“Never?” Mrs. Farquhar murmured, but Lady Dalway ignored her.
“And so focused! I vow, I didn’t think he meant it when he wrote about the dinnerware but I must confess I was very struck by it. Weren’t you, Louisa?”
“I was,” agreed Lady Carswell.
“Thank you,” said Bianca. “I’m delighted you admire it.”
“Oh yes, indeed. Do you know,” said Lady Dalway dreamily, staring off above Mrs. Farquhar’s head, “I always thought Maxim would do well to marry.”
Bianca blinked. “Why?”
“Serafina is a romantic,” said Mrs. Farquhar with a laugh.
Lady Dalway made a face at her. “Nothing of the sort, Clara! Some men do better to marry and some do much worse—and one does sympathize with their brides—but Maxim is entirely the former.” She turned a melting, artless smile on Bianca. “I do so applaud you, my dear, for bringing him to the altar. He’s quite settled, I can see.”
Bianca smiled stiffly and murmured something polite. She suspected she knew what Lady Dalway was saying. “I must ask,” she said, before she could stop herself, “why you call him Maxim.”
Lady Dalway blinked her large blue eyes. Mrs. Farquhar clucked her tongue. “You don’t know?”
Bianca shook her head. “He’s not told me much about his life in London.”
Nor had she asked.
“Well,” began Mrs. Farquhar, but Lady Dalway cleared her throat. With a quirk of her lips, Mrs. Farquhar fell silent.
“His grandfather was called Maxim,” said Lady Dalway. “I understand he and Max”—Bianca noted the change—“were quite close.”
“Oh.” A flash of memory, what he’d told her on their wedding day. “His mother’s father.”
“The very one,” said Mrs. Farquhar. “When his mother—”
Again Lady Dalway made a small sound, and again Mrs. Farquhar went quiet.
“If I had been burdened with his Christian names, I would much prefer Maxim myself,” put in Lady Carswell, causing an outpouring of agreement from the other ladies.
It was very strange, Bianca thought as they chatted of more idle topics, to feel a stranger in her own supposed home. She had been here long enough that this house was starting to feel familiar, and she supposed the same was true of Max. Her husband. He was starting to feel like hers, and the fact that these other women knew him better than she did, knew things about him that she did not, was strangely distressing.
It was a relief when the gentlemen came in and the card tables were set up. Lady Carswell asked to partner her, and Bianca agreed before noticing her husband heading her way. He had been in deep conversation with Lord Dalway, and now joined her.
“Have you had a pleasant evening, my dear?”
Bianca realized it was relief flowing through her. She was glad he was beside her, conferring with her. He was still hers.
She shook off that thought. “Yes. Lady Dalway admired the dishes greatly, as did Lady Carswell.”
“I knew they would. Dalway plans to put in a large order on the morrow. Carswell may do the same.” Max gave her a conspiratorial glance, his dark eyes dancing. “Carswell follows Dalway’s lead, although at enough of a distance that he can protest he was not following at all, but simply reached the same destination of his own choosing.”
Bianca smiled. “Would that they all follow Lord Dalway’s lead and order complete services.”
He winked at her. “There’s still time. Will you partner me at the tables?”
“Oh—that is—” She tried not to gnash her teeth. “Lady Carswell has already asked me.”
“Quite right,” he said easily, after only the briefest pause. “A husband and wife should never partner at whist in company. Good luck.” He took a step away, then paused. “Lady Carswell can never remember the trump. Do your best to remind her if you want to win.”
She could only watch in chagrin as he strolled away, speaking to the guests with ease. She felt inexplicably annoyed at Lady Carswell for asking her before Max could. It was irrational, and left her feeling out of sorts, even though she enjoyed cards and always liked to win. Instead she had to watch Lady Dalway link her arm in Max’s, and trade cards with him, and clap her hands in glee as the pair of them won hand after hand. Even the pleasure of hearing the exclamations of delight over the coffee service, done in her new scarlet glaze and brought out as the candles grew short, was small consolation.
