The grand Liza herself was not quite so cool. There was a faint, betraying flush on the creamy skin revealed by the décolletage beneath her filmy mantua. Her voice was a trifle higher than it should have been, concealing spite as she smiled at Roddy with the kindest of smiles.
Roddy returned the greeting, not quite overcoming the awful dryness in her throat that made her voice come out all wrong.
“I’m delighted,” Mrs. Northfield said. “The admiral and I have been putting forward eligible young ladies these ten years and never once would this paltry fellow do his duty.” Because I held him; because he craves me; all those other silly chits—nothing. Like you, my dear. Like you. You’ll never hold him. “Wherever did you find her, my Lord Iveragh? In the country, I’ll be bound. You were always one for unearthing diamonds from the rough.”
“My family is in Yorkshire,” Roddy said, getting determined control of her voice.
“Yorkshire!” Mrs. Northfield slid a gloved hand up behind her ear, tucking back a curl. She sent a glance under heavy lashes toward Faelan, preparing to go for Roddy’s throat. “And what a pretty milkmaid it is! I fear our city ways may curdle her cream.”
There was a pause. Faelan said, “I shan’t allow that to happen.”
Mrs. Northfield smiled at him. “Of course. You’re the very man to guard such innocence.”
“In this case.”
“Indeed.” A new thought came into Liza’s mind, a new interpretation. Silly dupe, stupid mouse, he never means to keep you. The others—that Ashley girl, and the little Traherne bitch—just the same; do you think he cares? The streets, that’s where you’ll be, along with that besotted Ellen Webster—he’ll grow sick of your face as he will of hers; he’ll be rid of you. The same, just the same, like the others…. She looked at Roddy with veiled speculation, pleased and aroused by the image of ruined innocence.
Roddy realized then what drew this woman to the Devil Earl.
It was not the Faelan that Roddy knew, not the blue eyes and rare laughter. It was the other side: the darkness. The seducer and destroyer of foolish young girls. The black image in a dawn mist. The killer. His mistress clung to him for a taste of that power, to be taken as a virgin again and again: mock struggle, imagined pain, a shadow-lover’s lifeblood soaking slowly into the ground. An image passed through Liza’s mind, a stab of purest lust as she imagined Faelan, just come to her bed from a duel.
Roddy stood very still. She had to concentrate to keep her fingers from allowing the music box to slide from her hand. She did not want to know these things. Liza Northfield believed in Faelan’s sins; she reveled in them. She even had names for the innocent victims Roddy had convinced herself were only figments of society’s twisted imagination.
“The admiral,” Faelan said. “May I call on him tomorrow?”
Triumph exploded behind Liza’s brown eyes. She closed her full lips and smiled. “He has orders to Gravesend,” she purred, in a voice softened with false regret. “He leaves me this very night, I fear. At ten.”
It was a signal between them, that question and answer: an appointment as clear as a handwritten note.
“At ten,” Faelan repeated. “I’ll be sorry to miss him.”
Liza smiled at the confirmation and shrugged prettily. “The sad case of a sailor’s wife. Left alone for nights on end.” She gave Roddy a pleasant nod. “You won’t have such a burden, of course, my dear. Now—I must go and see that the admiral has a proper supper before he leaves. Such an honor to meet you, Lady Iveragh. Do call on me at the earliest. His Lordship can give you the direction.”
Roddy watched in silent misery as her husband’s mistress walked serenely out the door, making plans for what she would wear to their assignation. The blue silk, she was thinking. It slides off the shoulder and breast so—
Roddy pushed the conclusion of that image away with frantic haste.
It was no use telling herself that it made no difference. A week ago, she might have managed it. A week ago, she had made a marriage of convenience, trading her money for the chance to create a life of her own. But she found now that she did not want a life of her own. She wanted Faelan, the Faelan she knew, the one who smiled at her and called her lovely and stroked her softly as she fell asleep.
