Dicing With the Dangerous Lord

by Margaret McPhee

  Venetia took a deep breath and accepted a glass of champagne from a passing footman, even though inside she was still shaking and her mind was reeling from the shock. All she could think of was how close she had just come to ruin, and that the man who had saved her was the one man she had thought would not. To shoot a man, unarmed and with his leg not yet fully recovered from a hunting accident, as he sat at his own desk—it took a certain type of villain to do that. Across the ballroom chatting to Razeby she saw Linwood. His dark gaze met hers across the floor and held. It lasted for only the briefest of moments, then the dance progressed and the bodies of the dancers hid him from her. And by the time the dance progressed again he was gone.

  Her heart was beating fit to burst, her blood rushing too fast. She lowered her gaze, composing herself, conscious that Miss Fox must maintain her cool, collected air. So she held her head high and nodded as if she were listening to Alice’s chatter. The music played on, sweet and loud and vibrant, but all that Venetia could hear was the echo of Linwood’s voice playing again in her mind. I am not going anywhere.

  He had saved her. Again. The uneasiness stirred all the more in her breast and she wondered if what she had learned of Linwood so far would disquiet her brother as much as it did her.

  Chapter Five

  There was a note from Linwood the next morning.

  If it is not presumptive of me, may I request the pleasure of your company this afternoon for a drive in Hyde Park?

  Your servant,

  L.

  His letters were angular, sharp, boldly formed by a pen nib pressed firm against the paper, the ink a deep opaque black, expensive as the embossed paper upon which the words were written. As she read the words it seemed that she could hear the rich smooth voice speaking them, the slight irony of his reference to ‘presumption’ following her taunt the night he had saved her from the ruffians, and see the dark handsome face, all cheekbones and harsh angles, with its lips that could drive every last vestige of sense from a woman’s head.

  She screwed the cut sheet of paper into a ball, her fingers curling tight, crushing it within, tempted to throw it onto the coals of the fire and watch it burn away to nothing. She did not want to go driving with him, not when, against all rhyme and reason, he made her feel the way he did. Aroused. Attracted. Out of control. She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing that she could not refuse him. This was part of what she had agreed to do, the game she had willingly entered into. With a sigh, she carefully eased the paper open, smoothing out every crease she had inflicted upon it. She stood by the window and stared at the paper for a long time in the cold autumn light, thinking of the man who had written the words and of the man he had murdered in cold blood. Then, taking a deep breath, she sat down at the small desk within her little parlour. She slipped Linwood’s letter into the drawer, then set a clean sheet of paper before her. Taking up her pen, she dipped it into the inkwell and began to write.

  * * *

  When Albert told her Linwood was waiting in her drawing room she felt a sense of dread and beneath it, for all she would deny it, a stab of satisfaction that he had come. Part of her wanted to have Albert send him away, and part, for all she was loath to admit it, was eager to see him. She felt unusually unsettled and told herself that she could not send him away, that she had a job to do here, that that was the only reason she must see him. She sat in front of her dressing table, staring into the oval peering glass and seeing nothing. Deliberately slowing her actions, she took her time inserting the wire of the pearl-drop earrings through the lobes of her ears, before smoothing butterfly fingers over the soft white-rabbit fur of her hat and checking the pins that held it in place.

  Her dress and matching pelisse were of icy blue silk, the same colour as the sea on a sunny winter morning, clear and pale as her eyes. She was stalling, making him wait, calming herself as she did just before any performance, except that she had never felt this nervous before any other role. Taking a deep breath, she moved to resume the game.

  * * *

  ‘Lord Linwood.’

  He was standing by the fireplace, dressed in a midnight-blue fitted tailcoat, buff-coloured breeches and glossy black riding boots, as if he had known the colour of her outfit and dressed to complement it. Every time she saw him she felt that same small shock at the effect his dark handsome looks had upon her. Her eyes moved over him, noting that his hat, wolf’s-head walking cane and gloves, were still in his left hand, even though Albert must have offered to relieve him of them. The dark eyes met hers and she, the famously cool, calm and collected Miss Fox, felt herself blush. And that small betrayal made her angry and determined—which was exactly what she needed to be when she was with him.

  She saw his gaze rove over her.

  ‘You are beautiful.’

  ‘You flatter me.’

  ‘You know I do not.’

  They looked at one another and all of her body seemed to shimmer with the memory of the kiss they had shared.

  ‘Hyde Park,’ she said.

  ‘Unless you have another preference.’ And there was that same darkness in his eyes that had been there before he had kissed her. The air seemed too thin for her lungs, making it hard to breath and the atmosphere was thick and writhing with sensual suggestion. Images flashed in her mind. Too real. Too potent. His lips on hers, their tongues entwining, breathing his breath, tasting him, feeling the hard muscle beneath her fingers, her palms; the flickering flame of desire that just the scent of him seemed to fan to an inferno. She stepped back from him, from temptation, from danger.

  She shook her head, the small lazy smile that curved her lips in such contrast to the race of her heart and the simmer of her blood. ‘All in good time, my lord.’

