Книга Regency Society - читать онлайн бесплатно, автор Хелен Диксон. Cтраница 43
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Regency Society
Regency Society
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Regency Society

‘You’re all right,’ she breathed, leaning back to let the wall support her weight.

He reached over and yanked hard on the bell pull to summon the servants, and glanced apologetically at Constance, before focusing again on Barton. ‘I fear, darling, that I cannot keep my presence here a secret. I will need help removing this refuse from your room.

‘You will never believe the night I’ve had. First a greased drainpipe. Then a handful of broken glass. And when at last I get the damn safe open, there is no sign of the plates.’ He shook his finger at Barton.

‘You thought you had me there, I’ll wager. And perhaps, if you were decent to your servants, they’d have bothered to clear the evidence of the true hiding place out of the grate.’ He pulled a burned scrap of paper from his pocket, and held it out for Barton to see. ‘You burned a book, didn’t you? Two, actually. Volumes one and two of A History of British Currency.’

He glanced at Constance again. ‘That is Jack’s idea of wit, darling. Let us be glad you will not have to suffer with it. He ripped the books from their bindings and burned them, then wrapped the plates in the book covers and put them back on the shelves. I have spent countless hours, fiddling with picks to crack that safe, and all for no reason. The plates were in plain sight and I could have left with them at any time.’

There was a sharp knocking at the door and Constance rushed to let the servants enter. Susan entered, in her night clothes, accompanied by…

Constance stared in shock. Tony’s valet, Patrick, hair mussed and in his shirtsleeves, had followed her maid into her bedroom.

Even Tony looked surprised.

Patrick shrugged. ‘I recognised the pull on the bell rope. You ring as if you are trying to yank it off the wall. Most distinctive, sir.’

‘And you happened to be here, by fortunate coincidence?’ Tony enquired.

‘With you spending so many evenings from home, I had little to occupy my time. And it occurred to me that there might be another who would sympathise with my idleness.’

Susan giggled.

Tony struggled to find an appropriate response, before giving up. ‘Well, you will not be idle tonight.’ He pointed to Barton on the floor. ‘Patrick, I wish this removed. From the room, certainly. From the country, if possible. I understand there are often ships in need of crew and none too particular about where the men come from. Use your initiative.’

Patrick looked at Barton, and back to the maid beside him. And he said softly, to Susan, ‘This is the man who hurt you?’

Susan’s eyes grew round, and she nodded her head.

Patrick’s smile was broad and full of menace. Suddenly, he did not look like a humble manservant, but a large, and very threatening, man. He seized Barton from off the floor and punched him once, hard and in the face. ‘No problem, sir.’ He dragged the limp body towards the door.

‘Breakfast will be late tomorrow, Patrick,’ Tony called after him. ‘Do not trouble yourself.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Susan stepped out of the way and closed the door again.

Tony listened to the sound of Patrick and Barton retreating down the hall, before stepping close and seizing her around the waist. Then he spun her around in his arms, kissed her once, full on the mouth, and threw her on to the bed.

He was alive. Young and strong and safe. And she loved the feel of his hands on her, even as her mind struggled to sort out what had just happened. She pulled herself up to lean upon her elbows, trying to regain decorum. ‘Tony, what the devil are you doing?’

He was standing over her with a most curious expression on his face, a mixture of joy and lust. ‘Celebrating. You are safe, and Barton is in the soup. And I have done it, Constance. I have picked the unpickable Bramah lock. What say you to that?’

‘Thank you?’ she said, hesitantly.

‘Actions speak louder than words, Constance.’ And he climbed into bed after her and threw up her skirts.

‘You do not mean…’ She reached to smooth her skirts back down.

‘Oh, yes, I most certainly do.’ He caught her hand, and placed it on the front of his breeches, so she could feel how ready he was. Then he began to undo his buttons.

She had just threatened to shoot a man, after attempting to seduce him, and now, she was going to make passionate love to another. If she looked into the mirror, would she recognise the woman she saw? ‘Do not be ridiculous. I cannot. I am still dressed. The door is not locked. I—’

He pushed her down on to the bed, kissing her in a way that left no doubts as to how much he wanted her, and how soon.

