You Only Love Twice (28 page)

“Young men have odd notions about music,” said Mrs. Wilde. “They think it’s unmanly—especially with a prizefight so nearby. Poor Hetty chose the wrong date for her party.”

Her brows rose when she saw what Ellie was putting on her plate. “Strawberry ice?” she said. “I thought you hated ices.”

Ellie dimpled. “It’s for Pip,” she said. “I promised him that if he could go for a whole week without saying any swear words, I would reward him. This is his reward.”

Mrs. Wilde smiled as she watched Ellie go off to find her page. Since Pip had joined their household, her ward had become a far happier girl. The smile faded. But not, she had to admit, when Ellie was with Jessica. Ellie was jealous and there was more to it than her schoolgirl infatuation for Lucas. She’d always been the center of attention. Now her nose was out of joint, and she took it out on Jessica.

She blamed herself. She’d been so pleased when Ellie had come to live with them. Lucas no longer needed her;
Ellie had given her a new direction. She’d been the daughter she’d always wanted. She’d spoiled her and it was almost impossible to change the rules on her now.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sir Matthew Paige enter the room. Noting that his head was turned away, she allowed herself one quick, comprehensive glance before looking down at her plate.

She didn’t think there was a man alive who could match him for presence. There never had been and there never would be. He had an air about him, something vital and purposeful that he’d possessed even when he was a young man.

She chose a vacant spot at one end of the long dining table. Without haste, he made his way over to her and took the chair next to hers.

“Smile,” he said, “or people will begin to wonder about us.”

She smiled. “People are already wondering about us, Matt.”

And her most of all. She’d thought they’d settled everything between them, but every time she turned around or looked up, he was there. And their eyes would meet and hold, and her spirits would lift.

Not again. Dear Lord, not again.

He looked up, arrested. “Who, for instance?”

“My daughter-in-law, Jessica. She’s been asking questions about you. So has Ellie. Wherever we go, you are there also. Matt, you must stop singling me out like this. You know nothing can come of it.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” he retorted.

Her heart thundered against her breast, and she gripped her cutlery to stop her fingers trembling. It wasn’t only his words that affected her, but the look he’d given her when he’d said them. Only Matt could seduce a woman with a look.

“Has your son said anything?” he asked briskly.

“No,” she said. “Lucas has said nothing. Why do you ask?”

“I thought he might have warned you off, ordered you to stay away from me.”

“Why would he? He knows there’s no need. We are nothing to each other, Matt. Not now.”

For a while, they ate in silence, then he said in a conversational tone, “Do you ever think about the future, Rodie, and what you have to look forward to?”

She didn’t know how she managed to laugh, but she did. “I live in the present, Matt. I have my family and friends. I don’t have time to think about the future.”

“Your son is married now,” he said. “He doesn’t need you.”

“There’s my ward.”

“I thought Ellie was your son’s ward?”

“She needs a mother.” Another laugh that cost her dearly. “And, God willing, there may be grandchildren soon.”

“And you’re going to devote the rest of your life to your family?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

He shrugged carelessly. “You’ll be living your life on the periphery of theirs. Don’t you want something for yourself?”

“I’m happy as I am. Truly. In fact, many people would say my life is enviable. I have everything I want.”

If she told any more lies, she was sure she would choke on them. Desperate now, she looked for some way of escape. There was none. Ellie was with a party of friends and they were carrying their plates into the next room. No one looked her way, or caught her eye. She had to search to find her poise.

Looking up, she said, “Matt, why don’t you stop fencing with me and tell me what you really want.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. “I want you,” he said simply. “I still love you, you see, and I
think you love me. We’re free to marry now, and that’s what I think we should do.”

His words shocked her, but they also thrilled her. It was a long time before she said anything. “Matt, it’s been fifteen years. Love dies.”

He was looking at his glass of wine. “Mine didn’t. Did yours?”

She couldn’t force the words out. A yearning coiled deep inside her and spread to every cell in her body. He made her wish for things she knew she could never have.

