Cherished

by Elizabeth Thornton

  “He doesn’t look very happy to see her.”

  Peter’s bewilderment showed. “Who are we talking about?”

  Hester leaned forward in a confiding manner. “Leon Devereux and his mistress, Mrs. Royston. Everybody is talking about her. Last year, in Montreal, they had an affair.”

  With the appearance of stretching his legs, Peter half turned to glance toward the glass doors.

  Hester giggled. “Did you see that? He removed her hand from his sleeve as though he were brushing away something unmentionable.”

  Frowning, Peter gave the couple his back. “It’s not like you, Hester, to lower yourself to talk of such things.”

  The look she bestowed on him was very superior, very knowing, “Men have mistresses. We ladies know we must tolerate it. What is intolerable is the little scene that is being played out before our eyes. Devereux is going to have to do something drastic to get rid of the woman. If a man must have a mistress, he should choose someone with a modicum of discretion.”

  Peter muttered something unintelligible under his breath and twisted himself in his chair. When his eyes next found the couple by the glass doors, there was a very thoughtful look to them.

  “You allowed Addison to kiss you. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Emily stared at her reflection in the looking glass, involved in removing her pearl drop earrings, wondering how she was going to disrobe when Leon had already dismissed her maid.

  “It was a kiss between old friends, signifying nothing. And if we are apportioning blame for tonight’s debacle, let’s not forget Mrs. Royston. She is the reason you refused to take me to Montreal, isn’t she, Leon?”

  He came to stand behind her, his eyes capturing hers in the mirror. “Yes,” he said quietly.

  She was braced for his answer, and still it shocked her. Suddenly, she felt young and gauche, and no match for a man of Leon’s experience.

  Inching away from him, breathing deeply, she said, “And that is all the explanation I deserve?”

  His powerful hands cupped her shoulders, drawing her back against his hard length. “Barbara Royston is not important,” he said. “She never was. And don’t change the subject. We were talking of you and Addison.”

  For the first time since entering her bedchamber, Emily became aware that her husband was seething with anger. “You can’t be jealous of William Addison!” she exclaimed with so much incredulity, so much vehemence, that there could be no doubt she found the notion absurd.

  For a long interval, Leon’s eyes searched her face. Gradually, his rigid posture relaxed, and he smiled whimsically. “Forgive me, Emily. I misunderstood. I thought, you see, that you were paying me back in kind. I should have remembered that there isn’t a vindictive bone in your body.”

  His head dipped and as his lips brushed the sensitive curve at the base of her throat, the fingers of one hand deftly released the buttons at the back of her gown.

  “What…what are you doing?” she demanded, edging away from him, making a feeble attempt to pull out of his grasp.

  He laughed softly and Emily wanted to slap him. He knew that William Addison was of no consequence because he knew her character. Her own uncertainties respecting Barbara Royston were not so easily laid to rest. A man of any sensitivity would have understood that. A man who really cared for her would have tried to reassure her, realizing that she had never been more aware of her own inadequacies as a woman.

  Barbara Royston was a femme du monde, a woman who would be a match for any man. During that interminable evening, Emily had been tortured with lurid pictures of Leon teaching his mistress about male fantasies. Though she knew it was farfetched, she could not rid herself of the feeling that he was coming to her straight from the arms of another woman, and she could not endure it.

  “It’s late,” she said, struggling to free herself. “I’m fatigued. Please, Leon. Let me be.”

  “I can’t let you be. You know I can’t.” His lips were tasting the fragrance of gardenia on her shoulder. “Barbara Royston is not here by my invitation. She was never my mistress. Since my marriage to you, I have never had a woman in my keeping. I’ve had affairs, Emily. I have never denied it, but damn fewer than you would imagine.” Kisses whispered over her face, and her lips opened to the gentle persuasion of his. “Only you, Emily, only you since our marriage became a real one.”

  “I want to believe you, but…”

  “Believe me!” he said before he crushed her mouth under his.

