Sexual Hunger (8 page)

Again a gasp flew around the crowded room.

“—we must send a ship, or—the whole damn Royal Navy! Or—”

“Dora. That’s quite enough.” Lord Darington stepped between the guests who’d moved for his wife, his features growing ruddier. “This man is a huckster and a heartless fraud, playing upon your emotions! We’re going home.”

“But I—how can you
think
of leaving?” she cried. “Neither Scotland Yard nor that gossipmonger Miss Crimson has produced a shred of evidence about Jason’s circumstances! We’ve learned more tonight from Mr. Polinsky than—”

“Claptrap. None of your sass, woman!” Lord Darington clamped his arm around his wife’s shoulders and, without glancing at anyone, marched her down the stairway. The hall grew so quiet, Dora’s whimpers haunted them until the front door closed heavily.

“I’ve seen enough, too. Come along, Rowena.” The portly Lord Galsworthy stood up, clasping his young, redheaded wife’s hand. “Whatever Fenwick had in mind for tonight’s entertainment, this Polinsky character has only inflamed the ladies’ imaginations and incensed the gentlemen’s sensibilities. Good night, all.”

Maria blinked. And before she could sift through the implications of Galsworthy’s pithy remark—one she might paraphrase in her column—two other men excused themselves, wives in tow. Yosef Polinsky stood out of their way. He didn’t protest these exits, nor did he call anyone back with the promise of proving himself legitimate.

She felt Rubio’s gaze. His hot-coffee eyes insisted they leave as well, now that it wouldn’t appear Polinsky had intimidated him. As Maria stood, it occurred to her that those who remained had all consulted regularly with Rubio…all of them ladies who’d come without male escorts: Meriweather Golding and her bejeweled widow friends, as well as Camille and Colette Bentley.

And wasn’t
that
interesting?

I
predict, Dear Reader, that London is in for an awakening. We have in our midst a force unlike any we’ve encountered before.

Maria studied the playbill she’d found fluttering outside Lord Fenwick’s home—not by accident or coincidence, she believed. It featured a sketched likeness of Yosef Polinsky with one hand raised dramatically above his head as though he were summoning a spirit. But the medium’s expression drew her beyond the hyperbole written below him, about his astounding feats of a “fantastical, phantasmagorical nature.” Although his face was raised slightly toward the heavens, his eyes still looked directly at her no matter where she moved the paper or moved around the room.

Was it this medium’s eyes, often an outstanding feature seers were born with? Or was it the way his nose and lips and brow ridge showcased those orbs to form a face so compelling, so charismatic, that she couldn’t stop gazing at it. He wasn’t a blatantly handsome man, yet he had a presence that defied description.

It was his voice
, her memory prodded.

Ah, most certainly that played a major part in Polinky’s presentation. What woman could resist a resonant baritone, thick with the intrigue of a foreign accent? Yosef Polinsky could have read from a legal textbook and still held his audience spellbound. Or at least the females. Men apparently saw right through his arrogance—

Or does he truly have the power? The ability to communicate with those not present?

Maria contemplated this. She needed to complete her column and deliver it soon, before the servants saw the light beneath her door. Yet she pondered Polinsky’s face on the page as she recalled his brief presentation this evening. She had grown up in a family of prophets and soothsayers, and living with Rubio since their mother’s death had accustomed her to his startling mannerisms and manifestations. She knew all about charisma, because her brother, too, had the power to wield influence over women…to shape their expectations and their beliefs.

Polinsky was different. Unsettlingly so.

Yes, my friends
, she continued to write,
the arrival of one Yosef Polinsky, most likely of Russian descent, will shake our society to the core. Or he will at least startle and enlighten those who seek his counsel.

She paused again. Was she making too much of this man, to the detriment of her brother’s livelihood? Or would her column bring Lord Fenwick’s guest so much notoriety—so many clients—he’d be too busy to challenge Rubio Palladino? Rubio, of course, would continue to enlighten those who came to him, but his behavior tonight, the wrath that had so quickly consumed him, warned her he might become his own worst enemy. Such anger was an announcement of a fear so primal few men dared admit to it, or to see it for what it was.

Fear
did not suit Rubio Palladino. Nor did it serve him.

Mark my words! I predict—for, like our beloved Palladino, I possess an uncommon intuition—that very soon, prominent citizens will either benefit or suffer immensely from the appearance of this star on our horizon.

Had she overestimated him? Overstated an arrogance that masqueraded as ability, until Polinsky proved himself? Or did the fear radiating from Rubio echo in her own soul?

