Tempest

by Sandra Dubay

  "Come on, boy," he repeated, his voice a low, gravelly growl. "Don't keep milord waiting."

  "I . . ." Dyanna lowered her voice as much as she could. "I am waiting for someonemy master is in Brooks's. I daren't miss him."

  "Monck?" A shrill, grating, unpleasantly familiar voice echoed from the shadows. "What is taking so long?"

  "Come on," the footman insisted. "Your master will wait. And milord only wants a little of your time"a sneering leer contorted his already ugly face"and mayhap a little of your fine, soft flesh."

  Dyanna gasped. Looking past the footman, Monck, she saw the two men who'd descended from the carriage emerge from the shadows. One she'd known from his voicethe ghostly, painted face of Lord Rawley seemed to glow in the silvery moonlight. The other was no less familiar, but more of a surprise. Geoffrey Culpepper stood beside the painted old fop.

  Dyanna stared, astonished. But the crushing grip of the footman's beefy hand on her arm jerked her back to reality. Struggling frantically, she tore her arm free of the man's grasp and fled up St. James's toward Piccadilly. Behind her, the footman chuckled softly; then, painting an apologetic expression across his round, florid face, he went to report his failure to the disappointed old roué.

  In the shadows halfway to Piccadilly, Dyanna leaned against a tree and gasped, trying to catch her breath. Rawley and Geoffrey! What a pair! And what had the footman meant when he'd said old Lord Rawley wanted a little of her 'fine, soft flesh'? What kind of man was he? Oh, how she wished she could ask Justin, but

  Justin! Her eyes went to the façade of Brooks's club, but Justin's carriage was nowhere to be seen.

  "Damn. Damn!" she muttered. "Thanks to that old reprobate, I've lost Justin. Damn him to hell!"

  Shoving her hands in her pockets, Dyanna returned to Piccadilly and started back toward DeVille House. There was no point in searching for Justin. The streets of London spread out around her, like the tangled strings of a spider's web, in every direction. It was hopeless. She would simply have to wait for another night.

  With a muttered curse for Lord Rawley and one for Geoffrey for good measure, she marched toward DeVille House. She was angry and disappointed. But under it all, she was curious as to what might go on behind the shadow-shrouded walls of that house on St. James's Street and what hideous Lord Rawley and Geoffrey Culpepper could possibly have in common.

  Chater Thirty

  Justin stepped out of his carriage and climbed the steps to the front door of the house on Great Queen Street. The footman Octavia FitzGeorge had hired with some of the money Justin had given her opened the door as he approached. He was expected.

  A summons had reached him at DeVille House just after dinner. It had had an air of panic about ita tearful quality he'd come to recognize as uniquely Octavia's. He hoped the woman was not going to try to wheedle more money out of him. She was fast losing her fragile, helpless femininity and becoming rapacious.

  As he gave his hat and cloak to the footman, Justin had to smile. The woman was not even his mistresstheir arrangement was purely business, as he had made clear from the startbut it seemed she could not resist trying to cajole gifts and favors out of him as a mistress would from her rich lover.

  His golden eyes scanned the saloon as the footman led him into it. When first he'd come here, it had been dark and dingy, poorly furnished with a collection of threadbare pieces that seemed to have come from some impoverished nobleman's servants' quarters. Now, thanks to him, it was pretty and bright, the furniture new and of good quality. And for what? he asked himself. Every time he sent to inquire, he received the same answer: No, she had neither seen nor heard from Geoffrey Culpepper, but oh, yes, my lord, she would certainly tell him the moment the wretch showed his face at her door.

  A glimmer of impatience crossed Justin's face. Perhaps it was useless. Perhaps Culpepper had gone abroad and all Justin's efforts were good for nothing saving the continued maintainance of Octavia FitzGeorge.

  "My lord?" a small voice squeaked from the doorway behind him.

  Justin turned. A pretty, calico-gowned maidservant stood there eying him with something close to awe.

  "Where is your mistress?" he asked.

  "Upstairs, my lord. She asks that you attend her there, as she is too distraught to leave her bed."

