The Perils of Pleasure (23 page)

She glanced down. Colin Eversea’s hand was on his pistol, but his body seemed loose, and both hands, in
cluding the pistol hand, rested easily on his thighs. But this meant nothing. She’d seen how quickly he could spring into action.

Her pistol was unlocked, too.

And then she watched, with a sense of unreality, as Colin slowly locked his pistol.

He handed it to her grip first. “Decide,” he said simply.

Madeleine stared at the outstretched pistol as though it were in fl ames.

And then she watched her hand reach out for it, almost gingerly, and take it from him. He relinquished it easily.

It was heavier than her pocket pistol. A reassuringly competent pistol, one that could blow a hole through anyone at fi fty paces.

And now Colin Eversea was at her mercy.

Well, more or less at her mercy. He was a quick devil. He’d probably already planned how he’d disarm her if she tried to shoot.

Still.

The little boy’s whining had blossomed into a mag
nificent tantrum, and he’d sat down hard on the grass, a tiny bawling, kicking thing in white. Birds hadn’t a prayer of being heard over him. The sound of his wails came to them distantly, an odd counterpoint to their extraordinary, subtly charged exchange. A sound from her past. She hoped, one day, it would be a sound in her future, too.
Children.
She felt another twist in her heart.

“I’d heard you excelled at dramatic gestures,” Mad
eleine finally said lightly

His mouth quirked at the corners, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. “Dramatic gestures are often the most efficient way to make a point.”

His voice was remarkably calm.

One hundred pounds.

Madeleine looked past Colin at the little boy and the nurse. And it occurred to her that she and Colin Ever-sea had one very important thing in common right now: they were both uniquely—emphasis on
uniquely
—alone in the world.

Absurdly, she thought back to the fi rst moment she’d voluntarily given him her hand, in the basement of a burnt-out inn in St. Giles.
An honorable agreement
. She could hide behind this, she supposed. But the truth of the matter was that she was now suspended between
her old and new lives, and she wanted to see how this particular story ended, and despite everything, Colin Eversea was too embedded in her now to extract with
out some pain.

And for now, she didn’t want to be alone.

“I’d like
two
hundred pounds from your family.”

“Done,” Colin said easily.

But he gave her a slow smile, as though he’d heard every single thought that had led her to this particular pride-saving conclusion. And took the gun she handed back to him.

Bloody man.

Why was she smiling, too?

“We’re going to Marble Mile,” she decided for them both. “No matter what that takes.”

The brandy had been poured, and now that each member had a glass at his fingertips, Isaiah Redmond rose slowly from his chair—Marcus always imagined Isaiah rose slowly to give everyone an opportunity to think,
Good
heavens,
isn’t he tall?
—and began to speak.

“Gentlemen, fi rst, allow me to welcome everyone to this month’s meeting of the Mercury Club. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say I’m pleased that every one of our members could be in attendance this evening.”

Marcus lifted his brandy glass to his lips to hide his expression. Isaiah’s words were a subtle acknowledge
ment that one member had a very good reason to be elsewhere, given that said member’s brother had spec
tacularly disappeared from the gallows only two days ago and could be nearly anywhere now. Some families might construe this as a reason to lie low for a time. For the Everseas, it was a day in the life.

Everyone in the room was either too well bred to glance in Marcus’s direction or already too brandy-filled to notice Redmond’s innuendo. Though doubt
less everyone was dying to speak of the event. Marcus hoped he wouldn’t have to call anyone out after they
did
speak of it, which was a possibility after more brandy was downed and washed all sorts of wisely repressed thoughts from their berths.

It was also entirely possible, Marcus conceded, that he was being too sensitive. Though this seemed un
likely. Sensitivity—not to mention duels—was Colin’s province.

He forced his thoughts elsewhere. It was a warm, soothing, deliberately masculine room, but he’d never liked it, principally because Isaiah Redmond had fur
nished it. The scrupulously polished walnut table reflected back balding heads, brandy glasses, mother-of-pearl waistcoat buttons, spectacles. Three strategi
cally situated gas lamps—a none-too-subtle testament to Isaiah’s money and vision for progress—contrived to fill the entire room with light, demoting the brass and crystal chandelier hanging above to a mere shining smear in the table’s surface.

