Almost - Almost A Bride Part 17

Now, that was an invitation she would accept with alacrity, Arabella reflected. The d.u.c.h.ess's parties were known for high stakes and wild play. It would be extraordinary if a novice gambler couldn't manage to lose a considerable sum of money at those tables.

"Jack, pray introduce me to your wife."

Jack turned to Lilly, who was approaching on her husband's arm. She was smiling, but there was a brittle edge to the smile. "My dear Lady Worth." He bowed over her hand, bringing it to his lips. "Such formality, Jack," Lilly said, playfully tapping his arm with her fan. "Now present me at once to your wife."

Arabella now was aware of a slight hiatus in the buzz of conversation around them. It must be a good opportunity for gossip, she reflected. The first encounter between the mistress and the bride. She

directed a smile of dazzling warmth at Lady Worth and extended her hand. "There's no need for any introductions, Lady Worth, I've been looking forward to meeting you."Lilly's smile didn't falter as she took the proffered hand in a limp clasp. "Your grace," she said formally, dropping the hand almost immediately. "How charming."

"I do hope you'll call in Cavendish Square," Arabella continued with the same warm smile. She gave a little laugh. "I'm certain we'll discover many things that we have in common.""I shall look forward to it," Lilly managed as she sketched a curtsy and moved away with her husband. "Did you hear that?" George Cavenaugh murmured to Charles Fox, who was standing beside him, lightly patting his pink wig, on which perched a miniature tricorne hat.

"I did, my dear, I did. Wouldn't have thought Dunston's sister could have so much style," the macaroni responded. "Half sister," George corrected. "I very much fear, my friend, that Jack has got his hands full.""Won't do him any harm," Fox said. "Why'd he marry her in the first place, that's what I'd like to know.""I wondered myself, but now I've seen her . . ." George left the sentence hanging. "Most unusual, I agree. But she's a Lacey. Fortescus and Laceys are oil and water, always have been.""Nothing's written in stone, my friend," George pointed out. "And I'll tell you, I'm looking forward to furthering my acquaintance with the lady.""Wonder how she plays," Fox mused, his mind returning as usual to his obsession.

"Like a Lacey, I imagine," George responded, sweeping his hat in an elaborate flourish as he bowed to Arabella, who was pa.s.sing him on her husband's arm.

She gave him a friendly smile in which there was no trace of artificiality. In fact, it was difficult to imagine that such a serenely composed woman had been capable of so completely blunting the tongues of the gossips. She had made it abundantly clear to all around them that she knew everything there was to know about her husband's mistress, and that she had little or no interest in the affair.

Jack escorted his wife in silence to the waiting carriage. The footman jumped to open the carriage door as soon as he saw them. "Good evening, your grace . . . your grace." He lowered the footstool for Arabella.

Before she climbed in she said softly to Jack, "Are you sure you don't want to come home and quarrel properly? It can't be good for you to hold in such a head of steam."

"Be pleased to get into the carriage, ma'am." He spoke with exaggerated courtesy. "There's a cold wind."

Arabella climbed in with a word of thanks to the waiting footman, and was only half surprised when her husband followed her, taking his seat on the opposite bench.

He leaned back, folding his arms and regarding her in silence for a moment before saying in tones of deceptively mild curiosity, "You seem determined to provoke me, Arabella. What have I done?"

She gazed serenely at him across the dim interior of the swaying vehicle. "You're changing the rules, Jack. We agreed to an entirely open marriage of convenience. I would not interfere with you and you would not interfere with me. Now suddenly you're expecting me to behave like some simpering miss whose delicate ears and sensibilities must not be a.s.sailed by any knowledge of the woman who's been your lover for . . . how long has Lady Worth been your mistress?"

Jack closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them. "Three years," he said.

"Do you have children together?" She seemed genuinely curious and he could detect not the slightest hint of jealousy. Not that he would want that, of course.

"Not as far as I know," he said.

She nodded, then said matter-of-factly, "Well, that's about all I need to know."

"I'm delighted to hear it," he said with a sardonic smile. "Can we agree never to mention the subject again?"

"Oh, I don't think I could promise that," she returned with a thoughtful frown. "Who's to know what might happen." She leaned forward and laid her gloved hand over his. "But I promise, Jack, that I shall never be anything but the soul of friendly courtesy to Lady Worth."

"That's rather what I'm afraid of," he said, his eyes narrowed. "Permit me to tell you, madam wife, that you're as tricky as a nest of serpents, and that innocent smile and those protestations of sweet reason don't fool me for one minute."

"I don't wish to fool you," she protested. "I just want to be clear that the rules haven't changed. You promised me that London would be my oyster and I intend to make it so." She began to count off points on her fingers. "I like your friends, by the way. Mr. Fox and Lord Cavenaugh. They both promised to call upon me tomorrow. The princes didn't impress me in the least, but I suppose one must tolerate them."

