by Liz Carlyle
“But what is it, then?” Cecilia asked urgently.
“My mother,” David said softly, opening his eyes. “I’ve come to care very little what people think of me. I am wealthy enough, and the title is like a macabre joke. And yet, I would not have my mother’s honor sullied by rumor or innuendo. She has suffered enough.”
Uncertainly, Cecilia studied his face, bleak in the lamplight. “But David,” she said stridently, “surely you don’t believe that I would ever speak out of turn?”
He shook his head, his heavy hair sliding across the coverlet. “Ah, Cecilia,” he said softly. “I trust rarely. And slowly. But I would trust you with my life.”
Cecilia’s delicate brows drew together. “What, then?”
“I want to marry you, my love. I want to give you my children, watch you bear them and raise them. But I find I cannot do it without honesty, though I was once rather desperately willing to try.”
At that, Cecilia blushed deeply, apparently recalling the anger and intensity of his courtship so many years ago. “I accept your proposal,” she said demurely—or as demurely as a naked and obviously well-pleasured woman could.
He felt a wry half-smile crook up one corner of his mouth. “You have the right, Cecilia, to understand whose blood you mingle with yours,” he said, skimming his hand down her breast to settle on the swell of her belly. “You are a Markham-Sands—one of the oldest and most noble houses in England. Perhaps you mightn’t wish...” His voice trailed weakly away, one brow lifting in doubt.
Cecilia stared at him, confused. And suddenly, all of his seemingly unbridled pride, the incredible arrogance, all of it made sense. Left bitter and angry, David had been playing a part, or so he believed. As his dressing room had hinted, he was one thing on the outside, another on the inside. All this time, he had been fighting for something—call it respect, perhaps even honor—which he had come to believe was not his by birthright. And yet, he had earned her respect and honor. More so than anyone she had ever known.
“But your father—was he not Jonet’s sire, too?” Cecilia asked very quietly. “And does his blood not run through Lord Mercer and Lord Robert? They seem fine people to me. I cannot think that being a product of rape says anything about who you are.”
“But there is... madness as well as dissolution in the Cameron line, Cecilia,” he said in a soft, warning tone. “Most recently, my cousin, who was quite insane, committed suicide.”
Levering herself onto one elbow, Cecilia looked down at him, shaking her head. “It means nothing to us,” she said gently. “Really, David! I should sooner discuss the weather.”
And she meant it, very deeply. Good God, of what worth were a man’s bloodlines? A horse, now—to Cecilia’s way of thinking, that was another thing altogether. But people? She snorted softly in the darkness. She, of all women, should know what a joke that was.
Oh, yes. As David had said so gently, her line was old and pure. And neither attribute had done the earldom of Sands one whit of good. Perhaps an infusion of new blood was precisely what the family had needed. Indeed, it might well have kept them from sinking into their mire of lethargy, stupidity, and aimlessness.
Cecilia saw no point in discussing it further. “Are you going to marry me, then?” she challenged, boldly crawling on top of him. “For though I’d prefer you to make an honest woman of me, I’d like to have just another taste of sin before you do.”
———
The seemingly incessant knocking on his bedchamber door roused David from the most blissful sleep he’d had in years. With a muttered curse, he dragged Cecilia’s body against his, molding himself around her fine, full hips and sliding one hand up to caress her breast.
The knocking was at once forgotten when Cecilia made one of her sweet little noises, easing her hips up and down his rapidly hardening shaft.
“Open your legs, my love,” he whispered wickedly, “and I’ll show you another of those positions you’re so curious about.”
Cecilia sucked in her breath on a gasp, sounding shocked and aroused.
But the damnable knocking came again, and this time, a pleading whisper came with it. “My lord—?” said a voice he vaguely recognized as Hanes, his second footman. “A messenger, sir. He says it’s most urgent, and that he must speak with you personally.”
With a sorrowful sigh, David brushed his fingertips once more over the hardening bud of Cecilia’s left breast. “Sweet Peaches,” he whispered into the unruly pile of flame-gold hair. “Don’t move an inch. I’ll be right back.”
