The Bride Wore Pearls (31 page)

They were the very words Janet had spoken, but Anisha heeded them no better now. Instead, she paced across the grass before him, trying to form her words, but temper and frustration had seized clarity from her mental grasp.

“Here is the problem,” she finally said, stopping and turning to face him. “You do not have the right to patronize me, Rance. You do not have the right to decide how I live my life, what manner of risks I run with my name, or who I bed when—”

“No,” he interjected coldly. “In that, you are regrettably correct. But I get to choose who
I
bed, Anisha.”

Anisha felt herself suddenly trembling inside. “And you . . . and you do not choose me,” she said. “Is that it?”

“I do not,” he said tightly. “And I am not accountable to you, Anisha, for my choice. Not unless you find yourself with child.”

Anisha stiffened her spine. “Oh?” she said, her voice arching. “And if I do, then what?”

“And then you know what,” he said harshly. “And may God help us both. And may God help Tom and Teddy.”

“Oh!” she said hotly. “Would it be so very terrible, Rance? To be married to me? To be a father to my boys?”

For an instant, his face froze. His expression went utterly blank.

“Would it?” she demanded. “Go on, Rance. Tell me you don’t want me. I am not even asking you to marry me; indeed, you presume a vast deal to think I’d have you. But tell me you don’t desire me. Say it straight to my face.”

But the blank expression remained fixed upon his visage, as if he’d been carved of pale marble. Something inside him had shifted, and though he moved not a fraction, Anisha could all but feel the anger rolling through him like waves before a storm.

“Whoever marries you, Anisha, can account himself fortunate,” he finally said. “But it will not be me. Would it be terrible? Not for some men. Myself, I have never contemplated marriage. The institution would suit me very ill.”

To her shame, she almost lunged at him. “Oh, my God, you are
such
a liar!”

He caught her upper arms in his hands, his arms rigid. “Anisha,” he rasped, giving her a little shake, “is there anything about me—anything you know, or anything you have seen—that would suggest to you that domestic life would suit me? Have I ever remained sober two days running? Or a whole week faithful to one woman? Ask yourself that, for God’s sake, before you go spinning us some fantasy in your mind.”

“So you have no wish to confine yourself to bedding just one woman,” she said. “Is that it? Go on, say it!”

“Anisha, be silent.”

“No, I won’t be!” she cried, trying to jerk from his grasp. “I won’t make this easier for you. And this isn’t even
about
marriage. In that, yes, you flatter yourself. But go on, Rance. With a straight face, tell me you do not care for me—”

“Anisha,
hush
!”

“—or that your body doesn’t ache for mine,” she said, speaking over him. “Just try to say it. For you’ll be a liar if you do. I’ve seen it in your eyes. Felt it in your touch. Even now lust shimmers off your skin like—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Nish, lust is just lust!” he interjected. “Men feel it for half the women that cross their paths.”

“Lust is not just lust with us, Rance,” she warned him. “The
Upanishads
teach us that all of a man’s life is written. You and I, we are destined. And most days, I am as unhappy about it as you.”

“Don’t talk to me of your goddamned stars and Vedic nonsense,” he growled. “I don’t believe in any of it.”

“Oh?” she challenged. “Then tell me you do not forget all others when I’m near. I
know
the truth of this,
meri jaan.
Sometimes I despair of it.”

He cut her off with another shake, his fingers digging into her arms, the skin around his mouth going white with rage. “Madam,” he said tightly, “you try my restraint at your peril.”

“And you, Rance, you try my sanity!” she cried. “I am sick to death of—”

His mouth was on hers in an instant.

Somehow it was her back that was set against the tree and Rance was kissing her with a roughness she could not have imagined. The force of his body held her tight to the tree as he dragged his mouth over hers, raking her skin with the stubble of his beard and driving her head back against the bark as he thrust inside her mouth.

This was desire, raw and unleashed. Dangerous in its heat. And all she could think of—strangely exult in—was the fact that
Rance burned for her.

She thought again of Coldwater, and of her doubts. But having Rance in her bed—his kissing her now with no restraint—had utterly shattered them. Shattered her pretensions, too, and swept away the little scrap of herself she’d held back from him.

She was lost to him. Had been lost for a long time.

On and on the kiss went, desperate in its heat. He claimed her, possessed her, pressing his every inch to hers until her breath came in gasps and her knees shook. Rance’s nostrils flared with lust and with rage, his brilliant blue eyes wide, as if daring her to look into them.

She did look. And realized at once she had pushed him too far.

