A streak of black caught Simon’s eye. There, on the staircase landing, a widow was moving in and out of the crowd. Her veil concealed her features as she kept to several tall Corinthians’ backs. And yet, her movements were not regal or sorrowful but hurried, calculated, purposefully obscuring her from view in a sea of people who yearned to see and be seen. But that wasn’t all. There was something familiar about her, regardless that her widow’s weeds armed his suspicions. Black wasn’t fashionable in a sea of white-robed females, and mourning women usually avoided the theater.
“Is something amiss, my lord?” Orson asked.
Simon shook himself and met Orson’s gaze. “No.” Perhaps he was getting too old for this. “I thought I saw someone I know.” To his recollection, only one woman held the kind of power over him that this one seemed to wield, only one woman moved the way she did—with purpose and as if she knew the theater like the back of her hand—a woman likely never to be purged from his soul: Gillian Stillman Corbet, Baroness Chauncey.
Orson nodded and bowed his head. “Then if everything is in order, my lord, I will go back to my post.”
“Yes.” The muscles in Simon’s jaw tightened. It was futile to allow the past to conflict with his duty. “You do that, Orson.” He drew his head back stiffly as Orson walked to the lobby entrance then scrutinized the stairs once more. There, he caught sight of the woman again. She ducked behind another patron. Caught between elation and surprise, Simon froze, his body reacting exactly as it did whenever he saw her in his dreams.
It was Gillian.
Why was she here? Simon hadn’t seen the woman since she’d walked away from him and out of his life forever. But he didn’t believe in coincidences. He prided himself on evaluating reality with sound judgment, giving nothing away and holding nothing back. Facts were reliable; happenstance was cause for suspicion. And yet the possibility of Gillian returning to Drury Lane for the first time in five years gutted him, stealing his breath and taking him back in time to the moment he’d fought so hard to forget—the day she’d discovered he was betrothed to another.
Lucifer take it! He didn’t want to feel the emotions Gillian pumped into his unwilling body.
His fingers twitched, then tightened around the silver dragon’s head handle of his cane. Bollocks! He’d thought that after arranging for Gillian to marry Chauncey, he’d put her behind him. He’d resigned himself to a loveless marriage and procuring the heir his father had demanded, and Simon had relegated himself to focusing on the task at hand, living—if one could call it that—and sacrificing every ounce of his strength for the greater good. He’d done a decent job of it so far, barring his wife Edwina’s debilitating illness. Now, seeing Gillian again made him realize he’d been wrong that night so many years ago; she made him see how incomplete his marriage of convenience had become.
Why? Why are you being so stubborn? her voice pleaded faintly in the distance of his memories.
Because he was an arse.
No. No. No, you fool. It will do no good to remember.
But it was no use. The floodgates had already opened. He could no sooner fight the images of Gillian clinging to his gloved hands, her heartbreak mirroring his own as tears tumbled down her rosy cheeks, than prevent Lucien from taking her away from him forever.
Stubborn? Simon had asked her. I should ask you the same question.
I am only stubborn in one regard—you, she’d professed.
Her searching eyes had imprisoned his. You are young, he’d explained. My hands are tied. You must turn your attentions to someone who can reciprocate your love.
Reciprocate? I love you, Simon. I am not a child who can change the way I feel in an instant.
You must not love me, he’d told her.
Those five words cut into him for the millionth time.
We will be each other’s ruin, Gillian. You know this as well as I do.
Deny your feelings all you want, but I never will, Simon. No matter how far you send me away, no matter—
Don’t speak. He’d touched her mouth to end her confession before it killed him. Go. Live. Be happy.
He’d turned to Chauncey then, fighting the urge to rip the man apart as he came forward to grab Gillian by her elbow and lead her away to the church in Chelsea and the vows that would separate Simon from her forever. Nothing had wounded him more deeply than sending the woman he had loved to another man’s bed. But an agreement had been made between the Landon-Fitzhugh family and his father, one meant to “improve Simon’s naval status,” one that couldn’t be breached without causing a scandal of epic proportions.
