A Much Compromised Lady (10 page)

What is it you really want, my gypsy? Will
you ever tell me?

Only he could not imagine why she would ever
tell him anything, other than another one of her stories. He was
the enemy. A dreaded
gaujo
. And she was a wild Gypsy who
lied and stole and schemed.

For some reason that image sat badly with him
tonight. She did not look a Gypsy just now. She looked a lady with
troubled dreams. A lady in need of shelter and strong arms about
her. A lady who...

His mouth twisted. Such nonsense. Despite her
lovely voice, she was no lady. She was a Gypsy. She had been ready
to shoot him earlier if he presumed too much with her. As she would
probably shoot him now if he sought to press his advantage with
her. He really ought to confine his imaginings to his own concerns,
only she was his concern now. He wanted her happy, for that would
make her compliant.

What did his Gypsy really want of Nevin?

The carriage rocked to a halt. St. Albans
glanced out, and when he looked back, his Glynis had stirred and
now sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, her expression
cross.

She sat bolt upright. “London! And I missed
seeing it?”

She sounded so upset that he had to smile.
“It’s dark already, with little enough to see. I shall take you
driving tomorrow, and you may look your fill in the daylight.”

“But I wanted to see it from afar. And the
city gates. Are there really hundreds of chimneys?”

“Thousands, I expect. Do you wish me to hire
you a balloon, so that you could sail over them in the air?”

Frowning, she shook her head. “A balloon? No.
I saw one of those once in the midlands, after it came down to
tangle in the trees. But if there is a hillside that overlooks the
city, you can take me there.”

He smiled, and vowed he would someday have
her aloft in one of those hot-air contraptions. The coach door
opened and he descended, and turned to hand her out. But she paused
in the carriage, staring up at his house to ask, a touch of awe in
her tone, “What is this place?”

“Winters House,” he said.

Reaching out, he fit his hands around her
waist and lifted her down. She was far too busy gawking to pay any
heed to him, so he allowed his hold on her to linger. She had a
trim waist. A nice fit, indeed, for the span of his hands.

A voice behind him interrupted his thoughts
before they could get properly started. “Well, I never!”

St. Albans turned to find his neighbor—Lady
Monmouth—staring at him from her front steps. The door to her
townhouse stood open behind her. The lanterns beside her doorway
and his own illuminated her—and himself—quite clearly. As he
watched, her ladyship’s coach came around the corner and drew to a
halt next to his own.

It had not occurred to him before, but now it
did, that he was about to scandalize London. Gentlemen did not
bring their mistresses home with them. No, they kept their
interesting connections
in separate houses in less
fashionable neighborhoods, as if the loose morals of those women
were somehow infectious and must be kept at a distance.

But he did not want to install his Gypsy in a
house elsewhere. After taking so much trouble to catch her, he
wanted her close to him. So he had brought her to Grovesnor Square
and Winters House, and if his neighbors did not care for such
company, they could retire to their county estates a few weeks
early, before the usual summer exodus.

Now, as he stared back at Lady Monmouth, who
glared at him and his gypsy as if they were a contagion, the devil
inspired him.

Tipping his hat, he gave Lady Monmouth a
slight bow. “Good evening, my lady. May I have the pleasure of
presenting you to my new mistress?”

Beside him, Glynis drew in a breath. Lady
Monmouth’s eyes widened, and she drew her velvet evening cloak
tighter about her.

“Well I...I never!” she muttered again. She
turned away from St. Albans, her stare fixed on her own coach.
Well, that was one more acquaintance with a dull dowager that would
no longer bother him, he decided.

Amused, he turned back to find his Gypsy
watching him, her stare reproachful. He lifted an eyebrow, and she
shook her head.

“You are like some...some little boy who has
to pull every petticoat you see, just to see the ladies jump.”

“I beg your pardon. I thought you were here
to pose as a mistress, and what better time to start than the
present? Lady Monmouth will have the gossip spread before midnight.
Now, would you care to dine?”

