by Mia Marlowe
“That . . . something has happened which disqualifies her in some way?”
“Ah! There may yet be hope for you,” Isabella said. “Now, what do you suppose might have happened?”
“Well, I suppose—Oh!” The wonder and the horror of it hit Gabriel’s chest with the force of a nine pounder. He sank so heavily into one of Isabella Wren’s low chauffeuses he feared the stubby cabriolet legs might give way under his weight. “She’s . . . she’s with child, isn’t she?”
“Now then, that was an exceeding short walk, wasn’t it?” Isabella’s pleasant smile faded. “If she asks, and I’m certain she will, you must tell her that I did not divulge her secret since she would not appreciate any interference from me in this matter, however well-meant. But since you broached the subject and since this is your child we’re discussing, what do you propose to do about it?”
“What I’ve wanted to do for some time now, but Jacquelyn wouldn’t let me,” Gabriel said. “One way or another, I intend to make her my wife.”
“Well, my estimation of your intelligence grows by leaps and bounds, Lord Drake,” Isabella said as she handed him a steaming cup and saucer. “I don’t give my friendship lightly, but I believe I’ve decided to like you very much indeed.” A brisk clicking of heels sounded in the hall and stopped at the doorway to the parlor. “Ah! Here comes Nanette with our repast.”
The French maid dropped a quick curtsey.
“Alas, non, Madame,” she said briskly. “There is a small party of gendarmes at the front door. Jerome is trying to reason with them, to delay them enough to give you time to decide how to handle this oh-so delicate situation.”
“What do they want?” Nonplussed, Isabella sipped her tea as if the arrival of the authorities was either a trivial annoyance or a regular occurrence.
Gabriel hadn’t noticed anyone suspicious when he barreled down the cobbled block, but someone must have been watching. Waiting for him to turn up on Isabella Wren’s doorstep.
“They want me,” Gabriel said dully.
“Why?” Her expressive brows arched in interest.
“Because it was a condition of my pardon,” Gabriel explained. “If I’m arrested in London, I’m to be hanged.”
“Hmph! My estimate of your intelligence has just plummeted again, Lord Drake. It’s a good thing I’ve already decided to like you. The tale about what you’ve been pardoned for is bound to be a long and diverting one and I shall wish to hear it as soon as we’ve time,” she said coolly before turning back to her servant. “What about the back door?”
“A guard, he is already posted,” Nanette said, fingering the lace on her apron in nervousness.
“Stop fidgeting, Nanette. It makes people think you’ve something to hide. Well, there’s nothing for it.” Isabella rose majestically. “Let them in.”
“What?” Gabriel nearly doused himself with the contents of his teacup.
“Let them in slowly,” Isabella amended. “Invite them to search the house starting with the cellar. Lord Drake and I will avail ourselves of the back staircase.”
When Isabella swept from the room, Gabriel was obliged to follow. As they tiptoed up the servants’ stairs, he heard the tromp of heavy boots and several shouted orders as the constables invaded ‘La Belle Wren’s’ home. At the sound of broken crockery, Isabella didn’t panic, though she did quicken her pace. He marveled at the woman’s poise.
“Where are going?” he whispered.
“My boudoir. It’s a good place to think . . . among other things,” she added throatily.
It wasn’t intentional, he didn’t think. Since she must know he loved her daughter, he couldn’t imagine Jacquelyn’s mother was actually flirting with him. He suspected sly innuendo was simply her native tongue and she couldn’t resist speaking it with every man she met.
Isabella pushed open the ornate gilt doors to reveal an opulent chamber, draped with silks and dominated by a massive thick bed.
“I don’t think this is a good place to hide,” Gabriel said.
“Careful, Lord Drake. We’ve already established that thinking is not your strong suit.”
“They’re sure to look under the bed.”
“I’m certain of it.” One of Isabella’s brows arched and a smile lifted her mouth. “But they aren’t likely to look in it, are they?”
