by Лорен Уиллиг
"My most abject apologies," drawled Vaughn, sauntering into the room and kicking the panel shut behind him. "I had expected someone else."
Mary stood primly beside the marble mantel, her hands clasped at her waist. "I'm sorry to disappoint you."
Vaughn's eyes conducted a leisurely inspection of Mary's person, from the scuffed toes of last season's kid half-boots straight up to the folds of the hood draped around her face.
He lifted one eyebrow in a lazy tribute. "Did I say I was disappointed? On the contrary. I am merely rendered dumb by the unexpected apparition of such loveliness in my humble bachelor abode."
Easing back her hood, Mary wrinkled her nose at the inlaid porcelain plaques, straight from the Orient, the gilded dragons, the precious rosewood carelessly used to line the walls. "You have a curious notion of humility, my lord."
"And what of bachelordom?" Vaughn propped himself against one of the priceless porcelain plaques as carelessly as if it were common plaster. "Now, there's a curious thing, bachelordom."
He was properly a widower, not a bachelor. Not that it made any difference. Either way, he could marry if he chose. He simply chose not to.
Mary permitted herself a sour smile. "I wouldn't know. My only experience is of spinsterhood."
"You sell yourself short, my dear." With no regard for the antiquity of the materials behind him, Vaughn pushed away from the wall.
The movement overset his balance, and he stumbled a bit, putting out a hand against the wall to catch himself. Mary revised her earlier opinion of his dishabille. Not mere insolence, then, but — could the unflappable Lord Vaughn possibly be in his cups?
It was a practically unimaginable notion, but there was no denying the uncharacteristic flush lighting his cheekbones and his slight unsteadiness, almost but not entirely masked by the studied deliberation of his movements. But even that deliberation was just the tiniest bit miscalculated, like a drawing with the proportions off by the fraction of a hair. And what she had assumed was a shadow, in fact, upon closer viewing, looked suspiciously like spilled wine, a dark blot against Vaughn's otherwise immaculate linen, in the general region of his heart.
The white linen of his sleeve billowed dramatically about his arm as he gestured grandly at Mary. "What mere mortal could aspire to such loveliness?"
"Anyone with ten thousand pounds a year," said Mary caustically.
Vaughn clucked disapprovingly. "Can the world buy such a jewel?"
"And a case to put it into." Mary matched his quote and topped it. Every now and again, Shakespeare actually said something sensible; Mary had always taken that particular line as her personal motto. "No one has offered me a suitable case yet. My lord, I did come here for a reason."
"To see me," Vaughn provided, with a winning smile.
"To convey some intelligence to you," Mary corrected, with a frown. Inebriated men needed to be dealt with firmly, since they had a way of wandering from the point.
Of course, Vaughn had a way of diverting the conversation even sober. And for a man in his cups — if he was, indeed, in his cups — he sounded surprisingly lucid. Ever since that first stumble, his posture would have been the envy of any dancing master, and all his sibilants were exactly where they should be.
"Wounded!" cried Vaughn. "Struck to the heart! Did you think I had not intelligence enough already?"
"I think, my lord, that you could fright an academician out of his wits," began Mary carefully. "But — "
"Child's play," Vaughn interjected. "Academicians are a witless lot to begin with. I require more of a challenge. What of you?" he asked silkily. "Could I deprive you of your wits?"
"I wouldn't be of much use to you in that event, would I?"
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," murmured Vaughn, with a decidedly improper glint in his eye.
Mary could all but hear Letty's I told you so echoing in her ears. What was it Letty had called him? A reprobate? A rake? Whichever it was, he was doing his best to live up to the appellation.
She had enough of her wits left about her to nip that right in the bud. Straightening her spine, Mary cast him her best dowager-in-training expression, the one designed to cow dogs, servants, and small boys.
"I must beg your pardon for calling at such an unorthodox hour. I would not have done so had the circumstances not been exigent."
"Exigent." Vaughn rolled the word on his tongue as he strolled towards her. "The imagination quivers with anticipation. Have you left the hounds in hot pursuit? Shall I find a pack of creditors panting at my door? A love-maddened marquess anxious to sweep you away to his mountaintop lair? Or, perhaps," he added delicately, raising one brow, "a jealous wife, baying for your blood?"
