With that, he strode through the library door, leaving Sarah to grapple with her disorderly clothing and the emptiness of her Pyrrhic victory.
***
“My, what a nasty rash you have on your neck, dear.”
Clarissa Porter’s unexpected greeting came just as Sarah emerged from Justin’s library, wanting only to flee unnoticed to her own chamber and horrified at being discovered in such a state of disrepair. The older woman merely gave her a friendly smile.
“There is no need to distress yourself,” she said, taking Sarah’s elbow. “I believe I have some cream that might help. Would you like to come to my room?” She gave no sign that there was anything unusual about Sarah’s demeanor and the chafed skin on her neck that provided eloquent testimony as to her recent activities.
Sarah followed in Miss Porter’s wake with a prayer that the woman’s usually distracted state would prevent her from discerning the truth. Peering at her reflection in the mirror in Miss Porter’s room, however, Sarah was dismayed anew. The scarlet burn was visible even in the dim light that filtered through the heavy drapes. Sarah recalled the delicious roughness of Lord Linton’s chin as he trailed kisses down her neck and closed her eyes in mortification. The entire household would know of her indiscretion. Everyone would assume, as Miss Simms had, that she was Lord Linton’s mistress.
“Now, now. You must not be overset,” Miss Porter said. “Harriet told me she saw you in the garden earlier. I declare, the bindweed is as coarse as an elephant’s hide this season. You must have brushed into it, just as I did the other day. I have been meaning to ask Justin to have that hedge trimmed. It wants discipline.”
Sarah sent a silent prayer heavenward for the lady’s previous encounter with the nefarious bindweed. “Thank you, Miss Porter, but I — ”
“You must call me Aunt Clarissa, dear. Everyone in the family does.”
Uncertain as to how Aunt Clarissa came to consider her kin, Sarah nevertheless gave her a tentative smile. “Certainly, ma’am. But I can see you have drawn the drapes for your afternoon nap. I will just retire to my room and tend to my complexion.”
“Oh, no, dear,” Aunt Clarissa replied gaily. “I am not tired in the least. I keep the drapes closed because Silvester prefers darkness to light. Besides, I have the perfect cream for what ails you.”
No mere cream could erase her shame, Sarah knew. She had submitted willingly to Lord Linton’s kiss — nay, she had invited it by touching him provocatively. Scene or no scene, Sarah deserved whatever punishment fate handed her.
“My, that is quite a burn,” Aunt Clarissa observed, applying a fragrant ointment to Sarah’s neck.
With her emotions in a turmoil, Sarah could scarcely appreciate the soothing cool of the salve. How could she hope to hold on to her respectability when she had so willingly aroused a man everyone knew to be a dangerous predator of females? And she had wanted his touch — indeed, burned for it. Fortunately, he had developed a sudden disgust of her; otherwise, who knows what might have occurred?
Why had she wanted him, more to the point? Had she simply fallen prey to a skilled seducer’s art? Honesty forced her to acknowledge that today Lord Linton was blameless. She had initiated their contact. To be sure, it was all in the service of the scene, but was she being honest with herself? Or was there something of the rebel within her, as he had said? Something that yearned to abandon the uphill fight to retain her virtue and, instead, dance to the devil’s tune?
Sarah closed her eyes against her own reflection, against the new awareness that Lord Linton had awakened. For she had seen something else in the mirror besides her swollen mouth and chafed neck. Her eyes held something very like the desire she had seen reflected in his. Faded now, but unmistakable nevertheless. She had been branded by passion.
“You must apply thrice daily,” Aunt Clarissa was saying. “You might also consider wearing a high-necked gown for the next day or two. Just until the chafing disappears.”
The violet eyes held no sign of censure. Indeed, Aunt Clarissa seemed most solicitous. Sarah desperately wished for someone to turn to, another woman who might understand her predicament. Her late mother’s axioms had long guided her, but they had always painted the world in starkest black and white. Since leaving behind that little house in Surrey, Sarah had discovered that things rather more often cast themselves in shades of grey. And though she was not Lord Linton’s mistress in truth, for a moment in his library she had become that very woman. Lust had not repulsed her, as she had always imagined it must. Instead, it had thrilled her. She could not confide that to anyone. Even the generous-hearted Aunt Clarissa would not accept such a wanton woman.