* * *
The muttered curses and sounds of shattering gewgaws told Isabella the searchers were nearing her inner sanctum. She drew her chemise over her head and draped it on the chaise before climbing naked into the big tester bed.
“Oof!” said the large lump by her left hip.
“Not another peep out of you, sir, no matter what you may feel or hear,” she ordered, giving the lump a stinging swat. “Or I shall reconsider our very tentative friendship.”
When she helped Gabriel Drake wedge his large frame between her second and third feather ticks, she hoped he’d sink further into the lower mattresses. Instead Lord Drake created an unsightly and damnably noticeable hump in her bed. So she ordered him out to quickly undo her laces and then back into hiding while she stripped.
Now she plumped some of her extra pillows by her right side in an effort to balance the bump formed by Gabriel on her left and draped her thick counterpane across both. She tucked the sheet under each armpit and waited as the search party drew nearer.
Beyond seeing to her daughter’s education, Isabella had done little enough for Jacquelyn over the years. Saving the father of her future grandchild might go a long way toward expunging Isabella’s past sins of omission.
Her palms were damp and she wiped them on her coverlet as the constables battered down the door. They tumbled into the room in a rush and then stopped dead at the sight of her as if frozen in quick-lime. She had only a moment to size up her audience, but it was enough.
They were men. How hard could it be?
“Really, gentlemen, how shall I ever get my beauty sleep with all this racket?” she said with a languorous stretch that caused several jaws to drop. “All the doorknobs in my home are fully operational and I rarely lock them unless I’m . . . entertaining someone. So you see, there’s no need to ruin my perfectly good latches.”
She arranged a few pillows behind her so she could recline gracefully, allowing the sheet to slip down far enough to expose the tops of her bare breasts as she did so. Distraction was her chief weapon at present and she silently thanked God that men were so predictably susceptible to it. Once she settled herself, she drew her knees up under the coverlet to form a further camouflaging tent and fixed her gaze on the man she singled out as the leader.
“Now then, Captain,” she said, purposely overstating his rank. “How may I be of service to you?”
“It’s Lieutenant, ma’am. Lieutenant Hathcock.”
“Really? Well.” She arched a suggestive brow. “That’s quite a name to live up to.”
His face went red as a ripe tomato, but she could sense he was pleased by her teasing. He squared his shoulders and stood a bit straighter. “We’re looking for a man—”
“My, what a coincidence!” She let her tone drift lower, deep into seductress range. “Looking for a man, you say? That’s my usual occupation as well.”
The men laughed, but the lieutenant silenced them with frown.
“We’re looking for a particular gentleman.”
“Believe me, sir,” she quipped. “I’m also quite particular about my gentlemen.”
One or two of them were biting their lips to keep quiet.
“The man we want is Lord Gabriel Drake,” Hathcock said. “He was reported entering this house.”
“Lord Drake? Hmm. Doesn’t sound familiar. I don’t suppose you’d know his full title. That might jog my memory,” she suggested.
Keep it light and ribald, she ordered herself. That’s how she’d decided to play things, broad strokes for the masses but with a hint of the unattainable these yokels would find classy.
“The gentleman’s a baron, I
believe. From Cornwall.”
“A baron, you say.” Isabella peered up at him from under her artfully enhanced lashes. “I should think not. To my certain knowledge, I’ve never taken anything less than a viscount to my bed. A woman in my profession has standards to maintain, you understand.”
Another round of snorting and stifled grunts greeted this sally.
“Of course, I was tempted once by a divine Rossini tenor on tour from Rome. I’m terribly devoted to the opera, you see. All those lightning fast runs and trills—the man sang like a god for four mortal hours. If he could keep his voice up that long, just imagine what he might be able to do with his . . .” she paused to let them finish her racy thought. “But to my sorrow, I soon learned why he was able to hit those glorious high notes so easily.”
“Ah! What I ‘eard is true then,” one of the men said. “Them light tenors hain’t got no balls.”
“None at all,” Isabella confirmed with a knowing grin that sent them into snickers. She had them now. “However, I have it on good authority that lyric tenors do, in fact, possess one.”