Hastily, David dressed and went out, locking the door behind him and pocketing the key. Downstairs, much to his consternation, he found a small, bedraggled boy of some twelve years standing on his doorstep, a carefully sealed letter clutched in his fist.
“You’d be ‘is lordship?” said the boy, assessing him with one narrow eye.
“I would,” agreed David, looking down at the frail figure.
The boy nodded succinctly. “Then I’m ter give yer this,” he said solemnly, pressing the letter into David’s hand. “And I’m ter give a message, too.”
“By all means,” agreed David.
The boy dragged in a deep breath and let it out again. “I’m to tell you: Pelican Stairs. Two o’clock. Tomorrow night.” Then he nodded as if satisfied that he’d repeated the whole of it without stumbling.
David felt his eyes widen in surprise. Quickly, he glanced down to the spidery address scrawled on the letter. Mother Derbin. He recognized the strange penmanship from the paper she’d given de Rohan this morning. And had it been only this morning?
Wearily, he ran a hand through his tousled hair. But the lad was still staring up at him, awaiting a well-deserved reward, no doubt. “Look here,” he said to the boy. “How long since you’ve eaten?”
“Yesterday,” the boy admitted, rubbing a soiled coat sleeve across his nose.
David laid a light hand on the boy’s shoulder. Given the information the lad had just conveyed, he was not at all comfortable with the idea of releasing him—not when there was a killer running loose. It would seem Mother Derbin considered children expendable.
“Tell me, lad, have you a home?” he asked gently, realizing as he did so that a month earlier, such a question would not have occurred to him.
As he had feared, the boy shook his head.
“Your name?”
“Joseph.”
David turned to the footman who stood impassively in the shadows. “Have Mrs. Kent give Joseph a sovereign for his trouble, Hanes. Ask her to feed him well, then put him to work with Strickham tomorrow.” He looked down at the boy, tightening his grip on the thin shoulder. “Just for a few days, lad. It will be... best if you stay here.”
Joseph shrugged indifferently, but David thought that he was pleased. As the footman departed with the boy in tow, David broke the letter’s seal and read it standing beneath the light of a wall sconce. The words were carefully veiled, yet the essence was perfectly clear:
My dear Lord Delacourt—
I regret that my humble establishment was unable to accommodate your particular need this morning. Since you mentioned you might do us the honor of calling again, I wished to inform you that urgent business has taken me from town. Alas, a sick relative—whose recuperation I am confident will be very, very lengthy.
Kindly give my regards to your veiled lady-friend. And tell her, if you will, that when next she seeks discretion, she should take care to cover her distinctively colored hair as well as her face.
Yr. faithful servant—
M.D.
“Who was it?” asked Cecilia softly the moment he reentered his bedchamber. Still lying almost on her stomach, she had levered up onto her elbow, her head crooked back to stare toward the door.
David’s mouth went dry as the sheet slithered off her shoulder to reveal the luscious ivory globe of her breast. Beneath the covers, her right hip swelled invitingly. Good God, was there no such thing as satiation where Cecilia was concerned?
&n
bsp; Apparently not. Crossing the room in some haste, David tossed the letter onto his night table and began to strip off his clothes. “It was nothing,” he muttered. “Nothing which cannot wait.”
Smoothly, he slid between the sheets, covering Cecilia’s body with his own, pressing her cheek down into the softness of the bed. He felt the sculpted angle of her shoulder blades hard against his chest. Seductively, he nuzzled at the back of her neck, drawing her scent into his nostrils.
“Slide your legs open, Peaches,” he murmured, pressing his cock insistently against her buttocks. “Yes, just like—oh, God!” he breathed, sliding inside her warm, wet passage. “Just like that.”
Flat on her belly, her wild mane streaming across the bed, Cecilia was the very picture of sensual decadence. Bending his head to suckle the skin of her alabaster neck, David slipped one hand beneath her, lifting her pelvis ever so slightly and easing two fingers inside her damp petals to stroke and to tease.
He rode her hard then, pumping himself inexorably back and forth, forcing her down, holding her prisoner between his greedy cock and searching fingers. Cecilia’s nails clawed at the bed linen, and in mere moments, she was writhing beneath him, urging herself down onto his hand, rising against him as he mounted her.