Setting her hands to his shoulders, she shoved, but it was an impossibility. Something had shifted between them; the balance of power, perhaps, until he possessed it all and she held none. He shifted his thigh, urging it hard between her legs. She could feel the thick length of him swiftly hardening against her body.

At last she shoved him hard with the heels of her hands, then pounded at him. Rance tore his mouth from hers and finally stepped away, his breathing rough, his eyes still wild with something caught between lust and anger.

“Rance.” She must have looked horrified, for the color drained from his face.

“God
damn
it, Anisha!” he said, half turning away from her. “Just damn it all to hell.”

“Kindly stop cursing,” she said, but her voice trembled. “Besides, I didn’t do anything.”

“No. No,
I
did.” He dragged a hand through his curling, over-long hair. “For God’s sake, Nish, can’t you see? There was a . . . a line in the sand between us. And now it’s gone. And I’m sorry. I never wanted this to happen.”

“And I am sorry, too,” she whispered, gathering herself. “I’m sorry your life is such an awful mess, and that you do not trust me to make the right decisions for myself.”

“Nish, it isn’t—”

“It
is,
” she cried, coming away from the tree. “It is precisely that, Rance. You do not trust me to make even that most intimate and personal of choices—to choose a lover. To choose
you
. But here is the truth of it, my dear: beyond having you in my bed, I do not know what I want. Not from you. Not even from the rest of my life. The stars aside, I know only that I want what’s best for my children.”

“If you want what’s best for them, Anisha,” he replied, “then you know those boys need a father.”

“My boys had a father!” she cried. “A father whom they scarcely knew, and who scarcely spared them a passing glance. But for good or ill, I’ve had to bury him, and now it’s left to me to decide what my boys need—and thus far, I’ve done a more than adequate job of it.”

To that he said nothing, but instead shoved his hands into his pockets and started almost blindly into the depths of the garden.

“Rance, I know, even if you do not, that you would never bed me for sport,” she said behind him. “On some level, you care for me, and it goes beyond the physical. But I’d sooner be boiled in oil than beg you for anything. You cannot keep playing this game, my dear.”

“And what game is that?” he snapped.

“The one where you won’t touch me, and you begrudge anyone else who might,” she swiftly replied. “I am not some spun-glass ornament to be set upon a shelf, Rance. I am a flesh-and-blood woman.”

“And I am not good enough for you—not as I am, caught in this godforsaken limbo,” he muttered. “But I’m damned, Anisha, if I know anyone who is. I thought that Bessett—” Here, he threw his hand almost violently in the direction of the house. “I thought
he
might do, but now that’s all come to naught. And God help me, Nish, if I am not glad.
I am glad
. So yes, I am guilty, perhaps, of just what you accuse me of.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Rance!” she said impatiently. “I’m not some prize pig at the village fair. You cannot win my desire, nor even deserve it. It either is, or it isn’t. And you must allow me my right to choose which things I do and don’t worry about.”

“And your children, Anisha?” he quietly reminded her. “The two things you love more than your own life? You gave up everything, Nish, to come here and make a better life for them. Would you now saddle them with me, and throw it all away?”

“Oh, without a moment’s hesitation.” Her voice was low and determined now. “And I would be throwing away nothing, for what my boys need, Rance, is a father who is strong enough to set a clear example of what a man should be. One who can teach them honor and fortitude in the face of adversity. One who can show them how to rise from defeat and injustice with their heads held high and know in their own hearts what they are. Do you know anyone better suited to do that, assuming, mind, I would even have you? For
that
is the big assumption, Rance, let me tell you. Not your suitability. You may be my destiny—and gifted beyond my wildest fantasies between the sheets. But none of that is enough for me.”

At that remark, Rance cut a glace over his left shoulder, and at last his gaze met hers, rueful and chagrined. Some of the fight had gone out of him, and those cerulean eyes no longer glittered. An emotion which was perhaps vaguely akin to humor twitched at one corner of his mouth, and his shoulders finally gave, sagging with obvious fatigue.

“So you wish merely to use me,” he murmured.

She stepped a little closer. “Two nights ago I wished to use you rather desperately,” she admitted, dropping her voice suggestively. “As to future nights . . . well, I cannot say.” She lifted her chin a little haughtily. “It will depend, I daresay, on whether you return to being my friend rather than some ogre set upon me by my arrogant brother.”

A long moment passed as they stood there together on the grass. Above them, a gull wheeled as if in search of the sea, his cries a little mournful. The breeze rushed up from the river, so stiff it riffled across the grass like an unseen hand and stirred Anisha’s skirts. She could see Rance mentally working through something, though she could not make out what.

