A Lady of Expectations and Other Stories

by Stephanie Laurens

  “That is entirely false,” Eve said, stung by the harshness of his judgment. “I bought the shop, but I could not buy the business acumen to go with it. I have tried my best and yes, you are correct, I struggle because I tend to be too kind to my clients. Nevertheless, I would never resort to criminal means for my livelihood.”

  She could feel Rowarth’s gaze search her face, shrewd, perceptive and as tangible as a physical touch.

  “I know you are determined to believe the worst of me,” she said bitterly, “but you should at least get your accusations straight. Either you suspect me of being Sampson’s mistress—in which case I would hardly be flailing around in poverty watching my business fail but rather enjoying his vast wealth in comfort and privilege—or you think me a blackmail victim. Neither is correct.” She snapped a pencil fiercely between her fingers. “You can take your base suspicions and put them in your ducal—” she broke off, in danger of reverting to the street slang of her childhood “—pipe and smoke it,” she resumed. “You can prove nothing, for there is nothing to prove and so you may tell Lord Hawkesbury.”

  There was another silence and then Rowarth shifted, stretched. “What you have told me may well be true, Eve, but at the very least, you have committed a crime and that is proven. You have stolen goods sitting in your shop.” He gestured toward the hairbrush. “This piece here, and the candlesticks I saw in the window will, I suspect, match an inventory of goods taken from Broughton Castle two weeks ago. You could be hanged for that alone.”

  Eve’s heart started to thud. She wondered for how long and how often Warren Sampson had been using her shop to launder his stolen goods. His associates had brought the items to her and she, in her ignorance, had paid for them, giving money for items taken by theft. She had been so naive and now her entire life teetered on the edge of extinction. Once again Rowarth’s gaze appraised her and Eve had the strangest sensation that he was probing her soul. Would he really condemn her to death? She could not, would not believe it. Yes, he had changed—he had a harder edge than the man she had once known—but surely that would be beyond him.

  “Then have me arrested,” she challenged him. Their gazes clashed, blue eyes and dark. “Send me to the executioner if you can.”

  There was a long and painful silence and then Rowarth shook his head slowly. “I have another purpose in mind for you,” he said, and again his tone was so cold that Eve shivered to hear it. “There is a particular piece of jewelry, a necklace of sapphires, that was taken in the same burglary as the silver. If we can prove it is still in Sampson’s possession then we will have him.”

  “I fail to see how that concerns me,” Eve said.

  Rowarth looked at her. “I will tell you,” he said. “There is a party at Sampson’s house at Juniper Hill tonight. You will attend with me. You will seek Sampson out and hint that you know he is using your shop to sell his stolen goods. You will suggest that the two of you go into business formally together in order to make more profit. That should appeal to him. You will ask if he has other items he could pass on to you, jewelry perhaps…” His gaze swept over and seemed to linger on the line of her mouth. “And you will sweeten the offer…”

  “With the additional promise of myself?” Eve wrapped her arms about her to ward off the chill that was invading her very bones. “You are blackmailing me to make me prostitute myself to him just so that you can catch him?”

  She saw a flicker of expression in Rowarth’s eyes that she could not read, and then it was gone.

  “That is putting it a little harshly,” he said, “but yes, you have it precisely.”

  Eve felt sick that he could not have made it clearer that she was nothing to him now other than a means to an end. “I would rather that you sent me to jail,” she said bitterly.

  “I doubt that,” Rowarth said.

  “I will not do it,” Eve said defiantly.

  “You will.” Rowarth was implacable. “You have no choice.”

  Eve knew she did not. She was trapped. And she knew Rowarth did not trust her. This was a trial; he was testing her as well as using her, for if it appeared from Warren Sampson’s reaction to her that the two of them were already in league, Rowarth would denounce her without a thought. The bitterness turned to ashes in her mouth. Once they had been so much to one another. Now there was nothing left. She supposed that she should not feel so harsh a disillusionment, for she was the one who had betrayed him originally, after all. She had deliberately pushed him away, believing she had no choice, knowing they could have no future. Even so, his ruthlessness shocked her.