She stared down at the carved lid of the music box, her spine stiff with helpless fury. Fury at Faelan, at Liza, at herself—at her own stupid, childish hopes. She’d been prepared to limit her demands, to accept his faults and his lovers, or at least pretend they didn’t exist. But he’d cheated; he’d been different from the start. He was an actor, a fraud, a fake.
And he’d made it so achingly easy to love him.
Chapter 7
They rode back to Banain House in a hackney. Roddy said she was tired and didn’t care to walk. For the sake of her pride, she tried to keep a pleasant face, but every time her eyes fell on the package that contained the music box, they wanted to fill up and overflow. She spent the greater part of the ride staring resolutely out the window away from Faelan.
The worst moment was when the hackney swung up to the doorstep of the great house and Roddy had to bear his warm touch on her arm as he helped her from the cab. One part of her wanted to turn toward him and throw herself into his arms and beg to be told that it was not true, that there was no deception in him, that the things he had said to her and made her feel were real, not pretty lies. The other part of her wanted only to get away, to escape this city and go back to what she had been, simple and protected and sure, with her gift to guide her between truth and falsehood.
A footman held open the door for them, and Roddy entered to a familiar and unexpected touch in her mind. Geoffrey! She did not need the majordomo’s announcement to know Lord Cashel waited for them in the drawing room. She barely paused to allow a footman to open the door before she rushed past. She ran to her old friend and took his hands. “Oh, Geoffrey,” she cried, and to her utter horror the tears escaped control and her hands closed on his lapels and she found herself sobbing against his elegant shirtfront. “Oh, Geoffrey, I’m so glad you’re here!”
“Roddy, Roddy—what in God’s name…” He held her away from him and then looked beyond toward Faelan in dawning anger. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Roddy pulled away at that, realizing what she had done. She pushed off Geoffrey’s hands as if they burned her. Oh, God—what a mistake, what a stupid, infantile blunder, to shame her husband and herself by letting Geoffrey see her like this!
She summoned a false and brilliant smile and exclaimed, “Oh—how could I make such a cake of myself as to cry? I’m sorry, but it’s been such a wonderful day—we took a walk, and I’ve seen everything, and my lord has bought me the most beautiful m-music b-box—” Her voice cracked again, because Geoffrey’s first interpretation of her emotional behavior was the same condemnation she had heard from everyone else. Pregnancy. “I think I should go up and change,” she said, desperate to escape. “Will—will you be staying long, Lord Geoffrey?”
He shook his head. “A moment only, to speak to Faelan.” He hesitated, and meeting flashed through his mind, colored by some desperate need to keep his purpose concealed. “A matter of business. I’ll be joining Lady Mary this evening, to catch the Dublin packet.”
“Oh.” Roddy found that her friend’s sudden arrival and desertion made her more miserable than ever. Secret meetings, politics—he had no time for one confused girl in the great swirl of human affairs. She wished he had not come at all. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
He took her hand and gave it a special squeeze, the kind of guilty gesture that her father often made. Her outburst had baffled and upset him, and sparked a protective anger. “Roddy,” he said, drawing her close in anxious affection. “You’re certain you’re all right, poppet?”
She leaned on him, comforted a little by his honest concern. From the circle of his arm she looked toward her husband. Faelan held the music box in his hand, staring down at it.
“Yes, of co
urse, Geoffrey,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I’m perfectly well and happy.”
“I’m glad.” He took her remark as truth, because his conscience preferred it that way. “You know you can depend on me, love,” he added, in a voice of caressing warmth. “For anything.”
She stood away from him. “Thank you,” she said shyly. “My lords…may I be excused?”
Faelan glanced up. His face held an expression she had never seen before: blank and vicious at once, as if he looked at her and saw something else, far beyond, and whatever it was made him murderous. “Yes,” he said. “Go on.”
That was all. Not a touch, not a word or a look of affection. Not even “please.”
