Gabe felt himself tense as they neared the morning room. The sound of uninhibited laughter and answering titters echoed through the hall. It would seem that they were not the first guests to awaken.
Pasting a self-assured smile on his lips, he affected a jackanapes swagger and pushed open the door to the breakfast room. A nauseating waft of the presumably inedible fare curled up to his senses and he hid a cringe.
Without breaking stride, he led Mary into the grand, lavishly appointed morning room. This one was more absurd than the others they had seen of yet. The walls were draped in gilt wall hangings, the white floors were polished to such a high shine that they reflected everything in the room as though it were a mirror, and small cupids holding fruit smiled down on them from the painted ceiling.
Egad.
They greeted the others in the room but halted when a new man rose from his seat at the table.
“Mary!” The man boomed as he spread his arms wide and strode toward them.
Mary smiled in return and accepted his buss to her cheek. Gabe clenched his jaw to keep from loudly protesting and sweeping Mary from the room.
“Won’t you introduce me to your friend?” the cad with auburn hair and striking green eyes asked.
Mary’s grin widened at the curst man. “Of course! Tony, this is Mr. Anthony Spencer.”
Gabe’s confident expression slipped as he was momentarily nonplused.
“Tony, this is Anthony Walstone, Viscount Boxton.”
“Two Tonys, eh wot?” Mr. Piper laughed from his seat at the long table.
Gabe affected the appropriate bow and said the customary things, all the while he was seething at the knowledge that this man and Mary already knew each other. The question was, how did they know each other? Did they have an association such as the one Mary had with Lord Reddington?
Perish the thought.
Gabe had heard of Boxton through his dealings—or incidents—with Hydra’s family. Hydra’s sister, Miss Annabel Bradley—now Lady Devon—had been courted by the man over the past season. From what Gabe had gleaned, Boxton was a right bastard and ended up forced into a loveless marriage after being caught doing unspeakable acts to his loathsome future wife.
“Tell me, how do you know each other?” Gabe cursed his quick tongue the moment the words escaped his mouth. He did not want to know the answer to that question.
A slow, predatory grin grew on the man’s lips and Gabe felt his pulse begin to hammer in his temples.
“Oh, we go way back, don’t we, love?” He winked at Mary, and Gabe had to resist the urge to punch the man in the nose. “But I thought you would not take on a protector, Mary.” He turned to Gabe with a jaundiced eye.
Mary gazed at Gabe with adoration, her hand running up and down his coat sleeve. “Tony knew precisely what to say and what to do to alter my opinion on that score.”
“Do stop,” Lord Reddington grumbled around a mouth full of food from his seat at the table. “You’ll make us all jealous.”
“Yes, come in and eat,” Lady Kerr intoned from her seat beside her husband at the head of the table. “I saved a seat for you, Mr. Spencer.”
Lord Boxton raised a critical eyebrow at Gabe. “It seems that my lover has taken a liking to you…” his gaze flicked to Mary and back, “and the woman whose favours I, and dozens more, have very nearly begged for. You must be something special, indeed.”
Damn. He had not meant to attract so much attention. That would not be conducive to their anonymity once this assignment concluded.
He shrugged a shoulder and affected a confidence he didn’t feel. “What can I say? I learned some very interesting things while living abroad.”
“Will you lot quit your blathering and sit your arses down to eat?” Lord Sheffield wheezed, his extra chin jiggling as he spoke. “The food is getting cold and your chatter is setting me off my feed.”
“And that’s damned difficult to do!” Mr. Piper laughed.
Gabe silently gripped Mary’s elbow and led her to the sideboard where they both filled their plates. Nothing appeared or smelled appetizing in the least, but he swallowed past his repugnance and selected the lesser of the evils: nearly spoiled fruit and a slice of toast.
He sat next to Lady Kerr as she had requested, and Mary sat between the scurrilous devils, Reddington and Boxton. She smiled and flirted as she ate, laughed or turned her warm grey eyes on them when they whispered something in her ear, and batted her lashes at what Gabe could only assume were appropriate times. Damn them. Damn them all.
Why did it bother him so? Could it truly just be that he did not wish for Mary to be hurt? He was not certain that he wished to learn the answer to that question. He had best not dwell on it.
“We have ruins on the grounds of Kerr house, Mr. Spencer.” Lady Kerr leaned in close to him.
Gabe forced himself to swallow down the dry toast. “Do you, indeed?”
She nodded, her black hair remaining perfectly in place with every movement. “We do,” she purred. “You must come for a private tour.”
“I should like a private tour, my lady,” Lord Pondridge said, a Machiavellian gleam to his eye, while pouring a dram of brandy into his goblet.
“Drinking at this hour, Pondridge?” Mr. Jackson raised a perfectly manicured brow across the table at the hawk-like Lord.
Pondridge waved a fork at the man and his twin mistresses, one on each knee. “Whoring at this hour, Jackson?”
With a wink and a wicked grin, the slender, red haired dandy laughed. “Touché.”
“Speaking of which,” Reddington put in, “you said you might perform for us, but what must we do to convince you to perform for us tonight, Mary?”
“Yes, Miss White,” Mr. Piper spoke before she could respond. “We have heard so much about your fascinating skills, it would be a shame not to honour us with a sample.”
Boxton’s eyebrows rose nigh to his hairline. “Perform?”
Mary’s smile was a bewildering combination of demureness and seductiveness. Bloody perfect. “If you wish it, then I shall dance tonight.”
“Dance, is it?” Lord Kerr sipped at the steaming coffee in his cup.
