The Houseparty (17 page)

"Dear heavens," Elizabeth said faintly.

Fraser
reached out and took one of her limp hands in his strong, warm one. "I am certain," he continued, "that you would at least have the satisfaction of knowing you had served your country. And I wouldn't think you'd mind having my blood on these lovely hands too terribly much, would you?" He lifted it up and placed his mouth against her palm, his lips seeming to burn her.

"You, you complete wretch!" she said shakily, snatching her hand away. "If you think you can cut a wheedle with me by frightening me—"

"Ask your dear, knowledgeable brother, Lizzie," he interjected in an affable voice. "Or ask Adolphus. They will tell you. They will also, if prompted, recount to you the tale of poor George Farrington, who was executed in '09 for treason. Two years later they found he was innocent. They cleared his name, but it wasn't much consolation to his family. The Crown does make mistakes sometimes."

"Don't!"

"Would you hold my hand, dear Lizzie, when the dread time comes?" he inquired softly. "Until, of course, they hack it off."

She pushed back the table hastily and ran from the room without a word. If she had chanced to look back, she would have been surprised by the most interesting expression on Michael Fraser's usually aloof face and an equally curious reaction from at least one other inhabitant of the ballroom.

Elizabeth did not sleep well that night. With Captain Fraser's
horrid vision still ripe in her mind, she had bid a hasty good night to Lady Elfreda and the glowering Adolphus. The ministrations of his excellent valet had managed to remove all signs of rough handling from his pale pink toilette, and only the sullen pout on the moon face told anyone of the contretemps in the garden. The protruding blue eyes were politely hostile, and Elizabeth felt a pang of regret that she had antagonized what was basically a very pleasant fellow. She gave him her best smile and was rewarded with a coolly distant nod.

Better than a leer and a pinch, she thought resignedly. She would have liked to ask Rupert if a traitor's fate was truly so hideous. But he was nowhere in sight, and so she made her solitary way to her bedroom, feeling rejected and slightly sorry for herself. Rupert had abandoned her, and Captain
Fraser,
apart from his horrifying and no doubt completely fanciful tales of severed limbs, hadn't made the slightest effort to keep her at the table. Granted, she had run so fast that he hadn't had much of a chance to stop her, but she felt unreasonably that he should have tried. Doubtless he had just sat there, watching her
depar
ture
out of those disturbing blue eyes, with no expression at all on the smooth planes of his tanned, handsome face.

Well, it was patently absurd, she told herself as she wrestled with her clothing. As if His Majesty's government would behave so odiously even to traitors! It would make them little better than the monsters of the French Revolution with their infamous guillotine.
Not that some of the French aristocracy hadn't deserved it,
she added with a libertarian air.

And not that a French agent who was busily engaged in selling out his own country to the Corsican monster didn't deserve it, she added gloomily, yanking at her laces and remembering with a blush her assistant of the night before. She could almost imagine those cool, deft hands on her skin, and a small, helpless moan escaped her. Drat the man!

Her dreams were far from pleasant that night. She found herself strolling casually through a snowy field, though the temperature was quite warm, and she was dressed in her shift and petticoats, barefoot, with her chestnut hair hanging like a curtain down her back. Sumner was standing to one side, a disapproving expression on his pale, handsome face as he quoted some of Saint Paul's more sour reproaches, and
Brenna,
dressed as a nun, shook her head sadly. At the far end of the field was Michael
Fraser,
too far away for her to read his expression. She knew she had to reach him before it was too late, but Adolphus and Rupert seemed determined to stop her.

"But you cannot go to him," said Rupert with great practicality. "He has no feet."

The dream Elizabeth paid no attention, pushing him out of her way and running the seemingly interminable distance across the field. Flinging herself in Michael's waiting arms, she held on as tightly as she could. Looking up into his eyes, she recognized the expression of rueful amusement.

"You're far too late, Lizzie," he said mildly. "They've already killed me." And she knew that if she looked down, his feet would be gone. She opened her mouth to scream. . . .

She sat bolt upright in her bed, her skin crawling with remembered horror, tears not far from her frightened eyes. It was pitch-black in her cavernous bedroom. The fire had burned to a mere glow of embers, and the moon had already set, leaving a dark, cloudy sky outside the tall, leaded-glass windows.

With great determination Elizabeth lay down again, trying to will herself back to sleep. It was to no avail. Every time she closed her eyes, she pictured Fraser's dismembered body, his beautiful eyes staring up at her beseechingly. Sighing, she sat up again, struggling with
a tinder
to light her bedside candle. There was no question of sleep right now. She had finished her novel, and the great house was quiet, the various inhabitants sleeping the sleep of the just or the conscienceless, she couldn't be sure which.

It is now or never, Lizzie, she told herself firmly, using the pet name deliberately. After all, it was a very nice sort of name, even if it came from a spy and a traitor. If you're going to find that list, you certainly couldn't choose a better time. The entire house is asleep. No sober voice answered her, telling her not to be foolish, to blow out the candle and go back to sleep. There was only the silence of the sleeping house.

Sighing, she pulled herself out of bed. A little predawn stroll to the deserted battlements to prove her suspicions unfounded and then she could sleep for hours. Thank heavens she wouldn't have to rise early for one of Sumner's tedious Sunday services. Or would she?

Wrapping a frilly lace robe around her tall, well- rounded body, she picked up the candle and opened the door. Without a sound, she slipped out and shut the door behind her. Maybe a detour by way of the library and the brandy bottle wouldn't be amiss.

