Lord Savage (6 page)

Resolutely I kept my expression even, not letting the pain he was causing show. I
didn’t know what sort of little test this was, but I would not give in, and finally
he relaxed his grip enough for me to pull free.

That was enough for me. No matter how the baron flattered me, I resolved to keep clear
of him for the rest of the visit. He was a bully, and one who clearly enjoyed inflicting
pain, too, a most unsavory—and dangerous—combination.

“I have always thought India must be a fascinating place to visit,” I murmured without
a smile. “Such an exotic and faraway land.”

The baron leaned closer with confidential relish. “It is the complete opposite of
Britain, Mrs. Hart. True, the natives are a heathen lot, but in sensual matters they
are entirely our superiors.”

“Indeed, my lord.” In my opinion, it would not have been difficult for anyone to surpass
the baron himself. “I suppose you must draw your conclusion from the brothels of the
cities?”

“No, no,” he said, warming to his subject, and to me. “You will see models of fornication
carved into the walls of their very temples, displaying postures and inventiveness
that would astound even the most skilled English whore.”

“On the walls of their temples, my lord?” I asked, doubting him. “That would be quite
curious for a place of holy worship.”

“Oh yes, Mrs. Hart,” he said. “They are completely frank, and as free with their rutting
as beasts in the wild. In fact, my dear, I have a book in my room filled with engravings
of lewd statuary, if you should care to see it for, ah, inspiration. Nothing but cocks
and cunts.”

“Pray recall that Mrs. Hart is a newcomer, Baron,” Lady Carleigh said, a note of caution
in her voice. “You don’t want to put her off on the first night.”

But the baron would not be deterred; he leered openly at me. “I haven’t forgotten
for a moment that Mrs. Hart is a newcomer, my lady. Not for a moment. Later, when
the entertainment starts and the Game begins in earnest, I mean to make her my prize.
Eh, Mrs. Hart? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Consider what you and I could—”

“What the lady would like, Blackledge, is to have you step away,” Lord Savage said,
appearing at exactly the right moment. “She’ll be fortunate to have any fingers left,
the way you were wringing her hand.”

“Lord Savage,” Lord Blackledge said curtly, his fierce, toothy smile instantly becoming
a grimace as he faced the other man. “You’ve a damn lot to say for Mrs. Hart’s welfare.
She’s a newcomer, you know. She’s fair game.”

“Perhaps to you,” Lord Savage said, his smile faintly bored. “Mrs. Hart is not a newcomer
to me. We’re old, old acquaintances. We have a certain … understanding.”

A certain understanding:
oh, I did like that, and I flashed him a quick smile of gratitude.

The baron’s ruddy face turned a deeper red. “We shall see how long that lasts, my
lord, once she—”

“Gentlemen, please,” Lady Carleigh interrupted. “I note that it is time to go in for
dinner. As is our custom here at Wrenton, we shall follow precedence for the last
time tonight. Lord Savage, you shall take in Lady Winthrop. Baron, Lady Wessex. Mrs.
Hart, I believe you will be with Mr. Gilbert.”

Obediently we all began to find our appointed partners and line up according to their
rank. It was always the same with the English, I thought, going two by two like well-bred
animals heading into the ark.

I’d hoped that here in the country things would be less formally determined, so that
I might sit beside Lord Savage. As an American, without a noble title of my own, I
would be doomed to be paired off with the only gentleman who was likewise as undistinguished,
a stout banker named Mr. Gilbert. Even now I could see him bearing determinedly down
on me, ready to claim my company.

Only a few steps away, Lord Savage stood waiting for his partner to finish a conversation,
and quickly I seized this last opportunity to approach him, touching his sleeve lightly
with the ivory blades of my furled fan.

“I must thank you, my lord,” I said in a confidential whisper. “You were quite my
gallant knight-errant to rescue me like that.”

He glanced down at my fan, frowning.

“I did not act from gallantry, Mrs. Hart,” he said without lifting his gaze from the
fan. “My reason was not to defend you from Blackledge’s attentions, but to mark you
as my possession before the rest of the room. I do not like the tedium of petty rivals,
Mrs. Hart.”

“Your possession?” I repeated with surprise, and a bit of indignation, too. “Your
possession
? Lord Savage, I do not understand how—”

“You will,” he said, and turned away to offer his arm to Lady Wessex, leaving me standing
openmouthed with outrage.

