One Touch of Scandal (24 page)

She smiled and scooted to one side.

“Strangely, Teddy drew one of those on his arm,” she said when he was just beginning to get comfortable again. “Have you any idea why?”

Again, he shrugged. “My father had one, so perhaps, when he lay ill, Teddy saw it? But as I say, they are not uncom—”

“Uncommon, yes, you did say that,” she interjected. “Now yours—as you say, it is a tattoo. But the one on Rance Welham's derriere is more of a scar, is it not? Like…Like a brand?”

He turned to look at her incredulously.

She threw up a hand as if to forestall him. “Do not even
think
of changing the subject by accusing me of anything to do with Rance's arse,” she said. “I have not seen it. I do not wish to see it. Though I do have it on quite good authority that it is magnificent.”

“Have you indeed?” he growled.

“Indeed,” she said. “A young lieutenant's wife once explained it to me in great detail over a bit too much champagne. She had somehow got—one hates to speculate how—a rather good peek at it.”

Ruthveyn could only stare. All rational thought had flown from his mind—a circumstance further compounded by the fact that his sheets had slipped down to reveal one of Grace's rosy nipples, which was hardening in the chill of the room.

Grace let her hand fall back against the pillow. “But I have actually
seen
that mark somewhere,” she said more to herself than to him. “I just cannot put a time or place to it. Do you mean to tell me what it really is? And why you have it?”

Ruthveyn lay quietly beside her for a moment, wondering what he ought to say. But the truth was, none of it was precisely a secret. If one dug through the ancient texts long enough—as several of the Society's researchers were in the process of doing—one would eventually find parts of it. And put together, the whole of it was so incredible, no one would believe it anyway.

He sighed into the stillness of the room. “It is called the mark of the Guardian,” he finally said. “It's just an old
symbol that's been around in the north for centuries—like a Celtic cross. In some of the noble houses of Scotland—the older ones—it's passed down sometimes in families. A strange tradition. That's all.”

“Ah,” she said quietly. “So Luc has one, too?”

He hesitated. “No,” he finally said.

“I see.” She crooked her head to look up at him. “So why do they call it the mark of the Guardian?”

He managed to laugh. “It's all to do with an old legend,” he answered. “And it has a little to do with the St. James Society, and how we came together.”

Grace smiled. “Is this going to sound a bit like the Hellfire Club?” she mused. “Rich, dissolute gentlemen playing with secret rites and ceremonies? Perhaps even debauching virgins?—oh, wait—that was tonight.”

Incredulous, Ruthveyn turned to see Grace barely restraining her laughter. For a man so somber, it was a bit much. Abruptly, he rolled half atop her just as she burst into peals of laughter.

“Witch!” he said, just before he kissed her. “
Be quiet!
”

But the playfulness swiftly ratcheted up to something far more serious. Ruthveyn dragged himself fully over her, flattening her round, high breasts against the width of his chest and thrusting his tongue deep. Slowly and sinuously, he plumbed the sweet recesses of her mouth, until she was sighing beneath him. Until his cock began to twitch demandingly, and his brain began to toy with the notion of having her again.

But that would not be wise. Slowly, he drew away, gazing down at Grace's soft, exquisite face and wondering what the future held for them. The irony of it struck him hard. Had he not just decided that knowing their future was his greatest fear?

He had assumed instead they would not have one. But
already they were like playful lovers together. Already they behaved together as if…well, as if there
was
a together. It came to them naturally. Spontaneously. Like the passion that had sprung to life so quickly between them.

Beneath him she sighed affectedly and began to twine one strand of hair around her finger. “I suppose you mean never to tell me?”

His mind blanked. “About what?”

“About the Guardians,” she said on another sigh.

“It's just an old legend,” he said again. “No one believes it anymore.”

Grace watched him as he shoved up his pillow and shifted higher in bed. She scooted up, too, and laid her head on his shoulder. “Just tell me,” she said. “I shall keep it a secret.”

