Rules of Passion (13 page)

Max took a sip, but he was watching her, and there was something sardonic now in the lift of his eyebrow. “Is this part of the play-acting?”

“Of course not.” Marietta broke off a piece of the scone to pop into his mouth. She glanced at him sideways. “Although it could be, I suppose, but I thought I should wait until you’re better. In case you have a relapse, I mean.”

He swallowed, laughed, and then groaned when it hurt his head. Marietta set the cup down and smoothed his forehead lightly with her fingertips, as though she would take the headache away. He leaned against her shoulder, and closed his eyes, and he was very big and very heavy and yet somehow she liked the feel of him there. Even when his head dropped lower, so that he rested against her breast, she did not complain but began to stroke his hair. Now that it had dried, the curls were springing up again, and she twined them about her fingers, encouraging them.

“I won’t be in London for very much longer,” he said at last, sleepily. “This house isn’t mine and it’s time I faced it.”

“But…where will you go?”

“Cornwall I think. My mother’s house. At least that still belongs to me. I’ll live there.”

“Max—”

“The house is called Blackwood,” he went on, as if he knew she was going to gush sympathy and he didn’t want to listen. “It’s built of stone and sits on a cliff looking out to the sea, and it has stood there for
centuries. I visited when I was a little boy, so I don’t remember it well, but I am sure it will suit me in my current straitened circumstances. Perhaps I can do some smuggling, to supplement my income.”

Marietta forced a laugh, although she had tears in her eyes again. What was it about Max’s bravery in the face of despair that made her want to weep? “Are there still such things as smugglers?” she said.

“I doubt it. But maybe I can start up one of the gangs again. It would give me something to do during the long nights.”

This time her laugh was more genuine. He turned his head to look up at her, his dark gaze languorous.
And dangerous.
There was something suddenly so compelling about him, so mesmerizing, that before she knew what she was doing, Marietta had lowered her head and placed her lips against his.

She surprised him, but only for an instant. His lips opened slightly, moved, and then she was in his arms and he was kissing her with a depth and a thoroughness that turned her world topsy-turvy.

Shock held her still briefly, and then she was doing her best to kiss him back. His mouth was warm and she felt the stirring of something low in her belly, a pleasurable ache. He turned his head and nuzzled against her neck, his lips teasing, making her squirm.

Was this the man who had been protesting so vehemently only moments before? She could hardly believe it. Tentatively, not wanting to let a chance pass her by, Marietta stroked his throat, sliding her fingers around to his nape. His skin was warm, just as it had been last night—she remembered now his nakedness and how it had intrigued her.

“Can I take off your shirt?” she asked him impulsively.

Startled, Max pulled away from her, collapsing back on the pillows. For a moment he seemed quite speechless, and Marietta could only think that his head was hurting him again. She checked to see if his wound was bleeding, but it wasn’t.

“Is this part of learning to be a courtesan?” he asked her at last.

“Of course,” she said, but she knew she had not been thinking of practicing when she first kissed him; she had not been thinking of anything apart from the fact that she wanted to.

“Why do you want to take off my shirt?”

He watched her with a combination of irritation and curiosity, but he didn’t seem about to grant her request unless she explained.

“I was with you last night, remember. You had no clothes on and your chest was…” She felt her face getting hotter—she would really have to learn how to control her blushes. Aphrodite never blushed. “You and I are very different, physically,” she said bluntly. “Although I have been with a man, I cannot say I spent much time
looking
at him. When I am a courtesan I don’t want to be surprised when a man takes off his shirt.”

He blinked up at her, his eyes dark and warm, his mouth quirking into a smile.
Oh Lord, he is gorgeous,
she found herself thinking.
Not at all as I imagined him that first moment, when I saw him in the balloon. How could I have been so silly as to imagine I didn’t like him?

“You want to see my chest because it’s different from yours?” he repeated evenly. “Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

He was insane, he supposed, but since Marietta had come into his life he’d lost the will to be his usual cautious self. There seemed to be so little these days to cheer him up—why the hell couldn’t he enjoy himself? What English law decreed that he must now be the most miserable man in the land?

He began to shrug himself out of the quilted jacket, ignoring the throb in his temples. She helped him, murmuring so solicitously that he laughed aloud, and then groaned when his head hurt even more. His shirt had to come over his head, and after she had untied his neckcloth, she helped him tug at the sleeves, removing it in one quick movement.