  She felt the familiar rush of helplessness, and the slow throb that began deep in her body, an involuntary yielding to a will that was greater than her own. As the pleasure rose in her, she forgot about Barbara Royston, forgot about William Addison. There was nothing in the world but Leon and the fierce pressure of his lips on hers.

  When he pulled back, they were both breathing hard. “If I ever find you in Addison’s arms again,” he said, his eyes flashing with purpose, “I swear I shall kill him.”

  He was jealous. The thought leaped out at her, elating her, drawing the poison from every wound she had caused herself since she had first set eyes on Barbara Royston. Leon was jealous and he was bound and determined to erase every vestige of the other man’s embrace.

  With newfound confidence, she attacked him, pressing her lips to his throat, his hands, his hair, whatever part of his anatomy got in her way. Between fevered kisses, she issued him an ultimatum. “If you ever dare share your fantasies with any other female, I swear it will be the last thing you do, Leon Devereux.”

  His clothes were no barrier to her experienced fingers. He was laughing when she tumbled him into bed. For a moment their eyes held, and the laughter gradually faded.

  Then his head lifted from the pillow, and he took her lips in a hungry demand, his body moving sinuously beneath hers, urging her to finish what she had begun. Heady with power, she exploited his profoundest secrets. His body delighted her, his response fanned the flames of her own ardor. She demanded more—everything he had to give, resisting him when he would have brought things to completion.

  “More,” she said. “I want more.”

  His laughter was strained. Hoarsely, he got out, “If you’re not careful, you’ll get a damn sight more than you bargained for. Now, Emily, now!”

  Heedless of her protests, he slid his hands under her hips, lifting her, positioning her, burying himself deep inside her body. For a moment, gasping, they both stilled. Emily’s lips sought his, and in a fury of passion, rolling, writhing, they came together, insensible to everything but the present moment and the relentless drive for completion.

  As ever, at the last, came Emily’s tears. Leon kissed them away, grinning with male satisfaction, immensely pleased with himself. There was a time when those tears had worried him. Now he accepted them for what they were—irrefutable proof that his wife’s emotions were involved in this most intimate of all acts between a man and his mate.

  Drifting into sleep, her head pillowed against his shoulder, she murmured, “I think I may have fallen over the edge of that precipice.”

  “What?” He saw that she was asleep. With infinite tenderness, he brushed back the long strands of hair from her face. He had exhausted her, and that made him smile even more.

  Some time later, he pushed back the covers and reached for his garments. The night was not yet over. He had a rendezvous with Barbara Royston, and one that he intended to keep. He would do whatever was necessary to protect his wife from the machinations of a jealous woman.

  In a small private parlor overlooking the courtyard of the Jolly Roger, a man and a woman were in quiet conversation. The lady was in her nightclothes, the gentleman had yet to remove his cloak.

  “I suppose you think that you have won our wager,” said Barbara Royston. “To all appearances, it would seem that I hold no interest for Leon Devereux.”

  Accepting a glass of sherry from her hand, the gentleman shrugged negligently. “I don’t wonder that you thought you could attach him. As
I told you, the marriage was forced on Lady Emily. She has no desire to be wed to Devereux. Where you went wrong, Barbara, was in arranging to meet Devereux in a public place. Evidently, the man was afraid that his wife would take umbrage if he openly pursued you. I think I told you that she holds the purse strings.”

  She sighed and studied the amber liquid in her glass. “You may be right, but…” She shook her head.

  “But?” he prompted.

  “He was reluctant to meet with me privately. Damn the man!” Her smile was rueful. “You may believe that I tried every feminine wile to bend him to my will. I hate losing a bet.”

  He laughed. “But he did say he would come to you later?”

  “Yes, but only when it appeared that I might make a scene. Even so, I am not finished with him yet. I do not give up so easily.”

  He smiled. “I was thinking that you might still win our wager if you really put your mind to it. But I should not be encouraging you like this. I should be demanding my forfeit.”

  She threw her head back and pouted prettily. “You really are determined to have me, aren’t you?”

