“It was kindhearted of you to help the woman, my dear,” Jonathan said. “I only wish you had come to me first. I could have used my patronage to have the poor woman taken into a hospital.”
“If you aren’t another pretty fool.” Her grandfather poked the tip of his cane at Jonathan. “Taking the money you’ve worked so hard for all your life and flinging it into patronage. Foundling homes, charity schools, and your hospitals, bah! More like shelters for a pack of sluggards feigning sickness.”
Weylin flung up his arms in a frustrated gesture. “Stap me, you might as well lock me up in Bedlam. I suppose I must be mad, since I seem to be the only one not inclined to empty my pockets for a lot of undeserving rascals.” He scowled. “Mind you, if I had known about the Wilkens child?—”
He hesitated and then shrugged his shoulders, stumping impatiently to the door, looking at his watch again.
What would her grandfather say, Phaedra wondered, if he knew it really had been Armande who had helped the woman? It would vastly change his impression of the marquis, even as it had done her own. It was no coldhearted villain who had called upon Mrs. Wilkins today. Phaedra still marveled at what Armande had done. It went beyond a gesture of noblesse oblige, beyond flinging a handful of coins to the peasants. He had obviously put himself to no little trouble, seeking out Eliza Wilkins, arranging for the funeral of her child. It showed a great depth of feeling she would have never thought Armande possessed.
And what of his reason for behaving in a manner that seemed so out of character? Eliza Wilkins’s explanation echoed through Phaedra’s mind. He said he knew what it was like to be at the mercy of the powerful and ruthless. Men like her grandfather, men like Armande de LeCroix himself. So Phaedra had once thought. Now she was no longer sure. Armande’s sympathy for Wilkins, that haunted expression she had on occasion glimpsed in his cold blue eyes. What was there in his past that inspired such things, the past that he was at such pains to conceal?
If only instead of threatening her, Armande had chosen to confide. But perhaps she had seemed to him like another Muriel Porterfield, a selfish lady of the haut ton. Perhaps he thought she would never have understood. There was little use in speculating. It was too late now, far too late.
Phaedra stared back into the fireplace grate, the stones so cold. Despite the warm evening, she could almost fancy the chill from it creeping into her bones. What was it like to spend a night in Newgate Prison? She shuddered.
As if her nerves were not stretched taut enough, some imp of perversity had taken possession of her grandfather this evening. Perhaps her own guilty reflections made it seem so, but her grandfather appeared able to talk of nothing but the very subjects Phaedra most wished to avoid.
“I declare,” he huffed. “London is naught but a city of rogues these days. I was coming up High Street and what did I see, but a footpad as bold as you please, leaping atop a sedan chair. The rogue cut a hole in the roof and snatched a wig from a man’s head. In full light of day! A twenty-farthing wig! The villain will swing for that if he is ever caught.”
Phaedra, who had been trying to blot out the sound of her grandfather’s haranguing, stiffened at his last words. “Hang for twenty farthings?” she faltered. “Most surely not.”
“Most surely could.” Her grandfather rocked back on his heels, his lips pursed in evident satisfaction at the thought. “A man may hang for any theft over five shillings, and so he should. Lazy ‘rogues fleecing honest, hard-working men!”
Five shillings. Phaedra’s hand crept to the lacy shawl knotted round her shoulders and she tugged uncomfortably at the fringe. The ring she had planted upon Armande was well above five shillings in value. But they don’t hang noblemen, she reminded herself. All the same, she hadn’t known men could die for so little cause. What if she was wrong about the immunity of noblemen, as well?
Of a sudden, she remembered Muriel’s gossip about Tony Ackerly being flung into Newgate. Only fancy! That some shabby shopkeeper could have a gentleman treated thus! Of course, Tony was not a lord. But so many of the English had a strong antipathy toward foreigners, especially the French. What if Armande’s rank as Marquis de Varnais counted for nothing?
Jonathan sighed. “I have always thought the law too harsh. The gallows at Tyburn are put to far too great a use.”
Weylin eyed him contemptuously. “Fortunately we are all saved a great deal of trouble by gaol fever. It carries off most of the rascals.”
“Gaol fever?” Phaedra asked weakly.
Aye, girl. What d’you think Newgate is? Some charming country manor house? The fever runs rampant through that pest hole so that few who take it ever recover.” Weylin grinned. “I heard old magistrate Harbottle goes in such fear of the fever, he came to court with a nosegay pressed to his face the other day. He kept the prisoners at such a distance from him, he could hardly hear their pleas.”
