Miss Antiqua's Adventure (17 page)

Ignoring the look of disdainful indifference bestowed upon him by the young lady, he departed.

Lady Julianne drew that young lady toward a gilt chair, saying, “And now, Antiqua, you must tell me what you thought of Miss Butterworth’s performance.”

Chapter 14

When informed that she had a caller on the following morning, Antiqua flew down to the sitting room to greet Lord Balstone. But the gentleman who turned from his contemplation of the flickering flames within the marble fireplace was not the handsome Viscount.

“Good morning, Brown-eyes,” Vincent said casually.

The shock of seeing him turned Antiqua to stone. Her mouth gaped half-open and the heat of a guilty flush rushed up her neck. Vincent tilted his head slightly and scrutinized her with narrowed eyes, running his gaze over the empyrean length of her ruffled round gown and stopping at last upon her face. She blushed harder.

“Cat got your tongue?” he prompted in a provokingly cool voice.

She rose instantly to the bait. “It’s merely that I’ve nothing whatever to say to you.”

“No? How odd. I was quite certain there was a great deal you wished to say to me last night.”

“The only thing I wish to say to you, sir, is good day.” She spun on her heel to leave.

One step brought him between her and the door. His shadow enveloped her. She bent her head, looking down at the floor as her heart knocked almost painfully against her ribs.

“Is that any way for a lady to dismiss her
fiancé
?” As he spoke, his breath wisped through her hair.

She raised her head. “You’re not my
fiancé
! And you’ve no right to issue a lecture on manners to me!”

A slow, sensual curve played upon his long, narrow mouth. She felt her anger draining away. He extended a fingertip. As light as butterfly wings, he traced the line of her cheek. She wondered how she managed to remain upright on legs that had suddenly turned to custard.

“Why is it that when we are together it is like striking flint with steel?” he asked in a hushed, husky tone. “It is not my wish, Antiqua, that we should argue whenever we meet. I should far rather we come . . . together . . . like this . . .”

His mouth slowly descended to hers and her breath caught in her throat as she thought, feared, hoped he was going to kiss her. Instinctively, she closed her eyes and tipped her head back. His breath misted her waiting lips. The heat of his body seemed to ignite within her own. Her nerves leapt and her blood raced and currents of desire and excitement that she had never before known flooded in her.

A second of eternity passed by. She swayed slightly. And then his kiss claimed her.

The ardor of her response surprised her. Her lips parted for him as if on command, and his tongue swept in to rub against hers in intimate love play. Feeling his arms tighten about her, she pressed herself to him. Breasts flattened against his chest, arms wreathed about his neck, fingers wound into the dark thicket of his hair, she could not seem to get close enough to him. She wanted, needed to be absorbed by all of him, and somewhere at the back of her mind, this frightened her as much as it thrilled her.

As if he sensed the battle within her, Vincent gentled his hold and eased his mouth away from hers, murmuring, “My little one, little one.”

Her eyes slowly opened and her words of protest at being released died unspoken. The dark glint in his blue eyes rendered her incapable of speech. She had seen that glint before, in a dim passageway in France, only then it had gleamed with cold indifference. There was no indifference in his gaze now, nor the least chill. Now his gaze was so heated, it blistered to the depths of her soul.

He drew in a ragged breath, struggling with his desire, and at length stepped back. “I knew when I first saw you,” he began, then paused to smile in a way which leaped through her heart. “Even as ripe as I was then, I knew those lips were designed for kissing.”

A light coloring prettied her complexion.

He laughed tenderly, then caught her hand. “Come, I thought we might go for an outing, to Hookham’s Library, perhaps, or shopping at Soho Bazaar. We might find you another hat with green ribbons.”

“Oh, yes, I should like that very—” Antiqua abruptly stopped. The excited shine faded from her eyes. She fixed them on the sight of her hand wrapped within the protection of his. She could not leave until after she had received Lord Balstone. But as simple an explanation as this was, she was vastly reluctant to give it to Vincent. She suspected he would not like it above half.

“If you do not wish to go out, my sweet, we could as easily stay here,” he suggested.

“No!” she exclaimed. She looked away and mumbled, “That is, I have—I’m expecting a morning call.”

“Ah,” Vincent drawled.

