How to Impress a Marquess Page 15

  She remembered how George said that Charles had tormented him at school. She could see maliciousness lurking about the edges of his blond, wholesome face. The word “dangerous” drifted through her mind. “Someone to share your deep profound love of poetry?”

  He tossed back his head. “Precisely.” His face sharpened. “Ah, and here is Lord Fenmore now. I think a charming little family drama is in the brewing. Better than anything Drury Lane can offer. Shall we watch?”

  She spun around. Penelope’s husband ambled into the hall, carefree, roguish, as if the world were a big jolly toy for his amusement. Once he had been the type of young man to set girls’ hearts aflutter. No doubt in his mind he still saw himself as that wild, carefree buck, but his exterior didn’t match anymore. His fast living was beginning to show; his once chiseled, handsome features were bloated and lined.

  Lady Marylewick greeted him by saying, “Lord Fenmore, has Penelope been so naughty as to desert you?”

  “Lady Fenmore has been a naughty lady indeed.” He chuckled, amused at his pathetic joke.

  Penelope glanced at Lilith. She could see the distress beneath her cousin’s composure.

  Lilith didn’t bother to make her excuses to Charles but swooped in. As she approached, Fenmore’s gaze raked over her body in a way that made her feel squeamish. Poor Penelope.

  “Greetings, Cousin Lilith,” he said. “I can’t venture too far in London these last few days without hearing your name.”

  Lilith made a point of not returning his smile. “How charming to see you again. I do not believe we’ve spoken since the occasion of your wedding.” She rested her hand on Penelope’s arm. “Dearest Lady Fenmore, I suddenly feel absolutely ill. Pray, let us sit in the parlor.”

  Lilith pulled Penelope away.

  “I hate him,” Penelope whispered. “And Mama is cruel. Why must she be so? I can’t bear this house party, I can’t. Don’t tell George I said that.”

  “Don’t think about Fenmore or your mother. If you get upset, find me. We’ll get through this house party in Hades together.”

  Penelope’s lips trembled, her eyes turned wet. Lilith panicked. She leapt at the first outrageous thing she could think of to shock Penelope from her anxious thoughts before they overtook her.

  “Let us imagine that every person at this party is naked,” Lilith suggested. “Now, take these young men congregating about the mantel. Who do you think is the most handsome without his clothes? I daresay the one with the blue plaid waistcoat, but of course he’s not wearing it in my overactive imagination.” Lilith was lying. The only naked man filling her mind’s eye was George, all rippled with muscles and his sex exposed like Michelangelo’s David. The effect her vivid musing had on her body was rather disconcerting.

  Penelope giggled. “Lilith, you’re terrible.”

  “But in the most delightful way. Oh, look, Beatrice is approaching. Now we must behave ourselves.”

  “Beatrice, dear, did you ever learn what fungus or insect blighted the palm?” Penelope inquired. Lilith had no idea what she meant.

  “Lady Marylewick thinks it unladylike,” replied Beatrice, her eyes darting nervously between Lilith and Penelope.

  “Pooh!” cried Penelope. “It’s very ladylike. Don’t you dare let Mama tell you how to think or live!”

  Lilith’s jaw dropped, shocked to hear such open rebellion from Penelope. Then she broke into chuckles. Maybe there was hope yet. More people gathered about, wanting to share in their infectious laughter. Soon Lilith basked in the energy of the crowd, learning about the guests and hearing their stories. Every so often, she would glance about to find George studying her with his deep gray eyes. She would feel a little light-headed and quickly turn away for fear he possessed an amazing power to know her privates were wet and throbbing for him, only to find Charles or Fenmore also staring at her. That stopped that bothersome bodily throbbing quite nicely.

  * * *

  After tea, the guests began returning to their rooms to rest and then dress for the evening.

  Lilith’s mind was whirling and she needed some time to write and straighten out her tangle of emotions concerning George. She was turning a corner in the maze of corridors connecting the various wings of Tyburn when a powerful hand reached out of the shadows, grabbed her elbow, and snatched her into a room. Her first thought was Lord Charles or Fenmore. Those horses’ backsides! She kicked her assailant hard in the shin. But as her foot connected with bone, the clove and pine scent of George filled her nose. Oh no!

