She jerked her head toward the stage and stared at the obstinately closed curtain. Surely it was time for the play to begin.
“Why did you leave London?” The question was almost a whisper, close enough to caress her ear.
“Anne wanted to go to Wiltshire,” she said with determined nonchalance. “As her temporary chaperone, naturally I had to go with her.”
“Was that the only reason?”
“Why else?”
It was true, in as far as it went. Her houseguest Anne Brotherton had a reason to visit Hinton Manor, where she’d remained. But Cynthia had seized on the excuse it offered to escape Denford’s dangerous attentions. And Denford knew it.
“You like to accommodate your friends,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Am I your friend?”
She laughed nervously. “Of course you are.”
“I look forward to being accommodated.”
Her laugh degenerated to a titter. She grew warmer and more panicked, torn between the competing urges of flight and surrender. Desperate to break out of the sensual net he wove about her, she resorted to frankness. “I’m not like this, Julian,” she said, staring with dogged, unfocused eyes at the mass of humanity in the crowded pit. “I am the daughter of a clergyman. I am married. I would never break my marriage vows.”
“Would you not?”
“I will not.”
She sensed him retreat, lean back in his chair. Julian had always been clever that way. He would press her so far, then withdraw before she became alarmed and ran away. Except that one time. The one kiss. Which had resulted in her fleeing London and the temptation to sin.
Because she was, despite everything, a married woman and she would not betray her husband, however much he might deserve it. Besides, she wasn’t sure of Denford’s motives.
He desired her. She did not believe that his carnal interest was feigned. But he had also once been her husband’s best friend.
Earlier that day
A cold afternoon wind off the Thames blew up Craven Street. Damian slouched into the tall collar of his topcoat as he approached his rendezvous, ignoring the Cockney imprecations of a costermonger selling apples. He missed the sound of alien languages and the exotic splendors of the Persian court. After sailing past Gibraltar, he missed the particular Mediterranean blue that warmed the body and enlivened the spirits. His escape from England and his unwanted bride had been brought to a premature conclusion.
It didn’t matter. He had to return sooner or later and a year’s reflection had made him acknowledge what he’d always known: He had behaved badly to his wife. No one had held a knife to his throat and made him marry her. While she might indeed possess the combination of ignorance, bad taste, and blind ambition that he’d ascribed to her, he’d never given her a chance to prove otherwise. It had been months since he’d received a letter from her, and while it was possible some communication had gone astray, he couldn’t really blame her if she’d ceased to write to him.
He knocked on the door of the featureless house, and an equally nondescript servant directed him to the second floor, where Mr. John Ryland awaited him. Ryland was a creature of the British Foreign Office. He might work for Grenville and the Pitt government, but his allegiance went beyond party. There had always been men like him, and always would be: quiet, discreet, ruthless behind a judicious veneer. While Ryland undoubtedly knew where all the skeletons were hidden, Damian had no intention of asking. Neither would Ryland tell him.
Damian accepted a glass of sherry and sat down, knees crossed, waiting to be informed why he had been summoned home to chilly London and an anonymous set of rooms, convenient for Whitehall but obviously not regularly occupied.
“Tell me, Lord Windermere, how did you find Futteh Aly Khan?” Ryland asked, and listened respectfully to a report that was quite irrelevant to his current errand. If the state of negotiations with the Shah of Persia interested Ryland, he would have read the detailed and secret dispatches from the head of the mission. “You enjoyed the place,” he remarked.
“I did,” Damian said. This was all very well, but only small talk. He wondered when Ryland would get to the point.
“What a pity we had to curtail your exploration. I am sorry for it.”
Fighting back a wave of irritation at the prevarications of his chosen profession, Damian waved aside the apology. “I confess to being surprised by the demand. I cannot imagine what diplomatic situation requires my modest skills and experience.”
Ryland refilled their glasses. “I assume you are familiar with the Alt-Brandenburg question.”
Damian nodded. Alt-Brandenburg was a strategically placed German princedom with a notoriously stubborn ruler. “Familiar, yes, but not au courant. Has the prince agreed to the British alliance or does he continue to dally with the French?”
“We had almost brought His Highness around to our way of thinking when he discovered a sticking point. He demands a pledge of our friendship.”
“A greater sum than can be found in the secret fund?”
Ryland smiled thinly. “Life and diplomacy would be so easy if it were only a question of money. The prince has got hold of a rumor that the art collection of the late Marquis de Falleron is in English hands and he wants it.”
“Good Lord.”
“I thought you would be aware of the significance.”
“I attended a rout at the Hôtel Falleron when I was a mere youth. It must have been just before the fall of the Bastille.” Even among the many splendors of Paris, that evening stood out in Damian’s memory as a particularly dazzling one. Julian had been there, of course. Robert and Marcus too. He shied away from the memory of a time and companions he had put behind him long ago.
“You must have enjoyed that, my lord, with your appreciation for the arts.”
Better to think of what he had seen rather than whom he’d been with. “The Falleron collection was legendary and, judging even by the small portion I saw, legend did not lie. I seem to recall hearing that the pictures disappeared after the marquis and his family went to the guillotine. If they were to be sold, the event would rival the dispersal of the Duke of Orleans’s collection.”
