THE EVENING HAD SEEMED interminable, but as Elise leaned again out her window, listening to the last of the carriages rolling away amid shouted farewells, she knew a surge of pride—for herself and for Philippe—that it had been a success. She thought she’d heard someone retching somewhere outside in the shrubbery. She saw a cluster of men farther up the road staggering along, singing “The Ballad of Colin Eversea.”
Two men behind them were having a fervent exchange.
“Have I told you I love you, Jones? I do, ol’ man. You’re the besht friend. The very besht.”
“No, you’re the besht.”
“I swear to God man she was a unicorn. A unicorn! A very pretty unicorn!”
“I saw it, too, old man, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Elise laughed softly, then lowered the window all the way, like closing a curtain on a play. And on, perhaps, a chapter of her life.
And then she scrambled downstairs to give final instructions to the staff, who were likely exhausted.
She found them all in the kitchen.
“It can wait for tomorrow. Please do go on up to bed, and thank you for your help. You all did a wonderful job this evening, and I know Lord Lavay appreciated it.”
They all beamed at her, weary and pleased, and she beamed back at them, suddenly unutterably touched by their hard work and support and their kindness, all in all, that she’d helped uncover.
“Mrs. Fountain, Lady Merriweather was so pleased with my help with her coiffure she inquired as to whether I’d had training as a lady’s maid,” Kitty confided on a hush.
“Cor!” Mary exclaimed. “Lady Lumly said the same thing to me!”
They squealed, and Elise gave a delighted clap for them.
Just then Elise’s bell jangled, and they all gave a start.
They all eyed it wonderingly. Nobody moved.
“You’d think his lordship would be drunk by now and want to sleep,” James yawned.
“He just wants a nice cup of tea, I suspect,” Elise said smoothly. Her heart was ahead of her, already flying up the steps to the room. “Off to bed with all of you! Our day starts in but a few hours.”
And just in case he did want a cup of tea, she put the water on to boil.
Let him ring twice, if he wanted her that much.
SHE FOUND HIM in his study, lounging on the settee, arms flung over the back of it.
“Good evening, Lord Lavay.” She settled the tray down on the little table next to him. “I anticipated you might enjoy a cup of tea.”
He didn’t even look at it.
“Thank you, my dear Mrs. Fountain. You kept me waiting. That isn’t like you.”
His voice was odd. A bit ironic. A bit abstracted.
He’d flung off his coat and left it draped across a chair, and his cravat was nowhere to be seen. He was in shirtsleeves, and he’d rolled them up and unbuttoned two buttons.
All of which was quite uncivilized for Lord Lavay.
He’d never looked more thoroughly enticing.
She turned to leave so abruptly that she was nearly fleeing.
“Will you come and sit beside me for a moment, Mrs. Fountain?” He all but drawled it.
She turned back again.
He gave the settee a pat.
He said it so companionably, so softly, and made it sound like such a reasonable request, that saying no seemed churlish.
She settled in and pressed herself against the corner of the settee, as far opposite him as possible, curling her feet up beneath her.
He was silent. Studying her. There was a different quality to his silence, however.
She was concerned it was the silence of a cat about to toy with its prey.
“How did you enjoy the assembly?” she ventured.
“It was a triumph.”
His tone was so grim that she laughed softly in surprise. “I thought you enjoyed balls and soirees.”
“Oh, I excel at them, this is for certain. I spread my charm about, like so.” He made a strewing motion, as if he were feeding chickens in a barnyard. “I am considered delightful, I am told. I danced with countless women. All beautiful. All as delightful as me.”
He’d gotten awfully voluble and French, and she was both amused and dangerously enchanted.
And more than a little wary. Because there was an edge to his tone.
His face was flushed. His hair had fallen rakishly over one eye, while the other was peering at her speculatively.
“Are you bragging or complaining, Lord Lavay?”
“Merely reporting,” he said. “I did not shame myself with clumsy waltzing, thank you.”
Perhaps the memory of one little kiss had dissolved amidst the sea of beautiful women with whom he could make new memories.
She doubted it.
Head thrown back against the chair, he stared across at her and studied her through slitted eyes. She wondered if he was about to doze off.
“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to attend a grand ball,” she said, when it seemed he would never speak.
“I’ve always wondered what your hair looks like unpinned and spread out all over a pillow,” he replied.
Her jaw dropped as if the hinges had snapped.
She managed to clap her mouth shut before he could look closely at her tonsils.
“It does not want to stay pinned, you know.” He said this crossly, as if she’d been inflicting tyranny upon it against his objections, and he was arguing the case before a magistrate. “Look, even now!” He leaned slowly forward, and she was as mesmerized as if she were a snake and he a charmer. He reached up and drew a curl out between his fingers, straightening it then letting it go. “It bounces! Like a spring! Do you see? Why do you even try?”
She was too astounded to do anything but laugh. But it emerged breathlessly. He was so close she could feel the heat of his body, but she’d gone breathless.
There was no mistaking the fact that her heart was beating a rapid, futile warning.
Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave.