Something about Polinsky struck a discord. Maria hoped her own prejudices—her love for her brother—didn’t determine how she would deal with this new player on London’s social stage. The way Yosef had gazed into her eyes, had studied the butterfly pendant, and had then announced Jason’s predicament to a desperate Dora Darington. It seemed too uncanny to be true.

Was she becoming as overly dramatic as her future mother-in-law? She
did
believe Jason was alive and that he would return to her. She was afraid
not
to believe those things.

Maria quickly folded her pages, aware of the late hour. All this pondering of the credibility beneath Polinsky’s showmanship had kept her awake far into the night.

As always, she donned a cloak the color of midnight, listened at her door, and then slipped away from the town house. Her active imagination brought the shadows to life, even though she’d walked this same path many times on her mission as Miss Crimson. Maria laughed harshly at herself. She was letting her imagination run away with her, much as those ladies at Lord Fenwick’s gathering had fancied themselves in Polinsky’s inner circle. Poor dears, their lives seemed limited without their men. Yosef Polinsky offered new opportunities for contact not only with other realms but with flesh and blood manhood. Manhood that reveled in its effect on their shining eyes and fluttering hearts. And their purse strings, no doubt.

What else would they surrender to this man? And what advantage would he take of them?

Maria paused in the shadow of the building across the street from the
Inquirer
office. Everything looked the same in the dimness, yet she sensed something different. Something afoot. Perhaps someone watching her every move.

It’s your runaway imagination
, she chided herself.
You’re wound so tightly that if you were a clock, your spring would snap
.

It was true: her breath came in short, quick bursts and the tattoo of her pulse warned her of Polinsky’s power. Power
she
was allowing him by letting her mind dwell on him. Better to deliver her column and get back to the town house before anyone discovered her absence.

Maria quickly crossed the narrow street, the hairs at her nape prickling. She’d been aware of the potential danger of walking these back ways at night yet had never experienced this extreme uneasiness, which tensed her entire body.

Seeing no one, she slipped her column through the mail slot of the
Inquirer
’s door, and then strode toward the dim light of the next streetlamp. If someone were going to accost her, she wanted to see his face—

“Miss Crimson, you should not be out alone at this hour.”

Her pulse galloped crazily and every fiber of her body froze despite her urge to run the other way. Miss Crimson, he’d called her! If this interloper knew who she was, and he killed her here in the street, what a story
that
would make! Had Yosef Polinsky gazed into her eyes and known her secret, and realized she would then write about him, so he was stopping her before—

“Miss Palladino, I did not intend to frighten you,” the man behind her stated. “But my appearance here is a case in point. I’ve been following you, and I could have been
anyone
. And you could be lying lifeless in an alley now, if I’d had any such inclinations.”

That voice…vaguely familiar. She turned as Quentin McCallum stepped from the deepest shadow alongside the building.

“Quentin! You scared the living daylights out of me!”

“Better to be living in daylight than lying cold as a cobblestone in the darkness, is it not?” He crooked his arm, offering it to her. Smiling smugly.

He knew.

She’d lived at the town house only days before her unfortunate wedding day, and a week since, and the butler had discovered her secret occupation. Knew when she stayed up late to write, and knew, from her schedule of late, that Miss Crimson’s column reflected it. “I should have you fired! For—”

“For what, Miss Palladino? Doing the gallant, proper thing by following you into the night? To protect you?”

“You have no right—it is
not
your place to—”

“Your beloved Jason gave me strict orders to watch over you,” Quentin replied smoothly. “He warned me that you were an independent, rather…headstrong woman.” His features sharpened. He appeared craftier in the midnight mist, yet he’d made no threatening moves. Had merely performed what he considered the proper service, supposedly at Jason’s command.

Maria glared at him anyway. “So you’ve eavesdropped on me? Watched the light under my door and listened for my footsteps late at night?”

“The house has ears, Miss—”

“So you and—and
Ruthie
are the Daringtons’
spies
? I suppose you entertained yourselves
royally
on the eve of my wedding!”

Quentin’s lips quirked. He glanced around them and steered her forward. “We shouldn’t tarry here, milady. I’ve wondered, since the first time I observed your nocturnal journeys, how you’ve remained unharmed for all the years you’ve written your column. At the very least you could’ve been smuggled into one of the nearby opium dens or brothels. Forced into slavery of a sort we don’t want to contemplate.
Do
we?”

Was that a veiled threat? How did he know of such base establishments along this street, unless he frequented them himself?

Stop it! There go your thoughts, running amok again!

When they reached the next block, her escort slowed his pace. Maria jerked free. She whirled around to block his path, glaring at him. “How long have you known? And what do you intend to do about it?”