  “Good God, Lilith!” He groaned. “Why did you do that?”

  “I’m sorry!” she cried. “I thought…I thought you were someone else.”

  “I feel sorry for that someone else if this how you treat them. Have you practiced that?”

  “Yes, and other more painful kicks to strategic male regions.” She found that George had abducted her to a small, paneled study. Glass cases adorned the walls but the shelves were empty except for a few knickknacks. A reading chair was pushed near the fireplace.

  “I merely wanted to talk to you.” He rubbed his shin. “I hope that doesn’t warrant a kick in my strategic male regions.”

  “Not for you, George. Perhaps other men. Come.” She supported George to the chair. Shadows had formed under his eyes and he appeared pale in the dim light. She wanted to reach up and ruffle his hair until it fell over his forehead. Then he would fit into any Paris salon, just another angst-ridden romantic artist. She knelt and began to massage his wounded calf through his trousers. The feel of his muscles did interesting things to her feminine regions.

  “You look tired,” she said.

  “That dam—hanged bill. And Mama. And Penelope. And please stop soothing my leg. It isn’t…it isn’t proper.”

  They had gone well past the line of proper on several occasions, so why stop now? She continued to rub. “Does it make you feel better?”

  “That’s immaterial. Many improper things make me feel better.” When she didn’t stop, he seized her hand and locked her wayward fingers between his. “I wanted to tell you that you were brilliant today. Thank you for helping Penelope. She… She won’t confide in me. You have become such close friends these last few days.”

  Lilith studied their interlocked hands. “She’s miserable. Her husband strays.”

  He released a long stream of breath. “I suspected as much.”

  “Why did you let her marry him? Was it the title, the old family, or the appalling lack of morals and human kindness?”

  “She was in love with him. Father had just died and Mother was pushing the match.” He released her hand. “I— I made a mistake.” His words were labored, as if he had trouble admitting fallibility.

  She wished she could tell him in that breezy, congenial manner not to worry, that we all make mistakes; the broken window could be replaced, an apology could undo the unintended insult. But this was no simple mistake.

  “Anyway, I wanted to thank you,” he continued. “You were wonderful today. Why can’t you be like this always?”

  She looked at him askew. “Like what?”

  “Kind, welcoming, joyful, thoughtful, and—”

  “My goodness, are you complimenting me?”

  “Yes, and I would have continued had you not interrupted me.”

  She opened her palms. “George, I am like this always. Well, I admit I tolerated some behavior today that I wouldn’t on another occasion. It’s just around you…I’m all defensiveness, anger, and hurt.”

  He shifted forward in his chair. “Then what can I do, what can I say? How do I… How do I take the hurt or anger away to make this part of you stay?”

  She didn’t know why, but tears welled. Why was she crying? She had to turn her head and blink them away before he noticed.

  “I-I must go.” She tried to cover her lapse with a weak joke. “It would be unsee
mly if we were caught together. That roguish Lilith Dahlgren has tarnished many a man’s sterling reputation.” She hurried to the door before more embarrassing tears formed.

  “Lilith,” he called quietly. His voice sounded like a summer shower on a window.

  She turned.

  “I won’t make a mistake with your husband,” he said. “I will find you loyalty and kindness. And a home. Where…where you won’t feel hurt or anger.”

  Oh, hang the tears forming in her eyes again. “Don’t forget your promise to meet me in the attics,” she whispered and fled.

  Thirteen

  Colette, in a borrowed caftan, tiptoed through the sleeping palace. At every turn, she expected a powerful eunuch to catch her. Yet the palace was strangely unguarded and she crept about unimpeded. At last, she came to a lovely garden at the very heart of the palace. A large white moon lit up the fruit trees and lush flowers. Their sweet scents drifted on the warm air.

