Candace Camp

by A Dangerous Man

  She looked hopefully into Eleanor’s face, still clutching her hand. Eleanor did her best to smile. She did not want to call on the woman and have her describe exactly where she had seen Edmund and how he had looked. It had been this way immediately after the funeral, with everyone calling on her and offering their sympathy, often merely as a mask to hear all the gruesome details about his death and the funeral pyre. Mrs. Malducci, Eleanor feared, was one of those people. There was an undertone of eagerness in her voice that bothered Eleanor.

  “Oh, yes, please do call on us, Lady Scarbrough,” Mrs. Colton-Smythe put in. “Our humble home is nothing like what you are used to, I will warrant, but it would be such an honor to have you visit.”

  Mrs. Colton-Smythe, Eleanor decided, was an expert at trapping one. Her deprecating statement had made it almost impossible to refuse to call on her without seeming snobbish.

  Eleanor’s smile was more a result of tightly-clenched teeth than any real expression of friendliness as she said, “Yes, of course. I should be happy to call on you.”

  “Soon,” Mrs. Malducci pressed, squeezing Eleanor’s hand. “You will come soon, yes?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  It was actually a relief when Lady Honoria wedged her way into the group, more or less ignoring Mrs. Colton-Smythe and Mrs. Malducci as she launched into a long list of complaints regarding the heat, the crush of people, the quality of the refreshments and the state of her feet.

  Eleanor watched, unexpectedly amused, as Lady Honoria’s conversation managed to bore even Mrs. Colton-Smythe, who after a moment took her leave, steering her friend like a prize before her.

  “Where is that young friend of yours?” Honoria asked somewhat petulantly, turning toward Eleanor. “You said that he would be at the party.”

  “Yes, I thought he would, but I have not seen him all evening,” Eleanor responded calmly. She was acquiring a knack for dealing with Honoria as the days passed. One had to simply avoid taking the woman seriously, just nod and let her comments slide past, only half listening to what she said. “The next time he comes to call, we shall have to scold him.”

  Honoria looked slightly cheered at the thought of Dario paying a call on them. “Yes, you are right. We shall.”

  “You know, Lady Honoria, you are right,” Eleanor went on cheerfully. “The party is much too much of a crush. Perhaps we should leave. What do you think, Anthony?”

  “I think we have gotten as much out of this thing as we can,” Anthony said, quick to agree. “Let us take our leave. Honoria…” He offered his sister his arm.

  Honoria looked somewhat disconcerted. Eleanor suspected that she had not been as discontented with the ball as she had sounded—Honoria’s main form of communication was in the way of complaints—and was not especially happy at the thought of leaving. However, given what she had said, she could offer little opposition to the decision to go. So they made their way out of the party, stopping to thank their hosts, and into the evening air, blessedly cooler than the crowded ballroom had been.

  Anthony escorted them back to Eleanor’s house, which was dark and quiet, leading Eleanor to suspect that nothing had happened in their absence. A quick talk with the Bow Street Runner confirmed that impression. The house, he told them, had been as quiet as the grave all evening. He had made his rounds of the building and the outside every hour, but had found nothing out of the ordinary.

  “I fear that he feels we are sadly mistaken in thinking that anyone is going to try to enter the house,” Eleanor said after the Runner had left her office.

  “I only wish he were right,” Anthony replied with a shrug. “Something will transpire, I think. The problem is what it will be, and when.”

  “Well, tonight was not a complete loss,” Eleanor said encouragingly. “We found out a few things—or at least created some more suspicions to work on.”

  Anthony nodded, looking grim. “The count is someone to watch.” He went over to her. “After what he said to you tonight, I wonder…perhaps I should stay the night here.”

  Eleanor thought of him sleeping just down the hall from her, and her pulse sped up. “I—I don’t think that would be wise.”

  “Not wise?” He looked at her quizzically. “It seems very reasonable to me.”

  “There is no need,” she went on a little breathlessly. “The Runner is here. Your sister. Two of the footmen will be on guard.”

