Suzanne Robinson (23 page)

“Nick, old fellow,” Jocelin said as she came near. “Miss Elliot and I were just discussing the rash of deaths among my friends. Remember, we were talking about it as well.”

“It seems to be rather unhealthy to have been an officer in your regiment,” Nick said. “Come inside out of this draft, Miss Elliot.”

The Elliots and their guest gathered in the vaulted music room. Liza sent for tea, the universal English tonic. Honoria and Lady Augusta joined them. Augusta looked upon Liza’s attire with approval and cornered her for a discussion of a village funeral from which she’d just returned. Lady Augusta’s chief entertainment was funeral-watching. Liza maneuvered the woman into attending upon Mama, who had progressed to a most enjoyable stage of vapors. Honoria
hastened to fetch her scent bottle for Mrs. Elliot’s relief, thus allowing Liza to rejoin Jocelin and his friend.

“Damnable waste,” Nick was saying. “I rode out with him beside the carriage, you know. Must have gone afoul shortly after I left him.”

When Arthur Thurston-Coombes asked Nick to tell his story, Liza and Jocelin were left alone. Liza nodded toward the group surrounding Nick, which included Lord Winthrop and Asher Fox.

“You’re great friends with Mr. Ross.”

“Yes, Nick’s the best.”

“Funny how his lordship broke his neck right after Nick left him.”

Jocelin’s head whipped around so that he could gape at her. “You’re suggesting Nick had something to do with Halloway’s accident?”

They both sealed their mouths while a maid handed teacups around. When she was gone, Liza continued.

“There aren’t many of your friends left. Where was he when my brother was killed?”

Indignation rounded Jocelin’s eyes. “Nowhere near him. Really, Liza, you shouldn’t indulge in these feverish and weak-brained imaginings.”

“Someone is killing your friends.” Liza stirred her tea calmly and glanced at the group of men. “Mr. Ross, Lord Winthrop, Mr. Thurston-Coombes, Mr. Fox, and you. Five men left, my lord.”

“I don’t believe it,” Jocelin said. “You’re actually suggesting someone is ticking off my friends, one after the other. And why, pray tell? What reason could anyone have for committing such monstrous crimes? You don’t know, do you?”

“My brother—”

“Was killed by some thief after his purse. God, why do women create such fantasies? No doubt it’s because they have so little else to do. Nick Ross a murderer. What drivel. The illusion of your spinsterish little mind, my dear.”

Liza set her cup and saucer down on a table with a clatter. “Spinsterish?”

“Nick once saved my life!”

Liza stuck her head forward and spat at Jocelin. “Spinsterish?”

“Asher is dear to me for reasons you can never understand.”

Liza’s chest heaved in jet-beaded fury. “Drivel. You said I spoke drivel.”

Comprehension of his error seemed to erupt belatedly upon Jocelin. He made haste to set his own cup and saucer down.

“Now, Liza, perhaps I was a bit outspoken.”

“Outspoken?” Liza began to rock back and forth on her heels while maintaining a stiffly correct posture. “So you don’t retract your insult, you merely regret allowing me a glimpse of your true opinion of me.”

Jocelin shook his head violently. “That’s not what I meant.”

Liza whirled in a sea of black satin and stalked out of the music room. She bustled through the gallery and marched up the young ladies’ stairs, taking no care to ascend gracefully in the manner of a lady. She hiked her skirts above her boot tops and stomped her way to her room.

The hypocrite. She swished about the room, too furious to sit down. Spinsterish, indeed. He was just like her father, like—like a man! As long as she confined her interests to pleasing him and knitting
baby clothes, she was his darling, his object of worship. But if she once hinted that she understood more than pie crust and corsets, he immediately slapped her down to the level of an idiot child.

“Confound him!”

Liza’s hands absently curled around a porcelain figurine that rested on the Queen Anne desk in her sitting room. How she would love to hurl it against a wall, but ladies didn’t commit violent acts of any kind. Ladies didn’t have violent emotions, not even sexual ones, especially sexual ones. And at the moment, she was heartily sorry she had those violent sexual feelings for Jocelin Marshall. Why did she care about him at all? The hypocrite.

