“Yes, yes, I did, too. Then your door opened, and you were here, and I was so relieved—” Her voice dropped right off the cliff. She stared at him. Her tongue was on her bottom lip, worrying, tasting, and he wanted—he shook. He opened his mouth, shut it, then it burst right out of him: “Your hair is incredible.” He raised his hand to touch it, then quickly dropped his hand to his side.
My hair is incredible? It was the middle of the night, and they were swallowed in shadows so deep perhaps Devlin wasn’t seeing things the way they really were. Maybe he was overset because he’d fancied someone or something was out here—but no, he’d said what he’d said. It was all about her and her incredible hair. She beamed at him in the darkness. “I am so glad it’s you, Devlin. I was alarmed, silly of me, I know, because who could be skulking about in the middle of the night? Who could be making noises to jerk me out of a very nice dream?”
“Richard Langworth, for one. He was with your sister earlier; I heard them whispering. Maybe they were finished with—never mind that. They were probably speaking at her bedchamber door before he left.”
“Whispering? Leah and Richard? That’s what I heard? But that would mean that—how could she do such a thing? They are not married, they are very nearly strangers, they—”
Devlin raised a finger, laid it against her lips. She opened her mouth beneath his finger, closed it again. Merciful Lord, he wanted his mouth against hers, not his bloody finger. Still, he forced himself not to lower the candle to the floor; that would surely bring him everything he wanted—perhaps Roxanne wanted it, too—but the consequences?
Roxanne gulped. “Are you wearing only your dressing gown, Devlin?”
“You should not remark upon that, Roxanne. Yes.”
“That is not much barrier between thee and me.”
“You are quoting Shakespeare to me?”
“It does sound like something Oberon would say to Titania, doesn’t it? No, no, don’t answer that. I should go back to my bedchamber. I should lock my bedchamber door again. And I should shove the key through to the other side.”
“I can see you clearly now, Roxanne. You are framed by black, it halos your face. You are so very white, do you know? Perhaps you have vampire leanings yourself. Perhaps you should eschew the sun as I do.”
She nodded, stilled. “I wonder which of us is the whiter?”
I think if we were naked together, we would blend into a perfect single whiteness. Where had that ridiculous thought come from? Because he wasn’t a complete dolt, he managed to keep that madness behind his teeth.
He merely smiled at her.
“Do you prefer your mistresses be as white as you are, Devlin?” As white-skinned as I am?
He could but stare at her over the arc of candlelight. “No, you are the first to be as white as I am. Is the rest of you as white as your face?”
She didn’t mean to, she truly didn’t, but she parted his dressing gown. He didn’t move, scarcely breathed.
She said, “Even the soles of my feet are white. Are you smooth as white marble, or do you have hair on your chest?”
“Yes, I do have lots of hair. So does my father. And Julian, too. You cannot imagine what picturing all of you is doing to my brain, Roxanne.” Now she was tangling her fingers in the hair and he was leaning into her fingers.
Her fingers flattened on his chest. She was closer now, and he could feel her breath sighing through the warm air between them. She said, “Your heart is galloping, Devlin, as fast as Eglette, my prized childhood pony. He was faster than a storm rolling right at you. Your heart is pounding so hard and fast that if you were an old man, I would fear for apoplexy.”
He raised his free hand. His fingers, light as a shadow, pressed against her breast. “Your heart is drumming as well, Roxanne.”
“Once, it was a very long time ago, I remember feeling quite strange when John kissed me, but it didn’t make me want to bound to the heavens and shout with joy at the same time; it didn’t make my heart want to leap out of my chest.”
“It is lust,” he said.
“Lust? It is lust that is making me warm all over and my heart race like a flying arrow?”
“It is. Listen to me. Lust is a simple thing that freely roams the land, pops up in unlikely places, like in a castle’s dark corridor, between a man and a woman who shouldn’t even be in the bloody corridor together, maybe even in the bloody castle together.”
