A Wicked Lord at the Wedding (19 page)

She glanced up in dismay. “That isn’t why you had that gun with you?”

He leaned over her. “A husband is justified in confronting a man who has pursued his wife.”

“Am I justified in shooting the women who pursued you while you were away?”

“What women?”

“Honestly, Sebastien. You can’t expect me to believe that no other lady has ever tried to coax you to her bed?”

“I didn’t say that.” His smile was heartless. “I can promise you, though, that in all of Europe there doesn’t exist a portrait of me painted by a lovesick admirer.”

“Did you actually
see
the portrait?”

“I could hardly have missed it.”

“Was it that unflattering?”

“No. It was that obvious. And not unflattering at all. Haven’t
you
seen it?”

“Not the finished work. Bellisant only showed me the early sketch. He’s rather shy about such things.”

“The poor dear,” he said in a disgruntled voice. “He’s actually proud of the painting.”

Several moments went by.

“I’m rather afraid to ask what you did to it, and to him,” she said.

His mouth tightened. “He’s still alive, and the portrait, as well as its subject, belong to me.”

“You’re very masterful.”

He kissed her lightly on the mouth. “So are you.”

She giggled. “And you don’t mind?”

“No.”

She sighed, easing him back against the cushions. Before she could take off his neckcloth, he reached up and unbuttoned her bodice. Not to be outdone, she teased her hand down his shirt and unfastened his fly.

“Now tell me that I am the first woman you’ve brought here,” she whispered.

He slipped her gown off her shoulders and smiled. “No.”

“You—”

He lowered his body over hers.

“You’re the only one. To admit you’re the first implies that others will follow.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “That was a good answer.”

“Elle.” He rained burning kisses down her throat, her shoulders, then the tops of her pale breasts. “I left the table still hungry tonight.”

“You were offered dessert.”

His chiseled lips curved. He stroked his fingers
across her swollen nipples. “May I return with apologies?”

She swallowed, completely seduced by his touch. “I came here to make peace.”

“I like the sound of that.”

He drew her skirts up to her waist, then pulled down his trousers and settled his muscular body between her thighs. She laid her head back on the couch, anchoring her legs around his buttocks. She lifted herself, inviting. He accepted greedily, spreading her open with the fingers of one hand, the other pinching her bud until she bucked against him.

“I’m so glad that you waited for me,” he whispered.

“Do you mean here tonight, or in general?”

“Both,” he answered, guiding his thick shaft to her passage.

She whimpered as he removed his fingers. He pushed her knees farther apart and thrust, forcing a gasp of shocked pleasure from her. Her body clenched him. He withdrew several inches, leaving her panting in need, until she drummed her heels against his back.

“Very masterful, indeed,” she breathed as he ground his hips and pumped deeply into her pulsing warmth.

“Dear God,” he said moments later, both of them subsiding in a breathless exhaustion upon the couch. “To think I was about to give up this boat.”

She wriggled upward from the warm pocket
between the cushions and his muscular torso. “I suppose this is what is called a pleasure barge.”

He grinned. “It is now.”

“We should get dressed,” she said idly, and made no attempt to move.

“No more pleasure?”

“I asked Tilden to come back at midnight in case you didn’t show up.”

She eased out of his arms, dressing surreptitiously in the dark. As he buttoned his shirt, she picked up the gun on the desk, then quickly put it down. Through the cabin window she glimpsed a scull that carried two lovers; it slipped like a dark swan in the mist. She heard Sebastien come up behind her.

When he locked his arm around her waist, his face buried in her loosened hair, she tried not to think of the prior lewd acts that had taken place on this boat.

“You’re coming home with me, I assume,” she said, leaning her head back.

“Of—”

He broke off, his body tensing. A board creaked ominously in the night. They listened for a moment longer. Then he seized her by the shoulders and steered her toward the back of the cabin.

“There’s a secret compartment behind the mariner’s map,” he whispered, reaching for his gun. “Get inside now.”

In view of his shady associations, she hastened to obey. The furtive footsteps on the deck were unmistakable
now. She headed straight for the oilskin map, lifted it and squeezed into a musty crevice that had a peephole carved into its central section.

Barely able to breathe, she watched her husband wait with enviable calm as the door slowly opened. She flinched as she heard the pistol cock. To her relief, instead of shooting the intruder on the spot, he swore at him.

“You bloody bonehead! You hen-brained, half-arsed son of—”

“Don’t shoot me!”

“What on earth are you doing here?”

“Will?” she said unthinkingly, pressing against the thin panel.

Her cousin stood in the doorway with his hands crossed in front of his face. She edged around her husband, who had slipped his gun into his waistband. She gave Will an irate look and plucked a dangling cobweb from her hair.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, more shaken than she’d realized.

“I came here to protect you,” he said indignantly. “Mary was worried that you’d be alone at the river. And now that I’ve visited this wharf at night, I understand her concern. A rat the size of a small dog just ran over my foot.”

Sebastien sighed.

Will lowered his hands. “Well, I thought I was supposed to accompany her on her adventures.” He hazarded a hopeful look at Sebastien. “Wasn’t I?”

“Yes,” Sebastien agreed quietly. “You were. And
I appreciate your vigilance. Was it
you
who followed me here in that carriage?”

“Yes.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you announce yourself?”

“I got lost on the wharves,” he said sheepishly.

“Honestly, Will,” Eleanor said, frowning at him. “I would have asked you if I thought you should come here tonight.”

Silence ensued. Will glanced from Eleanor’s tousled hair to Sebastien’s half-buttoned shirt and loosened cravat. She blushed as she felt her husband’s hand slip surreptitiously up her back to secure the hooks and eyelets she had been unable to reach. There was little point in explaining that Will had arrived at the end of a heated tryst with her husband. Their disarrayed state spoke for itself.

