The Viscount's Wicked Ways

by Anne Mallory

  “Hello? Thomas?”

  Her voice echoed off the walls, and she found herself in an open foyer connected to three halls in each direction. She chewed her lower lip and shifted her weight. Perhaps she should try and catch him later.

  As she turned to depart, she heard a pop. A stinging bittersweet odor assailed her nose, and she knew no more.

  Patience awoke to voices arguing.

  “Tried to kill her!”

  “He did not. He was the one who carried her all the way here. If he had wanted to kill her, he would have left her there.”

  “But did you see his face?”

  “Like the devil, he was. I ain’t never seen him so angry.”

  “Upset he didn’t do the job right, I tell you.”

  “Yes, like his sister.”

  “Shhh!”

  “Shut your trap, Jenny.”

  “You don’t know nothing about what happened. All you new ’uns care about is mystery and rumor.”

  “But—”

  “No! Now, off with you, before I give you something real to worry about, like a stripe on your backside.”

  There was a shuffling of feet, and the door slammed closed.

  Patience opened an eye and yelped as two watery blue eyes stared back, no more than three inches away.

  “Good, you’re up. The doctor will be here soon.”

  “Doctor?”

  John’s face appeared in her vision. “You were poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?”

  “Chemical fumes. Someone drugged you. Do you remember anything?”

  She furrowed her brow. “I was following T—, Blackfield. I wanted to speak with him about the second shipment,” she improvised. “When I entered the building and didn’t see him, I turned to leave.”

  “And?”

  “I smelled something strange.” She tried to remember. “And there was a noise I think, like a jar popping open.”

  The door opened, and a freckled maid’s face appeared. “The physician is here, ma’am.”

  The maid disappeared, and John sat pensively, staring after her.

  “How did I get here?”

  John turned back to her. “Blackfield carried you. Said he found you in one of the buildings. He terrified nearly all of the maids, at least the younger ones.” He looked closely at her. “He was angry. Very angry. Furious, in fact.”

  Patience shivered. “Was he angry with me?”

  John looked torn, as if debating with himself as to what to say. He sighed. “No. He didn’t look angry with you. He appeared angry because of you. After he brought you here, he stormed out, raising holy hell.” The words were dragged from John, as if he would have been happier to say Thomas was furious with her.

  “What was all that talk about Blackfield’s sister or was I imagining it?”

  “His sister died under some very unusual conditions. She was very young. The senior staff is secretive about it, but I overheard one of the younger maids say that rumors are that Blackfield murdered her.”

  Patience scoffed. “And I heard the head maid say otherwise.”

  John leaned forward. “But she didn’t actually explain anything, did she? Why is that, do you think?”

  She chewed her lip, surprised that it wasn’t already chapped, what with all the worrying she had done to it over the past few weeks.

  “I don’t know.” She leaned back. “Leave it for now.”

  The door opened, and a gaunt man carrying a satchel popped in.

  “Oh, and if that doctor tries to bleed me, I’ll sock him.”

  The doctor stopped his forward momentum. Thomas entered after him, the fury still lurking behind his eyes belying the slow smile curving his lips. She could see why the maids had been terrified if that unholy light in his eyes had been present before.

  “And if he tries to bleed you, I’ll hold him down for you.”

  The doctor’s eyes widened, and he blinked nervously at the leeches in his bag. Fortunately, or unfortunately, for him, a weathered woman bustled in and brushed the doctor aside.

  The gaunt man bristled. “Now, hold right there madam—”

  Thomas steered the doctor back toward the door. “Terribly sorry to have inconvenienced you, Doctor. Please accept our apologies. Kenfield will reimburse you for your time.”

  The man seemed somewhat mollified, but shot the woman a scalding look before leaving.

  “Here now, dearie,” the kind, but plainspoken woman said. “What seems to be the problem?”

  Patience took stock. She had a blazing headache, which she seemed to have forgotten in the initial excitement of waking up. “Headache, and I’m a bit dizzy.”