A reminder of the topic of today’s meeting. Marcus was here to discuss gas lighting.

“Our first pleasant order of business is to offi cially welcome our new member. Mr. Baxter, if you would stand?”

Standing, Mr. Baxter rather resembled the letter D propped up on two spindly legs. He was carefully and somberly dressed in clothing that looked almost too new, but his waistcoat fit the majestic arc of his stomach to perfection—the mother-of-pearl buttons didn’t strain at all. He wore spectacles, thick ones; his
eyes were nearly indistinguishable behind them. His smile was peculiarly queasy, given the honor he was accepting.

“As you all know, Mr. Baxter has been my associate—”

And by this everyone knew Isaiah meant man of affairs.

“—for many years, and his advice has been invalu
able to me throughout that time, and has, in fact, in
formed some of the investment decisions I’ve made over the past few years. He has, on many an occasion, gone above and beyond the call of duty in his assistance to our membership, and for this and other reasons we are delighted to welcome you formally to our numbers, Mr. Baxter.”

“Delighted to welcome” was perhaps too effusive, but “content to welcome” was certainly true, as long as Baxter could carry his own weight financially and pos
sessed the wits to make proper investment decisions. If he could wield the ribbons with dexterity and dash, better still.

Polite applause rippled around the table accordingly.

“Will you be out in the row with us come Saturday morning, Mr. Baxter? We have a timed trial with the Mercury Club carriage, and perhaps you can best one of us.” The man positively twinkled with competition.

“Oh, I’m still learning my way about the larger con
veyances, Mr. Bradshaw. I’ve a beautiful new high fl yer, however, and a matched team, and I’d be happy to run them up against yours.”

Bradshaw nodded. “I’ll look forward to that race, then, Baxter.”

There was polite laughter around the table, a few comments about high flyers and Tattersall’s, but Marcus,
who liked both high flyers and horses, was smiling but not listening, because he was trying to decide what bothered him about what Baxter had just said:

Learning his way around the larger conveyances.

Interesting to learn that Baxter was still learning the ribbons to a carriage the size of the one belonging to the Mercury Club, but then again, the man’s money was new, and perhaps he hadn’t had an opportunity yet. So as a member of the Mercury Club, he would have use of the carriage any time he wished.

But he would have needed to hire a driver if he did.

nm

adeleine was resourceful. Colin consented to get back into the coffin for as far as St. Giles—a slow, harrowing journey through the city, to be sure—where he was surreptitiously able to roll
out
of the coffin. The cart and horse were left in the care of an enterprising if grubby looking boy, along with a coin, and Madeleine fl irted a hackney driver into accepting three pounds for a drive as far as the Coaching Inn, purported to be on the outskirts of Marble Mile, a few hours outside of London.

He agreed, since he was confident he would be able to find passengers there.

She boarded, and Colin waited for the driver to climb up before he climbed up into the carriage, too. And once again Madeleine and Colin were in an en
closed space, hurtling rapidly out of the city.

This particular hackney was elderly, hadn’t any springs, and like many conveyances in London, some-one’s coat of arms had been scraped from the door. Colin amused himself by wondering if it might have once belonged to the Earl of Malmsey.

“Do you want to know something ironic?” Colin asked after a lengthy silence.

“All right,” Madeleine agreed.

He smiled a little. “You might have noticed how I’ve become something of a hero.”

“Have you, now?”

He quirked the corner of his mouth. “The funny thing is . . . all my life, in many ways, I’ve wanted to . . . stand out in some way. My brothers are all very im
pressive. Marcus makes the money. Ian and Chase were war heroes. Each came home with impressive wounds, you see. One of them even has a limp, and it makes the ladies swoon. I came home unscathed, so I somehow neatly avoided being a hero. My father prefers the three of them to me.”

“Do you think that’s the reason?”

Colin’s mouth quirked a little. Interesting that she didn’t argue the point. Some women might have wanted to soothe him out of that particular notion.

