Three Times the Scandal (21 page)

“
What the devil is this about?” Dovecote called, but his question failed to stop her. “Why would your sister be here? She’s engaged to Sir Hector Macleane, ain’t she?”

Alicia hadn’t wanted to come here, but now that she was, she knew Fortuna had at the very least been here. There was nothing she could precisely pin that fact upon, but she knew it deep down with unerring certainty. Desperate, she ran along the upper floor corridor rattling door handles, until she burst into a room where the warmth of a lamp burned. “Fortuna?” she gasped.

The figure lurched upright on the bed. It was not her sister, not even a woman.

Alicia’s gaze fastened upon Neddy Darleston’s bare torso and palpitations troubled her chest. His clothes lay scattered across the floor as if tossed aside in a hurry. The air was pungent with scent. His, she guessed, but also a more familiar one, distinctively sweet. Slowly, cautiously, Alicia bent at the knees and raised the valance on the bed to peak beneath. There was only a rose emblazoned chamber pot and a fine layer of dust.

Mae burst into the room behind her and came tearing over to the bed. “Where is she?” she gasped, before yanking back the bedclothes. Alicia squealed and tried to jerk her gaze away from the bed, but couldn’t quite manage it. She’d never seen a naked man before.

Neddy Darleston smiled wryly at her. He was naked to his toes. Only a smattering of rich auburn hair broke up the milky pallor of his torso. She tried hard not to stare, but her gaze seemed drawn over the shadowed planes of his stomach towards his privates.

Alicia’s palms itched at the sight of his erect cock. She yearned to reach out and touch that virile column. Instead, she grasped the sheet from Mae and flung herself forward. At the same moment, Mae also moved. She ploughed into Alicia, setting her off balance, so that she landed sprawled across the bed, her nose level with Neddy Darleston’s hips.

A great wash of heat flooded Alicia’s cheeks. In a frantic scramble of skirts and bed linen, and with a hand from Neddy and a jealous shriek from Mae, she managed to free herself of the bed, and the room.

The roar of Neddy’s laugher followed her down the stairs. Alicia didn’t stop, until she was in the carriage. Breathless, Mae stepped up behind her. “What were you thinking of?” Mae’s normally joyful eyes were wide with alarm. “What happened to the plan?” She flounced onto the leather cushion beside Alicia, and folded her arms. Then, suddenly, she began to laugh. “Hussie! You almost leapt on top of him.”

Alicia bit her lip, visions of Neddy Darleston’s manhood still swimming before her eyes.

Mae’s laughter faded as the carriage drew away from house. “Well, at least we’ve determined she isn’t there. I guess I was wrong.”

“
I’m less certain of that, Mae. Did you not hear Mr. Dovecote shouting? I think he was warning her, but we made such a bungling mess of everything we’ll never know for sure. I’d swear she’d been in that room.” That scent had been Fortuna’s. She knew it too well to mistake it. If only she’d had the presence of mind to check the closet as well as under the bed.

* * * * *

Giles watched the ladies’ carriage trundle away from the front doorstep then went back inside. Ned stood on the landing swaddled in the bed sheet while his brother lounged at the bottom of the stirs, still guffawing into his coat cuff.

“
Where is she?” Giles asked.

Neddy gave a broad grin. “The one place they never seem to check when they make a show of bursting in like that.”

“
Because, of course, you’ve had a lot of women bursting in on you like that and grabbing your tackle,” Darleston remarked.

“
There’ve been a few.” Neddy wound the sheet around his waist and tucked over the end to hold it in place. “I ain’t ever had a pair like that before though, nor any that have scampered off so quick. Fortuna’s behind the door, of course. Thanks for the warning, Giles.”

Giles went up to the guest room, and found Fortuna perched upon the mattress. “Have they gone?” She twisted her hands anxiously in her lap.

Giles crouched beside her. “Yes, they’ve gone.”

“
How did they know?” She turned her head as Darleston followed him into the room. “Did his wife tell them? Should I expect Father?” Her eyes betrayed the fear her lips didn’t speak.

