Infamous

She was attempting to ignore them by mentally coppicing the hedgerows around Wall, since she was quite sure the hired men were not doing so in her absence. She had rounded the horse pasture, had gotten past the stream and nearly to the stone fence when someone entered the room who caused every head to turn.

She hoped desperately that it was Bennet and she could at least exchange a bored smile with him. But the man wore a scarlet coat, and for a moment Rose’s eyes blurred with shock. It was Axelrod Barton.

Rose tried to shrink even farther into the plant’s embrace. She would wait for Foy’s attention to be diverted and slip toward the refreshment salon. Surely it had a door into the hall and she would be able to make her escape. But Axel surveyed the room like a hunter picking out his prey, his fair head thrown up arrogantly, his brown eyes slicing through the crowd, his tanned hand gripping the hilt of his dress saber. Rose felt his speculative gaze come to rest upon her. Perhaps he would not recognize her after five years. She had changed much more than he. She tried to avert her eyes, but it was as though he compelled her to look at him. When she did meet his gaze he nodded and ran the back of his hand along the faint scar on his jaw.

Rose covered her hand. The ring that had made that scar was no longer there, but it felt as though it was. She had thrown that mark of his possession back in his face. She reminded herself that she was free of Axel, that he could do nothing to hurt her, but she knew that was not true.

She sent him in return a cold, challenging look and he came to her with his wicked lip-curling smile. It was the nicest thing about him.

“You remember me,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it possessively.

“I could scarcely forget you.”

“You nearly did for me. You and that ring and that stallion of yours. I tell you, Rosie, never in all my years in the Peninsula have I seen the like of your efficiency at mayhem.”

“Must you go on about it?” Rose asked, looking distractedly at the attention they were drawing.

“What? Have I offended your maidenly sensibilities?”

“At one time or another you have offended all my sensibilities.”

“Dance with me. I think it would be so much more amusing to argue with you while you are concentrating on your steps.”

“I am not dancing,” she said firmly, daring him to dislodge her from the palm tree.

“Never say you don’t remember how, for I recall quite distinctly the dancing at our engagement party.”

“Of course I remember how. I simply am not dancing tonight.”

“Why not tonight?” he demanded, compelling her to rise to her feet so as not to have a tug-of-war with him over her hand.

“Don’t be so stupid, Axel. If I dance now they will think I have been wanting to dance all evening.”

“And haven’t you?” he asked with a laugh.

“Yes, of course, but I don’t want to let them know that,” Rose said, nodding toward the Varner women.

“But—no! This is all too complex for me. You will dance,” he said, placing an arm forcibly about her waist when the players obligingly struck up a waltz. “You owe me that much.”

As Axel whirled her down the floor Rose caught a glimpse of Harriet’s flushed and angry face, and an almost jealous look from Cassie. Certainly Mrs. Varner knew the man who was pursuing her daughter was waltzing passionately with his former fiancée. She whispered something to Lady Catherine just as they danced past. Lady Catherine’s face looked as though it had been cut in stone, for all the expression it bore.

“You have grown even more lovely with the years,” Axel said in his caressing way.

“Fustian.”

“A lady would return the compliment. Do you not still find me handsome?”

Rose glanced up at him and had to admit that she did not. “I find you dissipated.”

“Then I have achieved my aim.”

“If looking dissolute were a worthwhile object.” Rose turned her face away, desperately searching for Stanley, or Alice’s petal-pink gown.

“But women love it.” He bent to whisper in her ear. “The more scarred and disheveled I am, the more I have to fend them off.” His sun-bleached blond hair fell mockingly over his brow from its central part.

“Not all women,” Rose corrected, trying to push herself back from his embrace without tripping. “At least one woman sees you for what you are.”

“And what is that?”

“A spoiled, selfish blackguard—”

“Yes, of course.”

“You’re impossible,” she whispered viciously.

“I give you impossible. What else?”

“And dangerous.”

He gripped her even tighter. “Most certainly. I commend you on your excellent reading of my character. Though I think you should have mentioned what a fine dancer I am.”

