Season for Surrender (28 page)

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Authors: Theresa Romain

BOOK: Season for Surrender
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Chapter 25
Containing the Aggravation of Shakespearean Insight
“Shall I bring up more champagne, my lord?”
Xavier considered his butler's words, then the complete chaos of the drawing room. His guests were already more than kite-high.
“No, Wheeling,” he decided. “If they drink any more, they'll be sick on the carpets, and the maids will all give notice. But there is something else I require.”
Once he gave his order, he allowed the butler to depart, then surveyed the damage.
Lord Weatherwax was humming to himself in a chair by the fire, waving around the snifter that seemed a permanent extension of his hand.
Jane was following Kirkpatrick around like a puppy, yapping about mistletoe, holding a sprig in one hand. As though one hundred sixty-one kisses hadn't been enough. Kirkpatrick, for his part, was trying valiantly to look like a reputable version of Byron, hair tumbled just so over his brow. Somehow—Xavier thought he could guess how—a button of the baron's waistcoat had come undone, which spoiled the dignified effect he was going for.
Xavier squelched a smile, though Kirkpatrick's Byronic act was amusing. A cover for the man's insecurities—but then, didn't everyone wear a mask?
Which reminded him: it was time to sport Expression Number Three, Amused Tolerance, and catch the eye of
la signora
. With a complicit nod, she slipped from the room.
Not slipped. Thundered. She aimed to be noticed, trailing her flowered shawl in Lockwood's champagne, squeezing past Lady Alleyneham's chair with a loud
scusi
, and fumbling with the door handle for several seconds before letting herself out into the corridor.
Xavier smothered another smile and waited until the ormolu clock on the mantel had ticked away one minute. Then, with a similar lack of grace, he excused himself from the room.
When he shut the door behind him, Signora Frittarelli was struggling to light one of her sweet-scented cigarillos. Even so, her full mouth was pursed with self-satisfied pleasure.
“You are a fine actress,” Xavier told her.
She waved off the compliment. “
Venti minuti
? It is enough?”
“It's all we can spare.” Xavier stepped closer, taking her tinderbox and thumbing the small metal wheel. When it cast a spark, he held it at arm's length and ignited her cigarillo.
“
Grazie
,” they both said at once.
And headed in opposite directions.
Xavier had no idea where the singer went during their small allotment of time. He went upstairs to his bedchamber, grabbed his quizzing glass and a book, and slung himself onto his massive four-poster bed, booted feet hanging off the end.
He'd chosen Machiavelli tonight. He was still laying his traps, weaving his protective webs, and he thought the old medieval plotter would help him.
This supposed interlude with the opera singer was part of his strategy. The partygoers were meant to notice Xavier cavorting about, unconcerned by the departure of Miss Oliver.
His cousin was wrong
, they were to say.
She couldn't have meant anything to him. Pity. It would have made an interesting bit of tittle-tattle.
If he and
la signora
played their parts well, Louisa would vanish from the minds of his gossipy guests, just as she had from their presence. She'd be safe then, in the return of her anonymity. Lockwood would leave her alone. Everything would be just as it had been before the house party began.
The thought should have been bracing. But instead of taking in the printed words of Machiavelli, his mind drifted to Shakespeare.
Not to Ariel's song this time, though the memory of his mouth drifting over Louisa's skin flickered and vanished with a swift pang of longing.
No. This time, he thought of
Othello
's Iago.
Who steals my purse, steals trash . . .
But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.
Iago was the largest hypocrite imaginable. Everything he said was a lie; every flex of his features a Numbered Expression.
Surely he had hoped for something more, though; hoped that, through his lies and manipulations, he could win renown for himself. If so, he had failed. By the end of the play, he had destroyed the lives of several honorable people.
Including his own wife.
Xavier's mind galloped away from that idea. The champagne he'd drunk tasted sour in his mouth. He slammed his unread volume shut and sat up, then squinted at the mantel clock. Only five minutes to go before he and
la signora
were meant to return, mussed and panting, to the drawing room.
He would end the year with a lie, just as he had ended so many others. But Louisa was right about his false front of a reputation: he had nothing with which to replace it.
At least, not yet.
 
