Lady Derring Takes a Lover

by Julie Anne Long

  “What is the point of you?” she asked.

  “Duty.” He was still reeling a bit.

  He lifted his gaze from her mouth.

  He didn’t mind if she noticed he’d been staring.

  Knowing Lady Derring, he was certain that she had.

  “My goodness. You didn’t even have to think about it. And it’s hardly a lighthearted philosophical question.”

  “It is entirely the thing that gives order and meaning to my life. That, and your list of rules here at The Grand Palace on the Thames, of course.”

  “Ha. And do you think life is so anarchic as to require the ceaseless imposition of order and meaning?”

  “Yes.”

  Oh, hell’s teeth. Now her eyes were full of questions. The sort he didn’t want to answer.

  The questioning light evolved into a sort of troubled thoughtfulness.

  Oh, God. She was imagining things about him, no doubt, because that’s what women did. They embroidered. In their minds and on their pillows.

  But she didn’t ask those questions.

  “Perhaps the point of me is to be kind.” She said it almost to herself. As though she’d been waiting for him to ask, and she’d given up.

  He sighed and lowered his book again. “Lady Derring,” he said, with grave, ironic pity that made her expression immediately alter to one that suggested she’d like to do him a small violence. Perhaps just a little jab with a knitting needle. “Such naivete will be the ruin of The Palace of Rogues. I think perhaps being jaded will afford more protection in this part of London.”

  Her eyes sparked outrage. “Don’t you think I might be all too clearheaded about the world? I am a widow, after all. It isn’t every day a countess runs a boardinghouse. Consider that I might have been buffeted a bit.”

  “No. I don’t believe you are all too clearheaded. Nor do I believe you have been particularly buffeted. I suspect you view the world through a very particular lens, which makes it easy for you to be beneficent in your new circumstances.”

  She didn’t splutter.

  She didn’t even blink.

  But she did go still. And fixed him with a thoughtful, rather penetrating gaze.

  If he’d been at all a fanciful man, and he most certainly was not, he would have thought perhaps she was rifling through the contents of his soul.

  “Well. I stand corrected. You certainly know everything, Captain Hardy.”

  “Well, very nearly,” he amended, modestly. Only a little ironically.

  She smiled tautly.

  “I must say, however, Lady Derring . . . that I’m intrigued and impressed by how you’ve managed to engage such a fine cook and such committed servants and keep the rooms so comfortable if you’ve experienced an adjustment, shall we say, in means. Wax instead of tallow candles in the sconces, crystal at the table. It must be some manner of sorcery.”

  She went still. Their eyes met across the little lamp.

  Then she leaned forward confidingly. “Captain Hardy . . .” She’d lowered her voice to a hush. With her came the faint scent of flowers, no doubt released by the warmth of her body, perhaps thanks to his presence. Lady Derring, he imagined saying for the pleasure of seeing her blush, I have admired your lovely body since you were on the ladder, reaching up to places that were too difficult for you to reach.

  “Yes?” He matched her confiding tone.

  And thought: perhaps he would know for certain in moments whether she was a smuggler. But some errant impulse in him wanted this moment to last forever, this moment where he could see and feel and be near her and not know such a thing.

  “Perhaps because you are not, strictly speaking, a gentleman, Captain Hardy, you’re unaware that it’s a bit gauche to ask your hostess questions about such matters.”

  He sat back again a little too abruptly.

  She continued gazing at him. He could have sworn he’d seen a glint of triumph? Challenge? Maybe even a little sympathy in her eyes. Or was that pity? For what? he wondered. Not his station. For some reason he was certain that was not the case.

  In all likelihood it was pity for the male arrogance that made him assume she was just that simple.

  “Ah. I see. Well, thank you for the enlightenment, Lady Derring.”

  “My pleasure. I believe Mr. Delacorte and perhaps Mr. Farraday would be pleased to have your company in the smoking parlor. Mrs. Breedlove is prepared to offer you a cigar. She’s presiding over the humidor at present.”

