The Trouble With Virtue: A Comfortable WifeA Lady by Day

  “By all means.” Her smile felt brittle on her lips. “I’d been hoping to refresh my punch.”

  She tucked her hand into his elbow and felt solid muscle ripple beneath brocaded silk.

  “What an unpleasant evening,” she said as they walked. “I detest when it rains during a ball. One cannot escape outside to catch one’s breath.”

  “The weather has been terrible all afternoon,” he said. “Which was all the more aggravating, as I found myself traveling all over town searching for a man who doesn’t exist.”

  “How frustrating that must have been for you.”

  “Oh, Joseph,” he murmured. “You have no idea. But discovering the truth has been worth the trouble, I assure you.” He rubbed his jaw, as though he might have had a beard he wasn’t quite used to doing without. “Suppose you tell me where Elias is now? Is he here?”

  “Here? Heavens, no. And I will warn you, this would not be a good time for a visit. He takes three different medicines before bedtime, all of which contain significant quantities of spirits, and he won’t be in his right mind.”

  “Won’t he?” His blue eyes drilled into her, bright with anger and another emotion that was very much anger’s opposite. “I might be inclined to believe you, had I not already been to his house and learned he was out for the evening.”

  He’d returned to Elias’s. Naturally. “Sometimes Trowe will say things just so that Elias can enjoy some peace.”

  “I saw his empty bed with my own eyes.”

  Trowe had let him upstairs? She tamped down a lick of fury. “I’m afraid I cannot help you, Sir Noah. He could well have been in his anteroom or the library... Who’s to say?”

  Amusement tugged at his lips. “Trowe, for one. He confessed that Elias had gone out, but could not say where. Or wouldn’t say. I have my doubts as to the man’s candor.”

  Elias and his nighttime excursions—what a devil. He’d slept all afternoon, scarcely eaten a thing. Hardly been able to breathe, worse than usual. Taken three spoonfuls of medicine—and still he’d gone out despite a hundred discussions about why he should not.

  “Thank you for apprising me of the situation,” she said, and started to turn away. “I will see that it is resolved, and I pray you will enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  In the privacy between their bodies, strong fingers curled around her wrist—large, warm fingers callused from years of sailing. “If the situation is to be resolved,” he told her under his breath, “we shall resolve it together.” Those fingers tightened. “Now.”

  “Sir Noah, I cannot possibly address the matter now. My nieces are here, and without my supervision there’s no contemplating what might befall them. I’ve left them to their own devices too long already. It has been good to see you again, Sir Noah. Do call on Elias again tomorrow, and perhaps he will be well enough to receive you.”

  “Ah, Joseph.” He smiled at her in a way that sent shivers careening across her skin. “Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. Here is what is about to happen. You will beg an emergency, leaving your nieces in the charge of any number of perfectly capable chaperones who will see them safely home. We will order your coach and go to Elias’s, where he will either have returned, in which case we will confirm the state of his health once and for all, or he will still be away, in which case we will stay until he returns.” Those blue eyes skimmed over her face, flicked to her breasts. Glanced at her hands. “You are making a fist. Could it be you are not as calm as you pretend, Mr. Bentley?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  INSIDE HER COACH, Josephine kept her hands carefully folded in her lap while she imagined the news of her double identity blazing its way through London, igniting conversation in every drawing room while Charlotte’s hopes for Lettie and Pauline went up in the smoke of Josephine’s outlandish doings.

  “Suppose you tell me why you’ve seen fit to prevent my business dealings with Elias,” Sir Noah said casually, sitting with his arm draped across the back of the opposite seat. A subtle fragrance teased her—spicy and exotic, reminiscent of her girlhood days in Gibraltar.

  He was almost painfully handsome. She tried to ignore it, but he sat across from her...existing. Watching her with those remarkable eyes. Sitting as if he owned the coach and everything in it, with his legs stretched out in front of him—strong, muscular legs that would be steady and sure even in high seas—as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said evenly. “Elias has his fingers in many different pies, and managing all of his dealings at any given time can be difficult. It’s often a matter of timing. Do accept my apologies for any inconvenience.”

