Authors: Caroline Richards
The Darkest Sin (12 page)
“Was she very beautiful?” she asked, surprised that she had spoken aloud.
Madame quickly replaced her frown with a convincing smile, unwilling to risk alienating a nervous young woman who was not long out of the schoolroom, clearly, and yet one with such promise. “No need to concern yourself with what is past, mademoiselle,” she said with the pragmatism that came naturally to a businesswoman who had fled East London decades earlier, never to return. Rushford was known for his discretion and it was not for Madame to tell tales out of school. Better to calm the waters. “What is beauty when one has youth and spirit on her side?” she asked with forced bonhomie.
Unbidden, the image of the delicate oval danced in Rowena's vision. A woman of remarkable beauty with shining dark eyes, a mobile mouth, a luxuriance of wheat gold hair. Rushford's duchess.
“The past is the past,” Madame Curzon said, steepling her fingers together as she contemplated Rowena from another vantage point. She took a step back, determined to change the subject to her benefit. “I envision several day dresses, perhaps in oyster and gray satin, trimmed with pearls. Perhaps a champagne tulle for evening. So wonderful with any coloring, whether you decide to go au naturel or blond,” she enthused, instructing one of her acolytes to produce a bolt of peau de soie, which she then began to pin around Rowena's waist. Her hands fluttered around her shoulders, gesturing her eagerness. “Such a lovely, lithe figure, such a tiny waist and youthful bosom. We will ensure all the bodices are cut accordingly, eh? We would like to keep the illusion of the maiden but with some mystery and temptation also.”
Rowena acquiesced, at this point almost convincing herself that Rushford was correct. She would need the appropriate armor to do battle if she wished to carry off her deception successfully. Despite her determination, she could not escape the sense of doom slowly settling around her, as heavy as the emerald brocade Madame Curzon was wrapping around her shoulders and neck. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to finish with the fitting, to flee the elaborate apartments and the charade of Miss Frances Warren, Lord Rushford's young mistress.
She heard herself saying, “I believe five or so garments will be sufficient, Madame, three day dresses and two evening gowns.” The room seemed to spin around her, a kaleidoscope of colors and textures.
Madame clucked disapprovingly, waggling her ringed fingers in protest. “You are young and naïve, my dear. Lord Rushford is a wealthy man and requires that his mistress be appropriately gowned, if she is to appear on his arm.” She added with a shrewd look, “And if one is to seek a man's approval and keep his attentions, perhaps there are a few lessons that a young woman would seek to learn.” Bustling with renewed efficiency, she produced two bolts of the finest lace. “Valenciennes, bien sur. You and Lord Rushford will adore the chemises and corsets we will assemble for you.”
Entirely unnecessary, Rowena wanted to say while holding still for the couturier and her assistants, who spun the wisps of fabric and measuring tape around her bosom and waist. She closed her eyes, feeling like the fragile, porcelain dolls she had never played with as a child.
“I could not agree with you more, Madame Curzon,” a deep voice said. Rowena opened her eyes, a soft chill sweeping across her now exposed skin. She stared at Rushford with mute shock, watching as he sank into a peach-colored divan at the foot of the bed, casually loosening the snowy cravat at his neck. “My darling,” he added with a raised brow, “I would heed Madame's advice at all costs.”
Madame puffed up her chest like a guinea hen, swelling with pride, directing her seamstresses to produce more of their lacy offerings. Murmuring enthusiastic statements about mademoiselle's beauty and youth, she and her acolytes danced around Rowena, who was clad in only her chemise, corset, and white stockings.
Choking out a perfunctory greeting, Rowena wished she could close her eyes and disappear from sight, vanish in a puff of smoke, spirit herself away to Montfort in a return to her careless, oblivious youth. Was it really so long ago that she had spent mornings riding Dragon until they were both breathless? Or played chess with Meredith and then spent the afternoon with Julia, reading her latest poems while her sister busied herself with her daguerreotypes?