“Now, dear, there is an hour or so before dinner.” Aunt Clarissa tucked the pot of cream into Sarah’s hands. “Why do you not retire to your chamber for a bit? If you do not feel well enough to come down later, I am sure everyone will understand.”
Succumbing to her blue spirits was tempting, but Sarah had never had the luxury of retreating from difficulty. “Thank you, ma’am, but there is nothing wrong with my health.”
“That’s the spirit.” Aunt Clarissa beamed her approval. “You must not let a little setback get the best of you. Silvester has told me that from the very beginning, and he is invariably correct.”
Sarah had the distinct impression that she was missing much of the import of the conversation. She smiled uncertainly and turned to leave, but Aunt Clarissa touched her elbow.
“I understand your distress, my dear,” she said kindly. “You must not imagine that I have never known such emotions. I told you I was the black sheep of the family — remember?”
Warily, Sarah nodded.
“Even now, sometimes at night, the feelings wash over me such that I can almost touch them. If I am not careful, I turn into a watering pot for days.” Her gaze took on a faraway expression. “Silvester is a comfort to me, but he is maddeningly thin of substance,” she added forlornly. “That is my chief regret.”
Tears shimmered in the older woman’s extraordinary violet eyes. Aunt Clarissa must have been a most beautiful woman at one time. Her hair had gone to grey, but Sarah could imagine it rich and dark, a perfect frame for her extraordinary eyes. Sarah could not imagine what had caused her tears, but she did not doubt that Lord Linton’s aunt was intensely moved by something. She touched the other woman’s hand.
Aunt Clarissa smiled. “You did not come here to listen to an old woman’s ramblings.”
“You are not old, ma’am.”
Aunt Clarissa shook her head and gently stroked a tiny bouquet of dried violets near her bed. “I am old enough, my dear. Old enough.”
***
“It is beginning.” Anh held out the bamboo stick for inspection. Justin eyed the butler warily.
“What is beginning?”
“Change.”
“One would think that it is constant.”
Anh smiled. “Very good, my lord. You are correct, of course.”
“I weary of your word games,” Justin groused. “Explain yourself.”
“Change is constant, as you say,” Anh replied. “But we humans do not always notice.” He gestured to the stick.
Justin pointedly ignored the bamboo. He palmed a deck of cards, deftly shuffled them with one hand, and tossed back a glass of brandy with the other. The liquid seared his throat, a familiar and predictable sensation from which he drew some comfort since there had been precious little of the predictable in his day. First there was that disastrous and profoundly unsettling encounter with Miss Armistead. Then he discovered that his aunt had seen fit to decorate his library with a riotous assortment of sweet-smelling flowers. Now his butler had chosen this night to retreat into his mystical ramblings.
Incense assailed his nostrils. Justin had never cared for the smell but tolerated it because Anh liked to indulge in such rituals from time to time, and, truth be told, they were invariably interesting. Tonight, however, Justin was not in the mood for ancient fortune-telling
. Studying the hollow bamboo stick, which itself contained a number of smaller sticks, he scowled.
“I have no need to learn about the future.”
Anh regarded him steadily, continuing to hold the stick out.
“Damn it, man,” Justin said, exasperated. “Not tonight.”
But Anh displayed no sign he had heard, merely waited.
With a heavy sigh, Justin took the bamboo and shook it.
One of the smaller sticks fell onto the carpet. Anh studied the markings on it, but did not immediately comment on their import. Instead, he tossed up a pair of wooden blocks shaped like the two halves of a nut — each with a convex side and a flat side — and watched them fall onto the floor. One landed with the flat side up, the other with the convex side up.
“Ah,” the butler said.
Justin was quite familiar with this part of the ritual. If both blocks had landed with the same sides showing, he would have had to choose another stick. The present configuration signaled that his choice was correct and there was no need to shake out another stick.
