Her Masquer deeds seemed tame in comparison to what went on at the water’s edge. The fog amplified every creak and squeak …
A squeak—
Surely that was only the water lapping at the shore, and not a large rodent.
Where had her river rat gone? What manner of people did he meet here, anyway?
What if he’d changed his mind and returned home?
What if he was waiting for her by a warm fire, wondering where she’d gone?
Did he require solitude? He couldn’t have picked a lonelier spot in all of London.
She nestled deeper into the cushions. The unveiled desire in his eyes when he’d stared at her across the table haunted her. Why hadn’t she realized right away that his indirect questions about the duke’s fidelity had been his way of questioning her?
She glanced up at a muffled sound from the shore. She waited and heard nothing more. The shallop rocked lightly. The rhythm of her heart escalated wildly as a broad-shouldered silhouette appeared in the portal. A pistol gleamed in the dark. She caught her breath, her heart thumping in more than desire.
Sebastien laughed in surprised recognition.
“Madam,” he said as he laid his gun on the desk and drew off his coat, “you have taken the advantage.”
“I doubt that very much, Sebastien,” she murmured, her blood running in warm eddies through her body.
“You would not doubt it if you could feel how my heart is pounding.”
“As is mine.”
“Is it, indeed?” His gaze moved over her deceptively relaxed figure. “I wish you had warned me to expect you.”
“I would have,” she said with conviction, “had I expected you to enter with a big gun in hand. For a moment I thought I was breathing my last.”
He smiled grimly. “I have more experience than to shoot at anything that awaits me in the dark.”
“Thank goodness for that.” She refrained from asking what manner of things, or persons, he had shot at. One day she’d insist he tell her. Until then he would remain a delicious enigma for her to decipher.
“I believe I might have been followed to the river,” he said. “You’ll forgive me if I was prepared for an ambush.”
She shivered lightly. “Perhaps you should leave that gun where you can reach it.”
“Perhaps you should have listened when I said this was no place for you. However, now that you’re here, you might as well make yourself comfortable.”
She cast a skeptical glance around the cabin. “Speaking of comfort, I did wonder about your choice of décor. I never dreamt your taste ran to bosomy mermaids and red satin.”
“The boat used to be a floating brothel,” he said after a brief hesitation.
“A—” She stared at him in dismay. “Not one that you patronized, I hope.”
“Certainly not. I stole it in the line of duty.”
“Good gracious.”
“And you are never to come here alone again.”
“I had our coachman walk me to the dock.”
“It isn’t a safe place,” he added.
“I can imagine, considering its history.” She caught the smile that crossed his face. “You aren’t still upset about the portrait?”
He swore softly.
“I called after you.”
“I heard.”
“And you ignored me?”
His eyes glinted. “I’m not ignoring you now.” He leaned his hip back against the desk.
“We don’t really know each other, do we?” she asked softly.
“I know enough to realize that I’ll never want anyone else except you.”
“Then why, may I ask, are you standing over there?”
He laughed richly.
She sat up. Her hair fell down, twining in the damp. She made no attempt to tame it. Her current mood played into her wilder instincts. She may as well look the part—unexpected how exciting it was to plan the seduction of one’s own husband, to catch him in his lair. She felt a little dangerous. He looked completely so, his black hair glistening with droplets of mist, his lean body moving silently in the darkness.
She watched impatiently as he opened a cupboard bolted to the wall, and made a cursory examination of its contents. How had she missed those shelves? Ah. There were no knobs.
“What else are you hiding from me?” she asked in curiosity.
He reached her side in one languid stride. His heavily lidded eyes swept over her. “Nothing. I’m an open book. Read me.”
She gave a sigh of pleasure as he sat down beside her. “Very well.” She walked her fingers up his arm to the back of his neck. His crisp linen shirt bore the scent of damp air and starch.
“Page one,” she whispered as she pulled off his coat. “Where did you go when you left the house tonight?”
“To see your painter friend.”
She glanced up in dismay. “That isn’t why you had that gun with you?”
He leaned over her. “A husband is justified in confronting a man who has pursued his wife.”
“Am I justified in shooting the women who pursued you while you were away?”
“What women?”
“Honestly, Sebastien. You can’t expect me to believe that no other lady has ever tried to coax you to her bed?”
“I didn’t say that.” His smile was heartless. “I can promise you, though, that in all of Europe there doesn’t exist a portrait of me painted by a lovesick admirer.”
“Did you actually see the portrait?”
“I could hardly have missed it.”
“Was it that unflattering?”
“No. It was that obvious. And not unflattering at all. Haven’t you seen it?”
“Not the finished work. Bellisant only showed me the early sketch. He’s rather shy about such things.”
“The poor dear,” he said in a disgruntled voice. “He’s actually proud of the painting.”
Several moments went by.
“I’m rather afraid to ask what you did to it, and to him,” she said.
His mouth tightened. “He’s still alive, and the portrait, as well as its subject, belong to me.”
“You’re very masterful.”
He kissed her lightly on the mouth. “So are you.”
She giggled. “And you don’t mind?”
“No.”
