Dangerous to Love (51 page)

Flynn had stationed himself on the landing. As Lady Amelia came up to him, he moved in front of her, escorting her to the front door in his most impeccable footman’s manner. Nothing was said till they came to the front hall.

“How did it go in there?” he asked in a quiet undertone.

With a quick look about her, Lady Amelia whispered, “Quite well, I think. But Flynn, explain to me, if you please, why you almost turned me away at the door, and why all the speaking looks to Serena?”

Flynn grinned. “Oh, that’s just Serena’s way. If you try to get her to do something, you can be sure she’ll do the opposite, and vice versa. Besides, we wouldn’t want her to suspect what we are up to, now would we?”

“I see,” said Lady Amelia, not seeing at all.

On the other side of the drawing-room door, Serena took several breaths in quick succession. It was one thing to give Julian up, it was quite another to see him go to another woman, especially to someone as beautiful and desirable as Lady Amelia. This was not on a par with losing Allardyce. Allardyce had been a silly, schoolgirl infatuation. She was coming to see that losing Julian was on a par with dying a slow, painful death.

Her future stretched out in front of her, a future without Julian, without joy, and with her luck she might even live to be a hundred. The thought was intolerable. And it wasn’t as though she hated Julian. She still loved him.
That could never change. But she couldn’t forgive him, that could never change either.

When Flynn entered, he took one look at her and alarm coursed through him. Arms folded across her stomach, she was hugging herself, shivering uncontrollably. “Serena, what is it?” he said, and quickly crossed to her. “What did Lady Amelia say to bring this on?”

Her voice was shaking as badly as the rest of her. “Oh Flynn, say something, anything, to convince me that Julian wasn’t merely using me as an instrument of revenge.”

“Revenge? Against whom?”

“My father, of course!”

“Now how did that maggot get into your brain?”

“Don’t tease me, not now! You know the whole story as well as I do. He hated my father, and with good reason.”

“That is true.” Flynn’s smile was grim. “But you are forgetting one small point. Like the rest of us, the major believed that your father was dead and buried these two years.” He gave her a moment to think about it.

She touched a hand to her throat and a light leapt in her eyes. Then the light faded, and she shook her head. “That’s easy to say, but how can I believe it? You didn’t hear him, Flynn. His one purpose in life was to see my father ruined and shamed. I think he suspected my father was alive and used me to get to him.”

He made a small sound of impatience. “There is something else you should know, something I had not wished to tell you for fear you would put the wrong interpretation on
it.
Serena, we could easily have taken your father prisoner. The major stopped us. We knew that Sir Robert was making for that boat. We assumed he would make his escape, as he could have done if he had wanted to. When we heard the report of that shot, can you imagine how the major felt, how we all felt?”

She stared at him for a full minute, then her face crumpled
and she said achingly, “Oh Flynn, if only you had told me! Why didn’t you?”

“Because I thought you would say that Raynor is such a monster that he guessed that your father would take his own life, and that he was merely saving himself the trouble of doing it for him.”

“Please, Flynn, no more.” She was trying, unsuccessfully, to brush away the torrent of tears that coursed down her cheeks. One part of her was overjoyed. Julian would have spared her father if it had been possible, and she knew with unshakable conviction that he would have done so only for her sake. Another part of her was wallowing in self-pity. Her faith in him had come to her too late. No man wanted a woman who was forever mistrusting his motives. She had lost him, and it was her own fault.

Flynn was pitiless. “Since you are determined to mistrust the man, I’m sure if we put our minds together, we can come up with other good reasons for you to hate him.”

She stared at that stony face, hoping for some sign of softening, but there was nothing but unrelenting contempt. “I have been such a fool,” she whispered brokenly.

“There’s no denying it.”

She sniffed. “He won’t have me, you know. Not now. He must despise me.”

“That would not surprise me.”

She looked away. “Lady Amelia .  .  . Lady Amelia wants him for herself.”

“He could do worse.” He could see that her hackles were beginning to rise, and he decided to add one more faggot to the flames. “In fact, I think they would do very well together. She is a beautiful, accomplished woman. Adventurous too, by all accounts. Well, she would need to be if she is going to accompany him to America. She’ll
be an asset to him, don’t you think? I mean, they say he is thinking of standing for their Houses of Parliament, or whatever they call it over there.”

Her eyes glinted up at him. “Lady Amelia,” she said, “would be an asset to any man. But there is one small thing neither she nor you has taken into account.”

“What’s that?” asked Flynn.

“Julian already has a wife.”

She left him in a flounce of skirts and with the door vibrating so alarmingly that Flynn expected to see it fall off its hinges.

“Now you’re talking,” he told the empty room.

W
hen the carriage stopped, Flynn jumped down and helped her to alight. Now that they were here, now that she was about to beard the lion in his den, her courage began to ebb.

Flynn led the way to the side door to Julian’s house. As she shook out her skirts, she heard the key grate in the lock, and was reminded that as part proprietor, Flynn now had keys to every door in Julian’s gaming establishment.

“Don’t dawdle, Serena,” he said. “I told you that Julian is engaged to attend an assembly at the Stows’ this evening. You have only a few minutes to say what you have to say. Time is of the essence.”

Nervous as she was, she could still smile. Flynn was spending so much time at the gaming house these days that he was now on Christian-name terms with Julian. His speech and manners had also undergone a change. In short, Flynn was quite the gentleman. It seemed incredible to her and rather wonderful that he had advanced so far. In his pocket was a gilt-edged invitation to the same do that Julian had been invited to attend. Her family had never aspired so high as the Duke and Duchess of Stow, nor had they once crossed the threshold of their magnificent house in St. James Square.

