Priceless (15 page)

“Yes.” Smiling with all his white teeth, he never slowed.

“No!” She pushed at him, but he adjusted his grip on her legs, widening them.

Her maidenhead yielded, unmatched by his relentless advance. He pressed on until he rested against her. He stopped, breathing as hard as if he’d run a great race. “You gave your consent. You swore you’d not abjure.”

Untouched by the resentment clouding her mind, her body adjusted to his invasion, easing about him. A residue of the need she’d experienced still rushed in her blood, augmented, perhaps, by her anger. “Finish, then. Finish, but I hate you. I hate you forever.”

“Forever is a very long time.” His eyes burned her as he moved once more. “And you have a great reserve of passion…Bronwyn.”

“Did you think I would not seek such meager revenge as I could manage?” Adam rubbed his aching leg and glared at Bronwyn’s back. “You humiliated me.”

“Taking my virginity is not a meager revenge.” Enveloped in a satin wrap and lying stomach down on the fainting couch, she twisted his lace cravat as if his neck were inside it. “At least, I don’t consider it so.”

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He was usually not so clumsy, but her unforgiving fury had taken him by surprise. She acted as if she were the offended party, not he, refusing to admit her culpability. “We must come to an understanding in this matter before we return to Boudesea Manor.”

“I’m not returning,” she said in a monotone. “I told you before.”

“Of course you are. You can’t stay here. It’s not proper. Should word of your identity escape, your reputation—”

“As the ugly Edana sister,” she interrupted, “will be ruined. So you’ve said. And I say—”

“I don’t like it when you use language so vigorously.” He sounded like a prude, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Having Bronwyn treat him as if he were a cad grated. He’d sworn that when he caught up with her, he’d make his opinions known. She’d experienced the sting of his anger, the fury of his possession—so why did he feel guilty? With a patience he didn’t know he retained, he said, “You expected I would be incensed at your defection.”

“I didn’t know that you would sneak around like Molière performing in that”—she searched for the title and finished petulantly—“that play.”

He hid a smile, although she still declined to look at him. Probably because he refused to don more than his shirt. “Are you speaking of
The Doctor in Spite of Himself
? The play in which the woodcutter masquerades as a doctor by speaking Latin gibberish?”

“That’s it.” She hunched her shoulder expressively.

“I spoke French, not Latin, and it was not gibberish.” He stepped close behind her and stroked the fall of her hair, amazed anew at its color and flyaway texture. “I once said I could make love in four languages, and it’s true, although the idioms are not the kind a gently bred woman would know—even if she actually spoke French.”

Springing away from his hand, she raged, “You laughed at me.”

He was silent. Better than most, he realized how love shriveled when exposed to mockery. Speaking French to her had been an irresistible impulse, one born of her sham accent and his temper. Trying to make her understand, he said, “When first I met you at Boudasea, I didn’t know you. I saw only that dreadful wig, the cosmetics which hid, I thought, greater horrors. Then as I became acquainted with you, I realized you concealed your soul.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t conceal myself.”

“Don’t you? Don’t you play games with us lesser mortals?” He caught her hair again and pulled, demanding an answer. She shrugged, and he chuckled. “See? You can’t deny it. I was discovering you, stripping away your disguise, anxious for the final unveiling.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” she said coldly.

“Tonight in Madame Rachelle’s salon, I could only stare. All your masks were gone, you were as magnificent as the moon on a cloudless night, and I had not been there.” He experienced a sincere stab of grief, of jealousy. “Other men had seen you, spoken with you, fallen in love with you, and I had not been there. I felt like a mother would feel, forced to leave her baby, only to return and find the child walking. So you see, you’re not the only one with a complaint.”

She whipped her head around and glared. “A complaint? Is that what you think I have? A complaint?”

Her gaze flamed with contempt before she turned her back once more. His sincerity hadn’t touched her. She still thought him a whoreson. This came of trying to explain his emotions to a woman. He snapped, “Marriage is a bargain, and someone must get the worst of any bargain.”

