Ravishing in Red (20 page)

“Even if it is as you say, and he does not require your advice, I will not ask him to leave here. I cannot do that.”

His relief showed more than he knew. That tugged at her heart. He probably dreaded losing the company of his brother, and those consultations too, even if they were a pretense. He had offered to make a noble sacrifice, but she could tell he was glad she would not accept it.

He reached over and patted her hand. “He said that you would acquit yourself well with our mother. He said I should not worry about your odds in that game. I think perhaps he is correct.”

So Sebastian thought her a worthy opponent of his mother, if necessary. One might even say that he had spoken well of her. That lifted her spirits more than she expected.

She spied a chess set on a far table. “Would you like to rest, or would you prefer company a little longer? I would not mind hiding here, until Lady Wittonbury is thoroughly occupied with her day’s plans. We could have a match.”

“I would be glad for your company. And you may hide here whenever you need to.”

“I might turn into a coward if given carte blanche to hide, so I will only accept your offer when I absolutely must. However, if there is another little row, perhaps you will allow me to tell you if I feel I must tell someone. I do not want to be a wife who is always complaining to her husband, and there are times when just speaking of a hurt makes it go away.”

“I am always here if you need a sympathetic ear.” He called for Dr. Fenwood, to have the chess set moved close to their chairs.

 

 

 

 

S
ebastian passed through the Tower gate. The meeting he was about to have had been a long time coming.

When word about that massacre had finally become public, the Board of Ordnance had done what any government entity would do when under attack. It had turned inward for protection, and denied all responsibility.

The integrity of gunpowder was vital to any war effort, and the Board prided itself on its protocol for ensuring the military’s gunpowder was manufactured correctly and had the necessary firepower. According to them, processes and checks were in place to ensure just such a mishap could not occur. Since it could not happen, it had not happened.

Sebastian’s conversations with the officials of the Board had never yielded much besides frustration. They took the position that until there was some proof that gunpowder tested by them had been the cause of the problem, they had nothing to say. They dismissed reports gathered from survivors that the British cannon could not return fire, and ignored opinions from gunners and suspicions from the army itself that only bad ordnance would explain that.

Short of physical evidence, they held themselves untouchable. Since the gunpowder in question was not available for examination, but scattered on a Spanish hill, they were safe.

On the other hand, they had done nothing to protect Kelmsleigh when attention focused on him since he had given the final approval on the quality of gunpowder prior to its distribution. Their lack of defense only encouraged more attention on this most likely source of negligence. Kelmsleigh’s superiors had left him alone and exposed while arrows aimed at him, instead of them.

Sebastian had long ago accepted that he would learn nothing at the Board’s offices, and he had not arranged this meeting. Instead the request for a conversation had come from Mr. Singleton, the Storekeeper, who had been Kelmsleigh’s ultimate superior.

He was directed to a chamber in the old medieval structure. It contained no evidence of regular use. The table was bare and no records could be seen. The soldier who escorted him left him there, and closed the heavy door as he departed. Sebastian imagined prisoners over the centuries hearing that sound upon their incarceration.

He looked out the small window. He could see the yard where, in ages past, axes had severed heads from bodies. The Tower had served many functions over time, but it was most known for that one.

He checked his pocket watch. He would not have put Audrianna off so quickly if he had known there would be this delay. Images of the morning came to him, of his mother’s umbrage and tears, and of his wife’s expression when she entered his chambers.

With one glance he could tell that she was a little afraid. She had been concerned that he would place her under his mother’s dominance, quite likely. She might have been worried that he would scold, or even chastise her physically.

Oh, yes, that last possibility had been in her eyes, and it disturbed him. For all of the passion, for all of the sensual closeness of the last week, she did not know him well at all.

Nor was she much aware of what had or had not passed between them. Her happy kiss today had been the very first one she had ever offered him, given of her own impulse. She had not realized that.

He had.

He could have no complaints about Audrianna’s willingness or behavior in bed. She did not protest or deny. She did not require modesty. She was passionate and agreeable, and she would most likely continue to be when, with time, there were new initiations.

However, he wondered sometimes if, after he left her and the pleasure had faded, she got out of bed and sat at her writing table and noted down in an account book just how long he had been there, and how far toward ten hours she had progressed this week.

It was one thing to have a woman accept you, but under obligation. It was quite another to have a woman offer even the smallest intimacy totally of her own inclination. Audrianna’s little embrace and kiss today had surprised him, and pleased him to a ridiculous extent. The memory of it still did.

He would have liked to stay with her and not run off. It would have been interesting to see what the next ten minutes might have wrought.

Now, for all he knew, she might not kiss him again on her own accord for another five years.

 

 

 

 

“
M
y apologies, sir. A serious matter of safety interfered with seeing you at once. I hope that you understand that the nature of our stores can create such eventualities.” Mr. Singleton offered the excuse in a rush. His flushed face said he truly hoped Sebastian would not take offense.

That was a good sign, and Sebastian was happy to reassure him. “I am curious why you requested this meeting at all, Mr. Singleton. I have sought one in vain for almost a year.”

Singleton’s nod acknowledged the truth of that. “My apologies on that too, sir. I am, as I hope you know, a servant of the state.”

It was not clear if that was a slip or a warning. In either case, he had all but said that he acted under orders, in this as in all else.

“I hope the marquess is well, sir.”

“My brother is fine, thank you.”

“Please give him my greetings. And your new wife? My sincere felicitations to both of you.”

“Thank you.”

“Splendid.” Singleton gathered his attention and thoughts. “If I may speak frankly, sir, and please believe that I intend no disrespect—”

“Of course.”

