Everyone noticed when he came into a room. She used to believe his influence in the ton derived from fashion’s fickle whim: admiration for one who was taller, ruder, and better dressed than any other gentleman. Hard to please, he must be worth pleasing. Now she no longer resented him, she understood his allure. Tarquin possessed a commanding presence as much for his strength of character as for his appearance.
His presence certainly commanded her attention. The sight of him at the door aroused a prickling awareness that started in the back of her neck, spread to her shoulders then downward through her body. She was breathless without the least exertion. His gaze swept around the room and settled on her with one of his heart-stopping smiles. He made his way across the room, brushing off the appeals of two peeresses and the wife of a cabinet minister.
A dozen pairs of curious eyes watched him bow low over her hand and murmur her name. “You look delightful this morning.” A dozen heads tilted in their direction, trying to overhear. “Have you had a good day?”
“Thrilling. And you?”
“Very dull. But it’s getting better now.”
“Instead of going out and doing whatever you gentlemen do, you should stay with the ladies. The embroidery! The piano practice! The exchange of beauty secrets! So much excitement is enough to give me palpitations.”
“I can always use a new beauty secret.”
“You’re quite exquisite enough. I’m keeping them to myself.”
“Forget them! You don’t need any.”
She looked at him uncertainly, in case this was one of his remarks like “It doesn’t matter what you wear,” but the admiration in his eyes seemed genuine and he sounded sincere. For the moment she decided to forget he might be acting a part and revel in the enjoyment of being courted by Tarquin. The heat in his gaze reminded her that while he might not love her, he enjoyed bedding her. Perhaps that was sufficient basis for a successful marriage. She looked back at him with what was doubtless a smitten grin.
He raised his voice a notch or two. “Did your belongings arrive from Wallop Hall safely?”
“Yes, thank you. I was so thankful.” She launched into her tale for the sixth time. “I had that box sent by carrier from Yorkshire and I feared it was lost.”
He shook his head mournfully. “Carriers can be so unreliable. And Yorkshire is very large and quite wild. There’s no saying what one may lose there.”
“How true. It’s not the only thing I’ve lost in Yorkshire.”
“Really? Anything in particular?”
Her toes curled in her slippers and she pursed her lips to stifle her laugh. Also, to stop herself from acting on the sudden urge to kiss him. He leaned in and his breath tickled her ear. “You’ll have to tell me all about it. Or perhaps you could show me. Again.”
She stepped back, afraid she would kiss him in public, and reapplied herself to the task at hand.
“My maid—she’s really Lady Iverley’s maid—went to Wallop Hall last night and, fancy, there was the box. She brought it back with her this morning and I am so happy to be reunited with many things, including precious family treasures. I feared them lost forever.” Not knowing what she was supposed to have that was so valuable, she was deliberately vague about the contents of the illusory box. Family treasures covered things she might have acquired in India, or during her brief tenure as Mr. Twistleton’s ward.
Since the object was to have people overhear, her annoyance at the interest of those around them was irrational. She wanted Tarquin’s undivided attention and she was loath to share it with anyone, least of all Countess Czerny. She didn’t know how long the countess had been there, a few feet away. Not long. Although the lady moved quietly, adding a serenely swanlike glide to her many perfections, she had a way of making her presence felt. Tarquin was apparently feeling it. He stared at her in a way that made Celia’s heart plummet.
“Miss Seaton,” she said, looking odiously beautiful. “I hope you won’t mind if we borrow Cousin Tarquin from you.” By “we” she meant herself and two of the best born, best-looking, and best-dressed lady guests. Neither one of them had ever given Celia more than the time of day. And, yes, Celia minded very much.
“Mr. Compton may do whatever he likes,” she said.
“I hope, then,” said one of the ladies, an extremely wealthy marchioness, “he will like to tell us what he thinks of Julia’s costume. It’s the latest fashion from Paris and though I like the fuller skirt I find the sleeves very ugly. Do you not agree, Tarquin?”
Julia emitted a carillon of tinkling laughter. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that the latest fashions are never ugly when they come from Paris.”
“Very true,” Tarquin said. “I wouldn’t dare criticize such an objet d’art as your gown.” He looked her up and down with total absorption, no doubt taking in the details of the countess’s dark red dress made from some rich material Celia couldn’t even name, though she was sure Tarquin could. “But I can safely predict, Jane,”—he called the marchioness by her Christian name—“that in a few weeks, perhaps only two or three, when Cousin Julia’s gown is no longer new, that I shall be able to agree with you that, yes, the sleeves are very ugly.”
Another carillon. “I’ve always heard that no one can slip an insult past one’s guard like you, Cousin.”
“Tarquin is a master of fencing,” said the marchioness.
“Not just verbally,” piped up the third lady, the Honorable Mrs. Someone whose name Celia had forgotten. “He defeated my husband handily yesterday. Poor Edward is practicing for the rematch. You’ll have to join us in the gallery, Julia.”
