Chapter 3
Conundrums: Enigmatical conceits.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
“I can see myself to my suite from here.” Mariana slipped a coin into the errand boy’s hand. Eyes greedy and wide, he ducked a quick nod before skipping down the hotel stairs, coin clutched tight in his fist.
She considered the dim, narrow corridor before her and the set of rooms at its end, determined not to succumb to the weariness that had replaced the initial rush of relief at Nick’s continued hold on his mortal coil. He was alive, and she and her newfound lady’s maid, Hortense, had a night of packing ahead of them.
After all, she repeated to herself, she had a life to preserve in London: her children, her household, and The Progressive School for Young Ladies and the Education of Their Minds, the school she and Olivia founded a few years ago. Of course, Geoffrey and Lavinia were taken care of; her household lay in the capable hands of servants accustomed to the sporadic and prolonged absences of their employers; and the formidable Mrs. Bloomquist ran the school according to her own high and exacting standards. In all honesty, she would have to be absent from her life far longer than a few days before she would be missed. Sobering thought.
She slid her key into the door lock and twisted the handle. She was halfway across the threshold when she froze mid-step. Every lamp and candle in the sitting room was ablaze, illuminating Nick’s rangy form sprawled across a peacock blue dupioni silk settee, an idle ankle balanced atop a muscular thigh. He lowered the book he was reading and silently regarded her as if she was the interloper. His ease with the situation set her teeth on edge.
“Your beard is gone.” Her first observation was cool, steady, and at complete odds with the tumult she felt to her very core. “And your clothes . . . Now you look like a newly released prisoner.”
“That was the idea.”
She wouldn’t mention how the short crop of his hair suited him as it framed the strong angles of his face and the thick, black lashes encircling his piercing gray eyes. As the flickering light cast his features in light and relief, it was a fact that he was unbelievably handsome. Not only handsome—it was too thin a word for him—but unbelievably appealing. Nick was the sort of man who drew women without an ounce of effort, no matter the length of his hair or the quality of his clothing.
She tore her eyes away, dropped her reticule onto the nearest table, and pushed the door shut with her shoulder. She pressed her back against it on the slender hope that her quivering legs would firm up soon. They weren’t quite ready to move toward the sitting area . . . toward Nick.
He held up the book in his hands. “Interesting reading selection.”
The book would be that book. A betraying blush flared to the surface, and, like a green schoolgirl, Mariana rushed to explain herself. “In my haste to depart London, I mistook it for another book and tossed it into my bag.”
Nick’s brows lifted in bemusement. “Is that so?” He opened the book. “I see from this dog ear that you’ve made it well into the C’s.” His voice softened as his gaze roved across the pages. “Cotswold Lion. A sheep. Cotswold in Gloucestershire is famous for its breed of sheep. Useful little tidbit. Your Uncle Bertie would certainly agree with that assessment of his beloved fold. Let’s see . . .” He scanned further down the page. “Much of the page is given over to Covent Garden, famous, it seems, for its fruit, flowers, herbs, theaters, and brothels. One must be careful not to contract the Covent Garden Ague from a Covent Garden Nun. All seems to be in order there.” A dry laugh scrubbed the back of his throat. “Covey. A collection of whores. What a fine covey here is, if the Devil would but throw his net!” Nick’s amused gaze lifted and found her.
Impossibly, Mariana’s blush grew hotter. “Mrs. Bloomquist confiscated the dictionary from one of the girls.”
“That’s quite an education the school is providing its students.”
“And she entrusted it to me to dispose of properly.” She wouldn’t mention that the guilty party happened to be her precocious niece, Lucy.
“I’m not sure the word properly should ever be spoken in connection to The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.”
“It’s written in English, and there are no other books,” Mariana snapped. “Besides, I’ve found it . . . enlightening.” Oh, how she wished she could stop blushing and explaining herself.
“Right.” Nick’s fingers drummed a hollow tattoo across the leather book cover. “I see you decided to take my hotel suite.”
“You weren’t using it,” she said. “Besides, you can have it back on the morrow. I depart for England at first light.”
A puzzled smile reached his eyes. “Since when did you ever listen to me?”
Mariana bristled at his words, at the assumption that lay within them, but she refused to rise to it. “I listened to myself.”
Again, his fingers tapped embossed leather, except now his lips had drawn into a firm line, humor evaporated.