“No, Ravenscar is a palace,” she said. “Sophie said a prince could only live in a palace.”
Devlin watched his own hand drop from her breast. The loss of her nearly broke him. He forced himself to step back in his mind, one step, another. He said, “Do you know, I am a very content man?”
Roxanne was silent for a long moment, then she managed a sneer she knew he couldn’t appreciate despite the candlelight. “Naturally, you are content. You are rich, you are a duke’s heir, an earl in your own right, and you have three mistresses. I am given to understand if a man were to enjoy three mistresses—three different mistresses at the same time—he would be very content even without money, without a title. Mayhap he’d be whistling all the time. Do not forget, you excel at being a vampire. You have played the role so long every woman who meets you is immediately fascinated. You represent the danger of the unknown.”
“Do I fascinate you?”
“I shall not answer that. Now, I have said too much, and I have said it at great length. I began by insulting you . . .” She paused. “I suppose I ended with the insult intact.”
He nodded. “Very fluent you were, too. But you know, you said so much I can ignore what I wish to. Yes, I much enjoy whistling, particularly when the moon is high and I can raise my face and see the clarity of it piercing through the shadows surrounding me, and no, it will not fry me like the sun. If you had three lovers, I wonder if you would be as content as I, Roxanne?”
“Where would a lady find the time to juggle three lovers, Devlin? I mean, can you imagine having to change your gown for three different gentlemen? And your hair, brushing it into a new style for each lover? It would be exhausting, don’t you think?”
He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. He had to stop, he had to.
She said, “Do you know I am twenty-seven?”
He nodded. “When is your birthday?”
“August the third.”
“Then I am three months older than you.”
“Are you older than your mistresses?”
He shook his head. “Only one of them, and she is nearly twenty-five. I have never cared for ingénues; they are not so, well, they are not so polished, I suppose one could say, and their conversation isn’t what—” His brain seized. “Even though you are wearing only two thin layers of clothes and standing not six inches from me, your heart flying so fast it could split the air like an arrow, you are a lady. I thank the good lord for the candle between us, else I might have you against the wall. Do you know what that would lead to?”
“I am a spinster, Devlin. I am so high on the shelf it would require a ladder to pull me down. Perhaps it is time I understood a bit more about this lust business. I think the wall sounds like a fine idea.”
He laughed this time, couldn’t help it. He lightly touched his fingers to her smooth cheek. “What you are, Roxanne, is you, and that is a very fine thing. Good night.” He lightly kissed her mouth, turned quickly, and disappeared back into his bedchamber.
She sighed and ached and wondered. She stood in the dark corridor for a moment longer, then turned resolutely toward her bedchamber. As she locked her door, she thought of Leah and Richard Langworth. Should she tell her sister Richard was using her to get to Julian? She couldn’t begin to imagine what Leah would have to say to that. Well, she could, and it made her stomach hurt. She would have to make certain there was no weapon within sight.
She refused to think about Devlin Monroe. But there, blossoming full in her mind, was a lovely image of their two very white selves naked, blending perfectly togethe
r.
Roxanne fell asleep aching and smiling.
42
When Julian stepped into the drawing room the following morning, it was to see his mother, her brow furrowed, holding a piece of paper in her hand, Pouffer hovering over her.
“Good morning. What is this?”
He watched her close her hand over the paper, open it again. “Rupert told me when he first showed me the portrait yesterday that he’d noticed the brown paper had peeled loose on the back of your father’s painting. Pouffer and I decided to see to it. Look what I found stuck inside. It is a letter, written to you, from your father.”
She handed him the letter. It was yellowed with age, the creases set deep in the paper. Julian unfolded it and read the bold black handwriting, firm and vigorous, penned more than thirty years earlier.
To the Prince of Ravenscar
A jewel beyond understanding awaits you.
It is flat and ugly and can feel
its magic pulse to your bones.
It lies beneath spears of stone.
I could not use the magic, since it is for you, if your brain is tuned to find it.
