Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Never Trust a RakeDicing With the Dangerous LordA Daring Liaison

by Annie Burrows

  Chapter Six

  ‘Good idea of yours to come for an early morning ride, Linwood.’ Razeby smiled and sat easily as the two horses walked around Hyde Park. ‘Told you a bit of distraction would do you the world of good.’

  ‘More than you can know.’ Linwood’s mouth gave a cynical smile.

  ‘So how is the mysterious Miss Fox?’

  ‘Mysterious,’ said Linwood, and thought of how he had waited in the shadows of Hart Street to surprise her after the play, only to find himself the one surprised by her clandestine meeting with Rotherham’s bastard son—Robert Clandon. He wondered just what the hell Venetia Fox was up to—bedding Clandon while she played him? Or perhaps, given her significant interest in Rotherham the previous day, something rather more daring and dangerous. Either way, Linwood meant to discover more.

  Razeby laughed.

  The morning air held a slight mist, through which the sun filtered in pale white beams. The horses beneath them snorted, their breaths puffing white and smoky as

  Trevithick’s ‘Catch Me If You Can’ locomotive had been in his steam circus.

  ‘What is mysterious is how the hell you have managed to secure her interest when all others have failed. She turned down Hawick and rumour has it he offered her twenty thousand a year. And Devlin, who I know for a fact offered her ten. And I know that you have not the blunt to surpass that.’

  ‘Maybe Miss Fox is not for sale.’ He had thought the words she uttered in Fallingham’s antiquities room were the truth. But now, in light of Clandon, he was not so sure of anything about her any more.

  ‘That little spat with Hawick the other night. It was you, was it not?’

  ‘I do not know what you are talking about.’ Linwood kept his mouth shut. Just as he always did. He was not a man given to revealing secrets—his own, or anyone else’s.

  But Razeby was not fooled.

  ‘You are as secretive as her.’

  Linwood said nothing.

  ‘Well matched, I would say.’

  Linwood gave a smile. ‘Perhaps we are,’ he conceded.

  ‘I knew you liked her.’

  ‘I have never denied it.’ Even now, he did not. For he was attracted to her. He did want her. Her double dealing did not change that. Only made him more careful, more cautious. Indeed, given Clandon’s relationship to Rotherham, and Venetia’s questions on the duke, he had a positive duty to discover her more fully.

  Razeby gave a quiet laugh and shook his head.

  ‘What do you know of her?’ Linwood asked the question behind his suggestion for the morning ride.

  ‘It is serious, then?’

  ‘I think perhaps it is.’ In a way that Razeby could not appreciate.

  Razeby raised his eyebrows at his friend’s admission. ‘Well, in that case...’ He rubbed a buff-coloured gloved hand against his mount’s mane and the horse blew an appreciative wicker. ‘Her name has been linked with a number of high-profile men of the ton over the years, Hawick and Devlin being just the latest two. Never takes a man home from what I hear.’

  ‘Who are the other names on the list?’

  ‘Arlesford, Hunter, Monteith, and even York himself.’

  ‘Robert Clandon?’

  ‘No.’ Razeby frowned his perplexity. ‘Unless you have heard something that I have not.’

  Linwood shook his head. ‘I must have been mistaken.’

  ‘I would not have had Clandon down as her type.’

  ‘What is her type?’

  ‘You, seemingly.’ Razeby smiled.

  Linwood ignored the remark. He was too aware that Venetia Fox’s interest in him might not be all that it seemed. ‘Which of the men on your list was she mistress to?’

  ‘Ah,’ Razeby said. ‘That is not clear. She plays her cards very close to her chest does our Miss Fox, and a very nice chest it is, too.’ Razeby grinned at his own jest. ‘Also insists that the men in her life follow suit. The slightest indiscretion and she turns to ice. Come to think of it, maybe that is why she likes you.’

  Maybe, but Linwood was not entirely convinced. ‘And her background?’

  ‘Truth be told, no one knows much about Venetia Fox before she was famous, except that she came up under Kemble’s wing at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden and has stayed loyal to him and his theatre ever since. They say she comes from respectable stock—that her father was a younger son gone into the church, and that Miss Fox was the only daughter of him and his good lady wife. It certainly adds to the mystique that surrounds her—there is something titillating about a priest’s daughter who should be so very good, but turns out to be so enticingly wicked and wanton. But whether there is any truth in the story...’ Razeby gave a shrug ‘...your guess is as good as mine.’ He paused. ‘If you are so interested, I’m sure the Order of the Wolf could find out all about her for you.’

  ‘The Order has better things to do.’ This was not a matter to be taken to the secret society of which both he and Razeby were members. The society existed for bigger, more important things, to see that right was done. Its members included some of the most powerful and influential men in the country, politicians, nobility, even royalty, whom he could not risk drawing more of their interest to Rotherham’s death.

  ‘It has, but matters are quiet for now, and I am sure if you were to mention it in the right ear...’

  But Linwood shook his head. ‘I will deal with it myself.’