When the door finally closed behind the guests, she returned restlessly to the drawing room, pinching out the candles. The evening had been a success, and yet she felt out of sorts.
She did not want to admit the reason: jealousy. Not so much that Max was clearly at ease among these elegant people, these women adorned in diamonds and lace, these titled gentlemen of wealth and power. She had expected that.
No, it was something worse. It was that those people—those women—knew him. Her husband was a stranger to her, but not to them. And even if she tried to persuade herself that she didn’t want to know all his debauched secrets, she did not want to feel like an outsider in her own marriage.
“I would call that a rousing success,” said her husband behind her.
Bianca bit down on her lower lip and nodded. It was. She knew it. But she couldn’t stop thinking of those sparkling little glances between the ladies, about him, and the way she’d felt at seeing Lady Dalway take his arm.
“What is wrong?” he asked.
She turned to face him. He stood in the doorway, arms folded and one shoulder against the jamb. He was almost unbearably attractive, broad-shouldered—unlike the whippet-thin Lord Dalway—and lean-hipped—unlike the portly Nigel Farquhar. His unpowdered hair gave him the look of a panther, sleek and wild. And his dark eyes were fixed on her.
Bianca fiddled with a porcelain figurine—average craftsmanship, poorly painted, but still a charming depiction of a girl drawing a bucket up from a well—and set it down. She faced her husband, put up her chin, and said, “They all know you.”
“Yes.”
“Even the women,” she went on. “Rather well.” She paused. “Much better than I know you.”
He drew a deep breath, then pushed away from the door and started toward her. “I’ve been friends with Carswell since we were lads. Dalway, since university. Farquhar, nigh on six years.”
“They call you Maxim,” she retorted. “Lady Dalway and Lady Carswell.”
His mouth quirked. “They’re teasing when they do.”
“They know you well enough to tease.” She lifted one shoulder, angry at herself for being upset about this. “I felt ignorant.”
He stopped in front of her, hands behind him. Bianca closed her eyes and turned her head away, struggling for poise. “What do you want to know?” he murmured.
She looked at him. His entire attention was fixed on her; his eyes seemed to be peering into her soul. What did she want to know?
I want to know who you really are, she answered in her mind. And why I can’t get you out of my mind. He was a puzzle to her, and no matter how resolutely she told herself that she didn’t care to solve him, the mystery kept pricking at her brain.
Bianca thought of herself as practical and intrepid. In her workshop she never considered stopping until she had solved the problem at hand. Now she wished she could stop thinking of her husband as a riddle even more vexing than that scarlet glaze had been. It was all but guaranteed that there was no simple answer, no precise adjustment of ingredients that would unlock him and lay him bare for her to read.
And she was definitely not trying to lay him bare in any other way.
But she was human enough, and woman enough, to bristle at the thought of other women knowing her husband better than she did. There was nothing she could do about his past, of course, but it was awkward and embarrassing to think of these elegant ladies watching her and whispering how gauche and naive she was, and what must Max have been thinking to marry her?
“What is the amusing story behind you
r name?” she asked instead.
“Crispin was my grandfather, and Augustus his father,” he answered readily. “Maximilian—Maxim—was my mother’s father.”
She had to wet her lips to go on. “Why do you go by Max?”
His mouth curved. “Did you not hear the other options? I liked that grandfather better than the others.” He paused, then added, almost reluctantly, “I never met the others, though. I understand they were proper tartars, and there was little to be gained by knowing them.”
“Were you close to Grandfather Maxim?”
“As close as anyone could be, I suppose. He was a gruff old man.”
Bianca nodded. “What happened to your mother?”
He was silent for so long she thought he wouldn’t say. “She died when I was young. My aunt took me in, and sometimes I stayed with my grandfather.”
She knew he’d not been wealthy, despite his connections to the Duke of Carlyle. It was the darkest charge she had laid against him when he proposed to marry Cathy, that he was a penniless rogue after her fortune. “Are they in London?”