‘Well, at least take off your boots,’ she suggested breathlessly, recognising the old familiar Constance, trying to regain control.

He ignored her.

And the woman that she had become did not care in the slightest. He came into her fast and hard, and she arched as the shock of it ran through every nerve in her body and hummed in her blood. And as he thrust, he told her of things he wanted to do to her, and with her, and for her, each one more scandalous than the last.

And she wanted it all. She wanted his breath on her throat and his voice in her ear, and his body hard inside her for ever. But for now, she wanted him harder and faster, and she told him so over and over again until her breath was a gasp and her voice a sob and her body was trembling with the need for release. And when he demanded it, she came with him, and they collapsed, shaking with weakness, into a tangle on the bed.

He moved against her and she caught her breath in surprise as her body shuddered again, and he rolled away so that he could look into her eyes, reached a hand to her and stroked her to another climax.

And somewhere, deep down, her brain was screaming that this was madness, and it must stop. What had she just promised him? And what could he make her do, when he took her to this state? He knew her body, and he used his knowledge. She was helpless to resist him because it was all too good, and the waves ran through her again as she trembled at his touch.

She looked into his eyes. They were not empty, like Barton’s, but full of shadows. He looked into her soul and he knew her. But who was he?

She sat up and looked around her in confusion. She was lying fully dressed in her bed with a strange man, whose boots were leaving mud on the sheets. And he’d just taken her so violently that her body ached, and then soothed the ache away with his hand.

And he’d done it all because she begged him to.

Now, he was undressing her with exquisite care, undoing her gown and removing her stays, pausing to touch and kiss with featherlightness in ways that he knew pleased her. And now he was taking the pins from her hair and letting it down, combing it out with his fingers.

He knew every inch of her. He knew her life and her finances, and her body, all the intimidate details that she’d never dared share with Robert…

Why had she told him? And why had she not told her husband? Who had she become, now that she’d chosen to fall from virtue with such wanton abandon? Because she certainly was no longer herself.

And who was he? What did she know of him, other than that he was a thief, and that he said she could trust him?

And that he loved another.

He was still fully dressed, and she was naked beside him with her hair free around her shoulders. He was smiling his enigmatic smile as he admired her in her vulnerability.

She pulled the sheet around herself before she let him pull her down beside him and love her again.

He looked at her curiously, waiting for her to speak.

‘It is truly over, then, with Barton?’

‘He would be a fool to remain in the country, even if Patrick allows him to. I will turn the plates over to the Earl of Stanton in the morning, to be destroyed. If Barton reappears, St John will have no trouble hanging him as a traitor. You need never worry about him again.’

He might as well have been speaking nonsense. ‘You spoke of the plates before. What are they? And what does St John Radwell have to do with it all?’

Tony pulled away from her, and puzzled for a moment, before saying, ‘Ah. Yes. I’d meant to tell you about that. Barton was a counterfeiter. Or wished to be. And St John works for the government, and they wanted the plates back, so he hired me to steal them.’

‘So you are not a thief at all.’

‘Well, I am still a thief. A very good one. But currently, I steal when I am ordered to, by a higher authority.’ He grinned. ‘Perhaps I am a humble civil servant. I quite like the idea. It sounds most respectable.’

‘Then why did you not tell me?’

He looked evasive. ‘Frankly, it had not really occurred to me that there would be a difference. Stealing is stealing, and I have not much concerned myself with the reason. St John does not wish me to discuss our association, since the world knows little of what he does, and to reveal my part in it reveals his.’

‘So you are a spy, then.’

He thought about it. ‘I suppose you could say that.’

The truth began to dawn on her. ‘When I found you here, in this room, you were spying on me. And my best friend’s husband sent you. Because he thought I was a traitor. Just like Barton.’

Tony tried to laugh, but it came out sounding small and nervous. ‘I soon set him straight on that. The very first night, I told him you were innocent.’