As Celia had suspected, some of the more favored ladies, those belonging to the inner circles of the ton, joined the gentlemen for their mysterious activities. The bubble of excitement engendered by Tarquin’s flirtatious wooing popped, dissipating her sense of well-being and leaving her depressed and ill-tempered.
This was Tarquin’s world and not hers. She mustn’t forget that the lives they found comfortable were oceans apart. She could never be at home in his milieu. To believe otherwise was delusional.
Chapter 29
The presence of a man hiding in your bed may be misconstrued.
Tarquin finally made his way to Celia’s room without interruption. At the agreed-upon signal—two short knocks, then a pause, then one more—she opened the door, dragged him in, and turned the key.
“Why did you take so long? I’ve been waiting over an hour.” With hands on her hips in her simple cotton nightgown and her hair a halo of pale fire in the candlelight, she looked wonderfully fetching. Also grumpy.
“Each time I tried to leave my room, someone else was in the passage. It’s like Charing Cross out there. Does no one in this house sleep in his own bed?”
“Apparently not,” she said, her mouth twitching into the grin he found so alluring.
He pulled her toward him by the waist. The idea of their marriage seemed less a dutiful necessity and more a pleasure by the hour. The joys of night would make up for many daytime annoyances.
Not that the days were so bad. He hadn’t felt angry with her in a while and his pretended “courtship” today had been fun, positively a delight. He drew her closer and ran his hands down her back to cup her buttocks and press her against him. Her skin was warm and soft through the thin material and he felt overdressed in his breeches and shirt under a knee-length banyan.
She pulled away from his embrace. “That’s not what we are here for,” she said.
He groaned, adjusted the ties of his robe, and looked around the room, which was small, bordering on mean in comparison to his own spacious chamber. It drove home for him how lowly Celia was regarded and how her stay at Mandeville must have been less than enjoyable. He might not suffer the pinpricks of the ton but he was aware of them. He had, he acknowledged with shame, administered a few himself.
“Where shall I hide? Behind the bed curtains, I suppose.” The most prominent feature of the room was the o
ld-fashioned bed.
“I don’t think it matters. If he comes in with a light, he’s going to see you wherever you are and you’ll just have to overcome him.”
He cracked his knuckles in anticipation.
“And if,” she went on, “it’s dark, then it will be even easier for you. Let’s hope he isn’t too strong.”
“If he’s anyone resident in this house, I’m not worried. There isn’t a soul on the premises half as large as Joe and he didn’t give me any trouble.”
“Ah, Joe! If all else fails I can always return to him. He really appreciated me.”
“I appreciate you, too, and I’d be happy to give you a demonstration, later. Now we wait. And I think I’d better hide. We might learn something before I am overcome by my feelings and beat him to pulp.” His fists itched. Alas, it was unlikely their visitor would be Constantine, but any cohort of his late assailant would be good for a little payback. He loosened the ties that held back the bed curtains on the side facing the door and pulled them closed. “Will you join me?”
She looked reluctant, shy even, which surprised him for in none of their various adventures had she ever appeared timid. And modesty seemed absurd under the circumstances.
“I think I’ll let you suffer alone in the heat,” she said with a careless air he found unconvincing. “I’ll wait out here next to the window, where it’s cool.”
Perhaps she was being coy about getting into bed with him, playing a game and asking to be wooed. Fine. He was quite happy to woo her.
In three strides he was at her side and scooped her into his arms. “Please come.” He dropped a kiss on her surprised lips and stepped back to deposit her on the mattress. “You’ll be much more comfortable here.” He climbed up beside her. “And so shall I.” He tucked her into his embrace and snuggled them down into the burrow of the bed, enclosed on one side, open to candlelight on the other.
“No!” She struggled out of his arms and backed up against the pillows. Apparently she had not been feigning reluctance.
Naturally he wouldn’t do anything against her will, but so far she’d welcomed his embraces. True, it wasn’t strictly proper for them to lie together before they wed, but they were betrothed and they’d already done it, twice. As far as he was concerned there wasn’t any reason not to continue.
“What . . .” he began.
She shushed him with a whisper. “Let’s preserve the element of surprise.”
So, side by side, they sat in the dim light and waited, the silence broken only by the sound of their breathing. He sensed a tension in her beyond the natural anxiety about her nocturnal visitor. After a while, five or ten minutes, he reached for her hand but she snatched it away. There was definitely something wrong. Before he could insist on discussing it, he heard a soft knock on the door.
He covered her wrist as a warning to keep quiet but there was no need. She sat stock still and barely breathing. After a brief interval he identified a different noise, someone tinkering with the lock. Their visitor was a picklock of some skill and before long he heard the quiet sweep of the door opening, muted footsteps, the click of the latch shutting the intruder in the room. Tarquin braced himself for attack.
“Miss Seaton? Are you awake?” The voice was female, low and musical with a slight exotic intonation.
What in hell was Julia Czerny doing in Celia’s bedroom?
Celia’s first thought was that the countess had come to take Tarquin away from her. She was going to storm in and accuse her of stealing her betrothed husband. Celia suspected all along that things had gone further between them than Tarquin had let on. How right had been her instinct not to get further eeshed with him until she determined his true feelings.