“I don’t want to get the worst of this bargain,” she answered sullenly.

He clenched his fists and hoped he could keep from strangling her. “You’re not getting the worst of the bargain. I’m the one who’s providing the money, the home, the stability.”

“I’m the one who’ll live under your thumb. I’m the one who’ll suffer when my enemies taunt me with your mistresses.” She stared into the fireplace, seemingly fascinated by the cold ashes. “I’m the one whom you’ll have the right to beat if you so choose.”

Stung, he snapped, “As if I would.”

“Few men go into a relationship expecting to hate their
wives, but it’s more common than everyday affection.” Pulling the wrap close around her as if she were cold, she said, “You say I’m not a gambler, yet you wish me to marry and gamble on your continued interest.”

The cobalt-blue satin molded her, and his gaze lingered on the tensile strength of her spine, expressed so plainly in her posture. “I do not see how I could fail to remain interested in a woman who leads me on such a chase.”

She ignored him as she cradled her chin in her hand. “What greater gamble is there? For if a man is unhappy with a relationship, he can leave, find another woman, beat his wife. A man has all the rights. If a woman is unhappy with the marriage, she can do nothing.”

“Except make his life miserable, as you’re doing with me.” Exasperated, he watched as she swung her bare feet restlessly in the air. The wrap slipped away, leaving her ankles and calves bare, but he acquitted her of deliberate incitement. Indeed, he even acquitted her of teasing. She was so bound up in her mortification, she didn’t care that he was there.

“You ghastly creature.” She drew out the insult as lovingly as a caress. “At least I haven’t been chatting with my secretary about the disadvantages of marrying a learned woman.”

Ah, so there it was. “I was afraid you heard. Freely I admit my guilt, and can offer no reasonable defense. I’m a clumsy man, rough and uncultured as any common seaman.” Only a lecher would desire a virgin so recently deflowered, he mused.

“Teaching me to kiss and then complaining because I was too good a student.” With a sharp tearing sound, the lace of the cravat ripped in her hands. “Making me want to visit your bed, then heaping scorn on me.”

Still, he couldn’t forget the recent sounds of her pleasure and the movement of her body against his. She’d tried to dismiss him when she realized his perfidy, but she hadn’t
been able to maintain her scorn. He couldn’t forget the sweetness of her surprise, her amazement, as she discovered passion. He felt ten feet tall when he remembered how she’d dismissed his expertise at first; then feared it; then sought it.

Tossing the shreds of lace into the fireplace, she said, “You were surprised to discover I was a virgin, weren’t you?”

“No, not surprised.” Relieved, but not surprised. Overjoyed, but not surprised. Surprise was too small a word, and that in itself shocked him. He’d told his mother her virginity interested him only in as much as he wished to prove his paternity. Was this possessiveness he experienced?

“Why would you be surprised? After all, I am the ugly sister.”

Traps lay buried in this conversation, traps to catch any man preoccupied with the shape of the woman rather than the verbal sparring. “You are so beautiful you make my heart stop.”

Clearly disbelieving, she pulled a long face and issued an ultimatum. “I’m staying at Rachelle’s.”

Cautiously he perched at the foot of the couch. “Madame Rachelle is a kind woman, but you’d be embarrassed to have her paying your support.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him, distrusting his every movement. “The Princess of Wales is interested in my work on the manuscripts, and has agreed to my petition for pension.”

“Ah.” He caught her ankle and smoothed one finger along her arch. Her toes curled; she jumped and tried to wrestle away. Casual as the lecher he now knew himself to be, he kneaded the muscles of her foot. “I suppose you have more time to work on the manuscripts here than at Boudasea Manor, also.”

To resist such a massage proved beyond her powers of resistance. As he’d known she would, she relaxed in slow
degrees. “Yes, my time is my own here. There are no social engagements unless I wish them, no…”

He moved to her other foot. Her head sank down onto the couch and she seemed to forget what she was saying. “No…?” he encouraged.