You are now a man. Do you look like me?
I wonder—
Your father, Maximilian Monroe,
5th Duke of Brabante
His father’s black scrawled name filled the rest of the single sheet of paper, letters thick and firm, though faded by the thirty years that had passed. Julian read it through again, and once more, then raised his head. “You read this, Mother?”
“Yes, but it makes no sense to me. Never did your father mention leaving a jewel for you—and a magic jewel? Flat and ugly? What sort of jewel is flat and ugly? You find it beneath spears of stone? What stone spears?”
Pouffer was unable to contain himself. His voice was deep and awed. “I had forgot how fanciful your father was, Prince, how he adored mysteries and puzzles. Your father tells you the jewel is for you, that it awaits you. Only you.”
Julian nearly laughed. Didn’t that sound like fine melodrama?
He made his excuses and walked to the stables. Ten minutes later, when he was saddling Cannon, he looked up to see Sophie striding like a boy toward him. Long legs, he thought, momentarily distracted.
“Your mother told me about the note, but she couldn’t remember it exactly. May I see it?”
“Do you walk a lot, Sophie?”
She blinked at him. “Walk? Well, certainly, all my life.”
Long, strong legs. He wanted to see her legs, the whole length of them, wanted to kiss them, draw them around his flanks.
“Julian, what is wrong with you? Why are you looking at me that way? Why do you want to know if I walk a lot? Come, let me see your father’s note to you.”
He settled the saddle on Cannon’s broad back, not looking at her. “My father must have been long lapsed into his dotage when he devised this elaborate word puzzle. I fear it is a story spun by his aged brain.”
“Your mother said your father was lucid until he closed his eyes in death. May I copy the letter for you?”
He gave one last yank to the saddle girth, swatted Cannon’s neck when he turned to nip him, and said, “Come, Sophie, do you honestly believe there is something hidden away for me—something magic that didn’t work for my father but will for me if my brain is tuned to it? And what does ‘tuned’ mean?”
“Yes, I believe there is a hidden ring. Magic? We will see when we find it.” She held out her hand. “I will copy it.” He handed her the small square of paper.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m meeting Devlin at the Brazen Crow in Ravenscar Village. It has been owned and run by Mrs. Casper for thirty years.”
“May I come with you? I haven’t seen the village yet.”
Julian smiled at her. “No, not this time. It is none of your affair. Both of us will be back soon enough.” He frowned. “Keep yourself safe, and my father’s note as well.” He swung onto Cannon’s back and was gone.
Safe? What was the matter?
She walked thoughtfully back to the house to climb the wide stone steps, glistening like soft gold in the morning light, the night’s storm gone by dawn, the old duke’s letter in her hand.
She passed Pouffer, who gave her an absent bow, muttering to himself all the while. She smiled at Tansy, who held a pressed gown over her arm, and nodded to two maids and to a footman dressed in Ravenscar’s colors—royal blue and gold.
She went up the wide staircase, down the long corridor to her bedchamber, only to stop at the sound of two women’s voices—Roxanne and Leah. If God himself had ordered her to keep walking, she doubted she could have done it.
She pressed her ear to the crack in the doorway. She heard Roxanne say, “I hope you slept well, Leah.”
“Naturally. Why should I not have slept well?” And she began humming to herself. “Isn’t it a lovely day, Roxanne? Would you look at that brilliant sunlight pouring through the windows? Richard and I are having a picnic beside the river. The sun is so brilliant it should dry the ground quickly, so Richard tells me. I believe he is speaking with Mrs. Coltrak at this very moment. He told me she’ll make us a wonderful lunch, since she always liked him, even as a little boy.” She picked up her skirts and began twirling around her bedchamber.
Better to spit it out. “I must speak with you, Leah.”
Leah stopped twirling, turned, and eyed her sister, her younger sister, with that roof thatch of common red hair piled atop her head that most people were stupid enough to admire. “What do you have to say, Roxanne?”
