“Would you take her back?” she asked quietly.
As though he sensed something of what she was thinking, Vaughn’s hand moved possessively through her hair. “Even were matters not as they are? No. Matters being as they are—absolutely not. You won’t be rid of me that easily.”
Mary rubbed her cheek against his chest. “Perhaps she thought in a weakened state, you would be more likely to agree.”
She could hear the smile in Vaughn’s voice. “Just as you prevailed upon me in my weakened condition?”
“You seem suspiciously eloquent for a man at death’s door.”
“Never underestimate the healing power of love’s gentle balm,” intoned Vaughn in saccharine tones.
Mary looked up at him, her brows a straight, dark line above her eyes. “Is it?” she asked seriously. “Love?”
“It isn’t the opium,” replied Vaughn.
Mary waited, unwilling to let him off that easily. After a very long moment, as Vaughn’s arm grew heavier and heavier beneath her neck and the ticking of the clock grew louder by the moment, he spoke.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “I suppose it is.”
“Much against your will,” Mary supplied for him.
“Rather like you.” Vaughn’s lips quirked in a twisted smile. “Diamond cuts diamond. Two hard-hearted souls rendered fools by Cupid, brought low like lesser mortals. I find myself experiencing absurd urges to go out and slay dragons on your behalf.” He dismissed the problem with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll pass in time.”
“Twenty or thirty years,” Mary agreed, yawning. “By then, all the dragons will have died natural deaths, asphyxiated by their own smoke.”
“One can only hope,” agreed Vaughn. “I’ve never aspired to the heroic.”
“Are you sure you haven’t any other wives roaming about?”
“Quite sure. After the first one, I was taking no chances.”
“Except on me,” Mary corrected sleepily.
“Except on you,” agreed Vaughn. His voice made a pleasant burr in the back of Mary’s head. “You are the exception that proves the rule.”
Mary mused over exceptions and rules, while the words blurred and shifted in her brain, leading off along all sorts of irrelevant byways. In the end, she contented herself with murmuring, “That’s nice.”
“Tired?” Vaughn’s breath ruffled her hair.
“No,” Mary said emphatically. And she wasn’t really. She was just a little bit…The last sound she remembered hearing was the soft burr of Vaughn’s chuckle reverberating through his chest.
When Mary woke the first time, the last of the candle guttered within a wall of wax, sending uneven shadows flickering across the silk lining the walls. In a sleepy stupor, Mary’s eyes followed the swaying shadows, idly watching their progress across the wall as she struggled to remember where on earth she was. There was a heavy weight across her chest that, upon examination, turned out to be a leanly muscled male arm, entirely devoid of any sort of clothing. Ah. Mary’s lips curved into a sleepy smile. Vaughn. That was all right then.
Burrowing comfortably among the blankets, she sank back into the head-shaped patch in the pillow, and was just drifting happily back into slumber when reason finally caught up with her.
Mary’s eyes snapped fully open. She was in bed, unclothed, with Vaughn. Gazing disjointedly around her, Mary remembered that this had seemed like a very good idea the night before, under the cloak of darkness, with morning miles away.
It was tempting to think of nestling back in the curve of Vaughn’s arm, beneath the burrow of blankets they had created for themselves, subsiding into the sleepy warmth of the bed, next to the even rise and fall of his breathing. Vaughn occupied the bed as he did everything else, like a conqueror presiding over a subject land, arms and legs flung any which way.
Outside, the sky above the trees was still night dark, but with the indefinable gray tinge to it that signaled dawn soon to come. Within the hour, the first gray light would permeate the sky. The street vendors would creep from their burrows to set up their stalls and hawk their wares; servants would roll heavy-eyed from bed to build the fires and black the grates. In no time, the street would be thick with curious passersby and her reputation would be even more of a nullity than it was already. No matter what promises Vaughn had made in the night, it wouldn’t be fair to force his hand that way.
