The highwayman spun. He’d removed his sinister mask and his eyes glittered, jaw tight.
“Oh,” she moaned pitifully. “Good evening, Lord Oakdean. Wh-what a coincidence.”
Chapter Fifteen
Thrice the advice, thrice the claptrap.
“Stafford married a Frenchwoman in secret.”
Rakecombe pushed the papers over the desk towards Lord Rainham, and watched his brow knit in consternation.
“Confound it,” Rainham snapped, flicking through the certificates. “I never predicted that. Not of Stafford.”
“Love, as Winterbourne would say, makes fools of us all.” He thought of last night’s masquerade and dismissed the absurd idea that he was one of those fools.
“I see this marriage took place in France years ago. Where is she now? Was she a French spy?”
“Phineas claims he knows little, but he owes Stafford his life so he’s fairly tight-lipped. The woman was a merchant’s daughter, but her family were well-known Bonapartists.”
Indeed, the masquerade had been most revealing. The only downside was that Phineas had mentioned Stafford’s aptitude for disguise. Apparently, he could be peddling you a horse or flirting with your wife and you wouldn’t even know it.
Lord Rainham stood and paced, features taut with frustration and hurt. “I’ll send messages to France, see if we can establish any more. In the meantime, well done. You were right not to give up. I just…” He sat and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I liked and trusted Stafford,” he said, somewhat despairingly.
“We still don’t know if he is the traitor,” Rakecombe declared. “Why hasn’t the stolen information been used as yet? And Stafford has been in England for how long now? Four years or so? Where was his wife in that time? I’ve asked Bluey to continue snooping.”
“More questions than answers, as is usual in our work,” said Rainham, gathering the papers and bundling them into a folder. “Onto lighter matters, how is that lovely wife of yours? Lily very much enjoyed her company.”
“She’s…” He thought of her arched neck last night, arching for another man’s kiss, and yearned to punch something. “…content.”
“Good. You must dine with us when all this has settled. Actually, it might have to wait till Napoleon’s been put away again. The summer in all likelihood.”
A mite stunned, Rakecombe gathered his gloves and cane. He’d worked with Rainham for years and never once had he been invited to dine – must be his new lady’s influence. “When did you meet your Mrs Mereworth?”
“Over Christmas. You remember Major Lucas Mainwaring, don’t you?”
He nodded. A stalwart chap who had been horrifically burned in France, and when he’d last seen him three years ago, rather a wreck.
“Well, he’s happily married now, a keen-eyed lass, and Lily’s a distant relative of his wife’s.”
Was everyone blissfully wedded, he inwardly griped. Thank God for Winterbourne – at least that rogue could be relied upon.
He stood, having had enough of matrimonial chit-chat. It gave him a headache. “I’ll keep you informed.”
“Very well. And Rakecombe,” his leader called as he’d almost escaped the door, “don’t let work interfere with your marriage, hmm. They can co-exist. With safeguards, yes, but your wife is an intelligent woman. I’d lay strong odds that she has concealed talents.”
Barely managing a farewell, he stomped out, ramming his cane to the floor. Everyone was full of damn advice, but where had they been twelve years ago? Had they witnessed a beloved sister die from their own stupidity? He doubted it.
Advice could go to the very devil.
∞∞∞
“If you want my advice…”
Aideen didn’t.
Jack’s rules, as far as she could tell, only worked for Jack, the advice a tad biased towards the interests of the rogue and not the married lady.
“I don’t,” she grumbled from the window seat, but the marquess cast her a wounded expression and sipped his tea whilst perched on the striped blue sofa. Better soften her tone, so she smiled. “Your rules probably don’t work for ladies, ’tis all.”
“Oh, but they do,” Jack argued. “I’ve analysed all thirty-two of them and a mere three do not signify because you have different…apparatus.”
Not daring ask, Aideen sipped her own lukewarm beverage and pondered. Should she tell her husband she’d known it had been him at the masquerade? Or let him braise in his own juices over the fact she’d allowed a lace-clad Welsh scoundrel to kiss her?
Yes. Definitely the second.
