“I had the same thought, sir.”
Tristan took another bite of sausage. “I got a tour of the rooms from one of the staff—an incurious innocent named Dot. I looked thoroughly in wardrobes and under beds and behind curtains and saw nothing untoward or even curiosity piquing. None of them smelled like cigars. All the rooms are a bit different and looked quite pleasant and comfortable.”
They did, in fact. Evidence of that womanly care that Delacorte had so cherished was in every one of them. One featured a colorful quilt; another was hung with a sampler that said Bless Our Home. There were braided rugs and little vases and those cloud-like pillows.
“I haven’t been able to pick the lock of the first floor suite and I haven’t been able to talk my way into it yet. It’s surprisingly easy to be interrupted in the midst of things at The Grand Palace . . .”
He was remembering the last time he’d been interrupted at The Grand Palace.
“Sir?” Massey looked concerned.
Tristan cleared his throat. “However . . . I think it’s possible another of the guests has taken an interest in it. One who hasn’t a room on that floor.”
“Which one?”
“Miss Margaret Gardner. Woman the size of a bear, who eats dinner like one.”
Massey tapped his fork against his chin. “That one. I’ve meant to tell you that Morgan followed her out of the boardinghouse yesterday. She went into the livery stables.”
“The livery stables?”
“Yes, sir. Pity the horse what has to carry that—”
“Yes, Massey, that’s enough,” he interrupted sharply. He suddenly recalled Delilah’s face, stricken and soft, when she talked about the Gardner sisters.
“Sorry, sir. He didn’t see her leave the stable on a horse. She walked out again after a few minutes.”
“She was alone?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Interesting that she would go to such a place alone. Miss Gardner seems terrified of men. She won’t talk to me. She sits with her sister in the darkest corner of the drawing room at nights, away from the fire, and when she glances up it’s as though she’s certain I will bite.”
“Then she must be a good judge of character, sir.”
“Very amusing, Massey. The other sister scarcely talks at all, but she forms complete sentences.”
They sat back, puzzling over this. Tristan drummed his fingers against the side of his ale and looked out the window at the boarding stables. He missed a good ride. He missed action. One didn’t wind up passionately kissing widows when one was galloping down Sussex roads in pursuit of smugglers. Perhaps it was all the enforced proximity.
“What is the drawing room like, sir?”
Massey sounded equal parts inquisitor and child who wishes to hear a bedtime story.
“It is filled with comfortable, slightly mismatched furniture. It is warm and well lit from well-placed lamps and candles. Somewhat ominously, there is a pianoforte in it.” And if you sit close to a certain woman, it smells like lavender.
“And guests are required to make appearances in the drawing room?”
“It’s one of the rules, in fact. And if I wish to stay, I abide by the rules. Rather like the navy.”
Massey had a faraway look in his eyes again. “Are they very strict, these rules?”
“No, rather practical. And . . . kind. It’s meant to foster camaraderie.”
“Camaraderie?” Massey was as bemused as Tristan about that. “Has it worked?”
Tristan hesitated, and absently flexed his hand, and remembered threading those fingers up through Lady Derring’s soft hair to tug it back, and how her lips had felt beneath his, and the bands of muscle across his stomach tightened.
He looked up. “After a fashion,” he said finally.
He told Massey to keep watching the boardinghouse and following the guests, and to keep up the questioning.
That evening, as usual, he settled in at a little round table with a brandy and Robinson Crusoe in the drawing room, gallantly at a distance from the fire. He thought of poor Massey at the Stevens Hotel, surrounded by men instead, with no jar to keep their heathen impulses in check.
As irrational a thought as he’d ever had. Who wouldn’t prefer the company of soldiers?
Delacorte and Dot were chuckling aloud over something Mrs. Breedlove was reading, and the Gardner sisters were huddled in the corner, as if this drawing room was instead a dungeon. And there was Lady Derring, swathed in a shawl, working some more soothing words into a sampler, no doubt.
All theories about enforced proximity banking lust rather vaporized in her presence. No: he would want her no matter where, or when.
She stood. He watched as she moved across the room to him, quite casually, pulled out the chair across from him, and sat down.
He gazed at her steadily.
It occurred to him that he’d love to see her in a color, any color, other than half mourning. Red, or gold, or green. The mourning reminded him that she had once been Derring’s. It was yet another irrational thought in an increasingly troubling series of them.
“I’ve been looking for my belongings next to the door every day this week, Lady Derring. Are you going to ask me to leave The Grand Palace on the Thames?”
“No. Nor have I told Mrs. Breedlove or any other members of the staff about it, and I won’t. But . . . you shouldn’t take this decision as encouragement to take liberties again.”
He studied her.
“Take,” he repeated slowly, musingly, “liberties.” As though she’d introduced a sophisticated philosophical concept requiring some rumination.
“What would you call it?”
“If I instigated a liberty seizure, I daresay you voluntarily gave one up.”
She mulled this. She gave a short nod. “Fair enough.”
He smiled faintly. It occurred to him that he had not expected to like her as much as he did.