With the mist swirling about his angular face, Quentin reminded her more than ever of Jemma’s pet ferret. He stood head and shoulders above her; possessed a corded strength his uniform camouflaged—yet he seemed more amused than menacing. He smiled like a boy who’d discovered the truth behind Saint Nicholas yet still believed the old elf would bring him gifts, if he behaved himself.

This insight pierced Maria’s suspicions: he didn’t seem the type who would shout out Miss Crimson’s real identity from the rooftops. But she couldn’t let down her guard. Couldn’t assume he was more a young, enamored swain intrigued by her dual identity than a threat to her veiled occupation. For if Miss Crimson quit publishing, it would be all his fault that London had lost one of its most celebrated secrets, and that readers could no longer depend on the
Inquirer
for juicy tidbits about their friends.

She crossed her arms, looking him square in the eye. “Again,” she insisted. “How long have you known about Miss Crimson?”

The tightness around his eyes relaxed. They were within sight of the town house now, and he wanted to chat before they reentered Mrs. Booth’s domain. “Oh, all right,” he said with a half laugh. “While I wasn’t so surprised that your betrothed came for a conjugal visit before his bachelor party—”

“We made enough noise that anyone would know what we were doing,” she recalled with a sad sigh.

“—I was a bit, shall we say…astounded? Amazed?” he continued in a hushed voice. “I had no idea Jude had the—the—”

“Balls?”

“Yes, I—my stars, Miss Palladino!” the butler murmured. Yet he was clearly more fascinated than offended by what he’d witnessed. “To think that you not only write London’s most popular column in the
Inquirer
, but you have
two
men in love with you! I stand in awe of—of your sheer allure! Your
power
over the male gender, and over the Darington twins in particular! Those lucky dogs!”

Maria maintained her stern expression, chuckling inside. “I could have you fired for insinuating such a—”

“Your secrets would be in far worse hands than mine, dear lady.”

The little weasel had her there. Maria could no more tattle to Lord or Lady Darington about this presumptuous butler than she could admit she was bedding both their sons.

Best to remain businesslike; to use that
allure
to her advantage. She softened her voice. Lowered her hood so her face would be clearly visible. “So what do you
want
, Quentin?”

Recognizing a shift—an opportunity—McCallum stood tall. “We are in a similar situation, you and I.”

“How do you mean?” She raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to spell it out.

“We both retain our positions at the whim of the Daringtons, which depends upon Jason’s homecoming. He put old Hettrick out to pasture so a younger man—myself—might be his personal servant when he took up residence at the town house,” Quentin explained. “If he doesn’t come home, God love us, both you and I could be”—he gestured at the shadowed streets around them—“out on our backsides. Not a leg to stand on.”

“We pray for Jason’s return,” Maria agreed. “But when he does come home, your occupation remains a great deal more
secure
than mine if Jason learns I write as Miss Crimson. You’ve heard how Dora and Jemma would have me dismembered!”

He smiled slyly. Waiting for her reaction, damn him.

“Does Jason know about Miss Crimson?” she blurted.

“No, milady. Nor does Mrs. Booth, specifically.” He glanced toward the town house, contemplating what he would reveal. “She thinks you write in your diary at nights, heartsick after a wedding gone wrong. A social pariah. Alone and without…a family.”

Maria considered this, relieved that the busybody housekeeper wouldn’t betray her to Lord or Lady Darington—unless this crafty man decided to share his secret. “Then what do you
really
want?”

Quentin McCallum was no idiot: they’d reached the place in the conversation he’d been awaiting. Yet again, she sensed no cruel intent, for his smile waxed almost adolescent. “It’s more a question of
whom
, Miss Palladino. You see, to Jemma Darington I’m quite invisible: as functional as window glass, yet no one really notices until I make a misstep or—”

“Or until the glass needs washing.”

“Precisely. People of their ilk curse the dirt rather than appreciating how a window lets in the sun while keeping out foul weather. As long as I perform as expected, I remain unseen—”

“But you want Jemma to notice you?”

“Oh, Miss Palladino, I worship the ground she treads!” he gushed. “Isn’t she the most beautiful—the most spirited—young woman you’ve ever met?”

Well,
there
was a revelation! The
ground
was far more stable and reliable than the girl herself, but of course she couldn’t say that while bargaining for her own security. “There’s no one quite like Jemma,” Maria affirmed carefully.

“But she’s so far above me, I don’t stand a chance unless—unless
you
might provide opportunities to be of assistance to her. I would do
anything
to be near—”