A Duke For All Seasons (13 page)

    
“Because throwing it out might be even worse luck.” She’d never heard of the
Macbeth
curse extending beyond the stage, but no one would want to risk it. “If the envelope is hidden in the prop box for the Scottish play, trust me, not a soul will bother it.”
 

    
“Very well. It will have to do,” he said as he tucked the envelope into his waistcoat.

    
“Wait. Don’t you want me to hide it?”

    
“No, I’ll make sure it arrives in London safely and finds its new home. You’ll simple tell Fernand where it is. It’ll be safer for you and for Lisette that way,” Sebastian said. “Part of this scheme is choosing our ground and I think the Olympic will do nicely. Since the opera company season is over, how likely is it that anyone will be at the theatre?”

    
“The acting troop is on tour. Only our stage manager William will be there. Mention my name and he’ll show you the prop box. Will can be trusted. The stage will be dark until fall unless there’s a special event—oh!” She worried her bottom lip. “I promised Lady Granger I’d give a recital of German love songs. She said she’d hire the theatre since she wanted to invite more people than she could accommodate in her music room.”

    
The countess had declared it would be one last hurrah before Society abandoned London entirely to the heat of summer and escaped to their country homes till autumn brought them back to town for the ‘Little Season.’

    
“Good. My private box is not inconspicuous. It should prove too tempting for de Lisle to resist.” Sebastian picked up one of the folders from the other packet Mr. Harris had delivered and leafed through it. “It says here the Frenchman favors small blades for close work. With my unprotected back to the door and my attention directed to the stage, de Lisle will think it child’s play to dispatch me.”
  

    
“Don’t speak so.” Arabella closed the distance between them. Sebastian had been distantly formal during the daytime, but she couldn’t help wrapping her arms around him and burying her face against his chest, no matter who might catch them thus. He smelled of sandalwood and saddle leather. So warm. So alive. “I . . . I can’t lose you.”

    
He slipped a finger under her chin and tipped her face up. “This from a woman who wouldn’t even agree to a three month contract?” he said with a chuckle.

    
Fool
, she named herself. She sounded needy and pathetic even to her own ears. Their relationship only retained what little balance it had because she held back her heart. If she admitted to the desperate sweetness in her chest, how would she be different from any of his past amours?

    
“What I meant was I can’t bear to be the instrument of your destruction,” she said.

    
“I greatly fear it is too late to worry over that.”

    
He bent and kissed her. Need sizzled between them, a frisson of desire tangled up with danger and deceit. Sebastian was right. She’d doomed him from their first meeting, from the moment she’d mistaken him for the one to whom she was supposed to deliver the cursed envelope.

 
   
Mr. Harris’s shadow darkened the doorframe and he coughed discreetly. Sebastian pulled away from Arabella and tucked the pages of Fernand’s dossier into his pocket for future study.

    
“Tell Mr. Fletcher to saddle my mount,” he said. The runner murmured his obedience and left. Sebastian turned back to Bella. “Convey my regrets to the others. They’ll understand my departure if you say urgent business recalls me to London.”

    
“Take me with you.” The sooner she met with Fernand, the sooner they’d find Lisette, she told herself. Besides, an irrational part of her heart clamored that if she were with Sebastian, surely nothing bad would happen to him. “I can be ready to go in no time. There’s no need for a carriage. I’ll ride. My things can be sent on later. I won’t slow you down, I promise.”

    
“Bella, no,” he said with gentleness. “You must be seen to return to London alone. In fact, after I leave, a histrionic fit denouncing me as a cad would not come amiss.”

    
“But—”

    
He pressed his fingertips to her lips this time. “Wait until tomorrow to return to London. The world must see that we have parted ways lest de Lisle become suspicious. It’s the only reason he’ll believe you’re willing to betray me.”
     

    
She hated to admit it, but he was right. “I’ll curse you for a perfidious wretch to anyone who’ll listen.”

    
“That’s my girl.” He smiled, brushed a kiss across her forehead and strode for the door. He stopped at the threshold. “Bella, when this is over . . .”

    
He’d want to take up where they left off. Even without benefit of the contract, she’d be his mistress for the season. Lady Moorcroft’s encouragement aside, there could be nothing more for them. Bella only hoped their liaison would last longer than the turning of the autumn leaves.

    
“When this is over,” she said with false brightness, “we’ll dine again at the Peacock’s Tail. And this time we won’t pass up dessert.”

    
His mouth lifted in a half smile and then he was gone. Bella sank into the Tudor chair again, balling a fist against her lips to keep from sobbing aloud. As if a giant cat batted her mouse’s heart back and forth, she alternated between fear for Lisette and fear for Sebastian.

    
Compose yourself
, she ordered with sternness. She’d be of no use to anyone if she allowed herself to go to pieces. She had to think. She had to stay sharp.

    
The lives of the ones she loved might depend upon it.