  The woman nodded. “That’s what his lordship thought you might be feeling. Drink this.”

  She handed Patience a vial of something. Patience gave it a doubtful glance and looked at Thomas, who gave her an encouraging nod. She drank it.

  It tasted like chalk and bark mixed with something long dead. The cure was worse than the symptoms. Hacking a bit, she shoved the vial back to the woman and resisted the urge to scrub her tongue. But the offending brew worked, and Patience felt some of the tension in her head ease.

  She reached for a water glass on the bedside table, hoping to rinse away the horrid taste. She shot Thomas a deadly glare. He had obviously known what it would taste like since he had recommended it.

  Speaking of which, how had he known what her symptoms would be? “What was that?”

  He gave a careless shrug, but amusement showed in his eyes. “A restorative. You should feel better soon.”

  “I do,” she said, with an acerbic edge. “How did you know what to give me?”

  “It should counteract the chemicals you inhaled.” He ignored her question and knelt next to her. “Why were you in the building?”

  “I saw you enter and followed. I wanted to talk to you.”

  His face was unreadable. She had no idea if he believed her or not.

  “Did you see anyone else?”

  “No. The building was empty. I called out and turned to exit. That was when the smell overpowered me. The next thing I knew I was listening to the maids arguing.”

  His expression turned amused for a second before becoming serious once again. “Please don’t go into those buildings unless I accompany you.”

  She weighed her words. “Thomas, what happens in those buildings?”

  “Nothing too exciting.” He sounded nonchalant, but the atmosphere was anything but.

  “I’ll bet,” she muttered.

  The weathered woman retreated to the back of the room to talk to John about something. Thomas pushed a loose tress of hair behind Patience’s ear and stroked her cheek.

  “Promise you won’t enter the perimeter buildings. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  She gave him a somewhat wobbly smile. “I am curious though. What is so secret?”

  He looked away from her. “Perhaps someday I’ll show you.”

  Patience wasn’t going to count on it. But even the revelation that she had fallen in love with Thomas didn’t stem her curiosity or uncertainty.

  They talked a bit more before he left. An hour later she was itching to leave her room. She walked to her workroom and halfheartedly went through the motions of cataloging a collection of Greek coins. It wasn’t until nearly dinnertime that Mrs. Tecking entered the room.

  “Heard you fainted while trailing after the viscount.”

  Patience refused to look up. “I’m feeling much better, thank you.”

  “Dangerous business you are getting yourself into.”

  Patience narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Throwing yourself at Blackfield.”

  “I am not throwing myself at Blackfield.”

  Mrs. Tecking hummed a bit. “Nasty rumors surrounding him.”

  “Yes, well, I don’t listen to rumors.”

  “The reality is worse, is it?”

  Patience sighed. “What do you want, Mr
s. Tecking? This is becoming rather irksome.”

  “Just a friendly warning, Miss Harrington.”

  “Friendly, ha,” she muttered under her breath, picking up another coin to distract herself from her guest and signal her disinterest in further conversation.

  Mrs. Tecking leaned forward conspiratorially. “They say everyone who gets close to the viscount dies.”

  Patience looked at the pinched face of the woman, the unhappy crease lines making her look old before her time. “That is rather an absurd comment. Even you would have to admit that Lord Blackfield is quite fond of Lady Caroline, who appears remarkably healthy.”

  Mrs. Tecking’s eyes narrowed for a second, before gleaming. “I heard tell that maybe she was in on the murder.”

  “Is this in regards to that tripe about his sister’s death?”

  Mrs. Tecking’s brows rose in surprise. “Heard of it already, have you? Hoping to escape the curse?”

  “One person’s death, though tragic, does not a curse make.”

  “That’s not what your Egyptian fairy tales say.” She hummed a bit more.

  “Yes, well, as hard as it was for me to separate fairy tale from the reality of the beau monde, I found myself turning over a new leaf after living in London. At the present, fairy tales seem much tamer in comparison.”

  Well, it looked as if she hadn’t quite conquered the bitterness yet. But there was always a bump or two in a work in progress.

