A Whisper of Treason

by Connolly, Lynne

  He consoled himself with the thought that as long as they remained in the public areas, the danger was not great.

  With the sun fast sinking below the horizon, his real work of the day was about to begin. Surely someone here was spying for the conspirators. They would not allow this occasion to pass. In that case, he would let them know what he’d done. And what he would do if any of them dared lay a hand on his wife.

  He’d started by adorning her with his diamonds. The buttons had been fashioned from a family treasure, a necklace given to an ancestor by King Charles. They’d been recut and reset, but people would recognize them for what they were. He would have the set made into a parure for her when they returned home. Or an echelle for her stomacher, a diamond overlay that would become her mightily.

  At home, she could take her pick of the family jewels. His mother would be delighted by his news, so she would open the coffers for her daughter-in-law. A woman of warmth, who had long urged her son to find a wife that would suit him, not just for the dukedom. He had no worries there.

  Effectively, he’d marked Delphi as his. As well as that, he’d carefully selected the footmen who would accompany them. One had instructions not to let Delphi out of his sight, although he had not informed her of the fact.

  He enjoyed the excited ripple that passed through the company, like a breeze on a pond, when he entered the room with his wife.

  The Duke and Duchess of Beauchamp stood by the entrance to the large room, greeting the guests. Her grace looked particularly fine in a gown of green and white stripes, heavily embroidered. Her fair hair was powdered, the glint of the pale-blonde hair she was famous for peeping through. Her apparent delicacy and gentility hid a strength of character she could have put to good use instead of pursuing dukes with the avidity of a lion after a deer.

  His friend, Grant, the Duke of Blackridge knew her rather better than he did, and claimed that underneath the superior attitude lay a good woman. Adam remained to be convinced.

  But he gave her his best flourishing bow, because she would like it, and he presented his wife with rather more formality than usual. Delphi sank into a beautiful curtsey. He was proud of her. She rose without a wobble, and placed her hand on his arm.

  “Quelle surprise!” the duke said. “Why did we not hear of this before?” He leered at the exposed upper swells of Delphi’s breasts. Adam wanted to strike the man blind.

  “I have no idea,” Adam said coolly before Delphi could respond. “Our understanding is long-standing, so we decided not to wait any longer.” He gave the duchess a bland smile. “You must surely have known. Were you not in London during the Dersinghams’ first season?”

  The duchess said nothing at first. If she tightened her jaw any more, she’d shatter it like glass.

  She cracked her mouth open. “I thought your courtship had ended.”

  “And so it did. With marriage,” Adam countered. “I was called abroad on urgent business, but Delphi knew it all. When she could, she came to join me. And here we are.”

  “I see.”

  “The best things in life are worth waiting for, are they not?” Adam said.

  “They are,” the duke said. His gaze shifted to his wife. “I, too, am blessed.”

  The duchess flushed, delicate pink infusing her cheekbones. Adam had never seen that in her before, but then, the Duchess of Beauchamp had never been married before. Perhaps her husband was unusually demanding in the bedroom, though his stooped, skinny form didn’t speak to that.

  The duchess recovered almost immediately. As that color ebbed away, she gave them a tight little smile. “All are welcome here tonight. Of course, you are to be congratulated.”

  A distant way of putting it, as if she cared. Unusual, because Adam was sure she had never felt particularly fond of him. Not as she was of Blackridge. She had made a play for him, but his title had drawn her more than his person.

  Her smile tightened her lips, but did not reach her eyes.

  After another bow, and murmured thanks for the invitation, they moved on. “Actually, we didn’t receive one,” he said as they walked down the long room. It was a magnificent reception room, the parquet floor gleaming with lavender polish. Paintings hung on the walls in the panels created by gilded moldings. They depicted various views of Rome, rather fanciful, since in one Trajan’s Column was cheek by jowl with the Pantheon, as if the intervening streets didn’t exist. If this was a family house, the walls would no doubt have monumental portraits of ancestors.

