Mistress (40 page)

Iphiginia looked at him in surprise. “What makes you think you know me better than Masters does?”

Herbert gazed out over the crowded room. “I have felt that way from the beginning, Iphiginia. You and I have much in common. More than you realize. In a way, I believe that we are two of a kind.”

“I know that you wish to be a good friend to me and I very much appreciate it.” Iphiginia touched his sleeve. “But you must not concern yourself on my behalf. I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you?” Herbert looked at her. “I hope you are right, m’dear. I shall miss you.”

“Miss me?”

“I fear that once you are wed to Masters, I shall see a great deal less of you.”

“Mr. Hoyt, you are acting as though I am about to be locked away in a convent.”

“A harem, I believe, would be a better description,” Marcus said from just behind Iphiginia’s left shoulder.

She turned quickly to smile at him. “There you are, my lord. I did not see you return from the buffet table.”

“I know.” Marcus thrust a glass of champagne into her fingers, but his gaze rested on Herbert. “You were deep in conversation with your good friend Mr. Hoyt.”

Herbert inclined his head in a stiff nod. “ ’Evening, Masters. I was merely giving Mrs. Bright my best wishes on her forthcoming marriage.”

“Thank you, Herbert,” Iphiginia said gently.

“My pleasure.” Herbert took her gloved hand in his and kissed the back of it. “Whatever happens, Mrs. Bright, I want you to know that I shall treasure the friendship we have shared.”

Marcus took Iphiginia’s arm. “I think it’s time we moved along to the Wilkersons’. It’s nearly midnight and we are expected to put in an appearance.”

“Yes, of course.” Iphiginia gave Herbert a farewell smile and allowed herself to be led away through the crowd.

“I grow increasingly weary of stumbling over Hoyt in order to get to you,” Marcus said.

“I regret that he annoys you, but he is my friend, Marcus. I am quite fond of him.” Iphiginia gave Marcus a repressive glance as he led her down the steps to the waiting carriage. “I expect you to be polite to my friends after we are married.”

“Of course, my dear,” Marcus said with uncharacteristic and rather suspect meekness.

Iphiginia scowled at him. “What was that nonsense about locking me away in a harem?”

“A harem of one, my sweet. I assure you that you will be the only occupant.”

“That sounds interesting,” Iphiginia said.

“It certainly struck me that way.”

Iphiginia was exhausted by the time Marcus finally escorted her home at three in the morning.

The town house was quiet, Amelia and the staff having long since retired to bed. Marcus and Iphiginia went quietly across the hall and walked into the shadowed library.

Marcus closed the door, loosened his cravat, and lit the candle on Iphiginia’s desk.

“Good heavens, what an exhausting evening.” Iphiginia stripped off her white kid gloves and flopped into the chair behind her desk. Her white sarcenet and satin skirts fluttered around her. “One would have thought you had announced your intention to marry a female who possessed two heads. I have never seen so many curious eyes or heard so many gasps of amazement.”

“The worst is over.”

“I certainly hope so.” Iphiginia frowned at her white skirts. “The first thing I am going to do after our marriage is purchase some new gowns. I am dreadfully bored with white.”

“It served its purpose.” Marcus helped himself to a small glass of brandy.

“I suppose it did.”

“It was an extremely daring and rather shrewd notion.”

“Thank you, my lord. I was rather pleased with the notion myself.” Iphiginia tried to summon up a casual smile.

In truth she felt anything but calm tonight. The enormity of the step she was about to take was having a deeply unsettling effect on her nerves.

Teach me to break this rule, too
.

Had Marcus really meant that he was willing to learn how to love again? Iphiginia wondered. Or had he offered her the challenge, knowing that she would be unable to resist?

He could be so bloody clever, she thought.

“Speaking of our marriage,” Marcus said.

“Yes?” Iphiginia watched as he began to prowl the room, brandy glass in one hand.

Marcus paused in front of a statue of Aphrodite. “] intend to procure a special license in the morning. We can be married tomorrow afternoon”

Iphiginia caught her breath. “So soon?”

He looked at her over his shoulder, his intelligent gaze shuttered and brooding. “There is no need to delay the event, is there?”