  “Now, if you have finished your friendly warnings?” Patience didn’t wait for an answer. “I have work to do. Good afternoon, Mrs. Tecking.”

  The woman surprisingly left without further word.

  “She’s not a spy, Samuel.”

  Samuel raised a brow. “And what now makes you so sure?”

  Thomas looked at him incredulously. “She was attacked.”

  “Perhaps there was a falling-out amongst thieves.”

  Thomas gave him a dry look. “That is stretching things a bit far, don’t you think?”

  Samuel waved a distracted hand. “We are so close. We must catch the spies. We can’t allow them to ruin things. It’s all there, right in front of you. She. Is. A. Spy.”

  Samuel was passionate about their projects, but in his zealousness to catch the fiends he wasn’t being realistic.

  “No, she isn’t.”

  “Just because she was attacked?”

  Thomas ran his fingers through his hair. “No, not just because she was attacked. It just doesn’t feel right. She is innocent.”

  Samuel snorted. “She is anything but innocent, Thomas.”

  Thomas sent him a searing look. “You aren’t helping, Samuel.”

  “And you aren’t thinking with the correct portion of your anatomy! Seduce her, fine! Play with her body, entice yourself with her innocence and strange appeal. I thought your idea to seduce her was splendid, but somehow you are the one who is ending up seduced! By some mousy nobody who can barely string together two sentences in public.”

  Thomas narrowed his eyes as Samuel continued ranting.

  “Goodness, man, I’m not even sure what you see in her. She’s a mousy thing, always wearing those spectacles about, her figure barely average. And that barbaric mane of hair.” He shuddered for effect.

  “That’s enough, Samuel.” Thomas clenched his fists. He had never been more furious with his friend.

  Samuel made a placating gesture. “Fine, Thomas, my apologies to Miss Harrington. But look at the evidence. You know better than to trust some random emotion, especially one resembling adoration. The evidence says it all. She has the connections, the motive, and the opportunity. She speaks French. Her maid is French. Her mother was French. Our spies are French.”

  “She is not a spy!”

  “She is not innocent! She is a terrific actress—she should be treading the boards in Covent Garden! She will betray you. Just like what happened to Kevin McSweeney, mark my words.”

  “Fine, consider them marked.”

  Samuel sighed. “Just be careful.”

  “Thank you for your concern,” Thomas said, in a clipped voice.

  Samuel held up his hands. “You are the one that was always griping about Letty’s death and guarding your heart so that it couldn’t happen again.”

  Thomas considered strangling his friend. But then he would have to hide the body, and it would be just his luck to run into Patience as he was carrying some musty, old oriental rug wrapped around Samuel’s dead form. No doubt Patience would have to examine the rug. And then she’d yell at him for bloodying a priceless antique.

  “Listen, Thomas. It was wrong of me to bring up Letty. I just don’t want to see you hurt.” Samuel worried his lip just like Patience would in the situation.

  Thomas sighed. “It’s fine, Samuel. I know Patience isn’t ‘innocent’ innocent. But I still don’t think she is a spy.”

  Samuel smiled in relief. “Then you will stick to the plan? And if she’s not a spy, perhaps you will gain a fine mistress out of her.”

  Thomas considered the different rugs lying around the castle. Surely he could find one that Patience wouldn’t care about?

  Patience decided to seek Thomas out after everyone had turned in for the night, having missed him at dinner. She needed to talk to him, find out more about what had happened to her earlier, and maybe ask a few questions that had been raised since then. And frankly, she just wanted to be with him, the man she had fallen in love with.

  She was unsurprised to find him in his study. He seemed equally unsurprised to see her, even going so far as to hand her an already poured glass of wine as if he had been expecting her.

  “Would you care to stroll through the gardens?”

  She took a sip of the Madeira. It was sweet and slid easily over her tongue. The gardens would be dark, but the moon was nearly full, bright enough to lead the way and perhaps lead to other delightful things. “I would love to.”

