He smiled, and did not tell her he had already done that. ‘If I told you, it would not be a surprise.’
‘You do not need to wait in the darkness and cold of Hart Street...when there is the warmth and comfort of a dressing room within.’ She would not want him chancing upon her liaison with Clandon.
‘Then I will come to your dressing room...should I wish to surprise you.’
There was a small silence.
‘I would like you to come.’ She glanced away. ‘But I confess that I do not like surprises.’
‘Neither do I,’ he said. ‘But sometimes they are worth the discomfort.’ Ambiguous words—that could be interpreted in many ways.
‘Perhaps,’ she agreed. But her eyes held his too boldly, in that way he was coming to recognise as her defence against a threat.
The tension notched a little tighter. Two people engaged in a duel of truths and deception...and desire.
He backed off a little, easing the pressure, changing the subject. ‘So how do you find being in the audience instead of upon the stage?’
She gave a shrug. ‘In truth, I cannot enjoy it. I analyse the actors, I watch for the cues and the shifts in scenery. For me the theatre is always work, whether I am on the stage or seated in the plushest of boxes within the auditorium.’
‘Then why are you coming to the theatre tonight?’
She looked at him, and the moonlight emphasised the darkness of her brows and hair, and the pale smooth beauty of her face. ‘Do you really need me to tell you?’
‘I could hazard a guess. But given our recent...agreement, I thought I would just ask you.’
‘Very well.’ Her eyes held his. ‘I accepted your invitation to the theatre tonight so that I might spend the evening in your company.’ She paused. ‘Why did you invite me?’
‘Because I wanted to be with you, Venetia.’ He was not lying. Even were it not for Rotherham he would not have turned away from this game. He enjoyed her company, even knowing that there was so much she was hiding. In a way he did not blame her, for was not he just the same? Hiding greater secrets than she would ever guess.
She smiled.
‘We do not need to go to the theatre to be together,’ he said.
‘But you have bought the tickets. Our seats will remain empty. And I would not inflict that upon any performer.’
He tapped his walking cane on the roof of the coach, stepping down from the carriage when it came to a halt. A couple of ragged prostitutes approached him. He gave them the tickets and more money than they could earn if they lay on their backs for a week before climbing back inside.
She was watching him with a strange expression on her face. ‘You surprise me.’
‘And you do not like surprises.’
‘I like that one. It was a kind gesture.’ He remembered then what Razeby had told him of Venetia Fox’s strong feelings on prostitution.
‘Perhaps they can lose themselves in a different world tonight.’
‘More likely they will sell the tickets and spend it with the rest of the money on gin.’ She sounded saddened, yet resigned to the fact.
‘At least they have the choice. Either way, the seats shall not go empty.’
She was silent and it seemed that she was studying his face through the shadows and the moonlight. ‘If not to the theatre, where shall we go?’
‘Anywhere that you desire. The choice is yours to make. Where in all the world would you most like to be right now, on this clear starlit night?’
She smiled, knowing that he could not realise just how his description of the night touched her. Memories of the past, both happy and sad, whispered from the corners of her mind. She wondered if she dare reveal so much, by telling him. But one had to be daring when one diced with the devil. ‘You will be disappointed.’
‘With you, Venetia, that is not possible.’
‘Very well.’ She paused. ‘I should like to be in the glasshouse in my garden.’
If he were surprised, he did not show it. ‘Then to your glasshouse we shall go.’
She hesitated, looking across into his face, wondering at the man he was. ‘We could walk to escape the traffic jam.’
He reached through the darkness and took her hand in his. ‘Then, Miss Fox, please allow me the honour of accompanying you to your glasshouse...on foot.’
‘I would like that very much, Lord Linwood.’
They smiled at one another, a warm genuine smile that seemed to bind them together, before he slipped outside and spoke to his coachman.
Linwood did not put the step in place, but lifted her down onto the ground, sliding her close so that she could feel his body against hers, all hard, strong muscle, making her feel that she had never been more conscious of him as a man. She breathed in the scent of him and felt her blood stir in response. It was with reluctance that she stepped away to accept the arm that he offered, resting her fingers lightly in the crook of his elbow as if they were a respectable couple. Together they walked off down the street gridlocked with carriages, away from the theatre and the hubbub of busyness.
They spoke little as they walked, and yet that same feeling was there between them, that same parry and thrust of attraction in this strange duel she was dancing with him. The excitement, and the thrill of walking the knife edge of revelation. Telling truths that she had not revealed to anyone else. Tempting the same from him. Together in a game of intimacy and passion, of trust and deceit. Her reveal. His reveal. Turn and turn about. But his arm was solid and real and warm beneath her gloved fingers, and she held on to him a little more tightly against the chill of the night.
* * *
It did not take long to reach her house. Albert’s face registered surprise to see her, and even more so to see Linwood step out of the shadows behind her.