“As you wish,” he answered, “though I can't think why you'd want to hear it.” He hesitated, but when she said nothing, he dropped his voice and carried on. “So, the story has to do with old rumors about a people who were descended from the ancient Celtic priests—”

“You mean the Druids?”

“Actually, there were three kinds of Celtic priests,” he answered softly. “The Druids, yes. They were the philosophers. But also the Bards, who were the poets, and the Vateis—as they are sometimes called—who were the prophets. Or so they say.”

“And I'm guessing the people in your legend were not the philosophers or poets, but the prophets?” Grace murmured. “They had the gift of second sight?”

“Something like that,” Adrian answered. “The Celtic priests came to England after Gaul was overrun by the Romans, then fled farther north as the legions invaded here. Eventually, the race was Christianized and ab
sorbed, but it was believed the Gift still carried in the blood of some for centuries, especially in the north.”

“Well, much of what you say is more truth than legend,” Grace commented.

“Yes, some,” Adrian hedged. “In any case, the legend says that the Gift began to die out, and by the Middle Ages, the Vateis—the prophets—were all but unknown. Those who were born were often persecuted. In Spain, they were caught up in the Inquisition. In other places, they were burnt, like Joan of Arc. Later, in America, some were drowned as witches. Women with the Gift were always especially vulnerable.”

“Ever the same story,
n'est-ce pas?
” Grace mused. “Women with great abilities are soon made small—one way or another. But go on, do.”

Adrian slipped down a little lower in the bed and hitched her closer. “So the legend goes on to say that despite the persecution and the rarity of the Gift, eventually a Scottish noblewoman conceived a special child through some rare confluence of blood,” he went on. “A sibylla, the child was called, a great prophetess descended from those Celtic priests driven northward. She was not, however, the lady's husband's child, but that of her lover, an emissary of the French king.”

“Oh, dear,” said Grace. “We know where this is going.”

“Indeed,” Adrian murmured. “When her adultery was discovered, her husband killed the Frenchman. Eventually, however, the child was born hale, and in time became known simply as the Gift, or Sibylla, for she possessed powers of divination such as no one had seen before or since. But her mother, sadly, faded slowly away and eventually died of a broken heart.”

“Oh, dear,” Grace repeated. “The child was orphaned?”

Adrian nodded. “The mother's brother, a power
ful Jesuit priest, took the child, and at the behest of the Church, undertook to escort the Gift to France, to be presented to the Archbishop of Paris. He took with him a cadre of his kinsmen—knights, monks, and noblemen—and he called them simply the Guardians, and supposedly he marked them one and all, so that they might remember their solemn duty and be known to one another ever after.

“But in France, all did not go well. The child was snatched away by a madman. A friar, who believed her the devil incarnate. Or perhaps he meant to use her for nefarious purposes. In any case, the Guardians followed him across the Seine onto the Île Saint-Louis. Trapped, he first made as if to return the child, then attempted to set himself afire, still clutching the child.”

“Oh!” Grace jumped. “Was she killed?”

“No.” Adrian shook his head, his black hair scrubbing the pillow. “Her uncle managed to snatch her from the flames, and in great haste the Guardians rode for the bridge—the Pont Marie—the only way back to Paris. But just as the riders started across it, a bolt of lightning shattered the sky. Amidst the thunder, the bridge collapsed into turbulent water, sending most of the Guardians to their deaths. The collapse was said by some to be a sign of God's wrath.”

“A bridge collapse?” said Grace sharply. “You are quite sure?”

“Yes, but amidst it all, the uncle escaped with the child and hastened back to Scotland. Now wary of the world, he supposedly hid the girl away in the Highlands, where she lived a somewhat normal life. Eventually, she took a husband, and bore twelve children, all of whom carried the Gift strong in their blood. Guardians were appointed to the small children, and to the women.”

“And to the men?”

“Once grown, a man was expected to guard himself—his honor, his powers—and often, if born at a particular time, to guard anyone who shared them.”