Since she had no way to release her anger, it festered and remained with her for the rest of the day and into the evening. Following her mother’s example, Liza pretended to have a sick headache and spent the dinner hour in her room. She perused
Eliza Cook’s Journal
and read Mary Carpenter’s essays on reformatory schools, then wrote a letter to Caroline Chisholm, who was recruiting emigrants to Australia. Finally, after the solace of these activities, she regained some of her good humor. After all, what could she expect of Jocelin, who was, a nobleman?

She went to bed resolved to ignore her lover’s prejudices toward her sex, and it wasn’t as hard to fall asleep as she thought it would be. She woke from a deep sleep because her nose itched. She rubbed it, turned on her stomach, and scrunched her pillow under her cheek. Something tickled her nose again, and she flapped her hand in front of her face.

“Liza, sweet,” Jocelin whispered.

Her eyes popped open to find him kneeling by
the bed, one of her curls dangling from his fingers. He’d lit a night candle by the bed.

“My lord!”

“Shh.” He put a finger to his lips, then tugged at her curl. “ ‘I arise from dreams of thee / In the first sweet sleep of night …’ ”

Liza yanked the curl from him and sat up. “What are you doing here?”

Jocelin slid a hip onto the bed next to her.

“I’ve come to grovel.” He rubbed his hands together and ducked his head. “Forgive me, I beg of you, O mistress of my life.”

“Fool.” Liza tried not to smile even as she glanced about the room, as if worried that he’d brought the entire household with him.

Jocelin sank to the floor again, clasped his hands, and held them out to her. “I’m unworthy to kiss the hem of your gown, your rosy toes.”

“Hush. What lunacy. Someone will hear you.”

“I shan’t stop until you forgive me.” He sighed and lowered his head so that he could rub it against her thigh. “I’ll languish and die of grief without your good favor, my lady love.”

“I’m a spinster. Remember?”

“The loveliest, most enticing spinster this mortal coil has ever beheld.” Jocelin straightened, put a hand over his heart, and swept the other before him. “ ‘She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes …’ ”

He glanced at her sideways with such a speculative look that Liza burst out with a giggle. Jocelin lunged at her and clamped a hand over her mouth. She swatted at his hand, but he held it there until he could climb on the bed and replace it with his mouth.
Liza was still chuckling, but the feel of his tongue inside her mouth quickly banished her mirth. Feeling warm from his good-humored overtures, she soon began to feel even warmer, only the heat came from her body rather than her mind.

As he kissed her, she felt him slip beneath her covers. Her hand skimmed over the silk of a dressing gown penetrated by the warmth of his body. His hands moved, and the robe came loose. Bare flesh pressed against her body as he released her mouth.

“Am I forgiven?”

Liza brushed her lips against his and wondered if there was a more enthralling feeling than their heat and texture.

“Liza.”

She loved the way they felt when he spoke against her skin. “Ask me again.”

“Will you forgive me?”

They felt like butterfly wings fluttering against her cheek.

“Again,” she said.

He slithered down her body so that he could see her face. “You little devil, you aren’t even listening.”

Liza nipped at his lips. “Then you’ll have to find some other way to forgive you.”

“I will, if you’ll promise not to absolve me too soon.”

J
ocelin ground his teeth together so that he couldn’t yawn. Mrs. Elliot’s idea of entertainment after her grand dinner was listening to a London tenor for over two hours. He glanced at the woman, but she gazed unblinkingly at the rotund singer, whose voice echoed off the vaults of the music room. Liza sat at his right, her lashes lowered. He saw her start, and realized that she too had nearly fallen into a doze. They hadn’t slept much last night.

The twelve-course dinner hadn’t helped, all that lobster and ptarmigan pie. He surreptitiously rolled his shoulders.

Beside him Liza muttered, “How much longer?”

He shook his head, but even as he contemplated
the disgrace of falling asleep in the midst of county society, the tenor finished and applause filled the room. Relieved, he stood with everyone else, but held back as Mrs. Elliot rushed over to the singer.

