Always a Temptress (35 page)

Two years later
Venice

K
ate wasn’t sure she would ever become tired of Italy. It was October, and yet the breeze that ruffled the muslin curtains was still deliciously warm. The air was redolent with the scents of the sea, flowers, spices. Outside her open window she could hear the splash and slide of polemen as they propelled their gondolas. Occasionally, one would sing, his smooth voice a rich color in the soft night air.

As for her, she lay in a tester bed in an opulent suite papered in green and gold, a Murano chandelier dripping pink and green and white glass over her head. Clad in a night rail that would scandalize her husband, she was reading Byron and waiting for Harry to return from his meeting with the doge’s architect.

She didn’t think she would ever get used to the beauty of this country, or how friendly the people were. As for Venice, it was a fantasy out of time, as it dreamed on the water like a faded wedding cake. Corrupt, decadent, slowly sinking into the sea, it was still the most romantic city she’d ever seen.

She smiled, thinking of the compromise she and Diccan had made. Eastcourt was their home, where Harry was even now designing greenhouses for their flowers. But without these trips, Harry would shrivel. He needed this bouquet of sights and sounds as much as she needed the Eastcourt earth. His eyes lit in an unholy way when he spotted an interesting building. The Blue Mosque in Constantinople had almost given him the vapors.

Even so, they would have to spend the summer in England. Brand-new babies didn’t travel well. They would also be going home for Elspeth’s wedding. The poor girl had had to put it off to mourn her mother, who had met with an unfortunate accident while hunting. Kate knew she should be saddened. No one should die so young. But the truth was, she was relieved. She couldn’t bear the idea that her family would suffer the kind of notoriety a trial would bring. Even Edwin, as disagreeable as he was, shouldn’t have to face having a traitor for a wife.

Kate was glad she was well out of it, her only lingering nightmare waking up in a cold sweat afraid she was still in that cellar. Thankfully, it was Harry’s arms she felt each time she woke, his voice soothing her.

Kate had been surprised by how much she loved to travel. Europe and the Levant and the slow, sun-drenched isles of the Caribbean. Most, though, she would cherish their time in India. Not only had she fallen in love with the country, but she’d been able to celebrate something far more dear to her heart. Her lovely Grace and her favorite cousin Diccan had found their way back together, and Kate and Harry had gone to help them settle into their new diplomatic post in Calcutta.

Kate missed them already, but she knew she would be back. Diccan insisted his children know their cousins. Kate had tried to remind him that they weren’t cousins at all, but it hadn’t flown. So cousins they still were, and expected back with bratlings in hand.

As for Bea, that dignified lady had grown quite bold in the last two years. How could anyone have known how happy she would be swaying on the back of a camel in Cairo or twirling through the crowded streets of Calcutta at Diwali? She threatened to become more notorious than Kate.

There was a scratching on the door. Kate sat up. “Enter!”

She couldn’t help but smile. Mudge walked in, clad in the white embroidered kurta pajamas he had adopted in India, shadowed by a tall, painfully thin Italian man with liquid black eyes and a pockmarked face. Both wore the kind of stunned, fatuous expression Kate had seen on Elspeth’s face when she’d looked on her fiancé.

Mudge had already asked if his new friend Tony could come along with them when they left. Kate had readily agreed. It was a relief to see Mudge find his own happiness. She wanted him to find someone who could love him back.

“Signora,” the young Italian greeted her with a courtly bow. “You have all you need for the night?”

“Except my husband. Have you two seen him?”

“He’s right here,” Harry called behind them. “Call our gondola for nine, Mudge,” he said, stepping into the room. “We are off for Sienna.”

Seeing her husband, attired only in slacks and loose linen shirt, Kate stretched back on her pillows. “Do we have to go? I like it here.”

Harry grinned. “Bea wants to buy a winery.”

Kate laughed. “Of course she does. Well, at least she can’t bring it back to Eastcourt. The staff are still trying to acclimate to the panther.”

His smile changing, Harry approached over the echoing marble floor. Kate thought the young men slipped out of the room. She wasn’t really certain. She was too preoccupied with seeing reflected light shimmer over Harry. Since their time away, his hair had lightened to an almost white-blond, and his skin darkened.

“You must be overly warm, Harry,” she said, slipping her hands behind her head. “I think you should seek some relief.”

It took no imagination to guess Harry’s answer. His eyes grew dark; his slacks strained. Thinking about just what would happen in their garden of pillows, Kate shared a sensuous smile.

