The Hunger (7 page)

“I’ll send a boy for your coat and hat,” she said, to buy time. She actually did not know what he would do next. What an unusual feeling! “Number Six Albany House, I believe.”

“Not necessary,” he said lightly, as he opened the door. “I’ll be going back tonight.”

He
was
just going to walk away. Maddening man! She should be relieved. He was saving her from herself. Lord knows what would have happened if she had gotten him into her boudoir. He reached to hand her out. Again through the glove she felt his warmth. As she stepped down, she glanced up and caught the liquid heat in his eyes. Ha! He felt it, too. He might be walking away, but he wanted her. Perhaps that was the best of both worlds. Winning, but not claiming the prize. “James,” she called. “Take Lord Langley back to Bessborough House.”

“Very good, my lady,” James returned stoically from the box.

The door opened behind her. “Consider use of my carriage a partial payment of my debt.”

She half expected him to promise he would claim the whole payment shortly. But he simply nodded, and stepped back into the carriage. It clattered away into the brisk March night.

How vexing! What a relief! How . . . interesting.

Four

John sat back into the squabs of Lady Lente’s well-sprung carriage as it rolled through the streets of London, pulled by her crack team of matched bays. His pulse was racing. He had barely escaped with his sanity tonight. How she looked right through him! She guessed about his wound . . . Not a safe companion for a man with as many secrets as he had. He flushed as he recalled how she passed off the affair with Angela as a child’s infatuation. That she guessed he didn’t know Angela was his sister was uncanny. His naïveté then made him flush again now.

Everyone in the
ton
had known at the time except him, of course, including Angela. He was only tortured by the fact that she was married. He urged her to seek a divorce from Parliament. What a moon-calf! Angela wanted no divorce. He looked out on Hyde Park, wet and gleaming in the night. And she knew all along his sins were far worse than adultery.

Ah, but he had loved Angela! Even more than Cecily Warburton. Cecily had betrayed him, too. She and John were seventeen and engaged, not only by family arrangement, but, John thought, by more tender emotions. Cecily
was an excellent dissembler. After she cried off in favor of a dashing officer in the Horse Guards, John’s father was furious. Cecily’s portion had been destined to pay down the family debt. He had failed to do the one thing that could have redeemed him in his father’s eyes.

John lost himself in London and avoided his father. He was flattered when the sophisticated Angela Dougherty, Lady Spenton, took an interest in him. Their affair had been torrid: all-night sessions in the gazebo, illicit afternoons in her boudoir—all the intensity of which an eighteen-year-old is capable. When he realized his relationship to Angela from a remark made at some pointless rout, his world dropped from under him. It took all his courage to tell Angela. Angela pouted and said it was a shame he was boring, because he was a very pretty, ardent lover and Spenton didn’t care as long as they were discreet.

He clenched himself closed against the memory. Discreet? God, he had written
poetry
to her! How discreet was that? That Spenton knew and dismissed the affair as trivial was still painful. John realized then how heartless Angela was, how little he meant to her. Women were incapable of constancy.

John threw himself on his parents’ mercy and asked to come home, only to find his parents knew all. “If there’s a brat from the union, Spenton will acknowledge it. I talked to him,” his father said shortly in the stables one morning as John saddled his horse for a ride. John was stunned at this fresh possibility of disaster. Those three months were hell as he waited to hear that Angela was pregnant.

But disaster did not strike. He decamped to the Continent and drowned his pain in becoming just as bad as everyone thought him, just as the countess had guessed. She made it seem so . . . green. Well, no one could call him green now. He did not believe in virtue anymore. He couldn’t even feel virtuous about acting for his country
when his duties included lying, stealing, killing, and using women. He never let himself fall in love with them. He never would.

The horses clopped along streets toward Bessborough House. How had the countess known so much about him? A horrible thought occurred. Was she a spy for France? She apparently came and went across the Channel as she pleased. What better way to ferret out a country’s secrets than to sleep with the
crème
of its political and social crop? Damn! He’d let his guard down. Had she smoked his true occupation?

Bessborough House’s ornate façade came into view. He took a breath. He hadn’t given anything away. He had been lax because he was on his home soil. It would not matter. He was for Portsmouth soon. He would not see her again.

And yet . . . Did he not have a duty to determine if she was a spy—find out who her French contacts were? He would be exposing himself to her scrutiny. But he was forewarned. And she underestimated him. That would be to his advantage. Now, where could he see her next? He put down the little thrill in his loins that accompanied that thought.

