That evening, seated on the tiny cushioned stool that fronted the mirrored vanity in her stunningly feminine bedroom, Yancey was, for the most part, absorbed in her own thoughts of the coming evening she would spend with Sam. Such a delicious topic he was. So distracted, she was catching only snippets of Robin’s complaints as she handed the girl hairpins when needed.
“I tell you, Your Grace, they’ve no right to treat me so. Even Mrs. Edgars, who’s been ever so kind to me since I became your lady’s maid, said so. She told them I’m on a level with them now, I am, and they was to show me respect and courtesy.”
“Good for her,” Yancey commented distractedly. From what she had heard so far, Robin—who stood behind Yancey and brushed, combed, and curled her hair—was alternately fussing about the dowager’s maids’ shabby treatment of her and about Yancey’s too thick and troublesome hair. In the girl’s snit of a mood, she tugged Yancey’s head this way and that, leaving her to fear that she’d be bald before Robin was done.
Apparently, Yancey sighed, no one in the household had experienced a successful day. Still, a bright spot existed in the later evening for Yancey … and for the duke, if he only knew it. She smiled the secret smile of the seductress. Certainly her duke had an inkling of what was to come, being the one who had initiated their pending liaison. What the man didn’t know, however, was that she meant to make His Grace woo her.
He’d said there wasn’t time. But he was mistaken. There was. They had the entire evening before them. She intended to make him put it to good use, but without telling him, of course. Where was the fun of informing him? He was an intelligent man. Let him figure it out.
“… and them with all their traveling they’ve done with Her Grace the dowager,” Robin was saying. “I expect I’ll be doing the same with you one day.”
“I expect so,” Yancey idly mumbled, thinking now on the events from earlier this evening when she and Sam had come in from the hill.
She’d been spared from having to prove she could neither sing nor play the piano or even begin to discuss painting because Sam’s mother had already retired to her room for the evening and had sent word through one of her maids that she was not up to being sociable this evening. She cited her gruesome trip home in a jouncing carriage, followed so closely by the shocking revelations of the day, which had taken their toll on her strength. Therefore, she would stay in her bedroom and take her evening meal there.
When Robin raised her voice with a fresh complaint, Yancey blinked back to the moment. “…telling me, they were, all them snippy maids of Her Grace the dowager, that I was only a newly elevated lady’s maid. Like that makes a difference. And them thinking they can teach me the way of things. I told them I haven’t had any complaints from my lady.” Robin sought Yancey’s reflected gaze in the mirror.
“No. I have none. You’re doing a wonderful job.”
Clearly delighted, Robin executed a quick curtsy. “Thank you, Your Grace. That’s exactly what I told them myself.” Then she tsk-tsked and pulled on a hank of Yancey’s hair. “Will you look at this? It won’t do a thing I want it to do. Got a will of its own. Wants to be about its own business, I expect.”
Robin’s last comment recalled to Yancey how Roderick had also surprised her and Sam. He had saved them all an uneasy evening by announcing he’d sent word to a family in the area that he was at Stonebridge and he’d been invited to pay a call that evening. Sam had immediately offered to make available to him a carriage and driver, but Roderick had insisted a saddled horse would be just fine for his purposes. He fancied a bit of exercise and fresh air after the enclosed carriage ride here, he’d said. Besides, his friends lived close by and he would have a jolly evening with them and not return until late, maybe not even until tomorrow midday.
What the devil is that man up to? Yancey had wondered, somewhat alarmed not to have him where she could see him. She’d been instantly suspicious, of course, as had Sam, so she’d sought Scotty out and he had verified Roderick’s story of a message sent and an answer received. Still, she doubted that Cousin Roderick’s activities of this evening were as innocent as they were nefarious. The man was up to something.
Well, whatever it was, short of following him, she couldn’t know until he returned and said or did something to give himself away. Patience was the strongest virtue a Pinkerton operative could cultivate. How well she knew that. Besides, she was glad the man was gone because that left her alone with Sam, her current prey.
“What do you think, Your Grace?”
Yancey gave a start, having no idea to what Robin referred. “What do I think about what?”
“Why, your hair, of course.”
“Oh. My hair.” She appraised it critically in the mirror, turning her head this way and that. As always, Robin had piled it high atop her head and had cascading curls falling over Yancey’s shoulder. “It’s nice. I like it.”
“Well, I don’t,” Robin grumped, pulling pins out and fluffing the curling mass of long auburn hair all about, ruining the whole effect. “I want to try something else, if Your Grace wouldn’t mind.”
