Virginia Henley (5 page)

Her eyes became brilliant and she was short of breath as the game of chance took hold of her.

Adam’s visage in the glow of the lamps was dark and inscrutable as a black leopard’s, masking his thoughts and his intent, which were both blatantly sexual.

Eve’s desire for the jewels was written upon her face. Just so would he like her to look at him when he was naked. It was a hungry look that said, I
must have them or die.

Relentlessly he took back his jewels, one at a time. He knew Russell had let her have her own way about everything. He would teach her that if she was his woman she would have her own way about nothing, and he would teach her to like it.

As he took her last gem she stood up quickly clenching her fists and in a hurt, little-girl voice said, “I thought you were a gentleman. I thought you would let me win.”

“I never let anyone win against me in my life, and I’m not about to start.” He stalked around the games table like a raptor sure of its prey. His voice was like smooth, dark velvet as his hands cupped her shoulders. “Eve, you above all other women are acutely aware of the fact I am not a gentleman.”

She shuddered as he brought his mouth down upon hers to drain her of her will. But her body, was aroused by the high-stakes game, not by the presence of the virile man. When he touched her, she froze.

Savage had her gown undone and off her shoulders before she realized how bold he was. The gown and its petticoats fell to her feet and she stood before him clad in corset, drawers, and tall black boots.

Savage had undressed a thousand women in his lifetime. He was an expert at the game of seduction. At twenty when he left England he had considered himself highly experienced with women, having known servant girls, married ladies, and professional harlots, but once he arrived in India he realized he was almost untutored in
the sensual arts and his education had begun in earnest. He had visited the secret temples erected to the goddesses of love and fertility, where even the statues were so sexually explicit, they could make a sailor flush with embarrassment. He had been entertained by rajas and nawabs whose nautch dancers knew tricks that would harden the cock of a corpse. He had seen and traded in priceless collections of Hindu and Oriental erotica that had broadened his mind, his taste, and his appreciation so that he explored and enjoyed to the full his own sensual nature without shame or false prudery inherent in Western civilization.

He thought she rejected his advances because he was a commoner. He tried to unthaw her by being deliberately suggestive. “I’m quite willing to wager that you’ve never allowed an untitled man access to your body,” he whispered. “You are used only to noblemen, but you are about to experience a noble savage.”

“Please, no, the servants will know … ohmigod, Adam, don’t take off your clothes!”

“Eve, the naked state is the natural state. You’ve suppressed yourself to the point where you worry about servants. You won’t allow yourself to become aroused and excited.” As he held her at arm’s length he imagined the enticing picture she would create naked. The cool English titled lady with alabaster skin and pale golden hair would look untouchable until he took into account the black leather riding boots.

“No, Adam,” she said. Her eyes were pressed closed in a pretense that he was forcing her to this abomination. Eve was afraid that if she saw his magnificent body, more lithe, more rampantly male, than any animal’s, she might lose control. She had never lost control in a sexual encounter in her life and it terrified her.

Savage thought better of removing his clothes. If he revealed his scars he would have to explain them. They would prompt too many questions about his unsavory
past. He didn’t like people to know the eels that lurked in the water beneath the surface. He had a private side he allowed none to explore. He drew her close and cupped her breast.

“Eve, relax and let me love you.”

“Mmm, no, mmm, no,” she breathed, almost incoherent. She was filled with revulsion for herself because Adam Savage was beginning to bring her pleasure, and she fought against the sensations valiantly.

Eve had never allowed a man to bring her to climax. She couldn’t. Her body didn’t work that way. Unconsciously she had to stay in control. When she could not avoid the act she wanted it to be over with swiftly. Instinctively she knew Savage would revel in the slow, rhythmic dance of lovemaking, sustaining forever, never spending. He would be the kind of dominant man who would fuck her until she yielded herself to him. She stiffened, imagining the servants were outside the door listening. Suddenly she felt he was behaving like the animals they had seen. Savage was a bull who would wildly mate her. She pulled from his arms and snatched up her gown to cover her underclothes.

“You bastard, how could you make me feel so dirty?” she hissed.