“I think he’s always preferred them.” Colin had never quite said this aloud before to anyone, and it wasn’t easy to say. “The girls, Olivia and Genevieve, came last, so they were novel, I suppose, and he dotes on them. They look a good deal like him—only pretty, mind you. He already had three sons when I came along. And it’s funny, so it became rather a habit of mine . . . doing things to see if I could get noticed. And then it was a
pleasure
to experience things, to see what I could get
away
with. I couldn’t seem to stop. And some
times things take on their own momentum, and before I know it I’m dangling from a trellis outside of Lady Malmsey’s window.”

Madeleine Greenway laughed at that. “So what are you saying?”

“That I find it deeply ironic to be a hero for doing something I didn’t do. Something . . . horrifi c.”

In truth, Colin found it unbearable, and it had been difficult to say it aloud. Particularly since he had genu
ine heroes in his family.

But it seemed important to hear what Madeleine Greenway thought.

She inhaled, exhaled, as if fueling herself for mulling it over. And then she said, “You went to war, and risked your life for your country, and came back alive, and you managed not to
disgrace
yourself, at least not that the broadsheets mentioned. And I’m certain that would have been mentioned, since they love to mention you. Some might say it takes a certain amount of talent and skill to stay alive.” She said this dryly. “And you’re quite good at noticing things. I imagine it helped you to be a good soldier and to stay alive, and to keep other men alive.”

Well. He’d never really thought of it that way. He gave a snort.

“You saved
my
life,” she added softly. “I wasn’t shot because you noticed something. Isn’t that true?”

“Oh, that was a reflex. Some male instinct to throw my body on top of a woman. It had been some time, you see, since I’d done that. Prison and all that.”

She tipped her head back against the carriage back and smiled. Her dark hair was coming down from its pins in fine spirals again. Diabolical of her to tempt a man like that. She really ought to have paid more atten
tion to the condition of her hair. Those loose strands drew attention to her long, pale throat, and reminded him that he’d touched her silky cool ear, and her bare hand, and that soft hair itself, and her peaked nipple, albeit through muslin, and if he kept thinking like this he would be quite hard and very uncomfortable so per
haps he ought to pay attention to what she was saying. Which was:

“But you could have been killed when you threw your body over mine. And then all my work to rescue you would have been for naught.”

“Oh, very well, then. I was heroic,” he conceded. “And forgive my selfish disregard for your ‘work.’”

She laughed. It was odd, but every time she laughed, he felt as though he’d won a prize, and he felt happy all out of proportion to the humor of the occasion. She had a very good laugh, feminine and genuine, unrestrained when she gave it.

Funny the things he’d come to be grateful for over these past few days.

No
one before had caused him to try so very hard to charm. And to do it, he was reaching into places in his mind and heart and soul that he’d never before reached into.

She was bloody exhausting.

“Sometimes being heroic means showing uncommon grace in the face of untenable circumstances.”

She wasn’t looking at him as she said this. She was peering out the window of the carriage. He studied her, and a smile spread out all over his face.

“Are you
complimenting
me, Mrs. Greenway?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Still not looking at him.

And so the trip passed in tentative exchanges of in
formation interspersed with dozing until they reached the Coaching Inn. Then Madeleine paid their driver and Colin slunk in the shadows while she found a local person to tell them where Mutton Cottage could be found. (“Up the road a mile or two, past a farm, and then past a small inn, and after that you walk on an
other mile or so, past some very pretty oaks, and you’ll see it right on the road, can’t miss it, really. If you pass the oak with a great bump on the trunk that looks like
an old gentleman, you’ve gone too far. Dunno ’oo lives

a’ Mutton Cottage now.”)

Alas, their advisor had lied.

Or, rather, had likely
underestimated
, as was often the case with people who lived in the country, as they were accustomed to walking everywhere, and distances seemed like nothing to them.

For Madeleine and Colin had walked and walked as the sun sank lower and lower into shreds of unre
markable pink clouds, and these shreds were now rap
idly purpling. Three of the sky’s more aggressive stars already winked overhead. There was a sliver of moon showing, looking like light shining through a door just slightly ajar.

Not the perfect light for grave robbing, in other words.

Within an hour or so it would be night offi cially, and they’d passed no markers or signs indicating Marble Mile was within a reasonable distance, nor had they passed any inns. There was just country stretching before them and country stretching after them and the opening notes of the evening’s cricket symphony start
ing up around them.

