Reckless in Pink

by Lynne Connolly

  “He did not run away!” Claudia had no idea why he hadn’t paid her special attention recently, except for that day. Except the possibility that had been nagging at her mind. Perhaps it was time to share it.

  “That day he said he was going to talk to Papa. That was the day we heard from Haxby about Gates.”

  On hearing of the injury to his land steward, her father and oldest brother had set out for the family country seat in Yorkshire that very day. That had been two days ago. They should be there tomorrow. It would take them a while to resolve the matter, and then another three days to journey back to town. That was unless they chose to deal with other business or pay a visit to someone on the way back. Or unless the injury to Gates proved even worse than they imagined.

  After Gates had fallen from his horse, the butler sent her father a letter immediately. Gates wasn’t just a servant. His family had worked for her family for generations, and their children played together in the grounds of Haxby Hall. A bad fall could mean a broken neck. Not everyone died from that, but sometimes people wished they had.

  “Do you think he’s given up? I distinctly saw St. Just walk away from you when he saw us last night. He didn’t cut us, it’s true. Would he have done so?”

  “No!” The idea made her feel slightly sick. “He is merely observing proprieties.”

  “Rubbish!” Livia rarely spoke her mind so firmly in matters of everyday life. Ask her the difference between translations of Virgil and she would have a decisive opinion ready. But ask her if she meant to wear the blue or the lavender, and she’d go into a tizzy of indecision. “He could not keep away from you before. When you were not looking, he gave you such a look of heartbreak. I swear, he appeared like nothing so much as a heartsick Paolo!”

  She frowned. “Paolo?”

  “Paolo and Francesca, silly. The people Shakespeare used as his models for Romeo and Juliet.”

  Claudia rounded on her sister. “I certainly have no intention of stabbing myself. Or of pretending to be dead, for that matter.”

  “Francesca did not have a chance to do that.” That was better. Livia was speaking of academic subjects. Claudia should be safe now.

  She stood and posed briefly, ensuring the big pleats at the back of her gown were straight. The topaz pendant on her pearl necklace was hanging perfectly, just touching the top of the cleft between her breasts. She would do, although the one she wanted to do most for, would most likely avoid her.

  Even if he made an appearance at Lady Marbury’s tonight, he would not stay long and he wouldn’t speak to her.

  This couldn’t go on. She’d caught his burning eyes on her when she moved quickly or let him pretend she wasn’t looking. He seemed to think that something had happened that made him unworthy of her. That was what he’d intimated to her when he’d confronted her at the Exchange.

  Claudia wanted his kisses again, wanted to feel herself in his arms, experience his passion. Was he lavishing it on someone else? Surely not—not after three days. Even the idea of him doing with someone else what he did with her turned her stomach. One day, if she didn’t make a push for her, he would move on. Find someone else. He was a passionate man. Even a paid mistress would distress her. Did he have one already?

  Enough. With Livia prattling by her side about people long dead, Claudia went down to the hall where her brothers Valentinian and Darius stood waiting. They would go in twin strength tonight. Although neither set of twins made a habit of dressing alike, it would take more than different clothes to disguise their similarity to each other. As children both had great enjoyment hoodwinking their nurses and servants.

  Those times were done, at least for Claudia and Livia.

  Val whipped off Livia’s spectacles, which she’d donned to find a book in the small shelf of volumes in their room and gave the offending objects back to her. Livia made a face at her brother and shoved them in her pocket. “How anyone can consider you handsome I have no idea. All I recall was your ability to get muddy on a summer day.”

  “Then they shouldn’t have dressed us in white smalls.” Val grinned. He wore white breeches tonight, but not a speck of dust or lint marred the pristine surface. Unlike when he was a child.

  They went out to the carriage, chattering about Renaissance lovers and the state of affairs in London. Darius took great delight in recounting the latest murder trial at the Old Bailey, in which he had an unnatural interest. It kept them guiltily amused for the ten minutes it took for them to reach Lady Marbury’s.