Adam Savage realized Eve was frigid. If he ever hoped to unthaw her, he knew he would have to go about it in a different way. He gently took the gown away from her and dressed her. He pinned up her hair with the tortoiseshell combs, then gathered her in his arms. He told her how lovely she was, how beautiful, how exquisite. He began to kiss her face, trailing a fiery, sweet path from her temple to her eyelids, then on to her lips. He made her feel beautiful.

Suddenly he was giving her the kind of pleasure she liked. She loved to be told she was beautiful. Now that she was dressed she knew he would not spoil her delicious glow by wanting to have sex.

Savage hoped that if he left her slightly aroused, perhaps wanting more, she might fantasize about him when they were apart.

In that moment Eve knew she would be willing to marry him, if only he had a title. She stood on tiptoe to press a last kiss upon his devastating mouth. “You would make a savage Lord Savage, Adam.”

When Bernard Lamb returned to the Hall the next evening he wanted to see what his victim looked like, but he knew his curiosity must be secondary to caution. Under no circumstances must he be seen by any member of the household. If and when an accident occurred, it must be considered exactly that, an accident. If foul play was even surmised in the removal of Lord Lamb, the next in line would automatically be Sùspect.

Bernard concealed himself in the shrubbery some distance from the Hall to observe its inhabitants through the candlelit windows. He had the patience of a spider hidden beneath the leaves, lurking in the shadows.

He had no trouble identifying the old strumpet. She was a small woman who moved about quickly and used her hands with exaggerated gestures when she spoke. Bernard had no trouble identifying the servants by their uniforms, but from this distance it was difficult to distinguish one cousin from the other.

Both were tall, dark, and slim, both walked with casual, unhurried steps. He had thought he was watching his cousin Anthony as he sat reading at a desk in what Bernard assumed must be the library, but when the figure
arose and crossed directly in front of the window, he saw skirts and realized it must be Antonia. Though he saw no features, he knew he could never be attracted to a woman who was not overtly ultrafeminine.

He thought of his little actress, Angela Brown, all deliciously rounded curves, her glorious, silvery-gilt hair dressed high in the latest fashion, her ripe breasts swelling from the frills and laces of her satin gowns.

Bernard saw the lights in the Hall being extinguished. They certainly retired early here in the country. When Lamb Hall became his, the lights would blaze until dawn, he vowed.

He was about to emerge from the shrubbery when he heard a heavy step crunch on gravel. A man with an oil lamp was coming from the stables. He watched him go to the back of the house toward the servants’ wing. It was the same man who had been cleaning the carriage yesterday.

Suddenly a brilliant idea came to him, and his mouth curved into a self-satisfied smile. He made his way to the carriage house adjacent to the stables and slipped quietly inside. Bernard saw with satisfaction that there were no windows through which he could be observed and quickly lit a lamp. There was a toolbox on a shelf, from which he selected a mallet. He went to the rear of the carriage and hammered the lockpin from the hub of the tall carriage wheel and slipped it into his pocket.

How simple an act. He need do nothing more. The carriage would have to travel a few miles before the nut would loosen and fall, then the large wooden wheel would fly off, likely overturning the vehicle. The beauty of it was, there was no possible way they could connect him with a carriage accident.

His business in Stoke was completed for the present and Bernard could hear the siren call of London. To be precise, the voice of Angela Brown from the stage of the Olympic Theater.

* * *

Anthony Lamb had been withdrawn since he learned of his father’s death two weeks past. He felt guilty that he had not been in Ceylon to take some of the business responsibilities from his father’s shoulders or to console his mother in her loss. Anthony was frustrated that soon he would be seventeen and had never set foot out of England.

He was a little bitter that his parents had never sent for him to come to Ceylon and decided that, as soon as he came of age in just over a year, he would make the voyage. He wouldn’t say anything to Antonia, but when this Adam Savage fellow arrived, he’d pick his brains and learn all he could about the Indies. Once he began to make plans for the future, he felt decidedly better.

Antonia was happy to see her brother had taken pains with his toilet this morning. He wore dove-gray riding breeches and a jacket of blue superfine. She saw that he was wearing a new tiewig and doubted he would go to so much trouble for his usual morning ride.

