Nora gasped, and Bubb, after a moment of shock, laughed. Lady Valéry drank a large swallow of brandy, and Mary turned to Sebastian in bewilderment. “What…?”
Softly he said, “You said you wished to wed me for ‘other reasons.’ They think you mean…”
“Mean?”
He maintained a solemn expression. “That you wish to wed me for my manly prowess.”
Her every muscle clenched. He forced his touches on her, then forced her to enjoy them. Now he incited her with words, with images, such as she’d never conceived. Innocent phrases gained double meanings, and every movement, every word, became a snare to trip her. And where would she land?
In his bed. In his bed. Like the clapper of a bell, the guarantee slapped back and forth in her skull, and in a furious whisper, meant for his ears only, she said, “Not if you came wrapped in gold cloth. Not if you came with recommendations from every courtesan in Venice. Not if—”
“Not if I promised to make you the happiest woman on earth.” He squeezed her hand and he gave her one of those smiles. The ones that made her think of a guard dog on a leash, waiting his chance. “I understand.”
Mary turned and spoke to the room at large. “I wish to marry Lord Whitfield…Sebastian…for the power he wields. I know that as his betrothed, I will be safe.”
“Safe?” Nora said. “From what?”
Bubb spread his arms wide. “Why, you’re in the bosom of your family now!”
Nora spoke hastily, as if she didn’t want Mary to think too closely on that. “Have you thought Lord Whitfield plays his own game? Perhaps you are in ignorance, but the Fairchilds and the Whitfields are old enemies.”
Why didn’t that surprise Mary? Why did she suspect that beneath Sebastian’s suave exterior there lurked sinister secrets?
But she didn’t care. She had her own purpose now, and that was wrestling control of her own fortune from the Fairchilds. “Then it’s time the schism was healed.”
“You’re right.” Bubb sounded heartily genuine. “It is time. Past time. And what a way to do it, heh? With a marriage. Why, you two will be the Romeo and Juliet of the Whitfields and the Fairchilds.”
“An interesting concept,” Sebastian murmured.
A repulsive concept, Mary thought with vehemence.
“Of course, Mary, you are a Fairchild woman,” Bubb said. “And irresistible to men. And Sebastian is very much a man. Heh, Sebastian? Heh, heh?” Bubb winked and jabbed his elbow at some invisible comrade.
Sebastian tried to hush him. “I don’t want my future wife cognizant of my dissipation.”
“Too late,” Mary murmured.
He touched her, and just below her breast. She had never had a man touch her there, and she whipped around and glared.
“A lover airs her complaints about her betrothed in private.”
He’d listened to the scoldings she regularly gave herself, she realized, and now he couched his words in the form she easily recognized.
The heat of his hand stirred currents in her bloodstream, but she whispered firmly, “I am not your lover.”
“No, you’re not,” he whispered back.
His smile left her unsatisfied, and even disturbed. “I’ll never be your lover.”
“No…”
But he didn’t sound convinced, and time ticked along, driving Mary toward sensation. Not the sensation of touching, painful though that was to her, but the sensation of emotion.
Quickly, defiantly, she stripped her remaining glove off her hand. She didn’t want him removing it in the same ritualized manner he’d removed the first. He’d taken off her glove to impress on the Fairchilds the strength of his possession. Unfortunately, he’d impressed her, also.
She feared this man. Not because he could have her arrested as a murderess, not because he was ruthless in achieving his aims, but because when he whispered in her ear with ardent intent and looked at her body with cold gray eyes, she felt something. Something inside. Pressure. Weakness. A surge of heat.
“You had the banns called?” Bubb said loudly, verbally trampling on Sebastian’s turf.
The traveling sickness. Mary pressed her hand to her stomach. It had to be the traveling sickness affecting her.
“We did.” Sebastian didn’t seem to be having trouble talking. Of course, he never took his gaze off Mary, either.
“Where?” Bubb insisted, walking to the door.
Lady Valéry answered. “In Scotland. In the English chapel in my home there.”