"One must," he agreed aridly, watching her now with a degree of mesmerized fascination.

"The d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire should be cultivated, I believe."

At that he laughed. "My dear, the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire is without question the most important and influential woman in London. She will cultivate you if she chooses, but believe me, the shoe will not be on the other foot."

"Really?" she said with a faint smile. Then she pounced. "Don't you think it strange that I've never received any acknowledgment from my mother's family in Cornwall? I wrote to them in August, it's now December." She shrugged. "Of course, I have no need of their reply now; in fact, I'd forgotten all about writing to them, but now I wonder if they're still alive. Could they have been wiped out by some plague, do you think?"

"I have no idea," Jack said. He reached behind him and knocked on the part.i.tion. The carriage drew to a halt. "I must leave you here. I can walk to Brooke's from Piccadilly." He leaned over, dropped a very cool kiss on her forehead and opened the carriage door.

Arabella sat back and closed her eyes, utterly exhausted. She opened them again only when the carriage drew to a halt outside the house. The cold air revived her as she stepped down to the street and climbed the steps to the front door, where the night porter waited to greet her.

"Will there be anything else tonight, your grace?" he asked as he once again closed and barred the great front door.

"No, thank you, Silas. Not for me. I don't know what time his grace will return."

"Not till sunup, madam," the man said with a knowing nod.

He would know, of course, Arabella reflected. He'd been in the duke's household for years and was well acquainted with his habits. She smiled a good night, but instead of going straight upstairs, made her way to the library. Two candles burning in sconces on either side of the fireplace gave a little illumination, but the dark-paneled, book-lined room was in shadows. She closed the door behind her and stood for a minute leaning against it as she weighed the consequences of what she was about to do.

It wasn't theft since she was merely retrieving her own property. But Jack could certainly take exception to her unlocking his strongbox . . . riffling through his private papers. But if she didn't look at anything else, simply took her letter and relocked the box, she wouldn't be prying into his secrets. Of course, he might not even notice. He might not even remember that he still had the letter. If he had had no intention of posting it, he can't have intended to keep it.

She pushed herself away from the door and approached the desk, almost stealthily, although she was alone, and the only member of the household awake was the night porter and he wouldn't leave his post. She sat down behind the desk and opened the drawer where she had once seen Jack put the key to the strongbox. It wasn't immediately apparent and she felt around until her fingers encountered a little k.n.o.b at the rear of the drawer. She pressed it and an inner compartment sprang open. The key was in there.

She leaned down to open the bottom drawer of the desk where he kept the strongbox and took out the small ironbound chest, placing it carefully on the desk. The key fit the lock and turned smoothly. She raised the lid and looked down at the neat stack of papers. That afternoon the letter had been on the top but it wasn't now, and her fingers hovered uncertainly over the contents of the box. She was unwilling to touch anything that didn't belong to her.

Then resolutely she began to lift out the papers one by one, keeping them in exactly the same order and studiously avoiding looking at anything on them.

She found her own letter halfway down the box. With a sigh of relief she extracted it, and meticulously replaced the rest of the papers. There was no overt sign of disturbance when she closed the lid, relocked the box, and returned box and key to their appropriate places.

Taking the letter with her, she left the library and went up to her bedchamber, where Becky, dozing in front of the fire, awaited to help her mistress to bed.

It was just before dawn when Jack left the gaming tables. It was the first time since he'd returned to London with Arabella that he had spent the whole night at the tables. And he hadn't intended to spend the past night playing faro either. He hailed a sedan chair in the graying light.

Why out of the blue had Arabella brought up the subject of her Cornish relatives? He'd actually forgotten all about the letter that he had never sent.

He frowned in the darkness of the chair as the chairmen jogged through the predawn quiet of the streets.

He'd burn it this morning, and scruples be d.a.m.ned.

Twenty minutes later he sat at his desk and once more went through the papers in the strongbox. Then he leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. He hadn't missed it the first time, the letter just wasn't there. So where was it?

He sat up abruptly. Obviously Arabella had it. But how in the h.e.l.l had she discovered it? And just what was he going to do about it? He put away the box, rose to his feet, and quietly left the library.

A scullery boy carrying a shovel of coals flattened himself against the wall as the duke emerged into the hall. Jack barely noticed the lad, just as he barely noticed that the sun was up. The front doors stood open and a maid on hands and knees was honing the steps, splashing water liberally from the bucket at her side. Street sounds from the awakening city drifted into the house.

