After the dancer flounced away to perform for another group of patrons, Mariana turned toward the young Comte at her side. It would be rude to stay silent. “Do you frequent the Foyer?”
“Non,” Villefranche replied, “it is not to my taste.”
Her head canted to the side. “Yet you are here.”
“There are times when a man must act outside his true inclinations,” he replied, one word following the next in a passionate staccato.
Taken aback by his fervor, she asked, “And why would the son of a marquis ever have to act outside his true inclinations?”
Twin patches of scarlet brightened the young Comte’s cheeks, and he glanced away. If she’d known him better, she might hazard a guess that he was flustered.
Unaware of the curious exchange, Helene continued greeting passersby as they progressed through the room.
Villefranche asked, “Have you yet shopped in the Palais-Royal?”
Mariana suppressed a surprised laugh at this conversational turn. This night grew stranger by the moment. “Non,” she replied, disinterest rounding out the single syllable. Nick had been correct about one thing: she derived no pleasure from shopping.
“I shall escort you on the morrow if you like,” Villefranche replied . . . solemnly.
Before Mariana could form a polite refusal, Helene nudged her. “Oh, ma chérie, you must experience the Palais-Royal before you leave Paris.”
No other option available, Mariana replied, “I shall think on it.”
She wouldn’t, of course. She only entered shops out of necessity and with a clear objective. She couldn’t think of a bigger waste of time than an aimless perusal of random wares for sale.
Villefranche leaned forward and caught Helene’s eye. “You could join us for propriety’s sake?”
Helene’s eyebrows lifted. “I am fairly certain I have a previous engagement.”
Mariana suppressed a smile. Helene would take great offense at the very suggestion that she was old enough to play chaperone to a woman of thirty years.
“In that case,” Villefranche continued, “Lady Nicholas, I shall send a messenger for your definite reply on the morrow.”
Without further preamble, the young Comte dipped in a shallow bow before pivoting on one foot and hastening through the arched doorway.
A short, astonished silence followed. “A shame his beauty is wasted on such a dull humor,” Helene said on a wistful note. “I can’t say I envy you your shopping excursion.”
Mariana nodded in polite agreement and looked out across the room. Her eyes snagged upon a fleeting, and eerily familiar, figure. It wasn’t Nick, but if she didn’t know better, she would have thought she’d caught a glimpse of . . . Percy. He’d carried himself with a distinctive angularity.
She blinked, and the phantom was gone. Ridiculous. Percy had been dead these last eleven years. Two witnesses had testified to seeing him cut down at the Battle of Maya and buried in an unmarked grave. Just because Mariana’s own husband had risen from the grave tonight didn’t mean Olivia’s had, too. Plenty of men were angular.
She must leave Paris. But not for Nick. She must leave Paris for herself. Any oblique dangers he might have referenced tonight were insignificant compared to the very real danger she presented herself.
Her marriage to Nick only operated smoothly if neither of them actively engaged with the other, maintaining parallel existences that intersected at appointed times. Yet her actions of the past few days had strayed off course and into Nick’s territory.
While it had been necessary to find him and confirm he remained amongst the living, the matter was now resolved. Yet a pair of questions would quietly persist: When had he become a spy? And why was he missing and presumed dead to the Foreign Office?
She exhaled a forceful breath, attempting to release the questions from her mind. One thing was certain: this wasn’t her mystery to solve, no matter how her curiosity would protest the opposite. She would leave Paris and her unanswered questions behind at dawn.
Nick’s business was no business of hers. This was a refrain she would do well to repeat until she’d put a large body of water between herself and this new Nick who intrigued her all too much.
Chapter 3
Conundrums: Enigmatical conceits.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
“I can see myself to my suite from here.” Mariana slipped a coin into the errand boy’s hand. Eyes greedy and wide, he ducked a quick nod before skipping down the hotel stairs, coin clutched tight in his fist.
She considered the dim, narrow corridor before her and the set of rooms at its end, determined not to succumb to the weariness that had replaced the initial rush of relief at Nick’s continued hold on his mortal coil. He was alive, and she and her newfound lady’s maid, Hortense, had a night of packing ahead of them.
After all, she repeated to herself, she had a life to preserve in London: her children, her household, and The Progressive School for Young Ladies and the Education of Their Minds, the school she and Olivia founded a few years ago. Of course, Geoffrey and Lavinia were taken care of; her household lay in the capable hands of servants accustomed to the sporadic and prolonged absences of their employers; and the formidable Mrs. Bloomquist ran the school according to her own high and exacting standards. In all honesty, she would have to be absent from her life far longer than a few days before she would be missed. Sobering thought.
She slid her key into the door lock and twisted the handle. She was halfway across the threshold when she froze mid-step. Every lamp and candle in the sitting room was ablaze, illuminating Nick’s rangy form sprawled across a peacock blue dupioni silk settee, an idle ankle balanced atop a muscular thigh. He lowered the book he was reading and silently regarded her as if she was the interloper. His ease with the situation set her teeth on edge.
