A Much Compromised Lady (15 page)

St. Albans’s arm came around her waist.
“Don’t worry, my Gypsy. Every man here knows you are under my
protection.”

“Yes, and the women know it, too, and they do
not seem to like it.” She slanted a look at him. “You seem to be a
great prize, to judge by how they look at me.”

His mouth crooked. “How do I answer that? If
I say that I am, I sound insufferably conceited. And if I say I am
not, then I am lying. However, I think you are the reason for so
much notice. I do not make it a habit to keep a mistress. I prefer
conquests to liaisons.”

Glynis frowned at him. “And what is the
difference?”

St. Albans’s amusement deepened. She was, he
thought, the most blunt spoken woman he had ever known. She really
should not be asking him these questions. And if she honestly was
the daughter of Edward Dawes, she should even not be here, unless
she intended to join these ladies of the town in their
profession.

“The difference, my Gypsy, is one of
longevity.”

“Ah, you mean you tire too easily of these
painted ladies. I can see why. They must be performing the entire
time they are with you—that is what they are paid for, after
all—and it seems to me it would be worse than living with a
performing monkey to live with one of them.”

His smile widened. That was perhaps the most
accurate description he had ever heard for why he did not care to
keep a mistress. They were exhausting creatures, but he had assumed
that to be because they were women. Well, his Gypsy certain did not
perform for him. That was part of her charm. She was one of the few
people he knew who seemed to accept him as he was, neither shunning
nor fawning over him.

Offering his arm, he led her to the
refreshments and procured her a glass of wine. He pointed out a few
notables—society was already starting to thin as the summer weather
began to arrive. In a month, the Thames would begin to stink of
sewage, and any who could flee would do so.

He introduced her to a few acquaintances,
naming her only as his Gypsy and refusing to tell them anything
else about her. He wanted her mysterious, and he could see that
talk had begun to spread. It was going exactly as he knew it would.
Now all that needed to happen next was for Duncastle and
Hammond—those intimates of Lord Nevin—to play their parts.

The orchestra struck up a waltz, and St.
Albans led his gypsy onto the floor. He swept his arm around her,
and her body stiffened as if he had never before held her this
intimately.

“You are supposed to look as if you are
enjoying yourself—not as if you are enduring the Inquisition,” he
said, smiling at her.

“I am enduring. It feels...well, it feels
wicked to have you hold me with so many staring at us.”

He pulled her closer. “My dear, a taste for
wickedness is like a taste for champagne: it seems bitter and
strange at first, and then it goes to your head and you start to
wonder how you ever lived without it.”

She tilted her head and her eyes narrowed.
“Oh? So you were not always wicked?”

“Well, actually I was. But I only managed to
excel later in life. It is rather difficult, after all, to be too
very wicked when in short pants.”

She lowered her stare, but not before he
glimpsed the smile in her eyes. In truth, dancing with her was far
better than champagne, or any number of the wicked sins that lay on
his soul. He liked having her in his arms, her hand resting on his
shoulder.

“Now what are you thinking, my gypsy?”

“It is just another tiresome question.”

“I am becoming inured to them. Ask.”

“I was wondering if one becomes wicked
because of one fateful act that changes one’s life, or if it is
more like tossing pebbles into a stream. You toss in a few and it
does not seem to matter, but if you keep tossing, soon you have
damned the water.”

“Damned. Yes, that sounds more like. Damned
the water and a life.”

“Not your soul?”

“An unseen spirit that abides in the body? I
am not certain I have one of those. Perhaps that accounts for my
sinful nature.”

“Ah, but you must believe in something?”

His gloved hand tightened on hers. “Must I?
Then I shall believe in the softness of your body, in the pleasure
of a kiss, in what I can hold and touch and see. I can tell you
that I believe that nothing lasts forever, so why not enjoy what is
here before us now?”