He bent to whisper to Liza. “Tonight?”

Her answer was a sunburst smile.

“Oh, no, it’s your father.” Jocelin nodded to the approaching figure of Richard Elliot.

“Heaven preserve me,” Liza said. She gave him a pleading look. “Would you mind if I bolted?”

“Run along. I’ll distract him.”

He watched Liza take refuge behind Lady Augusta’s black silk bulk, then turned to cut off her father.

“Ah, Elliot, capital dinner. Your chef’s a good man.”

“Should be,” Elliot said as he stopped a servant and grasped a claret. “Brought him over from Paris, you know.”

“Excellent.”

Elliot took hold of Jocelin’s arm. “My dear Radcliffe, might I have a word, in private?”

“If you wish.”

He followed Elliot out of the music room and across the house to the host’s private study and office. Wine-color leather and mahogany paneling lent an impression of masculinity to the room. They settled in two armchairs by a fire. Elliot offered cigars, which Jocelin declined. Elliot lit one, puffed on it to get it going, then stared at the glowing tip.

“You’ve been seeing quite a bit of my daughter, Radcliffe.”

“Miss Elliot is a charming lady.”

“Quite a bit,” Elliot said.

Jocelin merely looked at his host. More formidable
papas than he had tried to force Jocelin to declare himself. Undisturbed, he allowed the silence to extend. He wasn’t going to be rushed into marriage, even with Liza. Finally Elliot continued.

“So much that I find it necessary to ask you your plans, my lord.”

Jocelin poured himself a whiskey from the decanter beside his chair. “I haven’t any at the moment.”

To Jocelin’s surprise, Elliot only nodded.

“Thought you might say that. Know your reputation.”

“You’re a shrewd man, Elliot.”

“More shrewd than you know,” Elliot replied. He blew a ring of smoke and watched it float toward Jocelin. “May I be candid?”

Jocelin sipped his whiskey. “I would find it most interesting.”

Elliot puffed on his cigar for a few moments and contemplated the resulting smoke clouds. After a while he glanced down at his guest. Jocelin at once grew wary, for he detected in that small-eyed gaze a hint of the usurer, the hard bargainer, the penny counter.

“You’ve toyed with my daughter,” Elliot said suddenly. “I assume you’ll propose to make it right.”

The usual complaint, an unusually abrupt demand. The bastard had thrown the girl in his path like liver before a hound. By God, he wasn’t going to be stampeded by this nouveau riche butcher.

“Your assumption is mistaken. Miss Elliot is a lady who has reached her majority. She knows what she wants.” Jocelin smiled sweetly at Elliot. “She told me so.”

He expected Elliot to turn scarlet and roar like a tiger deprived of a meal of villagers. Instead the old
man nodded as if Jocelin had confirmed his presumptions. He chewed on his cigar for a while before responding.

“I like you, Radcliffe. You have pluck. Not many men could have survived what you’ve survived. The war, savages in America.” Elliot caught and held Jocelin’s gaze. “Other things.”

Jocelin regarded his adversary calmly. The bastard was going to threaten him. Too bad, for the old buster couldn’t touch him financially, and he didn’t frighten easily. It was best that Elliot learn he couldn’t bully him before Jocelin committed himself. He contented himself with raising a brow and taking another sip of his drink. Let Elliot raise the stakes.

“Oh, well,” Elliot grumbled. “Thought I’d give you a way out, my boy, but you’re a stubborn young colt. Then I’ll just say a bit. Not much, for what I’ve discovered demands the utmost delicacy. So I’ll just mention how I’ve heard that at one time, you and your uncle were quite fond of each other.”

Silence surrounded him. He knew he was looking at Elliot, but he seemed to be enveloped in emptiness, cold, airless, isolating. He hadn’t expected this particular threat.

“Perhaps ‘fond’ isn’t the right word, or rather, your uncle was fond of you. I gather you didn’t return the sentiment. How old were you?”

Jocelin heard his own voice as if it were a stranger’s—thin and weak. “Fourteen.”

He set his glass down and prayed his face hadn’t lost all its color. He flicked a speck of lint off the arm of his chair.