“I had no intention of complimenting you, sir. I think very ill of you. And do not smolder, Axel. It makes you look childish.”

This last remark seemed to shake his poise. “I am a dangerous man,” he warned.

“I know that,” Rose said, fixing him with her angry green eyes.

“Then why do you not act like other women?”

“Seek you out, you mean? Common sense. A coiled snake has a certain fall-from-grace fascination about it,” she said with disgust. “That does not mean I would stretch out my hand to pet it.”

“You are piercing my hand with your nails,” Axel complained.

“I will draw blood in a moment if you do not put some space between us.”

“Any other woman in the room would be enjoying herself. They are all watching you.”

“I am well aware of that I detest being the object of so much scrutiny.”

“I can take care of that.” Axel spun her into the hallway and dragged her toward the only closed door. It turned out to be the library.

“This is the outside of enough,” Rose complained as Axel kicked the door shut and turned her wrist around behind her back to hold her close to him. “Release me or you will regret it.”

“I don’t think so,” Axel said as he captured her mouth in a hungry kiss.

But Rose had one arm free and that was enough. She drew back and punched him in the throat as hard as she could manage. Axel went to his knees, gasping for air.

The door opened and Bennet appeared, seeming startled to see a guest of his in difficulty. “Are you—Axel, what happened?”

“He cannot talk now. He is choking,” Rose informed Bennet, as though it were an everyday event.

“I can see that. Perhaps we should get him some water,” Bennet said, searching the glasses and decanters on the side table.

“Oh no, let’s not. I mean, it’s only Axel. He’ll be fine.”

“Brandy!” Axel gasped, staggering to his feet and supporting himself with a hand on the edge of the desk.

“See,” Rose replied.

“Still,” Bennet said, repressing a chuckle, “I think I should do something. Can’t have him expiring in the library.”

“Oh, very well,” Rose agreed. “I will get some.” She exited in no particular hurry.

Axel gulped from the glass Bennet put in his hands and had a renewed fit of coughing that lasted several minutes.

“Well, perhaps brandy wasn’t the best choice,” Bennet decided. “What happened?”

“She punched me in the throat,” Axel complained hoarsely.

“No! Really?” Bennet bit his lips to keep from laughing outright.

“Yes, ow!” Axel was still feeling the injured area.

“Dangerous woman,” Bennet observed sympatheti-cally. “Shall I call my carriage to take you home?”

“Devil take you, Varner!”

“He probably will, and you as well,” Bennet said, refilling Axel’s glass and pouring some wine for himself.

“See that this doesn’t get about”

“Would a host gossip about his guests? Besides, I do not even know the lady.”

“Just see to it. And I want a word with you later,” Axel said menacingly as he left the room.

“As soon as you feel up to it.” Bennet sat down at his desk and laughed at the thought of Rose fending off Axel so efficiently. But then, she knew Foy. He had to keep reminding himself of that. The two of them probably knew each other better than he knew either one of them, and that was a sobering thought.

Where the hell was Walters? He wanted to know what was going on. He went to the small side door and unlocked it. Opening it, he stared down the dark back stair that came out in the stable block, but there was no unusual activity so he closed it.

Music flowed into the room as the hall door opened and Rose spun in. “I could not find any water. Will champagne do? Oh, he is gone.”

“You do not seem much bereft.”

“I am not, actually. Had he still been here I might have felt compelled to apologize.” Rose fingered her injured arm.

“To Foy? No, my dear. I feel sure he had it coming. Did he bruise your wrist?” Bennet came to take the glass from her and put it on the desk.

“Probably, but I wear gloves most everywhere.”

“I am sorry, Rose,” he said, keeping hold of her hand. “If only I had not been detained.”

“Oh, do not regard it. Axel and I always clash. I only hope I have not distressed Harriet.”

“How could that be so?”

“She saw Axel dancing with me.”

“She will get over it.”

Rose sighed. “What... what did he say about me?”

“That you are a dangerous woman. But I had already surmised that.”

“My antagonism toward Axel is of long standing, but I do not know why he thought he could get away with dragging me in here.”

The smile suddenly left Bennet’s face. “Did anyone see you leave the room with him?”

