Lady Merry's Dashing Champion (7 page)

"Is that what I'm supposed to do?" Meriel answered with a little sarcasm of her own to stop herself from reeling toward him.

"I doubt you ever do what you're supposed to do."

Her dreams of their first meeting collapsed, since she was doing exactly what she was supposed to do, very much against her own desires. Why had she ever thought it could be gentle?

"My apologies, Lady Felice, for this probably inconvenient visit." His mouth tightened with irony as he glanced toward the adjoining bedroom. "I hope I have not interrupted your plans for the evening hours."

Meriel had never heard so much proud bitterness come from such a full and sensuous mouth, and although she understood the anger that burrowed deep within this man, she saw it surface for a moment, and knew that his wife's faithlessness pained him still. She also understood that he would never in this life admit to it. "No, Giles, I have no plans other than to greet you. I pray you, be at ease," she said, motioning to a near chair. Despite the flash of unfair anger she had felt, his name sat sweetly on her tongue, as if she had been born with it in her mouth. And perhaps she had.

After the Battle of the Four Days, the king's sculptor had captured the features of Giles Harringdon so exactly that it was as if Meriel were returned by magic to Sir Edward's library, and her beloved hero had sprung to full life before her. She took a firm grip on her heart and her face lest she show how overwhelming this moment was.

The earl felt his face soften before he could stop it. "Giles?" he repeated after her in a voice that intensified the pain he felt whenever he confronted all that he had lost. "You haven't called me that for years, Felice." He feared a yearning behind his words, and steeled himself to bring back a stern glare to bear on her. He had learned well to guard against any softness with this wife. Learned early and many times too often. "Felice, if you are playacting for gain, you waste your time and mine. I will state my business and leave."

His wife continued her unusual silence. What was her game now? Giles heard himself making conversation. "The country air did you good, I see. You look younger... er, rested—■"

He veered away from the path that would lead him close to her, walking about the room, as if inspecting his possessions. He needed a moment to gain full control. Felice's face was somehow different. Something in her expression was softer, her gray eyes like early morning clouds. He had even glimpsed hurt at his words. Bitterness washed through him. A fresh lover, no doubt, had helped her regain the face and feeling of her innocent youth.

The bitterness of that thought allowed Giles to laugh, though he forced his mouth to do it and stepped deliberately toward her. "Indeed, Felice, you look quite another woman."

Meriel reached behind her to grasp the chair arm and sat abruptly, while Lord Giles settled into the chair opposite. Had he seen through her disguise so quickly? Was there something of the orphan serving maid about her, something like Beelzebub's brand that no training could ever erase? Oh! He was staring at her.

For a moment, Meriel felt like a butterfly pinned under glass in Sir Edward's collection. She had to move or be frozen with fright. Pouring another glass of brandywine for herself and one for Giles, she offered it to him. He bowed slightly and took it, then turned his face from her to stare into the fire.

Meriel took a deep breath, holding tight to the stemmed glass. Although she could see the brandy sloshing from side to side, she hoped Lord Giles would not notice and question her nervousness.

In profile, the earl's visage was taking her breath and leaving her empty: a magnificent strong brow and chin, straight proud nose and lips fuller than she'd realized. The sculptor hadn't quite gotten his lips right. She liked the real ones better. Quite a bit better. He had a strong beard that already marked his jawline with stubble, and it not yet supper by the clock.

But the dark line of beard only accented his strong features and her despair at how she was betraying him as much as Felice with this pretense. As he stared into the fire, the silence seemed to howl about the room. Or was it a roaring in her head now that she was looking at a face that she had known, a face she had talked to, caressed, and a mouth she had kissed? As she watched him, he swiftly surpassed even the perfection of her marble god, but then such warm, manly flesh would. She reminded herself to breathe slowly lest she swoon, as he'd thought, like some empty-headed wench with her first love. And yet, he
was
her first.

She took another deep breath to stop the slight dizziness that seemed to seep through to her bones.

Was Lady Felice insane to turn away from such a man, or brainless as Chiffinch thought? Probably both, Meriel decided at that moment.