  “I do not think that Honoria would be a great deal of help if someone tried to harm you,” he remarked. “And the footmen and the Runner might not be close enough to hear you if you called for help.”

  “Neither might you hear me,” Eleanor pointed out. “It isn’t as if you would be in the same room with me.”

  As she heard her own words, a blush spread over her cheeks. She sounded, she thought with horror, as if she were hinting. “That is…I mean…” She whirled and moved a few feet away. “What I am saying is that the safest thing for me is to lock my bedroom door and windows. You need not stay. You should not.”

  “If you are going to go on about your reputation again, the presence of my sister would obviate anyone’s objections.”

  “It isn’t that,” Eleanor replied quickly.

  “Then what is it?”

  She looked at him. She did not know what to say. She was filled with emotions and sensations that were not clear, even to herself. All she knew was that she wanted him to stay, but she dared not let him. Her desires were too strong, her thoughts too confused. Never had a man had so strong a hold over her; never had she felt so little in command of a situation…or even of herself.

  All her life, Eleanor had run things. She had been certain of her decisions, her abilities, her ideas. Whatever emotions she had felt—happiness, pain, hurt, excitement, loneliness—had been subordinate to her mind. She had used her head no matter how distraught anyone around her might be; she had been the one to whom people turned in an emergency.

  Even during the worst time of her life, when her father, with whom she had been so close until then, had remarried and acceded to his wife’s wishes, sending Eleanor across the sea to school for three long years, she had not let pain swamp her. She had pushed the bitterness and hurt aside. She had told herself that parents and children always parted at some point, that it was only natural that his wife would become a larger part of his life and Eleanor herself would take on a lesser role. It was simply a matter of setting out a little early on her adult life, and she was more capable than most of doing so. She had made friends, had come to appreciate England and its people, its beauty, the cultural advantages of London.

  When others of her age fell in love and married, she had not fretted. She had told herself it was simply the way she was, a woman whose head ruled her heart. Instead, she had filled her life with other people to help and love—the children and Edmund, good friends in England and Naples. There were many things to enjoy, from great art to the satisfaction of her business dealings, and if the sort of passion poets wrote about did not enter her life, so be it. Her life was good.

  And when Edmund had died, she had carried on, sad but filled with determination to bring his work to completion. She had buried her sorrow in work, making certain that everything came out perfectly in the production of his opera.

  She was used to knowing what to do and doing it.

  Now, for the first time in her life, she felt at sea. The passion she had never experienced before simmered beneath the surface, bubbling up at unexpected moments—when she danced in Anthony’s arms, certainly, but also when she glanced at him across the room or heard his voice in the hallway when he arrived, or when she came down the stairs and caught sight of him standing with his back to her. It struck her like a blow at times, and at other moments slid through her like a silken ribbon.

  She was never quite sure what to do or how to deal with this unexpected desire. It was clear that she was not the cool creature she had always envisioned herself being. With some amazement, she realized that she wanted
to fling herself into this new and startling experience. She wanted to embrace the hunger that swelled in her, to give herself over to the sensations that swept through her at his kiss, his touch. She wanted to know the delight that she sensed waited for her in Anthony’s arms.

  But what then? What would come after the pleasure? For the first time in her life, Eleanor knew that her heart was in danger. She was not sure that she could separate the passion that welled in her from deeper, stronger emotions. Could she let him into her bed and not open her heart to him, as well?

  She feared it would be impossible. Sometimes, when her heart rose inside her with happiness just at the sound of his voice, she suspected that she was halfway to loving him already.

  However, the result of loving Anthony would be, in the end, heartbreak for her. She was certain of that. He had not even wanted her to marry his nephew. Even though he had admitted his mistake in assuming her to be a fortune hunter, she was not naïve enough to think it had been only that suspicion he had held against her. She was an American, and no matter her wealth or the importance of her family in the United States, to a British aristocrat, she was a woman of no name, no background. She was as common, as unacceptable, as the mate for an earl as the daughter of a wealthy London merchant.

