Ten
T he music gallery’s curtains were drawn, closing out the night, but not the distant rumble of thunder. Phaedra’s hands faltered as she ran them along the spinet’s keyboard. She wished the storm would break and be done with. The heavy stillness in the skies beyond the shielding of velvet seemed to magnify the tension gathering within her.
Her fingers jabbed at the black and white keys, plunking out a tune from Gay’s Beggar’s Opera. A song she’d oft played, it required little concentration-which was as well, for she had little to give. Her gaze traveled from the instrument to the man who stood half-turned away from her, appearing lost in the study of an elaborately framed work of Salvator Rosa’s, mounted upon the walls. The lace tumbled over Armande’s wrists and gathered at his throat seemed so at odds with the lean, dangerous slant of his profile. As though he felt her staring at him, he turned to face her. The silver candelabra mounted upon the torchere cast a bright glow, but the tiny flames burned no more brilliantly than what smoldered in the depths of Armande’s eyes.
Phaedra’s pulse skipped a beat as she felt the embers of a similar fire stirring deep within her. Her fingers stumbled, missing a few notes. Armande had insisted that nothing had changed between them. He was wrong.
All during the course of the long, tedious dinner, a meal they had both left nearly untouched, their eyes had often met, furtive stolen glances as though in acknowledgment of the secret they shared-that sweet, brief moment of passion. It was that secret, Phaedra believed, that prevented Armande from retreating behind his mask of impassive hauteur as he had done before, and shutting her out so completely.
He might deny the mutual desire they had known, declare that he had no intention of ever caressing her again. It mattered naught, Phaedra thought, raising her gaze from the keyboard to find him staring at her. His eyes were telling her something far different.
Her cheeks flushed, her fingers somehow located the right keys to end the song. The last note she struck seemed to reverberate forever in the gallery, resounding off the high, scrolling ceiling.
She had cut the song short, but no one appeared to have noticed. Half-asleep on the bow-fronted chaise, her grandfather’s snort startled her. She had all but forgotten that he and Jonathan were still in the room.
Jonathan broke into polite applause while Weylin blinked and smacked his lips. “Eh-what? Oh, yes. Delightful, my dear, simply delightful.”
Phaedra dragged her gaze from Armande long enough to stare at the old man. Her grandfather was strangely mellow this evening, all his earlier peevishness gone. He had not even rebuked her for her inexplicable behavior in bolting from the Green Salon. Throughout dinner, he had beamed at her. She could not imagine what she had done to deserve his approbation.
“Play something else for us,” Jonathan requested humbly. Her grandfather bolted upright. “What! Nay, it was not that delightful.” He harumphed, then struggled to his feet with a wide yawn. “Damnation, how groggy I feel. It is the fault of that port you brought me, Jonathan. Cursed heavy stuff.”
“It was far superior to the other lot Scroggins tried to pass off on me,” Jonathan said. “The knave! I only dealt with him at all upon Lord Danby’s recommendation.”
“Danby!” Her grandfather hooted. “You should have known better than to listen to him. That fool’d drink anything.”
Phaedra could not help covertly studying Armande to see if the mention of Danby’s name produced any reaction. He appeared absorbed in stacking her sheets of music into a neat pile.
“Even Danby would have balked at this wine,” Jonathan continued. “Scroggins had sought to make the wine seem more full-bodied by treating it with oil of vitriol.”
Weylin shook with amusement. “Hah! That might have made a temperate man of Danby. One glass of that, and I trow he’d have no stomach for another.”
Jonathan waxed bitter over the foul tricks he had often detected amongst his fellow merchants, sulphuric acid substituted for vinegar, alum used to whiten bread. The exposing of such deceits held a keen interest for him, one of the few subjects that inspired the quiet man to passion. But he was cut short by her grandfather, bellowing for John to unfold the card table.
Phaedra heard the command with dismay. She had barely managed to get through dinner and her music. How could she possibly spend long hours of card-playing seated across from Armande, half-dreading, half-inviting his glance?
Armande circled behind her. Even the simple gallant gesture of his pulling out her chair so that she could rise from the spinet made her achingly aware of the honed grace of his tall frame.
Jonathan prepared to seat himself at the card table when Weylin prevented him. “Leave the cards to the young people.” He rested his hand upon Jonathan’s shoulder, giving him a wink. “What say we old men enjoy some of my fine Canary wine whilst I show you the sketches my architect has done to refurbish this room.” He made a sweeping gesture of disparagement which encompassed the music gallery’s heavy elegance. “It would seem this Roman palazzo stuff is now demaday.”
