Sexual Hunger (30 page)

“What do you say to
that,
Mr. Polinsky?” Lady MacPherson’s cheeks flamed with indignation. “After you
left
me—to pursue your next biddable chicken—I had time to ponder your pretty lies. And low and behold, I discovered that some of the boxes in my jewelry chest were
empty
! So one has to wonder—”

“Well, there’s no wondering about
this!
” At the other end of the table, Rowena Galsworthy dug through her reticule and then flashed a calling card. “
Not
that I’ve seen this pole myself, but we all know who’d be arrogant enough—
cocky
enough—to wear a jeweled ring around his
thing!
”

Her husband Reginald nearly choked. “
Really
, Rowe! This is not a proper topic—”

“As if anything about Polinsky is
proper!
” Colette Bentley, too, produced a calling card with the magician’s bejeweled member on it. “And how many of us received these special mementos of Lady Darington’s tea?”

Every woman at the table fiddled in her reticule, to hold up a small photograph of herself in a wicker chair, with Polinsky’s arm slung behind her as he grinned gleefully at the camera. The room rang with chatter as they compared the photographs, while their men exchanged suspicious scowls.

Wasn’t it interesting that while these ladies berated the magician in their midst, they all carried his photograph? Maria made a note to mention that in a future column…but when she saw Yosef edging toward the door, she strode over to detain him.

“Yes, Maria! We’ll not be letting that wily fox out of the henhouse just yet!” Meriweather Golding trip-trapped daintily across the parquet floor, her mission written all over her careworn face. “I wish I could say I’d cleverly arranged this moment of truth, but you, my friends, have saved me the effort—the humiliation—of confronting Mr. Polinsky myself!” She stopped in front of him, her fist on her hip. “If you’re returning jewelry to Esther, I’d like mine back, too!”

“So would I!”

“And would I!”

The magician didn’t miss a beat. “Ladies, I’m flabbergasted that you think I’d sink so low as to—”

“Lower than a snake’s belly! That’s how you’ve behaved, and how I felt after you
deceived
me!” their hostess cried. “I blamed it on a memory gone faulty with age, but you took me for a fool and I proved you right. Will you return what you’ve stolen, or shall I summon the police?”

Trapped between Maria and Mrs. Golding, with a roomful of witnesses, Polinsky held up his hands as though he’d walked into an invisible wall…or had been placed under arrest already. “I assure you I shall restore what is yours, dear ladies. If you’ll list what is missing, I shall return to my room for—”

“Do you
have
a room, sir? Or are you a
guest
of yet another unsuspecting hostess?” Rubio demanded from the doorway. His mane of glossy brown hair rendered his face godlike as he awaited the magician’s answer. “When I suspected your duplicity—your
thievery,
Polinsky—I went to the Yard, where I discovered a
string
of complaints from across the Continent. Heartbroken women who reported jewelry missing after you performed in their towns. Using three different names.”

As Rubio stepped forward, he narrowed his piercing eyes. “You’re not even Russian, are you, Joseph Pohl? And you didn’t intend to unpack your trunks after we docked today, did you?” he demanded. “Instead, you planned to leave London before a scene like this one exposed you for the shyster you are!”

The room rang with silence. To a woman, they all appeared stricken. A whimper escaped Dora Darington.

Maria felt genuinely sorry for Jason’s mother: even the feather on her jaunty yellow hat drooped with her dejection. While the other ladies appeared indignant yet vindicated, Lady Darington tried very hard not to betray her devastation. Behind Rubio, Jason and Jude appeared in the doorway: their taut expressions conveyed their disgust at the story they’d overheard.

“I ought to run you up a flagpole and hang you for what you’ve done,” Jason muttered. “I see no recourse but to escort you to jail—”

“I’ll take him. You have other matters to attend to, Lord Darington.” Rubio surveyed those at the table. “I’m sure Galsworthy and Fenwick will assist me.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jason sighed tiredly. “And thank you, Mrs. Golding, for this lovely homecoming surprise. However, our family has endured much distress these past few weeks, so we’ll be leaving now. Mother?”

As the two gentlemen rose to assist Rubio, and Jason went around the table for Dora, Meriweather Golding held up her hand for silence. She looked at Polinsky as though she might cry.

“I’m sorry it came to this, Yosef,” she said in a halting voice. Then she smiled bravely and dabbed at her eyes. “It was a small price to pay, losing jewelry my late husband gave me each time he took a new mistress. While you were here—while you entranced me with your voice and your passion—I felt young and attractive again.
Alive
and in love! I shall never regret that.”

