They staggered back and she was crushed against the wall, the cold glass at her back but the rest of her body ablaze. His hands were moving down to her bosom, nimble fingers slipping open the front of her gown. Her breasts strained to feel his touch and she breathed delight when it came, softly at first, caressing the swell of her curves and then more intense as her nipples grew erect to his exploration. He bent his mouth and his lips fastened on her breasts, tweaking, nibbling, licking her to a piercingly sweet ache. She grew liquid with desire; she was dissolving, melting to nothingness, annihilated by fire. The conflagration coursed through her entire body with such force that a jagged moan escaped her.
The sound seemed to splinter the air. He raised his head and she saw a dazed expression on his face. He was breathing heavily and his body felt hard and ready for her. It was a moment that flew free of time, a moment when the world seemed to hold its breath. Then he was quickly buttoning her gown.
‘That should not have happened.’ He was barely able to speak.
‘No,’ she whispered, ‘it should not have.’
His usual carefree manner had vanished and she could see that he was thoroughly unnerved. He said nothing more, but offered her his arm and together they made their way from the conservatory in silence. Through
the rose garden and along the flagged terrace they stepped without speaking a word, too overwhelmed by the maelstrom of emotions they had ignited. Once inside the Towers they paused amid the vast expanse of the hall, dazed and bewildered still, not knowing what they should do. Then, as though by unseen agreement, they bowed their heads in farewell and walked away in opposite directions.
Chapter Nine
The carriage was at the door at ten o’clock, bags were almost loaded and Lynton waited to take his seat opposite his master. A half an hour earlier Jack had bid a chilly farewell to his host and there was nothing left for him to do but climb into the lavish travelling coach and be on his way. But he hesitated. He had not spoken to Lucinda since he had escorted her from the conservatory, too stunned to think clearly. The morning had brought wise counsel and he had thought it best that he disappear today without another word. But now as his foot hovered on the first step, he found that he could not leave before he had seen her and said a proper goodbye. That was what he had meant to do yesterday, of course, until an explosion of passion had destroyed all his plans. Their lovemaking had made it crystal clear that the sooner he left the vicinity, the better. He could no longer trust himself to be alone with her and he placed no better reliance on her discretion. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He had wanted to strip her clothes from her and feel her naked form against his, but he was sure that she would have undressed him with equal alacrity. He had seen her eyes dreamy from his caresses and knew they could haze with even greater desire. He had heard her moan with passion and knew he could bring her to a groaning ecstasy. He was no longer teetering on the edge of love, he realised, he was part way down the abyss. But it was not too late if he left now. And he must leave now: he would not be disgraced again, no matter what the temptation. Yet the pain cutting at his heart made it impossible to leave without a last look at her face, a last touch of her hands.
‘You must wait a while,’ he ordered his men, ‘I will not be long’, and disappeared around the side of the house. Fielding was lashing the last piece of baggage in place and glanced after him in puzzlement, while the valet kept his thoughts to himself and looked impassively into the distance.
Jack had a good idea where he might find her. She would not have walked far, he thought, for though she had more energy every day, a stroll on the terrace would still prove sufficient exercise. It was an ideal place for her to linger: she could remain close, but out of sight, and keep her feet dry! He smiled to himself as he rounded the rear of the house and looked along the flagged way. It was empty. He walked to the end of the terrace and through the brick arch into the rose garden. It was empty, too. Where was she? He was about to turn tail when a small noise came to him through the still air. It barely sounded, but he could swear it was a muffled sob. It came from the far corner of the garden where he remembered seeing a small arbour sheltering several simple wooden benches. He headed in that direction, weaving in and out of the variously shaped rose beds and coming finally to the most distant of the paths intersecting the garden.
Almost immediately he saw her. Her head was bent and one hand held a crumpled handkerchief. As he watched she blew her nose in a determined fashion.
‘Lucinda?’
She jerked her head up sharply and hastily hid the damp square of linen.
‘I am sorry. I did not mean to disturb you, but I won’t detain you long. I came only to say goodbye—my carriage is waiting.’
‘I know. I saw it.’ She sniffed loudly, trying to cover her tears. Should he simply ignore her distress, trust she would soon recover and go? He found that he could not and walked quietly up to her and sat down on the bench.
‘Tell me, what ails you?’
It was a dangerous question, for what if she was crying over him and chose to speak of love—how could he respond?
‘I am in low spirits, that is all.’ She smiled a little crookedly. ‘It must be the after-effects of the fever.’
‘If that really is all...’ But his voice doubted.
It wasn’t all, he could see, and her unwillingness to confide acted as a spur on him. He wanted to share her trouble, to soothe her, to make things right for her. ‘Low spirits have not so far afflicted you, so why now? What has happened to upset you so badly?’
‘Nothing, nothing that is new.’ She looked at him from tear-swept eyes. ‘My failure is an old one. Indeed, it has become quite comic.’
He felt bemused. It was evident that she was not about to declare undying love for him. Some other cause for her grief must be found.
‘How have you failed?’ he asked, hoping for enlightenment.
‘Abysmally.’
