Jane Feather - [V Series] (20 page)

“Your wife appears to be an accomplished astronomer, Carrington.”

“My wife has many accomplishments.”

The tension in the air was as suffocating as a blanket. Judith instinctively moved to lift it. She laughed. “An odd assortment, though, I’m afraid. My formal schooling was lamentably neglected.”

“Growing up on the Continent must have been an education in itself,” Gracemere observed, offering his snuff box to Carrington, who refused with a flat, polite smile.

“I speak five languages,” Judith said. “And my mathematics are quite sound … in some areas, at least.” She shot Marcus an impishly conspiratorial look as she said this. “I count quite well, don’t I, my lord?”

“Faultlessly,” he agreed, unable to resist the invitation to collusion. Such invitations were all too rare, and he felt some of his tension dissipate, the slow burn of memory rage die down. Judith had nothing to do with the past, and at this moment she had eyes only for him, and there was no ambivalence now to cloud their brilliance. “I wonder if I can persuade you to dance with your husband, ma’am?”

Judith put her head on one side, considering. “Well, it’s certainly unusual, and I wouldn’t want it said that we lived in each other’s pockets.”

“Heaven forbid. If you think there’s the slightest danger of that, I’ll make myself scarce immediately.”

It occurred to Gracemere, listening to this byplay, that they’d forgotten his presence completely. “You will excuse me,” he said, bowing and walking away.

Marcus held out his hand. “A measure, madam wife.”

“If you insist.” She put her hand in his. “But I can’t imagine why you’d wish to torture yourself in such fashion. We both know you find dancing a dead bore.”

“That may be so,” he said as they took their places in the set. “But I’ve yet to be bored in your company.”

“No, just maddened,” she said with an arch smile.

“And vastly amused and aroused and fulfilled,” he responded with a bland smile quite at odds with his words and the sensual glitter in his eyes.

They moved down the set and were separated by the dance movements. When they came together again, he commented, “You, at all events, seem to have been enjoying yourself this evening.”

“Is that a crime?” Her eyebrows lifted in a fine and distinctly challenging arch.

Marcus shook his head. “Put up your sword, lynx. I’m not going to quarrel with you this evening.”

“No?” The word was weighted with disappointment. “But we quarrel so well together.”

The dance took her from him again before he could come up with a response. When she was returned to him, she was suddenly preoccupied, her eyes fixed on something over his shoulder. “My poor efforts at conversation don’t appear to be entertaining you, ma’am,” he drawled, when she had failed to respond to his second observation in two minutes.

“I beg your pardon.” But she continued to gaze over his shoulder, chewing her lip, and whenever he touched
her, he could feel the tautness in the lithe, compact frame.

“What is it, Judith?”

She shook her head. “Nothing … only, do you know Lady Barret?”

“Agnes Barret, yes, of course. She’s the wife of Sir Thomas Barret. She’s been on the scene for many years … a widow of some Italian count, I believe, originally. Then she married Barret this last summer.” He shrugged. “Barret’s a gout-ridden old fogey, but quite well heeled, so I daresay he offered a port in a storm. Although she’s a damnably attractive woman; I’m sure she could have done better for herself.”

“Yes, she is,” Judith agreed absently. Then she seemed to shake herself out of her reverie. “Did you come here to make sure I was where I was supposed to be, sir?”

“Don’t be provoking, Judith.”

“I don’t mean to be provoking,” she protested, all innocence. “But it’s only natural, when you do something so out of character, I should look for a reason.”

“I came to find you,” he said.

“To check up on me,” she declared with a triumphant nod.

“Don’t put words into my mouth,” he said. “I came to find you.”

“But surely it comes to the same thing. You wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing something I shouldn’t be.”

“Well, you’ll certainly think twice another time if the urge to misbehave does hit you,” he remarked. “Since you won’t know whether I’m likely to turn up or not.”

Judith was for a moment silenced, then suddenly she began to laugh. “I do believe we’re quarreling,” she observed with satisfaction. “I knew it couldn’t be long.”

“Hornet!” He led her out of the dance.

“Shall we go home?”

“An admirable idea.” He steered her across the room, one flat palm in the small of her back.

