She swallowed painfully and asked huskily, “What do you want? I-I-I didn’t s-s-send for you.”
An unpleasant smile curved his lips. “The days when you and your likes send for me are nearly over, my dear. I’m not here at your bidding this time; this time I have business of my own. Suppose you tell me precisely what it was that your charming husband needed to discuss with you at this hour of the night.”
Startled, she looked at him, her mouth half-open. “How did ... how did you know?”
“There are not many things that escape me—especially not things concerning the handsome Earl of St. Audries and his beautiful Countess. After all, we go back such a long way, don’t we?”
“Do you really want to know what I was doing in my husband’s room at this time of night? Surely you can guess?” She stretched languidly, like a woman whose body has been well loved.
His one eye fixed appreciatively on her voluptuous curves clearly defined under the light blanket that lay across her, he gave a low bark of sneering laughter. “Never tell me you were in the Earl’s bed?”
“Why not? Is it so very hard to believe?”
With a careless flick of the wrist, he flipped aside the blanket and took a long, humiliatingly thorough survey of her body, the finely spun silk of her nightgown nearly transparent and hiding nothing from his scrutiny. When he was finished, his eye wandered up to her lovely face and he shrugged. “It wouldn’t be if I didn’t happen to know that he hasn’t shared your bed since he made the distasteful discovery that he had married his brother’s leavings.”
Her hand flew with the speed of a striking snake, but his was faster and his fingers tightened brutally around her slender wrist as he said cruelly, “Did you think I didn’t know?” He laughed cynically. “You forget Stephen’s association with me goes back even further than ours, sweet, sweet Lucinda. He was very bitter about the trick you played upon him—I think he really did love you in the beginning, and he was quite shattered when he discovered that there had been an extremely compelling reason for you to give off your pursuit of Andrew and finally accept his proposal of marriage.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Lucinda snapped, her lovely eyes glittering angrily.
He only smiled. “Oh, yes, you do, my sweet! And you might have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for the unfortunate fact that when he was eighteen, your dear husband came down with a particularly virulent case of a childish complaint—mumps!” He ignored her half-frightened, half-furious gasp. “Did you know he nearly died of them? He didn’t, though, but the disease left him unable to father a child.... Now, isn’t that interesting?”
“How do you know all this?” she demanded furiously, glaring at him like a cornered cat.
Having seated himself comfortably on the bed beside her, he laughed. “It wasn’t all that hard to find out over twenty years ago—about the mumps, I mean. The other was only known by the physician and perhaps one or two others, but it was your handsome husband who explained it all to me... .”
Fear and rage contorted her beautiful face and she hissed, “You’re lying! You’re making this up! Why would Stephen tell you?”
He looked surprised. “Why should I lie? What would it gain me? But Stephen did tell me—it was at our very first meeting and he was rather drunk. He spent a great deal of time explaining to me why he wanted me to, er, take care of a problem for him ... why it was so vital to him.”
“I don’t believe you! You can’t prove it!” she said with furious desperation.
“Probably not ... unless, of course, Stephen wanted to come forth and announce to the world that his son is really his dead brother’s bastard!”
“Stop it! Stop it!” she cried. Fighting to control herself, she took a deep, shuddering breath, frantically thinking of some way to refute his words.
He watched her with interest, cynical amusement glittering in that one dark eye. It was such a pleasure to watch her squirm. To finally be able to extract a little bit of revenge for all those snubs and slights she and others like her had given him over the years. For a moment he gazed at the lush curves of her body, remembering nearly ten years ago when he had amorously pursued her, thinking to make her his mistress. His face hardened. She had refused him, making it brutally clear that while she enjoyed his company and the expensive trinkets he had bestowed upon her, she wasn’t about to become the mistress of a mere nobody!