‘But failed at what, and why does it trouble you so much?’
Her shoulders slumped even farther and every ounce of fight seemed to have drained from her; it was the first time he had known her so utterly defeated.
‘I have failed Rupert.’
He saw new tears start up in her eyes and struggled to make sense of her tangled confession. What the devil did her brother have to do with anything? Rupert had always been the missing piece in the jigsaw that was Verney Towers, spoken of by Lucinda but never mentioned by her uncle. He had thought the mystery of the boy’s whereabouts a strange business but in the end unsurprising, for his entire visit had rung with oddity and Rupert’s unexplained absence was only a part. He tried again to wrest some meaning from Lucinda’s words.
‘In what way have you failed him?’
‘I am sure he will die.’
It was a wail of blind terror coming from a place far removed from the pleasant garden in which they sat. It was as though she had fallen through into another world, he thought, a world of pure suffering. Her tears started afresh and this time they flowed in earnest. His heart gave an uncomfortable lurch and he wanted desperately to put his arms around her and circle her with his protection. But he dared not embrace her.
‘You are making little sense.’ His voice was deliberately severe, but it had the effect he desired. Her sobs hiccupped to a close.
She blew her nose again. ‘I am so sorry, Jack. I am a sad case and you must not heed me. Please accept my apologies for embarrassing you.’ She offered her hand to him as a gesture of goodbye. ‘Your servants will be waiting—you should go.’
‘Damn my servants! I cannot leave you in trouble. I must know what ails you.’
The beginnings of a smile wavered faintly on her lips. ‘Now you are sounding as arrogant as the Lord Frensham that I first met.’
He pulled a wry face. ‘And you are sounding as though you
are a little recovered.’
‘I am fully recovered and you have no need to worry. It was a stupidly weak moment, nothing more.’
‘A weak moment that had you sobbing from the depths of your heart? A weak moment that caused you to bewail your brother’s death?’ He took her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘You must tell me, Lucinda, what it is that troubles you. Tell me everything.’
She gave a sigh of resignation, or was it despair?
‘I suppose now that you are leaving...’ She did not finish the sentence and he had to prompt her,
‘Now that I am leaving...?’
‘I can tell you—for we are unlikely to meet again.’ Her hands fidgeted in her lap, pleating and unpleating her handkerchief. There was an intake of breath before she said in a halting voice, ‘I woke this morning feeling truly despondent. It was more than a fit of the blue devils. Everything was mired in gloom—my future, Rupert’s. It came rushing at me, I don’t know why. Perhaps because you are leaving—I know that you must—but it made me feel very alone. Alone and futile. I have struggled so hard to save Rupert, but my efforts have come to nothing.’
‘Why have you needed to save him?’
‘I didn’t want to tell you—I didn’t want you to think badly of me, or of my brother. But I suppose it hardly matters now.’ There was a long pause and then she hurried to get the words out. ‘It’s easy enough to explain, though difficult to say. Rupert is in a London prison for debts he cannot pay.’
‘In prison? In Newgate?’ He was taken aback. It was hardly the usual fate of gentlemen who did not pay their bills, but it explained her brother’s puzzling absence and the refusal of everyone at the Towers to speak of him.
‘Yes, Newgate,’ she murmured, her voice slightly breaking. ‘He is very ill—he will die if he remains there. And there is nothing I can do to save him.’
‘But how is this possible? Surely your uncle, if he knew...’
‘He knows, but will do nothing.’
Jack felt his mind gyrating wildly. Sir Francis was a fussy, unattractive man with delusions of grandeur, but surely he would not knowingly allow his nephew to suffer incarceration in one of the foulest prisons of London. Not when he had the means to extricate him.
‘How can that be?’ he asked in a dazed voice.
‘Rupert has transgressed. He has always outrun his allowance, but in recent years there have been very large gambling debts, too. In the past Uncle Francis has paid them. But that was while Rupert was a minor and the debts were unenforceable. It was a matter of honour, you see—the Devereux honour. But our uncle swore that he would not continue to rescue Rupert once he reached his majority. If he got into debt again, he would be on his own. And Uncle has kept his word.’
‘But Newgate!’ Jack protested.
‘Uncle Francis considers that time in prison will teach Rupert a lesson and eventually reform him.’ The handkerchief, Jack noticed, was now in shreds. ‘But I know that it will kill him long before he is reformed,’ she finished quietly.
The events of the past few days were gradually beginning to make sense and Jack felt the frown leave his forehead.
‘And how have you tried to save him?’ He was certain that he already knew the answer.
‘I sold my mother’s jewellery to Partridge, but it turned out that it was worth very little.’
‘Now why do I find that unsurprising! But that’s not all, I imagine.’
‘No, of course not. That was my first attempt to raise money. My second was to rob you.’
‘I wish now that I had let you.’
‘I wish you had, too, then I would not have been tempted to ambush the toll coach.’
‘Ah, yes, the toll coach. That rates another black mark against our genial landlord. Don’t think I have forgotten his part in your injury. I have left a written document for the Runner which details in full my suspicions of that gentleman.’