All in the room were departing, but they stopped to look at their hostess. Martha MacPherson clapped her reticule shut. “There’s that, all right. You burned me good, Mr. Polinsky, but those missing gems held no shine compared to
your
jewels! You made me feel devastatingly beautiful when we were—”

“There won’t be another lover like Yosef Polinsky. Might as well live out the rest of my days in a convent.” Esther Grumbaugh sighed over her photograph and then slipped it into the pocket of her flowing skirt.

Maria yearned to hear more midnight confessions; to ponder the magic this chameleon worked with that wand pictured on his business cards. Miss Crimson’s mind was spinning out phrases that would shock and delight her readers, even if Polinsky was the only character she named in this drama.

Jason, however, took his mother firmly by the shoulders. “Again, my thanks to all of you for your concern while I was absent and indisposed,” he said as he steered Dora toward the door. Then in a lower voice he added, “None of this mewling sentimentality for
you,
Mother! He’s a thief and a huckster, no matter how you slice it. Justice has been served, and we shall return home to sort all this out.”

“I
will tolerate
no
further displays of your protection!” Dora spouted when the carriage door closed behind them. “I don’t care if you
are
my son, Lord Darington!
No
one tells me how to feel or whom to love.”

Jude and his brother gaped at their mother. Maria stayed out of this squabble, and she hoped Jemma, on the opposite carriage seat beside her mother, had the sense to remain quiet, too.

Pandora Darington, who looked every inch the mythological goddess, sat ramrod straight with her wrists crossed atop her parasol handle. “As I told you before, I fulfilled my obligations by providing each of you an estate. Any
normal
mother would have been happy that her firstborn received the entire package, but
I
loved my children equally! I sacrificed my dignity—the best years of my life—to compensate for your father’s disinterest!”

Maria glanced out the carriage window, pondering what Jason’s mother did
not
say. By all appearances, she’d recovered from her loveless marriage—but then, Dora didn’t hold society’s measuring stick up to her own experience and settle for it. And Maria admired that.

“We’re all exhausted, Mother,” Jason muttered. “We have never questioned your love or sense of maternal duty. But I cannot allow you to become yet another doormat for Polinsky! I distrusted him the moment I saw him—”

“Precisely my point! You wouldn’t like
any
man I fancied!” Dora then glared at Jude, who sat silently beside her. “And
you
couldn’t care less who I’m in bed with as long as it doesn’t interfere with your amusing pursuits—not that you’re any more honorable than I! Masquerade with Sarah Remington all you want, but you haven’t the decency—the integrity—to stop sneaking around with Maria! Do the three of you intend to share the same bed after the wedding?”

“For God’s sake, Mum—”

“I should inform the vicar of this situation,” Dora continued in a rush. “If only to ensure the Darington heirs’ bloodline remains pure—”

“What the hell does
that
mean?” Jason spouted. “If Jude and I are both of Galsworthy spawn, we’ve been living under an assumed name all our—oh, this is a fine mess, Mother! Quite the spider you’ve been, weaving such a web of deceit!”

He grabbed Maria’s hand. She felt his pulse racing; sensed the tension in his muscles as he struggled to control his emotions. “We’ll sort this out at the town house,” he announced in a dangerously quiet voice. “I can’t discuss your sexual escapades in my father’s home—even if he did know what was going on.”

As she glanced at the stack of newspapers by her feet, Maria cringed. All she wanted to do after the revelations at Meriweather’s party—not to mention the emotional roller coaster of the voyage to America—was hole up in her room, undisturbed, to read Miss Crimson’s columns. If any of these Daringtons learned the truth about her…

Or would the fact that the
Inquirer
’s gossipmonger had continued writing while she was in America prove she was
not
Miss Crimson?

Maria shifted, clutching that straw. Once inside the town house, Mrs. Booth’s excitement waylaid their previous conversation: the old housekeeper wanted every detail of how they’d located Jason, what he’d done while he believed himself a pirate…. Maria slipped away from the parlor on the pretext of freshening up before they resumed their family discussion.

Quentin grabbed her in the vestibule. With a finger on his lips, he steered her to the alcove beneath the service stairway at the back of the house, where he stored his tools. From a wooden crate that had once held tins of peaches, he pulled a fat burlap bag. “Mail for Miss Crimson!” he whispered. “I kept your column alive, milady, but I fear I’ve botched the job! Insulted the wrong society types.”

