Jo Beverley - [Malloren] (17 page)

She had to believe he understood these arcane male ways. “What now, then?”

His hands stilled. “Now, Lady Arradale, I should kiss your foot.” One hand, one nail, trailed along her instep around her heel and up to the bone of her ankle. “But that requires the removal of your stocking. Which is an interlude of its own …”

As his fingers slipped up from her ankle toward her calf, she stared into his dark eyes, dizzied.

“Do you wish the game to continue?” he asked.

Her rising heart rate steadied. This, she saw, was like his invitation to seduction at the ball. Not so much an amorous petition as a dare. Even, perhaps, a minor punishment for meddling in his affairs.

With aching regret, she pulled her foot out of his lax hands and sat up straight. “I don’t think so.”

“I didn’t think so, either.”

She drained her brandy and stood, but had to ask, “Why did you do that?”

He, against etiquette, remained seated. “Your curiosity was palpable.”

Yes, punishment of a sort. She refused to show embarrassment.

Perhaps she should have called his bluff, but she knew he’d have gone through with it, even to sex. Which was an interesting thought in itself. He might think of it as punishment, but she could see it in a completely different light.

“I
am
curious,” she said, ignoring the heat in her cheeks. “About a great many things.”

“Curiosity, however, is one of the scourges of the soul, and enlightenment can lead to the darkest paths.”

“How tedious to always move in the light.” Could she? Here? With him?

“But safer.”

“Do we want to be safe?”

He did rise then. “Some perils are far too serious for games. And you, my dear, are playing games.” He raised her hand to kiss it with no greater warmth than courtesy required.
“Good night, Lady Arradale. We leave early in the morning.”

Dismissed, Diana could do nothing but leave, though she couldn’t resist one glance back. Had he really meant what she thought he’d meant—that their interlude had been perilous for
him
?

In her room, she stood limp as Clara undressed her and prepared her for bed, trying to grasp what had just happened.

His hands on her feet.

A simple thing, and not particularly wicked. She could have Clara do that for her if she wished.

It would not be the same.

The slide of his fingers up from her ankle to her calf.

Still, nothing shocking except the suggestion that she let him remove her stocking. When she’d thought longingly of lust and sin, the removal of her stocking had not been a significant part of it.

Nor had massage of her feet. What a lot there was to learn!

Curiosity, however, did not explain this devastation in her mind. She was overcome, dazzled, by the suggestion that despite his cool manner, the Marquess of Rothgar might be experiencing the same perilous pull to dangerous interaction that she was.

In bed in the dark, with Clara sleeping beside her, Diana lay awake, mind fluttering around ideas like a moth around a glass lamp. And that, of course, was the problem.

A clear barrier stood between her and the tantalizing flame. Beat against it as she might, the fire was not for her. She could not afford to marry, and now she knew that he could not be a casual lover.

As he had implied, the very heat between them made it far too dangerous to approach.

D
iana descended to breakfast the next morning warily, but if the marquess had slid out of control for even one moment the night before, he had corrected the flaw. Over eggs and excellent sausages, he treated her precisely as an aristocratic lady he was escorting to London. The effortless flow of small talk was again a carefully woven iron grille between them.

Diana could only be relieved when his manservant, Fettler, knocked and entered.

“Yes?” the marquess asked.

“About the French couple, my lord. They left in the night.”

Lord Rothgar’s brows rose. “Without paying their shot? How reprehensible.”

Diana came to the alert. The marquess did not, in fact, sound surprised. For the first time she wondered if he had ruthlessly disposed of his potential assassins.

“As to that, milord,” the valet said, “they left adequate coins. And traces of blood on the floor.”

Diana stared. Her speculations had been idle, but now she had to take them seriously.

“What is more,” the valet said, “a servant nearby heard a scream and then a cry.”

“A feminine scream, and then a masculine cry?” Diana demanded. First one murder, then the other. She was beginning to be shocked after all.

The middle-aged man turned to her. “Precisely, milady.”

