No Marriage of Convenience (22 page)

“Your wish or your command?” she said back, improvising a new line for Aveline. She nodded to him, challenging him to answer back.

He rose to his feet, taking a wide stance, his hand on the hilt of an imaginary sword. “If I must, I command it. But I would rather that you gave it to me freely.”

“Now you sound like Geoffroi,” she teased. She rose from the table. Taking a step back, she made a low curtsey. “If my lord commands it, then I, the mere daughter of a woodcutter, must humbly comply.”

He bowed and accepted her tribute by taking her hand and drawing it to his lips. As he placed a gentle kiss on her fingers, their gazes met.

The easiness that had sprung up between them suddenly grew tense with awareness. For a moment she stilled, and then the clock on the mantel struck three. Instantly she freed her hand.

“I didn’t realize it had gotten so late,” she said, gathering up her pages and notes. “I shouldn’t have kept you. You have your own matters of business to attend to, rather than worrying about lines in my poor comedy.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “You should consider a career as a playwright. You have an able hand for writing.”

“Is there any money to be made?” he joked.

She shook her head. “Novelists and diarists do sometimes, but playwrights are a rather sad lot.”

She started to leave, but he caught her by the arm. “Don’t leave, Riley. Not yet.”

His touch melted her heart. She dared not look into his eyes, for she knew she would say something foolish.

Like confirming everything Lord Delander had said.

I do love you, Mason St. Clair. I love your ponderous, stuffy Oxford ways. I love every ordered, honorable, respectable thing about you.

But mostly I love your kiss. I want to spend the rest of my days awaiting the nights so I can while away the dark hours warmed by your embrace.

Somehow Mason must have heard her silent wish, for he did just that, wrapping her into his arms and putting his lips to hers.

His mouth claimed her, commanding her with his very dishonorable intentions.

Suddenly he was every bit the Ashlin rake she’d feared he was when first she’d come to his house. And she was so very glad for that. Oh, he hid it well, what with those spectacles and all, but the man kissing her held her with a masterful skill that she doubted even the most practiced scoundrel could boast.

He pulled back, his hands cradling her face, his gaze heated and devouring. “Riley, I—”

“—Sshh,” she told him, raising herself up on her tiptoes and kissing him again.

His hands began to roam over her shoulders, her arms, her hips. His touch held promises she’d never imagined. Promises of passion. Promises that this would not be the last time he took her into his arms.

She moaned, his touch enflaming her need for him just that much more.

Mason must have understood, for he pushed her gown down over her shoulder, his lips trailing kisses from behind her ear, down her neck, and all the way to the top of her breast.

She arched her back, willing to be at his command, his every wish. This time she wouldn’t run away from her passions, her need for him.

“Please, Mason—” she whispered in a heady rush.

He granted her plea by taking one of the peaks in his mouth and starting to suckle it with his tongue.

The sensation sent ramparts of pleasure shooting through her limbs, leaving her taut and breathless.

His other hand began gathering up her skirt, roaming up her leg, as if it were searching, frantically seeking its own fantasy. And apparently he found it, as his fingers lovingly explored the garter holding up her stocking.

For once, Riley was glad not to have removed her garters and stockings.

With a deft movement, he untied the red satin and began slowly rolling the garter and stocking down her leg, his fingers stroking a reverent path down her thigh and calf.

He retrieved the other one in the same manner, slowly and deliberately.

But the heat in her body wasn’t in her legs, it was higher, and she found that just kissing and being kissed was no longer enough. She wanted him to touch her—there, at her very heart, where her yearning and desire met.

“I have never wanted anyone as I have wanted you,” he whispered, as his hands began a renewed ascent up her thigh. “You are so beautiful.”

“Tolerable,” she whispered back. “I’m tolerable.”

His eyes gazed down her with something that hardly resembled toleration. They burned into her with his need and his desire. And in an instant, his lips came crashing down on hers in a claiming that was undeniable.

