The marquis wasn’t in the mood to discuss his past errors of judgment, particularly when he was likely headed directly into another one. “That was five years ago. It’s done and ended. Now, open the door, man.” He started forward again, then paused. “And if I should fail to return, tell Richard I was on my way to see William Benton. Nothing more.”
“My lord?”
Jack shrugged and stepped through the door. “If I’m dead, it’ll be too late for me to enjoy the scandal, anyway.” With a nod at his servants, the marquis headed out into the darkness.
On the off chance that Dolph was having Faraday House watched. Jack left his property by way of the garden wall, as Lilith had done several days ago. The heavy pistol thudded against his thigh as he walked down the street in the night shadows, further reminding him of late nights in the fog of Paris.
Not only had he trusted Genevieve, he had been stupid enough to think himself in love with her. And she’d betrayed him to Bonaparte, though whether it was for blunt or out of fear or patriotism, he’d never discovered. What he did know was that what he’d done that night—and what he’d done over the subsequent five years trying to forget it—had left him with a reputation so tarnished, he still couldn’t believe Lilith Benton had ever dared speak to him, much less willingly become his lover. Even now, he wondered how far she would let him carry this before she turned him away and gave in to her father’s wishes.
A few lights still shone in Benton House. He slipped onto the property through the garden hedge and then made his way around to the rose trellis fastened to the south wall. Carefully he began to climb, stifling a curse as the damned thorns cut through his gloves and snagged his greatcoat. Why couldn’t Lilith have chosen violets or some bloody geraniums as her favorite flower?
At the top of the trellis he stepped onto the roof and scrambled quietly across the eave. Lilith’s window was halfway open, and he peered inside, caution and a nagging sense that he had absolutely no right to be there making him pause. The bed was made and the room dark. He gently pushed the glass open the rest of the way and stepped over the sill.
“Lilith?” he said softly into the darkness, pulling off his gloves.
“I’m here,” she said, and stepped forward into the moonlit pool before the window.
She was in her nightgown, her long black hair hanging loose down her back. In the dark, the delicate lavender scent of her hair was sweeter than any perfume, and almost without thinking, he reached out to pull her against him by the front of her nightgown. Jack bent his head to capture her soft, warm lips with his own. With a sigh he tangled his other hand through her silky tresses, feeling her immediate response to his embrace, and very aware of his own. And half the bloody ton thought her an Ice Queen.
“Jack,” she breathed, pulling away a little, “please tell me you didn’t actually test those bottles of port by drinking out of them?”
The anger in her tone pleased him. “I only drank out of one of them,” he corrected.
She curled her hand into a fist and hit him in the chest. Hard. “That was stupid. Jack!” she hissed. “If Dolph had thought to change the bottles, you’d—”
“I needed to show a little confidence, Lil. If I’d hesitated or flinched, or tried to make off with the crate, it would only have made matters worse, whatever the results.”
Lilith looked up at him. “Your being dead would have been worse than anything else,” she said softly.
He held her emerald gaze, wondering what in the world he’d ever done right in his life to make himself worthy of even a few moments spent in her company. “Why, thank you, my dear,” he murmured, instead of informing her that he would gladly give his life to save her. He kissed her again.
As she moaned and began placing feather-soft kisses along the line of his jaw and his throat, it would have been easy to forget why he had come and just sink to the floor with her in his arms, but that would do neither of them any good. The bottles might not have been poison, but he very nearly was, at least to her reputation.
“So, what we do know,” he said with some difficulty, her kisses making it rather difficult for him to concentrate, “is that Dolph suggested poison as the cause of death, and that it happened someplace between White’s and your doorstep.”
“That’s going to be nearly impossible to prove,” Lilith noted, her own voice unsteady. “Dolph was already the heir. He had no reason to kill his uncle.”
“Lil—”
She put her fingers over his lips and folded against his chest. “That’s what they’ll say. And to defend you, your barrister will have to say that His Grace was considering remarrying for the purpose of getting a son.”