  She got up and moved toward the door. “I would like you to go now,” she said.

  Rowarth stood up, too. Suddenly he was very close to her, so close that she could hear his breathing and smell the scent of his skin and see the stubble that darkened his chin and jaw. The light grip of his hand on her elbow sensitized her entire body. Heat scorched her like a flame, making her shake. She felt stunned, trapped and a little dizzy.

  “I am sure that you understand,” Rowarth said, in a measured tone, “what Warren Sampson’s parties entail?”

  Eve’s mind reeled. She had indeed heard rumors of the scandalous parties at Juniper Hill but she had forgotten about them in the turmoil and shock of seeing Rowarth again and in the horror of his accusations. With a sick lurch of the heart she realized that this would be no respectable dinner or ball. Not only would she be making Warren Sampson an indecent proposal in order to trap him, by her attendance she would be proclaiming to the whole of Fortune’s Folly just what sort of woman she was. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked up into Rowarth’s face.

  “If you make me do this you will ruin me as surely as if you tell the world of my past history,” she said. She hated the pleading note in her voice but could not avoid it. “Rowarth…” She looked at him but his expression was as unyielding as granite. “If word gets about the town that I am the sort of woman to attend such entertainments,” she said desperately, “then you might as well brand me a courtesan in public.”

  She knew even as she spoke that her words were falling on deaf ears and she felt desolate.

  “We shall have to display a certain amount of…pleasure…in each other’s company since we shall be attending together,” Rowarth said, quite as though she had not spoken. “I trust that you will once again fulfill the role of my mistress with all the experience at your disposal.”

  Pain twisted in Eve that he could dismiss their past loving as something so tawdry. She could feel him watching her, seeing too much with those dark eyes. Her feelings felt exposed, naked. Could he tell how vulnerable she felt, still so aware of him as a man despite all that had happened to divide them?

  She took a deep breath, knowing that the die was cast and there was no escape for her.

  “I never was a very good actress but I suppose I can pretend to an affection for you for a short time,” she said.

  Rowarth laughed.

  “Pretense, is it? Why, I could swear that you are not indifferent to me, sweetheart.”

  He kissed her with no warning and no chance of refusal. Eve’s hands closed into tight fists against the smooth material of his jacket, only to open and slide over his chest as she was instantly seduced by the memory of what had once been between them. Hot, sweet, wicked and wanton… He did not plunder but teased, the subtle pressure of his lips tempting hers to open. His tongue caressed hers and her knees weakened and the pleasure curled down to her toes and spread through her whole body as though she was melting.

  His arms locked tighter than steel about her and she leaned into him, opening to his kiss, her body quivering like an instrument that recognized a familiar touch. He tasted the same and yet the experience was so different; it shook her, making her shiver, and he held her closer still even as he took her mouth with the same thorough possession that he had once taken her body. Her mind was full of memories and deep, dark desire. She could feel the need in him, held under tight restrai
nt, and suddenly she wanted to push beyond that control and make him feel with the same powerless intensity that she was feeling.

  But then Rowarth released her abruptly, stepping back. His eyes were almost black with lust, desire distilled.

  “Pretense,” he said again. “If that was counterfeit, then you are a damned fine actress after all, Eve.”

  And then he was gone, leaving her staring blankly at the panels of the door as he slammed it behind him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ROWARTH WATCHED EVE as the carriage rolled up the drive toward Warren Sampson’s mansion at Juniper Hill. It had been easy enough to procure an invitation to one of Sampson’s notorious parties. The man was an inveterate social climber and when he heard that the Duke of Welburn, no less, was interested in attending he had been expansive in his welcome. Whether or not Sampson would be equally easy to trap into revealing his crimes was a moot point, but in that Rowarth did at least have the support of two of the Home Secretary’s finest men, his old friend Miles, Lord Vickery and Nathaniel, Lord Waterhouse. Both would be attending that evening and both were part of Lord Hawkesbury’s mysterious and elite group of counterspies, the Guardians, who worked to keep the country safe.

