Chapter 41
Iris sat across from Winthrop at the tea table in their room. He brought a pot of chocolate and two mugs for them to share every night before they retired. Iris didn’t have the heart to tell him that chocolate before bed caused indigestion. Besides, they would be staying up into the wee hours for a reunion with the master and mistress. Iris was almost afraid to hear what trials Emily had undergone since marrying the earl.
Iris realized that her life would never again be the same as it had been in Hatherwood. She had been introduced to espionage, an activity that in Iris’s mind had seemed more adventurous than the reality of spying on houseguests at a party.
She hadn’t solved any mysteries or gathered any information that would assist the Crown. She had discovered that at least one of the guests, a married gentleman, intended to have a secret affair with his brother’s wife. If that was the type of sordid knowledge one gained while spying, Iris wanted nothing to do with it.
“Drink your chocolate, Iris,” Winthrop said sternly. “You missed supper again tonight. I don’t know how you exist on the little you eat.”
“I exist on nerves,” she said. “Perhaps you are comfortable living under the same roof as an assassin, but I am not.”
“You’ve been very brave from the start,” he said. “I don’t know many women who would keep their wits about them in this situation.”
She felt a flush of pleasure. “If you’d been maid to my mistress and survived her escapades, you would have learned to keep your wits about you, too.” She put her hand to her mouth, realizing this was the first she had ever spoken ill to him of Emily.
“I didn’t mean that as it sounded.”
He nodded in understanding. “The earl is not the easiest person to serve. He’s dragged me through the pits of hell in his travels. The places we have been. You would be shocked, Iris, straight down to your stockings, if you ever saw the deplorable prisons and hovels where his lordship and I stayed. I won’t tell you the details.”
“Please don’t.”
“Do you know what a scorpion is?”
She grimaced. “They’re awful things that don’t live in England.”
He nodded again. “They’re used for torture in some foreign prisons. Come on, have a mug of chocolate. You’ve gone pale on me.”
She sipped the chocolate he poured into her mug. Indigestion would keep her up all night. That and the image of scorpions he’d put in her head. She was looking forward to the hour when she would be reunited with her mistress. Perhaps Emily would surprise her and have scads of little stories to share about her first impressions of life as a countess. Nothing remotely exciting had happened to Iris. Except for Winthrop, and she couldn’t admit she thought him dashing.
“I’ll be glad when the conspirators are caught and we can resume our ordinary lives,” she said, while Winthrop drank his chocolate. “I wonder where his lordship will settle when this is over.”
“London, as far as I know.” He took off his spectacles and reached his arms over his head.
Iris stared at him. She didn’t know how well he could see without his glasses. She didn’t know whether being forced to live with him under false pretenses had warped her opinions. But tonight she finally admitted to herself that he was the most attractive man she had ever known. And it wasn’t only his boyish face or reedy form that made him appealing.
It was his imperturbable dignity that she had come to admire. He still ordered her about. His insistence on placing their shoes in a certain order by the door still annoyed her as her need to arrange bottles by their size did him.
But he had brought her chocolate to drink because he was concerned about her health. Iris could kiss him for that. In fact, Iris would kiss him right now if she could invent a plausible reason for doing so.
“What is it?” he asked, lowering his arms. “Do I have chocolate on my mouth? A tear in my shirt?”
Now, she thought.
This is the time. Scoot the chair closer to wipe the nonexistent smudge from his lips, and let him take the initiative from there.
“Let me look,” she said, leaning forward.
He sat still, his eyes searching her face. “It would be wise of you not to come any closer, Iris. I should not tell you this, but I have been struggling against temptation since we argued with each other in Hatherwood.”
She felt a spark of hope. “And what have you been tempted to do?”
“All manner of wicked acts.”
“With— Me?”
“With you, inside you, behind you, all—all over you.”
“Sir.”
“Disgraceful, I know.”
“I never would have guessed,” she said, primly lowering her gaze in case her delight was obvious. “You have hidden your feelings well indeed.”
And with his next words, he extinguished her hope like a candle flame. “You can rest assured that I will continue to subdue my urges, Iris. The chances are that we will have to live in the same residence, serving the master and mistress. I would not disrespect you or our positions by behaving in anything but a straightforward manner.”
“Oh,” was all she managed to say.
“We have fifteen minutes left until our interview with the master and mistress. I promised Hamm that I would stand the morning watch over the viscount so that he could take a meal in the kitchen. He will be close enough to you in case of trouble.”
“That is thoughtful of you, sir.”
He reached for his spectacles and stood. “Try not to engage his interest while I am gone.”
“Engage Hamm’s— What do you think I am?” she asked indignantly.
“A temptress in a maid’s clothing. It takes a disciplined man to resist a woman with your qualities.”
Then he was gone to fetch a bottle for the earl, leaving Iris to wonder what qualities in her character had provoked his welcome confession.
? ? ?
They washed and dressed each other between kisses and bouts of laughter. Damien opened the armoire in his dressing closet to discover that instead of his tailored attire hung a wardrobe of dresses that could belong only to a dowager.
“Damn me,” he called in the direction of Emily’s dressing room. “The footmen must have mixed up my missing trunk with some beldame’s at the party. I don’t think any of these will suit me, do you?”
Emily appeared at the door of her dressing closet. “Your trunk is in here, sitting right next to mine. It doesn’t look as if it has been opened.”
“I hope not. Winthrop was supposed to be on the lookout for our luggage.”
“Is there anything inside it that you do not want others to see?”
He proceeded to the closet, holding the ruffled ball gown he had removed from his armoire. “Is the lock still intact?”
Emily stepped aside to allow him into the closet. “It looks to be. I hope you aren’t considering another disguise, Damien. That bodice will never fit around your chest. You could never pass as a woman. Your shoulders would be a giveaway.”
He glanced up wryly. “I hesitate to admit this, Emily, but I have passed as one before. I do not, however, have any intention of doing so again. It was a frightening experience. My legs do not look well in stockings. Gowns just aren’t made for my proportions.”
“I can imagine.”
“It is true, though, that a shawl can conceal any number of physical flaws, my shoulders being one of them.”
“I do not consider your shoulders to be flawed,” Emily said. “Merely broad. The rest of you is undeniably masculine, too. I would not believe you were a woman for an instant.”
His stare pierced her composure. Had she just confessed that she had found his body to be the epitome of male beauty? “You would be surprised to see what changes Winthrop can affect with a bag of hairpieces and cheek plumpers.”
He knelt then to examine the padlocked trunk and extracted the key from his pocket. Swiftly his hands delved through the first layer of clothing to the leather bottom.
Emily was curious now to see what he had brought to the party. Clothes or weapons? A love letter or two from the last woman in his past? Or were there private documents that would implicate him as an agent?
He closed the lid and stood, looking into her eyes. “Nothing appears to be missing.”
“None of your papers?”
“I keep those with me at all times.” His gaze caught hers, as if suddenly she were the only thing that mattered.
Emily stared down at him in pensive silence until a discreet knock sounded at the outer door. She turned reflexively, noting from the corner of her eye that he had slipped his hand into the pocket of his waistcoat. Clearly he’d found whatever he feared had been stolen. And it was not anything he wished to share with his wife.
“That has to be Winthrop and Iris. Shall I answer?”
He closed the lid of the trunk and stood, his gaze skirting hers. “I’ll let them in.” He pulled from his shoulder the pink dress that he’d apparently forgotten in his haste to learn whether any of his belongings had been searched. “There is probably a lady in this castle right now accusing a servant of stealing her clothes.”