“Put the question of whether Sir Wallace will come up to scratch aside for the moment. It is early in the season. More gentlemen may yet show interest.” Lady Casterly did her best to defuse the swirling tension.
It had been two long years of Delilah deferring to her mother’s directives. “Even if no other offers are forthcoming, I will not marry Sir Wallace.”
“Time will tell,” Lady Casterly said cryptically. “There is one thing your mother and I agree upon: Lord Wyndam offers nothing but trouble.”
What if trouble is what I crave? Delilah fisted the delicate fabric of her skirts.
“Promise me you’ll not see or talk to Wyndam again, Delilah.” Her mother reached out a hand.
With only a slight hesitation, Delilah met her halfway for a quick, conciliatory squeeze. “I… promise,” she finally whispered, knowing yet another lie had left her lips.
“Excellent. I’ll inform Kirby we are not at home for Lord Wyndam.” Her mother bustled out, her relief palpable.
“Your mother loves you.” Lady Casterly took a seat but remained perched on the edge, her back ramrod straight. Did the woman lie down to sleep, or did she have a contraption to keep her regally upright?
“As I love her and Father.”
“I have nothing against Lord Wyndam, you know, but he would make a terrible match. Unfortunately, whether it is deserved or not, Edward left his son a scandal.”
The use of his first name jolted Delilah to prod for more information. “You knew Marcus’s father well then?”
“Quite well. A fine man.” Lady Casterly gazed out the window but seemed to be looking even farther beyond. Years beyond. “Wilomina, the current Lord Wyndam’s mother, was a delightful girl as well. Sadly, their love story was doomed from the start.”
“Because she was Irish?”
“Yes. To make matters worse, her father was merely a squire. A common horse breeder. Nevertheless, I enjoyed her and hoped Edward might find some happiness with her. He did for a time, I suppose, but she died soon after giving birth.”
“If Lord Wyndam is an earl and you approved of his parents, why are you adamant about me not associating with him?”
“Because I understand the ways in which he wants to associate with you. He’s too fierce and wild for a gently bred young lady.” Lady Casterly leaned over her cane, her gaze like a set of pins on a butterfly’s wings. “I wasn’t always an old woman. I’ve had a husband and lovers.”
Delilah prayed for a giant hole to open and swallow her whole.
Lady Casterly had slammed through polite barriers, and it was only strength of will that kept Delilah from squirming. When Lady Casterly spoke again, her voice was low but sharp with warning. “I see the way your gaze follows him. He fascinates you. Were you off with him at Harrington’s? Gilmore’s? Are you truly ruined?”
Delilah clutched her neck while her throat worked to get words out. “I didn’t… I’m not… Nothing happened,” she repeated inanely.
If one discounted murder, escaping out a window, retreating to a gentleman’s rooms, and a kiss that had both saved and changed her life, nothing had happened. After all, she was still untouched in the ways that would concern a husband.
“Make sure it remains so.” Lady Casterly gave her one final knee-quivering look before turning a banal smile toward Delilah’s mother on her return.
“It seems I caught Kirby in the nick of time. Lord Wyndam presented himself as I hid behind the door.” Her mother sat, arranged her skirts, and picked up her embroidery, seemingly content everything was worked out to her satisfaction.
Delilah popped up and strode to the door, her nerves jangling. “I’m feeling quite wrung out. May I be excused to read and rest for a bit?”
“Certainly, dear. We want you looking your best tonight at the Underwood’s musicale.” Her mother favored her with a smile, but it was tinged with worry. Delilah felt suffocated by her mother’s machinations and was relieved to make her escape.
She went to her window and twitched the draperies open. London, dirty and magnificent, stretched out under a brilliant blue sky. How was she, a sheltered debutante with an overprotective mother and a shrewd sponsor, supposed to locate Marcus without bringing about her own ruination?