She shook her head, as if she disapproved.
“Now you talk like a
gaujo
who lives too much inside a
house. You can feel the wind, but you cannot hold it. A soul is
like that. And the earth will go on breathing her winds long after
we are gone. That’s forever. And if you lay in the woods at night,
you would know that spirits are everywhere with us—and you would
feel yours rise up to the stars as you lay on the ground, counting
their endless number.”

The music stopped and St. Albans stilled. Her
voice had dropped to a husky, bewitched tone and he could almost
wish to carry her off to those woods of hers so they could lay
together under the stars, and he would see if he could feel what
she had described.

Reality returned as another lady brushed
against him, and the orchestra struck up the notes for the next
dance.

St. Albans glanced to his right, to the
entrance, and saw Lord Nevin, talking to Duncastle and Hammond. It
seemed they had done as he had known they would and had spread word
to Nevin that St. Albans would be sporting a new mistress tonight—a
Gypsy.

He smiled. And so it began.

Glancing down at his enchanting Gypsy, regret
feathered down his spine. His Gypsy lived in a magic world, of luck
and spirits, of great love, and lost inheritances that could be
found.

What a pity that was not the real world. The
reality was that people died too young, and no one particularly
cared when they did. Poets wrote of love, but when it came down to
it, a woman would choose security instead of a dangerous passion.
Greed, lust, and fear drove this world.

But he had not the heart to destroy her
illusions tonight.

Life would do that soon enough.

Taking her hand, he led her to the sidelines.
“Come, my Gypsy. Your quarry is here, so it is time for you to
become one of these performing beauties.”

She stared to look around her, her gaze
searching, but St. Albans kept her moving. “No, do not crane and
stare as if you are seeking him. Remember, you do not know this
man. He will notice you, and you are to look through him as if he
did not exist, and then we shall fade into the crowd and leave him
searching.”

She forced a stiff smile, but he saw how her
face had paled a little. “I wish I knew how you know these
things.”

“Why, my dear, I am the Earl of St.
Albans.”

* * *

Christopher waited in the darkness. He had
pulled off the white gloves that he was supposed to wear and had
tugged loose the white cravat that lay too tight around his neck.
Now he lifted a shoulder, uncomfortable in the tight jacket and
waistcoat. These
Gadje
dressed for looks, not for comfort,
more fools them.

He stared up at the lighted windows of the
Argyle Rooms. But it was useless. He could see nothing.

He had been watching for the coach with the
Nevin crest upon its doors. And he had stood in the shadows as
three men had climbed out of the coach and mounted the stairs to be
admitted by the porter. His knife had been in his hand, and if it
had been only Francis Dawes, he would have thrown the man back in
the coach and they would have had a short family reunion.

Very short.

But always the man had someone next to him.
It had been like this for all the time they had tracked him. First
in the country side, near the village of Nevin. And on the road to
London. Servants surrounded him like lice on a rat. He was, it
seemed, a man who could not stand his own company.

Well, he had reason for that.

Frustrated, Christo turned away and started
around the side of the building and to the narrow mews that lay
behind and which housed the stables. He could hear Nevin’s grooms
talking to the other servants, their voices a deep rumble in the
night. The air smelled of stables and horse, and he could see the
dark coach with its crested doors as it stood on the cobblestones.
Grooms threw light blankets over the steaming horses to keep off
the evening’s chill.

Pausing, Christo tried to gauge who might be
the friendliest of the staff. The short fellow? Or the tall one
with the touch of Irish in his voice. Ah, well, he would soon find
out.

He gave one last glance up at the windows,
where candlelight danced. He did not like that Glynis would be so
close to their uncle tonight. At the inn, their plan had not
included her even glimpsing him. Now, here she was dancing past him
in that too thin gown.

He frowned. If that
gaujo
lord ever
hurt her, that one would pay with his blood. That he swore.

However, in a room of people she would be
safe enough tonight—both from their uncle and that
gaujo
earl.

With luck, it would not be too much longer
before they had the box in their hands. He said a small prayer that
their father’s box would have the proof they sought.

Putting on a smile, he moved forward, ready
to do what he must to make himself friendly. He had dice in his
pocket, and a few coins. They would like him well enough if he lost
his shillings to them. And he had hidden a bottle of St. Albans’s
brandy in the Earl’s coach. That might also help him loosen some
tongues.