“And how’s Miss Greenwood?” asked Jack, poking a fleur-de-lys shaped biscuit with suspicion. “Oakdean thanked me for looking after her at the ball but said if I as much as sneezed in her direction again, he would… Well, a possessive chap with an inventive mind. I’ve never thought about squirrels in that fashion.”
“I allowed Lord Oakdean to escort her back here from the masquerade, but she left this morning before I awoke. There was a note in the hall to say she would call later today with all her…news.”
Sighing, she nibbled her own unpatriotic biscuit, possibly the lone edible item in the ducal residence.
This week, she really must visit the kitchens and have a word. So far, she had felt it a little soon to interfere with the workings of the household, but they’d starve before too long.
It all converged to make her most miserable this morning. The blue devils had come to call, wandered in uninvited, sat down and were making themselves at home in her brainbox. Possibly even deciding on curtain colours.
“Not to worry about your advice, Jack. I think my husband is immune to jealousy. After all, he was the one to suggest you escort me to events, so–”
“No!” Jack slammed the teacup down, mouth aghast and eyes wide, cup rattling in its saucer. “You never told me that.”
“Well, does it matter?”
“Does it matt… Oh hell… I can’t breathe.” He gasped as though choking and she wondered about the biscuits but they still lay untouched at the side of his cup. “I… Oh devil take it, I’ve realised something about His Rakelessness.” The marquess pulled at his cravat as though having an apoplexy, ruining the exquisite l’orientale contour.
“What?” she asked alarmed, leaning forward.
“I can’t say… Oh no. It cannot be…” He thrust agitated fingers through his hair, sucking in gulps of air. “Rakecombe wouldn’t? No, surely not. He’d never…”
Alarm now led to anxious panic. “What about him?” she yelled, but Jack simply fell back against the sofa, a perfect expression of silent dismay and shock etched across brow and eyes – even his curls bore distress.
“I cannot…” he uttered miserably.
A horrible thought formed in her mind. “Has…has he a mistress? Is that why he doesn’t care for me? Has he been with her every night?”
Jack gurgled, hand to his chest. “Worse. Much, much worse.”
Enough was enough, and Aideen flew across the room, kneeled on the sofa beside him and grabbed hold of Jack’s tailcoat lapels.
She shook him rather violently. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll curse you with pissmires and spiders in your marriage bed.”
“Pissmires?” he enquired, brow raised.
“Ants,” she screamed. Nose to nose.
“Oh. Well then… He…he…”
“What? Tell me!”
Jack fell limp in her arms with a sigh. “He trusts me,” he lamented, chin lowering to his chest. “The priggish, strait-laced Duke of Rakecombe trusts me. Me! Infamous rogue and renowned seducer. He trusts me with the well-being and all-round chastity of his wife. I’m being punished for my sins. I know I am. I mean, I’ll never be able to stalk a ballroom again.”
Baring teeth but laughing, she slammed the red cushion into his perfect coiffure. “You swine! I thought…”
“I know,” he said, narrowly avoiding a drubbing in the potato trap and chuckling wholeheartedly. “Bu
t it cheered you up and dragged you from the doldrums, didn’t it?”
It had, and she opened her mouth to say so when a polite cough interrupted.
The Duke of Rakecombe stood in the doorway, expression formidable, and all of a sudden, she was eminently aware of their indelicate montage.
One knee pressed against Jack’s thigh, her skirts hoisted to reveal a fair amount of stockinged leg, gown crumpled, ringlets loose, an unbecoming flush to her cheeks.
Jack didn’t fare much better: hair now dishevelled, jacket undone, cravat loose and his firm ungloved hand on her shoulder to defend the cushion bashing.
Oh, Saint Patrick’s bones.
Yesterday compromised by a Welsh scoundrel, today an English rogue, tomorrow she’d better be wary of any lurking Scotsmen or she’d complete the trinity.
“Winterbourne,” her husband merely drawled. “Rainham wishes to see you on the hour of five.” And with a curt nod, he skulked off.
They both gawked at the empty doorway.
