Her face must have reflected her thoughts.
“Sit down,” Samuel said in amusement.
His familiar manner reassured her.
She sat, her gaze narrowing on the duke. She had never known a gentleman to play such an enticing game. “A midnight confession,” she said, her voice controlled, her hands trembling. “I admit it. Your Grace has intrigued me.”
He lifted his wineglass to her with mordant cheer. “You’re a captive audience. You belong here now.”
She felt her pulse quicken. She could feel the other guests staring at her. They seemed perfectly normal, if entertaining one’s own staff could be excused for a night. It was anything but the saturnalian revel she had feared, and yet she could not ignore the duke’s last words, the expectancy in the air.
She lifted her chin, her voice faint but clear. “To what exactly do I belong?”
Chapter 26
H
e could have replied,
To me
.
He wanted nothing else but to be her protector, to rekindle the spark that had ignited between them in London. Still, now that he understood why she had been forced to come to him, he would be half a man to take advantage of the refuge he had provided. Lily would have to admit she wanted him on her own. He believed that she did. Pray God he would not ruin his chance by revealing who he was tonight. And that she would not regard him as another spurious male.
He would lose everything if she betrayed him. He needed her trust perhaps even more than she needed his.
He would give anything to keep her here. Since she had come to his house, he had discovered a depth to her that beguiled him. Another woman would have considered taking a domestic position as a step down. Or a complete fall. But Lily had accepted her place with humility. She treated the other servants like friends. She had not allowed her disgrace to steal her dignity.
She was the perfect fit for Samuel, Lord Anonymous, and St. Aldwyn House. He would never find another woman like her. None of the heroines he’d created could compete with Lily for raising tension and excitement.
He smiled at her over the rim of his glass. She looked delicious in that pink gauze dress. He exhaled quietly. Her eyes reflected a good-natured confusion, a cautious willingness to play along with the game.
“Well?” she whispered with an edge of impatience, her shoulder lifting in a shrug that made him wish they were alone. “Out with it. A midnight confession. I could use a little diversion in my life.”
“Welcome to Wickbury, Lily. I can’t tell you how delighted I am that you have become part of our world.”
She stared at him rather stupidly, the other guests erupting into a stream of chatter that went over her head. It took a moment or two for the truth to penetrate her daze. His eyes danced with sheer enjoyment, a look utterly devoid of shame.
“Wickbury,” she said, hearing herself laugh, a reaction to hide her bewilderment, a rush of anxiety.
“I think she knew all along,” Marie-Elaine said softly.
The reverend’s wife threw Lily a sympathetic look. “I didn’t believe it either, when we moved to the parish. It was two years before my husband told me, and only then because he caught me with a certain book. At that point I had to confess my infatuation with the author. I did get a scolding.”
“The author.” Lily rose from her chair, studying Samuel’s face. “You are—”
“Lord Anonymous.” He stood, smiling the beautiful smile that had riveted her the night of the masquerade.
She shook her head, disbelieving. How could she not have guessed? He had dropped more clues than she could count. “You’re—”
He grimaced. “Don’t make me repeat that absurd sobriquet. I didn’t choose it.”
“And everyone accused me of madness,” she said. “I never dreamt it.
Am
I dreaming?” She sat down again, so astonished she barely noticed the other guests and staff covertly leaving the table and exiting the room. She was suddenly alone with Lord Anonymous. Part of his inner circle.
“It’s as if I’ve walked through a mirror,” she said to herself distractedly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, this is the other side of what I saw—or what you wanted to show. Everyone appears the same on the outside, but you were only reflections before.” She could not stop the note of censure that stole into her voice. “You are far deeper than I first perceived.”
“And this upsets you?” he asked with concern.
She frowned at him. “Please give me a little time to decide.”
The candle flames accentuated the deceptive vulnerability of his face. She gazed around him to the empty chairs that the reverend and his wife had occupied. She gasped in realization.
