Portia Da Costa (19 page)

And Blair Devine’s reputation for discretion, and an ability to mediate successfully and avoid scandal, was impeccable.

He was perfectly confident that when the time came, that bird-brained nitwit Sybil Ruffington would think that it was all her own idea that he should help her navigate the shoals of her little difficulty regarding lost letters.

14

The Ladies’ Sewing Circle

“And I’m afraid I didn’t get to see the Persian etchings, after all. I never returned to the study after my little contretemps with Wilson.”

It was a relief to be able to tell at least some of her story, and know that it would be received without judgment, and nothing but sympathy.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, my dear,” said Sofia Chamfleur, reaching over to give Adela’s hand a reassuring pat. “Your drawings and sketches are perfect in their own right. You’re an original.... You don’t need to copy others.”

Adela smiled at her friend. They were in the spacious salon of Lady Arabella Southern’s London home, sitting a little way apart from the other members of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, who were clustered around Lady Arabella herself. As usual, the peeress was telling tall and extremely scandalous tales about her vigorous and somewhat unlikely love life. Among those listening avidly, only one lady, Mrs. Julia Winterbourne, was actually engaged in any needlework, although without much enthusiasm. None of the others were even paying lip service to the faux purpose of their assembly.

The Ladies’ Sewing Circle really gathered to discuss men and scandal and all the juicy details of erotic amours, both their own and of high society in general.

“But I did promise...and some of the subscribers may have been looking forward to my interpretation.” Adela toyed with her coffee cup, then set it aside, without any real interest.

“Think no more about it. Just make something up.... I doubt if anyone will know the difference.” Sofia gave her a shrewd glance. “Now, tell us more about this run-in with your cousin. Do you really think he’s taken your portfolio? Why would he do such a thing?”

Why indeed? Because he could? Because he would never take no for an answer? It was difficult to describe, even to close friends like Sofia, and Beatrice Ritchie, who sat at Adela’s other side, what her relationship with her cousin was really like.

“Because I refused to show him my work. Because I refused to discuss my private life with him.” Nervous, despite her resolve not to allow Wilson to vex her, she pleated a soft fold of her black gown. “Wilson is just one of those men who simply have to have their own way.”

“But you like him very much, don’t you?” said Beatrice Ritchie in a low voice, smiling. Her brilliant green eyes twinkled. Adela was very fond of Beatrice, and had to admit that her friend was fully conversant with the ways of men who had to have their own way. Before her marriage, Mrs. Ritchie had been courted in a highly unorthodox way by her husband...who had paid her a king’s ransom to be his mistress.

“No! I don’t like him at all. He’s an arrogant monster.”

Two sets of elegant eyebrows quirked, Sofia’s dark ones and Beatrice’s, which were auburn like her hair. Adela realized she was obviously protesting too much.

“You desire him, though, don’t you?” said Sofia. “That’s obvious. The way your eyes flash when you talk about him, and a flush rises in your cheeks. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen when you speak of any of my ‘boys’...but every time we’ve discussed the subject of your cousin Wilson, you’re all aflutter.”

“Because he thoroughly annoys me.”

“A man can be both annoying and deliciously desirable,” observed Beatrice, “as I well know.”

“Your husband adores you, Bea. He absolutely dotes on you....” This was true. Handsome Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was well known for being the most devoted of husbands nowadays. “And Wilson simply despises me as a useless relative and a creature of inferior intellect...although in respect of the latter, that’s his opinion of just about everybody.”

“Well, he’s a famously brilliant man, as we all know, and notably disparaging of society’s foibles, but I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way about you, Adela,” said Sofia, pausing to sip her coffee. “How could anyone think someone as talented as you is useless? If he has your portfolio, surely he recognizes your extraordinary artistic gifts? Even if he
is
a genius.... The truly great acknowledge greatness in others, too.”

If only it was that straightforward. Wilson did admire her work. He always had done. But the complex twining of their history and their familial relationship made everything that passed between them into a problem. How could cousins so very, very distant be wound up so tightly in complications?

“Oh, he’s always valued my work. It’s just that I don’t think he values me much anymore.”

She had not told her friends everything about her shared past with Wilson. They knew only that he was her cousin, that they didn’t meet socially, except by accident. He was well known, too, as Lord Millingford’s heir, and the beneficiary of his assets in totality because of her grandfather’s hatred of her mother.

“Anymore? But you were once much closer weren’t you?” Beatrice’s eyes were intent. She’d spotted something Adela hadn’t meant to reveal. Both ladies almost imperceptibly leaned in.

