The Perils of Pleasure

by Julie Anne Long

  Or Newgate, for that matter.

  But who knew? Perhaps the Earl of Malmsey had chosen to marry a woman who made him laugh, a woman who was like looking out on springtime from the vantage point of his winter years, who was a credit to him in public and could make his pole rise rather smartly when he was in bed, who was genuinely grateful to and fond of him, and he was willing to look the other way regarding a footman for all of these reasons.

  Colin thought about Malmsey in Manton’s, and somehow didn’t think so.

  At last the conversation between the countess and footman seemed to be stuttering to a halt. Colin craned his head and through the cracked wardrobe door saw why: Harry had propped himself up on his elbow and spread a big brown palm over a muslin-clad breast.

  He began lazily circling the countess’s nipple with one finger. Round and round it went.

  Breathing in the wardrobe all but stopped.

  The nipple circling was positively mesmerizing.

  “Oh, I do like that, Harry.” Eleanor’s voice had the husky detachment of a woman quite willing to be seduced.

  “It’s been a while, Nor,” Harry said softly.

  He could have spoken for everyone in the room.

  Madeleine’s breathing was decidedly uneven now; Colin felt the shuddering rise and fall of it beneath his hand. He began to feel a bit light-headed. Following a suspicion, he dared to duck his head and rest his chin very lightly against Madeleine’s temple. He felt the rapid trip of her pulse there.

  It wasn’t fear, if he knew this woman. She was, as any human with blood in their veins would be, aroused.

  And knowing he was mad to do it, and a devil to do it, and a man to do it, Colin pulled Madeleine ever so slightly closer to his body and made sure his every quiet, warm exhalation fell softly, over and over, on her ear. He made himself wild imagining what this might do to her: the gooseflesh rising over her throat, the flush warming her skin, the pleasure spiking through her body, the heat and damp gathering between her legs.

  Following another hunch, he shifted his arm up from where it banded her waist, just enough for his thumb to accidentally brush, oh, so lightly…across one breast.

  He encountered a bead-hard nipple covered in soft muslin.

  Madeleine’s breathing stopped.

  Colin bit the inside of his lip to stifle a groan.

  Pretending to shift his arm back to where it had been around her waist, he brushed his thumb down over her breast again.

  Which was when Madeleine’s head tipped—almost imperceptibly—back against his shoulder, her back arched ever so slightly into his touch, and her buttocks pressed into his groin.

  Dear God.

  Which was when it began to make a sort of feverish sense to slip his hand inside her bodice. He could imagine the slide of his fingers over her pale skin, the knot of her nipple against them, and God help him, he was growing hard, and in a moment Madeleine would know it and the game of pretense—this game comprised of little accidents that weren’t accidents at all—would have shifted into an entirely different realm. It was madness. It needed to stop.

  Stopping, however, had never been one of Colin Eversea’s strengths.

  And all the while, his eyes remained on the tableau on the bed, and the figure eights the footman’s finger made over the Countess Malmsey’s bosom became a more determined and thorough caress. His fingers vanished into her bodice.

  Lucky bastard.

  “Oh, Harry. We must be careful.”

  But the countess’s words were languid, and even as she said them, Eleanor’s hand went up to cup the back of the footman’s head, and as she pulled his face down to hers, Harry’s hands had dropped to bunch the yards of her muslin gown upward.

  The rest happened with almost businesslike alacrity, making it clear they’d done it before. The countess wriggled to give Harry better access to all that lay beneath her dress, then a slim, silk-stockinged calf came into view, and her knees bent—and wasn’t that a pretty garter up high on her thigh—and Harry’s face dropped to give her cleavage the thorough attention due it—

  Which was when Madeleine pushed out of Colin’s grasp and out of the wardrobe.

  Chapter 8

  Deprived of her balance, Colin nearly stumbled out of the wardrobe after her.

  For all of that, the thick carpet took their landing so softly they hardly made a sound, and all those silky dresses sighed as they swung back into place behind them.

  For a ridiculous moment Colin and Madeleine merely gazed studiously away from each other and across the lake of rose and cream carpet toward that island of a bed, upon which the footman and countess writhed.

