“I can’t believe Mr. Hawthorne’s just letting you spend whatever you like on the house,” Lucretia muttered.
“Well, why shouldn’t he?” Messalina inquired, a bit hypocritically considering all the arguing she’d had to do on her first trip to this shop. She paused by a side table with a red marble top and fanciful gilt legs that might work for the library. “It’s my money, after all.”
“But it’s not,” Lucretia replied. “Not legally, anyway. It’s all his.”
“I already told you I have plans to regain some of it.” Messalina stopped and turned toward her younger sister curiously. “Do you want Gideon to keep me from my money until then?”
“No, of course not.” Lucretia scowled at the side table. “I’m just suspicious about his motives.”
“You’re always suspicious. But I do understand why you’re worried over this in particular.” Messalina sighed, strolling past the side table. It was very garish. “All I can say is that we’ve made the best of this marriage, Gideon and I. He’s ambitious and has a terrible past, it’s true, but he’s very clever, and I find his conversation quite stimulating.”
“Stimulating,” Lucretia said flatly.
Messalina felt heat invade her cheeks. “Yes, stimulating.”
Lucretia stopped, and Messalina took several steps before she realized she’d left her sister behind. She turned.
Lucretia’s mouth had fallen open. “You bedded him!”
The clerk who had begun to discreetly shadow them did an about-face and appeared to remember an urgent matter on the opposite side of the showroom.
Messalina glared at Lucretia. “Must you announce my affairs to the entire shop?”
Lucretia hurried to her side and hissed, “You did.”
At least her voice was a little lower. “I don’t—”
“Last night,” Lucretia continued, pursing her lips and inspecting Messalina all over as if looking for a sign proclaiming that Messalina was no longer virginal. “Because you said just yesterday that you hadn’t. What was it like?”
“Lucretia.” Her face felt as if it were pulsing with heat.
But her sister had an intent thinking expression on her face. This was exactly why no one who knew Lucretia would play charades with her anymore. “You must’ve enjoyed it because you called him stimulating. And this morning at breakfast you had a silly smile on your face—”
“I did not!”
“I think you enjoyed it very much indeed.”
“Oh my Lord,” Messalina sighed.
Lucretia narrowed her eyes. “Was there blood?”
“What,” Messalina muttered, looking around for something to distract her sister.
A blond young woman was standing by the door to the shop, her bearing oddly familiar. For a second Messalina stared. She almost looked like—
“Because,” Lucretia continued relentlessly, drawing Messalina’s attention back to her, “they always go on and on about blood. If one is to believe the tales, it’s a wonder that all newly married women don’t bleed to death on their wedding night.”
For a moment Messalina could only gape in horror at her sister. She glanced back at the doorway, but the woman was gone.
Messalina shook her head and pointed blindly at a dressing table. “What about this one for your room?”
They both contemplated the table. It had a yellow marble top, and the legs were made entirely of gilt curlicues and…cupids. Naked gold babies with hardened middle-aged man faces.
Lucretia tilted her head, staring at the abominable dressing table. “Truly?”
“Dear goodness, no.”
“Hm,” Lucretia mused. “You know…”
Messalina looked at Lucretia when her words trailed away. Lucretia hardly ever hesitated to say exactly what she thought. “What?”
Lucretia frowned horribly and said in a rush, “I only want you to be happy. Truly happy, not just content. You used to loathe Mr. Hawthorne—we both did, the way he spied and lurked. I just don’t understand how you can have changed your mind so quickly.”
“Well, part of it is I didn’t truly know the man,” Messalina said dryly.
“And you do now?” Lucretia’s gray eyes—the same shade as her own—searched her face.
“Not completely,” Messalina admitted. “I’ve only been married to him less than a fortnight. But in that time he’s talked to me. He’s listened to me. Perhaps…perhaps I’ll find out something to his detriment in the future, but right now I have hope.” She half smiled. “I think even in the best of marriages that may be the only important thing.”