  “Elizabeth seems unusually—human,” Delphi commented. “She usually appears like a figure carved in ice, far too lofty to have emotions.”

  “Perhaps marriage suits her.” Adam spied Trensom standing in the corner of the room, Matilda by his side. He steered a path to them. “Or perhaps it does not.”

  Gazes followed them, tracking their progress. Not a few glances went to Delphi’s new gold ring, and then recognition of the buttons followed. Gossip swelled over the gentle music played by a quartet stationed on the other side of the room. No doubt it would grow when the dancing began, but they would have to wait for their hosts to lead them out. Until then, chatter and gossip reigned.

  Trensom and Matilda greeted them warmly. “I recall my first public appearance after our marriage,” Matilda said. “You still have that to come. Presentation at court, although you’ve already experienced something like it.”

  “I’ll have to wear an ugly mantua and learn to walk backwards in it,” Delphi said with a grimace. “I had to do that already, when I was first presented. Do I really have to do it again?”

  “Not in such excruciating circumstances,” Adam said. He recalled the overheated, stuffy Court of St. James with a shudder. Even the king chose to live in a different palace, and Adam didn’t blame him. “We’ll go to Hampton Court and see if that will do. The mantua can remain in mothballs.”

  He won a smile from her for that. He would make it happen. By the time they returned to Britain, their marriage should be old news. He had plans for that journey, but it depended on wrapping up the conspiracy.

  The head of the conspiracy could be here tonight. Adam scanned the company, people strolling, gossiping, until the sound echoed off the walls and threatened to deafen him. Any of them could be a conspirator.

  He hadn’t heard from Frederick for several days, and he was getting worried. He would go to that shop in the piazza tomorrow, and ensure no messages had arrived. Even a message he couldn’t read, if it was in Frederick’s hand, reassured him.

  “Your grace.”

  Lord Joshua Stuart bowed low. Adam returned the salutation. “I understand congratulations are in order.” He bowed over Delphi’s hand, keeping it a fraction longer than normal. He gave her a melancholy smile. “Indeed, how could I compete with the magnificence a duke can offer you? It is not the first time a ducal hand has snatched that which I most wish for.”

  Delphi drew a deep breath, her bosom lifting. Adam forced his carnal thoughts back. Now that he’d tasted her sweetness, he couldn’t wait to do it again. But now was not the time to linger on those thoughts. Especially in front of this man.

  “We are still friends,” Delphi said. “And will always be so, I trust.”

  “If we are not, it will not be of my making.”

  Adam frowned while he interpreted the convoluted statement. “Or mine,” he added. After all, he’d won the prize. He liked Lord Joshua, despite having him as a rival for Delphi’s hand. The man did not put himself forward, did not seem to lust over the title he was currently heir to, and was accepted anywhere he cared to go.

  And Adam had bested him in a fair fight.

  Accompanying him was Signor Raffetti, who had left his station close to the Beauchamps. He greeted the company before telling Delphi that if she had waited a month, a mere month, she could have had him instead of a stuffy duke. “We could have lived the best life!” he continued. “No obligations, just do as we please.”

  “If you had changed places with
Adam,” she responded, tapping his arm with her fan in mock reproof, “I might have considered your proposal. But I married the man, not the duke. The title comes with him and he cannot be separated from it.”

  Raffetti raised a dark brow. “So if I were the Duke of Kilsyth, you would refuse me in favor of Mr. Adam Glinn?”

  “Indeed, I would.”

  So he knew Adam’s family name, did he? Since Adam used his title as his surname, why would Raffetti have occasion to know it? Perhaps he’d heard it somewhere, but the slip made Adam study him more closely. Raffetti was one of those men who turned up everywhere. He had the entrée to every house, his manners and his amusing presence enough to allow it. But who was he, really?

  Adam would find out. The man was perhaps in his late thirties, certainly no older than Trensom, who was in his mid to late forties. His dark, handsome looks drew many admiring looks, and his jovial company ensured he was welcome with the men, too. He had some vague position in the Vatican, but Adam couldn’t recall what. Perhaps Delphi would remember.

