Wicked Intentions 1 (24 page)

“That is, of course,” Mickey murmured like the devil himself, “if you
truly
love your husband.”

William was everything in the world to her. There was nothing she would not do to save him.

Silence looked the devil in the eye and lifted her chin. “I do.”

Chapter Eleven

Meg spent the rest of the day contentedly washing her person so that when she went to sleep that evening, she felt considerably neater. The next morning she was brought before King Lockedheart. He looked a bit surprised when he saw her—perhaps he did not recognize her without her layer of soot?—but his habitual scowl soon returned. In front of him stood a great company of courtiers, clad in rich furs, velvet, and jewels.

He asked the assembled dignitaries, “Do you love me?”

Well, the courtiers did not speak in one voice as the trained guards had the day before, but their answers were the same: yes!

The king sneered at Meg. “There! Confess now your foolishness.”…

—from
King Lockedheart

“Then you mean to see him again?” Winter asked quietly that night.

“Yes, I do.” Temperance finished braiding Mary Little’s fine flaxen hair and smiled down at the girl. “There, all done. Now off to bed with you.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Mary Little curtsied as she’d been taught and skipped out of the kitchen. Later, when all the children were settled in their beds, Winter would come up to hear their prayers.

“Now you, Mary Church.” The girl turned her back and Temperance took up the brush, concentrating on taming the thick, brown curls without pulling too much.

The remaining three Marys sat before the fire in their chemises, their hair drying as they bent their heads over their samplers. Bath day was always quite a chore, but Temperance enjoyed it nonetheless. There was something wonderfully soothing about all the children being clean and neat at once.

Or at least this time
should
be soothing.

She sighed. “I need to go tonight.”

All the girls could hear their argument, even though both she and Winter took pains to keep their voices even and polite, but the main child she worried over was Mary Whitsun. That Mary sat beside her, combing out the curls of two-year-old Mary Sweet. Mary Whitsun kept her eyes on her task, but she had a frown between her brows.

Temperance sighed. Pity she couldn’t have this discussion in private, but if she was going to attend the ball Caire had promised to take her to tonight, she would have to get the children safely to bed and then rush to dress in Nell’s lent gown. She wished it were merely for the home that she looked forward to the evening. Already her heartbeat had quickened at the thought of seeing Caire again. She
glanced worriedly at the old clock on the mantel. She’d be cutting things perilously close as it was.

“I’m sorry, but I hope to see a certain gentleman tonight.”

Winter turned from staring into the fireplace. “Who?”

Temperance frowned over a tangle in Mary Church’s hair. “He’s a gentleman Caire introduced me to at the musicale, Sir Henry Easton. He seemed quite interested in our home—he asked me about apprenticing out the boys and the clothing we provide. Things like that. I’m hoping to convince him to help the home.”

Winter glanced at the girls, all avidly listening. “Indeed? And what assurance do you have that he’ll do as you hope?”

“None.” Temperance pulled overhard on Mary Church’s hair and the girl yelped. “I’m sorry, Mary Church.”

“Temperance—” Winter began.

But she spoke, quick and low. “I have no assurances, but I must go nonetheless. Can’t you see that, brother? I must at least grasp at possibilities, even if they prove to be false hopes.”

Winter’s thin lips compressed. “Very well. But be sure to stay by Lord Caire’s side. I dislike the thought of you at one of these aristocratic balls. I’ve heard”—he glanced at the girls and appeared to modify his words—“about events that can take place at such balls. Be careful, please.”

“Of course.” Temperance smiled at Winter and then transferred the smile to Mary Church. “All done.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Mary Church took Mary Sweet’s hand, for the toddler was properly braided as well, and led her from the kitchen.

“Well, then, only three little heads and six little braids to go.” Winter smiled at the remaining girls by the fire.

They giggled at him. While Winter was always gentle, he didn’t often speak in such light tones.

“I’ll go up and begin reading the Psalm for the night,” Winter said.

Temperance nodded. “Good night.”

She felt his hand, briefly laid on her shoulder as he passed, and then she breathed a sigh of relief. She hated his disapproval more than that of her other brothers. Winter was the brother closest to her in age, and they’d become closer still by running the home together.

She shook her head and quickly finished braiding the other little girls’ hair and sent each on their way until only Mary Whitsun remained. It was something of a ritual between the two of them that Mary Whitsun was the last to have her hair braided at night. Neither spoke as she worked the comb through the girl’s hair, and it occurred to Temperance that she’d been doing this for nine years—since Mary had come to the home. Soon they’d find an apprenticeship for Mary, though, and their nights together by the fire as she braided the girl’s hair would be over.

Temperance’s breast ached at the thought.

She was tying a bit of ribbon to Mary’s braid when a knocking came at the front door.

Temperance rose. “Who can that be?” It was still too early for Lord Caire.

She hurried to the door, Mary Whitsun at her heels, and unbarred it. On the step was a liveried footman, holding a large covered basket.

“For you, miss,” he said, and thrust it into her hands before turning away.

“Wait!” Temperance called. “What is this for?”

The footman was already several yards away. He half turned. “My lord says you’re to wear it tonight.”

And then he was gone.

Temperance closed and barred the door, and then took the basket into the kitchen. She set it on the table and pulled back the plain linen covering it. Underneath was a bright turquoise silk gown embroidered with delicate posies of yellow, crimson, and black. Temperance drew in her breath. The gown made Nell’s wonderful scarlet dress look like a sack in comparison. Underneath the gown were fine silk stays, a chemise, stockings, and embroidered slippers. Nestled in the silk was a small jeweler’s box. Temperance picked it up with trembling fingers, not daring to open it yet. Surely she couldn’t accept such a gift? But, then, if she was going to a grand ball with Lord Caire, she didn’t want to shame him with the modesty of her toilet.