He gave her a searching look and smiled. “I’m not suggesting that you give anything up, Rodie. How can our being together change what you have with your family? I want to give you things, not take them from you. We could tour the Continent, go to Florence, Rome, Paris—all the places we planned to visit when we were younger. Don’t you remember?”

She remembered. Oh God, how she remembered. Sated with passion, they would lie entwined in each other’s arms and make plans for the future. How could they have been so naive?

Her own despair was forgotten when she looked into his eyes, beautiful, sad eyes, crystal blue and very, very fragile. She recognized the same vulnerabilities in him that were in her. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she had to put an end to this.

“It’s not me you love, Matt. It’s the girl I used to be. That girl no longer exists. Look at me. Really look at me.”

She knew what she was talking about. Ever since their conversation at Bella’s ill-fated ball, she’d taken to studying her reflection, naked, before going to bed, and the sight hardly bolstered her confidence. He’d had a string of young, nubile mistresses over the years. And she was old.

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Your beauty hasn’t dimmed,” he said. “It has matured and I find it much more interesting than when you were a girl.”

“Matt, I’m not young anymore.”

“Neither am I.”

“I’m a …”—she hated to say the word—“a dowager, for pity’s sake. I’ve heard the gossip about you and your mistresses, your lightskirts, your
affaires
. You could never be satisfied with me. If you want a companion on your tour, take Madaleina Cartier. I’m not saying this to hurt you. It’s the truth and you know it.”

“And what,” he said, “shall my mistress and I talk about?”

“What?”

“If I take Madaleina to Florence, what shall we talk about?”

She didn’t understand his question and shook her head.

“Rodie, I’m bored out of my mind with the younger generation. We’ve nothing in common, nothing to talk about. And mistresses have no conversation worth mentioning. You and I always had plenty to say to each other.”

A flash of the old Rodie surfaced. She laughed. “That’s not how I remember it.”

He grinned. “That, too.”

Somehow, all the awkwardness between them had slipped away, and she said easily, “We must have been mad not to know that what we did would hurt others.”

“My wife never knew,” he said, “and if she had, she wouldn’t have cared. She didn’t love me, Rodie. Even before she became an invalid, we were estranged. You know all this.”

She looked beyond him for a moment, remembering. That’s what had drawn them together in the first place. They’d been lonely, and feeling sorry for themselves. But he had less to feel guilty about than she, for her husband had always been kind to her, more like a father really.

“You never told me how it was for you,” he said. “I received your note telling me you never wanted to see me again. And that was all. What happened afterward?”

“Does it matter now?”

“It does to me.”

It did to her, too, but it was shattering to go back over old ground. These were the most painful memories of her life.

“What happened,” she said, “was that I came to my senses. I realized that I was wrong in thinking I wasn’t hurting anyone by …” She shook her head, not sure how to complete the sentence.

“Your son,” he said, not without bitterness, “made you choose between him and me.”

“Matt,” she chided gently, “it wasn’t that simple. You were still married. And I had a young son to consider. His welfare meant more to me than anything in the world.”

“And those circumstances no longer apply.” He gave her a moment to think about his words, then he smiled into her troubled eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you, Rodie. I’m going to court you. There’s plenty of time to make up our minds about the future. Let’s not try to overcome obstacles before we come to them.”

When he left her, she felt the lack of his presence as though a light had gone out. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She’d get used to it, as she’d got used to it once before. And she still had a son who meant more to her than anything in the world.

But in her heart, a spark of hope had been ignited.

Jessica saw the signal from her bedroom window. Perry had taken the lantern off the back porch and was waving it back and forth. She held her candle to the window, indicating that she had received his message. She had to wait another five minutes before setting off, to give him time to hail a hackney and have it ready. They had planned this business down to the last detail. Even their clothes were plain and serviceable so as not to attract attention to themselves.

The hackney was waiting for her in St. James’s Place. Around the corner was St. James’s Street where many of
the exclusive gentlemen’s clubs were and, as a precaution, Jessica was wearing a veiled bonnet. Perry opened the coach door, stretched out his hand and hauled her in. Then, sticking his head out the window, he gave the cab driver the directions to Rodney Stone’s rooms in Drury Lane, just off the Strand.

