Private Places, page 12
It was perfectly obvious that Mr. Jackson did not at all feel he had won anything worth winning as he was now and perhaps forevermore to be the laughingstock of Drury Lane.
“If we are to make confessions,” Sophia said, her knife having mysteriously disappeared somewhere upon her person, “then might I add my own? I am not at all pleased that Lord Westlin has managed to intrude himself upon my evening at Drury Lane. Is his reach so very far, then? Can none of us escape his influence?”
It was precisely the sort of comment to arouse aggression and animosity in the most ordinary of gentlemen. That these two were not ordinary in any sense of the word made it all the more inexplicable that Sophia would chide them so.
“I believe, Miss Grey,” Dalby said, “that the very heart of the wager was exactly how thoroughly and how aggressively you had escaped Westlin’s influence. Very well done, by the way,” he said, bowing slightly to her. “We should all heed your example and, indeed, your methods.”
It was completely charming of him. Sophia had certainly chosen well, but how did she expect to induce the lovely Earl of Dalby to the altar? To bed a man was one thing, but to tie him up in marriage was altogether another.
“Of course,” Sophia said pleasantly, checking the arrangement of her dark hair, “I will happily accept any and all compliments, Lord Dalby, but it does seem to me that while I have been directly responsible for the winning of two separate wagers, each concerning the tedious Lord Westlin, I have won nothing for myself. It is perfectly obvious to me that Mr. Jackson, feeling himself to be needlessly abused, will refuse to pay me the fifty pounds he offered. Furthermore I am distinctly suspicious that Mr. Jackson is not in possession of fifty pounds cash in the best of circumstances.”
To which Mr. Jackson, still pink about the ears, said nothing. It was a most illuminating silence.
“You had something in mind, Miss Grey?” Aldreth asked, his light blue eyes twinkling dangerously.
“Naturally, Your Grace,” Sophia said, with the barest smile. Aldreth seemed to take Sophia’s chill in stride. What history did they share? It was becoming almost imperative that Zoe find out, though she rather suspected she would not find out from Sophia. “As Lord Westlin has made himself the man of the evening, at least as pertains to wagers, I have an axe of my own to grind upon his large red head. Would you help me, Lord Dalby? I can assure you that it will not be onerous duty and that you may even find your own desires well served in the process. What say you? Have we an arrangement?”
“Tell me more, Miss Grey. You have intrigued me,” Dalby said, dipping his head intimately toward hers.
“I can see there is no part for me in this wager against Lord Westlin,” Aldreth said. “If you will excuse me?”
Zoe felt her heart skip a beat and, unable to think of a reason for Aldreth to stay, looked to Sophia.
Without hesitation, Sophia replied, “Miss Auvray is far too modest to admit how very much her presence induced Mr. Jackson to draw out his manhood for scrutiny. As such, she is certainly owed a certain consideration, my lords?”
“Of course,” Dalby said, bowing politely to Zoe.
Aldreth did not bow. Aldreth merely looked at her. To be more precise, he looked her over.
Zoe did not mind in the least. She was a likely enough looking girl, possessed of a stellar figure, chestnut hair that leaned toward auburn, and eyes of a very specific shade of golden brown. In short, she was an exotic beauty and she knew it.
“And how may I assist Miss Auvray, canceling my debt to her?” Aldreth said, his black brows drawing down into a very seductive scowl over his ice blue eyes. He did not put her off in the least. Men of Aldreth’s rank and power often scowled as if life itself were very tedious indeed. It was most amusing of them as life was not at all tedious.
“How very gracious you are, Your Grace,” Zoe said, not at all certain of how to make use of the appealing duke. Again Zoe looked at Sophia. Sophia, thankfully, looked completely certain of exactly in what manner to use Aldreth.