Mary knew exactly which wife he meant.
"Neither," she snapped, biting off the word on her tongue. "Merely an overworked French spy, seeking an assignation with a likely operative."
The statement had an effect, even if not necessarily the desired one. Vaughn went still, his expression remote.
"Ah," said Vaughn.
"I had expected some response other than 'ah,' my lord," Mary pointed out with heavy sarcasm.
Instead of replying, Vaughn twisted a piece of filigree, revealing a cunningly constructed cabinet hidden behind the porcelain plaque. The opening of the cabinet had been cut in the shape of the plaque, the filigree edging hiding any break in the wall. Within sat a crystal decanter with a delicately rounded base and two matching glasses.
The number of glasses made a certain amount of sense. More than two people and the room would start to feel crowded. All the same, Mary couldn't help but wonder just whom Vaughn had entertained in the Chinese chamber before — and whom he had been intending to entertain tonight. Her eyes strayed to the little red cushioned benches that lined the walls. They were too narrow to support two comfortably, too shallow for dalliance of a more relaxed nature. Private the room might be, the furniture was inappropriately constructed for impropriety.
Looking up, Mary encountered Vaughn's amused gray eyes, watching her as though he knew exactly what she had been thinking.
Holding up the decanter, Vaughn enquired, "Claret?"
It was amazing the innuendo the man managed to pack into an entirely innocent word.
Lifting her chin, Mary gave a sniff worthy of a spinster chaperone. "I don't indulge."
Vaughn paused with the stopper poised above the decanter, one eyebrow raised. "No?" he said softly, and Mary had the uneasy feeling that they were talking about more than wine.
"No," she said shortly. "If we might return to business…"
"Business is it? How extremely…lowering. And just what sort of business would you care to transact?"
"Exactly the sort you engaged me to pursue. Or, rather, the individual you engaged me to pursue. The Black Tulip."
"And if I told you my interests had changed? That my circumstances had altered?"
Mary frowned at him. "We have a bargain, my lord."
"Bargains change. People change."
"How poetic." Mary's voice was so acid it nearly burned a hole in the exquisite marquetry of the table.
Setting down the decanter with a decided thump, Vaughn's face spread in a grin of genuine appreciation. "Well said, Miss Alsworthy. And as we all know, the truest poetry is the most feigning. As You Like It," he added, for Mary's edification.
"I don't like it," Mary said repressively.
Glass in one hand, Vaughn gestured expansively. "Don't all young ladies love poetry?"
"Not this one."
Vaughn's voice dropped intimately. "Generations of cavaliers have spun pretty lies for pretty faces — and what face prettier than yours? Would you prefer an epic, with ships dashed across a foreign shore in your honor? A ballad, perhaps. 'Come live with me and be my love / And we will all the pleasures prove…'"
Mary cut through Vaughn's recitation before he could enumerate them. "The Black Tulip has suggested a meeting place."
Vaughn bowed to the inevitable. "V
ery well," he sighed, motioning with his glass. "Since you seem determined to do so, tell me about your spy."
"Your spy has summoned me for an audience tomorrow night at Vauxhall Gardens."
"Vauxhall," mused Vaughn, as the reflected points of light in his claret sparkled like candles of a drowned city. "An interesting choice."
"An obvious one," Mary countered. "With masks and dark walkways."
"I am familiar with the gardens," replied Vaughn, his lips curving reminiscently. "More so than you, I imagine."
Judging from the glint in Vaughn's eye, he had made good use of the darker corners. "Far be it from me to challenge your great experience, my lord. My own little knowledge of the world certainly can't compare."
Vaughn's face darkened. He abruptly put down his glass. "Don't even wish it. You are better served without my experience. It would put lines on your pretty face. Here." He ran a deliberate finger down her cheek, his every move a challenge. "And here. It would be a shame to mar a thing of such beauty." His hand moved to cup her chin, angling her face with the dispassionate expertise of a collector examining a miniature. "Such exquisite beauty."
