“Obeyed you? About what?”
“You haven’t danced with Devlin Monroe, have you? You haven’t offered him your neck at midnight, have you?”
She laughed, a lovely rich laugh that made him smile. “I gave him a little nibble, nothing more.” She turned her head about. “Can you see the mark, there, right below my left ear?”
He wanted to kick himself when he actually looked. “Remind me to beat you again.”
“Ha. That first time you caught me by surprise.”
His eyebrow arched up a good inch. “You think so, do you? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you whine so much as you did that day.”
Before she could answer, he danced faster and faster, until she was panting and laughing, barely able to catch her breath, hating her damned corset. When he slowed, she gasped out, “Oh, James, that is so lovely. When I want to smack you in the head, you have only to dance me into the ground and I’m ready to forgive you anything at all.”
“You’re getting more competent moving your feet. Stay away from Devlin, I mean it, Corrie.”
“He took me to the Pantheon Bazaar yesterday,” she said. “He wanted to buy me a lovely ribbon to thread through my hair-he thinks my hair is lovely, by the way, all sorts of interesting autumn shades all mixed together-but I’m a proper girl, and thus I didn’t let him do it. It seemed rather intimate, particularly since he wanted to do the threading. Do you know he got so close with that ribbon that I could feel his breath on my nose?” She gave a delicious little shudder that nearly had him ready to kill.
He saw the glint in her eye, and got control. “Your aunt should never have allowed you to go off with him. I will have to speak to her about that. He isn’t good husband material, Corrie.”
“Husband material? Do you want to know the truth, James? I’ve been thinking about it, and I truly cannot imagine attaching myself to a man and changing my name. Goodness, I would be Corrie Tybourne-Barrett Monroe. As for a husband, he would order me about and expect me to do whatever he wants whenever he wants it.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “On the other hand, I must be honest about this. I have passed Aunt Maybella and Uncle Simon’s bedchamber before, and do you know what?”
James was certain that his eyes were going to roll back in his head. He didn’t want to hear this. He wante
d to go to China before he heard this. He said, “What?”
She leaned close. “I heard them laughing. Yes, laughing, and then Uncle Simon said, quite clearly, ‘I shall nibble on your lovely self for a while now, Bella.’ What do you think of that, James?”
Well, he had asked. He wondered if Aunt Maybella wore a blue nightgown. No, he had to turn his mind away from that. He said, “Stay away from Devlin Monroe.”
“We’ll have to see, won’t we?” She gave him a sunny smile, then looked like she’d burst into tears. “Oh drat, the waltz is ending. It was too short. Someone stopped it before its time. I’ll bet that Juliette Lorimer bribed them to stop. I think someone should go speak to them. Perhaps-” She gave him a hopeful look, but he shook his head.
“No, I have to leave now, Corrie. I like your hair nice and simple, all braided on the top. You wouldn’t look good with an army of ringlets marching over your head. Or any ribbons. Forget ribbons, particularly those bought for you by a man.”
Corrie supposed it was a compliment. She wanted another waltz and so she said, “I believe Devlin is beyond that very fat lady, speaking to another young man who looks remarkably wicked himself. Hmmm. Let me see if I can get his attention.” She went up on her tiptoes and whispered against his ear, “I think I shall tell him my name is the Ice Princess. I wonder what he will have to say about that?”
But her performance was wasted because James wasn’t listening. He’d turned at the tug at his sleeve. It was one of the waiters hired for this evening, and he pressed a note into James’s hand. “A gentleman said you was to have this, sir. Right away, he said.”
His heart began to drum, deep and sharp. He left her without a word, and looked neither right nor left at the young ladies who were staring after him. He walked through the long row of French doors that gave onto the Lanscombe balcony.
He stepped out, saw a couple embracing at the far end, and wanted to tell that old roué Basil Harms that he wasn’t far enough in the shadows. He wondered what man’s wife he was seducing.
He walked quietly down the steps on the far end of the balcony and strode into the Lanscombe garden toward the back gate. He didn’t have a gun, curse it, and perhaps this wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done in his life, but on the other hand, there was a chance this was news about the man who wanted to kill his father. There was no choice really. Besides, who would want to hurt him? No, it was his father they were after. The lights from the ballroom dimmed until he was in blackness and saw only the outline of the narrow gate some fifteen feet in front of him. He wasn’t stupid. He looked all around him for possible danger, listened, but it was quiet. The man he was supposed to meet was waiting for him by the back gate.
What sort of information did the man have? James hoped he had enough money on him to meet his price.
He heard the rustling of leaves just off to his right. He whirled around but saw nothing, no movement, no light, nothing at all. Surely there would be no lovers this far away from the mansion. He waited, listening. Nothing. He was alert; he was ready.
It was at least ten feet to that narrow gate with ivy climbing up it, cascading wildly over the top, rather like that silver cascade over Titan. The eight-foot-high stone walls of the Lanscombe garden were also covered with ivy, miles of the stuff, thick, impenetrable. His steps slowed. He scented danger; he actually smelled it.
Suddenly a man came out of the shadows to stand at the end of the path, right in front of the gate. In a deep rolling voice, the man said, “Lord Hammersmith?”
“Aye, I’m Hammersmith.”
“I have information to sell ye, me lord, all about yer pa.”
“What do you have?”
The man pulled a sheaf of papers from his old black jacket. “I want five pounds fer the lot of it.”