hair.
Zamaris, Lord of the Night. Powerful, seductive. And very
dangerous.
He came closer, his hand outstretched.
Not Zamaris, she realized. Colchester.
Impossible.
But for some reason, she could not seem to differentiate
between the two. Colchester and Zamaris had coalesced into one
single creature of the night.
She looked at the hand that he held out to her and saw blood
dripping from his long, elegant fingers.
He was going to regret becoming involved with Miss Imogen
Waterstone, Matthias told himself for what was no doubt the
thousandth time since he had arrived in London. She was already
having a damaging effect on his powers of concentration.
He set down his quill and gazed unseeingly at the notes he was
making for his next article in the Review. Thus far he had covered
less than half of a sheet of foolscap with his speculations on
Zamarian rituals. Thoughts of Imogen's imminent arrival in Town
kept intruding.
She and Horatia were due to arrive that day. Her wild, reckless
plan would no doubt be set in motion shortly thereafter. All she
required were a few invitations to the right levees and balls.
Horatia seemed convinced they could be obtained.
Matthias rose from his chair and walked around the corner of
his vast ebony desk. He went to stand in front of the fire, aware of
a deep, gnawing restlessness. It had been troubling him since he
had returned to London.
He was a fool to become embroiled in Imogen's mad scheme.
The only positive note that he could see in the murky picture was
that the damnable plot was highly unlikely to work.
Unfortunately, there would doubtless be some extremely trying
moments ahead before Imogen would be convinced to give up her
grand plan of vengeance. Matthias glumly contemplated the fact
that it would be up to him to keep her out of trouble until she
accepted defeat.
She was determined to set forth on a path fraught with the
threat of scandal and danger. Matthias considered her scheme
once more, attempting to be objective. He did not believe that
Vanneck had actually murdered his wife. Vanneck was a sly, dissipated, unprincipled rake who had an unpleasant reputation in the
brothels and hells, but he did not strike Matthias as a killer. The
ruthless seduction of an innocent, naive young lady such as
Imogen was more Vanneck's style. Matthias's hand flexed into a
tight fist at his side.
"
He closed his eyes and thought about the way Imogen had
responded to him when he had taken her into his arms. A wave of
sweet, searing heat went through him, stoking the fire that had
been smoldering in his loins since he had left Upper Stickleford.
He could not remember the last time a woman's kiss had
produced such a lingering effect on his senses. He tried to will
away the desire that had flared within him. When that failed, he
pictured Imogen with Vanneck in the bedchamber above the
Sandowns" ballroom. His gut turned to ice.
Matthias knew what was happening, and it worried him as noth
ing else had for a long while. He wanted Imogen for himself. The
vision of her in Vanneck's debauched embrace was almost enough
to make him contemplate murder.
He took a deep breath, gazed into the heart of the fire, and
searched for the ghosts. They were there, as they always were,
reaching out for him as though to draw him down into the flames
to join them. So damn many of them.
Matthias had been ten years old when his father, Thomas, had
raged through the house for the last time, shouting at Elizabeth,
who was, as usual, in tears.
Matthias had witnessed the final battle through the posts of the
upstairs balustrade. The awareness of his own inability to stop the
dreadful words or stem the flood of his mother's tears had made
his hands shake. He wanted to run and hide. Instead, he had made
himself watch as the father he had never been able to please did
battle with the mother he could never comfort.
He had heard the same terrible accusations hurled back and
forth between his parents many times, but this was the first occasion on which he had actually understood them.
After all these years the words still burned in his brain.
You trapped me, you conniving, coldhearted bitch," Thomas had
shouted as he faced his wife in the front hall. You used your body
to seduce me and then you deliberately got yourself pregnant."
You told me that you loved me," Elizabeth had flung back. I
was an innocent, but you had no scruples about bedding me, did
you?"
You lied to me. You told me that you knew how to keep from
getting yourself with child. Damn you, I never intended to marry
you. I never felt anything but a fleeting lust for you. No more than
I would feel for a whore."
You talked of love," Elizabeth wailed.
Bah. I have had enough of this loveless marriage. You wanted
the title, well, you have it, but, by God, Elizabeth, that is all you
shall have from me."
You cannot leave me, Thomas."
I cannot rid myself of you by any legal means. Divorce is out of
the question. But I refuse to condemn myself to a lifetime of
unhappiness. Enjoy the title you used your body to obtain. You
shall have this house and an allowance, but I shall never step foot
in this hall again. I shall take up residence in London. If you must
communicate with me about any matter of grave importance, you
will do so through my solicitors."
