Amanda Scott (38 page)

She did not speak at once, but she was watching him warily through the one eye he could see, and he knew her well enough to be certain now that she had taken a full and knowing part in Penthorpe’s ordeal. He shifted his position slightly, trying to get a clear look at her face, but she turned away again, saying with near childish defiance, “You make no sense at all, Nicky. Surely you cannot believe that I was party to such a dastardly prank as you have described!”

He said softly, “Are you trying to make me angry, Clara?”

“No.” She licked her lips, then straightened and slowly pushed the coverlet to one side. Bringing her feet to the floor, she looked directly up at him at last and said in a small voice. “I don’t want to make anyone angry ever again, Nicky.”

Nick stared at her face in shock. Despite the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, he could see that the side she had kept turned away from him was deeply bruised and swollen. Reaching for her, his anger forgotten, he pulled her upright to peer more closely at her face, exclaiming, “My God, Clara, who struck you?”

She cried out when he grabbed her, and he saw her swallow now and blink quickly, as if to hold back tears. Looking, at that moment, more vulnerable than he had believed she could be, she opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, and flung herself, weeping, into his arms.

Holding her, he muttered, “Seacourt. By God, that man wants strangling!”

“It was my own fault,” she whispered.

“Only if you count your idiocy in taking up with him in the first place,” Nick said, struggling to contain his temper.

“You’d better let me go,” she said. “My ribs are bruised, too.”

Reminded all too strongly of the way Seacourt had treated Melissa and Susan, Nick felt murderous, but he released Clara at once. He had reacted impulsively when she flung herself at him, embracing her as he would anyone who had been badly hurt. Though he was still angry with her for her part in the plot against Penthorpe, he was more angry with Seacourt. Still, he knew that if he was going to get any information about what the villain was up to, he needed to keep a tight rein on his temper.

Clara would tell him more. He was certain of that, but it would not do to frighten her more than he already had. “Has he done this before?” he demanded. When she shivered and stepped away again, he made a stronger effort to control his tone, saying, “I want to know, Clara, and not just because of what he’s done to you.”

“He was terribly angry,” she said, her voice sounding rough in her throat. “It was all his doing, just as you suspected. I met him some time ago, Nicky, and when you were so cruel to me … He was kind, and charming. But he was unreasonable about Penthorpe. He hated him, Nicky. At first it was just a lark for me, then something of a challenge when Penthorpe didn’t respond. I … I didn’t know then that Geoffrey thought that if he could be rid of Penthorpe, the courts would force Susan to return to him. The magistrate was all his notion, too, only there was no magistrate and Geoffrey blamed me when he learned that Penthorpe had got away. He said I must have warned him, even that I must have sent someone to help him escape, but I didn’t, Nicky, I didn’t! All I did was follow orders. That’s all I have ever done.”

“Seacourt’s orders? Just how long
have
you known him?”

She looked wary again, but she said, “Yarborne introduced us in Newmarket. Geoffrey’s a charming man when he wants to be, Nicky. You know he is. And you’d been unkind, so I was vulnerable. He is seductive, and … and—”

“Never mind all that. You know—you must know—that his wife ran away with Penthorpe years ago because of the way Seacourt had treated her. He is a violent man where women are concerned, Clara, especially when his wishes are thwarted. You should have nothing more to do with him.”

“I … I won’t. You need not worry about that,” she added more firmly. “I promise, I won’t ever see him again.”

“Well, you can scarcely be certain of that—”

“Oh, yes, I can,” she snapped. Then, turning away again, she added in a calmer voice, “I-I’m going to Paris for a time, I think. Don’t be fierce with me, Nicky. It wasn’t my fault that he got such a hold over me. He made it all seem so reasonable. Men do, you know, when they want a woman to obey them. Or they take advantage, and then hold what they know about her over her head to make her do what they want. Seacourt was like that, always. So are most other men, I’ve found.”

“What the devil do you mean, other men? If you mean me, Clara, by God—”

“I don’t! Never! Just … just others.” She gave him a sidelong, measuring look, then added quickly, “If you knew the whole, Nicky, you wouldn’t be so angry with me, truly.”