  Enormous carved doors painted in gold stood at all the corners of the garden. She pivoted, unsure what waited behind each one. A secret box, an angry soldier, or the sultan enjoying his concubines?

  A tree ruffled, a bird flew away, and out of the shadows appeared the sultan. The moon’s light glinted on his sword. Colette cried out. In a graceful motion, like a leaping panther, his hand was on her mouth and his powerful chest against her back.

  “Don’t awaken the palace,” he growled. “Come to find the secret box, have you? Do you truly think it will set you free?”

  He released her and spun her around to look at him. The pale moonlight softened his brutish features. His eyes glowed through the darkness.

  “How did you know I was coming for the box?”

  “My spies told me. I called off my guards and had the tigers caged for the evening. Then I waited.”

  He strode to a door framed by lemon trees. From within his sash he produced a key and opened the door to reveal a tiny room holding a red and gold painted table on which rested an unadorned wooden box.

  He gestured with his sword. “Open it. You, the lover of secrets. Let me not stop you.”

  She hesitated. What game was this?

  He laughed, low and rich, as he approached her. “Ah, but you fear the power of secrets now. What waits in this box you will never forget. What good is your free body if your heart and mind are forever enslaved by this secret?”

  Colette’s gaze lit on the sultan and then the garden’s entrance.

  “What will you find if you run from me?” He caressed her cheek. “Will you go home only to learn that it has been destroyed by another evil man who desires the secret to your Greek Fire? Where will you find safety? Where will you find freedom? Perhaps it is in the box. Open it and see what you find.”

  His lips brushed hers. Tender and warm. She cried out in anguish. How could the man she hated most in the world entrance her heart? Colette turned and ran away, tears streaming from her eyes. She refused to see his box even as he called to her. “Open it. Please.”

  * * *

  Unable to shake her giddiness, Lilith arrived in the hall outside the dining room, all blushing and nervous. Luckily, she fit right in with all the other nervous and blushing young ladies. George and Penelope were concealed behind a cluster of people. The matrons circled Lady Marylewick, her bell-like laugh ringing above the chatter as she basked in the toad-eating.

  Beatrice hung about the corner. The bodice of her pale pink gown gaped on her thin frame. She clutched her little notebook, appearing quite distraught. Lilith debated going to her, afraid she would get a cold shoulder. But then Fenmore managed to catch Lilith’s eye for a small moment, which he took as an invitation, and started swaggering toward her. She quickly zipped across the room to Beatrice.

  “My dear, you seem upset,” Lilith said, taking her arm.

  Her sister was so distraught that she forgot she held a grudge against Lilith. “The ice cream isn’t thickening. I told Cook to add more salt to the ice to lower the freezing point. She only huffed and told me to see to the dining room.”

  Lilith jumped at the chance to worm her way into her sister’s affections. “But look at all you’ve done. It’s wonderful. You should feel proud.” She gestured to the dining room table set with china and gleaming silver. The servants were placing the last of the platters in a precise pattern around the candles and flower arrangements. “Don’t allow yourself to be upset by one small detail.”

  “Good God, are we all waiting to go in by precedence?” Lord Charles appeared at Lilith’s side with several other gentlemen in tow. “I hope Marylewick, old boy, has consulted his handbook. I can never remember if I’m to enter before or after the Bishop of London.”

  “You have precedence over the Bishop of London,” said Beatrice, taking him seriously. “But he is not here, of course.”

  Lilith stepped in to shield Beatrice from one of Charles’s satirical remarks. “My sister has a brilliant mind. I’m quite envious. While I would wrack my poor brain trying to determine the precedence of a cousin of the queen’s lady-in-waiting, who happens to be the widow of a Scottish lord, Beatrice remembers all. Her mind is like a camera.”

  Several of the gentlemen in the group turned their attention to Lilith’s young sister. “How fascinating,” they uttered, or “What a jolly fine talent.” Beatrice’s blush warmed Lilith’s heart.

