A Touch of Sin (20 page)

Pasha placed his hands on the chair arms and after the smallest hesitation, pushed himself to his feet. "She'd better be damned entertaining."

They were escorted to the baroness's boudoir by a tall, stalwart footman, the baroness's penchant for large men, including those on her staff, well known.

"Charles! Pasha! Do come in." Arrayed in a ruffled pink mousseline dressing gown that made her look resplendently female, she waved from a chaise. "Claude, bring some more champagne." Her gaze flickered from her footman back to her visitors. "Would you like a late snack as well?" she inquired with the air of a gracious hostess.

Charles declined for both of them.

"Then come see my new pillow book," she offered, a seductive undertone to her voice. She was the petite, perfumed, provocative archetype much in vogue in fashionable society. And pale blond like cool frost. "Pouchat just delivered it today. The illustrations are quite good." A young, childless widow, Caroline Lacelles was making up for lost time now that her elderly husband had conveniently died. "When you didn't come tonight, I thought the Princess Catulania may have seduced you instead."

"Pasha was in the mood to drink. We've been at the Jockey Club," Charles replied, walking toward her across her rose carpet.

"How convenient," she cheerfully said. "But how sullen you look, dear Pasha," she archly noted, her downy brows delicately raised, her rosebud mouth posed in a delicate moue. "I hear you're lovesick."

Pasha stopped midstride as though he'd been struck, his gaze cool enough to put the fear of God in most people. "You're an undeniable bitch, Caroline." His voice was emotionless, little more than a whisper.

"Come, come, Pasha, it's not a cardinal sin," she sweetly purred, unintimidated by any of her lovers. "You're
allowed
to be lovesick."

"If you're looking for someone to whip you tonight," Pasha blandly declared, his composure restored, "I'd oblige you without the goading." He moved toward the large chair she'd had made especially for him.

"If you don't want to talk about the pretty Englishwoman you
rescued
," she murmured, her emphasis deliberate, "just say so."

"I don't, no more than you wish to discuss your husband."

Her expression instantly altered, the brittle gaiety wiped away. "Touché, darling," she quietly said. "We'll talk of more agreeable things." Married at sixteen to an aging libertine and
roué with two deceased wives and grandchildren older than herself, she had not found the last eight years of her life pleasant.

"Pasha is off to Greece shortly to see to Gustave's rescue," Charles interposed, shifting the conversation.

"Poor Gustave," Caroline sympathetically responded. "Can you save him?"

"I can't, but Charles can," Pasha replied, dropping into the soft cushioned chair covered in an elegant rose du Barry leather.

"While you'll shoot Turks and save Greece," she said with a smile.

"I wish it were that easy. No matter how many you shoot, the sultan sends more. I don't suppose you have any cognac." Pasha slid down on his spine, disgruntled, discontent, his moodiness only adding to his sensual appeal. He looked elegant in evening rig, his diamond studs twinkling as he restlessly shifted his large body and recrossed his sprawled legs.

"Claude will bring you some. Should I read to you?" Caroline raised the small brocade-covered book. "It seems we all need some distraction."

Pasha didn't answer, his gaze focused on the toes of his evening shoes, but Charles obliged and Caroline began the story of a young man being instructed in the arts of love by his father's concubine.

Interrupted briefly by the footman with the champagne, Caroline directed him to bring Pasha cognac. Once their glasses were filled and the servant had departed, she resumed her narrative.

Charles, seated closest to the baroness, viewed the salacious illustrations, making observations that occasionally drew Pasha's interest. But once his bottle of cognac had been delivered, Pasha spoke only when directly addressed. By the end of the first adventure in the pillow book, Caroline had discarded her dressing gown and, provocatively arrayed in a tightly laced pink satin corset, sheer black chemise, and black silk stockings, she read with a new huskiness in her voice.

When she reached the section in which fellatio was being performed on the young man in the story, she closed the book. "That's enough for a time," she murmured. "I prefer the real thing to these color prints. Should I see what I can do about bringing your fine cocks to attention?" Her heated gaze drifted over the men's groins.

"I can't imagine refusing such an offer," Charles softly replied.

"Are you awake, Pasha, or should Charles and I go on without you?"

Pasha looked up. "I'll wait."

Charles and the baroness exchanged a glance but Pasha had already closed his eyes, his thoughts distant from the silken boudoir.

Before long, however, he set his glass aside and rose from his chair, his gaze surveying the couple who had moved to the lady's bed to continue their amorous pursuits. The heated scene elicited no expression, his dark eyes blank; without a word, he turned away and exited the room.

The sun was rising as he left the house, the dawn stillness like the emptiness he felt inside. Drink didn't help, nor did the company of others. He recalled the sunrises at Burleigh House, the light shining through the second-floor windows, gilding Trixi's small room in a shimmering glow. Her waking smile putting the glorious beauty of the sun to shame.

He missed her.

When he shouldn't.

When he'd never missed any woman before.

