Meet Me at Midnight (18 page)

Sinclair didn’t bat an eyelash, but Victoria wanted to vomit. Instead she set her napkin on the table and rose. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I would like to fix my hair before we leave.”

“Leave?”

“The opera,” Sinclair explained. For a moment Victoria thought he might ask Kingsfeld to join them, but thankfully he contented himself with giving her an indulgent look. “Vixen loves the opera.”

“Yes, I certainly do,” she said, her jaw clenched, and curtsied. “Good evening, Lord Kingsfeld.”

He stood and bowed to her. “Lady Althorpe. I hope we shall be seeing much more of one another.”

She smiled. “Oh, I’m certain we shall.”
From as far away as possible
.

“A
ll right, what the devil is going on?” Sinclair sat back in the carriage opposite Victoria and tried not to glare at her.

“Nothing. Did you learn anything interesting from Lord Kingsfeld?”

He blew out his breath. “Yes. Hopefully. Now tell me what’s upset you.”

The Vixen laughed, though even a deaf man would have heard the annoyance in her voice. Apparently he’d bumbled even worse than he’d thought.

“Well, Sinclair, your friend did arrive at a rather…awkward moment,” she offered.

“Don’t let that concern you. I’ll make it up to you.” He leaned forward to take her hand, drawing her across the carriage to sit beside him. “Repeatedly, if you’ll let me.”

Victoria pulled her hand free, though she otherwise made no move to escape. “I have a question for you first.”

“I’m listening.”

“You received a letter this afternoon.”

Sin furrowed his brow. “Yes. I know. What of it?”

She folded her arms. “Who is Lady Stanton?”

Good God. He’d never expected that she might be jealous over him. She’d only mentioned his conquests in terms of his experience. This was rather refreshing. “No one you need to concern yourself about,” he hedged. All he needed was for her to begin intercepting his correspondence to look for clues.

“I see. Then don’t expect me to tell you anything.” Victoria started to move back to the opposite seat.

He was
not
going to spend another night alone. Sinclair put out his arm, stopping her escape. “Damnation, Vix. Some things I just can’t tell you,” he growled. “They aren’t my secrets.”

Her annoyed expression slowly eased. “That’s all I want—for you to be honest with me.”

“I shall endeavor. Now, you be honest with me. What happened today?” He took her hand again and kissed her knuckles.

“Don’t do that. You’ll get me all warm again, and I’ll have to sit in the theater and pretend not to notice you for half the night.”

“I make you warm?” he repeated, immeasurably pleased to hear that news. He slowly ran his fingers in circles around her palm.

“You know you do. So stop that.”

“I will, if you’ll tell me what happened.” The low neckline of her mauve silk gown tantalized him, and he ran his fingers across the exposed skin of her bosom. “Otherwise, I won’t promise anything.” Feeling her sudden trembling, he leaned forward, replacing his fingers with his lips.

“Sinclair…Oh, don’t do that.”

“Then talk to me,” he murmured, slipping his fingers under the lace neckline. He glanced up at her face
to see her eyes closed and her mouth open in an enticing “oh.” Sin grinned and resumed his trail of kisses. It was a heady feeling, to realize that he affected Vixen Fontaine so strongly. It was also a helpless feeling, to know how strongly she affected him. He’d never been under anyone’s sway like this, and he wasn’t certain whether he liked the sensation or not.

She twined her fingers into his hair and pulled him away from her heaving bosom. “All right, all right. Lord Kingsfeld merely…said something I didn’t appreciate.”

He furrowed his brow, half wishing she’d resisted a bit longer. “What did he say?”

Victoria searched his face for a moment. “You didn’t notice?”

That didn’t sound promising. “Apparently not.”

“He said I was a pretty little bird.”

“Which you didn’t appreciate because…”

“Do you think I’m a pretty little bird?” his wife asked instead, tight-lipped.

“Well, I’m not going to answer that. I’m not a complete idiot.”

“But am I?”

“Vixen—”

“Nearly everything your friend said to me was an insult. Did you not notice, or do you not care?”

He scowled. “I had other things on my mind.”

Victoria opened her mouth, then closed it again, sitting back. “I know that. It’s just that…I don’t see how men as intelligent as you and your brother could have a birdbrained friend like that.”

Fortunately, Sinclair knew enough not to come to Astin’s defense. Vixen wasn’t nearly as self-absorbed as her reputation made her out to be, and yet some
thing had offended her. It bothered him, as well, because she was right: he hadn’t paid attention to how Astin had treated her—he’d been concerned only with what the earl knew about Thomas. He’d disappointed her again, and he had the feeling his own shortcomings had hurt her more than any insult by Kingsfeld.