In keeping with appearances, Lord and Lady Boscastle returned that night from the river to Belgrave Square, went straight to bed, and arose early the next day. Upon completing their morning toilette, they dressed, then sat cordially together for a leisurely breakfast. Sebastien scanned the newspaper for any mention of unusual political activity, a gentleman who gave every impression of settling into domesticity. Eleanor, in a most demure dove-gray muslin dress, her dark-red hair arranged in soft curls, made appropriately distressed comments as her husband began relating the latest news on the Mayfair Masquer.

“I have an appointment later today,” she murmured, refraining from snatching the newspaper from his hands.

He sat back in his chair. “I think he should retire altogether. Do you know that one editorial proposes he be placed in the Tower?”

“I don’t pay attention to that nonsense. He hasn’t done any harm, anyway.”

“What if he is harmed?” He laid aside the paper, confronting her, and yet concerned.

“Unlikely,” she said, shaking her head. It was difficult to decide how deeply his concern went. Or what part his male pride played in controlling her.

“I shall be glad when we leave London for the country,” he said in an undertone.

“So you have told me.” She sipped her tea with an innocent smile. “I shall be glad when you have severed all ties to your line of work, too.”

He frowned, but made no reply, neither a denial nor an agreement. She felt a stab of regret, in fact, for even suggesting he do so. In all honesty, she doubted he would ever retire from service. He wasn’t a man to find contentment in the conventional pursuits of a gentleman.

Had it been so, it seemed doubtful he would have chosen to marry her.

Three hours later, however, she discovered something about her husband that swept all her guilty feelings away. She was collected at the corner by the duchess’s driver and taken for a coach ride around the park with Her grace’s personal secretary, Mr. Herbert Loveridge. Without a word she handed him the letters she had recovered. She’d be proud to answer that she hadn’t read a single word of them, if interrogated.

“Her grace wishes to inform you that she is unable to meet you herself today,” he announced in his stentorian voice.

Eleanor studied the trim, nondescript young gentleman
who frequently served as intermediary between the duchess and her agents. If Loveridge resented carrying secret messages from his employer to sausage vendors or curd-and-whey girls, he concealed it behind a grave demeanor.

Eleanor had witnessed him accepting coded notes from filthy female pickpockets with the same respect one would accord a princess.

She guessed Mr. Loveridge was well paid for his services. She also sensed that his devotion to the duchess went beyond monetary compensation. The Duchess of Wellington was herself a devoted friend to those who served her. Her uncommon kindness to the poor and lonely touched hearts throughout London.

“Lord Charles has a loose tooth,” Loveridge explained, referring to the duchess’s youngest boy. “Her grace was awake all night.”

“Oh, dear,” Eleanor said. “I hope the situation has resolved itself.”

Loveridge’s thin lips twitched. “What nature does not resolve, the dozen or so dentists summoned to attend the young lord will surely do so.”

“I understand.” As a surgeon’s daughter, with considerable practical experience in medical emergencies, Eleanor had been called to a few command performances herself at the duchess’s house. The duchess requested her every time one of her sons had a rash or upset stomach. “Did her grace have the presence of mind to issue me any new instructions?”

A shadow crossed Loveridge’s usually neutral countenance. “She has, my lady. I am to forewarn
you, however, that she must preface her orders with unwelcome news.”

Eleanor’s heart sank. The Masquer was to be retired. Of course she’d known that one way or another, either at the duchess’s behest or at her husband’s, his demise was inevitable. She had only hoped for the opportunity to fulfill his destiny. After delivering the two remaining letters, she would have happily abdicated his reign. But it bothered her to live with unfinished business.

“Well, out with it, Mr. Loveridge,” she said more brusquely than he deserved. “Please deliver her grace’s message verbatim.”

He shook his head in regret. “It concerns Lancelot.”

“Who—? Oh.” Eleanor restrained a sigh. Lancelot was the Duchess of Wellington’s code name for Sebastien. King Arthur was, of course, the duke. Her grace wanted to be known as Guinevere, and Eleanor’s operative name on the streets was Merlin. “What has Lancelot to do with … Camelot?” she asked, managing to keep a straight face.

“Lancelot is a knight errant in this matter. The queen has learned that he approached King Arthur and begged permission to joust in the tournament.”

“What the deuce—” She wished that he would stop speaking in this ridiculous code and explain outright what he meant. But suddenly she knew. Sebastien hadn’t been ordered to interfere in her business.

“Let me understand this,” she said, her gloved
hand curling into a fist. “My hus—Lancelot—is
not
acting under Arthur’s orders?”

He nodded somberly. “That is the queen’s understanding.”

“That sneaky bugger.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“It is I who should beg yours. I am beside myself, Loveridge.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“I want to murder him.”

“Dear heaven.”

She thought for several moments. “Does Guinevere have any advice as to what she wishes her sorcerer to do?”

He smiled faintly, confirming Eleanor’s suspicion that he enjoyed these intrigues as much as she and the duchess did. “She hopes that this will not discourage Merlin from what he has promised.”

Eleanor sat in silence. She should have been more upset or even surprised at this revelation, and yet she was not. Sebastien had fibbed to her, which didn’t necessarily mean his declarations of love were false as much as it meant he had a devious mind. Or an ambitious one. Perhaps he even hoped to emerge as the duke’s hero in the end. Steal her thunder, would he?

The carriage slowed at the corner. Loveridge handed her the customary pile of parcels from the duchess should Eleanor require proof of an afternoon’s shopping when she returned to the house.

“Tell the queen that Lancelot will be put under a spell.”