Ryland looked at him with an expression so bland it must presage a blow. Damian was about to find out why he’d been ordered to sail the French-infested waters of the Mediterranean with such haste and lack of concern for his safety.
“It’s said that the Duke of Denford possesses the Falleron pictures.”
A lump in his throat threatened to choke him at the name. Surely it couldn’t be. “I don’t know the duke,” he said, firmly. “I believe he is quite an old man.”
“The fifth duke died almost a year ago, followed quickly to the grave by his nephew and heir, the father of three daughters.”
“Unfortunate.”
“Male members of the Fortescue family have been haunted by misfortune recently. Illness, accident, and the failure to sire boys. The new duke is a third cousin, Julian Fortescue.”
There was no point denying the acquaintance. Ryland obviously knew that he and Julian had roomed together at Oxford, and, having been expelled from that august establishment, explored Europe in the early days of the Revolution, before things got ugly. It wouldn’t surprise him if he knew Julian had been at the Marquis de Falleron’s soirée. “You are doubtless aware that Julian Fortescue and I have not spoken in years. I have no influence there. If he is in possession of the paintings, approach him. But if he has come into a fortune, he may be hard to persuade. His love of the Masters is genuine and he wouldn’t wish to part with them unless he needs the money.”
“You know him well. How would he react if he had inherited the Denford title but not the fortune?”
Sometimes the serpentine methods of diplomacy tried Damian’s patience. “Has he inherited the fortune?”
“As it happens, the inheritance is in dispute. According to our information the new duke is both short of ready monies and beset by lawyer
s.”
“I don’t know whether to feel sorrier for him or the lawyers. In that case, he’ll accept an offer, as long as it’s generous enough.”
“We have made an offer, through discreet channels. He denies that he has the collection.”
Damian shrugged. “I find it thoroughly improbable that he owns these paintings. If he bought them during the Revolution he never mentioned it, and we were still intimate then. And why would he not have sold them? He has made his living as a dealer in works of art since he was eighteen years old.”
“We have reasons to believe otherwise, and Lord Grenville thinks you are the only one in a position to make Denford admit the truth, and sell the pictures for the sake of the country.”
“I am to appeal to his sense of duty?” For the first time Damian found the situation amusing. “Julian has never given a damn about duty, or anyone but himself.”
“Will you try?”
Unlike his former best friend, the Earl of Windermere possessed a sense of duty, and a strong one at that. For the sake of his country he would try to revive a friendship that had dissolved in bitterness.
At the same time, he needed to face the reason he’d fled England in a state of panic. For the sake of his family’s future, he would try to establish a cordial relationship with his wife.
Later that day, Damian dined at Grosvenor Square with Sir Richard Radcliffe. Though the Radcliffes entertained lavishly, it was an informal meal, with no other guests, spent catching up on London social gossip. Damian didn’t like keeping his new mission a secret from Radcliffe, who had been his mentor and confidant since he joined the diplomatic service. But Ryland had made it clear that the business was to be kept under the hatches.
Claiming pressure of work, Radcliffe asked Damian to escort his wife to the theater. Lady Belinda did not believe in arriving at the theater early. “They always start late. Besides, no one worth looking at ever arrives on time,” she said, and pressed another glass of brandy on him, giving him an excellent view of her bosom draped in red silk embroidered in gold. As he remembered well, Her Ladyship wasn’t bashful, either in private or in public. No one in the theater would miss that scarlet gown.
When they entered the Radcliffes’ box at Drury Lane, naturally in the best part of the house, Titania was waking up to find herself in love with an ass. Damian didn’t particularly like A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It disturbed him how the fate of humans was dependent on the whims of fairies, which seemed akin to the turn of the card or the fall of the dice. So he listened with half an ear to Lady Belinda’s commentary on the wardrobe choices of the audience and wished her husband had come with them.
Hard to believe that six years earlier, as a very junior diplomat, he’d had a massive tendre for the worldly hostess. She cultivated young followers from the better families, and her much older husband, ever occupied with the affairs of state, encouraged it. Damian sometimes wondered how much his advancement owed to the pleasure of his patron’s wife. Pleasure indeed. For a single month, once Lady Belinda had made it blatantly clear that her husband demanded only discretion, Damian had been her satisfied and ultimately exhausted bedmate. He’d been tossed aside for a newer, even younger candidate. A mission to Prussia beckoned, and frankly the Germans had been a bit of a relief after the exigencies of life as Lady Belinda’s lover.
A satin-gloved hand touched his knee, and stayed there. “I have heard, Damian,” she said, her voice a low purr, “that the Levant is home to many exotic practices.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “What seems exotic to us is normal to them. The game of Chowgan, for example, is no more or less thrilling than cricket is to us. It’s played on horseback with sticks to hit a ball. It’s very fine sport and demands a high degree of skill.”
“I’m always interested in sports that demand skill.” Her rich gardenia perfume tickled his nose as she leaned in to whisper. “Do the Persians not have seraglios, like the Turks?”