Mary steeled herself not to react, even as his touch tingled against her cheek.
"I know," she said coolly. "Others have told me so before."
Their eyes locked and held in an unspoken battle of wills, each daring the other to give way. With a rough laugh, Vaughn broke first, releasing his grip on her chin, staggering slightly as he did so.
Sweeping up his glass, Vaughn saluted her. "To women who know their own worth."
With one fluid motion, he knocked back the contents.
"Enough to know when to leave." Mary dragged the corners of her cloak around her and turned to look for the mechanism that operated the hidden door.
It couldn't be that complicated; architects seldom had much imagination when it came to concealing such things. It was the fourth panel from the fireplace; Mary had marked that much when Vaughn entered.
She poked cautiously at a particularly protuberant curlicue.
"Don't." Vaughn spoke softly, and yet his voice seemed to carry to fill the whole room, like mist at twilight. "Don't go."
Mary's fingers stilled on the filigree border, the finely chased gold biting into the pads of her fingers. "Why should I stay?"
Mary heard the chink of crystal against wood as he set down his glass on the teak table. His soft-soled slippers made hardly any noise on the polished floor.
Staring at a Chinese village, a long-poled house poised beside a hypothetical river, Mary was reminded inescapably of the Long Gallery at Sibley Court, that very first night of their association. He had come up behind her just so then, standing so close that his shirtfront brushed her back, so close she could feel the warmth of his skin, so close that his breath stirred her hair. They had so stood so then, and he had stepped away, another calculated move in a game played more for intellect than passion. It had been a feint, a ruse.
But this time, Vaughn didn't step away. He smelled of soap and sandalwood and spilled spirits.
He bent his head, and whispered in her ear, "Because I want you to."
Mary made a Herculean effort not to squirm.
"It isn't good for you to always get what you want," she said primly.
"Perhaps not," Vaughn agreed solemnly, his breath ruffling the hair at the nape of her neck. His hands cupped her shoulders, warm even through the wool of her cloak. They moved downwards, exploring the shape of her upper arms through the fabric. There was something mesmerizing about the movement, the power of human touch. "But so very, very pleasant."
Swallowing hard, Mary twisted in his grasp, turning to face him, the porcelain plaque hard and cold against her back. "Lord Vaughn — "
"Sebastian," he corrected.
There was something in his face as he said it, something raw and vulnerable, that robbed the words from Mary's tongue.
She bit down on her lower lip in confusion, not knowing what to say. It was one thing to spar with Lord Vaughn, sleek and polished, but this Sebastian, with his hair tousled and his shirt open at the throat, was another matter entirely, and infinitely more unsettling.
Taking advantage of her bewilderment, Vaughn ran an exploratory finger along the curve of her cheek, like a master sculptor marveling at his creation. Even his very breath seemed to intoxicate, rich with the smell of heady foreign wine. Mary seized on the scent with the last vestiges of common sense.
"You're foxed," she protested.
"Intoxicated," Vaughn corrected, using his fingers to trace the arch of her brows. His lips formed the words very deliberately. Mary couldn't take her eyes off the sight of them. "Drunk on the sight of you."
Mary tilted her chin, looking him straight in the eye. Her show of bravado might have been more effective if her heart wasn't pounding quite so hard, all but drowning out the sound of her own voice. "Eyes don't inebriate."
"Yours do. Stronger than port wine, sweeter than champagne, more biting than brandy. One gaze and a man is left staggering, sotted."
"I think you confuse me with the claret, my lord," she managed.
"Who needs claret?" His hand infiltrated the carefully arranged locks of her hair, twining through the long strands with a fine disregard for her hairdresser's art.
"You did, an hour ago."
Vaughn's thumbs smoothed over her eyelids, coaxing them closed. "'Drink to me only with thine eyes,'" he murmured, his voice pitched deep and fathomless as midnight, "'and I will pledge with mine.'"
One finger brushed across the sensitive skin of her lower lip in a pledge of things to come. They both knew how the verse ended, but Mary found herself waiting breathlessly for the final line, like the final words of an incantation.
