Chapter Twelve

Presently, the smoking room gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the sitting room.

Mrs. Pariseau and Mrs. Cuthbert had gone out together to see a play—something sedate , Mrs. Pariseau had assured a fussing Mrs. Cuthbert—and Corporal and Mrs. Dawson were out visiting friends for the evening.

That left Mrs. Durand, Mrs. Hardy, Dot, and Alexandra, who had apparently just concluded a rousing game of whist and had taken

up knitting and embroidery in order to recover their nerves. Alexandra had been loaned an embroidery hoop.

Captain Hardy settled in at a table with a book while Lucien headed upstairs, muttering something about a change of clothing.

Alexandra's hands stilled on her embroidery when Magnus entered the room. She somberly tracked him with her eyes as he wended

his way toward her and settled almost gingerly into an adjacent chair. Her expression was both intent and a trifle wary.

Whatever she saw in his eyes made her briefly duck her head down to the embroidery.

As if her lost composure could be located in her lap.

She looked quickly up again, aware that they had an audience. "How was the rest of your day?" she asked politely.

"Busy and satisfyingly productive. And yours?"

"It was lovely. I met a striped cat named Gordon."

He smiled faintly. "Any day you meet a cat is a good day."

She began to smile, too. Then her eyes darted away uncertainly, then she looked down at her lap again, and then at the wall.

He watched a flush travel along her collarbone and spill into her cheeks.

He stared at her profile. Ah, yes. He would warrant she'd been haunted all day by his last words to her before he closed that

carriage door.

He thought he might have paid another five thousand pounds for her thoughts right at this moment.

Mr. Delacorte had settled in at a table, but his boot toe tapped restlessly. "The night is still young. I don't suppose I

can interest any of you gents in a donkey race on in an hour or so?" he asked hopefully.

"I beg your pardon, Delacorte? I hope ‘donkey race' is not a euphemism," Magnus said.

"Ha. Two splendid donkeys are on tonight. My favorites! The odds-on favorite is a big hairy chestnut-colored brute, built

like a snorting brick on four legs, mean as a cuss, loves to run."

"Oh, he sounds adorable ," Dot enthused. "What is his name?"

Everyone swiveled toward Delacorte when he didn't reply.

He cleared his throat. "Oh, is his name really important, in the scheme of things?" he said finally, cheerily. "He's a donkey."

"The donkey's name is Brightwall, isn't it?" Magnus said.

Every pair of eyes in the room widened.

Delacorte was clearly struggling with the truth. "Does it matter what he's called? He's a splendid beast," he finally decided

to say. "You've never seen a handsomer donkey."

Magnus was thoroughly amused. "Where is this donkey race featuring Brightwall the Beast?"

Delacorte gave up. "The night races are held on some woods on the outskirts of Holland Park. They get up a makeshift track,

it's all lit by torches, and you can make wagers and everything. It's a wonderful time."

"Sounds quite illegal," Magnus remarked pleasantly.

"Oh, it is," Delacorte assured him.

There fell a little silence.

"Who's he racing against?" Brightwall wanted to know.

"Another excellent jenny named Shillelagh."

Dot's embroidery hoop tumbled from her hands.

She rose slowly from her chair, her lips trembling, emitting the small airless noises one makes when excitement prevents the formation of words.

"Fate!" she finally squeaked. "It's fate!"

"Oh, Dot, I'm not sure about this..." Delilah was beginning to feel nostalgic for the boring nights they'd enjoyed just

a few days ago.

"What is Shillelagh like, Mr. Delacorte?" Alexandra wanted to know.

"She's gray, low-slung, has a white muzzle and light legs," Delacorte told them. "Pretty little thing. Scares her competition

by sneaking up on the outside, then running like the blazes. Can sometimes be a bit balky, and she once bit me when I was

allowed to pet her but she didn't break the skin. But that's the best part of it, right? It's unpredictable! A bit like The

Grand Palace on the Thames."

Angelique and Delilah were none too pleased to learn that Mr. Delacorte equated The Grand Palace on the Thames with being

bitten at the donkey races.

Dot turned to Delilah and Angelique, her hands clasped beseechingly. "I know it's not my off day... and I know it's Mr.