“But that . . . sort of thing . . . should not happen again,” she added hurriedly, firmly. “The Grand Palace on the Thames is a fine establishment and its reputation means everything to me. I can’t behave heedlessly, and I fully don’t intend to.”
He thought of a dozen things to say. He wondered if she knew that “word” on the street had it that one ought not go into The Grand Palace on the Thames. He decided not to tell her, because he didn’t want to see the hurt flash across her features.
He’d heard the words should not. There was a world of difference between should and will, and they both knew it.
What he said was, “Fair enough.”
He didn’t mourn. In negotiations—and this was a negotiation, he was certain—as in investigations and campaigns, patience was the greatest weapon.
She didn’t get up to leave.
She also didn’t look particularly relieved at his acquiescence.
Then laughter rose up from the room behind her. Dot and Delacorte and Farraday.
Her face at once reflected warmth and genuine delight that this strange blend of people were enjoying themselves in her parlor; she seemed poised to leap up to participate.
She didn’t.
He realized he’d been holding his breath. And when she turned back toward him, he knew the tiniest frisson of delight and relief.
He wondered if he would see something new in her face every time. Because so far, that’s precisely how it felt.
The room was filled with cozy ambient sounds: a page turning, a quill scratching along foolscap, the fire crackling, a chirp from Gordon, the cat.
“Captain Hardy . . .” Delilah had folded her hands before her and was lacing and unlacing her fingers.
“Yes?”
“I know that I am pretty . . .”
He smiled faintly. “I will offer you no argument.”
“It isn’t a precisely burdensome quality.”
“I should think not,” he said agreeably.
“And yet I feel as though I had nothing at all to do with it. It is like bein
g congratulated for an archery prize when I haven’t even shot an arrow.”
He was tempted to say, I have perhaps seen more beautiful women, but the difference between them and you is like the difference between the grimy window and one rubbed clean, one through which the sun shines. It is about a certain quality of light.
“Do you excel at archery?” he said instead.
“This isn’t about archery,” she said, with such impatience he bit back a smile. “That is . . . I suppose I was wondering . . .” She cleared her throat. Then she drew in what sounded like a fortifying breath and released it slowly. “. . . why you ‘want’ me?”
She stumbled a little over the word want.
He watched her cheeks slowly flush rosy.
He went motionless.
Once again, he was absolutely flummoxed by the question.
He nearly felt a blush coming on, and he could not recall the last time he’d done that.
A woman no doubt had been involved, because that was the kind of creature they were.
But her expression was earnest, and a trifle tortured. The issue was clearly of some importance to her. He’d best wade in very, very gingerly.
“Is the emphasis on the want or the me in that question?”
“I wouldn’t mind at all if you addressed both.”
“Because, Lady Derring,” he said carefully, “if you are seeking flattery or persuasion, I’m afraid I can’t oblige. Not only do I not know how to do that, but my objective with regard to you is specific.”
This was an example of why he was often referred to as a “right bastard.”
Perverse female that she was, she just shook her head with a little “how you do run on, Hardy” eye roll. As if it was entirely what she’d expected him to say.
“And if you were hoping for flowers, or”—he cleared his throat—“I suppose poetry is also done, I’m afraid I . . .”
“Oh, dear heavens, no.” She brought her hand down on the table with an emphatic smack and was startlingly firm. “Imagine you bearing a bouquet of flowers!”
He frowned.
“I mean”—she leaned forward earnestly—“they’re meaningless, aren’t they? Flowers, poetry? So much ritual nonsense.” She gave her fingers a flick, as if releasing something she’d crumbled into dust.
He blinked.
He rather agreed—he’d learned that the hard way, long ago—but hearing her say that out loud was strangely less pleasant than he’d thought it would be.
“They do serve to signal intent,” he said cautiously. “They give poor hapless bast—er, men—a sort of language. Because communicating the finer feelings is often a struggle for our gender.”
“Signaling intent?” she repeated. Amused and bemused, all at once. “I suppose they do serve as offerings. Of a sort. That is, all manner of things certainly preceded my wedding to Derring. Bouquets of hothouse flowers. So expensive to grow and maintain for such fleeting beauty. They say more about money, don’t they? They say, look at all my money! Little books of poems, Byron and the like, though I was certain Derring had never so much as entertained a metaphor in his life. They were flattering, and I was grateful, and at no point was his intent, as you say, ambiguous. A man as conventional as Derring doesn’t lightly publicly woo the daughter of a lord, no matter how minor. But they don’t signify affection, do they? Not really. They do not make a person feel known.”
He listened to this, absolutely fascinated by something he’d failed before to consider and by a deeper glimpse into her.
“Perhaps they don’t always.”
“Forgive me. I am trying, I suppose, to be truthful in all things. To say the things I wish to say and ask the things I wish to ask, and not try merely to please someone else.”
Once again, he knew a swift stab of loathing for Derring, who had clearly not known, or cared, who she was.
“Do you like flowers?” he asked a moment later.
“I love flowers,” she said wistfully. “Daisies, especially.”
“Daisies?”
“They grow where they want to, don’t they? Often in surprising little places. Seldom in a hothouse. They’re not confined, bought, and sold like more exotic blooms. I’ve always liked daisies best.”
