Chapter 6 #2
“Not at all. He doesn’t dislike me.” Sappho halted a passing maid and took two glasses from a tray, handing one to Elf. “Men can be very foolish, my lady. A wise woman keeps out of their affairs.”
Elf sipped the excellent milk punch. “Really? What if a woman cares for the man?”
Sappho’s lips turned up slightly. “A wise woman does not care for men.”
“Are you saying you do not care for men?”
“Did I ever say I was wise? But men have codes quite adequately designed to manage their disagreements. It can be dangerous to interfere.”
“Men sometimes kill one another in those disagreements, codes or not.”
“True.” The notion did not seem to disturb her. “Whom do you wish to protect? Your brothers or Lord Walgrave?”
“My brothers of course.”
“I wonder.”
What on earth did the woman see? One-handed, Elf flicked her fan open and wafted it protectively. “I have no desire to see harm come to Walgrave either. His sister is married to my brother, after all. But if it came to a choice, I would choose my brothers.”
“Perhaps.” With that, Sappho moved on and Elf, impelled by some insane force, sought out her dangerous earl, Amanda by her side.
Elf had to admit that for her to be in the same room as Walgrave and not speak to him was close to impossible. It had been that way since their first meeting. The compulsion had resulted in nothing more than a string of barbed exchanges—unless one included the time as Lisette.
What would happen this time?
He stood in a loose group of people and she found it easy to move beside him. “How surprising to find you here, Walgrave.”
He started as if she had in truth jabbed him with a barbed weapon, then turned to face her as if she were an enemy. “How even more surprising to see you here, Lady Elfled.”
“This is my first visit.” Despite his tone, Elf determined to be calm and polite. Surely it was possible. “A pleasant event, is it not?”
“Indeed. But I wonder if Rothgar will permit other visits to this house.”
“Rothgar does not control my movements.” Already they were sparring.
“Rothgar controls any damn thing he can.”
“Then perhaps I cannot be controlled.”
His lips twitched into a sneer. “Doubtless true. Perhaps you do serve a function—as a cross for him to bear.”
With difficulty, Elf resisted the urge to fall into a full-fledged quarrel. She took a calming sip of her brandy-laced punch and tried again. “Why so heated, my lord? In truth, I don’t think I’ve ever done you harm.”
He, too, collected himself. “How true. And in this company, to visit the sins of the brothers on the sister would be foolhardy.”
He bowed, and would have moved away had Elf not stayed him with a hand on his arm. It surprised her as much as him and she had to scramble for a reason.
“I wondered if you had word yet from Chastity and Cyn.”
He raised his brows. “I would have thought your brother more likely to write to you than my sister is to me.”
“Women are generally better correspondents. And anyway, Rothgar is out of town, so I am staying with Lady Lessington. If there are letters at Malloren House, I might not know of it. It was an impulse only, to ask you.” And a foolish one. She must sound like a babbling idiot.
He delicately removed her hand from his sleeve, rather as if it were a louse or some similarly unwelcome intruder. “You are overmuch given to impulse, I fear.”
“And you are overmuch given to criticism!”
As usual when they had these spats, he looked as if he’d like to throttle her.
“No,” he said tightly, “I have not received any letters. It is, after all, only three days since they left for Portsmouth, but I believe they planned to go onboard about now. They will doubtless send letters just before sailing. As you know, sailing can often be delayed. I will inform you as soon as I have any news.”
With that, he turned and walked away. In fact, he went to speak to Sappho, then left. Sappho glanced across at Elf with mildly amused interest.
Mild did not describe Elf’s feelings. Her hand tingled where he had touched it, even if only to remove it from his person.
“I was wrong,” Amanda murmured. “It’s not Romeo and Juliet, it’s Benedick and Beatrice. If he ever discovers he’s kissed you, he’ll wash his mouth!”
“Oh, do stop being so foolish,” snapped Elf. “I want to leave.”
In the coach on the way home, however, Elf couldn’t help thinking of Lord Walgrave relaxed and in good company. Another side of him she’d never expected.
“If I hadn’t been there, Amanda, could you have found Lord Walgrave’s company pleasant?”
“It’s possible,” Amanda admitted. “He’s handsome enough, and has remarkable style. He moves well . . .”
“I wasn’t asking if you wanted to bed him!”
Amanda grinned. “Such thoughts tend to arise when discussing a handsome man. But yes, when not speaking to you he seemed pleasant enough. Quite a different person, in fact. Most of the time, however, it was hard to tell because of the noise and smoke of open warfare. At least he didn’t recognize Lisette. ”
“That’s true.”