She sighed, easing him back against the cushions. Before she could take off his neckcloth, he reached up and unbuttoned her bodice. Not to be outdone, she teased her hand down his shirt and unfastened his fly.
“Now tell me that I am the first woman you’ve brought here,” she whispered.
He slipped her gown off her shoulders and smiled. “No.”
“You—”
He lowered his body over hers.
“You’re the only one. To admit you’re the first implies that others will follow.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “That was a good answer.”
“Elle.” He rained burning kisses down her throat, her shoulders, then the tops of her pale breasts. “I left the table still hungry tonight.”
“You were offered dessert.”
His chiseled lips curved. He stroked his fingers across her swollen nipples. “May I return with apologies?”
She swallowed, completely seduced by his touch. “I came here to make peace.”
“I like the sound of that.”
He drew her skirts up to her waist, then pulled down his trousers and settled his muscular body between her thighs. She laid her head back on the couch, anchoring her legs around his buttocks. She lifted herself, inviting. He accepted greedily, spreading her open with the fingers of one hand, the other pinching her bud until she bucked against him.
“I’m so glad that you waited for me,” he whispered.
“Do you mean here tonight, or in general?”
“Both,” he answered, guiding his thick shaft to her passage.
She whimpered as he removed his fingers. He pushed her knees farther apart and t
hrust, forcing a gasp of shocked pleasure from her. Her body clenched him. He withdrew several inches, leaving her panting in need, until she drummed her heels against his back.
“Very masterful, indeed,” she breathed as he ground his hips and pumped deeply into her pulsing warmth.
“Dear God,” he said moments later, both of them subsiding in a breathless exhaustion upon the couch. “To think I was about to give up this boat.”
She wriggled upward from the warm pocket between the cushions and his muscular torso. “I suppose this is what is called a pleasure barge.”
He grinned. “It is now.”
“We should get dressed,” she said idly, and made no attempt to move.
“No more pleasure?”
“I asked Tilden to come back at midnight in case you didn’t show up.”
She eased out of his arms, dressing surreptitiously in the dark. As he buttoned his shirt, she picked up the gun on the desk, then quickly put it down. Through the cabin window she glimpsed a scull that carried two lovers; it slipped like a dark swan in the mist. She heard Sebastien come up behind her.
When he locked his arm around her waist, his face buried in her loosened hair, she tried not to think of the prior lewd acts that had taken place on this boat.
“You’re coming home with me, I assume,” she said, leaning her head back.
“Of—”
He broke off, his body tensing. A board creaked ominously in the night. They listened for a moment longer. Then he seized her by the shoulders and steered her toward the back of the cabin.
“There’s a secret compartment behind the mariner’s map,” he whispered, reaching for his gun. “Get inside now.”
In view of his shady associations, she hastened to obey. The furtive footsteps on the deck were unmistakable now. She headed straight for the oilskin map, lifted it and squeezed into a musty crevice that had a peephole carved into its central section.
Barely able to breathe, she watched her husband wait with enviable calm as the door slowly opened. She flinched as she heard the pistol cock. To her relief, instead of shooting the intruder on the spot, he swore at him.
“You bloody bonehead! You hen-brained, half-arsed son of—”
“Don’t shoot me!”
“What on earth are you doing here?”
“Will?” she said unthinkingly, pressing against the thin panel.
Her cousin stood in the doorway with his hands crossed in front of his face. She edged around her husband, who had slipped his gun into his waistband. She gave Will an irate look and plucked a dangling cobweb from her hair.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, more shaken than she’d realized.
“I came here to protect you,” he said indignantly. “Mary was worried that you’d be alone at the river. And now that I’ve visited this wharf at night, I understand her concern. A rat the size of a small dog just ran over my foot.”
Sebastien sighed.
Will lowered his hands. “Well, I thought I was supposed to accompany her on her adventures.” He hazarded a hopeful look at Sebastien. “Wasn’t I?”
“Yes,” Sebastien agreed quietly. “You were. And I appreciate your vigilance. Was it you who followed me here in that carriage?”
“Yes.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you announce yourself?”
“I got lost on the wharves,” he said sheepishly.
“Honestly, Will,” Eleanor said, frowning at him. “I would have asked you if I thought you should come here tonight.”
Silence ensued. Will glanced from Eleanor’s tousled hair to Sebastien’s half-buttoned shirt and loosened cravat. She blushed as she felt her husband’s hand slip surreptitiously up her back to secure the hooks and eyelets she had been unable to reach. There was little point in explaining that Will had arrived at the end of a heated tryst with her husband. Their disarrayed state spoke for itself.
Chapter Nineteen
In keeping with appearances, Lord and Lady Boscastle returned that night from the river to Belgrave Square, went straight to bed, and arose early the next day. Upon completing their morning toilette, they dressed, then sat cordially together for a leisurely breakfast. Sebastien scanned the newspaper for any mention of unusual political activity, a gentleman who gave every impression of settling into domesticity. Eleanor, in a most demure dove-gray muslin dress, her dark-red hair arranged in soft curls, made appropriately distressed comments as her husband began relating the latest news on the Mayfair Masquer.