“A double burden, then?”

His gaze focused somewhere in the depths of the room, he smiled faintly. “Perhaps.”

“And so you…you are given these marks at birth?”

“No, as young men,” he said. “But the history of the thing—it is lost now. Save for the old legend I just told you, no one really remembers much.”

“Are you and Rance related?”

“Most likely.” He lifted one shoulder. “He had the mark. I had the mark.”

“How did you see his?”

Adrian turned to her with a twisted smile. “Like Anisha, my dear, you just won't quit,” he remarked. “It was in a brothel of sorts—an opium-induced orgy, writhing with men and women and a few things in between. Yes, I
have
seen Lazonby in the altogether. May we not discuss it again?”

Grace felt her face flame, but forged on, burning with curiosity now. “And so the mark is burnt or tattooed onto your flesh,” she said, “carved into your pediments, and engraved onto your tea services and your cravat pins. Does no one notice?”

Again, he lifted one shoulder. “The same symbol is etched upon lintels and coats of arms and tapestries all over France and Scotland, and a few places farther afield,” he said. “What does that mean? We do not know. We know only that we were marked as young men and told some version of the story I just told you. We were told to hail any man so marked as a brother and to guard his back as we would our own.”

“And…do you all possess the Gift?”

Again, the faint smile twisted. “My dear, did I not just tell you? The Gift is but a legend.”

She gave a slow, sly grin and stretched like Satin after her nap. “I see we have reached an impasse,” she replied. “Very well, Adrian, keep your secrets if you do not trust me.”

He sat up at once, carrying her with him. “Grace, it's not that.”

“All right. It's not that. But if it was, I would respect it.” She set one hand to the muscled wall of his chest and kissed him on the mouth. “Let us talk of something else.”

“Such as?”

She kissed him again, slowly and more intently. “Let us talk,” she murmured, lifting her lips but a fraction, “of us.”

“Of…us?”

“I want to know, Adrian, if you will be my lover,” she whispered against one corner of his mouth. “Until things here are settled for me—with Napier, I mean—and I can go back to Paris. Will you do that? If we are very careful—very discreet—will you do that?”

“Grace, that would be most unwise,” he said. “There are…risks.”

“Which you can mitigate,” she said, kissing him again. “As you did tonight.”

He looked at her warily. “Grace, is this about feeling that you owe me something?”

“I owe you a great deal,” she acknowledged. “But this is about your being a skilled and wonderful lover. You…enchant me somehow with your touch. And, frankly, I rather doubt, once I'm gone from England, I will ever meet anyone like you again. I would like to go with no regrets.”

Ruthveyn listened carefully to the words she spoke,
words as honest as a newly stropped blade, and laced with no subtle entreaties or twists of the heartstrings. Grace, he was beginning to understand, was that rarest of women, one whose honestly left him breathless.

He caught her to him then and kissed her fiercely. “No regrets, then,” he whispered. “Not a one.”

Then he turned her on her back, his heart suddenly breaking, and made love to her once again, this time with his mouth and with his hands, and with the whole of his heart. And in the doing of it, he did not once think about that portal to hell, or about
coulds
or
mights
or even
shoulds.

And when he was finished—when Grace had cried out softly beneath him and drifted back to sleep, still shuddering—he got up from the bed and went into his study to do what he should have done eons ago. He carried his wooden box into his bathroom, dumped the contents down his fancy porcelain privy, reached up, and yanked the chain.

Perhaps he had not yet answered Grace's question. But he had assuredly answered one of his own.

A
nd this is it?” Lord Lazonby refolded the piece of foolscap and tapped its edge impatiently on the club's breakfast table. “Besides the note under her door, this is the sole evidence Napier has against Grace?”

“It's not the original, of course.” Ruthveyn reached for the teapot and found it empty. “But I had Claytor copy it down word for word.”

Lazonby gave a low whistle. “I'll bet that galled old Roughshod Roy no end, having your man come round demanding to see Crown evidence.” He grinned ear to ear. “I wish to the devil I could have seen him.”