‘You said nothing about the toll convoy?’
‘Naturally not. In any case, no real attack took place, nothing was stolen.’
‘No...’ she sighed despairingly ‘...nothing I’ve tried has worked.’
But the very fact that she had tried put a different complexion on events. He was being forced to reorder what he had believed to be the truth.
‘So riding out as a highwayman was not simply because you were bored with life at Verney Towers?’
‘Are you quite mad, Jack?’
‘I may have been. I thought you so desperate for excitement, that you would take colossal risks simply for the thrill.’
‘What! I could have been killed—and, but for you, I might have died. It was Rupert’s catastrophe that pushed me to such extremes. How could you think otherwise?’
‘I had my reasons,’ he murmured, ‘though they now seem very stupid.’
She was not what he had thought, not a careless, hedonistic thrill seeker, but an intensely loving sister. Such courage, such loyalty! This girl had risked her life, had loved her twin so much that she had braved the gallows to save him. Would he have risked such a thing for his sisters? He hardly need ask himself the question. But nor would anyone he knew have taken such a risk, for it was too great a sacrifice. It had not been so for Lucinda, though. She was an amazing girl: he looked at her with new admiration and a sudden freeing of his heart.
It spurred him to jump to his feet, knowing there were plans he must set in motion. ‘Wait for me here. There is something I have to do.’
‘Yes, it’s called making a journey. Have you forgotten that you are on the verge of leaving?’
‘There are arrangements I must first make. Don’t move. I will be back in seconds.’
Her face showed bewilderment, but he had no intention of explaining. Instead he raced through the rose garden, back along the terrace and round to the front of the house. The carriage, the horses, Lynton and Fielding were still patiently waiting.
‘Fielding,’ he hailed his coachman, ‘I wish you to carry a letter to London for me. Lynton, fetch me paper, quill and ink. And be swift—I will write it here.’
For an instant, both servants looked at him in dumb astonishment, but then the valet bustled into the house to find the necessary writing materials. A few minutes later, the missive had been scrawled and handed to Fielding.
‘I wish you take this letter to Mr Lowell in Chancery Lane. I have told him what I want done and you will carry out his commands. Once you have done as he instructs, you will return to the Four Feathers.’
Fielding scratched his head. ‘Begging your pardon, your lordship, but most times you send a courier to your man of business. I can’t be driving to London and Hampshire at the same time.’
‘Strangely, Fielding, that small problem has occurred to me. In this instance I cannot send a courier. The matter is too delicate. I need my own staff, people I can trust. Mr Lowell knows you well and will be happy to relay his commands to you. And you can both be relied upon to keep silent on whatever you see or hear.’
Fielding’s chest swelled at the earl’s words; the praise was sufficient to keep him happy and uninterested in enquiring further. For Lynton, though, it was otherwise. He coughed apologetically.
‘A small matter, my lord—but while Fielding is driving to London and back, where are we to go?’
‘An easy one, Lynton. We will repair to the Four Feathers for several nights. When Fielding returns, we will be on our way to Lord Merrington’s.’
‘But, your lordship!’ Lynton’s face was aghast. ‘The Four Feathers!’ He had heard enough of that hostelry from his companion to consider his master had taken leave of his senses.
‘It may be better to find some place else,’ the coachman interjected. ‘That landlord is in a fearful temper. The Runner from Bow Street has arrived—an odd cove, name of Didimus Black—but he’s
been prying into every corner of the inn and old Partridge has worked himself into a fair fury.’
It was one of the longest speeches Jack had ever heard his coachman make. ‘You have my promise that it will be for two nights at most,’ he said smilingly. ‘Once you return with the carriage, Fielding, we will be on our way. In the meantime, take Lynton and the bags with you as far as the inn. I will follow shortly on foot.’
His two henchmen looked at each other in mute disbelief and he guessed they were privately deciding that this time he had run completely amok. But they were far too well trained to raise any further objections and he was able to return to Lucinda, feeling assured that his instructions would be carried out to the letter.
* * *
The prolonged farewell had not been good for her, Lucinda concluded. Instead of slipping quietly away from the Towers, Jack had insisted on saying goodbye to her—in fact, two goodbyes—and they had broken her heart. She knew now what she had long suspected. She loved him. Since their dance together, she’d recognised that he could rouse her to a passion that she could never before have imagined. But she’d made up her mind that though desire might strip her naked and leave her temporarily defenceless, it was a weakness that would eventually pass and leave her unscathed. The certainty that Jack was a professional charmer and that she was just another one of his flirts had made her determined that she would not succumb. But then she had ridden into danger and he had become her saviour, a protector who treated her with the utmost delicacy and who cared nothing for the risk to his own reputation. He had won her trust and she could see now that he had won her heart, too. During those sickroom days, she had tried to pretend to herself that what she felt for him was grateful affection, even as she sensed her body respond to his. But their passionate lovemaking amid the teacups had destroyed that fiction. It was not grateful affection she felt, but a living, breathing, demanding love from which she would never be free. And those feelings were here to stay, even if he were not.
Unmasking Miss Lacey Page 14