Pike's night off, too... so there's no one to answer the door... maybe we won't get a new guest tonight! I'll give up

my next one and the next one... I promise... please may I go to the donkey races?"

"Ummm..." Mr. Delacorte was alarmed.

"It does rather seem like fate," Angelique whispered to Delilah, mischievously.

" Shhh ." Delilah nudged her surreptitiously.

But because Dot's blue eyes were the size of dinner plates, almost no one could beseech as well as she could. She asked for so little. It was heartrending.

"I just don't think that's wise, Dot," Delilah said, somewhat desperately. "It can be a bit of a rough crowd, isn't that right,

Mr. Delacorte?"

"Well. I'd have to say yes, it could be. It's not usually a place to take ladies. Although there are, er... some ladies, after a fashion... there. It's a friendly crowd, on

the whole. But mostly everyone just wants to watch a race. You will hear a lot of jar words," he said frankly.

"Which ones?" Captain Hardy asked.

Mr. Delacorte snorted. "I'm not falling for that again, Hardy."

Captain Hardy grinned.

" But the jar words are mostly because everyone gets so excited. They sell chestnuts!" Delacorte added by way of enticement. "The

fights usually happen later, when everyone is full of drink. And by then I'm home for curfew."

Angelique and Delilah were speechless.

Mr. Delacorte was nearly quivering with the effort to restrain his hope that people he liked would go with him to a donkey

race, which was very nearly his definition of happiness.

Alexandra cleared her throat. "I think..."

Everyone turned to her.

". . . that I've seldom wanted anything more than to see a race between a donkey named Brightwall and a donkey named Shillelagh."

She said it quietly. But when her gaze collided with Magnus's, an interesting, spikily challenging frisson passed between

the two of them.

There ensued quite a long silence, as everyone was very curious about what the colonel would say.

"May I ask what compels your interest in a donkey race in particular, Alexandra?" Magnus said with a certain taut formality.

"Someone once suggested I ought to diversify my pastimes," she replied politely. "I don't feel as if I've had a sufficient

variety of experiences. And if Dot thinks it's fate, who am I to argue?"

Dot nodded vigorously.

"And... I've never been to a donkey race. It sounds like fun."

She said it almost wistfully.

Tentatively.

This launched a little war in Magnus's thoughts. He frankly suspected he would enjoy a donkey race more than he'd enjoy an

opera, for one thing. Alexandra's wistfulness triggered his regrettable itch to give her anything she wanted, and it irritated

him that some reflexive part of him apparently still craved to be her vassal. He also still felt a trifle guilty again that

she'd apparently been somewhat deprived of entertainments for about five years. Guilt he mostly didn't deserve, but there

it was.

And what kind of man took his wife to an illicit nighttime donkey race?

This was not a dilemma he'd ever anticipated confronting.

"I'm a conspicuous person," Brightwall began carefully. He was thinking aloud. "I don't want to put a damper on the occasion if someone recognizes me. Especially if the donkey is named Brightwall. And given that it's illegal... talk about being in the belly of the beast. Literally."

Alexandra regarded him evenly. "It will be dark."

He stared at her. Something about that sentence sounded both like a promise and a dare.

Both Delacorte and Dot briefly covered their mouths with their hands, hardly daring to hope.

"Maybe if you wear a disguise?" Delacorte suggested to Brightwall.

"I don't think I have a dress big enough to fit Magnus," Alexandra said.

Everyone chuckled, albeit cautiously.

"It will be dark, and if there's a crowd, I doubt anyone will be able to recognize me," Magnus allowed slowly.

Alexandra and Dot and Mr. Delacorte all clasped their hands and crossed their fingers.

They swiveled toward Angelique when she leaped to her feet.

"Delilah and I are just going to have a little private word. We'll be right back," Angelique said briskly.

Delilah looked at her, surprised. "Where are we go—"

Angelique looped her arm through Delilah's and tugged her from her chair, marching her startled friend to stand beneath the

chandelier, out of the hearing of everyone in the room.

"Think about it," Angelique whispered without preamble. "Helga and the maids have gone up to their rooms for the night. If they all go out... we'll be alone here. With Tristan and Lucien. How often are we ever alone here with them? Never."

Delilah mulled this for three seconds.

