Virginia Henley (17 page)

“I can’t recall when I’ve enjoyed food so much,” Tony complimented John Bull, who smiled his joy.

“Pour us two brandies,” Savage directed. He was wearing the black silk robe with the dragons. It came only to his knees, revealing his heavily muscled calves and tanned bare feet, which were more disturbing than she had pictured.

John Bull handed Tony a glass that she didn’t hesitate to take. Whether she would actually drink it or not was another matter. When he served Adam he said, “Now we are in England, it is not fitting that you sleep upon the floor, Excellency.”

Savage replied, “You are correct as usual, John Bull,
but when I choose my bed a great deal of thought will go into it. A bed must almost be an extension of yourself. Of all the pieces of furniture in a home, a bed is the most personal-and intimate. It is for sleeping and for making love. I will share it with my wife. My children will be conceived in it and perhaps even born in it. It must be pleasing to the eye, comfortable to the body, and large enough for sport. When I go to London I promise you that beds will be the first item on the agenda. In the meantime can I trouble you to roll out a couple of Indian rugs for us in the master bedchamber?”

As John Bull bowed low, a small frisson of panic arose inside Tony. He expected her to sleep in his chamber!

Savage led the way out onto the balustrade and sat down upon the stone rail. Tony copied him, setting her brandy glass down beside her. He pulled his gold case from the pocket of the silk robe and offered her a slim cigar.

“The second one won’t make you sick,” he promised quietly, and she was amazed at his perception. Dear God, she would have to be on her guard with this man. He was too perceptive, too shrewd. It would take only one slip for him to guess that she was a female. She must remember to swagger when she walked, lounge against furniture when she stood, and pepper her sentences with curses. Tony took a large gulp of brandy and by the grace of heaven managed not to choke. Suddenly a blood-red rose blossomed inside her chest and she began to relax to the point where she felt she was floating.

“It would have been helpful if you could have filled me in on the current mores of London, but you are so bloody unworldly, we shall have to learn together.”

His voice held no censure, but spoke fact. How could she take offense at the irregular things he said to her? Tony had never met anyone like Adam Savage in her life, and yet, and yet—they sat so companion ably, smoking and sipping brandy, it seemed they had always done it.

“I thought liquor was forbidden in the Indies,” Tony remarked. She watched the blue smoke spiral into the darkness and his voice came, rich as velvet. “There was never a time when intoxicants were not used in the East. To a sybarite an intoxicant enhances leisure. Indian mystics use drugs to open wide the doors of perception. Hookah pipes are used to inhale scented tobacco mixed with hashish. Intoxicants are thought to heighten sensuality to full-blown sexuality. Eastern poetry and song are filled with parallels between the madness of love and the headiness of inebriation. Ivory boxes painted with poppies are commonplace. They are designed to hold opium.”

The topic was so wicked, she should not listen. Yet how was she to learn unless she opened first her ears, then her mind? “Are
you
familiar with drugs?” she asked in fascinated horror.

“Unfortunately I am.”

She was shocked, yet she heard the regret in his voice. “Even I know opium is unspeakably evil.” She tried not to sound judgmental but couldn’t help it.

“I am relieved that you know. However, try to be objective. All things under the sun are both good and bad. Used as a medicinal opiate, it can be a godsend. I wouldn’t like to contemplate having my leg cut off without it.”

Tony tossed her cheroot over the balustrade. “I wouldn’t like to contemplate having my leg cut off at all!” They laughed together and Adam Savage stood and stretched his limbs. They strolled back into the house, deep in their own reflections.

Tony thought him a font of information, like a tutor or a parent, yet the things he told her were not the things a tutor or parent would speak of.

When they entered the spacious bedchamber Tony’s thoughts were brought back to the present. How on earth would she sleep on the floor? She knew damn well Savage had proposed it to toughen up pampered little Lord Lamb. She was thankful he lit no candles.

The moonlight shining through the undraped windows showed her a thick-piled Indian rug with a tassled cushion tossed upon it. She sank down to the floor, stretching stiffly out with her arms behind her head as she had seen Anthony do. The brandy had warmed her blood considerably and she needed no blanket.

Tony’s eyelids began to droop in spite of the fact that she shared the chamber with a strange man. The moment her eyes closed she curled over, hugged the cushion, and tumbled headlong into a dream.

Antonia was longing for something, she knew not what, but her longing was so intense, it was painful. She was disguised, but it was not as a man, she was disguised as a swan. A black swan. Suddenly from nowhere appeared a leopard. She glided out upon the lake thinking to escape, but the leopard swam after her. Suddenly she was transformed into a female leopard. The powerful male swimming toward her was her mate for whom she had been longing. Before he could reach her, however, the black swans turned into painted tiles, the lake became the bathing pool, and the leopard was transformed into Adam Savage.

