Suzanne Robinson (14 page)

“Miss Elliot, the few moments without your company have been as a century.”

Liza glanced down at the floor, twisted the lace handkerchief in her hands, and wished she could stomp on his foot as she had as Miss Gamp. “How, um, how gallant of you, my lord.”

He looked around the room at the various clusters of guests. “They’re leaving us alone. Your father is a formidable strategist. Will he maneuver us into the music room for another demonstration of your skills?”

“Oh, I hope not.”

Liza clamped a hand over her mouth, aghast at her slip. She hated playing for an audience. She hated the feeling she got when someone listened to her, for she hated to be judged. Then playing became a test, a test to be failed, a test conducted by her father. She had never passed his tests. Still, she shouldn’t have lost her senses and revealed herself to the viscount. He was grinning at her now.

“We have something in common. I detest being put on display too.”

“Like—like a prize cow.” She could have bit her tongue.

He chuckled. “I beg to change the comparison. Like a prize bull.”

As he spoke, his gaze drifted over her face, down her neck to her breasts and hips. This time she didn’t have to remind herself to blush and drop her gaze. The lecher. Feeling ill-used, she nearly succumbed to the temptation to kick his shin. Instead she decided to do the one thing he wouldn’t expect. Mama was leaving. She always retired early, usually with vapors or a sick headache.

“I see my mother is retiring, my lord. I too am exhausted and will say good night.”

“You’re leaving? Now?”

His disbelief and shock were comfort to her irritated soul.

“Yes, my lord.”

No novice, the viscount quickly recovered and wished her a pleasant evening. She joined her mother, who became flustered at the thought of how her husband would view this desertion in the face of duty. Liza said her good evenings to the rest of the guests with her mother, however. But once the drawing room doors closed, she patted Mama on the arm, lifted her skirts, and raced through the picture gallery to the corridor that lead to the young ladies’ stair. Papa’s sense of propriety decreed that young ladies and gentlemen be housed on opposite sides of the house. With separate stairs, entrances, and corridors, they need never meet unescorted.

She turned right just inside the corridor and almost skidded on the marble floor. Regaining her balance, she raced toward the young ladies’ stair. She heard a door close and glanced behind her. The valet Loveday emerged from the door that concealed the hall leading to the servants’ wing. Liza stared at him. He bowed to her. She dropped her skirts and tried not to appear out of breath. Turning slowly, she mounted the steps at a decorous pace.

By the time she reached her room she was furious with herself. “Drat. Drat, drat, drat.”

“Miss?”

Her maid, Emmeline, whom she’d recruited to join Pennant’s, was laying out her nightgown.

“Oh, nothing,” Liza said as she drew off her gloves.

“Ooo, miss, I never been in such a house before.”

Liza nodded, not really listening.

“I never seen so many servants nor so many rooms.” Emmeline counted them off on her fingers. “There’s the cleaning room, brushing room, footman’s room, gun room, odd room, and plate safe, not to mention the butler’s pantry. That’s all on the men’s side. Then there’s the women’s side—workroom, still room, storeroom, housekeeper’s room, kitchen and cook’s closet, servery, two pantries and a larder, the scullery, and that’s not all.”

“Emmeline, what are you going on about?”

“This house, miss, it’s a palace, it is.”

Remembering Emmeline’s hovel in St. Giles, Liza sighed and refrained from shattering the maid’s illusions. “It’s late, you go on to bed.”

“Thank you, miss.”

Alone in the grandeur of her bedroom, Liza glanced at the tasseled and skirted furniture, the nooks and crannies stuffed with figurines, the presumptuous canopy of state that hung over her bed. She sighed again. Her room at Pennant’s held not one figurine, and the furniture didn’t wear clothes. She went to the desk that rested near the fireplace and sat down to finish reading the latest letter from Toby. He and Betty had been left in charge of Pennant’s.

More houses of prostitution had been raided after Frankie Fawn had been killed. Usually their lists of customers were missing. Their managers had been taken into custody, but ordinarily such misfortunes meant only a change of personnel. Curiously, in this latest round of raids, the owners of the property shut the houses down altogether, reopened them as pubs, or sold them.