  All those good intentions of putting an end to this Joseph Bentley business within weeks of the first time Elias had asked her to write a letter, nearly three years ago... It was too late for that now.

  Sir Noah’s too-blue eyes glittered in the near darkness. “Inconvenience.”

  “Certainly you understand that matters must be prioritized according to urgency.” His mere presence should not have made it this difficult to breathe.

  “Mmm. Yes. And somehow you divined that my business was less than urgent.”

  “Only on the grounds of its being somewhat unrealistic.” In the sense that it absolutely, positively would not come to fruition. “I meant no offense, naturally.”

  He gave a laugh—straight, white teeth flashing in the shadowy coach. “Naturally. Although by unrealistic, I believe you actually mean that you object to my plans on every point and are prepared to go to any length to prevent them.”

  “Good heavens, you do have an inflated view of the significance others place on your intentions.” It wouldn’t do to explain that she did, in fact, object to his plans on every point—every last self-serving point.

  “Your obstructionist tactics have kept me at a standstill for two years,” he went on conversationally, but there was no mistaking the edge in his voice. “You will understand if I’ve had enough.”

  “I am aware of your discontent, Sir Noah.”

  “Oh, Joseph, discontent doesn’t begin to describe it.” He leaned toward her and pinned her with his gaze. “Daydreams about what I would do to Joseph Bentley when I finally got my hands on him gave me many a happy hour during the voyage north.” The corner of his lips twitched, and a shiver feathered her spine. She would not underestimate him again.

  “I understand that a great number of men around the Mediterranean enjoy that variety of indulgence,” she said evenly, “so I suppose I oughtn’t be surprised. How disappointed you must be.”

  He smiled at her. “If you order your driver to take a longer route, I’ll be happy to show you exactly how disappointed.”

  Her arm flared to life with the memory of his grip—the press of his fingers into the sensitive flesh on the inside of her wrist. Her fingernails dug into her palm, and she forced them to relax.

  “Such a temptation, Sir Noah. But I believe—” she made a show of looking out the window “—yes, I do believe we’ve almost arrived.”

  He glanced out the window and looked at her sharply. “This isn’t the way to Elias’s house.” He started for the bell.

  “Do not pull it. The driver is following my direction. If you wish to see Elias, I know where you will find him.”

  The coach slowed to a stop outside a narrow house with brightly lit windows. The sign above the door was barely legible in the dark.

  “The Dewy Petal?” he asked incredulously.

  “Would you like to go roust him from his entertainments, or shall I?”

  There was a heartbeat, and Sir Noah began to laugh. “You surprise me, Lady Mareck.”

  It took a moment to realize it was because he did not believe her. She reached for the bell and rang it.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

/>   The door opened. “Please go inside and inquire after Mr. Elias Woodbridge,” she told the coachman. “Tell him there is a matter of great importance—that Sir Noah Rutledge is here and must see him immediately.”

  Sir Noah cursed. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “I think it is.”

  “You have proved your point, Lady Mareck.”

  “I can’t imagine what you mean,” she said. “You wished to see Elias, and I have showed you where he is likely to be. By all means, go in straightaway and inform him that he must sell his shipyard, pack up his household and begin life anew in Turkey.”

  Sir Noah smiled at her. “I hardly think a coitus interruptus is the way to renew my relationship with Elias, do you, Joseph?” He ordered the door closed in a shipmaster’s tone that brooked no disobedience. The door slammed, and the carriage lurched forward. “Morning will be soon enough.”

  * * *

  THE DEWY PETAL.

  Christ.

  Noah stretched out on the bed in his rented lodgings with a ration of his favorite arak, mixed milky-white and tasting so strongly of home it was almost painful.

  Lady Mareck was Joseph Bentley.