  A muttered “Blast!” from Matilda had Adam pricking up his senses. He could have sworn the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood up before he heard the Duchess of Beauchamp’s mellifluous tones. “Your grace.”

  That covered a lot of people here, but when he turned, her clear gaze fixed on him. “We should make you the guests of honor. Indeed, when we heard your glad news, we considered it.”

  Adam didn’t turn his head to see how Delphi took that. He knew. She would be as suspicious as he. “You’re very kind. However, you should take the attention. You have what you have long wished for, or so you have told us. You have your duke, and your position in society is secure. We wish you very happy.”

  “We are even happier today.” The duke came over to join his wife. His lined face creased into a smile.

  Adam wished he would not. The expression definitely didn’t come naturally to him. Beauchamp’s mouth lived in a permanently dissatisfied downward curve, and his face had settled to match. Smiling forced everything into a new and unaccustomed aspect and he looked like a wooden puppet that had been left in the rain. Deeply disturbing. Adam had not realized he wore a subtle layer of face paint until now, when he saw the parts not covered by it. At least he didn’t enamel.

  Added to that, his wife lost her pleasant smile. She did not share his happiness, apparently.

  Delphi remained silent. So did most of the guests standing close by. “Is today different than yesterday for you?” Adam inquired mildly.

  “In our case, most certainly.” The smile turned to a full-bore beam. Adam tried not to shudder. “My wife has given me the best gift a newly married man can have. She is in the family way.”

  “Oh!”

  The duchess’ faint exclamation echoed off the walls. Nobody else spoke, the pause significant until someone remembered his manners and murmured, “Congratulations.”

  “Of course, it is early days yet,” Beauchamp said. “My wife asked me not to spread the news, but I cannot remain silent. After all these years…”

  He shot a glance at Lord Joshua, his eyes gleaming with triumph. “I would welcome a child of any sex, however healthy. But what we have done once, we can do again, and we will have a son. I intend to father a quiverful of children on her grace.”

  “Oh,” his duchess said again. She seemed unable to say anything else. Always fashionably pale, her complexion took on the appearance of a corpse. “Yes, indeed.”

  Those last words had cost her something. Adam exchanged a glance with Delphi and, instinctively, they moved closer together. Delphi bowed her head, smiling, but he knew her well enough to know she had merely pasted it on. “Congratulations. Your heir will soon be supplanted.”

  “I have long expected to be so,” Lord Joshua said. He, too, was sheet-white. “If I, by some miracle, acceded to the dukedom, I would have to change my pleasant existence for one of duty.” He bowed, and when he straightened, he had regained his habitual smile. “I congratulate you. You must be very happy.” He spared a glance at the duchess, but the fraught look lasted the shortest possible time. She turned her head away as if struck.

  For a brief moment, everyone here had seen the Duchess of Beauchamp with her mask knocked away. Pain etched itself on her face, but only for a brief moment. Then her expression smoothed over again. She appeared as always; the faint, supercilious smile, the lifted chin, only this time she seemed more defiant than superior. Fighting the world.

  Adam could hardly bear to consider such an exquisite creature submitting to the wizened, spiteful Duke of Beauchamp. He might not have wanted Lady Elizabeth Askew for himself, but he could not deny her natural beauty.

  He turned his head to smile at Delphi, to reassure himself that he would never find himself in such a situation. His wife was more than lovely. She was his perfect partner.

  Society considered dynastic marriages normal. But when they included such monstrosities as a lovely and intelligent woman feeling obliged to marry a man nearly three times her age, a man with a less than savory reputation, then dynastic marriages could burn in hell.

  The murmur of polite conversation started up again, but nobody here this evening would forget that fraught moment when everyone in the room fell silent.

  “Come, my dear, there’s someone I want you to meet.” He turned to move away before his friends could flee first, but the footmen were clearing the floor, ready for the dancing.

