Authors: Jo Beverley
He turned her to face the mirror and truly, she would not have recognized herself. The gaudy creature looked brazen, wild, and ripely sensuous.
He put down something in his hand, stepped in front of her, and took her chin. “Your brows need to be darker.” She felt something stroke there. Then it pressed on her cheek. “A beauty spot.”
He picked up something and offered it. “For the lips. Even under the veil it will have effect.”
Cressida took off the veil and drew the deep red cream over her lips. It was grotesque, but that didn’t matter in this game. When she put the veil on again, those scarlet lips lurked indecently.
She looked up to see him using the black stick to draw a curling mustache above his lips.
“Why not use the false one?”
“We don’t want anything to remind Crofton of Le Corbeau. There.”
He stood beside her, and the mirror showed a matched pair—bold and patently false. Creatures who would exist for only a brief time, but that time could be magical fun.
But then he said, “The drawers will have to go.”
She stepped away from him. “Impossible!”
“I can see them. No woman who attends an event in that costume would wear drawers.”
She looked at his trousers. They were looser than hers, and she couldn’t tell if he was wearing anything underneath them.
“No, I’m not.”
That made her blush, but this was a challenge now. “Go away.”
When alone, she stripped off the trousers, then, with a breath, took off her drawers and stockings. As fast as possible, she pulled the trousers back on and tied the drawstring. At least they were a little looser.
She turned to the mirror. She couldn’t see any great difference, but she
knew
. The silk slithered against her bare skin and brushed between her legs in an outrageous place. No wonder women had been reluctant to wear drawers for so long!
She turned this way and that, gathering resolve. Then, back straight, chin up, she opened the door.
He was waiting, and he came back in, very obviously
not
smiling. “Much better, and you’ll get used to it. But keep by me at all times tonight, or I cannot guarantee your safety looking like that.”
Her heart did an excited, terrified dance. Was she really so dangerously attractive? “What about safety from you, sir?”
“Perhaps I should give you my dagger.”
Something in his eyes warned her that this might not entirely be a game. “Am I in danger from you?”
For once he seemed serious. “No, but if you have any mercy in you, Miss Mandeville, don’t play with fire.”
Ah. That should be warning, but it felt more like temptation…
“Right,” he said briskly. “Can you go through with it?”
Cressida pulled back from a brink and turned to look in the mirror again. This felt very like the moment when she’d had to decide whether she could accept Lord Crofton’s bargain. The situation, the necessity, had not changed, and the dangers were much less.
She met his eyes in the reflection. “I can.”
“Bravo. We’ll stay in costume for dinner, then set off. It will take about two hours to reach Stokeley.”
Dinner was a pleasant, informal meal in her room, with Cary Lyne to preserve sanity. They talked of common topics—of the cool spring and poor harvest, the royal marriages, the state of Europe. Which led to talk of travel. The two men had traveled together last year.
They drew her out to talk of Matlock and of her experiences in London, but Cressida had little to offer in comparison to them, and she was not accustomed to the casual company of men. She preferred to be the listener.
Then St. Raven provided her with a cloak, and they slipped down the stairs and out to a waiting coach. She was surprised when Mr. Lyne joined them. Did St. Raven feel in need of a chaperon? Oh, she did hope so. Delicious to be a temptation just for once.
Talk started with carriages and moved on to travel again.
St. Raven was the sort of traveler who liked to get to know the people of a country. He complained that once he’d become duke it was harder to stay in small inns and talk to the local people, even if he traveled as Tris Tregallows.
“English travelers are everywhere these days,” he complained, swaying easily with the speeding coach. “I’ve met them in tiny inns in Charente and on snowy passes in the Alps. They then gossiped of me to their local acquaintances, and the next thing, I had a pressing invitation to stay at a schloss or chateau with a ball being held in my honor.”
“All too true,” said Mr. Lyne with an irreverent laugh.
“I took to using another name, but I still met people who recognized me. And then, of course, I felt ridiculous.”
Cressida wasn’t inclined to be sorry for him. “I wouldn’t mind staying at a schloss or chateau.”
“Then you should come traveling with me one day.”