Liza turned the page of her letter, and the name Dr. Lucius Sinclair jumped out at her. Toby had been
investigating that list she’d found in the viscount’s sitting room. She dropped the page and drummed her fingers on it. Dr. Lucius Sinclair was a respected medical man in Harley Street, with a house in the country—in Wiltshire, to be exact. Dr. Lucius Sinclair, it seemed, lived at the moment in his house in the market town of Willingham, not ten miles from Stratfield Court.

“So,” Liza murmured to herself, “so, my lord, perhaps you’ve more than one reason to pretend amusement with the company of the Elliots.”

“Elizabeth Maud!”

Liza started as her father burst into the room with barely a knock. She turned her letter facedown and curled her fingers. Papa stomped over to her, scowled for all of three seconds in silence, then harumphed.

“You’ll never behave correctly, will you?”

“Papa, he spent most of his time ignoring me. I was showing him I didn’t hang on his words and live to be in his presence.” Liza leaned back in her chair. “But knowing his lordship, he no doubt thought I was overcome with his magnificent self and needed rest for my flustered sensitivities.”

He stopped warming his hands at the fire and shook his finger at her. “Now you listen to me, miss. You’re not letting this one get away. If you so much as mention women’s property rights or, or …”

“Divorce rights?”

Richard Elliot turned crimson with suppressed rage. “Ungrateful, that’s what you are. God, to think that my William is dead and I’m left with an ungrateful, unwomanly creature like you.” Elliot approached her, his wrath making his lips twitch. “I’m warning
you. I want this boy for a son-in-law. He’s a duke’s son.
A duke’s son
, do you hear? A military man too.”

“Your eyes are gleaming, Papa.”

He hadn’t heard her. He turned to contemplate something in the coals in the fireplace.

“My grandson will be a duke.”

“You can’t be sure,” Liza said. “I’m trying, Papa, but you can’t be sure.”

He straightened, then glanced at her as if suddenly remembering she was in the room. “I’m sure. One way or another, my grandson will be a duke.”

He left as abruptly as he came. Liza stared after him. All at once she grew uneasy. Papa hadn’t gone from being a lowly clerk at a provincial bank to a gentleman of wealth and power by accident. Papa had gotten what he wanted by some questionable practices. She had little knowledge of the details, but she knew Papa. Papa’s Christian principles stopped where his business instinct began. Ah, well, there was nothing she could do to stop Papa. With luck, she would discover whether the viscount was a murderer long before Papa could do anything horrible. With luck.

Sleep came with difficulty for her that night. The next morning she slept late, regardless of the hunt scheduled for that day. Everyone was gone except Mama by the time she descended to the morning room. The day was overcast, and only dim sunlight battled through the thick glass of the windows.

Mama huddled with her sewing beside the fireplace. Although the morning room had been designed on a less lofty scale than the drawing room, it still harbored drafts because of the arched ceiling and columned arcade that bordered three of its sides. Liza settled herself opposite Mama and took up a piece of
embroidery that would eventually become a pillowcase. She constructed French knots while she contemplated setting her personal footman to watching Jocelin Marshall. When he came back from the hunt, she wouldn’t be able to keep him in sight all the time.

“I like your viscount, my dear.”

Startled out of her schemes, Liza said. “That’s nice, Mama.”

“So charming. He knew my family. Of course it’s only to be expected, since …”

“Since the Beauforts are such an old county family?”

“And I’ve been worried about you. So worried. I could hardly face my At Homes with a daughter who had become a—” Iphegenia lowered her voice as if speaking of a disgusting sin. “A spinster. And what if my dear Richard died suddenly, may the Almighty preserve him. Why, who would take care of me? Who would …”

Liza furrowed her brow and studied her mother. “Who would take care of you? Mama, you’re a grown woman.”

“I know, but …”

Useless to listen further. Mama was one of those women who complained and catastrophized without end. When a listener provided solutions or offered advice, her invariable reply was, “I know, but.…” After a lifetime of listening to moans and whimpers, Liza had decided that Mama enjoyed misery and helplessness, especially helplessness, for being incompetent meant Mama didn’t have to take responsibility for herself or anyone else. Thus, when she heard “I know, but …,” Liza stopped listening.

Still, just knowing that Mama had launched into her list of reasons why she couldn’t live her life
without someone serving as a veritable parent to her caused Liza’s chest to burn with irritation. She jabbed her needle through the middle of another French knot and yelped.