“Yes...we were. Occasionally, when we were children, our families met. And one summer, we both holidayed at the same time at Ruffington Hall.” She paused, looking from one companion to the other, then beyond. Across the room, Lady Arabella had clearly said something quite outrageous, because Prudence Enderby was shrieking with laughter and the rest of the group were openmouthed and wide-eyed. Nobody would be interested in smaller revelations at the moment. “I...I did care for Wilson then. In fact, I was completely infatuated. He was—is—such a remarkable and spectacularly brilliant character...and I can’t deny he’s physically attractive.”

“Did something occur?” probed Sofia gently. Her expression was kind, and not at all salacious, as if she sensed that there was sorrow in the tale.

Adela looked away, letting her eyes flit around the handsome room, with its decor both ostentatious and strangely cozy. Arabella Southern had a beautiful home, and this salon was far superior to the one Adela had sat with Wilson in at Rayworth Court. It made the parlor at her own home in Digby Street look like a broom cupboard. It was also far more luxurious than the library at Ruffington Hall, where she’d once cast sheep’s eyes at Wilson, all those years ago.

“Yes, it did. Wilson and I were intimate. He was nineteen, and I was eighteen, and we were both willful and adept at escaping supervision. One day, one thing led to another...and we made love.”

“Oh...”

“Oh, my...”

Both women were too wise, and too worldly, it seemed, to ask why she and Wilson did not immediately become engaged.

“And afterward...we argued, I fled....” Unable to stop herself, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “And along the path I stood on a broken branch that shot up and hit me in the face.”

“But that wasn’t Wilson’s fault...not really,” said Beatrice, her expression still sympathetic.

“No, the blame was equally divided. I see that now. But at the time we were too young, too proud and too foolish to realize that.” Adela dropped her hand, but somehow, her fingertip still itched to rub at the kink in her nose. “We parted without ever resolving the issue...and have continued not to resolve it to this day.”

“I can see how that might make things uncomfortable for you at Rayworth Court, especially with this more recent difficulty over your grandfather and his bequests.” Sofia gave Adela a level, sensible look. The other woman was not all that much older than Adela, but somehow she suddenly seemed infinitely sage and wise in the world. “But couldn’t you two agree to discuss your situation? Talk like two adults? Come to some resolution...at least between yourselves, if not in respect of the familial difficulties?”

Adela laughed. Suddenly she felt almost giddy. How funny, the idea of her and Wilson sitting down for a rational discussion. The fatal pull of their bodies, and the madness of desire, made it impossible to “just talk” for very long.

“Talking isn’t something that Wilson and I are very good at. When we’re alone together...well, things tend to happen. Reasoned conversation almost never occurs between us.”

“But surely...” began Beatrice, and then she giggled. “Oh, I see. You didn’t get time to talk because...other things happened.”

“Precisely.” Adela shrugged. “I hadn’t seen Wilson for several months, and it was seven years since we were intimate at Ruffington Hall...but within minutes of us finding ourselves alone together I was behaving like an absolute trollop, and Wilson was making the most of the situation. As is his wont.” She thinned her mouth into a hard line, crosser with herself than she could ever be with him. “He was no doubt missing the beauteous Coraline, and the sensual pleasures she afforded him...and so when his cousin offered herself to him on a platter, ever the pragmatist, he sampled the goods as a form of consolation.”

Sofia cocked her head and pursed her lips. “I have a feeling it wasn’t like that at all, Adela. Perhaps his affair with Coraline, and any liaisons he might have enjoyed prior to her, were simply consolation for something...someone else that he’d lost?”

No! That could not be it. Wilson hadn’t lost her, because he hadn’t wanted her in the first place. Other than in the carnal sense, to satisfy his curiosity and to assuage his young man’s lust.

And it had been the same at Rayworth Court. She’d been an answer to his physical frustrations, and perhaps an experiment. An empirical study...to measure whether the responses of the woman were as willing as the girl’s had been.

“No, you’re wrong, Sofia. I’m afraid that other than an occasional object of dalliance, I’m nothing to Wilson other than a trap to be avoided. He knows how much my mother wanted him to marry me, especially after our cousin Henry and his fiancée were killed, and he became heir. But he’s the last man on earth who’d allow himself to be maneuvered like that—” she shrugged “—and as a consequence, I’m the last woman on earth he’d ever want for more than a swift grope or a tumble.”

Both Sofia and Beatrice gave her steady looks. They didn’t believe her. But they didn’t know Wilson as she did.

If only things could have been different. But they aren’t. I’m me. Wilson is Wilson. We’re both too stubborn, and unfortunate circumstances divide us far too much.

She opened her mouth to explain, to expatiate, and try and make them see, but just at that moment, in a swish of silk taffeta, Lady Arabella arrived and, pulling up a chair, leaned toward Adela, her face eager.