With her hair now completely wild and disheveled, with it looking much as if she’d been caught in a ferocious windstorm, there wasn’t much Yancey could say but, “No, I don’t mind.”
With Robin happily pulling, tugging, and twisting her hair again, Yancey was free to retreat back into her increasingly sensual thoughts that caused a tightening and a low, pulsing throb deep in her belly. She couldn’t stop the smile that claimed her lips. She would have Sam all to herself this evening … and this night. He wanted to make love to her.
Yancey recalled for herself that wonderful speech he’d made standing there on that hill. So tall and handsome and sincere. He’d certainly won her over with his words. Making love to Sam … the very idea and the images it conjured up gave Yancey a case of the delicious shivers.
“Are you cold, Your Grace? You just shivered.”
“Oh. No, Robin, I’m fine.” Embarrassed, and feeling the heat of it bloom on her cheeks, Yancey said the first thing that came into her mind. “By the way, this mauve gown is a perfect choice for tonight. Thank you.”
Robin preened under Yancey’s compliment. “Oh, Your Grace, you look so lovely in it. The color is perfect. It’s a simple design, really. Very much the thing. And easy to get into and out of.”
Robin’s innocent comment acted on Yancey’s sensual frame of mind. Smiling into the mirror, she pictured Sam undoing her dress’s fastenings later. “Good,” she told Robin. “That’s perfect.”
Yancey’s next thought was that so many aspects of her own behavior since she’d been here at Stonebridge were unlike her. Here she’d readily turned over to a maid the intimate details of her toilette. She’d never been pampered before and had been certain she would hate it. But she didn’t. Just as she didn’t hate the idea of Stonebridge and of masquerading as Sam’s wife. And she’d thought she would.
She didn’t know whether to attribute the changes in her to the unique facets of this case, not the least of which was her setting herself up as the specific target for a murderer. She wondered what Sam would say if he knew that she had never done anything like this before, not on any of her cases. Always before, she’d simply adopted a disguise—like the elderly Christian lady one she’d used with Clara—and played a part to gain information from thieves’ wives, girlfriends, or mothers. Then she’d take that information back to Mr. Pinkerton and the male agents, so they could use it in tracking down the thief. But never before had Yancey actually been the lamb tied to the stake to attract the hungry predator.
But, came the startling thought, what if I’m not the lamb? What if Sam is? It made sense—sickening sense. Sam was the last in his line. His mother was no threat to anyone. She wasn’t likely to produce any further heirs. But Sam certainly could. And his wife, if the murdered woman proved to be her, had been with child, the heir. Tense with this new revelation, and fearing for Sam’s safety, Yancey told herself the first question she would ask him was: in the event of his death, who inherited Stonebridge? Yancey felt certain she already knew. Roderick Hamilton Harcourt, the Duke of Glenmore. “Diabolical bastard.”
“Excuse me, Your Grace?”
Yancey popped back to the moment and saw Robin’s smiling, questioning visage reflected in the mirror in front of her. Obviously she had muttered her curse aloud. “Nothing, nothing. Forgive me. Are we almost done, Robin?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Sorry to be taking so long. It’s your hair. It won’t…”
Yancey tuned the girl out, leaving her to fuss about Your Grace’s hair as Yancey returned to her mounting concerns for Sam. It was a very good thing, she decided, that she was playing the role of his wife. That way, she and her gun could be with him day and night. Day and night … the phrase echoed in her mind. Here she was pretending to be a married woman, something she never intended to be in reality. Certainly in the past, she’d adopted the role of a respectable married woman, but there had never been a husband. She had merely alluded to one.
But Sam was different. He was no illusion. He was very real. So she could lay these changes in her at Sam’s door, couldn’t she? His bedroom door, to be specific. That had her smiling. His bedroom door. She was going to allow him to make love to her. And that had nothing to do with the job.
Then she heard herself … allow him to make love to me. What an odd way of putting it. As if she were simply going to lie there and let him have his way with her. How … submissive of her. How wifely. Certainly, she’d never behaved that way before with a man, and she certainly didn’t intend to with Sam, a man she very much desired and a man this entire household believed already to be her husband. Oddly, that belief on their part lent her and Sam’s coming liaison the cachet of legitimacy. She had a husband. “My husband.”
“Pardon me, Your Grace? Did you say something?”
Dear God, she must have murmured that aloud, too. Yancey gave a quick, embarrassed shake of her head. “No, no, I didn’t. Well, I did. But just … carry on, Robin.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Yancey returned quickly to her thoughts of Sam, going so far as to stand him next to her in her mind’s eye so she could see him as her husband. Not so much as he was in this masquerade, but how he might be in actuality in her life—a life she would have to live here in England if they were truly married. As Robin continued her fussing over Yancey’s hair, she considered a life spent here with Sam. Lost in the image, a shimmering mirage of something that could never be, Yancey forgot herself and shook her head.
