Sweetest Little Sin (2 page)

But no, there was a reason—a damned good reason—he needed to hang on to his wits. Vital importance. The fate of nations—no,
his
fate, come to that—was teetering in the balance, dangling by a thread. And he must do this thing, take care of this utterly crucial piece of business. . . .

His body arched off the bed, riding another wave of pain. A tidal wave of agony that swept a man up and dashed him against a cliff of jagged rock.

The fuzz of black dots at the edge of his vision swarmed and thickened. He groaned and someone nipped in with ruthless efficiency to tilt a noxious mixture down his throat.

Torpor spread through his limbs, his brain. The light dimmed, then snuffed altogether.

“No, no,” he muttered. “Don’t let me sleep.”

Then he fell, spiraling into darkness.

LADY Louisa Brooke moved through her brother’s ballroom with a smile fixed beneath her loo mask and a tight knot of apprehension in her breast. She’d waited for a sign all day, but none had come. She’d thought perhaps tonight . . . but he avoided entertainments when he knew she’d be there, treated her like the scantest acquaintance when they met unavoidably, as they often did in town.

He wasn’t here tonight. Despite the anonymity of the masquerade and the crowded state of her sister-in-law’s ballroom, she knew it. She’d sense his presence if he were here.

Thoughts of feigning a headache and making her excuses flitted through her mind, but she dismissed them. No one would believe the staid Lady Louisa was subject to invalidish megrims. They’d question her and fuss. That would be worse than enduring the attentions of her legion of suitors.

A small huff of exasperation escaped her lips. There were times when one simply despaired of the male population. Years ago, when she’d no dowry and no prospects, the beaux of the beau monde wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole. Now that her brother had succeeded the distantly related Duke of Lyle, they swarmed like flies around a rotting sheep’s carcass.

She grimaced. An apt simile. She was alone, abandoned, and moldering into dust. A dried-up old maid.

Firmly, she steered her mind away from the perilous waters of self-pity. She despised people who wallowed and bemoaned what couldn’t be helped.

“Don’t curl your lip like that, darling.” Kate, Duchess of Lyle, magnificent in a confection of emerald green and dyed ostrich feathers, handed her a glass of champagne. “You’ll scare off poor Mr. Radleigh.”

Accepting the glass, Louisa bared her teeth. “If only.” She glowered across the ballroom at the tall, fair-haired man who had wisely chosen to dress in a plain black domino tonight. “The gentleman is persistent.”

Tilting her head, Kate surveyed her guest as he paused to exchange greetings with a matron in bombazine and an enormous turban. “He’s rich, they say.”

“Mmm. Quite unique.”

“Unique? How so?”

“He’s the only one of my suitors who doesn’t want my money.” Louisa paused. “I wonder what it is he does want.”

Kate gave a gurgle of laughter. “Well, could it be . . . um, don’t be shocked, darling, but could it possibly be . . .
you
he wants?”

The idea made Louisa slightly nauseous. Only one man had ever wanted her. And he was . . . Impossible. Dangerous. Devastating.

Not here
.

Repressing a shiver of equal parts fear and yearning, she shook her head. “There must be some other reason. Radleigh’s probably in the market for a pedigree. It’s the one thing he
doesn’t
have. Only think how marrying the sister of a duke would enhance his standing in the ton.”

Kate screwed up her pretty mouth in a moue of disapproval. “Cynical, Louisa. And shockingly dismissive of your charms. I won’t allow it.”

Louisa said nothing, smiling a little at her friend’s staunch support.

“Mr. Radleigh is not so very bad, though, is he?” Kate continued to speculate. “His bow is all it should be.”

They both watched Radleigh flourish in the direction of Louisa’s approving mama. Quite an accomplishment to make an elegant bow when one was that large and powerfully built.

Turning Mama up sweet, Louisa thought. It was hardly necessary. At this juncture, Millicent Brooke would be perfectly happy to marry off her difficult daughter to any gentleman in possession of good character and all his teeth.

Dispassionately, Louisa remarked, “Mr. Radleigh’s figure is pleasing enough, I daresay. And his features are attractive, if you admire fair men.” She didn’t.

“He seems amiable.” Kate nodded. “And there is that fortune.” She flicked open her fan with her characteristic restless elegance and plied it rapidly. “There is only one thing wrong with him, as far as I can see.”

“What’s that?”

Kate’s voice was gentle, compassionate. “Well, he’s not the Marquis of Jardine, is he?”

The stab of pain, excitement, and terror stole Louisa’s breath for a moment. What terrible power in a name. Particularly when spoken aloud, unexpectedly, as if Kate read her thoughts, sensed the anticipation that lent an added tension to Louisa’s erect posture tonight.

Before Louisa could respond, Kate’s wandering gaze snagged on some point in the crowd and her fan stilled.

“There’s that horrible Faulkner. Look! The man dressed as Mephistopheles over there.” She snorted. “An appropriate guise, indeed. Can you
believe
Max would invite him here?”

Glad of the distraction, Louisa craned her neck to see. “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t he?” Faulkner was the head of the secret service and her brother’s former superior. Max had retired from the service upon inheriting the dukedom, but obviously, he hadn’t cut the connection.

“Well! Faulkner needn’t think he can lure Max back into the fold.” Kate vibrated with fury Louisa understood only too well. “Max is finished with all that cloak-and-dagger nonsense. He gave me his word.”

“I’m sure it’s a purely social connection,” said Louisa soothingly.

If her brother had given his word, he would keep it. On the other hand, Faulkner struck her as the kind of man who never did anything without a purpose, and that purpose was usually Machiavellian. Kate had good reason to be suspicious.

But was Faulkner here for Max or for Louisa?

