Chapter Three
What shall we be today? Sweet or tart?
“Thighs, forearms…arse.” Aideen ran through all the words that might cause Miss Gibbon to faint, although at this moment, she would prefer the girl’s mother, Viscountess Gibbon, to collapse in an untidy heap.
The lady was waltzing with the Duke of Rakecombe and both seemed to be having a grand time of it.
Earlier, Aideen had noted his arrival at the Gibbon’s ball, but he’d barely glowered an acknowledgement from his position by the gold jardinière, chinwagged with other nobles and guzzled all the pigeon pie, a disapproving effigy of spotless black and white.
A few ladies had attempted to talk to him, but he’d peered at them as though inspecting rodents, before nodding and turning away. Not exactly a direct cut, but definitely a light graze.
Then to everyone’s surprise, he had requested a dance with their hostess, and even from across the room, Aideen had seen the mesmerised expression on Lady Gibbon’s face. He might have a disagreeable reputation, but when he chose to express some charm, they fell like delicate maidens faced with a thigh.
The duke also danced superbly, elegant but without excess, and Lady Gibbon closed her eyes in apparent ecstasy every time he tugged her into a turn. The damn bug – life would’ve been so much easier if he’d twirled like a prancing fop.
Scowling, she crossed her arms and tapped her foot, causing a matron to frown her disapproval.
For nigh eleven months, she hadn’t set eyes on the duke and now this was the second time in a sennight. She hadn’t expected to find him at Lady Gibbon’s ball, as it was quite a crush of colour, and he stood out like a sultry panther in a jungle of chattering parrots.
Lady Gibbon obviously had a taste for…the ornate. Gold, golden and more gold adorned the ballroom, paining the eyes and causing a judder.
“Overwhelming,” Mrs Beckford had stuttered as they’d entered. “Overdone,” Aideen had mumbled.
“Miss Quinlan, your ratafia.” A glass appeared before her, held by a soft white hand. “I apologise for my tardiness.”
Oh, why did Lord Sherburn have to be so…so…nice! And why couldn’t she adore such niceness? And why didn’t she like sweet ratafia? And lilac waistcoats? What was wrong with her? She must have been born with some kind of shortcoming.
Her bosom friend Sophie adored the quiet life she now led with her genial husband, but for some reason, which Aideen had never been able to quantify, she herself preferred tension, excitement and – she glared across the ballroom floor – men who wore black and hissed at you.
“Thank you, Lord Sherburn. I believe I’ll re-join Mrs Beckford.” Abruptly, she cocked her head. “Is that your mother calling?”
The agreeable chap hastily agreed, bowed, and set off in the direction of a short disapproving woman in yellow.
Aideen could almost hear the Duke of Rakecombe drawl in her ear, “Dismissed like a puppy… You need a firm hand.”
An uninvited shudder took her but instead of heading for Mrs Beckford, she strolled towards the ladies’ retiring room, swapping the insipid glass of red sweetness for champagne along the way.
The hallways were a blessed relief. A cloying aroma lay like fog over the ballroom, and under that nebulous layer was not clean air tickling the nostrils, but a ripe stench.
She wended her way down the lantern-lit passageway, meandered straight past the ladies’ retiring room and on up the marble staircase, leaving her empty glass by a rudely grinning satyr.
A day ago, she had bumped into the not-very-honourable Miss Gibbon on a jaunt to the Tower of London to view the Crown jewels. Having managed to avoid verbally expressing any body parts…or lock her away, Aideen had instead wheedled from the fake swooner the layout of the Gibbon family’s townhouse.
Toadying did not come naturally to Aideen, but every time she’d gushed over the prospect of viewing their elegantly decorated gold drawing room, she’d thought of Cordelia’s glum face; she had to locate those sheep poems.
After counting the doors on the left until she came to the fifth, Aideen lightly knocked, in case a maid was poodling around. No answer came from within and so with a twist of the handle, she opened the door and peered into Lady Gibbon’s bedchamber.
Eugh.
She withdrew for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust.