He wondered what she would say, or think, and felt strangely self-conscious for a man who had been naked many times with many women. But she didn’t say anything. She simply looked at him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide, her expression rapt.

“Max,” she murmured. “You’re very handsome.” She reached out and then stopped, her gaze flickering sideways to meet his. “Can I touch you?”

“Be my guest,” he said matter-of-factly. He wondered if she was really going to run her hands over his skin, or whether this was part of a fantasy he had invented in his delirium. In a moment he’d wake up and it would all be a dream.

Her hands closed on his shoulders, her palms soft and warm. He tried not to show any reaction, but he was hot—fever-hot, and the fever was called Marietta. His body reacted despite his present condition, and he quickly checked that the bedcoverings were discreetly placed to hide his erection. No need to educate her quite that much.

She was smoothing her hands up over his upper
arms. Max wasn’t vain, but he knew he was a reasonable specimen of a man—an active life had seen to that. She seemed to be fascinated with the dark hair on his chest, and brushed her fingers through it several times, enjoying the coarse feel of it. Her nail scraped his nipple and he winced, but when she apologized she didn’t even lift her eyes from what she was doing.

His nipples fascinated her. She touched them again, watching as they hardened, and the heat inside him grew.

“That happens when I’m cold,” he said, thinking some sort of explanation was necessary. “Or…eh, sexually aroused. It is the same with you.”

Now she did look at him, and he could see she was quite amazed.

“I’ve never noticed,” she said. “It isn’t something a lady pays attention to, and when I am dressing and undressing I am never completely naked before my maid. Do you mean that my chest would do this too, if you touched me?”

If he touched her? Rubbing his fingers across the tips of her breasts…It was almost too much for him to bear in his weakened state.

“Yes,” he managed.

For one incredible moment he thought she was going to ask him to do just that, and he knew he couldn’t. Not now. He wanted her, and he had said yes to her preposterous plan, but he didn’t think it was quite the thing to have her on her back the first day of their temporary affair.

“I’m tired, Marietta,” he said quietly.

She was clearly embarrassed. “Oh Max, I’m so sorry. You are ill, of course you are. How…thoughtless of me.”

“No, not at all,” he said, trying to smile but knowing it was more like a grimace. “I enjoyed you touching me.”

“Did you?” she smiled in relief. “I enjoyed it too.”

“Can you tell Pomeroy to come up?”

Marietta rose at once. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He turned and looked up at her, his eyes bright in the lamplight. “Don’t—I enjoyed it.”

Far too much.

“Good.” She looked relieved that she had done nothing wrong.

But Max wanted her to go. He found he didn’t know what to say or think or do, and he wanted her to leave him alone so that he could try and understand what was happening to him. So that he could be himself again.

“Goodbye, Max. I’ll call on you again soon.”

He opened his mouth, but what could he say? No? He had already agreed to her request, and now she was going to make the most of it. Practicing at being a courtesan! When all he wanted to do, right now, headache and all, was to tumble her into his bed and make her his.

God help me.

“Max? Are you all right?”

“Tired,” he said, and pretended to fall asleep. Thankfully she took the hint and went away. Alone, he hovered on the verge of sleep. Until he realized he could still smell her scent, just as if she were in the room with him, and jolted awake again, his body hard and wanting her.

“My lord?” It was Pomeroy. “Are you quite well? You have taken off your clothing, sir.”

“I was hot.”

Pomeroy didn’t reply, making a valiant attempt to keep his face from showing any emotion.

“Is she gone?”

“Miss Greentree? She’s downstairs, my lord. She insisted on complimenting Mrs. Pomeroy.” The old man sounded pleased, so Max bit back the urge to complain. Instead he silently cursed Ian Keith for ever asking him to come up in his balloon when he knew he had troubles enough, because that was when he had first laid eyes on Marietta Greentree. And now it seemed he would never be rid of her.

But more disturbing than that thought—he didn’t want to.

“I
’m glad you and his lordship enjoyed my poor efforts, miss.”

Marietta smiled at Mrs. Pomeroy’s modesty in regard to her excellent tea tray. “I do hope Lord Roseby appreciates you as he should,” she said more seriously.