Jack paused for a moment, one foot on the bottom step of the sweeping horseshoe staircase. Arabella had placed him in an impossible dilemma. If he confronted her about raiding his strongbox, he would have to confess to his deception over the letter. But if he said nothing, he was laying himself open to ambush.

And he knew all too well that Laceys specialized in ambush.

He continued upwards to his own bedchamber. The ground on which this marriage stood was becoming treacherous. It most definitely was not the simple, pragmatic union of convenience it should have been. His wife didn't trust him. And now he didn't see how he could trust her. Suddenly they were in armed camps. And how the devil had that happened?

Chapter 14.

Seems you were wrong, George." Charles Fox came up to Cavenaugh, who stood against the wall of a salon, watching the play at a round table in the center of the room.

"About what?" George inquired, not taking his eyes off the play.

"Lady Arabella . . . doesn't play like a Lacey at all. I don't think she even counts the discards . . . plays all over the place." Fox sounded disapproving. "At least Dunston knew what he was doing, just never knew when to stop."

"That's rich, coming from you, my friend," George said, taking his eyes from the table long enough to wave over a waiter with a tray of champagne.

Fox shrugged, taking the comment in good part. "It hurts me to watch her, though," he said.

"Mmm." George returned his frowning gaze back to the table where Arabella sat with only one rouleau at her place. "I don't understand why she makes no attempt at a strategy. She plays every game like a complete novice, but you'd have thought by now she would have picked up some clues as to how to play to win."

"Perhaps she can't count," Fox suggested, wincing as Arabella bet on a card that had already been turned up.

"Nonsense, sharp as a tack, my lady Arabella," George stated. "Up to any conversation. Can't think why Jack hasn't given her some pointers about play."

Fox waved a chicken-skin fan in a lazy attempt to disturb the torpid, overheated air in the brightly lit room. "What d'you think of that marriage, George?" He turned his eyes to his friend and there was no sign of the dissolute fop in their brightly intelligent depths.

"I wish I could say. It's a mystery to me. I can't even tell whether they like each other. But I'll tell you this, Fox, I like the lady."

Charles nodded. "Nothing like her brother, there's a steadiness in her. She's no fool, that's for sure. And I've caught Jack looking at her sometimes," he said with a frown. "Can't put my finger on the expression exactly, but . . ." He pursed his lips. "Baffled," he said. "He looks baffled.""I know what you mean. Not at all like Jack. I've never seen him wrong-footed in my life.""Well, I continue to watch with interest, my friend. Oh, wait, what's she doing now?" Horrified, Fox took a step towards the table as Arabella, having lost all her money, was unclasping an emerald bracelet

from her wrist. George laid an arresting hand on his sleeve. "No, Charles, that's for Jack to settle. You'll have tongues wagging from one end of town to the other." He moved away in the direction of the adjoining card room, where he knew Jack was playing hazard.

Jack glanced up from the dice as George came to his shoulder. "Are you playing, George?""Not at present. A word with you, Jack."Jack set the dice on the table, offered a word of excuse to his fellow gamblers, and rose easily, shaking out the ruffles at his wrists. "Glad of the break . . . I'm dry as the desert," he said carelessly, but he knew perfectly well that George had something on his mind. He went to the sideboard and poured himself a gla.s.s of Rhenish from the decanter, then said lightly, "So what is it, George?"

George looked embarra.s.sed. "Not one to tell tales . . ." he began.

Jack's eyes were abruptly sharp and focused, all light amus.e.m.e.nt vanished. He asked quietly, "What is my wife doing?""Staking her jewelry," George said, hiding his embarra.s.sment under a slightly antagonistic tone. "You should be watching her more carefully, Jack. People will talk."

Jack smiled, but only with his lips. "It would seem that my wife forgot to bring sufficient funds with her this evening. An understandable lapse in memory. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, George."Still carrying his gla.s.s, Jack strolled off towards the other room, weaving his way expertly, but with no apparent hurry, through the card tables and the chattering observers.

He came up behind Arabella's chair and laid his free hand gently on the smooth white shoulder revealed by the decolletage of her gown of ivory silk. "Enjoying yourself, my dear?"Casually she glanced up at him from behind her fan, trying to ignore the way her skin p.r.i.c.kled at his touch. "Indeed, sir. Very much." She returned her gaze to the cards.

He leaned over her shoulder and placed five rouleaux in front of her, then stretched to retrieve the emerald bracelet from the dealer, replacing it with two rouleaux. "A shame to break up the set, my dear," he murmured, setting down his gla.s.s. With an easy smile, he raised her wrist and clasped the bracelet around it. "The stones go so well with your eyes."

Arabella knew that to be all too true. Just as she knew that Jack's insistence on the soft shades of creams and beiges had been exactly right when set against the deep rich colors of the emeralds, sapphires, rubies, or topaz that he produced for every evening gown. She'd been sorry to lose the bracelet, although the sacrifice had been necessary if she was to continue to play with the careless abandon that had become her trademark.

