Rules of Passion (9 page)

“Henri,” Aphrodite said softly, in warning. Her beringed hand came to rest on Marietta’s shoulder. “I have come to tell my daughter that Lord Roseby has expressed a wish to go home. The doctor has just examined him and he says it will be safe for him to do so, and right now Dobson is arranging for his coach to come and collect him—I think it will be more comfortable for him to be in familiar surroundings.”

“Oh.” Marietta glanced from one to the other, her head still reeling from Henri’s disclosures. “I am glad he is better.”

“You should go with him,” Aphrodite said levelly.

Marietta met her eyes, trying to read them, but there was no clue. Perhaps Aphrodite was genuinely concerned for Max’s well-being, or perhaps she was giving Marietta the chance to begin practicing on Max.

What would he say when she told him?

He’d say no, of course he would. Well, she would have to find some way to persuade him to say yes.

“Does
he
want me to go with him?” she asked tentatively.

“
Psht!
What Lord Roseby wants is of no importance,
mon petit puce
. You will insist upon it.”

Insist upon it.
That sounded promising. Maybe she could bully Max into doing as she wished…or maybe not.

Max had no idea yet that he was to be the lock she must open to fulfill her goal. Marietta could not help but feel a little weak with dread when she imagined what he would say and do when he did.

W
hen Marietta and Aphrodite reached the vestibule, Max’s coach had already arrived and was waiting outside. It was, she thought, a very nice coach for a disinherited duke, with an insignia on the side to show who it had once belonged to, and a large coachman in uniform holding the horses. Just at that moment two burly footmen appeared in the gallery, carrying Lord Roseby between them. Dobson came up the rear, directing the awkward group as they descended the stairs. Max was dressed in the same torn and muddied clothing he had worn last night, his face was white and drawn, and he looked rather sick. But his mouth was set in those arrogant, stubborn lines that Marietta was coming to know so well.

The disinherited duke was clearly set on getting his way, whether it was good for him or not.

“Marietta is going to accompany Lord Roseby,” Aphrodite said to Dobson.

“Yes, Madame.” The only sign that Dobson was surprised by this revelation was a faint lift of his eyebrows.

Not so Max. There was no mistaking his feelings on the matter. “No, she is not,” he said emphatically.

“Yes, I am,” Marietta retorted, trying to reign in her impatience. “You look like you’re at death’s door, Max. What if you were to have a-a relapse on the journey home? You need me there to take care of you, and that is just what I mean to do.”

“Take care of me!” But clearly raising his voice hurt his head and he sensibly lowered it. “I don’t need help,” he said through clenched teeth.

“You do. What are you afraid of? I promise you I have no intention of ravishing you in your carriage.”

He laughed, and then groaned, but whether from pain or sheer frustration Marietta didn’t know. She pretended it was from the former, and murmured solicitously as she followed them outside to the coach, and helped to make him comfortable inside. There were an array of cushions and bolsters that someone had thoughtfully placed on the seats, and a travel rug, which she tucked around him fussily while he stared at her with haunted eyes.

“For pity’s sake,” he whimpered, “leave me alone.”

“You should have stayed in bed, Max. I did warn you but you wouldn’t listen.”

He fixed her with a look, his eyes bright through the screen of his dark lashes. Marietta had often heard the saying
if looks could kill
, but she had never really understood its true meaning—until now.

“You may not believe this, Miss Greentree, but knowing you were right does not alleviate my present condition,” he said. “Why couldn’t one of my
servants have accompanied me home? Where is Pomeroy?”

“I don’t know where Pomeroy is. Perhaps he was busy.”

Max didn’t bother to answer that, instead he closed his eyes with grim determination, and kept them shut.

Marietta smiled to herself, and leaned back against the soft squabs as the coach set off. It was very selfish of her, but perhaps Max’s injury would work to her advantage. If she could win a promise from him while he was in a weakened state so much the better for her plans.

As they traversed the streets of London, Marietta realized that she had no idea where Max lived. The question had never come up. She opened her mouth to ask him, but he was lying so stiffly opposite her, and was so obviously in pain, that she did not speak after all.

I know hardly anything about him.

The thought gave her pause. Although she felt a strange sense of recognition for Max, a feeling of familiarity, the truth was she and he were near strangers. When she acknowledged it, she felt afraid. Aphrodite had put Max forward as the man to practice upon, and it had seemed a simple task, but now…Marietta took a steadying breath, reminding herself that she didn’t have to do this. She could change her mind.

Well, couldn’t she?