 
As Xavier slunk down the stairs from his bedchamber, he teased open the knots of his cravat and looped it sloppily around his neck. He encountered Signora Frittarelli in the corridor outside the drawing room, from which the din of tipsy song was leaking. The singer was pulling hairpins from her dark hair, letting it fall in long waves down her back.
Xavier wished pointlessly that he'd taken down Louisa's hair and touched its glossy strands. His fingers ached for the missed opportunity.
“You look . . .
spaventoso
,” his partner in deception commented.
“Frightful? Thank you. If it weren't impolite, I'd say the same of you.”
With a satisfied nod, she accepted this comment and held out a fistful of hairpins. He extended a hand to accept them, then stuffed them into a pocket. She looked him up and down, then reached forth to flick open a few buttons on his waistcoat.
He felt not a single stirring except that of amusement.
“
Molto meglio
,” she announced. “You say that how in English?”
“
Much better
,” Xavier said. “Though you could also say
much worse
.”
“Yes.” She grinned. “I go in first.”
She eased open the drawing room door and slipped inside. Raucous song grew louder, then faded again as the door swung shut. Xavier counted off a minute, then followed her.
Sound crashed over him in a wave as soon as he stepped through the doorway. Lockwood, full of champagne and self-satisfaction, was standing atop that Chippendale chair he seemed determined to destroy, conducting the other guests in a near-shouted version of “Heart of Oak.”
Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year . . .
The lyrics were not inapt, but Xavier caught his cousin's eye and shook his head. His hand made an unmistakable gesture:
climb down
. Lockwood's eyes flicked over Xavier's disarranged clothes, then widened.
As though hiding his disarray, Xavier stepped behind a massive vase atop an occasional table. All part of the act.
He was hidden better than he'd realized. Almost at once, Xavier overheard his name beneath the billowing song.
“Really,” Lady Weatherby was saying to Mr. Simpkins, “isn't it a little tactless for our host to take up with someone new so quickly?”
“Quite right, m'dear,” said Simpkins. From the corner of his eye, Xavier saw that man's fingertips pinch at the lady's nipple. “Ought to mourn one reputation before destroying another, what?”
“Ah. Well, that singer doesn't have much of a reputation to worry about, either, does she?”
“Likely she was always the one for him,” Simpkins said. His other hand slid over the curve of the lady's bottom. “Got a prime pair of bubbies on her, doesn't she? Why bother with a skinny little virgin when one can go for a sure thing?”
“You like a sure thing, do you?” Lady Weatherby's own hands began to roam, and the conversation turned both personal and filthy.
Xavier stood, half-hidden and wholly unnoticed behind the vase, awash in contradictory thoughts.
First—he was being criticized by two of the most sexually amoral people he'd ever met.
Second—though they'd hardly spoken well of Louisa, they'd entertained the idea that she was innocent of scandal.
This was exactly as he'd hoped. He'd never redeem Louisa's reputation without throwing away his own. Which made it less likely that he could ever have her, but . . . she could have someone else, someday. She could walk away from him, untouched.
Was this what a noble act felt like? He hated it. It felt as though his heart was afire and his body ice, and there was no poetry in the world that could say what he felt, because the inside of his head was like a writhing mass of cobras.
Yes. He hated it.
Yet he would not undo it for the world, because Louisa was worth all this shuddering agony of feeling. His
cara
, whom he could never publicly claim.
Before he could explore that realization further, Lockwood had jumped down from the chair that had been his stage, still waving a hand over his head to the rhythm of the song. At once, Mrs. Protheroe hitched up her skirts and climbed up in his place.
Lockwood battled his way to Xavier's side and leaned an elbow on the occasional table, setting the huge vase to teetering. “So, Coz. You look rather unruly.”
Looked? That was nothing compared to how he felt. But Xavier stuffed all that oh-so unruly emotion down. “Do I? Should've been more careful.”
He hadn't mustered the correct custard-bland tone, but under the din of cockeyed song, it hardly mattered.
“I hadn't expected this of you, Coz,” Lockwood said. “Are you—have you—” He drew closer, almost nose to nose, and his face went blurry.
“When I am involved, the answer to both those questions can generally be assumed to be yes.” Xavier's neck felt vulnerable within his sloppy, loose cravat, as though he'd bared his throat to an enemy.
Hell. He needed to see Lockwood's face. He needed to know how this plan was going over. He tugged his quizzing glass from his waistcoat pocket, and
la signora
's hairpins pattered onto the floor in a rain of naughty little hints.
Damn.
He'd forgotten he was holding those for her. He caught her eye across the room, and she gave him a dramatic pout before flouncing into the mass of singing guests.
This could be part of the plan, too.
When Xavier returned his gaze to Lockwood, this time through the clarity of his convex lens, he saw that the marquess looked confused.
Very well. Confusion was acceptable; Xavier could hardly expect a more decisive response. Lockwood had won his idiotic wager on Louisa, but his main joy, Xavier thought, had been in spoiling the pleasures of his cousin. If Xavier now had a new pleasure, Lockwood's threats against Louisa were toothless.
This was how Xavier hoped the marquess's thoughts were grinding along. “You look befuddled, Lockwood. Something troubling you?”
He twisted the knife a little, making his face all concern. “Not getting anywhere with Mrs. Protheroe, are you? Shame, that. She looks fetching.” He nodded toward the blond widow atop the chair, all bright hair and loud laughter and prominent bosom.
Lockwood ground his teeth. “As a matter of fact, Coz, I've been getting exactly what I want. This wager of ours—” He cut himself off.
“Is at an end,” Xavier finished, stuffing his glass back into his waistcoat.
Wheeling padded over to him then, an open bottle of what appeared to be brandy in his hands. “The vintage you requested, my lord.”
“Grande Champagne?” Lockwood sounded interested.
“No no. Nothing so distinctive as that. Wheeling, locate some of Lord Lockwood's favorite vintage, would you?” The butler bowed, and Xavier added, “And—let's have someone clean up all these hairpins. Yes?”
Wheeling never smiled; his station wouldn't permit such familiarity. But in the way his gaze traveled to the floor, then back to a scrupulously correct point just below Xavier's eyes—there seemed to be a squeeze of humor in the pinch of his lips. “It will be done, my lord.”
Lockwood's nostrils flared, but he padded away after the butler in search of his costly favorite liquor, leaving Xavier with his new bottle.
He sniffed at it: nearly odorless. Good. It was exactly what he'd requested.
Xavier had once told Lady Irving that he had a brandy the exact shade of brewed tea. This appeared in the decanters throughout the house so that the guests could imbibe to their heart's content.

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