At last he thrust out his hand.

She took it, oddly comforted by the hard, familiar feel of it.

“Pax, then,” he said. “That’s all I can say for now.”

“Pax,” she said, shaking then releasing it.

He rocked back on his heels and looked over his shoulder toward the house. “I will do what I can, Nish, to suit both our wishes,” he said, narrowing his eyes against the sun. “I will try not to patronize you, or second-guess your choices. You will always have my friendship. I will always find you beautiful. Desirable.” Here, his impossibly dark lashes swept down, his eyes closing for a mere instant. “But an open
affaire de coeur
—between us—oh, Nish. It will not do.”

Feeling hollow and a little empty, Anisha shrugged. “Very well,” she said. “You must suit yourself. But you will remember, I hope, what I have said.”

He nodded. “I will remember.”

“Fine, then,” she said coolly. “Shall we go back inside?”

“Aye,” he said quietly. “And now I desperately need that whisky—four or five, perhaps.”

She went back through the gardens on his arm. They did not speak, but instead parted ways just inside the house, with Rance settling his hand over hers where it lay upon his arm. Then he patted it twice and left her to melt into the crowd.

And so they really were back where they had started.

Anisha watched him walk away, knowing that nothing between them had really been settled; that she was still in love with Rance Welham and likely always would be. Worse, in two days’ time, she was to attend the theater with Royden Napier.

And Rance, regrettably, had given her no reason not to go.

Chapter 10

A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.

William Shakespeare,
All’s Well That Ends Well

A
pplause rained down from the boxes and thundered up from the pit of the Royal Opera House as the Compt de Nevers swept Valentine from the stage, closing the third act of
Les Huguenots
. Anisha, awestruck, joined in, clapping breathlessly as the curtains swept shut.

Beside her, Royden Napier leaned back in his chair. Finally able to relax, she let her gaze roam about the theater, taking in the opulent décor, the giltwork, and the tier upon tier of fine boxes so elegantly draped, all of them centered around not just the impossibly deep stage but the extraordinary chandelier, which took one’s breath at first sight.

But the beauty was offset now by the discordant sounds of scraping chairs and exuberant chatter as all around the grand perimeter, the theater patrons surged from their boxes in search of refreshment. She turned to smile at her companion.

“Did you like it?” Napier leaned so close she could smell his shaving soap. “I confess, I have seen Massol in better form.”

Anisha was aware that her eyes were shining. “I thought he was
amazing,
” she said. “Does that paint me an utter rustic?”

Napier’s gaze flicked over her, showing little emotion. “If so, then a pleasant one,” he said. “Would you care for something to drink?”

“Thank you, no.”

Just then, however, Anisha felt the heat of someone’s gaze upon them. She looked out across the theater. An elegantly dressed gentleman lingering in the box just to the right of the stage had raised a set of opera glasses to his eyes.

Anisha returned his stare, one eyebrow elevated.

The gentleman dropped the glasses and smoothly returned his attention to the man next to him, as if nothing had occurred.

And perhaps it had not. She had become fanciful, she feared. She smiled again at Napier, who was rising. “I believe I shall stretch my legs,” he said, “if you will be comfortable here without your brother?”

“By all means,” she said.

Lucan, of course, had abandoned them between the first and second act to join a pack of young scoundrels milling about in the pit. It was as well, Anisha considered, for his raw mood had not abated since the wedding. Still, he had served his purpose in escorting her here and would eventually return to accompany her home again.

But there were two acts yet to play out. Rethinking the notion of refreshments, Anisha turned to call out to Napier. Before she could speak, however, the door to their box flew open, and a broad-shouldered gentleman with receding hair appeared at the door.

Napier’s eyes widened. “Sir Wilfred,” he said a little stiffly, stepping back. “What a surprise.”

“Well, well, if it isn’t Roughshod Roy Napier!” The man smiled jovially and came fully inside to thump Napier on the back. “By gad, I thought that was you! Laying claim to the family box, eh?”

With a thin smile, Napier introduced Anisha to Sir Wilfred Leeton. At first, the name was only vaguely familiar. Anisha gave a slight curtsey, and Sir Wilfred bowed elegantly over her hand.

“Lady Anisha,” he repeated. “A pleasure.”

“Likewise,” she murmured, searching her memory even as she smiled at him. And suddenly, it came to her.

Mr
. Leeton.

But his gaming salon, or whatever it had been, no longer existed. And he had become the wealthy Sir Wilfred. He was also a friend—or at least an acquaintance—of Napier’s. How odd.