Vaughn's voice dropped to something scarcely above a whisper, his breath soft against her lips.
"'Or leave a kiss but in the cup, and I'll not ask for wine.'"
She could taste the claret he had drunk, headier from his lips than from the glass. He gave her a sporting chance to pull away, his lips a mere whisper on hers, his hands braced on the wall behind her. She could so easily have leaned away, have broken the fragile contact, as good sense and all her upbringing commanded. There was no profit in his kisses, no prospect of matrimony to follow.
That, at least, was what she should have been thinking. Instead, she found herself leaning forwards, sharing the draft he was offering. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the fine linen of his shirt as her hands moved up his arms to his shoulders, the muscles tensing beneath her touch, moving to hold her closer. His skin was warm, so warm, warding off the chill of the cold porcelain behind her back, the echoing gilded rooms, the night outside. His hands slid beneath her cloak, molding themselves to her waist, drawing her nearer, warming wherever they touched. Perhaps it was the wine, tingling on her tongue, inebriating by extension. Or perhaps it was just Vaughn — Sebastian — cradling her as though she were more precious than the porcelain on the walls, his lips exploring hers with the skill of a decade of assorted debaucheries.
At the nape of his neck, his hair feathered against the back of her hands, surprisingly soft, just as the skin beneath his collar was warm and supple, a world away from the starched shirts and stiff coats with which the Lord Vaughn she knew always barricaded himself. Mary let her hands slide further beneath his collar, feeling the muscles of his back undulate beneath her touch. Her fingers roamed over his shoulder blades, like an explorer traversing a mountain range in a strange, new land, and she could hear a roaring in her ears like the fall of a distant waterfall.
Until the hands holding her abruptly pulled away, and she opened her eyes to see Vaughn, her hair tousled and his eyes the color of an old silver coin.
Blinking a few times, Mary touched her fingers to her lips. She had been kissed before, more times than she cared to admit to. In her first Season, fresh from the country, she had allowed liberties in the hopes it might bring someone up to scratch — and, if she we
re honest, because she had been curious. It hadn't always been unpleasant. There were men who knew what they were doing, who didn't grab, who didn't slobber, who didn't try to colonize her vocal cords with their tongues. But it had never, ever so absorbed her attention or scattered her senses.
Despite her four Seasons, Mary suddenly felt as callow as any girl on her first balcony, all her worldliness in tatters around her.
Perhaps it was the claret.
"My lord — " she began, before realizing that she no idea where the sentence was supposed to end. "Sebastian…"
The name felt awkward on her tongue, despite the license he had given her to use it.
Vaughn's arm stiffened beneath her hand. Stepping back with unflattering promptness, he stared at her as though seeing her for the first time, his gaze raking her face as though he were seeing straight through the skin.
Pressing his eyes tightly shut, he took a deep breath. "Mary — " he began, and then stopped, scraping a hand through his hair in an entirely uncharacteristic gesture of confusion.
"Yes?" said Mary, trying to keep her voice neutral and failing utterly.
Vaughn's lips twisted. "I can't say I never intended it, because I did. When I saw you standing there, I thought…"
Mary waited for him to finish the thought, but Vaughn turned abruptly away. "The time has come to restore you to the bosom of your family. I'll have Derby ready my sedan chair to take you home. You shouldn't be abroad at this time of night."
Bending, he yanked violently on the tongue of one the gilded dogs. The tongue rolled forwards. Somewhere in the depths of the door, a catch clicked and the panel sprung smoothly open.
"What of Vauxhall?" Mary asked.
Vaughn paused with one hand on the panel. "Vauxhall," he repeated, as though it were an unfamiliar term.
"The reason for my visit," Mary reminded him lightly.
Vaughn's brows drew together. "Of course. I knew that."
He looked rather adorable when he was befuddled, Mary thought giddily, although whether he was befuddled with claret or the kiss was unclear. She preferred to credit the latter.
Drawing himself up with exaggerated dignity, Vaughn addressed the air somewhere beyond her left shoulder. "There are arrangements to be made for our trip to Vauxhall. I'll see to them. It is," he added, with a crooked smile, "the least I can do."