It was some consolation, she supposed, to know that he thought she was innocent, even though he continued to spy upon her. ‘And this great secret, which you could not share with me to spare my feelings. Is that the only secret? Or are there other things that you have not told me?’

He looked positively uncomfortable, and had trouble meeting her gaze. ‘Well, everyone has secrets, I suppose.’

‘But you have more than most, I think. What is it that you are still not telling me, that makes you so evasive now?’

He attempted to laugh again, and failed completely. ‘You make it sound very ominous. I swear, I was not attempting to hide things from you.’

‘But you have hidden them all the same. I do not like being played for a fool, Tony. Not by my friends, and not by you.’

He flinched at the word ‘friends’ and then looked her squarely in the eyes. ‘I do not think you a fool, nor do I wish to play games with you. But I wish, Constance, that by now you would have looked with your own eyes and known the truth for yourself.’

‘So that you did not have to admit to it? What is it, that is so horrible that you cannot speak it out loud? You had the gall to offer me marriage, and yet you cannot manage to be honest with me.’

‘Perhaps it is because I knew how you would respond, should I tell you the whole truth. It is quite plain, Constance, that whatever you might pretend, on the subject of love you are as cold hearted as any woman in my experience. It was a hundred times easier for me to steal your heart than it would have been to gain it by honest means. If I came to you and presented my case openly, with the rest of your suitors, you would have dismissed me as unworthy of your time and gone after Endsted and his title.’ He was able to laugh again as he mocked her. ‘But it excites you if I approach in darkness and you let me take what I want from you.’

Then he touched her skin, and her body responded with a shudder of passion. ‘You want what I can give you,’ he said, ‘but you wish to be free of me when the sun rises, in case there is a better offer. And I let you use me, because, God help me, I cannot resist you.’

‘I was using you, was I?’ She looked down at her bare body, next to his. ‘When you threw me down and took me, just now? Of course, you did manage to get rid of Barton for me. Although you said before that you did not wish to wait for payment, until after the deed was done, I should think, after tonight, that our accounts must be close to even.’

‘And now you are trying to tell me that you behaved thus just so that I would help you?’ He stared at her in disbelief. She could see the pain in his eyes. ‘Why are you doing this, Constance?’

‘I do what I must to survive, Tony. I did when I married Robert, and I must continue doing so, now he is gone. I am beautiful, or so everyone tells me. If that is all I bring to a marriage, then I must hold out for the best offer. Soon the beauty will fade, and, if I am not careful, I will be left with nothing.’

‘Just as you were when your husband died?’ His smile was sardonic. ‘A pity. For he seemed such a good choice and it all came to naught.’

‘Do not dare to question my marriage, you—’

‘Thief? Criminal? Commoner?’ He got out of the bed and did up his breeches. ‘Guilty on all counts.’ He turned and bowed to her, tugging his forelock. ‘And now you no longer need my services, am I dismissed, your Grace?’

It was over. His business was completed, and he was leaving, unless she could think of a way to stop him. But she was not sure she wanted him to stay, if she could not trust him to tell her the truth. ‘Well, you didn’t think it would last for ever, did you?’ She heard the quaver in her own voice, and wondered if she needed to speak the words to herself.

‘No, actually, I didn’t. In my experience, happiness seldom lasts for long. But I thought when we parted, you would not need to convince yourself that you had been coerced. Do you need me to be the villain of the piece? Does it make you feel better to think you had no choice?’

He stepped closer and she shrank from him, pulling the bedclothes up to cover her nakedness.

‘Let me tell you the way I remember what happened. I came to your bed because you invited me there. You wanted me, your Grace, because you knew what I could do for you, and it had nothing to do with money or deeds. You wanted me to love you as your husband could not.’

Even as he said it, she could feel the need burning inside of her.

‘Now you are going to pretend that while you writhed in ecstasy beneath me, it was because I was forcing you to make a noble sacrifice to preserve your reputation for someone more suitable.’

He reached to his throat and ripped off his cravat and threw it to the floor. Then, he opened his shirt and pointed. ‘See there? These are the marks of your kisses on my throat. Your nails have raked my back and your hands have held me so tight that my arms are bruised. I’ve heard every word you’ve said to me, when we made love. I know what you felt.

