Elliot’s fists clenched as he thought of the old soldier in Covent Garden. One of thousands. No, he’d had more than enough of that.
What he missed was the other, secret part of his army career, as a spy behind enemy lines. The excitement of the unknown, pitting his wits against a foe who did not even know of his existence, knowing that before he was ever discovered he would be gone. The transience of it all had made living in the moment the only way to survive. The pulsing, vibrant urgency of taking chance upon chance, the soaring elation of a mission pulled off against the odds. He missed that. The pleasure of sharing flesh with flesh, knowing that, too, was transient. He missed that also. Since coming home he had taken no lover. He would not take a whore, and somehow, in England, taking the wife of another man seemed wrong.
Abstinence had not really troubled him. He had encountered no woman who had stirred him beyond vague interest until his encounter with Lady Kinsail.
Elliot sighed as her face swam into his mind again and his body recalled hers. Between his legs, his shaft stirred. Dammit, he would never sleep now! That smile of hers. That mouth. His erection hardened. What would it feel like to have that mouth on him, licking, tasting, sucking, cupping? Elliot closed his eyes and, wrapping his hand around his throbbing girth beneath the sheets, gave himself over to imagining.
* * *
Deborah stood undecidedly on the steps of the discreet offices of Freyworth & Sons in Pall Mall. It was early—not long after ten—a pretty day for March, and she longed to stretch her legs and mull over the rather worrying things which Mr Freyworth had said. It was true, her writing had of late become more of a chore than a pleasure, but she had not been aware, until he had pointed it out, that her general ennui had transferred itself on to the page. Stale. That was how her publisher had described her latest book. Knitting her brow, Deborah was forced to acknowledge the truth of what he said. Perhaps her imagination had simply reached its limit?
Across from her lay St James’s Park, and a short way to the left was Green Park. There would be daffodils there. Not the sort of freshness Mr Freyworth was demanding, but perhaps they would help inspire her. She could walk over Constitution Hill, then carry on into Hyde Park and watch the riders.
Even at the end, when money had been as scarce as hens’ teeth at Kinsail Manor, Jeremy had found the funds to keep his horses. Riding had always been a solace to Deborah, though these days it was, as with most things, a pleasure she could only experience vicariously.
She had no maid to accompany her, which when she was married would have been a heinous crime, but a combination, she believed, of her widowhood, her impoverished state and the bald fact that she possessed no maid, had allowed her a relative freedom which she cherished. In fact it was rather her self-possessed air, the invisible wall which she had built around herself, which made it only very occasionally necessary for Deborah to rebuff any man who approached her. For her charms were not so recondite as she imagined, and nor was she anywhere near so old, but of this she was blissfully unaware.
In the Green Park, the fresh grass of the gently rolling meadows made her feel as if she was far from the metropolis. Her mind wandered from her business meeting back to that night, as it had done on countless occasions in the days which had elapsed since. Though she had scoured both The Times and the Morning Post on her visits to Hookham’s circulating library in Bond Street, she had found no mention of the theft from Kinsail Manor. Jacob had been as good as his word.
The shifty-eyed investigator who had come calling at her lodgings in Hans Town had been equally reticent. She had absolutely no idea what had been stolen save that it was small, definitely not papers, and definitely extremely valuable. What? And why was Jacob so intent on silence? And how, when he was so intent, had the housebreaker discovered the presence of whatever it was in the safe when even Jacob’s wife had no idea of its existence?
The housebreaker who had kissed her.
Deborah paused to admire a clump of primroses, but her gaze blurred as the cheerful yellow flowers were replaced by a fierce countenance in her mind’s eye. Try as she might, she had been unable to forget him. Unable and unwilling, if she was honest. In the secret dark of night he came to her and she seldom had the willpower to refuse him. Never, not even in the early days with Jeremy, before they were married, when she had been so naïvely in love, had she felt such a gut-wrenching pull of attraction. Who and why? And where was he now? She had no answers, nor likely ever would, but the questions would not quit her mind. His presence had fired her imagination.