And, thought Elf, that could be at the root of her discontent. Deep in her heart, she felt he should. He should at least have felt the vibration, the excitement that plagued her whenever she was in his presence.
Surely it couldn’t be entirely one-sided.
Amanda relaxed back in her seat, fanning herself lazily. “I must say, I was wrong in my misgivings. Your foray into wickedness is proving to be most entertaining. I’ll let you choose all our activities from now on.”
Elf wished she could tell her friend this wasn’t a game, and that any silly reactions she might have toward Lord Walgrave were completely irrelevant. Of course, it would help if she could persuade herself of it!
The Scots, she reminded herself sternly.
Treason.
A possible threat to the king.
Those were the important things, not the way Lord Walgrave made her skin tingle or the beautiful shape of his legs!
She feigned a yawn. “I must decline. It is too exhausting to be always seeking the unusual. Let us be strictly conventional in the future, my dear.”
Fort berated himself for leaving Sappho’s so abruptly. Irritating though Elf Malloren was, she hadn’t put him on the run before. His nerves must be on edge because of this business with Murray, damn the man.
Or perhaps because of Lisette. The fate of the silly chit still bothered him, though it was none of his fault. He’d done his best.
Lisette bothered him in other ways, too.
He wasn’t satisfied she was an innocent, and she seemed to have stirred his dormant interest in women.
He’d even found himself sexually intrigued by Milady Elf, burn it!
Elf was just the sort of bold chatterer he detested.
He liked his women lush, silent, and very experienced.
Or had, before he’d gone off sex entirely.
Pox on it, he hadn’t thought about any female this much in months, and now he had two wretched specimens living in his head. If he could only put his mind at ease about Lisette, the other disturbing notions would surely disappear.
So, the next night, when he attended a dinner at the home of Sir John Fielding in Bow Street, he set out to deal with it. As the ten gentlemen waited for dinner to be served, he asked an opportunity for a quiet word with Sir John, London’s chief magistrate.
“Trouble?” asked the grizzled man, who wore a silk scarf around his sightless eyes.
“Of a minor nature.”
Sir John chuckled. “That’s what everyone says. Or they say they’re asking for a friend. What can I do for you?”
Fort smiled, knowing Sir John could pick up every nuance of tone and the smile would carry into his voice. “My friend,” he said, “was in company with a young woman two nights ago. She ran off alone and he’s concerned for her safety. I wondered if any female bodies have turned up.”
“None that I know of, Walgrave, though it’s always possible for unfortunates to be washed up from the Thames some time after their death. Name?”
“I have not the slightest idea. Gently bred, though.”
Sir John cocked his head, turning toward Fort as if he could study him. “Then her family will have raised the alarm.”
“Has any such alarm been raised?”
“No.”
“She’s foreign—French—and visiting relatives here. She claimed they might be slow to announce her missing.”
“Silly titty,” growled Sir John, understanding the implication that the woman had been looking to become a rich man’s mistress. “And shame on you, my lord, for preying on her.”
“My friend,” said Fort, “behaved with considerable propriety under the circumstances. She would be completely safe had she not run away.”
“Humph! As I said, I’ve not heard of any suspicious deaths of young women. Give me a description, though, and I’ll have it checked.”
“Thank you. Middling height and build. Fine boned but rounded in the right places. She was masked, but her chin was a little square, though her lips were delicately shaped. She could be pretty . . .” Fort realized his voice had become almost dreamy because he was recalling Lisette lying on the bed, eating him with her eyes.
“Last seen,” he added briskly, “she was wearing a lurid gown of scarlet stripes over a scarlet petticoat, all covered by a poppy-red domino worn inside out.”
Sir John shook his head. “There’s no use in that, Walgrave.
If she came to grief, she’ll have been stripped to the skin.
Clothes like that are worth money.” After a moment the magistrate added, “To the poor, all clothes are worth money. If her killer didn’t strip her, the slum-carrion would. Hair color?”
Walgrave found himself deeply disturbed by the thought of Lisette limp and naked in a gutter. After all, it would be his fault for letting her slip. “I don’t know. She wore powder.”
“Well, a powdered corpse would cause some stir, I assure you! I’ll let you know if I hear anything, but if she’s not caught in a brothel, she’s safe with her relatives. And we can pray she’s learned something from her fright.”