She began to shatter quickly, her hips alternately bucking then grinding, as if she fought to throw him off. “Oh, no, my pretty filly,” he rasped, his voice thick and foreign. “I mean to ride you until the end.”
His words had been calculated to torment, and they did. Cecilia heaved beneath him once more, and then her mouth came open in a soft moan of pleasure. David lost himself inside her then, reveling in the throbbing wetness which pulled at him, spurting his seed against her womb. And hoping. Yes, this time, hoping...
She had said yes at last, and he meant to hold her to it. She was stuck with him.
———
Hours later, as the clock struck eleven, David found himself standing before his dressing table, reluctantly tucking Cecilia back into her riding coat. “Stay with me the night,” he softly pleaded as he gave a neatening tug on her collar.
“Oh, David, I can’t,” she whined miserably. “Giles, Etta, all my servants! Everyone is suspicious.”
David bent to brush his lips across her brow. “But it’s all right, love,” he soothed, his breath warm against her ear. “We’re to be married, you’ll recall.”
Cecilia tilted her chin to look up at him, her eyes suddenly pooling with tears. A sudden shaft of fear knifed through him. “You have not, I hope, changed your mind?”
“Oh, my,” said Cecilia with an unsteady laugh. “Just name the date, if you think that.”
David lifted one brow. “Oh, I think there is no question but what it must be May Day... if not sooner,” he said dryly, his eyes drifting down to her belly as he secured her last coat button. “After all, I should hate there to be any question of Sir Lester’s losing his fifty-guinea wager.”
Tenderly, Cecilia leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and opening her mouth over his. She was a bright pupil, his pretty Peaches. David’s knees went weak when she slid her tongue between his lips, but at that most inopportune moment, another urgent knock sounded on the door.
David jerked his mouth from hers. “My God, what now?” he snapped, glaring at the offending door.
After pausing for a heartbeat, David’s footman spoke through the heavy oak panels. “Another caller, my lord?” he said tentatively. “And I’m afraid this one, too, is urgent.”
“Damn it all, Hanes!” he roared. “Must everything in this house be suddenly urgent? Perhaps there’s something urgent going on in here! Do people never think of that?”
Another long pause ensued, during which Cecilia was compelled to smother a giggle in his shirtfront.
“Shall I send him away, then, my lord?” whispered the unfortunate Hanes. “It’s that policeman again.”
As if she’d forgotten the delightful thing she’d just been doing with her tongue moments earlier, Cecilia dropped her arms from his neck. “De Rohan,” she hissed, giving a sharp tug on David’s coat sleeve. “We must go down at once!”
Quickly, David snatched the note from his night table just as Cecilia seized his hand. “Yes, well, as you say—there goes the romance of the thing!” he said gruffly. And then, he graciously permitted himself to be dragged from the room.
———
“It is certainly the same penmanship,” agreed de Rohan moments later. They sat before a newly kindled fire in the blue and gold drawing room, David pouring out cognac into the Venetian crystal goblets. The police officer sat upon the brocade sofa, elbows propped on his knees and one of Mother Derbin’s notes held loosely in each hand.
“What did you discover in Leadenhall Street?” David asked, setting the decanter down on the tea table between them. “The counting house is still closed?”
Darkly, de Rohan shook his head. “Bloody place is like a tomb,” he grumbled. “If anyone has been in or out in the last three days, they’ve not been seen by anyone in the neighboring offices, and I questioned them aggressively.”
“So you learned nothing?”
“Nothing much,” clarified the inspector. “I did get a good description of the businessman who keeps his office there. He has a large staff of clerks, and I managed to run one of them to ground at the George and Vulture.”
“And would he talk?”
De Rohan made an ambiguous gesture. “Unfortunately, he was just a junior copyist, and he swore he didn’t have a key to the offices. But he thought he knew the property off Black Horse Lane, and said that it—and several like it—are owned by a wealthy gentleman who lives in Mayfair. A sort of absentee landlord, which is common amongst the ton since they’d rather not sully their hands by giving a damn about the people to whom they rent.”
