Jo Beverley - [Malloren 03] (32 page)

“Yes, very.”

If he wanted it this way, she could play the game. She crossed her legs as her bother would do. “So, you have no intention of marrying Lady Lydia?”

“Not in the near future.” He shrugged. “Next year, or the year after, who knows? She is a delightful young lady.”

“But young.”

“Desist!” In a completely different tone, he added, “I kissed her today.”

Elf caught a breath. “And escaped uncommitted? A miracle!”

“I’m sure you have been kissed many times and yet escaped bondage.”

“But then, despite the clothes, I’m not a man.”

“And such matters are much more hazardous for us. Unfair, really, wouldn’t you say?”

They shared a smile that Elf couldn’t interpret, yet treasured. They had slid into talking as friends, or even as she might talk with Cyn—something she had never experienced with Fort before.

“We were left alone for a few moments, and I wanted to kiss her. I had already discovered that very proper ladies can be a surprise in these matters.”

Elf swallowed, knowing she was blushing.

“She, it turned out, was just as eager to experiment.
I started very gently, of course, but at her insistence became a little bolder. She made no objection, but soon pulled back.”

“She didn’t like it?”

“Your astonishment is flattering. It wasn’t clear, but she did say that she thought she’d wait before permitting other men such liberties.”

“One day, she will make some man a truly remarkable wife.” Elf had not intended the question in that “one day,” but it rang out.

He looked at her without any obvious artifice. “Elf, I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I feel as unformed as a babe.”

It was horribly unsatisfying, but it was honest, so she rose, smoothing down her man’s coat. “And I’m stinging you when you can’t retaliate.” She’d come to set him free, and now she must do it. “Did Chastity tell you I’ve taken over part of the family business?”

“An estate?” His brows rose with surprise.

“No, part of our industrial concerns.”

“I didn’t know the Mallorens had concerns other than making my life a misery.”

Elf stared at him. “How strange. But we don’t spread the word, I suppose. Yes, we are busily engaged in many matters to do with industry and trade. I have charge of fabrics of all kinds. It started with silk . . .”

A little while later, she stopped. “Oh, Lud. I’m chattering like a ninny!”

His lips twitched into a smile. “Just like an Elf. I’m glad you’re enjoying all this hard labor.”

“Well, I am.” Something in his manner had her blushing and fiddling with the cuff of her coat. She made herself relax and tell him the whole of it. “I quite see that my interest in trade makes me even less of a perfect lady. As does my ability with a throwing knife.” She pulled the one out of her boot. “Hold one of my poems up against the wall.”

After the briefest hesitation, he picked up the pink
scroll and held it out at the full extension of his arm. “Bear in mind that I already have one wounded limb.”

“At least you’re not suggesting I could kill you by mistake at this distance.” She was surely mad, Elf thought, but she couldn’t back down now. It would just be like throwing at a target. Praying for a steady hand, she flicked the knife, and it thudded into the wall through the paper.

“Thank heavens!” she exclaimed.

He released the paper. “If I’d known you were so uncertain of your skills . . .”

And they shared a smile. Not a lovers’ smile—something more.

“Friends?” he said.

She nodded, fighting tears. She relished the precious moment, but knew it might be the end of other things. She almost asked whether friends could ever enjoy a physical relationship, perhaps just in fun, but she stopped herself. It could never be just in fun for her, and so it would tear her part.

And probably in a year or two he would marry Lady Lydia.

She walked over and pulled her knife out of the wall, sliding it back down into her boot.

“We do seem to have come full circle,” he said.

“Except that I’m in the breeches, and you’re in the robe.”

“A half circle with more to go?”

She looked down at him. “I don’t know, either.”

And that was a strange admission. She’d felt so sure that she wanted him, that they belonged together.

Then she’d felt so sure that she could let him go.

Now she wasn’t sure of anything.

He held out a hand. “Kiss me, Elf. The Earl of Walgrave has never been kissed by Lady Elfled Malloren.”

She sat on the edge of his narrow bed. “He won’t be now. I’m still in disguise of sorts.”

“What is real, what is disguise?”

Elf looked at him, lying back on his snowy pillows
in a pristine white night gown, his wavy hair loose on his shoulders.

She chuckled.

“What now?” he asked resignedly, but with humor in his eyes.

“It’s just that with me here in men’s clothing, I’m sure this looks like one of those scandalous pictures of the amorous suitor about to ravish the trembling maiden.”

