Regency High Society Vol 6: The Enigmatic Rake / The Lord And The Mystery Lady / The Wagering Widow / An Unconventional Widow

But she shook her head. She would not tell him that he was beautiful, far more beautiful that she. But she raised her hand, palm up, held it out as in an offering, even though entirely shocked by her own behaviour. She felt, she decided, like Scheherazade as he sometimes called her, a seductive nymph of paradise, awaiting her lover in some exotic harem from tales of Arabian Nights. Out of character it most certainly was, but this night she felt she could play any part demanded of her. Had she not played a role all evening before the eyes of those who would spurn and condemn? This role would be no more difficult, and to her ultimate delight and satisfaction.

So Sarah waited for her lord to join her, her heart beating so loudly that she was sure he must hear it, but aware only of his magnificent body. And welcomed him when he pushed her back, slid beside her and took her into his arms.

His habitual tenderness, his consideration for her, were still discernible, must always be so, but this night his control was threatened beneath a fierce blooming of raw passion that took him by surprise. Or perhaps it did not, because Sarah, his reserved and distant Sarah, stoked the flames in his body with terrible, miraculous skill. This was the woman he had dreamed of, this the true Sarah, desire smouldering, hidden under the soft and fragile exterior. This was the lover who touched him with slender fingers, returned his kisses eagerly, along his shoulders, the expanse of his chest. Discovering with sure instinct where his pulses leapt with desire, throbbed in desperate need.

And Sarah trembled at her own temerity. Where had this courage come from? Don’t dissemble. Don’t freeze with fear. The thoughts ran through her head. Touch him. He will not reject you, did he not promise? This is Joshua, whom you love to the marrow of your bones. Have you not always dreamed of touching him, longed to feel the strength of him beneath your palms? So firm, so hard, so powerful. So thoughtful a lover.

With deliberate intent at her own urging, her hands drifted over his shoulders and chest, to waist and flat belly. Outlining the powerful flow of muscled thighs. And, with an intake of breath—oh courage! oh glory!—she curled her fingers around his strong erection.

Joshua groaned, turned his face into her hair, his blood engulfed with fire at the unexpected from this reticent lady. His breath shuddered in his lungs as he clung to sanity. Or were the shudders from Sarah? He could no longer separate the two.

‘Shall I stop?’ she whispered against his throat, instantly unsure.

‘No. No.’ He suppressed another groan. ‘I can think of no better way to die.’

‘Are you thinking of death?’ The tremor of a laugh shivered against his flesh.

‘Never death!’

So she stroked with a gurgle of delight and a thrill at his immediate response beneath her hand. But now he carried Sarah with him, for her into unchartered territory. And she joined him, answered every demand, returned every caress. How hot his skin, how demanding his hands and mouth, how incredible that she should feel like this. Then she forgot to think any more, aware only of the ripples of intense sensation that he awoke and stirred into flame everywhere he touched. Aware only of her own need to offer and give, to arch and entwine as he took over every sense in her body. Confidence swam through her veins like the most intoxicating of red wine. Until the heat scorched her, wrecked her breathing, blinded her to everything but this room, this bed, this man.

Whilst her lord used every vestige of self-control to force himself to be gentle. Force himself to move slowly, carefully. His instinct was to possess, to ravish, now when the hunger surged though his blood. Ravish as he had once promised that he would not. So he set himself to hold back, to entice and persuade, but it was a difficult task indeed when faced with her complete surrender, her generous response, her deliberate provocation.

Be patient. Give her time. Let her come to you. Let her dictate the pace.

But he burned and the needs that crawled through him became almost too great to deny. Yet he would pleasure her, raise her to such heights that she could not resist, could not deny her own needs. With assurance and skill of hands and mouth, lips and tongue, he waged his campaign with fierce dedication. No, Sarah was not mildly compliant tonight. He doubted, in one moment of heart-stopping clarity, that she would ever be so again.

