by Devilish
Or perhaps something more.
Safe, indeed.
She put her knife and fork down, pushing the plate aside, and picked up her cup. One sip told her the coffee was cold. She put it down and looked up to find him still watching her, as if he expected some kind of answer.
She took a breath and gave it—the same response she’d given last night. “And if I don’t want to be safe?”
“I am pledged to keep you so. From everything. Even despite yourself.” He rose and indicated the door. “We should be on our way, Lady Arradale, if we are to make Stamford tonight.”
Diana took another deep breath, and released it with care. That was a clear enough warning and statement of intent, and he was doubtless wise. But like the drunkard with a taste for brandy, she didn’t want to be wise just yet.
Especially as she felt that she had just started to savor the full riches of the potent spirit.
By the time they rattled over the bridge in Stamford that evening, Diana had a headache and a fierce desire to be unwise, danger or not. Never, never had she imagined that merely sitting by a man for eight hours could cause such wreckage!
It was the fact that he had returned to distant courtesy that had made it all so unendurable.
He had continued to deal with papers, though occasionally—perhaps as light relief—he had read what looked like a dense tome. Out of curiosity, Diana had tried to glimpse the title, but as she was more determined not to be caught looking at him, she had failed.
After all, she’d told herself mile after mile, he was right. If some kind of attraction had sparked between them, it promised disaster not delight. Neither of them wanted to let it develop.
Or rather, it would be highly unwise for either of them to want that.
Aware of him at every moment, she had gone through the motions of reading her books. Even witty Pope had not held her attention.
Her only true distraction had come from studying the roadside and passing riders, alert for sight of the de Couriacs or other potential assassins. By midday, however, she’d decided that fear was a phantasm. The French couple had doubtless realized that they’d made an enemy of an important man and fled.
For the midday meal she and the marquess had shared a table and conversation. She’d not expected anything like that brief spurt of untrammeled conversation at breakfast, of course, but she had hoped for a little of the same warmth.
He had himself completely under control, however. They could have been strangers.
Sometimes she thought they were.
In fact, they were strangers, she told herself as the coach rattled down a narrow Stamford street. They knew little of each other’s lives or inner thoughts. Logic fizzled, however, when desire burned, and Diana had to accept that she had fallen into an embarrassing desire for the Marquess of Rothgar.
Throughout the day she had been aware of his body taking up space beside her in the coach. Only inches away, he had even stirred her clothes occasionally when he moved. With any other man she wouldn’t have noticed, but with this man every movement sent sparkles down her skin, and each breath was like her own.
Pretending to sleep at one point, she had watched him from under lowered lids. Watched his hands. Feasted on them.
She glanced at them again now. So very beautiful. Long in palm and fingers, but strong in the elegant bones, tendons, and muscles as they moved flexibly, putting away papers and books. That one large ruby set in gold occasionally caught the sunset flame to glow with crimson fire. The delicate beauty of his lace cuffs only emphasized the power of his hands.
Midnight in lace, she remembered. But his hands were not dark or threatening. Not threatening at all. She could imagine them strong around the hilt of a sword, but also remember them clever against her ankle …
Steely power amid silken fragility.
Male and female.
His masculine strength and her silken fragility. Oh yes, she thought as the coach shuddered to a halt in the inn yard of the George, against reason, she would love to be all silken fragility beneath the attention of those very masculine hands.
In dazed moments she was in her bedchamber, which was of course perfect and completely prepared for her, including her own feather pillow. Free of his presence, she recognized that she had teetered on the edge of disaster.
And still did.
After a struggle, she found the strength to resist and sent a message to say she had a headache and would dine in her room. She might long for fragments of the marquess’s heady company and attention, but she was sensible enough, she hoped, to avoid fruitless suffering.
And if another set of French spies awaited here, plotting the marquess’s demise, he could damn well handle it himself!
After an hour’s rest and a light meal, however, Diana’s common sense and equilibrium returned. She could even laugh a little at her overwrought reactions, and wish Rosa were here to share the silliness. She even sent her footman to find out if there were any French guests at the George, especially the de Couriacs. The marquess did not need her protection, did not want her protection, but it was in her nature as much as his to provide it.
After all, she thought, he was having a truly debilitating effect on her, and had implied that he was suffering something similar. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking clearly.
Her footman returned to say that there were no French guests.
“And the marquess?” she asked the servant. “Do we know where he is?”
“In his dining room, milady. With a guest.”
Images of the de Couriacs immediately popped up. “What sort of guest?”
“A lady, milady, traveling to Nottinghamshire.”
Again? Was he mad? “Who?”
“Well, milady, the strange thing is that she goes by just one name, and an unusual one at that.” Before he said it, Diana knew. “Sappho.”
Breath caught. A planned meeting after so many days apart? Even if it was chance, clearly it provided an opportunity for the marquess to distract himself from any minor effect she, Diana, might be having on him.
