Never a Gentleman (27 page)

Grace couldn’t take her eyes off her uncle, who couldn’t face her. “What reason?”

“Proof. At this very minute he is with one of his accomplices. We saw him go in. We’ve arranged for you to see.”

Grace found herself looking around, as if expecting Diccan to walk through the door. “Where?”

“The house next door. We’ve opened a hole between the houses that has been hidden behind a special mirror. Please don’t refuse
my request until you’ve seen.”

She didn’t move. This was absurd. What reason on earth would Diccan have to betray his country? How could anyone think he
was involved?

She shook her head one last time. She had no choice. “Show me.”

He dipped his head, as if searching for tact. “We will be going up to one of the bedrooms. When I open the door, you must
remain strictly silent. You will hear him, but he could hear you, too.”

Already her heart was beating faster. She felt the prickle of sweat at her nape and feared for her suddenly queasy stomach.
Resting a hand at her back, Mr. Carver opened
the door and ushered her through. Uncle Dawes slumped back into his chair.

The bedroom, when she entered it, was dark, with indistinct shadows where furniture should be. She smelled coal smoke and
dust and age. Carver led her across the room, where he stopped her inches away from the nondescript red wall. “Remember,”
he whispered. “Quiet.”

She shivered, unsettled by the feel of his breath on her skin, crawling with dread for what she might witness. Then he reached
up and slid back a panel, and she could see into the room beyond.

Oh, dear God. She could see.

“No,” she whispered, abruptly backing up.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her back into place. “But you must look. And you must stay ’til
the end. It is when he will betray himself.”

She should run. She should give herself away. She should bloody well close her eyes and hide. She couldn’t. She could do no
more than stare at the sight of her husband making love to his mistress.

They were naked, standing almost directly in front of her, golden firelight pouring over their slick bodies like water. Perfectly
formed bodies, exquisitely wrought art come to life. His mistress was a fertility goddess, lush and rounded and soft, even
more lovely than when Grace had seen her in Brussels. Her cornsilk hair tumbled over her shoulders in waves, and her great
blue eyes were laughing. She was leaning back against Diccan, and he had his hands on her breasts, surely the most perfect
breasts ever created; pink-tipped and heavy, milky white moons beneath his long-fingered hands.

Grace’s own breasts ached. Her heart stumbled. She
couldn’t take her eyes from his hands. Elegant hands, clever hands, cupping those perfect plump breasts. His body was even
more compelling than the one time Grace had seen it arced over hers. Taut and muscled and sleek as a seal. The perfect counterpoint
to the woman’s softness, which he explored with a familiarity that threatened to shatter her.

“I don’t like watching a man betray his wife either,” Mr. Carver murmured in Grace’s ear, setting off fresh chills, his body
too close against her back. “I think he hasn’t been as kind to you.”

Diccan’s hand was sliding down Minette’s belly, his tongue collecting the scent from her shoulder. He was chuckling, and the
sound scored Grace like ground glass.

“I can’t get enough of you,
mignette,
” he murmured, so clearly that Grace wondered why he couldn’t see her standing not four feet away. “It’s been too long since
I’ve had you.”

“You’ve had me nearly every day,” the blonde sighed, arching into his touch. “You are greedy.”

“Not like this. Not naked and tucked away where we can enjoy ourselves for hours rather than hide in back bedrooms and park
paths. Not with you ready to do anything for me.” He bit down on her earlobe and she gave a little shriek. “Will you?” he
asked. “Do anything?”

Grace swore she could feel the path of his hand on her own skin. She struggled to keep her breathing even. To hold still as
the two of them turned toward each other, smiling as if theirs was the most delicious secret in the world.

“Haven’t I?” Minette asked. “Done everything?”

He ran a finger down her pert nose. “Not quite yet.”

She flashed him a coy look of confusion. “You must remind me.”

Tangling his hands into her hair, he brought his mouth down on hers. Instantly she melted against him, lifting up on her toes,
rubbing her nipples against his chest, moaning into his mouth.

Grace saw how he made love to that woman’s mouth and felt the fresh clutch of betrayal. He had kissed her like that, slowly,
as if memorizing her, deeply, as if promising, thoroughly, as if incapable of getting enough. It seemed that kiss hadn’t been
as important as she’d thought.