  Across the room, the sea of men surrounding George parted. Lilith’s breath left her body in a low rush. The rest of the room washed away, like rain on a chalk drawing. Everything was him standing there in his elegant evening clothes. The low chandelier cast shadows on the slight hollows beneath his chiseled cheekbones and along the lines running on either side of his generous mouth. And those lips, so soft against the hard contours of his face. So soft against her skin. Without thinking, she touched the spot he had kissed. He lifted his brow, his gaze finding hers. She thought her knees might stop working, along with her lungs. Meanwhile her heart thundered away.

  I’m truly falling in love.

  And with the sultan.

  This can’t be happening. Make it stop. He’s the villain.

  There must be a way to shut it off. A valve somewhere.

  George offered his arm to a fashionable, elderly lady and led her into the dining room, followed by his mother and Lord Charles’s father.

  “And we are off,” Lord Charles declared as if they were at the races. “Do you think a lowly third son of a duke and a Dahlgren will be seated near each other? Will that cluster too much dazzling conversation in one spot?”

  “I believe Dahlgrens are seated in the scullery,” she replied, her mind hardly in the conversation.

  He laughed. “If I fall in love with you, it’s your own fault.”

  The word “love” jarred her. “I think we’ve touched on the issue of impertinent behavior, Lord Charles.”

  “Good heavens, I seem to have forgotten,” he replied. “Will you remind me at dinner while I ignore everyone else and gaze at you like a spoony moonling?”

  * * *

  Lilith ended up seated near George’s end of the table. Lady Marylewick presided over the other end where Penelope sat beside her husband.

  Penelope glanced down at Lilith, a desperate look in her eye akin to a person drowning. Lilith made a discreet nod to her dinner partner, the gentleman formerly in the blue plaid waistcoat, whom Lilith had decided was the most handsome naked one. Penelope stifled a giggle.

  Charles, sitting across from Lilith, did not miss the exchange. Amusement gleamed in his eyes.

  “Mr. Fitzgerald, may I introduce Miss Dahlgren,” he said. “Mr. Fitzgerald is a Tory MP and fond of cricket. Do you remember our games at Oxford, old boy?”

  It soon became apparent that the winner of the naked contest was so fond of cricket that the subject formed the whole of his conversation. Lilith smiled and played along while Lord C
harles, delighting in her misery, further goaded the man. “Tell me, Mr. Fitzgerald, do you believe yourself a stronger bowler or batsman?”

  At the head of the table, the conversation wasn’t faring much better. George asked how the weather was for everyone’s journey.

  Lady Cornelia, who, Lilith noted, was ravishing in blue silk, answered, “It was sunny in Harlow when we left, but when we reached London it started to rain a little.” She blushed as if she had revealed some deep personal secret.

  Lord Harrowsby bellowed, “It was damp and miserable in Melworte as always. I say, does this soup have a cream base? I’ll be up all night with indigestion.”

  “Ah, it was all drizzle, drizzle, endless drizzle in London,” waxed Lord Charles, displaying his feelings on the trite conversation. “The spirit-dulling type of precipitation that neither lets you bask in the glory of the sun nor wallow in the delight of a miserable drenching.”

  Lady Cornelia tilted her head, “I didn’t mind the drizzle. In fact, I hardly noticed it. I bought the new McAllister’s Magazine in the station.”

  Lilith’s fingers tightened around her fork that was deep in a pile of peas.

  “Ah, I missed it by a day.” George shook his head. “And it is too late to send a footman down to the village.”

  George read McAllister’s Magazine! Lilith’s heart thudded like a carriage wheel hitting a pothole.

  Dear Lord! Just look down at the peas. Think about peas. So green and—what if he read the story!

  “I can lend you my copy,” Lady Cornelia continued. “I have read what I wanted from it.”

  “And what was that?” George leaned closer to her.

  Lilith wanted to leap up and cry Let’s stop this conversation right now. Back to the weather. It was rather cloudy here today. Isn’t that fascinating?

  Lady Cornelia blushed even more prettily. “Colette and the Sultan.”

  A slow smile curled George’s handsome mouth. “My favorite as well.”