Glynis glanced at St. Albans, and at his even
more imposing house. All carved stone and glittering windows that
would cost a fortune in window tax. Lanterns burned beside a double
door large enough for ‘Lisi and their cart to fit through with room
to spare on each side. A black iron fence surrounded a tidy front
garden where roses twined and leafed. It looked—well, it looked all
too intimidating and grand.

However, St. Albans’s next words wiped away
her hesitation about entering.

“And perhaps you would care to wash off the
dust of traveling with a bath?”

“A bath?” she asked, the word conjuring
images of comforts she had almost forgotten existed.

A bath. A heated bath. In the summer, she
bathed in whatever river lay nearest to their camp. In the winter,
she sponged herself clean with water heated by the fire. But she
had had a real bath once before.

As a child of four, on that awful night after
Bado had saved them, when she had been caked with his blood and
some of her own, her mother had taken them to an inn. Glynis
shivered even now at that long-ago memory. She could still remember
the warmth of the water, and the smell of lavender soap, and how
afterwards her mother had held her wrapped in something soft and
she had felt safe then.

It was the last time she could remember
feeling safe. After that night, they had always been traveling.
Always looking back in case someone followed. Someone who had been
paid to see to their deaths.

And now she followed this
gaujo
,
trailing after him and his promise of a bath. He led her into a
hall so vast that she had to tip her head back to see the ceiling,
which was painted with an intricate design, and at its center a
knight rode a black horse. She stared around her. Everything seemed
so impossibly elegant. White walls, rich tapestries, polished
floors of black and white, a curved staircase with a red carpet
that wound up its steps. It smelled sweet from beeswax and lemon
oil and the fragrance of the spring flowers that spilled from the
glass vase on a round table in the hall’s center.

She pulled her cloak tighter, for her dress
felt suddenly thin and drab, and she was aware of her ragged boots
and the dirt under her fingernails.

“Where is the bath?” she asked, clutching her
bundle. Her voice echoed in the hall, almost making her wish she
had spoken in a whisper. Ah, but she did not feel welcome here.

St. Albans turned from his two servants, tall
men, though not as tall as he, she noted. They dressed in dark
clothes, and they did not smile. The Earl had given them his hat
and gloves. Now he waved them away, and snapped his fingers.

A small, thin man strolled into the hall, his
reddish hair brushed into gleaming curls. He dressed almost as well
as the Earl, in a pale blue brocade waistcoat and a dark blue coat,
white breeches, white stockings, and black shoes. He seemed to come
from nowhere. Did these servants stand out of sight, waiting to be
summoned?

“This is Gascoyne,” St. Albans said,
indicating the small man, who gave a deep bow to her as if she were
a lady. “Gascoyne, this is Miss Glynis Chatwin. You will see to her
comforts. She will have a bath, then we dine at ten.”

“But of course, milord,” Gascoyne said, his
words lifted by a foreign-sounding accent. He bowed to her again,
indicating the stairs with one hand. “If you will but follow
me.”

Almost, she wanted to stay with the Earl.
Him, at least, she knew. But he was watching her, an amused smile
turning his eyes a glittering green, and so she shot him a cool
look that she hoped seemed sophisticated, and started up the
stairs.

Gascoyne led her up two flights to a room
that opened into another room, that one with a canopied bed large
enough for a horse to sleep upon. She could not help but walk
around the room, staring at everything, clutching her small
bundled, which felt even smaller now.

The room smelled of flowers, and even though
summer had not yet come masses of red rose stood in vases.
Decorated in gold and greens that accented the warm wood floors and
paneling, the room looked as if someone had brought the woods
inside. Delicate furniture, carved and curved, made up intimate
corners for conversation beside a white marble fireplace, and near
the long windows and the two tall bookcases.

Casually, she made her way to the windows and
parted the drapes. The windows looked out on the back gardens, not
the square as she had hoped. Ah, well, but she would find another
way to let Christo know where she slept.

The man, Gascoyne, went around the room,
lighting more candles, and she could only think how very expensive
that must be. Turning to her, he asked, “Would mademoiselle care
for tea?”