He fluttered his lashes. “I’m prepared to scream, sir. But I might permit a kiss.”

“If you scream, they’ll probably make me marry you.” She leaned forward slowly to put her lips to his.

It was true. They had never kissed like this before, in honesty and without urgency. Bracing herself on one arm, she threaded the other hand through his hair, exploring the silky, springy texture of it as she enjoyed the soft firmness of his lips and the familiar taste of his mouth.

His hand touched her neck, drawing her gently closer as he deepened it, as his tongue greeted hers in play.

Almost, she collapsed down on top of him, but she made herself stop. Even if he wanted it, even if he were capable of it, now was not the time. She pulled back, straightened, and stood to give him a formal court bow.

“Au revoir, Monsieur Le Comte.”

With that, Elf turned and left before weakness could make her stay.

The box arrived just before Christmas.

Elf was in the middle of last-minute preparations for the grand Christmas masquerade they always held at Rothgar Abbey in mid-December. Servants and family had spent the day outside gathering traditional greenery. Now they were transforming the great house with it all, creating an indoor forest—a forest twined with scarlet-and-gold ribbons, and hung with mistletoe kissing boughs.

Spontaneously, the servants were singing traditional Christmas songs and she saw some of the younger ones sneaking nuts and oranges. That was allowed on a day like today.

Elf put the box aside for a moment to give instructions to the maids hanging the gilded nuts among the boughs on the staircase.

A squawk alerted her, and she turned to see Portia, her five-month-old son on her hip. Red-haired Portia was slim and petite, and her son was growing so healthily he seemed almost too much for her to carry. Despite the fact that Elf knew Portia was much stronger than she looked, she reached to take the child. She received a bright smile from both mother and little Francis. She carried the wide-eyed child around the hall, showing him the gilded ornaments and the scarlet ribbons.

“Elf,” said Portia, “this package is from Fort.”

Elf turned back slowly. She’d learned to put him out of her mind, she’d thought.

Now, immediately, her heart raced.

Not long after their last meeting, he’d removed to Walgrave Towers in Dorset. At the same time, Cyn and Chastity had finally left for Portsmouth and shortly thereafter, sailed. They’d been in Nova Scotia now for months. Their first letter had been enthusiastic, even if Cyn had been annoyed to find out halfway through the voyage that his wife was with child and had concealed it from him.

Elf’s revived pain at saying farewell to Cyn had been soothed by time spent at Candleford and the birth of Portia and Bryght’s son.

At some point, however, it had dawned on her that she missed Fort more than she missed Cyn.

That was an ominous sign when Fort had made no attempt to contact her.

With Chastity gone, Elf heard little about the Earl of Walgrave. He’d already left the country for Italy when she learned about it.

It shouldn’t have mattered whether he were one hundred miles away or five, but it did. Elf had been hard-pressed to keep up her cheerful manner, but since she wanted to assure her family that she was completely happy, she did.

And she
was
happy, more or less.

Her days were filled with business she enjoyed, including a certain amount of mingling with friends and relatives. She was a wondering and devoted aunt. The first of the Spitalfields silk weavers had settled in Norwich, and the business there was prospering.

Just last week she had journeyed to London to celebrate an early Christmas in Prince George’s Almshouse, down near Harrison’s Wharf. Dibby Cutlow ruled the seven other elderly inhabitants, considering the place virtually her own establishment.

The king had graciously permitted them to name the charity after his newborn son. These days, he beamed on all things Malloren. He had been delighted when informed that Portia and Bryght’s son had been born on the same day as his own. He was already talking of the
two being companions in a few years—a suggestion that did not appeal to Portia and Bryght at all.

Bryght had even been heard to mutter that Rothgar must have had a hand in it.

Rothgar had merely remarked that if they didn’t like the situation, they should have planned with greater foresight.

Whether by accident or foresight, Bute and Grenville were openly contesting for power and the king’s favor. This had made George even more devoted to the undemanding Marquess of Rothgar. In fact, the king was here at Rothgar Abbey, complete with wife, child, and entourage, looking forward to the masquerade.

There was still much to be done, but Elf walked over to return Francis to his mother and look at the box.

She felt a strange reluctance to open it. She’d found a kind of equilibrium, and wasn’t sure if she could handle any disturbance to it. But she commanded a pair of scissors from a maid and snipped the string. Pulling off the lid, she revealed scarlet and gold.