“But”—Lucretia turned to face Messalina, her expression grave—“have you thought about what will happen when we leave?”
Messalina blinked. She’d rather been avoiding the thought of leaving Gideon. She traced the inlay on a cabinet. “I don’t—”
“Because you might be with child.”
Messalina stilled at the stark words. Of course she knew that. Of course she’d considered that lying with her husband might result in a child.
Except she really hadn’t—not explicitly, anyway. The only thing she’d been thinking about last night was the pleasure Gideon was giving her.
She inhaled and looked at her sister. “If I’m with child, then…then we’ll deal with it. I certainly wouldn’t be the first woman pretending to be a widow to settle in a small town.”
“Very well,” Lucretia said, though she still looked worried.
Messalina glanced around the shop. “Which dressing table do you like?”
“I was thinking of that one.” She pointed to a darling rosewood dressing table inlaid on the top with various colored woods to form a basket of roses.
“That is lovely,” Messalina said. “Naturally we’ll buy it for your room.”
Lucretia looked doubtful, but thankfully didn’t pursue the matter. Instead they spent the remainder of their shopping trip picking out odds and ends and arguing pleasantly over a fire screen.
When Lucretia collapsed dramatically on the carriage squabs, she moaned, “It’s tragic that your cook can’t make cakes. Or tartlets. Those tiny lemon curd ones that you can pop whole into your mouth.”
Messalina snorted. “Only if you want to demonstrate your lack of manners.”
Lucretia waved a dismissive hand. “Should we worry about manners when we’re only with family?”
“Yes,” Messalina said firmly as the carriage made them both sway. “As for my cook, well, there’s something you should know about him.”
She proceeded to explain Hicks’s circumstances.
“Oh,” Lucretia said when Messalina came to the end. “Now I feel wretched for maligning him.” She stared at the ceiling of the carriage for a contemplative moment. “Do you know, I’ve never truly thought about how cooks are trained.” She turned to Messalina. “Have you?”
“Well, now I have,” Messalina said. “But you’re right. I enjoyed the meals but didn’t think about who made them. After all, the cooks in the houses we’ve lived in or visited have always been just there.”
“And yet,” Lucretia mused, “I can see that it would be hard to learn the art of cookery if one hadn’t a position in a big house.”
It would, Messalina thought. Unless he cooked for one of the big inns in London, there weren’t many places a young man could learn to cook. Hicks had apparently worked at a tavern where the food was quite simple.
She mused on the thought for the rest of the carriage ride home.
When they arrived back at Whispers some half hour later, Lucretia was rather wilted.
Messalina eyed the four big men descending from their carriage. All four had trailed them through Bond Street, only steps behind.
Gideon had doubled her guard.
Lucretia had noticed their shadows, pressing questions on her. Messalina rather thought her sister didn’t believe the excuse that Gideon liked showing off his retinue.
“I don’t understand,” Lucretia said as she slu
mped up the stairs to the house, “why I should be so terribly exhausted. After all, we spent the day merely pointing to things and buying them. I feel as if I’ve run thrice around London Town.”
“Shopping is always tiring,” Messalina replied. She spotted Reggie inside the entryway.
The big man shuffled his feet. “Two ladies waiting for you in th’ sitting room, ma’am.”
Messalina stared. And then she grabbed Lucretia’s hand and squeezed it. “Could you please ask Cook for some tea and refreshments?”
“Aye, ma’am,” Reggie replied. “Though I don’t know that ’Icks is familiar with ladies’ refreshments.”
“Maybe not,” Messalina murmured. “If he doesn’t know what to send, tell him bread and butter with some jam will do.”
Reggie nodded and retreated in the direction of the kitchens.
Messalina tried to keep calm as she led the way upstairs.
Lucretia hissed as they walked along the upper hall, “What is it? Do you know who your guests are?”
But Messalina couldn’t speak, the anticipation was too strong.
She hurried through the open sitting room doors. Inside a woman with flaming red hair stood by the settee where another lady was sitting.
“Freya!” Messalina ran to the red-haired lady’s arms.
