Amanda Scott (44 page)

She still heard voices close by—in the next room, perhaps—and laughter, and the harp and piano from her dream. Oddly, the room seemed to rock and sway, and the gentle motion made her dizzy, for she was not accustomed to such a sensation. Thunder crashed, as it had in her dream, and the wind outside blew in gusts strong enough to puff wood smoke from the fire into the room. She could smell it. And, surprisingly nearby, she heard water slapping rhythmically as if against a shoreline.

Her head ached when she tried to think, worse when she tried to turn it, and she still found it hard to focus her eyes, but she knew suddenly that she was not alone.

A man, a stranger, stepped into view. Plump and well dressed, with red cheeks, an unpleasantly moist mouth, and eyes that swept over her impersonally, he said, “Welcome, madam.”

“Who are you?” She tried to sit, but the blanket covering her seemed amazingly heavy—especially since she recognized it as one from her own bed—and her arms and legs refused to cooperate, feeling sluggish, almost numb.

“Call me Maxwell,” he said. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

“I would prefer water, thank you. Where am I?”

“You are with his lordship.”

Feeling her heart leap with relief, Anne paid no heed when, instead of water, the man poured wine from a decanter on a small side table into a glass. “Michael is here?” she cried. “Where is he? Oh, do fetch him to me at once. I want to see him.”

“You may see his lordship if you will but turn your head, madam. He has awaited your awakening with no little impatience.”

She turned her head too quickly and winced, both at the pain and at a wave of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. She saw him at once. “Michael?”

He stood silently some distance beyond the chair with the footstool, beside a large, mahogany desk, one end of which lay beneath the sill of a second red-velvet curtained window. His face was darkly shadowed, although the branch of candles lighting the cluttered, paper-strewn desk top revealed his maroon velvet evening coat, tight cream-colored breeches, clocked stockings, and well-polished shoes. The close-fitting coat set off his slim waist and broad shoulders, and she recognized it as the one Michael had worn the night Sir Jacob had dined with them. The candle glow outlined his strong jaw and the lowest portion of his face, and she fancied that his lips curved in a sardonic smile, but still he remained silent.

Anne frowned. Her head was clearing rapidly, and she knew suddenly that her deep sleep had not overtaken her naturally.

“Someone must have put something in my wine at dinner to make me sleep,” she said when the man called Maxwell handed her the wineglass. Its dark contents stirred with the motion of the room. “But why would they do such a thing?”

Maxwell said, “His lordship wished you brought here, madam, but quietly, so as not to cause any alarm or outcry.”

Anne heard his words, but she ignored him and riveted her attention on the imposing, still silent figure by the desk. “I cannot see your face,” she said uneasily. “Those candles light only the lower half, so I wish you would step out where I can see you. Indeed, I wish you’d send this man away and tell me plainly why you did such a thing. You had not the least need to render me unconscious. You must know I’d go with you anywhere.”

“I am glad to hear you say so, my love.” He spoke from deep in his throat, the cat’s purr voice rather than the crisp tone Michael generally used. Perhaps he meant only to sound sensual, but his manner sent a shiver of ice up her spine when he added, “I believed that a certain sense of mystery would appeal to you.”

“You were wrong,” she replied. “Moreover, I must say such an attitude seems most unlike you.” Struggling to collect her wits, she moved to sit upright, sliding her feet from under the blanket to the floor and reaching to steady herself on the nearby arm of the sofa. As she did, the wind blew another puff of smoke into the room and the gentle rocking sensation increased briefly. Realizing she still held the wineglass Maxwell had given her, and having not the least wish to drink any wine, she set it carefully on the carpet near her bare feet and, through a new wave of dizziness, realized something else. “I’m in my nightdress!”

“Would you prefer my men to have stripped you naked before leaving you here, my love?”