He had one arm around Minette now, the other hand still savoring the cushion of that perfect breast. Grace couldn’t breathe.
She heard the man behind her catch his own breath, and thought he was aroused. She was mortified. She couldn’t take her eyes
from the path Diccan’s hands took over Minette’s body. She felt heat wash through her, thickening her blood. She ached with
envy, knowing he would never want to take her imperfect body like that, measuring her skin like priceless silk.

And then, with a final kiss, he lifted each perfect breast into his mouth to suckle. It was no more than a babe did, and yet
the sight of it liquefied Grace. She wanted to move, to stretch, to beg for relief.

“It must be difficult,” Carver whispered in her ear like temptation itself, “to watch.”

She shivered with distaste, sure that Carver could sense her own arousal. She pulled more tightly into herself, loathing his
touch. Wondering at a man who could enjoy this.

“It isn’t enough,” Diccan moaned. “Hold on, sweet. I’m going to give you the ride of your life.”

And without another word, he spun her away to face the four-poster bed and lifted her arms over her head. Pulling
his neckcloth from where he’d tossed it on the bed, he quickly tied her hands to the bedpost, waist high.

“Submit,” he growled, nesting his erection in the cleft of her bottom. “Tell me you want this.”

With a little mewling sound, Minette bent over so her arms stretched out before her, pressing back against Diccan’s groin.
“Yes,” she gasped, writhing. “
Mon Dieu
, yes!”

Diccan growled, bending over and kissing the dimple at the base of her spine. Grace saw Minette shiver. She heard her moan,
deep in her throat like an animal in pain. Grace shivered in sympathy. She knew what would come next. She had seen it drawn
in pillow books, carved into temple walls. She had always wondered what it would feel like.

“Spread your legs for me,” Diccan was saying, as he nipped at the milky white mounds of her bottom. “Let me see how wet you
are for me.”

Grace instinctively clamped her thighs together. She could feel herself dripping and hot and was ashamed. Behind her she could
hear the quickened breathing of Mr. Carver, and that made it all worse. She was desperate to feel Diccan’s hand along her
spine, the sough of his breath cooling her hot skin. To open herself fearlessly for his invasion.

He stepped back, causing Minette to protest. He laid his hands on her hips, curling his fingers tightly enough to raise bruises.
His rod stood out hard and thick and rampant, veins engorged along its shaft and the tip plum-round. Seeing it, Grace was
beset by twin waves of arousal and despair.

“You torture me,” Minette whimpered, rocking her hips, seeking him. “I have such an itch, and you refuse to scratch it.”

Diccan answered by slipping one finger into her. Grace saw the juices on it glisten as he drew back and then slid it in again.
She heard the slick passage of it and the low moan from Minette. “Please… oh, Diccan, don’t make me wait.”

He didn’t bother with gentility. He just rammed himself into her. Minette bucked and cried out. Grace pressed a fist against
her mouth. Diccan grabbed Minette’s hips and began to drive himself into her. Again. Again. Harder and harder, as if punishing
her, as if consuming her. Minette began to keen; she threw her head back, her eyes open, her mouth open, her body impossibly
bowed to accept Diccan. “Yes!” she screamed, and he bit into her shoulder, a stallion marking a mare, lust at its most primal,
and Grace didn’t think her own knees would hold her up any longer.

She felt an awful weight in her chest and the laceration of her nails against her palms, and wished she remembered how to
weep. She shook with the sin of her arousal, with the gaping wound of loss. She saw Diccan climax; harsh, hard, guttural.
She saw Minette take him, shrieking and moaning, and Grace wanted it. She wanted all of it for herself with a greed that was
frightening. She saw him rip the bonds from his lover and take her again on the bed, laughing, and wanted to keen with grief.

She stood there for hours, she thought, torturing herself because even though she knew how wrong it was to watch, she couldn’t
turn away. And when the two finally collapsed onto the bed, wound around each other like old vines, Mr. Carver leaned close
once more.

“Now,” he murmured. “The bed talk.”

For a second, Grace had no idea what he meant. Then she heard Diccan, and she knew.

