“No!” Caroline looked back at the clutch of debutantes he’d already met, then out at the young ladies scattered throughout the ballroom, all potential brides. “Not now. This is absurd. There are no boot makers open at this hour.”
“For me there are.”
She supposed that was true. When a man spent as much on fashion as Jude, the boot makers and tailors were always open. “But you’ve promised dances to those ladies—”
“And I will dance with each one at my wedding. In the meantime, they would comprehend the severity of my situation.”
“You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“I promise”—he took her hand—“I’ll dance with you at my wedding, too.”
“You’re abominable.” She yanked her hand away. “I’ll be lucky if Nevett doesn’t throw me out tomorrow. Stay!”
“I must go.”
Right then, she hated Jude. She hated that he’d reverted to his old self. She hated that she’d built hopes on his charming behavior that night and made plans for the money she would make from his wedding. Most of all, she hated that his defection relieved her, for that meant she had him to herself for a little while longer. With a spite increased by shame, she said, “Then go. I don’t care. Just…go.”
“I’ll escort you to my stepmother’s side.” Taking her arm, he tried to move her toward the corner where Nicolette sat with her friends.
“I don’t need you to take me anywhere.” With chilly precision, Caroline removed her arm from his grasp.
He hesitated, glanced around, then nodded. “All right. If there’s trouble here, it’s hiding its face well. Go to Mum’s side and remain there for the rest of the evening.”
“Do you think I’ll meekly do as you command?” For all that Caroline kept her voice modulated, she was in a rage.
A rage. She was angry. Ladies were never angry. She was never angry. Yet she wanted to shout at him, to strike him, for thwarting her so. And…for being as big a fool as he looked.
His eyes turned cool and sharp as steel. “I think you’d be a fool not to do as I command, and you’re no fool.” With a bow, off he went.
The swine was right, she reflected morosely. She would do as she was told. She’d go to the duchess’s side and stick close. The night had been remarkable by its lack of drama. She intended to keep it that way. And on that thought, she realized she stood alone in the ballroom. Her friends were matrons, dancing with their husbands or visiting with the other wives about children, schools, servants, and household accounts. The debutantes had drifted away on whispers and giggles. Her suitors had gone on to more receptive maidens.
A chill slid up her spine. She was only too aware how precarious was her acceptance in society. It depended more on the company she kept than on her behavior, and at once she started toward the corner where she’d last seen Nicolette.
Of course people got in her way. They were talking, laughing, drinking. It was a ball, the kind of celebration that four years ago she’d loved so much to attend. Suddenly it seemed fraught with peril. Four years ago, someone was always with her—men who loved her, friends who enjoyed her, a chaperon…who betrayed her. Her uneasiness increased at the remembrance, and more than that, it seemed as if people were now aware of her disquiet and moving away. But her imagination was acting up…wasn’t it?
No. For Lady Freshfield stepped into her path.
For one moment, Caroline was back in Lord Freshfield’s study, a terrified, drugged young lady helpless under the onslaught of condemnation.
Now beads of sweat sprang out on Caroline’s forehead. This woman had slapped her and marked her as a wanton.
Yet the past four years had changed Lady Freshfield. She was thinner, more worn, and the skin beneath her chin had assumed the shape of swagged drapes. Her huge skirt should have looked like the height of fashion; instead it overwhelmed her, shrank her to the dimensions of a decorated stick. Unhappily her eyes were exactly the same: brilliant blue, lit with flames of loathing directed at Caroline. Only at Caroline. “Miss Ritter, I couldn’t believe it when my husband told me you were here tonight.”
Caroline’s gaze flicked behind Lady Freshfield.
And there he was, golden hair gleaming in the light of the candles, white teeth glistening with his derisive smile. Lord Freshfield. He had done this, waited for the moment when Caroline was alone and set his wife on her.