  She had learned much of the British nobility in the time she had lived in the country, and as a general rule, the nobility married the nobility, and the higher one moved in the ranks of that system, the less and less likely one was to marry below one’s station. Their passion they would indulge with a woman of inferior birth, but they would not give her their precious name.

  Anthony might want her, might respect her, might even come to love her. But, she knew, he would never marry her. A woman whose grandfather had been the son of a cobbler who had moved to the colonies was not proper material for the wife of an earl. The most she could ever hope to be to him was a mistress.

  And however unconventional Eleanor might be, she knew that she could not accept such a life. She could not imagine giving her love to a man who could not fully love her back, could not acknowledge their love to the world.

  So now she looked back at Anthony, unable to answer his simple question because it called for such deeper, harder answers on her part. She shook her head.

  “It is not my reputation,” she said quietly. “It is the reality of it.”

  He moved even closer, his hand coming up to rest on her arm. “I would not take advantage of you.”

  Her smile was a trifle wobbly. “The problem is that it would not be taking advantage.”

  His eyes darkened, his hand suddenly searing against her skin, and she knew that her words had awakened the hunger that dwelled in him, as well. “Eleanor…”

  The word was scarcely a breath. It sent desire shivering through her.

  “Nay.” She pulled away from him, turning aside. “We must not. I cannot.” She looked back at him, her eyes bright, her body rigid. “You must not ask it of me.”

  He hesitated for a long moment, looking at her in a way that made her blood heat in her veins. Then, finally, he gave a short nod.

  “Of course.” He turned away, saying, “I will see you tomorrow.”

  Anthony walked to the door, then stopped, his hand on the doorjamb, not looking back at her. “We cannot run from it.”

  He turned then and gazed at her, his eyes boring into hers. Eleanor nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  Then he was gone.

  She stood for a long moment, waiting for her heart to slow and her nerves to settle back to normal. He was right, she knew. There was no escape from the decision that was thundering down upon her. She had only delayed it. But before long there would come a moment when passion would overtake her. And she would have to give in to it…or turn away from him completely.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ELEANOR WROTE A NOTE to Dario the next morning, asking him to call on her. When he arrived, she was in the morning room, chatting desultorily with Anthony while she held a skein of yarn for Samantha as the girl rolled it into a ball. Honoria was dozing by the window.

  Dario paused in the doorway, taking in the cozy scene. “Lady Eleanor, I beg your pardon. Have I come at an awkward time?”

  “Not at all, Dario. Do come in. I was just about to ring for some tea. Samantha, dear, perhaps we should finish this project later.”

  “Of course.” Samantha took the yarn. “I’ll just go up and read, if I may be excused.” She had been listening to Anthony and Eleanor talk for the past few minutes and had already picked up more of what had been happening lately than Honoria had in the whole time they had been there.

  “You are excused.” Eleanor smiled at her. She got up to go over to the bell pull, unobtrusively touching the dozing Honoria’s arm as she passed her, saying brightly, “Lady Honoria, isn’t it nice that Dario has decided to visit us?’

  The older woman awoke with a start, blinking. Her eyes widened when she saw Dario shaking Anthony’s hand, and her hands flew to her hair, patting it to make sure that the fetching little white lace cap she had donned that morning had not become tip-tilted. “Mr. Paradella, what a pleasant surprise.”

  “Lady Scarbrough.”

  Dario bowed over Honoria’s hand, spouting his usual compliments before he turned to greet Eleanor, who gestured toward the chair beside hers, saying, “Do sit down, Dario. It seems ages since we saw you last.”

  “Yes,” Honoria added with a girlish simper. “I was quite disappointed not to find you at the consul’s ball last night.”

  “The consul’s ball? Did you go?” He looked toward Eleanor even though Honoria jumped in with a lengthy description of the event.

  “Yes. I, too, thought I might see you there,” Eleanor put in when Honoria finally paused for a breath.