He stood waist deep in the water, the bronzed muscles of his wide chest gleaming with iridescent droplets. He held out his hand to her. “Will you not join me?” She resisted. If she removed the robe he would know she was a woman!

His eyes, bluer than the water, compelled her. She longed to go to him. He was everything to her, teacher, father, brother, lover, protector, god. He was an all-encompassing male force she could not resist. The robe slipped to her feet and she stepped into the pool among the floating lotus blossoms.

She longed for him to enfold her in his powerful arms, where she knew nothing again could ever hurt her. Instead he began to bathe her. She cupped her breasts with her hands to shield them from the blue flame of his eyes.
Gently, but firmly, he removed her hands. “There is no shame in the naked body.” His voice, like rich velvet, compelled her to allow his hands to roam over her. His palm cupped a breast. She caught her breath in a gasp at the feel of his strong brown hand. Rough calluses abrased her silken skin and she found that she liked the roughness. The water was fragrantly scented, she could feel the heat from his body, but her eyes could not see his limbs beneath the surface. He washed her shoulders, her back, her breasts.

“How could you hide these from me?” he demanded. “

I lied to you,” she confessed, “I am not Anthony, I am Antonia!”

His laugh was savage. “I, too, lied. I
am
the whoremaster of Malabar. I’d like you to experience many things from different lands. Surely, Tony, you are not so narrow minded that you are not open to new experiences?”

“Of course not,” she said faintly.

He carried her to a massive bed in the shape of a swan. It was draped with black silk sheets embroidered with golden dragons. She knew that he, too, was naked, yet still she had not looked upon him below the waist. His powerful arms took her down to the bed with him and he pulled her to lie on top of him. Her soft breasts were crushed against the hard slab of his chest. His thighs beneath hers felt like marble. All of him was too hard, his hands, his body, his mouth.

Suddenly her eyes flew open. She realized it had been an erotic dream. Her cheek was pressed into the deep pile of the red, blue, and gold Indian rug. Her nostrils breathed in its faint scent of incense. Instead of Savage’s body, it was the hard floor that crushed her soft breasts. She took a deep breath of relief and let it out on a sigh, but she was left with a strange longing that she could not dispel. Her shameful body ached for the rough touch of a man. This man.

Antonia had a great deal of trouble going back to sleep. She feared another erotic dream, yet even that was preferable to lying beside him awake all night.

Sunshine streaming in through the long windows of the bare bedchamber almost blinded her the next time she opened her eyes. Someone was shouting her name.

“Tony! Come and take a look at this splendid bathing room in the daylight. Devil take it, I wager you’ve never seen anything to equal it!”

Tony got to her feet slowly. Every bone in her body ached. Savage, a towel wrapped about his hips, lather covering his prominent jaw, and his hand wielding a wicked-looking razor, appeared in the doorway.

“It’s about time you joined the living, it’s after six,” Savage complained.

“Six? Judas, I thought it was at least noon.” Lud, where was Mr. Burke with her chocolate? she thought longingly.

“You haven’t a brandy hangover, surely? If you do, I have an infallible cure.”

“No, no,” Tony replied faintly, “I have a helluva hard head for liquor.”

Savage’s naked torso wrapped in the towel was stunning in its male beauty. Her imagination hadn’t done him justice. For the rest of her life, whenever she pictured a naked man, it would be Adam Savage with a towel skimming his hips. To her horror she found herself fantasizing about what was beneath that towel.

The black pelt she had imagined was very real. Its path
ran down beneath the towel in a narrowing line drawing the eyes and the senses to his secret male center. She could not picture it, but it had such a forbidden quality, it filled her imagination with wicked thoughts.

When he turned around she saw clearly that his dark tan line ended at his tapered waist. She actually saw the shallow cleft where his bottom cheeks began and it dawned on her for the first time that a man’s posterior was shaped entirely differently from a woman’s. His bottom cheeks were small and flat and taut. She was drawn after him like one who had been hypnotized.

The sun streamed in through the glass skylight, sending a myriad of tiny rainbows dancing across every surface. Because of the wall of Venetian mirrors, the room seemed double in size. The water in the bathing pool shimmered with such a sparkling blue-green, Tony had to narrow her eyes against its brilliant reflection.

“Look at these painted miniatures. They’re exquisite,” Savage enthused.

Blue herons, ibis, snowy egrets, terns, and wood ducks nesting in reeds were placed at random about the walls and inlaid in the floor. Tony saw a black swan and her dream, full blown, came flooding back to her. To cover her embarrassment she said, “The artist is Maximilian Robin in Shepherds Market.”

“Nomen est omen,
the name is the destiny,” Adam remarked.