Though tall and lithe, the earl was well muscled—the body of a man who practiced at the sword every day, who rode to horse with the king and played at tennis with him. Then, it was said, they doused their heads with water or leapt into the Thames to cool themselves.

Meriel, feeling overwarm herself, thought a leap into the river a good thing.

The earl was grace itself, sitting there, his long legs crossed, his black knit hosen stretching tight around his calves without a wrinkle, his lengthy, strong fingers entwining the glass. She tried not to stare, but the cordovan leather-booted foot slightly swinging in front of her captivated her gaze.

"And do you find me so changed, as well, Felice, or have you forgotten your lawful husband's features?"

Meriel swallowed hard. "Your pardon, Giles. Was I staring? I vow I'm but weary from travel."

"Ah," he said, looking away again because he had forgotten how, when Felice was in a pleasant mood, her body and face relaxed, her beauty made his stomach knot and his cock ache. He had remembered how strikingly beautiful she was, although he had tried to erase that memory along with many others. Hell's fire, she had even grown in beauty in these last days. Her dark hair was glossier than a young blackbird's feathers. Or did everything taking on new life shine like that? He could not understand why he thought so. Had it happened when he had not been looking? And her dark-lashed gray eyes were larger and even lighter than morning clouds, more like smoke against a clear sky. They would haunt him again later as he tried to sleep this night, finding no comfort in the warm body of his mistress next to him, though he would surely try. And was Felice's firelit face more alive, or were the flames playing tricks on a mind that he had ever had in his stern control? Now it was he who stared, for how could a man not gaze on that which gave off so much radiance?

"All is well at Harringdon Hall," she said, struggling for wifely conversation.

He nodded without speaking.

She struggled on. "Wallace has trimmed the yew hedge surrounding the parterre behind the main hall most perfectly, and spring has arrived early." She prayed that she'd remembered the correct name of the chief gardener and the plan of the old manor she'd studied for hours. What could be worse? The man facing her was known to design his own gardens and dig in the soil like a farmer while she had avoided flowers her life long.

"And the centifolia roses I planted when their roots were bare?" He looked at her with mounting curiosity.

"Ah, the roses," Meriel said, smoothing her gown, playing for time. Were these the large roses Sir Edward had brought from Holland before the war, the ones with one hundred petals? She did not recall that they had bloomed yet in Canterbury and most certainly would not have bloomed next to the sea in Norfolk. "Well budded, I believe I heard Wallace say, but you know I pay little attention," she responded, praying that she had not been too clever by half, and saying amen to no more talk of roses.

"I am surprised you remember that much, Felice, since you take no interest in my gardens."

Meriel decided at the moment that she must be bolder or give herself away. "I seem to surprise you much this evening, m'lord." She tried to make her words hold a suggestion of much more than she said, as Lady Felice could do only too well.

The earl straightened and put both feet on the floor. "Not so, Felice, for I doubt you could ever truly surprise me. A wife who aborts my son and heir with the help of a whorehouse midwife could ne'er surprise me again."

Giles stood abruptly, gripped with tension, He was surprised that these words defining Felice's betrayal spoken aloud still had the power to twist his insides like a powerful colic. And yet, some new gentleness in Felice's face, something that felt like an effort to reach for him had touched him. He had almost made a fool of himself with this woman whom he could never again love, nor as yet divorce. "I will not take more of your precious time, my lady. I came merely to ask that you join me on His Majesty's walk in St. James Park on the morrow morning. He has particularly requested your presence, and so I am obliged to relay it."

Meriel clamped her lips together before she could say,
Hey, well, I wager His Majesty has.

Then the full import of all that Giles had said hit her body like a foul blow, and she struggled mightily to keep the shock from invading her face. 'Od's grace! The countess had not revealed such infamy under questioning. What more had she hidden? Meriel could scarce imagine worse than aborting one's own son, though something told her there probably was worse, since Lady Felice had mentioned several lovers by name. Had she named them all?