“You are in the theater business, Sir Wilfred, are you not?” Anisha managed.

Napier looked at her warily. “Have you two some prior acquaintance?”

Anisha felt her cheeks warm. “No, but we have a mutual friend,” she said. “Lady Madeleine MacLachlan. I’m to accompany her to Lady Leeton’s annual garden party.”

Sir Wilfred was still smiling genially. “Any acquaintance of Lady Madeleine’s would be most welcome,” he declared. “And a pretty, charming lady added to our numbers could never go amiss.”

“How kind you are,” she said.

“This year, I am advised, there will be all manner of feminine fripperies for sale.” He leaned in and dropped his voice conspiratorially. “Lace handkerchiefs and such—as well as our gypsy fortune-teller!”

Anisha tried not to laugh. “A fortune-teller?” she murmured. “How droll!”

“So, come to Covent Garden on reconnaissance, have you, Sir Wilfred?” said Napier, changing the subject. “I suppose one must steal a march on the competition by whatever means possible.”

“Indeed, the theater business is a blood sport nowadays,” said Sir Wilfred. “Meyerbeer’s bringing his new opera from Paris in a few weeks’ time, and I’ve come to discover if the die has been cast.”

“I was unaware you had any interest in opera,” said Napier, his voice cool.

“No, but I should be keenly interested in its profit margins,” Sir Wilfred chuckled. “Ah, but I am being vulgar. My apologies, Lady Anisha. Napier, were you going out?”

“Briefly, yes.”

Anisha got the oddest notion that Napier was not especially pleased to see Sir Wilfred. Perhaps he would have preferred their friendship to remain a secret—if indeed it was a friendship. Certainly the late Hanging Nick Napier had known the man. Sir Wilfred’s name had appeared in Rance’s murder file.

“Perhaps Sir Wilfred might bear me company until you return?” Anisha blurted, then wished at once she had not. “If, that is to say, Lady Leeton is not expecting you?”

Napier was looking at her a little oddly, his gaze dark and inscrutable.

“No, no, Hannah cannot abide the opera.” Sir Wilfred shrugged. “She has her interests, and I have mine. Napier, be off and about your business. I rarely have the opportunity to sit beside a beauty and gossip about society.”

With what looked like grave reluctance, Napier bowed to her again and departed. Anisha wondered vaguely what troubled him. Perhaps he was afraid of what she might learn.

But it would not do, Anisha realized, to launch into the questions she burned to ask of this man. Not yet. This was an unlooked-for opportunity to cultivate a friendship with Sir Wilfred.

They situated themselves in the seats nearest the balcony, and Sir Wilfred leaned back in the small chair, looking very much at ease. It was not, Anisha supposed, particularly surprising. The theater was his empire, the world of gaming having been left to men less burdened by their morals. Men like Ned Quartermaine.

Anisha snapped open her fan and began to ply it lazily, forcing a benign smile. She had the distinct sense that Leeton was a fellow who would enjoy talking about himself. “You must tell me, Sir Wilfred, how you came to be in the theater business,” she suggested, “and of your friendship with Lady Madeleine. I am somewhat new to London.”

Sir Wilfred smiled wolfishly. “Oh, I came to it much as any good businessman does, I daresay.”

“And how is that?”

“I saw an opportunity and I seized it.”

Anisha laughed lightly.

“Actually,” he said more soberly, “it was always my dream. I grew up around the stage, you see, for my mother, I’m not ashamed to say, once tread the boards. And then by some rare miracle, the Athenian in Soho came up for sale, and I was able to snatch it up.”

“Oh, my!” she murmured. “The Athenian is known the world over. What a coup that must have been.”

He chuckled. “It was, rather.”

At Anisha’s further urging, he spoke of his earliest acquisitions, and of how, following the easing of the theater laws, he’d engaged MacLachlan to begin building new ones across England. In total, he explained, he now owned a dozen. It took very little prodding to hear of how the Queen had knighted Sir Wilfred for his charitable works after he became involved in local government. There had even been, he ruefully admitted, talk of his being elevated to alderman or perhaps standing for the Commons.

All of this, however, Sir Wilfred brushed aside as poppycock. “But I’m just a businessman, Lady Anisha,” he concluded genially. “And the talk—well, much of that, I fear, is Hannah’s doing. She wants it, and is determined to have her way.”

“Ah, but many a great man was pushed to his prominence by a woman,” said Anisha on a laugh, “ . . . usually his wife.”