“I thought I’d ride over and speak to the tenants this morning. They will have heard about father by this time, and I think I should reassure them that I won’t be making any changes now that they are my tenant farmers.”

Antonia nodded and hid a smile. They had two farms on their land and both tenant farmers had pretty daughters, hence the new tiewig. “There’s a wonderful breeze today, I’ll probably go sailing.”

He grinned at her and she was relieved that he looked like his old self.

“I don’t suppose I could talk you into staying in the Medway?”

“No fear! What’s the point in living on the coast if you don’t sail in the sea? You are not hinting that I’m not as fine a sailor as you, are you Tony?”

“Oh, Lord, now you’ll take my words as a challenge! Just be careful? You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

As Antonia was changing her clothes for sailing, she
glanced out of her bedchamber window to see Anthony take off as if he were riding in a race. Wasn’t it just like him to urge her to caution, then risk his own neck riding hell for leather! He was a superb horseman and she watched with pleasure as he soared over the hedge that took him from the park into the meadow. He made the jump cleanly, but then something happened and rider and horse separated company. She saw that the horse was behaving like a wild thing and that Tony had not gotten up from his fall.

Antonia ran down the stairs and called to Roz, who was in the breakfast room. “Tony’s come a cropper. Get Mr. Burke!” She picked up her skirts, ran out through the garden, across the small park, and climbed through the hedge into the field.

Her twin lay still and pale as death upon the grass. Her heart was in her throat. He couldn’t be dead!
Deaths come in three,
a voice whispered in her ear. “No! No!” she cried aloud to dispel her fear.

Suddenly Antonia could not breathe and a loud drumming in her ears threatened to deafen her. She glanced up and saw the sturdy figure of Mr. Burke cutting through the hedge. As he bent down to her brother, Anthony suddenly sat up, rubbed his head, and grinned foolishly. “Stab me, I must look a damned fool to fetch everyone running.”

Antonia realized the drumming in her ears was her own heartbeat. “Tony, you great fool—I feared you were dead!”

Mr. Burke helped him to his feet and, embarrassed, Anthony brushed himself off and refused to be aided back to the Hall.

“Go with Mr. Burke. I’ll get your horse,” Antonia ordered in her most bullying tone.

Mr. Burke was more diplomatic. “Come back to the Hall and reassure your grandmother that you only took a harmless tumble.”

By now the mare had quieted and stood trembling. As Antonia reached for her bridle she saw that her face was bloodied. “Venus … hush, darling. Let me see what’s wrong.”

The horse had been cut about the face by something on the halter. Antonia slipped it off and ran her fingers over the jagged studs. She saw that the bit had cut clean through the strap and it was lucky Venus hadn’t choked on it. She smoothed her hand along the horse’s neck and murmured soothing words to her.

When Antonia began to walk back to the stables the mare followed her. By the time they arrived, the saddle had slipped to one side and was hanging off.

“Bradshaw,” she said to their carriage driver, “I had no idea the harness was in such bad shape. Don’t use this again, and check all the other tack too. We’ll have to buy new.”

Antonia went to the stable supply cupboard and took down a cake of carbolic soap and a bottle of linament. She washed the cuts and dabbed on the oil of wintergreen linament while Bradshaw held the mare’s mane. Venus whickered and rolled her eyes, but displayed none of the wildness that had been brought on by sharp pain stabbing into her cheeks.

By the time Antonia went into the Hall, Anthony had changed his clothes and she heard him downplay the fall to Roz. “The belly strap broke and the saddle slipped just as I took the hedge.”

Antonia spoke up. “The tack you were using is worn out. We’ll have to buy new. Poor Venus came off a lot worse than Tony.”

“Is she all right?” he asked with concern as he headed for the stables.

“Cut her face a bit, but she’ll be all right. Take a look at the sharp studs on the inside of that halter.”

When he had gone, Antonia placed her hand over her still rapidly beating heart. “Oh, Roz, he was lying there so
still and so pale, I thought he was dead, but he was only unconscious for a minute.”

Roz looked at her keenly. “You’ve had a real fright, darling. Come, I’ll give you a little brandy.”