She spent the remainder of the afternoon huddled on a bench in the farthest reaches of the garden, alternately promising herself that her husband was not worth a single tear and then weeping over crushed hopes like the silliest babe. It was well after dark before she returned to the house, driven by the cold to desert her refuge. Her steps were slow and reluctant as she slipped in through the side door by the vegetable garden, knowing through her gift that the hall from the servants’ quarters was empty.
It was London, she had decided. London was to blame for it all. It was the press of the city that unbalanced her, made her into a vulnerable, romantic idiot when she should have been wise and cold.
She had known what Faelan was, and stupidly allowed herself to forget it. She had been foolish, this past week, to interpret his attentions as anything more than well-bred politeness. And the humiliation of meeting his mistress in public—he could hardly be blamed for that. No one could have foreseen such a coincidence. He had handled it in the only possible way. With faultless discretion.
What could I expect him to do, Roddy asked herself, stand out on the street and renounce the woman?
Even his assignation—Roddy couldn’t even object to that. She was not so naive. Faelan was a man, a sensual, vital man—it was in every move he made, the way he kissed and touched and held her. After the sophisticated life he had led—that she had known perfectly well he had led—she could hardly expect him to be satisfied with her untutored caresses.
She had vowed to herself that she would not object to his infidelities, and meant to keep that vow. It was to be a marriage of convenience, not love.
But she had her own pride. Stupid she had been, there was no doubt of that. Helpless fury and hurt filled her when she thought of how she had melted for him, had given gladly what he could come by so easily elsewhere. She was his wife, but she did not have to be the pliant, panting wanton he had made her. Things would change now.
His heart was not engaged, and she’d been a fool to entangle hers. And the first step back to rationality was to extricate herself from the drugging influence of his lovemaking. He could go to his mistress, with Roddy’s blessing. Let him spend his passion elsewhere, and not drag her down into that net of blind unreason.
I wanted children from him, Roddy reminded herself fiercely. Not love. Let him go to his precious Liza for his kind of love.
As Roddy entered the main hall she met Minshall, the majordomo, emerging from the library. He did not see her at first, being absorbed in the direction scrawled elegantly on the envelope in his hand. Mrs. Northfield. Number 8 Blandford.
He tucked the note into his pocket, made a mental note to inquire before dinner when His Lordship would want the carriage, and looked up. It was only his years of training that kept him from showing his guilty start.
“My lady,” he said, since she stood in the dim, candlelit hall apparently waiting to speak to him. “How can I be of service?”
“His Lordship—is he in the library?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes, my lady. I might add that he has instructed me to put back dinner an hour, since you’ve been walking in the garden later than usual.”
An hour! Faelan would have to hurry if he were to meet Mrs. Northfield at ten. But perhaps it was only Roddy’s dinner that had been postponed. “Am I to eat alone, then?” she asked.
Minshall was surprised. A trace of pity touched his mind as he thought of the note in his pocket. “His Lordship did not mention it, my lady. In the absence of orders to the contrary, I assumed that you would be dining with him en suite as you have been. I will inquire, if you like.”
Roddy moistened her lips. “Perhaps you’d better do so. He mentioned to me that he might be…going out tonight.”
The majordomo looked at her more closely, noting the slight puffiness around her eyes. Poor child, Minshall thought. Damn him—can’t he wait? It’s a bleeding shame if he’s let her guess. Aloud, the manservant said, “I shall speak to him, Your Ladyship. Do you wish to join him now?”
Her throat went suddenly dry, but she managed a nod. The majordomo scratched lightly at the door and then held it open for her.
Faelan was far across the huge, dark room, in a wing chair by the fire, the reflection of the flames dancing off the polish on his crossed boots. He turned his head at Minshall’s restrained cough, and stood up without setting down the drink in his hand.
“Your Ladyship,” he said, in that tone that told Roddy nothing. “Good evening.” Silhouetted by the fire, his face was too shadowed to reveal his expression.