She wished desperately she could leave now, trying in vain to ignore Rushford's presence several feet away from her and the dangerous emotions he aroused. Aware of Rushford's eyes following her every move, she longed for her velvet skirts and stiff bodice, discarded over the foot of the bed.
Sensitive to the growing tension in the room, Madame Curzon, no stranger to the desires of men and their new mistresses, suddenly began murmuring apologies, declaring that they had finished for the day and would deliver the first of the garments in two days' time. “For you, my lord, especially,” she crooned to Rushford before clapping her hands to her seamstresses and turning on her heel.
The double doors closed decisively, taking the tempest with them, but Rowena did not know whether to welcome the reprieve or hurl insults at Rushford. “What are you doing here?” She had all but forgotten that she was almost naked, one stocking-clad leg on the footstool and the other hovering over the floor.
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I do believe I have every right to visit my mistress, at any time of day or night.”
Rowena looked frantically for her clothes, conscious of her plain cotton undergarments; the bright lights of the room were unforgivably revealing. Unapologetically, Rushford took in the whiteness of her skin, the flash of her backbone and hips, as she turned around to face away from him. “Don't be ridiculous. Once and for all, this is a ruse,” she hissed, refusing to turn around and face him. “I am no more your mistress than the man in the moon.”
“It's a trifle late for modesty, Rowena,” he said casually. “Or would you prefer that I continue addressing your backside, perfect though it may be.”
“This is too much,” she said over her shoulder. “And entirely unnecessary. You knew very well that Madame Curzon had arrived to prepare my wardrobe.” Stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankles, he looked thoroughly relaxed, and it occurred to her that the situation was outrageously familiar to him. The Duchess, no doubt, and a phalanx of women before her had probably spent thousands of Rushford's pounds on gowns and jewels, and in apartments much like this one.
“If we are to continue with this ruse, as you call it,” he continued, his eyes on her form reflected from every direction by the mirrors in the room, “we shall no doubt find ourselves in similarly intimate circumstances. So I should advise you not to reach for the smelling salts just yet.”
She raised her chin at him. “I have never had to avail myself of smelling salts in my life, Lord Rushford,” she snapped, making no effort to face him directly. “And I don't intend to begin now.” To prove her assertion, she finally turned around to face him, slipping her arms into each sleeve of her chemise in an attempt to coax the fabric up to her neck.
She realized that Rushford was enjoying himself. He rose from the divan with an exaggerated sigh. She refused to take a step back, her hands gripping the fabric at her neck. “You are made of sterner stuff, I suppose,” he murmured, moving toward her until his knees touched the cushion of the footstool and the two were face to face. It was happening again, the awareness, the thickening tension in the air whenever they found themselves together. With excruciating slowness and an outrageous familiarity, Rushford slid the fabric of the chemise down, exposing her collarbone. Rowena did not protest, could not protest, when he bared her shoulders, helping the garment along until it slowed on the swell of her breasts.
“What are you doing?” she asked, when she should have asked,
what are we doing
?
what are we doing
?
“We are going to have to behave as though ours is an intimate relationship.”
She stiffened beneath his hands. “I am a good enough actress that I don't need the practice, my lord.”
“That may well be,” he said, continuing his work unabated, unlacing her corset before tossing it aside. Underneath the sheer cotton of her chemise, her flat stomach was smooth and unmarred. He spanned his hands around her waist, her skin cool marble beneath the fabric.
“We decided,” she said shakily, “that this would never happen again.”
“Yes, we did,” he answered calmly.
Rowena knew that she had every chance to back away from him, to bolt, that he would make no move to stop her. Yet she was honest enough to admit that she desired him. Seeing him so close, the austerity of his face, the wide mouth, the dark eyes, reminded her of what more she wanted him to doâto her. Her pulse leaped in rapid staccato, fueling the mad idea that he was a substitution for the man in her dreams. Aware that her breathing was coming fast and erratic, she focused her gaze past his shoulders, on the cream-colored plaster medallion overhead.