Simon had told himself that if he couldn’t spend his life with Gillian, he’d entrust her to his good friend and fellow spy, a French expatriate and newly appointed baron, a man who could offer respectability, marriage, and a life free of suspicion and disdain that a career at Drury Lane could not.
Blast his damnable pride and his inability to refuse his father’s demands! None of what he’d done had been worth the damage to his soul, or to Edwina’s.
Simon leaned on his cane for balance. He was a hedonistic man, a cad for having loved another man’s wife when his own was lying bedridden, a fact that damned Simon to eternity. He and Edwina shared respect, friendship, and companionship, it was true, but never the deep, abiding love he’d known with Gillian. Even time seemed to wage war against him.
“Listen, my lord,” a soft-spoken woman said excitedly to her companion, “the play is about to begin.”
The lady’s escort curtly said, “Perhaps that will prod this throng to move.”
Sounds of the orchestra and the casual banter continued as Simon inhaled a stabilizing breath and regarded the stairs. There, like a goddess who had assumed human flesh, the lovely widow ascended the staircase before him. She was Baroness Chauncey; there was no doubt.
But how could it be?
Simon grumbled to himself. Chauncey had once mentioned a widow he’d enlisted to help him on his endeavors. Could that grief-stricken woman have actually been Gillian? She was an experienced actress, after all . . .
No, it wasn’t possible. Gillian couldn’t be a spy. He’d know if she was. Wouldn’t he?
Bloody hell! The baroness was not the kind of distraction he needed this night. The Prince of Wales was in the Royal Box, and Nelson would be arriving soon. Still, he was instinctively focused on Gillian. Whatever her ruse—destitute widow needing solace, or spy dressed to kill—her suspicious actions clamored for his attention.
Determined to find out what was going on, Simon lifted the handle of his cane slightly and suppressed a satisfied grin as the sound of scraping steel pierced the air. Then he quickly slid his blade back inside its secretive sheath. He gave the weapon a sideways glance before redirecting his gaze to Gillian’s fading bombazine skirts. Since arriving at the theater, he’d anticipated a quiet night of boring society mixed with an aura of intrigue. Gillian’s appearance at Drury Lane had awakened his senses to a heated chase, one he’d desperately longed for to ease his boredom. He bit down on another smile as he walked forward.
At thirty-three, Simon was a man in his prime and was used to long hours and taking to his regrettably cold bed without sating his baser needs. He and Edwina lived separate lives: she taking solace in medicinal remedies, and he fighting for something larger than himself. He loathed gentlemen who were unwilling to serve the greater good. And he was determined not to fail the Prince of Wales or Vice-Admiral Nelson.
Perhaps Simon was wrong. Perhaps the widow wasn’t Gillian. He prayed he was mistaken, but he was hardly ever wrong.
“Have you noticed that widow, my lord?” his smartly dressed head of security, John Cavendish, asked abruptly on his left. “It is rare to see one at the theater.”
The man was confirming Simon’s suspicions. Wearing black in general served a useful purpose—disguise—but it certainly wasn’t proper for this setting.
Simon stopped to survey the crowd. “Yes,” he finally answered. “Lea
ve her to me. Until I return, see to it that no one gets near Lord Nelson when he arrives.”
Cavendish’s brow furrowed. “Are you leaving?”
“No.” The question was ridiculous. He never left a job unfinished. “I shall return momentarily after I question the widow. Until then, keep a vigilant eye on the entrance to the theater. Leave nothing to chance. I want everything still in order when the admiral appears. We have no way of knowing if the audience will swarm him.”
“Yes, my lord.” Cavendish bowed, then spun around briskly, revealing his military training.
Curse the man for neglecting to hide that small, critical detail. The idea was to remain inconspicuous!
Rule number one: A man had to always be on guard. In war, at peace, and at the gaming tables, one should never give away a tell unless absolutely necessary.
Simon limped toward the stairs. He quirked his brow and peered into the crushing throng, determined to only briefly disrupt his usual duties to discover what she was up to.