Jack leaned his cheek against her hair. “We’ll just have to see that it doesn’t come to trial. I do have a few ideas remaining, you know.”
“As do I,” she said, the words muffled against his shoulder.
“Splendid. Let’s hear them.” Hopefully they would be more substantial than his own.
She hesitated, then lifted her head to look up at him. “I’m going to spend more time with my betrothed.”
“No, you are not,” Jack growled, concerned anger coursing through him. He pulled free and strode across the room to turn on her. “Absolutely not.”
“He’s very arrogant and proud, Jack,” she insisted, following him. “And he thinks very little of women. I believe I can get him to talk.”
Jack shook his head. “No.”
“You can’t stop me, you know.”
“He beats his female servants, Lil. And worse. I don’t want you anywhere around him.”
“If we can’t prove him a murderer, then I have to marry him, Jack.” She sighed. “What a hole we’re in. And I don’t know how to escape without completing the damage to this family that my mother began.”
Jack took a short breath. “Dolph’s butler has gone missing. I’ve got someone trying to track him down, and Richard’s creeping about to see what he can come up with.” Slowly he reached out and caressed her cheek with his fingers. “But please don’t think you’re alone. I…” The marquis paused, never having made any sort of honest declaration before. He wasn’t certain, given the circumstances, that it was the wisest time for one, anyway. His own future was swiftly becoming rather dubious. “I certainly have no intention of abandoning you,” he modified. “In fact, you may not be able to get rid of me even if you wanted to.”
“Well,” she replied, a slight smile touching her soft lips, “it’s certainly not a respectable offer, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more honorable one.”
Jack would have contested that, but when she leaned against him and softly touched her lips to his, he decided that she had understood what he meant. “I should go,” he whispered.
“Do you want to?” she asked softly.
Jack had never wanted to stay somewhere, with someone, so badly in his life. “No.”
Lilith slid her hands up his shoulders and under his greatcoat, snaking it down his arms with her fingers. “Then stay a while longer,” she replied.
The marquis slid his hands down her back to her waist. He shouldn’t stay; he shouldn’t even be in her house; but he was painfully aware of just how much he wanted her again. And he was also aware that if Dolph were to win this game, tonight would be the last time he would ever hold Lilith in his arms.
While she unfastened his waistcoat and breeches, her hands much more confident this time, he trailed his fingers down her chest to caress her breasts through the thin cotton of her nightgown. Slowly he gathered the material of her shift in his hands and lifted it over her head. Jack kissed her, running his hands along her warm bare skin and reveling in the thought that she was his, that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. For now, he could let that be the only thing that mattered. For now, they were together.
“Jack,” she moaned as he leaned down to suckle her breast, “I’m still going to picnic with Dolph tomorrow.”
He lifted his head, scowling. “No, you’re not. I to
ld you, he’s dangerous.”
Lilith smiled, running her hands down his chest and then lower, to grasp his aroused manhood. “I won’t let you do this by yourself,” she said shakily, her tentative exploration making him burn. “And besides, you can’t have all the fun.”
Jack groaned as she ran her tongue over his nipple. The chit certainly learned quickly. “Fun? I thought you hated deviousness.”
She chuckled, obviously seeing the effect she was having on him. “Lately I’ve changed my mind. And I’m going to help.”
“I don’t like it,” he returned, pulling her hands free and lifting her in his arms to carry her to the bed.
“Jack—”
He settled himself along the length of her body, kissing her deeply. At the same time he entered her, and she moaned again. “I admire you for your courage, though.”
“And you could use the assistance,” she gasped, lifting her hips to meet him as he surged into her.