And the heavens forbid, Phaedra thought wryly, that anything in Sawyer Weylin’s manor be classified demode - whether he understood the term or not. She fancied that Jonathan looked a trifle annoyed to hear himself described as an ‘old man.’ He cast a wistful look in Phaedra’s direction when Sawyer dragged him to the gallery’s opposite end.
The music gallery was a long chamber that could double as a ballroom, allowing a dozen couples to perform the gavotte when the massive armchairs, sofas and torcheres were shoved aside. With her grandfather and Jonathan taking a silver candelabrum and ensconcing themselves at the end near the marble chimney piece, she and Armande might well have been left alone.
She seated herself at the card table, avoiding looking at Armande. Her voice sounded unnaturally high as she asked. “What will you, my lord? Piquet? Vingt-et-un?”
“The choice is yours, milady,” he replied, settling into the chair opposite her.
“Piquet, then.”
Beyond the curtains, the wind whistled and rattled the panes. She donned a pair of mufftees to protect the delicate embroidery of her sleeve hems. Armande’s lips quirked into a smile.
“It would seem that I have been left to the mercy of a hardened gamester.”
She shuffled the deck with rapid movements, trying to make her voice sound light. “Aye, you shall find me a far fiercer opponent than Charles Byng.”
She dealt the cards, then quickly arranged hers, scarcely noticing what she held. Armande fanned his out between his fingers. Moments ticked by without his making another move.
The thunder rumbled again, closer this time. Phaedra shifted restlessly in her chair. Armande’s gaze at last drifted over the rim of his cards. His blue eyes appeared almost hazy in this soft light. She didn’t think he was focusing on her cards so much as dreamily contemplating the curls falling past her shoulders.
Self-consciously, she fingered one tendril and brushed it back.”I have dealt the hand, my lord. It is for you to open.”
“Is the game to begin with no wagers?” he asked.
“I fear I am not accustomed to playing as deep as you.”
“I know you are not. That is what makes any gaming betwixt us seem like I would be taking a most unfair advantage.”
When their eyes met across the table, Phaedra was no longer sure they were talking about cards. “I have but little coin for you to take advantage of,” she said uncertainly.
“Money is of no value to me. The only wagers worth making concern matters more precious.” He hesitated. “Perhaps a bid for what you desire most in the world.”
“What I desire most?” She gave a shaky laugh. “I have never been quite sure what that might be.”
“Perhaps that I should leave your grandfather’s house and never return.”
Once Phaedra had thought so herself, but now- However, she made no attempt to contradict him.
“And you?” she demanded. “If you propose that to be my prize, what do you ask for yourself if you should win?”
He took a long time about answering her. Then he looked up, making no attempt to mask the hunger in his eyes.
“One night with you,” he said.
The cards fluttered from her fingers.
Armande’s face darkened as though he regretted his reply. He folded his cards, placing them in the center of the table. “It would seem the stakes I set are too high for both of us.”
Her hand flashed out, pinioning his atop the cards he sought to abandon.
“Done!” she cried. “I accept your wager.” She hardly breathed as she waited for his reaction. She expected him to pull his hand free and withdraw at once. He regarded her impassively, his features so still they might well have been sculpted of marble. But for the muscle that worked along his jaw, she would have had no clue at all as to the struggle that raged within him.
Then he moved her hand from his and gathered up his cards. Her heart hammering, Phaedra did likewise, splaying the small rectangles before her face in an effort to conceal the blood she felt rushing to her cheeks.
What was she doing? The passions seething inside her must at last be driving her mad, just as Ewan had always assured her they would. She tried to concentrate on the cards she held, but they faded before her eyes in a blur of black and red.
The rain broke at last, pattering against the windows. Phaedra dimly noted Jonathan taking his leave and bid him a preoccupied good night. The merciless flick of cards being laid down seemed to cut through all other noise, the rain, the muted sounds of thunder, her grandfather snoring upon one of the settees.
Armande seemed to have recovered his composure. He played with a grim intensity, yet continued to lose points. It was some time before the truth occurred to Phaedra. He was throwing the game by design.
But it had been he who had proposed the wager, and the desire firing his gaze was so heated, she did not doubt it was real. Was his present behavior prompted by gallantry or some other, darker apprehension she could not begin to understand? If he lost, did he truly mean to honor the bet and leave, never to return?
