we not be missed?”
“I hardly think so. There will be at least two hundred guests present. I doubt that the lack of our presence, scintillating as it is, will cast a shadow over the evening.” The red lips curved up in a smile.
Sir Anthony closed the balcony doors, and then the curtains. The laughter and music were muted. He moved over to the dressing table, removing his wig as he went and placing it on its stand. Then, sitting, he began to take off his make-up. Beth turned her attention back to her letter, relieved at not having to make light-hearted conversation all evening. Maybe she could write to her cousins as well; she had promised them a letter from every place of note, and so far had not written a word.
I will write now of more practical, and indeed, more important matters. I am sure that by now Mr Cox will have been in contact with you to tell you of my husband’s agreement that five hundred pounds be released to each of you. Indeed, by the time this letter arrives at its destination, it is most likely that you will already be in receipt of these funds. I want to assure you that Anthony imposed no conditions regarding this endowment; I am making no sacrifices in order for you to receive this money. You can use it as you wish, whether you wish to set up house together,
She had reached the bottom of the page, and taking another sheet of paper, dipped her pen again and continued.
…or go your separate ways. But please write to me as soon as you have decided what to do. You need no longer write to Mr and Mrs Harlow’s address. Anthony will not open any letter addressed to me.
You will have realised that my husband is as far from being like Richard or my cousins as it is possible to be. I am now sure that I did the right thing in marrying Sir Anthony Peters. In spite of the fact that he is still undoubtedly a ‘purple popinjay’, in private he is quite a different person. In fact, over the past weeks that we have been travelling together, I have come to l…
“Eeek!” she screeched, her hand jerking wildly across the paper. A large blot of ink appeared on the page, next to the letter ‘l’.
“I’m sorry,” said Alex, lifting his hand from her shoulder. “I didna mean to frighten you.”
She looked down at the ruined paper and sighed. He replaced his hand on her shoulder and peered over the top of her head, surveying the damage
“Come to what?” he asked, bending down to kiss her slender neck, so beautifully revealed by the upswept hairstyle. He nuzzled softly at the sensitive spot just behind her ear. She shivered. “Live with his irritating habits? Like, just a wee bit?” One hand still resting warmly on her shoulder, he reached up with the other and expertly released her hair from its pins, watching appreciatively as it slid in a silken silver waterfall down her back. He bent over again, nibbling gently at her earlobe. “Lust after?” he murmured hopefully.
Beth leaned away from him, detaching her ear from his disturbing attentions and screwing the offending piece of paper into a ball.
“Loathe absolutely,” she said firmly and untruthfully, picking up another sheet of paper and laying it flat on the baize surface of the desk. “I thought you were exhausted from travelling,” she added.
“Sir Anthony is exhausted from travelling,” he pointed out, unfazed by his wife’s professed hatred for him. One arm slid smoothly round her waist. His lips returned to her neck. “Alex is in quite another frame of mind.”
“Well, Alex will have to wait,” Beth said. “I want to finish this letter. And write to Isabella, too. I should have done this weeks ago.”
“Tomorrow,” he suggested, burying his face in her hair. “Mmmm.”
“No. Tonight,” said Beth, summoning the last of her resistance and reaching for a new quill from the pot.
The arm round her waist tightened suddenly and then he straightened up, lifting her off the stool and overturning it in the process. The pot toppled over, scattering quills across the desk and on to the floor.
“Alex, put me down. Someone might come in,” she said desperately, wriggling and pulling at his arm in a half-hearted and futile attempt to free herself. Her feet dangled in space several inches from the ground.
“The door’s locked,” he said softly into her ear, before kissing it. “Only Angus has the key. He’s out, and willna return till the morning. He thinks we’re going to the ball, and he’ll no’ be needed tonight.” He reached up with his free hand, brushing his fingertips lightly across her breasts. Her nipples rose eagerly through the thin silk of her dressing gown and she moaned softly, giving the lie to her protests. He chuckled quietly to himself and made his way to the bedroom, clutching his prize firmly to his chest.
* * *
From being a small child, he had learned to notice anything out of the ordinary in his surroundings. The slightest disturbance could signal the presence of a hidden enemy, a deadly danger. So the first thing Angus noticed when he opened the door of the apartment was the overturned stool and quill pot. The lamp was still burning, and candles too, on the dressing table and writing desk.
They would not go out and leave lights burning.
Motioning to his companion to stay outside, he drew his sword and advanced cautiously into the room. He paused at the desk and inhaled, his nostrils flaring delicately; jasmine soap, lavender, a hint of Sir Anthony’s violet cologne, the pervading ozone tang of the sea. Nothing alien.
“Cosa c’è?” his companion whispered from the doorway. He waved his sword impatiently at her, hoping she would realise he was not threatening her, but telling her to stay there, then he tiptoed to the closed door at the far end of the room.