  “As Mr. Delacorte silently expresses himself gastrointestinally after the rich meals prepared by your clearly excellent cook, I am disinclined to be enclosed with him in a small room ever again.”

  She took this in with the slightest of brow furrows and a little head tilt. As if he were a peculiar phenomenon, rather than a boor.

  “Well, cigar smoke ought to disguise that nicely, Captain Hardy. Something tells me hot air is a familiar environment for you.”

  She rose, graceful as a flower blooming, and took herself off, having just given him a lesson in what it was to be a lady.

  He watched her walk all the way across the room because, for some reason, it was difficult not to and he could see no reason to deprive himself of that pleasure.

  “Gauche?” he repeated softly to himself. After a moment. Still watching her.

  He realized he was smiling.

  He put a stop to that right away.

  She sat down next to Angelique, who had returned to her sewing when the Gardner sisters had retired for the evening, having completed their stint in the parlor.

  “Well, did it work? Did Captain Hardy emerge from his shell like a vulnerable, fluffy baby chicken?”

  Delilah was reeling as if she’d run headlong into a wall.

  “I mentioned childbirth,” she said dazedly. “Quite irritably. And I don’t quite remember why.”

  Angelique’s mouth dropped open. Then closed. “Well, that ought to get him to erect a stone fortification around his shell. Not to mention a moat.”

  “And then he mentioned flatulence.”

  This stunned Angelique into silence.

  “Not his own,” Delilah added.

  As if this was somehow better.

  “. . . yours?” Angelique ventured, in hushed horror.

  “No. Delacorte’s.”

  “Oh. Yes. Well. I can see that.”

  Delilah looked over at Captain Hardy now with a sort of shaken, awestruck resentment, as if he were an unseen rock her ship had foundered on.

  He sipped his brandy.

  He turned a page of his book.

  He wasn’t looking her way.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t let you drink more than a sip or two of sherry in the evening,” Angelique said finally.

  “I think that would be wisest,” Delilah agreed, somewhat glumly.

  She reached for her embroidery.

  She held it in her lap for a moment, staring at it as if it were a crystal ball.

  “It’s just that he’s so very irritating,” she said rather vehemently, in a low voice. “One wants to combat his certainty.”

  “You do. I don’t. I know better. And by irritating I think you mean desirable in a frightening way.”

  “Nonsense.”

  It was exactly what she meant.

  She rather resented that Angelique knew what she meant better than she did.

  But then Angelique apparently knew the costs, too, of that sort of thing.

  And yet she wanted to know what Angelique knew.

  And what Captain Hardy likely knew.

  But as her ruffled feathers settled and her dazed thoughts coalesced into reason once more, her thoughts were pulled, as if by a magnet, to that moment he’d gone utterly still in the drawing room the day he’d come to stay. The moment he’d seen her.

  As if he’d finally found due north.

  Captain Hardy referred to his watch, closed his book, stood, and politely, dispassionately, bid them all good-night.

  His eyes brus
hed hers as he left the room.

  She would warrant that Captain Hardy found her desirable, too.

  Possibly even frighteningly so.

  Chapter Fourteen

  For several weeks now, Delilah had been in the habit of dropping off to sleep nearly immediately after days of rigorous household work. Tonight she was watching her ceiling. Her body was humming as though each of her cells harbored a little choir singer.

  Are you flirting with me, Lady Derring?

  She’d promised herself she’d be truthful in all things from now on, but as it turned out, she was a rank coward when tested.

  Because she feared the real answer was, in fact, yes.

  She tossed and turned and cast off her blankets as if her skin was too sensitive for their weight.

  Well. So this was desire, she thought, none too pleased. It wasn’t entirely convenient, given the maddening object of it.

  Even in the midst of Derring’s . . . attentions . . . something in her had stirred, somewhat hopeful, not entirely disinterested. She did know it had a vague resemblance to pleasure.