“You are familiar with Miranda Sinclair?” Sophia asked, her look encompassing both gentlemen. As Miranda was at that moment on the stage, saying her lines very woodenly, both men looked to where she was posed, and nodded. It was not an untrue observation to say that many, many men were intimately familiar with Miranda Sinclair. “Of course you are,” Sophia said mildly. “You are likely not aware that Miss Auvray, new to Town and a quite accomplished actress, was making her way very nicely upon the stage, which would not be in Miss Sinclair’s best interests, obviously. A fresh face, a voice of singular clarity,” Sophia said, with a shrug, “Miss Auvray certainly could not be allowed to inhabit the same stage as Miss Sinclair, could she?”
The gentlemen looked at her expectantly. Zoe shrugged. “Am I to deny it? I cannot. I have the voice of a lark.”
Aldreth came very near to smiling. She felt the warmth of his look down to her spine and suppressed a shiver of sexual awareness.
“As we have helped the two of you to win a wager tonight, is it not in the spirit of fair play that you help us?” Sophia asked.
“I am never against helping a woman,” Aldreth said.
“Is that so, Your Grace? A new philosophy, surely,” Sophia said stiffly, her eyes cold and dark.
“New or old,” Zoe said into the stilted silence, “it is a useful philosophy and I intend to take full advantage of it, Your Grace.”
Aldreth’s gaze was turned almost gratefully from Sophia to her and he let out a short breath, almost a sigh. There was definitely some unpleasant history between Aldreth and Sophia. She was most determined to find out what it was and at the earliest opportunity. Being new to Town, it was of utmost importance to learn every alliance and every on dit; how else to survive?
“I am currently available to be taken advantage of, Miss Auvray,” Aldreth said.
“Then I shall make good use of you, Your Grace,” Zoe said, with a sultry look.
“How enjoyable that sounds,” Dalby said. “Am I to be made good use of, Miss Grey?”
“Do you think you can bear it, my lord? I believe I have a reputation for using a man hard,” Sophia said, with the barest smile. “Lord Westlin would certainly claim so.”
“I have never given anything Lord Westlin has to say much weight,” Dalby said. “In fact, I would enjoy proving him wrong about many things. Is that not what you had in mind for tonight?”
“For tonight, yes,” Sophia said, her smile warming slightly. “Are you available, my lord?”
“Completely, Miss Grey,” Dalby said.
“You know how you plan to use His Grace, Zoe?” Sophia said. “I do believe Miranda is quite overcome with curiosity at the moment. She seems to have forgotten her lines entirely. In fact, a good part of the audience appears most interested in our conversation.”
At that observation, Zoe looked around and saw that Sophia was correct. At least half of the actors on the stage were staring down at them, Miranda included, as well as fifty or sixty or so of the audience, Lord Westlin most specifically.
“How lovely,” Zoe said. “I almost don’t know what more I can do to punish her. Do you have any ideas, Your Grace?”
“I do, Miss Auvray,” Aldreth answered smoothly. He was going to be such a pleasant man to seduce. She could hardly wait.
FOUR
It was quite impossible for Aldreth not to know what was in Miss Auvray’s mind: She wanted him between her legs. The look she gave him was simple enough to translate, no matter her point of origin. In fact, being French made her more eminently readable in these sorts of things.
He was not adverse to the idea, but neither was he excessively eager. While Aldreth had sought his pleasures under skirts other than Martha’s and while he had also made something of a habit of it, he did not do so frivolously. No, in fact, he did it almost morosely, which was quite ridiculous enough. He was a duke. He was in the prime of his life. And he was afraid to have relations with his wife.
“I think I have lost you, Your Grace,” Zoe Auvray said softly. “Is that not so?”
Aldreth pulled his attention back to her. She was a lovely little thing, all amber and honey, lushly drawn. So petite, so blatantly feminine, quite decidedly French.
The timing was off. Talking with Sophia had reminded him of things he had no wish to be reminded of, Westlin first and foremost. Had Sophia somehow aligned things to work out in this fashion? But how? She could not have known who would be in the theater tonight and who absent. She could not have managed his meeting Miss Auvray.