Chapter 7
The Underwood musicale was as tedious and bereft of talent as Delilah had expected. Her mind wandered and worried during the cringe-inducing missed notes of Miss Underwood the elder’s plodding rendition of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”
Sir Wallace, snoring to her left, snorted and jerked upright, drawing stares and titters. Delilah pinched her lips together to stem her own laughter. After the piece ended, Lady Underwood announced a break in the entertainment. A few young bucks in the back clapped more enthusiastically at the announcement than for the performance.
Delilah remained seated, hoping her cool demeanor would send Sir Wallace off for more scintillating company, but since she’d taken to ignoring or outright rebuffing him, his interest had grown keener. She would never understand gentlemen.
Her mother and Lady Casterly hadn’t helped matters when they conceived of ways to force them together. Resentment wedged its way into her heart like a festering splinter. Her vociferous opposition to Sir Wallace meant nothing.
“Are you enjoying the music, Miss Bancroft?” Sir Wallace reached into his jacket for a snuffbox with a scantily clad woman painted on the lid and took two pinches up his nose.
“Quite. How was your nap?” The smile she turned on him felt a bit vicious. A proper lady wouldn’t have mentioned his lapse, but she feared she would never qualify as such.
Sir Wallace tugged at the points of his collar and smoothed a hand down the front of his jacket. “Miss Bancroft, I regret if I’ve done anything to offend. You must know I hold you in the highest regard, and I hope to speak to your father as soon as he is returned from seeing to his ships in Portsmouth.”
Fear and dread fed the kernel of anger she’d nurtured since she’d overheard his hurtful assessment of her. She met his gaze, her brows rising, not sure her show of nonchalance was successful. “You don’t think me too quiet and boring? Too much like brown paneling?”
“Certainly not. You are exceedingly—”
“Passable?” She’d gone too far. The cogs of his brain started to turn, and his eyes dulled with the effort. With luck, they were rusty. A change of subject was required. Perhaps his self-professed connections would prove useful after all. “Sir Wallace, are you familiar with Fieldstones?”
For a moment, he was still, and she assumed he must not have heard of Fieldstones. Then his eyes turned bug-like. “Familiar? I should say not. And I’m surprised to hear a lady such as yourself mention such a club.”
She’d unwittingly stepped onto a perilous conversational ledge. Still, she did her best to pick up the scattered crumbs of information. A club, and a scandalous one at that if the mere mention threatened to bring down the wrath of genteel Society.
He continued as if her moral character was impugned now. “The debauchery associated with that place should never be associated with a young innocent such as yourself. Put it out of your mind. Where did you hear the name?”
“Merely an overheard conversation. Pray, excuse me. Lady Casterly is gesturing me over.” Lady Casterly was doing no such thing, but Delilah needed to escape before Sir Wallace asked more questions.
She rose, but her attempt at an elegant retreat was marred when her foot looped around the leg of a chair in the tightly packed drawing room. Momentum kept her moving, her feet stumbling to keep up, until she caught herself on the instrument of the previous hour’s pain—the pianoforte. Her forearm landed on the keys, the jolt of a multitude of discordant notes silencing the room.
Every gaze swung to her. The blush heating her face could have started a fire. She straightened and did the first thing that came to mind. She pasted on a smile and curtsied as if the Prince Regent himself were present. Soft laughter rolled through the room. She rais
ed her chin and glided straight down the aisle, ignoring the sound, knowing it was at her expense but not maliciously so.
The crowd was almost impenetrable. She pardoned and excused her way through the finely dressed members of the ton. As she sidled between the backs of two gentlemen, the elbow of one man jostled her, and she dropped her fan.
The man turned and murmured an apology. It was Lord Whitmire, a gentleman she’d been introduced to at a ball early in the season. He had silver hair and was clad in a fine jacket of bottle-green velvet.
Although he was handsome, his smile held no warmth, and instead of attraction, she experienced only discomfort under his gaze. His attendance at the musicale was surprising because she’d heard he was discriminating and spent most of his time at Westminster or with Prinny and his circle.
He broke eye contact, retrieving her dropped fan and holding it out to her with a small bow. “Yours, I believe?”