Tony could not help applying those words to him. The name Savage described this man’s appearance perfectly. Was it also an indication of his nature? She watched as the ebony-handled razor sliced smoothly down his jaw. His keen eyes were on her as he asked sardonically, “Don’t you shave yet?”

“S-sometimes,” she lied. “I don’t really need to,” she added lamely.

“You never will unless you get started.”

She could hear a trace of disgust in his voice.

“When I was your age I grew a beard.” He opened a tooled-leather case and extracted a pearl-handled razor. “Here’s a present for you. Put it to good use.”

Tony took it, thinking it would come in handy for slitting Savage’s throat. Reluctantly she took up the shaving soap and began to make a lather. He watched her openly until she wanted to scream at him. She had a terrible fear that if she shaved she would sprout whiskers.

She wore men’s clothes, she had cut her waist-length hair, she even smoked, but she was damned if she was going to encourage a five-o’clock shadow! She dawdled, playing for time, hoping he would leave so she could rinse the lather from her face. Savage, however, was waiting to see how she handled the steel blade.

Reluctantly she picked it up and pulled the skin of her cheek taut as she had seen him do. The moment the sharp blade touched her skin, she cut herself.

“Shit!” she murmured.

Savage rolled his eyes in disbelief. “When you’re finished, wipe your ears … you’re still wet behind them,” he mocked.

When he left, she pulled a hideous face after him. Just once she would like to wipe the contempt from his face when he looked at her.

John Bull had washed and starched Tony’s shirt and cravat. Never had she seen linen so finely laundered. She thanked and complimented him.

“Excellency has such high standards. Edenwood needs many servants; a cook, a laundress.”

“I doubt if you will find any who can equal your own skills, John Bull.”

“Ah, we shall see. Today I must employ many maidens.”

“Maids,” Tony supplied.

“Maiden, maid, what is the difference, please?”

Savage strolled in. “A maid is a female servant. A
maiden is a female with her virginity intact,” he explained matter-of-factly.

John Bull held up his hands. “Maids will take me all day to find, maidens would take forever.”

Adam Savage smiled at John Bull’s attempt at humor and cast Tony a sideways glance.

Damn him to hellfire! She knew he was amused because he suspected Lord Lamb was still a virgin.

Breakfast consisted of fruit and sweet black coffee. While he ate, Savage discussed business with John Bull. “You don’t need me along when you hire your staff for Edenwood,” Adam directed. “I’ll be in London at least a week before I can return.”

“The house staff is my domain, but I am preferring you pick the grooms and a carriage driver.”

“Done!” Savage agreed, knowing John Bull’s advice was sound. “If I purchase that town house on Half-Moon Street, it, too, will need staffing. Do you trust my judgment?” Adam asked his majordomo.

John Bull nodded firmly. “You are far too shrewd to hire night flyers.”

Fly-by-nights,
Tony thought. Actually John Bull’s English made perfectly good sense if you listened closely. She was greatly relieved that Savage was considering his own town house. Living under the same roof at Curzon Street would be most disturbing.

Savage’s effect upon her kept her continually off balance. He both lured and repelled her, had her one minute wanting to kiss him, the next wanting to kill him! She told herself sternly that he must never catch her looking at him like a bitch looked at a bone. She knew she must distance herself from him.

Tony said, “You must want to see the house alone, the first time you go through all the rooms. I was here several times while it was being built.”

Savage cast Tony a look of gratitude. “Go and have a
look at the library. It’s a masterpiece,” he suggested as he strode from the breakfast room.

Jeffrey Sloane looked up from the desk as Tony entered the library. He had a preoccupied air about him, as if his mind was constantly on letters and figures. He was of middle age, but looked old before his time. His shoulders were slightly stooped and he was pale as if he never went outdoors.

Tony said, “The last time I saw this room it wasn’t finished. I imagine this is one of the rooms Adams designed,” she added with awed reverence.

It was paneled in a deep, rich mahogany. Two walls had floor-to-ceiling, built-in bookcases, a third wall had a magnificently carved ebony fireplace with a massive brass fender and andirons. The remaining wall had long, floor-to-ceiling windows to let in the light. The chairs were in a bottle-green Cordovan leather, the seven-foot desk had an inlaid leather top and carved claw feet. The floor was covered by a thirty-foot Indian carpet in pale green. Beneath the carpet the floor was deep green malachite stone that also served as the hearth for the ebony fireplace.

Tony drew closer to see what had been carved into the polished ebony. No fruit or flowers as she had expected, but leopards, cobras, and mongooses; elephants, monkeys, and iguanas. Her fingers could not resist tracing the exotic creatures who prowled there; the hunters and the hunted. Her hand came to rest upon an animal she could not name.

“That’s a bandicoot,” a deep voice informed her.