“Then tell me the whole, damn it!”

“You don’t really want to hear it.” Sitting back down on the sofa and arranging her skirt, she murmured provocatively, “It involves your precious little wife, you see.”

“Melissa?”

“Unless you have more than one wife,” she said with a mocking little smile.

“So help me, Clara, if you don’t want me to haul you back up off that sofa and give you the shaking of your life—”

“Just like a man,” she snapped. “When you can’t get your way with a woman by seducing her or coercing her, you take to brute violence, every blessed one of you!”

“Don’t tempt me,” he said, standing over her and looking down. He didn’t care now how much his temper frightened her. Briefly, he wanted to shake her, even to slap her. But his eye fell again on her swollen face, and the latter thought made him feel sick to his stomach. He said much more gently than he had intended, “Tell me, Clara. I won’t strike you, I promise, but you must tell me what you know about Melissa. I am her husband. If someone is taking advantage of her, I want to know.”

“Truthfully, Nicky, I don’t know who’s taken advantage of whom, but I have it on unimpeachable authority that your precious Melissa is meeting with Yarborne right now, as we speak, in a little hideaway flat that he keeps in Jermyn Street.”

“Nonsense. You’re mad. Or else you’re lying through your teeth.”

Had she argued with him in her usual fashion, glibly offering a myriad of supposed witnesses or evidence, he might never have believed her, but she did not. She only shrugged and said, “You know how he is, so protective of his reputation. Only the most devoted of his servants even knows the place exists.” When he turned on his heel to leave, she added petulantly, “I said I’m going away, Nicky, and you never gave me the gold bracelet you promised.”

He looked back. “You’ll have to consider that a forfeit, my dear.”

Melissa paused at the corner of York and Jermyn Streets and stared at St. James’s Church, almost directly opposite, not sure whether to turn right or left. Even as the question crossed her mind, however, she glanced right and saw the manservant who had attended Yarborne at the ladies’ supper.

He approached, his manner properly obsequious, and when he was near enough, he said, “I am Fenton, madam. You might recall me from a previous occasion.”

She nodded.

“His lordship expects you. My orders are to see you safely to the door of the flat, and then to take myself off again. There is no one else with the master.”

She nodded again, not certain whether she was glad or frightened to learn she would be alone with Yarborne. Clearly, the servant knew who she was, despite his failure to use her title, and she was grateful that he had not used it there on the street. She wanted no listening ears, no tongues to prattle of her visit, no peeping eyes to see what passed between them. Yet she was by no means certain she wanted to be alone with Yarborne. Deciding it was too late to quibble over details of their meeting, she drew a deep breath and nodded to indicate that she would follow him.

Fenton turned and walked swiftly to the second building from the corner, a four-story edifice of brick with white stone belt courses. Stone steps led up between the wrought-iron areaway railings to a plain wooden door beneath an ordinary glass fanlight. Melissa noted each of these details as if they mattered and were of interest, firmly keeping her mind off the scene that lay ahead.

The manservant pushed open the door and held it for her. Inside, he led the way again, up plain wooden stairs arranged in half flights around the well, to the next floor. Her footsteps and his echoed hollowly upward through the stairwell. At the first full landing, he gestured toward a dark wood door at the end of a narrow corridor, and said, “Shall I knock for you, madam?”

The thought occurred to her that if she sent him away at once, and if she should then happen to shoot Yarborne, Fenton would never be able to tell anyone that he had seen her enter the flat. Repressing a nearly overwhelming and quite ridiculous urge to chuckle at the wicked thought, and wondering if she were perhaps losing her mind after all, she gathered her wits and made a dignified gesture of dismissal. Whether or not his absence could make any difference in a court of law, it made a difference to her. She did not want anyone to see her groveling to Yarborne.

Waiting until she heard Fenton’s footsteps fade away and the door below open and shut again, Melissa rapped lightly on the one in front of her. It opened at once.

“Engaging in second thoughts, my dear?” Yarborne stood solidly in front of her, smiling. “It took you rather an age to knock. Come in, come in.”

