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She walked to the library table and took up his notes. “Your handwriting is deplorable,” she said. She put them down and, turning back to him, said, “I haven’t told you about my mother.”
“An English aristocrat, yes? Or something else?”
She gave a short laugh. “Both.”
She returned to her chair, and he sat, too. His heart thudded. Something was coming, and it wasn’t good. He was sure of that. He was leaning forward, waiting. He was wanting it to be over with and hoping against hope it would be good news. But it couldn’t be good, else she wouldn’t be so ill at ease, she who was never ill at ease, mistress of every situation.
And what was wrong with him? She’d admitted to forgery! She’d told him she came from a line of blue-blooded French criminals!
“My mother was Catherine DeLucey,” she said.
He recognized the surname, but it took a moment for him to place it. Then he saw it: blue, vivid blue.
“Lucie’s eyes,” he said. “Those remarkable blue eyes. Miss Sophia, too. And Miss Leonie. I knew there was something familiar about them. They’re unforgettable. The DeLuceys—the Earl of Mandeville’s family.”
Her color came and went. She folded her hands tightly in her lap.
He remembered then. Some old scandal to do with one of Lord Hargate’s sons. Not the one who’d manhandled him yesterday, though. Which one? He couldn’t remember. His brain was slow and thick and aching.
She said, “Not those DeLuceys. Not the good ones with the handsome property near Bristol. My mother was one of the other ones.”
He’d been leaning toward her so eagerly, and she’d seen the hope in his eyes, and the uncertainty.
Then she saw the truth dawn. His head went back, and his posture stiffened, and he looked away, unable to meet her gaze.
Sophy and Leonie had told her he didn’t need to know. They’d said she’d only heap coals on her own head, and since when had she taken on the role of martyr?
But they didn’t know what it was to love a man, and so they didn’t know what it was to hurt at causing him pain. He’d opened his heart to her. He’d offered her the moon and the stars, knowing nothing about her. and she hadn’t had the courage to offer what she could in fair return: the truth.
She’d reminded him again and again of her trade, because she could cope with his coming to his senses and rejecting her because of what she did for a living. But to tell him who she was, then see his face change as he shut her out…That would hurt more than she could bear.
She saw it now, and it hurt more than she’d imagined. But the worst was over. She’d live.
She went on quickly, eager to have her sordid tale done. “My mother was a blueblood, but she wasn’t like the other Noirot wives. She hadn’t any money. They married each other for fortunes that turned out not to exist. They didn’t learn the truth until the marriage night, and then they thought it a great joke. She and Father led a nomadic life, from one swindle to the next. They would run up debts in one place, then leave in the dead of night for another. We children were inconvenient baggage. They left us with this relative or that one. Then, when I was nine years old, we ended up with a woman who’d married one of my father’s cousins. She was a fashionable dressmaker in Paris. She trained us to the trade, and she saw to our education. We were attractive girls, and Cousin Emma made sure we learned refinement. That was good for business. And of course, a pretty girl with good manners might attract a husband of wealth and quality.”
She looked up to gauge his reaction, but he seemed to be studying the carpet. His thick black lashes, so stark against the pallor of his skin, veiled his eyes.
But she didn’t need to read the expression in his eyes to know what was there: a wall.
A sense of loss swept over her, and it was like a sickness. She felt so weary. She swallowed and went on, “But I fell in love with Cousin Emma’s nephew Charlie, and he had no money. I had to continue working. Then the cholera came to Paris.” She made a sweeping gesture. “They all died. We had to close our shop—not that I would have stayed. I was terrified I’d take sick. Then who’d look after my daughter and sisters? I felt we’d be safer in London, though we were nearly penniless. But I went to the gaming hells and played cards. You saw how I won in Paris. That was how I fed and housed my family when we first came to London, three years ago. That was how I started my shop. I won the money at cards.”
She stood. “There it is. You know everything. Your friend Longmore thinks we’re the devil, and he’s not far wrong. You couldn’t ally yourself with a worse family. We seduce and swindle, lie and cheat. We have no scruples, no morals, no ethics. We don’t even understand what those things are. I did you the greatest favor in the world when I said no. No one in my family would understand why I did it.”
She started for the door, still talking, unable to help herself. It was the last time, perhaps, they’d ever speak.
“They’d see you only as a pigeon ripe for plucking,” she said. “But you needn’t believe I was being noble and self-sacrificing in declining your proposal. It was pure selfishness. I’m too proud to endure being snubbed by your fine friends.”
“You could endure it.” His low voice came from behind her.
She hadn’t heard him rise from the sofa. She’d been deaf and blind to all but despair, and too busy trying not to fall apart. She wouldn’t turn around. Nothing he said could make any difference now. He was trying to be kind, probably. She couldn’t bear kindness. She continued toward the door.
