The Bride Wore Scarlet Read online

  “It is true I went to the theatre with Lord Bessett,” said Lady Anisha irritably, “as did my brother. But so far as I know, neither I nor Lucan mean to court him.”

  “Don’t be coy, Nish,” said Lazonby. “We know one another too well for that.”

  “Do we, Rance?” She cut one of her mysterious, sloe-eyed glances at him. “I sometimes wonder if I know you at all. But very well, yes. Bessett asked my brother’s permission to pay his attentions to me. Quaint of him, was it not?—particularly when it should have been me whom he asked.”

  “Bessett is delightfully old-fashioned,” Lazonby concurred. “I think it one of his finer traits.”

  “Well, Adrian and I had a bit of row over it,” said Anisha sourly. “I have told my brother time and again that I mean to take a lover before I take another husband.”

  Lazonby smiled. “Do you indeed?”

  “Yes, someone different and . . . and adventurous, perhaps.” Anisha’s chin went up a notch. “Bessett was not quite what I had in mind, but now I think on it, his good looks quite make up for his being so archaic.”

  Lazonby settled his hand over hers and gave it a swift squeeze. “Look here, old thing—” He searched his mind for the right words. “I . . . I am not for you. You know that, don’t you, Nish?”

  Color flashed up her cheeks. “My God, Rance, but you presume a great deal!”

  “I presume to account you a dear, dear friend,” he said. “Shall I stop?”

  Lady Anisha flounced on the seat, neatening skirts that did not need neatening, then adjusting the tilt of her jaunty little hat. “No,” she finally said. Then she gave a great sigh. “Well, go on. What is it you want of me?”

  “What do I want?” He cut a curious glance at her.

  “Rance, I was married a long while, and I know how men think,” she said. “You did not put on that fine morning coat—I did not know you owned anything so elegant, by the way—merely to tool through Hyde Park in front of people you could not care less about. The same people whom you well know wouldn’t give Adrian and me the time of day were it not for my brother’s money and title.”

  “Anisha, don’t sell yourself short.”

  She cut another haughty look at him. “Oh, I don’t!” she said. “I am quite as arrogant as any one of them. My mother was a Rajput princess, you may recall. London society can go hang for all I care.”

  “Good girl,” he said, shooting her a grin.

  Lady Anisha clapped a hand onto her jaunty hat as a gust of wind caught it. “So, what do you want?”

  “I want you to go with me to Scotland Yard,” he said.

  “To where?”

  “Well, to Number Four, actually,” he said. “To visit Assistant Commissioner Napier. I know it isn’t the most refined of places, but I saw you talking to him at the wedding breakfast, and I thought . . . well, I thought the two of you were getting on rather famously.”

  “Heavens, I wouldn’t call it that,” she said. “I have no use for the man whatever. But he was a guest in my brother’s home, and I was polite to him.”

  “But he liked you,” Lazonby suggested. “Either that, or he thought you were pinching Ruthveyn’s silver, for he never took his eyes from you.”

  Lady Anisha seemed to consider it. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she finally said. “He was civil enough, yes, but Napier was under no illusion as to why he was invited.”

  “Yes,” said Lazonby tightly. “To make it plain to the gossiping public that Lady Ruthveyn was fully exonerated in her employer’s murder. After all, he’d all but publicly accused her. It was that or have Ruthveyn rain political hellfire down upon his head.”

  “People are forever underestimating the reach of the Fraternitas, are they not?” Lady Anisha murmured, still holding her hat against the breeze. “In any case, Napier was asking me about India. He had been offered a position there.”

  Lazonby cast his gaze heavenward. “Please, God, tell me he is leaving England forever?”

  “I fancy he had already turned it down,” said Lady Anisha. “Something to do with a death in his family. No, I think you will not be rid of Napier quite that easily. And yes, Rance, I know he has hounded you unmercifully. I know it was his father who sent you off to rot in prison. And for those reasons, if no other, Napier will never be my friend.”

  “But you will you go with me?” asked Lazonby. “As your brother’s representative, since he has left for India? Right now Napier feels a debt to your family—perhaps even a little shame. And he found you intriguing. He won’t toss me out on my ear quite so quickly if you’re with me.”