Their laughter advanced to full-throated guffaws.
“And I’m told that dramatic tenors with those tight, forced high notes are actually the proud owners of two jewels,” Isabella said confidingly. “But while they sing, someone is hidden beneath their costume squeezing the life out of them.”
Uproarious hilarity greeted this pronouncement. Even Lieutenant Hathcock was wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.
“Lieutenant, would you do me the favor of sending someone down to the kitchen to ask Nanette to prepare some refreshment for you and your fine men? You must be hungry after your hard work dismantling my home.” She slanted her gaze at him and let her sheet drift down another inch, showing her still impressive décolletage. “As you can see, I’m in no position to do it myself.”
Two hours later, Isabella was still holding court, still naked under her sheets and they were all still lounging about her boudoir. She’d plied them with sandwiches and coffee, composed little kiss-and-tell stories of love and lust among the upper crust with all the names changed to protect the guilty while she charmed them from her tester bed with naughty banter. They’d stopped their active search, but she was beginning to worry that they’d never leave.
Once or twice, the left lump on her bed shifted restlessly and she dug a sharp elbow into it as a surreptitious warning. Gabriel hadn’t twitched in the last hour and she wondered if he’d suffocated under all those feathers.
Death by hanging or death by poultry? Dead was still dead.
Chapter 31
“Well, Lieutenant Hathcock, I can’t tell you how I’ve enjoyed your visit, but actually I do have an assignation this evening—no, no, I can’t give you the gentleman’s name, but please be advised, he is at least a viscount,” Isabella assured him. “I really must begin my toilette. Beauty does require a certain amount of homage if she is to be coaxed out.”
The men began protesting that she was lovely just as she was—or perhaps especially as she was. Men did generally prefer women without clothing.
It occurred to Isabella that she was probably much older than any of their wives or sweethearts and yet her soft life of luxury had spared her many of time’s ravages. But while she might cheat Father Time for a bit, he would not be held off indefinitely.
She tried to tell herself that her bed was usually empty now by her own choice since she was heavily involved in helping Lord Haversham maintain his illusion of a sexual liaison with her, but her heart damned her for a liar. Even if Geoffrey weren’t lavishing her with public attention, she might still be privately alone.
She wondered occasionally what it might have been like to have lain beside the same man since her youth, to have given him many children, to have nursed him through illness or struggled with adversity by his side, to have loved once and loved well?
She’d never know.
God must be a man, Isabella had often said to her philosopher friends, For He has arranged things so a woman must take what she wants. And then He makes her pay for it twice.
So Isabella had decided to take soft fabric to drape over her milk-smooth skin and hard jewels to adorn her throat in a winking crescent and to surround herself with fine things.
And an abundance of pleasure.
Of course, the pleasure was a bit wanting of late, but she believed a little loneliness was the payment demanded for her opulent life. When she thought of the discomforts of poverty, the hazards of multiple pregnancies and her distaste for sickness in general, she decided she’d made a fair trade.
Now if she could only trade for a few moments privacy so she could somehow spirit Gabriel Drake safely out of her house, Isabella promised herself she’d stop making deals with the Almighty and never barter with Him for more ever again.
“Really, gentlemen,” she said in her gayest tone, “I must be—”
“What’s going on here?” A diminutive man with a voice out of all proportion to his smallness demanded from her bedchamber doorway.
Isabella narrowed her eyes at him. She’d seen him at court during the last masked ball. Yes, she knew him by his slimy reputation as well as his name—Sir Cecil Oddbody, Keeper of the King’s Privy Seal. She didn’t recognize the strapping fellow at his side but the new man’s murderous frown did not commend him to her.
Sir Cecil glared at the constabulary and, to a man, they cringed.
“My dear friend Lord Curtmantle,” Oddbody lifted a palm to indicate his companion, “sent word that—”
“Welcome, my lord. My name is Isabella Wren,” she said to Curtmantle with far more dignity than a naked woman in a room full of men should possess. “From whence do you hail?”
