Ravishing in Red (32 page)

She unfastened her undressing gown and let it fall off her body so he would know what she wanted. He lightly trailed his fingertips over her skin, along her neck and breasts and chest, while she plucked at his cravat.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “You are very sad.”

“I am not only sad. I am very sure. I need this now.” She threw aside his cravat and worked on the buttons of his shirt. “Touch me and kiss me while I do this. Lightly. Very lightly, so I am not overwhelmed.”

He obeyed. His fingers and mouth coaxed the gentlest arousal to flow like warm water. It filled her sweetly while she removed his garments so she could caress him.

She closed her eyes so she could feel the warmth and texture beneath her hands better. She savored every touch, every physical inch. Then she rocked forward so he fell back on the bed, and straddled him so she could watch her hands move.

Caressing him felt so good. Love sparkled all through the pleasure it gave her. She could tell it pleased him to accept this slow care. She leaned forward and kissed his mouth, then his neck and shoulder. She tasted, tasted, and wondered at the way the sensations of her body touched those of her heart.

He rolled them both over and did for her as she had just done for him, kissing her body carefully, caressing gently. A more frantic excitement began beckoning, but she held it at bay. She did not want to lose herself. She did not want anything obscuring the deep poignancy that her emotions created right now.

He released his lower garments while he kissed her. She took his phallus in her hands and caressed him as carefully as he had her so they might share the exquisite intimacy she experienced.

Then she wanted nothing else but him. In her body and in her arms. She told him so. She asked him to take her then, right then, so she could bind herself to him and know a fulfillment of this emotion drenching her soul.

He settled in her deeply. Perfectly. She let him fill the rest of her too, all her senses, and lost herself finally, in him and his scent and strength. And as she held him closely and accepted both his need and his care, she was moved so profoundly that she wept again, only not in sadness this time.

“
S
how them. It is a small request from friends who have affection and concern for you,” Sebastian said.

Morgan glared at him. “I am not an animal in a menagerie that does tricks for the crowd.”

Kennington reacted with surprise. “Animal? Tricks? My apologies, to be sure. I mean no insult. If in my joy at the news I showed disrespect, I am undone.”

“It is not your fault,” Sebastian said. “It is mine for being indiscreet. I had no idea my brother had not informed both of you of this progress.”

“Let us finish our game and speak no more of it,” Symes-Wilvert said.

Everyone picked up their cards. Kennington and Symes-Wilvert silently peered at theirs, trying to appear indifferent but communicating their hurt by the subdued angles of their blond heads.

Morgan threw his cards down. “Move the damned table,” he said with exasperation.

Sebastian stood up and pulled the table away. Morgan’s legs no longer appeared so lifeless in his trousers. The exercises had been restoring their mass. Except for their complete immobility, one might never know about his infirmity on seeing him like this now.

“Do not expect me to get up and dance,” he snapped. “This is a very small thing that my brother celebrates, and it will probably never amount to more.”

His friends nodded, but their eyes remained on those legs.

Morgan closed his eyes. His jaw clenched in concentration. His right leg vaguely flexed beneath the trouser’s fabric, then moved slightly to the right.

“By Jove, it is a miracle,” Symes-Wilvert whispered. He turned to Kennington. “Did you see that? Did you?”

“I did indeed. Ha-ha! Damnation, how could you keep this a secret? Why, it is astounding. A miracle, as Symes here said.”

“Do not make more of it than it is. Do not go telling the world about it either. I’ll not be performing for curious bastards who suddenly remember that I am still alive.”

“Of course. Certainly. And yet—what do the physicians say? When did this happen?” Kennington asked. “We are all ears and you must tell us about it.”

The card game now forgotten, Sebastian slipped away, to take care of private affairs in the City. He called for his horse, mounted, and aimed east.

Morgan’s secrecy about the improvement in his condition had been peculiar. It was almost as if he refused to believe it was happening.

The neglect in informing their mother had been understandable. She had been visiting Morgan every day since learning the truth, and any man can be excused for avoiding that as long as possible. Kennington and Symes-Wilvert, however, were friends, and Sebastian truly had assumed that they knew.

When he arrived in the City, he visited his solicitor’s chambers near Lincoln’s Inn. Mr. Dowgill was not the family lawyer. Instead Sebastian became Mr. Dowgill’s client when, as a young man, he concluded that having privacy in certain affairs required him to use a lawyer other than the one who oozed flattery on the too curious and too ruthless Lady Wittonbury.

Dowgill had proven more than competent in those early duties. A bland, pale man of unimpressive appearance, he possessed a knack for convincing even the most obstinate mistress that Sebastian’s offered parting settlement was the best she would ever get.

Dowgill greeted him with his usual mild manner. They sat down in his inner chamber. Dowgill set some papers on the small table between them.

“As you requested, I looked into this company, P & E. I had difficulty learning anything more than you told me. It built a mill in 1810 and began making powder in the next year, which was sold to the Board of Ordnance. After the war ended, it ceased operations.”

“Did you find any information regarding the owners of P & E?”

“At first, almost nothing. From what I could ascertain, it was a partnership, not a syndicate. I communicated with an astute colleague in that county, and—I found this provocative, if I may say so—he indicated that while he had no particular knowledge of this business, he had formed the opinion that the owners were not named Pettigrew and Eversham at all, despite the mill’s own name.”

“That is indeed provocative.”

Mr. Dowgill pressed the fingertips of one hand against those of the other. He gazed over the construction thoughtfully. “It is impossible to know why such a deception occurred, of course. No one in the county ever met the owners. They did not avail themselves of the sort of hospitality that they could enjoy as proprietors of so significant a business. I found myself contemplating this oddity, for surely it might unlock the answers you sought. The most logical explanation was that the owners were gentlemen, and did not want to affix their names to a place of trade.”

