Suzanne Robinson (37 page)

As Jocelin finished his story, Liza came into the room, the picture of Society in blue-green foulard silk that billowed about her as she walked. He blinked at the change from maid of all work to viscount’s lady. She curtsied gracefully to his parents as he presented her, and gave his sister an uncertain smile. They spent an uncomfortable half hour in meaningless conversation. His mother eyed Liza as if she expected her to chew tobacco or belch.

“Well,” his father said, breaking into Jocelin’s reverie, “all this time you’ve harped about some
unfortunate misunderstanding with Yale, when all along your closest friend was a blasted murderer.”

His head began to throb. “Go away, Father.”

“What?” the duke barked.

He thrust up from the couch to shout in his father’s face. “I said go away!”

Body trembling with the effort not to punch the duke in the nose, Jocelin stuck a fist behind his back, turned on his heel, and walked to the fireplace mantel. He kept his back to the room, but he didn’t have to face it to know how his father behaved. There was a long silence, during which he was certain his father mastered his temper. It wouldn’t do for a duke to disgrace himself a second time before the granddaughter of a butcher. Jocelin could see Liza out of the corner of his eye. She was staring at his father with a little, well-bred sneer on her face that made her look as if she’d just smelled horse dung on someone’s boots.

Jocelin heard Georgiana persuade the duke out of the room. The knot between his shoulders unsnarled a bit, but his head ached and he couldn’t seemed to keep images of Ash and Yale from darting at him in his imagination. He needed to talk to Liza. Talking to Liza always brought peace, or at least relief.

“Jocelin.” His mother approached, her voice lowered as she glanced at the closed door through which her husband had gone. “Jocelin, you really must learn not to confront your father. It only makes him worse, and then he becomes vicious. If you could just learn to take care and not offend him.”

As his mother spoke, Liza came to stand beside him. When she moved, he heard the swish and whisper of silk, caught the miniature breeze of starched petticoats and lemons. Something shifted inside him, like the movement of land in an earthquake. Jocelin glanced
from Liza, who was a small, fuming steam engine, to his dithering mother. Enlightenment burst upon him. Never had he blamed his mother for not coming to his aid against his father and Yale. He should have. All her efforts had been toward peace for herself—the price had been his shame, his expulsion from the family. Disoriented by this insight, he failed to intervene when Liza spoke to the duchess.

“Your grace, bullies don’t leave off if you lie down and let them stomp on you.”

“Young woman!”

“I’m sorry,” Liza said without appearing in the least to be sorry. “But if you take abuse, you invite abuse. Now you may like being continually tyrannized and kicked about, but you can’t expect your son to like it.”

The duchess made sounds like a hen caught in a lightening storm. “Jocelin, this, this person has insulted your mother.”

He had been smiling at his wife and turned to shake his head at the duchess. “No she hasn’t, Mother, she’s disagreed with you. There’s a difference.”

“Oh!” The duchess quivered and bristled all the way out of the library.

Jocelin turned to Liza, smiling, and kissed her hand. To his surprise she pulled free and skipped around the sofa. She faced him from behind it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“You’re not going to kiss my hand or any other part of me until we settle some things.”

“It’s ill bred for a wife to order a husband about.”

He began walking toward her, but halted opposite her with the sofa between them when she started to retreat. He lifted his hands in a gesture of peace, then sprang at her. Catching her by the waist, he lifted
her over the sofa. He swung around and sat down with her on his lap. Capturing her flailing arms, he held on to her while she bounced and kicked.

Finally, when she refused to listen to him or stop wrestling, he twisted and plunged down on top of her so that they lay full-length on the couch.

“Will you be quiet now?” he asked.

“Can’t breathe.”

He shifted his weight, and she gulped in air. Then he lowered his body again, and she gasped.

“Are you going to be quiet and listen?”

“Ye—uh, yes.”

Holding her wrists, he stared down into her eyes. The blue-green silk had turned them teal, and they reminded him of a stream darkened by the threat of a thunderstorm.

“We’re going to come to an understanding,” he said in his best officer’s voice. “I can’t have a wife in trade.”

“But—”

“And I’m not letting you go. You’re my wife, and your place is with me.”

“Now just—”

“And if you ever venture into East London again, I’ll whip you until you can’t put your delightful bottom on a chair for a week.”