“You
will stay out of his way,” said Ruthveyn grimly. “It will go far worse for Grace if you do not.”

“Precisely what I told her in your conservatory some days ago,” Lazonby agreed, his expression turning pensive. “What we need, perhaps, is someone more intuitive. Someone like Bessett, who might elicit an emotion from this document.”

“That might work,” Ruthveyn pointed out, “if that were the killer's original hand.”

“Aye, and if Bessett hadn't just left for the harvest in Yorkshire,” Lazonby muttered. “Even then, it's a long shot. Which reminds me—where have you been all week, old chap? You're looking remarkably well rested. I believe London is beginning to agree with you.”

“Let us stick to the topic at hand,” Ruthveyn suggested, snapping his fingers at one of the club's footmen. Without asking, the servant hastened away for more tea.

“And I haven't seen you up at seven in the morning since…well, never in my life,” Lazonby went on. “Unless, that is to say, you had not yet gone to bed.”

But Ruthveyn had opened the letter and was rereading it again. “May we worry about Grace instead of my lack of a social life?” he murmured. “It has been recently brought home to me that I have two children under my roof now—and you have taken my suite of rooms upstairs.”

“Actually, the padre took yours,” Lazonby clarified. “By the way, have you seen the prize that chap brought Sutherland? The most amazing illuminated manuscript! He found it in some abbey ruins on the Isle of Man, where the Druid priestesses were last believed to reside. It takes some of Strabo's writings in
Geographica,
and expounds—”

Ruthveyn held up one hand. “Since when do you give a damn about ancient texts?” he said. “If he'd brought
us the Holy Grail, it wouldn't excuse your giving up my suite.”

Lazonby grinned. “Actually, I should have thought you'd be thanking me for that by now.”

Ruthveyn exhaled slowly. He did not know whether to thank Lazonby or curse him, for the hell he'd been living in after having made love to Grace was worse than the hell he'd been living in when he'd merely lusted after her. At least he was sleeping again.

But he had not touched her since, nor exchanged anything beyond the most mundane of dinner conversation. Instead, he had drifted through his own home like a wraith, barely inhabiting it, never settling long, watching her surreptitiously every chance he got. He felt eaten up inside with a restlessness and a yearning that went beyond the sexual and into something far more deep and disconcerting.

Lazonby apparently realized he'd pushed too far. “As to Grace's predicament,” he went on, “what can I do to help?”

Ruthveyn exchanged a poignant glance with his friend. They had few secrets, he and Lazonby, and there were some things they did not even need to speak aloud.

“Find Pinkie Ringgold for me,” he said grimly. “Belkadi asked him three days ago to run down all the local forgers capable of faking Holding's hand, but we haven't heard back, and he's vanished from Quartermaine's.”

“Oh, I'll run him to ground.” Lazonby smiled predatorily. “I'm always at my best with thugs and criminals. What did the original hand look like, anyway?”

“Ordinary schoolboy copperplate.” Ruthveyn's shoulders fell. “The truth is, Rance, anyone could have written the bloody thing—but there again, Josiah Crane springs most readily to mind. He saw Holding's penmanship on a daily basis and had an office full of samples.”

“But why would he kill Holding? He didn't inherit.”

“Not unless,” said Ruthveyn quietly, “he persuades Fenella Crane to marry him. Then he will own the entire company.”

Again, Lazonby whistled. “Good Lord! And if we accept that letter as a forgery, then we accept that there was great premeditation.”

“What do you mean,
if
?” asked Ruthveyn darkly.

“Jesus, Adrian, I know it's forged! You needn't worry about my loyalty—to you or to Grace.” Lazonby tapped his finger pensively on the tabletop. “Any chance Napier will try to arrest her?”