"I guess Dot is going to the donkey races," she concluded.

They returned to the group in the room and settled back into their chairs.

"You really want to do this?" Magnus said to his wife.

Alexandra nodded. "I'm certain Mr. Delacorte would be pleased to look out for me and Dot if you prefer not to go, Magnus."

For the second time this evening, everyone else's eyes widened in wary surprise. Mr. Delacorte looked downright alarmed. His

mouth parted, as if he was about to issue a disclaimer about taking another man's wife to a race.

He clapped it closed again.

Alexandra had said it so innocently. But there was something just a little anarchic about the glint in her eyes and the slight hike of her chin.

Magnus's lips moved in a slow, faint, mostly unamused smile. She wasn't quite saying, "I'm going whether you allow it or not,

Magnus," but the implication hovered about the edges of her words, and everyone knew it. She was daring him to refuse her

in front of these people. And leaving him to wonder whether she might cause a little bit of a scene if he did.

Damned if he didn't admire the diabolical strategy. It darkly amused and infuriated him, in equal measure. She had bloody maneuvered him.

It took all of his discipline to tamp all of his colonel instincts and issue a flat "no" on the principle of the thing.

"While I'm certain Mr. Delacorte would acquit himself well as an escort for you ladies," he said, with gentle irony, because

he was a diplomat, too, "you will need to contend with my company, too. We will take my carriage."

"And we've decided, Dot, that you can go, too," Delilah said hurriedly.

"Oh, HOORAY! Thank you thank you thank you!" Dot gave a delighted hop.

And Alexandra was suddenly radiant with delight and surprise, even as she looked uncertain.

"Delacorte and I will take good care of the ladies," Magnus assured everyone present.

Thusly earning beams from everyone present.

"Be prepared for lots of cheerful shouting." Delacorte was brisk. "But wear something you don't mind getting splashed."

"Splashed? With what?" Dot wondered.

"Oh, it could be anything, at the donkey races," he said happily.

Two old brown wool cloaks were scared up, and these were meant to cover Dot and Alexandra from head to toe, so that they looked a bit like monks or peasant women and less like nice young women who had no business going to a donkey race. They tied aprons over walking dresses and wore their sturdiest walking shoes. Mr. Delacorte apparently kept an old coat and a pair of trousers just for such occasions as nighttime donkey races, but Magnus hadn't brought any very old or worn clothing with him to The Grand Palace on the Thames.

"I'll hope for the best," he said dryly.

This odd little band filed out the door, promising to be in well before curfew.

Angelique went upstairs in search of Lucien.

And just like that the sitting room was quiet at seven o'clock in the evening for the first time in the history of The Grand

Palace on the Thames.

Delilah looked at her husband, then went to sit down across from him.

"Well, my love," she said. "Everyone except Angelique and Lucien has gone to a donkey race. What shall we do?"

Captain Hardy clapped his book closed. "Go to church."

Just one of the delightful aspects of being married was the gradual development of their own secret coded language.

"Go to church" meant "make love."

It had as its origins the meandering discussion they'd had one night about the "with my body, I thee worship" part of the

traditional wedding ceremony. They had both taken this part of their vows quite to heart.

They'd been married for a little over a year and he could still make her blush.

"You certainly didn't need much time to ponder that."

"Why would I ever need to ponder that when I'm married to you , Delilah?"

"Unassailable logic."

He grinned at her.

His grin faded. "The truth is, I'm beginning to feel outclassed by a bloody corporal."

"Oh, it's probably theater. The noises. Don't you think?"

"Perhaps. But let's say it is. How would a girl like that know what sort of sounds she ought to make?" he asked.

"Hmm. Good point."

They contemplated this a moment.

"I'm a little worried they're going to wear it out," Delilah said.

Captain Hardy coughed in shock.

"The bed ," she clarified. "We may have to buy another bed. Not his, ah... or her..."

"No, both of those do last a while, thankfully. But imagine if a man only got a finite number of uses out of uh, his...?"

he reflected.

"A bit like the genie who offers you a finite number of wishes?"

"If that was the case, I'd spend all my wishes on you," Captain Hardy promised.

"Awww. That might be the most romantic thing you've ever said."