  Bloody sodding hell.

  There would be no blackening Bentley’s eye now, gratifying though it might be. And there was no doubt he’d be thinking about those eyes all the way back to Marmaris. They were hazel, alive with gold and brown that gave them a fiery glitter, fringed by the prettiest lashes he’d ever seen. Pity they conveyed as much feeling as a slab of marble.

  He thought of her observing him passively from behind her death-mask politesse. She was beautiful, there was no denying it. If one enjoyed that type of cold, wax-figure elegance.

  Well, I’ve got you now, your enterprising ladyship.

  Either way, there could be no doubt that she was doing everything in her power to prevent him discussing his proposal with Elias. Which meant she feared Elias would react favorably.

  He splayed his fingers and smiled at the Moresque design scrolled across the back of his hand—one of the more permanent mad whims he and Ahmet had acted on, and they hadn’t even been drunk at the time. Lady Mareck’s eyes had strayed there more than once during their limited encounters. How eccentric she must think him.

  He let his hand fall and sipped his drink.

  Perhaps Elias really was in poor health, as she claimed. Perhaps not. But he bloody well wasn’t on death’s door if he actually had been entertaining himself in the—God, Noah couldn’t think of it without laughing—the Dewy Petal.

  Perhaps he should have gone in after all. He might have fancied a look ’round.

  In any case, he would discover in the morning whether Lady Mareck’s story was true or another of her evasive ploys. He would be able to assess the situation, decide whether it might be prudent to wait before approaching Elias with his proposal.

  He closed his eyes and savored the taste of anise on his tongue.

  What he wouldn’t give to be in Smyrna right now, in that little meyhane where the wine was so potent three glasses put him half seas over. Or reclining at Ghalib’s villa on Cyprus, smoking a water pipe and enjoying the attentions of a dark-haired beauty. Or even at his own villa on the Turkish Mediterranean, though God knew why he would ever spend time there when there was such fun to be had elsewhere. Damnation, there was always good company at Ghalib’s.

  But life needed to be more than a collection of half-coherent memories of pleasure-seeking. By now Noah should have had more to show than memories and money. Other men his age had political aspirations, ran commercial enterprises, maintained wives and children and households.

  Other men were cogs in the great machine of society. And what was he?

  A bit of flotsam, drifting alone on the sea of life.

  He had all the evidence he needed in the fact that he’d sailed all the way to London on the hope that if Elias had received his letters, he might have looked favorably on the plan. And on the fantasy that the two of them might work together. Come to know each other. They were each other’s only relations, after all.

  But the truth was, Elias might very well laugh at him. God knew, more than one of his friends in the Med had done as much. Even Ahmet might have laughed, if he’d still been alive, although the shipyard idea was as much his vagary as Noah’s.

  But Ahmet wasn’t alive—only the memories were. Carousing the ancient seaports, laughing at anything and everything, drinking liquor as fast as the Levant could produce it. Talking about a hundred possible courses of action yet never lifting a finger toward any.

  And now here Noah was, finally taking action. Joseph Bentley, Lady Mareck, could step out of the way or go to hell.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “IF YOUR DEBAUCHING causes you to live one minute less than you might have, Elias, I shall hunt you down in the afterlife with a pack of rabid hounds.” Josephine pulled the curtains back instead of waiting for the maid to do it and faced her late husband’s uncle, who squinted at her from his bed like a bat being torn from its cave.

  “You shan’t be in a position to find me in the afterlife,” he said, tugging feebly at the bed drapes, “as you shall reside on a much loftier estate than I. Where has that valet gone?” The question ended in a fit of coughing.

  “To get your tea, or have you forgotten already that you asked for it?”

  Did Elias look paler than usual, or was she imagining things? Trowe’s story of Sir Noah forcing his way upstairs last night had her so furious it was hard to keep her voice calm.

