Lady of Desire (27 page)

Each one looking taken aback, they burst out laughing at his words.

“Sirs?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

“You’re a brave man, Rackford.” Damien clapped him on the back. “God help you.”

With her brothers’ nod of approval, then, he set out to win Jacinda’s heart and her trust. As the Season progressed, he bided his time, willing to play the game by her rules for the time being. He danced attendance on her like the most obedient cavalier servente, fetching her glasses of champagne punch, opening windows when she was warm, bringing her wrap when she was cool, even sitting through endlessly dull rounds of whist and losing large sums of money just for the pleasure of sitting across from her.

She was softening him up, even toward his father. Rackford was on his way out of the house early one afternoon to pay his almost daily call upon his lady when he passed the morning room and noticed his father collapsed in an armchair in his dressing gown, his slippered feet propped up on an ottoman, cucumber slices over his eyes. On the little table beside him were a cup of strong coffee and a bottle of headache powder. The marquess was so still that Rackford found himself rather alarmed.

Moving warily toward the room, he paused in the doorway. “Father?”

“Huh?” came Lord Truro’s unceremonious grunt. Apparently dozing, he did not look over.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Never better,” he said blandly.

Rackford smiled wryly in spite of himself. “Hard night?”

“Must have been. Can’t recall.”

Leaning in the doorway, he fought with himself for a moment, gathering his nerve. “Father? I was thinking about going by Tatt’s later this afternoon to buy a suitable riding horse—”

“Spend what you want, William. I told you you may.”

“Yes—I wondered if you might like to come with me.” He couldn’t believe he was even offering, reaching out this way. “You’ve always had an eye for horseflesh.”

For a long moment, the marquess didn’t move.

Rackford swallowed hard, hanging on his answer like the little boy he once had been, dying for the approval of the terrifying, godlike man.

“Not today, Son. I’m ill as a dog.”

Rackford lowered his head at the rebuff, anger pulsing through him.

Truro slid the cucumber slices off his bloodshot eyes. “Tomorrow, perhaps?”

But the only answer that greeted him was the slamming of the front door as Rackford went out. Before long, Rackford arrived at Knight House in his curricle. Though he was still stung by the way his father had brushed him off, he knew that the sight of Jacinda’s sweet face would soothe him.

He jumped out of his carriage and left it with the groom, striding up to the entrance. He supposed he probably came here too much, but after all, Jacinda was expecting him. Mr. Walsh promptly let him in. The dignified butler had become a familiar sight through the past weeks.

“My lord,” the stately fellow intoned, opening the door wide for him.

Removing his hat, Rackford greeted him and showed himself up to the drawing room, stopping along the way to greet the duchess and to give little Morley’s cheek a fond pinch as the nurse brought the toddler by.

He was only on the fringes of the Knight clan, he realized, but he had never known what it felt like to be a part of a family before. Never before had it been so easy to imagine spending the rest of his life with a woman.

Every day he felt that he knew Jacinda better, that they understood each other a bit more deeply. He loved her capricious sense of humor and her soft, affectionate touches, like when she pulled him aside at a soiree to fix his cravat, or the afternoon she had taken the reins from him in Hyde Park and had driven his curricle, hell-for-leather, around the Ring to show him how it was done, her hip brushing against his as she stood beside him, fighting with the horses.

To be sure, his golden-haired goddess had little idea of how close he was to pulling her down off her pedestal and ravishing her, but still, he was her willing slave, magnetically pulled into her orbit like a hot, molten planet circling a brilliant star.

Jacinda was the only one who refused to see that her “friend” Rackford was single-mindedly courting her.

“No, darling, stand outside in the hall until he’s said your name. Tom, do it again,” Jacinda commanded the footman.

“Yes, my lady,” the long-suffering servant said.

She and Lizzie sat on the couch in the drawing room on a rainy afternoon, teaching Rackford etiquette between bursts of mirth at his scowling.

“I feel like a damned dancing bear,” he muttered, stomping back out into the marble corridor.

The footman assumed his position, as well, withdrawing into the hallway to open the door yet again. He stepped into the room, facing Jacinda, and announced, “Lord Rackford, my lady.”

