Season for Scandal (20 page)

She shivered, an enticing frisson against his chest, and his hands rearranged themselves into a position decidedly unsuited for waltzing in public.

“I am quite sure,” came her muffled voice against his chest, “that is
not
where you said you’d be grabbing at me.”

“Well, if you’re to tumble against me, I owe it to you to steady you. At all bendy bits of your form.”

She slid free from his embrace and stepped back, cheeks pink. “My bottom is
not
bendy.”

“Correct. Not if I have my hands on it.”

“Not at
any
time. Edmund, why did you . . .” She trailed off, looking around the room as though her words had scampered away and hidden under the ottoman.

From experience, he knew
I thought you’d like it
was the wrong answer. “Because I wanted to put my hands on you,” he said firmly. Truthfully.

They looked at one another with some surprise.

“I did,” he said. “And I’d like to do it some more.”

“I believe you.” She looked still more surprised, but pleased, too.

He hoped.

He hoped for many things, though. Her happiness. A return to her bed.

He hoped for too much. He’d no right; there were walls between them that he could never tear down.

“Here’s what else I want,” he interrupted his own thoughts. “To take you to a masquerade. Lord Weatherwax is hosting one on the first of December. His masquerades are notorious and usually lead to a scandal or two.”

“Scandal? Are you flirting with me?”

“If I know you at all, you wish to flirt with scandal. I am merely stating the enticing truth. So practice your waltzing, Lady Kirkpatrick. And come up with a costume. And be ready”—he patted her rear—“to have a handsome man put his hands all over you. Within the context of a waltz, of course.”

“This is what you want,” she mused.

“Yes,” he said. “Especially the bit about putting my hands on you. Because, by the way, I’m the handsome man I mentioned.”

“Yes, I figured that part out.” She smiled. “All right, my lord. I’ll come up with something very grabbable. In case there are dark paths to wander down.”

“There will be. It wouldn’t be a proper masquerade otherwise.”

One step brought him near her; now only a few inches separated them. He traced the slope of her nose, then feathered a touch over her cheekbone.

She drew back at once. “What? Do I have a smut on my face?”

“No. You look fine.” He settled for a kiss on the forehead, less like a husband or a lover than a proud tutor.

Not that he had really taught her anything.

“You look fine, too,” she muttered, sounding as though she meant exactly the opposite.

“Wait until you see me in my costume.”

Just for one night, they could sink into the darkness of a masquerade. And in masking themselves, maybe they could lose themselves; leave their unspoken wounds behind. Maybe their troubles wouldn’t find them.

Just for one night.

The first of December was always an odd day for Edmund. When he was a boy, his mother told him that she’d named him for a long-ago martyred priest, Edmund Campion, who had lost his life in a horrible way on this date. Why the baroness had named her son for a man whose secret ministry led to his execution for treason, Edmund had no idea.

Well, once his mother’s relationship with Turner became more clear, Edmund had a
little
idea. Still, knowing that his mother associated him with betrayal was hardly the sort of comfort he sought when inquiring after the history of his name. He had often wondered what it would be like to live a life free of secrets and shame. But such musings were idle, like wondering what it would be like to be Russian. Or to breathe underwater. Unimaginable, such realities.

Edmund was glad for the distraction of tonight’s masquerade, a lavish wintry affair to be held at the mansion of Lord Weatherwax. The cheerful inebriate was sure to provide ciders and ports and mulled wine aplenty, and after a long week of Parliamentary debate, London’s lords were ready to escape into other selves beneath the silver of a full moon.

He dressed with the help of his manservant, Withey, in a costume chosen to appeal to Jane. A makeshift uniform aping that of a naval officer, it was a see-the-world costume. A man dressed as he was—cream-colored knee breeches and white stockings; polished black shoes and a deep blue cutaway tailcoat—ordered his life around exploration. Curiosity. Knowledge.

A man like this could capture the notice of Lady Kirkpatrick.

It wasn’t a perfect simulacrum. The buckram hat was a too-plain cousin to the great cockaded semicircles worn by England’s naval heroes. But then, Edmund was no hero. He was just a man in a costume, hoping to make his wife smile when she saw him.