He laughed, and then paused. "I'm sorry I've needed to be away so often lately. I miss you."

She touched his cheek. "Please don't apologize. I know it's only temporary."

"But it's not easy?" It was both a question and a statement, and by way of seeking confirmation that he was missed. He said

it almost gruffly. She knew revealing vulnerabilities was his least favorite thing to do.

"It's not easy," she confirmed softly. "I miss you. But I'm so proud of you and the Triton Group and all you're accomplishing."

"The Brightwalls were apart for five years," he said shortly.

This was his way of trying to tell her that he'd noticed their distance, too, and it was bothering him. Her heart squeezed.

"I feel for them," she whispered. "But they're not like us."

He nodded, seeming relieved to have it said aloud. "I had a dream last night that an intruder sneaked into The Grand Palace

on the Thames and made off with you, but he let you take your favorite hairbrush."

"Oh, Tristan. Pike is here. And if an intruder should somehow manage to breach our ramparts—and one won't—I'll just follow

your example, my sweet, dangerous husband, and bang his head on the table and use a cravat as a sort of garrote."

He laughed. "Good to know I'm setting an example. But back to a burning question. What is Dawson doing to get his wife to make those sounds?"

She was amused that he sounded so earnest. "Well..." Delilah was definitely feeling a little warm now.

"No, I mean, specifically , not generally. Is it a sequence of events, corresponding with each sound? Have new techniques been invented? Is there a

pamphlet I ought to be reading?"

"You've given this a lot of thought."

"Men are base creatures at heart, Delilah," he said grimly.

"Perhaps it's the novelty of it all for her. The first time I... and you... well... it was definitely a revelation,

I'll grant you that. Very worth shouting about. Although I didn't, because I couldn't, as we were in this very room. But I

think mainly it was so incredible because it was you."

"No doubt," he said comfortably, which made her smile. He paused. "Would you have made those sounds if we hadn't been constrained

by secrecy? And... ah, discretion?"

"I don't know," she said truthfully. "Do you think she even knows she's doing it?"

He hiked and let drop one shoulder. "Impossible to say."

Then something alarming occurred to her. "Do you... want me to? Make those sounds?"

He pondered this. "I don't know?" He almost whispered it. "On the one hand, I think I would love knowing I had given you so

much pleasure that you went right out of your head and started, er, scream-grunting. On the other hand, if you did, I might

want to smother you with a pillow."

She laughed.

Delicately she said, "You do know that I go right out of my head every time?"

His smile was slow, crooked, and very gratified. "Every time?"

"Every. Time. Dear God, it's so good, Tristan."

They exchanged sultry, satisfied smiles.

"But you aren't very vocal during. Do men ever do a lot of shouting? The last time we..."

"Made love," he supplied patiently. He'd married a blue-blooded woman, a former countess, and he'd been a soldier. And while

he occasionally enjoyed scandalizing her, he also loved her refinement and was generally quite gentle with her sensibilities.

"All you said was ‘Christ. God , that's good. Yes, Delilah. God, yes.'"

He froze at this recitation.

She'd even done his voice. A husky, urgent baritone.

Her eyes were dancing wickedly now.

"I have seldom felt so conflicted," he said slowly. "I'm very embarrassed... and very amused... and very, very aroused.

I do believe you said..." He leaned forward and breathed the words into her ear. "‘Harder, Tristan. Please. Please. Now. '"

She closed her eyes, awash in lust. She drew in a shuddering breath.

He kissed her. Softly, softly, as if it was the very first time. And desire hit her bloodstream in a rush that made her breath

catch.

"That. That little sound you make. Christ," he breathed. "It makes me hard every time."

She trailed her fingers over his thigh up to his groin, and ascertained the truth of this for herself.

Her fingers lingered purposefully and skillfully there, until his breathing was quite rough.

"What if one of our guests needs something?" she whispered.

"Like what? Earmuffs to drown out Corporal Hardcock?"

She stifled laughter. "We're right next to the jar."

"Two of them are busy, the rest are out, and Angelique and Lucien are likely enjoying, oh, I don't know, spillikins. It's

been two weeks. I need you."

Who was she to countermand the famous Captain Hardy?

She shut the door and locked it and surrendered herself into his arms.