He wondered what Anh was about. For as much as Justin had come to believe over the years in the efficacy of things beyond his ken, this particular ritual had always struck him as pure hokum, subject to the whims of his wily butler. At least Anh would be so occupied with the divining rods that he would not divine the key to his card trick, Justin thought as he toyed with the deck on the card table.
“A member of the fair sex is thinking of you,” Anh said.
“As I have gone out of my way to play the incorrigible rake,” Justin said dryly, “I daresay there must be any number of foolish women wasting their thoughts in such a manner.”
Anh stared more intently at the bamboo sticks. “She is to be the instrument of change.”
Justin had no doubt to whom Anh was referring. Indeed, he suspected Anh of using the rods tonight to reproach him for his treatment of Sarah — Miss Armistead, he mentally corrected. He had not confided in Anh the details of his scheme to avenge his father’s murder, but very little slipped past the man.
No matter. Justin would brook no revisions to his plan. Other than the one he had been forced to make this afternoon, of course, after the little minx had showed him that he had perhaps written her part too broadly. Justin was familiar with the female seductive arts, but she had used none of them — nothing obvious, that is. Indeed, she had done more by merely touching his arm than any courtesan he had ever encountered. It defied credibility that a man of his reputation could be swayed by a second-rate actress.
No, he amended, there was nothing second-rate about her acting skills. For that one glorious moment in the library, she had made him believe she was his for the taking. He had tried to resist the impulse to kiss her, but it was impossible to ignore the siren call of those lips, the mesmerizing heat in those eyes. She had driven him to distraction, and he had behaved like some primitive creature staking claim to his mate. For a moment, he had lost control. But only for a moment.
Yes, she was good. Very good. She had forced him to change his script, but he would be damned if he would change anything else for her.
“You may choose again.”
Anh wore that maddeningly impassive expression that could mean a thousand things. Justin picked up the bamboo, shook it, and threw another stick onto the floor. Again the choice was approved in the ritual with the wooden blocks. Anh studied the markings on the new stick. Sadly, he shook his head. Against his better judgment, Justin found his interest caught.
“What? Out with it, man.”
As Anh’s pitying gaze met his, Justin reminded himself that he did not believe in this silly ritual.
“The change will destroy you,” Anh said.
Justin arched a brow. “That is quite comforting, to be sure.”
“You would do well not to take this lightly.”
“Oh, I do not,” Justin responded dryly. “You tell me that a woman is about to change my life and that the change will destroy me — no, that is not a thing that I take lightly. Now, may we forget about this nonsense and get on to the cards? This time I have hidden the two red queens. A guinea if you can find them.”
Anh refused to take the bait. “Sometimes destruction is necessary. The sun vanishes, the moon appears. The moon goes, the sun arrives. Sun and moon, each in their own time. Similarly, the past contracts. The future expands. Each acts upon the other. Much is destroyed. Much is gained.”
Justin fought for patience, knowing that Anh truly believed his words — though, like any fortune-teller’s predictions, they could be applied to anything. Just because Sarah Armistead was on his mind at present did not mean that his future had anything to do with her.
“Very well, then.” Justin idly tapped the back of a card. “I am about to be destroyed. What do you suggest I do about it?”
Anh shook his head. “You must travel ten thousand years and ten thousand miles to find the answer to that question.”
Justin hid a smile. Ten thousand of anything was Anh’s way of merely saying that the distance was substantial. Sometimes, he was not referring to distance or time — only to the enormity of the task at hand.
“Let us hope I am up to it, then,” Justin said lightly.
Anh carefully collected the bamboo sticks and tucked them inside the larger stick. He wrapped the stick in a frayed mat decorated with many symbols. Finally, he turned to the table and studied Justin’s cards, which were all face down.
“The diamond queen will not help you,” Anh said, turning over a card — the queen of diamonds. “Her more amiable companion will serve you better.” He turned over another, the heart queen.