She could only nod.
He must be French
,
she thought, feeling even more that she did not belong here in a
place where even the servants were more refined than she.

Gascoyne gave her a bow, stepped into the
other room and opened the doors to an enormous wardrobe. “You will
find all you need here. Milord ordered a little of everything to be
brought today. And you have but to ring and a maid will come to
help you dress.”

A bath. A maid to dress. Tea brought to
her.

She had to sit down on one of the chairs.

Ah, but it was worse than ever she had
imagined. She had not only to fight this
gaujo
lord and his
charm. Now she had to fight the lure of all this as well.

* * *

Pushing back from the dinner table, St.
Albans decided it had been a mistake not to order the meal in a
more intimate setting. But he had wanted to impress her.

He had forgotten, however, that he had
banished the ancestral portraits to the formal dining room, for
when he entertained, it was always at his clubs, or at one of the
more exclusive establishments in Covent Garden that catered to a
gentleman’s taste.

Well, she had been impressed, but in quite
the wrong fashion.

She had come downstairs, clean, smelling of
lilac soap, her skin rosy from her bath, but wearing that plain,
blue gown of hers. He had frowned at that. Well, no matter. The
dressmaker would visit tomorrow, and while she was stripped and
measured, he would have these rags burned. He would at least have
her looking a proper mistress in something more provocative.

But when she had stepped into the dining
room, her eyes had widened, and the questions started.

“Are all these your relatives? Ah, but I’ve
never seen so many paintings. Who is that? Your mother? She looks
very like you—very pretty. Or should I say that you look like her?
Why do you not have any of your family with you?”

Such blunt interrogation left him rather
unsettled. No one quizzed the Earl of St. Albans. And he certainly
did not want to discuss his family. So he directed her to her
chair, gave a vague answer and began to talk instead of the
delicacies he had arranged for her pleasure.

She had allowed herself to be seated, but
frowned at the table settings. “Why do you use so many forks and
spoons? No wonder you need so many servants if they must clean all
this. What is this small one for? Fish? Oh, thank you,” she said,
directing the last comment to the footman who had just ladled soup
into her bowl.

Startled, the fellow had nearly dropped both
the ladle and the Chinese porcelain tureen.

St. Albans leaned forward. “My dear, in
polite company one does not notice the footmen who wait at
table.”

“Bah—that does not sound polite!” Twisting in
her chair, she glanced up at the footman. “You—what is your
name?”

The fellow turned a pale face to the Earl,
and shot a panicked glance at the butler.

St. Albans nodded at his butler, who in turn
gave a nod to the footman, and a glance that clearly cautioned the
man not to get too familiar with his betters, even with this
invitation.

“James, miss,” the footman said, his voice
reedy and nervous.

She smiled up at him, and St. Albans thought
crossly that she certainly seemed free enough with her smile for
his staff.

“Well, James, tell me—and be honest—is it not
always nicer to have a kind thank you for your work?”

James swallowed hard, glanced at the butler
once again, and straightened. “Yes, miss. It is nice.”

Turning back, his Gypsy gave St. Albans a
nod, as if she had proven herself in the right of things.

St. Albans had given up at that point. If his
Gypsy wanted to flout social convention, he would allow it. In
fact, she was rather like a spring wind through this musty house—a
somewhat strong spring wind, but still refreshing. And if the staff
took offense at her informality, well, then Gascoyne would be kept
busy hiring new servants.

The questions continued with each course, for
she asked him about any dish she could not recognize.

Her appetite impressed him, and he thought he
had not been wrong about her. Life burned hot in her, and it was
going to be a pleasure to warm his hands by such a fire.

As the last course was removed, St. Albans
indicated that his gypsy’s wine glass should be refilled, and he
gave his butler, Palmer, a nod that the servants should leave the
cheese and fruit on the table and retire.

Turning back to his Gypsy, he found her
toying with her wing glass, one hand resting on her stomach and her
stare fixed on the portraits again.