She cleared her throat, hoping to clear the air of the sort of charged moment that tended to stretch between them, and summoned a healthy dose of self-righteousness. “You mustn’t enter this suite at will. You relinquished your right to it when you went missing.”
“A husband has rights,” he said, his voice that of a perfect popinjay.
“You tossed those out with the rubbish some years ago,” she stated with a bravado she didn’t feel. Rather, an unsettled and exposed feeling charged her senses. How was it that he still continued to hold the power to reduce her to this state? A touchy girl composed of raw nerves wasn’t the woman she’d spent the past decade cultivating. “What about my lady’s maid? What did you do with her?”
“She has been dismissed for the night.”
“Just like that?”
“A husband has—”
“Do not finish that sentence if you value your life.” A related thought wedged its way in. “How did you convince her, dressed as you are? No servant would believe the likes of you”—She eyed him up and down—“to be the husband of me.”
“Nothing is what it seems in this world.”
“The last few days have been the strangest of my life,” she said. “Can you just state plainly whatever the devil it is you’re not saying?”
“I think you know what I’m not saying.”
“Nick,” she began on a whisper, her body inching forward, his words and the implication within them drawing her in, “are you telling me that Hortense is a spy?” She lowered to a perch on the edge of the settee opposite his. They were now separated by no more than the width of a small, inlaid walnut table.
Nick’s right eyebrow shot up, but he remained otherwise silent. That eyebrow told Mariana all she needed to know. “And here I thought she was a godsend.”
“If you prefer to think of her that way, I won’t object,” Nick cut in, a perverse smile playing about his lips.
“I was even considering taking her back to London with me,” Mariana continued, choosing to ignore his quip. The man always did have a high opinion of himself. “Do you not understand how difficult it is to find a lady’s maid who speaks English in Paris? She is as rare as a Woolly Mammoth in London.”
“A Woolly Mammoth in London?” he asked with a confounded laugh.
“Given my involvement with The Progressive School for Young Ladies and the Education of Their Minds, I spend a good deal of time perusing London’s museums.”
Nick cocked his head. “I would have thought finding you in a stuffy museum would be as rare as finding a Woolly Mammoth in London.”
“I enjoy it.” Again, she sounded defensive. Drat. “And I happen to know that the Museum of Natural History in Paris has its very own Woolly Mammoth.”
In fact, she was disappointed to have missed it on this trip. But Nick needn’t know that. She’d revealed too much about her life already.
“That’s,” he began, a reflective note in his voice, “new.”
“Actually, they acquired it more than one hundred years ago.”
“I wasn’t speaking of the mammoth.”
Mariana’s traitorous insides went light at his words and at the implication within them. The moment could grow soft, and a sense of ease could steal in, if she allowed it. It was an ease she’d felt the first time they’d locked eyes at a dinner party at Uncle Bertie’s country estate—so very long ago. She’d felt they were two halves of the same whole and had been waiting all their lives to be joined together.
She gave herself a mental shake. Such memories were a trap. Over the last decade, she’d done quite well forgetting what she liked about her husband. She wouldn’t allow softness to shake her resolve. This was Nick. He was as soft as a razorblade. “You and I haven’t bothered to have a conversation that doesn’t involve our children in a decade. Now twice in a single night?”
The question hung in the air as he picked a piece of lint off tatty, old trousers. They would be here all night, if that was his purpose, as those pants appeared to be composed entirely of lint. Why was he dressed like a person who possessed neither lodging nor a place to bathe? Surely, collecting information had its limits.
“Isn’t it a husband’s prerogative to inquire into his wife’s well-being?”
“Is that what we’re doing? Inquiring into each other’s well-being?” Mariana sank back into lush silk, even as stiff corsetry bit into her skin, and mirrored Nick’s unconcerned pose. Two could play at this game. “Let us review,” she began. “Since I arrived in Paris, I’ve been dividing my time between hospitals, morgues, and ballets. Would you like to hear about the twins?” she asked, forging on. “Lavinia is with Olivia and Lucy. The girl is as mad about horses as ever. Geoffrey is settled at Westminster. He’s requested a kukri knife for his name day.”
“He likely needs one at Westminster. That school has an unruly reputation. I would have seen him at Harrow.”
“Westminster has been educating noble sons for centuries,” Mariana defended. “As the parent who spends the most time in London, I would have him closer to home.” She summoned a saint’s own patience to get through this farce. “Your father and mother are well.” With no small amount of satisfaction, she watched him shift in his seat. That movement spoke of discomfiture. “I spoke with them at a soirée just last month.”