  He held out his arm and they strolled through a back door that led directly to the formal gardens. Thomas didn’t linger. He headed for the maze, his fingers caressing her hand as it lay on top of his arm.

  “You weren’t at dinner,” she said casually, as they entered the maze. The air was still but for a nightingale who was singing his little heart out in one of the hedges. She had a feeling they were headed toward the garden at the center. It was well hidden from prying eyes and was hard to hear through the high hedgerows.

  “Something came up.” He grimaced briefly, then looked through the fringe of hair that fell into his eyes. “Did you miss me, Patience?”

  A thrill coursed through her at the tenor of his words. They were deep and hot and dark, just like the rest of him.

  “Oh, of course I missed you. Who else can dampen an entire meal by raising one sardonic eyebrow and expressing one cutting comment?”

  “Your colleague, Mrs. Tecking, seems to handle that in my stead.”

  Delighted laughter escaped from her, and she leaned into his body. Taking another sip of her Madeira as they walked, she murmured, “Poor Mrs. Tecking, unable to defend herself whilst we talk of her.”

  “I’d much rather talk about you anyway,” he said, his breath caressing her ear.

  They turned into the maze garden, the atmosphere inside as heavy with anticipation as with the brilliant smell of clematis and hydrangeas.

  “Let’s discuss you instead,” she said. “And what you do in those buildings during the day and all hours of the night.”

  “Tut, tut, Patience. You are not living up to your name. I said someday, not today.”

  “Someday could be twenty years from now.”

  He led her to one of the stone benches and lifted a heavy blanket from the ground, laying it over the stone. He had obviously planned their walk. He pulled her down next to him on the bench. “Will you still be talking to me in twenty years?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  He scooted a bit closer, and her body hummed in awareness.
It seemed that after last night’s activities, it didn’t take much for her body to remember exactly what it had felt like to have him so close. Her body moved toward him of its own accord.

  “On you.”

  “Mmmmm.” He reached out and stroked a lock of her hair, rubbing it between his forefinger and thumb.

  His fingers moved to the nape of her neck, just as they had the night before, and he stroked one finger down. His other hand plucked her glass and set it on the ground. He did the same with the glasses on her nose.

  A firm tug had her sprawled on the bench, her legs dangling over the side. As he leaned over her, she registered that he hadn’t answered her unspoken question. A vague sense of unease stole over her. She looked into his eyes, the deep, possessive tint from the night before was still present, but it was overlaid by real fondness. She relaxed, breathing in the lush scents of the surrounding flowers and the night air. She hadn’t read him wrong after all. Her skills at reading others had failed her in London, but she liked to think she had honed her ability.

  He covered her lips with his, and she stopped thinking.

  His deft fingers worked at the buttons on the back of her dress, as he subtly pushed against her with his hips. A surge of some feeling centered where his body touched hers. A need for something she couldn’t name unfurled in her body and mind. His hands moved across her skin as he pulled her dress down her arms. She startled as she had been so caught up in the feel of him against her that she hadn’t realized he had finished unbuttoning her dress. Each touch of his fingers blazed a trail of heat across her skin.

  Her corset was duly unlaced, her shift, garters, and stockings summarily removed. Somewhere along the line he lost his shirt, all the while his lips and tongue stroked hers, his hands caressed each new area he laid bare until she was lying naked before him.

  He drew back slightly to look at her. The soft glow of the moonlight and relaxing scent of beeswax and flowers were lulling, but falling in love with him or not, she was self-conscious enough to attempt to put her hands in front of her.

  He circled her wrists and drew them up and over her head with one hand, laying her completely open for his view. His eyes were dark. Dark with passion, power, and something she couldn’t name. He ran his free hand down the center of her body, curling around her breasts, her navel and the curls at the base, around her thighs and back up. His eyes captured hers as his fingers continued their exploration. Like a dark panther stalking its prey. That she was perfectly happy being the prey should have surprised her, but instead only caused the pool of heat at her center to rise a few degrees and for her to forget to be self-conscious as she reveled in the look in his eyes and the feel of his hands.