He pushed the latch down carefully and opened the door, preparing to slam it against the wall in case anyone was hiding behind it. He did not have to inhale this time. The unmistakable scent of sexual arousal, coupled with the brief glimpse he had of the bed before he backed out rapidly, closing the door as silently as he had opened it, told him there was nothing amiss. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Angus left the apartment, blowing out the candles and turning down the lamp on his way. The place could burn to the ground and his brother and sister-in-law wouldn’t notice. He locked the door behind him, cursing silently under his breath in Gaelic, his own amorous intentions thwarted.
“Mi dispiace,” he said to his companion in slow, halting Italian. “Non è possible. Mio padrone…” He let the sentence trail off, not knowing the words to explain any further, but hoping she would understand that they couldn’t stay here tonight.
They stood for a moment in the corridor, the tall blond man and the slender brunette woman, pondering the situation.
“Quanti soldi hai?” she said after a moment.
What had she said? Something about money? He turned out his pockets, revealing several French louis d’or, and a few sous, and shook his head sadly. He had not had time to get any Italian currency, and hadn’t thought he would need it tonight, having intended only to go for a walk around town, listen to some music perhaps, observe the sights that were cost-free. But then he had caught the eye of this beautiful dark-eyed girl dressed in a sunny yellow striped gown, and by dint of many hand signals, his pigeon Italian, and the irresistible MacGregor charm, had persuaded the girl, Katerina, to join him for the night. By going back to the apartment, he had hoped to treat her to an opulent evening for free. A bottle of wine, beautiful surroundings, anything was…no longer possible. Damn Ale
x!
The girl had taken the money from his hand and was counting it in rapid Italian under her breath. She was the personal maid to an Italian noblewoman, he had gathered from the few words he had understood of her chatter as she had walked beside him to the hotel. He would not tumble her in a back alley, even if she’d allow him to, which he doubted. She was no whore, and he was a gentleman. Damn Alex to hell! Why hadn’t they gone out?
It was obvious why they hadn’t gone out, and in one way Angus was glad. Over the course of the last few weeks, their relationship had gone from strength to strength. Angus had noticed the small gestures, the sudden smile when his brother came into the room, the trivial reasons Beth invented to lay her hand on his arm, the light in her eyes when Alex appeared from the mask of Sir Anthony and she could abandon the pretence of being bored with her effeminate husband, which she now, after a few initial hiccups, played to perfection. Angus would have known perfectly well what the unfinished ‘l’ word in Beth’s letter was, even if his older brother was too dense to.
Katerina seemed to suddenly come to a decision, and handed his money back to him.
“Vieni,” she said, and taking his arm, began to tow him unresisting down the corridor.
* * *
Beth was surprised by the amount of noise Angus made when he entered the apartment the following morning. He was normally very quiet, but the loud scraping of the key in the lock was no doubt due to the fact that he was trying to balance a large silver breakfast tray on one arm while opening the door, although he brought breakfast to them most mornings without making such a racket.
Although the day was fine, they had decided not to eat on the balcony, as that would necessitate Alex donning all the trimmings of Sir Anthony, which he had no intention of doing until Beth had finished her letters and they had to go out. Instead they had set the table in the room, and Angus placed the tray carefully in the middle of it, before sitting down. He was a little dishevelled, Beth noticed. His hair had clearly been hastily combed with his fingers before being tied back, and his shirt was crumpled.
Not that either her or Alex could claim any pretensions to neatness, but at least they had washed, and brushed their hair. She eyed the table, to see what was for breakfast, and gave a sudden gasp of pleasure. In the middle of the tray, surrounded by a coffee pot, cups, a dish of grapes, slices of polenta and Parmesan cheese, was a slender glass vase containing a single perfect cream flower.
“Oh, where did you get this?” she exclaimed, never having seen a bloom like it before. “It’s beautiful!” She picked up the delicate vase, and sniffed at the flower. The petals were thick and waxy and a faint pink blush tinted their underside.
Angus beamed.
“D’ye like it? It doesna have a scent, but it’s awfu’ pretty, is it no’?”
“What’s it called?” she asked, smiling up at him.
“It’s called an apology,” Alex put in, lifting the coffee pot off the tray and pouring the steaming brown liquid into the three cups.
Beth looked between the two, confused. Angus had reddened slightly. He sat down.
“What do you need to apologise for?” she asked.
“Nothing,” said Angus hastily, glaring at his brother. He should have known Alex would have registered his appearance in the room, brief though it was. He never missed anything.
“Angus came home early last night, and decided to kindly check on us and see if we needed him to sing a lullaby or tell a wee story tae send us to sleep,” Alex continued nonchalantly.
“I…ah…thought there was something wrong,” Angus said, blushing furiously and casting murderous looks at his brother, who smiled serenely back. “The stool had been turned over, and all the lights were burning…”
To the men’s surprise, Beth did not redden with embarrassment. Nor did she lay into Angus for strolling into her bedroom in the middle of the night. Instead she turned on Alex.
“I told you someone might come in on us, didn’t I?” she said. “But you wouldn’t listen. And you could have burnt the place down and killed us both, not to mention all the hotel’s other occupants! Men! Once they get amorous, they lose every ounce of common sense.”