Giles shook his head, but he let Darleston answer her. “If it had been Lucy, it wouldn’t have been your sisters who came calling. She’d have gone straight to Macleane. I think they just guessed somehow, or they’re calling upon everyone. I doubt they’ll come back, but we must be more cautious.”

“
Come downstairs.” Giles squeezed her hand. “Darleston and I have something we wish to talk over with you.”

* * * * *

Fortuna took a seat on the chaise longue as Leach piled a heap of dried logs on the drawing room fire. The logs quickly began to spit and hiss as the dry wood cracked and let off streamers of white curling smoke.

Giles came to her after a few moments and handed her a cup of tea. He sat beside her, leaving Darleston the command of the fireside. “The Star of Fortune,” he began, turning her hand in his so he could stroke the back. “Have you actually seen it since your godfather’s death?”

“
No. I told you. It’s not officially mine yet. I can barely remember what it looks like. Mama said it was vulgar, and far too ostentatious to ever wear, and I do have one or two nice things of my own. It isn’t as if I need to wear paste.”

“
The thing is,” Giles continued, patting her hand, “we spoke to someone earlier who says your Aunt Hattie was buried with the Star of Fortune around her neck.”

Fortuna glanced between the two gentlemen. So that’s what they’d been up to these last few hours. The green of Giles’s eyes was far too bright. Fortuna turned away from his gaze. This was no idle question. Giles obviously believed whomever he had spoken to. Only, how could it be true? “The gentleman must be mistaken, or it was removed from the casket after he saw her.”

“
Maybe—but what if it wasn’t?” Slowly, Giles moistened his lips. “You told us that Mr. Pimcock went to India to find the real Star of Fortune. What if he actually found it?”

“
What indeed?” Darleston turned his back to the fire and lifted one sardonic brow. “What indeed?”

Fortuna shook her head. She refused to believe it possible. If he’d found the Star, he wouldn’t have died a pauper. “He had nothing left by the end. He wrote to Mama only a short time before his death begging her for money.”

“
Creditors?”

Fortuna shrugged. She assumed so.

“
Did your mama send the money?” Giles asked. His brows furrowed.

“
A little, I believe.”

Giles rose and paced across the carpet, the tension in his frame giving him a curiously rigid gait. His lips formed an aggressive moue, acerbated by the fierce set of his jaw. Clearly he didn’t believe as she did. Part of her wanted to run to him, to take his hands and kneel down before him and laugh. What else was there to do but laugh at the absurdity of it all? She was not an heiress, just the recipient of a vulgar fake.

“
Giles, if it were real, do you not think my family would be flaunting that fact? I think Mama would have insisted on someone better ranking than a baronet for my husband too.”

“
She has a point.” Darleston ticked his index finger against his lips. “Every eligible bachelor in the country would be flocking to offer for her hand. A huge ruby makes for a handsome temptation.”

Giles didn’t reply. His expression became unfathomable, which in itself seemed to suggest he was not done with the subject. He’d return to the matter again as surely as she’d return to his bed if only he’d extend a hand and lead the way.

“
I think he spent every last penny he owned buying the original back. Maybe he knew he didn’t have very long left and the stone was all that mattered. You’ve never said of what he died.”

Fortuna shook her head. None of them had enquired. They’d assumed he’d succumbed to some foreign malaise.

“
Why all so dour?” Neddy ambled into the room with Leach buzzing around him clothes brush in hand. Unfortunately the valet’s efforts were of minimal effect. Neddy’s coat remained riddled with creases.

“
Tis nothing,” said Fortuna.

“
I’ll explain on the journey home.” Lord Darleston took his brother by the elbow and guided him back towards the door. “It’s time we took our leave. I believe Giles and Miss Allenthorpe have some matters to discuss that don’t require an audience.”

Neddy raised his brows, his easygoing expression transforming into one of bewildered bemusement. “Not even intimate friends?”

Darleston shoved him out of the door. “Keep walking, brother. Don’t argue.”

For several minutes after the departure of the twins, Fortuna remained silent, her hands neatly folded in her lap. Contrary to Darleston’s implication, Giles didn’t seem at all eager to speak. In truth, he seemed to be studiously ignoring her; she could see no other reason for his fussing over the fire Leach had already built to perfection.

