“Damn you and your mischief making, Blackjack,” Moira said bitterly. “Haven’t you complicated my life enough without causing me more misery? What if the earl had guessed what you were hinting at?”
Blackjack looked highly indignant. “What if he had? I don’t know why you’re so ashamed of your gypsy blood that it must be kept a deep, dark secret. I’ve never felt the least shame that I married you mother.”
“I am not ashamed of my gypsy blood. If it were not for Charles, I’d shout the news from the steps of Carlton House. But can you imagine the earl letting me raise a peer of the realm once he knew I was half gypsy?”
“Why not? It didn’t seem to bother the old duke.”
“There’s where you’re wrong, Blackjack. It would have bothered him a great deal, had he known. He was as a fair a man as I’ve ever met and I owe him more than I could possibly repay. But the one time I tested the waters and told him a band of gypsies had asked permission to camp on White Oaks land, he threatened to set the dogs on the ‘filthy scum,’ as he called them, if they ever crossed his boundaries. There is no reasoning with gaujos where gypsies are concerned. The two halves of my blood hate each other with a passion.”
She sighed deeply. “For Charles’s sake, I dare not let anyone suspect my secret—especially the Earl of Langley.
Chapter Nine
Devon had barely had time to rise to his feet before Moira swept from the dining room, taking her father and the two boys with her. Typical of her dégagé attitude, she had left him alone with Elizabeth, a single, unchaperoned female of marriageable age.
The woman had no regard whatsoever for social convention; it was easy to see why, with the possible exception of Lady Caroline Lamb, she had been the most talked about woman in London during the past four years. But unlike Lady Caroline, who obviously flaunted convention with a view to shocking the ton, Moira simply ignored it—not the ideal attitude for the woman entrusted with the raising of a young peer of the realm. But—Devon smiled to himself—that was not the only role he had in mind for the lovely vixen, as he planned to show her before the night was over.
In the meantime, however, there was Elizabeth to consider. He toyed with his wineglass, trying to think of a tactful way to take his leave of her so he could search out Moira. A few minutes of polite conversation, then he would plead exhaustion. Though, if the truth be known, he had actually never felt more wide awake or imbued with energy.
“An interesting evening,” he said finally. “One I’ll not soon forget.”
“The squire is a talented storyteller.” Elizabeth’s delicate brows drew together in a frown. “Although one could wish, for her grace’s sake, he were somewhat more judicious in his choice of subjects.”
Devon nodded his agreement. “I gained the impression she was not happy with his telling of the tale about the Spanish gypsies. Though I’m not sure why. It seemed harmless enough.”
“I imagine she felt a subject touching on passion and tragedy too adult for the duke’s young ears.” Elizabeth said primly. “I know I did. Alfie, of course, is beyond shocking.”
Devon chuckled. “Alfie is a scamp.”
“He is that,” Elizabeth agreed. “But a lovable one. And frightfully clever. Do you know what he calls Squire Reardon?” Her eyes twinkled with sudden humor. “A ‘huff-and-puffer,’ which he claims is the term used in the London stews to describe someone prone to exaggeration. It’s shamefully disrespectful, but it does seem a rather apt description, doesn’t it?”
“Very apt indeed, considering the fanciful tale he concocted was about the fate of the gypsy guitarist all Spain has been mourning for the past thirty years.”
“Still, one has to prefer it to the story as one heard it originally.” Elizabeth looked wistful. “Every story should have a happy ending.”
Devon smiled noncommittally. At the moment it was not the ending of a story that interested him, but the beginning. Moira’s story to be exact. For it had just occurred to him that as the mysterious beauty’s companion, Elizabeth might well be privy to some of the secrets the lady guarded so jealously. The trick was to learn them without appearing to pry.
“An odd relationship that, between the duchess and the squire,” he said, hoping to draw Elizabeth out. “More like a mother and her mischievous son than a daughter and father.”
Elizabeth nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face. “You’ve noticed that too? Her grace would never complain, of course, but I do think he is often a trial to her.”
“So it would seem,” Devon said dryly. He wondered if Elizabeth was aware to what lengths this reversal of roles had once driven Moira to save her exasperating parent from the Hangman’s noose.
“The squire is so…so exuberant,” Elizabeth continued. “Her grace even went so far as to forbid him access to you when you were ill for fear he would overtire you.”
“Did she really? How considerate of her.” And how clever. If it hadn’t have been for Ned, the truth might never have come out about either her father’s unsavory past or her reasons for abandoning Blaine.
Devon could see he was wasting his time trying to extract information from Elizabeth. She obviously knew even less than he about her employer’s background. He rose from his chair with a view to bringing the evening to an end.
Elizabeth rose with him, after first retrieving a pair of black satin slippers from beneath the duchess’s chair and placing them on the chair seat. “She is always leaving them about the house,” she said with a fond smile. “She can scarcely bear to wear them, you know. Probably because she never owned a pair until she was twelve years old.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth, a horrified expression on her face. “Oh dear, whatever possessed me to say that? It was told me in strictest confidence.”