It did briefly occur to her, as she squirmed reluctantly out from under Vaughn’s arm, that she had been willing to force Geoffrey’s hand in a far more dramatic fashion. But that was different. She hadn’t really cared what Geoffrey thought about her in the end, so long as she got him to the church on time. Vaughn, on the other hand…Mary winced as several strands of hair parted company with her head. Even her hair turned traitor and clung to him, preferring to stay in bed with him than go with her. She would take him on whatever terms she could have him. Mary winced away from consideration of the consequences; there would be time enough to think of that later.
Scooping her hair out of the way, Mary conducted an anxious check of Vaughn’s vital points. The bandage was still firmly around his chest, and while there were ominous brown stains on both the bandage and smearing the sheets beneath him, none of them looked new. His head was warm, but no warmer than one would expect after a night under a down comforter. Like a cat, Vaughn clearly had nine lives. They would have to see that he didn’t risk any more of them. There was no telling how many he had already used up.
Shivering in the morning chill, Mary scooped the discarded robe off the floor and wrapped it firmly around as she tiptoed to the door. The faithful Derby didn’t disappoint her. Just outside the door, her clothing had been folded in a neat pile, cleaned and pressed as promised. Even with his ministrations, there were dark stains in the fabric where Vaughn’s blood had set. Those would be amusing to explain to her little sister. There was no hope that it could be hidden from her. Nothing that passed through Pinchingdale House escaped Letty’s eye.
The canvas stays felt stiff and clumsy on her ribs after the glorious freedom of silk. It had been so easy to untie, but struggling back into it was another thing entirely. After several uncomfortable moments with her arms contorted behind her back, Mary came up with the cunning notion of shifting it around, lacing it up the front, and then wiggling it around to the back. As she was engaged in this laborious process, she heard a rustle of bedclothes. Twisting her head over her shoulder, she saw a disheveled head peering over the mound of sheets and blankets.
“Fleeing my bed?” Vaughn demanded groggily, groping for the carafe of water at the side of the bed. “You’ll make me feel unloved.”
“Sleep,” Mary urged, twitching her stays into place. “It’s not morning yet.”
“Then there’s no reason for you to go,” he yawned. “‘ ’Tis true, ’tis day, what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me?’”
If he could indulge in quotations before breakfast, he was clearly feeling better. Mary yanked her dress down over her head. “I will call to see how you’re getting on,” she promised. “Properly chaperoned, of course.”
Brows drawing together, Vaughn pushed himself up against the pillows, wincing as the movement pained his side.
“Are you having second thoughts?” he demanded. “If you are…”
“No,” said Mary briefly, and watched as he relaxed. “No. Just a care for consequences. If anyone were to see me here, before you settle matters with your wife…”
“I hate it,” said Vaughn grumpily, his dark hair sticking up around his head. “I want to parade you through the halls of St. James, flaunt you at the theatre, and keep you in bed all bloody day. Not in that order,” he added.
Seating herself on a silk-upholstered chair, Mary laced up her boots, tying off the ends in neat knots. “Soon enough,” she said soothingly, wishing she really believed it. “For now, sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow. Today, rather.”
It wasn’t his sinceri
ty she doubted, but his ability to bring it about. Even for the great Lord Vaughn, a properly wed wife was a rather large impediment. And there were even more pressing concerns to tend to. Such as keeping him alive.
“I’ll fix it,” Vaughn muttered, his voice indistinct among the bedclothes. “Somehow.”
Without approaching the dais, Mary tied the strings of her bonnet beneath her chin. “I’ll send Derby in to you if I see him. Someone should watch over you until the danger of fever is past.”
“I’ll send for my solicitor. Hargreaves. He’ll know how to go about it. These lawyer chaps always do. Heretofores and wherefores and more stratagems than a battalion of scheming Greeks.”
Mary paused at the foot of the dais, looking up at the bed. It took all the resolve she had not to climb the two steps, sit down beside him, take his hand. From there, she knew, it would only be a short slide to slipping down beside him.