  Mercifully, Lady Malmsey was just shifting to get her thighs more decisively about Harry. Something—the glint of Madeleine’s pistol, which nicely caught the lamplight?—must have caught her eye. She went still.

  And slowly, slowly, lifted her head up.

  She froze. Her blue eyes dinner-plate-sized with horror.

  Colin touched the brim of his hat politely.

  “Nor?” The muffled question came from between the countess’s breasts.

  When Lady Malmsey didn’t reply, Harry lifted his head from her bosom to her face. Then spun his head to follow her horrified gaze.

  And then the countess and the footman exploded away from each other in opposite directions, Lady Malmsey toppling from the bed to the floor to the left and the footman spinning off to the right to land on his knees. He half dragged himself to the dressing table, snatched his wig and held it over his groin, then stood to glare at Madeleine and Colin while his other hand flapped behind him over the dressing table behind him in search of a weapon. He came away with nothing but a pomander.

  He swore disgustedly, dropped the pretty thing with a clatter, and settled for glaring.

  Colin stood there feeling a bit dazed, knowing if he’d stayed in the wardrobe one second longer he would have benefited from a groin wig, too. He glanced, to ascertain, in a way, that he hadn’t been deluded: Madeleine Greenway’s nipples were still peaked beneath the fine muslin of her bodice, and her face was washed with pink. She was busying herself with fully unlocking the pistol and aiming it, a faint frown tugging at the corners of her mouth, and she was very determinedly not looking at him.

  Colin jerked his eyes away from her, half regretful, half embarrassed, as though she’d shaken him awake from an erotic dream. Thank God she’d had the presence of mind to do it.

  He took in a deep breath, an attempt to fully vanquish the dream. He needed a clear head.

  The petite countess’s hand appeared on the counterpane, and then her blond head appeared and she used the bed to pull herself to her feet. She stared at Colin and Madeleine, a terrified, disheveled little cloud of white.

  And then recognition set in and her eyes snapped sparks. “Colin Eversea!”

  She actually sounded indignant. As though he’d spilled ratafia on her dress at a ball.

  Doubtless when shock gave way to sense she would scream, as she wasn’t stupid. Footman in her bed notwithstanding.

  So Colin was behind her in a thrice with an arm clamped about her waist and a hand clapped over her mouth, carefully steering clear of her little white teeth. She was so fragile it was like trapping a songbird. He felt a right bounder.

  He noticed that Madeleine was already doing what Madeleine did very well: aiming a pistol at the footman, whose face had blanched to the color of his wig. At which point Colin assumed the footman no longer needed a groin disguise.

  “Lady Malmsey,” Colin said very quietly and quite reasonably, “if you promise not to scream, I’ll release you. And if you intend to say my name again, do lower your voice. We are old friends, are we not? I need your help, but I need you to be quiet.”

  “Cowin? Isitreawy YOU?” came indignantly from behind Colin’s hand. “Yerawive?”

  The wig slipped from the footman’s grasp and plopped to the floor like a dropped lapdog.

  “Are you truly… Coli
n Eversea?” Harry looked at Colin hard—peered at him, really. As if reconciling the human in front of him against all those vivid broadsheet images.

  Colin did some peering of his own. Harry had blue eyes and a dimple in his chin.

  Obligingly, Colin slowly removed his hat.

  “You are Mr. Eversea!” Harry stared a long moment. And then he glanced down at his shoes, and shuffled his toes diffidently. And then glanced up again. “’Tis just that ye’ve been to the ’ouse before, sir, and I would know ye anywhere and…Well, sir! Well, I’m…well, sir!”

  And then he bowed, a low and proper one, the sort he’d offer to the earl. “’Tis an honor, Mr. Eversea,” he said when he was upright again. His voice was all melting admiration.

  Madeleine made a tiny incredulous sound in the back of her throat.

  Colin thought it was looking less likely that the footman had arranged for his murder by the minute.

  “But…why are you here?” Harry continued. “You don’t mean to…” His forehead bunched in confusion. “…rob us?” He surreptitiously peered behind Colin, looking, perhaps, for sacks filled with silver candlesticks. Colin Eversea had been an accused murderer, not a robber, according to the broadsheets and scandal sheets and newspapers, so this was baffling.