“Happy to,” he said, bending over her. “As soon as I greet the piglet.” And placing his hands on her belly, he put his mouth against the gentle swell of her belly and crooned. “Take care of yourself in there, lad. You know how your mother is.”

Kate swatted him on the head. “My child loves me.”

Harry kissed her. “So do I.” Standing, he pulled up his shirt. “You can’t tell me that
you’re
too cold,” he said.

Kate blatantly watched. It was her right, after all. Harry was hers; he told her often enough, and she believed him. She trusted him. She wanted him.

As sensuous as a cobra rising to the sound of a flute, she rose up on her knees and took hold of her gown, soft gold silk, and began to pull it up. She heard Harry’s breath catch. She didn’t take her eyes from his appearing body. Belly, chest, arms, throat. God, how she loved his throat. She could spend days tracing his pulse with her tongue.

She couldn’t resist watching the play of candlelight along his muscles as he lifted his arms over his head and tossed the shirt in the corner. She couldn’t keep from watching his erection strain against the slacks. She never got tired of seeing how much he wanted her. She never tired of seducing him into wanting her. Ever since that first night when Harry had taken her in the dark, whispering endearments as he’d spread her thighs and driven into her, she had forgotten how to be afraid. The darkness had grown placid, and her scars had become marks of pride. She had survived. They both had. And as reward, they had been given each other to cherish and protect and love.

“No, no,” she teased, up on her knees now. “I don’t think you’re cool enough yet, Harry. Those slacks must be constricting.”

Harry was breathing faster. He had his hands on the placket at his waist. Kate’s heart picked up speed and sent blood spilling through her. She spread her legs enough to feel the air brush the juice that had begun to gather between her legs.

“Come here,” he growled.

Before she’d gotten to know Harry again, she would have stormed off. No one told Kate Hilliard what to do anymore. But that had been before Harry taught her the pleasure of give-and-take. Of temptation and challenge. Slowly, she rose to her feet. She approached silently across the marble floor. She walked right up to him, close enough that her breasts brushed against his chest. And reaching between them, she finished unbuttoning the placket and slid her thumbs inside Harry’s pants.

She felt flushed and anxious, shivery with impatience. She knew her hands were trembling. With a smile as old as sin, she bent over and laid a pillow at Harry’s feet. Then, sliding his pants down, she slid down with them until she knelt before him.

She inhaled. There was something so primal about the scent of an aroused male; especially Harry. Salt and musk, power and grace. She leaned right up to his penis and rubbed her cheek against it. He jerked, gasped. She chuckled.

“Don’t you want me to do this?” she asked.

It was why she loved doing it. Because Harry never expected it. He was grateful.

“Only if you’ll let me reciprocate.”

She swore she melted inside. She swore she could already feel the rasp of Harry’s tongue against her most tender flesh, the nip of his teeth, the delicious satin of his lips. Reaching down, she cupped his sac in her hands. Then, licking her lips in anticipation, she bent and took him in her mouth. All of him, deep; heat and steel and velvet, pulsing with power and taut with need. She sucked, she licked, she nibbled, a hot treat for a naughty girl. She delighted in the rising pitch of his groans, in the way his body bucked against her mouth, in the pull of his hands in her hair as he pulled her more tightly to him.

“You’ll kill me…yet,” he groaned, his head back.

She looked up the length of him, muscle and sinew and bone, to see that his eyes were closed, his mouth thin, his skin stretched in agony. She relished the sense of dominance she felt all while kneeling before him. What she loved even more was reaching the point where he could take no more. Suddenly, he pulled away. Lifting her up, he threw her onto the bed so hard she bounced. And with a guttural cry of need, he climbed over her, pushed her knees apart, and drove into her.

She felt split, pummeled, invaded. She looked up to see the desperate need on Harry’s face, and she battled him. She refused to simply be taken. She took back. She wrapped her hands around his buttocks and pulled. She planted her feet flat on the bed and lifted up, slamming into him as hard as he did into her, until her body became slick, her voice thin and frantic, her neck bowed so far it should have snapped. When he bent to take her breast in his mouth and suckle, she screamed with pleasure. And when he slipped his hand between them to tease her, she flew apart; lightning and whirlwind and thunder, color and wonder and light, Harry’s fierce yells the music of madness.

“Oh, God, I love you,” he moaned into her hair.

She laid her head against his heart. “I love you, too.”