Longing burned in her like a brand, but she laughed. “Not,” she said again, “without vows and a ring.”
She heard Mr. Lyne laugh.
“You tempt me,” St. Raven responded, but she could see the tease.
“You must know the Peak District well, Miss Mandeville,” Mr. Lyne said, and talk moved smoothly on.
She learned that St. Raven was a patron of the arts. He dismissed it as an indulgence, and when she protested that, he claimed it a duty. She thought his energetic, restless mind reveled in the company of painters, poets, musicians, and actors.
She’d already let slip a desire to travel with him. She kept to herself the pull of “dutiful” indulgence in the arts. To have her own quartet, however. To support artists and poets whose work she admired. To see young artists blossom because of her care!
Ah, there was a prospect to enchant.
Then the coach slowed.
She looked out of the window and recognized the small village that lay a half mile from Stokeley Manor. Nearly two hours had passed with her scarcely noticing them.
She longed to command that they drive past the gates, that they carry on into the night in this pleasant companionship. But that voyage was at an end, and she was here to get the statue, or at least the jewels.
And then they would forever part.
Lyne pulled out a silver watch and flicked it open. “Almost two hours to the dot. Well guessed, Tris.”
“Accurate estimation,” St. Raven corrected, looking out of the window at the moonlit scenery. Was he regretful, too?
Soon the road carried them through fields, and then through trees—the trees around Stokeley. She’d always felt they gave the house a secretive, concealed atmosphere. She’d never much cared for Stokeley and wouldn’t regret its loss except for the money it represented and the jewels in the statue.
The road followed the low wall around the estate, and she knew a break in the trees would soon reveal the house.
“It’s on fire!” she exclaimed.
St. Raven leaned across her to look out, but then he relaxed. “Theatrical effect. Thin cloth streaked like flames and hung in some of the windows.”
He settled back into his place. “Now we know Crofton’s theme for the night, however. Welcome to hell, Miss Mandeville.”
Their coach stopped, and for a moment it seemed a direct response to his words. Then Cressida realized that there was a queue of carriages. “Such a line waiting at the gates of hell,” she remarked.
“But, of course. Doesn’t Satan have the monopoly on all the most amusing occupations? Is there an inn in that village we just passed?”
She bit back an argument. “The Lamb.”
“Then let’s get out here.” He gave the command to let them down. “We’ll summon the coach when we’re ready, Cary.”
“Right you are.”
St. Raven opened the door before the groom reached it and climbed down. Then he turned to grasp Cressida at the waist, to swing her through air to earth…
She shivered. “The breeze is quite cool, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t the summer night, however, but his touch and her inadequate clothing that unsteadied her. She’d never been outdoors in such flimsy covering, not even on the hottest summer day.
Or perhaps it was the shouts, chatter, and even screams from the waiting carriages. Screams of laughter, she hoped.
St. Raven wrapped an arm around her and drew her past the raucous carriages toward the gates. Her pulse fluttered with nerves for a dozen different reasons, but by his sandalwood side, she felt that nothing could harm her, nothing could go wrong. Tonight, he was Great Suleiman and she was Roxelana. They would play their parts in this wild company, find the statuette, take out the gems, and leave.
Tomorrow she would be home again, her mission accomplished. But she would carry extraordinary memories with her, perhaps to record in a secret journal— memories of a scandalous evening in the company of this delightfully scandalous man.
And he
was
scandalous. As they strolled past the line of carriages, he was recognized. Women hung out of windows to issue blatant invitations, and were dragged back by complaining men.
“What charming friends you have, sir,” she remarked after one raucous woman nearly fell out of the window.
“Don’t nag, or I’ll send you back among the houris.”
One was supposed to act the part at a masquerade, so Cressida held her tongue. Keeping to her role would help avoid a revealing slip, and they’d decided she would put on a foreign accent to disguise her voice.
She used it now, trying for something guttural and German. “At least there would be no drunkenness in a harem, Great Suleiman.”
“But all kinds of interesting drugs, I gather.”
“St. Raven, by Hades!”
A fat red-faced man poked his head out of his carriage window. “Swap partners, St. Raven, there’s a good fellow! Give you a monkey.”