  The torchères set outside the front door of the white-stuccoed house illuminated the usual morass of carriages disgorging passengers and servants attending to their masters and mistresses. Livia and Claudia generally saw to themselves. The evening was too mild to require more than a light wrap. As she handed it to the waiting footman in the hall, Claudia caught sight of someone rounding the corner at the top of the stairs.

  She gave chase. He would not ignore her tonight. He would tell her what was troubling him, and she would make him, if they were the last words she ever had with him. She could not wait for this much longer, especially as her father and brother would be away for the next four days at the very least.

  The inside of the house blazed with candles, making a warm evening even warmer. The great chandelier in the hall and the wall-sconces all contained lit candles, of the finest beeswax. Her mother, a thrifty individual, or so she always claimed, said wax candles were a shocking expense and something had to be done.

  Or she might very well go mad.

  She was not sure if he’d seen her, but he certainly set a punishing pace for a woman in the panoply of full ball dress. Claudia had learned to handle hooped skirts from her childhood. Now she was hard put not to send it swaying unforgivably as she pursued him determinedly across the rooms set aside for tonight’s gathering.

  A group of people gathered around the huge Van Dyck family portrait that was the pride and joy of this house. Claudia spared it barely a glance, merely curtseying to the matrons when she couldn’t avoid doing so and watching in despair as her quarry disappeared out of sight.

  If not tonight, tomorrow. She’d make him confront her, instead of disappearing like a damned will-o-the-wisp. She couldn’t wait another four days. Or even longer.

  Eventually she had to admit that she’d lost him, and settled to discussing some poet or other Lady Marbury introduced her to.

  The poor young poet stood by helplessly as she burbled on. “Dear Lady Olivia”—it infuriated Livia when people called her that, as they did all too often. She would not disabuse the lady. Let Lady Marbury continue to believe Claudia was Livia.

  Claudia didn’t care what people called her. Had her ladyship been a noticing person she’d have spotted that at once. She was not, so she saw nothing.

  The poet was handsome, tall and very slim, making Claudia wonder how much of his body weight was due to the heavy coat he wore. She didn’t want to pursue the connection when he wouldn’t meet her eyes and utterly refused to smile when she offered him one. Instead, he looked down his considerable nose at her and declared her “A positive beauty, I declare! You should pose for a portrait of Venus, that you should!”

  Because she was fair-haired, or because he really thought it? The facile comparison should be under the notice of a decent poet. Mr. Pope would have twisted it into something different, making analogies until the ground under her feet became uncertain. Perhaps that was why women flocked around the diminutive poet. He’d been a favorite of her mother’s, but when she recalled that to the poet, whose name eluded her, he sneered. “I could not possibly comment. He is far too obvious for my taste. I prefer the natural style.”

  “The rustic is charming, and it has a number of profound meanings.” She wished she’d listened more to Livia when her passion for poetry was at its height a few years ago. Livia had read every volume she could get her hands on and memorized much of it before moving on to novels.

  “Indeed so.” The poet proved as loquacious
as her ladyship.

  Claudia was hard put to get away. But after at least ten minutes, she extricated herself by accepting an invitation to dance from a half-inebriated Lord Withermore, a loose-lipped man she usually did her best to avoid. She’d have accepted a dance from the devil if it meant she got away from the most tedious poet in London.

  She would be sure to tell her mother about him when she got home, except she still couldn’t remember the man’s name. After she’d taken the floor with Lord Withermore for a country-dance, she feared her quarry was long gone.

  Except she caught sight of him. Resplendent in emerald green, he was chatting to Lady Marbury, or at least, her ladyship was chatting to him. Spying Livia across the room, she exchanged a grin. Her sister jerked her head slightly in the direction of the card room. So that was where her brothers had decamped to. Picking up her skirts, she made a determined advance on her prey. He would not get away this time.

  Lady Marbury had the great felicity of introducing them. She curtseyed as he bowed, but this time when he took her hand, he didn’t kiss it, merely the air above it in the accepted manner. He behaved as if they’d never met before, so she pushed the acquaintance on a little.