Reaching the boundary of the Green Park, she made her way across the busy thoroughfare of Piccadilly towards Hyde Park, with the intention of walking along Rotten Row to the Queen’s Gate. Carriages, horses, stray dogs, urchins, crossing sweepers and costermongers made navigating to the other side treacherous at the best of times, but Deborah wove her way through the traffic with her mind fatally focused elsewhere.
The driver of an ale cart swerved to avoid her.
She barely noticed the drayman’s cursing, but on the other side of the road Elliot, emerging from Apsley House where he had been petitioning Wellesley—he never could think of him as Wellington—froze. It was her! He was sure of it—though how he could be, when he had not even seen her in daylight, he had no idea.
But it was most definitely Lady Kinsail and she was headed straight for him—or at least for the gates to the park. She was dressed simply—even, to his practised eye, rather dowdily for a countess. The full-length brown pelisse she wore over a taupe walking dress was bereft of trimming, lacking the current fashion for flounces, tassels and ruffles. Her hair, what he could see of it under the shallow poke of her bonnet, was flaxen. She was tall, elegant and slender, just as he remembered. In the bright sunlight, her complexion had a bloom to it, but her expression was the same: challenging, ironic, a little remote. Not a beautiful woman—she was too singular for that—but there was definitely something about her, the very challenge of her detachment, that appealed to him.
He should go. It would be madness to risk being identified. But even as he forced himself to turn away he caught her eye, saw the start of recognition in hers and it was too late.
Elliot, who had in any case always preferred to court trouble than to flee from it, covered the short distance between them in several quick strides. ‘Lady Kinsail.’ He swept her a bow.
‘It is you!’ Deborah exclaimed. She could feel her
colour rising, and wished that the poke of her bonnet were more fashionably high to disguise it. ‘The housebreaker. Though I have to say in the light of day you look even less like one than when you—when I…’
‘So very kindly broke my fall,’ Elliot finished for her. ‘For which I am most grateful, believe me.’
Deborah blushed. ‘You expressed your gratitude at the time, as I recall.’
‘Not as thoroughly as I’d have liked to.’
‘I didn’t tell,’ she blurted out in confusion.
‘That I kissed you?’
‘No. I mean I didn’t report you. I should have. I know I should have. But I didn’t.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Elliot stared at her in astonishment.
Her eyes were coffee brown, almost black, with a sort of hazel or gold colour around the rim of the iris. A strange combination, with that flaxen hair. The pink tip of her tongue flicked out along the full length of her lower lip to moisten it.
He dragged his eyes away. They were in danger of making a show of themselves, standing stock still at the busy entrance gates. Taking her arm, he ushered her into the park. ‘Let’s find somewhere more private, away from the crowds.’
Deborah tingled where his fingers clasped her arm. It was most—strange. In a nice way. So nice that she allowed herself to be led down one of the more secluded paths without protest.
He was taller than she remembered. In daylight his countenance was swarthy, the colour of one who had spent much time in the sun. The lines around his eyes, too, wh
ich gave him that fierce quality, looked as if they came from squinting in bright light. Snatching a glance up at him, she noticed a scar slicing through his left eyebrow, and another, a thin thread on his forehead just below the hairline. A soldier? Certainly it would explain his bearing, the upright stance, the quick stride which even her long legs were struggling to keep up with.
He was exceedingly well dressed, in a rich blue double-breasted tailcoat with brass buttons, and the snowy white of his cravat was carefully tied, enhancing the strong line of his jaw, the tanned complexion. Brown trousers, black boots, a single fob, a beaver hat—though the crown was not tall enough to be truly fashionable. His toilette was elegant but simple. Like herself, he eschewed ostentation, though unlike herself his reason did not appear to be lack of funds. Housebreaking must be a lucrative profession.
No, she could not bring herself to believe that he stole in order to dress well. Whatever reason he had for breaking into houses, it was not avarice. It appealed to her sense of irony that the famous Peacock was decidedly no peacock. Maybe his choice of calling card was deliberately self-mocking.