  Anisha rolled her eyes. “What about Lucan? Mightn’t he go?”

  Lazonby laughed. “Your younger brother has no gravitas, my dear,” he said, “and you are—if you will pardon the expression—twice the man he can ever hope to be.”

  “Nonsense,” she snapped. “He is just a boy—and a rake in the making, yes, but I shall attend to that in time. But very well, I concede he won’t do.”

  “And . . . ?”

  Anisha exhaled on another great sigh. “Choose the day, then,” she said. “I shall do it—but it will cost you something dear.”

  “A pound of flesh, eh, Shylock?” he said, cutting a grin at her.

  “It might feel like more than a pound,” she said, her spine set rigidly straight. “On Saturday night, in recompense, you will accompany me to the opera.”

  “To the opera?” he said, horrified. “But I don’t like the opera. I don’t even understand it.”

  “It is Donizetti’s L’elisir d’Amore,” she said tartly. “And it’s simple. They fall in love, there’s a big misunderstanding, a magical elixir, and then they both—”

  “—die tragically?” Lazonby flatly suggested. “And I’m just hazarding a wild guess here.”

  Her eyes flashed warningly. “Rance, must you be so boorish?”

  Lord Lazonby laughed. “Or does just one of them die, leaving the other brokenhearted?” he suggested. “Or perhaps they accidentally poison one another? Or stab one another? And all of it sung, no less, and in some obscure language no reasonable chap would understand?”

  Anisha’s eyes glittered. “Oh, for pity’s sake, you do not need to understand it!” she gritted. “You need to put on a proper frock coat and present yourself in Upper Grosvenor Street at seven sharp. Lady Madeleine needs another gentleman to even out her numbers—and you are it!”

  “Ah, well!” said Lazonby softly. “Another deal with the devil for old Rance!”

  Chapter 6

  In general, the Tao of the invader is this: When the troops have penetrated deeply, they will be unified.

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  The Jolie Marie sailed from Ramsgate’s Royal Harbor just after dawn in the wake of the morning’s first mail packet. The captain, Thibeaux, was the son of an elderly French Savant who had served the Fraternitas well for many decades, and survived France’s turmoils with his head intact. Like all the Brotherhood’s Savants, the elder Thibeaux was a man of great learning; an astronomer and mathematician by trade.

  By Thibeaux’s estimation, the journey across the North Sea was expected to take something less than two days, and Geoff had ordered him to run fully rigged.

  The trouble started, however, as soon as the Kentish cliffs disappeared from the horizon—which, given the wind, didn’t take long. Anaïs, who had remained fixed at the aft railing staring at Ramsgate, began to pace the deck from stem to stern as soon as the shoreline vanished, her shawl and her hems whipping wildly about her, and it took no special gift—psychic or otherwise—to sense her disquiet. Though disquiet, perhaps, was not quite the right word.

  Twice in passing he suggested she go below, but Anaïs shook her head. She was regretting her impetuous decision, Geoff feared. Though they had seen no one known to either of them through the whole of the previous day, the harsh reality of what she had chosen to do was likely sinking in on her now.

  He had wondered—but not
permitted himself the satisfaction of asking—just what she’d told her family. Obviously Maria Vittorio knew she had left England again, even if her parents did not. Quite likely her brother knew it, too.

  That could prove unpleasant.

  But an impetuous pup like Armand de Rohan could be dealt with in time—if it became necessary. And her brother’s disposition, rash or otherwise, had nothing to do with Anaïs’s present mood. The truth was, she had been distant all morning, even to the point of refusing the breakfast he had arranged in the inn’s private parlor. And oddly, Geoff had found himself a little rankled by it.

  He had set out on this journey trying to avoid her, it was true. The whole of his mind, he had told himself, needed to be focused on the task before him, and not on the seductive turn of his partner’s backside. Watching her climb in and out of the carriage and smile at his servants at every stop along the drive from London had driven him to distraction. And he was not a man easily distracted.