“Good evening, Lady Carrington, Marcus … Permit me to offer my felicitations. I would have done so earlier, but Barret was kept in the country with a touch of the gout and we’ve only just returned to town.”

Lady Barret materialized in their path, extending her hand to Judith as she smiled at Marcus. “This wretched war,” she murmured. “It played havoc with one’s social life. Everyone disappeared to Brussels.”

“Hardly everyone,” Marcus demurred, letting his hand fell from Judith’s back and lifting Lady Barret’s to his lips.

“Well, now that the ogre is safely put away on that island, it’s to be hoped life can go back to normal.” Lady Barret shuddered delicately.

“The war lasted fifteen years,” Judith remarked into the air. “Peace is hardly the normal condition.”

Agnes’s smile froze and her eyes seemed to shrink to mere pinpricks in her suddenly sharpened face. She laughed, a harsh sound like breaking glass. “How true, my dear Lady Carrington. Such a sharp wit you have.”

Judith felt that strange aura again and the unmistakable conviction that Agnes Barret was a dangerous woman to cross. She forced a smile to her lips. “I meant no discourtesy, ma’am. But the world has been at war throughout most of my life, so perhaps I see it from a different perspective.”

Agnes’s eyes narrowed at this reference to their differing ages. “I hope I may call upon you, Lady Carrington,” she said coldly as Marcus eased his wife away.

“I should be honored,” Judith said distantly.

At the door, Judith halted and looked over her shoulder. Agnes Barret was in close conversation with Bernard
Melville. They reminded her of a pair of hooded cobras, touching tongues. A shudder of revulsion ripped through her.

“What’s troubling you, Judith?” Marcus asked softly. “You’re wound as tight as a coiled spring. And you were unpardonably rude.”

“I know. It’s something about that woman.” She shrugged. “Never mind. I’m just being fanciful.” She moved to the staircase.

“Oh, Judith, are you leaving?” Charlie appeared from the shadows of a doorway on the landing, and Judith wondered why she felt he’d been lying in wait for them. He ducked his head at her and addressed his cousin, but without looking at him. “Marcus … could you spare me a few minutes tomorrow … a matter of some urgency?”

“I’m always available for you, Charlie,” Marcus said evenly. “Shall we say at around noon, if that will suit you?”

“Yes … yes, that’ll be fine.” Two bright spots of color burned on his cheekbones. “I’ll see you then … uh … Judith, good night.” With a jerky bob, he kissed her cheek and then turned and disappeared rapidly into the salon.

“Damn young fool,” Marcus observed without heat.

“Why, what’s happened?”

“He’s in dun territory again. Up to his ears in gaming debts and he’s going to want me to advance him the money to settle them. He doesn’t know I know it, of course.”

“And how do you know it?”

He looked down at her in some surprise. “Charlie’s my ward, Judith. Not much happens in his life that I don’t know about. He’s my responsibility.”

“And you take your responsibilities very seriously,”
she mused. Marcus might be a strict guardian, but he was a very caring one.

“Yes, I do,” he said. “And don’t you ever forget it, madam wife.”

“Autocrat,” she threw at him over her shoulder, but she was feeling too much in charity with him to take up the cudgels with any seriousness.

It was near dawn when Marcus went to his own bed, reflecting that if they continued to burn the candle at both ends in this fashion, they would need a repairing lease in the country before the Season was half done.

He awoke when Cheveley drew back the curtains on a brilliant sunny morning. Marcus flung aside the covers and stood up, stretching. “My dressing gown, Cheveley.”

The valet held the brocade dressing gown for him. Tying the cord at his waist, Marcus strolled into his wife’s apartment. “Good morning, lynx.”

Judith was sitting up in bed, her copper hair tumbling against the piled white pillows. A tray of hot chocolate and sweet biscuits was on the bedside table, and her knees were lost beneath a cloud of prettily penned papers.

“Good morning, Marcus.” She smiled at him over the rim of her cup of chocolate, thinking how pleasant it was to be at peace with her husband.

“You have a host of admirers, it seems.” He bent to kiss the tip of her nose and picked up a handful of the billets-doux, letting them fall back to the bed in a shower. “And a nosegay.” The little twist of violets in a chased silver holder lay beside the chocolate pot on the table. He glanced at the card and his face darkened.

“Gracemere. You must have made a significant impression on him last evening.”