Damn him. Damn them both.
What she should do was dress in her finest, go downstairs, and find someone to flirt with. Instead, a sick hollow feeling pinned her in her chair. One thing was sure. She would not barge into the dining room tonight, and she did not wish for a hole in the wall.
She didn’t want to know.
She made Clara play cards with her, and lost. So she drank a couple of glasses of the inn’s adequate port, and went early to bed.
Rothgar poured port for Sappho. “I’m sorry Lady Arradale didn’t come to dinner. You would like her.”
“You like her?” Sappho asked.
“Very much.” It was a shame Sappho was heading north. He suspected he was going to need a friend he could talk to. He hadn’t been aware until he’d seen her arrive here how tense he’d been all day.
“Why?” she asked.
Ah, the trouble with old friends. They saw too much. “Why do I like her? For the usual things. Courage, honor, spirit, intelligence.”
“For most men it would be breasts, hips, lips, and generosity.”
He smiled. “I am not most men. She has the requisite parts in pleasing form, but those are not the things that matter.”
She leaned back in her chair, sipping her wine, the candlelight playing on her unusual, beautiful face. Her skin had the soft duskiness of well-creamed coffee. Her cheekbones were high and her eyes the large, dark almonds of Byzantine art. She had all the other usual parts and in magnificent form, but it wasn’t what had made a relationship which had lasted over ten years.
It might be useful to let her probe. She knew him as well as anyone, and as a surgeon of the soul she had some skill.
“It is an attraction of the spirit?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
She studied him. “Does your resolve crumble at last, Bey?”
“Not at all.”
“Pity.”
&nb
sp; They had spoken of it before, of course, and with her, he did not react with sharpness. “Self-indulgence is a virtue now?”
“Flexibility is. Sometimes, even, to retreat is wise.”
“Only in order to fight another day.”
“Sometimes peace is made.”
“After a retreat? A peace with great concessions and losses.”
She drained her glass. “Who is your enemy?”
“In this, madness.”
“You fight a phantom.”
“No.”
She looked at him steadily. Though they came together physically when it suited them, their deepest connection was of the mind. For her, because few men loved her sensuality and her intelligence equally. For him, because with her he did not need to accommodate, pretend, or compete. And of course, she could be assumed to be barren after twenty sexual years without conception.
She placed her hands, loosely linked, on the table. “Many years ago, you decided that the enemy was dire and the battles minor. Now, that balance has changed.”
He felt the scalpel’s sting, and an instinct to flinch away. But he said, “Why do you think anything has changed?”
“Not because of this Lady Arradale, Bey. Over the past few years things have changed around you.”
“A plague of marriages and births? She noted the same thing.”
Her eyes sharpened. “Ah, then I do wish I had met her. What happened today to cause her headache?”
“Travel,” he said, but then realized that he’d looked down. He picked up his neglected glass and drank from it to cover the act, but knew she would not be deceived.
“You have been cruel to her?” she asked.
“Only to be kind.”
She made a tsk of disapproval.
“Yes, there is something,” he said sharply. “But my resolve has not weakened, so it were better it died now.”
“Died young. Like your sister.”
He hissed in a breath. “That was crude.”
“Sometimes crudeness is necessary. As in amputation.”
“What bit of me should I lose?”
“Your iron-clad will.”
“Never.”
“Then, Bey, I fear you will die.”
“We all die in the end.”
“And yet life doesn’t have to be a tragedy.”
He stood then, moved away from the table and from her. “My life is not a tragedy.”
“Not yet.”
He turned. “Enough, Sappho.” He meant it to be a warning, but could hear for himself that it sounded like a plea.
Like a good surgeon, she ignored both threat and plea. “You are a wonderful man, Bey, but you are incomplete. If you die incomplete, it will be tragedy.”
“There are worse things than tragedy. One is weakness. Another is stupidity. A third is self-indulgence. A fourth,” he said, feeling his temper snap, “is friends who don’t know when to stop.”
She rose, perhaps in response to the challenge. “I don’t want you to die.”
“You said that before. You are not God. Even I am not God.”
“Bey, I fear that one day, in the not too distant future, you will kill yourself.”
He stared at her, anger washed away by blank surprise. “That’s absurd. What sign have I ever given of self-destructiveness?”
“You fought Curry.”
“That was for other reasons entirely. I wasn’t looking for death.” When she continued to look at him, he said, “I give you my word, Sappho. I will never put a pistol to my head.”
“Of course you won’t,” she said with what looked like a frown of impatience. “It would leave a mess for someone else to tidy up.”
“I won’t put an end to myself in any way. I promise.”
She walked around the table toward him, moving with that special grace which was neither studied fashion nor erotic sway. He loved the way she moved. For the first time he wondered if she would want to make love tonight, and was surprised by an unwillingness that had nothing to do with this battle they engaged in now.
If she asked, however, he would oblige. It was part of the nature of their friendship.