Only her smile, the sound of her voice, her presence would cure his debilitating sense of loss. But that cure would entail marriage—how could he offer her less? And he wasn't prepared to sacrifice his independence regardless his misery.

He swore at his cheerless lack of choices.

Thank God he was leaving for Greece soon.

The hearing was brief—exceedingly brief. Clouet was furious when circumstances of the will's concealment were revealed. He said five minutes into the hearing, "Monsieurs Clouard, the young grandnephew of yours will be given his inheritance or you'll be spending time in prison." Glaring down the Clouards' lawyer, who attempted to speak, he went on. "And if these provisions aren't immediately executed, I shall institute a sizable fine. The court finds in favor of the plaintiff. Case dismissed. Good day, gentlemen."

Jerome Clouard stormed out of the chambers, Phillipe running to keep pace with him. "We leave for England tonight," the larger man snarled. "That boy will disappear and Clouet can go hang himself."
⁵

"I'm not sure that's wise," Phillipe countered.

"But then I didn't ask for your advice," Jerome growled. "You stay here. If you're squeamish, I'd prefer you not come along."

"It's only money. Not worth a life."

"It's a helluva
lot
of money." Jerome's truculence would not be abated. "So the boy disappears. If he happens to die later in some foster home, we'll be none the wiser."

"Foster care, now that's better," Phillipe said with a modicum of relief. The number of unwanted children in foster care was legion, and condoned by a society that regarded illegitimacy as more wicked than the ruthless abandonment of young children to indifference and death. "What of the mother? Surely she'll have Duras on her side."

"The Grosvenors can take care of her. I'm not concerned what they do. Only the boy inherits. He's our problem."

Two days later, on the same morning Pasha embarked from Marseille for the Greek port of Nauplia, Ordie opened the door to a group of men. Harry Grosvenor, looking grim, had brought the bailiff with him and two other men, one tall and menacing, the other a pudding of a man who wouldn't meet her gaze.

"Tell your mistress we're here to see her," the bailiff Archie Prine said, a note of apology in his voice.

"Immediately!" Harry Grosvenor curtly added, pushing past Mrs. Orde.

Archie in turn was brushed aside by the taller man, who barged into the foyer behind Harry.

"I have me orders, Mrs. Orde," the bailiff murmured, showing the housekeeper an official-looking document. "From Judge Benson." His face flushed in embarrassment. "You'd best find Lady Grosvenor."

Mrs. Orde's heart skipped a beat as she stepped back; Judge Benson was known for his cruelty. He'd sent two poachers to the gallows last year, regardless that the men were taking game for their starving families. And he endorsed the use of mantraps by the gentry, even though the hue and cry against them was gaining increasing sympathy in parliament.

Leaving the men standing in the entrance hall, she hurried to warn Trixi. On entering the playroom, where Trixi and Chris were reading together, she said, "It's Lord Grosvenor, with Archie this time. I'll read to Chris while you talk to them." But despite her effort to conceal the danger from Chris, her expression mirrored her fear.

"Just two?" Trixi asked, keeping her tone moderate.

"Four. A shame Mr. Pasha is gone."

"He can't be here for every unexpected visitor in my life," Trixi casually said, not wishing to alarm her son. "I'll be back shortly, Chris. Show Ordie how well you can read the pages on the medieval knights in your new book."

"They could fight by the time they were twelve, Ordie," the young boy said, a level of awe in his voice. "And look at the size of their swords! It takes two hands to lift them!"

Relieved Chris had taken no notice of Ordie's apprehension, Trixi left her housekeeper and son in the playroom and, bracing herself with a multitude of maxims having to do with pluck and self-reliance, she squared her shoulders, shuttered her gaze, and descended the stairs to face the four men standing in her entrance hall.

"We've come for the boy," Harry Grosvenor said. His eyes gleamed with brutality, as did those of Jerome and Phillipe Clouard beside him.

She stopped in midstep, her grip on the railing turning her knuckles white. "He's mine. You can't take him." Her heart beat so hard, she could hear the echo through her chest wall.

"The Clouards have come to claim him," Harry repudiated, triumph in his assertion.

"I have a lawyer. You can't do this. I'll fight you."

"Judge Benson has signed the order. Bring us the boy," Harry viciously said, "or we'll go and
get
him."

She felt faint for a second. How could the law be so cruel? "He's only four."

"Get him," Jerome ordered.

The man's voice was so cold, it shocked her, brought a fresh rush of adrenaline to her senses, and her mind began to race, sorting through options. "How can you bodily remove him from his home? I can't believe that's possible."

"Tell her, Prine," Harry Grosvenor commanded.

"Beggin' your pardon, ma'am," Archie said, regret in every syllable, "but I'm here to see that the judge's orders are followed."

She had to breathe deeply several times before she was able to speak, the horror of what was about to happen to her son overwhelming her. "Where are you taking him, Archie?"

"To Dover, ma'am, for the passage to France."