DD-Michaels-END.rtf (15 page)

"You're right
,
the gentleman in you shouldn't say such things. However, I didn't fall in love with the gentleman in you, and it certainly wasn't the gentleman in you that took me to bed that night. Earlier, I thought about dumping a bucket of water over the pair of them, you know, because I was afraid they were going to burst into flame at any moment. Is it..
.
is it difficult for you to think about your sister as a woman with..
.
with needs?"

Chance chuckled softly. "Morgan? No. E
ll
y, Fanny, Cassandra
.
Yes, those three would be difficult to imagine. But not Morgan. She grabs at life with both hands, no question, wants to experience everything. I don't know why I would think she wouldn't be more... more..."

"Passionate?"

Chance winced, then smiled. "I was trying not to actually say the word, thank you. But, yes, passionate. Intense. But too young, and still too full of herself, I think, to know real love from..."

"Lust?" Julia supplied helpfully once more, delighted to see her husband so flustered. He was actually blushing, poor thing.

"All right. Yes, damn it. Lust. Which is why she can't stay here, making a fool of herself with Aylesford, who seems more than happy to help her become a public spectacle like himself. She'd draw too much attention to herself, to all of us. God only knows who saw them today, riding through the rain like a fine pair of idiots. Damn! She was supposed to come here, attend a few select balls, be seen at the theater, a few country breakfasts. Find herself a suitable husband. It all seemed so simple, in theory."

"Most things do," Julia agreed. "But
a week, Chance? How will you manage to convince her to go home? She won't leave him, you know. Not until and unless this fire between them burns out for at least one of them."

Chance got to his feet once more, pulled Julia up beside him. "I'm not going to convince her. Ainsley is, and
I'll leave the
how
of the thing to
him. I
can
have
a letter to him by late tomorrow night with the right messenger, who can bring back a letter summoning Morgan home."

Julia sighed, shook her head. "Nothing is that simple, darling. Aylesford will want to accompany her."

Chance's grin was so near to evil that Julia laughed. "Possibly. But then they'll be Ainsley's problem, and whatever happens, it won't take place in the middle of Mayfair. Alice will want a Season one day, remember? That can't occur if we're all tossed out of society on our ears. So? What do you think?"

"
I think we're either cowards or brilliant
,
" Julia said as
they walked, arm
in
arm, toward the foyer. "One
more week
,
hmm? I think we should be able to manage that without the entire world tumbling down
on
our heads...."

CHAPTER TEN

Ethan was having second thoughts. Away from Morgan, he could think more rationally, more reasonably, and he knew his behavior with her the day before had been far from proper.

He was older. He was experienced. He knew the rules, the strictures. He knew the boundaries, and when he'd exceeded them.

But that had been him. For him. In some twisted need to tweak the society that termed his father a fool and his mother a calloused fortune hunter. The society that had decided that any off
s
pring of that pair couldn't possibly be more than another disgrace and disaster.

He'd enjoyed proving them wrong where it mattered, by not running through his fortune once he
came into the title but increasing it; and proving them right, by being as outrageous as he wished to be.

The ball he'd hosted for the Society for the Aid and Solace of Rescued Dove
s
—
p
rostitutes who had hopes of a better life. That he had "forgotten" to mention the purpose of the ball when issuing the invitations to the cream of the ton was, of course, an unfortunate oversight.

Especially when several of the guests, in the company of their wives, recognized former mistresses sipping wine at the sides of the ballroom.

More of the short list of his calculated indiscretions marched in front of his mind.

The curricle race up Pall
Mal
l
one Sunday morning at dawn, with the winner then paraded through White's, held high on a chair and wearing a crown of gilded oak leaves.

A few carefully planned drunken brawls.

The day he'd fixed a ta
l
l pink plume to Alejandro's head before riding him in the Promenade, telling anyone who asked that he'd got the idea from the Prince of Wales. By the next evening, more than two score of young Fashionables had tied pink feather plumes to
their
unfortunate horses. Not
only were more than a
few society matrons bemoaning the loss of their treasured plumes, but the Promenade that day very much resembled a circus parade.

Alejandro's plume, of course, was now gone, and Ethan told anyone who asked that only a fool would trick out his horse in feathers unless he had lost a bet with the Prince of Wales.

Stupid stunts. Silliness. Anger, played out his way, on the stage of his choosing.

He hadn't done anything especially terrible in nearly six years, but the die had been cast, and his reputation had followed him into what he'd hoped might be his more sober thirties.

And now there was Morgan.

He knew his own demons. What demons drove her?

Like recognizes like.
That's what she'd said, and he believed her.

Was that all there was between them? This nearly insane need to be together, to touch, to kiss. This hunger for so much more.

She was beautiful. More than beautiful. She was the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen. Alive, vital. And as irresistible to him as the urge to take his next breath.

He'd have her body. He knew that. She wanted him, and he
knew that, too. But once they'd made love, sated themselves on each othe
r
—
w
hat then?

Morgan was young, and probably hadn't thought beyond the next moment. But he was older, supposedly wiser, and couldn't claim the same excuse....

"Aylesford? It's done, and we all agree. The papers are genuine, completely in order and, for the main, in compliance with our conditions."