“Oh, it’s a costume,” Portia said. “Gaudy, to say the least.”

“And inappropriate. You know that tonight we have to be in character.”

“You could go as a Covent Garden whore.”

Elf flushed, and covered the thing, wondering how she could have ever thought it appealing. More important, why had he sent it? She’d assumed it had been thrown out.

“I suppose this must mean Fort’s back,” Portia said, setting Elf’s heart racing once again. She hadn’t thought of that. “Did you send him an invitation?”

“I’m sure we must have, as a matter of form . . .” Now Elf’s heart rate teetered on the edge of panic. Surely he wouldn’t come.

Why not?

He might
want
to come.

Oh no. She pushed that aside. Foolish hopes and dreams were just too painful.

“If he comes, he comes,” she said briskly, knowing that if a dark-clad monk appeared tonight, she’d quite likely faint.

Elf carried the box up to her rooms and summoned Chantal. When the maid came, Elf gave her the package and rather enjoyed the shriek of horror when it was opened. “Milady . . . no. Please!”

“Definitely not. But don’t throw it away, Chantal. It holds memories.”

Then Elf turned to look at her costume for the night. Layers of filmy silk swirled in brown and yellow, making up a loose gown to be daringly worn without hoops or corset. A kind of harness over her shoulders was included, however, to support the diaphanous wings.

Her mask was also yellow and brown, and included delicate gold antennae.

She was going to the masquerade as a wasp.

They held no formal dinner on the night of the masquerade, but Elf and the other Mallorens in residence—Portia, Bryght, Brand, and Rothgar—were invited to dine with the king and queen and their senior attendants. This inconvenient honor necessitated a
grande toilette
of its own. Elf attended in massive hoops that supported deep blue silk and a lot of silver embroidery and lace.

It was as well that tonight she didn’t need to chatter over awkward moments, for her mind was almost numb with panic. The king and queen, however, neither of them normally garrulous, wanted to talk about babies. Portia and Bryght were happy to support that conversation. They even managed to do so without implying that their child was even prettier and cleverer than Prince George.

Elf, seated between Lord Hardwicke and Lady Charlotte Finch, was relatively comfortable, though she could hardly stomach a mouthful of food.

Would he come?

What would he wear?

Had that costume been a message? Should she wear it?

No. No matter what his intent, she would not wear it. That belonged in another life.

But was Lisette the only aspect of Elf Malloren that really interested him?

As soon as the event finished, she hurried to put on her wasp costume. Part of her urgency was practical, for she should be available to deal with any last-minute problems. Mostly, however, she felt that the sooner she was dressed, the sooner it would begin, and the sooner she would learn her fate.

Gown, corset, hoops, and headdress were quickly disposed of. Elf looked in the mirror at her undisguised shape covered only by her white silk shift and experienced a sudden blinding vision of another mirror.

When Chantal, in a dark gown, appeared behind her, she almost shrieked with shock.

“Milady! What is it?”

Elf put a hand to her unsteady chest. “Just nerves, Chantal. Don’t ask why, but I am all on edge. Come, let’s make me ready to sting.”

She discarded her white shift and put on one of flesh-colored silk. The wing harness went on next, fixed securely around her shoulders. Then the fine silk slipped on top. It had been dyed to her order, not precisely in rings of yellow and brown, but in a swirling pattern. The skirt floated in a ragged end around her bare calves, and for shoes, she wore simple sandals of a Grecian design.

She’d tried on the gown before without any unease but now, Fort in mind, she felt overbold. No lady exposed her figure in public so close to its natural state. Even the most brazen whore wore corset and hoops.

She ran her hands dubiously past waist and over hips. Her breasts were so shamelessly
round
. The shape of the nipples could be seen. “What do you think, Chantal?”

The maid’s eyes opened in surprise. “But, milady, it is magical! Everyone will be entranced.”

“You don’t think it . . . bold?”

The maid firmly turned her from the mirror. “Not at all. There will be others there in classical style or dressed as fairies. Come sit, and I will put on the wings and headdress.”

Remembering the lady at Vauxhall—the one who’d dressed as Titania and had trouble with her wings—Elf had consulted people at the Drury Lane theater about the design of hers. She wished to be comfortable. Chantal carefully attached the sparkling shapes of wired gossamer to the harness. Elf felt no additional weight and when she stood, she was hardly aware of them. Even some dancing steps did not make them wobble or come loose.