Her grandfather might find that amusing, but Phaedra was wracked with a vision of Armande tossing upon a filthy cot, caught in the grip of a raging fever. In the midst of his agony, would he curse her? Dear God, she had never meant to kill the man. She wished her grandfather would be quiet.
But his voice droned on without mercy, talking about executions now, recounting every one he had ever witnessed. “Now I’ve seen it take a good hour for some of ‘em to die. They struggle so hard, fair dancing at the end of the rope.” And then others snap!” Her grandfather gestured as though breaking a twig. “Just like chicken bones popping.”
Phaedra’s fingers flew involuntarily to her own throat. No! They would never hang Armande. They never would.
“They hung this one rogue, see, for pilfering a snuffbox, chunked his body into a coffin. Well, the guards given the task of his burial stopped off for a pint of bitter.” Weylin shook with chuckles. Phaedra pressed her hand to her mouth lest she shriek at her grandfather to hold his tongue.
Oblivious to her distress, the old man went on, “The guards had been followed by a pair of rascally resurrection men, with an eye to swiping the body, to sell it to a surgeon for his ghoulish studies. While those guards were swilling at the inn, the resurrection men snatched the coffin and?—”
“Truly, Sawyer.” Jonathan made a mild attempt to intervene, casting a pained glance at Phaedra. “I think you are about to make Phaedra ill with all this talk.”
“Here’s the best part of it.” Weylin wheezed with suppressed laughter, scarcely able to speak. “The lid of the coffin was not properly nailed down. They’d not gone far, when the lid burst open and the corpse sat up.”
Weylin doubled over, slapping his knees. “The man wasn’t dead. They said those resurrection men took off running, all the way to Yorkshire. Hah! And by the time the guards caught up to the cart, they were so fearful of losing their posts because of their bungling, they quick found a tree and hanged the poor wretch all over again. “
Weylin clouted Jonathan on the back and roared with laughter. Jonathan summoned a thin smile in response. Phaedra bolted to her feet. She could not endure a moment more of this.
“Grandfather, about the marquis—” she began.
Weylin wiped his moist eyes with the back of his hand. “Aye, what about him, girl?”
She glanced down at the carpet, her voice rife with guilt and misery. “I don’t imagine that Armande will be here.”
“Do you not, milady?”
She spun around with a tiny cry. Armande stood framed just inside the door. Dressed for dinner, his garb appeared as elegant as though he had but returned from an assembly. But he had not taken the time to powder his hair, and the dark strands were pulled back into a severe queue.
“Armande.” Phaedra could have fallen upon him with a sob of relief. She was only halted by his expression. His eyes blazed at her like a fire ready to rage out of control and consume her. She had oft wondered how the icy marquis might look when angered. Now she knew. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
“Astonishing,” he said.”One might almost fancy you were glad to see me, milady.”
He stalked into the room, but Phaedra’s courage deserted her. She did not wait to see what he meant to say or do next. Regardless of her grandfather’s startled expostulation and Jonathan’s look of surprise, she bolted from the salon.
She ran blindly, seeking by instinct the one place she felt safe. Her feet just touched the stairs leading to her garret when her heart leaped into her throat. Dear God, he was coming after her.
She shot forward and almost hurled herself through the door to her garret room, but she was not fast enough. She tried to slam the door closed behind her, but Armande’s hand thrust through the opening, blocking her attempt. She let go, retreating further into the room. Armande stepped inside, slamming the door behind him.
The last rays of the dying sun cast shadows over his haughty profile, accenting the high arch of his cheekbones, his lean face hollowed by anger. His eyes glinted like points of steel.
Phaedra glanced wildly behind her, but there was nowhere to retreat. Where were her grandfather and Jonathan?
As Armande crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps, she held up one hand in a weak effort to ward him off. “You make one move to touch me, and I’ll scream.”
He halted but a sword’s breadth from where she shrank against the wall. He didn’t have to touch her. She could feel the fury crashing from him like invisible waves.
“Whatever is amiss, Phaedra? You look so pale. Has my return astonished you that much?” He abandoned the mocking tone, a quiver of suppressed rage rippling along his jaw. “You damned little fool. Did you really think they would hold me once they knew who I was, once I had paid the cost of that cursed ring?”
Phaedra only pressed herself back further against the wall, unable to meet his angry, accusing gaze.
“Answer me, Phaedra! What did you think they were going to do to Armande de LeCroix, the most noble Marquis de Varnais?” There was self-mockery in the way he pronounced his name, the bark of laughter that accompanied it striking cold to her heart.
