At Your Pleasure (40 page)

His expression turned grim. “Nora, you
must
. With the broadsheets on the street, and Barstow’s failed conspiracy, it is crucial that we be seen. Your absence would feed rumors that might yet trouble us. But your tears—they would not be so harmful. Rather the opposite, for some would think them owed to my opposition to your family.”

How fluently he understood the twisted logics of political society. “Yes, of course. They would relish my tears.” She heard how bitter she sounded, but she did not care. London had ever been cruel to her. To face it now, when she was little better than an open wound—

“Trust me, love.” He tipped up her chin, catching her in an intent, somber gaze. “I promise you will not regret it.”

Nora remembered her old lessons of London. She smiled through the veiled insults to her brother, and through jokes of executions. Though Adrian abandoned her to speak with a minister, leaving her at the mercy of the laughing group that enclosed her, she kept a smile fixed on her lips. She was still smiling when she turned on her heel and walked away from them and him both, desperate to escape the staterooms.

The great heat generated by the crush was as wet and thick as steam. Candle smoke combined unpleasantly with the sweet stink of cologne and sweat and powder, so that each breath felt harder to draw than the last. She dodged around silk-clad hoops and jabbing elbows, gesturing hands and sloshing glasses of wine. A large knot of women, their plumed headdresses waving, unwittingly concealed her passage from Adrian, who stood in deep conversation with the Groom of the Stole.

She would find him again soon enough. For now, what she needed was a private corner in which to steel herself again to this task.

Chatter jammed the space of Lord Fairfax’s double-story hall, clashing with the ring of crystal and the frenetic lilt of a harpsichord. But the air was purer here. As she took a deep, grateful breath, a sudden clarity fell over her, as though she were coming awake.

Trust me,
Adrian had told her. He had earned her trust a thousand times over. But why must she be here tonight? All London knew her brother had been imprisoned today. Next week, or the week after,
then
she would put herself to this test. But why tonight?

At the far end of the hall, a couple was dancing, or attempting to; their lurching movements suggested that wine had overset them. No one spared her more than a passing glance as she brushed past them toward a darkened hallway.

She did not stop until she was well down the corridor, and then only because the silence revivified her senses. Holding very still, she listened to the sound of her own breathing. Her head was calm now, but it seemed that her body was not. She was panting like a cornered dog.

Her knees folded under her. In astonishment, she observed herself collapse.

The stone tile felt cool beneath her palm.

This is real,
she thought.
I am sitting on the floor.

She took a hard breath through her nose and tried to marshal her resolve. She was a practical woman, and this behavior did not become her. Adrian had explained the advantage in attending this party, and she must honor his wishes. She would be a good wife to him. She loved him. This was horrifically scrubby behavior, not becoming of Lord Rivenham’s wife. If somebody saw her, the gossip would lacerate her afterward.

Besides, her skirts would be crushed.

But a weird lassitude was spreading through her. She felt as though she could sit here forever.

“Nora.”

Adrian’s quiet voice came at her ear. When she summoned the will to turn, she found him crouching beside her, the skirts of his emerald silk coat spilling carelessly across the tiles.

“I cannot do it.” She meant to speak calmly but her voice was choked, angry. “You knew it when you wed me. You knew it long before that! You knew I was no hand at these affairs—society, and court, and politics, and polite company. And I cannot pretend! Not when he is so nearby, and suffering—”

He caught her hand and kissed it. “I know,” he said. “I knew. And it matters not.”

“Then
why
?” She let him keep hold of her hand, but now that her anger was uncovered, it flooded her like a toxin, making her vicious. “Why this charade? To torment me?”

He made no reply to that. “Who offended you?” he asked instead.

“It makes no matter!”

“It matters,” he said flatly. “I am a man who keeps careful tally of such things. Tonight is for a different purpose, but tomorrow, I will settle scores.”

“
What
purpose? And if I tell you a dozen names, what then? For I cannot recall all the people who scorned me before, and I have no cause to think that the list will be shorter now I have returned!”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you not? Then come,” he said, rising, still keeping hold of her hand, forcing her to scramble to her feet. “Let me instruct you differently.”

“I do not require it,” she said through her teeth, but his hold on her was implacable; with his other hand at the small of her back, he urged her back into the entry hall. “Find a person,” he said at her ear when they neared the staterooms. “Any person whom you recall treating you rudely before. We will see how they greet you now.”

His goad panicked her. “No! Adrian, I know they respect you. I do not require you to parade me like a possession!”

“But that is what you are.” His voice was hard. “A precious possession. Whether you choose to make them see you differently, to respect you as your own woman, will be your choice. But, by God, they will respect you as my wife.”

“You cannot
make
them—”

“I can.”

Looking into his face, she saw the seriousness of his intentions. For her sake, he would use all his power to bring London to her feet.

A curious shock moved through her.

When last she had been in this town, she had been alone. Someone’s wife, yes, but alone all the same.

No longer. She would never be alone again.

A breath escaped her, and her anger seemed to go with it. She reached up to touch his cheek. “You needn’t,” she said softly, and could not stop herself, despite the public setting and the eyes surely upon them, from stroking his lower lip with her thumb.

How could she let the slings and arrows of vapid fools
wound or deter her? None of these people mattered. She had
him
.

A muscle still ticked in his jaw. “Tell me who insulted you,” he said.

She surprised herself with a laugh. “You are like a dog with a bone,” she said. “I won’t tell a thing to you. But take me back into the staterooms.” She knew her duties to him. “We have yet to greet our host.”

As he led her back into the sweltering, smoky warmth, she marveled at her sudden calm. Adrian was beside her. His loyalty was to her, as was hers to him. Who could touch them? The sidelong glances, the glimpses of teeth as smiles flashed over her, did not cause her heartbeat to stutter. So often as a girl she had felt in such settings removed from herself, distant and numb and out of her own control, but now, in this moment, she felt fully present, self-possessed and strong.

