Pamela Aidan - Duty and Desire

A low chuckle escaped her. “Yes, power.” Her demeanor changed suddenly, as if she had come to a decision. She looked up at him intently. “Is there something you wish, Mr. Darcy, that as yet you have not been able to obtain?”

His alarm increased. “My lady, I do not have the pleasure of taking your meaning.”

“Something you desire but is denied you. Something that — The sword!” Lady Sylvanie exclaimed triumphantly. “The Spanish sword in Sayre’s gun room!” The smile that caressed her lips was one of poetic satisfaction. “He baits you with it, does he not? Yes, that is perfect.” The steps of the pattern separated them briefly, giving Darcy a little time to formulate a response. Should he encourage her or take steps now to end her mischief? The first did not appear to present any danger. Her choice of a test was innocuous enough. How could she possibly determine the turn of a card? His second option was more problematical. What did he have to present to Sayre but her wild assertions in the gallery and now these?

The pattern brought them together for a final promenade, and as Darcy took her proffered hand in his, her slender fingers gripped his tightly. “You shall have the sword,” she pronounced with icy firmness. “I so will it.”

Darcy bowed to her in the final step, but the curl of the brow he affected upon his rising expressed his skeptical reception of her pronouncement. “My Lady, if you think to prevail upon Sayre to relinquish the prize of his collection merely upon your desire of it, I beg you will abandon such a course,” he drawled. “Whatever your ‘will’ in the matter, he will not, I assure you!”

Raising her chin to his challenge, Lady Sylvanie laid her hand upon his arm and regarded him with a brilliant eye. “I will ask nothing of Sayre,” she whispered, her ebony curl brushing his sleeve. “You shall see; he is easily bound.” She turned to him as they neared her chair and signaled that she did not wish to rest. Instead, her hand caressed his arm. “His fortune at play tonight will force him to put it on the table.” She looked up at him from beneath elegant, dark brows. “And when it is yours, we shall hold a private celebration and speak, perhaps, of future possibilities.”

Both Darcy’s brows rose briefly at her suggestion, but he delivered a smooth “As you wish” in reply before bowing and making a strategic remove. Availing himself of another glass of punch, he slowly navigated his way past a very smug-looking Sayre and through the rest of the company, retreating to a quiet place in the shadow of a window. Raising the glass to his lips, he turned to the moonless dark and swallowed half of the concoction of sweet liqueurs as his mind reeled.

Good Lord, not only was the lady very likely guilty of perpetrating a far-reaching fraud upon her stepfamily but she truly believed she had the power to bend events to her will! The bundle at the foot of the King’s Stone sprang unbidden to his mind, its ghastly purpose now clear. It had been a calling forth, a bid for the bestowal of power from a cast-down prince, and the supplicant was acting, sure of her answer. That such a thing were possible Darcy could not accept, but neither could he completely banish it from consideration. For, if Sylvanie believed herself so empowered, the influence of that belief alone was capable of wreaking untold havoc. What should be his course? A short, bitter laugh escaped from him as he considered the coils of intrigue his simple matrimonial search had woven.

Sweet are the uses of adversity. Again, it appeared, he was confronted with the mysterious workings of Providence. Well, my dear Mrs. Annesley, explain this to me once more, if you please! Darcy almost wished he had her in front of him to make an answer, but he would, it seemed, have to muddle through on reason and common decency alone.

Darcy emptied the contents of his glass and turned just as Poole approached to demand his making of a fourth couple with Lady Beatrice. Placing the glass on an available tray, he traversed the room to the lady’s side, offering his hand and as pretty and meaningless a speech as he was able. Lady Beatrice gracefully received his meager compliments with perfect understanding, and they took their places in the square. As he anticipated the start of another country dance, he looked for Sylvanie, but she was not among the dancers.

“Called away, Mr. Darcy.” Lady Beatrice turned to him in the beginning curtsy with a knowing smile. “Lady Sylvanie and her serving woman left shortly after you parted, should you desire to know.” Darcy felt a flush rise to the level of Fletcher’s blasted knot.

