Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
I t was not difficult for Philip to determine that the exiled grand duke of Merania—or the man styling himself as such—had let the impressive Fauconberg House in Soho Square. Built for the first Earl Fauconberg, home for a time to the Duke of Argyll, the house had been refurbished by the architect Robert Adam at the behest of the Scottish baron who had bought it from the duke, and who had since removed himself to the more hospitable climes of Grenada, where he owned several plantations.
Three stories high, with seven bays of windows, the house took up nearly half its side of the square, the new dressings of the windows trying to hide that it was essentially two houses converted to one. The aging grandeur seemed expressive of something—a man down on his luck fighting to hold his place in the world? Philip paid the bearers of the chair that had brought him, stepped onto the pedimented porch with its Doric columns, and rapped the hilt of his sword on the door.
The man who opened it was built like a laborer, and dressed like one, with leather breeches, a brown linen shirt, and a worsted waistcoat beneath his dark wool coat. He wore no wig, and his dark hair, unpowdered, was pulled back in a queue.
“Whaddayer want?”
Philip fought back a grin; he’d never had a butler in a gentleman’s home greet him in such a fashion. What was the title for the daughter of a supposed grand duke? “Her grace, the lady Melisende.”
“’Er ’ighness.” A boy squeezed toward the door past the bulk of the larger man, dressed as his miniature, but with a cocked hat on his head sporting a dandy’s plume. The boy’s stockings showed dust and his breeches gapped at the knee. “As what we call ’em—er ’ighnesses. Oi, where’s your galloper?” He snapped around his head with an accusing look at Devlin.
“I took a chair,” Philip said, feeling obliged to apologize.
The boy scoffed. “’ow’s a fellow to earn is pigs iffen the gentry coves don’t drive they own cattle?” He shook his head. “Orter bang up prime iffen ye wants the mort t’ look twice at ye.”
“I’ll bring my horse next time,” Philip promised, charmed against his will by the urchin’s boldness.
“’Er’s a lady, she is,” the butler grumbled. “Orter not be callin’ er mort.”
“A dimber mort, she is, a gentry mort too,” the boy retorted. “Ey now, I’m to be lookin’ after these kiddeys afore they try crackin’ the crib.” He took off down the stairs of the porch, shouting at the group of boys running through the landscaped square.
“Lady Melisende?” Philip turned to the butler as he stepped inside.
“Around here somewheres,” the butler rumbled.
They stood in an enormous entrance hall, tiled with veined white marble and lined with statuary and geometric wall panels warmed with touches of pink, green, and pale gold. An enormous medallion in the domed ceiling held a painted rose, its foliage spreading to smaller, symmetrical medallions holding stylized urns. Melisende came down the broad stair, and that was the last Philip noticed of the décor.
A stream of indignation, in a language Philip only partially recognized, floated down the stair from a room behind her, a man’s voice. Melisende called something back, her eyes on Philip. He was accustomed to a noisy household, having grown up among ten children, but he had not anticipated he would find a foreign duke’s household as raucous as his bachelor quarters after his friends brought him home following a night of drinking.
“Is that Ladin?” Philip asked in a diffident tone as she descended.
“Of course not. My father would never sully our native tongue by using it for imprecations. He curses in German. He uses French to recite poetry, and Russian when he’s telling bawdy jokes.”
“Any others?” Philip said dryly. He’d studied Latin in school and learned French to aid his profession, but it continued to astound him how his Continental colleagues thought nothing of possessing a half dozen languages or more, and moving with great facility between them.
Her brow knit as she neared him, then stopped. “He always spoke Italian to my mother.”
“Spoke?” Philip said softly. She wore a smart fitted jacket with a separate skirt, and her hair was caught up in a bandeaux, its unpowdered tones as dark as coffee. She smelled of pennyroyal, sharp, cool, invigorating.
She looked down at him from one step above. She was a tall woman, robustly built, but Philip was of no slight framing himself. She fit perfectly in his arms, as he damn well knew.
“On a mountain in Tyrol my mother lies, with bones for coral and pearls for eyes,” she said lightly. “Come. Bruyit, I need you to play our seconds and ensure the equipment is in proper shape.”
“Ye padded the tips, aye?” the butler grumbled, following her. “This wee laddie’s like to blubber do ye pink ’im, and a shame to prick holes in that fine coat.”
“I beg your pardon,” Philip said. “Am I walking into combat?”