The test was not long in coming. Their own host delivered it. As Adrian turned away to speak with someone, Fairfax laid a hand on her arm and purred, “Families are so troublesome, don’t you find?”

She was conscious of painted faces inclining to watch her, glittering eyes and carmine lips. In the flickering candlelight, the salon’s cinnabar walls looked the shade of dried blood. “I suppose they can be,” she said calmly. “Do yours trouble you, my lord?”

“Ah, whose does not? But then, you are fortunate,” Lord Fairfax said smoothly. “Your troubles are nearly over, I believe.”

For a moment, the cruelty left her as stunned and
blank-witted as a doll. A titter went up from a lady nearby—perhaps at some other remark. But perhaps not.
La la la, what a clever joke
.

Nora cleared her throat. “I was about to compliment you on your marvelous hospitality. But I see you have other lessons to teach me.”

Her husband’s hand closed around her elbow as he turned back. “What are we speaking of?” he asked.

She met his eyes. “Family. Lord Fairfax finds it quite troublesome, and envies my impending happiness in being rid of it.”

His brow lifted. “I have no wonder that his mind travels in the domestic direction.” To their host, he said with a slow smile, “His Majesty informs me that your cousin is close friends with the Swedish ambassador—and that you recently had him to dine. Evidently you are most faithful to the bonds of blood.”

Nora blinked. Earlier in the year, London had been full of rumors that claimed a group of Tories had approached the Swedish ambassador to test his country’s support for an uprising against the new king.

The reference rightly caused Fairfax to stiffen. “Indeed not,” he said sharply. “I have washed my hands of my cousin, and the whole kingdom knows it.”

“Ah, yes,” Adrian murmured. “Forgive me, I am confusing my news. It was not the ambassador you had to dinner but the much-heralded oracle, Mr. Smithson—although I believe his talk against our king has seen his popularity much reduced—”

“That was my wife’s business!” The paint on Fairfax’s
face could not conceal his rising flush. “I had nothing to do with it! And how do you know these things? What damned spies—”

“I begin to understand your distaste for family,” Adrian interrupted. “It seems yours quite outstrips your ability at governance.”

Fairfax’s scowling reply was interrupted by the appearance of a footman, whose whispered message much improved his mood.

“What ho,” he said to Adrian. “Governance domestic, eh? I would say your difficulties far outstrip my own, sir. I have just had very interesting news.” But it was to Nora, not Adrian, that he directed his next remark: “David Colville has escaped.”

Through the ringing in her ears she heard Adrian laugh. “Never say it.”

“I would not look so cheerful,” Fairfax snapped. “One wonders who accomplished it.”

“Indeed.” Adrian shrugged. “Were the Gardiners about when it happened? They do seem to enjoy misplacing him.”

A dumbfounding intuition struck her. She looked sharply at him, and received a lifted brow in reply. “But this news overwhelms Lady Rivenham,” he said. “God save us if the knave comes crawling to our door. Fairfax, you will have to put up with us for another few hours at the least—we must give the Watch a chance to recover him.”

Taking her arm, Adrian steered her firmly away—and then pulled her to a stop by a footman bearing a tray of
wine. “Drink,” he said in an undertone, “and then think before you speak.”

The canary was thick with sugar. She applied herself to it, staring at him wide-eyed. Was this some fevered specimen of her imagination? Or did these tidings leave her husband peculiarly composed?

The last sip of the wine set the whole world to spinning. She handed him the empty glass. “Do I now know,” she whispered unsteadily, “why we needed to be seen publicly tonight?”

His lips came up against her temple, disguising his remark in the guise of a kiss. “I told you that I would fix this.”

23

T
wo weeks later, Nora and Adrian disembarked in the yard at a coaching inn in Immingham, a port town that lay on the road to estates that once had been the Colvilles’. Those northern holdings, along with Hodderby and the other properties forfeited by her father’s and brother’s attainders, would soon be invested in her husband. It was fit to inspect them. But the journey northward had been long, and the inn offered welcome respite from another jostling hour in the coach.

What idle onlookers loitered in the damp, rain-riddled yard no doubt remarked on the unlikely coincidence that this modest inn should play host to two equally impressive guests: not only the Earl of Rivenham, but also the recently recalled Swedish ambassador, whose household was sailing to Stockholm with the next tide.

What, with luck, nobody would ever guess, was that the peaceful nature of his recall was owed to the discretion of Lord Rivenham, who, in return for a favor, had burned
papers that might otherwise have proved this gentleman’s involvement in the kind of political meddling that could incite kings to declare war on formerly friendly nations.

Adrian escorted Nora directly to her rooms. If Grizel was surprised when Nora dispatched her downstairs to the taproom to take ale at her leisure, the maid was too grateful to question the order.

Manners dictated that Adrian pay his respects to the erstwhile ambassador, so he left her alone—and locked the door behind him, shutting her in.

Shortly thereafter, on a deep breath, she walked to the door that opened into the adjoining room. A test of the latch showed that it had been left unlocked. She did not knock before stepping inside.

David wore the ambassador’s blue-and-gold livery. He had been prowling the windowless room, but at her footfall, he stopped and turned with such composure that she knew he had been forewarned to expect her.

For a long moment they gazed upon each other through the gray, rainy light. He looked rested and well treated, though still too thin. The distracted fidget of his fingers over the empty sword belt at his waist betrayed anxiety, or perhaps—though she hoped against it—anger. His gaze broke from hers, and he looked over the near-empty room, the narrow cot, with a twitch of his lips that might have been an attempt at a smile.