“You’re a little drunk, aren’t you, Lord Lavay?”
“You are as astute as always, Mrs. Fountain. I am, indeed, un peu foxed. Your hair is very soft.”
There ensued a silence, a soft one, perhaps as soft as her hair.
“Thank you,” she said cautiously.
He gave a short, ironic laugh.
“So many thoughts in your head now, I would wager, my dear Mrs. Fountain, but the words you say are ‘thank you.’ We are so careful with each other. Or rather, you are so careful, always.”
Now she was irritated. “What else would you have me be? I am your housekeeper. A servant.”
“I would have you be Yourself,” he said instantly.
“Which is?” she demanded, forgetting to be careful.
“Tart, like a persimmon, yet sweet, like a lovely, warm . . . pêche. A peach.” He hefted his hand and cupped it to illustrate. “So very, very kind. Clever and witty. Annoying. Delightful. Beautiful.” He again said all of these astounding things irritably, as if she’d asked him something she ought to have known. Something he’d said to her over and over.
She gaped at him and resisted the temptation to bring her hand up to touch her face.
The man knew how to conjure a blush.
He watched the blush intently, with a good deal of pleasure, as if it were a sunset. He smiled crookedly. “Ah, you see, I know you, and I know how to make you turn red. You would look magnificent dressed in red. The things I know, Mrs. Fountain. The things I know.”
“You certainly have had a good deal to drink” was all she said.
He shrugged with one shoulder. “Some women might say thank you, others might comment on my state of inebriation. Such is the world.”
She laughed, astonished. Utterly at a loss.
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. He merely studied her through hooded eyes. “And honest,” he purred. “I should like you to be honest.”
Ah. And here it was.
She suspected he’d been disarming her for a reason.
She pressed herself more deeply into the corner, and they perused each other from opposite ends. It might as well have been a metaphor for their social spectrum.
“I have never lied to you. And . . . I haven’t the luxury of being anything other than careful, as you say, Lord Lavay.”
His brow furrowed faintly, then cleared.
“You have not— Ah. I see. You were once carefree, and someone has been careless with you, Mrs. Fountain. And now you no longer trust. This person was Jack’s father, perhaps. And now you think I will do the same to you.”
He suggested this almost lightly.
As usual, he’d leaped right to the crux of the issue with startling swiftness.
Her head rang as if he’d dropped her suddenly, hard, from a great height.
She said absolutely nothing.
“Jack’s father . . . this man . . . did he take advantage of you?”
“No.”
Alas, that answer, she realized, was only going to result in myriad questions.
“Did he seduce you, then?” asked the man who likely knew precisely how to seduce anyone, and could, in fact, do it with one hand tied behind his back. Might be, in fact, doing it now.
She drew in a long fortifying breath, then let it go.
“In the spirit of honesty, Lord Lavay, and in the hope that you’ll forget by morning what I’m about to say: No. If seduction implied strategy was needed to overcome my maidenly protestations, then no. I fear it was quite mutual. I wanted him. Only him. It was unexpected and of course inadvisable, but I was caught up in the moment, I did not say no, and I enjoyed it. And lest you think I distribute my favors about, like so”—she mimicked his strewing motion—“it wasn’t as though I had a slew of suitors. It was the very first time I lost my heart, and I daresay could be the last. And I would dare you to say ‘slew of suitors,’ Lord Lavay, but I think you’re too foxed to do it.”
She watched the play of emotion over his face—shock and admiration and something like anger, swift and subtle, none of them settling in long enough for her to read them.
“My parents disowned me when I told them the news, and I haven’t seen them in six years, either. And in case you wondered, divulging the foregoing was an example of me being something other than careful.”
She’d just deliberately indicted herself. She was tired of being sorry, and she wasn’t certain she was anymore, because in the end there was Jack. And she supposed this honesty was her way of seeking protection. Because if Lavay was so repulsed by the thought of her cavorting with a man outside of matrimony, perhaps he’d remove the threat to her heart and peace of mind that was his beautiful self.
He was quite still.
When the questions came, they were quick and abrupt. As though he were pulling shrapnel from his skin as quickly as possible.
“Where is he now?”
“God only knows.”
“Did you care for him?”
“Yes. Very much.”
And as she spoke, she watched Lavay’s face go harder and harder, colder, more remote.
“Did he care for you?”
It was getting more difficult to answer his questions.
“I thought he did.”
A hesitation at last.
“Do you still care for him?”
She heard the studied nonchalance in this question.
“I fear there is no simple answer.”
He mulled this. The silence stretched.
“I have never been in love.” He said this almost defiantly.
“I don’t recommend it,” she said.
He gave a crooked half smile, very ironic, very bittersweet.
Silence.
“Do you think he’s still alive?”
This he drawled, sounding thoughtful and cheerfully, faintly sinister. As if he’d be only too happy to run him through, and it would be an easy enough thing to do.
“He’s certainly resourceful enough. If I were required to wager on it, I would wager yes.”
And on the last word her voice finally broke.
