Intriguing Lady (10 page)

“I didn’t realize what he was about, until it was too late,” Roberta said, “but Sir Nicholas displayed remarkable restraint. He managed to extricate himself quite quickly, but I could see by his eyes that he was in considerable pain.”

“Oh, dear! I do hope the comte doesn’t do anything untoward,” Mrs. Ashley murmured. “You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”

“Sir Nicholas is perfectly able to take care of himself,” Roberta remarked dryly. “He neither encourages nor wants our sympathy.” This remark was caused by the rebuff she had received from him when, following the comte’s departure, she had inquired after his well-being. “By the way, he suggested a drive in Hyde Park tomorrow, but I declined. I thought that to be seen with him three days in a row would be unseemly.”

Mrs. Ashley nodded. “And what of Mr. Davenport? I was pleased to see how you managed to avoid a direct confrontation with him.”

Roberta glanced down at the orchids, now slightly wilted, still pinned to her dress. “If our future meetings can be so innocuous, then I, too, will be pleased. I expect there were many disappointed people, though,” she added with a chuckle. “I’m certain many were hoping for something more dramatic. His wife seemed very pleasant, didn’t you think?”

“Lady Anita, by all accounts, conducts herself admirably. She turns a blind eye to his infidelities and refuses to hear a word said against him.”

“Stephen wouldn’t behave like that,” Roberta exclaimed in shocked tones. “I know you have never liked him, Ashley, but there is no need to relate malicious gossip.”

Mrs. Ashley snapped her mouth closed in a thin line, as if to prevent herself from saying anything she would later regret, and sighed unhappily.

“We’ll never see eye to eye on him,” Roberta said in an effort to placate her, “so please don’t let’s argue about it any more.”

“I’ll try, Roberta, I’ll try. However, I won’t sit by and see you make a cake of yourself over some fortune hunter. I may be repeating gossip, but I had no intention of being malicious. There was one hard fact I learned tonight that I feel compelled to tell you about. Your Mr. Davenport was involved in a card game several months ago and dropped five thousand guineas to Sir George Beattie. At the end of the evening, when all the chits had been accounted for, Mr. Davenport scandalized the gathering by informing Sir George that as soon as he had prised the money from his wife, he would repay the debt.”

Although Roberta found this news disturbing, she adamantly refused to be swayed in her judgment of Stephen. “He may have been under the influence of drink if he actually used those words, or maybe Sir George misunderstood. Please, Ashley, don’t say any more tonight.”

“Very well, Roberta,” Mrs. Ashley replied. “I’ll do my best in the future to ignore all the things I hear about him.”

She rose and left the room like a galleon in full sail, obviously annoyed by Roberta’s stubbornness on the subject of Stephen Davenport.

It was some time after eleven the next day before Roberta, at the same window from which she had watched for Sir Nicholas a few days earlier, saw Stephen enter Grosvenor Square. With a fine disregard for decorum, she flew down the stairs and arrived at the front door before the knocker had even sounded. She dismissed the footman with an airy wave and opened the massive portal just as Stephen was mounting the last step. Her heart fluttered as he smiled down at her.

Without a word, she beckoned him in and led him to the nearest sitting room. It was a small, intimate antechamber for waiting visitors. While he closed the door, she moved across the blue carpet to the far side in an effort to put as much space between them as possible. She was afraid to touch him, or allow him to touch her, lest she lose control of herself altogether.

They stood thus, staring across at each other, until Stephen finally made her a bow. “My dear, dear Roberta, how are you?”

His deep, resonant voice was exactly as she remembered it. Even so, she was unprepared for the effect it had on her. “Well…well,” she choked. “And you?”

He grimaced and shrugged. “Older and wiser, some people tell me, but today I feel as green as I did my first day at Eton. Oh, Roberta! If you only knew how I have regretted allowing you to send me away. A day hasn’t passed when I haven’t chastised myself for believing the nonsense you gave me about Lord Bromley refusing to countenance our marriage. When I finally discovered the truth, it was too late. You were in Switzerland, and I was married. Why, why did you do such a thing?”