She smiled, replete. He needed her. He loved her. He wanted her. And she, resurrected from her darkness, wanted him just as fiercely. Just as tenderly. Just as fully. As the dusk settled over them, she wrapped herself around Harry and looked forward to the night. She’d been right all those years ago, she thought.

Sic itur ad astra.

So
was
the path to the stars.

Brussels
11:00 p.m., Thursday, June 15, 1815

A
ll prey understands the need for concealment. Sitting at the edge of a crowded ballroom, Olivia Grace knew this better than most and kept her attention on the room like a gazelle sidling up to a watering hole.

Olivia couldn't help smiling.
Watering holes.
She'd been reading too many naturalists’ journals. Not that there weren't predators here, of course. It would have been impossible to miss them, with their bright plumage, sharp claws, and aggressive posturing. And those were just the mamas.

Olivia was safely tucked away from their notice, though. Camouflaged in serviceable gray bombazine, she occupied a chair along the trellis-papered wall, just another anonymous paid chaperone watching on as her charges danced.

The ballroom, a converted carriage house at the side of the Duke of Richmond's rented home, was full to bursting. Scarlet-clad soldiers whirled by with laughing girls in white. Sharp-eyed dowagers in puce and aubergine committed wholesale slaughter of each others’ reputations. Civilian gentlemen in evening black clustered at the edge of the dance floor to argue about the coming battle. Olivia had even had the privilege of seeing the Duke of Wellington himself sweep into the room, his braying laugh lifting over the swell of the orchestra.

It seemed all of London had moved to Brussels these last months. Certainly the well-born military men had come in response to Napoleon's renewed threat. Olivia had already had the Lennox boys, the Duke of Richmond's sons, pointed out to her, and handsome young Lord Hay in his scarlet Guards jacket. Sturdy William Ponsonby was in dragoon green, and the exquisite Diccan Hilliard wore diplomat's black.

With all those eligible young men afoot, it would have been absurd to think that families would have kept their hopeful daughters at home.

Tonight Olivia's employer had insisted on shepherding her own chicks, which left Olivia with nothing to do but watch. And watch she did, storing up every bit of color and pageantry to record for her dear Georgie back in England.

“Oh, there's that devil Uxbridge,” the lady next to her whispered in salacious tones. “How he can show his face after eloping with Wellington's sister-in-law…”

Olivia had heard that Uxbridge had been recalled from exile to lead the cavalry in the upcoming fight. She'd also heard he was brilliant and charismatic. Catching sight of him as he sauntered across the room in his flashy hussar's blue and silver, his fur-lined pelisse thrown over his shoulder, she thought that the reports had been woefully inadequate. He was breathtaking.

She was so intent on the sight of him, in fact, that she failed her primary duty. She forgot to watch for danger. She'd just leaned a bit to see whose hand Uxbridge was bending over, when her view was suddenly blocked by a field of gold.

“You don't mind if I sit here, do you?” someone asked.

Olivia looked up to find one of the most beautiful women she'd ever seen standing before her. Even sitting against the wall, Olivia fought the urge to look over her shoulder to see who else the newcomer could be addressing. Women like this never sought her out.

For a second, she flirted with old panic. She'd spent so many years trying to evade exposure that the instinct died hard. But this woman didn't look outraged. In fact, she was smiling.

“It's quite all right,” the beauty said with a conspiratorial grin. “Contrary to popular opinion, I rarely bite. In fact, in some circles I'm considered fairly charming.”

“I do bite,” Olivia found herself answering. “But only when provoked.”

She should bite her
tongue
. She knew better.

The woman didn't seem to notice, though, as with a hush of silk, she eased onto the chair to Olivia's left. “Well, let's see who we can get to provoke you, then,” she said. “I think what this ball needs is some excitement—more than Jane Lennox making cow-eyes at Wellington over dinner, at any rate.”

Olivia actually laughed. “I think you might get some argument from all those men in red.”

Her companion took a moment to observe the room through a grotesquely bejeweled lorgnette. “It never occurred to me. This is the perfect place to watch absolutely everything, isn't it?”

“Absolutely.”

“I wish I'd been sitting here when those magnificent Highlanders did their reels. I don't suppose you caught a glimpse of what they wore under those kilts.”

“Sadly, no. Not for lack of trying, though.”