“No…um.” She’d lost her train of thought, and she frowned. “I like meeting important men.”

Forcing himself to continue his massage, he asked, “Has anyone recognized you?”

She moaned when he found a particularly tender place between her toes. “It always hurts there when I walk in slippers with those high Louis heels.”

Her moan distracted him, but only for a moment. “Recognize?” he prompted.

“No, no one knows who I am.”

Cheered, he asked, “Do you want me to rub your calves?”

Lifting her head, she snapped, “Absolutely not.”

The rhythm of his fingers never broke. “Of course those fools who call themselves gentlemen wouldn’t identify you. The change is remarkable. I always knew you were attractive, but somehow it all seemed skewed. Now it’s as if a butterfly has struggled from her cocoon. How did you do it?”

“You thought I was attractive before?”

It was the only thing she’d heard, he noted with satisfaction. In tiny increments he moved up to her ankle, her calf. “You don’t think I tried to seduce you just because of your mind? I’m not so altruistic.”

“I never thought…”

Such craftiness was unworthy of him, he castigated himself. But it was nothing less than the truth, and she was such an easy mark. Almost as if she’d never heard a sincere compliment before. “I can’t imagine why you covered your hair with that dreadful brown wig. Even if you put this glorious mane up and covered it with one of those lacy caps,
you’d still be one of the most striking women I’ve ever seen.” He tickled the sensitive skin behind her knee.

Her muscles twitched beneath his ministrations. “Honestly?”

“Don’t you remember how frantic I was for you in the woods?”

In the voice of sweet sarcasm, she said, “It was dark in the woods. You couldn’t see me.”

“I’d been looking at you all evening long. I knew what I was getting.” Leaning down, he blew in short puffs, lifting the light silk over her thighs.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.” She shivered. “It’s no use. I’m furious with you.”

“But how else can I apologize?” he protested.

“You’re going to apologize by doing the same thing that made me angry?” She sounded incredulous, but her voice caught.

He laughed low in his throat and feathered touches up the inside of her thighs. “Was that really what made you angry?”

“We shouldn’t—”

Sinking one finger inside her, he marveled at her body’s compliance. “Oh, shouldn’t we?”

Adam wiped the sweat from his brow. He’d never seen
so much prime society in London in August. For the noble and wealthy, the Season was over. Normally they escaped the heat by retiring to their country estates. But not this year. This year ladies and their maids jostled with tradesmen and the scum of the city to cling close to Change Alley, where fortunes changed hands daily and the porters now rode in carriages.

He didn’t want to be here, shouldn’t even be walking on his aching leg, but where else had he to go? Bronwyn wouldn’t budge from that salon, and he wouldn’t return to Boudasea Manor without her.

“Lord Rawson! Good to see you back on your feet.” Northrup slapped his back like a cohort of long standing. “Heard you were ill.”

Adam staggered a bit under the unnecessary force. “Not at all. As you see, I’m healthy as ever.”

“I would have bet on it.” Tucking his thumbs into the pockets of his velvet waistcoat, Northrup nodded sagely. “Yes, my lord, I would have bet on it.”

Adam eyed the younger man. “The Change has been treating you well, I see.”

Northrup grinned, a bit deflated, a lot proud. “Very well,
sir. Your teachings have sustained me.” Like a boy with a new toy, he promenaded away, then back, flaunting his expensive new outfit.

“I’m glad to hear it.” A Playhouse actress pushed Adam sideways, and, disgusted, he swung his walking stick sharply at her rump. She shrieked in protest and turned to scold.

Taking Adam’s arm, Northrup asked, “Would you like to visit Garraway’s? Possibly I could catch you up on the gossip which thrives so in this hothouse atmosphere.”

“You’ll not have to talk long to persuade me.” Adam glared at the saucy actress. “This financial district has become a madhouse equal to Bedlam.”

