The Saint (26 page)

No, he wasn't. His tight tone had told her that. “I do not think that those men even knew who I was, other than a singer who came out the door when they were nearby. Aside from Nigel and Mr. Siddel, I doubt that anyone noticed me in the back of that chorus.”

“You were so exuberant that I expected you to take to flight. You may not have been recognized, but you were most definitely noticed.”

“You saw?”

“I was in a friend's box.”

“Was I …” she caught herself and laughed. “I was going to ask if I was any good, but of course there was no way to tell.”

“You were magnificent, darling. It would seem that half of Oxford and Cambridge and most of London's articled clerks agree.”

“You sound jealous, Laclere.”

“I do not think that is the correct word for tonight, Bianca. Jealousy is what I feel when I see the attention that Pen's friends give you, and I know that I cannot stop it, short of a marriage that you will not accept. Jealousy is what I experience when I see your cousin openly court you. Tonight I was not jealous. Tonight I was raw with outrage when I saw the familiarity strangers felt free to show you outside a chorus room. Tonight I was furious when I heard the insinuations a drunken rake like Siddel made, and all because you dallied in that corridor in order to flaunt your independence in my face.”

Tense anger poured across the coach, carrying the hard words. At first her heart sickened while she absorbed the onslaught, but then annoyance of her own began seething through her dismay. “I thought that you wanted me to dally. I thought that you wanted me to see it all, to face the reality of the life and taste the degradation of leering admirers.”

“I never want to see men look at you the way those boys did.”

“Then why didn't you stop them?”

“The bigger question is, why didn't you? I stood there expecting you to make a fool of me if I tried to pull you away. I found myself wondering if you were telling me through your behavior that you had made your choice—”

“No!”

“—and that I could publicly claim you as your protector or not have you at all.”

Her eyes blurred. This was not Vergil. It was his phantom, demonstrating a man's reaction when his pride is wounded.

“I do not want to speak of this any longer,” she whispered, praying it could be stopped before they said the sort of words that can never be retrieved.

“I do. We have much to speak of, it seems to me.”

The coach had stopped. She waited for the footman to set down the steps. “No, Laclere. I will not have a row with you. The evening has tired me. I bid you goodnight.”

She swept to the door. He followed two steps behind.

“You will not dismiss me like one of those spot-faced supplicants, Bianca.”

“Pity.” She led the way into the candlelit entry. The first floor had been closed up. Everyone else must have retired. “Since this is your sister's house, I cannot deny you admittance. However, I will not submit to your scolds and insinuations, Laclere. I am too tired to spar and too hurt to be clever. You have taken one of the most important nights of my life and reduced it to something shameful and sordid. It was glorious, and like a fool I thought that only your presence could make it better. Instead you ruined it. I may never forgive your cruelty.”

Her accusations pulled him up short. A few of the storm clouds blew out of his eyes. “If I have been cruel, I apologize. Let us go into the library, Bianca. I want to speak with you.”

“Pontificate and lecture to yourself, dear guardian. I am going to bed.”

He grabbed at her as she mounted the stairs. “Come back down here, Bianca.”

“Go away, Laclere. Do not make a scene or you will wake the household.”

“I will wake the whole damn city if I want.”

She shook her arm free. “Oh, stubble it, Vergil. Goodnight.”

Stubble it.
Where the hell was she learning words like that?

He knew where. From the soulful, adoring, perfect-image-of-romantic-sensibility young bloods who gravitated to Pen's house like so many bees discovering a newly blooming garden. He spent most of his time swatting them away when he visited, but they always buzzed back.

He strode into the library. No fire or candles burned, but he found the port anyway. It didn't taste nearly as comforting as he thought it would, nor did it relieve his annoyance.

His mood was not only because of Bianca, he had to admit. Tomorrow he faced an unpleasant task in his search for the truth about Milton's death. The prospect of the waiting interview sickened him, and he had entered the opera house resentful and angry about that as much as Bianca's performance.