Liza glared at him. “Try it, and see what happens.”

He studied her for a moment. “What an intriguing threat.”

“I’m not stupid. I didn’t go alone.”

“True.”

“But I’m not going to—”

“Will you be quiet, or do I have to squeeze you again? I warn you, it’s giving me great pleasure.”

She turned her head away and refused to look at him.

“At last you’re beginning to see the benefits of cooperation. I marvel that I ever thought you a delicate little featherhead. No reply? Excellent. Now, as I was about to say before you interrupted, I can’t have a wife in trade. However, I see no reason why Mr. Hugo Pennant shouldn’t carry on his activities as usual.”

She turned her head then and stared at him. “I’m Pennant.”

“I know, but I’m the only one who’s to have that knowledge. If Society knew, they’d abandon Pennant’s in a flash.”

“George Sand.”

“What?”

Liza smiled at him. “Women have had to disguise their competence for a long time. George Sand, George Eliot.”

“Hugo Pennant.” He studied her lips, suddenly weary of arguments and much more interested in compromise. “Liza, honey, do you think we can agree?”

Her gaze drifted over his face. “Why have you changed your mind?”

He glanced aside, hoping his face wasn’t as flushed as it felt.

“Jocelin?” Liza’s voice was filled with consternation. “Jocelin Marshall, you’re blushing.”

Clenching his jaw, he turned back to her. “If you don’t be quiet, I won’t explain.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Damn her. She was biting her lip to keep from smiling. He plunged on before his courage deserted him.

“I was afr—. Hang it. I was afra—.” He stopped,
cleared his throat, and stared at her chin. “I was afraid you’d want that damned Pennant’s more than me.”

He waited, but she didn’t laugh. He changed a quick look, and found her staring at him in disbelief.

“You were jealous of Pennant’s? Dear heavens, you actually thought I would care more for work than I do for you. Jocelin Marshall, you’re mad, and I’m mad to love you so desperately that I see your face in every ledger and contract, hear your wicked laugh instead of the conversation of my employees, wish I were in your bed instead of sitting at my desk.”

Relief and happiness crowded into his soul. Jocelin heard himself ask a question he’d never put to any woman.

“Are you sure?”

Liza’s lips darted up and fastened on his. He forgot the question. He was beginning to feel tingles in his unruly loins when she broke off to question him again.

“And now you understand? You’ve really changed your mind?”

“I am capable of change and compromise, woman, even if I do have to be kicked in the head to make me do it. I also have realized that if you’d been as helpless and cloth-headed as women are trained to be, I’d be dead.”

“Heavens, you’re right. I never thought about it.”

“I did. And then there’s Mother.”

“She might as well have ‘Stomp on Me’ sewn on the backs of her gowns.”

He watched her lips as she spoke. “Liza.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to talk about Mother, or Pennant’s. I really don’t want to talk at all.”

She squirmed beneath him. “Now that you mention it, I don’t either.”

He put his lips on hers and snaked his tongue into her mouth. Sinking down on her further, he felt her legs part. Memorizing her face with the brush of his lips on her skin, he breathed in the smell of lemons and Liza.

“Jocelin, Jocelin, not here.”

“Honey, you got to quit trying to put the bees back in the hive once you’ve stirred them up.”

She gasped when he nibbled at her ear. “You’re doing it again, turning gunfighter. Now you stop that, Jocelin Marshall. I’ll not—”

He shut her up by taking her mouth. He sucked hard, found her hips, and pressed her close. When he lifted his head, she tried to speak again, but he covered her lips with a finger.

“Quit, honey. No use giving orders when nobody’s listening.”

“Then I’ll have to make you listen.”

He stared into those challenging tricolor eyes, noting the mischief in them. He felt her hips wriggle against his own.

“Why, you little—”

“Ah—hem.”

He sprang backward off her. Liza popped up into a sitting position, and they both faced Loveday.

“I did knock, my lord, but we were otherwise engaged and failed to respond.”

Jocelin yanked on his necktie and brushed his hair back from his eyes. “Hang it, Loveday.”

“I beg pardon, my lord, but there is a person who insists upon entering the house.”

“A person?” He glanced at Liza, but she shook her head in confusion.