This was wrong, she tried to tell herself. He didn’t love her; he wouldn’t marry her; he just wanted her. But al
ready breathless with anticipation, Riley no longer cared what was right or wrong.

Part of her clung to the belief that his feelings for her weren’t that far from hers.

That the very proper Earl of Ashlin loved her with a wild abandon.

As if to prove that very notion, he held her with one arm and swept the table clean of their papers. His gesture sent the script and all her notes flying up in the air like confetti.

Including some pieces she’d been keeping well concealed.

One of them fluttered down, landing right side up, right before his eyes. He snatched it up before she could sweep it away.

Did you think you cud hide?

He took a step back from her. Before her eyes she watched his powerful passion turn to outrage.

“When did this arrive?” he demanded, shaking the paper at her. “
When
?” Since she’d given him all the notes her enemy had sent the first day she’d come to live at Ashlin House, he really didn’t need to hear her answer.

“Two days ago,” Riley whispered, her gaze downcast. Then he realized she wasn’t as contrite as she appeared; rather, she was looking around…

“This isn’t the only one?” His temper exploded. “How many have you received since you came here?”

“Three,” she said, leaning over and picking up two more notes.

Three notes?
Mason’s fury filled the room. “What were you thinking, concealing these?”

“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

Right now he didn’t know if he could trust her—her words or her tears—even though the emotion and fear sounded genuine. His pride was too stung.

“Madame,” he said, “I can very well take care of this situation.”

She shook her head. “Mason, I’ve lived in some of the worst neighborhoods of Paris and London, while you’ve been sheltered—first here, and then at that college of yours. I didn’t want you to get hurt…or killed. You know nothing about these types of ruffians, or how to—” Her words faltered to a stop.

“How to defend myself?”

“Yes.” She didn’t even have the decency to look shamefaced about her confession. “You said yourself the day in the alley was nothing more than dumb luck. What if your next meeting with Clyde or someone of his ilk came out differently?”

“I doubt it would.”

“You don’t know that. If it was Hashim—”

He took a calming breath. “If it was Hashim, you wouldn’t worry, is that it?”

She nodded. “If you were good with a sword or even a knife, I wouldn’t worry, but Mason…”

“A knife, you say?” he asked. “How about this?” In one fluid, swift motion, he leaned over and snatched the dagger he always kept concealed in his boot when he was out about town. Before she could even finish the gasp that came issuing forth from her lips, he sent the blade spinning across the room where it stuck in the portrait of the seventh Earl.

Right in his throat.

Her mouth moved, but no sounds came out. “How did you…when did you…”

“Choose your weapon, Riley, and you will find I am quite capable with it. I not only taught military history, I studied it. All of it—from planning a siege to cannoneering.” He took the other notes from her hands and gave them passing glances. “Where did you find these?”

“In my room.”

He let out a blistering curse. Apparently, Riley wasn’t safe, even in his house, under his protection. This was his fault. He should never have arrogantly thought her enemy would not seek her within his house.

And if the man could get into his house, he could harm not only Riley, but the rest of his family as well.

He knew the solution to that. He strode toward the door. When he got there, he turned to her. “Tell your maid to pack your belongings. Tomorrow you, the girls, and Cousin Felicity go to the country. You’ll remain at Sanborn Abbey until I can straighten this out.”

“But tomorrow is—” She clamped her mouth shut, her eyes opening wide at her own blundered
faux pas
.

Mason didn’t need to hear the rest to know how Riley had been about to finish her near confession.

Tomorrow is the Everton Masquerade
, she meant to say.

So that was it. She had planned to defy him and take the girls to the Everton masquerade. Well, no longer. He held up his hand to stave off her protest. “Not another word. You will go to the country tomorrow and that is my final answer.”

M
ason was as swift and true to his word as when he’d moved Riley to Ashlin Square. In the morning, over breakfast, he announced that they were returning to Sanborn Abbey, posthaste. Over protests and complaints, he held firm, and to his surprise, it had finally been Riley who had calmed the outbursts and instructed the girls to acquiesce to their uncle’s orders.