  “I believe we know each other already, sir.”

  He smiled, but it was a bland society smile that barely changed his expression. “I believe we do, ma’am. May I escort you to your mother?”

  “She isn’t here tonight. I’m with my sister and two of my brothers.”

  The orchestra chose that moment to strike up a fresh air.

  “Oh, a minuet!” Lady Marbury exclaimed. “How delightful!”

  Thus giving him a choice. If he asked Lady Marbury to dance, Claudia would find it hard to forgive him.

  He held out his arm. “Lady Claudia, will you do me the honor?”

  “I would be delighted, sir.”

  A minuet meant the couples remained together for much of the measure, but not all. In a country-dance they changed partners and met again at the end of the set, but a minuet was a courtship dance.

  He led her on to the floor and they joined the other couples. “You shouldn’t have avoided me,” she murmured. “Why are you doing that?” Flicking out her fan with a snap, she waved it before her face three times as she curtseyed in the dance and then closed it sharply.

  “I thought it better to remain apart,” he replied. “No good can come of your acquaintance with me.”

  “Don’t you think you should do me the courtesy of letting me decide that?”

  “Or your esteemed parents. Believe me, they will bar me from the house once I’ve told them what I know. I was not aware of it when I first met you.”

  She didn’t care. Why should she? The dance took them into a complex section, and she had to concentrate on the steps and keeping the shapes she made with her body graceful. At least he couldn’t run, not without creating a scandal. He would once the dance was complete if she didn’t say something. What could she possibly say?

  Only the truth. “I have missed you. You hurt me by pushing me away.”

  “I’m sorry for that.” He turned around her, keeping his gaze fixed on her, as the dance demanded. “I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world. Believe me, had I known then what I do now—”

  “What? You wouldn’t have made love to me?”

  “Keep your voice down!” Although he kept it low, his voice held a note of command. “Do you want a scandal?”

  “I don’t care.” Her family had weathered worse in its time. Very few people could countermand the combined forces of the Emperors of London. “If you abandon me, I shall tell my brothers. My cousins. You can’t walk away with no explanation. I do not want that. Society is already sneering at me.” It wasn’t, but she’d use every tool at her command.

  By her reckoning, she had five minutes to change his mind. Otherwise he’d walk away and he wouldn’t come back this time. The determination lay in his eyes. He didn’t have to tell her.

  “Society will recover. There is no scandal. I’ve been careful to ensure that.”

  She had a brainwave. “That day you kissed me? At the Royal Exchange? Somebody saw us.”

  “Who?”

  “Lady Compton.” At random she chose one of the biggest gossips in society. “Once she speaks to our hostess, our secret will be out. What price your clandestine habits then?”

  “Quiet!” They were so close his breath heated her ear. “Wait until your father returns. I have to tell him first.”

  “Why?” she demanded through grimly smiling teeth. “Why can’t you tell me?”

  “Because it destroys everything I’ve believed in. Everything I fought for.”

  His voice was entirely without emphasis this time, so cold that she shivered from the chill. “I want to help.”

  “There is no help.”

  Turning his back, he walked off the floor, leaving her partnerless and stranded.

  Blindly, Dominic walked out of the room and down the stairs, heedless of the gossip that surged around him. He couldn’t touch her, look at her, without wanting her, and he couldn’t have her. Not anymore. His dreams of marrying one of the most highborn women from one of the untouchable families of London were at an end.

  He strode out of the house, sucking in air tangy with soot from the torchères still burning outside the house. It seemed an age since he’d walked through them, determined to make an appearance and leave. The hostess was an old friend of his mother’s—he smiled wryly—and he’d promised to put in an appearance. Well he had. Duty done.

  Claudia danced exquisitely. The minuet was a dance of courtship. He could hardly bear it. People watched them, smiling indulgently. Their match was one many people had already made. He couldn’t allow that.