Blinking, she rounded the door and closed it behind her.
Draped in a plethora of gilt and red, the room was lit by a huge candelabra with winsome nymphs gaily cavorting.
Once, when young, Aideen had mistakenly visited Mrs O’Hare’s brothel. She had thought it was a dressmaker, and assuredly there had been a plethora of sheer material and pretty girls to model the clothes, but the decor had been more ornate than the altar at Waterford Cathedral. This was similar…
With no time to dally, however, Aideen began to methodically snoop for Cordelia’s poems, beginning with the dressing table.
Every time scruples invaded, which was often as she kept encountering frilly jonquil garters and silk stockings, she reminded herself that the woman was a blackmailing witch, and besides, tonight she’d pressed her lithesome body against the Duke of Rakecombe’s like one of Mrs O’Hare’s trollops.
She became engrossed in a chest of drawers that held a stack of IOUs, some of which, curiously, had her acquaintance Lord Winterbourne’s name attached to them.
What on God’s green earth was Jack doing wit– A sudden creak of floorboard caused her to startle.
But her retreat was too slow as a shadow of black descended, whirling her back against a man’s tall shape, a rough hand thrust upon her mouth, halting the shriek.
It could not contain her teeth, however, and she bit into the palm.
A harsh curse ensued but the hand didn’t remove itself. Instead, she was pulled more tightly against a firm, wiry torso, and a solid band pressed against her waist: his other arm and…something else.
She twisted and bit harder, only to induce a grunt and a further hauling.
“Stop wriggling, cherry,” a voice whispered. “But do keep biting, I find it rather pleasant.”
With the words came chocolate. Rich and dark.
Aideen continued to wriggle but released her teeth – the arrogant tongue-pad – and pushing her hands out, she discovered the firm press against her waist was his devilish cane.
Naturally, she knew what that cane concealed as her Uncle Seamus had crafted the piece.
A snarling silver dog with green eyes sat atop the ebony weapon, guarding its secrets. She’d even polished the jade orbs herself. It was how she’d discovered the duke was a spy, as her uncle had always fashioned special pieces for the War Department. Secret commissions with detailed compartments and fiendish traps.
“Remove your poisonous cane from my waist, you foul…duke,” she mumbled against his large palm. Really, why did he turn her insults to mush? “And why do you call me cherry all the time?”
The hand removed itself, but a finger loitered, brushing her bottom lip.
Silence fell for a moment.
Aideen was acquainted with at least five manoeuvres that would remove his other arm from around her waist, as Uncle Seamus had taught her many essentials for life in London, but for some reason she stilled, suffering that rubbing finger and awaiting his answer.
“It was actually Winterbourne who gave you the name. My cherry itch.”
Oh, that was disappointing. And made her sound like fleas on a hound.
“But it suits you,” he murmured huskily as his touch outlined her lower lip. “What will you be today – sweet or tart, I wonder?”
She bit the wandering finger and thumped an elbow into his gizzards.
“Tart, then.”
“What are you doing here?” Miss Quinlan huffed, and he grudgingly released her warm body.
Rakecombe could ask the same question but didn’t. One shouldn’t hurl stones in houses of glass and he needed to make haste, but…
Miss Quinlan looked exceptional – prickly hauteur evident in every tense muscle, swathed in the palest of blue silks.
After their…tussle, her breath was fast, and he willed his gaze to rise.
It aided not – livid eyes, sable curls and cherry-red lips. He couldn’t say which feature stood out – perhaps none, but they all contributed to a delicate yet tenacious visage.
“I expect I’ve better reason than you to be here,” he drawled, before discerning the very moment her sharp mind deduced he’d been personally invited to the fawning Lady Gibbon’s bedchamber.
He couldn’t help the small jolt of pleasure as her eyes crinkled with what he would like to call hurt. Her strong fists clenched in her silk gown, lips thinning in…jealousy?
It would be nice to know he wasn’t the only one besieged by a certain mocking green-eyed monster.
“I thought you’d have better taste,” she snarled.
