“Wonderful!” Phyllida turned back inside. “Who knows? We might even have a white Christmas. The children will be in alt.”
A discussion ensued of the possibilities for keeping their numerous offspring amused. Deliah sat back and listened, smiling at the comments.
For quite the first time in her life wishing she had reason to join in.
The realization was so startling she sobered, blinked.
Just as the sound of a gong resonated through the house.
“Time to dress for dinner.” Honoria stood, waited until Deliah set down her cup and rose, too. “Come, I’ll show you to your room. Your maid should be there by now.”
They dispersed, the others heading down various corridors in groups of twos and threes, heads together, chatting, while she and Honoria headed around the gallery.
“If you get tired of us, do say.” Honoria caught her eye and smiled. “I assure you we won’t be offended. You’ve been traveling, while we’ve been sitting here waiting for something to happen. And you’ve already done wonders to relieve our boredom.”
“That,” Deliah replied, “was entirely my pleasure.”
And it had been.
Honoria left her at the door of a well-appointed chamber, and went on to her own rooms to change for the evening.
Closing the door, Deliah smiled at Bess. “Everything all right?”
Bess’s answering smile was wide. “Lovely place, this. The staff is so friendly. We’ve all settled in already. Now!” Going to the bed, Bess picked up and displayed the gold satin gown from Madame Latour. “Seeing as this is a duke’s house, I thought you might want to wear this.”
Deliah studied the deceptively simple, unquestionably elegant evening gown, and gave thanks for Del’s insistence that she take it. She nodded. “Yes—that’s perfect.”
Standing before the mirror, she started pulling the pins from her hair, and reminded herself to extract from him the sum he’d paid for the gowns before they reached home.
For tonight, however, she saw no reason not to take advantage of time, place, and gown.
Nine
Del was standing by the fireplace with Devil when Deliah walked into the drawing room.
The room was abuzz with conversation, yet for him a silence fell.
He was deaf. He felt dazed.
He couldn’t drag his eyes from the sight of Deliah in the gold satin gown he remembered so well, standing poised in the doorway—apparently unaware of the havoc she was causing.
Then she moved. His mouth dried as he watched her, lips lightly curved, glide across the room to join Honoria and two of the other ladies standing chatting with Gervase.
Del’s chest swelled as he finally managed to drag in a breath and break free of her spell. Instinctively, he looked at Devil. And saw his green gaze also fixed across the room.
Some unfamiliar emotion flared—part irritation, part irrational fear…jealousy? He couldn’t recall feeling it before, not over a woman, and never so sharply. Tamping it down, he glanced again across the room.
She looked like a golden flame, a beacon of warmth and promise. Gaze circling the room, he confirmed all the other men had noticed. Impossible to hold it against them; they were male, too.
Jaw setting, he turned to Devil, only to meet an amused, but understanding, grin. To his relief, his old friend made no reference to Deliah but instead chose to rib Gyles as he joined them.
Gyles, of course, struck back. Del laughed and felt the years slide away. They no longer stood in Eton’s schoolyard, yet beneath the changes of the years, some things—loyalties, friendships—remained the same.
“How’s your daughter?” Devil asked Gyles.
“Contrary to my beliefs, she’s apparently thriving. Colic, so I’ve been informed, is something they—and we—have to go through.”
Devil grimaced. “I’m still working on developing immunity.” His gaze traveled to Honoria, then on to Francesca, standing in another group. “I don’t understand how they can, apparently without difficulty, tell the difference between a wail that signifies serious pain and one that merely means they’re grumpy.”
“Let me know when you’ve worked it out.” Gyles shook his head. “You might have warned me how…distracting a wife and family were going to be.”
Devil shrugged. “No point—it was in your stars as much as mine. No chance we could have avoided it.” He grinned, shot a glance at Gyles. “So we might as well enjoy it.”
Gyles laughed, his gaze on Francesca. “True.” Then he looked at Del. “So what about you, Del? What lies in your future?”
Neither Gyles nor Devil glanced at Deliah, but Del knew they knew…he waved nonchalantly. “I haven’t really thought. This mission blew up, and it seemed more appropriate to put consideration of the future off until it’s done.”
“Sometimes,” Devil said, “fate and the future come knocking.”
“She certainly did where we were concerned,” Gyles said. “No reason it should be any different for you.”
Del smiled. “We’ll see.”
The conversation moved on to different topics, but the notion of marriage, of having a wife and family, of putting down roots in the rich soil of England and establishing a real home—making Delborough Hall into a real home—continued to drift through his mind, coming to the fore whenever he spoke to the other Cynsters, all men he knew, and he sensed, as he had with Devil and Gyles, their contentment.
A contentment he wanted, one he felt he’d earned.
Again and again, his gaze returned to Deliah.
He wasn’t surprised to find they were paired at dinner. He led her in with a believable show of sangfroid, one that deceived neither him nor her.
There was a light in his dark eyes, a warm possessiveness in his touch as his hand grazed the back of her waist when he guided her to her chair. Deliah felt it, on some level reveled in it, even though outwardly she pretended not to notice.