‘Perhaps there is already another player waiting in the wings. Someone with a title, or money honestly come by. Someone you can introduce to your friends.’

She watched as he stepped towards the door of her room, preparing to walk out, only to check himself, curse, and turn as usual to leave by the window. ‘He can be the one to ruin your reputation. For I suspect the next man to share this bed will think nothing of arriving at night and leaving by the front door in the morning for all to see.’

He reached into his jacket and dropped a card on the floor. ‘If you need further assistance, go directly to my man of business. There will be funds for you, should you ever need them. What I have is yours to command. You need never speak to me again, so there will be no misunderstanding of my motives. As I told you before, I do not expect payment for acts done in friendship. But do not ever claim again that you need do something against the wishes of your conscience, because of a lack of funds.’

And he walked across the room and stepped out of the window and out of her life.

Chapter Seventeen

Tony woke as the earth tipped out from under him, and he landed face first on the floor of the study.

‘Rise and shine, Smythe.’ Stanton’s voice was disgustingly cheerful as he dropped the wing chair with a crash, next to Tony’s prone body.

‘What the devil…You bastard!’ Light came streaming in the windows as his visitor yanked aside the velvet curtains. The sunlight was blinding, stabbing into his brain, as he tried to focus on the figure in silhouette against the morning sun.

‘And a pleasant good morning to you, as well. You missed our regular appointment. Twice. To prevent your missing it a third time, I have come to you.’ St John stared down at him in bemusement. ‘I have seen better things than you stuck to the bottom of my boot after a night in Whitechapel. And smelled better as well. For God’s sake, man, pull yourself together. There is work to be done.’

‘I resign.’

‘I am not totally sure that that would be permitted. While you have not technically enlisted, I might still find a way to court-martial you. Perhaps not. Thieves in the army are usually flogged or hanged. Do you have a preference?’

‘Why don’t you just shoot me and get it over with?’

‘Very well, then.’ And before Tony could process the action, St John produced a pistol and put a bullet into the wall next to him.

Tony rolled to the left, covering his head with his hands as the sound of the shot echoed in his ears. ‘What the hell are you doing in my house, firing a weapon? Are you mad? The ball missed my head by inches. You could have killed me.’

St John righted the wing chair and sat in it, arms folded. ‘The ball missed you by several feet, just as I intended. I am an excellent shot, especially at such close range. But I am pleased to see you have recovered the will to live.’ He gestured to the wreckage of the room. ‘And the ball in the woodwork is the least of the problems here. Explain this, please.’

Tony looked at the mess he had made of the room. The mirror was broken, and Patrick had not bothered to replace it. It was just as well, for he had a fair idea of what he must look like after who knew how long without a razor or change of linen. He did not need to see his reflection.

Broken glasses littered the cold fireplace, and empty bottles littered the floor. Patrick had continued to bring the bottles for a while, after refusing him glasses, and hiding the windows behind the curtains so as to remove temptation. And now he refused him brandy, hoping to starve him out. It had made Tony so angry that he’d thrown a small table at the head of his retreating servant.

And missed. He glanced at the chipped plaster of the wall and the pieces of broken table on the floor below it. ‘When you came, did I still have a servant to let you in?’

‘Yes. Patrick is most concerned about you. He sent me up alone and told me not to turn my back on you if there was anything left for you to throw. Now tell me, what happened to this room?’

‘A woman,’ Tony said with finality.

‘On the contrary, my man, I think it was you who did it.’

‘A woman happened to me, you idiot. And I happened to the room.’

‘What a relief. I thought it might be serious. Get yourself a bath and a shave and another woman. And then get back to work.’

‘There are no other women. None but her,’ Tony said sourly.

St John sighed. ‘May the good Lord spare me from melodrama. Are we all to suffer for your broken heart? Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Wellford was miles above you, in case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t see why—’

‘How did you know?’ Tony demanded.