She made it sound as though she might never see another daisy again.
Why did he have an impulse to shower her in them suddenly?
“On that point, it’s not what I want. I do not intend to ever marry again.” She gave a little illustrative shudder. “I am now my own woman entirely and it suits me.”
“Excellent, Lady Derring. We are agreed on that point of courtship and matrimony. If you would be so kind as to help me understand your question?”
She drew in a breath, fortifying her nerve.
“Do you ‘want’ every pretty woman you see?”
He stared at her, once again astounded and nonplussed.
And then his head went back a little in comprehension.
Then a tiny flame of fury flared inside him at the people who had treated this uniquely lovely woman as someone who was merely a sort of bargaining chip or an ornament or as a means of continuing a line. This singular person.
If she were any other woman in any other circumstance he might say, I’ve never wanted anyone like this! I must have you! or something equally impassioned and florid in a low sultry voice. He was reasonably confident he could weaken the knees of a nun if he ever wanted to do that—he had, in fact, done that, once, an aspiring nun, rather—and have her knickers off and legs in the air with alacrity.
He wasn’t certain this was true, however. The never wanting someone quite so much.
He’d certainly known lust, some of it fierce.
He was certain he’d never met a woman like Lady Derring.
Somehow he knew this had something to do with the wanting of her.
Perhaps it was as simple as that: she was unique. Who didn’t enjoy a little variety?
Shimmering around the edges of that realization was, in fact, a unique sort of danger, one that he couldn’t quite bring into focus, one that he couldn’t quite name.
Certainly he’d never had a conversation like this one.
“No. I don’t want every woman I see. When I was younger it sometimes felt that way. It’s quite harrowing to be a man at times, for that reason, you know. The sway of a fishmonger’s hips beneath her skirt, a stray breeze. Honestly, anything can set us off. As I got older, I suppose I gained, er, discernment and discretion. And so. No.”
Her eyes were full of wicked, laughing lights. “I’m so very flattered to have survived the winnowing.”
“Well, you ought to be.”
She laughed. She was a maddening woman who laughed when he didn’t expect her to. At times when she probably shouldn’t. He didn’t think of himself as particularly witty, but her laugh made him feel like he did on the deck of a ship on a glorious day, wind snapping in the sails. As though his mind, singular as it was, was a delightful place.
He realized that was another of the reasons he wanted her.
At this, caution and a sort of alarm slammed down.
“You’re frowning at me,” she said suddenly.
“It’s my usual resting expression.”
“It isn’t, you know. And the lines on your face tell another story.”
He turned his head away a little, toward the fire, nonplussed. He didn’t particularly want anyone to notice, let alone read, the lines on his face.
He didn’t want her to know that.
“Ah ha ha, I have you now!” Mr. Delacorte chortled. Mr. Farraday moaned in dismay, and Delilah cast a glance over her shoulder, her smile pleased that two such mismatched souls were enjoying each other in part because of her.
Something about her posture suggested she was about to get up to join them, to bestow a smile or some hospitality.
“Because you’ve a spark about you,” he said swiftly. “In a room full of people you seem like the one visible star in a night sky.”
He said it because saying it suddenly seemed better than watching her leave.
And because those were the things he knew: The moon. The stars. The wind. The sea. It wasn’t poetry. It wasn’t.
She turned slowly to face him.
Her eyes had gone enormous.
She said nothing.
“And the way you move, it’s . . .”
What he wanted to say: like witnessing something fine and natural. It was simply an indefinable pleasure, like watching a well-built schooner, or a fast horse, or a wave beating on the shore, but he knew enough not to say these things aloud. She moved as though life was a pleasure and her body was wings.
“Like the fishmonger?” she prompted gently, teasing.
“No.”
A fraught, rather soft silence, not entirely comfortable for Tristan, stretched between them.
He knew she wouldn’t linger much longer.
“Because you are surprisingly prickly and clever while also being beautiful and I find that erotic. And the top of your head comes to my collarbone. Which I like.”
She gave him one of her slow, slow, crooked smiles, as if the sheer mirth, were it to burst forth, would send tables toppling and objects flying about the room. “There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose, Captain Hardy.”
He smiled at her.
Her cheeks went pinker, which he didn’t mind a bit.
But his smile faded as he realized there was a reason he’d only skirted around her question.
His answers would reveal as much, or more, about himself as they did about her.
Because I kissed you for all of fifteen seconds and even now I think I can feel the imprint of your body against mine, as if you’d stamped me like a coin.
Because suddenly I am nearly as afraid of having you as I am of the prospect of never having you.
That was ridiculous.
Afraid couldn’t possibly be the word.
He’d run out of things to fear. He was never afraid anymore.
Unless it was of musicales.
He lowered his voice to reasonable, conversational tones. “Because it’s fundamental, the desire between a man and a woman. It’s an intangible thing, not something one can or ought to measure or dissect. It needn’t be anything more than desire and one need not feel guilty about satisfying it. And I think you are curious enough to let me do all the wicked things to you that I want to do.”
Lady Derring Takes a Lover Page 16