But it was going to be hard to joke and laugh
with his sister so close to a man who thought nothing of
murder.

* * *

Francis Dawes stared at the woman in the red
gown, frowning, absently listening to Duncastle and Hammond
complain of the Select Committee that had been appointed to look
into the practice of using boys as chimney sweeps.

“I ask you, what’s the world coming to? They
have to use boys, for a man won’t fit, that’s what I say. And what
affair is it of the government to look after every urchin on the
streets.”

“Quite right. Damn disgrace. Don’t you think,
Nevin?”

Rubbing his chest to ease the pressure that
had gathered as it did nearly every evening, Nevin glanced at
Duncastle. “Disgrace? I’ll tell you what is a disgrace—St. Albans.
Look at what he’s taken up with. Looks foreign. You said she was a
Gypsy?”

The last he addressed to Hammond, who lifted
a hand and brushed the snuff from his dark blue evening coat. “I
didn’t say. St. Albans did himself. Said it at White’s today. Said
he’d found her on the road a few weeks ago.”

Uneasy and unsettled, Nevin glanced back to
where he had last seen St. Albans. It could not be, he told
himself. St. Albans was only attempting to amuse himself with a
joke in poor taste.

Pulling out a handkerchief he dabbed the
sweat from his brown. Could no one in London keep a room to a
decent temperature? The orchestra had struck up another dance and
all he could see were women with gowns cut indecently low, and men
grinning at them like idiots. The pressure in his chest
tightened.

What if it was the same Gypsy?

It would be just like that blackguard St.
Albans to take up some common thief. The man had no morals. No
shame. He had run off with a duchess’s sister once, and then
refused to marry the lady. And that was not the only lady he had
ruined. The wine soured in Nevin’s mouth as he thought back to the
Widow Casset, and a wave of queasiness passed over him.

Damn, but that loss still rankled. St. Albans
had as good as paid Casset for her services—giving her money,
turning her from respectability, setting her beyond the pale. And
far beyond Nevin’s reach. He’d not intended marriage by her, but he
also was not interested in another man’s leavings. And, in a better
world, a scoundrel such as he would have been shot by a jealous
husband years ago.

However, St. Albans had Lucifer’s luck, and
too accurate an aim for anyone to challenge him lightly.

“Where is he now?” Nevin demanded, twisting
and pulling at his watch chain. “I want to meet this Gypsy of
his.”

Hammond, the tallest of the trio, stretched
upward. “Isn’t that him leaving. Yes, taking his Gypsy with him. I
tell you, she looks Italian to me. Said to be quite hot-blooded
those Italian ladies. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if that’s what
she really is. Don’t care for those foreigners myself, but you know
St. Albans. There is nothing too low for his tastes.”

Lord Nevin scowled and glanced around the
room, rubbing at his chest again, but now eyeing the women and
determined to forget St. Albans and his jokes.

Damn, but it was too much a coincidence. Only
why would they resurface now, after twenty years? No, they must be
dead, or they had learned their place and now kept to it.

“Gypsies,” Nevin muttered, the word sour in
his mouth and curling in his stomach like a writhing snake.

“Yes, now there’s a Select Committee to
start,” Duncastle said. “Get rid of these plaguity thieving
vagabonds. I say, is there anything to drink here, d’you
think?”

Nevin scowled. “Oh, I know how to get rid of
Gypsies. I know exactly how.”

* * *

Glynis sat in the corner of the coach, one
hand covering her mouth as she yawned.

“Am I boring you?” St. Albans asked.

She shook her head. She could see him only as
shadows, but the diamond in his cravat flashed even with the dim
light of the coach lanterns.

“I hardly know what I expected,” she said.
“Something more dramatic, I think.”

“I think you expected him to recognize you. I
told you he would not. A man who does not wish to see the truth
will not. Nevin is a hypocrite—he will not be able to see the truth
because he practices deceiving himself.”