“How do you dare show your face in polite society?” Lady Freshfield’s shrill voice sent a chill up Caroline’s spine. “Do you imagine that anyone has forgotten what you did, luring my husband into his study and—”
“Being drugged by him?” Caroline didn’t fidget. She looked Lady Freshfield in the face. “You know it’s true. He attacked me.”
“Even now you lie about that night—and to me, his wife.”
So many people were staring. All those eyes, shocked and accusatory, just like last time.
“You went into his study on purpose. You knew what he wanted.”
Caroline swallowed. That was the crux of the matter, the thing she could never explain away. She had willingly gone into his study. “I didn’t understand what he wanted. I was a foolish girl. But you know—doesn’t it repulse you that your husband seduces innocents?”
Caroline’s courage seemed to take Lady Freshfield aback, and she chose her words carefully. “He’s a man with a man’s appetites, and when a pretty girl entices him he gives into temptation.” Then fiercely, she returned to the attack. “But he’s mine, mine by law and by vow, and you tried to take him.”
The people around them were muttering.
Caroline stepped back from Lady Freshfield’s barrage. This was so much like last time. So much like her nightmares.
Lady Freshfield followed, breathing hard, and her breath felt like fire and smelled like brimstone. “Get out of here. Go back to the streets or wherever you’ve been living.”
“I haven’t been living on the streets.” But it had been close, so close, and Caroline backed up another step.
“We’re decent women here, and we don’t associate with the likes of you.”
This was hell. Caroline had fallen into hell. She looked around at the encircling guests.
Eyes were wide. They stared in shock. They accused. They remembered. And everywhere she looked, she saw agreement.
And lingering in the background, the shining white teeth and glorious blond hair of Lord Freshfield. He was waiting for her. Waiting to catch her on her last fall from grace.
Turning on her heel, Caroline walked toward the door of the ballroom. A path cleared before her. She heard someone call her name, but she didn’t care. She wanted out. Out, away from the stuffy atmosphere where cruelty to innocents was acceptable as long as it was entertaining. Out where the villains carried visible weapons and could be disarmed. She strode through the foyer where earlier she’d stood in the receiving line with the duke and duchess. She walked toward the outer door.
The footmen ran when they saw her, and somehow before she reached the door, she had her cloak in her hand. She didn’t don it; she was overheated. Hell had a way of causing that. “Open the door,” she said.
One liveried young man sprang to attention and obeyed her.
She walked out.
She heard the footman calling, “Miss, let me get your carriage.”
But the air was fresh and cool against her hot cheeks. She took long breaths as she walked steadily down the drive. The coachmen all turned to look at her. They tipped their hats. One asked, “Can I ’elp ye, Miss?”
“No. Thank you.” Unlike every other lady in the ballroom, Caroline wasn’t afraid of the streets and the night. She knew how to hail her own cab, and when she got to the thoroughfare, she did exactly that.
As she climbed in, the driver asked, “Where ye going, Miss?”
Where was she going?
She wanted to wash away the memory of her encounter with Lady Freshfield. She wanted to forget the mortification at having her sins rec
ounted for the debutantes and the gentlemen. More than anything, she wanted to forget her own ignominious retreat.
And she wanted to make Jude pay for abandoning her.
With a smart nod to the driver, she said, “Take me to Lord Huntington’s town house on Fitzroy Square.”
By morning, she would know what led a perfectly intelligent lady to abandon morals and prudence and take a lover to her bed. Caroline would be what everyone already thought she was—a woman of experience. And after she had settled her sister in France…perhaps she would become a courtesan. Not a mistress with no power, but a woman of experience with her own salon, where learned men and women would discuss politics, science and discovery, and after the lights went out, the gentlemen would beg to stay. After all, she had learned to flirt so skillfully, all the men in London had declared her to be a diamond of the first water. Under the proper tutelage, and Jude would provide the proper tutelage, she could learn to drive men mad with desire. It was—it had to be—a matter of skill coupled with the opportunity to learn. Being with Jude would provide the opportunity.