  Rowarth could tell that Eve was nervous as the coach traveled up the long drive. She was sitting forward, her gloved hands clasped tightly together, her eyes anxiously scanning the road ahead as though she were dreading the moment they actually arrived and was hoping that fate would intervene in that short time and save her the ordeal. Rowarth felt a treacherous pang of tenderness to see her anxiety. He knew that he should not care a rush for her feelings after the way that she had deserted him but his emotions, it appeared, were not susceptible to rational argument. He had come to Yorkshire determined to fulfill his commission, certain he would feel nothing for Eve and that he could lay the ghosts of the past. Yet almost as soon as he had seen her, his feelings had started to change. It had been unconscionably difficult to force her to fulfill Hawkesbury’s demands with the callousness the situation required. Instead he had felt protective of her, which was the last thing he had either expected or wanted. When he agreed to work for Hawkesbury he had fully anticipated leading Eve into the lion’s den and watching as she was thrown to her fate. Yet now, seeing her fear and the courageous way in which she confronted danger, he had been forced to reappraise the situation. Seeing Eve again, speaking to her, witnessing her bravery and her resilience and her determination under threat had reminded him of what a fine person he had once believed her to be, before betrayal had so disillusioned him. His instinct was stubbornly telling him that Eve simply could not be complicit with Warren Sampson, that she must be a victim of the man’s criminality rather than a partner in it. Which meant that his urge was to protect her rather than use her, to defend her instead of sacrificing her. And yet he felt so angry at this impulse to shield her. Eve Nightingale deserved nothing from him. She had ruthlessly cut her ties with him years before. Now it was his turn to use her equally ruthlessly.

  The torches that lit the driveway to the house shone through the carriage windows and illuminated Eve’s translucent complexion, highlighting the scattering of freckles across her nose and dusting her cheeks with a golden glow. Her lips were painted a deep red and looked luscious and impossibly tempting. In accordance with Rowarth’s instructions, she had chosen a fashionable red evening gown that was cut almost indecently low across her breasts. It clung lovingly to her curves and rustled as she moved, emphasizing the swing of her hips. As soon as he had seen her that night Rowarth had found himself possessed by an impatient and overwhelming masculine desire to peel the gown from her body and make love to her on the carriage seat. He wanted to rediscover where else she had those freckles. He wanted to relearn the taste of her, to inhale the scent of her skin and to let himself drown in the warm, silky sweetness of her body as she closed around him tight and hot. Lust, painfully sharp and predatory, twisted within him again as he thought about it. He was in an advanced state of sexual frustration, desperate to take his former mistress with a hunger that had dissipated not one whit. Yet she had spurned him, left him flat. He despised himself for his lack of self-control.

  “Where did you go when you left London?” He spoke abruptly.

  He had not meant to ask. After he had seen her at the shop he had resolved not to rake up anything of the past, simply to do his job tonight and then go back to London and never see her again. But now old emotions were aroused and old memories stirred and there were some things that he had to know.

  He thought for a moment that Eve was not going to reply. The light from the torches skipped across her face in bars of flame and shadow.

  “I came here,” she said slowly, after a moment. “I have been here for five years. Did Lord Hawkesbury’s intelligence not provide you with that information?”

  It had. It had been something that had puzzled Rowarth, a doubt nibbling at the corner of his mind. Why choose Fortune’s Folly? And if she had run off with another lover, as she had told him in her farewell note, where was he? Who was he? Rowarth had assumed it must be Warren Sampson but now he was not so sure. None of Hawkesbury’s informants had mentioned that Eve had a new protector. Either she and her lover had been extraordinarily discreet or the man had not existed at all.