When she twirled into the entry hall of their house, he caught sight of her costume for the first time. And
he
was the one who smiled.

And looked, and looked, and looked.

Under his gaze, she grinned back. “I look a right jade, don’t I?”

She had dressed as the sort of serving wench one might have found at a wayside taproom in a bygone era. Over a full-sleeved chemise, she wore a kirtle, tight beneath her breasts and, oh, so low and loose over them. Her skirts nipped at her ankles, shorter than fashion decreed today. What did fashion know?

Her kirtle and skirts were a respectable brown, yet just the burnished shade to brighten her hair: a study in gold and copper and wood-dark brown, all rag-bagged together. Yet she was no precious metal, to be hammered into a delicate form. She was vivid and strong, like earth itself, and her mouth had been painted the red of sin.

He had a sudden, vivid urge to tip her over a table, tumble up those skirts, and drive into her from behind.

He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, she was looking at him with much curiosity.

“I wonder,” she said, “what on earth was on your mind just now. You got the most interesting look on your face.”

“Perhaps you’ll find out later,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“Oh, so it’s like that?” She grinned, saucy as any serving wench, and he had to remind himself rather aggressively that she was a baroness, and he was a baron, and they were in the entrance of their house with a footman standing by.

He held out a black demi-mask. “Put this on, please.”

“I will when we get there. Until then, I want to see your face.” She slipped her hand into his. “In case you get an interesting look on it again.”

“The punch is notoriously strong,” Edmund murmured in Jane’s ear. “I think more people are waiting for refreshments than are dancing.”

In a glance, he took in Lord Weatherwax’s ballroom, all Georgian splendor in its gilt trim and glistening rose-dark porphyry columns. Every inch of the ceiling was painted with lush figures from mythology, and the marble floor gleamed. Though a small orchestra played on a dais festooned with evergreen garland, most of the masked and costumed figures were lurking around the refreshment table rather than the dance floor.

“I wonder if those couples learned to waltz the same way I did,” Jane whispered back. “In another instant, will they be grabbing at each other’s—”

“Shh, now.” Edmund gave her hand a squeeze, chuckling. “The appeal must be Lord Weatherwax’s punch. If anyone knows his spirits, it’s our host.”

Not that Jane had ever required liquid courage, to his knowledge. The last time they had entered a ballroom together, she had blundered in her greeting, yet instead of retreating, she had marched onward through polite society. Since then, she’d become a correct baroness.

And a wench.

He rather liked the wench. And he liked the ill fit of his black demi-mask with its poorly aligned eyeholes. He could peek down Jane’s bodice, and she was none the wiser.

“I can tell you’re peeking down my bodice,” she muttered. “Stop it. You’re making me feel silly.”

He covered her hand with his, guiding her through the crowd to a clear area of the floor. “I had rather hoped that it would make you feel irresistible.”

She snorted. “Men have spent their lives resisting me, Edmund. I’ve no illusions that a few feet of cheap cloth will change matters.”

“Tut, tut. This from a woman whom I once found playing cards for shocking stakes, enthralling four men at once with nothing but the power of her words and—”

“A fortune in borrowed jewels?” She shook her head. “That
was
fun, until I lost. I can’t seem to cast that sort of spell anymore.”

“You could indeed. You just haven’t tried.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

“It is. I challenge you to be at least as wenchy as you were, ah, borrowed-jewel-y.”

“Hmm.” She looked him up and down. And then she tipped him a curtsy, somehow managing to stick out her chest and bottom at once. “Get you a tankard o’ somethin’, milor’?” Adopting the consonant-dropping shambles of a serving wench’s speech, she waggled her bosom at Edmund.

“I’m keen on a jug, sweeting,” he played along. “But it’s a different sort of—oh, I can’t even finish the sentence.” He laughed. “Sorry, Jane. I could quote you a poem, but I can’t talk about you like you’re food.”

She straightened up, all Jane again at once. “You’re not very good at the wenching game.”

He laughed again. “Not nearly as good as I once thought, my darling difficult wife. But I
am
good at waltzing. Shall we have a dance?”

A few other couples were twirling tipsily to the one-two-three of the musicians, who seemed as unsteady on their feet as the people for whom they played.