He had used the endearment once before, and despite the fact that of late she had longed to hear him speak words of love to her, she found she did not like to hear them spoken in that odd, purring tone. “I’d prefer that you had just come to my bed without subjecting me to any of this,” she said, “but it occurs to me now that the reason this room sways, and water seems to be smacking against its very walls, is that I have been brought aboard the infamous
Folly.
I must suppose therefore that the truth is what so many suspect it to be, and you hold at least an interest in that sordid business.”

“I own half.”

She recoiled but said with forced calm, “I see. I thought better of you, sir. May I know who owns the other half?”

“The Duke of Upminster.”

“Andrew? Nonsense, no boy could—”

“He inherited it when his father died.”

For a long moment, she was speechless. Then, glaring at him, she said in a tone that ought to have withered him where he stood, “How could you?” Sitting bolt upright now, she pushed the blanket aside, but when the distant music and chatter suddenly increased in volume, she remembered they were not alone and looked swiftly over her shoulder to see that the door of the room was just closing behind Maxwell. With it closed, the sounds from the next room were muffled again.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Anne turned back and said sternly, “Do step into the light now, for goodness’ sake. I do not like this air of mystery, as you call it. Nor do I like your games or your choice of a place in which to play them. No doubt you believe that stupid feline murmuring of yours to be a stimulant to passion, but presently it only irritates me, so do stop—Heavens,” she exclaimed when he stepped out of the shadow at last, “why on earth do you wear a mask?”

“I told you,” he said, moving slowly toward her, avoiding the low stool without so much as glancing at it, and still speaking in that throaty murmur, “I hoped you would enjoy the mystery of a little romantic pretense.”

Niggling doubts that she realized had plagued her from the first moment of seeing him snapped now into certainty. “You are not Michael,” she said flatly. “Until you moved, I could not be sure, but I know Michael’s movements and gestures better than my own. I do not know who you are. I presume you hoped I would continue to believe you were he, but now that I know you are not, you might just as well reveal your true identity.”

“I am the owner of the
Folly,”
he said without abandoning the cat’s purr voice, “and in truth, I do not much care whether you know I am not Lord Michael, for it will make no difference in the end. I have long desired to meet the real woman beneath that serene facade you display, my dear, imperious little Anne.” He paused as if to savor the taste of her given name on his tongue.

“What exactly do you want?” Her voice nearly stuck in her throat, but she got the words out somehow.

“I want you, my love, which is a supreme compliment, for I am accounted to be an expert in matters of feminine pulchritude. Indeed, I believe I am a connoisseur—not merely an aficionado, but a veritable gourmand, as it were. My tastes are varied but refined, and I have long wanted to sample your delicate charms.”

“So you simply ordered me delivered to you, like a parcel?” She stared at him, outraged, anger quelling fear for the moment.

“More like a succulent dish, I think,” he murmured. “I had you delivered to my table, as it were, an appetizing entree prepared for my private delectation.”

“How dare you!”

“If you cooperate,” he added softly, as if he had not heard her, “I will show you pleasures you have never even dreamed of before. We will soar to heights you could not reach even in that ridiculous balloon of my Lord Ashby’s.”

“You are demented.”

“If you do not cooperate,” he went on, his voice hardening, “you will not distress me much, though you will no doubt soon come to wish you had submitted. I shall merely indulge myself in other pleasures that I enjoy, to your much greater expense, and you will soon learn to behave as you should.”

Certain now that his senses were disordered, Anne kept a tight rein on her fears and said in a voice that trembled only slightly, “I think you would be wise to summon a carriage to take me home straightaway, whoever you are. If you do so at once, I shall endeavor to intercede for you with the authorities, but if you do not, I fear there will be nothing I can do to help you.”

“So you would intercede even for me,” he said silkily, apparently not in the least disturbed by thought of her summoning the authorities. “You are indeed very much too busy, madam.”

His last word struck a familiar chord, but she spared no time to wonder why, for she could no longer control her temper. “My husband will kill you for this, if I do not beat him to it,” she said furiously. “If you dare to harm me—indeed, if you do not let me go at once—I will not answer for the consequences.”

“There will be no consequences.”