  But during their walk up from the harbor the previous evening, with their arms linked loosely together, Geoff had somehow begun to see more than that lovely backside. He had felt, fleetingly, as if he had glimpsed her equally lovely inside.

  Those virtuous notions notwithstanding, however, it was not her fine character his mind had turned to when at last he’d stripped himself naked and crawled into bed last night, saddle-weary and much conflicted. No, it was that wide, mobile mouth of hers. That husky laugh which seemed to bubble up from deep inside, then catch provocatively in her throat. Those hot brown eyes and that riotous tangle of black hair that seemed ever on the verge of tumbling down.

  He watched her now as she strolled along the deck of the Jolie Marie, tendrils of inky hair curling wildly from the damp, and he couldn’t help but imagine having it down about her breasts and plunging his hands into it. And it made him wish to the devil he’d drawn that last inch of his draperies closed last night. Or that his bed had sat under the window instead of directly opposite. Or even better, that he’d gone down to the taproom and got himself thoroughly sotted. For Anaïs, it seemed, was a bit of a night owl. Her lamp had remained lit until well past midnight.

  For a time, he had merely watched her silhouette, long and graceful as it passed back and forth by her window, while he wondered what she was doing awake at such an hour. And then he wondered why he cared. She was not his type. She was young—younger and a good deal more innocent than the sort of female who ordinarily captured his imagination.

  Bessett preferred experienced women who knew the game; lush, mature women with no pretense to romance and few expectations. And for that absence of finer feelings, he was willing to pay handsomely—though he rarely had to.

  No, Anaïs was not for him, but capture his imagination she inexplicably had. And so he had found himself fixated upon a mere shadow, fantasizing about her even as he stroked himself, seeking satisfaction—or something akin to it—in the basest of ways. Tipping his head back into the softness of his pillow, he had thought about that hair, and breathed in the memory of her scent. And no, it was not her inner beauty that had driven him, or remained with him as he’d cried out with his release.

  Even then, however, the lust inside him had not stilled.

  He should have remembered his original vow—that he did not need to know the woman in order to work with her. He needed to know only that they shared the same concern for the child whom they had been sent to protect. That should have been enough. But now, as he watched her turn and make her way up the length of the deck again, Geoff felt the bite of dissatisfaction like a blackfly at the back of his neck.

  And it was remotely possible she sensed it. Possible, really, that she knew a vast deal about his innermost thoughts and longings. Though it was true that those with the Gift—even a hint of it—could not read one another, there were always subtleties and layers.

  Of course, as so many amongst them did, Anaïs had minimized her skill. But he’d heard the same sort of denials out of Rance, and even Lady Anisha, Ruthveyn’s sister. And while it was true that few were as accursed with the Gift as he and Ruthveyn, Geoff could not escape the suspicion that a great many people took care to hide the truth.

  Well, if she knew, so be it. He was a man, with a man’s desires—and she would do well to remember it.

  But he lost that train of thought when she paused near the hatch to seize hold of the railing, staring intently starboard as if France might magically materialize from that chalybeous infinity of water and sky. She leaned so far forward that, for an instant, he wondered if she meant to pitch herself headfirst into the churning water and swim for Calais.

  But what nonsense. Anaïs de Rohan was far too sensible for that.

  He relaxed, one hand upon the mast for balance, and let his gaze drift over her. She was dressed today in dark green, another of her eminently practical gowns, the simplicity of which merely served to emphasize the lean elegance of her figure. She had curves enough to please a man, he noticed, but no more, and he found himself wishing he’d looked at her a little more purposefully that night in the St. James Club. He should have liked to have a clearer memory of those small, perfect breasts to help him ease the torment at night.

  In another life, he supposed, Anaïs de Rohan might have been a dancer, or an exclusive courtesan, perhaps, for though she was right in saying she was not a beauty, she fairly exuded earthly charm and celestial grace.

  Just now, however, she looked neither charming nor graceful.

  She looked like she was about to heave her entrails over the rail.

  He had left his post by the mainmast and was hastening toward her before he fully grasped what had drawn him. By the time he reached her, Anaïs’s knuckles were bloodless upon the railing, her face as pale as parchment.