“You can stomach the obnoxious women and their demands and their treating you like a slave,” he said. “You have no trouble handling them. You have Lady Clara eating out of your hand.”
Hope was trying to claw its way up out of the dark place where she’d buried it. She stomped it down. “That’s business,” she said without turning her head. “That’s part of the guile and manipulation. My shop is my castle. But the beau monde is another world altogether.”
“It’s Lucie you’re protecting, not yourself,” he said. “You insist you have no redeeming qualities, but you love your daughter. You’re not like your mother. Your child is not an inconvenience.”
She paused, her hand on the door handle. Her chest was tight, a sob welling there, threatening to get out.
“Perhaps you don’t own the usual set of scruples and morals and ethics and such,” he said, “but you don’t cheat your customers.”
“I manipulate them,” she said. “I want their money.”
“And in return, you give them your utmost. You make them better than they think they can be. You gave Clara the courage to stand up to her mother and to me.”
“Oh, Clevedon, you’re such a fool. You’re blinded by love.” She turned to him then. “Do you think, because you can find a redeeming quality or two in my black heart, that all of the ton will see the same? They won’t. They’ll see that you married a Dreadful DeLucey—”
“The Earl of Hargate’s son married one, and her daughter married an earl.”
“I’ve heard that old story,” Marcelline said. “You’re talking about Bathsheba DeLucey. She brought Lord Rathbourne a great fortune. What do I bring? A shop. And Rathbourne’s father, Lord Hargate, is a powerful man. You may stand higher in rank, but you’ve nothing like his power. Yesterday he walked into a crowd of bloodthirsty men as though you were a lot of schoolboys. The world respects and fears him. You’re not like that, and you’ve no one like that to throw his weight around on your behalf. You’ve lived on the Continent and in the fringe world of London where idle aristocrats play. You’ve no political power. You haven’t cultivated social power. You can’t make your world accept me. You can’t make them welcome and love Lucie.”
“If you can’t be welcome in my world,” he said, “I’d rather not live there.”
The horrid sob was building in her chest.
“I love you,” he said. “I think I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you at the opera—or, if not then, from the time you took my diamond stickpin. I’ll admit that matters are sticky—”
“Sticky!”
“But it was a mad scheme to come to Paris and attract my attention, in hopes of getting your hooks into my duchess,” he said. “It was a mad, brave scheme to come to London in the first place, with a small child and two younger sisters and a few coins. It was mad to think you could set up a dressmaking shop by winning money at cards. But you did that before you knew me, before you’d ever thought about the Duchess of Clevedon. And so I’m very, very sure that you’ll devise a mad scheme to solve our present problems, especially with my brilliant mind assisting you.”
She was looking up at him, into those dangerous green eyes, and all she saw there was love. His beautiful mouth curved into the smile that could so easily warm a woman’s heart, and lower down.
He truly did love her. After all she’d told him. He truly believed she could do anything.
“And if I don’t?” she said. “If this sticky little matter proves too much even for my guile and imagination—”
“We’ll live with it,” he said. “Life isn’t perfect. But I had much rather live it imperfectly with you.”
“Th-that is a very f-fine s-sentiment.” The sob was filling her chest.
“I didn’t practice it at all,” he said.
“Oh, Clevedon,” she said.
He opened his arms. she walked into them. There was no choice, no choice at all. His arms closed about her and she wept, stupidly, but it was days and nights’ worth of bottled-up fear and worry and sorrow and anger and hope.
Against all odds, hope. Because she was a dreamer and a schemer, and one didn’t dream and scheme without hope.
“Does this mean I’ve won?” he said. Tears were all very well, but he needed to be absolutely sure.
“Yes,” she said, her voice muffled against his waistcoat. “Although some might argue that you’ve lost.”
“Will you marry me?”
A long pause.
His grip of her tightened. “Marcelline.”
“Yes. I’m simply not noble enough to say no.”
“Don’t be noble, I beg you,” he said. “I think nobleness of spirit…and morals…and ethics…and scruples…those sorts of things are all very well in their place. To a point, you know. But beyond a certain point, I think they make me bilious.”
She looked up at him. Tears shimmered in her eyes but there was laughter as well, and it curved the corners of her beautiful mouth.
“It doesn’t agree with me,” he said. “I tried to be good. I tried not to be my father. I tried to live up to Lord Warford’s standards. Then one day I realized it was pointless, and I’d had enough. That’s when I set out with Longmore on a Grand Tour. But when he decided he’d had enough of the Continent, and wanted to come home, I didn’t think I could stand coming back. Then you came into my life and everything changed. Because you were right. For me. Are. Right. For me.” He slid his hand down her back. He heard her breath hitch.
That was all it wanted. That little sound. He had waited for so long. He’d suffered the tortures of the damned.