Rage against her and the others of her ilk, the titled members of the aristocracy, those haughty members who formed the exclusive inner circle of the ton, rose up to nearly choke him. Ah, yes, most of them were perfectly willing to enjoy his money and hospitality, content for the males to be closely associated with him, even condescending to invite him to their homes, but let his gaze stray to one of their daughters or sisters and he suddenly found doors slamming in his face! He might be wealthy, he might have learned the manners and style of a gentleman, but when it came to marriage, as far as the more powerful members of the ton were concerned, he was still the younger son of some obscure country squire and not quite good enough for them! An ugly expression on his face, he stared at Lucinda. Not even good enough to be the lover of one of the most notorious sluts in London!
The look on his face frightened her, and Lucinda asked fearfully, “What are you thinking? What are you going to do?”
Her words brought him back to the present. “But I told you, my dear—I’m extremely curious about what you were doing in your husband’s rooms tonight.”
“And I told you! Would you like for me to explain the act to you?”
For a long, thoughtful pause, he considered her. It was clear that she was going to stick to her story. She really needed to be taught a lesson. A smile lifted one corner of his mouth and he reached out to trail a finger suggestively between her breasts. “Why not? I might find it instructive.”
Lucinda’s breath caught sharply in her throat. “Don’t!” she said thickly, trying not to show her fear.
Ignoring her, with a sudden, vicious movement, his fingers crushed the delicate material and he ripped open her gown to the waist, her full, rosy-tipped breasts spilling free. The dark eye glistened with pleasure at the sight of her lying there helpless before him, the charms that had been denied him now his for the taking. He sensed her fear and revulsion, and it excited him almost as much as the lush, inviting flesh before him. For too long he had been forced to let creatures like Lucinda and her husband treat him with disdain and arrogance; for too long, as the one-eyed man, he had merely been a tool paid to do their bidding, but that time was nearly over.... How often, he wondered idly, his fingers boldly caressing Lucinda’s warm flesh, had he let these wealthy; wellborn fools think that they had command over him as he had gently, inexorably, drawn them into his web, until, too late, they discovered that they were the ones being commanded?
Soon he would have no more need of the one-eyed man—and he wouldn’t need to be careful around people like Lucinda any longer. She and her ilk had served his purpose, and he was free now to treat them as he wished. He had fortune enough, and once he married Morgana and she had taken her rightful place, he would have his longed-for position amongst the most powerful in the land—they would be forced to accept him into their ranks for his wife’s sake. A black scowl crossed his features. Of course, Manchester had to be dealt with....
A painful groan from Lucinda as his fingers tightened savagely around her breast brought him back from his wandering thoughts. She was frightened and he enjoyed that, and deliberately he tore the rest of her gown wide open, staring with lustful appreciation at her voluptuous charms. Though she stiffened with outrage and her eyes were full of fury, he didn’t fear that she would cry out—she had too much to lose, and he knew he could do whatever he willed with her and she would keep her mouth shut. So many secrets, he thought smugly. So many secrets, and I know them all!
Seeking to extract the greatest amount of pleasure from this confrontation, he intentionally baited her. �
�Tell me,” he asked in a purring tone, “does Stephen know the part you played in the death of his beloved Hester? I know that when she first fell ill, you and he had already decided that if she were to die, I was to get rid of the child, but did he know that you made certain she died? Let me see ... wasn’t it arsenic that I arranged for you to have? Arsenic that you so assiduously plied sweet Hester with all the weeks and months before she gave birth! My, but you must have been furious when she simply wouldn’t die!” He smiled unkindly at her. “You really should have increased the dosage sooner, my dear, then she never would have lived long enough to give birth, but I expect you were too frightened of being found out to finish the deed before then.”
Her body naked to his gaze and touch, Lucinda had never been so vulnerable in her life. It was terrorizing enough that she had lived for nearly twenty years with the knowledge that he could expose her, albeit not without implicating himself ... but he was a criminal able to lose himself amongst the slums and dregs of London, while she ... she was the Countess of St. Audries. None knew better than she how easy it would be to drop a word here, a whisper there, and even if it could not be proven, she would be ruined, shunned and ostracized by everyone who knew her.