It dawned on Iphiginia that, in his own way, Marcus was as ill at ease as she was tonight. How odd that, having been through so much together, they should suddenly find themselves nervous around each other.

“No,” she said.

Marcus nodded once, satisfied. “I shall make the arrangements.”

“Very well.”

Marcus took a swallow of brandy and moved on to study the statue of the Roman centurion. “I thought we managed quite nicely this evening.”

“People are amazed that you are going to marry your mistress, you know.”

“You are not my mistress.” Marcus set his glass down on a nearby table. “You are my fiancee. The gossip will vanish once we are wed.”

Iphiginia glanced at the copy of
Illustrations of Classical Antiquities
on her desk. “Are you certain?”

“Quite.” Marcus smiled without any humor. “Marriage fixes everything, you see.”

Iphiginia recalled the circumstances of Marcus’s first marriage and winced. “Yes.”

“It silences scandal before it can flower. It renders titillating gossip of an affair into extremely dull tea conversation. In short, Iphiginia, once we are married, we shall become a very boring subject so far as Society is concerned.”

Iphiginia gazed at him very steadily. “Is that the reason you wish to marry me, sir? I would sooner return to
Deepford than be wed in order to silence the threat of scandal.”

“No,” Marcus said. “It is not why I wish to marry you. I wish to marry you because you are the only woman I know who can keep me from becoming a clockwork man.”

“Marcus.”
Iphiginia was shocked at the analogy. “You cannot mean that.”

“But I do mean it.” He hesitated, as though gathering himself to jump off a cliff into a roiling sea. “I need you to keep me from becoming a victim of my own rules, Iphiginia.”

Iphiginia felt the talons of his deeply buried torment as though it were her own flesh they pierced. She knew without a trace of doubt what his admission had cost him.

Another rule broken, no doubt, she thought.

She got to her feet and went around the corner of her desk. She stepped into his arms and framed his hard face with her hands.

“Marcus, pay close attention. You are in no danger of becoming an automaton. You are a warm, passionate man with extremely refined sensibilities.”

“Do you think so?” The dark intensity vanished from his voice. He grinned briefly. “Well, in that case, it would probably be best not to delay our marriage. I’m not at all certain my refined sensibilities could withstand the strain of waiting.”

“No.” Iphiginia stood on tiptoe to brush her lips against his faintly curved mouth. “We would not want to stifle your warm, passionate nature any longer than necessary.”

“Or yours.” Marcus folded her into an unshakable hold and kissed her thoroughly.

He deepened the kiss until Iphiginia sighed softly and went limp in his arms.

“I love you, Marcus,” she murmured against his throat.

She was not certain he had heard her, but when he
raised his head a moment later, his eyes were the color of ancient amber. “I shall come for you at three tomorrow. I trust you will be ready.”

Iphiginia smiled. “Should I wear white?”

“You may wear whatever you wish.” Marcus moved reluctantly away from her to scoop his hat up off her desk. “Or nothing at all. Good night, Iphiginia. I shall look forward to tomorrow night. Do you realize that it will be the first time we will be able to make love in a bed?”

“How very convenient should you suffer another collapse after the event, my lord.”

“Adam will be coming by again today at five o’clock to take me for a drive in the park,” Amelia announced at breakfast the following morning. “What do you think I should wear, Iphiginia?”

Iphiginia frowned over the gossip column in the morning paper. The article she had been reading featured a very recognizable “Mrs. B” and an equally obvious “Lord M.” The news of the impending nuptials had been related in arch prose.

“What did you say, Amelia?”

“I said, will you help me select something to wear for a drive in the park this afternoon?”

Iphiginia looked up and saw the hopeful anticipation in her cousin’s eyes. She smiled.

“You and I are very near the same size,” Iphiginia said. “You shall wear my saffron yellow walking gown and the pale yellow pelisse that goes with it. The color will be perfect on you.”

Amelia’s eyes widened. “But you have not yet had an opportunity to wear that gown and pelisse yourself.”

“It is yours with my blessings.” Iphiginia refolded the newspaper and set it aside.

“Very kind.”