That decided her.

She turned to Mary Whitsun, wide-eyed beside her. “Fetch Nell, please. I need to dress for a ball.”

L
AZARUS FELT THE
hackles rise on the back of his neck when he entered the ballroom that night with Temperance on his arm. She was magnificent in the turquoise gown he’d sent to her. Her dark hair was piled atop her head and held with the light yellow topaz pins he’d included in the basket. Her breasts pressed against the shimmering silk bodice, mounded and tempting. She was beautiful and desirable, and every man in the room took note. And he was damnably aware of the other men taking note. He actually felt a growl building at the back of his throat, as
if he’d stand guard over her like some mangy dog over a scrap.

What a fool he was.

“Shall we?” he murmured to her.

He could see the movement of her throat as she swallowed nervously. “Yes. Please.”

He nodded and began their perambulation through the overdecorated room. Temperance’s quarry was by the far windows, but it wouldn’t do to approach too eagerly.

Every notable presently residing in London was here, including, inevitably, his own mother. The Countess of Stanwicke was known for extravagant balls, and she’d outdone herself tonight. A platoon of footmen, attired in orange and black livery, attended the gathering, each attesting to the money needed for both their gaudy clothes and their time. Hothouse flowers were mounded on every surface, already wilting in the heat of the ballroom. The scent of dying roses and lilies mingled with that of burning wax, sweating bodies, and perfume, the whole both nauseating and heady.

“I intend to return this gown to you after tonight,” Temperance said, taking up the argument that had begun in the carriage ride here.

“And I’ve already told you I’ll simply have it burned if you do,” he replied smoothly, baring his teeth to a gentleman staring at her bosom. None of them would have ever noticed her in her usual drab black gowns. He was a fool for taking her out of her obscurity and bringing her into contact with these overdressed wolves. “I must confess my disappointment in your waste, Mrs. Dews.”

“You are an impossible man,” she hissed under her breath while smiling at a passing matron.

“I may be impossible, but I’ve gained you entry into the most fashionable ball of the season.”

There was a short silence as he guided her around a pack of elderly ladies in far too much rouge.

Then she said softly, “So you have and I thank you.”

He glanced swiftly sideways at her. Her cheeks were pink, but the color was not from any rouge pot. “You have no need to thank me. I’m merely fulfilling the bargain we made.”

She looked at him, her gilded eyes mysterious and far too wise. “You’ve done more than that for me. You’ve given me this beautiful gown, the hairpins, slippers, and stays. Why shouldn’t I thank you for all that?”

“Because I’ve brought you into this den of wolves.”

He felt more than saw her startled glance. “You make a ball sound overly dangerous, even for one as inexperienced as I.”

He snorted. “In many ways, this company is as dangerous as the people we’ve met on the streets of St. Giles.”

She looked at him skeptically.

“Over there”—he tilted his chin discreetly—“is a gentleman—I use the word in only its social sense—who has killed two men in duels in the last year. Beside him is a decorated general. He lost most of his men in a vain and stupid charge. It’s rumored that our hostess once beat a maid so badly she had to pay the woman over a thousand pounds to hush up the matter.”

He glanced down at Mrs. Dews, expecting shock, but she stared back, her expression open and frank and a little sad. “You’re merely proving that money and privilege do not go hand in hand with good sense or virtue. That, I think, I already knew.”

He bowed, feeling heat stealing up his cheeks. “Forgive me for boring you.”

“You never bore me as well you know, my lord,” she replied. “I only wish to point out that while money can’t buy those things, it can buy food for the stomach and clothes for the body.”

“So you think the people here are happier than those in St. Giles?”

“They should be.” She shrugged. “Being hungry or cold does terrible things for the temperament.”

“And yet,” he mused, “are the wealthy here any happier than a poor beggar on the street?”

She looked at him with disbelief.

He smiled down at her. “Truly. I think a man may find happiness—or discontent—no matter if he has a full belly or not.”

“If that is true, it is very sad,” she said. “They should be happier with all their needs fulfilled.”

He shook his head. “Man is a fickle, ungrateful creature, I fear.”

She smiled at that—finally! “I don’t think I can understand the people from your class.”

“Best not to,” he said lightly.

“You, for instance,” she murmured. “I’m not sure you have any more need of me in St. Giles, but you take me with you still. Why?”

He looked ahead of them, examining the crowd, watching the other men watching her. “Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you?”

She hesitated, and though he didn’t look at her, he was aware of her every movement. Of her restless fingers
tracing the neckline of her bodice, of her pulse fluttering at her throat, of the moment she parted her lips again.

He leaned closer to her and repeated low, “Don’t you?”

She inhaled. “At Mrs. Whiteside’s house, you made me watch…”

“Yes?” They were in a damnably crowded room, the press of bodies almost suffocating. Yet at the same time he felt as if they existed in a closed glass sphere of their own.

“Why?” she asked urgently. “Why did you make me watch? Why me?”

“Because,” he murmured, “you draw me. Because you are kind but not soft. Because when you touch me, the pain is bittersweet. Because you cradle a desperate secret to your bosom, like a viper in your arms, and don’t let go of it even as it gnaws upon your very flesh. I want to pry that viper from your arms. To suckle upon your torn and bloody flesh. To take your pain within myself and make it mine.”

She trembled beside him; he could feel the quivers through the arm she kept on him. “I have no secret.”

He bent and whispered against her hair, “Sweet, darling liar.”