“Perhaps we should have told Julian I was coming,” she whispered. Though she had yet to take a step inside the door that Flynn held for her, her eyes were traveling up the length of that candle-lit staircase, and it seemed like a long, long way to the top. “Or I should have sent round a note asking him to call on me?”

Flynn clicked his tongue. “If you were to follow that route, you would never be given the opportunity to come within a mile of him. You are not exactly his favorite person at present. Frankly, Serena, I dare not breathe your name in his hearing for fear of setting off an explosion.”

“That .  .  . that sounds encouraging, don’t you think, Flynn?”

He said nothing, but his look robbed her of the little courage she had left.

“Perhaps,” she said, “this isn’t such a good idea.”

“Suit yourself. It’s your idea, not mine.”

There was something about Flynn’s indifference that brought out the stubborn streak in her. With a swish of skirts, she stepped over the threshold and planted her foot firmly on the bottom stair.

“I’ll wait in the carriage,” said Flynn.

Her head whipped round. “What? Aren’t you coming with me?”

“Oh no, Serena. I know better than to put myself in the middle of a cat-and-dog fight. Oh, good luck!” And with these cheering words he shut the door on her.

Before ascending the stairs, she took a moment or two to shore up her courage. A lady who had been a prime mover in a Jacobite escape route need not fear a few cross words. Now who had put that idea in her head? Flynn, of course, but Flynn had never seen Julian in a temper.

She started over. Julian had once told her that she must never forget that she was Victoria as much as she was Serena. “Victoria,” she whispered as though invoking the help of her guardian angel. Victoria was brave, confident, honorable, charming, vivacious .  .  . She groaned. It was too bad Victoria wasn’t here. Well, she would just have to make do with Serena.

It
was
a long staircase, far longer than she remembered. With each faltering step, her skirts rustled and the boards
creaked. At any moment, she expected to see Julian at the top of the stairs, demanding to know why she was sneaking into his establishment, or what was worse, perhaps mistaking her for a burglar. Either way, it was quite possible that he would throw her bodily off the premises.

It’s what she deserved. But he wasn’t without his share of the blame for what had happened either. Guilt. Innocence. None of that mattered. They loved each other. That was the important thing, and that’s what she would try to impress upon him. Unless, of course, he threw her out first.

When she took that last step and came out onto the corridor, she saw that all the doors were closed bar one, the door to Julian’s bedchamber. It stood open. She heard voices, Julian’s voice, and one she couldn’t identify, but at least it was masculine. If she had heard a female’s voice, she would have gone on the rampage.

At the door to Julian’s chamber, she halted. His valet was helping him into a pale green satin coat with silver embroidery. His hair had already been powdered, but lightly, as was his custom. Though his back was to her, she looked at his reflection in the mirror. He looked so handsome, so arrogantly masculine, that her heart clenched as if from a blow. If it had been possible, she would have decked herself out in her finest. She was in her blacks, as was proper for a lady in mourning. It was hardly the effect she wanted to achieve when she had half a mind to seduce him.

Without her being aware of it, she had taken several steps into the room. Julian’s head suddenly came up, and their eyes locked in the looking glass. His expression was so icy, so chilling, that she froze in mid-step.

“That will be all, Tibbets,” he said.

Even the valet seemed to feel the arctic temperature.
Suppressing a shiver, with a long pitying look at Serena, he beat a hasty retreat.

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Julian. He didn’t even turn to face her, but hunted on top of the dresser for odds and ends which he stuffed in his pockets.

Her rehearsed speech went clean out of her head. “I .  .  . I have decided to give you another chance,” she said.

He came at her with such terrifying speed that she fell over herself in her haste to get away from him. He went right by her and reached for his dress smallsword which lay on top of the bed. Buckling it on, he said, “Now why would I want another chance?”

“Because we love each other? Because we both made mistakes? Because .  .  . Julian, you are not making this easy for me.”

“I have no interest in making anything easy for you. But I should like to know what made you change your mind.”

She looked down at her clasped hands. “Flynn told me that you would have allowed my father to escape. I knew, then, that I was more important to you than your revenge.”

“I see.”

This was no time to be craven. “That’s not it, Julian. I love you, and that’s all there is to
it.”

Without warning, he blew out the candle. For one joyous, thrilling moment, she thought she had won, that he was going to make love to her, but he stepped into the corridor and made for the stairs. Surprise held her captive for one moment, then she raced to catch up with him.

“Julian, this is absurd!”

“It certainly is.” He spoke over his shoulder. “Why are you dogging my footsteps?”

“Because I am determined to make you listen to me, determined to make you forgive me.”

When they came out onto the pavement, he made straight for the hackney, the hackney she had hired with her
own
money, and he stepped inside without reaching a hand to help her into it. Lifting her skirts, glowering at him, she hoisted herself on board.

“Good of you to call for me, Flynn,” said Julian.

As Serena came in one door, Flynn went out the other. “I think,” he said, in some alarm, “that I shall be more comfortable riding on the box with the coachman.”

Serena settled herself on the banquette opposite Julian. By now, she was getting desperate. “Julian,” she said, trying to sound sincere, going as close to groveling as she would permit herself to go, “just tell me what to do to make it up to you, and I promise I shall do it.”

“What can you do?” he asked indifferently.

Before she could frame an answer, he flicked his eyelashes, dismissing her, and he turned to stare fixedly out the window.

As the hackney rattled over cobblestones, Serena sank into a morass of despair.
Too late, too late, too late!
Even the carriage wheels were mocking her. The dismal prospect of life without Julian passed before her eyes. “Oh God,” she whispered fervently, “don’t let me live to be a hundred.”