Part 16 (1/2)
”Alina, for the love of G.o.d-”
”No, Justin. Either you find a way to a.s.suage the Inhaber and your Prince Regent and make both of us safe here, or I refuse to be safe and you dead. I won't have it.”
”You won't have it?”
For a handsome man, he could look very silly, what with his eyes all wide like that and his neck turning a deep red above his pristine white neckcloth.
Suddenly she felt very brave.
”No, Justin, I won't. You're so intent on how terrible you are, and on being some sort of martyr or atoning for past sins, or whatever you think it is you're doing, and I am thoroughly out of patience with you. So, no, I won't do it. If you're going to save my honor or whatever such ridiculousness you've been spouting, then you'll simply have to find another way. Because I will not marry a dead man!”
Then, because brave wasn't the same as fearless, she stood, turned on her heels and ran out of the conservatory, on the hunt for Nicole and Lydia, who would surely hide her until Justin no longer looked as if he'd explode at any moment.
She certainly hoped those two wonderful women would be able to come up with some sort of miraculous ideas as to what they could all do next, because, after having knocked Justin back on his heels, Alina had completely run out of ideas.
And he still hadn't kissed her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
THE FOLLOWING EVENING, after a dinner attended only by the three gentlemen, Justin stood at the opened window of his bedchamber as fading sunlight turned the evening to a misty portrait of muted colors and soft outlines, and looked down into the garden three stories below.
Alina was walking there with the marchioness and the d.u.c.h.ess, and the three of them had their heads together like true conspirators. It had been the sound of their conversation wafting up to him that had drawn him, and now he was too fascinated to turn away. They reminded him of three beautiful, perfect flowers, dressed in their gowns of yellow, pale green and softest rose, rivaling any blooms in the gardens.
They'd been constant companions, taking their meals together, shunning male company, and all with the excuse that Alina was not quite well...although, oh no, not ill enough to have the doctor sent for. She'll be fine, they said. We're simply bearing her company.
And Tanner and Lucas seemed to have swallowed this story whole. Either that, or they were better at subterfuge than he'd formerly have given either of them credit for possessing, and were both in whatever plot was going forward up to their starched cravats, and knew more than they were saying.
Had she told the women why she and he were at odds? Had she told them everything?
Of course she had. Who else did she have to talk to, if not Lydia and Nicole? Surely not her companion, she of the ”uncontrolled l.u.s.t at the drop of a hat.” Look where that particular conversation had led them!
No wonder he was in so much trouble. He was only a man, for all his supposed sophistication and talents. What man had ever outcomplicated a woman?
And no wonder she had refused to come down to dinner last night, and turned away the notes he'd sent to her bedchamber. Headache be d.a.m.ned-she simply was refusing to see him while she and the ladies made their plans.
Plans that had to include his downfall, that was certain. He could only guess at how much he was intended to suffer before that downfall.
He'd told Alina he couldn't marry her-for very reasonable reasons-and she'd fought him. He'd told her they had to marry-again, for exceedingly reasonable reasons-and she'd thrown his offer back in his face.
Now, most probably on the advice of two women he would have otherwise thought of as perfectly intelligent human beings, she wouldn't speak with him at all.
He had become so frustrated with his inability to find a way to circ.u.mvent the ladies and see Alina that he'd actually appealed to Tanner and Lucas for their help.
The next time he considered going to his friends for their advice, he'd have to grab up several bottles of wine, lock himself in a cabinet and drink until he'd overcome the impulse.
”The great Justin Wilde, flummoxed by a slip of a girl?” Tanner had looked at him in feigned astonishment. ”The same man who could so coldly and calmly threaten the life of the Prince Regent can't so much as say boo to that sweet girl who my wife tells me is so young and innocent it's nearly painful? It's lowering, Justin, I have to tell you. I've lost all faith in you. But I bow to my wife's wisdom on this. Sorry.”
Lucas Paine had been even less help. ”Lydia sees young and innocent, but my wife sees independent and determined. As Nicole is more than generously gifted with both attributes herself, I believe I'll take her at her word. My advice? Well, actually, I don't have any. I rather enjoy Nicole the way she is.”
Justin took a sip of his wine and looked down into the garden again. Now they were laughing. Laughing! The Inhaber was still out there; Alina knew the man wanted her dead. Justin still couldn't be certain he wouldn't be locked up in chains for having threatened the Prince Regent, or if his pardon had been revoked, three charges of murder were soon to be placed at the feet of this same man who was to become her husband, except that she'd refused him-and she was laughing?