‘What is so amusing?’ Elliot brought them both to a halt by a rustic bench facing the sun.
‘Just an idle thought.’
‘We can sit here awhile,’ he said, after carefully wiping the wood down with his kerchief. ‘As long as the sun prevails we shall not get cold.’
Obediently, Deborah sat down. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but as she stared up at him she was too overwhelmed by the reality of him, which was so much more than the memory of him, to order her thoughts properly. ‘Are you really the Peacock?’
A word from her in the right ear and he would be dancing on the end of a rope at Tyburn. Though so far she had of her own admission said nothing. ‘Yes,’ Elliot replied, ‘I really am the Peacock.’
‘When I saw Jacob holding up the feather I could scarcely believe it.’
It was a small bench. Elliot’s knees touched her leg as he angled himself to face her. A spark of awareness shot through him at the contact. He remembered the way she’d felt beneath him. He remembered, too, the things he’d imagined her doing to him since and prayed none of it showed on his face. He had to remind himself that she was married. Married! In England, that mattered.
‘Why?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Why did you say nothing to your husband?’
‘You mentioned him during our first conversation—if it could be called a conversation,’ Deborah said with a frown. ‘You said that I must blame him, or some such words. Blame him for what? What has Jeremy to do with your breaking into Kinsail Manor?’
Jeremy! It had slipped his mind, but he remembered now that was the name she’d given Kinsail. ‘You mean Jacob, surely?’ Elliot said, also frowning. ‘Jacob, the Earl of Kinsail. Your husband.’
Her eyes widened with surprise and she burst into a peal of laughter, brimming with amusement like a champagne flute full of bubbles. Then, as if she was quite unused to the sound, she stopped abruptly. ‘I am not the current Lady Kinsail. Jacob is my husband’s cousin, the Fifth Earl. Jeremy was the fourth.’
‘Was? You’re a widow?’ She was a widow!
‘Of some two years’ standing,’ the widow replied.
‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear that.’ The words were out before he could stop them.
‘I doubt very much that the pleasure you take from my status could rival mine.’
‘That, if you don’t mind my saying so, was an even more telling remark than my own.’
Deborah coloured. ‘I am aware of that.’
‘It was not a love-match, then, I take it?’
‘No. Yes. I thought it was. I was just eighteen when we met—my head stuffed full of romantic fancies, as foolish and unworldly as it’s possible to imagine a person could be—and Jeremy was…seemed to be…well, he swept me off my feet, to put it in the sort of terms I’d have used myself then,’ Deborah said with a twisted smile. ‘When Jeremy proposed I thought all my birthdays had come at once. My guardian—my uncle—my parents died when I was very young—was only too glad to be able to wash his hands of me, so we were married three months after we met. I thought myself wildly in love, but it was all a sham. Jeremy was only interested in my money. Pathetic, isn’t it? I don’t know why I have told you all this, but you did ask.’
‘I think it’s sad, not pathetic. Were you very unhappy?’
Deborah shrugged. ‘I was very naïve and very set upon the match. I was not the only one who suffered as a result. I should never have married him. You know, this is all rather boring. Do you mind if we change the subject?’
Her husband sounded like a complete bastard. Elliot couldn’t understand why she was so determined to lay the blame on herself but, much as he wished to probe deeper, her closed look was back. He doubted he would get anywhere. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You didn’t,’ Deborah replied, tilting her chin and sniffing.
He wanted to kiss her then, for that defiant little look. Actually, he’d wanted to kiss her before that. ‘You know, you don’t look a bit like a dowager,’ Elliot said lightly. ‘Not a trace of grey hair, you don’t dab at your eyes with a black lace kerchief, or sniff at your smelling salts, and I’ve seen not a trace of an obnoxious little lap dog—unless he’s too precious to be allowed outside in the cold. The Dowager Countess of Kinsail.’ He shook his head. ‘No, it’s just not you.’