She looked at him in mingled panic and accusation and he shook his head. An expression of exaggerated bafflement, palms-out gestures with both hands, told her he had no idea why the countess was there. He put a finger to his lips then pointed it through the closed curtains, indicating that she should go out and confront the visitor. Whatever the reason for her visit—it might be quite innocent—it would be better if the countess didn’t know Tarquin was there.
Wait a minute. She had picked the lock, quite skillfully. Celia’s upbringing might have been irregular, but she knew breaking and entering wasn’t a common ladylike skill. The countess wasn’t that innocent.
She thrust her legs through the curtain opening and walked to meet the lady, who stood next to the dressing table.
“Countess. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The countess looked quite unabashed. “Miss Seaton. Isn’t it rather warm for bed curtains?”
“I am susceptible to night chills,” she improvised.
“I see. That explains why your window is wide open.”
Celia refused to be interrogated by someone who had, after all, invaded her room. “I would have invited you in had I known you wished to see me. There was no need to pick the lock.”
“I did knock. I thought you must be asleep, as you were last night.”
“Then that was you.”
“At your service,” her visitor said with a curtsey.
“What do you want?”
“You truly do not know, do you? Did you really receive a long lost box, or was that a ruse to draw me in?”
“I don’t think I owe you an answer to that question until you respond to mine. What do you want?”
“It’s a long story. Shall we sit?”
Celia removed a light wrap from the only chair in the room and arranged it about her shoulders. Though not remotely cold, her nightgown put her at a disadvantage when compared to the other who was elegance personified in an evening gown complete with the larger Parisian sleeves. She gestured to her visitor to take the chair and sat on the stool next to the dressing table. She didn’t want the countess too close to the bed.
“Have you ever heard of the Mysore ruby, a pigeon’s blood gem of legendary size and quality?”
“Is that what you think I have? You must be mad!”
“Bear with me. This concerns your father. I told you a little untruth before. I knew your guardian only by reputation, but your father and I were well acquainted.”
“How? He hadn’t left India in years, and he certainly never went to Austria.”
“No, I knew him in India. In fact, we were by way of being partners. I act as an agent in the acquisition of various valuables, mostly antiquities but occasionally gems, particularly those with interesting histories. The Mysore ruby is very interesting. It’s reputed to have belonged to both Tamerlane and Shah Jehan. Your father was very good at—how shall I put it—persuading people to part with their treasures. That’s how he was able to afford your magnificent house.”
“He worked for the East India Company.”
“My dear girl, don’t be naïve. He was barely tolerated by the Company. By the end he had almost no connection with it, unless there was dirty work to be done on strictly unofficial terms.”
Celia would have liked to argue but the countess only confirmed what she’d instinctively known for years, that they’d left Madras with her father under a cloud. Or more likely a monsoon. She wished Tarquin wasn’t hearing every word.
It got worse. “We worked together on the ruby and we had been paid in advance for the price of its acquisition by a generous but very demanding customer. Then Algernon became greedy.”
Celia was startled. She’d never heard her father called by his first name. She wondered exactly what had been between him and the countess. It was hard to guess the latter’s age, but she couldn’t be much over thirty. Relative youth, however, had never deterred her father when it came to his bedmates.
“He decided to keep the ruby. He had a buyer in England and he stole it from me. A very unwise decision.”
Celia’s blood froze. She was intensely thankful for Tarquin’s lurking presence, even if he did learn the secrets of her disreputable past, including some that were new to her. “If he did, he certainly didn’
t give it to me.”
“It took me months to work out what happened but it’s the only explanation that fits. He sent you ahead to Madras to wait for him. You were to travel to England together.”
Celia nodded.
“Why didn’t he accompany you to the city?”
“He had some details to see to. I was staying with a family in Madras when I heard the news of his murder.” Her voice trembled, bringing the countess out of her chair to kneel beside her on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Celia.” She took her hand. “May I call you Celia? I always think of you that way. Your father spoke of you. Hearing of his death must be painful.”
“Did you kill him?” She had to ask.
“No! I swear. I had nothing to do with it. But it wasn’t brigands. I wasn’t the only one he robbed. It was our principal in the transaction, and that’s why I must find the ruby. Algernon knew he’d be pursued so he gave it to you while he took care of his other business.”
“My father gave me nothing, except enough money for emergencies and my passage. And if he hid it among my possessions it’s long gone. Everything I owned was stolen from me, as you very well know.”
“When were you robbed? How? Did you lose everything?”
“If you don’t know,” Celia said sharply, “I’m not going to tell you.”
The countess’s manner was now one of supplication. Taking both Celia’s hands she looked her in the eye and spoke fiercely. “You don’t understand. The man your father cheated is very dangerous, but I’m acting for him. I’m trying to get the jewel back to pay my debt. If you were robbed, it’s someone else after the ruby. Does he have it? I must get to it first.”
A quality of desperation in the countess’s voice gave Celia the urge to trust her, at least in a limited way. “Countess,” she began.
The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton Page 22