“In the same room?” he asked, caution in his words.
“Separately. Have I ever seen them in the same room together?”
“At our wedding.” He paused to consider. “At Geoffrey and Lavinia’s christening.”
“They don’t care much for each other, do they?” It was almost as if she and Nick were conducting a normal conversation. But the past had taught her where this conversation was heading: nowhere. Nick didn’t speak about his family.
“That would be one way of stating the case,” he replied, fiddling with a fingernail as if bored. “Another way of stating it would be to say that they would rather eat a dinner of glass shards than converse face to face.” Hesitant, he asked, “And my brother?”
“I’ve seen Jamie at gatherings here and there,” Mariana replied, her tone one of careful neutrality.
“In his cups?”
Now it was Mariana’s turn to pause. She liked Nick’s older brother Jamie, which was why she didn’t wish to speak ill of him. Still, her answer would be the truth. “It did appear so.”
“Have you heard any rumors of a courtship?”
She studied Nick closer. He looked strangely . . . vulnerable. “None.”
“That sounds right.”
“He won’t ever marry, will he?” She’d long wondered about Jamie’s seemingly solitary, even reclusive, life.
“Most doubtful, I would think.”
“But he’s the heir to the marquessate,” she countered. “Your parents must . . .”
Nick’s eyes flew up to meet hers, a fiery glow charging their depths. “Jamie owes our parents nothing,” he stated, understated ferocity infusing each word. “You were brought up by the sort of family who laughs together over the breakfast table. Only our surname binds the Asquith family together.”
“You love Jamie.” She’d never seen him like this.
A subtle wince crossed Nick’s otherwise impassive features.
Warnings about the Asquith family rose to the surface of memory. It was a good and noble family, a perfect match for her, but those parents loathed one another. On the night before her wedding, Olivia had even asked if she was certain she wanted to marry into that family. A blithe, “I’m marrying Nick, not his parents,” passed Mariana’s lips, the question buried beneath dreams of future marital bliss.
Tonight, she saw reality, a Nick visibly rattled by the conversational turn toward his family. Here lay the largest danger. This was where she would be drawn in by him, if she allowed it. And, oh, how easily she could allow it. A known entity existed between them, one she’d done well to suppress.
But in a room located in a foreign country where a sense of unreality could prevail? It was here that she could allow herself to be seduced into his web and be undone. She didn’t want this.
She didn’t want to burn with an intense desire to know about him. It had taken her too long to extinguish that particular flame, to convince herself that she didn’t care, that she’d never really cared, that it was infatuation run its course. But, tonight, he’d revealed a concrete fact about himself: he was a spy. She yearned to know even more about this man.
She’d never felt more disappointed in herself. Hadn’t the last ten years made her stronger than this?
She shot to her feet on a surge of resolution, intent on showing Nick the door. “You’ve gotten your wish. I leave tomorrow. We haven’t anything more to say to one another until Geoffrey and Lavinia’s eleventh name day next month.”
He responded by settling deeper into his settee, and deep annoyance flared through her. His gaze raked up the length of her and held when it reached her eyes. She wouldn’t squirm. She wouldn’t remember the way that look used to snake through her until it reached the apex of her thighs. If she did, her legs might begin to quiver, much like they were now. That wouldn’t do at all.
“A plot is brewing to assassinate the French king’s heir, Charles, the Duc d’Artois.”
Mariana retreated a step and fell back onto her settee in a puff of skirts. Within Nick’s gaze, she detected a deadly serious light, and, just like that, she was caught like an impetuous grasshopper. “Why not assassinate the king?” she asked, at once ensnared by his web.
“The king is on his deathbed and has no heir except for his brother Charles, the Duc d’Artois, whose own heir was assassinated four years ago. With the death of Charles, the Bourbon line dies out, making—”
“Way for a new line,” she finished for him, unable to help herself.
He nodded. “And new ideologies.”
“The French rather have a history of that sort of thing.” It was a glib and sorry attempt to diffuse the tension his intense gaze stirred inside her.
“These aren’t revolutionaries, Mariana.”
“Then who is plotting, if not revolutionaries?”
“A rebellious minority of nobles who do not share the Ultra-Royalist vision for France’s future. These men fear Charles will turn back the clock as if the Revolution never happened.”
“Can he?”