“See,” hissed Jack. “He trusts me. We’ll have to come up with another strategy since my reputation is in tatters. My fellow rascal, Lord MacDougall, will help us.”
Aideen frowned.
The rules of the rogue, she was beginning to think, were just a load of beastly tarradiddle.
∞∞∞
“I need your advice.”
Aideen groaned. Not that she didn’t want to help Cordelia, but her own life was in rather a pucker, let alone providing advice to anyone else – especially if it concerned matters of the heart.
They lounged on a snug couch in the Rakecombe library, a room which held an ample selection of fine books. And not only of the cultivated bigwig type either, but novels, poetry, and Gothic horror – everything from Swift to Walpole.
She wondered when her husband got the time to read any of them, as she hadn’t noticed him lolling about with book in hand very often.
“Cordy,” she said as she pulled her feet up and yanked a blanket over them. “I’m not sure I’m the best person. My last suggestion was the Miltons’ ball and then we all got into a fine bit of trouble.”
Pursing her lips, Cordelia also slipped her feet onto the couch and decorously placed some blanket over her stockinged toes. “But I’ve no one else to talk with. Whenever I ask Mother about Oakdean, she just mutters mysteriously about a gentleman’s needs and then changes the subject to the square footage of his country house.”
Poor Cordy. At least Aideen always had her uncle to advise her when growing up – a wise old owl. “I’ll try my best. What happened last night?”
“Well, like I told you, he trapped me in that room.”
“Yes, yes, but then what?”
“He said he’d recognised my ears from across the ballroom, so my disguise was hopeless. And then…he prowled over. Honestly he did, and it made me feel so peculiar in the belly area, and he was nearly nude, in no more than shirt and breeches, and I’ve always admired his well-developed form but…” She fanned fingers in front of her face. “Then, he leaned over the bed…”
“Yes?” Aideen propped herself on her fists – this was better than any novel.
“I… His lips came near…”
“Yes?”
“I could smell his cologne. Sandalwood and cigars. Musky and…”
“Yes?” she almost screamed.
“Then he… I think I parted my lips and he…”
“Cordelia! What did he do?” she shrieked.
“He told me I was a hen-witted, totty-headed girl and scolded me like a child.”
Aideen’s jaw dropped, and she leaned forward to pull Cordelia into her arms as her friend bawled like the child that Oakdean had accused her of being.
“Well, a high and windy gallows to him,” she cursed, covering them both with the blanket until Cordelia’s sobs eased. “But I find it strange,” she mused. “Lord Winterbourne said your betrothed was most possessive, and it sounds like he was about to kiss you and yet for some reason held back. Why?”
“I don’t think he wants me at all, only my bloodlines. I’ll be nothing but a broodmare. But…” Cordelia peered up, large eyes moist. “I want passion.”
A polite cough from the doorway.
The Duke of Rakecombe stood there, his gaze uniquely riveted on the two of them clutched together on the couch.
Oh, Saint Patrick’s bones…again.
“I believe you will find an invite in the hall for the Duke of Buckland’s soirée tomorrow night. I cannot escort you, but I will be there later in the evening.” He nodded, tapped his ebony cane against the marble floor and stalked off, but not before another repressed glance at them both.
“Lord Oakdean is also attending,” Cordelia muttered menacingly. “And I’ve had enough of being treated as a child.”
“Er. Don’t do anything rash, Cordy,” she warned. “That’s how I ended up being married to a duke.”
But Cordelia tightened her lips in mutiny. “Thank you for the advice, Aideen, but I believe it’s time I took matters into my own hands.”
Chapter Sixteen
Grasped gently, a nettle will sting.
A writhing darkness unfurled within Rakecombe’s chest.
It wasn’t the darkness of a summer’s eve, fragrant and warm, but the ugly mean darkness of winter. The type that froze men in their steps and caused one to spill blood just to keep warm.
His wife giggled as the infamous Lord MacDougall whispered in her ear, and he wondered how the rascal would like another scar to complement the one which marred his toadying mug.
Not that females cared about the facial blemish. The broad-shouldered Scot had never revealed the cause of his disfigurement but many a lady shivered in delight at the whispered tales of a duel or acts of piracy.
