Jane Feather - [V Series] (15 page)

Slowly Judith turned and went back down the hill, unable to believe what she’d seen. But it seemed it was over. Wellington and Blücher had won the Battle of Waterloo.
The atmosphere in the stableyard was one of exhausted jubilance as the sun set and the sound of firing became sporadic. The death toll was horrendous and the wounded were brought in in wagonloads; but Bonaparte had been defeated for the last time. The Prussians were pursuing the fleeing French army, leaving the depleted British to gather themselves together, recover their strength, and take stock of their losses.

Marcus rode into the stableyard toward midnight. He’d accompanied Wellington to his post-victory meeting with Blücher. The two men had kissed each other and Blücher had summed up the day’s events in his sparse French.
“Quelle affaire!”

Adequate words, it seemed to Marcus. Superlatives somehow wouldn’t capture the sense of finality they all felt. The world as they knew it could now return to peace again.

He looked for his wife in the torch-lit stableyard. Finally, he saw her bending over a stretcher in the corner of the yard. As if she were aware of his arrival, she straightened, pushing her hair out of her eyes, turning toward him. His heart leaped at the sight of her. The bitterness of their parting, the sourness of suspicion, faded, and he wanted only to hold her.

“You’re safe,” she said, her voice shaky with relief as he dismounted beside her. There was a shadow of sorrow in her eyes as she met his gaze, a questioning apprehension that harked back to the wretchedness of the morning.

He was filled with an overpowering need to kiss the sadness from her eyes, the tremor from her soft mouth. Suddenly, nothing seemed to matter but that she was there for him. “Yes,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He laid his lips against her eyelids, feeling their rapid flutter against his mouth. “Safe and sound, lynx.”

Her arms went around him, and she reached her body against his, her head resting on his chest, the steady beat of his heart thudding against her ear. Her eyes closed and for this moment she lost herself in the security of his hold, the warmth of his presence, the promise of passion.

“T
hat new butler of yours seemed inclined to deny me.” Bernard Melville, third Earl of Gracemere, entered Lady Barret’s boudoir without ceremony. “I trust it doesn’t mean the gouty Sir Thomas is turning suspicious.”

“No. He’s at Brooks’s, I believe. Snoring over his port, probably.” Agnes stretched languidly on the striped chaise longue, where she had been taking a recuperative afternoon nap. “Hodgkins is overly scrupulous about his duties. He knew I was resting.” She held out her hand. “I wasn’t expecting you to return to town for another week.”

He took her hand, carrying it to his lips. “I couldn’t endure another day’s separation, my love.”

Agnes smiled. “Such pretty words, Bernard. And am I to believe them?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, bending over her, catching her wrists and holding them down on either side of her head. “Oh, yes, my adorable Agnes, you are to believe them.” His hard eyes, so pale their blueness was almost translucent, held hers, and she shivered, waiting for him to bring his mouth to hers, to underwrite his statement with the fierce possession of his body.

He laughed, reading her with the ease of long knowledge. “Oh, you are needy, aren’t you, my love? It’s amazing what an absence can do.” Still he held himself above her, taunting her with promise.

“And you are cruel, Bernard,” she stated softly. “Why does it please you to taunt me with my love?”

“Is it love? I don’t think that’s the right word,” he murmured, bringing his face closer to hers but still not touching her. “Obsession, need, but not love. That’s too tame an emotion for such a woman as you.”

“And for you,” she whispered.

“Obsession, need,” he responded with a smile that did nothing to soften the cruel mouth. “We feed on each other.”

“Kiss me,” she begged, twitching her imprisoned hands in her need to touch him.

He let his weight fall onto her hands so that her wrists ached and very slowly brought his mouth to hers. She bit his lip, drawing blood, and he pulled back with a violent jerk of his head. “Bitch!”

“It’s what you like,” she said, with perfect truth.