Olivia wondered why this peacock would choose to sit among the house wrens—especially since several of the wrens in question had taken umbrage. One or two sidled away. Olivia even heard the whisper of “harlot.” Again she fought the old urge to hide, but the attention was definitely on the newcomer.

As for that petite beauty, she appeared to take no notice. A Pocket Venus, she looked to be no older than Olivia's four and twenty years. As fine-skinned as a porcelain doll, she had thick, curly mahogany hair woven through with diamonds and a heart-shaped face that might have looked innocent but for her slyly amused cat-green eyes. Her dress had been crafted by an artist. Draped in layers of filmy gold tissue
,
it seemed to flow like water from a barely respectable bodice that exposed quite an expanse of diamond-wrapped throat and high, white breasts.

“I noticed the way you watch everyone,” the beauty now said, lazily waving an intricately painted chicken-skin fan under her nose. “And I've been dying to hear what you're thinking.”

“Thinking?” Olivia said instinctively. “But I think nothing. Companions aren't paid enough to think.”

The lady gave a delighted laugh. “If you only did what you were paid for, my dear, I sincerely doubt you'd ever move farther afield than your front parlor.”

“The back parlor, actually. Closer to the servants’ stairs.”

Olivia knew perfectly well she was being reckless. Exposure was still possible, after all, and one gasp of recognition would destroy her. But it felt so good to smile.

Her new acquaintance laughed. “I
knew
I'd like you. Who is it who benefits from your companionship, might I ask?”

“Mrs. Bottomly and her three daughters.” Olivia gestured toward a group on the dance floor. “They felt that passing the season in Brussels might be… advantageous.”

The beauty turned to observe the short, knife-lean matron in pea green and peacock feathers smacking a rigid Mr. Hilliard on the arm with her fan as three younger copies of her looked on.

“You mean that flock of underfed crows pecking at my poor Diccan? Good Lord, how did she ever manage to acquire an invitation?”

“Ah, well,” Olivia said, “that would involve a well-timed walk along the Allee Verde, an even better-timed ankle twist that obliged the Duchess of Richmond to take Mrs. Bottomly up in her carriage, and Mrs. Bottomly's tenacious confusion as to the nature of the invitations to tonight's event.”

Her new acquaintance shook her head in awe. “Why ever has the creature wasted her time with a mere ball? Let's introduce her to Nosey, and she can help him rout Napoleon.”

Olivia wryly considered her employer. “Not unless he has three eligible officers who might be offered in compensation.”

Just then, Mrs. Bottomly let off a shrill titter that should have shattered Mr. Hilliard's eardrums. Olivia's companion flinched. “Not something I'd want on my conscience. I'm afraid Wellington will simply have to rely on his own wits.”

“Indeed.”

“But what of you?” the beauty demanded of Olivia. “Surely you deserve better than service to an overweening mushroom.”

Olivia smiled. “I've found that life rarely takes what we deserve into consideration.”

For just a moment, her companion's expression grew oddly reflective. Then, abruptly, she brightened. “Well, there are small mercies,” she said with a tap of her fan on Olivia's arm. “If that dreadful woman had decamped from Brussels like everyone else who anticipated battle, I never would have met you.”

“Indeed you would not. For it is certain we couldn't have met in London. Not even Mrs. Bottomly would dare to aspire so high.”

The woman turned her bright eyes on Olivia. “And how do you know that?”

Olivia's smile was placid. “Your gems are real.”

Her friend gave a surprisingly full-throated laugh that turned heads. Olivia saw the attention and instinctively ducked.

Her companion suddenly straightened. “Grace!” she called with a wave of her fan. “Over here!”

Olivia looked up to see a tall, almost colorless redhead turn and smile. She was in the same serviceable gray as Olivia, although the cloth was better. A sarcenet, possibly, that did nothing but wash out whatever color the young woman had in her plain features.

Then she began walking toward them, and Olivia realized that she limped badly. Must have danced with the wrong clod, Olivia thought, and moved to offer her seat.

Her companion quietly held her in place. “Grace, my love,” she caroled, her hand still on Olivia's arm. “What have you heard?”

The tall redhead lurched to a halt right in front of them and dipped a very fine curtsy. “Word has come, Your Grace. Fighting has commenced in Quatre Bras, south of us.”

Your Grace
?
Oh, sweet God, Olivia thought, feeling the blood drain from her face. What had she done?