Alex stared at her, shocked by the unfair accusation. Beth had not thought about the fire hazard either at the time, and while Alex might have indeed carried her resisting to bed, she had neither mentioned the candles herself nor shown anything other than a very energetic enthusiasm for what had followed once they had got there. He opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again, knowing it was pointless.
“You owe me four louis,” Angus inserted into the pause, his composure restored now that his brother was in trouble.
“No, I dinna,” said Alex firmly. “Ye had no right to be bringing lassies back here anyway. I’m no’ paying for your whoring. An’ if ye can afford to squander money on expensive flowers, you dinna need any from me.”
“She waited outside, and didna see a thing.” Angus anticipated Beth’s next question. “And I didna pay anything for the flower. It’s an orchid, by the way,” he said to Beth, before turning back to Alex. “And she wasna a whore, but a maid to the Countess of somewhere or other in Naples, I think.” He laughed suddenly, merrily, his blue eyes dancing as he remembered the previous night. “After we left here, I had to make it up to her. She suggested we go for supper. I didna know they take French money in Sardinia. Anyway, she was a wee bit disappointed at no’ being able to spend the night here, so we had oysters and champagne an’ suchlike. Then she suggested we go back to the Count’s summer residence, as he’d be at the ball you were supposed tae be out at. We went to his hothouse. No one goes there except the Count, ye ken, so she was sure we wouldna be disturbed.”
“Which is where you got the orchid from,” Beth said, sipping her coffee.
“Aye.” Angus smiled. He fished in his pockets. “I got these, too.” He laid three dark blood oranges on the table.
“Do you no’ think the Count might notice that someone’s been raiding his exotic fruit and flowers?” Alex asked.
Angus waved a hand dismissively.
“Christ, man, I could ha’ brought a whole basket of stuff. The place is enormous. Anyway, when he goes in to water his plants today, he’ll have a lot more to occupy him than a few missing oranges. There were pineapples, too, or I think that’s what Katerina called them. Ananasso, that’s pineapple in Italian, is it no’? Big things wi’ prickly leaves. Too big tae fit in my pocket though,” he said regretfully. “They dinna look anything like apples.”
“Well, in spite of your disappointment at no’ tasting pineapple, I’m still no’ paying ye four louis,” Alex said. “It sounds tae me that you got what you wanted anyway, even if it wasna in our bedroom.” He winked at Beth, who fought not to give him the satisfaction of blushing, and succeeded in going only faintly pink.
“Believe me, mo bhrathair,’ Angus stated confidently. ‘It’ll be worth four louis to you to know what happened next, and why the Count’ll no’ be counting his oranges the day.”
“Aye, maybe you’re right,” Alex replied, leaning back in his chair and stretching lazily. “But it’ll be cheaper still tae thrash ye till ye tell me. The result’ll be the same, and it’ll be more pleasurable than giving you money.”
Angus put down his cup and shifted his chair backwards, smiling, eyes alert in anticipation of his brother’s playful assault. Beth drained her cup and stood, going over to the desk, where the blank piece of paper still awaited her. She opened one of the drawers and there was a faint clinking sound from within.
“There,” she said, throwing four gold coins on the table. Angus’s hand shot out with lightning speed and the money disappeared. “We’ve failed to get thrown out of the hotel for burning it down. I don’t want to be thrown out for brawling either. What happened next?”
Angus looked at his brother, then, satisfied that curiosity held precedence over the need for release of pent-up energy, he pulled his chair back under the table.
“Well, as I said, after the meal, we chatted as well as we could for a time, given that she doesna speak English or French, and my Italian’s no’ up to much, and then she took me to the hothouse, where we made ourselves a wee nest in a lovely pile of straw at the back. It’s used for mulching the plants, ye ken,” he explained to Beth. “Anyway, it was while we were…er…embracing, that I heard a noise.”
The first emotion Angus had felt when he heard the door open was frustration. It seemed that the gods were conspiring to thwart his amorous intentions at every move. The second emotion was anxiety. Not for himself; he was confident that he could either talk or fight his way out if discovered. But the girl would be at the least turned out of a job, and at worst accused of trespass or burglary. Alerted by Angus’s sudden stillness, Katerina also heard the unmistakable sound of someone entering their haven, and the pair crouched down into the shadows. Angus quickly threw a few scoops of straw over them, hoping that it would be enough to conceal them, at least from a cursory inspection. The hothouse was enormous: if they remained still and quiet, they would not be discovered by accident.
Any thought that another couple might have had the same idea as them was dismissed by the intruder’s first words, which came from a point closer to their hiding place than Angus liked.
“Now, we will not be disturbed here, and you can say whatever it is that you seem to think will interest me in complete privacy. You have five minutes.” The man spoke in rapid and fluent French, and had the arrogant tone of someone who was used to being obeyed.
“When you hear what I have to say, my lord Henri, you will give me more than five minutes. My information is worth a lot of money.” The second man’s voice was more servile, but held the assurance that the information he had put him in a position of temporary power.
The Mask Revealed (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 2) Page 14