  He drew her a small nod of acknowledgement, as if what would happen between them had just been agreed. Her heart fluttered with fear, but she had already turned away and was walking out of the room, out of her house, towards Linwood’s carriage.

  * * *

  He sat with his back to the horses, giving the direction of travel to Miss Fox.

  His gaze studied her as he leaned back against the squabs. She was a woman he could have looked at for a lifetime and never grown tired. She appeared as relaxed, as cool and in control as ever she had been. But when he looked into those clear pale eyes, it was as if she had drawn a curtain behind them to hide herself from him.

  ‘A new landau.’ She stroked over the leather of the seats and bolster, the soft pale-cream kid of her gloves so stark in contrast to the black leather interior of the carriage.

  ‘My father’s,’ he said.

  Her fingers touched the small neat coat of arms embroidered upon the bolster. ‘The Earl of Misbourne. Does he know that you are using it to squire actresses about London?’

  ‘One actress only,’ said Linwood and deliberately did not answer the rest of her question.

  ‘And yet you have taken an apartment in St James’s Place when your father’s house is not so very far away.’

  ‘You have been enquiring about me.’ The realisation would have been a compliment to any man’s ego and Linwood was no exception.

  ‘No more than you have been enquiring about me. You knew my direction without my telling you the other night.’

  ‘Then it seems we both are caught with an interest in the other.’

  She glanced away, as if unwilling to admit it.

  ‘And yet you are not looking for a protector,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘Nor you for a mistress,’ she replied silkily.

  She looked over at him, her eyes meeting his so directly that he felt the desire lance through him swift and sharp. Her mouth curved to a small enticing smile that did not touch her eyes, before she turned her attention to their surroundings.

  They had entered through Hyde Park Corner, taking the fashionable route along Rotten Row, although the lateness of year and the chill in the air meant the park was relatively quiet. They passed only two other carriages, one a group of elderly
dowagers, who, having scrutinised the occupants of the landau, turned away as respectability deemed they must. And the other, the Duke of Arlesford and his wife. The two men exchanged a look that held distinct animosity, but Linwood was not troubled by it.

  Overhead the sky was a clear white-blue and the sun hung so low that its pale dazzling light made him narrow his eyes. The chill in the air held the dampness of autumn and the leaves on the trees rustled in the flame-vivid colours, littering the grass around them. But the vibrant vital beauty of the surroundings paled to nothing against the woman sitting opposite him.

  ‘Your performance the other night was excellent.’

  She seemed to still and, for a moment, he saw the flicker of confusion and a slight underlying fear in her eyes. ‘My performance?’

  ‘I brought my mother, my sister and her husband to see the play.’

  She closed her eyes and smiled, and he could sense the release of tension, the relief that flowed through her in its place. He wondered at her reaction, but when she opened her eyes she was her normal self once more. ‘I saw you there, in your father’s box. How did your mother and sister find the evening?’

  ‘Most enjoyable.’

  ‘Your father did not accompany you?’

  ‘He did not.’ He did not expand upon it.

  The breeze stroked against the fur of her hat, so that it quivered soft as down. They drove the rest of the time, speaking occasionally of nothing important, small things, and silences that were comfortable. He had never known a woman who did not try to fill them. Eventually the carriage reached the north-east Cumberland Gate. Her eyes moved to sweep over the greenery of the park and above to the sky and the sunlight. She inhaled deeply.

  ‘Such a fine day,’ she murmured almost to herself, ‘too often I see only evenings and nights’, and then she turned her gaze to him and smiled such a radiant warm smile. ‘Thank you for bringing me out in it.’

  ‘You are welcome’, and he felt his own mouth curve in response to the pleasure that lit her face.

  ‘Perhaps I could tempt you to a hot chocolate at Gunter’s?’ he asked as they left the park. Anything to prolong this time in her company.

  ‘You really have been enquiring of my vices, Lord Linwood.’ She smiled again.

  And so did he.

  And then the carriage turned into Park Lane and the sight there that, for Linwood, shrivelled all the sunshine of the day to darkness.

  A costermonger’s barrow had overturned not far from the corner, spilling shiny red-and-green-striped apples across the road. Children swooped like starlings, chattering and grabbing and quarrelling with each other over the spoils. Linwood’s carriage was forced to stop directly outside the place he least wanted to be—the lone dark scar in the row of pale Portland-stone town houses.

  * * *

  Venetia stared at the charred wreckage of the burnt house, wondering if it were fate or Robert’s intervention that had brought the carriage to a halt at this very spot.

  ‘The Duke of Rotherham’s house,’ she said softly and the companionship that had been between her and Linwood only a moment early was ripped away, exposing it for the sham it was, even though it had felt real enough to fool her.

  Linwood said nothing, but she sensed the change in him without even looking. Or perhaps the change was all in herself.

  ‘Apparently it was an act of arson.’ Venetia kept her voice light as if it were not a matter of such consequence of which she spoke.

  ‘Was it?’ All of Linwood’s reserve and caution had slotted back into place.

  ‘Someone must have disliked Rotherham very much indeed.’

  ‘So it seems.’ His expression was closed, cool, almost uninterested in the subject.