Conversation between them sputtered out, replaced by taut uncertainty that was nearly as loud as conversa
tion, and neither one wanted to acknowledge a hint of despair.

“He said we’d pass a farm,” Colin said, mostly to himself, as Madeleine knew this, too.

Shortly after Madeleine began rubbing her arms against the encroaching chill and the purpling sky began to prick up in stars in earnest, they saw the barn. Or rather, Colin saw the barn. It was really more of a
tall, shadowy mound in the distance, but he knew what it was.

He pointed at it, and without saying a word, Colin took off his coat and tucked it over Madeleine’s shoulders.

It smelled to her like pine from that coffin and like
male
, like
Colin
, and in that moment the silent gesture felt as shockingly intimate as if he’d slowly stretched his body out over her.

But Colin wasn’t even looking at her. “We’ll sleep there tonight,” he whispered firmly, pointing. “Come.”

Madeleine hesitated, feeling foolish. “It’s a farm. There might be dogs.”

Not the skinny, hungry, sneaky, frightened London sort of dogs, either, she thought. The giant, healthy, straightforward
farm
sort.

Colin slowly turned his head toward her, and his expression was so incredulous she was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to kick him.

“It’s a
farm
. There are
always
dogs. So . . . ” He raised a finger to his lips and frowned darkly enough to unite his brows.

All right, then. Silence it was from then on.

They crept across the field toward the barn, keeping to trees hugging the perimeter to take advantage of the shadows they cast, then creeping along the barn wall. And Colin pushed the door open very slightly, and the two of them squeezed in.

The rich animal smell engulfed them. They stood for an instant in what felt like pure dark until their eyes grew accustomed to it, and then the gleam of benign animal gazes appeared. A plow horse standing nearly as tall as Colin lifted up its great head and stared at
them with velvety eyes, then lost interest and dropped its head again. Four other stalls contained four cows who eyed them dispassionately, their cheeks moving endlessly as they worked the hay over.

Colin tossed up their bundle of blankets and food, and it landed in the loft with a rustle. Madeleine gauged the height of the loft, set her foot upon the third rung and swung her body up onto it.

The bloody ladder wheezed and groaned like an old man with gout.

She froze, squeezed her eyes closed, and waited for a pack of baying hounds to descend upon them.

Long seconds passed before she exhaled. She heard no baying. Just the sound of hay being crunched beneath large molars, a fringed tail slapping a taut rump, and the symphony of crickets outside. A deceptive sound, crickets, Madeleine decided. It seemed as though noth
ing at all could go amiss when crickets sang.

She turned her head slowly, inquiringly, down toward him.

Colin admired for a moment the line of her elegant, stubborn chin, pale in the dark shadows, aimed down like an arrow in inquiry, and assessed the situation quickly. She was small enough to need to take at least two more rungs of that ladder before she reached the loft, but God only knew what sort of sound
those
rungs might make.

In the next moment, he scooped both his hands be
neath what turned out to be a taut and deliciously small arse and gave her a hard boost upward, with a little squeeze just for the pleasure of it. Her hands found the edge and she hooked one leg over, and there was a soft thump and a rustle as she swiftly rolled out of his view in the loft.

Colin stood back and considered for a moment. His legs were long enough to stretch up to the fourth rung, but he knew he couldn’t afford to allow it to complain beneath his weight. Instead, he touched the ball of one foot to it and swiftly propelled his body upward. The rung gave a surprised-sounding squeak, but his hands easily reached the loft’s edge, and he used his arms to pull his long body up and over the edge of it into the dark.

He was still for a moment, winded.
Damn
. Prison had leached so much of his strength from him. He took a steadying breath.

Pride made him prop himself up more quickly than he might have preferred. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark: there Madeleine was, kneeling facing him, her face a blue-white oval, her eyes velvety shadows. He saw the flash of teeth. A smile or a snarl? A smile, he decided optimistically.

He patted about for the bundles he’d tossed up, intending at first to spread a blanket out for a bed of sorts. But conveniently enough for them, the day’s heat seemed to have risen and collected in the loft. It lay over them softly as down, and straw pricked at his back. Moonlight eased in through the hair-fi ne fi ssures be
tween the boards of the roof and made deep blue shad
ows around them.