A neat answer. Not only was it difficult to verify, but to ask Lady Valéry to do so indicated doubt in her truthfulness. Mary appreciated that in some distant corner of her mind, while all the time she told herself lies about the passions that roiled deep in her belly.
She hated people who lied to themselves. She’d been an expert at it at one time, and only disaster had shaken her free from the debilitating habit.
But could she bear to put a name to the emotion Sebastian inspired in her?
For the first time in her life, a Fairchild came to her rescue. Bubb—big, unsubtle Bubb—announced, “Mary, it’s time you were introduced to the rest of your family.” He opened the door with a flourish.
The men and women who had been listening at the keyhole tumbled into the room. Cursing, they rolled on the floor like the ramshackle bunch of scoundrels they were.
Mary’s stomach nearly rebelled.
The Fairchilds had arrived.
Chapter 8
Mary watched in astonishment as her relatives adjusted their powdered wigs and recovered themselves.
Beside her on the sofa, Sebastian murmured in a fashionably bored tone, “Everyone who is anyone falls through an open door onto their faces. It’s the newest way to enter a chamber.”
Half-credulous, she turned to stare at him. Was this humorless man jesting?
With a great cracking of joints and creaking of corsets, the Fairchild men rose. They straightened their collection of crimson, canary, jade, and amethyst waistcoats, dusted off the knees of their trousers, and fought for space at the gold-framed mirror. It made no difference that four of the old gentlemen were as wrinkled as Christmas currants and had just as few teeth. Maintaining their cosmetics clearly held precedence over recovering their dignity, and they jostled and elbowed for position.
The girls took longer to come to their feet. First they admired their own ankles, set off by the ruffles of their petticoats, and one of them glanced up at Sebastian and winked.
The hussy.
Then they pushed down their skirts and whimpered, and their male relatives, recalled to their duty, came and offered their hands. One by one the women got up and struck a pose, each striving to outdo the next until the entire room seemed filled with exotic scents, waving fans, and so many colors, Mary fought the urge to shield her eyes.
“I was just going to have the servants call you.” Bubb beamed, apparently unaware his family had been caught eavesdropping. “My uncles—your great-uncles, Mary—Uncle Leslie, Uncle Oswald, Uncle Burgess, Uncle Calvin.”
The old men nodded in unison, leaving Mary to wonder which was which. These were her grandfather’s brothers—the ones who’d so handily disappeared when she’d arrived long ago, begging for help.
The blackguards.
Bubb went on. “My daughters—Lilith, the dowager countess of Plaisted, Wilda, Daisy, and the twins, Radella and Drusilla.”
One after the other, the girls curtsied. Emerald skirt down and up. Rose skirt. Dandelion. And two maroon moving in perfect synchronization. All comely, shapely, tall girls dressed in resplendent garb.
Mary found herself suddenly thankful for her new clothing. Her spirit might have lost its jaunty insolence years ago, she might not have that superior smirk, but none of them wore the very latest fashions from London.
“You have the best ankles,” Sebastian said in her ear.
Again she turned to stare at him. Was her lack of confidence so obvious?
Bubb didn’t see
m to notice the undercurrents. He grinned ecstatically and waved an arm at Mary. “Uncles, daughters, this is our long-lost relative. We have finally found our heiress!”
“Such good news.” The oldest of the old men couldn’t have sounded more bored.
“And she is betrothed to Viscount Whitfield,” Bubb said.
“But what is the reason for the hurried betrothal?” One of the girls—Lilith of the emerald gown—snapped her fan shut and let it droop from her wrist with a clear lack of enthusiasm.
“And to young Sebastian, too?” The youngest old man smirked toward the betrothed couple. “If she’s expecting, Whitfield, I’d demand the child look just like me.”
Mary didn’t, couldn’t, immediately comprehend the viciousness of their comments. After all, they had no reason to savage her and her reputation.
Then she realized it didn’t matter. They’d never cared about her before; why should they start now? She shouldn’t mind…but when she tried to get her breath, she found her lungs caught in a vise.