Maria’s heart raced. “How do you mean, insulted the wrong—”

“Here—these two notes came from the
Inquirer
’s editor, insisting Miss Crimson either apologize to her readers for—for misrepresenting the Queen and her court, or—”

“You made mincemeat of the
Queen
? How on God’s earth—” Maria clapped her hand over her mouth and then glanced behind them, through the kitchen and into the dining room. She slipped the letter from its envelope, to skim her editor’s familiar handwriting.

Dear Miss Crimson, I regret to inform you that several of our most influential and generous sponsors insist I curtail your column unless—

A whimper escaped her. She unfolded the other missive, dated yesterday.

Dear Miss Crimson, Because you don’t seem yourself of late, I have placated readers and sponsors alike by temporarily suspending your column. I’m hoping you will apologize in print and beg forgiveness—

“Or I will be taken to court on charges of libelous—
Quentin
!” She glared at the slender butler, heat prickling her face. “After I suggested you
not
be my ghostwriter, how could you insult my readers to the point—you assured me you’d read every column Miss Crimson wrote! And yet in just two weeks, you’ve gotten me fired unless—”

A gasp made them look up. There stood Jemma, clutching Willie to her shoulder as she gawked at them. “Oh my stars!” she breathed. “
You,
Maria, are—Mumsy! Mumsy!” she cried as she trotted down the hallway. “You’ll never
believe
it! Maria is Miss Crimson!
Maria
is that foul-mouthed society snitch you want to rip limb from limb!”

The blood drained from Maria’s face. She went cold and began to quiver; knew she had some very tall explaining to do, yet couldn’t move from the spot where Jason’s butler had stored this bag of incriminating letters.

And that’s where Jason found her: still rooted to the floor of the butler’s closet. Her fiancé seemed very tall and strong and formidable and…yes, ready to dismember her. “Is it true, what Jemma said?” he demanded. “I don’t believe half the fanciful stuff she spouts, but I must hear this from
you,
Maria. I’m tired. And frankly, I’ve heard all the outrageous stories I can handle for one day.”

Maria prayed for the floor to open up and swallow her. Her future with Jason, Lord Darington had just come to a crossroads: a painful, humiliating end, if she didn’t find the right words, right now. His tawny eyes bored into hers, begging her to refute his sister.

But she could only stand there alongside Quentin, swallowing rapidly. Struggling to breathe. “I never wrote a word that discredited you or—or your family!” she stammered. “It was all in your mother’s interpretation—”

“And
you
have penned this hideous column from its inception? Since before I knew you?” His anguished expression implored her to correct him—to
lie,
if need be, so he could set his mind to rest and get on with other matters at hand.

But she couldn’t do it. Didn’t have an alibi ready—and damn it, now that this huge cat was out of the bag, Maria couldn’t bear the thought of covering every secretive walk into town after dark…watching her back and forever concealing the writing she had always loved, once she married this man. If people read her columns carefully, they knew her scandalous humor gave all of London something interesting to talk about! But she reported only what she herself had seen and heard. She had
never
embellished or falsified her stories.

And she would not start now.

“Yes, I am Miss Crimson,” she confessed. “Except that while I was away, finding you—”

“I am to blame for this entire episode,” Quentin confessed dolefully. “Miss Palladino, I am profusely sorry for the mess I’ve made. And Jason—Lord Darington, sir—I shall pack my belongings right now and—”

“Nonsense.” Jason glanced at the bulging burlap bag and then at his manservant. “You are excused to assist Mrs. Booth in the kitchen. She insists on serving the family tea and tarts none of us wants to eat. Meanwhile, I have matters to discuss with Mar—Miss Palladino.”

Her throat closed over a protest. Miss Palladino, was it?

Maria resigned herself to the ugliness that would be hurled by those who waited in the parlor. If this weren’t such a hideously painful moment, when her future hung by an unraveling thread, she could congratulate herself for giving these Daringtons a diversion from their family feud. But she must face the music…even if it were a funeral dirge for her career as a columnist. Hadn’t she sensed this moment would come? Hadn’t Rubio hinted at this in his predictions before the wedding?
Joy juxtaposed with excruciating pain…deception, yet revelation.

But Rubio was off dealing with his own demons. She must face hers, too.

They sat in the parlor, staring as she entered a step ahead of Jason: Jemma, Jude, and Dora. Judge, jury, and executioner. Pandora Darington rose and pointed a finger, resembling the Grim Reaper despite her sunshine yellow dress. “
You!
” She bit off the word as though it tasted foul. “A traitor in our midst! Hiding your true identity from us all this time! And to think you almost married my son!”