She waited. He did not ask the question, and because he did not, she felt perversely compelled to answer it. She lifted her chin and met his gaze with what she hoped was calm defiance.

“From Lord Balstone,” she said on an embarrassing squeak.

An inscrutable expression passed over his face. She licked her lips, her mouth now intolerably dry. He spoke and his deadly softness chilled her spine.

“Yet I told you, did I not, that I would not tolerate any dealings with Balstone?”

“You have no right to dictate any of my dealings,” she returned with more bravado than she actually felt.

“I have, my love, whatever rights I choose to take. Do not think to defy me, Antiqua. You will come to learn that I always mean what I say.”

“And I mean what I say!” She emphasized her crushing reply with a stout stamp of her foot.

The tight line of his mouth relaxed and though he did not actually smile, she thought she saw one hovering there at the corners of his mouth. It incensed her further. How dare he lecture and dictate and
laugh
at her? How dare he?

“I must bid you good-day, sir. I have to prepare myself for my visitor.”

The warmth vanished from his face, replaced by the dispassionate mask she knew only too well. “Very well, my dear, if that is what you wish, I shall leave. But for your own good, Antiqua, do not defy me. You shall only regret it if you do.”

He left her standing, the very center of her being hollowed by his abrupt departure. Slowly, she slumped unseeing onto the nearest chair. Thoughts tumbled frantically atop one another in her bemused mind, all of which smashed into the barrier of her distrust. But she was no longer certain if it were Vincent she distrusted or herself. She was not able to trust herself enough to trust him, for to do so would force her to acknowledge that guilty or innocent, it made no matter. She loved him. No other love, no other man would do.

Sunk in the depths of her reverie, she did not hear the footsteps behind her. It was only when a silhouette fell across her lap that she became aware of another’s presence. Her eyes swept upward. Hope vanished as they encountered a blue pair.

“Hullo, Antiqua,” Lord Rosewarren said with a sheepish smile.

“I’d thought you’d given up on me,” she said, rising to grasp his hands.

“No, no, no such thing, I assure you,” he denied hastily. He reclaimed his hands. “I may have lost my temper—well, dash it, I did and who wouldn’t with the fustian you were spoutin’ off?—but I’m not such a cad as to leave you in the lurch. I said I’d prove m’brother’s innocence and so I shall. Though only a mutton-headed fool would need convincing.”

Recognizing from the frown lowering the lady’s brows that he had made a mistake, Archie floundered, searched for a way to make amends and offered, “I say, Antiqua, that’s a deucedly becoming dress! You look quite smashing, a regular high-stepper!”

Antiqua decided to accept what amounted to an apology. “Thank you, Archie, but there’s no need to turn me up sweet. I’m willing to forget yesterday’s foolishness if you are.”

Patently relieved, Rosewarren quickly assured her he had a shockingly bad memory. Then a cloud settled over his countenance and he said heavily, “To own truth, Antiqua, I came because of those documents. Or should I even call them by such a name? I can’t say I’ve bethought me what to do about ’em, though,” he admitted in a voice of dejection.

“Nor have I,” she said, shattering his hopes of a solution.

“It’s a devilish coil,” he said.

They sat in a brief silence before Antiqua stirred herself to say without enthusiasm, “There’s so much I cannot understand. Last night, for example.”

“What about last night?” queried the bewildered Marquis.

“The manner of Lord Balstone. It puzzled me at the time, but I forgot—”

“Balstone!” Archie broke in. He threw her a look of disgust. “What the devil’s he got to do with all this?”

“Nothing exactly, except that when I met him at Countess Townsend’s last evening, I was surprised to see he wasn’t in mourning for his brother.” A frown furrowed her brow. “I was filled with all manner of conjecturings, but he later explained privately that the government wishes to keep Allen’s death a secret for the time being. I felt badly because it must have been such a dreadful shock for him when he reached Amiens.”

“Amiens? Balstone? Are you saying Balstone was in Amiens?” Archie’s voice scaled a mount of indignation.

“Only after his brother’s murder,” she put in hurriedly. “We met him in Calais, he was about to go on to Paris in search of Allen.” Seeing the heavy scowl on Archie’s face, she persevered, “But the thing I fail to understand is whenever Balstone and your brother meet, the two of them are like—well, a cat and dog caged together. Snarling and hissing from the instant they clap eyes on each other. And Vincent was just here, demanding I not receive the Viscount. But I cannot know whether that is a reasonable demand unless I know why he is making it. Tell me, please, what is the reason for their animosity?”