He was rewarded with a weak smile. ‘I prefer not to use the title. It’s Deborah Napier. And if I don’t look like a dowager you look even less like a housebreaker.’
‘Deborah. Now, that suits you. I am Elliot Marchmont, known to a very select few as the Peacock.’
‘What was it you stole, may I ask? Only Jacob has not let on, for some reason.’
‘For a very good reason,’ Elliot said drily. ‘I suppose there is no harm in telling you, since you already have my fate in your hands. It was a diamond. A large blue diamond, reputedly cut from the original French crown jewels. Kinsail came by it in what one might call a rather roundabout and unorthodox manner.’
‘You mean illegally? Jacob?’ Deborah squeaked.
‘Why do you look so surprised?’
‘Because he’s a sanctimonious, parsimonious prude who is never happier than when condemning others for lack of principles or morals or—well, anyway—’ She broke off, realising she had once again forgotten her golden rule of keeping her feelings strictly under wraps. This man unsettled her. ‘How did you know about it?’
‘I have my sources.’
‘Goodness. Do you mean those people they call fences? The ones who live in the Rookeries?’ Deborah asked, using with relish the cant she had only ever written.
‘I have to say, for an upstanding member of the aristocracy you seem to have an unhealthy interest in the seamy underbelly of society.’
‘I prefer to attribute it to a vivid imagination. Is it true what they say? That there is not a safe in England you cannot break?’
‘I have not yet encountered one,’ Elliot said, rather taken aback by her reaction, which seemed to be fascination rather than disapproval.
She was sitting on a bench in Hyde Park in broad daylight with the notorious Peacock. She should be calling the authorities. But instead of being in fear for her life she looked intrigued—excited, even. He had the distinct feeling that he had in Deborah Napier, Dowager Countess of Kinsail, met someone almost as subversive as he was himself.
‘I wish you would tell me all,’ she said, as if to confirm his thoughts. ‘Why do you do it? What is it like to pit your wits against the world as you do? Are you ever afraid of being caught?’
She had not asked him what he’d done with the diamond. Surely that was the first question any woman would have asked? But she seemed to have no real interest in the outcome, only the method. Just like him—well, at least in part.
‘There’s always a chance,’ Elliot replied, beguiled b
y the way her eyes lit up. ‘But if it was no risk it would not be worth doing. That is part of it for me—the excitement, knowing that one false move could be an end. There’s nothing like it. Not since…’
‘The army?’
‘How did you know that?’
‘The way you walk. The scars on your face.’ Deborah touched his brow, felt a jolt at the contact and drew her hand away quickly. ‘The first time I met you I thought you were a man used to being in command. Were you a soldier for long?’
‘Sixteen years. We ran off when I was just fifteen, me and my school friend Henry. Like you, he was orphaned, only his father had made no provision for him. In the same week he lost his family and his place at school. He was to be apprenticed to a lawyer.’ Elliot laughed. ‘Henry—a lawyer. Nothing could be more unlikely. He decided he would enlist instead, and I decided to go with him because by then I’d had enough of school and the notion of returning to the family estates and learning from my father how to take up the reins sounded like purgatory. So we ran off together, lied about our ages.’
‘What about your parents?’
‘My mother was dead. My father was not particularly happy, but we were not yet at war at that point, and I persuaded him that it would be good for me to learn some independence and some discipline. He bought me my first commission. Then the wars with Napoleon came, and by that time I’d discovered I had a talent for soldiering. The army was my family. In a way it was selfish of me, but by that time my loyalty to my men was such that—to be frank—I could not have left while there was a war to be won. To his enormous credit, my father supported me in that. I was a major when I resigned my commission after Waterloo. My only regret is that my father died just six months after I returned home.’
‘It must have been very difficult for you to adjust to civilian life after all that time.’
‘Yes, it was. Very.’ Her perception surprised Elliot. ‘People don’t really see that.’
‘People never do. I was nineteen when I married. When Jeremy died I found I had no idea who I was. Two years later I’m still not sure.’
Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah Page 4