“I have an appointment later today,” she murmured, refraining from snatching the newspaper from his hands.
He sat back in his chair. “I think he should retire altogether. Do you know that one editorial proposes he be placed in the Tower?”
“I don’t pay attention to that nonsense. He hasn’t done any harm, anyway.”
“What if he is harmed?” He laid aside the paper, confronting her, and yet concerned.
“Unlikely,” she said, shaking her head. It was difficult to decide how deeply his concern went. Or what part his male pride played in controlling her.
“I shall be glad when we leave London for the country,” he said in an undertone.
“So you have told me.” She sipped her tea with an innocent smile. “I shall be glad when you have severed all ties to your line of work, too.”
He frowned, but made no reply, neither a denial nor an agreement. She felt a stab of regret, in fact, for even suggesting he do so. In all honesty, she doubted he would ever retire from service. He wasn’t a man to find contentment in the conventional pursuits of a gentleman.
Had it been so, it seemed doubtful he would have chosen to marry her.
Three hours later, however, she discovered something about her husband that swept all her guilty feelings away. She was collected at the corner by the duchess’s driver and taken for a coach ride around the park with Her grace’s personal secretary, Mr. Herbert Loveridge. Without a word she handed him the letters she had recovered. She’d be proud to answer that she hadn’t read a single word of them, if interrogated.
“Her grace wishes to inform you that she is unable to meet you herself today,” he announced in his stentorian voice.
Eleanor studied the trim, nondescript young gentleman who frequently served as intermediary between the duchess and her agents. If Loveridge resented carrying secret messages from his employer to sausage vendors or curd-and-whey girls, he concealed it behind a grave demeanor.
Eleanor had witnessed him accepting coded notes from filthy female pickpockets with the same respect one would accord a princess.
She guessed Mr. Loveridge was well paid for his services. She also sensed that his devotion to the duchess went beyond monetary compensation. The Duchess of Wellington was herself a devoted friend to those who served her. Her uncommon kindness to the poor and lonely touched hearts throughout London.
“Lord Charles has a loose tooth,” Loveridge explained, referring to the duchess’s youngest boy. “Her grace was awake all night.”
“Oh, dear,” Eleanor said. “I hope the situation has resolved itself.”
Loveridge’s thin lips twitched. “What nature does not resolve, the dozen or so dentists summoned to attend the young lord will surely do so.”
“I understand.” As a surgeon’s daughter, with considerable practical experience in medical emergencies, Eleanor had been called to a few command performances herself at the duchess’s house. The duchess requested her every time one of her sons had a rash or upset stomach. “Did her grace have the presence of mind to issue me any new instructions?”
A shadow crossed Loveridge’s usually neutral countenance. “She has, my lady. I am to forewarn you, however, that she must preface her orders with unwelcome news.”
Eleanor’s heart sank. The Masquer was to be retired. Of course she’d known that one way or another, either at the duchess’s behest or at her husband’s, his demise was inevitable. She had only hoped for the opportunity to fulfill his desti
ny. After delivering the two remaining letters, she would have happily abdicated his reign. But it bothered her to live with unfinished business.
“Well, out with it, Mr. Loveridge,” she said more brusquely than he deserved. “Please deliver her grace’s message verbatim.”
He shook his head in regret. “It concerns Lancelot.”
“Who—? Oh.” Eleanor restrained a sigh. Lancelot was the Duchess of Wellington’s code name for Sebastien. King Arthur was, of course, the duke. Her grace wanted to be known as Guinevere, and Eleanor’s operative name on the streets was Merlin. “What has Lancelot to do with … Camelot?” she asked, managing to keep a straight face.
“Lancelot is a knight errant in this matter. The queen has learned that he approached King Arthur and begged permission to joust in the tournament.”
“What the deuce—” She wished that he would stop speaking in this ridiculous code and explain outright what he meant. But suddenly she knew. Sebastien hadn’t been ordered to interfere in her business.
“Let me understand this,” she said, her gloved hand curling into a fist. “My hus—Lancelot—is not acting under Arthur’s orders?”
He nodded somberly. “That is the queen’s understanding.”
“That sneaky bugger.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“It is I who should beg yours. I am beside myself, Loveridge.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“I want to murder him.”
“Dear heaven.”
She thought for several moments. “Does Guinevere have any advice as to what she wishes her sorcerer to do?”
He smiled faintly, confirming Eleanor’s suspicion that he enjoyed these intrigues as much as she and the duchess did. “She hopes that this will not discourage Merlin from what he has promised.”
Eleanor sat in silence. She should have been more upset or even surprised at this revelation, and yet she was not. Sebastien had fibbed to her, which didn’t necessarily mean his declarations of love were false as much as it meant he had a devious mind. Or an ambitious one. Perhaps he even hoped to emerge as the duke’s hero in the end. Steal her thunder, would he?
The carriage slowed at the corner. Loveridge handed her the customary pile of parcels from the duchess should Eleanor require proof of an afternoon’s shopping when she returned to the house.
A Wicked Lord at the Wedding Page 14