  “It was in honor of a man whom, well, I hold in very low regard. I could not attend in good conscience,” he replied.

  “Conte di Graffeo talked to me at some length,” Eleanor said, watching Dario’s expression carefully. “He hinted at Edmund’s sympathies and warned me against following his path.”

  Dario uttered a short, obviously uncomplimentary, phrase in Italian.

  Eleanor went on to ask, “Do you know to what he referred?”

  Dario gave an eloquent shrug. “My dear Eleanor, who knows what is in that man’s mind?”

  “Dario, pray do not play games with me.”

  “But I—”

  “Blast it, man, don’t you see that Eleanor’s ignorance in this matter is endangering her?” Anthony burst out, jumping to his feet. “Or have you no concern for her?”

  Dario leapt to his feet to face Anthony. “How dare you imply that I am not concerned about Eleanor? I would die for her!”

  “Danger? What are you talking about, Anthony? Mr. Paradella?” Honoria asked, looking from one man to the other, confused.

  “Dario, I have no interest in your laying down your life for me,” Eleanor put in impatiently. “Just sit down and tell me what Edmund got himself involved in.”

  Dario hesitated, looking from Eleanor to Anthony and back; then, with a sigh, he sat back down in his chair. “Yes, you are right. It is not fair. I had not realized that you did not know, but I am sure that Edmund did not want you involved in something dangerous.”

  “Edmund was involved in something dangerous?” Honoria asked, her voice rising in a shriek. She raised a hand to her forehead dramatically. “Anthony, my hartshorn. I feel faint.”

  “Blast it, Honoria, I don’t know where it is,” her brother answered with a notable lack of sympathy. “Ring for a servant.”

  Honoria, with a grimace, dropped her hand and returned her gaze to Dario.

  “I must ask all of you to swear yourselves to silence on this matter,” Dario told them. “Many lives could be ruined if these secrets came out. Edmund believed in our cause. As you know, Eleanor, we talked many, many nights about the things we believed in. He wanted justice for the people, freedom. He saw our vision of a free a
nd united people of Italy, and he wanted to help.”

  “He joined the Carbonari?” Eleanor asked.

  “Not the Carbonari,” Dario replied. “It was in tatters after the Austrians slaughtered them. But the cause cannot be denied. Other groups have arisen, new names, but with the same principles, the same beliefs. We call ourselves L’unione. We desire unity and freedom for our people, but we must work in secret. We are in even more danger than the Carbonari were. At every turn we run the risk of betrayal. But our enemy is not just the government, not only the king. There are groups, secret societies, formed to track down and kill us. You know, my lady, of the Calderai? The Sanfedisti? They are mortal enemies of L’unione, sworn to do away with us all and crush their dreams into dust. There is another group, even more secret, and its head is di Graffeo.”

  He said the count’s name as if it were a curse, his mouth twisting with bitterness.

  “They are a cruel and violent group of men. It is said that the count recruited murderers from the prisons, the dregs of our society. Their sworn mission is to hunt down the members of L’unione and kill us.”

  The others stared at him in silence; even Honoria was too shocked to emote. Finally, in a quiet voice, Eleanor asked, “Is that what happened to Edmund? Was he killed by di Graffeo’s group?”

  Dario’s face crumpled. “I do not know. None of us are certain. However, we have wondered why he went out that day alone. As you know, I had planned to go out with him, but I could not. You cannot imagine how many times I have wished that I had not been delayed that day. Why did he go out by himself? Was he lured to his boat by some false message to meet one of us? Did someone purposely cause my horse to pull up lame so I would not be with him? Was he kidnapped and murdered, then taken out to sea and dropped overboard to hide the evidence?”

  A gasp escaped Honoria at his words, and her face paled.

  “Paradella…” Anthony said warningly. “Remember, the man’s mother is here.”

  “My lady, I am so sorry!” Dario cried, jumping up and going to her. He took her hand and stroked it, murmuring his apologies and sorrow.