She’d managed to give all of her answers a glib lilt, but it was like taking one too many steps on a wound that hadn’t quite healed and might never completely. A man she cared about and trusted had made love to her and then abandoned her whilst pregnant. She, who was so, so clever, and so, so proud, hadn’t been able to discern a good man from a feckless, faithless one.
And now she was presented with a truly good man she could never have.
The pain caught up to her, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.
She held very still, as if everything inside her was broken and should not be jostled.
Lavay’s eyes were glittery and remote, and his regard was merciless. She feared reading his verdict about her character or lack thereof on his face. And yet perhaps it would be a relief.
At last, he leaned back hard against the settee.
He sighed a breath he’d seemed to be holding.
He lifted his hand and held it briefly over his eyes. As if to shield himself from the glare of all that appalling truth. And then dropped it again, and gave his head a slow shake.
“I don’t know how . . .” he began. “It’s just . . .” His voice was low and scraped raw.
He seemed unable to meet her eyes.
They were aimed at his untouched tea.
And then he turned his head very deliberately to look at her, and the very act of seeing her seemed to pain him.
Her heart did a slow plummet, and she seemed to feel its jagged edges all the way down.
He leaned toward her, hands on his knees. “I just don’t know how anyone could ever leave you, Elise.”
He said it slowly, deliberately, wonderingly, as if handing down a verdict.
And then he gave a short rueful laugh.
As if it was both a realization and a confession and he wasn’t quite certain how he felt about it.
Their gazes collided, and a rush of joy roared through her bleakness. He began to smile.
She shook her head, as if she could settle all the old fear and shame that had been stirred into its undisturbed place again, but it was no use. She dashed her hand roughly at her eyes, but a few tears escaped and clung to her eyelashes anyway. She could feel the consequences of everything that came before pulling at her.
He reached out instantly and took her hand firmly, as if to pull her back from the brink of that.
The gesture was all grace and instinct and tenderness.
So very him.
His instinct was always to protect, at any cost to himself.
She gripped his hand like a lifeline, but it was hardly safety, and she knew it.
Desire and joy were twined all through with fear of what she wanted. And as he laced his fingers through hers, she remembered the whisper-soft slide of them over the hairs on the back of her neck, and the fit of his hand at the small of her back, and desire spiked through her so violently that she nearly swayed.
All those hairs stood erect now, very hopeful of being stroked again, apparently.
“There was no shame in passion, Elise. The shame is in abandoning you with the consequences.” His voice still had that husky edge. “The shame is all his.”
“That,” she sniffled, “is not a popular opinion. But if I were trying to seduce me, it is precisely what I would say.”
He laughed softly.
But denied nothing.
“Nevertheless, you gave yourself honestly. We reason with ourselves in such moments, do we not? Fortunes are made and lost every moment on such wagers. Lives are changed for the better or worse in moments.” He snapped his fingers. “You wagered you could indulge passion and receive trust and honor in return, and lost. Every choice, no matter how small, is a gamble. I wagered the Earl of Ardmay would make me a rich man, and he almost did. I imagine there’s still time. I wagered on you restoring order to my household, and here you have upended me completely.”
She laughed at that, then gave a rather graceless sniffle.
“You wagered a man you cared for would deal honorably with you. And you lost. We all lose from time to time. It is what makes winning sweeter. The day needs the night in order to enjoy any significance at all, n’est-ce pas?”
He gave a shrug.
She stared at him wonderingly.
She did rather prefer his vision of life as one enormous gaming table.
“I’m not a harlot but a gambler?” She managed to say this lightly. “And here I told the staff that life is best played as a long game.”
She saw his other hand curl into a fist, almost languidly, at the sound of that word.
“If anyone refers to you as a harlot, would you be so kind as to tell me, so that I may shoot them?” he said almost lightly.
“As you wish, my lord.”
He smiled a small, taut smile.
“There is something between us, n’est-ce pas, Elise?”
It was more a statement than a question. An understatement, in fact.
“Oui,” she whispered.
A fraught silence ensued.
“And so, Mrs. Fountain, we have arrived at another such moment of wager, have we not?”
She was still holding his hand. That hard, elegant, scarred hand, that could wield a sword, a pistol, reins, rigging. And had likely touched more women than . . .
Now was not the time to think about that.
In many ways, he was no less frightening now than the day she’d met him.
And yet she could feel his pulse beating at least as swiftly as her own.
Because of her.
Because he wanted her.
She knew he was waiting for a word or a sign. How she wanted to drag her thumb over that hammering pulse, to commit to memory how he felt about her in this moment, to savor the life in him that had almost been extinguished by six men. How she wanted to raise his hand to her mouth and place a kiss there.
She released it instead.
Sliding her fingers from between his, savoring the touch of them as if for the last time.
And when he took it back from her, resignedly, as if he were scabbarding a sword, she saw the light leave his face.
It was closed and hard and still.
The silence that followed was like the sound of the end of the world.
Or before there was a world.
And a moment later, with fingers gone suddenly a little clumsy, she reached up and slid a hairpin from her hair.
And she laid it down between them as if it was the card that would decide the game.