“Your beard is gone.” Her first observation was cool, steady, and at complete odds with the tumult she felt to her very core. “And your clothes . . . Now you look like a newly released prisoner.”
“That was the idea.”
She wouldn’t mention how the short crop of his hair suited him as it framed the strong angles of his face and the thick, black lashes encircling his piercing gray eyes. As the flickering light cast his features in light and relief, it was a fact that he was unbelievably handsome. Not only handsome—it was too thin a word for him—but unbelievably appealing. Nick was the sort of man who drew women without an ounce of effort, no matter the length of his hair or the quality of his clothing.
She tore her eyes away, dropped her reticule onto the nearest table, and pushed the door shut with her shoulder. She pressed her back against it on the slender hope that her quivering legs would firm up soon. They weren’t quite ready to move toward the sitting area . . . toward Nick.
He held up the book in his hands. “Interesting reading selection.”
The book would be that book. A betraying blush flared to the surface, and, like a green schoolgirl, Mariana rushed to explain herself. “In my haste to depart London, I mistook it for another book and tossed it into my bag.”
Nick’s brows lifted in bemusement. “Is that so?” He opened the book. “I see from this dog ear that you’ve made it well into the C’s.” His voice softened as his gaze roved across the pages. “Cotswold Lion. A sheep. Cotswold in Gloucestershire is famous for its breed of sheep. Useful little tidbit. Your Uncle Bertie would certainly agree with that assessment of his beloved fold. Let’s see . . .” He scanned further down the page. “Much of the page is given over to Covent Garden, famous, it seems, for its fruit, flowers, herbs, theaters, and brothels. One must be careful not to contract the Covent Garden Ague from a Covent Garden Nun. All seems to be in order there.” A dry laugh scrubbed the back of his throat. “Covey. A collection o
f whores. What a fine covey here is, if the Devil would but throw his net!” Nick’s amused gaze lifted and found her.
Impossibly, Mariana’s blush grew hotter. “Mrs. Bloomquist confiscated the dictionary from one of the girls.”
“That’s quite an education the school is providing its students.”
“And she entrusted it to me to dispose of properly.” She wouldn’t mention that the guilty party happened to be her precocious niece, Lucy.
“I’m not sure the word properly should ever be spoken in connection to The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.”
“It’s written in English, and there are no other books,” Mariana snapped. “Besides, I’ve found it . . . enlightening.” Oh, how she wished she could stop blushing and explaining herself.
“Right.” Nick’s fingers drummed a hollow tattoo across the leather book cover. “I see you decided to take my hotel suite.”
“You weren’t using it,” she said. “Besides, you can have it back on the morrow. I depart for England at first light.”
A puzzled smile reached his eyes. “Since when did you ever listen to me?”
Mariana bristled at his words, at the assumption that lay within them, but she refused to rise to it. “I listened to myself.”
Again, his fingers tapped embossed leather, except now his lips had drawn into a firm line, humor evaporated.
She cleared her throat, hoping to clear the air of the sort of charged moment that tended to stretch between them, and summoned a healthy dose of self-righteousness. “You mustn’t enter this suite at will. You relinquished your right to it when you went missing.”
“A husband has rights,” he said, his voice that of a perfect popinjay.
“You tossed those out with the rubbish some years ago,” she stated with a bravado she didn’t feel. Rather, an unsettled and exposed feeling charged her senses. How was it that he still continued to hold the power to reduce her to this state? A touchy girl composed of raw nerves wasn’t the woman she’d spent the past decade cultivating. “What about my lady’s maid? What did you do with her?”
“She has been dismissed for the night.”
“Just like that?”
“A husband has—”
“Do not finish that sentence if you value your life.” A related thought wedged its way in. “How did you convince her, dressed as you are? No servant would believe the likes of you”—She eyed him up and down—“to be the husband of me.”
“Nothing is what it seems in this world.”
“The last few days have been the strangest of my life,” she said. “Can you just state plainly whatever the devil it is you’re not saying?”
“I think you know what I’m not saying.”
“Nick,” she began on a whisper, her body inching forward, his words and the implication within them drawing her in, “are you telling me that Hortense is a spy?” She lowered to a perch on the edge of the settee opposite his. They were now separated by no more than the width of a small, inlaid walnut table.
Nick’s right eyebrow shot up, but he remained otherwise silent. That eyebrow told Mariana all she needed to know. “And here I thought she was a godsend.”
“If you prefer to think of her that way, I won’t object,” Nick cut in, a perverse smile playing about his lips.
“I was even considering taking her back to London with me,” Mariana continued, choosing to ignore his quip. The man always did have a high opinion of himself. “Do you not understand how difficult it is to find a lady’s maid who speaks English in Paris? She is as rare as a Woolly Mammoth in London.”
“A Woolly Mammoth in London?” he asked with a confounded laugh.
“Given my involvement with The Progressive School for Young Ladies and the Education of Their Minds, I spend a good deal of time perusing London’s museums.”