“Did anyone see you leave the house?” he asked.

“No one,” she assured him. “By eleven o’clock, most of the servants are in bed, and I slipped out a side door.”

They lapsed into silence as the hackney turned the corner into Pall Mall, then Perry said, “I hate deceiving Lucas like this. What if he finds out we’ve sneaked off together? Can you imagine what he’ll think?”

With more confidence than she was feeling, she said, “He won’t find out, and if he does, he won’t think anything. I’ll tell him the truth.”

Perry laughed, not very pleasantly. “Oh yes, the truth,” he said. “And I’m sure he’ll believe you. How did I ever let you talk me into this? We’re housebreakers, that’s what we are. Do you know what the authorities do to housebreakers? They transport them to the colonies.”

“So we’ll be careful not to get caught.”

“But what if we
are
caught?”

“Then we’ll tell them that we’re acquainted with Rodney Stone and were worried when none of his friends could tell us where to find him.”

“And so we broke into his house to look for his aunt’s direction?”

She nodded. It was the truth—more or less. Rodney Stone had disappeared without a trace. Perry had done an excellent job of sleuthing and had discovered that Mr. Stone’s London friends thought he was in Brighton and his Brighton friends thought he was in London. If he had disappeared, they said, it was probably because he had got into debt again and was lying low until his aunt bailed him out. But no one had ever met this aunt or could tell Perry where to find her.

She wanted to believe that everything was that simple.

When the hackney turned into Drury Lane, Perry pulled on the string and the coach rolled to a stop. He paid off the cab driver and with a hand on Jessica’s elbow steered her in the direction of Water Street.

“Was it wise to pay off the cab?” she asked.

“This is the theater district,” he answered. “There’ll be plenty of cabs when we’re done.” He halted, and shook his head. “I must be mad. This is just like when we were children. You were always leading me astray.”

Her eyes glinted with merriment. “Was I?” she said.

“Go on and laugh.” His smile took the sting out of his words. “But as I remember, I was the one who got all the beatings.” His tone altered. “Did you bring a tinderbox to light a candle?”

She patted her reticule. “Yes, but I’m not very good with it.”

“Neither am I.”

“Did you bring the jemmy?”

“The what?”

“The crowbar.”

Perry patted his coat. “Right here.”

“Then we’re all set.”

Rodney Stone’s lodgings were on the ground floor. Perry knew his way around, since he’d been there that morning to look the place over. There was a landlady, a Tartar of a woman, he’d told Jessica, who wouldn’t let him in the front door. Her rooms were right above Mr. Stone’s, so they would have to keep very quiet.

Jessica kept watch while Perry used the crowbar to force one of the windows. That was the easy part. The difficult part was once they were inside, getting a flame started in Jessica’s tinderbox so they could light a candle. After several minutes of fruitless striking flint to iron, in sheer desperation, Jessica tried the door to the hallway. There was a light shining under it, so she knew a lantern
or candles were still lit. The door was locked but Perry finally managed to open it with one of Jessica’s hairpins. After making sure no one was there, she took a lighted candle from a wall sconce and returned to Mr. Stone’s rooms. It took only a moment to light the candles on the table, and another moment to replace the candle she had borrowed.

“My respect for housebreakers,” said Perry, “has just gone up by several notches. I don’t know how they do it.”

“Hush,” said Jessica. She was at the window, making sure the curtains were securely drawn.

She pointed to a chair, then to the door, and Perry obediently braced the back of the chair under the door handle. “That ought to stop them for all of two seconds,” he muttered.

“Shh!” said Jessica.

She had her back to the window and was looking around the room. Her first impression was that though it was shabby, it was as neat as a new pin. There was very little furniture—a stuffed armchair by the grate, a small dining table with two chairs, a sideboard, and a bureau desk. There was no means of cooking which meant that Stone dined out a great deal or sent out to the various cook shops in the area and had his dinner sent over. Her second impression was that the place had not been lived in for many weeks. There was a dank, musty odor that cast a pall over everything. She brushed her finger along the table and left a trail like the wake of a ship.