“Mrs. Hart?” Mr. Gilbert said, his arm crooked for me to take. “Shall we join the
others?”

“Thank you, Mr. Gilbert, you are too kind,” I said, taking the banker’s arm as I continued
to glare at Lord Savage’s back. “I am glad to discover there is at least one true
gentleman here tonight.”

My indignation continued throughout the long dinner. I was seated near the far end
of the table, yet near enough to Lord Savage that he could have raised his glass to
me in salute if he wished it, or even exchanged a word or two across the arranged
flowers and silver candlesticks. Instead he devoted himself entirely to listening
to Lady Wessex as if she were the most fascinating of women, and if he glanced at
me even once during the course of the meal, I did not see it.

But I saw him.

Through all twelve courses, I could not make myself ignore him. Over the turtle soup
and the salmon, the saddle of beef and the roasted game birds, the molded
chaufroid
and the sorbets, through champagne and Bordeaux and cognac, my gaze kept returning
to him.

The black-and-white severity of evening dress suited him, setting off the sharp planes
of his face in the candlelight. His dark hair was sleekly combed back from his forehead,
his angular profile fit for an ancient coin, and he was as effortlessly seductive
as any man I’d ever seen.

Perhaps he hadn’t meant
possession
as I’d heard it, as ownership. Perhaps he’d meant it in a sexual way, a prediction
of how he intended to make love to me.

My heart beat a bit faster as I considered this possible explanation. Surely that
was how he’d be as a lover, strong and sure. Perhaps I’d reacted to the word—
possession
—as an American—an American who was accustomed to buying whatever I pleased, no matter
the price. Perhaps here in England, where words often seemed more layered with subtlety,
he’d intended something quite different.

I sipped my champagne, studying him. I had no wish to be his possession as property,
but to be possessed by him—that was entirely different.

At last Lady Carleigh rose, signaling the end of the meal. In most houses, the ladies
would retreat to the drawing room and leave the table to the gentlemen and their port
and cigars. But at Wrenton, the expected things were seldom done, as I soon discovered.

The viscountess smiled at her expectant guests. “We shall now withdraw to the Egyptian
Room, if you please. We have a small entertainment arranged for you, a brief entr’acte
that will set the mood for the rest of the evening.”

The Egyptian Room was aptly named. The walls were draped with red-and-gold-striped
silk, gathered in the center of the ceiling to transform the room into a pharaoh’s
tent complete with nodding palm trees in brass pots. All the paintings on the walls
were of Egyptian themes, mysterious pyramids and deities with the heads of animals,
and the oversize mantel was supported by a pair of bare-breasted stone sphinxes. Rich
carpets were strewn across the floor, and ornate gold benches, covered with pillows,
replaced ordinary chairs. Tall torchères gave only a shadowy light to the room, and
the heady, musky sweetness of incense contributed to the exotic atmosphere.

With the formal seating from dinner over, I looked for Lord Savage, but to my disappointment,
he was nowhere to be seen. Across the room, the baron beckoned brusquely, as much
as ordering me to join him. Pointedly I turned away and ignored him, not caring if
saving myself meant wounding his pride.

“Sit by me, Mrs. Hart,” the viscountess said, patting the cushioned bench beside her,
and I happily obliged.

“What is the nature of the entr’acte, my lady?” I asked, imagining the usual kind
of after-dinner entertainment: a singer from the opera, or perhaps a violinist. “From
what others were saying around me at dinner, I gather your entertainments are much
applauded.”

Lady Carleigh smiled, preening a bit at the praise.

“My friends are most generous,” she said. “I always strive for originality, you see,
as a wise hostess should. I promised you’d never be bored at Wrenton, and I am a woman
of my word.”

“Mrs. Hart will not be bored tonight, Lady Carleigh,” Lord Savage said, suddenly appearing
behind us with the quiet stealth of a large, predatory cat. “I believe she will find
your entertainment particularly enthralling, considering her predilections.”

Without any invitation, he took the last place on the bench beside me. There was sufficient
room, even for a man as large as the earl, but he still contrived to sit so close
as to press his thigh against mine. He did it carelessly, as if by accident, and took
no outward notice of how our thighs touched.

