To Tempt a Saint (15 page)
Authors: Kate Moore
With the perfect clarity of hindsight, he realized that asking his mother’s good friend Serena Perez to dress his bride had been an error. He hardly recognized her as the ragamuffin from the bank. Tonight as she turned from one man to another, or as she laughed, her burnished curls caught the light and glowed.
He accepted a cup of coffee from his hostess and attached himself to the group listening to the earnest piano player. Except for their brief meeting in the library, he had avoided her. He had already learned more about her than he’d planned. She wore no scent, and yet a presence that was
her
lingered in his senses. Unexpected encounters with her were particularly hazardous to his plan, and until he rid his dreams of her, it made sense to keep his distance. He simply had to endure the public scenes necessary to his plan.
her
lingered in his senses. Unexpected encounters with her were particularly hazardous to his plan, and until he rid his dreams of her, it made sense to keep his distance. He simply had to endure the public scenes necessary to his plan.
Tonight’s dinner among his staid and respectable partners had seemed safe in theory, a far cry from the company of his youthful evenings. Proper ladies in yards of silk and trimmings surrounded him, but Xander could think only of clinging lawn and fluttering pink ribbons, a narrow waist, flaring hips, and long legs. A clock chimed, and he shifted his gaze away from his wife, aware of the war of contradictory desires inside him—to dismiss her from his mind and to release her hair from its pins and lay her down under him.
Cleo counted the little clock’s chimes. She had allowed her husband to ignore her through the interminable dinner. She understood his situation better now. He was the lone wolf in this particular pack of dogs. They might all chase a hare with baying enthusiasm, but only he would hunt his prey.
Something she’d said in the library had touched a sorrow in him. She had seen its shadow in his face and held her breath, waiting for him to speak, and when he had not, she had been unable to contain her exasperation. Now she extricated herself from the gentlemen around her and went to his side.
If he sensed her presence, he did not turn until the piano player finished her piece. Other women slanted him admiring glances from a safe distance.
“You know some women might prefer a carved stone husband, a piece of statuary to stand in the garden, or a bust to put in a niche.”
“Would that suit you?”
“As long as the statue came with a bank account.”
He laughed, a pleasant, easy sound, and looked at her fully.
Cleo tried to take the measure of that reluctant gaze—admiring or critical. “You misled me grossly with the term ‘dinner party.’ This is like no party I ever attended.”
“What makes it so different in your experience?”
“No flirting.”
He watched her still. It was a perfectly public moment, but his gaze felt intimate as if the guests around them had turned to indifferent shrubbery.
“Do you know there is a young man here seriously concerned about the number of flushes per each new water closet in London? He fears that the Thames will be an open sewer in ten years.”
“You met Tom Ruxley, I take it?”
She nodded.
“The state of the sewers didn’t provoke your wit?”
She shook her head. The low gravel of his voice seemed to waken her skin. Cleo could hardly name the thing that he stirred in her, a need to be naked that fluttered with helpless wings against the cage of her stays and silks.
“Did you meet Miss Finsbury at such an event? If you did, it would explain much.”
“I didn’t. You aren’t expecting me to flirt with you?”
“If you do not, I must suppose it’s my matronly appearance that quells your ardor. Do I look wifely enough, do you think?”
“I hardly recognize you without the straw.”
“Thank you for the gown.” It was all wrong for their staid company. She had known it from the moment they’d entered, a gown for a mistress perhaps, but her hostess, a woman of great tact, had set an accepting tone. The gossip would start later.
“It suits you.” His glance shifted away, and Cleo felt the loss of it.
“And the undergarments, the shoes, the cloak, the jewels. Did I leave anything out?”
“The stockings.” His coffee cup now seemed to have his undivided attention.
“You’re remarkably thorough and knowledgeable in the matter of women’s apparel. To think I accused you of not knowing the female mind. Have you dressed many women?”
He swung back to her, pressing his warm, strong thumb to her lips, just as he had done in the church, in the library, a response so swift, Cleo could only blink.
“Am I making you uneasy?” His thumb slid away, leaving her lips tingling and hungry.
“Why?”
“Because you generally say something outrageous when you’re nervous.”
The pianist took up a new, livelier tune. They stood shoulder to shoulder in silence while the sound of the party grew loud around them. There was talk of dancing. She wanted him to touch her again. Which was all backward. She was supposed to seduce, to make him do the wanting.
He seemed not to hear and turned to her with a sober look. “Alice says a boy followed you through Shepherd Market the other day.”
“So she claims, but Charlie and I did not see anyone.”
“You might be on your guard.”
“Against my uncle? Shepherd Market is the last place he’d ever go. I assure you he has no interest in gingerbread and birdcages.”
“Do you trust him?”
“No, but your lawyer said my uncle would act against us in the courts, not in the streets.”
“In court your uncle will want to offer a spy’s report on the state of our marriage. His scrutiny is likely to be most thorough.”
All the magic of the copper gown left Cleo in a rush, a spell turned to ashes. She had counted on its glowing power to seduce her husband and had barely held his notice for an hour. Her feet hurt, and her new stays pinched. Wine and rich food churned in her stomach. Of course her uncle would spy. It made perfect sense. He had lied and deceived and ruined her, and now when she sought to escape his control, he would block her. And then Charlie would be at his mercy. Powerlessness coalesced in her. She wanted to seize Xander Jones by his elegant lapels and shake him.
“You could stop my uncle’s plan by behaving like a husband and taking your wife to bed and getting her with child, which even the regent managed with his most disagreeable wife.”