  She had long suspected there had to be more to all that nonsense, otherwise men and women wouldn’t behave like such fools about it.

  And now, thanks to what Angelique had said—Derring had no imagination at all—she knew both that she was not at fault and that imagination, such as it was, seemed to be important.

  Did she want to know what he knew, and what Angelique knew? When she knew full well how easy it was to come to grief, or to be used or savagely hurt? Did she want to know simply to have the experience, for the reason one visited Kew Gardens and the like?

  Did Captain Hardy have an . . . imagination?

  Why should this difficult, arrogant, taciturn, dryly funny, condescending man so occupy hers? Apart from the fact that all of these qualities came so thrillingly packaged in a tall, hard body. Handsome, well-formed men abounded in London. It wasn’t as though they were an entirely new species to her. Not one of them had made her breath hitch with a single glance. Obviously, it was because she was perverse and ironic and complicated, precisely the sort of person her mother had feared she’d grow up to be.

  Somehow, this realization didn’t bother Delilah.

  So. He was not a gentleman. He’d been shot. He seemed well-nigh implacable.

  But tonight he had spoken to her, one human to another, about feeling expendable. It was the sort of conversation she’d never had with a man. Or another human, for that matter. It was the sort of thing that one didn’t typically discuss with anyone, any more than one whipped off one’s stays because they were confining, or went into battle without armor.

  All exchanges between men and women tended to amount to transactions in the end. They seemed to be means to ends. And how weary she was of being an object in any fashion, and how luxurious it had been to just be a person here among other women at The Grand Palace on the Thames.

  But she’d also seen the look in his eyes when he’d stood on the threshold of that room tonight. As if he wasn’t certain he was welcome. Until his eyes met hers.

  Did he know how his pupils flared hotly? Even now she could make her breath come short picturing it. Did he care whether she noticed?

  And his face had gone undeniably soft, just for an instant, when she’d told him she didn’t have a child.

  Captain Hardy was neither rock nor trebuchet.

  But one moment of softness didn’t mean he wasn’t hard.

  Whether or not it was wise, it was this soft expression—surprised, careful, vulnerable, human—not his thighs, that lingered like a lullaby before she drifted to a restless sleep.

  His plans to pick the lock on the first floor were daunted by a full moon and a cloudless sky. The door was lit up like a stage. He woke at dawn and decided that charming his way into the Mysterious Room via one of the maids-of-all-work who crept into the rooms, built fires, and ferried away chamber pots, was his best option for getting into it.

  But when he arrived on that floor, a woman was already backing out of the room.

  “Captain Hardy!”

  “Lady Derring. And now that we’ve identified each other, good morning.”

  “Good morning.”

  And then, for an awkward instant, during which they both missed the appropriate window for bidding each other good-day and getting on with their business, they merely looked at each other as though they’d each happened upon an interesting, somewhat puzzling view.

  It was increasingly apparent that the laws of gravity were suspended when she was near. Which perhaps accounted for his reluctance to leave her, or to watch her leave. In her presence, whatever force pressed him down to earth, or settled the weight of responsibility onto his shoulders, relented. Stepping away from her was increasingly similar to stepping back into a cage.

  “Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” she said gently, after a moment, “but your room is on the second floor, right above Mr. Delacorte’s.”

  “How could I forget, Lady Derring? Were you aware that Delacorte snores like a dragon with a head cold when you put me in that room?”

  “You know, I truly wasn’t aware,” she said, with wide-eyed mystification. “I suppose it’s just serendipity.”

  He tried, and failed, not to smile at that.

  A soft pink flush moved into her cheeks. She looked down, and her hands absently fussed with the keys at her hip.

  He savored knowing he could disconcert her with a smile. He could throw smiles like kindling onto whatever was simmering here between them.

  She looked up again swiftly. “We can move you to any other available room at a moment’s notice, if it truly does prevent you from sleeping,” she added hurriedly. Remembering she was meant to be hospitable, no doubt.

  Speaking of serendipity. He seized upon her offer as an opportunity and a bit of a test.