  Justin hesitated. He'd been summoned before to bedchambers by ladies who pleaded indisposition. It generally turned out to be a ruse and the lady's only indisposition was the desire for a new lover. But he'd made it clear to Octavia that he was not interested in a mistress and all her subtle attempts at seduction had been gently, but firmly, declined.

  "Very well," he told the maid, gesturing toward the door, "lead on."

  He followed the girl up the stairs and along a corridor to a room at the northwest corner of the house. Curtsying, she opened the door, then closed it behind him when he'd entered.

  The room was walled in pale pink silk that gave it a rosy tinge in the glow of the candles. The furniture was gilded and tapestried and the bed that dominated the room boasted a golden coronet fastened to the ceiling from which draperies of rich gold brocade cascaded to the floor.

  Octavia FitzGeorge lay sprawled across the bed, her shoulders heaved and her broken sobbing filled the room.

  Justin winced. Not tearsanything but tears. He could almost feel her delicate fingers working their stealthy way into his wallet.

  "Octavia?" he said softly, going to the bed and pulling up a chair beside it. "Octavia, stop this and tell me what's wrong."

  To his surprise, the sobbing subsided and she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Sniffling, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  "It's . . ." She faltered. "It's Geoffrey."

  Justin leaned toward her. "He's back? He's been here?"

  She nodded, catching a little, shuddering breath. "He was here earlier. Oh, my lord! He was so cruel! So heartless! He knows I've been seeing youI told him there was nothing . . . that you had been kind to me. But he was so angry! He said he wants nothing more to do with me. He said I must be out of this house tomorrow! He says I must deny that we were married and if I do not . . ." She shivered, her eyes round with fright. "He says he'll see himself made a widower! Oh, my lord! The look in his eyes! I truly believe he would kill me! I'm so frightened, my lord!"

  "Did he say where he's staying in London?" Justin asked.

  She shook her head. "No, my lord. Oh! How could he do this to me! I hate him!"

  "Do you?" Justin asked. "Truly? Would you be avenged on him, if you could?"

  "I would!" she declared. "But how can I? I cannot even prove we were married. Geoffrey took the license." Her eyes misted with tears of fear and humiliation. "Do you think he would harm me, my lord?"

  Justin nodded, hating to frighten her more, but truly believing Geoffrey capable of eliminating the wife who stood between himself and his goalnamely, Dyanna's fortune. If Octavia held her tongue, he might let her alone. But if not . . . it was all too possible she might meet with an accident some dark night.

  She gazed at Justin over the wadded handkerchief. "What will I do, my lord? Geoffrey has cast me into the street. He says he can give me nothing. He says I must go back on the stage and earn my keep. That may be possible, but how will I live in the meanwhile? I am lost! Utterly, hopelessly, lost!"

  Rising, Justin went to the window and gazed out. He felt responsible, at least in part, for her plight. He supposed that was precisely the response she hoped to evoke in him. On the other hand, it might be handy to have Geoffrey Culpepper's wife, legal or not, in his debt. He might need her later, to prove Geoffrey's treachery in eloping with Dyanna.

  Turning, he said, "Dry your eyes, madam. I'm certain something can be arranged for youjust until you are able to make other arrangements, you understand."

  "My lord!" she breathed, hands clasped theatrically to her bosom while she gazed at him in rapturous delight. "How kind you are!"

  Justin sighed. If that was any sample of her acti
ng, her return to the stage would be a long, long time in coming.

  "Come along, Octavia, call your maid. Have her bathe your eyes and dress you to go out. We shall find you a place to staytemporarily."

  Waving aside her gushing thanks, Justin left the room. Passing Octavia's maid in the corridor, he scowled, irritated that it should have come to this. All he'd wanted to know was when Geoffrey Culpepper returned to town. Now, he found himself supporting an out-of-work actress! He thought of Sheridan, the playwright, whom he knew through Charles James Fox and the Prince of Wales. He had a lot of influence in the theaterperhaps he could help him find something for Octavia FitzGeorge to do.

  Cheered, he was in a far better frame of mind as he and Octavia set out in search of a suitableand reasonably pricedplace for her to live.

  Candles dispelled little of the gloom of the grand saloon of Lord Heneage Rawley's town house in Harley Street. Reclining on a rug-covered Turkish divan, the grotesquely painted viscount eyed Geoffrey Culpepper through an ornate quizzing glass as he paced angrily up and down the darkened room.