“Oh, steady, Your Grace,” Robin cried. “I’ve got a handful of hairpins here. I’d hate to scratch your head with one as I put it in place.”
“Sorry, Robin.” Yancey immediately straightened up, knowing the girl was still a bit pouty because of her shabby treatment by the dowager’s maids. As Robin gave her critical attention to different styles, still brushing and combing and piling Yancey’s hair this way and that, Yancey suddenly felt much like a bride preparing for her wedding night, except she was getting dressed instead of undressed. Still, the sensual specter of a honeymoon night loomed.
A parody of a loving couple, that’s what they were and nothing more. She needed to remember that. A spate of unexpected guilt assailed Yancey. She felt as if she had betrayed her mother’s memory by even thinking of being married. Yancey realized that not all men were like her father. But she did believe that all marriages were the same in some very basic aspects. They were restrictive for the female. They signified a loss of the woman’s independence. A subjugation of her will for his. No, Yancey couldn’t see herself ceding those freedoms to any man. Not even to Sam, as much as she wanted him.
And she did want him. She was more than eager to be in his bed. Or to have him in hers. Since she’d first laid eyes on him, this evening’s outcome had seemed inevitable. She’d been drawn to him, to his dark, handsome looks, to his air of potent sexuality, and to the aura of barely leashed sensual urges that emanated from him. How could she not be drawn to him? After all, she was a healthy woman of normal appetites.
Yancey stopped right there, marveling at her own attitude. How had it come about, given her mother’s marriage and the awful way her life had ended at the hands of Yancey’s father, that she, the daughter, would enjoy the pleasure of men’s company, much less those of the bedroom? She smiled a secret smile. Ah, but she knew how.
It came from working with the men who respected her. Her attitude also came from respecting herself, from making her own way in this world, from being independent, and from being the one to say yes or no. She and her sister agents were a breed apart from other women and prided themselves on that. A breed apart. Yancey frowned. Always before she’d gained much satisfaction from being different. From being tough-minded and independent. But now that she’d met Sam, now that she’d experienced Stonebridge and its strange and wonderful inhabitants, all she felt was lonely at the thought of the single room in the boardinghouse that awaited her in Chicago. Suddenly, for the first time, she felt as if her profession put her in danger of having love pass her by.
Oh, that would be awful. Yancey stared at the troubled young woman with the creased brow who stared back at her from the mirror. Awful? Since when? But the question wasn’t when. The question was who. Since who? And her answer was … since Sam. He scared her. What if he proved to be an appetite she could not satisfy? She feared she would want more and more of him. And that she wouldn’t be able to let him go when the time came. Or worse, that she would lose herself in him. She hadn’t yet, but the potential to do so certainly loomed large. This sort of fear was a first for her. A frightening first.
Yancey stared wide-eyed at her reflection. Dear God, I’m falling in love.
Would that be so awful? her softly feminine side asked. What is there to go home to? it wanted to know. Think about it. A room in a women’s boardinghouse. And the next case for Mr. Pinkerton. No friends. No loved ones. No one she could be close to, or wanted to be close to. Certainly she felt gratitude and loyalty to Mr. Pinkerton, and a certain amount of daughterly affection. But beyond that, and beyond the job, she had nothing.
Until now, until Stonebridge—until Sam—she’d believed her life had begun in Chicago at the agency and would continue to be there. But not so much anymore. Now she wanted to be here … with Sam. And that meant the end of her as she’d been for the past six years.
“There you go, Your Grace,” Robin announced triumphantly, pulling Yancey yet again out of her troubling thoughts. “All done. And you look lovely, if I must say so myself.”
Smiling at her maid’s reflection in the mirror, and feeling her scalp tingling all over from the prolonged brushing her hair had just undergone, Yancey considered her new hairstyle. She’d be darned if she could tell any difference between this arrangement and the one Robin had pulled down a few minutes ago. But she’d also be darned if she’d voice that. “Lovely, Robin. Absolutely lovely. Much better. You’ve outdone yourself.”
The girl beamed, looking abashed as she shrugged her shoulders and proceeded to rid the brush and comb of a considerable amount of Yancey’s hair. “You’re very kind, Your Grace. And a great lady you are. We’re all most thrilled to have you here at last with us. Well, most of us are. Her Grace the dowager’s maids aren’t. They like lording it too much over the rest of us that they work for the lady of the manor.”