“Bennet, everyone saw.”

“Then you must go back in on my arm.”

“I do not care so much for myself,” she said, letting him take her arm, “but if there is talk, Stanley will never forgive me.”

“Do not worry. We shall put a stop to it.”

As they entered the ballroom during an interval between two dances, the buzz of talk and the subsequent lull that followed them through the room convinced Rose she had been the subject of conversation. She scanned the crowd for some friendly face, or at least a familiar one. There was only Alice standing near Cassie, and Axel talking earnestly to a stone-faced Harriet. Fortunately Stanley was nowhere in sight—probably still in the card room.

Bennet ignored them all. He spoke to the musicians and had them strike up a waltz. Rose admired the masterful way he got just what he wanted. Other couples joined them on the floor after frantically checking dance cards and discovering that this waltz was nowhere on the program. Rose wondered how much of the gossip was about her hasty exit with Axel and how much sprang from what he might have said about her. It hardly mattered. She could not show her face again in London. But the Walls were poised to launch themselves toward Europe. They should be able to stay ahead of even Axel’s agile tongue. And in four or five months she would go to live at her mother’s house in Bristol, a city that had run its length gossiping about her.

It was worth facing them all down to stand up just once with Bennet Varner, the only man she had ever met who was worth talking to. She forgot about the rest of them and focused her attention only on him and the music. These few minutes made up for the whole interminable evening. He smiled at her and she sailed around and around almost as though they were one being. Only his stopping signaled her that the music had ceased as well.

“Come, I shall lead you in to supper.”

“Surely there are many with precedence over me.”

“None, in my estimation. At any rate I have no idea who they would be.”

Rose let Bennet escort her into the formal blue and white room, fill her plate with all manner of delicacies and supply her with a glass of iced punch. The table seemed to go on for miles and no one sat close enough to disturb them. Except for an occasional glare from Harriet or Mrs. Varner, Rose could have imagined she was some quite ordinary girl enjoying a first flirtation with an extraordinary man. He rattled on about the Celestine, his ship, and how much fun she would have in Italy, just as soon as the mainmast was replaced.

“The mainmast?” she asked, swallowing a bite of lobster cake the wrong way. “But that sounds rather serious.”

“The work of a day or two—no more.”

“You make everything sound so easy, when actually I am quite sure it is an enormous undertaking, to change a mast and get it fastened to the ship.”

“No, were you thinking that the deck held it up?” he asked, standing a candle in an aspic jelly and watching it fall over.

“Yes, well, I have never thought much about it. I have stayed in Bristol, of course, and watched the ships but I have never been on one.”

“What holds the masts up is all of the rigging. It is most important that for every line pulling forward there is one pulling backward with an equal amount of tension. The same thing left to right.”

“It all makes such perfect sense when you explain it, but does not that put our departure off even farther?” she asked astutely.

“What do you mean?”

“All that rigging will have to be taken down, then put back up again.”

“Oh what is another day or two when you are making such a hit in London?”

“A hit? I am no such thing. I am probably the most talked-about woman in town this night.”

“Yes, that is what I meant,” Bennet said, staring into her eyes.

“Do be serious, Mr. Varner,” she said sternly. “You cannot want to be in the company of an infamous woman.”

“My friends call me Bennet.” He rested his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand to study her better.

“What do your enemies call you?”

“I see to it that I have no enemies,” he said with that determined smile of his, and Rose wondered if he did not make them or if he simply eliminated them.

“You have one—Axelrod Barton, Lord Foy. He is looking daggers at you this very moment.”

“Like yours, my antagonism with Axel goes back so far he is like a bunion. It feels odd when he is not rubbing at me.”

Rose laughed and then sobered herself. “Unfortunately Axel is more dangerous than a bunion. He is at home here and I am the outsider. Whatever he says will be believed.”

Bennet forcibly drew his gaze away from the slender mounds of her bosom and got lost in Rose’s eyes again. “Oh, I think if you are accepted by my family your character will bear scrutmy.”

“If my acceptance hinges on your family’s approval, then it is fortunate that it does not matter to me what people think.”