Angelique found Lucien in their room, rummaging through his clothing press for a fresh cravat. He'd discovered that he'd spilled

gravy on his. Such was the romance of married life.

"Lucien. Listen."

"No," he said darkly. "I refuse. I'm afraid to stop and listen now in my own home. I am scarred by the sound of Corporal Dawson's

ecstasy."

She laughed. "No, listen . It's quiet. Everyone is out for the evening, including Corporal Dawson and his wife."

"Everyone?"

"Everyone except Delilah and Tristan. What ever shall we do?"

They fixed each other with smolderingly significant gazes.

"Why," Lucien mused, softly drawing out the word, "do we make love only in our bedroom?"

She was instantly breathless. "Do you think about making love in... other locations?"

"Nearly everywhere I go I eventually imagine you there with me and nude, I confess. The warehouse, the ship, in a hack, the

back room of White's. But that's how men's minds work."

"I'm so flattered."

"It's how I keep you with me when I need to be away."

She was, indeed, touched.

"I have an idea now... it could be a little risky... but not too risky..." He arched a brow.

Suddenly a little risk seemed precisely the thing to offset worry. "Tell me. I trust you."

"Come with me." He seized her hand, snatched up a folded coverlet and an unlit lantern, and led her downstairs, through the

passage that led to the annex, and right into the ballroom.

She laughed as he led her up onto the stage that their former guest Mr. Hugh Cassidy had built, and pushed aside their beloved

green velvet curtains, the ones they had wrangled out of an earl who had tried to steal their cook. Mr. Hugh Cassidy had gone

to fetch them. And Mr. Hugh Cassidy and Lillias, Lady Vaughn, had met their destiny behind them.

Suddenly the stage felt like their own secret, dark little cave. Laughing softly, they felt their way in the dark to the wall, and then sank down against it. He settled the lamp down near them. Lucien usually had a flint and steel stashed in his pocket. But neither one of them wanted to interrupt the sawdust-scented darkness just yet.

"Here," he said softly. He opened his arms, and she leaned back against him, snuggling in. He wrapped the two of them in the

coverlet. They just enjoyed closeness for a moment, letting their eyes adjust to the dark. They were surrounded by props from

the Night of the Nightingale, the event featuring opera singer Mariana Wilde: the stained glass moon, rolls of stitched green

felt that had represented carpets of grass, folded fishnets dyed blue they had swagged across the ceiling in order to create

a night sky, little crates full of the spangled stars they'd hung from the nets.

"What do you suppose he's doing to elicit sounds like that?" Lucien mused.

She didn't need to ask whom. They might not actually be ghosts, but Corporal and Mrs. Dawson were positively haunting The

Grand Palace on the Thames.

"Maybe it's the Vicar's Wheelbarrow," she suggested.

They laughed.

"I wonder... is it a sequence of events? Is it the same every time? One to go with each ‘oh'? Is it different every time?"

"Are you feeling inadequate, Lucien? Because, I assure you, you are not."

"Huzzah for me and my adequacy," he exulted.

She laughed again.

"Perhaps he knows unusual positions?" he suggested. "He doesn't look the adventurous type, but people will surprise you, as

you know. Because his wife seemed very quiet."

"What sort of unusual positions? I only know forward, backwards, standing, sitting, kneeling... have I left any out?"

Lucien grinned at her recitation. "Oh, there are all sorts of acrobatic things one can do. Swings and special chairs..."

he said vaguely. "I know I tell you nothing you don't already know when I say that men are ridiculous creatures, Angelique.

We will try anything, particularly if it's dangerous. It's a wonder there are any of us left."

She snorted softly.

It was lovely and strange to lean against him in the dark, behind the curtains on a stage. Somehow both illicit and cozy.

"Are you... interested in that sort of thing, Lucien? Er, swings and chairs. That sort of thing."

"No."

"My goodness. You said that a little quickly."

"Well, I cannot say this will be true forever. People do change in surprising ways for surprising reasons, yes? But now, you

see, it's very strange. I'm so in love with you, it's like being under the influence of a beautiful drug all the time. Better

than anything in Mr. Delacorte's case. I can do this..."

With one finger he drew a semicircle about her breast. She sighed, her body stirring.