“Sinclair?”

“Hm? Sorry. I’m just—”

“Attempting to figure out why I’m so upset,” she finished, thankfully not looking angry. “I don’t know. I just didn’t expect it, I suppose. I’ve never even spoken to him before today.” To his surprise, she leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “Heaven knows men have assumed I was stupid before,” Victoria sighed. “I do have something of a reputation.”

A peculiar sensation ran through Sinclair’s chest; strange and familiar all at the same time. He held his breath, trying to memorize it before it was gone. It didn’t seem to go anywhere, though, but settled, warm and close, somewhere in the vicinity of his heart.

“Victoria,” he said softly, reluctant to disturb the peace between them, “having acquired a reputation myself, I know what I’m talking about when I say that no one has the right to assume anyone else’s capacity for understanding, or for injury.”

She was silent for a full minute. “You know, Sinclair,” she finally said, a quaver in her otherwise calm voice, “for a hardheaded scoundrel, you can occasionally be very nice.”

“Thank you. Are you certain you don’t want to return to Grafton House?”

He felt her soft chuckle against his shoulder. “Not after you told your grandmother we’d be attending. And even if you won’t let me help, I won’t be the
reason you miss an opportunity to go out and spy.”

His outspoken wife sounded entirely too docile, but he wasn’t about to start an argument in his present addled and ridiculously contented state.

Fortunately the coach stopped before he could begin reciting poetry, since the only ditties he remembered were extremely vulgar and mostly in French. The theater’s lobby was so densely packed with glittering nobility that for a moment Sin had the sensation he’d been locked in someone’s jewelry box. Despite the fact that no one could even move in a straight line, Victoria’s friends and admirers immediately managed to surround them.

“Lionel said it would be a sad crush,” Lucy Havers exclaimed. “Sophie L’Anjou is making her London debut tonight. She’s supposed to be fabulous.”

Sinclair stifled a curse. With all the damned places he could have visited with his wife, it would have to be the same blasted building where Sophie L’Anjou had set up residence.

“Did you see Mademoiselle L’Anjou when she performed in Paris?” Victoria asked, with her usual guileless insight. “She’s reputed to be quite popular there.”

“Yes,” he answered offhandedly. “I saw her on several occasions. She has a lovely voice.” And several other lovely parts that he’d become rather familiar with during the course of his duties for the War Office.

“Althorpe!”

Still unused to hearing that name directed at him, Sinclair turned as Kit and Grandmama Augusta reached them. Kit was grinning like a lunatic, and had the Earl of Kingsfeld in tow.

“Look who I found.”

His first instinct was to set his supposed friend on
his backside for behaving like a patronizing buffoon to his wife. Before he could begin punching anyone, though, Victoria’s hand crept down to entwine with his. He forced himself to relax the tensed muscles across his back. If Victoria wanted to hold his hand, berating Kingsfeld could damned well wait for somewhere more private.

“Thank you so much for allowing us to attend tonight,” Victoria said to his grandmother, kissing her on the cheek.

“It’s my pleasure, believe me,” Augusta replied, giving Sin a meaningful look he pretended to be unable to read. He certainly hadn’t done anything to earn her forgiveness; he hadn’t explained himself, and for damned certain he hadn’t found Thomas’s killer. He almost felt easier around her when she was annoyed at him.

“Hello,” Kit said to Lucy, taking her hand and bowing over it. “I’m Althorpe’s fascinatingly witty brother, Kit Grafton.”

Laughing, Victoria made introductions all around, not even hesitating when she came to Kingsfeld. It was for his sake, Sinclair knew, and he wanted to kiss her a thousand times for being more warm and compassionate than he could ever possibly deserve.

“Where are you sitting this evening?” he asked Astin, not feeling nearly as charitable as Vixen.

“Nowhere. I actually came by to talk to you for a moment, if I may.”

Ah. Perhaps the berating could begin sooner than he had thought
. “Will you excuse me a minute, Victoria, Grandmama?”

Victoria smiled. “Of course. Don’t be long.”

She hadn’t told him to behave, at least not aloud,
but he’d gotten her meaning clearly enough. Together, he and Kingsfeld muscled their way to a fairly secluded corner. “What did you want?”