Roberta, totally unprepared for this outburst, turned away quickly. She had remembered Stephen for his strength, not for the self-pity he was now displaying.

“I thought it best, under the circumstances,” she whispered. “I had been informed by four prominent specialists that I would be an invalid for the rest of my life. Knowing that, I couldn’t many you. It wouldn’t have been fair.”

“You didn’t trust me enough, did you? Perhaps you even thought that if I knew, I wouldn’t stand by you. Was that it?” His voice was accusing, and it pierced Roberta’s heart like a sharp knife.

“No, no, Stephen,” she cried. “I was certain you would insist on standing by me. That is why I lied to you. I refused to give you the opportunity to act nobly, because I was afraid you would live to regret it.”

“And instead I have the rest of my life to regret my hasty marriage to Anita.”

He sounded bitter now, and Roberta looked at him in surprise. For the first time she saw the lines of discontent and dissipation on his face. Was she responsible for this dreadful change in him? she wondered bleakly.

“You don’t know what it’s like, Roberta,” he continued, seemingly unaware of her troubled expression. “Anita keeps me on such a tight rein. She treats me like a halfling, rather than a man. She uses the fact that she has a fortune to make me toe the line. It’s—it’s insufferable!”

“She doesn’t appear to me to be such a harridan,” Roberta exclaimed involuntarily. “I received the impression last night that she was a warm, soft person.”

He ground his fist into the palm of his other hand impatiently. “Appearances can sometimes be deceptive. She’s hard and demanding when we are alone.” He broke off. “But I didn’t come here to speak of her, Roberta. I want to talk about us.” He caught her unresisting hands in his. “I want to hear you say that you still care for me as I care for you. That you want to recapture those halcyon days we used to enjoy. I want you to agree to see me alone, as often as you can.”

Roberta stared up at him uncomprehendingly before disengaging her hands. “I don’t think you know what you are suggesting,” she said in a low voice.

“My little innocent darling,” he murmured in a voice that was meant to caress her. “I need you so desperately, in a way that only a man who loves a woman with all his heart could. I want you to be my mistress.”

Roberta’s hands fluttered to her face, but even they couldn’t hide her shocked expression.

“I’ve upset you, haven’t I?” he said. “My suggestion is too bold. You need time to consider it?”

“No, Stephen. Please don’t say anything more. I could never agree to such a thing. It goes against every value I’ve ever believed in. I can’t pretend that I’ve not imagined what it would be like to be in your arms. But I suppose I have come to realize it can never be.”

“Then why did you wear my orchids last night? You must have known what you were implying, surely?”

Roberta shook her head. “I didn’t. I just knew I wanted to see you again. I didn’t think beyond that.”

“Well, you’ve seen me again. Now what?” he demanded belligerently.

“Nothing,” she countered helplessly. “I mean, I don’t know.”

“You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you?” he answered, the angry note back in his voice. “Because I spoke like a man and expressed my need for you, you take offense. Fool that I was. I expected you to be different. I had convinced myself you would understand. But the reality is that you’re no different, no more understanding, than any other woman of my acquaintance. Like all other females, you put out lures to snare a man and then recoil as the trap is sprung.”

Roberta stared at him, aghast. Suddenly all the hints that Mrs. Ashley had dropped about Stephen’s character came pouring back. She stiffened.

“Are you any better, Stephen?” she asked. “You use your wife’s wealth to pursue your own pleasure, but you’re not loyal to her. You demand loyalty and perfection in others, but you seem incapable of living up to those standards yourself.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I’m referring to a particular game of cards you had with Sir George Beattie, when you lost a considerable sum of money. You had some very unkind words to say about your wife on that occasion.”

“Oh, that!” he retorted. “I spoke no less than the truth. Anita is very tight when it comes to parting with money. But that will change in a few years, when the control of her fortune passes to me. If that damned father of hers hadn’t tied up the bulk of it until she had reached the age of thirty, I would be in control of it now.”