“That it has, sir.” Northrup swung wide the door to the famous coffeehouse where the practice of exchanging stock centered.

Acquaintances hailed Adam, and he returned their greetings. “Various rumors have come to your ears, I suppose.”

Northrup ushered Adam to a corner table where both could sit with their backs to the wall. He lowered his voice. “Rumors, but no facts.”

“Tell me all,” Adam commanded.

With a lopsided grin at Adam’s tone of authority, Northrup lifted his hand to the owner and called, “Coffee.” He turned back to Adam. “Many companies petitioning for charters to operate have been refused.”

“That’s surely not a surprise. Parliament’s Bubble Act classed any company operating without a charter as a public nuisance.”

“Yes, the proclamation is working well for the South Sea Company. The flow of money that was siphoned away from them and to the other companies has been halted before it begins. But—”

Northrup stopped as the hefty man they called Garraway brought over the fragrant blend.

“Good t’ see ye, Lord Rawson.” Garraway pocketed the coin Adam laid on the table. “Been missin’ ye.”

“Not too much.” Adam nodded to the crowd milling about the tables. “Business is booming.”

Garraway snorted. “I’d take th’ business an’ toss out th’ stock jobbers, if ye catch me meanin’.”

“Are they thick on the ground?” Adam asked with interest.

“Can’t spit without ’itting one.” He spat for emphasis and grinned when a gentleman yelped. “Ye licensed brokers are a rarity now.”

“But dull,” Adam suggested. “Very dull.”

“I’d not say that.” Garraway grinned, revealing two missing front teeth. “Leastways, not t’ yer face.”

Adam laughed. “I could always trust you, Garraway, to set me down when I grew top-lofty. Is it as busy as it was?”

“Not a’tall, a’tall.” He lowered his voice. “Not since th’ really wild bubble companies decided t’ pack up shop an’ leave.”

“The Bubble Act—”

“Ain’t worth th’ paper it’s printed on without someone t’ come in an’ kick those companies out, ye know that.”

“Are you saying someone is persuading the owners it’s time to quit?”

“All I’m sayin’ is that there’s been a bit of violence done t ’th’ owners o’ these companies.”

Adam whistled and sat back.

“Mind you,” Garraway continued, “not that it couldn’t be a disgruntled stock buyer who discovered ’e’d been bilked.”

“What do you suspect?”

“Damn it,” Northrup exploded, “I was going to tell him.”

“’A course.” Garraway stepped back. “Don’t want t’ steal yer thunder.”

Northrup had the grace to look embarrassed but told Adam, “I believe there is an enforcer from the South Sea Company who encourages”—Northrup lifted a significant brow—“the companies to collapse.”

“A cutthroat who works for John Blunt,” Adam mused.

“A very clever cutthroat,” Northrup answered.

Garraway wiped his fingers on his apron. “Aye, too clever fer th’ likes of me. I’d ’ate to run into ’im in a dark alley, if ye take me meanin’.” Glancing around, he said, “Better scoot. Asking fer trouble talking t’ ye like this.”

“Then go at once. But first…” Adam reached for his purse.

“Some other time.” The big man rubbed his nose in a parody of sentiment. “Been good talkin’ t’ someone who’s not ’alf mad fer money.”

As Garraway stomped toward the bar, Northrup moved his chair closer to Adam’s. “You got more information in ten minutes than I’ve been able to pry out of anyone in a month. I tell you, sir, everyone knows I’m not working for you anymore, but they’re still tight as a clam with me.”

“Old contacts,” Adam soothed. “You’ll cultivate them eventually.”

“But I wanted to pay you back.” Northrup looked wretched. “I’ve felt, well, guilty, leaving as I did, and I wanted—”

“There’s no debt.” Amazed and a little disgruntled at this display of commitment from one he wanted to cut from his life, Adam said, “You performed a service for me, and I paid you.”

