She would not be doing that again in a hurry. But his determination gave her an opening, and she lunged, touched his side. Hit the vest and drew back swiftly. “Touché!” someone called.
“One to the lady!” someone else announced. “One more and the day is yours!”
Viola was gratified to hear the odds shortened on herself.
Someone remarked, “Fighting his wife, how can he win?” and the odds shortened even more.
He skipped to the side and showed his teeth in a grin as he lunged forward and caught her on her blind side. He slapped the sword on the jacket, a symbol he could do more if he wished.
Bringing her sword down, she knocked his blade away, and they went back to circling. He held up his hand in the prescribed posture, a way of countering his balance when he was circling. She didn’t bother.
She went for the groin.
He cried out, and she was afraid she’d misjudged her lunge, but no. The tip of his blade touched her chest. “You may have my manhood,” he said, “But I have your heart.”
He did, and in more ways than he knew.
She lifted her hands, and her blade clanged to the floor.
A round of applause broke out as, white-faced, Marcus cast his sword aside and dragged her into his arms.
After a fraught moment, he started to laugh, his reaction as much shock as genuine amusement. After a moment he caught his breath on a gasp. “You witch! How could you drive me to this?”
“I could always do that,” she murmured for his ears only.
The applause continued, but Marcus ignored it. With his arm around her waist, he led her out of the place. It wasn’t until he had her in the carriage she realized they still wore the hideous vests.
“So I believe I have ruined my reputation in society,” she said as calmly as she could muster, unfastening the ties at her waist.
“You probably have.” He sounded regretful.
Before she could speak again, he rapped on the roof of the carriage and stuck his head out of the window. “Home!” he commanded. “Then return for Lady Drusilla.”
To her shame, Viola had forgotten Dru.
* * * *
Julius stood to greet them when they entered his drawing room. Like Marcus, he was in shirt sleeves, but at their entrance, he picked up the heavy coat he’d thrown over a chair. “I beg your pardon,” he said.
Viola waved his apology aside. “I won,” she said to Marcus. “What is a man without his manhood?”
“A eunuch,” Marcus said promptly. “Or a castrato. An alive one. I had your heart.”
“Only if I drove in. Otherwise I could have fallen back and saved myself.”
Marcus put his hand on his heart and bowed. “Then shall we call it a draw?”
She could live with that. But not a loss. “I won’t stay immured in the house forever, Marcus. I would have waited, but it’s clear this isn’t going away as quickly as we’d like.” She turned her head and met Julius’s blue gaze. “Is it?”
“Possibly,” he said cautiously.
“If I stay behind heavily guarded doors, how long will it take before you discover who killed my father? Or will the killer go to ground?”
Julius grimaced. “That, unfortunately, is likely. He has probably done so already.”
Viola nodded. “I expected as much. You have lost the initiative.”
“You’re a perspicacious woman,” Julius said, indicating a sofa.
She deigned to take a seat. Marcus sat next to her and took her hand. She glanced at their joining. “Is this the start of a new, informal Marcus?”
“I’m just ensuring that you don’t get the idea to leave and go—where next, Viola?”
“I did not go to Domenici’s. You took me.”
Marcus released her hand and used it to cover his face. He groaned. “What megrim got into my head?”
“I suspect your wife did,” Julius said, studying Viola anew. “What did you do?”
“Fought. I won,” she said.
“A draw,” Marcus corrected her from behind his hands. He drew a deep breath as he dropped them and regained his hold on her hand once more.
“Very well,” she conceded grudgingly. “I merely went shopping.”
“How on earth…?” Marcus shook his head. “I have never, ever lost my temper like that before. Not in public.”
“I saw you do so when we were children.” She remembered several occasions when she’d driven him to a frenzy of fury. But he’d never touched her in anger, and he had never intimidated her. Always he had apologized, whether it was his fault or not.
A rumble came from the chair Julius occupied. It developed into a full-scale laugh. He threw back his head, and roared his delight. “Oh, I wish I had been there!” he cried when he could.
Marcus exchanged a meaningful look with Viola and raised her hand to his lips. “I was, and I still don’t understand how she rouses me in that way.”
“I think I do,” Julius said. He was still smiling but his gravity was restored. “I will leave it to you to discover the reason.” Crossing his legs, he rested his hands on his thighs, over his pristine white small clothes. “Viola is right. You cannot keep her locked away indefinitely. Or rather, if you do, how could you prevent her going mad?”
“I grew up in the country,” she said. “I’m not used to staying indoors all the time.”
Marcus sighed. “I cannot bear the thought of losing you,” he said, meeting her gaze. His eyes no longer held that febrile look, but gazed at hers with warmth, a little heat lurking there. As, she realized, it always did. They opened wider for a second, as he watched her. What was he saying to her?
“You will have to accustom yourself to the idea,” Julius said soberly.
“Oh, Julius,” she said softly. She knew his history. Julius had fallen madly in love with his wife, only to lose her. She had the deserved reputation for wildness, and it had killed her. He had a beautiful daughter to show from it, but he had never remarried.