And what then? Live her life in the shadows? Marietta knew she couldn’t bear that—it would not be living at all. As a courtesan she would have a full life, and yet be free of the fear of being emotionally hurt
again. Her heart would be protected. Safe. The men who would be her companions would give her a chance to enjoy herself in ways that were material and physical, but she would not love them. Max might be a stranger, but he was no more so than the men she must learn to please if she became a courtesan.

Satisfied by her self-persuasion, at least for the moment, Marietta relaxed. Only to be shaken by a sudden crash outside the coach. Their driver shouted and swerved, and the wheels lurched violently. Marietta gripped the leather strap and looked out of the window in time to see an overturned timber cart, with lengths of wood spread across the roadway. Their coach driver must have run over the timber, but he was luckier, or cleverer, than some of those following.

A glance across at Max told her that he would not be impressed by her description of the scene. He had his eyes tight shut and his teeth gritted as agony lanced through the wound in his head. He would have been better off staying at Aphrodite’s, but Marietta could sympathize with his need to get home to familiar surroundings.

“Do you want me to—” she began.

“No.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to say yet,” she told him mildly.

“I don’t care.”

“I was going to ask if you wished to rest your head on my lap. It might be softer, and I could shield you from some of the worst bumps.”

Max glared at her, his eyes narrow slits gleaming with bad temper. “You wish me to rest my head on your lap? Would you like to stroke my brow, too?”

“Do you want me to?” Marietta asked, making her eyes wide and innocent.

He snorted, and then groaned as his headache stabbed sheer agony into the echoing vault that was his skull. Although Max had his share of illnesses and accidents—some would say more than his fair share of the latter—such pain was new to him. He’d never suffered from headaches—an innocuous name for what was currently going on in his head. Why on earth had he declined the doctor’s offer of a hefty dose of laudanum? What had he been trying to prove? Sheer pigheaded pride and stubbornness he supposed, the same stubborn pride that was preventing him from resting his head on Marietta Greentree’s delightful lap.

Without warning the coach rattled over some uneven cobbles, and suddenly his pride dissolved. “Do it then,” he said between white lips. “Please.”

Looking concerned rather than triumphant, Marietta slipped into the seat beside him, and settled herself carefully among the cushions. She lifted his head, gently, and Max raised himself up with a muttered curse. After a brief, painful period of shuffling about, Max’s head was resting on her lap, Marietta was bracing one arm over his shoulders to help steady him, while her other hand lay upon his brow. Her fingers seemed naturally to curl in the threads of his dark hair, as she stroked it back from the bandage.

“How is that, Lord Roseby?” she said sweetly.

Was she teasing him? Mocking his arrogance? Max didn’t care. His pain was still excruciating but somehow it didn’t matter as much now that Marietta’s scent was all around him, and he was enveloped by her soft body. Max sighed as she brushed
her fingertips lightly over his skin, almost a caress. Turning his face towards her, he snuggled closer. The swell of her breast was heavy against his cheek. As Marietta held him against the roll and jolt of the coach, he wanted to press even closer. He wanted to…to unbutton her bodice and put his lips on her bare skin. To run his tongue over the lush curves of her breasts.

The hot rush of desire surprised him, but at least it helped him to forget his headache.

“Your coach needs new springs,” she said in that know-it-all voice he hated.

“Can’t afford ’em,” he murmured against the stiff cloth of her bodice, and the soft swell of her breast. He had never felt anything quite so tantalizing, being this close and yet knowing that he was unable, incapable, of taking advantage of it.

Take advantage?
Max blinked and tried to clear his mind. No, no,
he
didn’t take advantage,
he
was a gentleman. Wasn’t he? Yes, he was, despite his new scandalous status.

“Oh. So you
can’t
afford new springs for your coach, and yet you
can
afford a visit to Aphrodite’s? I don’t call that sound economics.”

He turned his head so that he could look up and see her face properly, and wasn’t so distracted by other things. “Is this any of your business, Miss Greentree?”

She fixed him with an intent look. “It may be. Which girl were you going to request at Aphrodite’s? Before you saw me, of course.”

“Of course.”

She sounded smug, and he supposed she had the right to be. He
had
offered to pay for an entire night
of her company. What in God’s name had possessed him? Some form of madness, that was certain. Well, he was cured of it now, Max told himself, at the same time snuggling in against her. She smelled of roses and woman, and despite her stays, she was incredibly soft…

He opened one eye and looked up at her. She appeared to be waiting for something, but when he tried to remember what it was he got caught up in the perfect shape of her face and her pert little nose and those long, curling dark lashes framing her blue eyes.

“Which girl, Max? Have there been so many that you can’t remember?” She sounded unhappy with him; now her fingers were tugging at his hair rather than caressing.

Max cleared his throat. “Why…?”