  He was nobody, brought up by liars, traitors even. How could he hold up his head with that kind of history behind him? One day it would come to light. Secrets always did, and then he’d drag her down with him.

  Having recovered some of his composure, he turned to leave and only then recalled he’d forgotten his hat. People would stare. Let them. They’d stare even more soon.

  “Dominic?”

  “No.” He spun around to confront her.

  She stood there, watching him. She wasn’t wearing a hat, either, only a froth of lace on her head. Her hair shone in the torchlight, its red highlights blazing. She was all fire, his Claudia.

  Except she wasn’t his Claudia, was she?

  When she approached him, he held out his hands as if to ward her off and took hasty steps back. He turned and walked quickly to the end of the street. The sound of determined steps followed him. He spun around. “Claudia…”

  A deafening report split the air, a crack and a whistle he knew well. He only had time to leap forward, wrap his arms around her, and drag her to the ground before the bullet struck.

  Chapter 9

  She jerked forward into his arms as the bullet hit her.

  Never before had Dominic panicked, but he did now. Tears stung his eyes as he rolled her to her back on the dusty pavement. “Claudia, oh my God!”

  Blinking, she met his eyes, her own dazed, her pupils wide. “What was that? What happened?”

  He had time to get her away. A yell from the road attracted his attention. “’Ere, guvnor, in ’ere!”

  Where the hell were her brothers? He had no time. Blood seeped through the sleeve of her gown, soaking the fine silk, turning the pale blue to gory red. Getting to his feet, he picked her up. He didn’t think he was hurt. Certainly he was hale enough to carry her the short distance to the hackney. As long as his arms and legs were working, he’d carry her.

  He climbed into the vehicle, leaping over the iron step. “Whip up the horses!”

  “Aye, aye, my lord.”

  The hackney rocked into motion, its worn suspension making the carriage rock and sway, but Dominic was too busy stripping off his coat to bother. Grabbing the heavy stiffened skirt of the garment, he used it to press against her arm, where t
he blood was deepest. He wasn’t sure where she’d been hit, but she was bleeding copiously. Raising his voice, he bellowed his address to the carriage driver. One person could help him now. Nothing else mattered except getting her to help straight away. “Claudia, don’t leave me. Talk to me. Give me that wonderful smile.” Desperation drew him now. He’d do anything to keep her with him.

  “I thought my smile bored you.”

  He forced a smile of his own, although he feared it was more of a grimace. “How could it ever do that? I swear I’ve never said it, because it’s not true. I would do anything for a smile from you.”

  The corner of her mouth moved. “Don’t press so hard. It hurts when you do that.”

  “It would hurt more if I did not.” He felt like a villain, but he had to do something to staunch the flow of blood. “Please, Claudia, talk to me. Tell me anything.”

  “I liked your coat tonight.”

  That was better. Anything to keep those lovely eyes open and hear her voice. If she lapsed into unconsciousness, they might not get her back.

  The carriage turned a corner on one wheel and carried on at the same breakneck pace. Dominic held on to her arm, circling it with part of the skirt of his coat and pulling tightly. Anything to stop the bleeding. It had soaked through his coat now. Four layers of fabric plus a heavy buckram lining. Forcing himself to think, he tried to recall when he’d seen someone bleed this much and live.

  Where the hell were they?

  As if he had shouted the words, the driver yelled to the horse and stopped it. “We’re ’ere, sir.”

  Dominic climbed out of the hackney carefully, never letting go of Claudia and keeping his gaze fixed on hers, willing her to stay awake. He would risk everything to save her now. A servant flung open the door to his house. “Pay the man whatever he asks for,” he said tersely. “Double it. Don’t stint him. He could have saved this lady’s life.”

  Striding indoors, he bellowed the name of his servant. Not his valet, but his factotum, the man who’d served by his side in the war. Binney came up from below stairs promptly, wiping his hands on a towel. The sound of his feet hesitated on the hard floor, just once, and then they quickened as he approached the couple in the hall. “Can you get her up to a bedroom, sir? I’ll get what I need. What happened?”