Лорен Уиллиг - The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

As she slipped through to the earl's chamber, leaving behind a decade's dust and decay, she wondered what Vaughn would say when he saw her. And what she would say to him.

Or perhaps there would be no need for words at all.

"What are you still doing here?"

The voice, hoarse but distinct, came from the tousled linen on the great bed on the dais, giving the impression of animated and disgruntled bedding.

Mary shut the door of the countess's chambers carefully behind her, disposing of her candle on the table by the door.

"You're not supposed to be awake," she said softly. "I gave you enough opium to stun a goat."

"A flattering comparison," rasped the voice from the bed.

"Don't complain," admonished Mary, wending her way across the room, the heavy silk undulating around her legs. "It might have been an elephant."

Lifting his head from the pillow, Vaughn said, with great effort, "Hellfire Club…Played with opium…unexciting."

Mary had to lift up the long ends of the robe to ascend the two steps to the dais. "So those stories are all true."

Vaughn's head dropped back against the pillow as though the effort of holding it up were too much for him. His eyes drifted closed. "Not as interesting…as they sound."

"You can tell me more later." Mary settled herself on the edge of the bed, her long hair brushing Vaughn's pillow. His forehead felt warm to the touch, although that might have been nothing more than the heavy blankets. "After you rest."

Vaughn's gray eyes, filmed with pain and opium, moved speculatively from her unbound hair to the deep V left where the robe crossed at her chest. But he declined to comment.

"Is there any water?" he asked in a dry croak.

"Port?" suggested Mary, reaching for the rounder of the two decanters. "You lost a great deal of blood."

Vaughn moved his head slightly to the side, the movement barely making a dent in the pillow.

"Water," he repeated.

"If that's what you want…"

Mary shook back her too-wide sleeve, allowing him to admire the effect of her white arm against the deep red silk as she poured water from the crystal jug Derby had left on the tray with the decanters. There was no glass for it, so Mary poured the water into the brandy glass, looping both hands around the rounded bowl as she lifted the glass to Vaughn's lips.

Giving her an inscrutable look, Vaughn reached for the glass himself, using his good right arm, although even that movement made him grimace with pain. His fingers seemed to have trouble closing around the bowl, and the glass would have fallen if Mary had not been there to catch it when he released it.

As Mary replaced the glass on the tray, Vaughn struggled to push himself up on his elbows, going an unfortunate gray with the effort.

"Stop it!" Mary scolded, flinging herself into the breach. "You're supposed to be lying still."

"Would you?" croaked Vaughn, sliding back down into a bank of goose down.

"No," admitted Mary, extracting a pillow and giving it a good hard whack before replacing it behind him. "But that's beside the point. I'm not the one who was shot."

Vaughn's eyes gleamed a dull obsidian beneath his lowered lids. "You might have been."

"I refuse to argue hypotheticals with you while you're ill," said Mary loftily.

"Really?" murmured Vaughn. His voice might be barely audible, but he still managed to exude sarcasm from every pore. The fingers of his right hand fluttered in what was meant to be a wave. "What's all this, then?"

Even weak and drugged, Vaughn didn't miss a trick. He had, Mary realized, deliberately declined to comment on her scandalous state of undress in order to spring the argument on her when she would least expect it. She didn't know whether to cry with relief, laugh, or smack him.

Smacking him would have to wait, so Mary combined the two earlier options. Smiling crookedly, she said, "It's a robe. Your robe, in fact. Derby was kind enough to lend me the use of it."

Vaughn's brows drew together over his nose. Only Vaughn could contrive to look down his nose while almost entirely prone. "That's not all."

"Actually," said Mary airily, struggling with an absurd urge to laugh, "it is all."

Vaughn was not amused. "I can't marry you," he said flatly.

Mary brushed back a short lock of silvered hair. One of these days, she would have to ask him whether the silver was a matter of nature or art. Given the unalloyed darkness of the hair on the other portions of his body, she suspected the latter. "I know. You told me earlier."

