Wicked Becomes You (24 page)

“All right,” he said, and she realized she’d been holding her breath. “We can speak freely.” He looked down at her at the precise moment that she looked up, away from his body to his face.

His eyes narrowed slightly. That was the only sign of his sudden realization that they stood so close. His mind had been elsewhere. Now it was only on her.

A wistful thought slipped free.
If only he—

No
. She slammed shut the window through which the beginning of this wish had strayed.

She drew a breath that felt, and sounded, unsteady. “So . . .”

His hands lifted very slowly. His thumb touched her upper arm. It traced the bare skin, drawing a circle, light but for the slight scrape of his nail. The other moved to her hair, plucking out one hairpin, and then another. A lock of her hair tumbled past her temple. He caught it up, drawing it through his fingers, from root to tip.

The breath left her on one long, sibilant rush. “There are no spy holes,” she whispered. “Not here.”

“We’ll have to put on a good act outside. And practice makes perfect.” His warm fingers cupped her elbows, forming a light vise that he tested, his grip tightening slightly. “Shall we practice?”

She swallowed and stepped back. Her shoulder blades hit a shelf. “Not like this.”

He followed her. “Not like what?”

“Like . . . like you mean it,” she mumbled. She felt a blush start up her throat.

“But I do mean it,” he said with a faint smile. “That was never in doubt, Gwen.”

She glanced away from his expression, fighting the urge to take hope from that statement. She was
done
with wrestling flattery from his obscurities. She looked away from his face, to his throat; unlike his eyes, it did not have the ability to look back, to study her so closely that she felt flustered and infuriated and manipulated but also peculiarly exposed. “I suppose animal lust is not extraordinary.”

“Certainly not,” he said. As his head bent, his hair brushed her chin. With his lips pressed to her throat, he breathed deeply, as if the scent of her was enough to lure him, to turn his voice to a low, rough pitch as he said, “But animal lust is also very easily contained. This, on the other hand . . .” The tip of his tongue touched her. Her eyes closed of their own volition.

“I think we might call it resonance,” he murmured.

“Resonance.” She meant to sound scathing, but the word was too breathy, and it tipped up at the end like a question.

“Every object vibrates at a particular and specific frequency.” He dragged his mouth up to her jaw, and she felt, briefly, the edge of his teeth. Into her ear he said, “Place two of a kind side by side, and the first, if vibrating, will force the other to vibrate alongside it. I slept last night, the whole night, for the first time in six months. Did you?”

She fought for composure. It was true that when he was near, she felt attuned to him in every cell. But what was he implying? That their natures were the same? If he’d believed that, why would he have refused her? Why would he have any care for her virtue?

She averted her face. “I could not sleep for hours,” she said to the wall. “I am done being toyed with, Alex. You made yourself quite clear last night. I am Richard’s little sister to you. And while you play the rebel very well, you certainly sounded most conventional when refusing me.” She manufactured a short laugh. “Indeed, I’ve no idea why I’m surprised. You may criticize our rude, fat MPs all you like, but it was their work that opened the trade routes to your ships, wasn’t it? Why, even your rebellion suits our government. I’m sure you pay a fortune in taxes. You’re far more boring than you realize.”

He surprised her by laughing low in his throat, the warmth coasting over the skin of her temple. “A very neat set down,” he said. “Do try not to flash your intelligence at Barrington. He won’t expect it of the Barbary Queen.”

She twisted away from him and made a face. “So we do mean to stay here, then?”

“We can always visit from Cannes.” His light touch at her waist made her startle. “Shh,” he said. “Just getting you comfortably into the role. Can’t have you flinching when I touch you in public.” After a pause, he said, “The blush is beautiful, though. I would regret to see you lose that.”

She stared very hard at a hook set into the wall.
Focus
. “But what would be the point of staying so far away? Your aim is to gather information. It’s most easily done here.”

He traced a circle on her hip. This time, to her pride, she successfully denied any outward response to the touch, although inside, oh—low in her belly, in her fluttering chest, in the places he had taken and soothed last night—she was dissolving.

He spoke. “I don’t appreciate being spied on. That’s the point.”

She choked on a surprised laugh—and then, when he lifted a brow, she said simply, “The irony, Alex.”