Meriel felt rooted to her chair. "Please, Giles .. . stay the while." Somehow she could not allow him to leave believing such a terrible thing of her, a thing not only against man's law, but God's law, though she knew this sudden desire for Giles's esteem was wildly dangerous in a spy who only pretended to be his wife and in a short time would be gone, never again to see him.

He bowed, stiffly formal. "My apologies, your ladyship. I have a late ... appointment." As soon as the insinuating words were spoken, he regretted them. Although Felice flaunted her lovers, it was not his way to allude to his mistress with his wife, though she was little wife to him. And was that disappointment on her face? He could not believe what he saw. Felice was a consummate betrayer and liar. Yet. .. ?

"I'll remain for a moment, since you wish it," he said, sitting again before he could stop himself, bringing his sword to the front and leaning on its basket-weave hilt. "To what do I owe this desire for my company? Is it a debt to your booter or seamstress you want paid, or you wish to argue for more of a pension than what I grant you.. .."

Meriel scrambled about in her head for a reason to keep him by her. She had not done with memorizing his features, comparing them to the hero she'd adored, hearing that hero speak with the deepest of commanding voices.

He made a move as if to rise.

She glanced desperately about the room and then at the chess set, gleaming in the firelight. "Giles, we could play a game," she said, motioning to the pieces laid out upon the board.

"You continue to surprise me, Felice. I thought you despised chess in favor of cards.... Basset, if I do remember the debts I've paid to my lady Castlemaine, that notorious cheater." Giles heard his wife laugh, and it was sweeter than he remembered. But it had been some time since he had heard that laugh, and perhaps time had made it more musical. He determined to close his ears and eyes and notice no more, else every little thing he would take with him and play hell to be rid of.

"You fear a match, my lord earl," Meriel said, need making her bold. She arranged the pieces, moving her queen to challenge him.

Giles stared at the board. "The queen's gambit, I see. So Buckingham has been teaching you."

"Nay, my lord. I had a far better teacher than the duke. But beware, or I will capture your king."

"Will you, now!" He laughed before he could stop himself.

Meriel watched his long, lithe fingers with trimmed, clean nails as they danced about the board. They moved the pawns and rooks deliberately and with artless grace, although he must have seen she stared. Meriel forced her gaze away. These were the hands she was supposed to know by sight and by touch, two hands that had made love to her. Despite the fire, she shivered.

They played with concentration for some time, and although he took her king at last, he bowed to her with his hand over his heart, his eyes seeming to see inside her. "I commend your teacher, my lady."

She smiled slightly, her mouth hesitant, wondering who this man was behind the high-court manners. Would he demand his marital rights this very night, taking her with all abandon? Perhaps where she sat? On the floor? Oh, surely in the bed.

Meriel held tight to the chair arms. She shivered again, preparing herself to be wife to him.
Hey, well, duty is duty!

Meriel took a very deep breath, but let it go quickly when she realized that her bosom had risen to a degree that she doubted Lady Felice could accomplish. She had noticed in the Tower that the countess was not endowed to the same degree as a humble orphan girl. Women do notice such things. And unless she was mistaken, the earl had noticed, as well, and was staring.

The majordomo knocked and entered, bowing. "Your lordship, I have an urgent message from"—he bowed again and said to the floor—"reminding you of an appointment."

Giles nodded, pushing away regret he did not want to explore. "Your pardon, Felice, I must leave you."

She said nothing, fearing she'd revealed too much already, but she guessed he went to another woman. She could do nothing to stop him.

He bent to kiss her hand, which she gave up to him as if it were the most natural of things. The lips that touched her skin were firm as she'd expected. And hot as she had hoped.

Still she had not anticipated the swelling warmth that enveloped her. She jerked her hand away to save herself from the very un-Lady Felice behavior of leaping upon him and winding her legs about his torso.

The earl stepped back and the firelight lit one side of his handsome face, leaving the other side in shadow. His voice was low and rough. "I don't know what game you play, Felice, and I have no desire to discover it. If you think to charm me, spare yourself the effort. You cannot put new wine into an old bottle." Then he was gone in an instant, and the ma-jordomo bowed to her and closed the door softly.