The Marquis At Midnight (12 page)

‘He called Lady Woodward Hester,’ Morvyn
observed. ‘Is he a particular friend?’

Grace hesitated, cursing
Lovington for his forwardness. It was awkward to have to explain
something she could
not
explain. ‘He likes to think so,’ she temporized.
‘I doubt Hester feels the same way.’

‘Is Lady Woodward indisposed? Porter said
nothing of it earlier.’

‘Just a slight headache. I think she was
grateful for an excuse not to see Lord Lovington.’

‘I am glad to hear it.’

They looked at each other
for a long moment and Grace could swear she saw something
crackle
through the air
between them. Disconcerted, heartbeat accelerating to a breathless
patter, she took an involuntary step backwards.
I asked him here so I could discover what happened with
Justin
, she reminded herself, but even the
thought felt breathless and disoriented.

‘I… Won’t you sit down? I thought we could
have some tea.’ Tea was good. Tea was possibly the safest drink in
the entire Empire. It defied anything untoward. Faced with tea, she
would be able to stop herself from giving into the almost
overwhelming impulse to move forward into his arms.

Clearly, the marquis seemed to be in the
grip of his own internal dilemma for he stood for a long moment, an
odd expression on his face, before he sat - or rather, dropped -
into a chair. ‘Lady Pemberton...’

‘Thank you for coming today, my lord,’ Grace
said, hurrying into the conversation she had planned, determined
not to diverge from her chosen subject. ‘You must have thought me
quite mad when I accosted you in the street. I am sorry if I
inconvenienced you.’ Dear Lord, she was babbling!

‘Not at all.’ Morvyn seemed to pull himself
together with an effort. ‘I wanted to speak with you. Thank you for
giving me the opportunity.’

There was a small pause, both of them
staring at the other.

Grace took a deep breath.

‘I was thinking about what
you said,’ she began, trying to collect herself. It would be fatal
to be sidetracked right now and it would be so very
easy
to be sidetracked by
the man sitting opposite. In truth, there was nothing unusual about
this situation, not really, but it certainly felt as if there was.
Every time she looked at Morvyn her body felt the strangest
jolt
, a frisson that
rippled through her with much the same effect as the champagne she
so rarely indulged in.

‘What I said?’ Was it her imagination or did
Morvyn seem to be having difficulties keeping up as well?

‘About Justin.’ It was why she had asked him
here. To discuss his last interview with Justin and the reason why
her husband had suddenly, in the space of a day, become a stranger
to her.

Morvyn ran a hand through his dark hair and
shook his head, as if to clear it. ‘I would like to apologize for
what I said to you on Wednesday. I did not mean to imply Pemberton
was a traitor.’

Grace nodded slowly. ‘What did you talk to
him about? On the day before his death?’

The marquis was silent for a moment, as if
debating what to tell her. Grace watched him, trying to ignore fact
that his closeness, for he was sitting no more than four feet away
from her, was undermining her focus, her suspicions, and her doubts
about the man’s honesty. Her judgment in the matter could not be
relied upon when he had such a startling effect on her body. Up
until the night of the masquerade, Grace had not realized that
there was a part of her, which clearly would not be ignored, that
could be held spellbound by a gentleman. But Morvyn… How
disconcerting it was to be shaken by sensations she had never
experienced before. To have him stand next to her and crave the
touch of his hand, of his lips, of his body. Until this meeting,
she had been relying on righteous anger to ignore the pull of him,
but now that they were alone, it was suddenly impossible to pretend
that what she felt was anything but desire.

She had thought that this meeting, so
essential if she were to rest easy about Justin, would be nothing
more than a formal afternoon call, but had it been prompted by that
other, unacknowledged part of her that craved what it should not
have?

‘You know that Justin travelled to France
regularly?’

Grace made herself focus with an effort. ‘Of
course. He carried information between the government and our
military forces in France.’

‘Indeed. He seemed the perfect candidate as
his mother was French and he spoke the language fluently. We
thought that his family contacts would be helpful.’

‘My lord, Justin loved this country.’ She
did not like the direction in which the conversation was going.

‘I do not doubt it. I did not mean to let
you think otherwise.’ For the first time, Grace saw compassion in
his gray eyes. It twisted the small knot of apprehension that had
begun somewhere deep inside her even more. ‘Did you ever meet
Philippe Arceneau?’

‘Justin’s cousin? He came to our wedding.’
Tall, good-looking and very aristocratic. Old France, Justin had
called him. ‘They were close, I believe.’

‘He stayed with Arceneau when he went over.
The man has a chateau in Marseille.’ Grace waited, watching him.
‘We discovered that Arceneau was working with Bonaparte’s general
Antoine Fournier.’

‘No!’

‘It is true. The proof was irrefutable. I
never believed that Pemberton was guilty of deliberately passing
information on to Arceneau, but a great deal can be said over jugs
of wine and your husband trusted his cousin. He believed their
interests were aligned.’

Grace was silent for a long moment, thinking
about Justin’s relationship with Vicomte Arceneau, of his
admiration for the man. He regularly discussed his cousin visiting,
but it never seemed to happen. Instead, Justin had stayed with
Arceneau, whose home was conveniently close to the ships that
travelled the channel between England and France.

‘What did you tell him, the night before he
died?’

‘I told him that information he’d been
carrying on the deployment of English forces in Spain had been
leaked and that we lost half a regiment outside Madrid.’

Grace went white, a hand creeping up to
touch her throat. ‘Justin…’

‘He did not know that his cousin had
obtained the information from him. I can assure you, it was not a
deliberate betrayal of his country.’