Now she said over her shoulder, "Tell me, sir, what card should I bet on now. I had thought this time to bet on the card I think will lose." Her hand hovered over a rouleau. "A change of tactic might change my luck."

"Doubtless," he agreed. "If a gamester didn't believe that, he would never game."

"Then change my luck, sir, and choose for me," she said, laughing gaily.

Jack looked into that laughing countenance and wished he could see once more the open, uninhibited, unaffected soul of the woman he had married. London, his London, was destroying her. And to think that once he had thought she would shine like the d.a.m.n jewels around her neck, a neck that still drove him to pa.s.sionate arousal when his lips brushed the skin, when he inhaled the delicate scent of her, when the curling tendrils of hair tickled his nose.

"I haven't been watching the discards," he said. "Make the wager yourself, ma'am. I'll stand here and bring you luck." He laid his hand once more upon her shoulder and raised his gla.s.s to his lips.

Arabella thought that perhaps she should try to win this one. Of course, she hadn't counted the discards, since winning was never her intention, but it wasn't quite so easy to lose deliberately with Jack standing beside her. She frowned, trying to remember if the queen of hearts had been turned up yet. She didn't think so and pushed a rouleau onto the card.

For once she was right. The first card turned up was the queen of hearts. She gathered up her winnings. She now had enough to play for several more hours without hazarding the emerald bracelet, but instinct told her that enough was enough. "If you'll excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I'll relinquish my place,"she said, smilingly ignoring the cries of shame.

Jack held her chair for her as she rose and then gave her his arm. "Wine?" he asked. "Or are you ready to go home?" He ran his hand down her bare arm. Suddenly he wanted to reclaim his Arabella.

He bent his head, put his mouth to her ear, and whispered. As he had hoped, she stiffened instantly, her step faltering, then she said with a careless shrug, "By all means let us go home, sir, if that's what you wish."

"I'll send for the carriage."

Throughout the tousling, tussling riot of that night, Arabella found time to wonder how it was that the constraint that had come upon them after the night at the opera had not affected arousal or its satisfaction. He could be as tender as always, as wildly demanding as always, and she could respond or initiate, as always. And yet outside the bedroom they were like exquisitely dressed Sevres figurines, or the dancing figures in a music box. They moved around each other, both wary, as if expecting something to jump out at them.

Jack had said nothing about the theft from his strongbox and Arabella had not confronted him with the letter. But there was something about the occasional awkward silences, the moments of constraint that would fall between them that told her he knew she had the letter. If it had been a simple memory lapse, and sometimes she could almost convince herself that that was possible, why didn't he bring it up? Apologize. She would do the same, they would laugh about it and consign the Cornish relatives to the midden. But he hadn't brought it up and she felt that he was watching her as closely as she was watching him.

What did he think she was going to do? It wasn't as if she knew herself. She only knew that she wanted the truth. And she had no idea how to get that.

Her hand dropped over the side of the bed and a cold nose nudged her fingers. The familiarity comforted her. The dogs had refused to be banished from her bedroom, but Jack had taught them in no uncertain terms to sleep on the floor. Like most others, they had obeyed his orders without undue protest.

His wife was another matter.

His body was warm, tucked against her back, his breathing deep. Finally she drifted into sleep on the soft rhythm of her husband's breath.

The Prince of Wales settled his bulk into a fragile gilt chair that looked as if it was about to crack beneath the weight and regarded his hostess with a complacent air. "Capital soiree last night, ma'am. You must tell your cook to send the recipe for those ortolans to Carlton House." He stroked his paunch with satisfaction. "I'm determined they shall be served at my next dinner."

"Monsieur Alphonse is a genius in the kitchen, sir," Arabella said.

A laugh rumbled from deep in the prince's chest. "Don't I know it, m'lady. I've been trying to poach him these three years and more."

"And I'll lay odds you won't succeed, sir," Fox declared cheerfully from the sideboard, where he was pouring madeira. His dress was somewhat less eccentric than usual, although his waistcoat was rather lurid in bright yellow and green stripes.

"Why is that?" demanded his royal highness, draining his own gla.s.s.

Fox came over with the decanter. "Jack was lamenting only the other day how his house has become a veritable refugee center." He laughed at Arabella, who waved a hand in mock protest. Fox continued, still chuckling as he refilled the prince's gla.s.s, "You should know, sir, that my Lady Arabella has made it a project to befriend the emigre artists and artisans in London. There are chefs, milliners, seamstresses, coiffeurs all over the city who are in her debt. Poor Jack said he suspected that most of Alphonse's family were employed under his roof."