Yes, definitely jealousy and he smiled with satisfaction, causing those bottomless eyes to flash with ire. He couldn’t have Aideen Quinlan, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t able to play a little… He’d take a leaf from Winterbourne’s book for once. “Lady Gibbon, or Myrtle as I like to call her, has a fine–”
A strident female voice from the hallway snapped him from his taunts.
Damnation, he didn’t have time for this as informants’ lives were at risk. The Irish minx caused him to lose his wits.
Rapidly, he scanned the room. They couldn’t be found here, for many reasons, and Miss Quinlan seemed to realise the same, as she rushed to the long delicate curtains concealing the balcony French doors.
Earlier, however, he’d noted the shutters had been kept open and if they hid behind those curtains and the moon dared to cast its glow, they’d be lit up as a silhouette tableau.
“No, the wardrobe,” he hissed, striding over to it.
“No,” she hissed back. “In stories, they always hide in the wardrobe and always get found out.”
Returning an exasperated glower as the voices neared, he nevertheless opened the wardrobe but found it would plainly give no quarter. Below the array of vivid dresses sat rows and rows of small boxes, each with a letter of the alphabet.
He tapped his cane on the letter P, one task solved, but as for the other…
Quietly, he closed the door and grabbing hold of Miss Quinlan, he hauled her to a tall gilt screen painted with flying cherubs part folded in the far corner of the room.
Squashing behind the sturdy florid eyesore, they both stood silent and still as the door rattled on its hinges.
“What a disaster, Simpson,” bemoaned Lady Gibbon, rustling into the room.
“Yes, my lady.”
More rustling.
“Lord Stewart is a caw-handed bottle-head. Red wine all down my Prussian blue silk dress. The man is blind.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The sound of buttons slipping.
“And not only that, but Lord Barnett’s wig fell in the punch, and Lady Blackburn nearly set light to her turban on my Ormolu gilt and marble candelabra – silly trollop.”
A light choke and Rakecombe glared down at Miss Quinlan in the shadows, fist held to her mouth, eyes dancing with hilarity. Slowly he raised a finger to his lips.
She removed her hand and stuck her tongue out, the juvenile jade. If she wasn’t careful, he’d–
“And as for that stiff-rumped, priggish, Duke of Restraint – did you understand my humour there, Simpson? – turning up in those tight black pantaloons and then having the effrontery to decline my invitation for a more private viewing – the hoity-toity, omnipotent hog-grubber!”
More rustling and thumping could be heard, but Rakecombe’s gaze was intent on the night-haired beauty before him, whose mirth-filled eyes first wandered over those same pantaloons and then lingeringly rose.
She licked her lips and he regretted wearing the tight-fitting apparel. Brummel’s blasted fault, and the arbiter of fashion was so deep in debt it was difficult to catch the fellow to complain. Indeed, he owed Rakecombe two hundred pounds.
“The duke asked me to dance, did you know that, Simpson?” Lady Gibbon continued.
“No, my lady.”
“Well, he did. A waltz. A very intimate waltz. And it’s not solely his arrogance that’s large, the puffed-up nodcock. And then he just collected that stupid cane and left. Left my ball!” she shrieked in crescendo.
“Yes, my lady.”
Aideen didn’t know where to place her eyes.
She couldn’t look down. But equally she couldn’t look up because deep within, something bad was happening.
It tickled her throat and she bit her lip.
But still it welled, and finally she decided upwards was the better option. Surely a blast of Rakecombe’s frigid stare would quell any amusement.
If His Grace had scowled sternly or ground his jaw in flinty castigation, all may have been well.
But he didn’t.
Despite portraying a study in stillness, a faint quirk rippled his lower lip and spinach eyes sparkled, softening his severe face. And in that moment, she realised something profound. Yes, Rakecombe was strait-laced and ruthless, but he was also sardonic and dry and could see the funny side of life, even though he chose to never show it.
In response, her own lips quivered, lacking his self-discipline, and before she knew what was happening, the merest squeak of laughter absconded.
