Suzanne Robinson (2 page)

The noblemen disappeared inside, and the staff was left to wait in the disquieting stillness. The fog continued to curl upward, its chilly tendrils slithering up her skirts. She heard a cat yowl, and then, silence. Liza burrowed her nose in the collar of her coat. The hour was late and the house removed from the street so that it appeared like a white stone island in the midst of blackness. Finally, when she thought she would have to stuff her fingers in her ears to shut out the disturbing quiet, she heard the hollow clip-clop of horses’ hooves in the distance. The sound bounced off stone walls and curbs, disembodied and eerie in deserted streets that normally roared with life.

Iron squealed against iron as the footmen swung the gates back again. Black horses trotted into view, two pairs, drawing a black lacquered carriage. Liza stirred uneasily as she realized that vehicle, tack, and coachman were all in unrelieved black. Polished brass lanterns and fittings provided the only contrast.

The carriage pulled up before the house, the horses stamping and snorting in the cold. The coachman, wrapped in a driving coat and muffled in a black scarf, made no sound as he controlled the ill-tempered menace of his animals. She couldn’t help leaning forward a bit, in spite of her growing trepidation. Perhaps it was the eeriness of the fog-drenched night, or the unnerving appearance of the shining, black, and silent carriage, but no one moved.

Then she saw it. A boot. A black boot unlike any she’d ever seen. High of heel, tapered in the toe, scuffed, and sticking out of the carriage window. Its owner must be reclining inside. As she closed her mouth, which had fallen open, Liza saw a puff of smoke billow out from the interior. So aghast was she at this unorthodox arrival, she hadn’t heard the duke and his brother come down the steps to stand near her.

The horses began to prance and toss their heads, causing the footmen to spring up to catch their bridles, and still the boot remained in the window. The only sound was that of the restive black beasts. Suddenly the boot was withdrawn. The head footman immediately jumped forward and opened the carriage door. The interior lamps hadn’t been lit. From the darkness stepped a man so tall, he had to curl almost double to keep his hat from hitting the roof of the vehicle.

The footman retreated as the man straightened. Liza sucked in her breath, and a feeling of unreality swamped her other emotions. The man who stood before her wore clothing so dark, he seemed a part of the night and the gloom of the carriage that had borne him. A low-crowned hat with a wide brim concealed his face, and he wore a long coat that flared away from his body. It was open, and he brushed one edge of it
back where it revealed pants, a vest, a black, low-slung belt and holster bearing a gleaming revolver.

He paused, undisturbed by the shock he’d created. Liza suddenly remembered a pamphlet she’d seen on the American West. That’s where she’d seen a man like this. Not anywhere in England, but in illustrations of the American badlands.

At last the man moved. He struck a match on his belt and lit a thin cigar. The tip glowed, and for a moment his face was revealed in the light of the match. She glimpsed black, black hair, so dark it seemed to absorb the flame of the match. Thick lashes lifted to reveal the glitter of cat-green eyes, a straight nose, and a chin that bore a day’s stubble. The match died and was tossed aside. The man hooked his thumbs in his belt and sauntered down the line of servants, ignoring them.

He stopped in front of the duke, puffed on the cigar, and stared at the older man. Another intimidating silence followed while Choke scuttled in the man’s wake. As Choke halted behind him, the man gave a last puff that sent smoke wending its way toward the duke. Slowly, a pretense of a smile spread over his face. He removed the cigar from his mouth, shoved his hat back on his head, and spoke for the first time.

“Well, well, well. Evening, Daddy.”

That accent, it was so strange—a hot, heavy drawl spiked with cool and nasty amusement. This man took his time with words, caressed them, savored them, and made his enemies wait in apprehension for him to complete them. The duke bristled, and his white hair almost stood out like a lion’s mane as he gazed at his son.

“Jocelin, you forget yourself.”

The cigar sailed to the ground and hissed as it hit the damp pavement. Liza longed to shrink back from the sudden viciousness that sprang from the viscount’s eyes. The viscount smiled again and spoke softly, with relish and an evil amusement. The drawl vanished, to be supplanted by a clipped, aristocratic accent.

“I don’t forget. I’ll never forget. Forgetting is your vocation, one you’ve elevated to a sin, or you wouldn’t bring my dear uncle where I could get my hands on him.”