What of Matthias?" Elizabeth asked desperately. He is your
son and heir."
I have only your word for that," Thomas said harshly. For all I
know, you slept with half the members of my club."
He's your son, you bloody bastard. The law will not allow you
to deny it."
I am well aware of that, madam," Thomas said. But one day I
shall learn the truth concerning just how badly I was deceived.
Every man in my family develops a streak in his hair by the age of
twenty."
So will Matthias. You'll see. In the meantime, you cannot
ignore him."
I shall do my duty by him," Thomas vowed. It is past time that
Matthias was sent away to school. If he stays in this house a
moment longer, you will no doubt bind him to you so tightly with
your damned tears and apron strings that he will never become a
man."
You cannot send him away. He is all I have. I will not allow it."
You have no choice, madam," Thomas had retorted. I have
already made the arrangements. His tutor has been dismissed.
With any luck Eton and Oxford will undo the damage you have
tried to inflict."
School had not been altogether unpleasant. Having spent the
first ten years of his life attempting to please his father, Matthias
continued the futile effort. He had thrown himself into his studies.
Thomas had paid little attention to the boy's scholarly
successes, but something unusual did occur during those years.
Unlike the majority of his companions, Matthias had actually
"
become enthralled by the classical texts that formed the core of
the curriculum. As he grew older they continued to draw him with
an inexplicable power. He sensed the secrets hidden deep within
them.
Long, melancholic letters from Elizabeth had kept him
informed of her endless complaints about his father's selfish,
tight-fisted ways, the house parties she had planned, and her
illnesses. Matthias dreaded going home between terms, but he did
so because something inside him told him that it was his duty. As
the years passed, he saw enough of his mother to realize that
between house parties she had begun to treat her depressed spir
its with increasing quantities of wine and laudanum.
The letters from his father had been few and far between. They
were concerned primarily with the high cost of Matthias's school
expenses and angry diatribes about the relentless financial
demands Elizabeth made through the solicitor.
Elizabeth drowned in an estate pond the winter of Matthias's
fourteenth year. The servants said that she had had a great deal of
wine at dinner that night and several glasses of brandy afterward.
She had told her staff that she wished to take an evening walk
alone.
Her death had been declared an accident, but Matthias some
times wondered if his mother had committed suicide. Either way,
he was doomed to bear a measure of guilt for the rest of his life
because he had not been there to save her. His mother would have
wanted it that way, he thought wryly.
He could still see his father standing on the other side of
Elizabeth's grave. It was a memorable occasion for many reasons,
not the least of which was that Matthias had made his first serious
promise to himself that day. He had looked into his father's face
and silently vowed that he would never again bother to try to
please him. A coldness had settled somewhere inside him that day.
It had never disappeared.
Thomas had been blithely unaware of Matthias's mood. He had
taken him aside immediately after the funeral and jubilantly
announced his intention to wed again. Thomas's relief at being
free of Elizabeth and his happy anticipation of his forthcoming
nuptials had stood in sharp contrast to the colors of mourning that
surrounded them.
Her name is Charlotte Poole, Matthias. She is lovely and
gracious and pure. A noble paragon of womanhood. She will bring
me a happiness I have never known."
How nice for you, sir."
Matthias had turned on his heel and walked away from his
mother's grave. He had known then that her ghost would follow
him.
The letter from Thomas announcing the birth of a daughter,
Patricia, had come a year after the earl's marriage to Charlotte.
Matthias had carefully read the joyful, glowing words his father
had penned describing his deep and abiding affection" for his
infant daughter and her mother. When he was finished, Matthias
had consigned the birth announcement to the hearth. As he
watched the letter burn, he thought he saw his mother's ghost in
the flames. Hers proved to be the first of many.
The streak of silver appeared in Matthias's hair almost
overnight. Thomas began to send increasingly earnest letters to his
son, inviting him to visit his new family. Matthias ignored them.
By the time he had finished his studies, Matthias was well
steeped in Greek, Latin, hazard, and whist. Regular trips down to
London with his friends had given him an intimate familiarity with
the worst gaming hells and with the contents of the British
Museum.
It was in the museum that he had first encountered the clues to
lost Zamar. It was there, too, that he had met George Rutledge, a
highly respected scholar and an expert on antiquities. Rutledge
had invited Matthias to make use of his private library.