He hated war. But, d.a.m.n it all to blazes, war between men was reasonably straightforward, even in his job of spy and a.s.sa.s.sin; both sides had them. War between a man and a woman had no rules, or at least none the men were informed about by the women, who also seemed to possess all the weapons.
Without consciously searching out the memory, he was suddenly reminded of one of his least-favorite schoolboy lessons, his a.s.signed reading of Aristophanes' Lysistrata. But surely the women weren't plotting to withhold their...favors from the men until this small ”war” was settled. Were they?
If so, he could probably expect a visit from Tanner and Lucas in his very near and unpleasant future. At least then perhaps they wouldn't be so d.a.m.ned jolly!
Ah, they were moving on, the ladies on the stroll. At least Alina had moved on, rather aimlessly walking ahead of the other two down the path toward the large hedge maze Lucas had told him was more than two hundred years old.
Wait a moment. Did Nicole just take a quick peek up at his open window? Had she seen him standing there, gawking like a fool?
He leaned closer to the sill.
Now she was whispering in Lydia's ear and pulling rather inelegantly on her sister's arm when her sister began to turn her head, probably to also look up at the window.
He could imagine the whispered conversation: He's up there, poor lovesick fool, watching us. Shh, don't let Alina hear us.
He's up where, Nicole? Let me- No! Don't look, don't turn around!
”From this evidence, my lord Wilde,” Justin intoned in mock gravity of purpose, ”it may be reasonably deduced that you do not remain un.o.bserved.” A niggling thought knocked on the back of his mind, one that was calling out helpfully: You've completely lost control of what's left of your wits. You do know that, don't you?
What followed below him was a pantomime wherein Nicole crossed her arms and seemed to s.h.i.+ver in the cool, early evening air, Lydia nodded her head in agreement before taking a few steps toward Alina's departing back and saying a few words, Alina resuming her walk toward the maze, Lydia and Nicole turning to head for the steps to the terrace-obviously to fetch shawls-and Nicole hanging back as her sister mounted the steps, looking up at Justin's window, putting her fists rather belligerently on her hips, tilting her head, and then finally throwing her arms wide as if to say, ”Well, what are you waiting for?” before disappearing out of sight.
Justin scribbled a mental note to himself to be extremely nice to Lucas Paine; the man must really have his hands full. Although he'd said he rather liked Nicole the way she was. And Tanner seemed to be more than content with Lydia, which made perfect sense to Justin, as he'd been half in love with the lady herself before it became clear that she had eyes only for his friend.
Now he knew why he had been drawn to Lydia. It was because he would have been half in love with Nicole as well, if he'd met her before now.
Alina was a delicious mix of the two wives of his friends, and possibly with a touch of the gracious and intelligent Charlotte Daughtry thrown in for good measure, for Alina certainly seemed to like managing people, a thought that pleased him even as that small voice knocking on the back of his brain told him that he had only one option open to him now that he fully understood what lay in front of him. Surrender. Complete and total surrender.
His.
”Wigglesworth?” He called out, turning from the window. ”Fetch me a blanket.”
The valet hurried into the bedchamber from wherever he'd been lurking, awaiting his master's next request, looking splendidly outlandish in his satins and refreshed wig. ”A blanket, my lord? Goodness, who opened that window? Have you taken a chill? I have something in my case for that, a mixture one of the Romany ladies was kind enough to press on me for the paltry sum of threepence when I-”
”Never mind, Wigglesworth.” Justin cut him off impatiently, striding to the large bed and stripping off the heavy tapestry-like coverlet. He wound it around and around as he walked to the open window. Then he tossed the probably priceless bit of silk down onto the flagstones below.
”My lord! That...that was Flemish, sir, and now most probably ruined.... I think I feel faint.”
”Not yet, Wigglesworth,” Justin warned him as he dealt with his evening jacket, removing it with some effort as it had been tailored to fit him within an inch, before tossing it in the valet's general direction. ”You will oblige me by withholding your apoplexy until after you have found Brutus and told him to station himself at the entrance to the maze, barring the way to anyone who might dare to enter, including the master of this house. Understood?”
”The...the maze, my lord?”
”I believe that's what I directed, yes,” Justin said as he stripped off his neckcloth and opened the top b.u.t.ton of his s.h.i.+rt.
”If his lords.h.i.+p is perhaps warm...”