“So, what wonders does ‘Isis’ have for us today? Some wicked pastiches of the treasures in that old dog Rayworth’s collection? Or some new, delicious delight, as yet unseen?” Mercifully, the peeress kept her voice hushed. There were newer members of the circle who were not yet quite aware of the depth of the group’s true nature, let alone that one of their number was one of the most notorious erotic artists in the country.

“Nothing, alas...not today,” Adela admitted, wishing she’d had time, and heart, to dash off a few new offerings, at least, with which to amuse her dear friends. “I’m afraid my portfolio was stolen over the weekend, with all my latest work in it.”

Arabella’s eyes widened, and she frowned. “Well, I wouldn’t have thought a stuffy crowd like that would have had any interest in such things.... Surely you were the only liberal-minded guest in attendance?”

“Not the only one, obviously.” Adela sighed.

The peeress reached out and took her hand, her handsome face concerned now. “If there’s anything I can do, Adela, please say the word. There might be some influence one may bring to bear that could help retrieve it for you?”

“Bless you, Arabella. That’s kind of you.” She stiffened her spine, buoyed up by the support of her friends, even if there was not one thing they could do. “But I know exactly who took the portfolio, and when I leave here I intend to make another call and retrieve it. The person is well known to me, and I will not take no for an answer!”

Adela warmed at the chorus of “bravos” and smiles of encouragement. She
would
retrieve the portfolio, and this time she’d accept none of Wilson’s nonsense.

But in that case did she still quiver, on the inside, at the prospect?

15

Into the Devil’s Lair

A narrow-eyed manservant with a vaguely protective air led Adela through the ground floor of Wilson’s spacious London home, a rather fine villa in Maltravers Road, in the nicer end of Chelsea. Whether the man disapproved of her or not, she really didn’t care. She was on a mission. But she supposed if
that woman
had treated his master capriciously, the dour young man perhaps viewed all her sex with an air of suspicion.

It was an odd residence. Used to dwelling in a home full of furniture, knickknacks, photographs and all manner of collected mementos, Adela found the Spartan yet vaguely aesthetic quality of Wilson’s house a surprise. The entrance hall was almost bare, apart from one spindly but elegant table and a narrow mirror, and there were but two simple Japanese prints on the wall. Passing what was clearly a series of electrical light fittings set into the wall, she followed the thin, dark-haired servant as he led her length of the airy hall, then along an equally plainly decorated corridor, to knock on a white painted door at the end of it.

“Come!” called out Wilson’s familiar voice from beyond, and Adela was shown in.

The room she entered could not have been more different.

An immense, glass-ceilinged area, it was a palace of clutter, crammed with a cornucopia of “things” that defied her classification on first glance, and probably still would on closer inspection. It was hard to tell whether she was in a workroom, a study, a conservatory, a day room or a library, or some kind of general space where all the artifacts and possessions that might normally have been spread throughout a house were stored, along with those of a magician, an alchemist and an engineer. And it was all haphazard, scattered about, in a perfect jumble.

The single most apt description of it might well be a “lair.”

And as it all belonged to Wilson, she suspected that despite the apparent disorder, he knew exactly where every last item resided, and could put his hand on each thing within a heartbeat.

The man himself was standing before a large blackboard on an easel, staring intently at a surface covered with so many equations it was more white than black, and for several seconds he didn’t even turn around.

“Miss Adela Ruffington, sir,” the manservant said, spare and solemn, and Wilson spun around, tossing a piece of chalk in the general direction of the groove where other pieces lay. It missed and went skittering and rolling into a corner of the room.

“Della, what a delightful surprise.” Wilson surged forward energetically, the panels of yet another dressing gown fluttering about him. This one was rather drab for him, a dullish gray-brown the color of a mouse adorned by several dabs of chalk dust here and there. He took her gloved hand in his and drew it to his lips, kissing it assertively through the thin kid leather. In her mind’s eye, Adela could see his servant’s eyebrows lifting behind her.

“Hello, Wilson,” she said coolly, on the point of wrenching back her hand when he finally released it. His pale eyes were dancing, already full of mischief, and she’d been in the room only a moment. His cool, detached demeanor from Rayworth Court seemed to have vaporized.

“Do sit down. Will you take tea?” He gestured toward a sofa, set by the longest window facing the garden. It was covered in newspapers, but he swept them aside and onto the floor, to join a variety of other papers and documents. His manservant swooped in, retrieved them and folded them, and set them on a nearby worktable. “Or perhaps coffee? I mostly take coffee.” Wilson hovered, clearly waiting for her to sit.