He shook his head. “I remember too many times when I wanted to throttle her.” From the urbane, smooth Julius the words sounded incongruous. “She would go off on another mad adventure, and society would shake its heads and say it would all end in tears.” He shrugged. “Which it did. But the last thing Caroline would want was for society to call her “Poor Caro.” Which of course, it did.”
Yes, it did, when one prank too many had killed her. But Viola was not in the least like Poor Caro. Or was she? Was her impatience a result of a wild streak? People had called her “madcap” before now. Not recently, and since she’d arrived in London she’d done her best to conform to society’s expectations.
“I cannot be a conformable wife,” she said sadly. “I cannot do everything I’m told or behave in the way expected of me.”
Julius nodded. “I understand. Caro tried her best in the early years of our marriage, and I think that was one of the problems plaguing us after Caroline was born. Caro loved her to distraction.” He paused. “As do I. But it was not enough, and the baby made Caro feel trapped in a way neither of us understood. I still don’t understand it completely, but if I had allowed her more…freedom, I might have kept her for longer.”
Marcus glanced at her, then snagged his cousin’s attention. “Are you telling me to let Viola do whatever she pleases?”
Julius’s mouth flattened. “No, I am not. Nor am I telling you to restrict her movements. I’m asking you to treat her as a trusted partner. Discuss with her what we’re doing and why.” He turned his attention to Viola. “I know something of you, Viola. I’ve watched you on my visits to Haxby Hall.” Julius watched everybody. “You’re reckless, but not without reasoning the chances first. I don’t know if you realize you are doing it, but you calculate as you go.”
No, she had not realized she was taking those steps, but now he mentioned it, she understood. She would not ride a skittish horse without observing it carefully first and w
earing protective clothing if still unsure. That must be what he meant. “Today I took the two burliest footmen in the house with us, and I went where there were many others. But not so many I would be jostled.”
Julius spread his hands in a graceful gesture. “You see?”
Marcus gazed at her, studying her. His eyes were grave, but something deep inside lifted.
“I swear I will never take unnecessary risks.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” he said. “I know. I should have trusted you more.”
After a fraught moment, he nodded and turned his attention back to his cousin. “So what now? Have you found anything new?”
The expression on Julius’s face surprised her. He was a rational man, a handsome man, and rabidly sought by every matchmaking mama in society. He was wealthy in his own right and heir to the dukedom of Kirkburton. In time he would become a powerful man who even kings would listen to with respect. If he wanted that.
For the first time she wondered what it must be like to have that kind of expectation. From birth, Julius and Marcus had their lives mapped out for them. They had to grow into the kind of people who could bear such responsibilities and control the power. No wonder not every duke or marquess turned out good for the estate.
She had been brought up the moderately well-off daughter of a man with a settled career and some standing in local society. She could make of her life what she would. So why did Julius look so vulnerable?
“You two are trapped, are you not?” she said impulsively.
“I prefer to look on my inheritance as opening opportunity,” Marcus said, “But yes, sometimes it feels like that.”
“And you and the rest of the Emperors are at the center of society’s attention. Your appearance in the gossip sheets is taken for granted, and if you do something unusual, you are watched. How do you keep the secret from everyone’s ears?” The secret of her birth, of her origins.
“Like this. We only discuss it with certain people. If it comes out, we will decry it and denigrate it. We have already agreed to that.” Julius smiled, without humor. “We will say things like, ‘what are the chances of that happening?’ Someone would have discovered the documents long before. And without documents, we have no proof.”
“So we get the documents, and we destroy them?”
Julius shook his head. “We lock them away. We have not yet decided what to do about them. Perhaps this is part of history better kept hidden. But what do we know about future events? We may need your line one day.”
Ever the politician. She shifted uncomfortably. “I want no part of it.” Except Marcus had married her because of it. He had married her to protect her from people who would have married her forcibly to someone else. He had put himself in danger.
Her guilt about that had kept her toeing the line for the last two weeks, but no more. This had to end. She did not know what they would have left once they had brought this sorry matter to an end. But she wanted a life of her own, not as a political pawn. “I want to meet the Duke of Northwich.”
Chapter 16
“My goodness, what a fuss!” Lady Strenshall put the paper down and laid her lorgnette on top of it. The pretty bejeweled spectacles caught the light, the brilliants twinkling merrily. In the cheerful parlor facing the garden, the table was set for breakfast, and the whole family, apart from the honeymooning Claudia, sat around it. Val, the next brother in age to Marcus, wore a soft satin robe over his shirt, breeches, and waistcoat. His rheumy eyes told their own story.
“Another gaming hell, Val?” Marcus enquired, letting censure color his voice.
“One has to try them out,” Val said. “And one hears the best gossip there.”
“Then do tell us,” his mother said. “The papers are full of the match between Marcus and his bride. Tempestuous, they are calling it. I call it reckless.” She heaved a deep sigh. “Whatever have I done to deserve such a fate? You children give me gray hairs every time I step outdoors.”
“Surely not, my dear!” Lord Strenshall gazed at his wife, a half smile curling the corner of his mouth. “I can recall a time when you decided you would ride in the park unchaperoned. Your mother nearly had a fit.”