“Oh!” Boxton turned to gaze at his lordship, his green eyes wide and almost frightfully zealous. “You would not believe what Mary is capable of, Kerr. She does things that are simply…indescribable! The movement of her hips—”
“Don’t give away the enjoyment of it with your ham-fisted descriptions, Boxton,” Reddington cut in. “Let it be a surprise.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. But I’ll wager you have never seen the like.”
“I’ll take that wager,” Lord Kerr said.
Gabe wanted to slap the cocksure smile off of Boxton’s face.
“One hundred quid.”
Kerr raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain you can afford to lose such a sum?”
Boxton laughed loudly, his voice echoing off the walls of the large room. “I can afford to win such a sum, I assure you.”
Lord Kerr turned to look at Mary. “What say you, Miss White? Should I take the wager?”
Mary winked at him. “That, my lord, is for you to decide.”
He pursed his lips for a moment then nodded at Boxton. “You have yourself a wager. One hundred pounds that this young actress cannot do anything that I have not yet seen.”
Boxton clapped his hands in premature victory.
It took all of Gabe’s will not to howl his fury to the room. Each word these idiots spoke brought his anger higher. Hell, Gabe could not recall a time when he felt as angry as he has in the past four and twenty hours.
He must be ill. Perhaps he had the ague; he certainly felt warm. But no. The ague would not make one angry. Mayhap he was going mad. Madness was not found in his family, but he supposed it must begin with someone.
One of Jackson’s mistresses giggled as he kissed his way up her neck, cutting the sudden silence and breaking into Gabe’s maudlin thoughts.
“Who is game for a hunt this morning? The weather is fine if not a bit damp from yesterday’s rain, eh wot?” Mr. Piper leaned back in his chair and pulled out his snuffbox.
Lord Pondridge tapped his lap and his mistress rose from her seat beside him to straddle his thighs. “I do not ride…a horse.” He winked and his mistress tittered.
Gabe suspected that Pondridge didn’t ride because he was always too drunk to stay atop his mount.
“I love a good hunt.” The Viscountess Kerr dabbed daintily at the corners of her lips then placed her napkin beside her plate.
“Capital!” Mr. Piper clapped his hands in one loud crack.
Lord Kerr swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Once we’ve concluded the morning meal, everyone that wishes to ride ought to don the proper attire. It would seem that a hunt is on.”
* * *
An hour after the morning meal, Mary pulled Gabe’s earlobe into her mouth, scraping the little nub against her teeth as her tongue lapped simultaneously. She behaved as the other mistresses did, casually draping over her lover’s lap, toying with his lapel, hair, and teasing him with lips and tongue. She attempted, with all her might, to act as though Gabriel were just another “mark” and allow her body to move without her emotions being entangled. But as much as Mary tried, she could not be detached from what her body was doing with Gabe.
He was warm and hard, and he smelled of clean skin and the arousing gentle scent of soap and cloves. Touching him and smelling him did something to her senses that compelled her to not only continue, but to do more. Much, much more.
Gabe’s voice rumbled as he spoke, the vibrations tickling her lips as she kissed the underside of his unshaven jaw.
Good heavens!
Male laughter cut through her shameful musings and she turned to see young Eleanor standing in the middle of the parlour, evidently having brought in a refill of the men’s refreshments. Gratefully, most of the house party guests had joined the hunt, so there weren’t many witnesses to Eleanor’s embarrassment. But Mary was there. And she did not like what she saw.
Lord Pondridge pinched her bottom while Lord Sheffield gripped the poor girl’s wrist, tugging her closer to him.
“Come and play with us, pretty gel. We won’t hurt you.”
The grimace on Eleanor’s face and the way she clawed at his punishing grip with her other hand told Mary that he was indeed hurting her.
Lord Sheffield pulled harder, forcing Eleanor to fall onto his lap. “There, dearie, now we can have some fun.”
A flash went through Mary’s mind of that day long ago…
“Wha’ should we do with ‘er? Eh?”
“I think weee should t-up ‘er, wot, wot?”
A shiver went down Mary’s spine and she was on her feet before she could give credence to the thought. She moved purely on instinct.
“Pardon me, your lordships, but I have need of Eleanor’s services.”
“Aw, come now, Miss White, surely you can spare her for a few minutes.”
Mary moved her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I am afraid not. You see, if I am to perform this evening I must have my costume readied. Eleanor is taking the place of my lady’s maid while we are in residence and I simply must have her assistance.”
Eleanor scrambled from Lord Sheffield’s lap the instant he released her, a look of such relief on her features that Mary felt an ache in her chest for what this girl must routinely suffer.
With a curtsey, Mary led Eleanor from the room. They traversed the halls in silence, passing other maids and footmen scurrying about to clean their masters’ chambers. The upstairs maid cleaning Mary and Gabe’s bedchamber nearly bumped into them as she rushed from the room.
“Beg pardon, miss.” She was gone before Mary had the chance to reply.
Mary preceded Eleanor into the room and pulled a small trunk from beneath the bed and placed it atop the newly straightened counterpane.
“This is—”
“Beg pardon for interrupting, miss,” Eleanor placed a tentative hand on Mary’s arm, then quickly pulled it back. “Thank you. I cannot tell you how much that meant to me, your rescuing me like that.”
Mary would ordinarily have brushed off the effusive thanks, but not only did she wish to earn the maid’s trust, but something about her compelled Mary to help. So she was honest. “Someone once saved me from such a fate. I simply wished to repay the favour.” She tapped the trunk with both hands. “Now. This is my trunk of costumes.”
She opened the lid, an array of colourful, sheer fabrics, chained coin-shaped metal circles, and ankle and wrist cuffs overflowing the box.
Eleanor’s eyes widened. “Cor!” she said breathily.
“I have not yet decided which one I will wear, so do you think you can manage to choose for me, and prepare it for this evening?”
“O’ course, Miss White. I would be happy to.”