He slapped her face lightly with his open palm and she gave an exultant crow of laughter, bringing her freed hand to his face, wiping the bead of blood from his lips with her fingertip and carrying it to her own mouth. Her
tongue darted, licking the red smear, and her tawny eyes glittered. “Shall I come to you tonight, my lord?”

He caught her chin with hard fingers and kissed her, bruising her lips against her teeth in answer. A knock at the door brought him upright. He swung away from her, picking up a periodical from a drum table, idly flicking through the pages as a footman silently mended the fire.

“What’s this I hear about Carrington taking a wife in Brussels?” Gracemere asked casually. “It’s the talk of the town. Some nobody, I gather.”

“Yes, I haven’t met her yet. We came up to town ourselves only yesterday,” Agnes said in the same tone. “Letitia Moreton says she’s stunning and seems very much up to snuff. She’s charmed the Society matrons at all events. Sally Jersey raves about her.”

“Not another Martha, then?” He tossed the periodical onto the table again as the footman left, and he sat down, carefully smoothing out a crease in his buff pantaloons.

“Hardly,” Agnes said. “No little brown mouse this, as I understand it. But no one knows anything about them … there’s a brother too. Equally charming, according to Letitia.”

“Plump in the pocket?” There was an arrested look in the pale eyes, a sudden predatory hunger.

Agnes shook her head. “That I don’t know. But if he’s Carrington’s brother-in-law … why?”

Gracemere’s manicured fingernails drummed on the carved arm of his chair. “I’m looking for another pigeon to pluck. Newcomers to town tend to provide the easiest pickings. I wonder if he plays.”

“Who doesn’t?” Agnes said. “I’ll see what I can find out this evening at Cavendish House. But I have another idea for improving your financial situation, my love.” She sat up, her tone suddenly brisk.

“Oh?” Gracemere raised his eyebrows. “I’m all ears, my dear.”

“Letitia Moreton’s daughter, Harriet,” Agnes announced, and lay back again on the piled cushions with a complacent smile. “She has a fortune of thirty-thousand pounds. It should last you quite a while, I would have thought.”

Gracemere frowned. “She must be barely out of the schoolroom.”

“All the better,” Agnes said. “She’ll fall easily for the flattering attentions of a charming older man. You’ll be able to sweep her off her feet before she has the chance to lay eyes on anyone else.”

The earl tapped his teeth with a fingernail, considering. “What about Letitia and the girl’s father? They’ll be unlikely to look kindly on the suit of a fortune hunter.”

“They don’t know you’re a fortune hunter,” Agnes pointed out. “And you have the earldom. Letitia will jump at an earl for her daughter so long as you behave with circumspection. I’ve already become fast friends with the lady.” She laughed unkindly. “Such a nincompoop she is, with die-away airs. She professes to be an invalid and can’t chaperone her daughter as much as she should. So who do you think has offered to take her place?” Her eyebrows rose delicately, and Gracemere laughed.

“What a consummate plotter you are, my dear. So I can expect to meet the sweet child in your company.”

“Frequently,” Agnes agreed with another complacent smile.

“In the meantime, bring me your impressions of Carrington’s brother-in-law. I might as well pluck a pigeon while I’m waiting for the heiress to ripen and fall,” he said, rising. “I’m not invited to Cavendish House, since I’m still supposed to be in the country, so I’ll rely
on your acute senses, my love.” He bent over her again, laying one hand on her breast, feeling the nipple rise in immediate response. “Adieu, until later.”

Agnes shifted on the couch, one leg dropping to the floor. The earl moved his hand down, pressing the thin silk of her negligee against the opened cleft of her body, feeling her heat. “Until later,” he repeated, and then left her.

Marcus tossed the reins to his tiger and alighted from his curricle in Berkeley Square.

“Take a good look at the leader’s left hock when you get them to the mews, Henry. I sensed a slight imbalance as we took that last corner.”

“Right you are, governor.” The lad tugged a yellow forelock before going to the horses’ heads.

Marcus strolled up the steps of the handsome double-fronted mansion. The front door opened just as he reached the head.