Phaedra reached for the pack and drew out an ace. Now she was almost sure to win both the next trick and the game. She risked a glance at Armande. He appeared too absorbed to notice anything she might do. With all the deftness Gilly had taught her, she slipped the card into her mufftee.
She drew again, and almost cursed aloud at the perversity of fate. What must the odds be against turning up another ace so soon? With a quick movement, she sent the card to lodge with its fellow up her sleeve.
She finally succeeded in pulling the right cards to sabotage her hand. When Armande revealed his, she laid out her losing sweep with a kind of defiant triumph. His impassive expression did not change, but when she scooped up the cards to deal again, his hand shot out, gripping her wrist. She had no time to protest before his fingers delved into her mufftee, producing the missing aces.
Phaedra felt as though every forbidden desire she’d kept locked away in her heart all these years lay exposed before Armande. Was there ever any lady who would have thus bartered her virtue? She might as well have begged for Armande to take her, like any street harlot. Her cheeks burned with shame, and she could not meet his eyes.
“You cheated, milady,” he said softly. “I declare this game forfeit to me.”
But she heard no censure, no triumph in his voice. If anything, he sounded infinitely sad.
By the time Phaedra reached her bedchamber, the storm had ceased its ominous threatening and erupted in all its fury. The rain poured down her window panes. The night raged,a tympany of thunder and violent clashes of lightning, as Lucy helped Phaedra shrug into her night shift. The linen clung to her skin as she slipped beneath the sheets. She was so tense that she hardly permitted her head to rest against the pillow.
As soon as Lucy had gone, Phaedra flung aside the bedclothes. Stumbling through the darkness, she fumbled with the tinder box and managed to light the stump of a candle. Her gaze traveled to the door connecting to Armande’s bedchamber. Her heart fluttered like the wings of a bird about to fly of its own volition into the hunter’s snare.
And Armande? She wondered what he was feeling, waiting for her on the other side of that door. He had walked away from the card table, trying to summon a smile as though the entire game had been but flirtatious nonsense.
But his laughter had been hollow, the longing in his eyes keen enough to pierce her heart. He would not hold her to the wager; she knew that. She had but to return to her bed, pull the covers up tight about her neck and try to lose herself in the oblivion of sleep.
Her gaze shifted to the dressing-table mirror. Her image appeared almost unearthly in the dim light, a pale spirit garbed in flowing white. She arranged the ripples of red-gold hair over her shoulders in a modest effort to conceal the rose-tipped crests of her breasts, visible beneath the transparent gown. She glided toward the connecting door like a sleepwalker, no more able to control her steps than she could put a halt to the thunder rending the skies.
She reminded herself that Armande was still a man enshrouded in mystery, his hidden past a threat to her. He could be the Prince of Darkness himself, for all she knew. She tried to recall the passion that had betrayed her once before, delivering her into seven years of hellish captivity as Ewan’s bride. But memory grew dim until all she could remember was the heat of Armande’s kiss.
Her fingers slid back the bolt, the door whispering open beneath her trembling hand. She held the guttering candle before her like a talisman as she stepped across the threshold into Armande’s chamber.
“Armande?” she called softly.
“I am here.” His voice sounded at once distant and startlingly close. She jumped as the room was illumined by a jagged flash of lightning, revealing the outline of Armande’s muscular form but a few feet from her, as though he had been lingering by the door, tense and waiting. He was garbed in his close-fitting breeches, and his white shirt, unbuttoned to the waist, exposing the vee of his chest. He stretched out one arm to her, extending his hand.
Her faltering steps guided her closer, the dim light of the candle giving the pitch-dark room a misty quality. It reminded her strangely of the dream she had had of Armande so many nights before, when she had returned from Lady Porterfield’s ball. That tormenting dream of so many endings, as she had stripped away Armande’s mask, one time to find death, another desire. What awaited her now in those angular features lost in shadow, the watching eyes but a glint in the darkness?
She had an urge to snuff out the candle and not look upon an expression that might turn the dream into a nightmare. But Armande took it from her before she could do so. In the brief moment he held the taper, his face was fully revealed to her. His sable-dark hair swept back from his brow in damp waves, beads of moisture clinging to the high planes of his cheeks almost as though he had been out walking in the storm. The force of the tempest appeared caught in his eyes, stripping away all illusion of the cold, haughty marquis, leaving but a man, vulnerable, his emotions as raw and untamed as her own.
Phaedra never had imagined anything like the tender way he pulled her into his arms. She could feel the pulse in his throat drumming against her temple.
“I should send you away, but I need you,” he said hoarsely. “You have no idea how long I’ve needed you.”