  “You told me in your parting note that you had found a new protector,” he said slowly, watching her, “but my information is that no such person ever existed.”

  He saw her stiffen, a quick, instinctive gesture she could not hide, before she turned her face away and feigned indifference. But it was too late and he was too quick, too perceptive.

  “Eve?” he said. “Did you run off with a lover?”

  She was stubbornly silent but he already knew the answer. Even after five years apart he knew her so well he did not need words.

  “You did not,” he said. Urgency beat within him. “There was no new lover, was there, Eve?”

  He saw her lips set in a tight line as she capitulated. “No, there was not.” Her words fell starkly into the darkness of the carriage. The torchlight flickered over her face and for a split second he saw utter honesty reflected in her eyes.

  No new lover. Rowarth’s mind reeled. She had not left him for another man. She had not been another man’s mistress. Stupefaction, relief, pleasure flooded him at her words. He grabbed her hands, his heart lifting with absurd hope.

  “Then why…” He had to clear his throat. “Why did you tell me that you had run away with someone else?”

  Again it seemed forever before she answered as the carriage drew closer and closer to the door of Juniper Hill.

  “I lied because I wanted to be sure that you would never seek me out.” She spoke the words so quietly that he had to lean closer to hear them and when he did they were like a blow to the heart. “I did not wish to be your mistress anymore, Rowarth. I had to leave you.”

  I had to leave you…

  Rowarth’s hopes crashed before they were barely born. He dropped her hands as he felt a dull pain spread though his chest. Eve had not wanted to be with him. She had felt so strongly that she wanted to make sure that they never saw one another again. The affinity they had apparently shared, physical and emotional, had been nothing to her. She had quenched the restlessness in his soul, she had anchored him and fulfilled the empty need within him and yet she had felt nothing. She had wanted to be free.

  “I see.” He spoke slowly as he absorbed the blow. “I had no idea that you were so unhappy as my mistress. You should have told me. I would have paid you off. There was no need to run away.”

  Eve did not reply. She turned away and the light and shadows skipped across her face, hiding all expression.

  Rowarth knew that he should be humiliated. He should not want to pursue this further. And yet… And yet once again his instinct prompted him that there was something here that did not make sense, something he strove to understand.

  “I tried to find you,” he said.

  He
had never intended to admit it. She had made him a laughingstock in the ton, the rich, handsome duke who could not hold on to his mistress and was in danger of making as much of a fool of himself over a woman as his father had done before him. He had looked everywhere for her in such a fever that he could not tell anger, fear and desperation apart; he had inquired everywhere but found no trace of her so that in the end he had been forced to accept that she did not want to be found, that maybe she had gone abroad, that he would never see her again.

  “I am sorry.” Again her words dropped softly into the silence. She sounded indifferent, as though she were apologizing for stepping on his foot. Her apparent coldness, her pity, when his feelings for her were still so strong, was intolerable. His anger broke through five years of restraint. He grabbed her upper arms. The cerise wrap slipped from her shoulders to puddle on the carriage floor.

  “Did it really mean so little to you, Eve?” he said fiercely. “After all we had shared could you really walk away from me so easily?”

  The fury inside him was volcanic in its power. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to kiss her, to ravish her, to make her his once more and claim her with all the passion and anger within him. He pulled her close and she closed her eyes, her lashes spiky sharp against the pale curve of her cheek, as though she were warding off the fury in him, trying to defend herself. Her expression was stark in its misery and Rowarth felt in that instant, with a sudden, terrifying conviction that whatever she claimed, she had not left him by choice. Something terrible had happened to her, something she had felt unable to tell him, something that still pierced her soul. All the evidence supported it. Her false claim that she had left him for another man, the fact that she had left behind all her money and jewelry when she could have taken it and lived in luxury, the fact that she had hidden herself away in this little backwater… Whatever she had told him she had not run because she had been unhappy as his mistress. There had to be something else…