“A discussion only.” She had a firm, swift stride, and it carried her through a tall doorway at the back of the entrance hall to a gallery running along the rear of the house. More statuary lined the walls, flanking the occasional bench or chair, but the floor space was broad and open. Tall windows let in light from the garden, and Philip spotted the eaves of stables and a coach house. The duke had impressive quarters indeed.
“ Was wollen Sie, meine Dame ?” An older woman with an elaborate lace cap and apron protecting her striped robe appeared in the opposite doorway, where Philip guessed a servant’s stair connected the several floors of the house. He would have expected a housekeeper of Melisende’s to be efficient sort who missed nothing and ruled the household with a gauntlet of velvet-covered steel, and that was exactly the impression this woman conveyed.
“Tea and cakes, Frau Gamper , bitte, and schnapps for after. Perhaps the cherry?”
Melisende moved to one end of the room, where her hulking butler inspected a wooden frame that held two fencing foils. Melisende took one he handed her and bent the blade with her finger as if she tested the resiliency of fencing swords every day.
“ Mein Kirschwasser, ja .” The housekeeper nodded and departed as calmly as if her mistress challenging callers to a duel was a familiar sight. The lady must be teasing him.
“You are teasing me, madam,” Philip said. “Are you going to assault me?”
“We both know you are going to fence with your words, so I thought we might as well play with swords.” She handed her blade to the butler and tested the strength of the second. “One hit earns the answer to one question. An impressive defense allows the defendant to pose a question.” She tilted the sword toward him so he could see the button on the tip. “No blood. Frau Gamper says it will stain the marble.”
“You must allow me one question before we begin. You fence?”
“When I can, though we move so often, it is difficult to find a proper master. Here, however, I have the greatest swordsman in England on my doorstep. D’Angelo’s school is in Carlisle House, right across the square—you know it?”
“I attend when I’m able. I have heard he takes female students.”
“And his son has upheld that tradition, fortunately for me.”
As casually as if she disrobed before strangers all the time, Melisende undid two strings at her waist and pulled off her skirt. This left her in her crimson jacket, with a fichu tucked into the square neckline. Beneath the skirt she wore white silk stockings and a pair of kerseymere breeches in pale yellow, buttoned just below the knee. Diamonds, he assumed paste, gleamed on the buckles of her shoes. Her legs were shapely and impossibly long, her thighs rounded, her calves a plump line, and the curve of her hips beneath the short skirt of the jacket?—
His blood thickened. Calmly she folded the skirt and draped it over a nearby chair.
“I have shocked you.”
“By no means. I assume such attire allows far more freedom of movement.”
She took both swords and paced to the center of the room. “The rules. No face, arms, wrists, or thighs.”
She’d gone and mentioned thighs. Philip fought back the blood rushing through his head.
“No indecent language.”
“I would never. In the presence of a lady,” he amended.
“You are right-handed?” She handed him his foil with the pommel toward him, the grip in the French style beneath the guard.
“ Droit and dexterous,” he said lightly. Her fingers brushed his.
“And I am sinister.” She lifted her hand. “In a proper school, all left-handed assaults are discarded. However, if you will permit me?”
“It is your salle , therefore your regulations, milady.”
“You are satisfied?” She squeezed the button atop her foil, ensuring it was properly secured, and he did the same.
“I am.”
He was thrilled . This woman was completely unexpected. She looked as delicious as a warm roll taken straight from the oven, she kissed like a practiced courtesan, and she had as cool a head as a hardened soldier. Philip had not felt this awake, this alert, in a long time.
He would be certain not to hurt her, not her person nor her pride. Such magnificence in a woman should be applauded.
She swept her sword toward her face with a flourish, holding it straight up before her nose, her eyes intense and serious, her mouth a delicious prim line. “ Salut .”
He followed suit, touching the sword to the brim of his hat. She was adorable.
She stepped her leg forward and bent it at the knee, sweeping her sword in his direction, button lifted, her balance elegant, her form perfect. “ En garde .”
He assumed his stance, blood singing. “This is the most interesting morning call I’ve ever made.”
She lunged and scored a hit immediately, her button pressing above his heart before he could bring his sword up to block her. “ Touché ,” she shouted.
“A hit,” her butler, the brute, agreed.
Philip blinked in surprise, recovering himself. She was fast.
Her voice came breathless, and her gaze flicked to the satchel he had discarded on a nearby chair, along with his belt and sword. “You brought the book?”
“I did. I would have given you that question for free,” he added.
“The winner of the bout gets to keep it.” Her chest rose and fell quickly beneath the jacket, a darker red than her lips, and the knuckles on her grip were white.