Joshua pressed his lips in open-mouthed caress along the shallow valley between her breasts, diverted with sly ease to tease her nipples. Refusing to halt when she drew in her breath and stiffened beneath the onslaught of his mouth. Pushed on the assault when she sighed his name against his throat and melted in his arms. Lovely. Impossibly lovely. Soft as silk. A little murmur of delight when his fingers brushed low, lower yet to touch, slide and discover, taking for his own her most intimate secrets. Her thighs parted willingly, hips arched now in blatant invitation. Hot and wet, satin-soft, compromising his banked desire. When she pressed against the heel of his hand in convulsive response, his control came close to destruction.

Yet still, as he knew she would, she resisted the demands of her own body, afraid of the flames which grew and leapt and threatened to consume.

‘Do you trust me?’ He stilled his hand.

‘Yes.’ The merest sigh.

‘Then don’t think. Just feel. Let your mind go.’

Aware that the pressure was building within her from the shivers that ran along her limbs in his embrace, the thud of her heart beneath his lips, he harnessed all his own needs to capture her mouth in a kiss of blazing desire, pushing her to the very edge, to give her that ultimate release. Until she struggled against his body and would have pushed him away in a sudden moment of panic and fear of the unknown.

‘No.’ He gentled his hold, but would not retreat. ‘Take what I can give you.’

He drove her on, ruthless now with determination to give her that intimate experience of her own body, until she cried out, sharp, shocked. He crushed his lips to hers to swallow her cries as she shivered uncontrollably against him, clung to him with gasps of astonished pleasure. Exactly as he had hoped. And triumph swamped his veins in a floodtide, as she quivered from the aftershock, face buried against his chest.

‘Look at me.’

Sarah saw herself in his eyes, dark with passion, unfathomable as the waters of a bottomless lake, as he wiped the spangle of tears from her cheeks, tears that she had not been aware of shedding. ‘I want to see you when I slip inside you. And you to see me. There is no danger here for you, darling Sarah.’ He watched her, at that moment completely enslaved, yet unaware of the endearment.

‘Yes.’ As was she. She raised a hand that trembled to his lips. ‘Now.’ It was so simple a word, and all the invitation he needed.

‘It must be so. For you are too alluring to resist any longer.’

With sure and elegant strength he moved to pin her body with his own and thrust hard and deep. Held himself there to prolong the pleasure for her, for himself. So intimate an invasion that enclosed him, filled her, overturning the mind of both except for their joy in each other. Slick skin against slick skin, her legs entangled with his, his body owning hers. She watched him, eyes caught and held, emotions naked to his gaze. For a moment he thought that she might have more than an affection for him. Then the fleeting shadow was gone. Hunger and desire, potent and dark, swept over him as Sarah bit her lip to prevent her expressing her love in words that might still return to haunt her. But now she could show him in other ways. So he began to move within her and she mirrored the thrust with innate delight. Until he pushed them both to that precipitate edge. To fly and fall, taking her with him, feeling her shudder again as his own control shattered.

‘What was that?’ Still pinned beneath him, Sarah could only glory in his power and weight. It seemed to her that any sensible thoughts she might have were still scattered through the heavens, as her limbs were heavy with splendidly overwhelming exhaustion. It was outside anything in her experience. She did not think that her heart would ever again settle into its old pattern.

Joshua raised his head, lifted his weight on his arm, brushed back the fall of hair from her face so that he could kiss her lips with exquisite tenderness. A tenderness that made her heart tremble.

‘A miracle, I think. A miracle.’

‘Yes. So I think.’ And after a little pause: ‘I do not know what came over me, Joshua.’

‘Thank God for it.’ She caught the glint of his smile in the moon’s brightness. The candle had long since burned out. And she sighed in an unexpected and strangely moving happiness.

Joshua felt her smile against his shoulder, and his heart rejoiced. She trusted him. He could ask for nothing more. Because, as he slid into sleep with her, it mattered more than anything other in his previously selfish and wilful life that she did.

* * *

‘My Lord Faringdon. I did not expect to see you here.’ Wycliffe rose from his seat in his unremarkable office in the City, his face set in deep lines of disapproval. Nothing in the austere surroundings, in the inconspicuous building off Fleet Street, would point to the importance of this man to national security.

Lord Faringdon was not in a mood to be impressed by the standing of his host or his efforts to remain invisible. ‘I am sure you did not.’ He bowed with controlled grace.

‘Perhaps it would have been better, my lord, if you had not sought to draw attention to yourself or to me.’