‘Please come in, Lord Linwood.’ She was very conscious of the door closing behind them and of the fact that this was the first time she had invited a man, any man, into her home.
Albert moved to take her cloak, but she shook her head. ‘Thank you, Albert, but no. Lord Linwood and I will be in the glasshouse.’ The butler’s eyes slid to Linwood before coming back to her.
‘Very good, ma’am,’ was all he said, but she knew what he was thinking, knew what all her staff would think. Not that she could let their opinion or anyone else’s stop her. Her heart was tripping a little too fast and she could feel the warmth of a blush touching to her cheeks.
Linwood followed her downstairs and into the kitchen at the back of the house. Neither of them spoke as Albert lit her a lantern and passed it to her.
‘Will you be requiring anything else, ma’am?’
‘No, thank you, that will be all.’ She lifted the heavy key from the peg on the wall beside the door, feeling the comfort and familiarity of the metal within her hand.
He opened the back door for her and she walked through it just as she had done a thousand times before. Except this time it was different.
The moonlight was so bright that there was no need for the lantern. She held it out before her regardless, tracing her steps along a path she knew so well she could have walked it blindfold. It was a narrow path, bordered by bushes and flower beds in which the blooms had faded and died with the summer. Behind her the tread of Linwood’s shoes made no noise, but she was acutely aware of his presence. She could feel him there, even though there was no contact between them. Sense him as if all of her senses were sharper, more sensitive than usual.
In the centre of the garden, largely hidden from view from her house and those surrounding, the glasshouse stood, dark and silent and inviting. The key turned easily within the lock, and as the door swung open the moonlight rippled and shimmered upon the glass of its panes.
She hesitated, that moment seeming to stretch. The wind whispered through the branche
s of the trees and the few leaves that still lingered on their witch-finger branches. And across her mind crept a tiny doubt, that she was making a mistake in bringing the enemy within her castle walls, and to this secret place above all others.
Linwood, the wind seemed to whisper. Linwood, calling his name.
She turned to him, looking up into the face of the handsome man standing so silently behind her. She knew the risk she was taking in bringing him here, the even bigger risk of their being alone. Dicing with the devil, indeed. Taking his hand in her own, she led him across the threshold into the glasshouse.
Chapter Eight
Venetia set the lantern down on an old oak work bench. Contrary to Linwood’s expectation there were no flower pots, no trowels or gardening implements. Only the work bench, a heating stove and a broad day bed, in dark leather, that would not have looked out of place in an upmarket drawing room.
‘No gardening,’ he said.
‘No gardening at all,’ she confirmed with a secret smile. ‘I come here most nights that I am not working, although I have been rather remiss of late...due to other distractions.’
He smiled at that. ‘I have been a little distracted recently myself.’
‘Only a little?’ she asked.
He smiled again. ‘I concede it is very much more than a little.’
She leaned back against the potting bench, watching him. ‘I have never brought anyone here before. Not even Alice.’
The lantern was behind her so that her face was in shadow. The smell of night was in the air all around them—damp and cold and fresh.
‘Then I am honoured, Venetia.’
The silence stretched between them but it felt natural and comfortable.
‘This glasshouse is the reason that I took the house.’ She surveyed the place with obvious tenderness. ‘I think I fell in love with it from the very first moment I saw it.’ She smiled, an inward smile, almost as if she had forgotten he was there. But then she returned her gaze to him. ‘Have you worked it out yet? What I come here to do?’
‘Escape?’ he offered.
She smiled, more fully this time. ‘I suppose there is something of that in it. But there is more. Take another guess.’
‘Learn your lines.’
‘You are not trying, my lord.’
He stepped closer. ‘You truly wish me to guess your secrets?’
The tension and hints of darkness suddenly whispered between them.
She did not answer his question, only told him another truth. ‘Many men have tried. None have succeeded.’
He smiled at the challenge. ‘You have told me that you come here only at night and that it is always alone. There are no books or scripts, no candles or lanterns save the one you have brought to light our path. Therefore, you do not read or learn your lines here. And when I look around the key piece of furniture is a day bed on which you might lie in comfort.’
‘Indeed.’
‘You come here to...’
‘To...?’
Their eyes met and held.
‘To stargaze.’
She gasped her astonishment and then laughed. ‘You are quite correct!’
‘You are a secret astronomer, Miss Fox.’
‘Hardly. I am ill educated, but I like to look at the stars, at their wonder and beauty and brightness.’ She glanced up to the roof as she spoke and he found his gaze following, but all he saw was the reflection of the lantern and their own faces.
He leaned across and closed the lantern shutters, blinding its light, and rendering them in a darkness that was almost complete.
She did not move and neither did he. Just stood motionless and close while their eyes adjusted to the blackness that enveloped them together. And when they looked up again, the glass was not there, only the black velvet of the night sky and the brilliance of the diamond jewels studded within it.