“Good afternoon, my lord. And it’s a beautiful one, if I might be so bold.” The butler’s bow was as ponderous as his words.

“Afternoon, Gregson. Yes, you may be so bold.” Marcus handed him his driving whip and curly-brimmed beaver hat. “Bring a bottle of the seventy-nine claret to my book room, will you?” He crossed the gleaming marble-tiled expanse of hallway and went down a narrow passage behind the staircase to a small, square room at the back of the house, where a young man was arranging papers on the massive cherrywood table that served as desk.

“Good afternoon, my lord.” He greeted his employer’s entrance with a bow.

“Afternoon, John. What are you going to entertain me with now?”

“Accounts, my lord,” his secretary said. “And Lady Carrington’s quarterly bills. You did say you wished to settle them yourself.” His tone conveyed a degree of puzzlement, since in general he was responsible for settling on the marquis’s account all the bills that came into the house.

“Yes, I did,” Marcus said absently, picking up a neat pile of bills. “Are these they?”

“Yes, my lord. And there are some invitations you might want to look at.”

“I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less,” Marcus said, leafing through the bills in his hand. “Give them to Lady Carrington.”

“I did, my lord. But she said she didn’t feel able to make up your mind for you.” John blushed and he pulled awkwardly on his right ear, wishing he hadn’t been put in the position of conveying Lady Carrington’s forthright opinion to her husband. But his lordship merely shrugged.

“Very well. I’ll discuss them with her.” He dropped the bills to the table and picked up the pile of embossed cards, wrinkling his nose in distaste. The number of irksome invitations that came into the house of a married man far exceeded those he’d received as a bachelor. Everyone knew he didn’t care for social events, and he couldn’t understand why all these overzealous Society matrons now soliciting his company imagined that marriage would change the habits and interests of a lifetime.

“If that’ll be all, my lord, I’ll go and work on your speech to the House of Lords on the Corn Laws.”

Marcus grimaced. “Can’t you find something more interesting for me to talk on than the Corn Laws, John?”

His secretary looked startled. “But there is nothing more important at the moment, my lord.”

“Nothing to do with the army or the navy … further reforms in the Admiralty, how about that?”

“I’ll do some research, my lord.” With a hurt look, John left the book room.

Marcus smiled. John’s political interests were unfortunately not his employer’s. He turned back to the papers on the desk, picking up the pile of bills again.

Gregson came in with the claret. “Is her ladyship in, Gregson?”

“Yes, my lord. I believe she’s in the yellow drawing room.” The butler drew the cork, examined it carefully, poured a small quantity of claret into a shallow taster, and sniffed and sipped with a critical frown.

“All right?”

“Yes, my lord. Very fine.” He filled a crystal goblet and presented it to his employer. “Will that be all, sir?”

“For the moment. Thank you, Gregson.”

Marcus took the scent of his wine before sipping appreciatively. He wandered over to the long narrow windows overlooking a small, walled garden. The leaves of a chestnut tree drifted thickly to the grass under the brisk autumnal wind. A gardener was gathering the richly burnished mass into a bonfire. Marcus was abruptly reminded of Judith’s hair, glowing in the candlelight, spread over the white pillows … the silky matching triangle at the apex of those long, creamy thighs …

Abruptly he turned back to the desk and picked up the pile of bills again, tapping them against his palm. Judith certainly didn’t count the cost when it came to her personal expenditures.
She was beautiful and passionate in bed and he paid her well for it.

Why in God’s name did he resent it? He was a generous man and always had been. Money had never
concerned him—his fortune was too large for it ever to be an issue. And yet, as he looked through his wife’s bills, saw what she’d spent on her wardrobe, he could think only of how different it must be for her now, after all those years of living from hand to mouth, of making over her gowns and wearing paste jewelry, of living in cheap lodgings … of pretending publicly that she had access to all the things she now had at her fingertips.

A house in Berkeley Square, a country estate in Berkshire, an unassailable social position … She must congratulate herself every moment of every day on how well her strategem had succeeded.