How to Impress a Marquess(28)
Lilith made a point of not returning his smile. “How charming to see you again. I do not believe we’ve spoken since the occasion of your wedding.” She rested her hand on Penelope’s arm. “Dearest Lady Fenmore, I suddenly feel absolutely ill. Pray, let us sit in the parlor.”
Lilith pulled Penelope away.
“I hate him,” Penelope whispered. “And Mama is cruel. Why must she be so? I can’t bear this house party, I can’t. Don’t tell George I said that.”
“Don’t think about Fenmore or your mother. If you get upset, find me. We’ll get through this house party in Hades together.”
Penelope’s lips trembled, her eyes turned wet. Lilith panicked. She leapt at the first outrageous thing she could think of to shock Penelope from her anxious thoughts before they overtook her.
“Let us imagine that every person at this party is naked,” Lilith suggested. “Now, take these young men congregating about the mantel. Who do you think is the most handsome without his clothes? I daresay the one with the blue plaid waistcoat, but of course he’s not wearing it in my overactive imagination.” Lilith was lying. The only naked man filling her mind’s eye was George, all rippled with muscles and his sex exposed like Michelangelo’s David. The effect her vivid musing had on her body was rather disconcerting.
Penelope giggled. “Lilith, you’re terrible.”
“But in the most delightful way. Oh, look, Beatrice is approaching. Now we must behave ourselves.”
“Beatrice, dear, did you ever learn what fungus or insect blighted the palm?” Penelope inquired. Lilith had no idea what she meant.
“Lady Marylewick thinks it unladylike,” replied Beatrice, her eyes darting nervously between Lilith and Penelope.
“Pooh!” cried Penelope. “It’s very ladylike. Don’t you dare let Mama tell you how to think or live!”
Lilith’s jaw dropped, shocked to hear such open rebellion from Penelope. Then she broke into chuckles. Maybe there was hope yet. More people gathered about, wanting to share in their infectious laughter. Soon Lilith basked in the energy of the crowd, learning about the guests and hearing their stories. Every so often, she would glance about to find George studying her with his deep gray eyes. She would feel a little light-headed and quickly turn away for fear he possessed an amazing power to know her privates were wet and throbbing for him, only to find Charles or Fenmore also staring at her. That stopped that bothersome bodily throbbing quite nicely.
After tea, the guests began returning to their rooms to rest and then dress for the evening.
Lilith’s mind was whirling and she needed some time to write and straighten out her tangle of emotions concerning George. She was turning a corner in the maze of corridors connecting the various wings of Tyburn when a powerful hand reached out of the shadows, grabbed her elbow, and snatched her into a room. Her first thought was Lord Charles or Fenmore. Those horses’ backsides! She kicked her assailant hard in the shin. But as her foot connected with bone, the clove and pine scent of George filled her nose. Oh no!
“Good God, Lilith!” He groaned. “Why did you do that?”
“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I thought…I thought you were someone else.”
“I feel sorry for that someone else if this how you treat them. Have you practiced that?”
“Yes, and other more painful kicks to strategic male regions.” She found that George had abducted her to a small, paneled study. Glass cases adorned the walls but the shelves were empty except for a few knickknacks. A reading chair was pushed near the fireplace.
“I merely wanted to talk to you.” He rubbed his shin. “I hope that doesn’t warrant a kick in my strategic male regions.”
“Not for you, George. Perhaps other men. Come.” She supported George to the chair. Shadows had formed under his eyes and he appeared pale in the dim light. She wanted to reach up and ruffle his hair until it fell over his forehead. Then he would fit into any Paris salon, just another angst-ridden romantic artist. She knelt and began to massage his wounded calf through his trousers. The feel of his muscles did interesting things to her feminine regions.
“You look tired,” she said.
“That dam—hanged bill. And Mama. And Penelope. And please stop soothing my leg. It isn’t…it isn’t proper.”
They had gone well past the line of proper on several occasions, so why stop now? She continued to rub. “Does it make you feel better?”