“Oh,”
she said, her eyes lifting to Samuel’s. “You put him up to testing me, tempting me to betray you. How awful of you both.”
“It was his idea.”
“That is no excuse.”
He bowed his head, but Lily was unmoved. “You didn’t betray me,” he said, and looked up at her. “As I recall, you defended me.”
“Yes, not knowing who you actually were. And that you weren’t merely eavesdropping but hoping to entrap me.”
His eyes narrowed in disagreement. “I hoped for the exact opposite.”
Lily wasn’t sure what to make of him. “What would you have done if I had thrown myself at his feet and pleaded for him to save me?”
“That would have been a problem,” he admitted.
“I walked right into your trap,” she said thoughtfully.
He leaned his head to hers. “Walk closer, I implore you.”
“You’re going to knock over the wine,” she whispered, her voice catching. “Your housekeeper would be displeased.”
“Then I shall be careful,” he whispered into her ear. “I want to earn her approval above all else.”
He drew his chair closer to hers and sat. His knee touched hers. She couldn’t move. “What do you make of it? Is it truly a shock?”
“An understatement.”
“Have some wine.”
She took several sips.
“Did that help?” he asked in concern.
She nodded to be agreeable and stared across the table at his hand. She tried to picture his long, gloved fingers grasping a pen, writing the dark stories that had stolen her heart. Instead, all she could envision was his hand stealing down her back. The duke of duality. Was it a shock? She finished the rest of her wine. She didn’t know if it was red or white. She was too dazed to taste the difference. Nor had she set this table.
“I have never been so wrong about anything in my life,” she said without thinking.
He looked worried. “What do you mean?”
“The author of
Wickbury
. You aren’t a woman.”
His laughter rang pleasantly across the room. “I hope you aren’t disappointed.”
She glanced up at his face. “No.”
She didn’t know what she felt. Maybe it was elation, curiosity, most certainly relief.
He said, “You’ll never know how tempted I was to prove myself to you the night of the masquerade.”
She shook her head again. “I was afraid you were going to confess that you were some sort of a warlock.”
“Rather like Sir Renwick Hexworthy?”
“Now that you mention him, yes.”
He regarded her with an intensity that she could not escape. “I remember that you favored him over Wickbury.”
She felt the wine suddenly go to her head. “Of course, neither of them is real.”
His voice dropped to a confidential tone. “They are to me.”
He wasn’t only Lord Anonymous. He was Michael, Lord Wickbury, exiled young earl, the hero too valiant for his own good. He was Sir Renwick Hexworthy, the villain that his lady readers ached to redeem. Longwand. And Lord Wickbury—Broadsword. Of all the conceit. Or was he in fact magically endowed? The series more than hinted at the sexual prowess of both men. Why did she have to think of that now?
Lily released a sigh. So
that
was what Samuel and Bickerstaff had been doing at the cairn last night. The scene had looked familiar because Lily had seen it foreshadowed in his last published novel. How could a woman’s heart not be touched by a scoundrel whose grief had led him on a ruinous path?
Betrayals. Abduction. Secret pacts. Digging up dead sisters. Trapdoors and alchemy. As if being a duke weren’t enough.
Her thoughts tumbled out of control. This man—the writer, that was—had kept her awake with his delicious intrigue for nights on end. And that was before she had even met the rogue. Or rogues. The masked devil in London who had unabashedly tried to seduce her had nothing on the characters he had created. Separately, a lady might have a chance. Combined, their magnetism simply overpowered.
Possibilities intrigued her. She was sipping wine with Sir Renwick. Or at least with the man whose twisted mind had invented all Renwick’s thwarted passion, power lust, and evil machinations.
Come to think of it, the duke and Sir Renwick shared the same physical characteristics—the raven hair, penetrating eyes, the supple physique—and she stopped that line of thought. Her lips firmed. She would
not
ask him what had inspired the code names
Longwand
and
Broadsword
.