Mrs. Pomeroy gave the long dining table a vigorous rub with her cloth and then admired the shine on the old wood. “He’s a good master, and a good man,” she said loyally. “I wish—” but tears sprang to her eyes and she shook her head.

“He says he is going to go and live in his mother’s house in Cornwall,” Marietta said gently.

Mrs. Pomeroy nodded her head sadly. “Aye, he wants to take all his hurt and brood on it. He was always like that, Master Max—kept all his feelings tight inside, locked up like a box. His mother, the dear duchess, could tease him out of his doldrums, but now she’s gone, bless her. The duke, he’s too
much the same. Carved from the same piece of wood, they were…”

Her voice trailed off and there was an uncomfortable silence. Around the walls of the dining room the portraits of long-dead Vallands gazed upon them with Max’s eyes, as if secretly eavesdropping on the conversation.

“You don’t believe it, do you, Mrs. Pomeroy?” Marietta asked softly. “You don’t believe the duke isn’t Max’s father?”

Mrs. Pomeroy hesitated, and then she looked up, directly into Marietta’s sympathetic gaze. “No, miss, I don’t. I can’t. And if you saw them together then you wouldn’t believe it neither. It’s plain daft to suggest it.”

“Then why has Max been disinherited? Why does his father accept this letter as truth?”

“He was angry, I suppose. The duke always flies off the handle when he’s angry, and he was inconsolable when he read that letter.” Again Mrs. Pomeroy rubbed vigorously at the table surface.

“And now the deed is done,” Marietta murmured.

There was a rattle of the knocker on the outside door.

With an exclamation, Mrs. Pomeroy hobbled over to the sash window and peered out. “’Tis Mr. Harold and Miss Susannah,” she declared. “They’re around here most days to see his lordship, but that’s not surprising. They’ve always been close, ever since they were children. Miss Susannah was like a daughter to the duke and duchess, for all she’d come from those heathen parts. Jamaica or whatever it’s called.”

Marietta remembered Mr. Jardine telling her that Barwon had adopted a young Creole girl he had
found living wild on one of the old plantations. That must have been Susannah.

She joined Mrs. Pomeroy at the window and peered curiously down to the street. There was Harold, stamping about impatiently, and beside him a tall and slender woman in wide green skirts and a matching feather-decorated bonnet. As if she felt their eyes upon her, she glanced up. An oval face, skin so pale and delicate it was like petals, and dark, tragic eyes. Susannah Valland was certainly beautiful.

Just then a movement on the other side of the square caught her eye. A middle-aged man with broad shoulders and a wide chest packed into a shabby brown coat was standing, watching the Vallands as they entered the house. She noted that his hair was sparse brown, and his face reminded her a little of Dobson’s—as if he had been in too many fistfights. Almost as soon as Marietta noticed him, the man glanced up and saw her at the window and hurried away.

The knocker rattled again, and then the door opened. Out in the hall they could hear Pomeroy’s important tones, joined by Harold’s, and then the voice of Susannah—low and languid with a strangely foreign inflection.

Marietta was tempted to go to the dining room door for another peep at them, but she was not quite brave enough. After all, she shouldn’t still be here, gossiping with the servants, and it would be embarrassing for her to be caught—no doubt worse for the servants.

“The duke was here yesterday,” Mrs. Pomeroy said quietly, also staring at the door as they listened to the visitors making their way upstairs.

Marietta turned to her in surprise.

Mrs. Pomeroy nodded. “Aye, he came up from Valland House soon as he heard about Master Max’s accident. He stood by the bed—Master Max, he was asleep—and he just looked.” She sighed. “Pomeroy said the duke forgot he was there, or else he’s sure he wouldn’t have done it.”

“Wouldn’t have done what?” Marietta asked softly.

“Called Master Max
my son
,” Mrs. Pomeroy whispered.

The dining room door banged open, and they both jumped guiltily. Daniel Coachman grinned at the effect of his entrance, pale eyes sliding from one to the other. “Pomeroy says they all want tea and cake,” he announced, “and I’m to fetch it.”

Mrs. Pomeroy clicked her tongue. “Do they now,” she muttered, setting off to the kitchen. “And Daniel, what have I told you about knocking before you enter a room? You nearly did for me then, you silly boy.”

Daniel gave Marietta one more grin, and followed after the housekeeper.