“Your people call you the Leopard because you have their knack of appearing with no perceptible approach.”

“It will sharpen your reflexes and teach you never to be caught off guard,” he said bluntly. “What do you think?”

“It’s truly a magnificent room,” she said, glancing over the brass wall-lamps and framed hunting scenes. She noticed upon closer inspection that among the fox and hare
hunts was a jackal hunt. “These are actual paintings, not just prints,” she commented.

“I like this one best,” Savage said, pointing to a beautiful picture. “It’s called
Mares and Foals
by George Stubbs. If you spot more of his paintings in London, be sure to acquire them for me. I don’t have many books yet, just the ones I brought from India and Ceylon, but London has so many publishers and bookshops, there may not be enough shelves here to hold everything I want.”

“It must be extremely pleasant to have enough money to acquire whatever takes your fancy.”

“It is,” he said enigmatically. Then he added, “If you’re interested, I’ll teach you how to make money.”

“I am interested,” Tony said eagerly, “very!”

A cynical smile touched Savage’s lips. “First you have to sow some wild oats, show some spirit. Then when you are brimful of the devil and hellfire, we’ll harness it and make a damned fine man of you.”

Tony wanted to slap his face. He didn’t even have a title, yet he was such a superior swine. She looked him up and down insolently and drawled, “You’re a bit of a bastard, Savage.”

“So I’ve been told,” Adam said silkily.

Savage left his Arab at Edenwood because he had another in London. Since Tony did not keep a mount there, she saddled Neptune while Savage harnessed the bays to the carriage.

“Fasten him behind the coach, I want you to ride with me,” Savage directed.

“Why?” Tony asked warily.

Savage answered the question with another question. “Have you ever handled a pair of carriage horses?”

“No,” Tony said faintly.

“Then your first lesson is about to commence.”

Tony shrugged. Anthony would have had to learn to handle a team and she considered herself equal to anything her twin could do. She watched Savage for the space
of half an hour. When he turned the reins over to her he gave no direction, but decided to see what young Lamb could do on his own.

Her confidence grew with every passing minute. Soon they were bowling along the turnpike at quite a clip. Up ahead she saw that the road curved and she drew back on the reins to slow down the horses. The full-bloodied bays were into their stride and she wondered wildly if she had enough strength to curb them.

Savage casually handed her a pair of leather driving gloves. “Try these.”

Tony quickly pulled them on and gripped the reins fiercely, bracing her booted feet and pulling back with her whole body. They slowed only slightly. The carriage leaned precariously. Inside the driving gloves Tony’s hands were sweating indelicately. The horses rounded the curve and picked up speed. She was surprised he didn’t snatch the reins from her and hurl a curse at her head. She cast him a wary glance and was astonished to see his eyes closed and his head leaned back in repose. She thought him a fool. She could have had them dead in a ditch!

Finally, she began to relax and when she did so, she noticed the bays were far easier to handle. She felt an urge to destroy his composure. It would be almost worth confessing her gender to wipe away his air of complacency.

Then her thoughts took another tack. She wondered if perhaps Adam Savage was man enough to teach a female the things he would teach a male. What an extraordinary thought. What was it about this man that made her think him unique? He was fashioned from a different mold. He was a law unto himself and he absolutely and totally fascinated her. As a matter of fact, she feared she was becoming infatuated. Pray God she find the cure!

Tony didn’t see much of Savage the first two days they were in London. He was out attending to business and she spent one full day adding to her male wardrobe. She
bought a cane with a curiously clouded amber head and she purchased some high-heeled shoes with tongue and buckle. Though most men’s fashions were becoming extremely bright and flamboyant, Tony shunned them, thinking them far too effeminate. She bought half a dozen black silk Steinkirk cravats and asked the haberdasher to show her how to achieve some of the intricate knots.

Tony bought a new tiewig and a supply of powder as well as a tricorn hat. She also bought a coat with brass buttons cut in a military style. Because of all her purchases she took a chair back to Curzon Street, where Fenton helped her unpack and hang them in Anthony’s wardrobe.

A lump came into Tony’s throat as she saw her brother’s London clothes. She touched the satin knee breeches and brocade tailcoats with a loving hand, knowing she felt very close to him whenever she put on his clothes. She asked Fenton to bring her a tray and she finally fell asleep reading Mr. Fielding’s scandalous adventures of Tom Jones.

The next day Adam Savage wanted Tony to accompany him into the city. He was visiting a couple of cabinetmakers’ shops to select some furniture for Edenwood. The first stop was a house in St. Martin’s Lane owned by Thomas Chippendale. There were many pieces displayed in the Chinese design, but Savage’s taste did not run along these lines, nor did he care much for the heavily ornamented Rococo style. As well as actual sample pieces there were dozens of design books to choose from.