They stood for an eternity, a frozen tableau. “This is but a dress rehearsal, Rowena,” he said softly, and then nodded as though coming to a decision. He strolled across the room, away from her.
When she found her voice, she said, “What do you mean?”
“Do you believe that whoever is after you and your family,” he said, standing by the fireplace mantel, this time not bothering to hide the mockery in his voice, “will be easily misled? This is a dangerous game you and I are about to play. Deception is never as easy as it looks.”
His accusation stung. “You believe that I will not be able to carry off this plan, to play the role of your mistress.”
He took a few steps back to lean a shoulder against the mantel. “Well, isn't it true? You came to me with the preposterous proposition, going so far as to force my hand yesterday evening at Crockford's, and now you cringe like a convent-bred schoolgirl at the very prospect of my proximity. Yet we shall be called upon to play the besotted couple, over and over again. And yes, in public.” He straightened away from the fireplace, his fluid movement startling her. He moved so differently from other men she'd encountered.
Rowena shook her head, unclenching the fabric in her hands. “I will do anything to enlist your assistance in uncovering the threat to me and my family. And I can assure you, my lord,” she insisted, stepping off the footstool in only her chemise and stockings, “that modesty, false or otherwise, will never stand in the way of our achieving
our ends
. What is fair is fair,” she emphasized. “I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that you uncover what it is you are after.” She wished desperately to ask what, precisely, that might be.
our ends
. What is fair is fair,” she emphasized. “I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that you uncover what it is you are after.” She wished desperately to ask what, precisely, that might be.
Instead, she hastily began gathering up her clothes, as unselfconsciously as possible, stepping into her velvet skirts and then fastening her corset, before finishing with the damnably long row of small hooks on the bodice. Her fingers fumbled under Rushford's cool gaze, but she was relieved when he finally moved from the fireplace to wander over to the curtained windows, giving her time to collect herself. When she was finished, she turned toward him, took a breath, and gestured to the divan. Her need to explain was acute. “It's impossible to continue like this,” she said, “unless we have candor and truthfulness between us.”
He remained standing by the window, and Rowena thought she saw compassion in his gaze despite the neutrality of his voice. “What is it you wish to tell me?” he asked, reading the anxiousness in her eyes.
Rowena sat down on the divan. “There is only one place to begin this discussion, and that is with the man who wishes my family illâMontagu Faron,” she said abruptly. “I do not know why, but I do know that he is the reason behind my abduction and a continued threat to my aunt and sister.” She paused, trying to interpret his expression. “Does the name mean anything to you?”
“It may well,” he said ambiguously. “How do you know this Faron is the man who represents the danger to your family?”
She acknowledged silently that her assertions sounded farfetched, and even now she had difficulty separating the strands of reality from her recurrent dreams and fractured memories. She shook her head in confusion. “During my abduction, I remember little else but hearing his name, over and over, and his threat to make the Woolcott women suffer,” she continued, her voice low with distress. “I awoke in a haze of dull pain, several times, and I remember a voice urging me to drink something vile. I kept my eyes closed, waiting for the pain and nausea and confusion to subside. And always the voices . . .”
“Whom else have you told about this? Have you confided in anyone?”
Rowena thought of the few acquaintances in their small circle at Montfort, none of whom she would wish to entangle in her plight. “I've told no one and have not contacted Meredith for fear that I would make things worse if our enemies discover that I am still among the living and that their plan had failed. The last thing I wish to do is to add flames to the fire.”
Rushford sat down beside her. “Do you have any idea as to why Faron would wish the Woolcotts harm?”
If only she did. “I don't know,” she said with desperation, burrowing back into the cushions of the divan and into her years at Montfort. “It all seemed to begin after my sister Julia published a monograph featuring her botanical daguerreotypes. It was against my aunt's wishes, as she was acutely afraid of any kind of notoriety, any activity that might prompt outside attention. In the village, Meredith was always considered somewhat peculiar because of her independence and need for privacy. She was always hesitant about letting us go out in the world, and in retrospect, I now see that she was mightily afraid of somethingâof someoneâfinding us.”
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