She found her voice at last. “I don’t know. I only thought to-to?—”
“To have me hanged?” He loomed so close, if she but breathed she would brush up against him. His harsh voice grated against her ear. “They don’t hang aristocrats, ma chere , or fling them into rat-infested cells. With a few bribes I could be lodged in an apartment fit for a king, no matter what I’d done. Even if I were to snap your deceitful little neck.”
“Why don’t you do it, then?” she choked. “You threatened to destroy me once, didn’t you? Go on and finish what you tried to do last night.”
She was mad to goad him thus, sensing he teetered on a dangerous brink the self-contained marquis seldom reached. Yet wracked by guilt and fear, Phaedra hovered too near her own snapping point to care.
The fury still burned in Armande’s eyes, but she detected a flicker of uncertainty, as well. “Last night?” he repeated.
She looked up at him, incredulous that he could keep up his pose of innocence even now. “Stop it. I am not a fool. I know it was you who locked me in with Danby. So you can just stop pretending.”
Long moments passed as he stared at her. She saw the light of anger slowly die, to be replaced by the inscrutable expression she so hated. It was as though his abandoned fury coursed into her, the overwrought emotions of many endless hours breaking forth in a furious flood of tears.
“Damn you! I said stop pretending.” His image blurred before her eyes as she slammed her fist against his chest, again and again. As immutable as a wall of stone, he made no effort to stop her, merely waiting until her arm dropped weakly to her side.
“Damn you to hell,” she repeated in a whisper. He caught her as she swayed and collapsed weeping against him, then lowered her onto the Jacobean daybed. Phaedra struggled out of his arms, muffling her sobs into a silk pillow giving full rein to the storm that had been brewing inside her all afternoon.
It seemed an eternity before she could halt the flow of her tears and regain a semblance of composure. At last, she sat up, drawing in deep breaths. She almost believed Armande had gone.
He hadn’t. He sat poised near her on the edge of the daybed. He extended his lace handkerchief to her, all traces of his anger vanished, like a tempest that had never been.
After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted the handkerchief and applied the linen to her eyes.
“And now, milady,” Armande said. “If you will not again attempt to thrash me for asking, what about last night? Let us imagine that I know nothing, and explain to me your remark about Arthur Danby.”
“You locked me in the Gold Room with him.” She glared at Armande through swollen eyes, hating him for so easily having regained his composure when she was sure she must look like the very devil. Her voice sounded tinny, almost childish with accusation as she continued. “Then you fetched my grandfather by pretending you wanted to see the paintings upstairs, hoping he’d catch me with Danby. You knew full well what he’d do if he thought I was-was engaged in some illicit conduct.” She sniffed. “What a perfect scheme to be rid of me and my troublesome curiosity.”
“The Gold Room. But when I entered there, Danby was passed out cold and there was no sign of you—” Armande broke off, his gaze flying to her scratched hands. “The open window! You little idiot! You could have broken your neck.” He flushed with anger again, but of a far different kind than she had seen upon his face before. She did not feel threatened, although Armande looked ready to shake her.
“I thought that was the idea,” she said, although she was no longer so certain herself. Could the most brilliant actor in the world possibly appear as shaken and surprised as Armande did at this moment? She continued stubbornly, “I suppose that if you couldn’t manage to ruin me, my death would serve as well.”
“Then that was why you placed that ring in my pocket today? For revenge?”
“For protection! Did you think I was going to wait to see what malicious plot you next had in store for me?”
To her astonishment, he smiled, the expression half-rueful, half-incredulous. He covered her hand where it rested on the bed with his own. “Phaedra,” he murmured, shaking his head.
She stiffened. “Don’t touch me. And don’t you dare use my name that way.”
But he made no effort to draw his hand back. “Phaedra,” he repeated. “Look at me.” When she refused, he caught her chin, gently forcing her to gaze up at him.
“Considering what our past relationship has been, the suspicion and the mistrust, I know this will be difficult for you to believe. It was not I who locked you in with Arthur Danby.”
“Then I suppose it was mere coincidence you just happened along with my grandfather.”
“Yes. It was his idea to see the paintings, not mine.”
Phaedra squirmed, feeling more uncertain of her position by the minute. But she continued to argue. “You were the one I heard suggesting that you examine the Titian in the Gold Room.”
“I like Titian,” Armande said. “We share the same failing-a weakness for tempestuous red-haired women.”
He exhaled his breath in a long sigh. “You are an impulsive woman, Phaedra Grantham, with a distressing habit of leaping to conclusions. You sent me to hell and back today.”