“Certainly. But male visitors, especially foreign ones, are not permitted to enter the zenanas. The women are well-guarded.”
“My poor Damian! Does that mean you have been alone for a full year?”
As a matter of fact it did. His bollocks roiled at the proximity of a woman who would, if he gave the sign, skip the play and put him through his paces for the rest of the night.
It was tempting. Very tempting.
Then he thought of his wife, who had been stranded in the country a full year. Though she hadn’t appealed to him in the past, long deprivation might make her desirable. With some regret he pretended to turn his attention to the stage.
Belinda hadn’t given up. “Gentlemen talk. Even if you lacked the opportunity to play exotic sports, I’m sure you learned the rules.”
“As a matter of fact I did play Chowgan.”
“Damian,” she said with an impatient edge. “I am not talking about games that are played on the back of a horse.”
It was stupid to encourage her, but he couldn’t resist. “I am astonished you never experienced that particular pleasure.”
She enjoyed that. “Will it surprise you to learn that I have tried? I thought to give new meaning to the rising trot but it proved impracticable.”
He crossed his legs, trying and failing to dislodge her hand. Instead it moved upward, warm against his satin-clad thigh. “Not even a horse can keep up with you, let alone a travel-weary man,” he said, hoping she would take the hint and accept that the delights of the evening would not extend beyond the thespian. As long as her hand didn’t travel any farther, she wouldn’t know that his cock hadn’t got the message about being too tired for action. Thank goodness the box was shadowy.
“Women talk when they are disappointed.” There was no question in his mind that the remark was a veiled threat. Not a direct one. Talking about his bedroom prowess, or lack of the same, wouldn’t accomplish anything, but Lady Belinda held a good deal of influence in the circles where his future ambitions lay and was ruthless about getting what she wanted. She had the power to make life difficult for him and needed to be placated.
“I have something you will enjoy, once all my luggage arrives. Certain miniature paintings that I cannot display in my wife’s drawing room.” He kept his eyes on the stage, but a sharp intake of breath told him he’d intrigued the sensual magpie.
“And shall you demonstrate the poses?”
“Alas,” he said with what he hoped was a note of finality, “I leave for Oxfordshire in a day or so.”
“You should wait for my Christmas dinner party. A week or two won’t make much difference.”
“My wife may beg to differ. I have not seen Lady Windermere in over a year.”
“Is that so?” Now her voice held a note of amusement. “In that case I will importune you no more. I look forward to seeing the paintings.”
She removed her hand from his thigh and they sat side by side with perfect decorum, pretending to watch the play. If there was a single member of the audience less interested in A Midsummer Night’s Dream than he, it was Lady Belinda.
“Isn’t that Denford?” she asked, as a chorus of fairies in flimsy costumes cavorted on the stage. “Perhaps you haven’t heard, but the infamous Julian Fortescue has turned respectable. Or rather he inherited a dukedom, which had the same effect without him having to go to the trouble of changing his habits.”
His stomach clenched. He’d ignored Julian for the best part of seven years and he fervently wished he could continue to do so. But he had a mission. “Where? Has he changed his style of dress since being raised to the purple?”
“Opposite side, third box in from the stage.”
It was about as far across the expanse of the theater as was possible, but the tall, lean figure in black leaped instantly to the eye. Once he’d known Julian as well as anyone in the world and he could still pick him out of a crowd without the least difficulty. The years of disappointment and enmity slipped away and he felt the joy of seeing his best frien
d after a long absence. But only for a moment; then the old bitterness flooded his organs. Though he wished he could continue to pretend that Julian Fortescue didn’t exist, he had to reopen relations with the Duke of Denford. Duty demanded it.
“Still in black,” he said. “Has he cut his hair?”
“He believes he is Samson.”
“You are probably better acquainted with him than I. Now.” There was a hint of a question in his statement. If Julian—Denford—was one of Belinda’s lovers, wouldn’t Grenville have given her the task of persuading him to sell the paintings? She never made a secret of her affaires, and Sir Richard’s complacency, even complicity, was well-known.
“We are on nodding terms, that is all.” The pique in her voice told him that she wouldn’t mind playing Delilah, and he concluded that Julian had rejected her advances.
There was one other occupant of the box, a blond woman in blue, too far away to identify. He had the impression of a fashionable beauty, but her general mien struck no chord. It was unlikely that Damian knew her. She raised a lorgnette and looked around and he fancied they came under her scrutiny. Then she turned back to Denford, his black head contrasting with her fair one. Denford appeared engrossed by his companion and Damian couldn’t blame him. Even at this distance he could tell that she was exquisite. He wondered if her face matched her air of elegance.
“Perhaps I should go and congratulate him on his elevation,” Damian said, pondering the advantage of making initial contact in a public place He had no illusions about the difficulty of the task he’d been set. The last time he and Julian had spoken—ironically about a very different collection of pictures—had seemed to preclude their ever being on cordial terms again.
“I’m sure he won’t mind being interrupted.”
“Who is the lady?”
“I don’t know. I don’t keep count of Denford’s conquests.” The edge of malice in Belinda’s voice aroused warning prickles at the back of his neck. She was lying and she was up to no good.
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