She might have to wait until he wrote a chapter on the subject for her alone.
A warlock. Samuel wished it were true. He understood how she had come to that conclusion. His staff and friends had awaited her like a coven about to wage a metaphysical war. All this mystery and melodrama a few minutes before the stroke of twelve. What should she have expected? It was too late to take back his confession. Magic in reverse. He had disenchanted his own housekeeper. She looked as if she was still not convinced.
“I knew there was something,” she murmured as he reached for the wine decanter. “But not this. I saw you and Bickerstaff on the moor, by the way.”
He looked at her. “I know.”
Her full lips gleamed in a smile. “Do I have to take an oath that I won’t tell?”
He gallantly refilled her glass. Her company stirred more than his imagination. “Yes,” he said, lowering the wine decanter to claim her hand. “Do you mind?”
“Of all the things that Chloe said were written about you . . .” Her voice trailed off. “How do you manage to keep it from society?”
“Some people have their suspicions about me,” he said with a languid smile. “There is a journalist who has attempted to bribe Philbert’s wife, of all people. And I’m a perfect example of why you can’t believe everything you’ve read. For example . . . do you think I have bedded half the ladies in London?”
Lily blushed. “Well, if the gossip my cousin shared with me is true, then that estimate is going up at an appalling rate.”
“It shouldn’t go anywhere except in the rubbish bin,” he said with certainty. “I have made up most of those unsavory rumors about myself.”
“You?” She coughed delicately to cover a gasp of relief.
“Yes . . .”
His eyes radiated a playful sensuality that suggested he had enjoyed slandering himself. And that the rumors could not have been all smoke. “Was it really necessary to create your disrepute?”
He lifted his shoulder in a negligent shrug. “At first it was a bit of mischief, but it attracted notice that wasn’t always detrimental to my causes.”
“What causes?”
“This year it was corruption in the clergy and the war loan funds. Last winter we dealt with the low wages of rural laborers.”
“You have friends in London who know?” she asked thoughtfully.
His gaze flickered over her. How arousing to talk to her like this.
“Some of them, such as Philbert and our printer, stand to lose more than I do.”
She lowered her eyes demurely, murmuring, “You might be surprised. The Duke of Gravenhurst is quite an attractive catch. If he were known to be leading another life, his infamy would be irresistible.”
“But then Lord Anonymous would either have to stop writing or withdraw his support for his reforming friends.” He took a pause, so drawn to her unguarded warmth that he could not hide it. “What are your intentions for the morning?”
Lily glanced up, her shoulders gilded in candlelight. “It seems more appropriate to ask what your intentions are for the rest of the night.”
His thumb traced across her knuckles. His hard mouth lifted at one corner. “What I want to know is whether you will pack your bags to escape me the moment we part company.”
“A contract is a contract. I intend to uphold our agreement.”
He felt a shudder at the base of his spine. As naturally as taking his next breath, he moved his hand to her elbow and drew her toward him. “What sort of pact would a poet seal without requesting a kiss?”
She pursed her lips and kissed him primly, her eyes heavy but not closed.
“Trust me, Lily.”
“You have to trust me, too, Your Grace.”
“I’ve promised to protect you.” He forced himself to release her. “I also promised you supper, and perhaps we should have eaten before this conversation.”
She drew a breath. “I think I need to be alone.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I think I am.”
“Then go.”
She rose, darting him an inscrutable look before she turned. It took all his control to stand and act as if the room had not suddenly become an inferno of heat and temptation. Lily would have the rest of the night to reflect on what he had told her. He would stew in his own juices.
But as she had reminded him, a contract was a contract. The law bound them to each other for one year. And yet this illusion of power gave him little pleasure as he watched her retreat. He wanted Lily to reciprocate his attraction, to find him as irresistible as he did her.
Lily walked alone through the hall, stepping through the arrows of moonlight that pierced the tall windows. The statues above observed her flight.