His world threatened to fall apart. Every friendship and love at its center seemed to have become as insecure, duplicitous, and masked as his own life.

Tonight had shown that Bianca was slipping from his life too. She lived here and practiced with Signore Bardi and made new friends and enjoyed her youth, and every new experience pulled her further away from him. He could feel the gulf widening. Sometimes he wondered if she remembered that she was supposed to be considering marriage to him.

He would have forbidden this debut if he could. He would have strangled Bardi, or at least bribed him, if he had surmised the tutor would propose such a thing.

She had loved it. Of course she had. Catalani had once told him that the magic created for the audience was felt ten times over by the performers themselves. What must it be like to stand surrounded by the sound booming off the ceiling? Like being submerged in an ocean of the senses. He had watched Bianca's amazement and known with certainty that in one night the odds had tilted against him in this competition for her life.

His mind recalled her excited smile when she saw him in the corridor, and then her retreat into cool poise when she noticed his anger. He had been so preoccupied with his resentments that he had not noticed at the time how beautiful that smile had been, nor that it had existed solely for him.

The worst of his bristling mood snapped and died. He set down the port, feeling subdued for reasons that had nothing to do with the spirits. He pictured that smile again and again, replaced by hurt.

His behavior had been inexcusable. Deliberately heartless, if he wanted to be honest with himself. He had reacted to tonight's events as if they had all been about him, when in fact he was merely a guest at another person's party. But for her happiness in his attendance, it really had not mattered if he were there at all. Maybe he had known that. Perhaps he had invited this argument to ensure that his supporting role would not be reduced to a walk-on.

The house throbbed with silence. He wished that one of the servants was about. He would send him to ask Bianca to come down for a short while. He did not want to leave tonight with things the way they were.

He strolled out to the corridor. Someone had locked the front door, a sure sign that no servant would appear. No more candles waited to light the way, but he knew this house as well as his own and could navigate it blind.

Silence pulsed. She might not be asleep yet. He would go and apologize, and then leave through the garden door.

She was not asleep. She had not even prepared for bed. She sat in an undressing gown in a chair by the hearth. When he entered she did not demonstrate the slightest surprise, just raised sad eyes. It was as if she had been waiting for him.

She acknowledged him, then looked down at her lap. Her hands lay twisted together there. “No more lectures, Laclere.”

“No.”

“What, then? It is dangerous for you to be here.”

She looked so unhappy. He would take her in his arms, but he did not trust himself to touch her. “An apology. I did try to ruin tonight for you. Your pleasure in it … frightened me.”

She rose and paced thoughtfully around the room's edges. “It frightened me too. All of this frightens me. It is a torture. Do not tell me that I can end it with one word. I know that.” She cast an accusing glare at him. “You spoke of me tonight as if you did not know me at all. If I have become a stranger to you, do not blame me. I am not the one who stays away.”

“I do not stay away.”

“You do. I have rarely seen you the last few weeks. You sent no word that you would come tonight. I am left to wonder if you have forgotten me, and to be grateful for your small acknowledgments when you do visit.”

“You knew that it would be like this, Bianca. I can hardly display my affection and announce to the world what has occurred. Since I cannot, I do not relish sitting in Pen's drawing room with other men who are permitted to openly court you while I must play the guardian.”

“You could arrange—”

“No.”

“You could at least kiss me when you leave. You could give me just a brief kiss to show that you have not grown indifferent.”

“I am far from indifferent, which is why I could never give you
just
a brief kiss.”

She still paced, like a restless spirit drove her and she found the chamber too small. She eyed him with a glint of defiance.

“I did it on purpose, you know. Encouraged those young men. Took the roses and spoke with them. I wanted to show you that they represented no danger to me or my virtue. That is how my mother treated the men who pursued her. Politely enough, but keeping a firm distance. Surely it could work for me as well.”