  He set a hand at her spine and leaned over her. “Anaïs, what is it?”

  She turned her head to look up at him with a wan smile. “Merely a little mal de mer,” she said. “I sometimes suffer with it.”

  He set his arm loosely at the small of her back. “So that’s what’s wrong,” he said, almost to himself. “Look, you should go below and lie down.”

  She shook her head and turned back to the rail. “I’ve got to watch the horizon,” she said, the wind whipping at the loose tendrils of her hair. “It helps. Now go. I shall be fine.”

  But Geoff had never seen anyone so ashen. “I can order Captain Thibeaux to slow the ship,” he suggested.

  “Don’t you dare.” Her voice was tremulous with emotion. “We haven’t the time, and it will but draw out the misery.”

  He shifted his weight, and set his hands on the rail to either side of her, bracketing her with his body. The irrational fear that she might jump or fall still plagued him. He could feel her trembling. “Anaïs,” he said, “do you have this often?”

  She gave a pathetic little laugh. “Did I say sometimes? I lied.”

  “But . . . your travels,” he murmured. “To Tuscany. To everywhere, really.”

  “Look, the truth is—” She had her eyes firmly fixed on the horizon. “The truth is, I can’t cross the Thames without casting up my accounts. There, Bessett, you’ve had fair warning. Stay, and I shan’t be accountable for that lovely waistcoat you’re wearing.”

  He set one hand on her shoulder. “Then why do you do it? Travel, I mean.”

  “Because suffering builds character?” she suggested a little bitterly. “You know, I never much minded the long journeys across land. The being away from my family. Even the incessant political upheavals that occasionally sent me to ground. But I should rather have waded through one of Tuscany’s revolutions than face a day at sea. In the end, however, England is an island, so what choice is there?”

  “To stay home,” Geoff suggested, then he dropped his tone. “To embroider those pillow cushions, perhaps?”

  “Out of the question,” she said.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Is this is why you didn’t come down to breakfast?”

  “Did
you imagine I found your company intolerable?” She gave a sharp laugh. “I assure you, Bessett, that is not the case. I simply know better than to eat before sailing.”

  He let his hand slide to her waist and bent his head. “Geoff,” he quietly reminded her. “Just Geoff will do. Poor girl. You must be feeling perfectly weak-kneed.”

  Again she gave her uneasy laugh. “What lady would not be, with you pressed inch-to-inch down her length?” she said.

  “I’m not letting you faint and fall headfirst into the North Sea,” he said. “So yes, perhaps I’m a little close.”

  “And I wish I weren’t so thoroughly unable to appreciate that fact,” she said. “Oh, really, Bessett! Must we have this conversation? I seem infinitely capable of embarrassing myself. Go away now, do.”

  “Come midship,” he ordered, gently pulling her away from the rail. “You’ll find it a bit steadier there. Perhaps we can find you a seat.”

  She came reluctantly, and in due course, Étienne, the cabin boy, unearthed a sort of deck chair from the hold. Bessett ordered it lashed to a pair of cleats and situated Anaïs beneath a heavy blanket. The fine spring morning in Ramsgate had given way to the vagaries of the sea, and the spray off the bow was picking up with their speed.

  Bessett returned to his tasks, but for the remainder of the day his gaze was never far from her. The captain repeatedly offered ginger tea—and hinted at something stronger—but she refused all offers. Later, as Bessett and the rest of the crew went below in turns to eat a little bread and cold beef, Anaïs merely shook her head, and as dusk came upon them and the temperature dropped, there was soon no horizon—blurry or otherwise—to help keep her bearings.

  Finally, Geoff had no choice but to force her to go below, all but carrying her down the steep, ladderlike stairs.

  The Jolie Marie was fitted with two private cabins; the captain’s forward quarters, and a second aft for guests. This minuscule cabin held four narrow berths stacked double with drawers below, a small dining table, and a mahogany washstand with a chamber pot beneath. The last was to prove useful, for as the evening came on, Anaïs began to grow clammy, and to retch violently to little effect.