“Doubtful, but that isn’t to say he won’t try. These men are emboldened by last year’s constitutional monarchist uprisings in Spain.”
“Shouldn’t we English support such a cause?” she asked. “After all, a monarchy limited by a constitution is our form of government.”
“Over the past year, tens of thousands have died in Spain in civil war. Make no mistake, if the heir is assassinated, there will be war. It is in England and all of Europe’s best interest that it be avoided at all costs.”
“There must be a reason you’re telling me this,” Mariana cut in. She sensed a deeper truth rippling beneath Nick’s words. “A spy doesn’t reveal himself unless he receives something valuable in exchange. What is it that I have of value to you?”
He shifted in his chair and regarded her as if from a great distance. She could almost see the gears in his head racing to devise the best strategy for handling her. “You caught the attention of the Comte de Villefranche tonight.”
“You were in the Foyer?” she asked.
“I have people.”
“You have people?”
His eyes held hers. “Yes.” He was absolutely daring her to look away first. “Villefranche is connected to the assassination plot.”
“The Comte de Villefranche?” she returned, her voice dripping with disbelief. “You cannot possibly believe that . . . boy . . . is capable of assassination and revolution.”
“I’ve seen boys do worse.”
Her mouth snapped shut.
“The truth—”
“The truth?” she interrupted. “I wasn’t aware you and the truth were acquainted.”
“The truth is,” he continued patiently—too patiently, “Villefranche fits the description of the sort of idealistic young man who powerful men manipulate into doing their dirty work. He wouldn’t be the first.”
Fraught silence stilled the air. “Before receiving the note that you were missing and presumed dead,” she said, “your life appeared to be centered around the pursuit of the pleasures of our social set. I thought you played at politics and diplomacy here and there, but nothing serious. Nothing important.”
Nick leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs, his entire demeanor taking on a distinct register of urgency as he breached the space between them. Anticipation sparked the air alive, and the room shrank away. It was just him and her.
The breath caught in her chest between an inhale and an exhale, holding the scent of him deep inside. She imagined sandalwood roots extending from her lungs into her veins to the very tips of her fingers and toes.
“Who do you think operates the government of England?” he asked, his voice hushed velvet. “Those with money, education, and land. The Lords, Mariana.” The gray of his irises glowed with intensity. “Is it such a stretch that I could be one of them?”
Another unruly blush flared to the surface, its warm bloom heating her up by a few degrees. This one for her stupidity. Of course, Nick was the sort of man who kept governments operating. He possessed the intellect and the capability.
These were qualities she’d liked about him from the beginning. These were memories that had been banished to the past. Until tonight.
“Why are you here, Nick? In this hotel suite?” she whispered. He was close, so close. “Once Hortense returns, she will help me pack, and I shall be gone by daybreak. You will be free to resume the strange and mystifying life you lead here.”
His gaze slid sideways, and he sat back in his seat. She almost ached for the loss of his nearness. Almost. She couldn’t possibly be that foolish.
On a sigh, she tilted her head, first to one side to remove one diamond drop earring, then to the other side to remove the other. Next, she tugged open the clasp of her gold filigree bracelet. Her gaze lifted to find him following her every move.
Instantly, a specific sort of intimacy pervaded the air between them. It was the slow, familiar intimacy of a husband observing his wife make herself comfortable.
“What are you doing?”
If she didn’t know better, she might think she’d unnerved him. “Readying myself for bed. It’s what one does in the normal scheme of things. Or is normal completely lost to you?”
“Normal,” he replied, “is a word deeply rooted in the relative. Normal is an entirely individual experience.”
She resisted an incredulous shake of her head. “Philosophical musings aside, when did Hortense say she would return?” she asked, her tone all brisk business. She needed the distance such a tone provided.
“I asked her to take the night off.”
Mariana opened her mouth and snapped it shut. Those words couldn’t possibly mean what they sounded like, what her body, traitorous and hot, might hope they meant. “I have no lady’s maid tonight?” she got out.
He nodded.
A riot of desire skittered through her. That nod had led them places in the past.
No. That wouldn’t do.
She mustn’t let her body rule her head.
She wrapped herself in righteous umbrage and shot to her feet in an exasperated shush of silk skirts, grabbing the candlestick to her right and purposefully striding to the French doors dividing the sitting room from the bedroom. She pulled them wide.
“Well, then, there is no help for it. You must play the part,” she called over her shoulder. “Unbutton my dress.”