  "DeVille!" Geoffrey was ranting. "That bastard is the bane of my existence! First he comes between me and Dyanna's fortune, and now he wheedles his way into Octavia's lifeand who knows what else!''

  Lord Rawley rang a bell and a pretty young boy in oriental silks appeared with a bottle of absinthe on a tray. When the boy was gone, Lord Rawley sipped from his glass and turned an apathetic eye on Geoffrey.

  "He does have an unfortunate way of turning up when and where he is least wanted. I saw him at the Tower not long since and asked to be presented to Miss McBride. If looks could kill, my friend, I would be dead and gone today."

  "He seems to have appointed himself her guardian angel," Geoffrey sneered. "He has delusions of being some sort of knight who charges about being chivalrous to women. Well, he can be chivalrous to Octavia. I've turned the little bitch out into the street."

  "How can that help?" Lord Rawley wanted to know.

  "It will help," Geoffrey assured him cryptically. "You must trust me, my dear Heneage. Everything has its purpose. Everything advances our cause."

  Setting his empty glass aside, Lord Rawley toyed with the quizzing glass that hung on an ornate gold chain around his neck. "Tell me, Geoffrey," he said idly, "is there more to your determination to have Miss McBride than merely her fortune?"

  "Not at all," Geoffrey assured him. "I care nothing for the girl. She's a spoiled, headstrong, willful little hoyden. But richgood God, what a fortune! The estates of the McBrides and those of her grandfather, Lord Lincoln. She could use Blaykling Castle for a summer house."

  "Then you intend to marry her?"

  "If I must," Geoffrey admitted. "But there might be another way. I'm looking into it."

  "And if there is no other way?"

  "You're driving at something, my lord. What is it?"

  "Oh . . ." Lord Rawley waved a pale, perfumed hand. "I was only thinking what a pity it would be if such a beautiful young girl as Miss McBride were to meet with an accident."

  "Yes." Geoffrey smirked. "It would be a pity, wouldn't it? Particularly if she had just been marriedif she had her whole life before her."

  "What would be even more pitiful," Lord Rawley went on, his red-rimmed eyes gleaming, "would be if she took her own life. There is, you remember, a tendency in her family to wildness. Perhaps in her it takes the form of an unbalanced mind."

  "I suppose it's possible," Geoffrey allowed. "It doesn't really matter what happens to her, so long as the end result is the same."

  "Dyanna McBride out of the way and her fortune in your pocket," Lord Rawley drawled.

  "Precisely," Geoffrey agreed.

  Making a steeple of his bony fingers, Lord Rawley pursed his lips and eyed Geoffrey askance. "Tell me, my boy, if I agree to help youif I agree to conceal Miss McBride for as long as it takes to convince her to agree to your plans for her, what will be my reward?"

  "Once Dyanna's fortune is mine," Geoffrey told him, quickly averting his eyes from a shrunken head, one of the less grisly items in Lord Rawley's macabre collection, "I will be able to give you whatever you ask."

  Pushing himself to his feet, the black-clad viscount crossed the room. With one finger he toyed with the blood-red, heart-shaped patch placed high on his white-painted right cheek.

  "It is not money that I desire," he told Geoffrey, his narrow back to his visitor.

  "Then what?" Geoffrey wanted to know.

  Rawley turned to him, an almost diabolical gleam in his eyes. "I want her to myself for a time. Alone. With no interference from anyone. At the end of that time, she will be yours to do withor dispose ofas you please."

  Geoffrey's dark eyes met the sly, unwavering gaze of Lord Rawley, and he felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  "What are you planning to do with her?" he asked, fully aware of Lord Rawley's less palatable interests and tastesknowing all about

  the room upstairs and its contents and purpose.

  "Does it matter?" the Viscount countered. "You don't love her, remember? And perhaps, when I am through with her, she will be more docile, more pliable. You might even decide you'd like to keep her for a while."

  Geoffrey hesitated, wondering if he truly hated Dyanna enough to throw her into the clutches of a man so truly and utterly perverse as this decadent nobleman.

  "Tell me, my lord," he asked carefully, "are you still in correspondence with your imprisoned friend in France?"