‘So you might think, sir. On this occasion, I do not.’

If Wycliffe was critical, his lordship was icily correct.

‘You look in the best of health again, my lord. I trust your bones have knit well.’ For a compassionate enquiry, it was delivered in a distinctly unfriendly tone.

‘Yes.’

‘If I might be permitted to say—’ the two men still faced each other, standing, across Wycliffe’s desk ‘—you should not have found it necessary to make contact with me other than by discreet channels. You must be well aware of this, my lord.’ Wycliffe’s lips thinned with displeasure.

‘I understand you perfectly, sir.’ Joshua’s jaw was rigid with suppressed anger. ‘In fact, I wrote you a letter—but decided to come in person, so that I might express myself more effectively. And be assured that you did not simply consign my complaint to your fire-grate and continue to issue instructions against the well-being of my wife.’

‘So it is a matter of some importance?’ Wycliffe’s voice rose sufficiently as to make it just a question. His hard eyes expressed no acceptance, but they failed to intimidate.

‘I find it so. My wife is being followed by an individual who looks suspiciously like Felton. I wager that it is your doing. Felton was always a favoured employee of yours in such surveillance work.’

‘Of course. Felton is very good.’ There was no guilt here.

‘May I ask why?’ Lord Faringdon remained remarkably calm when faced with this clear admission of Wycliffe’s involvement.

‘We were not informed of your intention to marry again.’

‘I was not aware that I must inform you on a matter of so intimate a nature.’

‘Of course you should have informed us. Your previous marriage was a disaster of the first order.’ There was an edge to Wycliffe’s patience. ‘We learned a hard lesson with Marianne de Colville. It could have destroyed our whole espionage network, here and in France. It was pure chance that one of her letters was intercepted before any further damage could be inflicted. I would not wish for history to repeat itself with the lady who is now Lady Faringdon. It surprises me, my lord, that you need to ask or question the matter of my… my concern.’

‘Damnation, Wycliffe! Of course I need to—’ He drew in a breath. ‘Sarah is not Marianne. She is nothing like Marianne! There is no similarity in the situation.’

‘Perhaps not—on the surface. But how well do you know the lady? Do you trust her—absolutely and implicitly? It is my understanding that you have not had a long acquaintance. She has lived in New York. Why did she suddenly return to England? Have you ever considered that she might be in the pay of some foreign interest and saw marriage to you as the perfect entrée into government circles? America is not totally disinterested in European events.’

‘What? Sarah a spy?’ Joshua laughed in harsh incredulity. ‘It takes my breath away that you should even consider it. How can you suggest something so patently ridiculous?’

‘Mrs Russell…Lady Faringdon…spent some considerable time in New York. You cannot possibly know what her contacts were there.’

‘My wife went to New York to accompany Eleanor, widow of my cousin Thomas. She remained there with her and my cousin Henry.’ There was now a dangerous calm in Lord Faringdon’s reply.

‘And your cousin, Henry Faringdon, my lord, is well known to have republican leanings. He would have no reason to love the British monarchy—or any attempt on our part to support the democratic monarchies in Europe. He is not above suspicion.’

Joshua’s brows snapped together, all pretence at equanimity abandoned. ‘My cousin might respect republican views, but Henry is hardly likely to be involved in a plot.’

Wycliffe made no reply, but cynicism deepened the lines engraved around his mouth.

‘My wife,’ Lord Joshua continued, ‘is sister to Theodora Wooton-Devereux. Daughter of Sir Hector, who has been British Ambassador to Paris as well as Constantinople and any variety of such places. At present he is in St Petersburg. You must have some acquaintance with him. Hardly the background for an enemy spy.’

Wycliffe was implacable. ‘But your wife was not brought up with her sister, was she? The Wooton-Devereux interest would have no influence whatsoever on your wife’s sympathies.’

‘You have been very busy, sir.’ Joshua suddenly found it very difficult to prevent his hands from curling into fists, and making use of them against this man who could so calmly accuse his wife of such devious plotting. He gripped hard on the reins of temper. ‘You are remarkably well informed of me and my family.’

‘It pays to be so.’

‘I find, sir, that I resent it more than I could have believed possible. It is insulting to a lady of supreme honesty and integrity. If you knew my wife, we would not be having this conversation.’