Freya Renshaw, the Duchess of Harlowe, hugged her for several long seconds before stepping back. “Darling, you must explain everything.”
“You got my letter, then?” Messalina asked.
“Letter?” Freya said slowly. “No. But then Kester and I have been on the road to London for the past week.”
“You must’ve crossed paths with it,” Messalina sighed.
“Are all London rooms so bare?” asked a husky voice behind them.
Messalina started and only then remembered Lucretia and the second woman sitting on the settee.
She turned to look.
Lucretia was still standing, watching her and Freya raptly.
The other lady, however, was perusing the room, her head thrown back to look at the mural of bathing nymphs on the ceiling. She was plump, her cheeks rosy, and her hair was a cloud of red and gold, rather messily pinned up.
“Male painters are quite fascinated by buttocks, aren’t they?” the woman said in a surprisingly throaty voice. “And quite pink ones at that.”
Her eyes dropped and she glanced at the other ladies in the room. “Have I missed anything?”
Freya rolled her eyes. “Do you remember my sister Elspeth?”
“Elspeth?” Lucretia looked suspicious. “The same Elspeth who used to steal the strawberry jam when she visited our nursery for tea?”
“I do love strawberry jam,” Elspeth said dreamily.
Lucretia narrowed her eyes.
“How wonderful to see you again.” Messalina smiled, crossing to give the younger woman a hug. She stood back to examine Elspeth’s face. “Though I’m not sure I’d recognize you without Freya’s prompting. You were only five, I think.”
“I was six,” Elspeth said, and she fixed her light-blue eyes on Messalina. “And I remember you because you read to me once.”
“I did?”
Elspeth nodded solemnly. “Poems. Elizabethan poems. I don’t believe I understood a word, but I liked the sound of your voice. That summer before it all happened.”
It was long ago—fifteen years—but they all knew the date. It was when Aurelia Greycourt had died and Ran de Moray had been maimed.
For a moment no one spoke.
And then Lucretia said, “And you stole my top.”
She was glaring at Elspeth.
“Did not,” Elspeth replied far too quickly. “You gave it to me.”
Lucretia placed her hands on her hips. “I didn’t. I left it by that awful bust of some Roman emperor in the library. And when I came back it was gone.”
“Hmm,” Elspeth murmured thoughtfully. “No, I remember you gave it to me when we were having tea in your nursery.”
Lucretia’s face looked like a thundercloud.
Fortunately, at that moment Pea came in with the tea.
“Oh, bread and jam,” Elspeth said. “Is it strawberry, do you suppose?”
She smiled at Lucretia.
Messalina blinked and glanced upward at the painted ladies on the ceiling. When Elspeth smiled she looked rather like an old master’s beauty.
Lucretia sat next to Elspeth—apparently to guard the jam.
Messalina sighed heavily as she gestured for Freya to take one of the chairs while she sat on the other.
She poured the tea. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Freya took a cup. “Tell me.”
Messalina explained what had happened when she and Gideon reached London and how she’d been forced into marriage.
When she finished, Freya said, “I wish I could have been here.” She shook her head and glanced at Elspeth. “But Kester and I had gone to fetch Elspeth from the Wise Women compound. My sister was in training to be the Wise Women’s next Bibliothacar—the keeper of our history and books.”
Lucretia looked between Freya and Messalina. “Wise Women?”
And Messalina realized with a guilty start that she hadn’t told Lucretia about them.
But it was Elspeth who replied to Lucretia. “We are an ancient society of women, descended some believe from priestesses who guided these isles before the Romans came.” Her eyes lit. “Our history is really quite fascinating, for instance—”
Freya cleared her throat. “Perhaps it’s our modern history that’s most pertinent at the moment.”
“I think I disagree there, Sister,” Elspeth said gently.
“Ancient priestesses?” Lucretia burst out. “Is this a jest?”
“Oh no,” Elspeth said earnestly. “We’ve a compound in—”
Freya loudly cleared her throat.