All gazes fastened on the man standing behind the duke. Though much younger than his brother, Yale Marshall had the same thick hair, black as his brother’s had once been, only gray at the temples. Of high stature like his nephew, he reminded Liza of the illustrations of knights in
Le Morte d’Arthur
, for he personified doomed beauty and chivalry. He had the same startling green eyes as his nephew, and he gazed at the viscount sadly as the younger man faced him.

Yale murmured to his brother, “I told you I shouldn’t have come.”

With knightly dignity he stepped aside, and the movement brought him nearer to his nephew. Jocelin’s left hand touched the revolver on his hip as his uncle turned. The duke hissed his name, and the hand dropped loosely to his side.

He lit another cigar. At a glance from his grace, Choke sprang into motion. He ran up the steps to open the door. The duke marched after him, leaving his son to follow, slowly, after taking a few leisurely puffs on his cigar.

“Ah, well,” he murmured. “I can always kill him later.”

Liza exchanged horrified glances with the knife
boy. As the noblemen vanished, Choke thrust the crystal lamp at a footman and clapped his hands.

“Hurry. Cook, the food mustn’t be late. Sledge, his lordship’s luggage.” Choke turned on the knife boy and two scullery maids who were chattering in excitement. “Silence. Get yourselves belowstairs at once. And you!”

Liza jumped as Choke barked at her. “Gamp. That is your name, isn’t it? Gamp, get those fires made. Don’t gawk at me, girl.” Choke descended upon her and shoved her by the shoulders. “Run. And be out of there before his lordship goes upstairs.”

Lifting her skirts, Liza bolted. In her haste she took the main stairs. The hand of Robert Adam had passed over the viscount’s house, leaving airy, light elegance. The entry hall was dominated by the central marble stairs, which rose one flight, then split and ascended to the right and left. Her boots clattering on the ivory and black marble, Liza turned to the left, dashed down the hall to the double doors of the master suite, and burst into the sitting room. Once an antechamber, it served as the viscount’s study.

Liza snatched up her coal buckets, deposited one in front of the fireplace in the sitting room, and raced into the bedchamber to place the other on the hearth there. As she straightened to catch her breath, her gaze caught the half-made bed.

“Heavens!”

No time to fetch Tessie. She shoved aside the hangings and burrowed under the mattress, stuffing sheets in place. Her heart sped up as she realized how much she was being delayed. People simply didn’t carry guns in civilized London—Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s London. People didn’t, not even the worst criminal. He did, though. She pulled the last cover
into place and stood back to survey her work. She tried not to think of the man downstairs.

The bed’s trappings matched those of the chamber, a pearl gray shot with silver thread. The same brocaded silk covered the walls and draped the line of tall windows that made the room appear even larger than it was. An Adamesque white-and-silver plastered ceiling finished the chilly look in a foliated oval design. Liza shivered and realized she had yet to build the fire.

She ran back to the study, dumped the coal in the hearth, and began piling it correctly. Her hands, dress, and face were black by the time she had lit the coals and hurried into the bedchamber. She heard the rattle of a silver tea service. Tessie entered and placed a tray on a table between the windows and the fireplace.

“Hurry,” the maid hissed as she skittered out of the room.

Liza knelt at the white marble fireplace and spilled the coals onto the hearth. Her hands moved rapidly, arranging the coals in a compact pile. She had to squint, for the only lamp she’d lit was sitting on the table by the silver teapot. She was engulfed in shadows.

Dropping the last coal on the pile, Liza sat back on her heels and fished in the darkness for her brush and dustpan. She heard a peculiar tapping sound and paused. She turned her head quickly and jumped at the sight of the viscount walking slowly from the sitting room into the bedchamber. The noise had been the heels of his boots as he stepped from the carpet to the polished wood floor.

He regained the carpet. Without glancing her way, he walked to the window near the tea table. He’d
removed his coat downstairs. By the lighted lamp she could see the gleam of a coarse, white shirt beneath the vest and the tight buckskin that hugged his thighs. He wore that same expression he’d had when he first left his carriage—an expression that was no expression at all. Stretching out a brown-skinned hand, he moved a curtain aside to peer out into the night. Beaded with moisture, the glass revealed only the fog and a black, skeletal tree limb.