“Excellent!” she declared, and risked another look in the mirror. They really were delightful wings—noticeable, pretty, but not so large as to be inconvenient. She refused to study other things again.

“Sit, milady!” commanded Chantal. “We must do the head.”

Again the mask covered half Elf’s face, but this time secured by a gold filigree cap which included the antennae. When she looked in the mirror again, she smiled. It really was a wonderful costume. The mask, again made in the theater, had large black eyes, just like an insect’s. With the antennae and wings the whole effect—though wildly fanciful—was indubitably wasplike.

And, suddenly, it was right. This, including the body revealed, was an important part of Elfled Malloren, a part she did not want to deny.

“C’est bien,”
she said softly.

“Bien sûr, milady,”
said Chantal.

Of course, everything was in perfect readiness.

Elf wandered restlessly through the chain of deserted reception and anterooms and into the grand ballroom hung with ribbons and greenery. The number of candles in the chandeliers had been reduced in order to give a kind of mystery to the place, but bright lights
surrounded one corner. The corner containing the new automaton.

Very different from the disastrous one, this was a silver tree with bright enameled leaves. On every branch sat tiny feathered birds, some in nests, some poised as if ready to fly. At the base, leaning against the trunk, a shepherd and shepherdess sat cheek to cheek.

Elf found the switch and it sprang into life, filling the air with birdsong. The birds all moved, some just to turn a head or open a beak, but a few to stretch and flap their wings. Then the shepherd and shepherdess sprang to life. His hand rose to rest on her shoulder, and both heads turned so that lips gently touched lips.

Then they slowly moved back to their original positions and the whole thing settled back into silence.

“Do you think they ever curse the clock maker who gave them so short a spring?”

Elf swung around to find Fort behind her. For a moment he looked almost distant, but then a smile began, and grew, until it was controlled. His lids lowered secretively.

Elf studied him hungrily, heart pounding. No monk tonight. Was that significant? He still wore black, however, the rich sleek black of a Renaissance gentleman, puffed in satin, hung with jet.

What should she read into that? “An assassin” she guessed, wanting to say so much more, but not sure where to start.

“Not at all.” He dug in his short puffy breeches and produced a small skull. “The gloomy Dane.” Pure, wonderful mischief twinkled in his eyes, and she bit her lip on a laugh, on joy she could not trust as yet.

“I do hope you don’t see Rothgar as your wicked uncle.”

“Rather that than peevish Laertes, or sententious Polonius.” His eyes passed briefly, appreciatively, over her. “I’m delighted to see you haven’t taken yourself to a nunnery, Vespa.”

“Just to good works.” Needing to move, Elf walked
away from the automaton and caught a glimpse of Portia—dressed as Good Queen Bess—anxiously peeping around the door. Portia hastily disappeared, and Elf heard a masculine laugh. Doubtless Bryght teasing his wife for being a worrier.

Were they all out there, all her protectors, making sure Fort didn’t murder her?

She took his hand and with a conspiratorial look, drew him behind a screen of pine boughs. It concealed a side door. She tugged him through it and along a corridor.

As busy servants pressed aside to let them pass, he said, “Do I get to ask questions?”

“Just one.”

They’d paused at the bottom of some narrow servants’ stairs. “Are you happy?”

Elf turned. What answer should she give? If she said yes, he might assume that she didn’t want to change her situation, didn’t want him. But at this point, she could only be honest. “Yes. All in all, I am.”

Then she pulled him on up the stairs.

At the top, she opened the door into the corridor that led to her rooms.

“Where are we going?”

“One question, remember?”

“It’s just that I left my rapier at home, and I am in the den of the Mallorens.”

“At least Cyn is an ocean away.” She opened the door to her bedroom.

“For which I give sincere thanks.” He closed the door, but stayed there, against it. “I didn’t come here to seduce you, Elf.”

It hurt, so she hit back. “I don’t expect you to. We’ve done the penny whore down at the docks, haven’t we?”

He closed his eyes. “I see I have much to make up for.”

Oh God, her unruly tongue! She took his hand. “No! I’m just in a state of nervous insanity. Don’t pay any attention to me.”

He smiled. “Impossible. That’s an unignorable costume. I’ve never before thought insects quite so erotic.”

Glad for a mask to hide her burning cheeks, Elf looked him over in turn. “Yours does show your legs to advantage . . . Lud!”