Dropping the material, she stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked. To her chagrin, Jocelin Marshall chose that moment to walk into the room. Caught off guard, she stared at him with her finger in her mouth as he greeted her mother. Turning to her, he fastened his gaze on her mouth. She hastily withdrew her finger. He glanced at her flushed cheeks, then returned to her mouth. His own lips parted slightly. All at once she realized he was remembering Miss Gamp. Flustered even more, she fumbled with her needle, thread, and material.

She was so agitated, she was too late to prevent Mama from excusing herself and leaving them alone. She scowled after Mama’s retreating figure, certain that Papa had instructed her to commit this breach of propriety. One simply didn’t leave a young lady alone in the presence of a man, especially a man with the viscount’s reputation.

Glancing up at Jocelin Marshall, she caught him looking at her with amused speculation. “Um, Mama is …”

“You aren’t going to start leaving your sentences unfinished, are you?”

Liza stared at the tips of her slippers and shook her head. She shrank back in her chair when he suddenly knelt beside her and picked up an enameled thimble.

“You dropped this,” he said.

To her astonishment he took her hand, opened it, and placed the thimble in it. Curling the fingers, he covered them with his hand. Unlike her own, his hand
was warm. He was doing it again, pursuing her. No man had ever approached her this way. None had shown the slightest desire to be near her. Liza sat frozen in confusion. Did all men try so relentlessly to seduce women?

She withdrew her hand. The movement should have been a signal for the viscount to remove himself from such proximity. He didn’t. Now she could feel the heat of his body. Merciful heavens, he hadn’t said a word, hadn’t tried to recapture her hand, yet she felt a growing urge to put herself close to him.

“I’ve never met anyone so shy.”

Liza swallowed, darted a glance at him, and looked down at her hands. The brief glimpse was enough to plunge her into greater confusion. She hadn’t counted on his pursuing her. She knew what it meant, that look of his. He was studying her mouth. If she didn’t think of something to distract him, he was going to kiss her, perhaps more.

“You didn’t join the hunt,” she said.

“Nor did you.”

Her embroidery hoop lay on her lap. He touched a French knot with one finger, and she jumped. His hand was near a place between her thighs that suddenly tingled. She looked at the glowing coals in the fireplace, but he didn’t remove his hand.

His fingers traced the leaf and garland designs on the pillow. They pressed the hoop lightly against her, and her face flooded with color. Gasping, she jumped, trying to stand, but his hand slid up her stomach to press on her ribs just below her breast. Her embroidery dropped as she shrank back into the chair in a effort to escape his touch.

“Don’t run away,” he said softly. “You’re so skittish.”

The sensible Liza screamed a warning. The primitive part of her that responded to the gunfighter urged her to keep her mouth shut. Liza kept her mouth shut.

He hadn’t moved his hand from beneath her breast. She squirmed, but he pressed it firmly against her ribs. He made no further advance, and they remained there without moving.

At last he said something in a whisper. “Dear God, Miss Elliot, Miss Liza Elliot, how can you make me burn by simply sitting in a room with your embroidery?”

Liza had been avoiding his gaze. She looked up at him in surprise and found him regarding her with undisguised hunger. The cool, elegant patrician had vanished.

“I’ve frightened you.”

She nodded.

“Be still. I’m going to frighten you some more.”

His hand moved, and she gasped as it slid up to cover her breast. She tried to thrust him away, but he captured her hands with his free one while keeping the other on her breast. Dear Lord, his hand moved when she breathed. She tried not to breathe.

“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured. “Listen to me, sweet Liza. ‘She was a phantom of delight / When first she gleamed upon my sight; / A lovely apparition, sent / To be a moment’s ornament.’ ”

His hand absorbed her attention. The heat of it burned through her gown.

“A—a moment?”

“An eternity.”

Her lungs hurt. She expelled air, and he smiled, drawing near enough to touch her lips with his.
Keeping his mouth close to hers, he continued to whisper.

“Do you read sonnets, my accomplished Miss Liza?”

She made the mistake of nodding, and her mouth brushed across his. His tongue darted out, laved her lips, then retreated before she could object. Still he kept her frozen in place by the touch of his hand and his lips so near her own.