Wicked (21 page)

"Papa had made previous arrangements with Lord Elgin, for which I'm very grateful. Otherwise his collection might have been completely dispersed."

"Did you know Elgin's recently been named minister to Constantinople? I must speak of your father's collection to him when he stops at Lisbon on his way to the Turkish court. Tell me what else your father particularly cherished."

Serena spoke at some length then of the various gems in her father's library while Beau drank his way through half a bottle of brandy. Emma found the intimate mise en scene before her eyes more intriguing than the best Sheridan play of the season. Beau had the look of a fond lover, his barely restrained partiality for the beautiful Miss Blythe a decided reversal of his normal insouciant disregard. Emma had seen him holding up enough columns at numerous balls, bored, indifferent, ignoring all the flirtatious female glances, to know that Sinjin's eldest son had found a woman beyond the ordinary.

He stood finally and said, "It's getting late," in the merest undertone, but Serena heard him immediately and graciously excused herself from Da
m
ien, came across the room, took his hand, and softly apologized, the last phrases unintelligible except to her lover.

His smile could have warmed the sun or cheered the lost souls in purgatory, and turning, he bowed to Emma and his uncle. "Thank you for your hospitality," he said. "An evening with family is always pleasant."

"Yes, thank you indeed," Serena sweetly added, her small hand dwarfed in Beau's grip. "I enjoyed myself enormously."

"Come again, if you stay in Lisbon," Emma said. "Damien is most happy talking of his antiquities."

"We're leaving soon," Beau quickly replied.

Serena looked up at him, her thoughts on her paints.

"After we find some paints for Serena," he added, squeezing her hand.

"Can you read my mind?" she whispered.

"I'm learning," he murmured, smiling. "Can you read mine?"

She flushed cherry red and he softly laughed. "Excuse us," he apologized, turning to his uncle and Emma. "A private jest."

******************

"He's in love with that girl," Emma said with conviction, the moment the carriage rolled away from the embassy door. "Like an ardent young boy; I never thought I'd see the day."

"You're too romantical, darling," Da
m
ien calmly replied, more familiar with Beau's lifestyle. He'd also seen Sinjin's single-minded pursuit of beautiful women often enough in the past to understand the difference between sexual attraction and love. "I agree Miss Blythe has charmed him, but he's very much like his father."

"My point exactly."

"Sinjin wasn't this young when he fe
l
l in
l
ove."

"Many are married much younger."

"Perhaps you're right," he politely acceded, not inclined to argue such an unlikely possibility as Beau's marriage. "I'd enjoy it if they came to dinner again before they sailed. Miss Blythe's fluent in the ancient languages and she knew more than I of the excavations at Pompeii. That in itself," he added, smiling down at Emma, "makes her a decided bluestockin
g
—
n
ot Beau's usual style."

"Nor is his usual style impoverished females making their own way in the world.
You
didn't see him watch her all the while she was conversing with you. She piques his interest like none of the polished society belles."

"Perhaps he's at loose ends, between affairs. Her company might be amenable on his long voyage."

"Really, Damien," Emma reproved with a snort of incredulity. "He's
always
at loose ends, between affairs. The boy doesn't know the meaning of permanence in a relationship. As for company on his long voyage, could you see him accommodating the Duchess of
W
illbrook or Baroness Grothier on a lengthy sea journey? He'd heave either one of them overboard before the week's end."

"I'm sorry to say, Helene wouldn't last
that
long on my yacht. Nor Cecilia. Both women are too empty-headed."

"But they both have bosoms of celebrated grandeur and very passionate natures, I'm told," Emma gently noted. "This one's different, you must admit."

"She has additional qualities beyond his usual requirements, you mean."

"Obviously. Miss Blythe has a mind, darling. And that's why he's so intrigued. It's a novelty for him."

"I'm not so sure he's looking for intellectual qualities in a woman."

"That may be, but he may find he likes it nonetheless."

The statement conjured up visions of Damien's beautiful Dresden doll wife in both their minds. "I hope you're right, darling," Da
m
ien softly said, the emptiness of his own marriage nothing he'd wish on his nephew. "Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to mention Miss Blythe to Sinjin. He and the boy are close."

"It can't hurt, surely," Emma quietly said.

"Da
m
ien gave you something to deliver?" Serena asked, her gaze on the two packets of letters tossed on the carriage seat opposite them.

"I'm to convey the Foreign Office's assessment of the Second Coalition to the British consuls at Minorca and Palermo." Austrian selfishness had British Prime Minister Pitt trying to decide whether he should abandon the Haps-burgs and carry on the war with only Russia as an ally. Although Czar Paul was so angry with Austria he was threatening to withdraw his troops completely. "We'U reach both ports before Da
m
ien's normal message transports."

"Do you have to worry abou
t
. . . wel
l
. . . someone seeing them?" Serena was wondering whether such important ministerial information should be so casually handled.