His gaze turned cold. “I don’t think you want to cite the prince as a model of husbandly behavior.” He left her, and in less time than any hostess could ever consider polite, they took their leave.
Cleo heard Tom Ruxley wrongly asserting, “Let them go, let them go. Jones is eager to get his new bride alone.”
On the pavement outside, Xander was a shadowy figure except for the white of his linen and the silver glint of his eyes. Isaiah brought their carriage to stop in front of them, and Xander opened the door, taking Cleo’s hand to assist her. “Can you give a dinner in two nights’ time?” he asked.
She looked down at him from the carriage step. “A dinner?”
“I’ve arranged to hire extra servants.” He handed her into the vehicle.
“Another wifely act to stop my uncle?”
“That’s two today. What could be more wifely than laying your bills before your husband and attending a dinner party?”
“Lying naked in bed with my nightrail around my neck?”
He laughed. “Believe me, when desperate measures are called for, I will act.” He closed the door firmly and nodded to Isaiah to drive on. The coach lurched into motion.
Cleo fell back against the seat alone
. Desperate measures
—that’s what he considered bedding her. No danger of being flattered by her husband.
. Desperate measures
—that’s what he considered bedding her. No danger of being flattered by her husband.
I
N the magistrate’s room at Bow Street Will had bad news for Xander. “Your curate’s been arrested. A writ of
qui tam
, for perjury.”
N the magistrate’s room at Bow Street Will had bad news for Xander. “Your curate’s been arrested. A writ of
qui tam
, for perjury.”
“March works fast. Where’ve they taken him?”
“Newgate.”
“How long has he been in?”
“Two days. Long enough for March to cross-question him in his own sweet way. I’m sure he has bullyboys on the inside. Do you have a hearing date set?”
“Not yet.”
“Count on Mr. Tucker to deny he ever married you.”
“That would be unhelpful at this point. Can we get in to see him?”
“Of course.” Will grinned. “Always easy to get in. It’s getting out that’s the devil.”
Chapter Nine
O
N a drizzling morning Cleo finally abandoned her quest to find a grinder on her own and sent for the man Xander Jones recommended. As much as she hated to give her husband credit for being right, Anthony Hodge immediately impressed her as the perfect tutor for Charlie. He had a shining, round countenance, twinkling blue eyes, and a laugh that made his shoulders shake.
N a drizzling morning Cleo finally abandoned her quest to find a grinder on her own and sent for the man Xander Jones recommended. As much as she hated to give her husband credit for being right, Anthony Hodge immediately impressed her as the perfect tutor for Charlie. He had a shining, round countenance, twinkling blue eyes, and a laugh that made his shoulders shake.
She left Charlie to show off his Greek and Latin, while she planned dinner for her husband’s guests. The approaching party had thrown off the rhythms of Xander Jones’s strange household with its silent help, so unlike ordinary gossiping London servants. Charlie called them Hades’ three-headed dog, a joke they’d shared over dinner alone in the pretty dining room. Now aloof Amos, who guarded the door, was overseeing extra footmen and kitchen help hired for the occasion. Gruff Isaiah, who talked more to horses than to any human person, had additional stable hands to manage. Even steady Alice, who handled dozens of daily tasks, seemed harried.
Cleo wasn’t fooled by her husband’s tactics. Two more days had passed without a trip to the bank. Xander Jones was off managing his gasworks, reinventing London, spending her money. She was setting his table, overseeing his dinner menu, and waiting for her uncle to unmask their facade. She left Xander Jones’s efficient servants to their work and took time to sew a concealed pocket on the inside of the bordered hem of La Perez’s garnet gown. From now on she wanted her knife at hand.
She imagined drawing it in their carriage and holding it under his iron jaw between all that fine linen and his throat and demanding he ravish her. Several problematic details intruded at once in her vision of the plan. From years of caring for Charlie as a little boy, she knew something of the layers and fastenings of men’s clothing and had a perfectly clear idea of the youthful version of what lay beneath wool and lawn. She certainly could not undo those fastenings while holding the knife. The knife itself would have to persuade him to unfasten the fall of those dark gray trousers of his and to release . . . Here she ran into further mental difficulties because she knew that the male parts her husband possessed would exceed her experience and thinking about the probabilities made her stomach do odd flips.
A further difficulty was simply imagining a credible threat she could offer him. She had no experience threatening anyone but her brother’s dog, and Bess was hardly a test of one’s intimidation talents. What could she say that could possibly scare such a man? Should she threaten to cut off an ear? He would never believe her. And she liked his ears too well and wanted to know how he came by that scar. Well, she would have the knife with her and trust to the inspiration of the moment.
When she returned to the great room, Hodge commended Charlie on his progress with Greek.
“The Latin will come,” he said. “Practice will see you through the entrance tests.”
They agreed upon terms and meeting times, and Hodge looked about the room and commented, “Does me good to be back here, Lady Jones. I’ve spent many hours in this house. Good lads, the Jones boys. Good scholars all.” He shook his head solemnly. “I’ve not been here anytime these three years now.” He smiled a little sadly. “It all looks just as I recall. Good to be back.”
Cleo dismissed the scholarly lapse in counting the years since Xander and Will Jones had been boys. Even if Hodge wandered a bit in his mind, his encouraging manner was sure to do Charlie good.
He turned and shook Charlie’s hand. “We’ll have you ready for your entrance exams in no time.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Now get that copy of Virgil by Monday next.”
The door closed behind Hodge, and Cleo realized Amos had not appeared to see the tutor out. “Quick,” she told Charlie. “Grab a coat. Let’s go.”
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