Still the feeling he had been manipulated into this situation tugged at him.
“Unfortunately, yes, Miss Auvray. Another time, perhaps,” he said.
“Running, Your Grace?” Sophia said quietly. “What of your new philosophy?”
Zoe gasped. Dalby’s head snapped around to stare at Sophia. Aldreth stared into Sophia’s dark eyes and said nothing. There was nothing to say. Nothing that would make the slightest difference.
“I mean that in kindness, Your Grace,” Sophia said softly, answering him even though he had said nothing. “I am quite certain that you have it within your power to aid her in the most lovely fashion. Do not miss the opportunity to do so. Help her.”
“How?” Aldreth said, his gaze intense.
“Certainly that is for Miss Auvray to explain,” Sophia said, looking more at Zoe than at him. He could make no sense of it, but then women were such difficult creatures to make sense of. In truth, they made little sense at all. Such melodrama over a quick tumble behind the scenery. All this talk of running and of aiding . . . Aldreth felt his stomach tumble against his ribs and avoided Sophia’s stare. Between Sophia and Westlin his night at the theater was going quite sour.
“ ’Tis too much philosophy for me,” Dalby said, breaking the mood. “I came tonight to see a play, nothing more.”
“Dear Lord Dalby,” Sophia said, smiling up at him, “please do not think to dissemble so early in our acquaintance. You came tonight to play, not to see a play. Such an important distinction, don’t you agree?”
“Do not dissemble?” Dalby said, with a grin. “How then should men and women rub along together with any sort of equanimity at all? Brute honesty will have them wielding knives against each other in minutes.”
“And is that so terrible a fate?” Sophia said, one sable brow arrogantly cocked.
“Excuse us,” Dalby said to Aldreth in abrupt answer. “I wish you an evening’s pleasure, Aldreth, wherever and upon whomever you may find it. Now, Miss Grey, I will not share you for another moment.”
With not another word, Sophia and Dalby blended into the crowd, by every appearance making their way to the side of the theater near the stairs. So very many delightful things could happen in a stair hall. If only Zoe could manage to negotiate Aldreth into one.
It had been a lovely beginning, but one had to proceed swiftly or the delightful duke would escape Zoe altogether and that would be a perfect disaster. She had the man literally by the coat sleeve and she had the means to keep him. She was, after all, in the full flush of her beauty and, as any woman knew, that rose-pink flush of plump perfection did not last forever. Indeed it barely lasted a decade. All she needed to do was to convince the changeable Aldreth of her perfect allure, which would be a challenge as his attention had wandered quite astray, but it was a challenge she was entirely capable of surmounting. She had more than a little experience and she was Parisian. What else could possibly be required to ensure success?
“You appear to have ensnared me, Miss Auvray,” Aldreth said, looking down at her hand upon his arm.
“And didn’t I do it neatly, Your Grace?” she said lightly. “Whatever shall I do with you now?”
“Miss Auvray,” he said, with a completely sober expression, which was perfectly dreadful and entirely off point, “I fear I am unable to accommodate you this evening.”
He looked so sad, so truly sad, that it was quite remarkable. What on earth could a duke have to be sad about? Certainly he had a roof and a meal, and he clearly had his looks and his health. It was blatantly ridiculous. What to do but tell him as much?
“Your Grace, I am quite certain that you do not understand how very perfectly able you appear to accommodate me completely, this evening or any other. Aside from your obvious melancholy, of course. You look, if I may say so, completely without hope, and that cannot be possible, can it? England cannot be so very different from France, can it? You are a man who has everything, everything except joy. Why is that, Your Grace?”
“I must confess that I think this is more of Miranda than of me. Am I mistaken, Miss Auvray?” he said, his expression gone dark and chill. She didn’t care in the slightest what he looked like at the moment; there was something about this very handsome, very sad man that touched her heart.