  A maid stoked the fire and brought a full pitcher of water. Any minute, Sir Noah would arrive. There would be no keeping him away now, but she’d had time to decide what to do about that. And wouldn’t Sir Noah be surprised.

  “Good God,” Elias groaned. “Feel as if I’ve been trampled by ten horses.”

  She leaned forward and kissed the small portion of his forehead that was visible between his nightcap and the covers. He reeked of perfume. “You’ve got to stop these nighttime excursions. What if something should happen?” The sight of him was heartbreaking.

  “Why would I wish to die in my own bed—” Elias coughed, and the chambermaid quickly pushed a glass of water into his hands “—when I could die in someone else’s? If I’m going to go, I’d just as soon do it between a welcoming pair of—”

  “You’re not going to go anywhere.” There were times when it would have been preferable if Elias did not feel quite so comfortable in her presence. “I’ve had a letter from Dr. Waxman in Cheshire. He’ll be here by the end of the week. And I expect a reply any day from Dr. Norton.”

  “Not more of your god-awful doctors.” He coughed again, drank more water.

  Yes, Elias was given to riotous living. He’d always been that way. But these past two years, it was more than that. He’d lost interest in life. In the shipyard, which for Elias was life. There’d been more carousing and whoring, less designing and drafting. He’d hired a young, new naval architect who did most of what Elias had always devoted his life to. Sometimes the changes she’d seen in him these past two years hurt so deeply she wanted to yank him out of that bed and shake him until his teeth rattled. But all she could do was be there for him, the way he’d been there for her. She could be his rock, the way he’d always been hers.

  But something was very wrong, and joining Sir Noah in Turkey would only make it worse.

  “You’ll need to look at those plans before the end of the week,” she told him. “Young Mr. Heckley needs your final approval before they can begin Perry’s fleet.”

  “Already looked at ’em.” And from the tone of his voice, not very thoroughly. It was a good thing Mr. Heckley was as talented as he was young.

  “He’ll be glad to hear it.” Josephine glanced toward the doorway. She’d instructed Trowe to let her kno
w when Sir Noah arrived before escorting him upstairs, but there wasn’t much time. “Uncle, there is a matter of importance we need to discuss.”

  “God’s sake, Jo, can’t business wait for a decent hour?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Devil take Sir Noah for putting her in this position.

  Under ordinary circumstances, she never would have kept something like this from Elias. If Elias had been healthier, she would certainly have told him. If he hadn’t made such a steep decline for the worse. If his attitude had showed any sign of improvement.

  If you weren’t afraid he would go off with Sir Noah and leave you alone.

  He might have been her uncle by marriage only, but he was also her truest friend and family in all the world.

  Elias groaned. “Whatever it might be, I daresay you are more than capable of seeing to it without my help. Good God.” He peeked up at her through one eye. “But if it’s got to do with my new wig—”

  “It doesn’t.” She would already lose him to the inevitable soon enough—she would not lose him to a renegade privateer sooner. “Uncle, I have a confession to make.”

  * * *

  NOAH KNEW THE effects of a night of hard drinking when he saw them. He was familiar with the effects of old age, too, and when he walked—finally—into Elias’s bedchamber, it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.

  “Noah, my boy!” Elias broke off in a fit of coughing as he struggled to sit up in a sea of pillows and coverings. “By damn you’re a welcome sight. Been a long time. A very long time indeed! Josephine, help me sit—bloody hell, my head hurts.”

  Noah moved in to help, but a chambermaid beat him to it. He watched the maid and Lady Mareck stuff a pair of pillows behind Elias’s back. When Lady Mareck stepped back, she offered him a pleasant smile. “Good morning, Sir Noah.”

  “Lady Mareck.” The state Elias was in put Noah in no mood for Lady Mareck’s games, so he bowed to her and reached for his old cousin’s hand. “Overjoyed, Elias,” he said past a sudden thickening in his throat. “Truly.” He inhaled deeply past the unexpected attack of emotion and stepped back.