Лорен Уиллиг - The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

Even the very shadows seemed shinier than the ordinary run of shadow, richer and sleeker. That might merely have been the effect produced by the smooth sheen of Venetian mirrors and silk-hung walls, Gobelin tapestries and floors polished to so slick a sheen that the light wriggled in the amber surface like fish swimming just below the surface of a river. Mary's boots seemed even older and shabbier against the glowing patina of the parquet floor, and her woolen cloak rasped dully against Savonnerie carpets that must have cost more than all the contents of her childhood home put together.

At the end of the last room, the butler opened a door in the paneling that Mary hadn't seen before, cleverly cut to blend into the rest of the wall. Beyond lay a short stretch of hallway that seemed dark and dull in comparison to the richness of gilded woodwork and painted ceilings in the chambers through which they had passed. There were no windows on either side, merely a series of matched sconces set at intervals down the wall, paired serpents whose open mouths each held the base of a candle, while their tails twined together in a love knot below.

At the far end, Mary could make out the shadowy shape of a stairway. Not the grand stair that curved around an immense statue of Hercules in the central rotunda, but a plain, workmanlike stair, narrow and steep, leading up to the upper stories.

Mary covertly eyed the staircase, wondering just what Vaughn intended. Upper stories tended to contain more private sorts of room. Like bedchambers.

Instead of the staircase, however, the butler turned the knob of a door in the center of the wall, so insignificant that Mary hadn't noticed it. With an inclination of his head, the butler gestured her into the room.

Mary swept regally past him, so intent on her grand entrance that it took her a moment to realize that it was being wasted on empty walls.

Mary came to an abrupt halt, the sole of her boot squeaking against the polished floor. She scarcely noted the click of the door as it closed behind her. There was no Vaughn. The room was empty.

Revolving in a slow circle, Mary took in her surroundings. There was certainly no place for Vaughn to hide. The room was scarcely larger than her dressing room at her brother-in-law's house, the walls paneled in a polished rosewood inlaid with precious porcelain plaques painted with scenes of life in the Orient. There were eight panels in all, angling inward to form an octagon. The parquet of the floor echoed the shape of the walls, sloping inward in an ever-narrowing pattern that drew the eye towards the center of the room, where a fancifully carved table held a silver salver.

Everything in the room was rich and strange, from the unexpected shelves that held vases made of jade so fine that Mary could see the light reflecting through it, to the Oriental dragons who stood in pairs beside the crimson-cushioned benches that sat at the base of seven of the eight walls. The eighth wall was occupied by a mantel of rare red marble, in which a fire had been laid but not lit. Even without the fire, the room didn't feel cold. Candles had been lit in gold filigree holders at even intervals all along the eight walls, and their light reflected warmly off the rich rosewood and the pale parquet floor, striking off the hidden gold threads in the shot-silk crimson cushions and turning the lolling tongues of the brass lions red-gold.

Standing in the center, beside the carved teak table, Mary felt as though she had been placed in a velvet-lined jewel box. There were no windows, no door, nothing but rosewood and porcelain, filigree and marble. Even the ceiling had been plastered and painted in imitation of the roof of a pagoda, tricking the eye with the illusion of successive layers of intricate architectural detail rising ever upwards.

Tipping her head back, Mary squinted at the ceiling, knowing that it had to be flat no matter how her eyes insisted otherwise.

The only warning she had was a light click, and then the door burst open, followed by a velvety voice drawling, in tones of barely veiled menace, "How very kind of you to call. It saves me all sorts of trouble."

Mary dropped her head so quickly she nearly wrenched something in her neck. It was so like Vaughn, to catch her at a disadvantage, gawking at the ceiling like some poor provincial who had never seen trompe l'oeil before.

Drawing herself up, she slowly turned to face him with all the outraged dignity of Elizabeth I confronting a disorderly courtier. She was doing quite well at the regal outrage until Vaughn came into view. The stinging rejoinder Mary had prepared fell unuttered from her slack lips.

