A Wicked Lord at the Wedding (29 page)

“No.” He smiled. “He didn’t.”

“Then in my opinion, the pair of you are—” She restrained the urge to vent her thoughts. While she might feel justified calling her husband names, she could hardly state that the duke was a stinker. The duchess would assuredly do that. “I hope you’re sorry.”

A grin crept across his chiseled face.

“You aren’t,” she said. “In fact, I think you’re proud of yourself.”

He didn’t deny it.

“I won you back,” he said, his voice strong and yet gentle. “It was worth the risk for that.”

She felt her eyes mist. In a few minutes the sea would wash away her castle. The princess who
stood on the battlement walk, waiting for her prince, would either pull him up beside her or watch him drown in the moat he had built to protect her.

“I have always been a faithful husband,” he said with a smile that went straight to her heart. “And I’ve always loved you. The question, I suppose is, do
you
still love me?”

She shook her head at him. “I think I must.”

“Aren’t you sure?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m sure.”

“Forgive me,” he said, bending on one knee, the color of his eyes irresistible Boscastle blue, “I thought I’d lost you. I would have done anything to make you love me again.”

“It’s getting late,” she said, not because she cared one way or another, but if they did not return to the castle, she would fall onto her knees beside him and stay until they were covered in kelp and kisses. “We’ve got work to do before the masquerade supper.”

“I was late to my own wedding,” he said with a rueful grin.

“And a wicked disgrace into the bargain. My aunt still mentions it every time she writes.”

“What can I do to make it up?”

She shook her head helplessly. “Not get yourself killed over this conspiracy.”

“I can’t let Wellington be killed.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” she whispered. “Why did someone try to lure you here today?”

“He might have mistaken me for one of the other Boscastles. Perhaps it was an innocent error.”

A clap of thunder rumbled suddenly above the castle turrets. He glanced up at the sky and grasped her hands, rising from the sand. Then they were racing up the path to escape the rain with the other couple who’d been on the beach behind them. The four of them were drenched by the time they reached the drawbridge. Sebastien brushed a hand through her damp hair.

Their bedraggled appearance raised eyebrows as they attempted to sneak past the more dignified guests who headed toward the great hall for brandy and gossip.

“Quickly,” he said, squeezing her hand before they disengaged. “That’s Will and Sir Perceval coming our way. Let’s avoid them until I find that last letter.”

“And make a few inquiries about the man who wanted to meet you while you’re at it,” she said, hastening up the stairs before anyone noticed the puddles they had dripped everywhere.

Sebastien watched his wife’s white shoulders disappear into the steaming hot water of her hip bath. Her genie costume lay across the bed—a coin-decorated veil and peacock blue headdress, a tapestry vest with a scarf that draped around her midriff. He wasn’t sure what to make of the mysterious message he had received. The chambermaid who had delivered it could not be found. Nor did the majordomo
remember a girl of that description in his employ. He suggested, as Eleanor had, that perhaps Sebastien had a secret admirer who had been hoping to meet him alone.

The whole thing disturbed him.

But probably not as much as the fact that at the party his wife would be wearing a pair of loose trousers almost identical to his. She was a genie. He was Aladdin.

She looked beguiling.

He couldn’t look at himself in the mirror.

“I didn’t realize that your costume was so revealing,” he said, pacing around the room. “Do you have any idea how many men will ask you to make their wishes come true?”

“I wish
you
would cease pacing and complaining. It’s wearing on my nerves. What happened to Sebastien, the spine of steel saboteur? You can’t have been on edge every time you carried out your own assignments.”

He sent her a dark glance. “I did not have a wife draped in veils to distract me then. At least not of which I was aware. Had I known what you were up to, I doubt I could have concentrated at all.”

She stepped out of the tub, squeezing the water from her long rope of hair. Her breasts shone, her nipples dark and prominent. He stared at her glimmering form and thought of a nubile young goddess and naughty pleasures and starting a family.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said. “I
promise to remain inside the castle. Will can play the cavalier for an hour or so.”