“Considering your zeal in a certain matter, the identity of your intended caused some interest here.”

“You mean because of her father. Well, Mr. Singleton, both my bride and I would be the first to agree that fate can be capricious.”

“Quite so, quite so. Capricious. However—we are wondering if your continued interest in that matter will now be relinquished.”

It was not clear which answer he wanted, which was curious considering their prior unhelpfulness. “Tell me, Singleton, do you have an opinion on whether it should be relinquished? Do you consider the current assumptions about Horatio Kelmsleigh both a complete explanation, and a just one?”

A pursing smile tightened Singleton’s face. “We maintain that nothing happened within these walls or under our jurisdiction to give me cause for any opinion.”

“And yet I sense that you have one.”

“Privately. Confidentially. I can only say that it is my feeling that if you pursue this matter, you will not exonerate your wife’s father, if marital bliss has inclined you to try.”

They knew something. Of course they did. Ordnance did not move without careful monitoring and records.

Sebastian took his leave soon after. The peculiarity of Singleton’s confidence occupied his mind while he rode down Tower hill. Singleton had spoken as if the investigation had reached a crossroad, not a wall. Which meant that the Board of Ordnance anticipated new information coming out that would stoke one MP’s interest again.

 

 

 

 

T
wo nights later, while Sebastian dressed for a ball, a gentle rap sounded on the door to Audrianna’s bedchamber. The door opened a crack and her head angled around its edge.

Her hair was dressed already. Her chestnut locks formed an intricate topknot and delicate spirals that framed her face. Her eyes, forest green in the candlelight, sought him.

“May I enter? I need your judgment.”

He set aside his cravat and gestured for his valet to leave. Once he was alone, she stepped into his dressing room.

His mouth went dry.

She wore a red gown. More a deep crimson. The hue was actually subdued, and the cut quite modest. But something in the way it fit her, and in how the silk fell along her form, made her appear worldly and confident.

“Is it a bad choice? I ordered it on the best advice, and I love it, but after that conversation with your mother, I am having second thoughts.”

His mind wandered, to images of turning her and bending her and that red silk rising, rising . . .

“You don’t approve.”

“You are wrong there. You are entrancing in it.”

She liked the compliment, but began inspecting herself again. “Are you sure it is not vulgar? I fear she will say so. The color is fashionable, but she will want me in white, always white. Like a girl. But I am not a girl, am I?”

No, she was not. She was all woman in that gown. He could not keep his hands off her, and he stopped trying. He pulled her into an embrace. Her slight, pliable warmth aroused him more. He calculated the hour, and how long this ball would last and whether attending at all was really necessary.

“It is generous of you to care what she will think. However, I command you to wear this dress. There, does that make it easier to be sure again?”

She appeared sultry and fresh at the same time. “It does restore my confidence. I will not care what anyone else thinks. It is good to know that you like it, however. This is my first ball among the
ton
, and I know they will be judging my fitness to be your wife.” She stepped away from him and looked down at the draping crimson. “He said that you would approve, but I wanted to be sure.”

“He?”

“Your brother,” she said as she left.

The strangest reaction sliced through him. She was gone before he subdued it.

The reaction had not been foreign or new, but having it right now was odd.

Jealousy. That was what flared in him. Jealousy that she had gone to Morgan with her worry before coming to him.

S
he refused to be intimidated by Lady Wittonbury’s dramatic expression of forbearance upon seeing the gown. Summerhays liked it. That was all that mattered.

The ball almost overwhelmed her. The silks and flickering lights, the laughter and the music, cluttered her senses. She had met enough ladies through the marchioness and Sebastian that she kept herself occupied on the fringes of conversations. Mostly she admired the gowns and headdresses and concluded that her own ensemble was appropriate enough.

Sebastian danced with her twice, but then Lord Hawkeswell lured him into conversation. She went in search of another familiar face. Suddenly the last one that she ever expected to see was right in front of her.

Roger froze at the same moment she did. They stood there like two porcelain figures on a shelf.

He had not changed at all, and yet he appeared different. Separation allowed her to see him more clearly, the same way time had permitted when he came back from the war.

Love and excitement could not bridge the strangeness now, however. She found herself itemizing the details of his appearance while she waited for hurt and disappointment to twist her heart. Some did, emerging from wherever she had buried it. A good deal of resentment joined it too.

“Audrianna.” His blue eyes warmed in a way that once made her breathless. “You are looking well. You have grown more lovely, I think.”

He looked well too, but then a uniform did that for a man. She wanted to think that his thick, tawny hair had thinned, but it probably had not. “Have you been in London long, Roger? Or are you just visiting?”

“The regiment was moved to Brighton in January, and I availed myself of a short leave.”

Mention of Brighton made her face warm. If he now lived there, he would be aware of every detail of the scandal. He had probably been congratulating himself on his narrow escape.

“Your mother is well?” he asked.

“Yes, most well. You should call on her. Our situation has changed considerably, as you probably know. She no longer holds any anger for you. She would be delighted to see you again.”

His smile wavered on her mention of anger. He stepped closer. “And you, Audrianna? Has your new situation dulled your own anger with me? I hope that it has, and that we can be friends.”

Why?
she almost asked him, only she knew the answer. She no longer was a fiancée whose disgraced father would stain an officer’s career and subject him to suspicions or worse. She had become a path to valuable connections.

That disheartened her. It implied that, from the start, Roger’s interest or rejection had not been about her. Even his attentions and proposal were not about love. Roger probably saw the offices of the Board of Ordnance as a good place to go once the war ended, and her father as his means of getting there.