“And I could use the assistance,” he agreed unsteadily, holding her gaze as he moved inside her. He thought he knew her, but she continued to amaze him at every turn. A lifetime would barely be long enough to know her, and he would be lucky if they ever had another night. He wanted to stay inside her, part of her, forever. He slowed and deepened his thrusts, and felt her tensing beneath him. Jack kissed her as she came, muffling her cry against his mouth. Her pulsing seemed to pull him in deeper, and he shuddered as he filled her with his seed.
Slowly he removed himself and settled on his back beside her, and she curled up against his side, resting her head on his chest. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. He wanted to tell her that he was doing his damnedest to find a way for them to be together, and that he wanted to bring something more to her life than trouble.
“Jack,” Lilith said quietly, her breath warm across his chest, “tell me about Genevieve.”
He took a slow breath. “Lil, don’t you have enough aggravations without adding mine into the pot?”
She smiled. “I’m beginning to like aggravations. Please tell me.”
Jack sighed resignedly. “Stubborn chit. Genevieve was our contact in Paris.”
“Yours and Richard’s?”
“Yes. But I had no idea that her loyalties really lay with Bonaparte—not until I awoke one morning to find her holding the door open for a dozen French soldiers, all pointing their muskets at my head. Richard, Peese, and Martin broke me out of the garrison prison the night before I was to be hanged, and we spent a week hiding in the catacombs beneath Paris.”
She shuddered against him. “The catacombs where they moved the bones of Christians when they ran out of room in the cemeteries?”
He ran his hand possessively along her shoulder and twined a strand of her hair around his fingers. “Those exactly—not an experience I would care to repeat. Bonaparte had already headed north, and Wellington was looking for a chance to smuggle us back to England when we received word that Genevieve was on her way to Boney with Wellington’s battle plans, and a list of his spies. We went after her.”
It was a relief to finally tell the tale to someone who cared enough to listen, someone who would wait until the end before she judged him. “I found her first. She’d been traveling with a pair of soldiers, and when I cornered her alone, she started making so much noise I was certain she’d wake them and the entire garrison down the street. I kept warning her to shut up, but she was more concerned with seeing me dead.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “So I beat her to it. I keep thinking I could have done…something. Something else, so she wouldn’t have had to die.”
“You did what you thought you had to do,” she said, lifting her head to study his face closely. “Torturing yourself about it for the rest of your life—Jack, you can’t do that to yourself.”
He snorted. “I chose to kill her. Not the bravest thing I’ve ever done. And it’s not something I actually care to forget.”
“And Lord Hutton thought you killed her for revenge?” she asked softly, running her fingers in lazy circles about his chest.
“I can hardly blame him. I know what it looked like.” Jack covered her hand with his own, stilling her fingers over his heart. “When I returned to London, I did some rather unsavory things. There didn’t seem to be any point of trying for propriety any longer, and I’d never been very proficient at it, anyway. But I never regretted any of that, until I set eyes on you.”
“You wanted revenge on me for slighting you.” She chuckled.
She knew him better than he’d realized. “Well, perhaps. At first. If you knew that, why did you bother ever to speak to me?”
For a long moment she held his gaze, then slowly leaned forward to kiss him. “You’re the most alive person I’ve ever known,” she said finally. “I could no more ignore you than I could my own heart beating.”
She did love him, then. She truly did. “Lil,” he said, reaching up and curling her dark hair behind her ear, “if by some highly improbable chance our little schemes come to naught, would you consider…escaping as an alternative to wedding Dolph?”
“Escaping?” she repeated, sudden tension tightening her body. “I could never—my father—it would kill—”
Jack put his fingers over her lips. “Never mind,” he whispered. “It was only a thought. Dolph hasn’t a chance against us, my dear. No worries.”
So she might love him, but her damned family would still come first. She would wed that monster Dolph Remdale, rather than risk the scandal of fleeing. Jack wanted to be angry at her, but her loyal, compassionate heart was what had attracted him to her in the first place. He could hardly fault her for it now. Instead, he pulled her close and made love to her again, making it last as long as he could, holding her as long as he could. Finally he stood to gather his things together, while Lilith lay curled on her bed and watched him.