"Everything of import is coded." Beau shrugged lightly. "I've delivered things before. It's nothing." He didn't say the
Siren
had sailed between England and the French coast twenty-eight times in the last few years in the service of the government. "Now I need a kiss for all my patience while you and Damien were so absorbed in his collection," he said, intent on changing the subject, gratified to have Serena to himself again.

"You should have joined us," she said, half rising from the seat to kiss him.

Leaning forward, he met her kiss and then settled back again, with a smile, his lounging pose one of ease, his feet resting on the opposite seat, the planes of his face cast in high relief by the shadowy interior of the carriage. "Emma was filling me in on the newest on-dits in Lisbon while you and Da
m
ien were going through his manuscripts." It was a habit of long standing when he visited; Emma thought him interested in the doings of society and he'd never been ungallant enough to tel
l
her otherwise.

"And what did you learn?"

"Nothing of the least importance. The haut
m
onde is by and large excessively uninteresting."

"And yet you number as one of its most active participants."

"In one area only, darling," he said, his teeth flashing white in a grin. "I rarely dine and never dance."

"Never?"

"Occasionally with Ma
m
an if she insists I attend some tedious drum with the family."

"The flirtatious ladies must grieve," she observed.

"I haven't noticed." Nor would he, surrounded as he was at social occasions by a circle of fawning females. "Do
you
like to dance?"

"Oh yes."

He rather thought she might.

"Although I've danced only at country parties. Papa lost his money before I properly came out."

She was in so many ways unlike all the women he knew, he mused. Disarmingly open, unconcerned with the superfluities of beauty, remarkably unfazed by her lack of wealth, wondrously innocent of all the female pretense and flattery. She was a refreshing intrusion into his life.

"Would you like to go to a party before we leave?" he asked, the notion of watching Serena dance suddenly catching his fancy.

"What kind of a party?" she carefully inquired, not sure she cared to enter the demimonde, certain that in her position as Beau's lover, she wouldn't be welcomed in proper society.

"Something at the embassy. There's always dancing during the evening, and Damien entertains often."

"I can't attend an embassy function," she demurred.

His dark brows rose. "Why not?"

"How exactly would you introduce me?" she sardonically queried. "As your cousin?"

"You
could
have gone to the dressmaker with Emma," he reminded her.

"I didn't know her."

"Well, you do now and she likes you," he matter-of-fact
l
y declared. "I'll have her introduce you as some family connection." His smile appeared. "You might even be able to talk me into dancing with you."

An extravagant offe
r
—
t
he very sweetest of bribes to a woman falling deeply in love.

"Would this be a precedent-setting occasion?" she murmured.

He stared at her for a moment, then smiled. "Definitely." And mildly expensive too.

"You think no one will see you in Lisbon," she teased. "Is that it?"

"You found me out," he lightly retorted, although with ten thousand British troops in Portugal, he knew better. Any of his officer friends attending the embassy ball would be sure to take note of the momentous occasion. His wager in Brook's betting book was of long standing; he'd forfeit five thousand pounds if he danced with a woman before his twenty-fifth birthday. "Now, you have a gown to wear," he went on, "you have an escort
and
a dance partner. You're not apt to meet anyone from your past. How can you refuse?"

She should anyway, Serena thought. The possibility of passing herself off as Emma's relative was not without risks. But the temptation was grea
t
—
a
bona fide ball with distinguished company and all the panoply and glamou
r
she'd only dreamed of before. "I might embarrass you ... or myself," she added, her voice indecisive.

"Are you planning on taking your clothes off?"

"Would that embarrass you?"

"Hardly." He smiled faintly. "You forget my usual amusements."

"You're incorrigible."

"So I've been told," he murmured. "But say you'll go anyway."

She hesitated, her faraway dream no longer a distant fantasy. "Are you sure?" The caution in her tone was overlaid with a piquant excitement.

"I'll tell Da
m
ien tomorrow."

"I shouldn't," she murmured, irresolute still.

"Don't say you're losing your nerve, darling. I wouldn't expect it from a lady who stows away in a lashing storm."

"I was desperate."

"Lucky me," he softly said.

And before they'd arrived back at the hotel, Beau had convinced Serena to jettison her misgivings and let him protect her from any censure. That he was assuming the unique role of gallant as he soothed her qualms never occurred to him.

But then he rarely indulged in introspection and
never
questioned his desires.

Those desires took on a new focus the moment he had Serena alone in their suit
e
—
a
lthough he was careful to gently remove her gown, heedful of its consequence to her, taking the unprecedented precaution of placing the filmy silk garment gently over a chair before returning to more enticing endeavors.

As promised he was zealous in the extreme during the heated hours of the nigh
t
—
p
assionate, solicitous, by degrees tantalizing and demanding, tender, playful, sweetly generou
s
—
u
ntil at last, with the sun bright behind the drawn curtains, Serena gasped, laughing, "Enough . . . enough . . . you're undoubtedly . . . the very bes
t
. . . deares
t
. . . Glory."