“Think nothing of it. We must both go shopping as soon as possible. You need some brighter gowns and I am weary of white.”

“It is very becoming on you.”

“Thank you, but white attire grows exceedingly dull after a while. I do not know why the ancients favored it.” Iphiginia paused. “You look very happy, Amelia.”

“I am happy.” Amelia smiled slowly, as though surprised by the fact. “Do you know, I have not felt this … this
unburdened
in years. To think that I was always terrified of coming face-to-face with Dodgson again. Yet when it actually happened, I experienced nothing but acute loathing and disgust.”

“And rightfully so. It was extremely satisfying to see his expression yesterday when he learned that you had the power to deny him entry into the investment pool.”

“Do you think that it is wrong of me to take such satisfaction from my revenge?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You exacted retribution and justice. You are entitled to a sense of satisfaction.”

“Adam says that Dodgson will probably not be able to recover from his recent financial reverses,” Amelia confided. “Apparently he is too far under the hatches to crawl back out on his own.”

“I shall certainly not waste any sympathy on him. And I cannot tell you how delighted I am to know that you care for Mr. Manwaring. He has been attracted to you since the moment you met, you know.”

“I think I did know. I always felt a certain warmth toward him. But for some reason I could not allow myself to admit it. Then, yesterday, after I confronted Dodgson and watched him go down in defeat, I suddenly felt free to turn to Adam.” Amelia smiled. “Oh, Iphiginia, I do feel glorious today.”

“Excellent. Then you can help me deal with what I
believe may be an extremely nasty case of wedding nerves.”

“Nerves? You? Iphiginia, are you telling me you are anxious about this marriage to Masters?”

“Yes, I believe I am. Remind me to take a vinaigrette with me to the preachers this afternoon. I would hate to humiliate myself by fainting at Masters’s feet.”

“I am astounded. I do not know what to say. You always seem so certain of yourself. I have never known you to suffer from nerves.”

“I have never been married,” Iphiginia reminded her. She smiled wryly. “But Marcus has. If I am anxious, only think what he must be going through.”

Half an hour later, feeling restless and more anxious than ever, Iphiginia wandered into her library with the intention of distracting herself.

She sat down behind her desk, opened a drawer, and removed several sheets of foolscap. She closed the drawer and reached for her pen.

Inspiration did not strike.

She took up a penknife and fiddled with the nib of her quill for a while. Then she put down the pen and contemplated several pieces of the statuary she had brought back with her from Italy.

It was no use. All she could think about was how her life was about to be irrevocably changed by a special license.

Teach me to break that rule, too, Iphiginia
.

Marcus had as much as asked her to teach him how to love again. She had been so certain that she could do it.

But what if she was wrong?

Iphiginia got to her feet and started around her desk with no particular goal. She just felt the need to move.

The copy of
Illustrations of Classical Antiquities
caught her eye. Having nothing better to do, she picked it up to place it back in its proper place on a library shelf.

Idly she thumbed through it, seeking favorite scenes.

The tiny blob of black wax was stuck to page two hundred and three. It had obviously been dropped onto the volume by accident. It had dried there and gone undiscovered.

Iphiginia stared at the small bit of wax for a long time.
Someone who knows everything and everyone in Society
.

Then, at last, inspiration finally did strike.

“You’re certain of these facts, Barclay?” Marcus sat forward behind his desk and forced himself to be patient. Sound scientific investigation had to be done carefully and thoroughly. He must not allow emotion and enthusiasm to rush him into a false conclusion.

He had allowed Iphiginia to persuade him to abandon a few of the rules which had governed his personal life until recently. That did not mean he had abandoned the sound, sensible rules of scientific experimentation.

Nevertheless, Marcus could feel the familiar thrill of discovery and satisfaction welling up inside. It all made perfect sense, he thought. It was logical. With this bit of information all the rest of the pieces began to fall into place.

He could not wait to tell Iphiginia.

“Yes, yes, quite certain.” Barclay shuffled his papers and peered at his notes through his spectacles. “The original Dr. Hardstaff, whose real name was William Burn, sold his premises to the same individual who built the sepulchral monument in Reeding Cemetery. That man’s name is H. H. Eaton.”