Vaughn lounged in an expansive pose, the billowing white folds of his shirtsleeves filling the doorway. Without waistcoat or cravat, the ties of his shirt undone, Lord Vaughn looked more like the caricaturist's ideal of a dissolute poet than a belted earl. His shirt hung open at his neck, revealing the strong lines of his throat and a surprisingly impressive display of musculature, the smoothly honed physique of a swordsman rather than a pugilist. The shirt had been loosely tucked into his pantaloons, but seemed to have come free in the back, the shirt-tails hanging over the tight kerseymere of his breeches. The large diamond still winked on his finger, its richness only serving to underline his shocking dishabille.

Mary found herself incapable of doing anything but stare. It was impossible to envision Lord Vaughn without his armor of brocade and lace, but there he was, in little more than his linen, the lithe grace of his form admirably displayed by the sheer folds of fine fabric. It was…Mary blinked rapidly. It was unmistakably Lord Vaughn, but a Lord Vaughn such as she would never have imagined. And yet, it was undeniably he. Who else could be so arrogant even in dishabille?

In the meantime, Vaughn seemed to be having equal difficulties comprehending her presence. At the sight of her face, he rocked back on his heels, taking an inadvertent step back and catching at the door frame for balance in a movement that made his sleeves flatten against the corded muscles of his arm.

Regaining his usual self-possession, he propped himself against the door frame, folding his arms across his chest.

"Well, well," said Vaughn mockingly. "What have we here?"

"I believe the usual greeting is good evening," returned Mary, as Vaughn wavered in the doorway.

"My most abject apologies," drawled Vaughn, sauntering into the room and kicking the panel shut behind him. "I had expected someone else."

Mary stood primly beside the marble mantel, her hands clasped at her waist. "I'm sorry to disappoint you."

Vaughn's eyes conducted a leisurely inspection of Mary's person, from the scuffed toes of last season's kid half-boots straight up to the folds of the hood draped around her face.

He lifted one eyebrow in a lazy tribute. "Did I say I was disappointed? On the contrary. I am merely rendered dumb by the unexpected apparition of such loveliness in my humble bachelor abode."

Easing back her hood, Mary wrinkled her nose at the inlaid porcelain plaques, straight from the Orient, the gilded dragons, the precious rosewood carelessly used to line the walls. "You have a curious notion of humility, my lord."

"And what of bachelordom?" Vaughn propped himself against one of the priceless porcelain plaques as carelessly as if it were common plaster. "Now, there's a curious thing, bachelordom."

He was properly a widower, not a bachelor. Not that it made any difference. Either way, he could marry if he chose. He simply chose not to.

Mary permitted herself a sour smile. "I wouldn't know. My only experience is of spinsterhood."

"You sell yourself short, my dear." With no regard for the antiquity of the materials behind him, Vaughn pushed away from the wall.

The movement overset his balance, and he stumbled a bit, putting out a hand against the wall to catch himself. Mary revised her earlier opinion of his dishabille. Not mere insolence, then, but — could the unflappable Lord Vaughn possibly be in his cups?

It was a practically unimaginable notion, but there was no denying the uncharacteristic flush lighting his cheekbones and his slight unsteadiness, almost but not entirely masked by the studied deliberation of his movements. But even that deliberation was just the tiniest bit miscalculated, like a drawing with the proportions off by the fraction of a hair. And what she had assumed was a shadow, in fact, upon closer viewing, looked suspiciously like spilled wine, a dark blot against Vaughn's otherwise immaculate linen, in the general region of his heart.

The white linen of his sleeve billowed dramatically about his arm as he gestured grandly at Mary. "What mere mortal could aspire to such loveliness?"

"Anyone with ten thousand pounds a year," said Mary caustically.

Vaughn clucked disapprovingly. "Can the world buy such a jewel?"

"And a case to put it into." Mary matched his quote and topped it. Every now and again, Shakespeare actually said something sensible; Mary had always taken that particular line as her personal motto. "No one has offered me a suitable case yet. My lord, I did come here for a reason."

"To see me," Vaughn provided, with a winning smile.

"To convey some intelligence to you," Mary corrected, with a frown. Inebriated men needed to be dealt with firmly, since they had a way of wandering from the point.