Loveday’s posture, already stiff, became as upright as one of Reverie’s fluted columns. “A person of low station who threatens violence, my lord.”

At that moment a loud voice boomed at them from the foyer.

“Gor! Where’re you at, you bleeding toff?” Toby Inch burst into the room, brandishing a club. “Missy, there you are.”

Windmilling his arms, he brushed past Loveday and headed for Jocelin.

“You leave her be, you puffed up, rutting swell.”

Liza cried out as Toby launched himself at Jocelin. Jocelin sighed, then ducked and stuck out his foot. Toby stumbled over it and crashed to the ground. His head bashed against his own weapon, and he howled. Jocelin put his arm around Liza’s shoulders, and they surveyed the moaning intruder.

“Toby,” Liza said. “I’m sorry I didn’t send word. The viscount and I have reconciled.”

Toby sat up rubbing his head. “You coulda bleeding told me.”

“You curb your language in my wife’s presence, sir,” Jocelin said.

“My language? Mine? Have you heard hers?”

Jocelin groaned and looked at Liza. “Is this the way it’s going to be?”

She pressed her lips together, and he could see she was fighting not to smile.

“I’m afraid Toby is rather forthright.” She drew closer within the circle of his arm and lay a hand on his chest. “Can you bear it?”

He grinned at her. “If you provide me with consolation for the burden.”

“Ah-hem.” Loveday oozed over to stand above the grumbling Toby. “My lord, shall I conduct this person to the kitchen, where he can be attended to?”

“Who’re you calling a person, you stuffed oyster?”

“An excellent suggestion,” Jocelin said.

With the lift of a brow, Loveday managed to intimidate Toby into rising and shuffling out of the room. Loveday bowed to Jocelin.

“If I may point out, my lord.”

Jocelin was already backing Liza over to the sofa again. He gave her a little shove, and she dropped onto the cushions. He put his knee on the cushion beside her thigh.

“It has not been our custom,” Loveday continued, “to conduct private encounters in the library.”

Jocelin barely heard the valet, so intent was he on counting the flecks in Liza’s eyes. She put her hand on his thigh, and he couldn’t have spoken to Loveday if he’d wanted to. She flushed, rubbed his thigh, and then darted a look past him at the valet.

“We’re starting a new custom, Loveday. Now go away.”

They both grinned when the door clicked shut. Jocelin nuzzled Liza’s cheek.

“Wait,” she said, pulling away from him.

He noted the set of her chin and sighed. “I know what you’re going to say.” He sank down beside her on the sofa, stretched out his legs, and fixed a grim stare at the toe of his boot. After a moment he turned to her and whispered. “Sinclair and the others, I didn’t murder them, you know. I didn’t have to, but, Liza, I don’t want to end up like Ash.”

Launching herself into his arms, Liza began kissing his face and chattering at the same time. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t see it. So afraid you’d be unable to give it up, this crusade of yours.” She laid her cheek against his.

“Nick said I couldn’t continue, that it was tearing me in pieces.”

“He was right,” she said as she pulled away from
him and looked into his eyes. “You can’t continue this crusade, this playing God.”

“But I can’t just let it happen.”

She smiled at him. “Nor can I. And there’s no reason why we can’t, between the two of us, ruin anyone who needs ruining. Legally, that is. We can still rescue the ones who need it.”

“But it’s not easy to remain balanced. I see those predators, and I want to kill.”

“No, it won’t be easy.” Liza squeezed his hand. “Perhaps we should establish a home, and a foundation. I don’t know what’s best.”

“Neither do I.”

“But at least,” she said as she turned to face him, “at least we can work on the solution together.”

He smiled and kissed her quickly. Then his smile faded. “You realize I’m going to have to deal with your father.”

“You mean the gunfighter will?”

“Yep.”

She squeezed his hand. “May I watch?”

He laughed, and suddenly his spirits lifted.

“You give me respite, sweet, sweet Liza. You give me tranquillity.”

She leaned toward him and put her hand on his thigh. He sucked in his breath.

Liza grinned at him. “Well, honey,” she drawled, “seems there’s at least one part of you that’s not so tranquil.”

With a laugh he lunged at her, bearing her down to the sofa. “Not right now, honey, but it will be. In a little while.”