“Send for the physician first,” she advised briskly. “You’ll be no good to either of us otherwise.”
The doorknob was a hard lump beneath her palm. It was only through sheer force of will that she forced herself to turn it, breaking open their enchanted nest, where the rumpled bedsheets, the robe on the floor, the very movement of the shadows on the wall were all redolent of Vaughn. If only she could draw the drapes, pull closed the bed curtains, and keep the world permanently at bay while they drowsed together in perennial night.
But dawn would come. It was only a matter of time before the candle drowned in its own wax, before the sun poked insolently through the drapes, before the world once again was too much with them.
Taking a deep breath, Mary drew the door shut behind her, shutting out Vaughn’s voice, halfway to sleep, murmuring, “There must be a way….”
Outside, in the hallway, all was dark and still. The candles in the sconces had long since been snuffed and there was no natural light to make her way. Mary felt like the heroine of a fairy tale after the enchantment had faded, making her way out of a palace where all had been lights and revelry, but, by the cock’s crow, turned dark and deserted, like fairy gold that turned to dust by the light of day. Mary found her way to the main stair by memory and touch, keeping one hand running lightly against the wall until she found the banister. Down, down, down she went, her flat-heeled boots making a dull slapping sound against the shallow marble treads. She didn’t think it was fairy gold that Vaughn was offering her. Not intentionally, at any rate.
If he were free…
Mary let herself out through the garden, keeping her bonnet close around her face as she slipped through the formal parterres that either Vaughn or one of his ancestors had laid out in the French style behind Vaughn House. The garden had already been readied for the colder weather. The marble statues were shrouded in burlap sacking to protect them against the elements, anonymous but for the odd bits of appendages that stuck out at the edges, a daintily arched foot here, a long tail there. The fountain in the center had been drained, already taking on that frostbitten grayish white tone common to stone in winter, and the base of the boxwood shrubs had been carefully banked with a preparation of bark and wood chips to protect them from the coming winter frost. Only the gravel beneath Mary’s feet remained unaltered, constant season in and season out.
It was ridiculously easy to slip out of the house and through the garden gate. Which meant, thought Mary, casting a look of deep misgiving over her shoulder at the serried ranks of shrubs behind her, that it would be just as easy for someone to slip in.
From Vaughn’s garden, it was only a short way back to Grosvenor Square. Mary stayed to the alleyways and dark corners, brooding over the problem of the Black Tulip. What if they put it about that Vaughn had died from the bullet wound? Mary instantly discarded that idea as unworkable. His heir would descend like a buzzard; curious members of the ton would throng the gates of Vaughn House; and Mary rather doubted Vaughn would meekly consent to play dead for the length of time it would take to find and kill the Black Tulip.
Entering by the servants’ gate, Mary let herself quietly into her brother-in-law’s house. The servants’ hall was empty and quiet, the grate still thickly spread with last night’s ashes. Vaughn could retreat for a month to his estates in Northumberland—but who was to say that the Black Tulip wouldn’t have agents there, too? Accidents were so easily arranged in the country. There was something that nagged at her, something the Black Tulip had said that didn’t quite make sense.
To be fair, there was a good deal the Black Tulip had said that didn’t quite make sense. With her skirts quietly whispering against the worn back stairs, Mary tried to recapture those unpleasant moments before the Black Tulip had pressed her finger down on the trigger, sending Vaughn tumbling headlong into the grass. Mary hastily wrenched her mind away from that image, trying to force herself to focus on the Black Tulip’s voice, the murmur of words in her ear. What was it he had said? Something about your Vaughn, followed by…Memory clicked into place, the Black Tulip’s voice clear in her ears. He has a wife, you know.
She knew, all too well. But how had the Black Tulip?
Creeping up the back stairs, Mary slipped through the green baize door into the front hall, where the Greek gods and goddesses in their arched niches scowled down at her. Mary scowled back at them, her mind busily belaboring the possibility of a connection between the Black Tulip and Vaughn’s curiously resurrected wife. Was it sheer coincidence that Vaughn’s wife and the Black Tulip had both been in Hyde Park at the same time, with a bullet meant for Vaughn?