“He doesn't dare. He knows she is under my protection.” Ruthveyn pinched the top of his nose between his fingers, warding off a headache. “But just in case, I sent St. Giles round to call upon a couple of magistrates we know, to make sure no warrant is issued. And I can go far higher if I must. Also, Belkadi managed to compromise one of Holding's footmen in an attempt to ferret out any secrets Holding's staff might be keeping, so—”

“And you thought Belkadi was more trouble than he was worth,” Lazonby cut in.

“He continues to prove resourceful,” Ruthveyn admitted, just as a fresh pot of tea was set down. “And now, old chap, I need you to follow Pinkie's good example and take yourself off.”

“Was it something I said?” Lazonby pushed back his chair.

“No, I am having some special guests to breakfast in a quarter hour,” said Ruthveyn. “Napier and Ned Quartermaine.”

“Napier and Quartermaine?” Lazonby echoed. “Have you quite lost your mind?”

“Yes, they will both be surprised, I daresay.” Ruthveyn
calmly poured a fresh cup of tea. “But I think it's time the two got to know one another, don't you?”

Lazonby shrugged and strolled from the dining room.

Ruthveyn snapped his copy of the
Chronicle
back open and laid it flat upon the table. The cause of his nascent headache—the morning headline—still stared back up at him, taunting and ominous:
No Arrest in Belgrave Square Murder.

The article painted an ugly picture of Belgravia's rich up in arms and the Metropolitan Police as dawdling and disinterested. It was not the sort of criticism that Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, would long be able to tolerate politically. More articles like this, and there would be demands for an arrest from the highest levels in the land. And Ruthveyn could not but wonder if he had Jack Coldwater to thank for yet another piece of journalistic butchery.

On that thought, he got up and tossed the paper in the rubbish bin, then rammed it home with his foot.

 

Her coffee nearly finished, Grace was alone in the dining room when Lord Lucan Forsythe came in, attired in a dashing striped waistcoat, his mop of gold curls perfectly styled—just the sort of curls, thought Grace sourly, that enterprising young misses dreamt of running their hands through.

His gait hitched on the threshold. “Mademoiselle Gauthier!” he said, as if she did not, in fact, breakfast every day at seven. “Good morning. Am I to have the pleasure of your company over my coffee and kedgeree?”

“So it seems, Lord Lucan.” Grace looked at him over her cup and inwardly sighed. She was feeling sorry for herself and really not in the mood for company. “You are up bright and early,” she managed to say. “You are preparing, I daresay, for this morning's nature walk?”

“Yes, yes, the nature walk!”

Lord Lucan flashed a tight smile, then went at once to the sideboard and began to fill a plate. Grace watched a little grudgingly from her chair. The young man looked as much like an angel as his elder brother resembled Satan incarnate, and yet she had the most overwhelming suspicion that Lord Lucan was the one who was up to no good. Then, feeling slightly ashamed, she relented.

So he was up at an early hour. What of it? He had been kind to her—and nothing more than lightly flirtatious, particularly since the fork wounds on the back of his hand had healed. He was also quite good with the boys and spent a great deal of time with them—though Grace had recently discovered the reason for the latter. He was in debt to his sister.

He turned from the sideboard and set down his plate with a heavy thunk. “Mademoiselle, may I warm your coffee?”

“Coffee?” Grace lifted her gaze from his towering heap of food. “Oh.
Merci.
”

“Sugar?” he asked, tipping the pot.

“Just black, thank you.”

“May I refill your plate?”

“No, but you're very kind.”

He smiled again, but it looked a little strained round the edges. Grace was certain of it now. He was up to something. Her intuition in such matters was unfailing.

Lord Lucan sat down and fluffed out his napkin. “Have you any special plans for the day?” he politely inquired.

Grace lifted her eyebrows. “Beyond being a governess?” she said lightly. “No, as usual, that will take up the bulk of my day.”

“Oh, dear.” He made a sympathetic face. “It does sound onerous when you put it that way.”

“Then I would advise you, Lord Lucan, never to put yourself in such straits that gainful employment becomes a necessity,” she remarked. “It cuts into one's social life something frightful.”