He tipped up her chin and untied her bonnet. He tossed it aside.
She winced. “That was my best bonnet. It took me forever to decide which one to wear.”
“You? But you always know what to wear.”
“I never had to confess to anybody before,” she said. “That’s my confession bonnet. I even trimmed it special—and you toss it aside like a soiled handkerchief.”
“You confessed,” he said. “It was beautifully done. Like everything you do.” He quickly untied the black lace thing around her neck.
She caught his hand before he could throw that down. “Clevedon, what do you think you’re doing?”
They’d waited long enough. They’d made each other miserable for long enough. It was time for happiness.
“You know very well what I’m doing,” he said.
“You didn’t even lock the door,” she said.
“Right.”
He let go of her hand, picked up the nearest chair, and pushed it under the doorknob.
Then he led her to the sofa. He draped the lace thing over the back, and brought his hands to the fastenings of the layered cape.
“You can’t undress me,” she said.
He looked down at the layered cape and the great puffed sleeves and the belt, and he remembered what was underneath, layer upon layer. He remembered watching her undress herself. He remembered the way she’d set her leg on the bed, against his hip, and rolled down her stocking.
For a moment he couldn’t breathe. His heart was pumping too fast and his breathing was too quick and that was nothing to the excitement stirring down low.
“Right,” he said. “Another time.” He drew her down onto the sofa and gathered her in his arms. He kissed her until her body went all soft and yielding and her arms wrapped about his neck, and she kissed him back in the same fierce way.
He lifted his mouth an inch from hers. “I’ve been wretched,” he said.
“I’ve been wretched, too,” she said. “I’m no good at being good.”
“I don’t want you to be good,” he said. “I want you to be you. Marcelline. The woman I love.”
She caught hold of his head and brought his mouth to hers.
It was a long, searching kiss, and a lifetime seemed to pass in that kiss, and a lifetime opened up before them. He’d very nearly ruined his life and hers, but they’d found their way at last.
He eased his mouth from hers and said against her cheek, “One of these days—soon—we’ll have time for leisurely lovemaking. I’ll spend a delicious forever taking off your beautiful clothes. “But for now…” He found the bodice fastening under the cape and he unhooked enough of the bodice to get to her corset and chemise, exposing a few inches of her velvety skin. He kissed the hollow of her throat, and the smooth curve of her neck, and she sighed, and arced back, like a cat stretching simply for the pleasure of it.
She still had one hand tangled in his hair while she moved the other over him, taking possession of him the way he took possession of her, so easily and naturally, with a touch. He heard the brush of her fingers over the wool of his coat sleeve and the rustle of his starched neckcloth as her hand moved downward. When she came to the waist of his trousers, he caught his breath.
She slid her hand down, and his cock swelled and rose at the touch, and “Mine,” she said softly. “All this manly beauty. All mine.”
He caught hold of her dress, the embroidered flowers feeling almost alive under his hand. He dragged it up by fistfuls, a great mass of dress and petticoats that billowed over his arm. He stroked over her drawers, upward over her thighs and between her legs to the opening of her drawers. He cupped her and she shivered. “Mine,” he said. “All this feminine perfection. Mine.”
His mouth found hers again and he kissed her and drank in the taste of her and the feel of her mouth and her tongue, and he took it all in like a man starved. And while he kissed her, he slid his fingers into the soft cleft between her legs. She was wet there, and her legs trembled as he stroked her, and then he was trembling, too. So much happiness.
“What a lucky man I am,” he said.
She let out a throaty laugh. “You’re about to get luckier.”
She unfastened his trousers fully and grasped him. “I want you,” she said softly. “I want you inside me. I want you to be mine and I’ll be yours.”
“Yes, yes, yes, whatever you say.” He pushed into her, and he seemed to fly up into the heavens. He saw stars, and “Oh,” she said. “Your grace.”
“Gervase,” he said.
“Gervase,” she said, and she made it a whisper, and the sound made him shiver. “Mon amour.”
Then in French: murmured words of nonsense and love and pleasure while they made slow love, then faster love, until there was nowhere farther to go, and they seemed to leap to a blinding happiness, like flying to the sun. Release came in a cascade of sweetness. Then he was sinking onto her, burying his face in her neck, and murmuring her name.
For a time they simply lay together.
Quietly. At peace.
So hard to believe, after so much turmoil. But here he was, in her arms, and there was her heart beating steadily in her chest and filled with happiness.
She held him, relishing his weight and the feel of his silky hair against her skin and the scent of him, while her breathing quieted, and the world came back.
“That was much more fun than self-sacrifice,” he muttered.
She laughed. “Yes, cheri, it was.”
He raised himself up to look at her. “Cheri,” he repeated. “Why does it sound so delicious when you say it?”