“It shouldn’t take me that long.” He wrapped the towel around her damp shoulders, promising himself he’d have her back in his arms before midnight. “Lady Eaton’s suite is directly off the staircase.”

“All the better for sneaking in and out, eh?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said innocently. “Well, not the sort of sneaking you mean.” He turned from her with a sigh. “Speaking of sneaking, I—what is that smell?”

“I beg your pardon. I just bathed. I thought you liked my lily soap.”

“That’s not soap. It’s smoke. I smell something burning.”

She pushed around him. “I hope it isn’t the candle in my magic lantern. I lit it to see if the wick was still good. I thought I put it out, though.”

He picked up the lamp that sat on the nightstand. “You did.”

“Thank goodness. I wouldn’t want to burn down the castle.”

“Perhaps it’s the bonfire being lit in the hall to celebrate Guy Fawkes.”

“Bonfires make me uneasy. I believe one of my ancestors was burned as a witch.”

“You have certainly inherited your powers of bewitchment from someone.”

“Be careful, Sebastien,” she said softly as he went to the door.

“You, too.” He frowned at her over his shoulder. “And put on a cape over those veils. You look too appealing in that costume. I, on the other hand, feel like an idiot.”

He would have searched and exited Lady Eaton’s bedchamber in under three minutes had her ladyship not decided on a costume change at the last moment. A full-figured woman with frizzy orange hair, who displayed more of her assets than he cared to see, had likely realized she wasn’t the only Venus to bestow her beauty on the other guests.

Luckily she caught him in the gallery
outside
her door, and not on the way in.

“Open sesame,” she trilled at the top of her voice, gesturing at the closed door with her conch shell.

He did not turn to acknowledge the flirtatious invitation to enter her bedroom. He had one of her old letters tucked inside his costume. For all she knew he’d been admiring the crossbow collection mounted upon the hallway wall.

“Excuse me?” he said.

She lowered her conch with a coy smile. “There might be treasure in my cave.” She gave him a little wink. “Treasure that I only share with
certain
guests.”

He edged around her. “Where there’s treasure, there is usually trouble.”

“I’ve heard,” she said, thwarting his passage, “that
where there’s trouble, there’s usually a Boscastle in the vicinity.” She examined his costume closely. “Or would you rather I call you Ali Baba Boscastle?”

He grimaced. “That’s quite all right.” This was what came from wearing clothes that Will had borrowed from the theater. “To be frank, you have the wrong tale. As well as the wrong male.”

She laid her hand on one of his gold arm gauntlets. “A sultan?”

“His son-in-law, returning home.” What a preposterous conversation. “I’m Aladdin.”

“Didn’t Aladdin have his own harem?” she asked in a throaty voice.

“I don’t believe so,” he said politely, plucking her fingers from his becircled biceps. “However, I certainly don’t.” It was all he could do to keep his only woman from writing her own entertainments.

“Everyone gets lost in the castle at midnight,” she whispered, giving him a nudge. “The servants extinguish all the torches, and we have to find one another.”

“How frightfully exciting.”

He decided right then that he and Eleanor would be locked inside their room by eleven. At daybreak they would be on the road back to London to send the staff off to Sussex, and if it rained hard, they’d make a detour and stay for another day or so on the coast.

“I know all the hiding places in the castle,” the countess continued, not one to take a hint. “Would you like for me to find you if you get lost?”

“I think my wife has already done that, Lady Eaton, but your offer is immensely kind.”

“You haven’t heard yet what else I’m willing to offer.”

“That might be best left to the imagination.” Suddenly he wondered if
she
was the one who had tried to meet him on the beach.

She studied him in sour amusement. “I thought that you and your wife had been estranged for years. Surely you’re aware that she has been seen in the company of other men at other masquerades. I saw her myself at the Aldephia with a most handsome portrait painter.”

“Oh, yes, Sir What’s—”

“Nathan Bellisant. He’s not as interesting as you. I don’t think he wanted to paint me. He liked your wife, though. Followed her around like a lost puppy.”