Rakecombe had a feeling he’d simply fallen in a ditch when foxed and slashed his cheek on brambles.
Nevertheless, the anger that had seeded itself at the masquerade continued to grow at this soirée. He could sense it, erasing all control and authority.
Admittedly, he had no right to be jealous as this was what he’d wanted. Separate lives. But what he hadn’t been prepared for was the violent awakening within.
He’d thought it would be possible to command this hideous feeling, to ignore it or bludgeon it into submission, but it kept rearing its snarling jealous head.
Some pallid chit encroached upon him, and he was about to tell her to remove her objectionable person when Aideen glanced over. So instead he smiled at the unsuspecting pigeon.
Two could play at this game…
Rakecombe suspected his lips must have held a hint of cruelty as the chit visibly shuddered, but instead of walking in the opposite direction, as her instincts were surely screaming, she tentatively smiled back whilst fidgeting with a curl.
The motion reminded him of Aideen and his expression chilled.
Jealousy was a fool’s game with no winners.
The pigeon flew away and he didn’t even notice.
“I say, Rakeshame, you look like you’ve pissed on a nettle.”
He turned that chill on Winterbourne, who’d arrived at his side to survey the horde crowding Buckland’s drawing room. “’Tis purely this Stafford issue. I have to meet an informant in Seven Dials at a half after midnight and I am fatigued.”
“Of course, of course. Never said it wasn’t. Do you need me?” The marquess rocked on his heels, claret in hand.
Rakecombe shook his head. Bluey wouldn’t show if he observed an unfamiliar face.
Despite knowing Winterbourne would never attempt to seduce his wife, Rakecombe’s thoughts still churned at the intimate scene he’d witnessed on the sofa. And it wasn’t that the rogue’s fingers had been on his wife’s shoulder, although that did bring a dull ache, and it wasn’t even that she’d been displaying a long luscious leg.
No, it was that she’d been laughing, her sooty eyes wrinkling in joy.
When was the last time he’d brought his wife joy? W
hen she’d lain beneath him in their marriage bed? But that was a different joy, not the carefree type he’d observed yesterday.
When had he ever made Aideen laugh?
He’d even been jealous of Miss Greenwood after he’d supressed his male appreciation of two beautiful women cuddled together. Aideen was so caring and affectionate. He remembered the touch of her hand on his bruised eye, and God how he yearned to feel it again.
“Alex, would you like some advice?”
No, he bloody wouldn’t. People had been full of it lately. But he had a feeling he was going to hear some gormless drivel anyhow. He waited for Winterbourne to drag out some trite rule or ridiculous plan.
“Life is short. It can even be brutal in this day and age.” The marquess tipped his glass to a glowing Aideen. “So when some happiness comes into your life, don’t deny it.”
“You don’t understa–”
“Yes, I think I probably do.” Dark, flat eyes hollowed into him without mirth. “To deny happiness is to deny life, and we insult the dead by doing so. Don’t forsake the present for past mistakes.”
Aideen’s nails curled into her palm as she watched some alluring trollop smile at her husband. Uncle Seamus had once created a lady’s fan with poisonous tips…
When Rakecombe had finally made his entrance at the Buckland’s soirée, he’d merely nodded his acknowledgement across the room, as though his wife was a serving maid.
Supercilious blaggard.
Forgoing Jack’s rule number one – on balance it didn’t appear to be effective – she made her excuses and quitted Lord MacDougall’s company, to find Cordelia surrounded by an array of young bucks vying for her attentions.
Not a great surprise considering.
Apparently, Mrs Greenwood was under the weather, and so Cordelia was chaperoned this evening by her Aunty Bridget – a chaperone that not only had a voracious appetite for the card table but must also be exceedingly short-sighted.
It could be the only rationale for Cordelia’s attire.
A wave of shock had rippled through the room when she’d first arrived. The diamond of the Season wearing…peony red. It was bright and shiny and decidedly not white, shocking to the ninth degree. Matrons tutted over the decorum of debutantes whilst those same debutantes giggled – surely she would be cut?
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