  ‘As you wish,’ Razeby said. ‘I would not look too hard if I were you, Linwood. She is an actress. And no actress gets to where she is without having a past that is less than lily white. But then you are planning on bedding her, not marrying her. And in that, experience in the bedchamber is no bad thing.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Linwood ambiguously.

  ‘But enough talk of Miss Fox. The mist is lifting and Monty’s growing impatient.’ Razeby’s horse gave a little twitch as if to demonstrate his master’s words. ‘A monkey that I will reach Hyde Park Corner before you.’

  Linwood gave a nod, accepting the wager, and the two of them spurred their horses to a canter through the drifting sunlit mist.

  * * *

  As arranged Linwood called for Venetia the next day at two. Although the day was fine he was travelling in his town coach rather than the landau. Although the curtains were open and the sun shone in through both windows, the atmosphere within it held an intimacy.

  He had arranged for a hot brick for her feet and a sheepskin rug should she need it. The day held an autumn chill, but with her legs so close beside Linwood’s Venetia felt nothing of the cold. She was too conscious of his presence, of the intimacy of the situation, of the role she was playing. Yet the strange tension that was between them, that had been between them from the very start, was nothing of play acting. It was as real as the shiver that swept over her skin at his mere proximity and the somersault of her stomach every time he touched her. She was playing a woman in lust, when in fact that’s precisely what she was, no matter how distasteful, or how much she did not want to admit it.

  They spoke little. No inconsequential talk. Nothing to break the ice of the tension that was between them. When they reached Gunter’s he helped her down from the carriage. Taking his arm, she walked with him towards the tea room. But as they would have entered a man was leaving. An elderly gentleman, well dressed, walking with a cane in his right hand, while his left arm hung at an unnatural stiff angle by his side. The grey of his hair was peppered with its original black. A neat trimmed silver beard did not disguise the haggard, ravaged face, the lines etched there or the suffering within those dark secretive eyes that seemed so familiar.

  Beneath her hand she felt the muscles of Linwood’s arm tense, and the stiffening of his whole stance.

  ‘Francis,’ the man breathed softly. Venetia knew without being told
who he was. The years had not been kind to the Earl of Misbourne, yet she could see in his face the man he had once been, a man that in his youth would have looked very like the one standing by her side.

  ‘Sir.’ Linwood’s voice was cold and formal with nothing of affection or the respect she had expected for his father. Indeed, his expression was harsher than ever she had seen it.

  ‘We have not seen you in a while.’

  ‘I have been busy,’ replied Linwood.

  She could sense the strain between the two men, the unwieldy awkwardness that lay between them.

  She saw Misbourne’s eyes flick over her.

  ‘May I introduce Miss Venetia Fox. Miss Fox, the Earl of Misbourne...’ the slightest of pauses before adding ‘

  ...my father.’ There was an unmistakable bitterness to that last word.

  Misbourne and Venetia made their devoirs before Misbourne turned his attention back to his son. ‘You will come for lunch on Sunday?’

  ‘I am busy that day.’

  ‘Then a brief visit whenever you can manage...for your mother’s sake. You know how she worries over you.’

  Linwood gave a stiff nod before saying, ‘If you will excuse me, sir.’

  ‘Of course.’ She saw something of pain flicker in Misbourne’s eyes.

  A small dip of the head in acknowledgement and the moment was over, Misbourne walking away, while inside Gunter’s tearoom Linwood and Venetia were shown to their table, but she saw Linwood’s eyes follow the figure that receded into the distance along the street. And she felt like she had had a glimpse into something very private, an anger and vulnerability that Linwood did not want the world to see.

  He caught her watching. The look in his eyes was poised, waiting, defensive almost. But then the waiter was there, pencil and paper in hand, ready to take their order. Venetia turned her gaze to him, and, with a smile, asked him to list the choice of cakes for the day, giving Linwood the dignity of the space to regroup himself, even though Linwood’s proximity robbed her of her hunger and the scene that had just played outside Gunter’s front door seemed to echo between them.

  ‘So,’ she said softly when the waiter left.

  She saw Linwood tense slightly.

  ‘Do you come to the theatre tonight?’

  ‘I do,’ he said, and there was a peculiar look in his eyes—was it relief or gratitude? ‘There is a certain actress I have a mind to see.’

  ‘You did not tell me you were a fan of Miss Sweetly.’

  He smiled. His hand moved to lie flat upon the table, close to hers but not touching in this so public and respectable place. Yet she could feel the pull of their fingers, the sensation as if he had stroked his over hers. She turned her palm over and saw his gaze drop to where the buttons of her glove gaped to reveal the soft white skin of her inner wrist. And when his eyes met hers again it was as if something passed between them, something shared, something that she did not quite understand.

  ‘You know my interest is not in Miss Sweetly.’ His voice was low, intimate, velvet.

  She held his gaze and kept her words as quiet as his. ‘And yet you recognise her from her days before she came to the theatre.’

  He did not pretend to misunderstand. ‘I do.’

  She had heard it from Alice’s mouth. She wanted to hear what Linwood would say. ‘Were you her client?’

  He raised an eyebrow at her bluntness, then gave her back as good as he got. ‘I have no need to frequent brothels, Miss Fox.’