“No. My grandfather died years ago. What did Lady Dalway say that unsettled you?”
“She— Nothing,” protested Bianca. “It was clear she knew you very well—they all did—and I felt a fool, not knowing anything about you!”
“Go on,” he said. “Ask it.” She looked at him warily. “Ask the question that’s been festering in your breast all evening.”
She took a deep breath. Might as well do it and be done with it. “Is Lady Dalway your lover?”
“No,” he said. “Nor was she ever. Neither were Lady Carswell or Mrs. Farquhar,” he added as Bianca slowly exhaled. “Never any wife of a friend.”
“But you’ve had lovers,” she charged.
“I did,” he agreed after a slight hesitation. “Before I decided to marry.”
It felt like she could breathe again. Bianca tried to hide it. “That doesn’t surprise me,” she said, striving for brisk practicality. “Marslip is so small, any indiscretion would be obvious—”
“Because now I want you, and no one else,” he said in a low, rough voice.
And like that her thread of composure snapped. She didn’t understand it, and she didn’t like it, but she was horribly attracted to this man. It was too much to expect of anyone, rejecting him when he declared that he wanted her, and wanted her more than any of the elegant, beautiful society women who had just sat in their drawing room. “Blast it,” she said under her breath before stepping forward and pulling his face down to hers.
He let her do it, bending to her will without resistance. But his mouth was not passive. He kissed her softly, almost tenderly. She had envisioned something far more debauched and indecent, but this . . . this was mesmerizingly lovely. She felt worshipped. Treasured.
His hands came to cup her face, so lightly she barely realized it. “Bianca,” he breathed, his lips brushing hers.
“What?” she whispered, just as his mouth claimed hers again. This time he tasted her, his tongue sliding into her mouth. Bianca moaned, her grip on him slackening. Deliberate, unhurried, flavored of brandy and coffee, he kissed her. His thumbs traced whorls on her jaw, his fingertips subtly tilting her head to the best vantage for his ravishment.
Because it was. He kissed her deeply, one hand cupping her head now. Bianca thought she was falling, but it was him, bearing her backward. When she hit the wall, she instinctively arched her back, and his arm was there, drawing her tightly against him.
And instead of feeling restricted, the pressure of his body on hers only sent her pulse spiraling faster. She went up on her toes, kissing him back, shivering as her tongue slid roughly over his.
When he whispered her name again, Bianca’s sense flickered back to life. What was she doing? His hands were in her hair. Her hands were behind his neck, pulling him closer. His mouth was on her throat, her skin was glowing like live coals, and her blood was racing. Her good sense was nowhere in evidence.
She twisted loose, and he made no effort to restrain her. “Oh,” she said stupidly, putting one hand to her mouth. Her lips were soft and tender, and the touch of her own fingers sent an echoing shock of sensation through her.
Max said nothing. He didn’t have to. Hunger streamed off him, evident in every taut line of his body, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the color in his face. Bianca sensed that at one word, even just a nod, from her, he would carry her off to his large, inviting bed and show her all those pleasures he’d teased her about on their wedding day.
The room seemed to spin and wobble. She wanted to know what those pleasures were—desperately. Her body was throbbing in anticipation. Her thoughts raced in dizzying circles, wondering what he would do and how pleasurable it could be and why was she this indecisive when she had promised herself she wouldn’t let him seduce her because she didn’t want to go to bed with him and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about his hands on her, his mouth on hers, how good he tasted, how heart-stoppingly gorgeous he was when he looked at her that way—
“Good night,” she said thinly, because it was all she could manage to get out, and then she turned and hurried up the stairs, her heart hammering so hard she was sure she would never make it to the safety of her room.
Chapter Eighteen
London had never been so good to Max.
Dalway ordered a complete service the very next day and admitted he’d been wrong to call Max an idiot for pursuing the Perusia connection. “I thought you were mad,” he told Max, “but I see now you spotted a diamond in the rough.”
“Not rough at all,” replied Max easily. “Obscured.”
Dalway laughed. “Is that what you call her?”