Ethan, who had been sitting with his chin in his hand for the half hour since he'd arrived and been ushered into the empty office, sat up in the uncomfortable chair facing the minister's desk as the self-important man himself entered the room.

The minister carried an ornately decorated silver tube and the tightly rolled parchment that had been its contents until someone elsewhere in the building had sawed off the top of the cylinder, which resembled three others Ethan had seen in this past year.

Knowing that at any other time he would have been sitting here wondering why the minister had broken with protocol and summoned him to the War Office in daylight, Ethan shook off thoughts of Morgan, and hoped he looked interested in what the man had to say.

"So we heard from them? I didn't think my friend would arrive for another few weeks."

"A fast ship and a favorable wind, I suppose. And a growing sense of urgency, unfortunately," the minister said as he lowered his bulk into the overstuffed leather chair behind the desk. "An answer, of course, is required."

"Of course." Ethan pushed any lingering thoughts of Morgan to the back of his mind. "When do I leave?"

The minister had unrolled the parchment and was in the process of securing the ends to the desk with an inkwell on one side and a brass paperweight in the shape of a peacock on
the other. "Not
as quickly as we'd hoped
,
unfortunately. We're in agreement in several areas, and have settled on several compromises. But they remain ridiculously adamant on one particular condition."

Ethan smiled ruefully. "Let me hazard a guess, my lord. They object yet again to the removal of American sailors from their ships."

"Their ships, Aylesford.
English
sailors. We do not recognize any trumped-up notions of a renunciation of nationality. Never have, never will. Do try to remember that when you speak with their representative, if you please."

Ethan spread his hands, palms up. "I'm only sayin
g
—"

"What you've said before, I know. You've been de-pressingly consistent in your objections, Aylesford. President Madison is pushing for war, but as long as we have the ear of our friends in the Federalist Party, there is still hope that sanity will prevail in their Congress, and he'll be voted down. And
,
damn me, if it weren't for the fact that this agent will speak with no one but you..."

"What can
I say?
I'm
a likable fellow, and the friendship we struck up so many years ago is what has brought us this far, my lord. Unless you'd rather I withdrew?"

"You've got us by the bollocks, and you know it," the minister bellowed, bringing his fist down on the desktop, nearly oversetting the inkwell. "The day that the future of this country might rest in the hands of the unstable offspring of an unstabl
e
—"

Ethan was already halfway out of his chair. "And a good day to you, my lord. I'm off to my club."

"No! Wait
,
wait. I apologize. Sit down, damn it!"

"Certainly, since you asked so nicely," Ethan said, subsiding into the chair. "When will you have an answer ready for me to deliver to my friend?"

The minister sat back
in
his chair, propping his fingertips together beneath the second of his chins. "We've already requested an audience with the Prince Regent," he said
,
as if speaking to himself, "although God only knows if he'll take time away from
his tailor to meet with
u
s."

Ethan turned a short laugh into a cough. "Long live the king, my lord?"

"Why? He's no use to us, either. Padded the walls of his chambers, you know. To
keep
him safe, or to
keep down the noise when he howls at the moon, who knows which? Mad as a hatter, all of them, with one no better than the other, and wars to
f
ight."

"One to fight, one to prevent," Ethan corrected, hoping to get the minister back on point.

Another day, just one day before he'd met Morgan, Ethan would have enjoying bantering with the minister, baiting him. But he had other things to occupy his mind and
his time with
now. Thoughts about Morgan left little room in his brain to think about the failings of the royalty.

"Yes, yes, although I will tell you, Aylesford, I think we've already watched the horse run out of the stables on this one. Still, we must try. Now, the
Marianna
will be in our waters for only a week, and that began yesterday morning. We're holding the messenger for now, to finalize plans on this end. We can only chance one meeting, but not in Dymchurch this time, I don't think, after the close call you had in January."

"There was never any real danger, my lord," Ethan said, thinking back to the encounter between his friend and himself, and what had occurred when an officer of the local Waterguard had gotten too curious.

"Yes, and the clever fellow who followed you has been reassigned. Once his arm mends, that is."

"I honestly thought I'd only bent him, not broken him. I'm sorry."

"I'm sure he appreciates your concern. But we can't be too careful. Select another location, so we can send back the man who brought this with both a time and a place. All this damn secrecy. We should simply commandeer the
Marianna
and be done with it."

"My friend wouldn't like that."

"Your friend be damned!" The minister picked up the cylinder. "If a messenger can bring this, he can damn well carry back our answer. It would be a simple matter to follow him. We don't need you."

"One would think not, except that my friend doesn't agree. Besides, wasn't one failure enough for you?"

The minister had the decency to look ashamed. "We were only being careful."

Ethan hid a smile. He'd heard what had happened. The messenger who delivered the first cylinder to the War Office and carried away the response had been only one of three heavily cloaked men who then rode out of London, each heading in a different direction. Even so, all three had been stopped on one pretext or the other..
.
and none of them had the cylinder in their possession.

The next they'd heard from the agent, the message had been in the way of a warning: "Do not follow the man who brings this to you. In future, you will send your answers to Dy
m
church with the
Earl of Aylesford, and only the earl, else all communication stops. Once he arrives in the port, we will find him and complete the transaction at a place of our choosing."