  "The Marquis de Sade?" Rawley said, smiling. "Oh, yes!"

  Chater Thirty-One

  Weary and irritable, Justin let himself in when he returned to DeVille House that evening. It had taken some time, but he had at last been able to secure a modest house in Gracechurch Street for Octavia. She'd pouted a little, of course. Gracechurch Street was far removed from her quiet former neighborhood. Running between Cornhill and Eastcheap, it was not so very far from the Tower of London.

  Still, Justin had pointed out to her, it was better than being tossed into the street, and if she'd a mind to try her luck elsewhere she was welcome to. That had quieted Octavia somewhat and in the end she'd seemed satisfied with the six-month lease Justin had taken on the house and the letter of credit he'd given her to pay her expenses during that same six months. By the end of that time, he'd warned her, she would be expected to fend for herself. He hoped she would find employment on the stagesince that seemed to be her only ambition so far as work was concernedbut he rather suspected she would prefer to find herself another rich, if not noble, protector.

  Still, he thought as he relinquished his cloak and hat to a footman, he'd seen her provided for the present. He'd repayed her for what little information she had provided about Geoffrey. And that, as far as he was concerned, was an end to his association with Miss Octavia FitzGeorge.

  "Where is Miss Dyanna?" he asked Ipswich, who had hurried to the entrance hall when he realized that his master had returned at last.

  "She was in the music room when last I saw her, milord," the butler replied. As Justin turned away, he asked, "Will you be wanting dinner soon, milord?"

  "No, Ipswich. I ate while I was out. Has Miss Dyanna had hers?"

  "Oh, yes, milord, some time ago."

  Nodding, Justin went to the music room and opened the door. Across the room Dyanna sat at the pianoforte. It was closed and her arms rested on the inlaid cover protecting the keys. Her cheek rested on her crossed wrists and she gazed out at the mist gathering in the twilight-blue garden.

  Lost in her musings, Dyanna was unaware of Justin's arrival. She did not hear the click of the doorlatch, nor did she know that even at that moment he was standing in the doorway watching her. Her mind was faraway and filled with thoughts of Geoffrey Culpepper.

  She should tell Justin, she thought, thrusting a fingertip into her mouth and biting at the nail. She should tell him that Geoffrey was back in town. But what then? She knew Justin hated Geoffrey and longed to be avenged on himshe coul
d hear it in Justin's voice when he spoke Geoffrey's name. But how could she tell him? Where could she say she saw him? Certainly she could never admit that she was out at night alone, disguised as a boy. What would he think if he knew she had tried to follow him last night? He would be angry. And also, perhaps, a bit smug that she should care so much about where he went. Would he enjoy knowing how much she minded his having a mistress? Probably. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much it bothered her. And she could notwould notbe the cause of more strife involving Geoffrey Culpepper. No, she would simply let the matter die. So long as Geoffrey left her alone, she would say no more about him.

  "Dyanna?" Justin said. His voice was low, but the sudden shattering of the perfect silence of the room made her start violently.

  "Justin!" she cried, pushing herself away from the instrument and smoothing her gown. "I did not know you had come home."

  "A few minutes ago," he told her. "Ipswich said you've already had your dinner."

  She nodded. "I didn't wait. I didn't think you'd be home. You've been away a great deal lately."

  He said nothing and she knew that if she pressed him for details of the business that kept him away so long it would only end in an argument. Clasping her hands before her, she watched as he went to a loveseat and sat down.

  "Justin," she said, crossing the room toward him, "I never had the chance to ask you before, but . . . who was that horrible old man who spoke to us that day at the Tower?"

  A grimace of distaste flitted across Justin's face. "Rawley," he said. "Viscount Heneage Rawley. He's an old reprobate. The things they say he's done make Sir Francis Dashwood and his Friars of Medmenham Abbey look like children at play. They say he experiments in black magic, alchemy, sorcery, necrophilia. . . . There are rumors that young boys in his service disappear. He says they've gone to work at his country estate, but no one ever sees them there. Young women hired as maidservants complain of cruelty. They say he whips them for the slightest transgressions. And seems to enjoy it. But I shouldn't be telling you all this. It will give you nightmares."