Considering Jane’s waltzing lesson had amounted to little more than a stumble and a grope, he was relieved that tonight’s guests seemed more inclined to drink than dance. “I
must
try our host’s punch,” Edmund muttered.

He drew her closer, so that the gentle curve of her breast pressed against his arm. Even in this crowded room, hot and evergreen-spiced and heavy with alcohol, he could smell her clean scent. Just Jane and soap: no fuss, no perfume; enticing as she was.

“Ready?” When she nodded, fitting one hand to his shoulder, he swooped her other one into his and stepped forward. “Here we go. One-two-three; hold my hands; let me shove you about.”

“Like a broom,” she confirmed, following his lead. Her hands gripped tightly at first, tense within their short, kid gloves. Edmund guided her with a gentle touch at the waist, stepping back and forth, sideways, an occasional twirl. The simple pattern of the waltz. They had all the space they needed, and wheezing music that made him smile, and sweet candlelit time that unfurled slowly; Jane relaxing, him holding her ever closer.

A wife in his arms. He’d never thought to wish for this, and now that he had it, it seemed a greater gift than he could ever have hoped for.

“I like dancing with you,” he said. Inadequate, but true. Jane liked things that were true.

She nodded, performing a half turn with new confidence. “I like this, too. We’re doing well, aren’t we? I haven’t fallen onto your feet yet, and you haven’t grabbed my—ah.”

Ah indeed. She was talking about the dance, and the dance alone. He replied in kind: “It was a selfless maneuver to help you keep your balance. I’ve told you before.”

“I feel like I’m losing my balance now.” Indeed, she wobbled, knocking her shoe against his.

Edmund tightened his hand on her waist. “Steady, Jane.”

“Don’t call me by name,” she whispered. “It’s a secret. I’m a wench and you’re a sea captain and we don’t know each other.”

“So that’s how it is. You want to play a part?”

“Yes.” She nestled against his chest, head tucking neatly beneath his chin, her hair a soft tickle against his jaw. “Yes, just for a little while.”

She wanted it, too, then: to leave themselves behind. This was the appeal, the temptation, of a masquerade, and a few words sprang to mind.

“‘To-morrow when thou leavest,’” he spoke quietly, lips moving against the braided crown of her hair. “‘What wilt thou say? Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow? Or say that now—we are not just those persons which we were?’”

Her mask fit better than his, because when she tipped up her face to his, he could see her roll her hazel eyes. “You’ve made good on your threat of a poem. What was that, Shakespeare?”

“John Donne.”

“It doesn’t sound very nice.”

Edmund’s hand at her waist drifted—not down to cup her rear, but up, to stroke her back in a gesture of comfort. “It’s nice. I meant it to be nice. It’s about vows and changes and . . .”

He trailed off. The poem was called “Woman’s Constancy,” and it dealt with doubt. Doubt in a woman’s love, and lies, and . . . hmm.

“I meant it to be nice,” he repeated with more force than pleasantness.

Just then, a turbaned figure, masked and cloaked, glided up behind the pair of them and tapped Jane on the shoulder. “May I have the rest of this dance, miss?”

Never were they to be granted more than a moment’s peace.

The odd, lax manners of masquerades demanded that Edmund turn Jane over to this new partner. But then the cadence of the interloper’s voice finished its ringing through Edmund’s ears, dreadfully familiar.

It was Turner. Here.

No, never were they to be granted more than a moment’s peace.

Chapter 15

Concerning Secret Identities

Edmund tightened his grip on Jane’s hand and waist. The mere thought of doubts and lies must have summoned Turner.

The man spoke in his natural brogue; Jane wouldn’t recognize his voice. But no matter the voice, Edmund would know who stood behind his wife. The shape of this particular threat was unmistakable.

“No, you may not have this dance. The lady is already dancing with me.” Edmund held Jane’s fingers tight; his hand clasped her more closely about the waist.

“But you hide your face behind a mask.” Turner’s voice flowed low and liquid beneath the squeaks of the reedy woodwinds. “How is this delightful lass to know if she’s found the man she wants?”

He ought to have appeared ludicrous in his turban of red silk. But somehow it looked a little mad, adding menace to his black demi-mask and sweeping cloak.