“Agreed.”
He would be losing this sparring contest, Philip decided. He would make her work, of course; he wouldn’t insult her with anything less. But it was worth more to him to know what she wanted with these volumes, and why she needed both copies.
“How did you know Arendale had it?”
“Nay, you must earn that one.” He grinned and assumed his stance. “En garde. ”
He allowed her next hit, or believed he did. Her attacks were swift, efficient stabs, no twirling or flourishes. He parried two but the third snuck beneath his defense, touching below his ribs.
“ Touché ,” she said triumphantly, her eyes flashing. He was going to enjoy losing to her, just to see her eyes dance with light and her bosom heave with exertion.
“Your answer, sir.”
He put up his sword. “I am friends with Cadmus, the son of Earl Payne, who is heir to the Marquess of Arendale. You’ll hear him addressed as the Viscount Rudyard. Fine fellow, Cadmus, sturdy as a rock, always up for a caper. He showed me the book, but it…disappeared from his library before anyone else could have a look at it.”
“And why should he think it worth remarking, I wonder?”
She hadn’t earned the question, but Philip wanted to see her reaction. “He heard some rumor there is a treasure map inside.”
She swept into position, her lips lifting in a sneer. “What a silly notion. En garde .”
Philip decided it was time to get some answers to his own questions. He touched her lightly below the right shoulder. “Why do you want all the books?”
“I told you, I am collecting them. Each has a distinctive cover and different art. I will show you after I’ve won yours.”
“How many books are there altogether?”
“Twelve.”
“And how many do you have already?”
“Yours will make eleven.”
He dropped his guard in surprise, and she scored a hit. “You’ve been doing this a long time.”
“My question.”
She pushed a loop of hair beneath her bandeau. She was breathing heavily, but then, so was he. She was a worthy opponent. “Why are you watching me?”
“Not you, your father.” He debated how honest he needed to be to fulfill the code of their duel. He would wager a year’s allowance she was being coy about her reasons for wanting the entire print run of a history on the duchy of Merania. He need not reveal his entire hand to her.
“You were recently in France. France is aiding the American Colonies in their rebellion against Britain. Certain members of Rockingham’s cabinet are curious about where your father’s allegiance might lie.”
She snorted and resumed her attack. “Afraid he is passing secrets? We were in St. Petersburg before that, and Empress Catherine has declared Russia part of the League of Armed Neutrality.”
Philip doubted any British debutante, or society maven for that matter, even knew such a league existed, much less its purpose or membership. Melisende was of a completely different mold.
“Your Holy Roman Emperor joined the League as well, but an American envoy was in Vienna last year, trying to gain the support of the Austrians. And Frederick the Great of Prussia declared neutrality, but it’s well known he interferes with British interests wherever he can, short of beginning a trade war.”
“My father was not there to meet the American. And we are not Austrian.” Her brows knit, her eyes narrowing, and Philip enjoyed the thrill of having her entire focus on him.
“Merania is an Austrian holding, is it not?”
“That was an excellent parry, so I will allow you the question. Yes, it is.”
“And your father would be a vassal to the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II.”
Her blade snapped through the air too late to stop his attack, and she hissed as his button brushed her breast. “My father is vassal to no one. His brother claimed that honor, and my cousin Rudolf will inherit in time.”
Interesting. A man denied his birthright was a man with a God-given mission. He would do almost anything for the promise to be reinstated to his status, his lands.
If the duke was indeed in exile, whence the money for this palatial house, a full if unorthodox staff of servants, Melisende’s lovely gowns? The luxury of fencing lessons and a coach with horses housed in the mews?
He knew there was a full staff in the house because three maids, a footman, and the boy who’d pushed past him earlier had all congregated in the far doorway leading to the entrance hall and the grand stair, watching their bout with avid interest. Philip caught more than one glance of female appreciation his way. He was sweating in his brocade coat and would love to discard it, but he wasn’t prepared to violate propriety quite as easily as his hostess.
Though if she wasn’t a prim virgin…perhaps she had no virtue to protect.
He must not let his mind roam down those paths, or he’d lose the contest sooner than he’d planned.
“So if you are not Austrian, what are you?”
“Meranian, of course.” She flicked his sword away from her waist, irritated.
Another feint. He ought to have read that blasted book, or tried to. She was right: the language wasn’t Latin.
“I will have to request you translate your book for me. I find myself suddenly fascinated by the history.”
She pointed her button toward the ceiling. “Do you concede defeat?”