Not deliberate, but a betrayal just the
same. No wonder Justin had orchestrated his own death for how could
he have lived with the knowledge that he had been responsible for
such a monstrous outcome? Unable to help herself, tears came to her
eyes, for Justin and his ill founded belief in others, for the pain
he must have suffered when he had gone out that last time, and at
her own helplessness. He had not been able to confide in her.

He must have felt so desperate.

She heard the door open and blinked, trying
to chase away the tears.

Tea had arrived.

God bless tea.

Morvyn watched Grace’s bowed head and felt
the unfamiliar sensation of helplessness. He had not wanted to tell
her about Pemberton. If life had taught him one thing it was that
illusions were hard to replace and he had just shattered one of her
most beloved ones. He certainly hadn’t meant to reveal as much as
he had about Justin’s dealings in France, but there was something
about those steady brown eyes that had drawn the words out of
him.

Tea delivered, she seemed to gather herself
together through sheer force of will, dragging her poise back into
place with quiet dignity and his admiration for her rose even
higher.

Grace Pemberton was an
extraordinary woman.
Who has an
extraordinary impact on me
, he reflected
ruefully, recalling his unexpectedly powerful response to her not
fifteen minutes before. Perhaps it was self-defense that had made
him tell her so much, a way of deflecting them both from whatever
it was that lay between them. There was a time and a place to make
love to a woman and surely, it was not in another man’s drawing
room.

Grace cleared her throat and managed a
smile, ‘Tea, my Lord?’

‘If you please.’ He watched her pour, every
movement graceful.

‘Do you care for milk?’

‘If I may.’

Sitting here in the Woodward’s elegant
receiving room, accepting tea and preparing to make polite small
talk, it struck Morvyn that the only thing he really wanted to do
at this moment was to take Grace Pemberton into his arms and kiss
her senseless.

And if he were being honest, a kiss was just
the beginning of his ambition. He knew that kissing her would only
enflame him further and the idea of what must surely come after
made him burn.

To strip the clothing from her body, one
item at a time, until her pale, cool body was completely revealed
to him.

To lay her down and explore her with his
mouth, his hands, his own, aching body until she was caught up in
the steady thrum of need that seemed to pulse through him with
every single beat of his heart.

Everything cried out to him to take her, to
touch her, to feel her against him.

Grace smiled and held the teacup out to him
and he reached for it, their fingers grazing.

He had no idea what happened next.

Chapter Seven

Which one of them moved first?

Afterwards, Grace found it impossible to
say. One moment she was handing the marquis a cup of tea, the next
she was in his arms and he was kissing her with a fervor that left
her mind spinning helplessly and her body utterly out of
control.

One thing she did know. Morvyn’s second kiss
was every bit as satisfying as she had known it would be, a heated
joining of lips that quickly transformed into a deeper sensuality
as his tongue explored the warm intimacy of her mouth with a quiet
desperation she shared in full measure.

It wasn’t just a kiss.

It was a tempest, an explosion, a burst of
fireworks, and she immersed herself in it completely, fingers
finding their way into his dark hair as one arm pulled her hard
against him. His mouth was almost bruising in its intensity, but
Grace met it fearlessly, gasping when his free hand came up to
glide down the column of her throat, slipping a finger beneath the
fabric of her gown and sliding the tip across to ease it down over
her shoulder. Only then did his mouth leave her own, his lips
skimming their way downwards, following the curve of her jaw line
and neck, his tongue trailing a delicate path across her
collarbone, straying over the bare skin on her shoulder while Grace
rolled her head back and alternately burned and shivered, willing
it to go on, this sinful pleasure that held her fast.

Those long, wicked fingers
moved upwards until they found the nape of her neck. His thumb
began to stroke the sensitive skin in slow, circular movements. It
was as if he knew
exactly
where to touch her to elicit a shuddering response
and Grace arched backwards into it while his tongue performed feats
of magic, emulating the slow, rhythmic movement of his hand. She
felt the warmth inside her grow, fiery heat between her legs
igniting, the slow, sweet build up of pressure that promised
something that she sensed would be miraculous when it arrived. All
she needed to do was let herself go, to let herself give in to the
delicious rush of exquisite sensation that was sweeping through her
in a flood of...

‘Oh my
goodness
.’

Grace and Morvyn froze in place, all
movement immediately stilling into immobility.

Oh my
God
, Grace thought dazedly.
Oh my God!

It was astonishing how three words could
turn a flood around. The heat in her body still burned, but it was
mortification that seared her this time, not passion.

Instead of releasing her immediately, the
marquis moved back slowly, leaving a cool rush of air where the
warmth of her body had been. With swift efficiency he rearranged
her clothing, covering her shoulder once more. He looked into her
eyes for a long moment. ‘Are you… all right?’

Grace moistened her lips, quivering just a
little when his eyes followed the motion of her tongue, then nodded
her head. ‘I am perfectly all right.’ Which was a complete lie, but
what else could she say?

Cool as ice in the face of such an awkward
situation, he took her hand and settled her back in her chair,
which she could not even truly remember leaving, before turning to
face Hester who was still standing in the doorway, her hand on the
knob. Finding her courage, Grace looked towards her and almost
smiled despite herself at the look of almost comical surprise that
her friend still wore.

‘Lady Woodward,’ Morvyn said easily. ‘I ran
into Woodward earlier and he requested that I escort you and Lady
Pemberton to the ball tonight.’

‘The ball?’ Hester repeated rather
blankly.

‘Indeed. He is concerned that you will not
have an escort.’

Smooth, Grace thought with reluctant
admiration. He did not sound in the least bit nonplussed at being
caught in a singularly compromising position. She looked at the
teapot, at the two cups of cooling tea, and tried to work out how
she had gone from something so innocuous to something so…
tempestuous.

It was not so surprising, perhaps. Something
had been building between the two of them ever since that first
dance. The prickly, restless pull of animal instinct, the basest
form of desire.