After the affair of Kate’s stolen diary, Faulkner had required Louisa to sign a paper in which she gave her oath not to reveal any official secrets she’d learned in the course of her involvement. She’d discovered nothing while translating the diary, save the extent of Kate’s rather risqué fantasies. However, Louisa had signed rather than pass that potentially embarrassing information to Faulkner.

And then he’d asked her for one small favor. . . .

One small favor often led to other, larger ones, in Faulkner’s line of business.

Apprehension skipped down Louisa’s spine. Yet, mingled with that emotion was a healthy dose of intrigue. She murmured to Kate, “Tell Max you don’t want Faulkner here. He’ll take care of it.”

“Certainly not!” Kate declared. “I shall deal with him myself.”

She would, too. Amusement curved Louisa’s lips as she watched Kate sally forth. The last she saw of her sister-in-law was the jaunty bob of her ostrich plume as she wove through the crowd.

Turning to hand a footman her empty glass, Louisa had no doubt Kate would succeed in ejecting Faulkner. She wished, however, that Kate hadn’t chosen this moment to desert her. Not with her mother and Mr. Radleigh heading this way.

Millicent Brooke had dressed as a fairy princess this evening. Her blond hair was swept up and surmounted by a diamond tiara that passed for a crown. Affixed to the back of her diaphanous pink gown was a pair of spangled gossamer wings. It was a costume for a girl, yet Millicent did not look at all ridiculous.

All evening, Louisa had watched her mother flit about the ballroom like a pretty pink butterfly, her youth and spirits reclaimed with the restoration of the family’s fortunes. Max had been absurdly generous with his new inheritance, and Louisa couldn’t be sorry for it in her mother’s case.

Millicent craved the kind of existence that filled Louisa with restless, screaming boredom. The endless social round, the gossip and parties, these were her mother’s life-blood. And having arranged her own second marriage successfully, Millicent was more eager than ever to have her spinsterish daughter off her hands.

Their lot after her father’s death had been a frugal and largely joyless one, though Louisa had done her utmost to see that Millicent wanted for few of life’s necessities. She’d even scraped together funds for a few treats along the way.

She didn’t at all begrudge her mother’s newfound joie de vivre, nor her desire to remarry. But she wished Millicent hadn’t taken it into her head that Louisa’s nuptials must come first.

Despite her mother’s fragile air, she had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Louisa waited, a fond, reluctant smile on her face as her mother bore down on her with Mr. Radleigh in tow. And “towing” was the operative word. Millicent literally dragged him along by the hand.

The gentleman appeared not at all disconcerted by Millicent’s eagerness. He bowed to Louisa, his hazel eyes gleaming with ill-concealed satisfaction.

“My dear!” Laughing gently, Millicent Brooke kissed Louisa’s cheek and took her hand. “Mr. Radleigh has the most
thrilling
plan for our entertainment this summer. A house party! Only think how delightful.”

Louisa murmured something noncommittal, but her mother overrode her.

“We shall be pleased to attend, shan’t we, darling?”

To cap Louisa’s embarrassment, her mother joined Radleigh’s and her hands together, as if she were the vicar at their nuptials.

She resisted the urge to tug her hand free. “Oh, but, Mama—”

“Of
course
we will attend, Mr. Radleigh. Louisa was saying to me only the other day how she longed to see your house. She has quite a passion for the Oriental.”

Everyone knew Radleigh had bought an estate in Derbyshire. The house was a curiosity, a strange mishmash of architectural styles. One wit had quipped that it was as if a Mogul palace had mated with an English country house and spawned a particularly hideous child.

Radleigh tilted his head to consider Louisa as a scientist might observe an interesting specimen. Candlelight rippled over his hair. It was an unusual, yellowish blond, like the color of a beaten egg, gleaming with pomade. Louisa gave in to impulse and tugged her hand free.

But his smile, she granted, was charming. “You must visit Ferny Hall, and we shall see if we cannot satisfy your . . .
passion
, Lady Louisa.”

His mouth twitched, undoubtedly with amusement at the double entendre. Schoolboy humor. Louisa stared back at him, her face scrupulously blank.

She didn’t like the warm turn of his conversation, much less did she approve of the position he and her mother had placed her in with this invitation. If she agreed to attend Radleigh’s house party, he would take that as encouragement that she favored his suit—and rightly so. It was exactly what Millicent counted on.

She offered Radleigh a rueful grimace. “It does sound delightful, but we have many previous engagements, have we not, Mama? I’m afraid we can’t possibly—”

“Nonsense!” trilled Millicent, her pretty lips drawing into a pout. “What engagements, pray?”

Louisa turned an incredulous look on her mother.
What engagements?
They always made the same circuit of country house visits during the summer. It was understood.

Millicent patted Mr. Radleigh’s arm. “Of course we shall attend,” she said. “To be sure, I’d so like to meet your sister, Mr. Radleigh. She is not with you in London, I take it?”

“No, Beth remains in Derbyshire. I will bring her to London and do the thing properly next spring.”

He held out his arm, abandoning the subject of the house party now he had Millicent’s acceptance. “Lady Louisa, I believe this is our waltz.”

Her smile fixed, she placed her hand on his arm. She’d have words with her mother later.

The waltz had already struck up while they were talking. Radleigh swept them into the whirl of couples with an ease that surprised her. His style was polished, his movements precise. He held her at exactly the correct distance from his body, for which she was grateful.

Despite his respectful manner, there was something in him, something in his eyes, perhaps, that disconcerted her, kept her on edge. Something she didn’t quite trust.

Well, what did it matter if she trusted him or not? Even if he aspired to her hand, he wasn’t a contender for that dubious honor. There would never be any man for her but Jardine.

If only he would come . . .

“You look troubled, Lady Louisa. Is something wrong?”