“I think you still owe me,
mignette.
”

Tucked under his shoulder, the blonde giggled. “I have spent it,
chéri
. For what do I owe you?”

“For Wellington’s schedule. Wasn’t I the only one who knew about his secret trip to Whitehall next month? That should mean
something.”

“It is not next month you need to worry about, but the one after.”

He lazily stroked her breast. “What are you waiting for, auguries from the planets?”

“Everything won’t be in place for the perfect act ’til then.”

“Tell me, then. So I can enjoy it, too.”

“No, no,” she murmured, her voice already breathy again with his attentions. “You won’t want to play. You’ll think it an insult
to the great man, and you English, you think so much of him.”

Diccan lifted his head. “Wellington?” He laughed. “Dear girl, haven’t you heard? The great Wellington and I cordially loathe
each other. I stole one of his barques of frailty once. He calls me a waste of good tailoring.”

Minette smiled back, looking suspiciously like a contented cat. “Good. Then you won’t mind our little game. We merely wish
to give him such a little humiliation, him, who won’t defend all those brave soldiers who fought his war. They need pay. He
wastes his time feting the French instead of insisting his own government pay its debt. Bah! He should be shamed.”

“A Frenchwoman worried about English soldiers?”

She stiffened as if he’d slapped her. “A Belgian woman, whose best cousin is married to one of these brave men. She is too
proud to rely on me. She should rely on your
duke.” Then she spit, as if he were beneath her feet. “Belgians died for him, too. He forgets them all.”

Diccan was smiling that enigmatic smile of his. “Well then, a worthy cause indeed. But why wait for your revenge?”

“Maybe if we can be ready. But so many need to be involved. It will be very public, this cut.”

Diccan gave a casual shrug. “Well then, I suppose I’ll just have to get his schedule for October and meet you here again tomorrow.”

She ran a nail down his chest. “How can you get what we need so soon?”

“I’ll manage.” He kissed her, a slow, sultry mating of mouths and tongues that left Grace bereft. “I can’t bear to part from
you,” he told Minette. “I wish I could just move in here and be done with it.”

Minette fingered the damp curls at his neck. “What about your wife?”

“The cripple?”

Grace blinked, sure she’d heard wrong. Her heart had surely gone silent as she waited. But he sounded completely indifferent.
“She has nothing to object to,” he was saying, his focus on Minette’s breasts. “I married her. I’ll be damned if I have to
fuck her.”

Grace felt hot and then cold. Her heart thudded against her ribs, slow as death. She was terrified she would sob, and she
hadn’t done that since the day her mother drove away. That crack inside her widened into nasty, jagged lines. Something she
had protected as long as she could remember was disintegrating. Something old and delicate and so worn it would take very
little to shatter it. With only a few words, Diccan had almost done it.

She didn’t bother to ask Mr. Carver’s permission. She
just turned and walked out. He caught her by the arm just shy of the front door. She could hear Uncle Dawes panting down the
stairs behind her.

She refused to look at either of them. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if I can.”

For a moment he didn’t answer. Then Carver said, very softly, “Trust dies, but mistrust blooms.”

Grace shot him a startled look. “What?”

He was studying her, his pale blue eyes oddly intense. His smile, when it came, was curiously mild. “A quote; Sophocles, I
think. You realize, of course, that they don’t mean to embarrass Wellington. They mean to kill him.”

Grace couldn’t look away, suddenly afraid of the odd light in the man’s eyes. Finally Uncle Dawes caught up with them, wheezing
apologies.

Grace broke away from Mr. Carver’s hold and stepped back. “If I do this,” she said, rubbing her arm. “How do I contact you?”

“I’ll contact you. If you need me, though, I ride in the park every day.” He waited for her to accept her wrap and opened
the door. “One more thing, Mrs. Hilliard. Don’t speak to anyone, not even Lady Murther. And I beg you not to go to anyone
in the government. We don’t know whom to trust.”

She didn’t even answer. Ignoring the arm her uncle held for her, she walked out.

When Grace finally returned home, she undressed, took down her hair, and slipped on her night rail in complete silence. She
was terrified that if she opened her mouth, she would begin to wail like a lost child until the last of her pride and self-respect
poured right out onto the floor like old blood.