Still, it sounded as if Sir Wilfred Leeton was a veritable force of nature.

He remarked upon her background only once, when she mentioned her late husband’s name. “Ah, yes, the Dorset Staffords,” he said sympathetically. “I knew one or two of them as young men. A fine, old family.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Though I confess I’ve not stayed in touch with them as well as I ought.”

Indeed, save for sending word of her husband’s death, Anisha had not stayed in touch with them at all. Captain Stafford’s marriage to a mixed-blood Rajput had sent his father to an early grave, and Anisha’s mother-in-law still wallowed in her bitterness.

No, they had no wish to hear from their daughter-in-law, nor even to lay eyes upon their grandchildren, despite their blonde curls and blue eyes. But she said none of this to Sir Wilfred, who, while a little pompous, seemed kind enough.

He gave her hand an avuncular pat. “Sobraon, you said,” he murmured. “You have been widowed a while, then. And yet I’ve never seen you in Town, Lady Anisha. Come to the garden party and let me introduce you to a few suitable gentlemen.”

“How kind you are.” Anisha let her smile simmer as she sped up the fan. “But is Mr. Napier not suitable?”

Sir Wilfred’s mouth opened, then shut again. “Why, eminently so,” he finally said. “I beg your pardon. He’s a sly one, old Royden. Are some sort of congratulations in order?”

At that, Anisha threw back her head and laughed, and thought of Rance as she did so. “No, indeed, Sir Wilfred,” she said. “I am merely teasing you. By the way, you said that we might gossip.”

Sir Wilfred collected himself. “Why, yes. Yes, of course.”

She cut him a sly look. “Might I ask then how long you’ve known our mutual friend?”

“Who, Napier?” He puffed out his cheeks, then blew out the air. “I’m not perfectly sure. As I said, I’m involved in local government. I knew his father a bit, but he’s long dead.”

“I see,” she murmured. “Mr. Napier seems a man of good character.”

Sir Wilfred smiled and lifted one shoulder. “Oh, he’s vain and stubborn, like most men,” he acknowledged. “But he’s a decent sort, yes.”

He was not going to be led, Anisha realized. For whatever reason, he did not want to talk about Napier. It was just as well, for when she glanced down, Anisha saw that the audience was trickling back into the pit. Just then she heard a soft creak of their door opening, even as she caught the glint of glass to her right again.

She was tilting her head toward it when Napier eased silently back into his chair.

“Can you tell me, Sir Wilfred, whose box that is across the way?” she murmured, setting her hand lightly on his coat sleeve. “No, no, do not
quite
look, I beg you! A gentleman there keeps observing me through his opera glasses.”

“Then he has good taste.” Sir Wilfred cut a surreptitious look past her shoulder, Napier following suit. “Heavens, that is the Duke of Gravenel’s box.”

“And Gravenel is the giant stooping to go out the door,” Napier quietly added. “His size makes him unmistakable.”

“And the elegant man with the opera glasses?” asked Anisha.

“The Duke’s elder cousin,” said Napier tightly. “You don’t wish to know him, my dear.”

“His
illegitimate
cousin, who is also his brother-in-law,” Sir Wilfred added. “England’s blue bloods do like to keep the money in the family, don’t they, Royden? Indeed, they sometimes close ranks quite ruthlessly if an outsider is brought in.”

But Napier did not answer that one. Instead, his jaw seemed to tighten, leaving Anisha the impression a tiny barb had been embedded in the remark. She wondered again at Napier’s background, and his connection to the deceased Lord Hepplewood.

“And the tall, dapper gentleman seated beside the duke’s cousin?” she pressed, keeping one eye on Napier. “With the silver hair? Is he respectable?”

Sir Wilfred shook his head, his brow furrowed. “He looks vaguely familiar.”

“That is his particular friend,” Napier murmured. “And both of them dodgy despite all their elegance, if you want my opinion. But then Gravenel was never especially discerning in his choice of friends. Ah, look. The conductor has returned and the orchestra is drifting in.”

At once, Sir Wilfred stood. “And that would be my cue.”

After bowing again over Anisha’s hand, he left the box as swiftly as he had come. When the door closed after him, Anisha cut a glance at Napier. “One might get the impression you did not enjoy that visit.”

Napier flushed faintly. “I like Sir Wilfred well enough,” he said. “But he still imagines himself a bit of a Lothario, despite the fact his corset creaks and his hair long ago exited the stage.”

“I see.” Anisha fell silent, considering her next words. “But Sir Wilfred has not always been Sir Wilfred, has he? And not always such a pattern of rectitude?”