Waiting for his cue, Rackford walked with measured paces into the room and bowed to her.

“Not too deeply,” she chided, giving him her hand while her eyes sparkled with mirth. “
Enchantee
, monsieur.”

“Mademoiselle.” He bowed over her hand. “Wipe that impish grin off your face, or I promise I shall turn you over my knee,” he murmured, just loud enough for her to hear.

“Isn’t he charming?” She turned with a bright, arch smile to Lizzie.

“Miss Carlisle.” He repeated his elegant bow to her.

“You’re doing splendidly, Lord Rackford.”

“Would you care for refreshments?” Jacinda gestured gracefully to the tea, sandwiches, biscuits, and fruits that had been prepared for their training exercises.

He eyed the carefully laid table with wariness.

Lizzie looked on in fond amusement as Jacinda tested him on the use and designation of each piece of silver that he might encounter on a well-laid table. Through much laughter at Rackford’s long-suffering grumbling, he slowly mastered the finer points of etiquette.

In her effort to “civilize” him, Jacinda further laid out a program of cultural exhibits to which she and Lizzie took their pupil, including the city’s array of art galleries and museums, recitals, and concerts of the newly formed London Philharmonic. They attended scientific receptions at Ackermann’s, where they heard the latest theories of political economists, botanists, linguists, archeologists who had visited the Pyramids, even naturalists who spoke about the fossils in the rocks. He loved learning, and when Jacinda considered how he had been forced to leave school at an early age, watching him absorb it all warmed her heart.

She soon concluded, however, that no amount of cultural enrichment could change him from the nasty man who had fascinated her from the start, for one day, he sent her a present wrapped in crepe paper with a small note that said,
Saw this in the tobacco shop and thought of you. Enjoy. R
.

When she opened it, alone in her chamber, she found it to be one of those shocking slim blue-books with indecent sketches of lovers in the throes of passion. She cursed him repeatedly under her breath as a scoundrel and a fiend, but eagerly studied every page. Here and there in the margins, he had written naughty comments to her about some of the various positions. Yet no matter how many nights in a row she dreamed feverishly of his tattooed body entwined with hers, she refused to surrender to his velvet enticements.

Her mind, if not her heart, had fixed upon the notion of being one day as free as the glamorous Lady Campion, beating Society at their own game, her private revenge for what they had done to Mama.

She refused to be dissuaded from her plan. Though it was Billy who made her heart leap and brought a smile—usually an arch, disapproving smile—to her lips, she charged on with her campaign to ensnare Lord Drummond.

Though she found herself spending more and more of her time with Rackford and the group of friends he was gathering about him, she made a point of visiting with Lord Drummond at each of the endless round of balls, routs, soirees, water parties, and lavish at-homes of the ton.

By June, Rackford announced to her and Lizzie that he had purchased the plantation in Australia and had his agent there tracking down each one of his former friends to make sure each would be brought there.

Other old friends found him one afternoon at Hyde Park when Jacinda was driving his curricle at a breakneck pace around the Ring. He sat beside her, enjoying the spectacle of his fair speed-demon. Pink-cheeked with wind and excitement, she pulled the light, elegant vehicle to a halt as two young gentlemen waved excitedly to him.

“Who are they?” she asked, but he was staring in astonishment.

“My God,” was all he murmured, then jumped out of the curricle and greeted them with a huge grin.

One was dark-haired and rather anemic-looking, and the other had carroty red hair. She watched, bemused, as they clapped him in bearlike hugs and made much over him.

“Billy Albright, by God! Look at you, man! We came as soon as we heard you’d come back.”

“We knew you were alive all this time. I tell you, we knew it!”

“Are you truly back with your father?” the dark-haired one asked, marveling.

Rackford nodded grimly, but gave him an odd, silencing look. He turned to her and introduced them as Reg Bentinck and Justin Church.

He explained they had been his friends from his short sojourn at Eton, but there was a troubled look in the depths of his eyes that shadowed his warm smile. She asked him later if something was wrong, but he chased away her question by trying to steal a kiss.