After a moment, he smiled as well. “Touché. I suppose hypocrisy is the name of this game as well.”

“Then I should be good at it.” She paused. His hand still covered her hip, but when she focused all her attention on the task, instead of simply allowing her baser senses free reign, she could find it amusing, in an ironic sort of way. “You should be good at it yourself,” she said. “No need to touch me now; I’m done with flinching and gasping.”

His hand tightened on her hip. “Gwen—”

“
Lily
,” she corrected. “We’ll stay. We didn’t come all this way for nothing. And if at night they don’t see . . . well, what they expect to see, then we’ll simply have to pretend that we’ve quarreled. Yes? So we will act very coldly toward one another today.” In that regard, the spy holes were a blessing: she now had an excuse to curl as far away from him as possible. Perhaps even to lie on top of her traitorous hands, which would be sure, otherwise, to stray toward him.

His touch fell away. “I don’t think that’s wise,” he said. “Barrington might see it as an opportunity to make his address to you.”

“I can handle flirtation,” she said. “I’m no green girl. Not
all
men are well behaved in a ballroom.”

“All right,” he said at length. “But only provided this is the last unpleasant surprise we discover. If he proves dangerous—”

“I know,” she said in bored tones. “In your brotherly way, you will insist we leave at once.”

She had the satisfaction of seeing his face go dark before she swept back into the enemy territory of the bedroom.

By the time they had bathed (Gwen requested the tub to be placed in the dressing room) and finished changing out of their traveling clothes, the sun had begun to set and the temperature to drop. Gwen plucked out a pashmina shawl in a beautiful ruby red to wear over her low-necked evening gown to dinner. Alex, in turn, donned full coat tails, and the sight gave her a moment’s mute astonishment. She had not seen him so formally dressed in years. He never attended the parties that called for it—not in her circles, at least.

The look suited him. His jacket was cut to a more form-fitting silhouette than was fashionable in England at present, and it emphasized the sweep of his broad shoulders into his narrow waist, the long, muscled length of his legs.

“We are going to quarrel,” she reminded him. And herself.

He smiled at her, those gorgeous eyes of his dancing. “I’ll warn you,” he said. “I never lose a quarrel.”

“Ah, but you’ve never quarreled with me,” she parried. “Recall that with a mere smile, I have driven men to turn tail and run. Imagine what I can do if I put my mind to a scowl.”

He flashed her a brief look of evident surprise, then laughed and offered his arm. It occurred to her, a moment later, why he was startled: it was the first time she had ever made a lighthearted joke about her jiltings. She searched herself and found not a lick of wounded hurt to power the remark.

Heart light, she processed downstairs on his arm, and then, per their respective roles tonight, broke away from him to walk ahead into the drawing room.

Inside, a motley crew sat around a low table—six gentlemen crouched over hands of cards, bottles of open liquor at their elbows, bowler hats discarded by their feet. Draped on and around these men were four very young women, three of whom reposed in various states that even at a music hall could be termed as “undress.”

The last lady, a raven-haired beauty who looked to be in her late thirties, was lounging on a nearby sofa, her heeled boots propped atop the arm, her red-and-white striped skirts frothing at her knees. Her posture left no doubt that she was fully dressed—right down to the scarlet garters holding up her stockings.

Despite her casual posture, she radiated an air of watchful repose, even authority; and this aura was bolstered by the glances sent her way by the younger women as Gwen paused on the carpet. She sat up, giving Gwen a leisurely inspection that slid up her lavender silk skirt, paused momentarily at her wide belt, and lingered again at the amethyst pendant holding in place the drape of Gwen’s shawl.

By the time their eyes met, the woman’s mouth had slipped sideways into a smile that seemed distinctly unfriendly.

“One of yours?” said a man at the table. “Darling, come here.” He patted his knee.

“No, not one of mine,” said the lady. “I’ve told you, Alessandro, if Veronique doesn’t arrive on time, I’ll play your flute for you.”

Alex’s arrival was announced by the broad hand fitting into the small of Gwen’s back—not to guide her onward, for he applied no pressure, but perhaps simply because he wished to ensure that she stayed upright. “What’s this?” he asked lightly.

His touch recalled her to her purpose. She was not shocked by the sight of garters. Indeed, she wore them herself. “I don’t know,” she said with a bright smile. “But this gentleman has brought a flute, and a flautist is coming to play it for him, so it seems that the company will be musical all around.”