But Wycliffe remained unmoved in the face of such anger. ‘There are no guarantees in this profession, my lord, as you are aware.’

‘My wife is no spy.’ All Joshua could do was resort to denial of a situation so outrageous as to be unthinkable.

‘It is not beyond the realms of possibility! Sit down, my lord. Sit down.’ Wycliffe waved towards a chair as he himself took his seat behind his desk. ‘Nothing is to be gained by us facing each other in this manner.’

Joshua sat, but was in no way mollified. ‘What right do you have to set one of your minions to follow my wife whenever she sets foot outside the house, and to loiter outside my London address?’

‘I have every right, as you well know if you will consider the matter calmly. My duty is to British security. You are, have been and will be again an important link within my information network. Your recent marriage was very—ah, precipitous—and the lady is unknown to us. Given your connections to myself, you should not have entered into this marriage without my knowledge.’

The air between them remained positively charged with hostility. It was clearly a stand-off. Lord Faringdon continued to fix his employer with a narrowed stare as he diverted to the other problematic issue. ‘I suppose you have not heard the rumours. Unless Felton has also seen fit to feed you the vicious content of London gossip.’

A bland look was the only response he got.

‘A nasty little rumour. Started, I wager, by Olivia Wexford out of a fit of pique when I dispensed with her… her services, shall we say. Another one of your ideas, to disguise the reason for my return to England and paint my character a particular shade of grey, if not midnight black! Another one of your plot-tings that has landed me in serious difficulties. Olivia threatened to get even.’ His laugh was without humour. ‘She is a lady of considerable, although dubious, talent. I can safely say that she has achieved her ambition.’

‘I know little of such matters. I do not move in the same exalted circles as you, my lord.’ Wycliffe watched his noble employee with keen eyes. They were beginning to walk on dangerous waters here.

‘Don’t tell me that you have no knowledge of the accusations—I would not believe it! Your ear is always close to the ground. Olivia has confided to the Polite World that I murdered Marianne in a crime of passion. The whole town is discussing the methods I might have used before consigning her body to some secret grave in the forests around Versailles. My wife now looks at me askance—she thinks that I am having her followed with the prime motive of having her done away with.’

Barely visible, Wycliffe’s whole body had stiffened. ‘You will not comment publicly on such matters. I do not want the Marianne affair to be discussed.’

‘No. I will not.’ The reply was sharp, immediate. ‘But the accusations do not sit well with me.’

‘The rumours are not our problem.’ Wycliffe shrugged. ‘They will soon die a death when a new scandal breaks.’

‘Perhaps. But you are not blameless in the whole unfortunate episode.’

Wycliffe hesitated. ‘Your marriage to Marianne was a terrible mistake.’ It was the only admission that Mr Wycliffe would make.

‘That may be so, but why should I have to continue to pay the price?’

Wycliffe swept the papers on his desk together with a wide gesture of impatience at the direction of the whole conversation. He tried for a softer approach, unwilling to antagonise one of his most gifted informants any further than he had already achieved. He would try for a deflection. ‘Do you want my advice, Joshua?’

‘Advice, is it? Or a demand?’ There was no softening here.

‘Whichever way you wish to see it! You are fit again. Go back to Paris for us. We need information.’

‘So you wish to make use of my talents again. You amaze me. I thought my cover had been effectively infiltrated and I was of no further value in that area. That The Chameleon had outlived his usefulness.’ The arrogance should have warned Wycliffe that his lordship was not to be won over.

‘Perhaps—but I think you still have much to offer. You have innumerable valuable contacts in Paris and at the Bourbon Court. You will be made welcome, invited everywhere. It will not be difficult for you to listen and report back. We need you, Joshua. I never foresee a time when The Chameleon has no value to my plans.’ The gentleman leaned forward, all persuasion. ‘We could be facing a major crisis here.’

‘Listen to what? Still the plot to restore Napoleon—unless he dies first?’ Lord Faringdon’s lip curled. ‘I cannot see there is much of a realistic threat there. The Emperor was fading by the day, as I last heard. The Bonapartists will have to accept failure without any intervention from us.’