Instead, she put a hand to his cheek. “I worry, Bey. I worry that one day you will, like a machine, just stop.”
“I am not a machine.”
He put an arm around her waist and drew her close. Perhaps sex wasn’t a bad idea after all. It would put an end to this and might shake him free of uncomfortable reactions to Lady Arradale.
“No, but you share some of the properties of a machine.” She neither encouraged nor resisted his hold. “You require to be wound up before you can function.”
A laugh escaped him at that. “Then thank God you’re good at it.”
She smiled, but continued. “Now your family is all settled, who will wind the spring so the machine can go through its paces day after day?”
He put her aside. “Family problems won’t end. They never do.”
“But they all have someone else to take care of them now.”
“I am not exactly short of occupation.”
She approached again, and he found he’d let himself be backed into a corner. Short of obvious flight, he could not escape.
“You need passion, Bey,” Sappho said. “Do you not know you are a man who cannot live without passion? No,” she said as he drew her against him again, hoping to shut her up. “Not sex. Passion. Your family has been your passion since you were nineteen years old. Everything you have done since then has been directly or indirectly because of them.”
“Even you?” He used it as an attack.
“Of course, even me. I am safe. I have a full life and other lovers. I am happily undemanding. What we have physically is delightful, but most of what we have is of the mind. I have been necessary to you, because even without your concerns over your mother’s blood, you could not have married until now. You could not have weakened the completeness of your dedication to your brothers and sisters.”
With hands on her arms, he pushed her away. “What book does all this nonsense come from?”
She smiled. Pityingly?
“Take comfort then,” he said, stepping sideways and away. “For at least a few weeks I will have the Countess of Arradale to fret over.”
“With passion?” she queried, still calm.
“Not if I can help it.”
He heard the desperate edge in his own voice, and saw her smile widen. Devil take her.
She held out a hand. “Come, kiss me, Bey.”
For the first time ever, he refused. “The mood is awry.”
“Just a kiss.” She came to him, and took his hands between hers. “I think it might be the last.”
With a shake of his head, he carried her hands to his lips. “I do not intend to marry, Sappho. Nothing has changed. And Lady Arradale has equally excellent reasons to stay single.”
“I know,” she said, but without losing her smile.
“So this will not be the last time unless you choose it to be so.”
She stepped close, and with one hand, drew his head down to hers. “I will not refuse you if you come to me for love, Bey. Ever.” Then she put her lips to his and asked for their familiar kiss. She was mistress of the art and he was her equal. It was long, and as satisfying as a favorite meal.
When it ended, however, she drew back. “However, if you come to me again for love, I will be very disappointed. Good night, my dear.”
He stared at the door as it closed behind her, very tempted to pick up his glass and hurl it against a wall.
Chapter 13
The next morning, Diana ventured warily to the private dining room for breakfast, but was still shocked to find a tall, handsome woman in the room. The stranger was dressed in a conventional plain traveling gown of rust-colored cloth, hair hidden by a cap and hat, but no one would think her conventional.
Her smooth skin had a dusky tone, and high cheekbones and dark eyes suggested the East.
“La
dy Arradale,” the marquess said, not apparently discomposed by being found with his mistress. “May I present the poet, Sappho?”
Diana would be within her rights to refuse to acknowledge such an unusual creature, but that might send the wrong message. How, she wondered, did one address a stranger with only one name? “Good morning, madam. You are traveling to London?”
“From London, Lady Arradale.” The woman seemed happy. Contented? Satisfied? Damn them both! “I am to join a literary house party in Nottinghamshire, and I must be on my way. If you are still in London when I return, I do hope you will honor one of my salons with your presence.”
Diana made polite noises—though inside she was muttering, “When the moon falls from the sky, madam.”
Sappho took leave of Lord Rothgar without any intimate gestures at all. Despite their conventional behavior, however, a connection flowed between and around them, and as a parting shot, she said to him, “Very disappointed.”
Diana stared at the door. She had to ask. “You have disappointed Mistress Sappho in some way?”
He came to hold out her chair. “Not yet. She was talking of future matters.”
His future with the poet. Perhaps they would marry. If the woman was barren, why not? Knowing she was likely to say something spiteful and revealing, Diana put a large piece of ham into her mouth and forced herself to eat it with an appearance of relish.
When she’d swallowed ham and ill-temper, she asked, “Will we reach London today?”
“If the day goes smoothly. That will give you a soothing night’s rest before the Queen’s Drawing Room tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Tomorrow her trial began. That did give her more important matters to think about. She ate quickly then rose. “We had best be off.”
Heading for the coach yard she gave thanks that this would be the end of this difficult journey. Much more and she would embarrass herself. Then she paused in surprise to see Clara climbing into the second coach.
“Clara, what’s happening?”
The maid turned. “Me and Mr. Fettler are to travel in the baggage coach today, milady. The marquess’s orders.”