The young lord squirmed uncomfortably on his chair. Running his hand through his carefully disordered brown locks, he hemmed before finally clearing his throat. “It’s good advice, I’ll give you that. Balstone’s a rotter through and through. But the thing is, I don’t know that whole of the tale myself. It all began years ago—Jack was about my age, I guess, and though there was the deuce of a dust-up, I never did learn all the details.”

“But get on with it, Archie! What happened?”

“It all started with a chit, Susannah Aylward as she was then. Both Vincent and Balstone, though, he wasn’t Viscount then, were in love with her. Or so I’ve been told. One night she and my brother were stopped in a chaise on the Great North Road—”

“Gretna Green!” a wide-eyed Antiqua exclaimed.

“Precisely. Well, though it was never spoken of openly, where it could be denied, Balstone spread the tale about that Jack had forced her to elope with him. The Aylwards married her off as quickly as possible to some filthy rich old cit named Jagger and the whole thing seemed destined to die out as a ten-days’ wonder, but then . . .”

“But then?” she prompted, riveting a stare upon him.

“A bit over a  year ago Balstone was overheard in White’s telling a group of men that Mrs. Jagger was involved in an
affaire d’amour
with one of her grooms.”

“Overheard by Vincent?”

“Yes,” Archie confirmed with an unhappy nod. “And the next thing you know, Jack forced a duel upon the Viscount over the color of his coat. It was a sword-match and Balstone was wounded, though not severely. I was there when Jack turned up at the Abbey and m’father was outraged. ‘Still making a cake of yourself over that flighty bit of muslin,’ he stormed at Jack. And then, of course, my brother left for Europe, though no one expected him to stay away for over a twelvemonth.”

“He must still have loved this Susannah deeply to so defend her honor,” was Antiqua’s only toneless comment.

“Oh, lord, who’s to say? He’s had plenty of light-skirt company to—er, that is, I mean—”

Antiqua apparently did not notice his lordship’s discomfiture. She propped her elbows on her knees and cupped her chin in a most unladylike fashion. Her brow furrowed as she appeared absorbed in the lacings of her kid slipper. The fire popped occasionally, the Marquis shifted in his seat several times, and the clock on the mantel chimed the half-hour before she straightened and spoke.

“I’m not precisely certain what it all means, but I must tell you of something most peculiar which occurred last night. I intended, in fact, to tax his lordship with it when he came this morning, but I begin to wonder if it would be wise to do so. If, as you say, he is practiced in the art of deceit and the telling of falsehoods, perhaps I was taken in.”

“Well, dash it, Antiqua, are you going to tell me or ain’t you? What the devil happened?”

“I almost missed it, too,” she said in a tone of wonderment. “I was so vastly angry at Vincent that I did not stop to think. But as I lay in bed last night, just about to fall asleep, I heard it so clearly, that of course I sat up wide awake.”

She looked at him with her head tilted to the side, as if she had fully explained herself. Lord Rosewarren was conscious of a sudden desire to shake Antiqua until her pretty teeth rattled. As calmly as he could, though tight lips, he demanded one last time, “Tell me what happened!”

“Oh, did I not tell you?” she asked, causing his lordship to clench his fists. “I’d told Balstone that Allen ‘gave into my keeping’—those were my exact words, Archie, and quite all I managed to say before Vincent came in on us. Yet when he took his leave of me, the Viscount whispered that we’d soon discuss more about ‘this packet my brother gave you.’ Those were his exact words.”

She waited. Archie stared, his brow wrinkled. Finally, she thumped her fist upon her knee. “Don’t you see? Balstone could not possibly have known what Thomas Allen gave me!”

A shrill whistle greeted her announcement. Rosewarren jumped up and paced a line before her. She watched him with anxious eyes, nearly leaping from her seat to join him. Suddenly, he stopped in front of her.

“I’ll tell you what I think, Antiqua. I think Balstone’s as dark a villain as you’re ever like to meet. I think he’s our traitor!”

Antiqua sat upright, catching his excitement. If this were true, if she could prove the Viscount guilty, then Vincent would be proved innocent! All barriers to her love would be crumbled!