Despite the advanced hour, Huntington’s butler was still in uniform when he answered the door.
Caroline tugged her hood close about her face. “I want to see Lord Huntington.”
Not a muscle stirred in the man’s face. “Is he expecting you, Miss?”
“Yes, of course he is. Why else would I be here?” She took care to keep her tone reasonable, but firm. She would not be turned away. Not tonight. Not for any reason.
Apparently other ladies with dalliance on their mind visited Jude at all hours, for the butler bowed her inside. Without inquiring her name or business, he took her to a comfortable sitting room. “He isn’t in right now—”
Of course. The boot maker’s.
“—But you can wait here. Is there something I can get you, Miss?”
“No, thank you,” she said. Then, “Yes! I’d like a glass of wine.” Almost immediately, she held a glass of wine, ruby red and fragrant. She sipped it and smiled.
She couldn’t believe she was here. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this. She loved the idea of being in control of her destiny.
Not as she had been tonight in that ballroom, driven out by the shrill spite of a bitter woman. Caroline clutched the glass as she remembered, and the surface of the wine shivered with her distress.
Jude made her feel as if she were strong and brave. She, who had spent the last years living in fear. Fear of poverty, fear of starvation, fear of the dark, fear of losing her sister, fear of Lord Freshfield. But when Jude held her in his arms, she became a new woman, one who feared nothing. Everything in him challenged her, and she found herself rising to the challenge.
That was why she’d come here. Not because he’d abandoned her, and she wanted revenge. She needed to learn his indifference to criticism. She wanted an infusion of his unwavering spirit.
The wine slipped over her tongue, and she cast her mind forward. She loved the thought of being a hostess everyone clamored to meet, and she loved that she had taken the initiative and come to Jude to learn the necessary skills…to experience love one time. Just once, before intercourse became a matter of bargain and trade.
Odd, but standing here looking at Jude’s possessions didn’t cause her second thoughts. His belongings were masculine, dark, warm, and chosen with sophistication. So his taste in clothing didn’t envelop his furnishings…she was doing the right thing.
She and Jude had kissed repeatedly. Each time she’d found herself more aroused by the passion that bloomed between them, and she had taken him by storm every time. She would bend him to her will this time, too.
The butler didn’t return. Clearly, he thought she was one of Huntington’s light o’ loves, and he saw no reason to treat her with undue respect. All right. Then she saw no reason to stay where he put her.
She walked out into the foyer and with a regal nod at the startled footman, she climbed the stairs. Without difficulty, she located Jude’s bedchamber and entered with all the brazen confidence of the courtesan she intended to be.
And she met Jude’s valet.
The two of them stared, each astonished to see the other. But tonight, Caroline had changed. Or perhaps it hadn’t been tonight; perhaps her life of the past years had been working its changes on her. Perhaps tonight all the changes had all caught up with her.
“I’m waiting for Lord Huntington, and I wish to do so here,” she said with composure. “Is he out with his boots?”
“Miss?” The valet cocked his head as if he didn’t understand the question.
“His boots,” she repeated. “You dropped black polish on his white boots. Has he taken them to the boot maker?”
“Miss, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” His features chilled, and ice dripped from his voice.
So he didn’t want to admit what he’d done. “Very well. May I suggest you seek your bed, and I’ll care for Lord Huntington’s toilette?”
The small, dapper man backed out of the room and shut the door. If his unflappable demeanor meant anything, it was that women regularly strolled into Jude’s bedchamber and made such requests.
Well. Why not? Huntington was handsome, wealthy, and very much the man. He’d proved that in Nevett’s lesser drawing room and the zoo that was really the garden. When she remembered his kisses, his mouth on her breast, her body softened, and any doubts—not that she had any—melted away.
Taking off her cloak, she laid it across the chair and looked around. Jude’s town house did not have the grandeur of Nevett’s, but handsome furniture filled the room, a fire crackled on the hearth, and, most important, the bed was large and imposing, with bed-curtains that would keep out the chill of a late spring evening.