He was dressed as Henry VIII, and looked the part too well.
“Not this early in the game, Pugh.”
St. Raven drew Cressida on. They could see the open door of Stokeley Manor now, and it was beginning to look like a haven despite the hellfire effect.
Henry VIII was yelling offers after them. “
A thousand, St. Raven. Come on, man! Slap me vitals, look at the tasty rump on the wench
!”
Cressida froze, but a strong arm forced her on. Heat rushed over every inch of her overexposed skin, and she wanted to go back and pull the stupid man’s flat hat down over his stupid ears!
“There’ll be more of that sort of thing. Ignore it.”
“Ignore—?”
“Yes.” It was a command, and she realized they were close to the throng of people spilling out of carriages and into the house. “It is, after all, very flattering, nymph.”
“I have absolutely no desire to be flattered about my posterior!”
In the red-tinged light from the house, his eyes laughed flames at her. “Then make sure to always face the enemy.”
He swept her forward, and she didn’t resist. This was her enterprise, it was important, and she had insisted on attending. Her reasons had been valid, but she had also been spurred by curiosity. She’d expected—anticipated—shock and scandal, and now she had it.
The scene near the open door was a good start. The paneled entrance hall must be full of red lamps to give such an infernal impression. Carriages disgorged fanciful creatures who rushed into the flames.
Thank heavens this had never been a true home to her and her family. To see it desecrated like this would be agony.
At the open door they tangled with a devil with a curly tail, a man in a toga, a nun, and a woman whose red costume she could not decipher. They greeted St. Raven as intimates and eyed her curiously.
The men were doubtless gentlemen by status if not by nature, and the women were not ladies in any sense of the word. Cressida remembered saying that she’d rather be a nun, but this nun’s black habit was open at the front from the waist down, and she certainly wasn’t wearing drawers.
The other woman’s tight red dress was slit in at least four places, showing plump bare legs as she walked. Her large breasts were covered only by a wisp of veiling.
Cressida tore her eyes away, then froze at the sight of Lord Crofton welcoming his guests. He, too, was dressed as a devil, but he wore no mask. He leered at the daring lady, then snatched the veiling from her breasts. The woman shrieked.
Crofton swung her around so she was in his arms, back to him, and put his hands under her breasts, thrusting them up. The tips were painted as scarlet as Cressida’s lips.
“Now, here’s a fine welcome,” Crofton called. “Come in, come in, and kiss hell’s tits!”
Cressida’s breath stopped. She couldn’t ignore such a cruel assault.
St. Raven’s arm tightened. “It’s Miranda Coop,” he murmured in her ear. “Very much a professional.”
She surrendered but watched, appalled, as St. Raven cradled the woman’s right breast and kissed the upper swell. “Adorable as always, Miranda,” he murmured.
The whore purred.
Those behind were pushing forward, the men eager to pay Crofton’s fee for admission. Then a woman in a clinging black gown and tiara of stars took up the invitation. Mistress Coop slapped her so hard her tiara flew off, and in moments they were at one another’s throats.
Crofton and some other men lunged to control them.
“Rather them than me. Trust Violet Vane to cause a riot.” St. Raven steered them away from the screaming melee. Cressida twisted to look back, but he forced her onward.
The entrance hall wasn’t large, and the yells and shrieks made Cressida want to clap her hands over her ears. Sounds of the fight had other guests pouring out of nearby rooms, assailing her with more din and stink, and crushing her between St. Raven and a bony man in a Harlequin costume.
Someone squeezed her bottom!
She jabbed back with her elbow as hard as she could, delighted to feel it connect. St. Raven laughed and switched so he was between her and the worst of the crush. They popped into a haven of space at the base of the wide, dogleg stairs.
St. Raven blew out a breath. “All right?”
“Of course.”
And she was. Out of the press, she wanted to laugh at it all. It was as fascinating as a menagerie.
She ran up three steps to get a better view of the scene. The women were in the grasp of a couple of men each, but were still screaming at each other and trying to get back to the fight. The woman in black was bare breasted now, too, and her pointy nipples were as red. Did all whores do that?