Adela wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to sit. Being off her feet in Wilson’s presence made her feel vulnerable, and she was vulnerable enough to him already with her precious drawings in his possession. Finally, though, she subsided, arranging the black barathea skirt of her sensible walking costume carefully as she settled. “Coffee would be very pleasant, thank you.”

“Teale, coffee, if you please.”

Teale sped silently away, closing the door behind him and leaving Adela alone in a room full of arcane mystery and gilded light, faced with a Wilson who was smiling in triumph.

“I knew we’d see each other again soon. I told you it wasn’t over.”

Straight to business then? Well, after Wilson’s fashion...

Adela knew she had to get a direct answer out of him, both in respect to the portfolio and maybe even the letters, but the glitter in his eyes and the overpowering sense of disgustingly male self-assurance that he exuded were already enough to make her want to punch him in the nose.

Either that or give in to the urge to hurl herself at him, to kiss him and touch him and a good deal more than that.

It was barely more than a day or so since she’d last seen him, yet to her chagrin she realized she’d also really missed him. Even in his dressing gown, with his shirt in dishabille and missing its collar, and yes, wearing his carpet slippers, he still looked so devilishly attractive he was almost edible.

His dark curls were slightly awry, as usual, as if he’d been running his fingers through them as he’d grappled with a knotty problem. Untidy as his hair was, it imbued him with an almost angelic quality, like Mercury from Botticelli’s
Primavera,
or a Renaissance princeling come to life in the modern world. Adela could almost imagine Wilson posing for such a work, in the manner of classical statuary, wearing a laurel wreath in those black locks and not a lot else. He certainly had the body for artistic modeling, although certain portions of it were far too abundant to be contained by the standard fig leaf.

Good grief, Adela, what is the matter with you? You shouldn’t be sitting here imagining Wilson naked. Get to business, woman. Retrieve what you came to retrieve, and effect your escape.

“Well, I don’t know what you think
it
is, Wilson, but if there ever was anything, it is most certainly over now,” she said, rushing out the words as she realized she’d been daydreaming and Wilson was eyeing her suspiciously. “I won’t beat around the bush. I’m sure you know exactly why I’m here, and I’d like my belongings back immediately, if you don’t mind. And then I won’t trouble you any further.”

“Whatever are you talking about, Della?” The devil! His expression was so provocative. He was playing with her again, like a sleek dark cat with a mouse, punishing her purely for entertainment. “And surely you’re not going to leave without sampling Teale’s coffee? He makes a rare brew, and he’ll be hurt if you don’t at least try one cup.”

Despite Wilson’s vexing and befuddling behavior, the prospect of good coffee was ridiculously tempting. Mama didn’t often serve coffee, as she claimed it was too exciting to the senses of young ladies, and bad for the constitution, but Adela adored the powerful beverage. Sofia Chamfleur always had the most delicious French coffee on hand, and that was where Adela had gained her taste for it. The beverage Lady Southern served had also been adequate, and had only primed Adela’s longing.

“One cup, then. And stop being evasive. Please give me my portfolio back. I know you purloined it somehow while we were at the Rayworths’. And I’d also like anything else belonging to my family that you might have lifted.”

Wilson frowned and Adela’s stomach dropped. She’d hoped against hope. They’d been such long odds, but she knew from his face he hadn’t taken the letters.

“Well, you have me bang to rights, cousin, in respect of the portfolio. I broke into your room and your carpet bag and took it, I admit that.” He shrugged. “But on my life, I didn’t take anything else. I promise you, Della. Believe me. I had a hankering to take one of your shifts, as a fetish object to fondle when you’re not near...but I managed to resist that temptation.”

Heat flashed through Adela’s body. She didn’t need to be told what Wilson would have planned for her shift. Gentlemen’s foibles and peccadilloes were the premier topic of conversation and amusement among the ladies of the Sewing Circle, and she could easily picture Wilson naked on his bed, rubbing her garment against his loins.

Enough of that! Sybil’s letters!

“You swear that’s all you took?”

“I do swear it, Della. Why, what else has gone missing? Something of yours? Something precious?” He laid his hand on her arm, his expression intent, but suddenly more serious. “Tell me, and I’ll do what I can to help you retrieve it.”

She believed him. He was a curious conundrum of a man, precocious and arrogant in some ways, but fundamentally worthy in others. If it were possible to tell him, she had no doubt he would help. But the fewer people who knew about Sybil’s indiscretions, the better.

“It’s nothing. Nothing of importance. One loses things all the time.”

His silver-gray eyes narrowed, but he seemed to accept that.