“Then,” she asked, “did anyone actually see them leave?”

“Oh yes, milady. They roused a groom to saddle their horses. It was with him they left the money. He would not have let them depart otherwise.”

“Wounded?” she asked, both deflated and relieved, and casting a quick glance at the marquess. Amused by her again.

“The groom could not be sure, milady, but he thought Monsieur de Couriac favored his arm, and the lady might have had a mark on her face.”

“Anything else, Fettler?” the marquess asked. When the valet said no, he dismissed him, then turned to her, easing the plate of sausages toward her side of the table. “Do have more of these, Lady Arradale, as you speculate.”

Diana speared one with her sharp fork. “Don’t patronize me, my lord.” It also galled that he had noticed that she’d enjoyed two of the sausages already.

“I do beg your pardon. I certainly have no desire to be fatherly. What do you make of the little saga?”

Ignoring a twitch at the thought of what relationship he might desire, Diana said, “That he hit her for failing to compromise you, and she did something—perhaps with a knife—in response.” She cut into the meat. “I certainly would have done.”

“I will bear that in mind.” He served himself more coffee. “So why leave, especially if he was wounded?”

Diana chewed, thinking. “Out of fear of you? Or,” she added, “out of fear of their master.” She halted in the process of raising another piece of sausage to her mouth. “To prepare some other trap?”

He did not pale in apprehension, of course, but he did say, “How fortunate that we travel with armed outriders.”

Diana put her food down. “Lord Rothgar, why would the French be so determined to murder you? As one caught in the middle, I think I have a right to know.”

“What reasons does anyone have for wishing the death of another?”

“A tendency to ask too many questions?” she responded tartly. “You are not Socrates, my lord, and I am not your pupil.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Then I will play Socrates to
myself. What reasons does anyone have for murder?” He counted on his long fingers. “One: revenge. Extreme, and I don’t think I have hurt France to that extent. Two: gain. The only person to gain materially from my death would be Bryght, and he isn’t working for the French.”

“Three,” offered Diana, “fear of what you might reveal.”

“I have no secrets.” Over her snort of disbelief, he said, “Four: fear of what the victim might do.”

“If you have no secrets, milord, you delight in being falsely mysterious.” But she sat in thought, meeting his eyes. “The French fear what you might do? You are a one-man Armada?”

“I would like to think so.”

“Need I remind you that the Armada failed and sank?”

“Alas,” he said, eyes crinkling with what looked like true hilarity. “We can only hope that my armed fleet would manage somewhat better.”

“Which presents another problem, my lord,” she said, trying to be stern. “The Armada was our enemy. I take as model Great Queen Bess, who stirred the opposition to the Spanish fleet.”

“And think foul scorn that any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of your realm?” he said, giving a version of the queen’s famous speech at Tilbury, when she dispatched her navy to face the mighty foe.

“Precisely, my lord. As I showed last year.”

The smile tugged at his lips again, but he said, “Oh dear. Must I remind you of the plan for you to act the
conventional
lady?”

“Perdition.” Her cheeks warmed with guilt. “I will do it when necessary.”

“So says the drunkard ordered to give up brandy.”

“This is my problem, my lord, and I will deal with it.”

“Yet I have yoked myself to you in this.”

“Not of my choosing!”

“No, but we are bound by fate.”

She stared at him. “Until this is over.”

He took another sip of coffee. “And when will it be over?”

“When I return north.” She was unsure now what they were speaking about.

“This engagement will be over then, but as with the French, the problem will linger. Constant vigilance will be required. This connection, my lady, ends with death. Or with your marriage.”

They were not speaking of her behavior.

“Or yours,” she suggested breathlessly.

“I will not marry. But even so, it would not end your need of my protection. Outside of marriage, your situation makes you vulnerable.”

Now she didn’t know what they were talking about.

“I cannot ignore your situation,” he said. “I will not intrude, but if problems arise in the future, I will be at your service.”