“Yes, thank you.” She took the fan and tugged. Whitmire held on a fraction too long before letting go. Delilah favored him with a small smile and made an escape, flicking her fan open as soon as the crowd thinned.
Refreshments were being served in a room at the back of the town house, but by the time she arrived, no lemonade remained, only champagne. She took a glass, drank it in three swallows, and allowed a footman to refill her glass.
A breeze tickled the hair at the back of her neck. Doors thrown open to the garden outside beckoned. There was no sign of her mother, Lady Casterly, or Sir Wallace. With her luck, Sir Wallace was informing her mother of her unmaidenly interest in a club she shouldn’t even be aware of. She sidled outside the door, seeking a moment’s peace before being subjected to another round of torture by Beethoven.
“You certainly know how to make an exit.” The wry, lilting voice had her spinning for the source.
Marcus stepped out of the shadow of a pillar, dressed in the same set of formal clothes he’d worn to Gilmore’s soiree. The earthiness of a cheroot weaved among the sweet scent of spring flowers in the air.
“You saw?” Delilah’s fan picked up its pace.
“The curtsy was a nice touch.”
“Mortifying.”
“It was actually quite charming.”
He was humoring her, and she didn’t appreciate it, but more pressing matters took precedence. “I discovered Fieldstones is a scandalous club.”
He shushed her, glanced over her shoulder, and took her hand. He led her down the garden path until they were hidden between thorny rose bushes and the back wall. He propped his shoulder against the bricks, one foot over the other, his stance casual, his green eyes anything but.
“You haven’t put yourself in danger, I hope?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
His raised eyebrows cast doubt on her knee-jerk denial.
“I merely inquired about the place while conversing with Sir Wallace,” she added with a little hitch to her words.
He covered his mouth, his fingers muffling his words. “I can only imagine how that went.”
“Hence my graceless escape.”
“Fieldstones is a private club that caters to the debauched tastes of the upper classes.” He stroked his chin and stared up at the blackened sky.
“Are we going?”
Marcus straightened, his nonchalance vanished. “Hold right there. We are not going anywhere near Fieldstones.”
Her feelings were inexplicably pricked. “You’re going without me?”
He made a guffaw of disbelief. “A young lady can’t be witness to such vulgarities.”
“Pray tell, what is more vulgar than murder?”
He ran a hand down his face and gave a slight shake of his head. “Point taken.”
“Without me, how will you identify the killer?”
“I refuse to subject you to the danger and debauchery that a foray to Fieldstones may entail. Anyway, Gilmore will be my unsuspecting guide.” Marcus made debauchery and danger sound entirely too appealing.
“Being a woman is tedious.” Her frustration was trumped by a sad sort of resignation.
“I would have you at my side if it were possible, Delilah.” Earnestness roughened his voice. He took her shoulders in a squeeze, his thumbs dancing over her collarbones. A delicious shiver shimmied down her back, which suddenly and inexplicably arched.
He glided a hand up her shoulder until he cupped her nape. “The braids suit you. You remind me of a rampaging Boadicea.”
“Curls are de rigueur this season. I’m terribly out of fashion.”
“Current fashion is overrated. You’re lovely.” He fingered a tendril of her hair that had come loose in the back, the slight tug whirling a strange sort of pleasure through her like a storm, the thunder settling in her lower belly.
“I’m barely passable.” Her voice cracked like rotten wood.
“Balderdash.” His eyes twinkled as if they had captured starlight. “I’m surprised you don’t have dozens of suitors camped in your drawing room, lass.”
“I’m the unaccomplished daughter of a merchant with a rich dowry.”
“Don’t marry Sir Wallace, Delilah,” he said softly.
She couldn’t imagine kissing Sir Wallace, much less begetting his heirs. Not like she imagined kissing Marcus. She feared she would not be given the choice.
“Mother made me promise not to see or speak with you,” she said. “She and Lady Casterly think you are a harbinger of disaster.”
“Yet here you are.” He brushed the pad of his thumb along her cheekbone.
She closed her eyes and nuzzled into the palm of his hand like a kitten. “Here I am.”
