Seducing the Rake (Mad, Bad and Dangerous Heroes) (13 page)

“Wretched business.”

“Broke into my townhouse last week,” the baronet continued. “Took a fine bottle of port I’d been saving for a special occasion.”

“Broke into Alvanley’s three nights ago, but they didn’t take anything.” This comment came from the man across the table. Morland stared at the fellow’s waistcoat; the sight made him decide that he hadn’t drunk nearly enough.

As Morland signaled to a vigilant waiter for a refill, the man in puce continued. “Did you know that the ruffians had the utter brass to invade the Royal Asiatic Society?” He gave a shudder. “One can hardly guess what the devils will be about next.”

Atherton smiled tightly
.
“Just let the bastards try to pass
my
walls. They will find themselves regretting it quick enough.” His voice had grown slurred.

Morland could well imagine what pleasure it would give Atherton to corner the burglars who had been eluding every magistrate in London for the last month.

Suddenly the earl recalled the lithe fellow who had danced across his roof and disappeared into the night. Could there possibly be a connection?

But the brandy was taking effect, and Morland found his thoughts beginning to unravel at the edges.

“What about you, Morland?” Atherton fixed the earl with a cool stare. “Have
you
been robbed?”

Morland tossed down a card and gave a negligent shrug. “Not yet, I’m happy to report.”

“Not that you have much to steal.” Atherton finished his drink and set the glass unsteadily on the table. “From all I hear, that brother of yours pretty well drained the estate before he had the grace to take himself off in that coaching accident.”

The baronet from Somerset choked on his sherry. A stunned silence settled over the table.

Morland stared down at the gleaming crystal in his fingers. He refused to be baited, least of all by someone of Atherton’s crudeness. “I am delighted to inform you that the rumors are vastly exaggerated, Atherton. My brother, the duke, was impetuous but not grossly reckless,” he lied smoothly. “But I’m certain that the
truth
of the matter does not interest you in the slightest. After all, it is so much more pleasant to carry gossip when it bears no connection to reality.”

Atherton sneered. “A sore point, is it, old boy? No need to turn snappish.”

Morland flicked a nonexistent speck of lint from the immaculate sleeve of his coat. “I hadn’t realized that my fortune—or lack of it—was such a source of interest, Atherton. Shall I send my man of business around to keep you personally informed?”

Atherton’s face took on a flush. His fingers clenched. Then he tossed back his drink and tugged irritably at his waistcoat. “It’s a matter of complete indifference to me
what
you do. One hears things, that’s all.” His eyes glittered. “About you and Louisa Landringham, for example. Are you still bedding her? She always was greedy for anything in breeches, as I recall.”

Morland’s eyes hardened. “If I were, Atherton, do you think I would boast of it here? To
you?”

“Why not? You must have had most of the females in London by now, Louisa included.”

For a moment Morland thought of calling Atherton out. It would be pleasant to send a bullet straight between the man’s eyes. But Morland knew Atherton was purposely trying to provoke him, angry at having been overruled in the day’s decision about the pillow book. He suspected the drunken peer had had his eye on Germaine for some time too.

Perhaps it was just as well. Morland had already decided to give his mistress her leave.

But Atherton, flushed with drink, was just beginning his attack. “And of course there’s the fair Germaine. That mistress of yours is a hot-blooded little wench. Did you share her with Andrew the way you shared Louisa between you?”

Instead of the challenge Atherton expected, he received only a mocking smile. “First my finances, and now my bed partners. Really, Atherton, one must assume that you lead an exceedingly dull life to be so interested in mine.”

Atherton’s face flushed crimson. “You’ll be sorry for that.”

Still smiling, Morland tossed in his hand and pushed away from the table. “I’m afraid that does it for me, gentlemen. My luck’s out, and the company grows insipid tonight.”

Muted protests came from the other players at the table, but Morland paid no attention. Loath to hear more of Atherton’s crudity, he sauntered off through the saloon, nodding to an acquaintance here and there.

Only the narrowing of his eyes betrayed his inner fury.

Andrew again.
Even now he couldn’t escape the barbed reminders of his twin brother’s profligacy and extravagance. Blast it, when would he finally be free of his brother’s black reputation?

But Morland’s face was impassive when he strode past the porter at the front of the club. “Ah, Sommerby, good to see you looking so fit.”

The head porter hastened to provide Morland with hat, cane, and gloves. Then he gave a discreet cough. “I shouldn’t go out there if I were you, my lord.”

“Indeed? You intrigue me, Sommerby.”

“There is a carriage waiting in the street. I believe it has been waiting there for some time, my lord.”

“I see. And no doubt you can supply the identity of the carriage’s owner?”

Another cough, equally discreet. “Lady Landringham, I believe.”

Morland stiffened. So the woman had resorted to following him. She had been pursuing him for months now and had even had the temerity to conceal herself in his carriage on one occasion. She had been quite naked except for garters and stockings under her cloak, Morland had discovered.

But Louisa Landringham’s venality was too sharp to be offset by her beauty, Morland found.