Sebastian could think of an even better explanation. The owner or owners intended that scheme with the powder from the first, and hid their identities to try and save their hides in the event it became known.

“And then I soon learned that the mill had been sold for certain, as you told me you had heard,” Dowgill said. “The solution became obvious and simple. One cannot use a fictitious name in buying or selling property. A signature must be written and witnessed. I therefore wrote to Mr. Skeffley, the fuller who bought the property, and asked from whom he had obtained it.” He looked meaningfully at the papers on the table.

“You have a name for me?”

“I do, sir.”

Sebastian waited. Mr. Dowgill tapped his forefinger on the papers.

“Lord Sebastian, I find myself in a peculiar circumstance. I am your servant, but even so I am a counselor. I do not know the reason you wanted this information. However, unless your goals are the most benign, I advise you now to reconsider whether I must hand this name over to you.”

“I am very sure that you must.”

Although not the answer he wanted, Dowgill had resigned himself to hearing it. “Quite so. I am therefore required to ask you to keep my name out of any discussions that you might have with the individual in question. Not only my name, but my involvement even by reference to your solicitor. There are those who know I have been of service to you in the past.”

Dowgill was conducting some elaborate negotiations. That alone piqued Sebastian’s curiosity all the more. “Of course, if you require it. However, you have only done your duty to me, as my solicitor.”

“Any reasonable person would see it that way. Regrettably, this individual is not known for reason. Rather the opposite.”

“You know him, then?”

“I only know of him. His circles are more elevated than I will ever attain. You see, he is not only a gentleman, as I suspected. He is a peer.”

The solicitor’s long preamble and deliberate caution suddenly made more sense. “He will never learn from me that you pursued this on my behalf. If he discovers it some other way, I will make sure that no ill fortune falls on you as a result.”

Dowgill expressed silent gratitude with his expression. “I must sound like a coward to you, and counseling you to be one as well. Had it been anyone else—He duels, you see. It is commonly known he does, and—”

“His name, Mr. Dowgill. I would appreciate knowing it now.”

He slid a paper out from amid the rest. He handed it over. “Sir, as you will read, Mr. Skeffling reports that he bought that mill from the Duke of Castleford.”

 

 

 

 

S
ebastian did not pay a morning call on Castleford. He wrote and requested a private meeting on a matter of great import. Since they had known each other for many years and were once good friends, he included a suggestion that it would help enormously if Castleford were sober, and if no pretty bottoms were nearby to distract him.

The reply came two days later:

When Sebastian arrived, he was brought to the library. There he found Castleford conducting business with his secretary. The neat stacks of documents, and the sharp commands peppering the desk’s young occupant, revealed that when he descended into tedium, the duke could be as boring as any other man with significant responsibilities.

“I have discovered that if I make one long day of it, then I can go to hell the other six,” he said when Sebastian’s presence interrupted. “Leave us, Edwards, but do not go far.”

The young man took his leave. Castleford sat on a divan and stretched out his legs. “I hope this is not about some bill. If so, your masters are asking you to dip from the well too often.”

“It is not about any Parliamentary matter.”

“Thank God for that. You love that game so much there are some who think you will be Prime Minister before long. My money is on an impressive scandal taking you down first. One that you can’t marry your way out of. Does that sweet woman know what she has in you?”

“Government is not a game. Neither is law.”

“Politics is. Part chess, part gambling, part horse race, part lottery. You would not have taken to it so well if it were not. Now, what do you want with me?”

Sebastian had debated most of the night how to approach this. There had been some anguish in that vigil along with a good deal of anger. He and Castleford no longer faced the world shoulder to shoulder as in the old days, and a sharpness had entered the relationship they still had, but being obligated to make this accusation troubled him.

“As you know, I was looking into that bad gunpowder. I have found its source, and learned how it became adulterated. I know that you were responsible.”

Castleford barely reacted. He just looked at him.

“I felt that I owed it to you, to let you know that it was all going to come out.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“That powder came from your mill. I want to believe your managers arranged for the rest, for the skimming and replacement of powder from the kegs with another substance that rendered the powder useless. If you say that was how it was, that you knew nothing of the scheme, that is all I need.”

“All
you
need? An apology is all
I
need. Now, or I swear that I will call you out.” He stood and paced away, furious. He ran his hand through his hair and pivoted to glare. “Have you gone mad? This is
me
. I don’t own mills. Why in hell would I want one? Let alone one that could blow up. As for skimming and whatever else you think I did, why would I bother?”

“For the fun of it? You also like your games.”

“If you believe I would have risked those soldiers’ lives, you are an idiot. I might fuck their sisters, but I would not do this.”

“You owned the mill. I have seen the indenture by which you sold it recently. It is your signature.”

Castleford froze, astonished. Then he strode to the door and yanked it open. He bellowed Edwards’s name.

The young man hurried in. Castleford pinned him with a stabbing glare while he jabbed a finger in Sebastian’s direction. “Edwards, explain to him that I do not, nor have I ever, owned a mill.”

Edwards looked like a man trapped by a lion. His wide-eyed, wary glance darted to Sebastian. Then he took the duke’s measure and blanched.

“Well, tell him,” Castleford roared.

“Uhhhh—my lord—actually . . .” Edwards swallowed hard. “You did own a mill, briefly. Remember? It was signed over to you in payment for a gentleman’s debt. I recall writing the letter to your solicitor telling him to sell it off for whatever he could get.”

Castleford turned a black expression on the young man, who stepped back a pace.