He dropped his hand, and as she sat there frozen, he sighed. She jumped again, for she hadn’t expected him to make such a human sound. He belonged to a world of savagery in which sighs played no part. Then he did something that made Liza’s jaw loosen and drop. He turned toward the tea table, giving her her first full glimpse of his face with its straight, dark brows and harsh planes softened by the smoothness of the skin that stretched over the sharp angles. To her amazement his long fingers slipped around the handle of the silver teapot with the ease and grace of long practice. Resting his free hand on the hilt of his revolver, he lifted the pot and poured steaming tea into a china cup edged with silver.

Brown liquid streamed into the cup to just the right height. He tilted the pot back and placed it on the tray. The whole scene added to her feeling of unreality. This man who wore a gun in a city where no one wore guns, this man who dressed in animal skins, poured tea like the son of a duke. A man who poured tea like that couldn’t be a murderer, could he?

She was about to clear her throat to announce her presence as the viscount’s hand moved toward the teacup. Before she could summon her wits, she saw a blur of movement and heard a metallic click. She found herself staring at the small, round hole at the
end of the barrel of his revolver. Her mind slowed from shock, Liza gasped and lifted her gaze to Jocelin Marshall. He must have heard her, though he never betrayed surprise. He wiggled the barrel up and down.

“Come into the light, slow,” he said quietly.

Liza maneuvered her padded self erect and took three steps. He narrowed his eyes as the lamplight danced over her soiled apron and voluminous cap. A muscle in his jaw twitched, but the revolver hadn’t moved. It was still aimed at her stomach.

“Don’t move.”

There it was again, that slow, hot drawl. He went on.

“I can draw, cock, and fire in one move, without thinking. Takes years of practice. You grasp the gun by the handle with your wrist twisted down while your finger goes for the trigger and your thumb reaches for the hammer. An awkward maneuver, but if you do it careful, a deadly one. You got to learn to hit what you aim at the first time, ’cause the smoke obscures your view of the next shot.” He holstered the pistol without taking his gaze from her. “At this distance, I wouldn’t need no second shot.”

She had been motionless with fear. As he lectured her in that lazy, uncouth accent, she recovered her sense, and then lost it in her rage.

“You nearly killed me!” Too late she remembered her own accent. Luckily she hadn’t said much. Rubbing her grubby hands together, she wailed. “You give me a turn, my lord. I’m all twittered, Lord bless me.”

At her whimper the viscount seemed to wake from some unknown reverie. He blinked rapidly. His hand dropped away from his holster. As she peeped at him from behind her hands, a change came over him.
His indolent slouch disappeared while his spine straightened. Wide shoulders stretched the seams of his shirt when he squared them. His chin lifted so that he looked down from an even greater height than before, and one hand balled into a loose fist, which he put behind his back. Uncannily, she almost heard in his voice a drum roll and pipes, and the sound of the parade of the Horse Guard.

“I’ll not have a plump and peevish maid of all work take me to task.” The aristocrat’s sneer was back.

She clamped her fingers over her mouth, aghast that her zeal to cover her identity had brought her close to dismissal. Then she shrank back as he suddenly began to stalk toward her.

“I told you not to move.” He stopped not two feet from her and scowled. “You’re filthy, and shivering. Did they send you up here without allowing you to warm yourself? No doubt you’ve been standing outside in that damnable fog for an hour. Go away.”

“Th-the fire, my lord.”

“I’ll attend to it.” The clipped, university-bred accent was well in place now. “If I can start a fire in a Panhandle snowstorm, I can light coals. Off with you, miss.”

“But, my lord—”

“Hang it all!”

The sound of a cleared throat interrupted the viscount’s American curse. “Ah-hum. My lord.”

Jocelin tapped his fingers against his holster and nodded for Loveday to enter. The valet glided over to him noiselessly.

“It seems, my lord, that our second pair of riding boots has been ruined by the new knife boy.”

“Already?”

“Yes, my lord. We will have to wear our new ones. The knife boy has put black polish on them instead of brown. I fear our reputation has preceded us and caused a slight brain fever in the lad.”

Liza’s consternation renewed when, instead of launching into a peevish fit, the viscount shrugged and turned away. His hands went to his belt. Leather creaked as he loosened it, and it fell away from his hips, slithering over a taut buttock that caught and held Liza’s gaze. An unexpected heat burst within her when he lowered himself into the chair by the tea table and the buckskin pants tightened over his thighs. Her glance seemed unmovable, fixed on the knot of muscle just above his knee.