“Demons.” Sebastian gathered himself, his muscles bunching, but Lady Valéry spoke before he could make a move.
In a cool, amused voice, she said, “Unlike most Fairchilds, Mary has managed to retain her maiden-head past the age of twelve.”
Everyone in the room turned and stared at the elegant older woman.
Sebastian relaxed against Mary, and Mary found she could breathe again. She did, gratefully.
“She’s lived in Scotland with me, and I’ve kept her safe from”—Lady Valéry looked the uncles over—“aging libertines. And from”—she stared at Lilith’s low-cut bodice—“unsavory influences.”
“I say.” The youngest old man sputtered. “I say!”
“Nasty old woman.” Lilith snapped her fan open and waved it vigorously over the vast expanse of her chest.
“She’s amazing,” Sebastian murmured. “They’re aristocratic oafs until she takes them to task. Now they’re wounded.” Acid with sarcasm, he said, “Poor Fairchilds.”
Lady Valéry pursed her lips. “I used to have youngsters like you for breakfast, Miss Fairchild, remember that.” She pointed her cane at the uncles, one by one. “And I won’t say what I used to do with men like you, but I’m sure if I thought about it long enough, I’d remember.”
Mary stifled her mirth as astonished expressions settled on each and every one of her relatives’ faces. If only, she thought regretfully, she could give vent to her merriment.
But a housekeeper never calls attention to herself.
Then again, she wasn’t a housekeeper now. She stirred uneasily at the novel concept. She was an heiress, and an heiress could be as rude as she chose. But did she choose to be so…so Fairchildish?
Nora rapped on the desk with her knuckles. “Your attention, please.”
Her daughters turned to her at once. The uncles pretended not to hear.
“We have honored guests.” Calmly she presented the family to Lady Valéry, behaving as if she routinely had to reintroduce them to refined behavior.
At the sound of Lady Valéry’s name, the oldest old man shot a distraught, furious glance at Nora. She stared levelly back. He dusted specks of snuff from the front of his waistcoat, shook out the lace at his wrists, and changed from profligate to gentleman before Mary’s eyes. “Lady Valéry? I think we’ve met. Weren’t you the wife of the earl of Guldene?”
“Yes.” The second oldest old man stepped forward. “I remember. After the earl died, every gentleman in London chased after you, and you cozened us all when you wed the duc de Valéry.”
“That is true.” Head cocked, Lady Valéry watched them.
The best-preserved old man sputtered in his excitement. “And all the time there were rumors that you—”
Two elbows, one from each side, struck him sharply in the ribs, and he bent forward in pain. His offending brothers oozed around him, cutting him from view.
“I’m Leslie Fairchild,” the oldest man said.
“I’m Oswald.” The next waggled his ink-stained fingers.
“Calvin.” Calvin was quiet, thoughtful, watching his brothers for sudden moves as if they were domestic animals who had never quite been housebroken.
“Burgess,” gasped the stricken man at the back. This one had been the handsomest once, before the good life had swelled his nose and broken veins in his cheeks.
Lady Valéry yawned.
Leslie moved to the chair closest to Lady Valéry and in the warmest of tones asked, “Is our dear niece your little protégé?”
“She’s under my protection.” Lady Valéry removed her riding hat and smoothed her waterfall of gray hair over her shoulder. “That’s why I’m so pleased she is to wed Sebastian.” She cast a general smirk over the assemblage. “Sebastian is my godson, as you know.”
Heads turned toward Sebastian, who took Mary’s hand in a gentle grip. “So surprising, to find myself enthralled by a Fairchild.” He bestowed that now familiar razor smile.
Mary thought this time he’d turned it inside, and he almost bled from the sharpness of his delectation. He had finger-combed the windblown tangles from his dark hair, but it failed to civilize him. He pretended to conform; he would never conform. He lived on the fringes of society, collecting information and using it as a lever, never caring whom he hurt. Never caring if the law took her, tried her, and convicted her of a murder committed long ago and for good reason.
She needed to guard herself from any generous impulse while around this man. He took advantage.