He touched his right hand to his forehead and sketched a low bow. “I assure you that she is very much my devoted wife, as I shall remain a faithful husband.”

At least the latter part of that statement would never be disproved.

As far as Eleanor’s devotion, she had proven that too, which didn’t mean he could take her for granted again, nor leave her alone for the duration of even one more party.

And when he saw her coming from their room at the opposite side of the gallery, he could not escape
Lady Eaton fast enough. There were guests going up and down the staircase, admiring one another’s disguises.

None of them looked as enchanting as the tall genie with an unlit lamp and peeved expression on her face.

He saw Eleanor look past him to where he and Lady Eaton had been standing. When she glanced back up at him rather testily, he patted the letter he had hidden under his vest.

“That’s it,” he said, sotto voce, as they met. “We’re finished. Shall we go home?”

She looked over his lean, spare frame. “You’re missing something—your dagger. I hope you didn’t drop it in that brassy woman’s bedchamber.”

“Of course I didn’t. Do you want to read the letter I found?”

“No.” Her eyes held his.

She adjusted the scarf that was stitched to her bodice. “Please put it in a very safe place.” She ran her fingers up his arm to the gauntlet that encircled his hard muscles. “I might have to put you in a safe place, too. I noticed that Lady Eaton found a way to stand at your side during our tour of the dungeon last night.”

He leaned into her. “I didn’t notice,” he said. “But then I was preoccupied staring daggers at the gentlemen who were staring at my wife, and if they do so again, I’ll put them in their place.”

“Daggers.” She drew her hand from the gauntlet with a wistful sigh. “Hurry up and find yours. Will
is insisting I accompany him on a tour of the torture chamber. He doesn’t want to go without me.”

“I know how he feels.”

“Are you afraid of the dark, too?”

He grinned. “Not if you’re with me.”

When he returned alone to their room to hide the letter, he heard the faint clamor of bells ringing from the beach. The storm had worsened. He glanced out through an arched window at the fishing boats bobbing at sea. The sailors had ignored the warning to come ashore.

These plots usually blow over before they amount to anything
.

Have you read them?

He felt a tug of curiosity. Eleanor had chosen to keep her promise. But he hadn’t promised the duchess as much. Furthermore, he had pledged to serve the duke. And keeping an eye open meant examining everything that came one’s way. Even old letters.

He hadn’t been assigned to covert activities for nothing.

He unfolded the letter and studied the feminine scrawl. Dear, dear. For a countess, Lady Viola Hutchinson did employ rather foul language and—Eleanor was afraid of bonfires? She’d had an ancestress burned as a witch? He hadn’t known that. Had they even spent a November together before? There wouldn’t be any fires lit in the village in this rain. Good thing they were wearing
light costumes tonight. They’d roast otherwise in the great hall. He glanced down again.

He stopped. Wellesley had become the Duke of Wellington. The recipient of this letter was the lascivious Lady Eaton, who’d snapped up her old earl. He’d no idea what had happened to this Lord Barry Summers. It was a name to remember.

He put the letter away when he heard a knock at the door. He hoped it was Eleanor and prayed it wasn’t Venus. It turned out to be a castle footman with another message, this time from a man claiming to be a family relation. The gentleman requested that Sebastien meet him on the drawbridge.

“Is this another prank?” he asked bluntly.

“I don’t think so, my lord,” the footman answered. “Would you like me to accompany you just in case?”

“No, thank you. I’ll go alone.” Which meant he wouldn’t involve Eleanor.

But if it was a relative, it could only be Heath. Who else knew Sebastien was attending a party at the castle? What could be important enough for him to ride from Town in the rain?

The plot against Wellington. A woman scorned and a cabinet member with a long-standing grudge. He felt a quickening, anticipation, the chance to be back in the game. He wasn’t sure, of course, that there was a connection. But it was a start, as Eleanor had said, and his instinct said it was a good one.