Zoe shrugged in pure Parisian fashion and said, “I may wound her unintentionally, but if she is pricked, am I to pretend distress?” She was rewarded by a brief and shallow smile from Aldreth. She continued, “But no, I had forgotten her in studying your very downcast expression, which is very negligent of me. One cannot achieve an ideal revenge without complete concentration. I do hope she didn’t notice.”
And Aldreth chuckled.
Such a lovely sound from such a melancholy man. She quite liked the sound of it and she liked very much that she had been the cause of it. She liked it so much that she almost forgot how alone in the world she was.
“You are very French, are you not, Mademoiselle Auvray?” he said, still smiling. It was a remarkable thing to experience as Zoe was almost completely certain that the duke’s smiles were quite rare.
“I am most exquisitely French, Your Grace. How complimentary of you to notice.”
“You delight in being French. I do wonder that you came to England at all.”
“I like to eat, Your Grace,” she said. “It grows difficult to eat in France now.”
“So it does,” he said, serious again.
The government of France had no money, for how could they when they spent everything on wars that they then lost? All very interesting, of course, but what it did to the cost of bread was the only thing that truly mattered in the end. But what would a duke know of the cost of bread? When he wanted food, food appeared, which was precisely how it should be when one was hungry.
“We shall not speak of food if it distresses you, Your Grace. I myself have never found the topic to be troublesome, but then again, I am not accustomed to English food.”
There, he smiled again. The Duke of Aldreth’s smiles were hard won, yet so very lovely. He had quite a nice smile, the sort of smile that made one want to smile with him. And so she did. Smiles were free, which was such a lovely thing in a world where everything cost so much.
“You are quite unlike any other woman, Miss Auvray, I must confess,” he said softly. “I do wish I could aid you in your revenge against Miss Sinclair, but—”
“You are married,” she interrupted, “and petite entanglements are not permitted in England, Your Grace?” she said quietly, looking boldly into his pale blue eyes. “Can two countries be as different as all that? I did not think to find it so. I did not think,” she whispered, “to find anyone quite as tempting as you.”
“You speak not of revenge? Of Miranda? Is it possible you have a wager with her?” he asked, looking quite boyish all of a sudden and quite vulnerable. Such a silly thing for a duke to be. Was not vulnerability a terribly costly thing for a duke to indulge in? The thought struck her that he might need protecting, her dark duke. Yet from what? What did he need that he did not already possess?
Hope.
The dark Duke of Aldreth lived without hope, she was instantly and intuitively certain of it. Of all the things she did not have, she still had hope. Let them share that, at least.
“No, Your Grace. This is all of you,” she said in a near whisper of raw emotion, “and of me. Of us. Of what we might share between us. Of what we might find together.”
It was an odd, unexpected moment between them and it seemed to grow straight out of the ground, entwining them, catching them up. It was tender and fragile and almost completely unwelcome. She did not want to feel tenderness toward this man.
Zoe had never before felt any such emotion for a man. Men did not require tenderness. What would they do with it? It had no currency for them. They wanted only beauty and power and if a woman would not feed those indulgences, she had no value at all.
Certainly he knew that as well. He was not an uncultured man. He knew and would follow the rules regarding affairs such as these.
But the look in his eyes, for just a moment or two, was so unguarded and so full of longing that she did not quite know what to make of it. She could only hope that she had not been so unguarded with him. Men did not like that. Men did not like to think of anyone but themselves in moments such as these. Had she not learned that? Had she learned nothing since leaving France?
“You are not speaking of a meal, are you, Miss Auvray? You look very much in need of a meal, shared or not,” he said, with a small dose of sarcasm, shielding his vulnerability, shifting his gaze to the crowd around them.
“Are you offering a meal, Your Grace?” she said, matching his tone, both saddened and comforted by the return to the normal sort of bantering that went on between men and women who spoke together without revealing anything of import. But she knew she was telling him something more, something about not betraying his unguarded moment, and she did not quite know why she was being so careful of this very powerful duke. He did not need protection and she could provide none. He was supposed to be offering protection to her, which was the entire point of this exercise.