Oddbody scowled afresh at her interruption, but she’d always found conversational niceties like introductions useful rudders for steering an unpleasant interview to friendlier waters.
“I have a tidy barony in Cornwall,” Curtmantle said.
“Just a baron, worse luck for ‘im, eh?” one of the men whispered and several of them sputtered with mirth. “Reckon she’ll throw ‘im out.”
Sir Cecil’s eyes bulged, clearly irritated at the inappropriate snickers. “Baron Curtmantle sent word that the fugitive we seek was seen entering this house. I came expecting to find the pirate already in irons. At the very least, lieutenant, you and your men might be engaged in an exhaustive search of the premises. Instead, I find you enjoying tea and crumpets with a naked whore.”
“Well, Your Worship,” the unfortunate lieutenant said, “it hain’t exactly the lady’s fault she’s naked. We sort of stumbled in on her unannounced, you might say. But Gorblimey! If she hain’t been pleasant as she can be about it and since she’s stayed fair covered up the whole time, I don’t see how you can rightly call her naked.” Finding more courage the longer he spoke, he lifted his chin in defiance. “Why, I’ll lay me teeth she hain’t no whore. She’s what you might call a . . . a . . . well, I don’t know the word for it proper-like, but—”
“Never mind, Lieutenant,” Isabella said. “I appreciate your chivalry, but I fear Sir Cecil’s mind is made up about me. Some minds are so narrow, you see, it’s quite impossible to fit a new idea into them.”
Humor was still her best defense and the men showed their appreciation with a rumbling chuckle. Encouraged, she continued, “And you couldn’t squeeze an original thought out of them if you put them into a coffee grinder.”
Sir Cecil turned his steely, rat-like gaze on her.
Yes, indeed. A few turns in a very large grinder would improve Oddbody out of all knowing.
“That’s quite enough from you, madam,” he said with a delicate twitch of his nose that reminded Isabella even more forcefully of the rodent he resembled. “Or I shall have you removed forthwith and detained for questioning.”
“I’d tread lightly, sir, if I were you.” Isabella had been reclining on her pillows. Now she drew herself upright, careful to keep the sheets high ac
ross her chest. “This is my home and you are an unwelcome visitor. I have some very dear friends at court who would find your actions most distressing.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Oddbody said.
“And it’s obvious you have no idea just how highly placed my friends may be,” Isabella countered.
He waffled a bit, clearly unsure how well-connected she was. Isabella would hate to call in favors, but she did hold markers from some exceptionally prominent persons.
What was the point of notoriety if it didn’t protect one’s silk-clad behind from time to time?
Isabella saw the sizzle of disappointment in his eyes, signaling that he was preparing to concede this skirmish to her. Then Jacquelyn appeared in the doorway behind him. Her wide-eyed gaze swept the room.
“Mother, what is all this?”
The lump that was Gabriel shifted at Jacquelyn’s voice and Isabella lolled to her left side to cover the slight movement.
“That’s her.” Lord Curtmantle pointed an accusing finger. “Jacquelyn Wren. The woman he came to London for.”
“What are you talking about?” Jacquelyn said.
“Mistress Wren, we can conclude our business here quickly and easily or we can move it to another location where the whole sorry affair becomes much more protracted and . . . not at all easy,” Sir Cecil said, his face contorted with suppressed impatience. “To avoid such an unfortunate occurrence you only need answer one question. Where is Gabriel Drake?”
Jacquelyn stepped back a pace. “Why do you want him?”
“That is none of your concern,” he said. “We know he’s in London. All we need to know is where he’s hiding.”
“Lord Drake is in Cornwall,” she said. “He has no reason to come to London.”
Sir Cecil chucked her chin and emitted a noise that Isabella might have called a giggle if it hadn’t sounded so sinister. “Oh, I can think of at least one. Now where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Jacquelyn said, unable to mask a shiver of distaste. “I haven’t seen him since I left Dragon Caern nearly three weeks ago.”