So he was especially glad for Sommerby’s warning. “Do you have a back stairs? Something through the kitchens, perhaps?”

The porter smiled conspiratorially. “I believe it might be arranged, my lord.” A gold sovereign passed discreetly into the porter’s fingers.

At the rear staircase the two men parted, each well satisfied with the evening’s work.

Outside Morland drew a deep breath as a damp wind lashed his cheeks. He was feeling reckless, the result of the quantity of brandy he had consumed, no doubt. But he was enjoying that recklessness.

Perhaps brandy had its uses. At least his leg did not bother him as much as it usually did.

Morland started for the rear alley, secure in the knowledge that Louisa would never dream of looking for him there. As he started down the cobbled alley, he wavered a little.

Careful, old man. More than a little bosky tonight.

But Morland decided he didn’t give a damn if he was. Maybe tonight he would be able to sleep without the ghosts of Salamanca hovering at his shoulder.

~ ~ ~

A bar of moonlight drifted through a slit in the velvet curtains. The faint light filtered in a soft halo around a slender figure tugging on a jacket of black padded silk. Loose silk trousers followed, and then cloth-soled slippers.

Last of all came the black hood, dropped in place and anchored firmly about the neck.

Fully dressed in the black that made her blend into the night, Francesca Cameron turned to the east and bowed respectfully to a teacher ten thousand miles away in the heart of China.

She cleared her mind with the movement, focusing on nothing beyond the respect owed by student to teacher. And as old Abbot Tang had taught her long ago at Shao-lin, with that first careful movement she carried herself beyond fear, beyond uncertainty.

Beyond preparation even.

The best preparation, Abbot Tang had shown her, was
no
preparation at all. It was a life lived in full awareness of the moment, a life of careful harmony enhanced by sharpest instincts. Only that way could one be balanced enough to respond instantly to any threat.

And there were many kinds of threats, Chessy knew. The most dangerous of all were those that lived inside one’s own head. And in an uncertain heart.

But she did not think of that now. Now was for the old ways, the ways of silence and softness, with centuries-old skills that brought a strength beyond iron or gunpowder.

First with mind, then with breath, and then with body she called up the balance and harmony that began each exercise. Dreamlike, she slid her hands before her, her mind clear and empty as a mountain stream.

Her cloth soles made no sound as she slid through the familiar movements. Slow and fluid she circled, cutting across the beam of moonlight with the same silent grace that had made the old abbot marvel long ago.

Midnight was still graceful, still swift. Only she was no longer a girl, but a woman.

Without warning foot and palm flashed from the darkness in a blur of black silk. She twisted, then rolled to her feet with no loss of balance or excess motion. Had an enemy stood on that spot, he would be choking right now.

She was glad it had never come to that. To allow an enemy to force one to fight was to lose.

And she knew that tonight she would need all her skill and all her control, since balance and calm would not come easily to her.

For where Anthony Morland was concerned, Francesca Cameron had discovered that her heart would never be calm.

Morland’s head was throbbing by the time he rounded Half Moon Street. Scowling, he hunched his shoulders against a slashing wind that promised rain before morning.

As usual his knee was troubling him. When the weather was about to change, it bothered him most of all.

The earl smiled grimly.
Trouble
was too kind a word for the pain gnawing through his injured leg now.

His jaw hardened as he covered the last block, trying to blot out the ache at the very center of his joint.

It had been this way ever since Salamanca, of course. He had gone back to the Peninsula immediately after his return from the Orient, driven by anger and bitterness at a happiness he could never have. He had been running hard, trying to forget a pair of haunting violet eyes.

He had taken a ball during the final assault on the city. The French
voltigeur
had been an excellent shot.

Mercifully, the impact had not shattered his knee. The ball had lodged in the tissue behind the bone and had to be gouged out under conditions that could only be described as barbaric.

After that Morland had been packed off to England for recovery. For three months he been unable to walk—and unable to walk comfortably for ten.

Not that he was
ever
really comfortable.

But by habit he ignored the pain. He had learned that it was always best to ignore what could not be changed.

He tried to do that now. Tried—and failed.

For even with the brandy fumes clouding his brain, he could feel every excruciating movement, every subtle jarring of bone against tendon.

Yet when he climbed the steps to the elegant townhouse that had been his family’s London residence for nearly two hundred years, Morland’s pace was steady and his back straight.

Only at the top step did he falter slightly, misjudging the distance in the darkness. His boot slipped, and his knee jammed into the wall.

He smothered a curse, grabbing at the iron rail. Pain slammed white-hot through his knee.

But by the time his butler answered his knock, his color was even, and his features once again composed. “Ah, Whitby, a fine night for a walk. Rain before morning, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Quite likely, my lord.” Only by firm force of will did the butler avoid glancing into the street.

The coach would be there waiting, just as it always was. The coachman would have followed the earl home from his club—or wherever else he had been—close enough to be hailed but never so close as to intrude.

And just like every other night, the coachman would be ignored, while the earl forced himself to walk, no matter how great the pain.

Whitby suppressed a raw curse.