“What I call my wife is not for your ears,” returned Max with a look. “Will you have a coffee service as well?”
“Aye, aye, in that bloodred glaze. Never seen anything like it! Serafina begged for it all the way home.” He eyed Max. “She’s pleased for you.”
Max inclined his head as he made a note of the order. “I’m delighted to have her blessing.”
Dalway snorted. “She wants to befriend your wife! Better watch yourself, she’s eager to tell all your secrets . . .”
“She doesn’t know anything I wouldn’t tell Mrs. St. James myself.”
“Wouldn’t.” Dalway caught his mistake. “Ought to hurry home and tell her yourself, if you don’t want Serafina and Louisa Carswell whispering it into her ears.”
Max kept his smile, not betraying the curses streaming through his mind. Between the two of them, those ladies could tell Bianca just enough to make him look like a monster. He didn’t think they would do so maliciously—no, even worse, they would do it while thinking they were helping him. Bianca, though, was too intelligent by half to miss anything. “I will. And inform Lady Dalway, with all civility, that I can conduct my own amours, without any help from her.”
Dalway snickered. He’d always loved a bit of scandal and intrigue, and had since they were young bucks at Oxford, evading the proctors sent to roust them from the local taverns. Max had only been at university for a year, but Dalway had been infamous even before he got there. “I’ll tell her. Don’t expect a great lot of good from it, though. You know how she is when she gets something in her mind.” He shook his head. “Better you the target of her interest than I.”
“One hopes the new dinner service will distract her from your many failings,” replied Max.
“For a fortnight at least.” Dalway grinned. “If you can divert her for a month, I’ll pay double.”
“On your own, mate,” retorted Max, making Dalway laugh again and flash him a rude gesture.
But after the earl had left, Max let out his breath and pressed his hands to his temples. Serafina Dalway, with her outsized and misplaced sisterly concern, would be the death of him. But she, at least, would listen to reason, if he begged. He was not so sure of Louisa Carswell, to say nothing of Clara Farquhar. Gossip was like air to those two, an
d even if they promised not to say anything, he didn’t trust either to remember it in the throes of sharing some delicious on-dit.
Gingerly he considered what Dalway had urged: telling Bianca himself.
It was the safest choice, in the long run. Unfortunately it was the short term Max was thinking of now, with the taste of her mouth still fresh in his mind. And she had kissed him. Not only was she coming to look at him with new respect regarding his plans for Perusia, she was beginning to look at him with desire as well. He didn’t want to do anything to disturb the very pleasing direction things were going with his wife.
Besides, he reasoned to himself, they would only be in London another fortnight. Back in Marslip, there would be nothing to worry about. He would have plenty of time to tell her everything, at his own leisure, once he’d won her over in other ways.
No, if he told her now it would only spoil things. He wanted more of a hold on her heart and mind before he risked both.
Bianca was surprised—pleasantly—that coming to London had been far more productive than she had expected.
After Max was proven right about Lord Dalway ordering a service, Sir Henry Carswell did place an order as well. At that news, Bianca had to admit that Max knew far more than she about Londoners. When a request for a viewing arrived from the Countess of Dowling, and an order from Viscount Harley, she even congratulated him one morning at breakfast.
He took it graciously, raising his coffee cup in salute. “I knew it was only a matter of making the right impression, and your scarlet glaze did that.”
“No,” she replied. “The scarlet glaze alone would have done nothing. You knew how best to display it and tempt people like Lady Dalway.”
He laughed. “And Lady Dalway is likely to spread the word better than we ever could.”
They were cordial now. That was reasonable, she told herself. There had been no mention of the kiss, let alone any suggestion of more. In fact, she told herself this might be the happy balance she had wished for. They were both dedicated to advancing the interests of Perusia. It would please her father—whose twice-weekly letters asked repeatedly how she was getting on with her husband in London—and perhaps it was better to kiss him and be done with it. The only way to rid oneself of an itch sometimes was to scratch it.
About a Rogue EPB Page 16