“That’s immaterial. Many improper things make me feel better.” When she didn’t stop, he seized her hand and locked her wayward fingers between his. “I wanted to tell you that you were brilliant today. Thank you for helping Penelope. She… She won’t confide in me. You have become such close friends these last few days.”
Lilith studied their interlocked hands. “She’s miserable. Her husband strays.”
He released a long stream of breath. “I suspected as much.”
“Why did you let her marry him? Was it the title, the old family, or the appalling lack of morals and human kindness?”
“She was in love with him. Father had just died and Mother was pushing the match.” He released her hand. “I— I made a mistake.” His words were labored, as if he had trouble admitting fallibility.
She wished she could tell him in that breezy, congenial manner not to worry, that we all make mistakes; the broken window could be replaced, an apology could undo the unintended insult. But this was no simple mistake.
“Anyway, I wanted to thank you,” he continued. “You were wonderful today. Why can’t you be like this always?”
She looked at him askew. “Like what?”
“Kind, welcoming, joyful, thoughtful, and—”
“My goodness, are you complimenting me?”
“Yes, and I would have continued had you not interrupted me.”
She opened her palms. “George, I am like this always. Well, I admit I tolerated some behavior today that I wouldn’t on another occasion. It’s just around you…I’m all defensiveness, anger, and hurt.”
He shifted forward in his chair. “Then what can I do, what can I say? How do I… How do I take the hurt or anger away to make this part of you stay?”
She didn’t know why, but tears welled. Why was she crying? She had to turn her head and blink them away before he noticed.
“I-I must go.” She tried to cover her lapse with a weak joke. “It would be unseemly if we were caught together. That roguish Lilith Dahlgren has tarnished many a man’s sterling reputation.” She hurried to the door before more embarrassing tears formed.
“Lilith,” he called quietly. His voice sounded like a summer shower on a window.
She turned.
“I won’t make a mistake with your husband,” he said. “I will find you loyalty and kindness. And a home. Where…where you won’t feel hurt or anger.”
Oh, hang the tears forming in her eyes again. “Don’t forget your promise to meet me in the attics,” she whispered and fled.
Thirteen
Colette, in a borrowed caftan, tiptoed through the sleeping palace. At every turn, she expected a powerful eunuch to catch her. Yet the palace was strangely unguarded and she crept about unimpeded. At last, she came to a lovely garden at the very heart of the palace. A large white moon lit up the fruit trees and lush flowers. Their sweet scents drifted on the warm air.
Enormous carved doors painted in gold stood at all the corners of the garden. She pivoted, unsure what waited behind each one. A secret box, an angry soldier, or the sultan enjoying his concubines?
A tree ruffled, a bird flew away, and out of the shadows appeared the sultan. The moon’s light glinted on his sword. Colette cried out. In a graceful motion, like a leaping panther, his hand was on her mouth and his powerful chest against her back.
“Don’t awaken the palace,” he growled. “Come to find the secret box, have you? Do you truly think it will set you free?”
He released her and spun her around to look at him. The pale moonlight softened his brutish features. His eyes glowed through the darkness.
“How did you know I was coming for the box?”
“My spies told me. I called off my guards and had the tigers caged for the evening. Then I waited.”
He strode to a door framed by lemon trees. From within his sash he produced a key and opened the door to reveal a tiny room holding a red and gold painted table on which rested an unadorned wooden box.
He gestured with his sword. “Open it. You, the lover of secrets. Let me not stop you.”
She hesitated. What game was this?
He laughed, low and rich, as he approached her. “Ah, but you fear the power of secrets now. What waits in this box you will never forget. What good is your free body if your heart and mind are forever enslaved by this secret?”
Colette’s gaze lit on the sultan and then the garden’s entrance.
“What will you find if you run from me?” He caressed her cheek. “Will you go home only to learn that it has been destroyed by another evil man who desires the secret to your Greek Fire? Where will you find safety? Where will you find freedom? Perhaps it is in the box. Open it and see what you find.”