  “I’m here because I need your assistance, Harry. And I’ll release you if you promise not to scream, Eleanor. Do you promise? After all, we’re friends, are we not, and the four of us are rather in an equivalent amount of trouble at the moment, wouldn’t you say?”

  A heartbeat’s worth of consideration later, the countess bobbed her golden head rapidly.

  Colin slowly lifted up his hand from her mouth.

  The words rushed out. “What in God’s name were you doing in my wardrobe, in my chambers, Colin Eversea? And my goodness, you need a wash! And I am glad you’re alive. Did you stab that man?”

  “I’ll ask the questions, Lady Malmsey, and I’ll ask them of Harry. Why did you go to the Tiger’s Nest, Harry?”

  Well. This question was clearly an even bigger shock than an escaped murderer bursting forth from a wardrobe. The footman’s complexion evolved a green undertone, and his hands reached back to grip the edge of the dressing table for balance.

  Colin knew very well what women’s dressing tables held; he’d been in any number of women’s chambers, from the proper to the deliciously improper. Pellets of rouge for the faster young ladies, for the others, little cut crystal glasses of lavender water or clove water perhaps or pomades, and, in the case of his sister, “curling fluid,” an elixir that promised to make her hair stay curled.

  It had not. Genevieve had quietly wept.

  Harry the footman waved a dismissive hand. “It’s just…she don’t know about it. Eleanor don’t know.” He said faintly. “I wanted to protect ’er, ye see.”

  Lady Malmsey turned abruptly. “Harry…what don’t I know?”

  “Why don’t the two of you sit down?” Madeleine made it sound like a kind invitation, but she gestured with the barrel of the pistol, which lent the invitation an altogether different flavor.

  The countess and Harry the footman reconvened obediently side by side on the bed: squeak, squeak. Their eyes were riveted to the barrel of Madeleine’s pistol. Harry’s big brown hand crept out across the counterpane and found Lady Malmsey’s, and her fingers twined in his. He brought her hand back to his lap, a show of solidarity, of comfort, of ownership. Colin suspected the gesture had been nearly unconscious.

  Colin saw an odd shadow pass over Madeleine’s face. A trick of the light? A pistol cramp? But her aim never wavered.

  “Where is Malmsey? Is he in London?”

  “Malmsey is in Dover. He has business there, and told me I’d find it dull. He’s thoughtful of me that way. Most places are dull compared with London.”

  Dull. Colin had a sudden yearning for “dull.”

  “Must she point that pistol?” Lady Malmsey added resentfully. Clearly she was gaining confidence now that her shock had ebbed.

  Colin shot her a repressive glance.

  “Harry, if you would please answer my question. We’re in a bit of a rush, you see, and this is very important. And I’ve been remiss. And allow me to introduce my…” He considered choosing a devilish word, then decided they needed the respect of these two. “…associate, Mrs. Green.”

  Colin took a closer look at Harry. The footman was certainly tall, and looked as though he’d been plucked off a farm only yesterday, his brawn a bit at odds with his finery. He had the face of a man possessed of blessedly little imagination but of solid character. Colin had seen that face countless times in the pub and the church in Pennyroyal Green on people who were too busy working their land and tending animals to become complicated. This suited Colin. He enjoyed—but never trusted—those who possessed lively imaginations.

  Primarily, of course, because he was one of them.

  “’E came to me on me day off, ye see,” Harry began haltingly. “I was polishin’ the silver in the morning. And as I finished early, I ’ad a ’alf day, thought I’d go into town, post a letter to me mum. I walked—’tis a good ways, but I’m accustomed to walking, ye see, back at home in Marble Mile, and dinna do as much as I’d like these days. And all of a sudden like, a man fell into step beside me. ’E called me by name, but ’e didna introduce ’imself. ’E merely said…’e said…” Harry stopped and swallowed hard. “Said ’e knew about…about me and Nor.”

  The countess made a tortured sound, and her head swiveled for the first time away from that compelling pistol.