“—the north,” Elspeth said without missing a beat. “We have—had—nearly two thousand people there, including children and men—”
“Wait,” Lucretia interrupted, looking intent. “How can there be children if this society is made up of priestesses?”
Elspeth smiled a little condescendingly at Lucretia. “Priestesses who aren’t from a male-led religion. We have never been celibate. But in any case, we no longer call ourselves priestesses. We’re Wise Women. Although,” she continued with an academic air, “you do bring up an interesting aspect of our society, namely sex with men. There are quite a few differing opinions—”
Freya coughed. “Perhaps we should return to the main point.”
“Yes.” Messalina’s brows knitted. Did she truly want to leave Gideon anymore? “I’d thought perhaps…”
“That the Wise Women could help you?” Freya exchanged a grim glance with Elspeth. “No, I’m afraid they can’t.”
“Not since the closing,” Elspeth said sadly.
“What closing?” Messalina asked.
Freya pursed her lips. “The leaders who have come to power in the Wise Women have decided to isolate the compound.” She met Messalina’s gaze. “They intend to close the Wise Women to all outside influences. The Women who didn’t agree with that ruling left.”
“And went out into the wide, wide world,” Elspeth murmured, watching Lucretia pile jam on her bread. “Like a fairy tale.”
Messalina felt a guilty wave of relief. She’d have to wait, then, until Gideon handed her the money.
She glanced at Freya. “And Caitriona? Did she stay behind?”
Caitriona was the middle de Moray sister.
Freya frowned in what looked like frustration. “Caitriona had already left when Kester and I got there. I don’t know where she is. We even stopped by Ayr Castle, but Lachlan swore he hadn’t seen her.”
Lachlan was the second brother in the de Moray family. Messalina vaguely remembered that he managed his brother’s estates.
“Caitriona makes her own way,” Elspeth said calmly. “There’s no point in chasing after her.”
<
br /> The door to the sitting room opened. Sam came in, carefully holding a tray. Daisy was trotting by his side, his eyes firmly fixed on the tray. “’Icks said as ’e thought you might want more ’freshments, ma’am.”
Lucretia gasped, “Why didn’t you tell me there was a puppy in the house?”
She made kissing noises at Daisy, who happily gamboled over. Lucretia scooped him up, and the puppy responded by attempting to lick her face. “Oh, what’s his name?”
Sam said shyly, “’Is name is Daisy.”
“What a lovely name.” Freya smiled at the boy. “Is he yours?”
“No, ma’am,” Sam said as he set the tea tray on the table.
“He’s mine,” Messalina cut in. “But Sam is Daisy’s keeper and takes care of him for me.”
“Is he?” Elspeth fed the puppy a piece of her bread. “What a smart boy.”
“He is indeed,” Messalina replied, thoughtfully.
Sam was smart. He ought to have an education.
She realized suddenly that the boy was looking at her expectantly. She smiled. “Would you like to go to the kitchens for tea and some bread and butter while we watch Daisy?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sam said at once, and spun on his heel to hurry out.
“Where did you get him?” Freya asked when the door had shut.
Messalina arched an eyebrow. “The boy or the dog?”
Freya shook her head at her jest. “Daisy of course.”
The puppy scrambled over Lucretia’s arm to get to Elspeth and her bread.
“Gideon gave him to me.”
Messalina suddenly found herself at the target of three sets of eyes.
“Did he?” Freya asked thoughtfully.
“I think I should do anything for a puppy,” Elspeth remarked, letting Daisy down.
And Lucretia said with alarming approval, “How Machiavellian.”
The puppy had wandered over to sniff at Messalina’s skirts.
She bent and lifted him to her lap, where he greeted her with a wet nose.
“I don’t know why everyone should find that so surprising,” Messalina said in what even to her sounded like a defensive voice.
Freya was still eyeing her. “Perhaps you should tell me what has happened since your marriage?”
“You really, really should,” Lucretia muttered.
When a Rogue Meets His Match Page 19