The following day, the agreeable young gentlemen accompanied them on their next cultural outing: Jacinda and Lizzie were taking Rackford to see the Elgin Marbles. Lord Elgin kept them in a pavilion attached to his London home. Their amiable group was on their way out of Knight House under Miss Hood’s watchful eye when Daphne’s followers, Helena and Amelia, arrived with their governess, all abuzz with some bit of gossip they were anxious to share with Jacinda.

She invited the girls along to view the ancient Greek statues with them, and soon, they had all paid their few shillings and walked into the pavilion. The little old man who served as the docent explained to their awestruck party how Lord Elgin and his team of workers had painstakingly removed the life-sized statues one by one from the frieze of the ancient Parthenon in Athens. At great personal expense, His Lordship had shipped the mighty marbles back to England where they could be properly protected.

Jacinda was more interested in watching Messieurs Church and Bentinck paying court to Lizzie. Both young scholars seemed quite taken with the girl, she mused, then Amelia and Hellie came over and pulled her aside.

“You’ll never believe what Daphne did,” Amelia whispered. “You mustn’t tell anyone!”

“I won’t. What did she do?” she asked eagerly.

The flighty pair giggled.

“She
threw
herself at Lord Griffith—” Amelia started.

“And he rejected her!” Helena finished.

Jacinda’s jaw dropped. “You’re jesting!”

“No, we’re not. She did it last night at the theater.”

Oh, poor Ian!

“We just left her. Lord, she’s in a
rage”
Amelia said in wicked mirth. “She had had her heart set on announcing the engagement at the ball her family is giving next Saturday night. You received your invitation, I trust?”

Jacinda nodded innocently, smiling to herself to recall Rackford’s reaction when he, too, had received his invitation to the Taylor ball. He had smiled at her with a rakish gleam in his eyes.

“You and I are going to steal back your diamonds,” he had promised in a sultry murmur.

“Don’t you remember she tried to snare Devonshire last Season? Daphne’s determined to marry a marquess at the very least. You’d better tell Lord Rackford to watch out.”

“I will,” she murmured. Glancing over at him, she was suddenly taken aback to see him scowling at the Parthenon statues, his arms folded across his chest. Puzzled, she excused herself from her friends and went over to him. “Something wrong?”

He tossed his chin toward the docent in a curt nod. Jacinda turned her attention to what the old man was saying.

“The collection will be moved to the British Museum later this summer after the sale is complete.”

She furrowed her brow and turned to him again. “What did I miss?”

“The government has bought these stupid statues for thirty-five thousand pounds. Thirty-five thousand! This, at a time when half the men of England cannot even feed their families—” His words broke off, as though he were too incensed to continue; then he shook his head. “Perhaps your beau Lord Drummond can explain it, for this Tory logic is beyond me. Your pardon, my lady.” He gave her a curt bow, pivoted on his heel, and stalked out of the pavilion.

Jacinda peered after him in bemusement, then shook her head. There was no telling what odd thing would make Rackford overreact.

Lizzie followed a moment later, also scowling, her cheeks pink with anger.

“Gracious, where are you all going?” Jacinda exclaimed.

“Come, my lady. Let us leave the site of this crime. Defacing the Parthenon!” Lizzie said bitterly, casting one last look at the broken glory of the statues. “Lord Elgin is naught but a marauding thief.”

Jacinda was the last one left standing in the pavilion. “But they’re beautiful. Heavens, we’re British— we couldn’t leave them there to decay, could we? ”

The docent bowed to her in agreement, then Miss Hood stuck her head back in the doorway. “Stop dawdling, my lady. The carriage waits.”

She shrugged off her friends’ strange reactions and skipped out after them.

Rackford was glad Jacinda had taken him to see the Elgin Marbles, for he went home that afternoon in a brooding humor, awakened to the awesome realization that his new rank in life had put him in a position of great power with which to fight the same injustices he had battled in the rookery, but in a legal manner and on a grand scale.

Aye, now he could do more than stew over the Tory cabinet’s foolish expenditures and heartless policies. Galvanized, he attended his first meeting of the Radical party the very next day. He knew instantly that he had found the place where he belonged, where he could contribute to the world in a real and meaningful way.