“
What did Darleston mean that we have things to discuss?”

Giles shrugged, an act that pulled the fabric of his coat taut across his back, in turn emphasizing the pleasing breadth of his shoulders. Physically, there was much that she found appealing about Giles’s body. His shape reminded her of an inverted triangle, broad across the top, and neatly tapered to the waist, his loins forming the lower point. It was easy to lose herself in Giles’s warmth, to think only of the pleasure lying with him brought and to pretend that nothing beyond this house existed. Only he seemed increasingly determined not to let her forget, but to constantly push her towards seeking solutions to her problems.

Nor had she forgotten the time limit he seemed to have placed upon her stay. He’d given his maid a mere week’s leave to tend her family. Three of those days had already gone.

“
Shall I assume that he simply intended to remove Neddy, since you clearly have nothing you wish to say?”

Giles finally relinquished the poker, leaving it sticking out of the coal bucket. The firelight danced in his pupils and marbled the jade of his irises with golden flecks as he inclined his head towards her. “Would you rather he’d stayed?”

“
Neddy? No, not particularly.”

“
Yet, earlier…”

“
Earlier?” It took a moment to realize he meant when her sisters had intruded, not the previous night when Ned had stumbled into their bed. “We were talking.”

“
Naked?”

She rose from her position, so that her skirts fell around her. They rustled as she walked towards him, her hands outstretched to clasp his. “I’m not naked, Giles. I have no mastery over Neddy. You told me yourself that it’s difficult to avoid seeing him nude.”

“
Neddy is more accustomed to action than conversing while naked.”

If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn Giles sounded jealous. But his notions about free love wouldn’t allow him to admit that, hence, presumably the care he was taking over picking his words. Heaven forbid that he impose his wishes upon her, or limit her choice of lover in any way. No, instead, she’d set her own limitations on her relationship with Neddy. The younger Darleston was fun, and she greatly enjoyed his company, but Giles, Giles made her feel special in a way nobody else ever had. It made her chest ache to think that sooner or later they’d surely be parted. There was no point trying to explain to Giles how she felt though. He’d deliberately misinterpret her.

Realizing that they were frowning at one another, Fortuna turned her mind to more pleasing thoughts and thus allowed her gaze to wander over the now familiar planes of Giles’s face to his mouth and the gentle curve of his lips. She didn’t want to sit here vexed and anxious; rather she wanted to enjoy her freedom and make merry while the opportunity remained.

She smiled at Giles whilst she juggled with the idea of shocking him from his melancholia. “Would you like to see my stockings?” She flipped up the hem of her gown, to display the embroidered cornflowers that wound around her calves, then hitched the skirt higher still to flash a glimpse of the matching garters above her knees.

Giles gawped at her, his mouth briefly hanging open like that of a cod, before his typical rakish poise reasserted itself. “Do you know…” he inclined his head to get a proper look, “I think I may actually be more interested in what lies above those pretty garters?”

“
Truly?” She feigned surprise. “There’s nothing so finely made. I’m afraid my shift is rather shabby.”

“
Your shift maybe shabby, but your muff is beautifully presented.”

“
My muff?” She sucked upon her lower lip, holding back the urge to laugh away the compliment. Did he truly think the curling golden hair, and the ripe ruddy slit of quim beautiful? His expression suggested so. Gone was the jealous glint in his eyes of moments before, replaced by desire.

Giles adjusted the bottom of his waistcoat, although his gaze remained fastened upon her upturned face. “Maybe you’ll grant me leave to touch you there.”

Another dart of pleasure speared her clitoris at the thought. When he’d traced his fingertips over the ruby nub the night before, his caresses had kindled a fever that left her breathless and bathed in perspiration and had caused her body to spasm and clench with need. That same tingling desire gripped her again now. It clawed its way upwards from her belly, made her breasts feel heavy and too constricted in her stays. She longed to undo them, or for Giles to undo them, or at least to pull out the stiffening busk so that she wasn’t forced to stand so rigid. She took a dainty step towards him.