“I know about you and Richard Langworth. I know he was with you last night.”
A lovely blond brow shot upward. “I don’t know how you know about Richard and me last night, but I don’t really care. It is none of your business. Don’t you dare turn up your common little prude’s nose at me! I am a widow, unlike you, who will probably remain a virgin until you die. Unlike you, I have no father to order me about. I am independent; I can do exactly as I please.”
Meaty insults, every one of them, but that wasn’t important. Roxanne said calmly, “Father has never ordered me around. He never ordered you around, either.”
“He certainly didn’t want you to leave, did he? I know how he drove away John Singleton. He wanted to keep you under his thumb, and you, you weak little ninny, you cast off the only man who wanted you.”
Defensive words nearly popped right out of Roxanne’s mouth. No, it was absurd to argue with Leah. It wouldn’t gain her anything at all. She said calmly, “It’s very possible Richard Langworth is using you, Leah, to get to Julian. You know he believes Julian murdered Lily. I had to tell you. There was no choice.”
Leah merely shrugged. “Julian very probably did murder her, why not? Richard disagrees with me, but I believe Lily did have a lover. Richard has told me Julian has always been very possessive of anything he sees as his. He would certainly see Lily as belonging to him. Julian wouldn’t tolerate a lover, and so he shot his wife dead.”
“You are wrong about that, Leah. Lily had no lover. No one believes she did, because there was no other man about to fill the role. Not a single one.”
The sneer in Leah’s voice matched the sneer on her mouth. “Both you and Sophie, you think Julian a hero. He is only a man, as they are all only men. And tell me, how would Julian be so certain she had no lover? Few men see what is under their noses. Precious Julian didn’t, either. What is this? You want Julian? You want a murderer? Beware, Roxanne, if he murdered one wife, he could easily murder another. He got away with it, after all.”
“Julian is not a murderer.”
Leah laughed. “So his wife killed herself? A stranger wandered into the Hardcross gardens and shot her? Why, I ask you? She was so miserable she killed herself to escape her husband? Any possible explanation is unsavory, isn’t it? Go away, Roxanne. You bore me with your pathetic defense.”
“Richard is using you, I tell you, Leah. He has this obsession with Julian; i
t consumes him. He would do anything to get back at him. Do you know Richard tried to kill him in London? When you were there?”
“That is a fine tale, indeed. Tell me, Roxanne, will you still think he’s using me when I marry him?”
Leah ran to the door, her laughter floating after her. She jerked it open, and Sophie nearly fell into her.
43
Well, isn’t this charming.” Leah smacked Sophie’s shoulder, nearly sending her to the floor. “Look at you, your ear pressed to the door like a silly little girl. You are a disgrace, Sophie Colette Wilkie. What would Bethanne say, were she here? I hope she would be appalled as I am. She didn’t raise you well, that is certain.”
Rage overrode guilt. “My mother was the best mother in the whole world, Leah. Look at you, all mean in the mouth, so miserable at having to live with yourself that you must make everyone else miserable, including your poor dead husband, which is why he never stayed at home. I should run away, too, if I had to live with you. My innards fair to shrivel to think of you as my mother.”
“You ridiculous girl, I am too young, far too young, to be your mother. I look like your sister, your beautiful sister. My husband did not run away. He had to leave to do his duty. Naturally, I was unhappy. You would be, too, if your husband was bound to duty and couldn’t spend time with his very young wife. I did not chase him away. He had the gall to get himself drowned.
“How dare you call me mean! I always speak only the truth, something you are too mealymouthed to do. But that isn’t important now, because there is Richard. He is everything Lord Merrick was not. He is honorable and amusing and very handsome. He doesn’t have those ridiculous whiskers on his face. He adores me, but I will tell you, Julian will never adore you. He will never marry you, either, even though his mother has begged him to. He thinks you’re a useless little girl. He sees you as you really are, Sophie—a spoiled child prancing around in a lady’s gown.”
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