“I know you hired me from kindness.”

“Kindness?” Almost alarmed at the accusation of humanity, Adam glared at Northrup. “Not at all. I needed a secretary. You were trained.”

“Yes, but—”

“It was business.”

Northrup ducked his head. “But you taught me so much. That wasn’t just business.”

“What I taught you made you valuable to me.” His brutality was akin to kicking a stray dog, but Adam meant to
discourage this sentimental drivel. “It was coincidence that it also made you capable of earning a goodly fortune.”

Earnest as only the young can be, Northrup said, “Sir, whether you meant to be or not, you have been kind to me. You treated me with dignity when others scorned me.”

“A seaman performs his duties better when he’s assured of his pride.” With the scorn of a ship’s officer for a landlubber, Adam declared, “I have never seen any reason to believe different of those who work on shore.”

Northrup bit his lip. “I do not believe, sir, that you are as heartless as you profess to be.”

“I am. Believe me, I am.” His hand placed over Northrup’s wrist, Adam squeezed hard enough to grind bones. “But say no more.” Northrup tried to protest, and he said again with great meaning, “Say no more.”

Northrup jerked his hand back and stared, amazed, at the creation of paint and ribbon and wig that stood beside their table.

Carroll Judson’s Egyptian pebble teeth gleamed in a smile. “Such a pleasure, Lord Rawson.” Without taking his gaze from Adam, he ordered, “Cease your whining, Northrup, my boy, and fetch me a glass of wine. French, the best Garraway has to offer.”

“Humpty Dumpty commands me?” Northrup asked incredulously.

Judson’s smirk disappeared, and he sputtered, “You are insolent.”

Adam gained control of his amusement and snapped his fingers. Northrup and Judson interrupted their mutual glare to inspect him, and he jerked his thumb at Northrup, just as if the young man were some lesser creature in his employ. Offended, Northrup stood and bowed, doing Judson’s bidding with ill grace while Adam reflected grimly that Northrup would no longer whine about too much kindness.

But that was no concern of his. Judson hadn’t sought him out to exchange pleasantries. Perhaps he had information to be sold or bartered, and Northrup’s ego couldn’t stand in the way.

“Not that Garraway’s best will be drinkable,” Judson said. “I have such a superior palate, you realize.” He smiled as he slid onto the chair opposite Adam. “May I sit down?”

“Be my guest.”

Fluttering like a moth exposed to daylight, Judson fussed over his cuffs, his cravat, the elegant frogging of his coat. “So amazing to run into you last night, and again this morning.” He peered at Adam over his silver spectacles. “You look tired. Did you sleep well?”

Adam examined his nails.

“Quite right. Quite right. I’m too nosy by half. But that’s how I’ve come to make so much money these past few months. Drop a hint here, listen to a suggestion there. Soon it’s possible to gather every bit of loose stock to my bosom, as it were”—Judson pressed one hand to his chest—“and save it to sell at the proper moment.”

“When is that?” Adam asked coldly.

“Why, before the crash.” Judson shook his finger at Adam. “Come, come, you’re too astute not to realize the South Sea stock will tumble.”

“I am too astute, but I didn’t realize you were.”

Judson sniggered. “You’re so boorish, Lord Rawson. I don’t know why I even speak to you.” Adam opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Judson continued, “Of course the stock will go down, but when? That’s the question. I suppose that’s why you’re here in London rather than home with your lovely bride. What’s her name again?”

“Is it any concern of yours?”

“Bronwyn…” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Bronwyn Edana, was it not? Has the wedding taken place?”

“Not yet,” Adam snapped.

“Ah, that would explain your sour disposition. She’s one of those Edana beauties, and you’re not in her bed,” Judson cooed. “Will the happy event take place soon?”

“If you have anything to say, say it. Else I put this to better use.” Adam placed his cane on the table in hard evidence of his displeasure.