“Undoubtedly it could, but the world's assumptions will carry more force than your actions. In any case, I cannot bear to watch it.”

Her brow puckered. “You made that clear. Which is the other reason why I did it tonight, I think. To make you jealous.”

“To make me jealous?”

“Yes, I think so. I really do.”

“Bianca, I have been castigating myself for reacting badly. I have apologized for misjudging this evening and you have accepted that apology. Now you blithely add that perhaps I was correct all along?”

She shrugged. “I cannot honestly say that making you jealous had nothing to do with it, that is all.”

“Other than our unhappiness, what could you hope to gain by that?”

She strolled so close that her perfume and silk robe clouded around him. “Well,” she said, plucking at ribbons on the robe with slow, taunting pulls, “for one thing, it seems that I got you into my bedchamber, doesn't it?”

Her sly smile almost stopped his heart. The door stood five feet behind him, but suddenly it might have been miles away.

The bedrobe fell. She was not naked. Stays cinched her from midriff to hips. Chemise and pantaloons created a thin film of fabric over her breasts and thighs. White stockings remained gartered above her knees.

The world constricted to her and him and the space between them. The bold challenge in her eyes made desire scorch through his body.

“It is not wise to tempt a man who is hot with jealousy, darling.”

Her lids lowered. “Just as long as you are hot, Laclere, I don't care why.”

Damn.
He walked over to her. “It appears that you are dangerous and a little wicked, after all.”

“Only with you, Laclere.”

“You just admitted otherwise.”

“That was different, wasn't it? I wasn't really wicked with them. But I did use them to affect you, which was unfair.”

They were as close as possible without touching. “Most unfair.”

“Was it really very naughty of me?”

“
Very
naughty.”

“I suppose that there is nothing for it, Laclere. You will just have to punish me.”

With a pout of contrite resignation she climbed onto the bed. She pulled a mound of pillows over and settled herself with them under her stomach, raising her bottom in penitence.

She glanced back at him, and her expression aroused him more than her erotic position. The erection of a lifetime strained against his clothing. His blood pounded without mercy.

He caressed up her leg, grasped the edge of the pantaloons, and ripped. Gossamer shreds flew away from her buttocks and thighs. He flipped her and the pillows raised her hips so that she had to bend and spread her legs to stay balanced. Kneeling beside her, he kissed down the straps of her chemise until her naked breasts peaked high and hungry above the top edge of her stays. He licked and gently drew on each one.

He rose and undressed, never taking his eyes off the lovely body laid out with abandon for him. She watched the coats and collar drop, with eyes as hot as his. The musk of her arousal wafted to him. Just lying there, vulnerable and exposed, already had her hips subtly flexing with a sexual rhythm.

He removed his pocket watch from the waistcoat and checked the time, then placed it near the candle by the bed.

“Hurry,” she whispered, reaching a hand in his direction.

“No.” He discarded his shirt and stripped off his lower garments. He knelt between her knees. Lifting one ankle onto his shoulder, he began kissing along her leg's inner flesh. “This is not going to be hurried at all.”

He rubbed his face against her back and kissed down the length of her spine. The tantalizing stays had been discarded sometime during the night as too warm. His kisses trailed over her bottom and down her thigh to the stocking still gartered on one leg.

She was not asleep, and she sighed in her contentment and shifted her legs, reassuming the position on the pillow with which this had begun, welcoming him to repeat the new intimate kisses he had taught her tonight.

The fall of her arms around her head, the press of her cheek against the sheets, the arched offering of her body—to his amazement, the sensuality of her repose had him hardening yet again.

“It will be dawn soon. I must go.” He rolled onto his back and pulled her into his arms. The beckoning day reminded him of the meeting he had arranged for this morning. He did not want to go to it, and not only because it meant leaving Bianca.

She sighed petulantly, as if the revolution of the earth were an inconvenience designed only to limit their time together. “Will you come back tonight?”