Roddy went resolutely forward, followed closely by Minshall, who placed a chair and fire screen for her. She sat down. After a moment of silence, Minshall said softly, “The dinner arrangements are to be as usual, my lord?”
Faelan looked up from his contemplation of the glass in his hand. “Put back an hour, Minshall. I just told you, did I not?”
The majordomo bowed, reminding himself that the lord had a right to sound as if Minshall were slightly lacking in wit. “Yes, my lord.” He hesitated, trying to decide if he had a clear answer or not, and then added, “Her Ladyship had expressed a question as to whether or not you would dine with her.”
From the startled half-turn of Faelan’s head, Minshall surmised smugly that His Lordship had never intended otherwise. A rake and a reprobate the earl might be, but he had manners enough to dine with his new bride.
Faelan said, a little abruptly, “Do you not wish it, Lady Iveragh?”
Roddy was caught, unable to repeat her fib that Faelan had told her he was going out, and with no other excuse for why she would question the established custom. “I have a touch of the headache,” she improvised, “and thought perhaps I should go to bed directly.”
He looked toward her, his face profiled by shadow and fire. After a moment, he said, “I shall eat in the dining room, then, Minshall. Her Ladyship will have a tray sent up.”
Minshall bowed again, turned to go, and then paused. “I beg your pardon, my lady. Did you intend the cream cakes to be served this evening?”
She looked down at her hands in a flush of misery. “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “If Lord Iveragh would like them.”
“I would,” Faelan said, in a warmer voice than he had used before. “Very much.”
The majordomo nodded and left the room, thinking that it would have been most indiscreet to inquire about the carriage just at that moment when my lord was looking at my lady with that rare smile softening his dark features.
Minshall might have been fooled by a smile, but Roddy was not. Not any longer. When Faelan came to stand beside her and brush his fingers along the curve of her throat, she knew it for the sham it was. But her pulse began to pound under the light caress.
“Do you require assistance to your bed, my lady?” he asked softly.
She moved away from him a little. “No, thank you.” Her voice was slightly breathless.
The fire popped, flaring. Faelan curled his fingers and withdrew them.
“Did you enjoy your sojourn in the garden?” he asked. The warmth had receded from his voice, replaced by an odd, taut note. “I noticed that you didn’t return to bid Godspeed to Lord Geoffrey.”
Roddy heard the irony in his tone, but she was too agitated by the things that she wanted to
say to resent it. She said unsteadily, “Geoffrey understands. It would have made me cry again, I think.” She cleared her throat, and added in a firmer tone. “I wished to speak to you.”
He sketched a bow. “I’m at your service, Your Ladyship.”
The faintly insolent formality made a hard task harder. She could find no words to say what she intended.
“What did you wish to speak to me about?” he prompted after a moment.
She clasped her hands together. Her brain seemed slow and stupid and her tongue stuck in her mouth.
“Are you situated comfortably?” he asked, when the silence had stretched again. “There’s nothing wrong with your room?”
“No.” Roddy knew he was mocking her. “Of course not.”
“Some problems with the servants?” he taunted gently. “A difficulty with your pin money? You want a music box, perhaps. Come, my dear, you needn’t be afraid to speak to me.”
“Faelan.” She took a breath. “It’s about our—circumstances.”
“Ah.”
“With respect to each other,” she added.
He walked back to his chair and set his glass down on the little table. “I’m not certain I understand you.”
“It’s just that…I’ve been thinking. About our marriage, and—and our, um…our relationship. Our married relationship, I mean. And I believe, my lord, that it’s my duty to…” Her voice almost failed her, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “—to…submit…to you—when necessary—for the purpose of having children, but as to what…what we’ve been…” She swallowed, and said in a desperate rush, “My lord, I don’t think I can bear that anymore!”
She opened her eyes and looked toward him. The faint smile had vanished from his face. He stood and stared down at the glass beneath his hand. “Roddy,” he whispered. And that was all.