  “Well, that could be a solution. May I see all the other available rooms before I decide?”

  She looked delighted. “Oh, what a fine idea! They’re all a bit different, you know,” she said proudly. “But all equally comfortable. I’ll send Dot to give you a tour if you like.”

  One got the sense that she’d been dying to show her rooms to guests who had yet to appear. She didn’t sound the least bit as though she was attempting to hide heaps of contraband cigars.

  “Thank you. It would be most appreciated. I’m amazed that you can’t hear Delacorte snoring from where you sleep at the very top of the house.”

  “We can, at that, hear it a bit, sometimes. It sounds a bit like Gordon, from that distance.”

  A rogue wave of shocking jealousy stopped his breath. Who the devil was—

  “Gordon is our tiger cat,” she expounded, “who rumbles when he’s purring, or when the cook has given him a nice bit of liver. He snores, too, when he sleeps.”

  He did not one bit like the relief that swept in; he did not one bit like the sense that his emotions seemed to be attached to a pendulum. He was usually compared to a rock, and he’d always found the comparison flattering.

  “I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting him, but I believe I heard him galloping down the hall. The building shifts and creaks a good deal in the middle of the night, doesn’t it?”

  “Isn’t it lovely?” she said in all seriousness. “So cozy, those sounds.”

  He was charmed. “It’s a bit like listening to someone attempting to digest a rich meal. I’ve heard a particular muffled thunk. As if the building swallowed something that won’t go down properly.”

  She laughed. “Oh, we’ve heard that, too. Once before we all moved in. Once after. We haven’t been able to discover what it is. Perhaps a large r—”

  She stopped. Pressed her lips together.

  “You were going to say rat,” he said.

  “We haven’t any rats, thanks to Gordon.”

  He could have sworn she was surreptitiously crossing her fingers in the folds of her skirt.

  He gave her a slow, crooked, intimate smi
le. Amused.

  She smiled, too. Suddenly, acutely, he saw her as curves and textures, all as alluring as a crooked finger. Her lips. Her long throat. The skin that glowed like a pearl in this light and probably felt like petals beneath one’s fingertips. The dark hair spiraling against her temple, and her lashes. The swell of her breasts, which looked precisely designed to fit into each of his hands, neatly.

  The bands of muscles across his stomach tightened as if they were struggling to contain that sudden surge of lust.

  The notion of seducing her made him breathless, because he thought it was both possible and inadvisable for a dozen reasons. If he applied himself, he could rationalize those reasons out of existence.

  “What are you doing on this floor, Captain Hardy? Oh! Were you going to visit Mr. Delacorte?” All at once she was radiant with hope. “Did the two of you become friends? I know he likes to play chess. He’s loud but he’s clever and quite a nice fellow all in all, I think. But he’s already gone down to breakfast, I’m afraid.”

  She sounded like a mother who so hoped someone found her slow son likable. And he remembered her expression—the fleeting bleakness—when he’d asked her if she had a child. Lady Derring was trying to create a family of sorts here, he was fairly certain.

  He was hopelessly charmed. “My chess skills are moderate at best and if I’m going to lose at something I’d rather put up a more respectable fight.”

  “I don’t suppose you often lose at anything, Captain Hardy.”

  “Not since that one time, lo these many years ago.”

  He allowed himself a moment of basking in her smile. Like the fluffy pillows here at the boardinghouse, pleasures like her smile were so rare in his life as to qualify as luxuries.

  “But if you’re not looking for Mr. Delacorte, then, Captain Hardy, what brings you to this floor? I should think you’d have mastered navigation by now.”

  She was dogged.

  “I must have inadvertently headed out one flight too soon in my eagerness to get to my comfortable blue room.”

  He’d said that to make her face glow, and it did, even if she was a trifle skeptical of the flattery.

  “Speaking of winning . . . by the way, who is the lucky bas—who is the person who managed to reserve this suite before I could? And when will we meet him or her?”