Yet, I was acutely aware of him there, the hard, lean muscles pressed against my softer
flesh, the inky black of his evening trousers in sharp contrast to the luminous, blush-colored
silk of my gown. I was sure I could feel his warmth, his energy, even through the
layers of our clothes, and I almost longed for the older fashions that would have
insulated me more completely beneath layers of wire hoops and lace petticoats.

I almost wished it, but not quite. Nor did I draw away from him, either. Instead I
let him press his leg into mine, a gentle, insistent pressure that hinted at the other
intrusions he would like to make in to my body.

I slowly opened my fan, hoping he’d take no notice of how my fingers trembled.

“I did not realize, Lord Savage,” I said, “that we’d become sufficiently familiar
for you to identify my predilections.”

“Sufficient for one or two observations,” he said easily, resting his elbow on the
bench’s arm as he turned to face me. “I know that you find it acceptable to jab your
fan into a gentleman’s arm.”

I frowned, tempted to do it again.

“I did not
jab
it, my lord,” I protested. “I merely tapped it upon your sleeve to draw your attention,
in a manner that is entirely polite and proper.”

He smiled, but a chilly smile, with no humor to it, as he glanced briefly at the small
band of turbaned musicians settling in the corner of the room.

“Perhaps in New York, such bravado is considered polite,” he said, “but in this country,
gentlemen do not appreciated a lady who chooses to wield her fan like a bludgeon.”

“You exaggerate, Lord Savage.”

“I rather think not, Mrs. Hart.” A single lock of his dark hair fell across his forehead,
and he sleeked it back with his palm. The link on his starched white cuff was black
onyx, framed by a tiny gold serpent and centered by a single diamond, as brilliantly
hard and beautiful as he was himself. “Would you consider it another exaggeration
if I reminded you how much you enjoy being a spectator?”

This time, I was ready. “Nearly as much as you enjoyed being the actor with an audience,”
I said, smiling. “You see, Lord Savage, I’ve observed a few predilections myself.”

His smile warmed, the unexpected charm of it making me melt inside.

“Touché, Mrs. Hart,” he said. “Then as performers and as spectators, we should both
enjoy this evening, shouldn’t we?”

“I intend to, my lord,” I said, feeling that I’d somehow won this particular skirmish.
His last comment about the performance we were to watch made little sense to me, but
I let it pass. Formal entertainments like the one we would soon see were the purview
of specially hired performers, not guests.

But before the hour was over, I would learn exactly how wrong—how very wrong—my assumption
could be.

THREE

The music was unfamiliar to me, driven by small drums that a seated musician held
balanced on his crossed legs. The two other men played some sort of flutes, their
keening notes darting over and around the melody in a strangely hypnotic harmony.
The primal pulse of the drums, created by the drummer’s bare palms, was a rhythm far
from the usual genteel Mozart or Handel heard in country manors, yet I found it irresistibly
alluring, even seductive, especially in the incense-laden room. Lady Carleigh had
indeed contrived a most original entr’acte.

Soon it became clear that the musicians were not the entire entertainment but merely
the accompanists. The arched double doors opened, and a man and a woman entered together.

The man was swarthy and handsome, with a long black beard and a mustache that curled
upward. He wore full Zouave-style trousers of red silk and a long open robe, richly
embroidered with metallic threads that glittered and winked in the murky half-light.
On his head was a turban, and large gold hoops hung from his ears.

I wasn’t sure if he was a true foreigner, or perhaps only an English actor in swarthy
paint, but it did not matter. He was wonderfully virile and menacing, making it clear
that he would be more the villain than the hero of whatever tableau he and the woman
would perform.

The woman was small in stature, but voluptuously proportioned. She, too, wore an exotic
costume, though it was much more revealing. Her waist was tightly cinched with a wide
leather corselet that supported her brazenly naked breasts, draped with jingling necklaces
of brass coins. A thick line of kohl decorated her eyes, and her lips, cheeks, and
nipples had been reddened with carmine. Her full trousers were gathered at the ankles,
much like the man’s, and bangles clattered up and down her bare arms. Fastened closely
around her throat was an unusual necklace of gold beads and green gems that was so
tall that it forced her to hold her head proudly high. Where the man was dark, she
was ivory fair, her white-blond hair streaming over her shoulders and breasts to her
waist.