Devon’s lips curled in a triumphant smile. His efforts had been worthwhile after all. Another piece of the puzzle was in place. Moira had apparently known severe poverty as a child. It was not hard to believe with a ne’er-do-well like Reardon for a father. “I shall carry the dreadful secret to my grave, ma’am,” he said solemnly.
“I hope you do, my lord, though I know you speak in jest.” Elizabeth looked dangerously close to tears. “It is just the sort of story the gossipmongers of the ton would love to spread, and they have already said such dreadful things about her simply because she has no use for their shallow way of life.”
“I promise I shall be discreet, Elizabeth. I have been ground up in the London gossip mill myself often enough to be wary of feeding them even a grain of information about anyone else.” Devon caught Elizabeth’s hand in his and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “I shall bid you good night then, sweet lady, and pleasant dreams.”
“Good night, my lord, and thank you,” Elizabeth said with a tremulous smile, withdrawing her hand from his and starting for the door.
“Hadn’t you better take her grace’s shoes with you?” Devon called after her.
“No, for I feel certain she will remember where she left them and come to collect them before taking her nightly walk around the garden,” Elizabeth replied. “She ever only goes barefoot within the house.”
Devon followed Elizabeth up the stairs to the second floor, then took his leave of her as if retiring to his chamber for the night. Moments later, with his greatcoat over his arm, he slipped quietly back down the stairs to the dining room.
The servants had already cleared away the remains of the dinner and snuffed the candles, leaving the room in darkness except for the moonlight shining through the bank of tall, mullioned windows at the far end of the room. He stepped into the shadows to wait—and to think about the beautiful woman for whom he was waiting.
It had been years since he had looked forward to a liaison with such anticipation. There was a mystery about Moira that drew him like a magnet; an intelligence so quick and clever, its brilliance outshone the plethora of candles that had earlier decorated the massive table. For, though she had taken but a single taper with her
to light the way to Charles’s chamber, her leaving had seemed to rob the room of all illumination.
And she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He’d suspected as much since he’d realized the kiss they’d shared had been more than a dream. Tonight his suspicions had been confirmed. In one brief, unguarded moment, her eyes had met his in a look so full of longing and passion; it had been all he could do to keep from leaping across the table, bad leg and all, and taking her in his arms.
From that moment on, he’d been so intensely aware of her presence, everyone else had faded into the background. Oh, he had gone through the motions of conversing with Elizabeth and listening to Blackjack’s stories. He had even answered questions put to him and asked a few himself.
But it had all been like a dream. The only reality had been his burning need for the sensuous beauty whose silent invitation had made his palms sweat and his heart pound as if he were a mere stripling about to take his first pleasure with a woman.
He traced his finger along the binding of the slippers he held in his hand—the slippers Elizabeth had said Moira would come seeking. Alone, in the darkened room, he smiled to himself. When she came, she would find him waiting.
Moira tucked both Charles and Alfie into their beds and kissed them good night, then made her way to her own suite to collect her warm wool pelisse. The days were pleasantly mild for the first week of March, but the night air was still too chilly to walk outside without a wrap.
She’d seen Elizabeth enter her chamber just moments before when she’d returned from the nursery, so she felt certain Devon must have opted for an early night as well. At least she hoped he had. The last thing she wanted was to find herself alone with him.
Just thinking about the magnetic energy the man possessed struck terror in her heart. Try as she might, she had been unable to take her eyes off him during dinner, and they had exchanged one look that had burned its way into her very soul. Never had she felt more vulnerable nor more filled with a terrible, aching need to know the fulfillment that only this man could give her.
A glance at her bare feet reminded her that, as usual, she had kicked off her shoes during dinner. Knowing her nocturnal habits, her staff would have left them for her to collect before her walk. She smiled. Although just this morning, that cheeky fellow, John Footman, in his new capacity as butler, had hinted he was contemplating hiring a tweeney to do nothing but gather up the shoes she left about the house each day and return them to her chamber.
The dining room was deep in shadow when she entered. Placing her candle on the edge of the table, she knelt down and felt under the chair but found no slippers. She dropped to her knees and was just about to crawl under the table to continue the search when she heard a familiar voice ask, “Could these be what you are looking for?”
She raised her head to find Devon standing over her, her slippers dangling from two fingers of his outstretched hand. A shaft of moonlight caught the glint of gold in his hair, the glint of amusement in his eyes.
Scrambling hastily to her feet, Moira snatched the slippers. “Thank you, my lord St. Gwyre,” she said, hopping on one foot while she jammed the other into a slipper that suddenly seemed to small, when it had fit quite nicely just a few hours before.
“Let me help,” he said, wresting the slipper from her protesting fingers and fitting it neatly onto her foot. He held out his hand. “Now the other.” She had no choice but to give it to him and lift her other foot.
“There you are, all properly shod,” he declared. “Though I can understand why you find wearing them so annoying. With me it’s nightshirts.”
“N—nightshirts?” she stammered, utterly confused.
“Haven’t worn one in years, much to my batman cum valet’s disapproval. For an ex-smuggler, Ned can be annoyingly proper at times. To tell the truth, I never could stand the blasted things—nightshirts that is. They have an aggravating tendency to work their way up into— ”
“A roll at one’s waist,” Moira said without thinking. She felt the same way about wearing the silly item English ladies called a night rail as she did about wearing shoes.