“I brought your money,” she said bluntly. “There is no need whatsoever for me to step inside your flat.”

“Oh, but there is. Doing business on doorsteps is for street vendors and their ilk, certainly not for a lady of quality doing business with a gentleman.”

Tempted though she was to tell him she did not consider him any sort of a gentleman, let alone a man of quality, Melissa obeyed his unspoken gesture to enter. She remained by the door, however, moving at once to open her reticule.

“Pray, do not be in such a hurry, my dear. Fenton has left us a pot of tea, and while it may not still be quite as hot as you like it, he has left some excellent biscuits, as well, to eat with it.”

“I did not come for tea, Yarborne,” she said crisply, removing Lady Ophelia’s bank notes from her reticule in a near cloud of lavender. “If you will just take this money and return my bracelet to me, I shall be much obliged to you.”

“Will you, by God? I shall hold you to that.” He sniffed appreciatively. “Even your money is scented. I find such attention to detail quite admirable in a woman. Indeed, my dear, you grow lovelier and more attractive by the day. I know now that I made a grave mistake in agreeing to that auction. Sir Geoffrey Seacourt was wiser than we knew, for I believe that you would have made me an excellent wife had I accepted his proposition that I marry you.”

Repressing a shudder at the thought, she said grimly, “You would never have got the money he owed you.”

“Ah, but I’ve come to believe that the rewards of marriage to you would have outweighed any monetary loss.”

“You flatter me, sir.” Pointedly, she held out the bank notes.

Yarborne ignored them. “Sit down, Melissa.”

“I have not given you leave to use my name,” she said. “I would prefer that you continue to address me by my title.”

“No doubt you would, but I can’t think why I should cater to your preferences just yet. Now, sit down and be civil, or I shall make certain that your husband very soon learns of this meeting and everything that preceded it.”

“You promised not to tell him, if I repaid you!”

“So I did, but I am certain I can think of a good reason to break that promise if you are foolish enough to put me to the trouble of doing so.”

Turning toward the window, she began to put the money back into her reticule. Though she moved slowly, her thoughts were racing. Her fingertips touched the cool metal pistol barrel, then the handle, but although she gripped the handle longingly, she did not take the pistol out. To threaten Yarborne with it would do no good. Even if the gun proved to be loaded, not only was she certain she would be unable to shoot him but the best she could hope for would be to make an escape. That would scarcely solve her greatest problem, since he would merely wait until she had gone, then tell Nicholas at his first opportunity that she had been there. His man would support that claim, and no reason she could offer Nicholas would mitigate his anger with her for visiting Yarborne’s flat. She would do better by far to calm Yarborne now.

How she would calm him, she could not imagine. He seemed bigger than life at that moment, and quite terrifying. Recalling Charley’s observation in response to a similar complaint about Nicholas, Melissa realized she was letting her perception of Yarborne’s power over her frighten her more than the man did. She tried to imagine what his perception of her must be. His attitude having consistently given her to believe that he thought all women were foolish, she began to wonder how she might use that erroneous assumption against him.

As the thought crossed her mind, he came up behind her and grasped her left arm, turning her toward him, his purpose all too clear. “You are very beautiful, my dear. Since you seem reluctant to sit down, perhaps you will not deny one tender kiss to the man who nearly became your husband.” Both his hands rested on her shoulders.

Her right hand was still in her reticule. Looking up into his face, she said steadily, “Release me at once, my lord. I am holding a loaded pistol aimed directly at your stomach. I can scarcely miss my mark at such close range as this.”

He went very still, his grip on her arm loosening instantly. Melissa stepped back and withdrew the pistol from her reticule.

“I see that I have made you angry, my lord, but you have not played this game fairly, have you? Cheaters must expect to lose in the end. I trust that you have my bracelet near at hand.”

“Yonder on the table,” he said with a small movement of his head.

She had not noticed the watch-bracelet before, but she saw it now and moved carefully past him to pick it up.

He said scornfully, “So now you turn thief, madam. Very pretty behavior.”

“I am no thief,” she snapped, stung by the accusation. “I brought your money, and I will leave it with you, but I will not allow you to take further advantage of me.”