Finally, here was some ammunition Yancey could give Robin in her struggle for pecking order. “The lady of the manor? No, they don’t, Robin. Not with me here, as you said. I am now the lady of the house.” She tried not to feel guilty over the pretend nature of that designation—or its short duration. “And you are my lady’s maid,” she continued, feeling worse with every word for having started down this road. “I would think that gives you rank over them.”
The girl’s brown eyes, as well as her entire face, lit up with dawning realization and only made Yancey feel worse. “Why, Your Grace, you are absolutely right. Just let those old cows—I mean, those women—say something to me now.”
In light of the girl’s enthusiasm, all Yancey could think about was how humiliated Robin would be when the truth came out and she lost her exalted position. Her life among the other maids would forevermore be one of sneering looks and snide remarks. The devil of it was there was nothing Yancey could see that she could do to forestall that future. Except to stay here and become Sam’s wife for real.
Just then, with Yancey in shock from her own conclusion, Robin reached around her to untie the light cape she’d placed over Yancey’s shoulders while dressing her hair. Pulling it off her with a happy flourish, the newly confident lady’s maid brushed away any stray hairs that might have escaped her prior notice and then stepped back, saying, “And there you are, Your Grace. Ready for your evening.”
As she stood up, smoothing her silk gown with Robin’s help, Yancey wished she could agree with her. Suddenly, she felt anything but ready for what was to come. Maybe she should tell Sam that this wasn’t such a good idea, what they had planned for tonight. Then … her woman’s mind treated her to a vision of herself in Sam’s arms, made her taste his kiss, feel the weight of his body atop hers in a big bed, both of them undressed, the night dark and close—
“Shall I wait up for you, Your Grace?”
Her senses humming, her body filled with yearning, Yancey turned to her maid, her decision made. Whether she was right or wrong, only time would tell. She smiled, thinking of Sam and how he’d looked standing there on that hill and struggling to tell her how he felt. “No, Robin,” she said softly, “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
* * *
The meal was almost concluded. Sam couldn’t have been more pleased with it. His cook, a large, sweet-faced woman named Mrs. Sutton, who wielded absolute power in the kitchen, had outdone herself tonight. He had asked her earlier to prepare something special. And she apparently had scoured the larder, the pantries, the icehouse, the countryside, and the lakes to please him. Every manner of fish and fowl and game and green vegetables and sauces and breads and puddings and cakes had been produced and presented with a flourish, each course being accompanied by its own wine.
Adding to the air of pomp and celebration were his impeccably liveried and wonderfully mannered servants. They silently performed their various tasks under the scowling and watchful eye of Scotty, who continued to wear his new hat indoors. No one had the heart or the courage to tell him to take it off.
Seated on Sam’s right, and looking stunning in a mauve gown designed to drive him insane, given its squared neckline and fitted waist, a dress meant to give more than a hint of the woman beneath, Yancey leaned over to whisper to him. “All this food. It’s marvelous. And so wonderfully seasoned. I think your cook may be trying to seduce you, Your Grace.”
Sam leaned in toward her. “And she just might succeed, too.”
“Oh, dear.” Yancey startled Sam by coming abruptly to her feet and placing her napkin beside her plate. No less than three of his liveried men rushed to hold her chair and stand ready to assist her otherwise. But she had eyes only for Sam. “I had no idea you had romantic designs on your cook,” she chirped endearingly, putting a hand to her chest, over her heart, and adopting a maudlin poet’s stance. “Though crushed, I shall step aside and allow true love to—”
“Oh, for the love of—Sit down, goose.” Chuckling at her, Sam clutched her wrist, so poignantly tiny that his fingers more than met and lapped over each other. He couldn’t help but think of the fragile bones of a bird, so easily broken if not held tenderly in one’s hands.
But no sooner had Sam spoken than the three men jumped to help her: one at her elbow, one holding the chair, ready to push it in, and the third already holding her napkin, intending obviously to arrange it on her lap once she was seated. Sam continued to stare in wonder at this display on their part. They’d certainly never been so overly zealous when considering his needs. And here he was the one who paid their wages. Sam was more amused than jealous. Was everyone enamored of the woman? Not that he could fault them their taste. She was delectable.
Yancey sat down with a dramatic silken plop. Her gown’s skirt billowed around her like a cloud before finally settling gracefully over her lap. Sam was reminded of a swan coming to rest on a lake. But far from swanlike at this point, Yancey’s wide green eyes, high color, and slightly tipsy air amused Sam and warmed his blood. Her expression was the wide-eyed one usually found painted on a doll’s face. She appeared shocked that she’d landed so hard. Instantly the servants went to work, performing their tasks and then fading back into the woodwork until they were needed again.