“In the circumstances, it would appear to have been a wise move,” she murmured.

“So George thought I was offensive, did he?” Stephen continued. “Well, your friend didn’t. He was most sympathetic when the game was over. He even offered to lend me the ready himself.”

“My friend?” Roberta queried, genuinely bewildered by the turn the conversation had taken.

“The Frenchman who was fawning over you last night.”

“The comte?” she said in astonishment. “Why, I hardly know the man. And from what I do know of him, I’m surprised to hear of his generosity.”

Stephen laughed. “Everything has its price, my darling,” he remarked. “His was an introduction to various members of my club. Influential people, I hasten to add.”

“Whom did he mention?” Roberta asked, the shock she had felt at Stephen’s outrageous proposal momentarily suppressed by curiosity.

“Mr. Lambert, for one, God rest his soul,” Stephen replied, happy to see Roberta returning to her normal self again. “And Edmund Truscott.”

“The Defense Minister’s secretary?”

Stephen nodded. “Then there was Lacey Sigmore. And an up-and-coming politician. Wilfred Barns. Oh, I don’t know! There were several more—not that it matters—but as far as I can recall, they were all connected to politics in one way or another. He’s an ambitious man, the comte. Although why I’m wasting my time speaking of such things baffles me completely.” He moved toward her again, his confidence returning. “Do you let me live in hope, Roberta?” he asked abruptly. “Will the day ever come when you will finally accept the inevitable?”

Roberta, dumbfounded by his insensitivity, was suddenly forced to wonder why she had spent so many months believing she was deeply in love with him. He simply wasn’t the same person she remembered.

“Don’t touch me, Stephen,” she said with a calmness that stopped him cold. “I will forget that we ever had this conversation, and I hope that you will do likewise. Now, if you will excuse me, there are a few chores that command my attention.”

“You hypocritical little fool,” he blustered. “You know you want me more than anything else in the world. Why do you deny yourself?”

Roberta surveyed him for a moment and then picked her way daintily to the door and turned to face him for the last time. “Until an hour ago, I would have agreed with your statement, Stephen. But
now…
the truth is that I no longer want you. By refusing your invitation to become your mistress, I’m not denying myself anything I want.”

“You talk in riddles, Roberta,” he fumed. “What has happened to make you change your mind?”

“Your attitude toward your wife,” she responded quietly. “I think it reflects your general attitude toward all women, and I find it horrifying. Women, Stephen, are not creatures to be used. They are human beings with emotions and feelings every bit as complicated as those of men.”

“Good heavens, Roberta, I’m not that insensitive. I have probably, in the heat of the moment, overstated my resentment toward my wife. But you must understand that in my joy at seeing you, I cast all caution to the winds.”

“I don’t think I misunderstood you at all, Stephen. How long would it be before you found me an encumbrance? And then what would you do? Discard me like a lame horse and continue with your life as though nothing had happened?”

“It wouldn’t be like that, Roberta. I would never tire of you. Never.”

“Really, Stephen? I don’t believe that for one moment, and neither do you.”

Before he could reply, she left the room and asked the hovering footman to see Stephen out. As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she couldn’t quite believe she had been able to leave him so easily, with so little sorrow. Yet, for the first time since she had broken off her engagement, she felt free of the bonds holding her to him.

Perhaps when the mystery surrounding Sir Nicholas was cleared up, and she had time to ponder exactly what it was that had triggered her final disgust of Stephen, she wouldn’t feel quite so free.

But for the moment, she had no time for such reflections. Something Stephen had said had given her an idea as to how she could break the code of the list, and with single-minded determination, she hurried upstairs to study it.

C
hapter 9

The morning after
Lady Sefton’s gathering, a frustrated frown creased Sir Nicholas’s brow, and with uncharacteristic sharpness, he cursed Davids roundly for neglecting to have sufficient hot water on hand for his bath.