As they sat at the long table and entertained the others with stories of India and Jamaica, she couldn’t recall feeling so relaxed…ever. For the first time in her adult life she felt free to simply be, to interact without constantly monitoring her words and her behavior.
Free to be herself, because in this company her true self wasn’t in any way remarkable. Not shocking, not out of place. In this company, she fitted.
The men had been open in their appreciation of her in Madame Latour’s stunning gown. The ladies, one and all, had asked for the modiste’s direction. Honoria and Alathea had even inquired if she had more of Madame’s creations with her, and whether they might see them.
She’d never shared anything with other women before. Other women had universally regarded her as…too much. Too outspoken, too headstrong, too willful—too striking. Too tall, too well curved, too sharp-tongued.
The word too had always featured in others’ descriptions of her.
Not here. Here, all the toos she possessed were accepted, even encouraged. Certainly these ladies exhibited most of the same, and she couldn’t help but note all they’d achieved in their lives—husbands, children, marriages based on love and trust and a great deal more besides.
Ever since the Great Scandal, she’d tried to suppress her inner self, tried to transform herself, cram herself into the mold of a proper English lady, but the mold her parents’ had held up for her—one of a lady who clung to convention at every step—had never fitted.
What she saw, what she learned as the conversations flashed and sparked around the dining table, was that there was another mold, one equally socially acceptable. One that fitted her like the proverbial glove.
And that mold was compatible with marriage—with a sort of marriage she could see herself within, one that was more a partnership, a relationship based on sharing.
She wasn’t an irredeemable outcast. She’d simply been moving in the wrong circles.
A strange buoyancy gripped her. Seized her. By the time they all rose and, the gentlemen denying any
wish for separation, repaired all together to the drawing room to sit and, still very much a large group, continue their conversations, she felt almost giddy.
Freedom, she realized. This is what it tastes like.
She smiled up at Del as she sank onto the sofa to which he’d led her.
He looked down at her for a moment, his features set in easy, social lines, yet his eyes…then he smiled and turned to sit in the armchair beside her.
Webster circled with port and brandy for the gentlemen. Some of the ladies, too, accepted a glass. Deliah declined. She wanted her wits unclouded so she could continue to notice and absorb all about her. While she was unlikely ever to face the altar, a long-term relationship wasn’t out of her cards.
Once everyone was settled, the talk turned to the Black Cobra cult, then to the incident that afternoon. Together with Tony and Gervase, she and Del remained the center of attention as they described the cultists and their actions.
“So there were fourteen?” Honoria looked thoroughly disapproving. She glanced at her husband. “You’d better lay Ferrar by the heels soon, or else this cult of his will be taking over villages and setting up in England.”
“Perish the thought.” Devil looked at Del. “Did you leave them all dead, or…?”
“We deemed it wiser not to wait and check. We couldn’t tell if there were more in the trees, or, even more likely, Larkins with a brace of pistols.”
“I, for one,” Tony said, “was taken aback that he had fourteen men he was willing to send against us. Del warned us, and they did send eight first, then the other six only when needed, but still, committing fourteen men to one such action…”
Gervase concluded, “It suggests he has more he can lose.”
The talk diverged to considering ways to locate any body of cultists in the surrounding area. That gave the Cynster males something to gnaw on, raising the prospect of some action to ease their disappointment over the unlikelihood of any immediate clash with the cultists.
Del contributed little. He didn’t know the county well, and he was exercised by other things.
Other thoughts, other feelings.
Unaccustomed feelings, but they were proving to be strong and thoroughly distracting—stronger and more distracting than he liked.
Recounting the clash that afternoon had called to mind, too vividly, all he’d felt over those fraught minutes. Re-evoked the staggeringly intense fear he’d felt on seeing Deliah exposed to danger—a fear of a type that for all his experience of life and death on battlefields around the globe, he’d never felt before.
More intense, reaching deeper, that fear had sunk talons into his very soul.
He hadn’t liked it at the time.
Looking back, he liked it even less.
He cast a sidelong glance at the cause of his distress. She sat relaxed on the sofa, a smile of genuine happiness on her face.
The sight of it did nothing to ease his mood. Yes, she was safe, and apparently content. Yet although her well-being was the crux on which his unnerving fear hinged, something within him wasn’t appeased. Responsibility for his near-crippling fear lay at her door.
Something he fully intended to point out. To explain. Later.
Tonight.
Shifting his gaze forward, he smothered his surging impulses, bit his tongue, and concentrated on shoring up his relaxed façade while inwardly rehearsing a suitable tirade.
December 15
Somersham Place, Cambridgeshire
Shivering uncontrollably, Sangay slogged and slid his way through the layer of icy white stuff that cloaked the rear yard of the very big house. It was as big as a palace, and equally busy, which was a blessing from the gods. No one had paid him too much attention. No one had spoken harshly or questioned him. Instead, they’d given him a small room all to himself, high beneath the roof where it was warm, and Cobby’s friend, Sligo, had found him a jacket—he’d called it a page’s coat—to put over his tunic.
Hands sunk in the pockets of the coat, the collar turned up and his head ducked against the wind, Sangay awkwardly hurried as fast as he dared toward the massive bulk of the stable.