Sam gave them no more notice as he found himself absolutely enchanted with his American duchess. He leaned over toward her and, pretending to wipe at his mouth, hid behind his linen napkin and whispered, “Far from my cook trying to seduce me, my sweet, I fear more that this extravagance of food is a ploy on Mrs. Sutton’s part. I am rapidly coming to believe that she and the rest of them here have joined forces and intend to stuff me so full that I shall be rendered incapable of seducing you.”
Yancey sat back abruptly. “The hell you say, sir.”
She cut her gaze around the room, sighting suspiciously on the variously stationed men who stood stiffly about, much like sentinels. Then she leaned in toward Sam. Her nose very nearly touched his. “You won’t allow that to happen, will you, Your Grace?”
“I assure you I’d sack the lot of them first,” Sam growled, lightly hitting his fist on the tabletop for emphasis.
Then seized by a sudden impulse to be alone with her and away from these smothering individuals, Sam again took hold of her wrist and scooted his chair back. Before he could even stand up straight, again the servants snapped to and assisted, all quite needlessly to Sam’s mind.
“Come with me,” he implored Yancey. “I think we need to take the air.”
She came to her feet, ceding her chair and her napkin to the hovering men. “Take it where, Your Grace?”
“Why, outside, of course.” Sam was now dragging her the length of the impressively long table and toward the room’s closed doors. Two other men opened these and bowed as they approached. At his side, Yancey hurried along, her gown rustling appealingly as she did so. “Don’t we always keep the air outside, Your Grace?”
“Not all of it, my dear,” Sam said amiably over his shoulder. “We keep some inside, or we wouldn’t be capable of having this conversation.”
“True. Then it’s absolutely ingenious of you.”
“Thank you.” He stalked through the doorway and took them down the long hallway, aiming for the drawing room and, more specifically, the wide terrace that graced the grounds outside it. “I thought of it all by myself, you know.”
“I’m not the least bit surprised, Your Grace. You’re the smartest man I’ve ever known. Imagine, keeping air inside.”
Quite inane, their conversation, and exactly as Sam intended. The truth was he suffered from no small amount of nervousness and unease, which grew out of his intentions toward this woman before the night was up. He could stand it no more. It had seemed there at the end of the meal that his employees had been multiplying like rabbits. Where earlier there had been only one, in the next moment there were three—and they were all over her. Dammit, he wanted the woman to himself and his hands the only ones touching her.
“Slow down, Sam. Where are you taking me?”
The sound of Yancey’s voice surprised him into doing just that. He pulled her to his side and put an arm around her bare shoulders. Her closeness, and the warm, sweet feminine scent of her, sent Sam’s blood rushing southward. This wouldn’t do … not in the drawing room.
He tried to dissuade his willful body by teasing lightly with her. “I do apologize. I’d quite forgotten you were here.”
She stopped cold, forcing Sam to do the same. They stood just outside the drawing room doors. Such an enticing vision of bright colors she was, Sam noted. Much like a hummingbird, it suddenly struck him, with her green eyes and deeply red hair, like emeralds and rubies. Perhaps she didn’t need jewels. She’d put them to shame, no doubt. Still there was one particular piece he thought she should have.
“You’re doing it again.” The sound of her voice brought Sam around. He blinked, saw that Yancey had lowered her eyebrows in a clear sign of vexation. “That forgettable, am I, Sam? Even while you had a grip on my wrist? And now while you’re standing here in front of me and staring?”
She was completely insulted. Sam chuckled, trying to ignore how his body, the damned thing, was tightening in response to her nearness. And why wouldn’t it? He’d tantalized himself all afternoon, as he’d worked the estate’s accounts and then bathed and dressed, with carnal images of him and her locked in loving embrace after loving embrace. “Hardly forgettable,” he told her now. “I was merely lost for a moment in thought.”
“Oh, were you? You will only get out of this quagmire you’re rapidly sinking down into, my friend, if you can say those thoughts were of me. Which you can’t because you’ve already said you forgot about me.”
“Well, I can’t possibly prevail, then, can I? However, I can say truthfully that you were included obliquely.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Sam looked down the hallway, back toward the dining room. “Shh. Don’t say anything yet.”
Yancey tensed, straightening her posture. “What is it?”
Sam held a cautioning hand up until he was certain no one had followed them. “I think we’re alone now. Come with me out to the terrace where we can talk.”
Suddenly she was as sober as a judge. “It’s about time. Playing the mindless little coquette was really beginning to wear on me.”