Then Simon frowned. If the baroness was there, Chauncey couldn’t be far behind, which would mean . . .
Was there another threat against the king? The only time Chauncey had ever been to the Theatre Royal had been to thwart an assassination attempt on King George. Besides which, the baron’s last message indicated he’d smuggled himself into France on a mission of great importance. If Chauncey had returned to London without making Simon aware, it was a circumstance that didn’t allow for the baroness to leave Drury Lane before any information the baron had attained in France was in Simon’s hands.
But no, that couldn’t be the case. Because if Simon prided himself on anything, it was his vast knowledge about England’s foreign policy. He was kept informed of everything there was to know, thanks to his former role as a Royal Navy officer. At the Prince of Wales’s insistence, he’d gleaned a network of intelligence for the Admiralty, an association that included diplomatic ties to Vice-Admiral Nelson and Henry Dundas.
Had crucial intelligence truly been kept from him?
Simon meandered through the crowd and ascended the stairs with the aid of his cane, desiring more than ever to lift the mysterious veil from Gillian’s face. Black fabric, ribbons, and lace obscured the subtle upward turn of her nose. She moved like a prowling alley cat, one he knew could wield a diplomat’s wit.
Simon bristled. If any credence could be given to the renewed vigor flowing through his limbs, it was this. He had an unyielding connection to the baroness that had not died as much as he’d tried to kill it.
A storm of bitter frustration brewed within him as he watched her cautiously regard her surroundings before disappearing into a private box on the third level. He’d made it his own personal mission to know every inch of the Theatre Royal, and it so happened that the particular owner of the box she’d chosen, the Duke of Bedford, was grieving the untimely death of his wife, Duchess Bedford. The only way for her to enter the box would have been to rent it from Bedford himself or to know the particulars of the duke’s misfortune.
In good conscience, he couldn’t walk away without knowing whether or not his mind had jumped to conclusions. He had to know what Gillian was up to and that she, the Prince of Wales, and Nelson were safe. Determination fueling him, Simon hurried up to the third level, pulled back the curtains to Bedford’s box, and stepped inside.
His heart—the damned thumping organ—threatened to burst from his chest as his eyes adjusted to the bright lights shimmering from the stage, charging the box’s darkness with overpowering energy. Gillian stood erect, her shoulders firmly set, alerting him that she knew someone was there. It took every ounce of his strength not to rush to her and pull her close in full view of the audience.
“I knew it was only a matter of time before you found me,” she said. “Still, I had hoped to fool you—of all people—the most.”
He was jolted by her comment, and a deafening pulse pounded in his ears. “We are too alike, you and I.” He stepped closer, anxiously removing his gloves, needing something to do, but he was tempted beyond reason to lay his hand on her shoulder and turn her around to face him.
Fool!
He wasn’t a nervous man. Eager, yes, but he’d never been anxious around a woman, until her.
“Why are you purposefully trying to avoid me?” he asked.
“You forget, I do not have to answer to you, my lord,” she replied with admirable severity.
Her reminder cut deep, more thoroughly than the old wound on his side. “You are out of humor with me. I don’t blame you for wishing me to perdition.” He removed his hat, irritated that his affections for her could be so easily rekindled. He brushed his hair back away from his face.
What she must think of him?
He cleared his throat. “I had hoped that time would heal your wounds.”
“Some injuries never heal.”
How true that statement was . . .
It was all he could do to keep space between them. How foolish of him to desire her still. Aghast, he tightened his grip on his top hat to keep from acting upon the inclination to do anything untoward, even though every inch of him shouted at him to take her into his arms. He thought he’d never see her again.
Hypocrite! Bloody fool! You cannot relive the past.
“Let us not quarrel, Baroness,” he said. “Pray, please forgive my offense. I never meant to hurt you.”
She lifted her head enough for him to notice. “Time has changed us both, my lord. I hold no grudge against you. You must forgive yourself, for I am—I have been—happy.”