And Stephen, she thought with a shiver, Stephen would murder her if he ever guessed or even suspected that Hester’s death had not been from natural causes. He had adored that mewling little bitch, and Lucinda never doubted that if Hester had lived, Stephen would have wasted little time in putting himself in the position of being able to marry his brother’s widow! Whether he would have divorced her or seen the one-eyed man about ridding him of a wife he detested, Lucinda had never been able to decide, but over the years she had gleefully hugged to herself the sweet knowledge that it was Hester who lay in the grave and she who was the Countess of St. Audries and that it was her child who would inherit St. Audries Hall and its broad acres!
All her schemes had been for that one goal, and frightened though she was, she wasn’t about to let this one-eyed piece of offal destroy everything.
Her lovely hazel eyes full of hatred, she spat, “You can prove nothing! And if memory serves me correctly, Hester died of a hemorrhage!”
He nodded his head amiably in agreement. “Probably. But it was the poison that you gave her over the months that wore her down, that wasted her flesh and put her in such a weakened condition that she could not recover.” Since he no longer cared what Lucinda knew, he added slyly, “It’s a wonder the child survived... .”
All the frightened fury she had experienced upon learning that Hester’s child still lived, that she and Stephen had paid this wretched creature a fortune over the years to dispose of Morgana and that he had cheated them, suddenly exploded through her. Heedless of her nakedness, forgetful of the power he held over her, Lucinda surged up from the bed, her hands curved in claws as she struck for his face. “You bastard!” she snarled. “You lied to us when you said you had taken care of her! You lied! You lied! You lied!”
She was nearly hysterical with rage, but even though she had moved swiftly, he was swifter and easily captured her flailing arms. Effortlessly quelling her wild struggles, he asked sharply, “And how did you know that?”
Realizing she could not beat him, she stopped fighting and said sullenly, “I saw her once in London! She is Manchester’s latest mistress!”
Lucinda didn’t know it, but her words had given the one-eyed man a definite shock. He had only been taunting Lucinda with mention of the child and he had not admitted that Morgana was still alive, but it appeared that the Devlins had been a jump ahead of him this time—not only did they know, along with half of London, about Manchester’s new mistress, but they knew it was Morgana! And if they knew it, how many others had seen her and guessed something of the truth? It would be natural for everyone to suppose at first that she was Stephen’s byblow ... until someone remembered that Stephen had been out of the country for nearly two years prior to Morgana’s birth. The gossips would then name Andrew as her father, and there would be a great deal of idle and malicious speculation about the future of this presumed illegitimate daughter of the dead Earl ... until some old cat realized that Morgana was exactly the same age as the Earl’s heir would have been had she lived.... He bit back a curse. Fool that he was, he had told Jane Morgana’s actual date of birth, and it wouldn’t take much checking for anyone to discover that it was precisely the same as the little heiress’s who had died at birth. Their given names were the same too....
Nothing could be proved, of course, he reassured himself uneasily, but he wanted Morgana in his power and at his side as his wife before the storm of curiosity about her raged through polite society. As Morgana’s husband, he would be the one to reveal the truth!
Suddenly losing interest in tormenting Lucinda any longer, the one-eyed man released her abruptly and stood up. He needed to think, to consider this new turn of events, but first there was Lucinda... .
He eyed her as she lay sullenly on the bed. He had to silence her before he could safely leave the room, not because he feared she would call out the alarm, but because he didn’t trust her not to try to spy on him and see where he went. Softly he said, “I’m afraid, my dear, that I really must treat you in a most ungentlemanly way.”
Wondering angrily what new sort of torture he had decided upon, she turned to stare at him resentfully. He was smiling at her, which made her extremely uneasy, and she was on the point of demanding what he intended to do when he struck her a brutally powerful blow on her chin and blackness thundered down around her.