  “From the moment I first saw you in a crowded ballroom in Montreal,” he admitted readily.

  Her eyes narrowed speculatively. Challenging him, she said, “Yet, there is something here which I think I have not quite grasped.”

  “Nonsense! I was determined to have you. You would not come to me. So…I used your predilection to gaming against you. I mean to have you, Barbara. Better make your mind up to it.”

  Triumph glittered in her eyes. “You haven’t won yet. Twenty-four hours is what you promised me.”

  He rose to his feet, and she rose with him. Roughly grabbing her wrists, he said harshly, “You are a Circe, and you know it.”

  Laughing, she allowed him to capture her in his powerful arms. As he kissed her, his hands moved over her, slipping inside her wrapper, sliding it down over her shoulders till her arms were imprisoned at her sides. She moaned and his hands moved to her throat, his thumbs coming to rest on a wildly beating pulse. When she opened her mouth to protest his rough handling, the pressure of his thumbs increased drastically. Too late, she struggled, but her strength was no match for his. In a matter of minutes, it was all over. She slipped soundlessly to the floor.

  The last thing he did before quitting the chamber was to curl her inert fingers around a jeweled pin.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Emily awakened to the sound of her name. A slow smile of repletion curved her lips. Before she could do more than register the sensation of well-being that seemed to permeate every particle of her body, the voice changed timbre, became rougher, more insistent.

  “Emily!”

  Blinking the sleep from her eyes, disoriented, she pulled herself up and reached for her wrapper. The voice came again from the other side of the door. Not Leon’s voice, but Peter’s. She had expected to awaken in her husband’s arms. Frowning, she went to answer the peremptory summons.

  “It’s Leon,” said Peter. “No, don’t distress yourself. He is all right. That is…get dressed and come downstairs. Sir George would like a word with you. We shall be in my book room.”

  There was something far wrong here. As Peter turned on his heel, Emily cried out, “But where is Leon?”

  His hesitation was slight and almost imperceptible. “That’s just it, you see. We don’t know.”

  “But…but he was here, with me, last night. After the ball, he came home here with me, in the carriage.”

  “Then it seems he went out again.”

  Emily was given no opportunity to voice the spate of questions that trembled on her lips. Already, Peter was striding along the corridor. She dressed quickly and was soon descending the stairs. Though she managed to maintain a composed facade, inwardly she was churning. That Leon should steal from her bed in the middle of the night after what they had shared! She did not know whether she was alarmed or insulted.

  Carousing or gaming, thought Emily irritably. It must be one or the other. All the gentlemen seemed to indulge in such vices, even her brother-in-law, and always in the small hours of the morning when decent people were snug in their beds.

  Other thoughts, more alarming thoughts, began to intrude. Gentlemen fought duels at the drop of a hat, and Leon was not the most popular man in York, not by a long shot. It was not unlikely that he had said something to which his neighbor had taken exception.

  “Don’t say he has been involved in a duel!” were the first words she said as Peter opened the book room door to her.

  “It’s not a duel.”

  Emily’s fears subsided only to return in full force when two grave-faced gentlemen rose at her entrance, Sir George and William Addison. She was hardly aware when her brother-in-law pushed her into a chair.

  Sir George cleared his throat. “Dear, dear…this is a bad business. That a gentleman should have to speak of such things to a lady.”

  His nervousness began to transmit itself to Emily. She found herself wringing her hands. “What is it?” she said, looking at each somber face in turn.

  “Dear, dear! There is no way to break it gently. Lady Emily, it grieves me to tell you…” Sir George broke off and shook his head.

  Emily was beside herself. “I want to know the worst,” she cried out. “Tell me what has happened to Leon.”

  Sir George straightened in his chair. “Last night, your husband was surprised in the very act of committing a murder.”

  “Murder?” she got out hoarsely. “Who…?”

  “Mrs. Barbara Royston.”

  It was a full minute before she could find her voice. “And Leon admits to this?” she asked incredulously.