The rattle of a doorknob alerted her. Blowing out the candle, she slipped down behind a large upholstered chair, scarcely daring to breath. A door opened, a candle glow illuminated the hallway, and the elegant figure of the
contessa,
scantily clad in black lace and ribbons, emerged. Elizabeth noted with interest that she had made her exit from Sir Maurice's bedroom. Peering about nervously, the
contessa
tiptoed down the hall, scratched on the door, and entered. Elizabeth was frozen with shock and fury. It was Michael's door!

She crouched there, her mind ablaze with rage and speculation. Before she could order her thoughts, however, another doorknob turned. She cast a surreptitious glance toward Michael's door, but this time she was astounded to see her brother, clad gloriously in purple flannel, his golden locks freshly brushed, move
swifdy
down the hallway toward the rooms originally allotted to the
contessa.
With a muffled knock, he turned the handle and entered, shutting the door behind him.

She's not there, Elizabeth thought grimly. She's busy with him. The door beside her opened again, and the
contessa
stepped out, moving past Elizabeth's crouching figure with a heavy trail of musk-scented perfume. She went straight into Sir Henry's bedroom, this time without so much as a knock. It was little wonder Lady Beatrice found herself indisposed this weekend.

Sumner stepped out of the
contessa's
rooms, a petulant expression on his handsome, immature face, and moved swiftly back to his own rooms. He disappeared into them just in time, as
Adolphus's
mountainous form, clad in a dressing gown of
a truly
ominous Paisley, with twelve frogs down his massive front, appeared from around the corner. The door next to Elizabeth's crouched body opened, and Michael stepped out, saw
Adolphus's
approaching form, and to Elizabeth's surprise strode on silent, bare feet to meet his host. He was still dressed, albeit in shirt-sleeves, and it was no effort on Elizabeth's part to compare the two dissimilar men. Michael won by a wide margin.

"There you are!" Adolphus cried in a disgruntled voice. "I was expecting to hear from someone tonight. I must say I don't care to be left in the dark this way. It's as much my business as anyone else's. After all, the papers were hidden in
my
house." He sounded like nothing so much as a spoiled child. "I think I have a right to know."

"We've told you everything we can, Sir Adolphus," Michael said soothingly, and Elizabeth knew immediately that he was lying. "As soon as we're able to find out where the information was hidden—"

"How do I know I can trust you? You've got a damned shady reputation,
Fraser."

"I thought you found my credentials acceptable," he replied mildly enough, and Elizabeth craned her neck to hear
Adolphus's
mumbled reply.

"Well, if (the name was unintelligible) says so, I suppose I have no choice but to accept it. But I must warn you away from Miss Traherne. She's a veritable innocent, hasn't been out in the world much, and she's likely to have her head turned by a fellow of your address. I must ask you to leave her alone. I'd think you'd be too busy to get up a flirtation with an aging spinster."

Fraser
laughed. "I would scarcely call Miss Traherne an aging spinster, Sir Adolphus. And if that's how you view her, I'm surprised you find it necessary to defend her. Her brothers would certainly be the ones to demand to know my intentions."

"Miss Traherne is a connection of mine. I feel, as head of the family—"

"You'd like a bit of slap and tickle yourself, Sir Adolphus," Michael concluded bluntly. "You may rest assured that Miss Traherne stands in no danger of ravishment from me."

"Well, I would hardly have thought so. She isn't quite your style, is she?" Adolphus said smugly, licking his thick pink lips.

"Oh, now, I wouldn't say that," Michael responded lazily. "I merely have other things on my mind right now." He made a dismissing gesture. "Go back to bed, Sir Adolphus. I am not, as you obviously suspect, about to sneak into Miss
Traherne's
bedroom and have my wicked way with her. I prefer my women willing. As soon as I find out anything more about the papers, I will inform you. I am sure you can be trusted." The irony in his voice was heavy, but Adolphus, not being precisely needle-witted, appeared to take his words at face value.

"Very well.
And I suppose I'll have to trust
you.
I haven't any choice in the matter. But I must remind you that my mother has a frail constitution. I don't want anything to upset her."

"Your mother is a
Valkyrie
,"
Fraser
said bluntly.

"She'd stand up to blood and gore far better than most soldiers would, I make no doubt. Good evening, Sir Adolphus." Without another word he disappeared back into his room, shutting the door behind him with a decided snap.

Elizabeth crouched there, her mind awhirl. Why in the world would Adolphus, the proud and honorable sixth baron Wingert, allow a mere captain in the service of his aging uncle to speak so disrespectfully to him? And ex-
acdy
what was going on? Was Adolphus a traitor too? Or had the diabolically clever Captain
Fraser
succeeded in pulling the wool over his eyes? Or was Captain
Fraser
not the blackguard he seemed?

That was almost too much to hope for, and Elizabeth felt as if she must scream from uncertainty and frustration. She knew she would gladly give ten years off her life to find out whether she could trust the man, and she felt even more determined to discover exactly what was going on.

Adolphus still stood in the middle of the hallway, obviously undecided as to his next move. He stared back at the shut doors around him meditatively.

The door to Elizabeth's other side opened, and the
contessa
was once more in the hallway. Without a word she slithered up to Adolphus, threading her slender arm through his burly one, and led him, like a master leading his prize pig, down the hall to her bedroom.

Sumner's door opened as they went past and then
si
-
lendy
closed,
an eloquent expression of doomed love and disappointment. Finally Adolphus and his friend were out of sight and Elizabeth was just about to stretch her cramped muscles, when Fraser's door opened one more time.

"Go back to bed, Lizzie," he said in even tones, and shut the door again before she had time to do anything more than gasp in outrage as she struggled to her feet.

"Damn," she muttered, and retired obediently to her room, not even bothering to lock the door. If she tried to make it to the tower, she had little doubt
Fraser
would follow her. The moment her head hit the pillow, she was asleep again, although this time her dreams were a great deal more pleasant, if markedly more licentious.