He nodded. “I am glad of it.” Her brutal honesty tore through him, somehow managing to ease his discomfort slightly. While he wanted to tell Gillian that he’d never stopped loving her, too many obstacles stood between them.
Had she chosen her pretense of mourning to honor the Duchess of Bedford’s passing? Would that not draw attention to Bedford’s box all the more? The theater was host to curious onlookers with opera glasses who spied on the audience and studied the boxes with care, searching for glimpses of scandal that would last throughout the coming months.
Still, he stood like a lost lamb in the silence that stretched between them and waited for Gillian to speak.
She lifted her small, delicate, gloved hands and pushed back her veil, revealing startlingly fair skin and the generous lips that haunted his dreams, making his heartbeat quicken. Her dark brown gaze slowly met his as she turned. The dull light reflecting in her eyes revealed she had changed—exponentially so. And her precise movements, timed almost too perfectly, unnerved him.
“I thought . . . if I ever laid eyes on you again, I’d cease to exist,” she said.
He was thankful she hadn’t fainted dead away as she was too close to the edge of the box. “And yet here you are, standing and breathing.” He stepped toward her, hoping to coax her away from the handrail. “You give yourself little credit—”
“No.” She held her hand up between them. “Don’t come any closer.”
He’d gone too far—again. Damn! What was it about this particular woman that unhinged him so? “You are still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he admitted. “Country life agrees with you.”
She nodded. Her black hair was parted down the middle and swept back neatly behind her ears. Her heart-shaped face led his eyes directly to her intelligent brows, pert nose, and the very same rose-tinged, bow-shaped mouth that had once proclaimed her love for him. To further accentuate her delicate, aristocratic looks, pearl earrings dangled from her earlobes, drawing his attention agonizingly lower to the nape of her neck, which was partially concealed by a black fichu.
“The credit, Lord Danbury, goes to my husband.”
Her words gutted him afresh. “Of course,” he said, thoroughly chastised. He cleared his throat. “Where is the baron? I half expect him to suddenly accost me from the shadows.”
Gillian’s expression sobered. “I left him in the country.” Her chin quivered strangely, and her brow
s arched almost imperceptibly.
Simon narrowed his eyes. The baron would never allow Gillian to travel to London without him. Something was wrong. He felt it in his bones, sensed it with an uncanny, crippling awareness.
“Gillian,” he said, reaching for her hand.
She snatched her fingers back as if stung. “Baroness, my lord.”
“I know who you are and from whence you come.” Damned if her marriage to Chauncey wasn’t etched into his brain. “I’m the last man on earth who needs to be reminded.”
Her expression hardened. “Perhaps not.”
“Why are you here?” he finally asked. Taking a deep breath to regain control, Simon swallowed back his amazement at how quickly his desire for a woman he couldn’t have had risen to the surface. It was a rush of passion so brutal and all-consuming, he could barely withstand it.
She didn’t answer.
A gamut of conflicting emotions assailed him. “Why are you here, Baroness?” he asked again, abiding by her wishes. “Has something happened?”
Gillian stepped backward and peered down at the assembling crowd, as if searching for someone in particular. If not for Chauncey, then for whom?
“’Tis no concern of yours . . . for now,” she confided. Her voice held an undecipherable edge. What did she know? What had occurred that made her come back to London? To Simon’s knowledge, she’d sequestered herself in Kent for the past five years. She wouldn’t return unless there was justification to do so.
He was determined not to be put off. “You once swore you’d never return to the theater, and you are dressed in widow’s weeds . . . Why?”
“For reasons I cannot explain at this moment. Now, if you don’t mind, I have been long without culture, and Holcroft’s Deaf and Dumb is about to begin.” She smiled coquettishly, once more dismissing him.
“I’m disinclined to believe that is the only reason you are here.”
She forced another smile. “You may presume whatever you like. What you believe is none of my concern.”
“It should be,” he said firmly.
Her eyes narrowed into slits. The air around them charged like brilliant light crisscrossing a fused sky. Oh, how she must hate him.
My Lord Rogue Page 3