“Indeed,” he replied indifferently and proceeded to ignore her speculative glances. It was not until some time later, after the last dance of the evening’s gathering was announced, that Lady Sylvanie returned, although without her companion. Darcy espied her from the corner of his eye as he set his partner into a turn under his hand. When the last chord sounded, he hurriedly performed his bow to the lady, but Lady Sylvanie’s eyes had already passed over him and come to rest upon Sayre. Her chin high, she accosted him in conversation with Lord Chelmsford and drew him apart with a show of humble insistence. Too distant from their exchange to overhear her words, Darcy could not misinterpret their effect. Sayre’s face turned first wary, then displeased. He looked about the room in agitation as his half sister continued to speak. Then something she said arrested his attention. He blanched. His eyes flicked to Darcy and then back to her as he bent to whisper something. Lady Sylvanie nodded, and the color returned to Sayre’s face. He nodded back curtly, and the two parted.

Darcy was certain the exchange had to do with the sword. The lady had demanded her brother put it down in play and, it appeared, had won the day. But to his surprise, the prized weapon had nothing to do with the announcement Sayre called the room to attend. “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” he boomed above the sea of conversation. “And ladies!” The room quieted. “It has been brought to my attention that the dancing has so pleased the ladies that they are persuaded that the evening should not yet end. It is proposed that tonight, if they so choose, the hardy females among us be welcomed to observe the gentlemen in our night’s battle of chance.”

Along with the other men, Darcy stood in astonished silence at the proposal. Ladies present during a night of gambling? He’d heard whispers of such at parties hosted by His Royal Highness’s closest friends, but what was this? In contrast, the young ladies seemed very taken with the idea, and it was their enthusiasm that recalled the gentlemen from their dumb surprise into a tentative, then zealous display of approval of the scheme.

“Sayre!” shouted Monmouth above the hum, “I propose that your metaphor be turned to fact and that the ‘battle’ be engaged in the honor of each gentleman’s own lady!” He turned a wicked grin upon the twittery bevy of silk and added, “Of course, each lady must favor her champion with a token to display on the field, something intimate of her person to spur him on, a charm — as it were — to provide him luck at the table.” The outcry from the ladies that greeted his demand was one of deliciously scandalized delight, and immediately they set about in frantic searches of their costumes for ribbons, lace, or handkerchiefs that might answer Lord Monmouth’s requirement.

It was then that Lady Sylvanie came to Darcy, her lips curled in a derisive smile that invited him to join her in amusement at the scrambling and posturing of the others. Without a word, she brought from the warmth of her bodice a scrap of white linen bound into a small bundle by a strip of leather, and taking a pin embedded in her dress for the purpose, pinned the token to his lapel, directly atop his heart.

“What is this, lady?” Darcy asked in a whisper, remembering his glimpse of it earlier when she had tucked it in her bodice.

“My favor, Sir Knight. Were you not listening?” she teased him. An involuntary current raced through him. For all his suspicions of her, her closeness and their intimate contact were still not easily dismissed.

“But you could not know that Monmouth would suggest such a thing. This ‘favor’ was not lately made.”

“No, not ‘lately’ made, you are correct.” She smiled as she tested the charm’s security on his breast, “but of far greater worth than the trumpery now being exchanged. You see, everyone believes in luck. It is merely a matter of degree…or daring.”

“Dare I ask what it contains?” he returned, hiding his distaste behind a show of wit. Given what he suspected of her, the possibilities were revolting.

“This and that,” she answered lightly. Then looking up at him through thick, black lashes, she added, “It will not fail us. Later, when all is well and we are private, I will show you.”

Sayre’s voice called them to order with a command to the gentlemen that they escort their fair ladies to the library. The excited pairs took their places, and it was soon seen which of the females had dared to accept the invitation. Lady Felicia’s presence on Manning’s arm did not surprise Darcy in the least, nor the disclosure that Miss Avery would be retiring at her brother’s command. Lady Chelmsford also declined to pierce the mysteries of the gaming table, declaring herself too fatigued to begin a new amusement. Miss Farnsworth had bestowed her favor upon Poole, Lady Beatrice’s hand rested on Monmouth’s arm, and Lady Sayre clung to her lord. To Darcy’s mind, she appeared somewhat agitated, and he could well imagine that Sylvanie’s interference in her designs for the evening had not been received with equanimity.