“Whitfield, I heard great things about you,” Oswald said. “I heard your shipping business last year made an immense profit.”
“You’re a”—Burgess paused delicately—“merchant?”
“Not just a merchant, Burgess,” Calvin said impatiently. “A highly successful merchant.”
Sebastian’s hand tightened on Mary’s, but his voice remained suave. “I’m glad you recognize the distinction.”
Radella coiled herself around the tall post of her father’s chair and moved sinuously against it. “I recognized you as a distinctive man.”
Her husky tone made Mary’s hand tense in Sebastian’s. Unconsciously she caressed the scars that marked the back of his fingers, and he took that as a signal to renew his prowl across her body. He was obvious, dropping a kiss on her cheek, rubbing her bare knuckles with his thumb.
This time she was glad. Long ago Mary’s father had taken his children to an exhibit of wild animals, and Mary had seen a large snake. Its colorful skin had been beautiful, its eyes slanted and intent. It had moved on its prey much as the Fairchilds moved now; standing, walking, pulsating, in a prearranged dance created to hypnotize its victims before the kill.
Mary shrank back toward Sebastian. She didn’t discount the danger he exuded, but her relatives frightened her more.
“A nest of asps,” he murmured.
Startled by his perception, she turned and looked at him again. His lips curved indulgently, deepening the creases around his mouth. England’s southern sun had tanned him. In appearance he reminded her of the seamen of Scotland’s coast—hardened by adversity, immune to insult, facing death and dishonor without flinching.
“I won’t let them get you.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “I swear I’ll keep you safe.”
“That is a vow you’d best honor,” she answered.
“I can’t reassure you, but events will tell.”
The stillness in that cursed study attracted Mary’s attention, and she noticed the dance of the Fairchilds had ended. For some reason they had turned toward the door and stared, and she tore her attention from Sebastian and did the same.
Ian. Even before he moved into the light, Mary recognized him. She came to her feet, not heeding the fleeting grip of Sebastian’s hand.
Ian smiled as he walked forward, palms extended. “Is that you, little cousin?”
“Yes, it is I.” So eloquent, Mary scolded herself. This was Ian, the man who had slipped her mon
ey on her last visit, the one relative who’d been kind and told her an innocent like her was better off living somewhere else. Anywhere else.
He was kind. And more, he was beautiful. Not like the rest of the Fairchilds, but darkly beautiful, like sable, like a starry night, like Mephistopheles himself. His brown eyes glowed as he lifted her hands away from her sides and surveyed her. “How you have blossomed, little cousin!”
She wanted to smile.
No, worse. She wanted to simper. She was living one of those dreams she’d forbidden herself to have, to have Ian look on her with favor.
Danger. Here was danger.
A housekeeper—she took a calming breath—an heiress always maintains her dignity.
“You’re looking well, also,” she said.
He chuckled so cozily, she could have warmed her hands in the sound. “I do what I can.”
A sensation of cold struck her, and Sebastian stood beside her. She thought he’d been ruthless with her, but nothing could have prepared her for the chill he exuded now. Fixing his gaze on Ian, he asked, “Who are you?”
“This is my cousin.” She took her hands back from Ian’s grip, and found she was introducing him as if she were explaining herself. “Ian.”
Ian smiled.
Sebastian didn’t. “Cousin? I’ve never heard of a Fairchild born with dark hair.”
“That’s because Fairchilds breed with care,” Ian said. “Usually. Usually we mate with our own kind, so our children will fit in with their other blond, blue-eyed cousins. Only sometimes, someone makes a mistake.”
“Who made a mistake with you?” Sebastian asked.
“Leslie got careless back in his prime.” Ian presented himself with a bow, and his beautiful moonstone ring flashed in the light. “I was the result.”
“Your mother was a Selkie.” Leslie sat and watched his son with an air of distaste. “She enchanted me.”
“He’s a lovely man, isn’t he?” Ian didn’t look at his father as he spoke. “He would have denied me if he could, but apparently he feared my mother’s family too much.”