The comment won a weird silence. The dark-haired woman fixed an amazed gaze upon her. Alex made a curious noise, deep in his throat.

She had the sudden feeling that she should be blushing. And then, all at once, she
was
blushing. She tried to paste a saucy smile over it, but the effect apparently looked miserably awkward, for one of the men sat forward, elbows on knees, to inquire with a frown: “I think you’re Miss Goodrick and Mr. de Grey, no?”

“Indeed we are,” Alex said flatly.

The man tweaked his ginger mustache, smoothing it to a fine, sharp tip. “Pardon me, sir. Dinner crowd gathering in the east wing.” His glance shifted to Gwen, and he gave a lopsided grin. “Do come back afterward, if you like—always room for more at the game.”

Gwen grew cognizant, abruptly, that the ratio of ladies to men left something to be desired.

“Will do,” Alex said, and ushered Gwen back into the hallway, where he said in an undertone, “A
flautist
?”

“I know,” she said miserably. “I don’t know what I was thinking. A code word of some sort, I’m sure of it. I doubt that man even
had
a flute with him.”

He drew a strange, strangled breath through his nose. “Darling, perhaps you’d best keep your mouth shut tonight.”

His tone was teasing, rueful, and she almost asked him to explain what she’d missed. And then she saw Barrington step out of the hallway five feet ahead of them. The opportunity was too perfect to resist. “Keep my mouth shut?” she repeated, injecting wounded anger into her voice. “How dare you, Alex. Perhaps I can find someone else here who might admire it better.”

Predictable as clockwork, Barrington spoke. “Ah, mademoiselle, monsieur!” Giving an oily smile to Alex, he added, “Miss Goodrick, I wonder if I might have the honor of escorting you into dinner?”

But by the time the fifth course was served, his dark looks no longer required effort. Indeed, he had dismissed the pretty Italian countess to his right and was probably doing a very good imitation of an obsessed, glowering fanatic. Was Gwen so good an actress, or was her displeasure with him genuine? She looked to be leaning into Barrington’s touches now, and Alex would have been hard-pressed to distinguish her current smiles from those she had given him on the banks of the Seine, the morning after the adventure at Le Chat Noir.

When dinner was concluded and the party transferred outside for a moonlit boating expedition, he pulled Gwen off Barrington’s arm and into the corner with a very showy sulk.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he breathed into her ear.

“Of course,” she whispered back, fixing her brow into a thunderous scowl. “I have asked him about all his acquaintances in London. He claims to know almost nobody; says he prefers the society on the Continent.”

“Dear God,” he muttered, “you are
not
meant to be doing the interrogating. Just—go keep him busy on the lake. I’m going to have a look around the house.”

She drew back very suddenly. “Of course,” she said, coldly and loudly. “I am only a toy to you, no? A very pretty wind-up doll.”

He stared at her, undecided on how to reply. She really was a bit too convincing. Richard had certainly had a flair for drama, which he and Alex had employed to good measure when seeking entertainment during their university days, but he’d never suspected it of Gwen. “Of course not,” he said slowly.

Her frown deepened. “Don’t be stupid,” she said, and he heard the double meaning in it.
Don’t apologize to me right now.

He sketched her a cold bow. “I wish you a good evening, then. I do not think I will join your little boating party.”

“You will not be missed,” she said, and turned on her heel, stalking away.

He went directly to their rooms, sitting by the window until he saw the procession of guests wind out through the garden. Gwen walked arm in arm with Barrington. She tripped, and he pulled her closer as he helped her gain her balance.

Alex drew away from the window.

It was only a charade.

And yet . . . Gwen was out to live wildly; he himself had rebuffed her last night; perhaps she grew curious—

Only a charade, God damn it. He took a deep breath and left the room.

The house was laid out in the shape of a shallow C, the lobby and grand staircase at the middle of the house, with its high domed skylight, scoring the building in half. From the little discussion he’d initiated at dinner, he’d managed to solicit the location of every one of the female guests’ bedrooms. That omitted the entire lower half of the C in which his and Gwen’s rooms were located, and a good deal of the upper as well. He thought it likely that all the bedrooms were in the west, which left the bottom floor of the east, as he’d determined earlier, devoted to public rooms: morning room, drawing room, dining room, gallery.