Smug at having pushed Adam to violence, Judson whispered, “This stock situation is so distressing. You’re scouting out the evidence, eh?”

Adam sat back slowly. “Indeed, and it would seem I’ve found the right man. You can tell me what’s happening.”

As Northrup set the glass of wine on the table, Judson snipped, “Certainly better than your young friend.”

Adam pointed at the empty chair, and still resentful, Northrup sat. Too bad Northrup’s bit of money had gone to his head, Adam noted, for the young man comprehended Adam’s wishes with an acumen that bordered on genius.

Judson cleared his throat noisily. Adam had been staring at Judson, he found, from sheer lack of attention. It had shaken Judson’s composure, for Judson fussed with the velvet patches on his face and complained, “That gaze of yours would pierce steel. I wish you’d turn it elsewhere.”

Lifting a lazy brow, Adam complied, but not before commanding, “Don’t pick at those. Your valet would scold you.”

Judson snatched his hand away from his face. “My valet does take my grooming to heart. Rather more than I do, if I may say.”

Northrup made a sound of disbelief that rapidly changed to a cough when Judson turned to him. “Have you the consumption? It’s so common among the lesser folk.”

Northrup didn’t flick an eyelash, but nothing could halt the red tide of blood that flushed his cheeks.

With a phony smile Judson said, “You’ll have to train your servants better, Adam.”

Nostrils flared, Adam said, “Northrup is not now, and
never has been, my servant. He was my secretary and, but for a bad stroke of fate, would even now be the marquess of Tyne-Kelmport. He’d be looking down his nose at the likes of you, Judson, so I’d temper my disposition.”

“That’s right,” Judson simpered at Northrup. “Your bachelor uncle married and fathered an heir before he had the good taste to die, didn’t he? Don’t worry. Children are notoriously unhealthy. I mean, look at old Queen Anne’s brood. Nineteen children, and not a one of them lived. Perhaps this brat will perish, too.”

“You really are mouse meat,” Northrup said with a notable lack of emotion.

Now it was Judson’s turn to flush. “Well! And I was just wishing you good luck.”

With a secret grin at Judson’s discomfort, Adam sipped at his coffee. “When is Sir John Blunt returning from Tunbridge Wells?”

“Soon,” Judson said. “That is, I imagine he’ll be returning soon to check on his company.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed as he considered Judson. He’d sounded so sure, then feigned to cover his knowledge. Interesting. “He’ll be selling another subscription of stock soon.”

“I’m sure he will, and it will be a grand time to invest.” Judson twisted toward Adam to whisper, “I’ve heard Sir John has plans to quell these companies that infringe on his grand plan.”

“What companies are those?”

“Royal Lustring, Yorks Buildings—”

Adam set down his cup with a distinct clink.

“—the English Copper Company, and the Welsh Copper Company.”

“How does Sir John think he can pull such nonsense off? Those companies have had their charters for years.”

“He’ll prove nonuse of the charters. They’ve already spoken with the chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord
Townshend, and Lord Townshend is acting regent while the king is gone, you know.” Judson crooked one elbow around the back of his chair.

“But those companies are stable ones with a good record.”

Judson lifted his painted eyebrows. “So?”

“Quite right,” Adam said dryly. “Logic has no place in this mad world of finance. Yet if this is true…”

“Who are you going to believe?” Judson tapped his wineglass with his fingernail, and the arrhythmic tinging grated on Adam’s nerves. “Me, or your sickly little secretary?”

“Neither. I’ll believe no one until I consult all my sources.”

“You’ll see.” Judson stood and adjusted his clothing. “I’m right.”

As he strolled away, Adam turned to Northrup. “Is he right?”

“There are rumors, and that’s one of them,” Northrup agreed.

“That’s the one rumor that foretells the end. Sell your stock, my boy. Sell your stock.” Adam stood, noting the denial that stained Northrup’s countenance. Shrugging, he said, “You can be a fool if you like, of course. You’re no responsibility of mine.”