He heard the sudden release of her breath, but whether it was in awe of the stars or that she had been holding it, he did not know.
‘Is it not a wonder?’ she asked with an innocence that was contrary to all of her usual polished sophistication.
‘Indeed it is,’ he said, and he was telling the truth, although it was not the stars to which he was referring. It was a wonder to see her like this. See the real woman beneath the mask she presented to the world. ‘Look over there in the southern part of the sky—that is Pegasus.’
She tilted her head and he felt the brush of her hair against his with the movement and smelled her perfume. ‘I cannot see it.’
‘See the square shape of the four stars at the bottom?’ He pointed.
‘Oh, yes...’ He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘I have looked at those stars all these years and never knew what they were before.’
They stood silent and watching. And then she dropped her gaze to his, as if she were weighing him up, and massaging a hand lightly against the nape of her neck as she did so. ‘There is a more comfortable way to do this.’
He did not need to look at the day bed to know what she meant.
‘To stargaze only,’ she said, her voice the cool impenetrable Miss Fox once more. And then more gently, more honestly, ‘You do understand what I am saying, Linwood, do you not?’
‘Perfectly,’ he replied, sensing the tension and debate within her.
He waited until she was settled upon the day bed before he lay down by her side, taking care not to touch her.
They lay in silence for a while, both looking only at the sky overhead and its myriad of stars.
‘Now I see Pegasus more clearly,’ she said.
‘It is the autumn signpost in the sky.’
‘Named from the mythological winged horse?’
‘The very same—if you have a very good imagination and look at it upside down then you may just see the front of the horse.’
She tilted her head towards him as she stared up into the sky.
‘The star right up there, the small bright one, is the North Star, by which travellers may guide their journeys,’ he said.
‘Ah, so that is the North Star. I thought it was supposed to be the brightest star in the sky.’
‘It is a common misconception. There are many bigger and brighter stars, although not all that we see up there are stars, some are planets.’
‘How interesting. Tell me more.’
‘That little circle of stars beneath the Square of Pegasus is part of Pisces—the two fish. The Circlet of stars represents one of their heads.’
‘Which stars make up Virgo, the Virgin?’
‘Virgo is not visible at this time of year. You will have to wait until spring to see its constellation. But that other group next to Pegasus and Pisces, see there...’ he pointed to the stars ‘...is Aquarius, the water bearer.’ She briefly touched a hand to his, following his gaze.
‘Those five little stars clustered together are known as the Water Jar.’
‘I see.’
He glanced across at her, watching her rapture. ‘I enjoy the night sky, too, Venetia.’
‘So it seems.’ She rolled onto her side to look at him. ‘When I was a little girl I used to look up at the stars through my tiny attic window. I always said that when I grew up I would have a house with a roof made of glass that I could lie in bed and view them all the better.’
‘And you did.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly, and she smiled at him in a way that revealed this was something more important to her than just stargazing. In telling him this, in bringing him here, she was sharing something very private to her, something that seemed to go beyond the game they were playing. She watched him across the small distance of the daybed’s pillow for a few seconds in silence before asking, ‘How did you learn all of this?’
�
��At Eton. At Oxford. From my father’s books.’
‘You are a scholar.’
‘No.’
She paused, studying him for a moment in silence before reaching a hand to his face and tracing her fingers against his cheek. ‘You look like your father.’
He clenched his teeth to stopper the bitter reply.
‘I could not help but notice that matters did not sit comfortably between the two of you the day we met him outside Gunter’s. I thought it was because you were with me.’
‘Why should that make a difference?’
She gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders and he saw the way the dark cloth of her cloak shifted to reveal the smooth white skin that lay beneath. ‘Your father is an earl. You are his son. I am an actress.’
‘I am not ashamed of you, Venetia. And who I choose to spend my time with is no business of my father’s.’
‘You sound angry with him.’
‘Sometimes it turns out our fathers are not the great men we grow up believing them to be. We are a disappointment to them, and they to us. Or perhaps yours was different and I speak only with the bitterness of my own experience.’
She glanced away, a sudden uneasiness in her eyes. ‘Matters between me and my father sat as uncomfortably as yours seem to do. He was very far from being a great man, although he thought that he was.’
‘Was?’
‘He is dead.’
‘I am sorry.’
Her eyes studied his and there was the strangest expression in them.
‘And your mother?’ he asked.
‘She died when I was ten years old.’
‘I am saddened by your loss at such a tender age.’
‘It was a long time ago. And I learned very quickly how to stand on my own two feet.’
‘A gentleman country vicar and his lady wife who married beneath her.’
‘You have been making more enquiries about me,’ she teased, lightening the mood.
‘I have.’ He made no pretence at denial. ‘Is it true?’
She laughed and it had a bitter ring to it. ‘Hardly. Fantasy is so much more enticing than the truth, do you not think?’
Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Never Trust a RakeDicing With the Dangerous LordA Daring Liaison Page 33