Maria stood stoically, her hands clasped in front of her. Jason left her then, to face her from behind the settee where his family sat. Never in her life had she felt so alone.

“What? Not a word of explanation or apology?” Dora demanded. “Not even a weak excuse to defend all the scandalous accusations and
lies
you’ve published about us?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but Lady Darington wasn’t finished.

“Oh, this is
rich!
Left to your own secretive devices, while living under our roof, you deceived us and shamed us in print! But when brought to account, you’ve nothing to say?”

“How did
you
get to be Miss Crimson?” Jemma blurted. She shrugged incredulously. “I mean, of all the fine ladies who
could
have been—”

“You make a worthwhile point, Miss Darington.” Maria’s blood finally reached a full boil as she looked at the princess of this family. “Might I remind you that I was not raised in the lap of luxury? Lord knows you and your mother never miss an opportunity to remind me I’m trash!” she cried. “But when I came to this country with my brother, shortly after we’d been orphaned in Italy, I had no one else to turn to! No one making secret
deals
to ensure I inherited an estate!”

She paused, but she’d gone too far to stop. It was time to state her case and let the chips fall where they may, wasn’t it? “Rubio has made his mark as London’s foremost medium and visionary, while I’ve employed my gifts for observing and reporting—yes, while hiding beneath Miss Crimson’s cloak of anonymity.
Why?
” she demanded, her arms outstretched. “Because I needed an
income!
I refused to depend upon Rubio, and have supported myself for nearly five years now! Frankly, I think he and I have done rather well for two penniless foreigners!”

Their faces registered disbelief. Quentin entered the hushed room with a tray of petits fours, tea cakes, and tarts. He set it on the table between the two sides of this confrontation. “Not to overstep my bounds,” he said in a low voice, “but if you’ve ever
read
Miss Crimson’s column with an open, objective mind, you’d know she has not demeaned your family—or anyone else’s. She simply tells London’s social story as it
is.
”

“Out!” Dora exclaimed with a curt wave. “The day I require advice from the
help
will be a dire time indeed!”

The butler bowed. Was that a furtive look he and Jemma exchanged as he left the parlor? Maria snatched at any sign of happiness, for she’d dug herself into a pit with no foreseeable means of getting out.

Jude, however, scooted forward to choose two little iced cakes. He popped them into his mouth, his expression speculative. “While this revelation comes as a shock,” he said quietly, “haven’t we always known Maria Palladino possessed a certain élan…an irrepressible sparkle we envied? For her to remain anonymous as a columnist all these years, while she gained entrée into London’s most elite circles—”

“She was only invited because she was Miss Crimson!” Jemma piped up. She, too, snatched a tea cake and jammed it into her mouth before sharing the last morsel of it with Willie.

“But who
knew
she was writing that column? My point
is
,” Jude continued in a more excited voice, “that Maria has far more talent and ability and—and
pluck
—than we give her credit for! And she has achieved this distinction on her own, without any connections at Court or help from well-heeled friends.”

“But why did she write under cover? And use the peerage for target practice?” Jason protested. His scowl predicted how he’d look in fifty years if he allowed sour grapes to turn to vinegar in his soul.

“Who wants to read about common, everyday people? Certainly not anyone who would pay for a paper!” she shot back. Her fiancé’s attitude startled her…and now he and his twin were talking as though she weren’t in the room. Perhaps it was best to discover his true feelings before she married Jason Darington: becoming an earl hadn’t improved his disposition, had it? “Let’s not forget that Miss Crimson put out a plea for information, which Rubio then connected to his visions, or we’d have had
no
idea where you’d disappeared—”

“Where
did
you go that night?” Jude turned to address his brother, distracted by missing links that had never been reconnected. “Miss Amelia told your chums her driver took you home! At least they admitted where you’d been! But when Father and I went to the whorehouse—”

“Jude, really!” his mother sputtered. “Must you be so crude? Ladies are present.”

In light of what Dora had revealed about her marriage, Maria bit back a retort. The parlor got quiet as the twins and Jemma also considered their mother’s remark.

Mrs. Booth entered the parlor then, with a teapot and their cups. “Have you ever
read
Miss Crimson’s column, Lord Darington?” she asked crisply. “I find her observations about the aristocracy to be quite astute—and she plays no favorites! She did indeed solicit help for locating
you.
And didn’t she shine the spotlight on that Russian medium, Yosef Polinsky? I hear he’s made quite a splash amongst lonely ladies of the upper crust.”