  Delphi leaned close. “At least they took the attention away from us,” she murmured, very low.

  “Quite decisively,” he said.

  The musicians struck up, and the Duke and Duchess of Beauchamp took their places on the floor. Then the duke turned to where Adam stood, and beckoned to him. “You should join us,” he said. Everybody stared at Adam and Delphi. Those who hadn’t yet heard would do so now.

  There was no refusing him. Adam held out his hand, palm down, and Delphi, after a doubtful look at him, placed her hand over it. He led her onto the floor. “You can dance the minuet?” he said.

  She nodded, but her face had lost some of its color. It was an honor to perform the first minuet and, more often than not, the hosts would perform it on their own, at least the first movement. For some reason, Beauchamp had decided to share the honor. Adam kept his expression pleasant, a slight smile indicating the pleasure he should feel, but didn’t.

  The musicians played the introduction, and they began.

  Adam had danced country dances with Delphi, but not the graceful intimacy of the minuet. Palm to palm, they started, and Adam didn’t take his attention from his wife. He let the world see why he had married her.

  He wondered if Delphi understood. But with her bottom lip slightly sucked in, as if she were trying not to take it between her teeth, he guessed she was too busy concentrating on the moves of the dance.

  Well damn that. All that mattered this evening, tonight, was her, and showing her what he felt for her. What had started as a way of telling everyone at once of the change in his circumstances had become much more personal the moment he’d seen her waiting for him in the drawing room.

  He showed her off. Every time he bowed in the dance, he made it the most exquisite bow possible, never taking his gaze from her. When they danced palm to palm, he let himself smile, just a little. That worked well. She smiled back—just a little.

  At the end of the dance, the slight pause before the chatter resumed told him that his work was done. Everybody here tonight knew that he’d pledged himself to his new wife. There would be no doubts. And that she was under his protection. Hurt her, and he would take it personally.

  Would anyone accept his challenge?

  Chapter Twenty

  Delphi woke up, and knew exactly where she was and who had an arm loosely draped over her waist from behind. Spending their nights in the same bed and skin to skin was an unexpected delight.

  But she needed the necessary and she had not yet become so blasé that she could announce it and leave
.

  When she moved across the bed, Adam’s arm flopped on the mattress, and he rolled towards her, a little grunt testifying to the depth of his sleep. Her husband slept like a rock.

  Unlike the day before yesterday, Delphi found the word husband much easier. It came naturally to her. There, she’d only needed time to get used to it.

  The clock tinkled the hour. She counted the strokes, and listened to the church bells echoing it. Five o’clock. Much too early to be awake, but Delphi was wide awake. And thirsty, as well as affected by a call of nature.

  She slid out of bed, her feet cushioned by the soft rug. Despite that, she shivered as the morning chill hit her bare skin. Autumn was most definitely here, and she was glad of it. It had none of the dampness of autumn at home, rather, it felt refreshing.

  Speaking of which, she needed a thorough wash. Who knew that marital relations would be so messy? But it was a good kind of messy, part of the chaotic, glorious lovemaking she was only beginning to discover. The memory of last night’s enthusiastic activities brought heat to her body. She shook herself, trying to regain self-control.

  Someone, her maid presumably, had laid a robe over a chair. She picked it up and shrugged it on, trying to pretend that this kind of start to the day was perfectly normal. She refused to skulk around as if she’d done something wrong. Absently, she smoothed the plain gold band on the third finger of her left hand, a motion she suspected would become a habit before too long.

  Casting a glance back at the bed, she was tempted to go back. Adam, his hair tumbled over his face, lay in the chaos they had made of the sheets. But if she did, she would not get the work done that she’d planned for today.

  She took a step, and winced, still not used to the new muscles she was discovering. After their first, vigorous bout of lovemaking last night, Delphi wanted to do it again. He swore he would not, but after a few attempts at seduction, he’d groaned and they’d done it anyway. She’d be in bed for a week if she was not careful.