He laughed as if she were the cleverest creature in the universe. “My brother will thank you for that advice, mademoiselle,” he said. “And I was wondering, too, about that nature walk?”

“Oui?
” Grace felt her smile fade.

“I was wondering,” he said slowly, “if I might prevail upon you to take the boys instead? You see, my chum Frankie—Francis Fitzwater—is in rather a bad way, and a friend asked if I might call upon him, just to see—”

“Frankie Fitzwater
,” said an acerbic voice from the doorway, “is a charming, out-and-out rotter. A blighter. A bounder. Even, occasionally, a cad. And if he's in a bad way, it's something to do with a horse. Or a horse race. Or a game of cards. If not something worse.”

Grace looked up to see Lady Anisha standing in the door, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Good morning, Nish.” The young man leapt up to draw out her chair. “You are looking lovely this morning.”

“Balderdash, Luc.” Anisha strolled into the room. “And Friday, by the way, is Michaelmas. So if you wish to escape indentured servitude, you may repay your loan in cash rather than blood once you get your allowance. Until then, if you want out of your two hours with the boys, it is I to whom you should be speaking, not Grace.”

Luc hung his head. “Very well,” he said. “I'll take the lads. I gave you my word as a gentleman, and I shall honor it.”

“
Good,
” said his sister.

“But Frankie really has been brought low, Nish, I swear it.” Lord Lucan's eyes took on the cast of a starving Bas
sett hound. “His mistress threw him off, and he's been on a three-day binge. Drunk as a lord from Friday until Monday, and now Morrison says they can't get 'im out of bed. I thought…well, I thought if I asked him to take me down to Tattersall's this morning to buy those matched grays, it might perk us both up?”

Anisha said no more but merely poured her coffee, filled her plate, and sat down at one end of the table. She took one bite of her kedgeree, then stabbed her fork into it on a curse. “Dash it, Luc, don't look at me like that! Do you think me the veriest idiot?”

“No, of course not.” Luc hung his head again. “I think you are kind. And compassionate. Like…why, like Mademoiselle Gauthier.”

Anisha flung down her fork. “Oh, the devil!” she said under her breath. “Go on, then. But the next time I hear Frankie Fitzwater's name, it had better be because his obituary is in the newspaper!”

His pile of food forgotten, Lord Lucan leapt up, kissed his sister soundly, and fled.

Anisha propped her elbow on the table and let her head fall into her hand. “God, I'm such an fool.”

Grace cleared her throat. “I knew he was up to something the minute he came into the room,” she remarked. “I shall be happy to take the boys. It is my job, and the lesson plan was mine, after all.”

Anisha rose and went to one of the deep windows that looked out over the rear gardens. “The truth is,” she said, pulling back the underdrapes with one finger, “this fog is not going to clear for another hour. There is no rush.”

“As you wish,” said Grace. But she had the oddest notion that Lady Anisha was up to something, too. She pushed back her chair as if to go.

“Oh, do not leave just yet,” said Lady Anisha. “Here, have more coffee.”

Grace relented and wondered vaguely if one could drown in coffee. Lady Anisha had been giving her odd, sidelong looks for the last three days, though there was nothing she could possibly know. But it wasn't
nothing
that now danced in Anisha's eyes. It was burning speculation.

But two could play at Anisha's game.

Anisha set the pot back down. “Isn't it odd,” she said musingly, “how much time Adrian is spending at home? And how frightfully restless he is? What do you think is going on?”

Grace hesitated before she answered. She wished she did know what was going on. Ruthveyn had been walking wide circles around her all week, and yet so often she could feel the heat of his eyes upon her. And at night, she could still feel the heat of his hands and his mouth as they roamed restlessly over her—even the weight of his body bearing down into the softness of his mattress—but these were only memories. Vivid, yes, and kept perilously close to her heart, but Ruthveyn had not invited her to his bed again, and Grace was wretchedly certain that he never would. Absent the haze of euphoria, perhaps she did not seem worth the risk.