  “No…that is, he resisted arrest and got clean away.”

  The next half hour was one of the worst in Emily’s life. She could scarcely take it all in. Only one thing mitigated her sense of hopelessness. Leon was safe.

  She pressed a hand to her temples trying to make sense of it all. Leon had stolen from her bed in the middle of the night to go straight to another woman—Barbara Royston, his former mistress. If it were only that! But Mrs. Royston was murdered, strangled, and witnesses swore that they practically caught Leon in the act. A few moments sooner and Barbara Royston might still be alive.

  Emily had to fight back the wave of nausea that rose to choke her. Clutched in Mrs. Royston’s fist was a ruby pin with Leon’s initials engraved upon it.

  “We think he lost it in the struggle,” observed Sir George.

  Emily knew the pin. She had given it to Leon for Christmas. “He must have lost it,” she said. “Or someone could have stolen it.”

  No one heeded her anguished protests, for Leon’s subsequent conduct condemned him.

  “What does it mean, that he resisted arrest?” Emily demanded.

  It was William Addison who answered her. “He drew a pistol and held us off while he made his escape. It was only then that we discovered Barbara Royston on the floor of her private parlor.”

  Into Emily’s mind flashed a picture of Barbara Royston as she had been the night before. It was beyond belief that so much beauty could be snuffed out in the blink of an eye. She could not begin to understand how and why it had happened. There was one thing, however, which she never doubted for an instant.

  “My husband is many things,” she said, appealing to each gentleman in turn, “but he is not a murderer. Who are these witnesses who surprised him coming from Mrs. Royston’s rooms? Perhaps they are lying. Leon has made many enemies here in York. Until he is found and tells us exactly what happened, who is to say what the truth is?”

  “Emily,” said Addison gently, “you are clutching at straws and you know it. Does an innocent man run away? And as for witnesses,” he breathed deeply, “I was almost first on the scene, right on the heels of Major Benson.”

  “Peter?” If Peter was a witness against Leon, the evidence was irrefutable. Her brother-in-law was one of the few people in York whom Leon had not completely
alienated. She trusted Peter as she trusted no other.

  “It was Leon, all right. I’m sorry, Emily.”

  “But what were you doing there? And you, too, William? Were you following Leon? I don’t understand.”

  There was an interval of silence, then Sir George coughed. “They were playing cards. The deepest play in town is always to be found at the Jolly Roger. Every gentlemen from here to Montreal knows it.”

  Emily was trying very hard to stave off the panic that beat inside her head. Marshaling her thoughts by sheer force of will, she finally said, “It doesn’t make sense. Why would Leon murder Mrs. Royston?”

  “Who is to say?” Sir George’s eyes were soft with compassion. “Perhaps Mrs. Royston was a scorned mistress. Perhaps she threatened to tell you or her husband of the affair between them.”

  Emily shook her head. “That’s not it,” she said. “You all hate Leon because he is an American. You were waiting for something like this to happen so that you could have him in your clutches. Well, it won’t do.” The fight suddenly went out of her and she said imploringly, “I know Leon. He is not a murderer. Why won’t you believe me?”

  Sir George spoke very softly. “You tell her ladyship, Addison.”

  “I had hoped it would not come to this,” he said.

  “William, please, I am not a child. Tell me!”

  He exhaled on a long breath. “I warned you once to keep away from Devereux—and how right I was! At the war office, I came across a file…the source is unimportant. What it amounts to is this, Emily. I am almost sure that your husband was once known as Le Cache-Cache, Hide-and-Seek. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No,” she whispered painfully. But it did mean something to her. Le Cache-Cache was the most notorious assassin of La Compagnie. She had read about the person in the newspaper accounts, when it seemed that the sect was once again on the rise.

  Sir George cut in quietly. “Lady Emily, we suspect that your husband was once a member of a secret society originating in France. I see from your expression that you have heard of it. Yes, well…it was in all the papers. So you see, there is no point in protesting that Devereux is incapable of murder. The man is a trained assassin.”