She was not so foolish as to deny the benefits of that, but swallowed bitter disappointment. Protection again. Was that all? “We were talking, I think, of your problems, my lord, not mine. If the French wish to be rid of you, what will you do?”

“There is little defense against a resolute assassin. In this case, however, it seems they wish to make it look like an act of passion rather than one of cold blood.”

“Resist passion, then, my lord, and we are both safe.”

His tranquil gaze came to rest on hers. “My thought entirely, dear lady.”

So, they had not only been speaking of the French. After a frozen moment, Diana looked down at her half-eaten sausage, and found her appetite completely gone.

Safe.

She’d always thought safety promised a damn dull life.

Scarce noticed at the time, she had just enjoyed a heady exchange of wits and barbs of a rare and precious kind. There’d also been something close to friendship, which she certainly had never expected of this man. Not the cozy friendship she had with Rosa, but friendship all the same.

Or perhaps something more.

Safe, indeed.

She put her knife and fork down, pushing the plate aside,
and picked up her cup. One sip told her the coffee was cold. She put it down and looked up to find him still watching her, as if he expected some kind of answer.

She took a breath and gave it—the same response she’d given last night. “And if I don’t want to be safe?”

“I am pledged to keep you so. From everything. Even despite yourself.” He rose and indicated the door. “We should be on our way, Lady Arradale, if we are to make Stamford tonight.”

Diana took another deep breath, and released it with care. That was a clear enough warning and statement of intent, and he was doubtless wise. But like the drunkard with a taste for brandy, she didn’t want to be wise just yet.

Especially as she felt that she had just started to savor the full riches of the potent spirit.

By the time they rattled over the bridge in Stamford that evening, Diana had a headache and a fierce desire to be unwise, danger or not. Never, never had she imagined that merely sitting by a man for eight hours could cause such wreckage!

It was the fact that he had returned to distant courtesy that had made it all so unendurable.

He had continued to deal with papers, though occasionally—perhaps as light relief—he had read what looked like a dense tome. Out of curiosity, Diana had tried to glimpse the title, but as she was more determined not to be caught looking at him, she had failed.

After all, she’d told herself mile after mile, he was right. If some kind of attraction had sparked between them, it promised disaster not delight. Neither of them wanted to let it develop.

Or rather, it would be highly unwise for either of them to want that.

Aware of him at every moment, she had gone through the motions of reading her books. Even witty Pope had not held her attention.

Her only true distraction had come from studying the roadside and passing riders, alert for sight of the de Couriacs
or other potential assassins. By midday, however, she’d decided that fear was a phantasm. The French couple had doubtless realized that they’d made an enemy of an important man and fled.

For the midday meal she and the marquess had shared a table and conversation. She’d not expected anything like that brief spurt of untrammeled conversation at breakfast, of course, but she had hoped for a little of the same warmth.

He had himself completely under control, however. They could have been strangers.

Sometimes she thought they were.

In fact, they were strangers, she told herself as the coach rattled down a narrow Stamford street. They knew little of each other’s lives or inner thoughts. Logic fizzled, however, when desire burned, and Diana had to accept that she had fallen into an embarrassing desire for the Marquess of Rothgar.

Throughout the day she had been aware of his body taking up space beside her in the coach. Only inches away, he had even stirred her clothes occasionally when he moved. With any other man she wouldn’t have noticed, but with this man every movement sent sparkles down her skin, and each breath was like her own.

Pretending to sleep at one point, she had watched him from under lowered lids. Watched his hands. Feasted on them.

She glanced at them again now. So very beautiful. Long in palm and fingers, but strong in the elegant bones, tendons, and muscles as they moved flexibly, putting away papers and books. That one large ruby set in gold occasionally caught the sunset flame to glow with crimson fire. The delicate beauty of his lace cuffs only emphasized the power of his hands.

Midnight in lace, she remembered. But his hands were not dark or threatening. Not threatening at all. She could imagine them strong around the hilt of a sword, but also remember them clever against her ankle …