  She turned her eyes to his, held his gaze with her own. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Of a fashion. My father and he ran together when they were young.’ His eyes did not so much as flicker. ‘Did you?’

  She felt caught unawares by his question. She doubted any other man would have asked it of her. ‘Only a very little,’ she answered, and it was not a lie. ‘He was a patron of the theatre.’ But Rotherham had also been a lot more than that to her.

  ‘What was your opinion of him?’

  She thought carefully. ‘He was a cold, precise man who liked things his own way, cruel in many respects, arrogant and rich, a man with too much power and yet one who did not default from his duty.’

  ‘Duty?’ Linwood gave a small ironic laugh.

  ‘He was a man of his word, to the letter,’ she said, knowing that, much as she had disliked Rotherham, she would defend him over this.

  ‘He was most certainly that,’ said Linwood with a hard edge to his tone as if he were referring to something specific that had happened between the two men in the past. ‘It seems that you knew Rotherham more than a little.’

  Her heart gave a judder at his words. The seconds seemed too long before she found a reply. ‘Hardly,’ she said in a lazy tone she hoped hid the sudden fear coursing through her. Linwood could not know, she reassured herself. Hardly anyone knew. But it reminded her of how carefully she must tread in this game they were playing.

  ‘Did you like him?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Another truthful answer. ‘I tried, but I could not.’

  His eyes studied hers, and in the silence she could hear the thud of her heart and feel the goose-pimpling of her skin. The game intensified. ‘And you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I doubt there is any who could claim otherwise.’

  She moved her face to the derelict house once more, studying the charred beams and great blackened stones.

  ‘Yet even so, to burn a man’s house to the ground...’ She kept her gaze on the ruined remnants of the once-fine building, asking the question without looking round at Linwood. ‘Why would anyone do such a thing?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I am sure they had their reasons.’

  ‘Does any man deserve such hatred, such utter abhorrence?’

  ‘Some men deserve much more,’ said Linwood and his eyes grew colder and darker as he said it.

  ‘Like murder?’ she asked softly and arched her brows.

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  She swallowed, shocked at his honesty. The air seemed to chill around them, the wind picking up in the cold grey light and rendering the silk of her walking dress and pelisse too thin against it.

  ‘He is dead,’ she said.

  ‘He is,’ said Linwood and did not sound the least remorseful over it.

  They looked at one another, the mess of apples and hubbub in the street around them forgotten.

  ‘It does not bode well to speak ill of the dead,’ she warned.

  Linwood was not perturbed. ‘I doubt that even Rotherham can return from the depths of Hades to haunt us.’

  ‘You sound sure that he is in hell.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And the hand that put him there? What of that man?’ Her heart was beating hard and fast at her own audacity, and at his. The honesty of the conversation lent it an air of intimacy, of secrets confided between lovers. She was afraid he knew her game, afraid of his answer, afraid of the desire that simmered between them.

  His eyes studied hers, the tension stretching so tight between them that she could not look away even had she wanted to.

  His face lowered ever so slightly towards hers, but whether he meant to kiss her or to whisper the answer she did not know. She leaned in to meet him, wanting it either way.

  And then his tiger was shouting that the road ahead was now clear, and the spell that had bound them alone together in the middle of a busy street was broken. There was nothing she could do to capture it back. With a lurch, the carriage started on its way again.

  She wondered what she would have done if he had confessed his guilt in that moment or if he had kissed her so publically in broad daylight, and the thought made her shiver.

  ‘You are cold.’ He was a man who missed nothing.

 
‘A little,’ she admitted. The damp chill seemed to have seeped into her very bones.

  He took the travel rug from his seat and tucked it over her knees.

  ‘Would you mind if we postponed our trip to Gunter’s until another day, my lord?’

  ‘As you wish.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘I have shocked you with my blunt talk,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘I am not a woman so easily shocked.’ Yet she was shocked by the level of the hatred for Rotherham that she had glimpsed in him, and, even more, by the way that Linwood made her feel. It took all of her acting skills not to show it, to resume once more the mantle of the cool, unruffled actress. On the seat beside him lay his cane, the silver wolf’s-head of the handle watching her, its emerald eyes clear bright green in the daylight, so piercing that it seemed they could see beneath all her disguises to the woman beneath. She turned away from the wolf’s gaze, closing her mind to such foolish imaginings.

  ‘Do you work tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And tomorrow night?’

  ‘That, too.’

  A silence.

  ‘I am free on Sunday night,’ she offered.

  ‘I am otherwise engaged on Sunday,’ he said. ‘And it is not an appointment I can change...or forgo.’

  ‘How unfortunate for you,’ she said drily.

  He smiled at that. ‘We could take tea at Gunter’s on Friday.’

  ‘We could,’ she said in a tone that neither agreed nor disagreed with the suggestion.

  His carriage came to a stop outside her house and Linwood climbed down, taking her hand to help her down the steps. She could feel the warmth of his fingers through the leather of their gloves. His hand lingered a second longer than it should have.

  She looked into those dark eyes and, standing this close in the harsh clear daylight, could see that they really were black, rather than a dark brown. No one had black eyes, save for Linwood...and the devil.