Phaedra studied him, still not certain if she believed his denial about Danby. But he was not lying about what she had put him through. She could see it in the fatigue etching his eyes. “You couldn’t have possibly been frightened when you were arrested,” she said. “You said yourself you never were in any danger.”
“No danger except for that of encountering old ghosts that I thought to have put to rest. I knew a man once, a friend who was imprisoned.” It was the first time Armande had ever volunteered any information about his past.
“And this friend of yours. He died?” she asked quietly.
“ Oui .”
“At Newgate?”
He stared at her. Phaedra could almost see the walls going up.
“ Non . In France, in the Bastille.” He gave her a disarming smile, and Phaedra knew he was about to turn the subject. “I suppose there is no point in my asking what you were doing in the Gold Room with Arthur Danby.”
“I was not making love to him, if that’s what you mean.” She flushed, then wondered why she had said that. She became uncomfortably aware of just how intimate it was to be sitting with him upon this bed.
“I didn’t suppose you had followed Danby out of any amorous intent,” he said. “The man is a dolt. I hope you will be wise enough to place no credence in anything he might say.”
Armande moved closer, his fingers tracing the curve of her jaw. “I wish the mistrust between us could end.”
“If only you would not be so secretive,” she murmured, knowing she ought to draw away. How easy for her to forget all that had passed between them, to become ensnared by that silken voice.
He pressed soft kisses against both her eyelids. “If only you would not be so inquisitive. If you could trust me enough to believe that I have no desire to harm you.”
He laid such peculiar stress on the last word. Then who did he want to harm? The question was swept from her mind as his lips found hers, the contact spreading warmth through her veins. A voice deep inside her cautioned that this could be but another ploy of Armande’s. When all else fails, try seduction. Yet despite the gentleness of the kiss, she could sense his longing. For whatever reason, by design or misunderstanding, both of them had journeyed to hell and back today. It was as though he kissed her now to offer comfort, as well as to seek it for himself.
Phaedra ran her hands along the nape of his neck, her fingers caressing the silken ends of his dark hair. When she melted against him, he needed little urging to deepen the kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth with a kind of lightning-hot sweetness. What had been warmth became fire. He tumbled her back onto the bed, never breaking the contact of their lips.
“Lady Phaedra.”
The sound of Lucy calling her struck Phaedra’s like a dash of cold water. She felt Armande freeze. In another moment Lucy would enter the garret and find them thus. As Armande wrenched himself away from her, she scrambled up from the daybed, flying over to the door. She held her weight against it as the doorknob turned.
“Milady?”
“Aye, Lucy?” Phaedra asked, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt. “What do you want?”
“Your grandfather is demanding to know what has become of you. He sounds most dreadful angry.”
“Tell him I will be down at once.”
She waited until she heard the girl’s footsteps recede, then leaned against the door for a moment to compose herself. She turned to discover Armande standing and straightening his frock coat. He bore the same look of disorientation-like a dreamer too violently awakened.
She stared from him to the rumpled daybed, hardly able to believe what had nearly happened. It had all been so sudden, the flaring of their passion-like a spark set to dried tinder. But the flame appeared to have died as quickly, leaving her embarrassed and shaken.
It helped to see that Armande was not looking his urbane self, and the smile he gave Phaedra was uncertain. “I am not sure whether we should curse that girl or thank her. It would seem I was nearly the undoing of your reputation, after all.”
He strode toward the door where she yet leaned. Was he planning to leave her like this, with no more to say than that? He might attempt to dismiss what had happened so casually, but she could not.
“Armande, I?—”
He placed his fingertips upon her lips. “I fear we both have been behaving with less than wisdom, ma chere. Nothing has truly changed. We still cannot trust one another. We will only make matters more complicated by embarking on a relationship sparked by mutual loneliness.”
Mutual loneliness. Was that all it was, this attraction between herself and Armande, that seemed both to draw them together and pull them apart?
“I wish I could simply forget.” His vehemence startled er, but it vanished as quickly as his passion had done. “But I cannot.”
Forget what? she wanted to demand, watching that shuttered look settling over his eyes. He said, “It is best we continue as we began, keeping each other at sword’s length.”
“I have every intention of doing so,” she said.
He briefly saluted her hand with his lips. They might have parted thus if his eyes had not chanced to meet hers. This pretense could not be maintained. She read in his gaze the single truth that burned between them.
He might make what declarations he pleased. But it could not change what they both knew was going to happen, what had been inevitable from the night they first met.