“But I had a reason,” she said softly.
“I daresay Val had a reason,” his lordship answered her. He lifted the taller of the two china pots on the table. “Coffee?”
“You know I never drink coffee in the mornings,” she snapped, but rosy color tinged her cheekbones. Some kind of private message was going on between them, but nobody else sitting at the table knew what it was. Just that she had probably met his lordship clandestinely before they were married and somehow coffee was involved.
A romantic tryst of some kind. And they had kept their secrets, so why couldn’t she?
“In the full glare of everyone in Bond Street,” her ladyship said, returning to the subject in hand. There was a gleam in her eyes, not a censorious one.
Marcus had taken a seat next to his wife this morning, unwilling to leave her side. He still wanted her safe, but last night they had stayed awake until the small hours, not only making love, but talking. He had enjoyed that part, too. He had married a lively, intelligent woman, and she made herself understood only too well, once he’d had the time to listen to her, really listen.
He would not have her feel trapped, but he needed to stay close to her. Wearing their black armbands, they would venture into what few entertainments society offered. He would take her to see the sights she had yearned for when they had first arrived. St. Paul’s was on their list for today. He wanted to take her to his house in the country before they went to Haxby for the August house party. However he feared if they did not find out who was behind the attacks on her and her father, he would not have that opportunity.
So they would move matters forward. A few appearances, with him by her side and the redoubtable Tranmere accompanying them, and some judicious words dropped in certain corners should move matters along.
And even meeting the Duke of Northwich. Bile rose to his throat when he considered meeting the man who, despite his oath of allegiance, was scheming to restore the Stuarts to the monarchy and to control them when they did so. But he would do it, even consider Northwich as a human being and not a villain to be bested, an enemy to defeat.
Unlike his mother, he did drink coffee in the mornings. Not that, technically, it was morning. Most of the household had been up and about long before breakfast was served at noon. He had stayed in bed with his wife, but nobody commented on that. After all, as he’d said to her as he rolled her on to her back, they were only doing their duty.
Never had anything felt less like duty and more like the greatest pleasure he had ever known. Every time they made love, the experience improved.
Marcus shifted, settling his unruly body into a more comfortable position. How he could still want her after—but if he continued to think that way, everyone at table would know, once he got to his feet.
He turned his thoughts back to Northwich. Ah, yes, that worked. Idly, he picked up his mother’s discarded gossip sheet. The print was tiny. No wonder she needed the lorgnette. He was almost tempted to borrow it, too.
But no. He read the first two paragraphs and winced.
Val snatched the paper from him. “Oh, this must be good to have you all wrapped up like that. Oho!” He read aloud, to the great delight of Marcus’s siblings. “Such a sight as was never seen before in the new fencing studio Domenici’s. In front of the entire membership, Lord M—, previously a stalwart and admired member of society, dragged his wife and engaged in a fencing match. Lady M— proved an excellent match for her husband, gaining the first hit and changing the odds on her victory considerably. However, his lordship’s superior reach eventually won the day, and her ladyship retired in confusion.”
“No, I did not!” Viola cried. “How dare they? I did not retire. It was a draw!”
“A gallant gesture,” Mar
cus said. “I would have bested you.”
Viola made a sound halfway between anger and exasperation. She could not know how animated she became like this. He wished it were possible to hustle her up to her bedroom and make the best use of her fury. But he had to shift again and try to think of Northwich.
“While we do not dare to speculate on the current condition of the marriage between Lord and Lady M—, it nevertheless appears the couple share a great deal of passion. Let us hope passion has a material result in nine months’ time, and not six.”
“Oh!” Viola reddened, a pretty blush spreading over her bosom and up her neck to her cheeks. “How dare they?”
“I thought that was mild,” Darius remarked, reaching for the toast and spreading a slice liberally with butter.
“It’ll be a nine days’ wonder,” Lady Strenshall said in a resigned tone. “Let us pray the gossip has died down by August, otherwise we will be shooting down rumors instead of game birds.”
“Not for the first time,” Lord Strenshall murmured. “I wonder how Claudia is doing?”
The implication being the wilder of his female set of twins might be having the same tempestuous start to her marriage. But at least they were doing it decently in the country instead of in the public gaze.
“I have done with this,” Marcus said suddenly. “I want to retire sooner rather than later.” He glanced at Viola. “Since I know you will follow me or rail at me if I go without you, I intend to visit the Duke of Northwich this morning.”
“We,” she said calmly.
He shook his head. “Not this time. If you walk into the lion’s den, he will try to take you.”
“And not you?” Ignoring the protests ringing around the room, she turned to him. “You said if he was behind the attacks, he would want you dead and me alive. So I am in less danger than you.”
Marcus hated that she was right. His instinct was still to wrap her up and tuck her away until he had resolved the problem. “It’s a bluff. If he kills me in his house, if I disappear this morning, after telling everyone where I have gone, my father has a case to bring to court.”
Dilemma in Yellow Silk (Emperors of London) Page 20