“I’ve barely begun, my dear.” There was so much more he wanted to know about her. He assumed his stance. “So your father was ousted by his brother?”
“You didn’t earn a question.” She narrowed her eyes at him and lunged.
Philip leapt backward and brought up his sword, putting strength behind his parry. With broadswords, or even the slender decorative sword he’d worn to impress her, there would be no contest. But fencing was a sport of elegance and flexibility as well as strength and skill, and in that, she was more than a match for him.
“I just made an excellent defense,” he pointed out.
“Oh, very well.” She snapped up her sword. “My father and I came home from taking some of my mother’s effects to the family of her birth to find that my uncle had turned the ducal guard to his service and made a bid to the court in Vienna to be recognized as the Grand Duke of Merania. Short of launching another coup, which would shed the blood of his people, my father could do little but bring a suit and seek out allies.”
“I take it his suit has not been successful.” It wasn’t a question; he hadn’t made a hit.
“His suit has not even been heard. While my father was doing his best to rule well and justly, his brother was in Vienna currying favor with imperial officials. Moreover, my sister—” She bit off the words with a huff of anger and pushed his blade away with her own.
“So that is why you have moved about so much. Your father seeks support for his cause.”
“Earn your questions, please.”
He did. “You have a sister?”
“Older, and married to the Duke of Carinthia.” Philip didn’t know where that was, or how important it might be. “A neighboring principality, and also a crown land of the Habsburg monarchy, now,” she said, clearly reading his ignorance on his face.
“Why cannot she support you? I claim that question on basis of my excellent defense.”
“Emperor Joseph can revoke ducal powers, or instate a new vassal, any time he pleases. The only way a ruler like my father could be secure is if the monarch granted him the land in his own right, and what emperor is willing to break up his lands? Even one as enlightened as Joseph.”
“A claimant would have to amass great power, or perform a great service,” Philip agreed. What would qualify? Perhaps if an exiled duke were to pass along information about the movements of a powerful navy, or fleets of British merchantmen, to a Continental ruler eager to hold his own against the empires of Russia and Prussia and the Bourbon kings of Spain and France.
Perhaps the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t Merania’s master. Perhaps her father sought support from the Dutch, with whom Britain was also at war. William V, Prince of Orange, as stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, might have the weight to reinstate an exiled grand duke who had helped him wrest valuable trade routes from British ships.
“A claimant might unearth an ancestral deed conferring rights that later rulers chose to ignore, but what are the odds of that happening?” Melisende put up her sword. “Do you yield?”
Of course not, because then she would take the book and have her hulking butler hurl Philip out the door. He would lose the one advantage he had, the one thing that made him interesting to her.
Philip wished, very much, to interest the Lady Melisende.
“Have we begun? I thought you were warming up.”
A smile flickered across her luscious lips. “I have a confession.”
His heart gave a sharp beat. “I adore confessions.”
“I am not left-handed.” She tossed her foil to her right hand and flourished it in the air.
Philip feared, in what followed, he lost a great deal of the ground he’d gained in the esteem of the chambermaids and the little kitchen maid who had come to watch him. He was certain he fell very low in the esteem of the butler as well, and the scorn of the hall boy was apparent in his vocal berating. Melisende was fast . She was strong and sure, her attacks precise and relentless. He might have, in other circumstances, made a fair showing of himself, but his faculties were sadly handicapped by a cloud of lust.
Her eyes danced with humor and mischief, and a dark curl sprang over the bandeau at her brow, giving her a merry, piratical air. Her throat and décolletage glistened with perspiration, which unleashed the heady scent of her perfume, which made him able to concentrate on nothing but images of shadowed bedchambers and naked skin. He tried to watch her sword but his gaze snagged on the full curve of her breasts in her jacket, the flex of her thighs in the breeches, God, those thighs, and if he caught her knee during one of her lunges he could yank her to him and have her body against his, perfectly positioned to?—
She tapped him on the shoulder, an easy hit. He was too distracted. “Are you a spy?”
“Nothing so interesting. I merely pass along tidbits of information I collect here and there in my haunts and rambles.” He parried her next attack.
She frowned. “That is exactly what a spy does. To whom do you report?”
“I hope what I learn might interest Charles James Fox, the new Foreign Secretary, though what he does with my information, I cannot say.”
She nodded. “Spy.”
“Hardly. You might not be aware, but Rockingham supports peace with the American Colonies and has already begun negotiations. The loss at Yorktown brought down the ministry of his predecessor, Lord North.”