‘Let me see.’ St John tapped his chin. ‘Perhaps it is because I am a spy, you moron. I set you to watch her. You were nervous when I suggested it. You have been distraught since the moment the project was completed. And you look like a gaffed flounder whenever I mention her name. As I was saying, the Dowager Duchess? I am most relieved to find that she had no part in any of this. She is a lovely girl. A favourite of my wife’s. What I’d have told Esme if I’d had her friend arrested for treason, I cannot say. And they are both quite angry with me for my part in this, although I expect to find forgiveness in time.

‘Tony…’ his tone became quiet and sympathetic ‘…Constance is charming, pleasant and totally out of your league. Far be it from me to let the cold light of day into your tragic fancy. While you have enough money to support a wife and a brood of little Smythes in sufficient comfort, I would suggest you choose a woman who is not a renowned beauty, accustomed to a thirty-room mansion and a coronet. Unless you wish to spend the rest of your life tossing furniture against the walls of a darkened room.’

Tony sat on the floor, trying not to notice the shambles he’d made of his life. He’d held on to the dream for so long that it had seemed quite natural, when the moment came, to have Connie fall eagerly into his arms. He’d had no trouble believing what he’d wanted to believe, that there was much more to it than there actually had been. He’d been a glamorous diversion, and an answer to so many of her problems, that she had succumbed to temptation, only to regret it later.

Perhaps, if he had taken time to court her, instead of simply seducing her, she’d have taken the whole thing more seriously. Perhaps not. It was a bit late to un-ring that particular bell.

And now Stanton was staring at him, waiting for a response. If he did not think of her, or the last few weeks, or any of the foolish assumptions he’d had over the last thirteen years…If he could focus on the task immediately in front of him, he would be able to move forwards, and put some space between himself and the whole situation.

He pulled himself up to his feet, leaning on the corner of the mantel. He could feel the brandy still fogging his brain and muffling the sound of his last argument with Constance, as it echoed endlessly in his head. Perhaps, if he had something to do with his time and kept very busy, he could ignore it all together.

Perhaps he would fall off an ivy trellis or out of a window somewhere and never have to think of anything again. But he could not stay locked up in his rooms, alone with the knowledge that the dream that had sustained him for many lonely years was over.

He brushed imaginary dust from his stained shirt, and lifted a stubbled chin to his guest. ‘Very well, then. I’ve made an ass of myself, and you have seen it. But the worst of it is over, I think. If you still wish to employ me, then give me time to bathe, shave and change. And then tell me what you want taken.’

St John smiled as if nothing unusual had occurred. ‘Good man.’


‘Susan, you know I don’t take milk in my tea.’

Her maid looked at her with guilty eyes. ‘I thought perhaps, your Grace, you might wish to try something more fortifying. Now that autumn is here, I mean. It wouldn’t do to take a chill.’

‘Fortifying.’ She looked at the tea. It was wretched stuff, but Susan was right. It was probably more nourishing. She took a sip.

Susan added, ‘If you are not feeling well, your Grace, there is a lady in Cheapside that sells certain herbs. And when brewed up in a tea, these tend to clear up the sort of malady that you might be coming down with.’

‘No!’ Her hand went instinctively to cover her belly. She relaxed. ‘I am sorry, Susan. I did not mean to shout so. You were right the first time to put milk in my tea. No matter how I might complain, it is good for me. And perhaps an egg and a bit of dry toast. Could you bring it to my room? I do not feel like going downstairs until I am sure that I will not be sick.’

There was no point in pretending any more with Susan, who knew her cycle almost as well as she did herself. She was two months gone with child.

‘Very good, your Grace. But…’ Susan left the statement open. She dare not ask the question, but she wanted an answer, all the same. Something must be done. They must leave London and retire quietly to the country where she could have the babe in secret. Or she must take the herbs and end it.

‘Please, Susan. A little breakfast, perhaps.’

‘Very good, your Grace.’

Her maid left the room, and she turned to the window, staring out into the garden. The trellis below her was bare, and she could see that it had been as if she had installed a ladder to her bedroom window. The garden gate and wall were still an easy climb, although the garden had less cover than when it had been in full bloom.