“I can take care of Mother and Harriet. But if you do not care what people think, then why did you come back into the library when another woman would have run off and had the vapors.”

“Because I do care what you think of me...friend.”

“And I care—what is it?” Bennet said impatiently to the footman whispering in his ear. “I must leave you for a few minutes, Rose. Forgive me.”

The glow of Bennet’s safe aura lasted only a moment after he followed the footman out. Rose now found herself to be the object of scrutiny from so many pairs of eyes she felt she had to do something. She brushed at an imaginary stain on her gown, then got up in mock frustration and went upstairs to find one of the chambers prepared for the ladies to withdraw into to relieve themselves or repair torn hems. She was not lucky enough to find an empty one so she did not stay to listen to the idle chatter. The talk seemed rather forced after her entrance.

She crept back down one flight and stole into the unoccupied library. Such a delightful room, a fire burning in the grate and her pick of books. She chose a volume of Diderot’s encyclopedia and seated herself in the high-backed armchair turned toward the fire. She curled her legs up in the chair, thinking that the cozy leather must have embraced Bennet often. The dark paneled room said Bennet to her, from the highly polished furniture to the shelves and shelves of well-used books. No matter how much she tried to apply herself to the text her mind kept wandering to her friend and that provoking smile of his.

She thought she must have dozed, for a sudden draft awakened her and subsequent covert sounds of liquid being poured indicated that whoever had come through that oddly placed side door was no burglar but was quite at home. The hall door opened and she heard confident steps.

“Gaspard, what news?” Bennet demanded in perfect French.

Rose gaped in the privacy of her chair as Gaspard revealed plans to free Napoleon from his island prison. He mentioned half a dozen ships, L’Inconstant by name, and a thousand men.

“They managed to evade the British cruisers then,” Bennet said. “Amazing.” Bennet’s contributions to the conversation, though in fluent French, were noncommittal. None of the news, though he demanded details, seemed to be much of a surprise to him. Rose listened to his inflection to see if she could tell if he were a part of this heinous plot, but she could not.

The door was flung open again and Rose thought the room was getting a trifle crowded. Her danger of being discovered was great, even if she made no sound.

“Leighton, come in,” Bennet said. “You are very late.”

“I just got Walters’s message,” the new voice said excitedly. “I had to dispatch a flurry of reports just in case.”

“Gaspard seems to have little doubt his news from the fishermen on Elba is true.”

The door to the library thumped open again and Rose moaned inwardly, drawing tighter into the cover of the wing chair.

“Bennet, I want to speak to you now,” Axel demanded drunkenly.

“Not now, Foy, can you not see I am engaged?”

“This cannot wait.”

“Oh, very well. Leighton, take Gaspard, go to your office and await me there.”

This last was spoken in English, Rose supposed, for Axel’s benefit. To her relief at least two of the men left by the exterior door.

“I am not asking permission this time. I am telling you. I mean to have Harriet.”

“Yes, of course,” Bennet replied. “Brandy?”

“What do you mean? She told you?”

Rose heard glasses being filled and wondered what Bennet was playing at.

“We discussed all this when I turned her inheritance over to her,” Bennet said calmly. “She is responsible for her own fortune now. It was nice of you to come to ask formally for her hand, but there was really no need.”

“But I didn’t,” Axel replied.

“But surely you intend to,” Bennet countered.

“You cannot stop me.”

“I do not mean to. I only stood in your way four years ago because of her young age. Since her attention has remained fastened on you all these years, I see now that I was wrong.”

“You admit you were wrong?” Axel asked incredulously.

“Yes, her love for you, compared to the length of most affairs in London, amounts to a grand passion. Without a doubt, you and Harriet belong together.”

Rose heard their glasses click together, but she did not imagine Axel was participating in the toast.

“We do? Yes, of course we do. So there are no settlements to work out?”

“Not between the two of us. You have only to deal with Harriet. Do you plan a large wedding?”

“I—we haven’t decided yet.”

“Allow me to put one of my traveling carriages at your disposal for your honeymoon. Also Harriet has taken a notion to have a London house. I can be no end of help to you there.”