After making certain that she was truly unconscious, the one-eyed man blew out the candle and, in the darkness, slipped from her room. Ever watchful, he swiftly hurried down the hall to the suite of rooms that had been assigned to him.
Moments later, he was safely in his own rooms, the one-eyed man’s disguise dispensed with and carefully hidden in his valise. Garbed now in an elegant dark blue dressing gown, he relaxed in a high-backed chair of russet leather, enjoying a snifter of brandy from the tray of refreshments Wetherly had ordered placed in all his guests’ rooms.
He took another sip of his brandy and turned his mind to tonight’s events. So Stephen and Lucinda knew that Morgana was alive and was Manchester’s mistress....
His face twisted with fury and he swallowed the remainder of his brandy in one huge gulp. Manchester! I should have killed him weeks ago, he admitted with impotent rage. That or have stormed the house and forcibly removed Morgana and damn the public outcry that would have resulted from such a violent act taking place in the very bosom of the ton!
Even now he could hardly contain the bitter rage that filled him whenever he thought of Morgana lying in Manchester’s arms ... whenever he thought of her lost virginity ... virginity that was to have been his! How many nights had he lain awake visualizing the moment when he would finally make Morgana his, when she would finally realize that he was her fate, that she would belong to no one but him!
But all that has changed, he thought viciously. There was nothing that he could do about his failed attempt in London to kill the American, nor could he change the fact that Morgana was no longer a virgin and that when she came to his bed, it would be with the memory of Manchester’s kisses upon her lips!
With an oath, he violently threw his snifter against the wall, uncaring when it shattered, uncaring if anyone heard the noise. He was going to kill Manchester, and take great delight in doing so, and then he was going to erase virtually every vestige of the memory of the American from Morgana’s mind. It would be only his kisses she remembered, only his lovemaking that she hungered for, and this time spent with Manchester would be utterly wiped from her memory!
But first, he thought with a sudden, sobering return to cold sanity, first there was Jacko and Ben, who badly needed to be taught a lesson, and Newgate was only the start of it. And then, he mused slowly, an ugly smile on his mouth, and then there is the lovely Countess and her charming husband....
CHAPT
ER 25
The one-eyed man was not at all pleased with the current state of affairs. Lucinda and Stephen should never have learned that Morgana was still alive ... not until he had decided that the time was right for them to learn of that fascinating little snippet. He had anticipated for months the exquisite enjoyment he would take in taunting them with the news that she still lived.
Thoughtfully he stroked his chin, staring blankly at the rich ruby color of the carpet. It would appear, he concluded acidly, that the source of his current troubles, troubles such as he had not encountered in all his years of being the one-eyed man, could be laid squarely at the feet of that upstart American, Royce Manchester!
Until Manchester’s appearance on the London scene, he’d had events well in hand, and in the years since he had first donned the disguise of the original one-eyed man, he’d grown very used to feeling all-powerful. Until Manchester, he thought angrily, remembering the race when Manchester’s horses had run Devlin’s animals into the ground. That, he admitted viciously, had cost him a grand sum and had been the beginning of his present unhappiness.
Because of Morgana and his obsession with her, he had made many mistakes, mistakes that had proven costly and would prove even more costly if he wasn’t careful and didn’t start using that icily analytical brain of his instead of letting his emotions rule him.
The Earl and his wife were definitely a problem for him, now that they knew about Morgana. Originally a nuisance, the Devlins were now dangerous—they knew he had betrayed them, and they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by arranging Morgana’s death!
He frowned as another problem occurred to him. Morgana’s resemblance to the St. Audries was striking, and if Lucinda, with only one glimpse, had recognized her instantly, then as she was introduced to more and more members of society—which would happen, even if her introduction was only to certain male acquaintances of Manchester’s—someone would be bound to realize that she had to be Andrew’s daughter, and it wouldn’t be long after that before the coincidence of names and birth dates would be discovered. He had slipped up rather badly in telling Jane of Morgana’s real name and date of birth!
Whisper To Me of Love Page 39