“Was it Maeve?” Marietta asked suddenly, but she was hoping it wasn’t. This morning Maeve had seemed like a possible friend, but that didn’t mean she wanted Maeve and Max to have been lovers. It made her uncomfortable.

Max fixed her with another one of his slightly unfocused looks, as if he’d misplaced her name. “No,” he said at last. “Not Maeve. Anyway, a gentleman isn’t supposed to reveal such things.”

He said it so pompously that Marietta’s fingers itched to yank out the hair she was smoothing. Instead she said, “I’m not asking you to tell secrets, my lord. I’m interested in…in whether you have a favorite type of woman. I have heard it said that men have preferences. For instance: dark or fair hair or auburn, blue eyes or brown, tall or short, plump or slender. Tell me, do you have a preference, my lord?”

“No, I don’t,” he said stubbornly. And then, the frown leaving his face, “You called me ‘my lord.’ What happened to Max?”

“I decided it was improper. You are a lord, and we are near strangers. I shouldn’t be calling you by your first name.”

“I’m not a lord, not anymore,” Max muttered. He moved restlessly, winced, and then sighed. There was something in that sigh that made Marietta’s heart ache for him. Max may be arrogant and bad-tempered, but he was suffering.

His voice was low, so low that she had to bend her head closer to hear him. “I am nothing.”

“Oh Max, I’m sure you—”

“I am nothing.”

Marietta bit her lip and fell silent. Max, too, was quiet, brooding on his uncertain future. After a moment she looked out of the window and realized they had entered a very elegant square, with a garden and plane trees at its center. The coach drew to a halt on the other side, in front of an austere but elegant Georgian townhouse.

“Where are we?” she asked. “I don’t think I know this square.”

“Bedford Square,” Max said, seemingly glad to change the subject, although he spoke with an effort.

“Bedford…?”

“It isn’t fashionable among the aristocracy. My father took the house from the Duke of Bedford for a pittance, when he couldn’t get anyone other than lawyers interested in living here. Hoped having a duke in residence would help attract others. It didn’t, but at least my father felt he’d got a bargain.”

The door to the townhouse opened on the figure of an elderly butler, who hobbled down the four shallow stairs to the street. Behind him a plump woman of the same vintage gathered her skirts and numerous petticoats up above her ankles and picked her way carefully in his wake.

“Daniel!” the butler called, just as the driver jumped down.

Daniel Coachman was a huge man, with wide shoulders and bulging arms, and it didn’t take him long to gather Max into those arms and extract him from inside the coach. Another man had joined the little group at the bottom of the stairs, a tall, thin gentleman in a frock coat of an unpleasant green color and plaid pantaloons. He proceeded to direct proceedings, continually urging caution. “Mind now, Daniel,” he said in a fussy manner, waving his hands about. “Mind! Is the bed ready, Mrs. Pomeroy?”

Mrs. Pomeroy’s round face was flushed. “It is, sir, don’t you fret. All nice and warmed up for his lordship here.”

“Carry him upstairs then, Daniel. Have you sent for the doctor, Pomeroy?”

The three servants went strangely still, avoiding each others’ eyes. “No, sir,” Pomeroy answered. “The doctor wouldn’t come.”

“
Wouldn’t come
?” the gentleman’s eyes blazed. “What the devil do you mean, he
wouldn’t come
?”

“He knows his lordship can’t pay him. Sir.”

There was more than a hint of animosity in his voice. The gentleman heard it, and his face colored. Suddenly his anger was gone, replaced by discomfort. “Ah, I see. Well, send for him directly and inform him that
I
shall pay him.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.” The elderly butler looked very relieved.

Daniel Coachman was carrying Max up the steps and into his townhouse, with the elderly Pomeroys tottering in his wake, and that was when Marietta realized she had been overlooked. The gentleman in the green-colored frock coat was last up the steps, calling out more instructions as he went—in a moment he would be gone, too, and she would be left, standing all alone, in the street.

“Excuse me, sir?”

At the sound of her voice the tall, thin stranger stopped and turned. His eyes were the same mahogany brown color as Max’s, but far less intimidating. “I’m sorry, you are…?”

“I am Miss Marietta Greentree. I accompanied Ma…that is, Lord Roseby, from Aphrodite’s Club. He was too ill to travel alone and none of his servants had come to help him.”

There was an implied criticism in her words and the gentleman was not slow in understanding her. “As you see, Miss Greentree, the Pomeroys are elderly and would not have been of much use. They were better remaining here, preparing the house. Daniel had to drive the coach, but he is a good lad and could be relied upon to help when needed. As for myself, I have only just arrived or you can be sure I would instantly have offered my services.” His tone was polite, but his gaze had grown watchful.