Vaughn scowled forbiddingly. "My wife — Anne — she's still alive."

Mary smiled blandly down at him. "I met her, if you recall. Right before you were shot."

Vaughn pressed his eyes tightly together.

Mary leaned hastily over. "Is it your arm? Do you need more opium?"

"Anne," said Vaughn on a low groan. "Of all the damnable…"

"Ah," said Mary, leaning back. "I do agree with the adjective. How is it that she comes to be alive when you were meant to have murdered her years ago?"

"One…only wish," murmured Vaughn hoarsely. Filling the brandy glass with water, Mary held it to Vaughn's lips. He drank gratefully before falling back again against the pillows. When he spoke again, his voice was clearer. "She ran off more than ten years ago. Music master. I believed — I hoped — she was dead."

Mary paused with the glass suspended above the tray. Brandy was beginning to seem like a very good idea. For her. "The tomb in the family vault?"

"Empty."

"And the rumors?"

"All false." Vaughn's lips twisted into a whisper of a smile. "But so entertaining. They added…a certain cachet. Kept the debutantes away."

"You," said Mary in fond exasperation, "are quite mad."

Vaughn's smile winked out like a snuffed candle. "And quite married."

Mary set the glass down on the tray, concentrating on the sparkle of crystal against silver. "How long have you known?"

Vaughn wasted no words. "Vauxhall."

The purple-red of the port reflected against the silver base of the tray like Homer's wine-dark sea, treachery in its unfathomed depths, capable of swallowing ships and their crews whole, with no one ever the wiser. Vauxhall. That had been when Vaughn had gone from flirtatious to indifferent. No, not indifferent. Distracted at first, and then deliberately rude. All due to the appearance of one small, cloaked figure.

"So, you see…you should leave me. Go home." Vaughn pointedly turned his head on the pillow in a deliberate gesture of renunciation, presenting her with a profile as imperious and as cold as that of an emperor on an antique coin. As he turned, she could see the brownish stains on the bandage that tied beneath his arm.

"No," she said, very simply and very clearly.

Rolling his head slowly back over, Vaughn regarded her with narrowed eyes. Like most autocrats, he was unused to being disobeyed. It would do him good, Mary decided giddily. He needed a little less deference in his life. With her choice made, she felt oddly light and free. There was no turning back now, no thinking of what lay ahead or behind. There was just Vaughn. And that was enough.

"I'm not leaving you," Mary elaborated. She added, with false nonchalance, "I can't, in any event. Derby is having my dress cleaned and pressed."

Vaughn's elbows made dents in the goosedown as he pressed himself up against the pillows. "Don't you understand?" he demanded hoarsely. "It isn't going to change. She isn't going away this time."

"Neither am I," said Mary calmly, reaching behind him to plump his pillows. "Do you think you could move just a bit to the left? Ah. There. Perfect. I haven't had much experience of nursing, but I hear that one is supposed to pay special attention to the patient's pillows."

Even the poorer for several pints of blood, Vaughn wasn't that easily put off. "Why?"

Mary considered prosing on about the pillows, but thought better of it. There was no way out but through; the admission had to be made, and the longer she put off making it, the harder it would become.

"Because I want to." Now that the moment had come, Mary realized that the flippant answer wasn't entirely honest. If one was going to tear out one's heart and lay it at someone's feet to be trampled on, there was no point in doing it by halves. "Because I want you."

Vaughn didn't say anything. He just looked at her, like a spectator at Astley's Amphitheatre, waiting to see what absurd stunt might come next.

"I want you." Mary repeated, her voice gaining strength with each word. "Not your title. Not your money. Oh, I won't deny those would be lovely — but if I can't have you with them, I'll have you without them. That's why."

Vaughn's fingers moved weakly on the counterpane, as though missing the comforting presence of his quizzing glass. "How very…impractical of you."