Antonia shuddered and coughed, for as the brandy went down it took away her breath, but it certainly gave her a warm feeling of confidence as it spread like a red rose inside her chest. “I was overcome with fear when I saw him lying there. I felt utterly alone without him, as if I’d been abandoned.”

“Praise God it was only a little accident and not fatal. If anything happened to Anthony, we’d have more to worry about than missing him.”

“What do you mean?”

“That wretchedly smooth, fortune-hunting cousin of yours, Bernard Lamb, would inherit not only the title, but the Hall and the property that goes with it. Even the town house in London. You and I would be out on our derrieres to put it crudely.”

Antonia shivered as if a goose had walked over her grave, in spite of the brandy. She had lost all desire to go sailing. Instead she became thoughtful about how dependent women were upon their men. She picked up a book and wandered out to the garden, but it lay in her lap unread as one disturbing thought led to another.

Antonia didn’t even have any money of her own. The new tack would have to come out of Anthony’s allowance. She knew vaguely there was money for her dowry, but suddenly she felt humiliation sweep over her because she was going to have to find a husband to take care of her for the rest of her life.

How pitiful to be dependent upon a father, then passed on to a brother, then a husband. She had better find one before Anthony found himself a wife, or she would find her position intolerable. She would have a roof over her head on sufferance and her status would be no more than that of old spinster aunt to her brother’s children.

Antonia was not a young woman who acquiesced helplessly to a situation. She decided to go up to London and question the family solicitors. She would insist on knowing the amount of her dowry. If she decided against marriage, she wanted to know if she could have the money once she turned eighteen. She would also demand to know if she had been left anything in her father’s will, and if not, why not!

As children they had been treated as equals. Antonia had always assumed because they were twins, that they
were
equals. Now that they were no longer children, the rules of the game had changed. Apparently a male was far more equal than a female.

Because they had never had secrets from one another, Antonia spoke to her brother about her intentions. Anthony showed no inclination to go up to London.

“Find out when that Savage fellow is coming. I’m going to the saddlery at Rochester to buy new harness and tack, so I’ll be in need of money soon.”

Roz and Antonia, accompanied by Mr. Burke, set off for London. The town house had servants aplenty, so they needed no maids, but Burke was indispensable. Roz felt safer traveling with another man besides their driver, Bradshaw.

“This trip to London will do us a world of good. Even though we cannot attend any balls, we can visit with Lady Jersey. Frances will fill us in on all the latest gossip.”

“How did you two come to be friends, Roz?” Antonia wondered out loud.

“Your grandfather, Lord Randolph, was a friend of the Earl of Jersey. I met her for the first time at her wedding, a very grand affair. Though she was a few years younger than I, we became fast friends because we seemed to have so much in common. We are exactly the same size and we both possess an acid tongue. When we attend the same function we are capable of terrorizing the assembly. She’s
also a grandmother now, which proves that age simply sharpens the wit.”

Antonia and Mr. Burke exchanged amused glances. All were unaware that as the carriage gained speed, the large cast-iron nut holding the back wheel in place was gradually working itself loose.

Bradshaw was tooling along at such a rackety speed, Roz braced her feet on the seat opposite to keep her balance. “Bradshaw must think he’s Hellfire Dick!”

Antonia laughed. “Who, pray, is Hellfire Dick?”

“You never heard of him? Oh, Lord, you are such an innocent little rustic, darling. He drives the Cambridge Telegraph coach. He has a great gap between his two front teeth through which he spits with amazing accuracy.”

Antonia narrowed her eyes with skeptical amusement. “I’m not rustic enough to believe all your stories, Roz.”

“Darling, it’s gospel truth. Lord Ackers had his front teeth filed and paid Hellfire Dick fifty guineas to teach him to spit through them. London is chock-a-block with eccentrics. Coach-driving is one of the new ‘passions.’ Even women are dressing like coach-drivers and swearing at the horses, which are now called ‘cattle’ in fashionable circles.”

The carriage began to slow and Bradshaw pulled into the yard of a coaching inn. He jumped down and Mr. Burke opened the carriage door and stepped outside.