“I prefer to make my own arrangements, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Just let me know if I can be of service.”

“I—I will.”

The door opened and closed with less assurance this time and Rose breathed a sigh of relief. If only Bennet would leave now. She heard him chuckling to himself. So, he was not really foisting his sister on such a villain as Foy, but was making a May game of the man. She heard footsteps coming toward the fireplace and closed her eyes as if in sleep. She detected a slight gasp when Bennet discovered her, but maintained her pose. He said nothing, but she could feel his weight on the arms of the chair, his breath on her forehead, then his lips on hers. Her eyes flew open.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she stammered as she shrank into the chair.

“Waking a very appealing sleeping beauty.”

“I do not think you really believed me to be asleep.”

“Of course, you were asleep. Otherwise I might suspect you of eavesdropping.”

“No one could have slept though Axel’s incoherent ranting.”

“Aha, that should have been my line, not yours.”

“Very well, I was pretending to be asleep to avoid embarrassment.” She stood and closed the volume.

“For you or me?”

“For both of us. And as long as I have been accused of spying—” she laid an accusing emphasis on the word but Bennet only grinned at her “—what do you mean by handing your sister over to such a rake?”

“But if I make it easy for him, he may decide he does not want her. Believe me, I know Axel.”

“I know him too.”

“I have been trying to forget that,” Bennet said with the first edge to his voice that she had ever heard. He put down his glass and deliberately kissed her. And she let him, only coming to her senses when she realized this was just the sort of thing she would have killed Axel for. But Bennet was nothing like Axel. Still, this was not a kiss of friendship, and she had to put him in his place.

When he finally released her she sniffed and said, “In your own way you are just as ruthless and manipulative as Axel.”

“Something tells me I should take offense at that,” he replied, trying to get close to her lips again and finding a volume of Diderot thrust in his face instead.

“Something tells me you won’t. I must go and find Stanley and Alice. It is time we were taking our leave.”

He did not try to detain her but chuckled again as he replaced the volume on the shelf. It was in French and if he knew anything about Miss Gwen Rose Wall, he could make a guess that she was not just looking at the pictures. He went over his conversation with Gaspard in his mind. Even if she spoke of it, and he did not think she would, she was scarcely likely to spook their quarry, not before the trap had been sprung. He really must remember never to underestimate her again.

Chapter Four

The next day Rose and Martin had ridden alone again and Rose decided to go with Martin to return the horses to Varner House. They rode around the corner past that larger side portico to the stable block off the alley. Rose was not surprised at the opulence of this part of the house. She was just complimenting Stilton on the facilities when Bennet drove in with a high-stepping team that required all the efforts of his tiger to subdue while Bennet jumped down in order to be the one who lifted Rose from the saddle and set her gently down on the paved brick courtyard. “I’m sorry I missed our ride today. Surely you were not going to walk back to the hotel.”

“I had some thought of getting a hack and going shopping down Oxford Street on the way back,” she replied, stepping out of his embrace.

“Did you enjoy your ride?”

“Immensely, since I did not have to fend off either Axel or you.”

“I must apologize for my behavior last night I was...drunk.”

“I know when a man is drunk and you were no such thing.”

Bennet, looking boyish in his somber attire, blinked at being contradicted. “Excited then. I lost my head.”

“That’s not much of an excuse for your behavior in the library last night,” Rose said, turning her back.

“Stealing a kiss?” Bennet walked around in front of her, blocking her retreat from the stable block. “Is it my fault you are utterly irresistible...friend?”

Rose noticed that both grooms and the tiger were pointedly ignoring them, meaning they could hear every word. “That was not a kiss of friendship,” she whispered urgently. “Martin,” she called. “Please go find us a hack.”

“Don’t bother, Martin,” Bennet countered. “I will take you back to your hotel or shopping if that’s what you wish.” Saying that he lifted Rose into the curricle, which seesawed slightly behind the agitated team. He had swung her about so effortlessly it almost made her giddy. She should resent that, but somehow she found that she liked to be a bit dizzy when in Bennet’s company. It let her say things she would never think to say to another man.