“After our chat this afternoon, I went through some of my papers. I didn’t find anything that struck me as odd, until I saw this.” The earl pulled a paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

Something had so badly stained and blurred the single page that Sinclair couldn’t begin to decipher what it might say. “All right, what is it?”

“It’s part of a paper your brother and I were working on, part of a presentation before the House. This”—he gestured at the substantial stain—“is what resulted when Lord Marley stopped by our table at White’s to disagree with certain issues Thomas supported. I had completely forgotten about it, but now that I recall, Marley was quite angry.”

“What did your presentation concern?”

“The same topics everything concerned two years ago: Bonaparte and France.”

Marley again, and France again. And though Thomas would have opposed Bonaparte anyway, he had become much more militant about it once Sin had joined the War Office. “My thanks, Astin,” he said. “Please keep this between us for now.”

“Of course.”

Kingsfeld nodded but made no move to depart. He’d given what might turn out to be valuable information, so Sinclair stifled his impatience and waited.

Finally the earl cleared his throat. “I fear I owe you an apology, Sin,” he said in a low voice.

“For what?”

“This afternoon, I may have been…overly enthu
siastic in commenting on your wife’s lovely appearance.”

Sin blinked. “You were?”

“I am deeply sorry if I offended you, and I hope it doesn’t damage our friendship. Your brother was a good friend.”

“I don’t think it’s me you need to apologize to, Astin. It wasn’t me that you offended.”

The earl frowned. “It wasn’t?”

“Victoria is quite a bit more than a pretty little bird. You’ll come to see that, though, when you become better acquainted.”

“Very good.” Kingsfeld looked equal parts intrigued and relieved. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good idea. I’ll speak with you later.”

“Of course. Good evening.”

The news wasn’t anything astonishing, but Kingsfeld had only been looking for one afternoon. And Sinclair could put the reported incident at White’s down as one more black mark against Marley. Compared with the rest of the field, Marley was pulling ahead by a neck—which was now nearly stuck out far enough for a noose to fit around.

When he returned to his party, they had begun moving for the stairs, heading for the balcony and Augusta’s private box. One person, though, was conspicuously absent. “Where’s Victoria?” Sin asked, scanning the crowded lobby for her petite, mauve-garbed form.

“She went off with that big fellow over there,” his brother said, gesturing. “She said she’d only be a moment.”

“Kilcairn,” Sinclair growled, his hackles immediately rising. But just then, Victoria nodded and re
turned to his side. “What did he want?” he asked in as calm a voice as he could manage.

“
I
wanted to inquire whether Alexandra would be attending Susan Maugrie’s recital tomorrow. What did Lord Kingsfeld want?”

Sinclair continued glaring over her head at Kilcairn, who lifted an eyebrow at him and turned to follow his wife up the stairs. “Nothing much,” he said automatically, then caught her slight frown. “He did want to apologize,” he added, reminding himself that he didn’t have to be as close-mouthed as he used to be.

Her expression became skeptical. “Oh, really?”

He took her arm, moving closer to her and lowering his voice. “Apparently he thought he was handing you too many compliments, as if that were possible, and that I might have been offended.”

“Your friend is an oaf,” she replied, obviously not impressed.

“I know. I wasn’t particularly moved myself. But he’s never been one before, which is why I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“And he gave you some news about Thomas at the same time he was apologizing, didn’t he?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything.”

Sin wasn’t quite certain what she meant by that, but odds were it wasn’t a compliment. Arguing wouldn’t serve much purpose when they both agreed that she was right, though. He’d had an opportunity to inform Kingsfeld that his wife neither appreciated nor deserved inane, patronizing, clichéd compliments, and he hadn’t taken it.

On the other hand, he hadn’t forgotten she’d been chatting with Kilcairn, and that she’d managed to turn
the conversation conveniently away from that little fact. “Whose recital was that tomorrow?”

Victoria was silent for a heartbeat. “Susan Maugrie’s.”

“And will Alexandra Balfour be attending?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I’ll join you, as well.”

“And perhaps one day you’ll trust me a little. Not everyone has a hidden reason for everything they do and every conversation they have.”

He sighed. “I wish I could believe that.”

“I hope someday you’ll be able to,” she returned in the same tone. “Out of everyone in London, only one person shot your brother.”

“That only makes the rest of them not guilty of that particular crime. It doesn’t make them innocent.”

“What are you two gabbing about?” Kit asked, moving ahead to their box as they reached the top of the stairs, and pulling the curtain aside for Augusta. “You look serious as sinners on Sunday.”