Delilah’s body swayed closer, her breasts a hairbreadth away from his chest. He craved her softness against him. He wanted to explore her lips and tongue and teeth with his own. He wanted to take his time with her. All night wouldn’t be enough.
But even more, he wanted to take her hand and explore London at her side. Wanted to sit across the dinner table and discuss topics ranging from the weather to the state of the world. Wanted to whirl her around a dance floor and have her grin at him.
It was madness. Utter and complete madness.
He dropped his hand back to her shoulder and put distance between them. “Your mother and Lady Casterly speak the truth.”
Her eyes fluttered open, trusting and confused. He fought the urge to toss her over his shoulder and spirit her away. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket. “What?”
“Even if I manage to clear my father’s name—my name—the rumors are entrenched, and polite Society will forever look askance at me.”
She batted his arm away. “I should accept Sir Wallace’s suit then?”
No. The word reverberated in his head, but his mouth remained clamped shut. Anything else would be selfish considering he had less than nothing to offer her. The estate was in shambles, his name incited the cut direct, and his mission to clear his father of wrongdoing might well see him on the pointy end of a knife.
A throaty sound of disgust preceded her spin and march away. He reached out a hand but drew a fist of air and let her go. She disappeared inside as one of the Underhill ladies butchered another classical masterpiece.
He rubbed his chest and wondered at the crushing loneliness besetting him. He’d lost his beloved grandparents and his father less than a year apart, but the thought of losing Delilah—a woman he had no right to claim as his—hollowed him out and left him bereft for something that could never be.
Instead of chancing a run-in with Mrs. Bancroft or Lady Casterly, Marcus toed himself over the brick wall separating the garden from the mews. Strolling toward the main thoroughfare, the knicker of a horse stopped him.
The musky scent of the stables drew him like the Pied Piper. A black gelding with a distinctive white star on its forehead was tied to the post, its saddle still in place. The horse snuffled in Marcus’s palm as if looking for a treat, and it shook its head when it realized Marcus had come empty-handed.
&nb
sp; “Rude of me, but I didn’t realize I would be meeting a beauty such as yourself this evening.” Marcus rubbed the horse’s muzzle.
Horses were Marcus’s first love. His dream was to breed horses and sell them to the very men who considered his name tainted. None of his protests otherwise had made a difference. Perhaps, over time, he could whitewash the stain of his father’s supposed treachery, but the ton had a long memory. Even the decades-old scandal of his titled father marrying an Irish squire’s daughter had the power to still resonate.
He leaned his forehead against the horse’s white blaze. “What’s next for me, do you suppose?”
As if in answer, male voices twined their way from the narrow alley. Instinct had him ducking inside the mews and crouching down in the first stall. He gently shouldered the resident horse aside with a soft shush. Although he hadn’t done anything wrong, being found hiding would make any prostrations of his innocence less than believable.
Two men approached, their accents fingering them as part of the ton.
“I prefer to conduct business at the office. My wife and daughter are inside.” It was Hawkins. Marcus recognized the crisp, cool tone.
“I apologize, sir, but I’m afraid we have a problem.”
Hawkins’s long, loud sigh spoke his exasperation. “Go on, then.”
The second man’s voice dropped in timbre, and Marcus strained to hear him. “Old Lord Wyndam’s son has been sniffing around.”
“And?” Impatience clipped the word.
“And?” The man’s voice contained a vibration of anger even as it dropped in timbre. “What if he killed Quinton for the book? He certainly has the motive to bury the truth.”
The instinct to pop up and claim his innocence warred with the wisdom to stay hidden and ferret out as much information as possible.
“I understand you want to avenge Quinton’s death, but I’m not convinced young Wyndam is to blame. We have been unable to decode the pages as of yet. The cipher used is complicated. It might clear the old earl, not damn him.” Hawkins’s voice had lost its impatient edge, and while Marcus wouldn’t call the man’s tone warm, it bordered on sympathetic.
A SINFUL SURRENDER: Spies and Lovers Page 9