‘I agree. But we have received warning, the merest whisper, of a planned assassination. Against whom we are unsure. Or when. Or even the perpetrators. Yet the whispers continue. If it is against one of the royal family, it would not be in our interests. Think of the upheaval if it was a success, encouraging all the dissonant groups to rise against the Bourbons. Their popularity is on shaky ground as it is and they are hardly blessed with a handful of heirs to secure the throne into the future. After Louis XVIII, his brother Charles and his nephew, the Bourbon line stops. An assassination could be highly damaging to stability in France. We need to know more, Joshua. And prevent it coming to fruition, of course.’

‘I see.’

‘We need information that you would be in the perfect position to obtain with an entrée to all the best houses.’ A sly smile coloured Wycliffe’s face. ‘It could also be in your own interests, my lord.’

A raised brow.

‘If you go to Paris, you will escape all the gossip here. When you return,’ Wycliffe snapped his fingers, ‘it will all have dissipated and the haut ton will have forgotten Marianne.’

‘And my wife? What are your plans for her?’

‘Leave her in London. We will continue our surveillance of her until we are certain that she is uninvolved—or until we have proof that she is in the pay of others.’

‘And if I object?’

‘Where government security and policies are concerned you have no right to object. You do not know Sarah Russell. You do not know that you can trust her. We need you and your expertise in Paris.’

He did not like Wycliffe’s reply, but was forced to acknowledge the truth of the man’s assessment of French politics. Even as he damned the man’s callous disregard for any matter other than national security.

‘And the Countess of Wexford?’ he asked. ‘What are your plans for her?’

‘She is not your concern. Forget her. Will you go to Paris?’

‘I will consider it.’

‘Do so quickly, my lord. It is approaching the time of Carnival in Paris. When all the world and his wife celebrates.’ Wycliffe sniffed in distaste of such excess and the openings it provided for those who would destroy the restored government. ‘What better opportunity to carry out a coup d’état against the royal family when no one is prepared to consider anything other than his own pleasure?’

Lord Joshua Faringdon made no response, but slammed out of the room, no more satisfied with the situation than when he had entered the premises half an hour previously.

‘Going somewhere?’ Lord Nicholas Faringdon refused the services of Millington and announced himself in Hanover Square that same afternoon. He found Joshua in the library, folding documents into a well-worn leather case.

‘To Paris.’ Joshua barely looked up, but Nicholas could see the hard-held temper on his face, in every line of his body. Every movement was an essay in simmering fury. A brief, authoritative note from Wycliffe had followed hard on his earlier visit to and conversation with that gentleman, delivered by hand. Lord Faringdon was expected in Paris within the week and should make contact with Sir Charles Stuart, British Ambassador to the Bourbon Court. Further instructions would follow. Thus Lord Faringdon was not in a mellow frame of mind.

‘Oh.’ In no way put out, intimately acquainted with his cousin’s moods, Nicholas helped himself to a glass of brandy and cast himself into a chair to await repercussions. ‘A sudden decision?’

‘Yes.’

Nicholas crossed one booted leg over the other, a study in patience. ‘Is this in the way of a rout by overwhelming odds?’ he enquired, knowing that the outcome might be similar to that of applying a match to a trail of gunpowder.

‘No.’

‘So?’

‘If you must know—’ the leather satchel was flung onto the desk with little vestige of control ‘—it is a tactical retreat before superior forces.’

Silence.

Until Joshua faced his cousin, hands fisted on hips. ‘What is your next question? Are you perhaps going to ask me if I murdered my wife?’ he snarled. ‘You have been remarkably restrained with regard to the fraught topic of Marianne.’ It had been a long and frustrating day. He had not enjoyed the confrontation with Wycliffe or its outcome.

‘I have, haven’t I? But it was not my intent. Not unless I wanted a sharp left to the jaw.’ Nicholas raised his brows, waited a heartbeat. ‘But since you broached the issue… Did you? The gossips sound very sure.’

‘No. I did not.’ Joshua’s face was cold and bleak, in contrast to his eyes, which blazed with molten fire.

‘So where did the tale arise?’

‘A slighted woman, is my guess.’ He flung himself into a chair and picked up the glass that Nicholas had thoughtfully poured for him.