    
Love. Yes
, she admitted to herself. She loved her daughter. What she felt for Sebastian was hot and desperate, but it was more than simply sexual. It was the mostly deeply troubling emotion she’d ever experienced. It must be love.

    
She drew a deep breath, swiped her eyes dry and stood, ready to return to the breakfast room to deliver a convincing tale to Sebastian’s aunt about the way her nephew had abandoned his latest lover. Lady Moorcroft could be counted upon to shake her head over the duke’s inconstancy. She’d spread the story to all who would listen once she returned to London, provided she tippled a few glasses of sherry first.

    
It would be good practice for trying to convince Fernand that she was more than willing to betray Sebastian. It would require all her stagecraft to pull off. Privately, she gave herself one chance in three of Fernand believing her.

 
   
She took a step toward the door when she remembered one of the folders Mr. Harris had brought to Sebastian still rested on his desk. He’d been investigating someone else in addition to Fernand. It would behoove her to be aware of anyone Sebastian mistrusted and steer clear of them as well.
    

    
The name at the top of the page forced all the breath from her lungs.

    
Arabella St. George.

    
There on the foolscap, all the foibles and missteps of her life were set down baldly—her obscure birth, the discovery of her unique vocal talent as a child, the death of her parents and the maestro who took her under his lecherous wing. She owed her unshakable singing technique to him, but when her body blossomed into the first flush of maturity, he also taught her other things. Things someone who still had a child’s heart ought not to have learned until much later.

    
Then there were the other men who had figured in her life, listed neatly and in order. Men of title and importance were set down next to penniless baritones from the chorus. Their only point of commonality was the brevity of their sojourns at her side.

    
When she reached the section of the report dealing with her affair with Fernand de Lisle, her hand shook so badly she had difficulty reading the tidy script. Mr. Harris considered Arabella a willing accomplice to de Lisle’s activities and recommended she be closely watched or better yet, turned over to the authorities.

    
How could Sebastian have ordered this witch hunt into her privacy?

 
   
She’d told him everything except the sorry bit about the maestro. When her singing master died, she’d come to terms with what had happened and decided it had not been her fault. She’d been more than a child, but not quite a woman. She was not responsible. It was something she reckoned long buried and of no import to anyone but herself.

    
How had Sebastian’s agent even unearthed the sordid mess?
   

    
The rest of her life she took full responsibility for. She went into each affair with her eyes wide open and conducted the liaison on her own terms.

    
Except with Fernand
. He definitely had the upper hand now since he had possession of their daughter.

    
And with Sebastian
. Against her better judgment, she’d allowed him to take possession of her heart, even though he obviously didn’t trust her.

    
She closed the folder and put the incriminating dossier in Sebastian’s top desk drawer. He’d no doubt paid handsomely for it. He deserved to keep this record of all the squalid little details of her life before he burst into her dressing room wearing his blasted top hat, white carnation and damned red roses.

    
It occurred to her suddenly that Sebastian hadn’t agreed when she suggested they take supper together at the Peacock’s Tail once this was over. Her belly lurched uncertainly.

    
What if this wasn’t a sham estrangement? What if, even without benefit of a contract formalizing their affair, Sebastian had just given her his
conge
in truth? The downward spiral in her gut confirmed this was more than a ruse to fool Fernand. Sebastian didn’t want his name linked publicly with hers. The fact that his actions dovetailed with his duty to king and country was probably the only reason he agreed to help her recover Lisette.

    
This was a real dismissal. A rejection. She felt it in every fiber of her body.
  

    
She hadn’t even lasted a fortnight with the Ice Duke, let alone a season.

    
Arabella felt a hard shell forming over her heart once more. She supposed she ought to thank Sebastian. His mistrust would make it far easier for her to convince Fernand she was ready to betray the Duke of Winterhaven.
     

“Once a gentleman has ended matters with his light-o-love, it is a grave disservice to both parties to continue any sort of congress. It smacks of sentimentality, confuses a man’s past paramour and hinders the timely acquisition of a new mistress to replace her.”

~ A Gentleman’s Guide to Keeping a Mistress

    
As Sebastian had requested, Arabella waited until the next day to bid the rest of His Grace’s guests goodbye and return to London. A violent summer storm and impassably muddy roads would have better suited her mood, but instead the weather was despicably fine.

    
She’d left Sebastian’s elegant equipage at the post station nearest to London, electing to return to town in a common coach to prove her affair with the Duke of Winterhaven was over. Besides, the ducal landau was almost too broad for the narrow lane where she lived.

    
Bella kept a suite of rooms on the upper story of a respectable townhouse in the shadow of a more fashionable neighborhood. In addition to her boudoir, she had a lovely salon that housed her piano where she occasionally entertained small groups of friends—visiting artists and theatre types mostly. Her position with the opera company provided sufficient funds for her live more lavishly, but she’d been supporting Lisette by sending regular amounts to her sister. She also put money by for her daughter to serve as a dowry when she came of age. Arabella wanted Lisette to have choices she’d been denied.