For some reason her acceptance had left him suspicious, but he needn’t worry overly much about her—with Hashim guarding them, he knew his family and Riley were by now safely ensconced in the large rambling pile of stone that made up Sanborn Abbey and far from the harm that had threatened her.

Leaving him free to uncover her enemy, and his as well.

He knew there was only one way to protect Riley, and that would be to send her far away—farther than Sanborn Abbey. But that would take money he didn’t have.

But he knew how to acquire it, the special license in his pocket weighing his spirits down as much as the thought of never seeing Riley again.

Yes, he told himself, glancing through the plain black
domino tied over his face toward his companion for the evening. This was the only way to save Riley.

“What do you think of
my
costume, Lord Ashlin?” Miss Dahlia Pindar asked. “I spent weeks preparing it.”

He forced himself to smile at her shepherdess guise, the frills and ribbons nearly burying the petite girl in a sea of white and china blue clutter. “Quite nice,” he managed to say.

Dahlia beamed, while her mother nodded approvingly.

He knew from the carriage ride over, wherein she’d chattered nonstop, that she had designed the costume herself, instructing her modiste on every detail, right down to her shepherd’s crook wrapped in blue silk and decorated with white tassels.

Of course, after fifteen minutes of carrying the ridiculous accessory about, she’d demanded he hold it because it had become too burdensome for her delicate constitution.

This was what he had come to—not only was he wearing this infernal mask, he was carrying a tasseled crook. He only hoped Del didn’t see him looking like a complete idiot.

He could well imagine what Riley would say at the sight of him. More likely, she wouldn’t be able to say anything through a guaranteed fit of laughter.

Worst of all, he suspected that if he were with Riley he wouldn’t find the evening such a bore.

And now that the masquerade was building to a crush, Dahlia’s fine costume appeared hardly as novel as she had earlier boasted. The room churned with shepherdesses, all stalking about in search of any wayward bachelor they could hook into marriage with their own tasseled crooks.

As another blue and white country lass passed by, Dahlia sniffed at the girl’s costume, fluffing her own rib
bons and bows as if they were quite superior. “It is so difficult being an Original. Everyone apes you in such an unseemly manner.”

Mason knew now he shouldn’t have been so hard on Bea for her less than flattering description of the cit’s daughter. His niece had been right: Dahlia had never had an original idea in her life, let alone the fashion sense worthy of copying.

He wondered what Riley would have worn—something daring, something that would have made her an object of desire to every man in the room.

And then he would have escorted her home, jealous of the attentions she’d been paid, and overly proud that she was his and his alone…

But she wasn’t his—that position now fell to the girl at his side.

And all that was left was for him to make the appropriate offer and the heiress would be there for the rest of his days.

He glanced down at her and found her looking up at him, her gaze and posture expectant.

She was waiting for him to ask that one simple question.

Will you marry me?

He smiled back at her and then looked away. He could silently practice it all he wanted, but forcing himself to say it out loud was another matter.

Truly, it was only one question, albeit a question that would save his family’s future.

As he considered how one did condemn oneself to such a fate, Dahlia gossiped on about this and that, interjecting complaints about the hardships of finding the right lace for another new gown. The girl’s self-absorbed prattle continued without any sign of abating, laying Mason’s fu
ture out before him in a long unending whine.

Evenings not spent in the library reading poetry, arguing Shakespeare, or making up outlandish plots for other plays. Making love in the library, as he would have done with Riley last night, if he hadn’t seen those notes.

He stopped himself right there. It wasn’t fair to compare Dahlia to Riley, since there was no comparison.

He didn’t even try to fool himself that Dahlia would ever be capable of such sensual abandon. Especially since Mrs. Pindar had already intimated that she would expect to live with her daughter.

Her presence would go far toward diminishing any man’s desire or his sanity.