Marietta, left alone in the dining room with the watching portraits, found herself with much to ponder. There was more to Max’s misfortune than a husband betrayed by his wife and a son disinherited, far more. Something was wrong—off-kilter. Everyone knew it, felt it, apart from Max that is, but no one was doing anything about it. Marietta felt a stirring inside her, an irresistible urge—apart from the one she had to see his chest again.

Max was helping her by agreeing to be her practice partner; why shouldn’t she help him by untangling the mess he was in? It was the least she could do.

Susannah brushed her cheek against Max’s in lieu of a kiss, her liquid dark eyes full of sympathy. As always, he was struck by her beauty. Susannah had been a beautiful child, wide-eyed and silent when his father brought her home to England, and now she was a breathtaking woman. Really, she would be the perfect Duchess of Barwon.

“Max, how are you today?” Harold peered over his wife’s shoulder.

“Better,” Max allowed.

“The streets just aren’t safe no matter who you are,” Susannah said, arranging her wide silk skirts about her.

“Max seems to have an angel perpetually watching over him,” said Harold.

Susannah reached out and squeezed Max’s hand. “I thank God for that,” she murmured earnestly.

After a moment Harold cleared his throat. “Has Miss Greentree been back to see you? She seemed like a sweet, caring girl, despite her unfortunate background.”

Susannah arched an elegant eyebrow. “Ah, Harold told me about your Miss Greentree.”

“She’s not mine,” Max frowned, when in fact he was already thinking of her in that way. “And her background is hardly her fault, Harold.”

Harold pursed his lips, and Max remembered what Marietta had said about her life being ruination and disgrace, and that everyone knew it. Harold would know; Harold knew every scandal. “Tell me,” he said shortly.

His cousin leaned forward with a certain amount of relish and proceeded to do just that. “She’s the
daughter of Aphrodite—the famous courtesan, you know,” this aside to Susannah. “There were three daughters and they were taken away when they were very young, a kidnapping or some such thing; it was kept pretty quiet. They were adopted by Lady Greentree in Yorkshire, a respectable woman, one of the Tremaines, she married Edward Greentree, he was in the army in India and died there.”

“Get on with it, Harold,” Max gritted.

“Anyway, it wasn’t until recently that the three sisters were reunited with Aphrodite, which caused an almighty scandal because it turned out that the elder girl, Vivianna, was the daughter of Fraser—very rich, a brewery owner,” again for Susannah’s benefit. “But Her Majesty was persuaded to give her approval to the girl because Oliver Montegomery was in love with her and wanted to marry her.”

“Very romantic,” Susannah suggested, her dark brows arched. “What about this other daughter, Max’s Miss Greentree? Is she Fraser’s daughter, too?”

“Her name is Marietta, and no, she isn’t Fraser’s daughter. We’re not sure who her father is. Still, perhaps her unusual background might have been overlooked because of her relationship to Oliver Montegomery, except that the girl lost her heart to a bounder and ran off with him. They were never married—he abandoned her after the first night—in a public inn, evidently, with no money—and the story came out.”

“Oh dear.”

“There was yet another scandal in the family, years ago. Helen Tremaine, sister of Lady Greentree and the girls’ aunt, ran off with Toby Russell, a for
tune hunter and a scallywag. But at least
he
married
her
. Made to, I should think, by Helen’s brother the formidable Mr. William Tremaine.”

“So poor Marietta has to carry about with her the disgrace of her mother, her aunt, and the bounder who led her to believe he loved her and then left her. I think that is extremely unfair,” Susannah said. Then she sighed, “Although I agree that she is completely ineligible. The best she can hope for is to marry some mill manager in the north and retire into obscurity.”

“Susannah,” Max warned.

“I’m only thinking of you, Max,” his sister continued, giving him a sympathetic look.

Max shook his head, then he laughed. “I don’t believe Marietta Greentree is looking for a husband, and if she was I don’t think she has any intention of marrying me.”

“What does she want then?” Harold asked him curiously.

She wants me to teach her about passion and desire.

But he couldn’t say that, not even to his cousin and his sister, the two childhood friends whom he trusted above all others. It wouldn’t be fair to Marietta—their arrangement was strictly private.

“She feels responsible for me, because she was there at the time it happened.”

“In the laneway?” Susannah demanded, wide-eyed, shaken for once from her languor. “This grows worse and worse. What was Miss Greentree doing loitering in a laneway?”