Justin stared at the two red queens. He had painstakingly hidden them in an intricate configuration. Never in a thousand years should Anh have known where they were — never in ten thousand years.
Sometimes, Justin reflected as he studied his butler’s retreating form with narrowed eyes, an enormous task could be accomplished very quickly.
CHAPTER NINE
The blast shattered the meadow’s morning calm. A flurry of pigeons and pheasants took to the air, squawking frantically as if the hounds of hell were snapping at their tails. Sarah, who had barely avoided shooting off the toes of her right foot, stood paralyzed in shock.
Lord Linton ripped the smoking pistol from her hand. “I told you the thing has a hair-trigger.”
“Am I expected to know what that means?” Sarah tried to calm her nerves, though the gunshot still rang in her ears. “You are the expert, my lord, not I.”
Dark brows met ominously above stormy eyes, and for a moment Sarah wondered if he meant to give up on her. Teaching her to handle a pistol was proving more difficult than either of them had thought.
“The gun is too heavy for you.” He studied her slender wrists. “You will have to hold it in both hands.”
Sarah eyed the weapon dubiously. “Why can I not use one of those tiny pistols I have heard about? One of Rose McIntosh’s gentlemen friends once showed us a clever little gun made to resemble a fork. Surely that would be easier to manage than this monstrosity.”
“Unless you mean to shoot me across the dinner table, I see no use for a weapon that resembles a fork.”
“But —”
“This ‘monstrosity,’ as you call it, is a masterpiece,” he said. “Perfectly balanced and deadly accurate — in the right hands.”
Glumly, Sarah sat down on a nearby rock. “But can you not see? I do not have the right hands. The weapon is too cumbersome. It causes a cramp in my hand.”
“It was my father’s dueling pistol, a Manton — the best made. More to the point, it is the gun that killed him.”
“I see.” And she did. Everything about that event fifteen years ago must be the same. The debate was closed. “But how did Lady Greywood obtain your father’s dueling pistol?” she asked, puzzled. “Surely he kept it at his house?”
“I do not know. It does not matter. May we continue?”
; Sarah sighed. Lord Linton was surly as a bear this morning. There was certainly no sign of the man who kissed her so... overwhelmingly yesterday. Other than to criticize her handling of the pistol, he had said very little and seemed to wish to keep as much distance between them as possible.
He must have a thorough disgust of her, Sarah decided. But he could scarcely think less of her than she thought of herself. She had not wanted to face him today. Dinner last night had been strained, but at least Aunt Clarissa and Miss Simms had been present. Now there were just the two of them in this wide meadow. Sarah had faced hostile audiences before, but none had intimidated her like Lord Linton.
He was eyeing her expectantly. Suppressing a sigh, Sarah rose to her feet.
“Normally,” he said, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly as for a small, illiterate child, “a gentleman fires as soon as he brings the pistol up. But you must take the time to be certain of your aim. Fortunately, the lock is a fast one, so you lose nothing by waiting. Here.”
He handed her the weapon. “Hold it with two hands. Feel the weight. You will not find another with such perfect balance. It will come up easily, with the barrel perfectly horizontal.”
Although Sarah did not see why one pistol should merit so much praise, she dutifully held it with both hands. To her surprise, it no longer seemed so heavy. Concentrating, she brought the gun up just as he had demonstrated. But when she looked over at him for approval, he was frowning.
“No, no. You must not bend your elbows. You will have no control. Hold the pistol at arm’s length. Keep your elbows almost straight.”
Sarah’s wobbly effort elicited an impatient oath as he ripped off his jacket and abruptly closed the distance between them. From behind, he reached in front of her and placed his hands over hers, guiding the pistol into position.
“There,” he muttered into her ear. “Now all you need do is pull the trigger. Move only your forefinger, nothing more. Above all, do not put pressure on the trigger until you are ready to fire.”
Acutely conscious of the fact that his arms were wrapped around her, Sarah tried her best to follow his instructions. Swallowing hard, she squeezed the finger. The gun fired, propelling her backward against his broad chest. Had his arms not supported her, she would have fallen.
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