At the back, the man had said.
The stable was bounded on three sides by high brick walls. Sangay felt his way down one side, then around to the rear, where what looked like a small forest encroached.
He halted in a small clearing midway along the stable’s back wall. At least the cold white flakes had ceased falling, but the wind still sliced, and a heavy feeling in the air, as if it were weighed down, suggested the snow would start coming down again soon.
It wasn’t inky dark. The white blanket reflected what little light there was and gave Sangay enough illumination to see. Even so, he heard the man’s boots crunching through the white crust long before the heavy figure loomed out of the black shadows beneath the trees.
“Have you got it?”
The harsh demand made Sangay tremble beneath his shivering, but he forced himself to shake his head. “But, sahib-sir, I’ve seen it!”
Larkins eyed the boy dispassionately. “At the inn, when the colonel fetched it?”
“Yes, sahib. I saw it then.”
“But have you seen it since?”
“No, sahib, but we’ve only just got here and the house is very large, but now I know what to look for! And this house is so big no one will notice me! I will be able to search tomorrow and find the scroll-holder, and then I will be bringing it out to you.”
Dark eyes wide, trained on Larkins’s face, the boy made an effort to disguise his tremors, and look eager and confident.
He didn’t fool Larkins, but conversely Larkins knew the boy was his best route to the scroll-holder, and therefore, at present, his most valuable asset.
That was why he’d set this meeting for ten o’clock—not so early the boy would be missed, yet not so late he might attract attention if seen slipping out.
Larkins knew the ways of households like this, knew the routines the servants followed. He’d once been one of them, but it had been a long time since he’d been a lowly servant. Working for the Black Cobra had made him rich. Wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He was rich enough to have servants himself, if he’d wanted them. But acquiring such chattels didn’t bring him pleasure. Nowhere near as much pleasure as dealing in terror did. That was the one thing he most valued about being in the Black Cobra’s service—the chance to indulge in the vilest deeds.
He enjoyed terrorizing the innocent. Yet in this case…. The failure of the afternoon was acid in his gut. That failure made the boy—getting the boy to deliver the scroll-holder into his hands—even more vital.
He’d never failed his master, but he knew how his master rewarded failure and had no wish to receive such attention.
So he nodded. “Good.” He glanced up at the louring sky. “It’s going to snow more—probably a lot more. I won’t be able to meet you here. So you find the scroll-holder, and the instant you do, you head for the big church.” He pointed to the northeast. “There’s a big tower you can see for miles. Tomorrow, you look in that direction, and you’ll see it. Find the scroll-holder and bring it to me there—inside the cathedral, under the highest tower. I’ll be watching. I’ll meet you there.”
Larkins looked down at the shivering little sod, remembered the value of the letter in the scroll-holder. “Now you listen to me, son—don’t, under any circumstances, leave the roads. You have to leave here by the drive you came in on, then go around by the roads, staying on them all the way—understand? That country out there”—with one hand he indicated the stretch to the northeast—“it’s all fens and swamps. Lots of it looks solid, but you put a foot in the wrong place and it’ll swallow you whole. Got that?”
The boy’s eyes had grown even rounder. He nodded. “I take the scroll-holder and go by the roads to the big church and meet you there.”
“That’s right.” Larkins narrowed his eyes. “And you won’t forget what will happen to your ma if you don’t
, will you?”
The boy’s eyes darkened. His jaw trembled, but he clenched it and shook his head side to side. “No, sahib. I won’t forget that. I will find the letter and bring it with all haste.”
“Good. Now you better get back before anyone misses you.”
“Yes, sahib.” Sangay turned and, without looking back, made his way around the stables. Pulling his collar up around his ears, he clutched it closed, then dashed back through a thickening veil of white.
It had started to snow again.
Eventually everyone retired for the night. In the pleasant chamber she’d been given, Deliah held her hands to the cheery fire and gave thanks the day had ended so well.
Straightening, she glanced at the bed, then at Bess, flicking out a nightgown and laying it over a chair. “I’m not sleepy enough for bed yet. I can get out of this gown by myself, and you’ve had a long day, too. You can go.”
Bess grinned. “If you’re sure?”
“Yes.” Deliah waved at the door. “Off with you.”
Bess chuckled, bobbed and went.
Alone, Deliah idly wandered the room, looking at the paintings, at the ornaments on the mantelpiece. Del, she knew, was in a mood. A restless, edgy, and, despite his outward smiles, scowling mood.
She’d felt it, sensed it. She was fairly certain of its cause.
But be damned if she’d apologize for saving his life.
If she hadn’t stepped out onto the carriage step…just the thought of seeing him cut down sent a sensation of pure ice shafting through her.
The coldness spread until she shivered and shook aside her imagined vision. Bending, she held her hands to the fire again.
Once again, she glanced at the bed. Inwardly frowned at her reluctance to get into it.
Eventually she realized it was the afternoon’s incident—the aftermath of it—that was feeding that reluctance.
She hadn’t thought the fight had affected her that deeply. She’d been shocked and frightened at the time, but they’d come through it, more or less unscathed. They’d triumphed, they’d won, albeit it on a restricted canvas.