  “Oh, Harry! You should have told me! What if the earl…what if that man was a spy for Malmsey? I honestly do not think Monty would—but what if—”

  “I dinna think ’e was a spy, Nor,” Harry said gently. “If ’e was a spy, why would ’e tell me ’e knew about us? ’E would go to the earl, would he not? The earl ’as the money. And if ’e wanted blunt, ’e would ’ave gone to ye instead, Nor, is my way of thinking, not me. The thing is…’e didna ask fer blunt. ’E wanted a ‘messenger,’ is ’ow ’e put it. And I wanted to protect ye, ye see. Ye’ve already a few secrets to keep. I didna want to burden ye with another.”

  Colin glanced at Madeleine and saw that shadow again; there was something tense about her mouth, as though she was suppressing some emotion. But her dark eyes were curiously soft.

  Lady Malmsey looked away from Harry and studied Madeleine, taking in her clothes, her pistol, her lovely and interesting face.

  “Is she your doxie, Colin?”

  Women and their bloody curiosity and hairpin changes of topic.

  “Well, are you, madam?” There was a sharp glint in the countess’s eyes. Very like mischief and pique. She was a woman who’d grown accustomed to having control and now suddenly found herself without it.

  “I am no one’s doxie, Lady Malmsey.” Madeleine’s words were very, very patient. “But thank you for inquiring.”

  “There are worse things one can be called, love,” the countess countered with acerbic practicality. Harry gave her hand a quelling squeeze and shot Colin an apologetic look: you know how women are.

  “Back to Harry,” Colin interjected, lest Madeleine succumb to a temptation to snatch the countess free of hair. But Madeleine looked surprisingly composed.

  “Well, I admitted to nothing,” Harry continued. “I said I knew naught of what ’e spoke, and wished ’e wouldna say such disagreeable things of the countess. But I said I’d be ’appy to act as a messenger in order to do a kindness for the gentleman, as I was acquainted with Mr. Croker of the Tiger’s Nest, an’ I meant to go there after I posted me letter.”

  This man might be cuckolding an earl, but Colin began to like him. He invariably found affection for people who weren’t complete fools.

  “I canna think ’ow anyone could possibly know about me and Nor,” he said earnestly, and Colin, with some regret, instantly lowered his estimation of him, given the countess’s locked chamber door and the fact that any
butler worth his salt would wonder where one of the footmen had got to. There was also the matter of the squeaky bed.

  Then again, love wears blinders and earmuffs, which left one open to all manner of disasters, Colin thought darkly. His had begun at a pub and nearly ended at the gallows.

  “What manner of man was this? Was he a gentleman? A rough type? A servant?” Madeleine pressed.

  Her commanding tone made Harry take his first real look above the pistol barrel at her. A hungry, appreciative, nearly frightened expression flickered over then fled from his face. A reflex, Colin, thought: the sort of reaction every red-blooded man has to a woman he instinctively knows he couldn’t possibly have or possibly equal. It was interesting to witness it on the face of another man. Had Madeleine Greenway always inspired this reaction, or was it something she’d become over the years?

  Then Harry gulped in a deep breath, released it, and tipped his head back in thought. “’E spoke like a gentleman. Verra polite. But I dinna think ’e was a gentleman. ’E looked like…like a solicitor.”

  “How so?”

  “’E brought to mind Mr. Paton, the earl’s bailiff. ’Is…manner of dress. ’Is way of speaking. There’s a way the quality walk, ye see, as if they know they’re bet—” Harry looked up sharply, considered his company and reconsidered his choice of words. “This man was different,” he concluded simply.

  “Can you describe him?” Colin asked. “How did he look?”

  “Well-fed.” Harry swept a hand out in a curve to indicate a paunch. “Middle years, I’d guess. Spectacles, so I couldna see ’is eyes well, and ’e nivver once looked me straight on. ’Is clothes were verra plain and dark, which was why ’is fancy waistcoat buttons struck me as odd.”

  “Fancy buttons?” Colin repeated sharply.

  “Aye. Not brass, nor silver as I’s seen on some of the fancier types we’ve ’ad in at dinners and the like. White-like…very shiny…like wee moons. The size of…” Harry made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “…shillings. His coat was buttoned up, and he’d a cravat tied on, but they caught the light, and so I looked.”