She smiled at that bed. She curtsied toward it, and said, “Why, yes, thank you, I would love to.” Lifting her arms, she pretended to dance and waltzed toward it.
Jude’s valet had laid his nightwear across the bed: a brown flannel gown and a black velvet robe that would reach to his knees, and a plain white nightcap. How very dull for a man so enamored with color in his clothing.
Without art, without shame, she dropped her clothes, which had been, that evening, chosen with such care. She donned the robe and it covered her from head to toe. The sleeves hung over her hands, and she rolled them up. She tied the sash loosely and climbed between the sheets.
They were heated. Apparently the valet had passed the warming pan between the covers before she came in. The mattress was soft, the pillows thick, the ceiling was plain white with cove molding and curlicues painted at each corner. She lay there, her arms outstretched, and smiled at those curlicues until she drifted into sleep.
Chapter 18
Murder.
Jude nodded curtly to his butler as he entered his house, and Wyatt read his mood exactly and refrained from chitchat. He took Jude’s wool coat and tall hat, and when Jude dropped his gloves on the side table, Wyatt picked them up and stowed them.
Miss Gloriana Dollydear had an opera singer’s ability to memorize and repeat words in a foreign language without understanding what they were. It was, after all, what an opera singer did. That evening at dinner, she’d given Comte de Guignard and Monsieur Bouchard information she’d “overheard” from Throckmorton; they’d sat before her and spoken in Moricadian of how that would affect their plans.
Before she could forget the confusion of sounds she didn’t comprehend, Throckmorton had sent for Jude to translate. Although she didn’t get all the words right, one thing was clear.
Murder. They planned to kill…someone.
Despite Gloriana Dollydear’s best efforts, she hadn’t heard, or couldn’t remember, anything about who or where.
As Jude mounted the stairs toward his bedchamber, he loosened his cravat and unbuttoned his waistcoat.
The meeting, the secrecy, the revelation of one mystery that created yet more mysteries…all that reminded him too vividly how Michael had died at
the hands of these men. Jude was no closer to justice for his brother, and now unless he was both lucky and smart, de Guignard and Bouchard would kill some poor sod here in London, all to keep control of a tiny country and its considerable assets.
Fury and frustration pounded away at Jude’s good sense. He wanted to ride the streets, catch the villains as they left the ball, and eliminate them. That would be justice; those men killed without a thought to the pain and anguish they caused. They’d killed Michael.
Yet if he killed them without waiting for English intelligence to trap them and English law to sentence them, other Moricadians would arrive with plans to wreak havoc in the name of their freedom, and next time Jude wouldn’t know whom to suspect and whom to follow.
Tonight, while the Moricadians were at the ball, Throckmorton’s man would enter their apartment and steal back the presents that Jude had given them. He would take the other valuables, too, of course—he was a professional thief, and they were his wages. And he would search for any notes they’d made, any maps, any indication of who their target might be.
It would have to be someone important enough to make an international incident and ruin French relations. But who? The queen? Prince Albert? The prime minister? Until the Home Office discovered that, they couldn’t make a move to thwart the Moricadians’ scheme.
Entering his bedchamber, he tossed off his jacket, his waistcoat, and loosened his cuffs and his collar. Where was his valet? No matter. His valet loved Jude’s clothing. Jude loathed it all. It fit his mood to rip off his purple shirt and kick off his black boots and…
He stood with one foot lifted above the floor, staring at the form slumbering in his bed.
Caroline. What was she doing here?
Here. And…naked.
Or at least it looked as if she were naked. As good as naked. One soft hand was tucked beneath her cheek. Her chestnut hair waved across the white of his pillow. His black velvet robe sliced across her pale skin and gave him a glimpse, just a glimpse of the plump circle of her breast topped by a warm, peach aureole and nipple. Everything about her was soft and relaxed, waiting…beckoning.