Nick cocked his head. “I would have thought finding you in a stuffy museum would be as rare as finding a Woolly Mammoth in London.”
“I enjoy it.” Again, she sounded defensive. Drat. “And I happen to know that the Museum of Natural History in Paris has its very own Woolly Mammoth.”
In fact, she was disappointed to have missed it on this trip. But Nick needn’t know that. She’d revealed too much about her life already.
“That’s,” he began, a reflective note in his voice, “new.”
“Actually, they acquired it more than one hundred years ago.”
“I wasn’t speaking of the mammoth.”
Mariana’s traitorous insides went light at his words and at the implication within them. The moment could grow soft, and a sense of ease could steal in, if she allowed it. It was an ease she’d felt the first time they’d locked eyes at a dinner party at Uncle Bertie’s country estate—so very long ago. She’d felt they were two halves of the same whole and had been waiting all their lives to be joined together.
She gave herself a mental shake. Such memories were a trap. Over the last decade, she’d done quite well forgetting what she liked about her husband. She wouldn’t allow softness to shake her resolve. This was Nick. He was as soft as a razorblade. “You and I haven’t bothered to have a conversation that doesn’t involve our children in a decade. Now twice in a single night?”
The question hung in the air as he picked a piece of lint off tatty, old trousers. They would be here all night, if that was his purpose, as those pants appeared to be composed entirely of lint. Why was he dressed like a person who possessed neither lodging nor a place to bathe? Surely, collecting information had its limits.
“Isn’t it a husband’s prerogative to inquire into his wife’s well-being?”
“Is that what we’re doing? Inquiring into each other’s well-being?” Mariana sank back into lush silk, even as stiff corsetry bit into her skin, and mirrored Nick’s unconcerned pose. Two could play at this game. “Let us review,” she began. “Since I arrived in Paris, I’ve been dividing my time between hospitals, morgues, and ballets. Would you like to hear about the twins?” she asked, forging on. “Lavinia is with Olivia and Lucy. The girl is as mad about horses as ever. Geoffrey is settled at Westminster. He’s requested a kukri knife for his name day.”
“He likely needs one at Westminster. That school has an unruly reputation. I would have seen him at Harrow.”
“Westminster has been educating noble sons for centuries,” Mariana defended. “As the parent who spends the most time in London, I would have him closer to home.” She summoned a saint’s own patience to get through this farce. “Your father and mother are well.” With no small amount of satisfaction, she watched him shift in his seat. That movement spoke of discomfiture. “I spoke with them at a soirée just last month.”
“In the same room?” he asked, caution in his words.
“Separately. Have I ever seen them in the same room together?”
“At our wedding.” He paused to consider. “At Geoffrey and Lavinia’s christening.”
“They don’t care much for each other, do they?” It was almost as if she and Nick were conducting a normal conversation. But the past had taught her where this conversation was heading: nowhere. Nick didn’t speak about his family.
“That would be one way of stating the case,” he replied, fiddling with a fingernail as if bored. “Another way of stating it would be to say that they would rather eat a dinner of glass shards than converse face to face.” Hesitant, he asked, “And my brother?”
“I’ve seen Jamie at gatherings here and there,” Mariana replied, her tone one of careful neutrality.
“In his cups?”
Now it was Mariana’s turn to pause. She liked Nick’s older brother Jamie, which was why she didn’t wish to speak ill of him. Still, her answer would be the truth. “It did appear so.”
“Have you heard any rumors of a courtship?�
�
She studied Nick closer. He looked strangely . . . vulnerable. “None.”
“That sounds right.”
“He won’t ever marry, will he?” She’d long wondered about Jamie’s seemingly solitary, even reclusive, life.
“Most doubtful, I would think.”
“But he’s the heir to the marquessate,” she countered. “Your parents must . . .”
Nick’s eyes flew up to meet hers, a fiery glow charging their depths. “Jamie owes our parents nothing,” he stated, understated ferocity infusing each word. “You were brought up by the sort of family who laughs together over the breakfast table. Only our surname binds the Asquith family together.”
“You love Jamie.” She’d never seen him like this.
A subtle wince crossed Nick’s otherwise impassive features.
Warnings about the Asquith family rose to the surface of memory. It was a good and noble family, a perfect match for her, but those parents loathed one another. On the night before her wedding, Olivia had even asked if she was certain she wanted to marry into that family. A blithe, “I’m marrying Nick, not his parents,” passed Mariana’s lips, the question buried beneath dreams of future marital bliss.
Tonight, she saw reality, a Nick visibly rattled by the conversational turn toward his family. Here lay the largest danger. This was where she would be drawn in by him, if she allowed it. And, oh, how easily she could allow it. A known entity existed between them, one she’d done well to suppress.
But in a room located in a foreign country where a sense of unreality could prevail? It was here that she could allow herself to be seduced into his web and be undone. She didn’t want this.
Three Lessons in Seduction Page 3