“What will happen to you government spies when a treaty is negotiated?”
That was a pertinent question, and one Philip had asked himself often of late. “There are always political plots and intrigues afoot, my dear. Those in power want more of it, and those below them don’t want any at all. I assume, having lived at several courts abroad, you know how the game is played.”
“And this is your employment? You are a lesser son, I thought.”
“Sixth in line,” he agreed, falling back yet again before her measured thrusts. “No hope of advancement but by my own skill.”
“And cunning. I thought you were Irish. What allegiance do you have to the British crown?”
“A fair question to ask, considering that my family is Catholic.”
She tapped him on the chest to encourage him to proceed. “My father holds a baronet’s title, but he’ll never be allowed to hold office,” Philip explained. “Not in Ireland or in Great Britain. The Protestant majority is not fond of foreign influences. They fear a Catholic’s ultimate allegiance is to the Pope and not king and crown.”
“So you will not be able to hold office, either,” she guessed. “Or enter the clergy. But wouldn’t the military be open to you, or any number of trades, if you were seeking respectable employment?”
“Who says I am?”
She snorted. “Not the London gossips, certainly. They have all decided you need to transfix a desirable heiress, and wonder why you haven’t yet chosen your target.”
He grinned, a deliberate curve of his mouth that he often employed when he wanted to be seductive. “Who says I have not?”
She drove her button into his ribs hard enough to sting. “ Touché! Do you yield?”
“I thought you boasted that you would win my book,” he teased.
Now he saw her truly in action, and she was magnificent. He could pretend he was letting her drive him back, past the fireplace shared by the entry hall, toward the far end of the gallery where a pale statue of a Greek goddess, he suspected Minerva, smiled down with feminine disdain. But Philip could only blame the distraction of her own person for the moment when, in a movement faster than his eye could follow, she twirled her blade around his own and disarmed him.
His sword clattered to the floor between them. The maids cheered, and the butler rumbled his approval.
One hand behind her back, Melisende used her sword to lift his from the floor and to his hand. “Shall we continue? Or will you admit you are defeated?”
“I will concede you have earned my book.” He bowed, and she bent her leg in a curtsy, an incongruous motion in her breeches.
“You will put away the swords? Thank you, Bruyit.” She handed the weapons to their butler, who raked Philip with a slow, insolent stare. Something gleamed in the other man’s eyes, but Philip doubted it was approval.
Melisende was once again smooth efficiency, tying her skirt around her waist as she continued her orders. “Frau Gamper, I believe we will take our schnapps in the library. Bring some for my father as well.”
“Ja wohl, meine Dame .” The housekeeper shooed the maids away.
The hall boy went with them, eyes on Philip. “Held out longer than I thought ye would, guv. Though I’m glad I didn’t bet a groat on you.”
“I will endeavor to improve myself.” Philip wiped the sweat from beneath the brim of his hat using the cuff of his coat, hoping the stain of his exertion wouldn’t show.
Melisende reached for the strap of the satchel. Philip plucked it up and held it out to her. “To the victor, the spoils. You will allow me to stay for the unveiling, I hope.”
She hesitated, and he saw he’d guessed correctly. She’d meant to lift the book from him, by any means necessary, and send him, none the wiser, on his way.
“I think I’ve earned the privilege,” he said softly, meeting her gaze with his.
Her eyes were melted chocolate flecked with amber and green. “I owe you nothing,” she said.
“I saved you from Harry Maplethorne.”
It rose up between them, like struck tinder, the memory of last night’s kiss. A brief kiss in the way of things, but it had burned a mark into his consciousness. He was certain she felt it, too.
She pulled the cloth free of her bodice and patted the perspiration at her throat and the tops of her breasts, and Philip held back a groan at the hot rush of blood that tightened his lower body. He didn’t think, physically, he could force himself from her presence. Her hulking butler would have to lift and carry him away.
“Harry is not here.” The words were breathy, as if she lacked the will for a round scolding. He let his gaze drop to her lips, smooth and rounded. Her eyes flared.
“I might be of use in other fashion,” Philip murmured.
She turned with a click of her heels and a toss of her head, catching up the skirt she had laid aside. “Oh, very well. You can come to the library and meet my father, and explain to him your sudden fascination with our land and its history.”
Philip grinned as he followed her straight, arrogant back into the entrance hall and up the broad stairs. A small concession, grudgingly given. But he’d staked a tiny claim in the interest of Lady Melisende, and he meant to hold that ground, and gain much more of it, if he could.