Rutledge's impressive library contained more evidence of the
existence of the lost island kingdom. Rutledge was as enthusiastic
as Matthias about the possibility of discovering Zamar. The only
problem that loomed on the horizon was that of obtaining the
money for an expedition. Matthias solved that difficulty in a
unique manner, one that scandalized Society and outraged his
father.
He opened a gaming hell.
In the years that followed Matthias's discovery of Zamar, there
were several notes from Lord Colchester inviting him to visit his
small family at their country home. Matthias had politely
declined. He had managed to avoid meeting his stepmother and
his half sister.
He had been en route home from Zamar a few months earlier
"
when Thomas and Charlotte had been killed in a carriage accident. The funeral was held several weeks before he reached
England. Patricia had gone to live with an uncle on her mother's
side immediately after her parents had been buried.
Matthias had arrived in London to discover that he had
assumed the earldom and a few more ghosts.
Chapter 4
If things got out of hand, he would play the one card he held,
Matthias promised himself Tuesday evening as he walked into the
glittering ballroom. There was a possibility that once Imogen's
scheme was launched, he might be able to sink it by making it
clear to Vanneck and the ton that he had concluded her uncle's
map was a fraud.
It would be risky. There was no guarantee such a tactic would
work. Imogen was I A. Stone, after all. She was determined to
keep her identity a secret, but she was perfectly free to quote
Stone's opinions at great length. If I. A. Stone, who had attracted
an enthusiastic and devoted following who respected her opinions, let it be known that he considered the map to be genuine,
Vanneck might very well go for the bait regardless of Matthias's
opinion. There were many in Society who would very much like to
see Matthias proved wrong.
He disregarded the speculative glances and covert stares
directed at him as he moved through the large room. He
pretended not to hear the whispered comments that ebbed and
flowed around him.
Cold-blooded Colchester.
He had never lived down the reputation he had acquired a
decade before. Then again, he had never made any effort to do so.
He'd had more important things to accomplish in the intervening
years. Lost Zamar had consumed him body and soul. At least it
had until Imogen Waterstone dragged him into this outlandish
scheme.
For the most part, Matthias ignored the Polite World. He made
no secret of his disdain for the frivolous fashions and vicious
gossip that were its lifeblood. As a consequence, the ton thought
him fascinating.
Matthias exchanged cool nods with an acquaintance and helped
himself to a glass of champagne from a passing tray. He lounged
against one of the appallingly overwrought, heavily gilded
columns that decorated
the ballroom and drew his watch from his
pocket. Nearly eleven. Curtain time.
In an extremely detailed note that had arrived very early at his
town house that morning, Imogen had given him his instructions
for his role in tonight's performance. She had gone so far as to
supply him with a short script designed to guide him through their
first conversation together in front of the ton. He had been
ordered to act as though he were being introduced to her for the
first time.
After a cursory glance at the ridiculous lines of dialogue that he
was supposed to memorize, Matthias had tossed the sheet of
foolscap into the fire. He was no Edmund Kean, and Lady Blunt's
ballroom was not Drury Lane. Nevertheless, he was there.
And he was intrigued, in spite of himself.
Imogen's little charade was outlandish, outrageous, and crazed
in the extreme. He would no doubt live to rue his part in it. But he
could not deny the sense of anticipation he felt.
It occurred to him that in the short while since he had known
her he had experienced any number of unfamiliar sensations,
everything from disbelief to a disturbing degree of desire. In
between, he had suffered irritation, astonishment, and bemuse
ment, more sensations, in short, than he had been obliged to deal
with, during the past decade. The lady was dangerous.
Good evening, Colchester. This is certainly a surprise.
Something interesting must be scheduled to occur here in Lady
Blunt's ballroom this evening. I cannot imagine any other reason
for you to have condescended to accept an invitation."
At the sound of the familiar, throaty tones, Matthias turned to
glance at the woman who had come up beside him. He inclined his
head slightly. Selena." He raised his glass in a small toast. My
compliments. Spectacular, as always, madam."
Thank you, sir. One does one's best."
And in your case, one always succeeds."
If Selena, Lady Lyndhurst, was aware of the hint of mockery in
his words, she did not allow it to show. She merely smiled with cool
acceptance of the obvious. She was spectacular. Everyone in Town
acknowledged that fact.
Selena was in her late twenties. She had taken up residence in
London four years earlier following the death of her elderly
husband. She had shown no inclination to remarry, but her name
was occasionally linked, albeit discreetly, with certain gentlemen
of the ton. Beautiful, stylish, and clever, she took advantage of the
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