“Are you saying you too choose to sleep au naturel, lovely lady? What a provocative image that inspires.”
“I am saying nothing of the sort, my lord.” She felt her cheeks flush hotly and was grateful the light was too dim for Devon to see how he’d disconcerted her.
“How disappointing. You deny it then?”
She would have to lie to deny it and she was the world’s worst liar. She chose instead to skirt the issue. “This is a most improper conversation, my lord, and apropos of nothing,” she declared in her chilliest voice, pushing past him to stride toward the door.
“Ah, but there you are wrong, ma’am. It has definite significance.” Devon’s laugh had a wicked ring to it. “I am assembling a most fascinating puzzle, you see, and another piece has just fallen into place.”
Moira sniffed. “It is plain to see you are either foxed or given to speaking in riddles, and since I feel ill equipped to contend with either circumstance, I shall bid you good night.”
“What a bouncer! I am convinced you could contend with a herd of stampeding Indian elephants with one hand tied behind your back,” Devon said. “But what is this ‘my lord’ business? I thought we had agreed it was to be Moira and Devon from now on.”
Moira stepped from the darkened dining room into the corridor where a footman waited with a branch of candles to light her way to the garden. She stopped long enough to button her pelisse with fingers that had an annoying tendency to tremble, and to her surprise realized that Devon was shoving his arms into the sleeves of a caped greatcoat.
“What are you doing?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper, although she could see very well he was now in the process of fastening the frogs that marched down the front of the garment.
“Preparing to accompany you on your nightly walk,” he whispered back, “since I was certain you planned to invite me.”
Moira’s heartbeat accelerated alarmingly. In her present vulnerable mood, she didn’t trust herself to walk in a moonlit garden with “the most notorious rake in London” and she trusted him even less. “I had no such plans,” she said coldly. “I always walk alone.”
“For shame, madam,” Devon declared, cupping her elbows with his strong fingers and propelling her forward past the grinning footman. “When we have the promised talk of ours, we must remember to include the subject of manners. Informal is one thing; rude is another. Now, which way is it to that garden of yours?”
She was never certain how she got there, but moments later, Moira found herself walking with Devon along the gravel path that wound through her favorite garden. They passed James Keough, standing silent and watchful beneath the same mulberry tree where she had encountered him on each of her previous walks since the brothers had taken on the guarding of the young duke.
Devon passed him without a word, then loosening his grip on Moira’s elbow, drew her arm through his. She left it there. What choice did she have? Snatching it away would make her appear nervous and unsure of herself—the last image she wished to project to the arrogant earl.
For some time they strolled in silence, the only light that of the pale spring moon, the only sound, other than the pounding of her heart, the croaking of the bullfrogs in the lily pond at the center of the garden. Moira breathed in the rich earthy scent of the fresh-turned flowerbeds and the delicate fragrance of the early forsythia blossoms sprinkled along the bare tree branches above her head—hoping to find the same sense of peace she usually found in this beautiful spot. It was of no use. There was nothing peaceful about walking with her arm linked in Devon’s. She felt like a top whose spring had been wound so tightly, it was about to go flying off in all directions.
With a start, she realized he was talking. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t listening.”
He looked taken aback, even shocked, and she found herself with an almost overwhelming urge to
giggle. “The most notorious rake in London” was undoubtedly accustomed to having women hang on his every word.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye, as if to make certain she was listening this time. “I said if there was one thing I had learned about you in our brief acquaintance it was that, unlike most females, you meet every issue that confronts you head-on.”
“It seems the logical thing to do.” Moira held her breath, waiting for his next words and gripped by a strong premonition they would change forever her relationship with the enigmatic earl. He had certainly been acting strangely since she’d encountered him in the darkened dining room, and the look in his eyes could almost be described as predatory.
Devon had done a great deal of soul-searching while waiting for Moira to claim her slippers and had come to the conclusion he wanted to begin his affair with her as he meant to go on. Open. Honest. Without all the ridiculous posturing and subterfuge that he had found so boring in dealing with his previous mistresses. She was that kind of woman. Plain in her tastes and, he suspected, delightfully elemental in her passions. Exactly the kind woman he needed at this moment in his life.
He stopped beside a fountain into which a gigantic marble fish spat a never-ending waterfall of crystal-clear water, and smiled down at the lovely woman whose hand was still tucked in the crook of his arm. It was a delicate, slender hand and shockingly bare (for of course she wore no gloves)—which somehow conjured up an image of other, more delectable parts of her body in the same state of undress. He covered her fingers with his own, absorbing their warmth, and the ache in his aroused body instantly intensified.
“So, lovely Moira,” he said, getting right to the point, “what are we to do about this overwhelming attraction we feel for each other?”
“Do?” She looked genuinely surprised, and he felt a moment of uneasiness. She was a woman of the world and as such had to be well aware of how the game of seduction was played. He couldn’t believe the fact that he was cutting the chase a bit short would disturb her unduly.
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