  ‘That is not what I asked you.’ It was nothing to do with what she was supposed to be gleaning from him, nothing to do with Rotherham. It should not have mattered to her in the slightest. But in a perverse sort of way it did. Very much so. She found she was holding her breath for his answer.

  ‘I was not her client, or that of any other woman of the night.’

  ‘But you offered to pay her.’

  His eyes did not waver, just stayed focused on hers.

  ‘I did, indeed.’

  It felt intense and dangerous and very personal, even though they were sitting here sipping tea and eating scones with cream and jam with the most respectable of London’s ton all around.

  She leaned across the table to drop the words more quietly than the others. ‘For sexual congress?’

  He gave a half laugh, half smile at that. ‘Have I not already told you that I do not pay for sexual congress?’

  ‘Again, Lord Linwood, you have not answered my question.’

  ‘And you do ask so many, Miss Fox,’ he said in a soft voice.

  She felt a little stab of apprehension. Neither his expression nor the intonation of his voice revealed anything more of his meaning. But her doubt was soothed when he continued, ‘I am sure that Miss Sweetly has already told you the details of what I wanted from her.’

  ‘Then it may surprise you, as much as it surprised me, that she did not.’ She frowned slightly at the memory. It was hypocritical to feel hurt that Alice did not trust her with the details, given there was so much she, herself, was hiding, but she felt it all the same. ‘You wanted information, but about whom she would not divulge.’

  There was a pause. She saw his gaze drop to where her hands lay upon the table, to where she was worrying at the button on the wrist of her glove. She stopped what she was doing and, lifting her delicate cup from its saucer, took a sip of tea before meeting his gaze once more.

  ‘She really did not tell you.’

  Venetia said nothing.

  Linwood’s gaze was dark and steady. ‘It is irrelevant to what is happening between us, Miss Fox.’

  ‘Is it?’ she asked. ‘You paying for information on one of Mrs Silver’s girls?’

  ‘I am the owner of a newspaper with an interest in such stories. Have you never done anything that you regret?’

  ‘I take care not to.’

  He gave a nod of almost mocking congratulation.

  ‘Have you any other regrets, my lord?’ She arched her brow, her eyes as serious as his, daring him to tell her of Rotherham.

  ‘Something of the devil’s blood runs in my family, Miss Fox. A man cannot live a lifetime with such blood in his veins and not have regrets for the actions he has taken...even if they were for the best of reasons.’ His eyes were steady upon her, controlled, watchful in a way that made her feel like he could see right through her game.

  Both his words and the look in his eyes made her shiver. She steered the conversation to safer ground, but it did not ease the tension that had appeared between them. It made her uncharacteristically nervous so that she was relieved when the time came to leave and he took her home. The journey was conducted in silence. Even when they came to a halt outside her house and Linwood helped her down from the coach he did not say a word, making her fear that she had gone too far in her questions of Alice and the brothel and Rotherham.

  ‘Good afternoon, Lord Linwood.’ She made to

  walk away.

  He let her take a few steps before the words slipped from his lips, faint and gentle as a lover’s caress and with such a sincerity of feeling that it stroked a shiver from her scalp all the way to the tips of her toes. ‘You should know, Venetia, that I do not share. If you are mine, you are mine alone. As I am yours alone.’ He paused. ‘And if not, then we have nothing more to say to one another.’

  She froze, her heart suddenly galloping, afraid of what he meant, afraid of where this thing between them was going, then turned to face him.

  They stared at one another across that small space and all the street surrounding them seemed to fade to nothing.

  ‘Good day, Miss Fox.’ Linwood bowed, climbed back into his carriage and drove away, leaving her standing there still staring after him.

  * * *

  Three nights later Venetia arrived early at Razeby’s
small private soirée he was holding in celebration of his new arrangement with Alice. Her friend was glowing in the role of the marquis’s hostess. She stood by his side, greeting each of their guests as they arrived.

  ‘I’m so glad that you’re here, Venetia.’ Alice smiled, then lowered her voice to a volume that was intended for her ears only. ‘I’ve invited Linwood for you, even though it goes against my better judgement.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Not for the first time Venetia wished she could tell her friend the truth of what she was doing.

  She had spent the past days worrying over Linwood. Now she did not wait for the viscount to come to her, but threaded her way through the room towards him.

  ‘Miss Fox.’ Fallingham bowed when he saw her. ‘You know Linwood, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ She slid her gaze to the man who made her blood thrum and her heart thunder.

  Linwood drew her a small bow. He said nothing, but there was something in his eyes when they met hers that made his parting words after Gunter’s resonate between them. Three nights of pondering and still she could not decide if it had been a warning or a question, or both. Asking her to go beyond what had up until now been nothing more than flirtation and warning her that he would not tolerate unfaithfulness in the same breath. Both question and warning disturbed her far more than they should have. She felt like the game was moving in a direction she had not foreseen, one that was both frightening and enticing.

  ‘Miss Sweetly has done Razeby proud,’ said Fallingham, drawing her away from her thoughts on Linwood.