Judith inclined her head in vague acknowledgment. “He writes very pretty cards, at all events. And the violets are so delicate.”

“I don’t think it right for you to receive such gifts, Judith.”

Judith sat back against her pillows, remembering for the first time that strange tension between the two men. “In general, or Gracemere in particular?”

He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“I think it does, sir. It’s perfectly normal for a woman to receive such little attentions.”

Marcus said nothing, turning instead to walk over to the window, looking out at the square. A group of children under the eye of a nursemaid were playing ball in the railed garden in the center.

“You don’t like Gracemere, do you?” It seemed to Judith that the matter had better be brought into the open quickly.

“No, Judith, I do not. And you must understand that I will not have the man under my roof under any circumstances.”

“May I ask why?” Her fingers restlessly pleated the coverlet as she tried to see a way through this unexpected tangle.

“You may ask, but I can’t give you an answer. The issue is perfectly simple: you may not count Gracemere among your friends.” His voice was level, almost expressionless, as he remained looking down at the children in the square. But he wasn’t seeing them. He was seeing Martha as she had been that morning ten years before. His fist clenched and he could almost feel again the cool silver handle of his horse whip nestling in his palm.

Judith frowned at her husband’s back. “Oh, no, my lord, it’s not that simple,” she said in soft anger. “You cannot issue such a command without a reason.”

Marcus turned from the window. “I can, Judith, and I have,” he stated flatly. “And I expect you to comply.” He gestured to the pile of correspondence on the bed and softened his tone. “You have so many friends … one less can make little difference.”

Judith thought rapidly. It was a damnably unexpected complication, but it was vital that Gracemere should not become a bone of contention between herself and Marcus. If she threw down the glove, Marcus would definitely pick it up, and there was no knowing to what length he would go to keep her away from her quarry. No … instead of defiance she must lull him into inattention. Gracemere would have to be cultivated out of eyesight and earshot of her husband.

“I have a suggestion to make,” she said in a bland voice, as if the previous conversation had not taken place.

Marcus, on his guard at this sudden change of tone, raised his eyebrows slightly but said nothing.

“Supposing you asked me to do you a favor,” Judith continued in a musing, conversational manner, playing idly with a copper ringlet on her shoulder. “Supposing you said
To please me, my dear wife, would you mind very much avoiding Gracemere like the plague?”
A delicately arched eyebrow rose in quizzical inquiry as she regarded her husband’s set face, the taut line of his mouth.

Surprise jumped into his eyes, followed immediately by comprehension, and then his mouth curved in a slow smile. “Point taken, madam wife,” he said softly. “But I think I can improve on your suggestion.” He left her and went into his own apartment, returning after a minute with a bulky parcel.

He came up to the bed, to where she lay against the pillows, barely able to contain her curiosity. “What is it?”

“A present,” he said with a smile, carefully placing
the parcel on the bed. “I’ve been waiting for a suitable moment to give it to you. Now seems like the moment.”

“It’s a bribe!” Judith said on a peal of laughter, eagerly pulling at the string. “Shameless! You would buy my compliance.”

Marcus chuckled, entranced by her gleeful excitement—like a child on Christmas morning, he thought. It occurred to him that an impoverished, helter-skelter childhood wouldn’t have included too many presents. The thought produced an unfamiliar tug of tenderness as he took deep pleasure in her delight.

“Oh, Marcus, it’s beautiful,” she breathed, tearing off the wrapping to reveal a massive slab of checkered marble. The black squares were almost indigo, the white a translucent ivory. Almost reverently she opened the box containing the chess pieces, heavy, beautifully sculptured marble figures. Her eyes shining, she held the board on her knees and set up the pieces.

“It’s not a bribe,” Marcus said softly, watching her. “It’s a gift with no strings attached.”

She looked up and smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“And now,” he said, bending over her, catching her chin with his forefinger. “Will you do me that favor?”

“You had only to
ask,”
she responded with an air of mock dignity.

She fell back on the pillows under the press of his body, the chess pieces scattering in the folds of the coverlet as he brought his mouth to hers. As she fumbled with the tie of his robe, pushing her hands beneath the material to find his skin, she quieted her conscience with the thought that Marcus would ultimately benefit from her plan to best Gracemere.