No longer disconcerted by de Rohan’s pointed social barbs, David pressed forward. “And what of his employer? Did he say?”
“He claims the fellow had been taken severely ill, and had gone down to Brighton to take the air.”
“Did you get a name?”
“Weinstein,” said de Rohan tersely. “And a good description—tall, balding fellow of some fifty years. A bad limp, too, or so the clerk said.”
Suddenly, Cecilia jerked upright in her chair. “A limp, did you say? And Weinstein—that’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?”
De Rohan’s eyes narrowed coldly as he turned to face her. “Yes, what of it?”
David watched as Cecilia’s finely arched brows knitted into a puzzled frown. “I’m sure it means nothing, but...”
“Go on, Lady Walrafen,” de Rohan urged.
Cecilia shifted her gaze back and forth between them. “Well, it’s just that I saw a man like that once,” she said quietly. “At Edmund Rowland’s house. And again last Thursday, when I ran into Edmund in Hyde Park. The man left in some haste, and Edmund said...” She paused as if in thought, then nodded swiftly. “Yes, he mentioned that the man was his broker in Leadenhall Street. A Jew, he said. And now that I think on it, the fellow looked very weak, perhaps unwell. But why would they meet in Hyde Park at midday?”
“A very good question indeed,” remarked David. “Perhaps he was on his way out of town?”
“And you’re sure he limped?” pressed de Rohan.
Swiftly, Cecilia nodded. “Indeed, he carried a beautiful walking stick inlaid with silver. The limp was quite pronounced.”
De Rohan scratched his chin pensively. “It seems a remarkable coincidence,” he mused.
“Ah, yes,” said David. “And we’ve already heard your theory of coincidence.” He paused then, just long enough to tell de Rohan what they had learned from Bentham Rutledge.
“Amazing,” said de Rohan when David had concluded his story, discreetly omitting Cecilia’s role.
“So Rutledge’s involvement was not, just as you predicted, a coincidence,” David added. “And yet, I do not believe he’s mixed up in this opium ring.”
Slowly, de Rohan nodded. “So if we rule out Rutledge, it leaves us with the Weinstein-Rowland theory. And Weinstein may be—probably is—just an unwitting accomplice.” Swiftly, he glanced at David. “What do you know of this Rowland fellow, Delacourt?”
David sipped from his glass, then set it aside. “Well, he was once so near Queer Street as made little difference. Then his wealthy father died. Still, he and his wife have expensive taste, and he enjoys a lifestyle which would appear to exceed his income.”
“A rotter, then?”
David paused thoughtfully. “It is widely believed he is doing something which is less than wholesome. But then, he is a notorious gamester.”
“And yet you are surprised he might be involved,” remarked de Rohan intuitively.
Slowly, David nodded. “It’s just that I shouldn’t have thought Edmund had the ballocks—your pardon, my dear—to smuggle a keg of cheap brandy, let alone a boatload of untaxed opium.”
De Rohan gave a sardonic chuckle. “My lord, the really good criminals never appear to be what they are. That’s the beauty of the thing, for catching a clever crook is like an intricate dance—with many partners swirling all about you.”
Suddenly, Cecilia’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh!” she gasped. “The dance! Lady Kirton’s ball! It’s tomorrow night.”
David looked at her in mild censure. “Cecilia, I’m sorry, but I think this must take precedence.”
Cecilia thrust out a hand. “No, you don’t understand,” she protested. “Edmund and his wife mean to attend. Tomorrow night. He told me so last Thursday, and he cannot very well be in two places at once.”
De Rohan leaned back, carefully steepling his fingers together. “It may signify nothing,” he warned.
David frowned. “But remember—Grimes told Mother Derbin that the night of the offloading had not been determined,” he interjected. “Perhaps it wasn’t settled until the last minute?”
“You’re right, blast it,” said de Rohan. “It must be Rowland. But at least we have the information we need, and with it we will catch him. Depend upon it, he and his minions will be offloading the opium tomorrow night in the alley beside the Prospect of Whitby. Either that, or Mother Derbin has helped him lay a very clever trap.”