Lady Gibbon was thankfully extolling the delights of an alternative gentleman’s snug pantaloons, water splashing, and so Aideen’s whimpers went unheard, but for how long?
Without warning, large hands covered her ears and her body was tugged forward, firm lips descending upon hers. Unstirring. They simply swallowed all sound, all breath. Intense warmth and inherent strength.
Shock erased the tickling in her throat, obliterated any laughter. His lips withdrew.
Palms still shielded her ears but other senses sharpened.
The fragrance of linen – clean, masculine and…dry.
The silk of his waistcoat caressing her skin.
The clenched jaw and penetrating eyes.
Those immodestly displayed thighs in tight pantaloons pressing against her skirts.
All amusement was forgotten and hands which had hung loosely to her side now rose to slide up his chest. And although she couldn’t hear voices, there was still one sound. The thud of a heart. Rapid and deep. The thud sped as she huddled against him and buried her nose in the expensive silk, breathing his scent.
Contentment flowed through her. An unfamiliar emotion, as most of the time she seemed to veer from anger to joy, never balanced. But for now, when neither of them could bandy words or drawl insults, she felt steadied. Secure.
Rakecombe, she suspected, was feeling anything but. His fingers began to caress the curls by her ear, and his breathing, she noticed, became laboured, chest heaving.
Why did they have this attraction?
She should be so far below his notice that he could tread on her and not detect a bump to his stride.
A door slammed, a sound she heard even through his broad palms.
For a time, neither stirred, until slowly his hands slid down to cup her chin, raising her head until their gazes met.
No laughing eyes, no smirking lips. He appeared…sorrowful.
“They have gone,” he said simply.
Aideen drew away – as did the feeling of contentment.
Briefly, she considered asking why he had just kissed her but didn’t want to hear some drawled retort about halting her tongue, wasn’t willing to lose that last remnant of warmth, still tingling her skin.
In silence, they rounded the ornate screen, and she wondered at his reasons for being in this chamber.
Was Lady Gibbon a spy as well? She wondered until the moment he opened the wardrobe.
“And whose initial are you looking for?” he asked quietly.
She gawked at the neat boxes. “I… I don’t understand.”
“Lady Gibbon likes to blackmail members of the ton and anyone else beneficial. Usually for trifling reasons, like attending her dreary balls, but occasionally she turns up something useful. What does she hold over you, Miss Aideen Quinlan?”
“Not me. A friend of mine. You must promise not to–” She stopped herself. How foolish. This man was a spy for the Crown – he didn’t care for the poems of a child. Abruptly, she felt small. No match for a duke of the realm. “Initial G for Greenwood. There are some poems.”
Riffling through the stuffed box, he raised a brow, tilting the paper towards an alabaster nymph clutching a candle. “I frolicked upon the heath with my beloved shepherd?”
“Er. That does sound like them, yes. There are four in total.”
His brow rose ever ceiling-wards as he handed her the scrawled papers.
She waited whilst he riffled through boxes inscribed with S and P, stuffed some papers in his coat, and then neatly placed them back in their slots, closing the wardrobe door on the sleeping secrets.
“I trust you will keep silent about tonight, Miss Quinlan?”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
How polite they both were. She longed to ask what emotion he’d felt behind that screen but sensed the Duke of Restraint was back – unyielding and withdrawn.
The hideous candelabra’s glow cast a lustre upon his hair, and she realised that unlike her own cold-toned black locks, the duke’s held a deep redness – warm and rich, such a dichotomy to his icy visage.
He hustled her to the door and, after checking the way was clear, instructed she turn left towards the staircase.
Nodding her compliance, she watched as he straightened his tailcoat and then strode in the opposite direction. No worded goodbye or brief smile – he just walked away.
But as the duke disappeared silently into the shadows, Aideen turned and tiptoed back into Lady Gibbon’s bedchamber.
Temptation beckoned to find anything she could within the box marked R of that wardrobe of secrets, but instead she crossed the room, peered behind the elaborate screen and grabbed the ebony cane left propped there against the wall.
Perhaps she wasn’t the only one feeling a little out of sorts.