Miss Pindar, will you marry me?

Mason wondered if any of his ancestors had braved such a frightening prospect, all in the name of securing the Ashlin fortunes, and saving the woman he loved.

“The Ladies Artemis, Athena, and Persephone,” the Everton majordomo intoned loudly, announcing the newest arrivals.

A collective gasp stilled the room. The trio paused in a tableau at the top of the stairs, allowing the moment of silence to interrupt the monotone and continuous announcement of guests.

Very quickly a buzz filled the room until it turned into a groundswell of whispered speculation and betting as to who the beauties behind the masks could be.

If that wasn’t bad enough, a rush of young blades, dressed as pirates and cavaliers, and a Romeo or two, rushed toward the entrance, elbowing each other out of position so they could be the first to claim the trio’s dance cards.

Then as the gossips deemed the night couldn’t get any
better, the trio parted as if on cue, and a fourth lady entered their midst.

“The Lady Aphrodite,” the majordomo announced.

Mason froze at the sight of her.

Riley!

A simple gold coronet crowned her unbound wheat-colored hair. Her winter white gown was tied together at one shoulder, and bound at the waist by a gilt girdle. The silk clung to her body, revealing the splendid shape beneath, while a slit from the floor to her knees offered an indecent peek at her long legs. Her mask covered her face so effectively that her identity was hidden even from those who rushed forward in unabashed interest to garner a closer look.

Damn her silken hide! All her contrite acceptance about being banished to Sanborn Abbey had been nothing but an act.

Her best performance to date.

“How shocking,” Miss Pindar said. “I don’t see how they were allowed in.”

At the same time Mason stood there wondering how he could get them out without causing a further scene.

The girl’s fan fluttered with nervous tidings. “Have you ever seen a lady so…so…dare I say it? Uncovered?”

“Dahlia!” her mother said, equally shocked at her daughter’s loose comment.

“Well, she is! Oh, I wonder who they are?” she whispered, repeating the question on everyone’s tongue.

Her mother raised her nose in the air. “Company we won’t be keeping. Shameless jades, the entire lot of them. Don’t you agree, Lord Ashlin?”

Mason could only nod. This was perfect. If Riley’s and the girls’ identities were discovered, and surely they would be at the unmasking, not even the chance of having
her daughter become a countess would keep Mrs. Pindar placated, given her current state of moral indignation.

The lady sniffed. “The only consolation is that when those harlots are found out, they will no longer be received or invited to any respectable functions. It’s beyond me why His Grace hasn’t cast them out.”

Cast out! Mason could only hope to be that lucky. Then he’d personally see to it the foursome never saw another social function again—for he planned on having them transported to the furthest reach of the Empire.

“What are they supposed to be?” Miss Pindar asked. “Some type of pagans?”

“Goddesses,” Mason corrected. “The one with the bow and arrow is Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. The one next to her is Athena, the goddess of wisdom.”

“How can you be sure?” Dahlia asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“The lady is holding an olive branch, the symbol of Athena, while the one at the end must be Persephone, the queen of the underworld, for she carries a black scepter.”

“Harumph,” Mrs. Pindar sniffed. “Sounds suspiciously like some unreadable French novel.”

“Look at the way they are parading about,” Dahlia was saying. “Lord Ashlin, I can assure you that I would never behave in such an unseemly manner.”

Of that Mason was positive. Dahlia would never do anything that turned heads or enlivened a rather dull evening, nor was there any hope in his heart that she ever would.

Glancing once more at the foursome as they continued their parade into the Everton ballroom, it struck him that now that Riley had arrived, the evening was no longer a dead bore.

Cousin Felicity had described to Riley in great detail how the masquerade would proceed—and Riley had plotted accordingly to make the most of each moment.

Like Cinderella, they would be nearly the last guests to arrive, and then before the unmasking at midnight, they would flee—before anyone found out who they were.