“No, Susannah, not in the laneway, she was at Aphrodite’s Club. She was visiting her mother when
they carried me in. All I meant to say was that she is being kind.”

“Hmm, do you think so?” Harold was watching him with an odd smile playing around his mouth.

Susannah, her beautiful face melancholy, said, “I don’t want you taken advantage of. Not when you have so much to bear already. You deserve to be happy, brother. How I wish I had never—”

“Susannah, there is no point in wishing away what is. You know I have never blamed you for what you did.”

“It was such a shock,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “If it hadn’t been such a shock I would have burned it then and there. I had begun to burn it, and then I saw what it said, and I…I thought it must be a mistake, and if I showed it to Papa then he would laugh and explain it to me. I pulled it from the fire. You can’t imagine how many times I have wished to turn time back, Max, so that I can watch Mama’s letter burn to…to ashes. If only I had let it burn.”

“Susannah, do not upset yourself,” Harold said sharply. “What is done is done, and we must move on. I’m sure Max doesn’t want you berating yourself like this.” He glanced at Max with an appeal.

Susannah was gazing between them with tears in her eyes, working herself up into one of her famous stormy and emotional states. The two men were justifiably wary of that rise in Susannah’s voice, the tensing of her shoulders, the flush that appeared on her cheeks. Over the years they had grown used to soothing Susannah.

“I will be all right.” Max felt compelled to say it,
even though he knew it was nonsense—sometimes he too wished Susannah had left the letter to burn. But it had the desired effect.

“We’ll look after you,” his sister promised, resting her head upon his shoulder. “Harold and I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Max, I promise.”

The spring morning was clear apart from the usual foggy haze that hung over London, the product of its coal fires and factories. Once Marietta and Lil had reached Vauxhall Bridge the air seemed fresher. Below the nine cast-iron arches, the Thames was wide and brown and busy, with lighters and boatmen and the larger barges, all plying their trade.

Lil, who had been hurrying along in Marietta’s wake, complaining that Vivianna should not have sent her out when Lil needed to be in Berkley Square to help with the baby, stopped and stared in delight.

“Oh, but this is pretty!”

“There you are then,” Marietta said. “Now, do come on, Lil. I want to get to Vauxhall Gardens before dark.”

Lil’s smile gave way to a frown. “Why couldn’t we have taken a hackney, miss? Me feet are killing me.”

“That’s because you’re wearing those half-boots you bought at the warehouse in Regent Street. You know they’re too small for you.”

Lil tossed her head. “I want to look me best, miss. Nothing wrong in that.”

Marietta smiled. “Then stop complaining, Lil, the walk will do you good. I believe you’ve grown very lazy living here in London. You’ve forgotten what
it’s like at Greentree Manor, where you can walk for miles and miles and never see a single soul.”

“I was born in London,” Lil retorted, and tugged at her gloves, straightening the wrinkles from the fingers.

“Then it must be nice to be home,” she said levelly, continuing on over the bridge towards the gardens on the other side. She could see the gleaming pavilions above the trees and her heart lifted—Vauxhall, which had grown a little shabby over the years, had been recently refurbished. “Look,” she said, pointing. “Will we stroll down the Grand Walk, Lil? Or perhaps we can lose ourselves in the Dark Walk. At one time that was closed down, you know, the Dark Walk, because that was where so many ladies lost their virtue.”

Marietta did not say it aloud but the thought of meeting a mysterious gentleman in one of those isolated avenues, echoing with the sighs and whispers of lovers down the centuries, had always appealed to her.

Lil barely glanced up. Her fair hair was plaited and fastened neatly on her crown, and her small ears were pink, as if, thought Marietta, she scrubbed them clean every morning.

“London wasn’t so good to me,” Lil said at last, and closed her lips tight, as if she had no intention of saying anything more on the subject.

Marietta did not know a great deal about Lil’s past, apart from the fact that Vivianna had found her in York and insisted she be given a home at Greentree Manor, to which Lady Greentree had acceded. Lil had been a fixture there ever since. That she had had an unhappy childhood was perhaps not surprising,
and it explained her single-minded determination to adhere to the rules. Marietta sensed that Lil believed that, if she was very, very good and never stepped outside the boundaries, then nothing bad could ever happen to her again.