“Don’t be absurd. When Michael comes for me—”

“He will not come.”

“He will! He will search the earth to find me, and once he learns of your wickedness in bringing me to this dreadful place, even trying to make me think he owned part of it—”

“Lord Michael has departed for Scotland.”

“Nonsense, why should he?” But his words triggered a dizzying sensation, as if she were spinning, being sucked into a vortex, her world turned upside down and inside out. From within the maelstrom, her captor’s words sounded fiendishly cool.

“He has gone in search of a runaway wife, I’m afraid.”

“But I did not run away.” She fought for calm.

“He believes you did.”

“How could he? You must be lying. He would never believe such a thing of me.”

“But he does, my love. He came home today to discover you had fled the house without telling anyone where you were bound. He believes you ran off to be with your beloved James.”

“James?”

“The same James, my pet, to whom you have written so many deliciously intimate letters. Truly you can’t blame your husband for being so jealous that he leapt to false conclusions when you departed without leaving so much as a note of explanation.”

Her mind reeled. Could Michael so badly misjudge her? She had indeed written her journal as if to a beloved man, and of late, she knew, she had frequently written more to Michael himself than to James. Moreover, she had grievously misjudged Michael by thinking even for a moment that he was financially involved in the
Folly.
But could any sensible man, knowing her and discovering her journal, truly believe she had secretly written and kept copies of so very many letters to another man?

“I don’t believe you,” she said, strengthened by her increasing confidence to stand and confront him directly, reassuring herself that her nightdress was no more revealing than a number of the gowns she had worn to balls and assemblies in London, and deciding the fact that she wore not so much as a stitch underneath it was of no concern to anyone else. “Michael would realize before he read more than three pages that they were not letters at all but merely pages of my journal.”

“Ah, but you see, I’m afraid he did not see all the pages, only a carefully selected few, enough to make him believe you had a lover. Having written in one entry that you wanted to run to your James, you then wrote, and I recall the exact words, I believe, ‘Do you even know yourself, I wonder, how much I love you and how much I fear discovery of the truth about you? One moment I think it will be for the best, and the next I believe, if I were sensible, I would fear for my very life.’ Can you doubt, madam, that having read that after hearing you had fled—”

“Good God, why did I not see who you are before now? Only one man could possibly know such details or have opportunity to arrange such a thing. I don’t know how I could have mistaken you for Michael even for a second, Bagshaw, but you must know by now that your game is up. Why, when I tell him what you have done—”

“You will not tell him,” he said as he reached to remove his mask, tossing it casually onto the cluttered desk.

“Don’t be a fool,” she snapped, incensed now. “I will tell the whole world what you have done to me tonight.”

“Molly Carver also threatened to tell the world,” he said, his voice no longer a lustful murmur but one of fuming menace. “Do you know what became of Molly, my impertinent little pet?”

“You murdered her,” Anne said with a calm wholly at odds with the flame of terror his tone had ignited in her.

He stepped nearer, and though it required every ounce of courage she had in her not to move, she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he frightened her.

He said, “Do you know, I never really thought of it as a murder, but I suppose it was, at that. Of course, she was only a common whore, not anyone worth bothering about, so I doubt that a single soul will miss her.”

“Of course people miss her. Her family misses her. They, none of them, have the least idea what became of her.”

“And how would you know anything about her family?” he asked, his tone sultry now.

She opened her mouth to tell him about Jane, then snapped it shut, realizing that if by some mad stroke of misfortune she should fail to escape him, Jane would become his next victim. Needing to say something, she took a high tone again. “You have no business to question me, Bagshaw, as you know perfectly well.”

He stood over her now, and when his face contorted with fury at her rebuke, she stepped back involuntarily, remembering the wineglass only just in time to avoid kicking it over. The backs of her legs encountered the sofa. She could go no further.

When with a look of insolent mockery he reached out to touch her chin, she ruthlessly suppressed a scream and said in a shaking voice, “T-tell me how Molly died.”

“She was foolish,” he said. “You must be more sensible.”