Unobtrusively, she searched the room for Mrs. Bottomly and her daughters, but suddenly it seemed the entire crowd was in her way. Many of the officers now milled about uncertainly. Young girls wrung their hands and chattered in high, anxious tones. Wellington himself was speaking to the Duke of Richmond, and both looked worried.

It had begun, then. The great battle they had all been expecting for weeks was upon them. Awfully, Olivia felt a measure of relief. She would be invisible again.

“Ah well, then,” the duchess said, climbing to her feet. “It seems our time for frivolity is over.
Noblesse oblige
and all that. Before we go, Grace, come meet my new friend.”

Olivia stood and was surprised to see that the duchess came only to her shoulder. And Olivia was only of medium height.

“I'm sorry we didn't have time to share more observations,” the petite beauty said to her with a gamine smile. “I think we could have thoroughly skewered this lot.”

Olivia dipped a curtsy. “It has been a pleasure, Your Grace.”

The duchess lifted a wickedly amused eyebrow. “Of course it has. Although by morning you will be notorious for speaking with me. ‘Oh, my dear,’ they'll all whisper in outrage, ‘did you hear about that nice companion, Miss…’ ”

The little duchess suddenly looked almost ludicrously surprised. “Good God. I can't introduce you after all.”

Olivia froze. Had she finally recognized her?

“We never exchanged names,” the duchess said, laughing. “I shall begin. I, for my sins, am Dolores Catherine Anne Hilliard Seaton, Dowager Duchess of Murther.” She wafted a lofty hand. “You may respond with proper gravity.”

Olivia found herself wondering at such a young dowager as she dipped a curtsy of impeccable depth. “Mrs. Olivia Grace, Your Grace.”

“Good Lord,” the duchess said, her eyes wide. “I'm a grace, you're a grace, and, of course, Grace is a grace. A
real
grace, mind you, in all ways.” She patted the tall girl halfway up her arm. “Introduce yourself and make the irony complete, my love.”

With a smile that softened her long face, the redhead dipped a bow. “Miss Grace Fairchild, ma'am.”

“Grace is the daughter of that grossly bemedaled Guards general over there with the magnificent white mustache,” the duchess said. “General Sir Hillary Fairchild. Grace is one of those indomitable females who has spent her life following the drum. She knows more about foraging for food and creating a billet from a cow byre than I know about Debrett's.”

Olivia exchanged curtsies. She liked this plain young woman, who had the kindest gray eyes she'd ever seen. “A pleasure, Miss Fairchild.”

“Please,” the young woman said. “Call me Grace.”

“And I am Kate,” the young duchess said. “Lady Kate, if the familiarity sticks in your craw. But never duchess or my lady or Your Grace”—she shot a glare at Grace Fairchild—“for how would we tell each other apart? Which would be unconscionable among friends. And we are friends, are we not?”

Olivia knew better than to agree. “It would please me immensely,” she said anyway. “Please call me Olivia.”

“Shall we see you later at Madame de Rebaucour's, Olivia?” Grace Fairchild asked. “She is organizing the ladies of the city to help prepare for the anticipated wounded.”

“Never let it be said that I am completely without useful skills,” Lady Kate boasted. “I've become absolutely mad for rolling lint.”

“If my employer gives me leave, you can expect me there,” Olivia said, casting an eye out for that lady among the crowd.

Lady Kate gave her a wicked smile. “Oh, I can assure you she will. Simply tell her you accompany a duchess.” Flinging her zephyr shawl around her shoulders, she made to go. “We shall all help, like the heroines we are.”

“And sully those exquisite white hands?” a man's voice demanded from behind Olivia.

Olivia froze. Shock skittered across her skin like sleet.

“Since these are the only pair of hands I own,” Lady Kate was saying lightly, “I imagine they will just have to adapt.”

Olivia couldn't move. Sound suddenly echoed oddly, and movement seemed to slow. Lady Kate was looking just past her to where the man who had addressed her obviously stood, and Olivia knew she should turn.

It wasn't him. It
couldn't
be. She had escaped him. She'd hidden herself so thoroughly that she'd closed even the memory of him away.

“A generation of young exquisites would go into mourning if you suffered so much as a scratch,” he was telling the duchess in his charmingly boyish voice.

Still behind her, out of sight. Still possibly someone who only sounded terrifyingly familiar. Olivia desperately wanted to close her eyes, as if it could keep him at bay.
If I don't see him, he won't be there.

She knew better. Even if she refused the truth, her body recognized him. Her heart sped up. Her hands went clammy. She couldn't seem to get enough air.