Upstairs to the east was where he needed to go.

He walked toward the moonlit lobby on silent feet, wanting to check on the party in the less reputable drawing room. The merriment had grown muted; after two minutes’ wait, he counted only three male voices inside. The women he was less concerned about; it seemed that they had been hired to entertain whichever guests found themselves without easy company this evening—and the guards as well, in the meantime.

The lobby and the main staircase were too brightly illuminated, so he retreated back in the direction he had come, until he found a door covered in baize and studded with upholstery nails. He could not disapprove of the spread of all English customs. This one had proved useful to him more than once, when seeking subtler ways through a house. At this hour, with the remains of the feast still littering the dining room, and the guests outside, the servants would be more intent on shifting plates to the scullery than spying on matters abovestairs.

He stepped into the servants’ passage and climbed the stairs silently, then took a right, moving, in darkness, toward the other side of the house. Only once did a noise come from the distance, causing him to freeze. Belatedly he realized the grinding sound came from a dumbwaiter. Someone was sending china down from the dining room.

He let himself out into the main hallway of the east wing. Yes, this part of the house was clearly not meant for public consumption: the floors were covered not in silk runners but in a far cheaper but harder-wearing tapestry, and the walls were bare. The latter sank his spirits. If Barrington did not spend much time here, there might be nothing of interest on the property.

Or perhaps Barrington had the same philosophy as Alex, and lived and traveled lightly, carrying only those items deemed essential—in which case Alex very much hoped that one of these doors opened onto a bedroom or a study.

The doors were locked, which did not stop him. He withdrew from his pocket two of Gwen’s hairpins, and made quick work of the first tumbler. In his time, he’d reluctantly been forced to employ an industrial spy or two; sometimes there was no other way to discover what had happened to a shipment that had gone missing overnight, or a contract suddenly lost just before the documents could be notarized. And a few of these men had spared him an hour’s lesson, here and there. He’d never master the art of breaking glass without a sound, but there were few door locks that could faze him.

The first room was a small library, with no desk or chest of drawers to pique his interest. Nevertheless, he did a dutiful scan of the bookshelves. For a man who preferred his springs in France, Barrington appeared an ardent admirer of his home country. He had over a hundred books on the history of England, its natural habitats and geological history, its flora and fauna.

Alex plucked out one of the books.
A Natural
History of English Sediment
. Christ. Could there have been anything more boring?

On the other hand, Gwen would probably deem this far more interesting than his trade journals. He ran an eye again over the volumes on flora and fauna. He sincerely hoped Barrington stuck to seductive flirtations. If he mentioned anything to do with parkland, Gwen would probably jump on the topic like a kitten on catnip, and the Barbary Queen would make a very odd admirer of landscape architects.

Although he supposed that if anyone could pull off such a Barbary Queen, Gwen could.

The thought was so startling that he proved clumsy in refitting the book into its slot.

The book safely stowed, he stood looking at it. She was a chameleon, wasn’t she? He had always suspected she had potential in her. Had been tempted, even, to tease it out of her, once or twice. Had denied himself the urge because she was Richard’s sister, and her path had been set.

But now her path had changed. And still he hesitated, fickle as a cowardly little debutante, as she’d put it.

No, he thought wryly. She’d never called him cowardly.

He reminded himself of what he’d been thinking so intently last night, as he’d watched her stir so sweetly beneath his touch. Humans were not technologies. They did not prove amenable to radical adjustments. Their essential traits always reclaimed them, and hers would pull her back to the narrow path, no matter how much she might come to genuinely revile its constraints. Better, then—honorable—to act on his understanding; to do nothing to prevent her from reclaiming the life she would inevitably be drawn back to.

The logic was sound, of course.

It was also fueled by fear. Old fear. A very specific one.

And, God
damn
it—if, after all this time, he was going to let
fear
dictate his actions, then he might as well trade in his lungs right now, and his legs to boot. He might as well be wheeled back to England to suffocate quietly in some cloistered little village rectory. Had he listened to fear, that would have been his life.

And so, too, if he had accepted others’ visions of him.