In the corner of the room, one of the statues lurched to life and stumbled towards her.
Mary instinctively lurched back, arms coming up in self-defense, before realizing that it wasn’t a statue, but her sister, draped in a voluminous shawl over what was clearly last night’s dress. Tripping over the fringe of her shawl, Letty stumbled to a halt. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she blinked blearily at Mary.
“Thank God,” she said heavily, catching at the foot of a statue of Artemis for balance. She moved as though her limbs pained her, which wasn’t surprising, considering that the marble bench she had been occupying lacked cushions, arms, or back. “You’re all right. You are all right?”
“Yes.” Mary moved warily into the room, keeping a watchful eye on her sister. Letty looked far worse that she did. Her upswept crown of curls had been squashed to one side from leaning against the wall, and the weave of her shawl had imprinted itself across one cheek. “I’m perfectly well.”
Letty closed her eyes. “Thank God,” she repeated.
Her wide blue eyes roamed with dismay over the splotches on Mary’s dress, the disarranged hair shoved up under her bonnet.
“How did you—no. Where did you—” Something in Mary’s face must have stopped her, because she broke off with a strangled laugh. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It’s enough that you’re back. And safe. Really, it is,” she repeated, as though trying to convince herself.
Her very freckles looked like they were about to pop off her cheeks with the strain of keeping her flood of questions from bursting forth.
“You are the eldest, after all,” Letty added, rather desperately, twisting her hands in the fabric of her skirt in that way she always had when she was anxious. “There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t know already. And it’s your life. I can’t organize it for you.”
She looked pleadingly at Mary. Her shawl trailed down drunkenly over one shoulder like a Scotsman’s ceremonial plaid, and her hair stuck out to the right, but there was a certain heroic dignity about her as she lifted her chin and announced, “I’m not going to ask.”
Mary had never been so fond of her little sister as in that moment. Crossing the room to her sister, she bent, and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
“Thank you,” she said, and then she turned and went upstairs to bed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“What was Dempster planning to do, sell the papers on the black market?” I made a fa
ce at Colin over my wineglass. “Is there even a black market for old documents?”
As far as I could see, his theory about Dempster’s raiding his archives for monetary gain was as full of plot holes as a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
Colin made a face right back, only he looked cuter doing it. “It’s not the documents themselves that are worth money to him; it’s the identity of the Pink Carnation.”
“How?” I demanded. “It’s not as if the French would still be willing to pay money for that information. Not unless he’s living in even more of a dream world than I am.”
“He might be, for all that,” said Colin. “But that’s not the point. The French might not be willing to pay that sort of money, but there’s more than one publisher who would.”
“For the identity of the Pink Carnation,” I said flatly. “Now you’re the one living in a dream world. It’s certainly big news from a scholarly standpoint, but why would anyone else care? And scholars don’t generally make up a big portion of the book-buying market.”
“History sells. It sells well. And the Pink Carnation is just the sort of figure to catch the public imagination. Especially since…”
“Yes, yes, I know,” I said hastily, glancing quickly around to make sure no one else was listening. “The whole woman thing. A new heroine for our times, blah, blah, blah.”
“And real,” Colin stressed. “Not a made-up heroine, but a real one, with documentary proof to back it up.”
“I see,” I said slowly. Dempster’s crazy motive was beginning to seem less crazy by the moment. “There’ll be History Channel programs, a made-for-TV movie…”
“Book deals, movie deals…,” Colin continued.
“Maybe even a 20/20 special,” I finished grimly. Certainly enough to make it worth Dempster’s while seducing a pretty and somewhat neurotic twenty-something to obtain access to her family’s papers. “Damn. But why would he get the money? Why not you, as the keeper of the papers? Why would all the rights suddenly belong to him?” As you can tell, my knowledge of intellectual property rights is not exactly extensive.