“So...” he murmured, sliding his palm down her arm, then taking her hand and removing her bag from her grip and setting it aside. That done, he plucked at her right glove, easing it off, then followed with the other, tossing them after the bag. Adela tried to shake him off, but somehow she couldn’t resist when he enfolded both of her hands in his.

“Don’t try to bamboozle me, Wilson. I came here for my portfolio, nothing else. What happened between us in the country was an aberration only. It won’t happen again.”

“Is that a fact?” Not looking at her face, Wilson examined her hands as if they were rare artifacts, tracing his fingers over one palm, then the other. “How do you propose to induce me to return your drawings to you, then? Have you suddenly become versed in safe-cracking in addition to all your other talents?” Still smiling, he nodded to something she hadn’t noticed before—an enormous strongbox in the corner of the room. It was painted green, massive and impenetrable, with what looked like a numbered dial next to the keyhole. Some kind of advanced technological lock?

“Is that where you keep all the items you’ve stolen from ladies? If so, you must be a considerable robber.” Indeed, it was an exceptionally large safe. She supposed he must keep the mechanical designs that he worked on for the government, and for wealthy clients, inside it.

“No, alas not. I have no provocative treasures in there, other than yours. But I do have other items of value. Certain blueprints and specifications. Secret projects for the government and for various captains of industry. All priceless if they get into the wrong hands.”

Just as she’d expected.

“I don’t doubt it. But I can’t see why you would secrete my portfolio among such treasures. It isn’t priceless at all, except to me.”

His fingers tightened around hers. “It has great value to me...as trade goods.” He conveyed her right hand to his lips and kissed the palm slowly, in that lascivious way he’d employed so effectively back at Rayworth Hall.

Adela fought against a shudder of desire. So that was his game? She didn’t know whether she was appalled or excited. Probably both, and in equal parts. This close to Wilson, her body had a rebellious streak that defied all her qualms and her outrage. Already, everything was stirring, heating, hungering, growing desirous of the pleasures he’d provoked in it so recently...and for more, oh, dear,
so
much more.

No!

Adela stiffened her spine. Snatched back her hand from him.

“Why would you say something like that, Wilson? Can’t you accept my decision?” She cast around for her gloves and bag, but somehow he’d kicked them away. She had to go, but how to get the portfolio before she went? “I’m not prepared to be some kind of perverse erotic experiment for you. You can keep the drawings. I don’t care.... They don’t incriminate me, and I doubt if the subjects themselves are concerned. They might even increase in popularity. Expand their clientele...”

Wilson pursed his lips, his face twisting as if he’d tasted something unpleasant. Or as if he was compelled to do something he didn’t want to.

“You do realize that this man brothel your friend runs is far from legal?” His glinting eyes narrowed. “I have friends in the judiciary, Della...and friends in low places, too. I’ve a shrewd idea of the parties involved, and it would be a simple matter to inform the appropriate authorities. My word would be taken, believe me. And with supporting evidence.” He nodded toward the safe, and the pictures within.

Angry to start with, Adela boiled with red rage. Her hand flew up to strike him, but he snatched ahold of it again, his grip implacable.

“You are despicable and hideous, Wilson. How could you threaten such a thing? What have any of...of my friends ever done to you? Have you never heard of live and let live?”

“Indeed I have, Della, indeed I have.” His hand tightened, containing her, and when she attempted to land a blow with the other, he grabbed that, too. “It’s a maxim I normally espouse wholeheartedly.” His fingers were locks on her wrists. “But not if it’s a case of you preferring to take your pleasure with naked gigolos, such as the gentlemen you’ve drawn so magnificently, instead of me. In that event you drive me to the most extreme and ruthless of measures. I can’t help myself.”

Snagging both her wrists in one hand, he took her by the shoulder with the other and brought her face to his. “Let me touch you, Della, or let your friends suffer the consequences.”

* * *

W
HAT
ON
EARTH
is the matter with me? This is abominable. Why am I behaving like a monster?

The look on Adela’s face made Wilson want to enfold her in his arms and say that he was sorry and that he’d never dream of doing something so vile and reprehensible.

The whole situation was absurd, and he the most absurd thing about it. He
did
care about Adela, as much as he believed himself capable of caring about anyone, and as a person who believed himself enlightened, he should have been the last man to deny a woman the chance to fulfill herself in whatsoever way she chose.

Yet, faced with her, he was primitive. A savage beating his chest and roaring with defiance over his “possession.”

Those drawings. Those men. They’d pleasured her. They’d fulfilled her. Handsome faces and handsome bodies. Clever hands that had touched her intimately, and with far more skill than he’d ever wielded on their own first encounter, seven years ago.