He had always known that others were wrong about him, but Gwen had only just discovered that others were wrong about her.
That
was the only difference between them. And yet he’d dismissed her revelation, forcing her to remain within the mold she wished so much to break. And why? Only because it was easier for
him
that way. Otherwise, were he to take her at her word and behave accordingly, he would have no choice but to confront certain things he had hidden from himself.

What a bloody, self-righteous,
blind
coward he’d been, last night.

Well, he knew how to rectify that quick enough.

He walked out and tried the next door. This room looked more promising at first glance—a study of some sort, with framed prints on the walls, more of these bloody naturalist’s diagrams, a dozen of them stacked on the desk. The large picture window had a breathtaking view of the ocean, and the moonlight filtering through the window lit the desktop quite clearly. He flipped through the documents. They meant nothing to him. Next to them were notes on—God above, various sorts of vegetation indigenous to Suffolk.

He recalled again the way that Barrington had drawn her closer when she’d stumbled. A sinking feeling was in his stomach. Wouldn’t it be rich with irony if he had inadvertently driven her into the arms of a man who would actually sit down across from her and nod enthusiastically when she started talking of her goddamned gardens? Instead, of course, of making some mocking, juvenile remark about pressing flowers into a scrapbook—

A noise in the hallway made him freeze. He looked quickly around the room, but there were very few places to hide. A handsome wooden screen seemed the best option, not because it provided real cover—it was too finely filigreed to conceal his body entirely—but because it was positioned in the shadows, away from the window, near the door. Opening the door, walking in, a person would have to turn around and peer hard into the darkness until their eyes adjusted before they could distinguish a man standing in the shadows.

He stepped behind it just as the door opened with a soft click. “—been locked,” said Barrington. “How curious. Ah, no matter. Come in, do.”

“Oh, you were telling the truth,” came Gwen’s low voice. Alex pressed himself farther against the wall to still the impulse to leap around and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, breaking away from the larger group to enter a disused area of the house with this man. Moreover, her consonants had a slight slur to them. Had she drunk more wine at dinner than he’d noticed?

Barrington put his hand at her waist—far too familiar for a host with a young lady, although just about right for a man with a music hall singer—and guided her to stand in front of the window. In the cold light, her profile was as pale and smooth as marble, her expression lit with clarity. “Oh,” she said softly. “The waves breaking—it’s very beautiful.”

Something ugly stirred in Alex’s gut. She did not look as if she was pretending enjoyment. The view truly enraptured her.

Barrington stepped up behind her. He delicately fingered a stray wisp of her hair. “I am surrounded by beauty,” he murmured. “But nothing so compelling as the woman here before me, right now.”

Alex was going to rip his arm off.
Step away
from him. Gwen. What the hell are you doing?

She turned toward him, in the process dislodging his hands from her waist and hair—by design, Alex wanted to think, but God damn it, he could not be sure. She gave Barrington a mysterious little smile, perfectly designed to madden a man with its indecipherable promise, and then brushed past him, walking around the room, trailing a casual hand across the furnishings. At the desk, she came to a stop. “Drawings!” she said. “Are you an artist?” She spread out the pages casually.

Barrington followed her and caught up her hand, lifting it to his mouth. “Alas, no. I’ve lacked proper inspiration until now.”

She gave a light, tinkling laugh. “I find that difficult to believe,” she said as she walked onward, letting her hand remain in his as long as possible, until her arm was fully outstretched. Barrington trailed after her rather than release it. She was examining the walls, now—a series of masks hung in a row on the back wall.

If she kept strolling the perimeter, she was going to lead Barrington straight to him.

Turn around
, Alex willed her.
Leave.

But Barrington was growing bolder now, his hand skating down her rib cage, his head bowing to place a kiss upon the top of her head. It occurred to Alex that her casual stroll was actually not so casual: she was making a circle back toward the door, and had he not been hiding there, her facsimile of interest in the furnishings would have been a very clever route of escape.

But the screen was too damned lovely to ignore.

He saw the moment she spied it. Her mouth opened to make a comment.

And then her eyes met his and flew wide with realization.

He held his breath. He had no idea how his discovery could be smoothed over by talk. An unpleasant conversation followed by eviction never harmed any guest, but the fact that Barrington had armed guards strolling his property did put a different light on matters, greatly diminishing Alex’s hope that they would be turned out with a simple round of scathing words.