“Jack,” she whispered as he pulled on his boots.
“Yes?”
“We will win, won’t we?”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “I hope so, Lil. With all my heart.”
“So do I.”
Chapter 17
It took some digging, but Lilith finally found what she sought.
The Benton House attic was full of discarded furniture, odds and ends of outdated fashions, and mismatched knickknacks. Cold and damp and dusty, the narrow, peaked room was also very dark. Lilith carefully lifted the candle she’d brought with her and made her way through the clutter toward the tall, shrouded object against the far wall. The telltale corner of a painted wood frame peeked out from the worn sheet covering it, and she shoved aside a crate of old Christmas ornaments and stopped before it.
Setting the candle on an old, water-stained chest, Lilith carefully began pulling at the sheet. It gave way reluctantly, stiff and musty, but she finally tugged it out of the way.
“There you are,” she whispered, looking down at the painting she had exposed.
It still wasn’t right, for they’d left the thing upside down, and with a grimace at how dirty she was getting, Lilith tilted it forward until she could grasp it. The painting was big and heavy, and it took some maneuvering to turn it around until it leaned right side up again. She shifted the candle closer, then stepped backward to perch on the edge of a three-legged occasional table.
“That’s better,” she breathed with a small smile. “Hello, Mama.”
Her wavy black hair coiled into long, perfect curls draped artistically over one shoulder, Elizabeth Benton sat on a wicker chair beneath a towering elm tree, a scattering of spring flowers growing at her feet. In her hands was a bouquet of the same flowers. Lilith remembered the painting, remembered the faint, easy smile on her mother’s face and the good-humored tilt of her green eyes—though when last she had seen the painting, before its exile to the attic, she had thought it a cold, evil expression fitting the evil Lady Hamble had done her family. Now she sat still for a long time, studying the face that so closely resembled her own.
The pai
nting had been done shortly before her parents’ marriage, and Lilith wondered that she had never seen such a smile on her mother’s face in real life. Perhaps Elizabeth Benton had found marriage to someone who cared nothing for her heart and character to be as repugnant as Lilith was now imagining it must be. Perhaps Lady Hamble hadn’t had anyone to show her the mistake she was about to make until it was too late.
Last night, when Jack had suggested that she run away with him rather than marry Dolph, she had realized that her mother had faced the same question, though too late to save her good name. Lord Greyton had asked her to flee with him rather than spend another day in a marriage that, given her wild, passionate nature, she couldn’t have helped but detest. Greyton had deceived her mother about his own feelings, but Lilith didn’t believe Jack had lied to her. And she had been tempted to go away with him—more than tempted.
“Mama, what am I going to do?” she whispered, the sound muffled in the close, quiet room.
She knew what she wanted—that was simple. She wanted Jack Faraday. What she didn’t know was whether she would have the courage of heart to make the same decision her mother had if things went wrong, even when society said it was too late. And it was courage, she realized, because the idea of going against her father, her family, terrified her. Even with Jack waiting at the other end.
Lilith sighed. She tried to tell herself it would have been easier if she’d never met him, but Dolph would still have been as repulsive. The only difference would have been that she probably wouldn’t have realized it until after they were married. Just as her mother had been happy enough to smile for her portrait before she’d married Lord Hamble.
Well, she did know what sort of monster Dolph was, and she hadn’t lied to the marquis when she’d said stopping the brute would be fun. Deviousness was much more amusing and interesting than it used to seem. She had the best teacher in London showing her the finer points, after all.
With a long, last look at her mother, Lilith stood and covered the portrait again, then lifted the candle and made her way back to the narrow attic entrance. Finally she understood why her mother had acted as she had—and she intended to do everything in her power to avoid becoming trapped in the same kind of miserable existence. Whether that meant she would be willing to flee with Jack, she wasn’t certain. Not yet.
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