"And just like that, I am on fire for you," he murmured.

They sat together, quietly burning. They knew each other's rhythms now. They knew they had the luxury of time, of heightening

anticipation, of making love however they chose. And they wanted to heighten anticipation.

It was such a pleasure to just be alone and talk to each other.

"Literally everything about you excites me, Angelique. I think of something new all the time. There is a freckle behind your

right knee. Perhaps you've never seen it. It is my new obsession."

He was partly teasing. And partly not.

"Do you want me to tell you about those things?"

"I think I would like you to save them up, and tell me one per year, on my birthday. I'll do the same for you."

"Done," Lucien said amiably.

They were quiet. Angelique cleared her throat.

"I think Colonel Brightwall and his wife... something is amiss there, don't you think? He was in Spain for so many years

without her. And I sense the tension between them when they're in the room. And they never use endearments. No dears. No darlings.

No sweethearts."

Lucien took this in. "Not everyone is so fortunate as we are," he said. "But I think there is pain there. Both for him and his wife. Don't you? And where there is pain... well, you and I know that one cannot be hurt if there is no feeling. And sometimes the most implacable people hurt the most because they won't bend. Brightwall is a brilliant, stubborn man and his wife does not strike me as a quiet, biddable creature."

But he'd said this last bit appreciatively, which made Angelique smile. She was hardly biddable, either. "I've noticed how

they look at each other. It might be antipathy—I don't think it is—but regardless, they find each other riveting."

"Let's wish them the best."

They silently did that for a few moments.

"It's hard not to notice that we have several phases of married life represented under one roof these past few weeks," she

mused. "Corporal Dawson and his wife are the newlyweds. Then there's you and me and Delilah and Captain Hardy. Then there's

the Brightwalls. And then I suppose we can count Mrs. Pariseau and Mrs. Cuthbert the widows."

Lucien was quiet a moment. "You're thinking about all of this because you're worried something like that could happen to us

one day. The distance between them."

He knew her so well.

"I had gotten so used to people finding love here at The Grand Palace on the Thames, and I love thinking we had a small part

in that. It would be sad if it's the site of an estrangement, instead."

"That will never be us, Angelique. Even if I need to be away for work, we will not grow apart that way." As if to prove his point, he gathered her closer.

"How can you be sure?"

"Well, I cannot," he admitted, which made her stomach lurch a little. "But we are friends. I like you better than anyone,

even though I'm compelled to spend half my time with Hardy and St. Leger lately and they're admittedly unobjectionable company.

But it won't always be like that. One day you may grow tired of having me underfoot all the time. We married because we love

each other, and we chose each other after experiencing much of the bitter life can bring. We know what love is and what love

isn't. And I love you so much that it is nearly as much of a luxurious pleasure to talk to you as it is to make love to you.

Nearly."

"I love you, too. And I like you. And I do miss you when you're away."

"And you see, I do not think I will ever tire of hearing you say it, so I've an incentive to remain lovable."

She laughed quietly. "Do you ever feel constrained by our lives here, Lucien? We need to be so adult and decorous. It would

be rude to make loud, grunty love when everyone is trying to sleep. And you used to be so wild."

"Mostly I was wild because I was unhappy. But if we ever wish to be loud, there's the little country house my father left me. The one in which I grew up. We could run about naked and make love in the grass. Take a little holiday one day. Of course, Delacorte will probably want to come with us."

She sighed.

"Do you feel constrained, Angelique?"

She shook her head. "Mostly... mostly I just feel grateful for our life here."

"I expect we can find ways to feel wild right here if we choose. Let's see..."

She exhaled, and leaned her head back on his shoulder.

"We are young and innocent lovers." She could feel his whispered breath against her ear. "We've only just met. The attraction

is powerful and new, like nothing we've ever before experienced. We have sneaked away for a rare moment together, to the backstage

of a theater. We only have a few moments together... they might pull the curtain any moment. And this is the first time

you've ever been kissed like... this..."

He turned her in his arms so he could kiss her softly, slowly.

"And the very first time either of us will be making love."

He lowered her to the floor, cushioning her with the coverlet.

And when he made love to her, it did feel like the first time.

And even though they were utterly quiet, they both felt as though their passion shook the rafters.