Cousin Felicity had secured their invitations by intercepting Mason’s refusal and changing it to an acceptance, so each of the girls had the necessary card required for entrance into this exclusive ball.

Though to be honest, Riley hadn’t anticipated that their entrance would bring the entire room to a standstill. As she passed the girls and took the lead, she glanced over her shoulder and reminded them, “Remember, no talking, and don’t remove your masks for anyone. And avoid your uncle at all costs.”

The girls nodded solemnly, their eyes wide behind their elaborate masks at the rush moving toward them.

Taking a deep breath, Riley started their descent into the vast and packed room.

“A dance, miss,” a young man called out to Bea. “I claim your first dance.”

His friend, dressed as a savage from the Colonies, surged forward, falling to his knees on the marble steps before Louisa. “I worship at your feet, my fair Persephone. Promise me your heart and I will save you from the depths of Hades and bestow upon you all my worldly possessions.”

“What? Your vowels at White’s?” one of his friends joked.

The bold young man remained nonplussed. He folded his hands in prayer and proclaimed, “Honey, mead, nectar—whatever a goddess demands would be yours.”

Louisa took his outrageous display in stride, as if it
were her due. Regally inclining her head, she plucked a rosebud from her headdress and dropped it at his knees.

A murmur of approval ran through the ranks circling them.

“If I could have your name, dear goddess,” the grateful young man said, holding up his prize as if it were gold, “I would continue my devotions tomorrow.”

With a skill that even Mrs. Siddons would envy, Louisa’s gracious smile turned bittersweet, and she shook her head.

After she rejoined her sisters, they continued their descent into the room, now with a train of devoted followers. Given the pointed stares, Riley suspected the attention they were garnering was unprecedented even in the capricious vagaries of the
ton
.

Cousin Felicity had assured Riley that in the guaranteed crush at the Everton masquerade, it was doubtful they’d run into Mason. That was why she’d agreed so readily to his demand they go to Sanborn Abbey while he stayed behind to uncover her enemy.

She’d had no intention of going out of town the day of the Everton ball. Her stalker wouldn’t be able to find her here, nor was she about to let the girls down. They’d all worked together, with Jane Gunn’s help, to sew these costumes from fabric they’d pilfered from Caro’s closets.

Besides, it had taken every bit of her persuasive power, pleading and finally an hour in the carriage with five crying and wailing women to convince Hashim to countermand Mason’s orders.

That, and a double dose of Cousin Felicity’s sleeping draught Riley had slipped into his tea, finally took effect, leaving the giant man snoring for the rest of the day and unable to stop the ladies’s plans.

Now all they had to do was avoid Mason for the eve
ning. Given the press of people, Riley realized that might not be as hard as she’d first assumed. Besides, he’d be occupied with Dahlia and her mother, and certainly not anticipate finding them here.

Yet as crowded as it was, with each step, Riley expected to see a pair of angry blue eyes glaring out at her from behind the plain black domino she knew he wore.

“You have sown a triumph to be envied,” she heard Cousin Felicity whisper into her ear. She turned around and found her co-conspirator all aflutter.

“So far,” she whispered back, too superstitious to give in to celebration just yet. Even when the first act went over brilliantly on opening night, Riley never celebrated until the final curtain fell and the theatre shook with enthusiastic applause and cheers. “Now remember, we are silent. You don’t know who we are. But if you find an eligible gentleman, the type Mason would approve of, then point him out and let me determine if we should allow him a bit of information on how he might seek out his lady love tomorrow.”

Cousin Felicity laughed. “Like the proverbial glass slipper.”

The musicians, who had been tuning their instruments for the last few moments, paused to announce the first dance.

This Riley knew would be the true test. As scandalous as their costumes were, would anyone be willing to risk the ire of society and dance with the girls?

Just then, their host, the Duke of Everton, crossed the room and stopped right before her.

She held her breath and waited. Was he about to toss them out? She’d heard that suggestion bandied about by more than one spiteful mother since their arrival.