Beatrix spent a wakeful day, her nerves all electric irritation. She didn’t need blood, but she needed something. Her old friend Shakespeare could not hold her interest. She tried a book by the new woman everyone was talking about. Austen. Her clear and humorous vision of people and society amused Beatrix for almost an hour. She wrote a letter offering to support that artist Constable. He did light like no one else but Turner, and yet could not gain recognition from the damned Royal Society. She no longer believed art could save the world. But some things must be painted, written, danced, or sung, and she could make sure a few gifted individuals were allowed to do
that. She tried not to think about what had happened last night at Bessborough House. Out of control. On the edge. In front of everyone.

And she had no idea why. What brought on this feeling that a great darkness was nipping at her heels? Was madness for her kind inevitable? That was the purpose of Mirso Monastery, to stave off madness. Perhaps Mirso was all that was left to her. But she wasn’t ready to retreat so fully from the world. And why not? What did the world mean to her? If she could take a few books, a few paintings with her, why not start tomorrow?

Because then Asharti would be right about her.

That was why she struggled with the darkness. She paced from bed to dressing table and back again. She needed something to focus on besides the darkness.

The answer to that had a name. Langley. It was dangerous to seek him out at all, with the feelings he roused in her. But interest in something seemed to quiet her memory flashes. What to do next? If she invited him for Tuesday it would be admitting she craved his company. If she did not, the earliest she might see him was Wednesday at Hartford House, and that not a sure bet.

She called for Symington. She had employed him first in London years ago, and he had accompanied her to Amsterdam and Vienna. He was the only one who knew her secrets. She paid him well for his powers of organization. In return he suppressed his horror at her nature. Now he was old and somehow they had become . . . comfortable. He presented himself and bowed. Was he still horrified?

“I wish to know more about Langley,” she said.

The old man paused. She could see him sorting the folders in his mind. He was a deep old file and since he had been in London for a month, he would know everyone and everything. “Known to be poor,” he said, unequivocally. “Father gamed away whatever fortune was left from the grandfather’s wasteful proclivities. Estate rumored to be
mortgaged to the hilt. Mother largely insane after the early deaths of her other children. Now herself dead twenty years. He is the only legitimate child. Succeeded to the title six years ago. Early arranged marriage fell through when the young lady in question eloped with another. Father counted on the dowry—practically disowned him. He went wild. Affair with his half-sister, who—”

“Yes, yes.” Beatrix waved her hand impatiently. “After the affair, what?”

Symington drew himself up. “Wandered the Continent. Duels, affairs. They say he was consort for a short time to Pauline, Napoleon’s sister.”

Pauline had a nearly insane need for sexual gratification. Had Langley been used for his body? That, coupled with the half sister, would explain his attitude about women. “And?”

“Well, the rumors go on from there. It is hard to know where to draw the line.”

Beatrix grew thoughtful. “He appears to be received.”

“There is a certain cachet in having him attend one’s function. He is articulate. He dances well. He holds his liquor. And he does not disgrace his hostess.”

“One has all the titillating possibility of misbehavior without the untidy consequences.”

“And, if I might say,” Symington added, “there is the role of the prodigal son, returned from the gates of hell and therefore to be pitied, if not forgiven.”

“You are wise beyond your years, Symington.” She made a salute. “Anything else?”

“Well . . .” Here the old man paused, as if unsure he should add something so trivial. “His valet, Withering, is a stiff-backed old moralist. Why would he stay with so dissolute a master?”

Very interesting, indeed.

“And . . .” Symington was truly reluctant now.

“Yes? Go on.”

“Well, one viewpoint that does not quite agree with the rest. He is quite frequently gone from London for a month or more. He puts it about that he goes to the estate in the north when he runs out of money. But Clary, your upstairs maid, used to work at Langley Manor. She says he never comes there anymore but the steward is always making improvements.”

“So,” Beatrix said slowly. “The poverty-stricken young lord must be sending home money. Where does he go if not to his estates?”

“Unknown, my lady. And Withering is very tight-lipped about his master.”

Beatrix straightened.
Very
interesting. “Thank you, Symington. You have been most helpful.” She peered at her only confidant and saw creases in his forehead. She lifted her brows.

Symington swallowed. “Nothing of consequence, my lady.”

Beatrix did not blink. Her brows continued the question.

Symington cleared his throat. “My . . . my sister is in poor health, my lady. Her husband died last year. She will not see a doctor. Says it’s just her time. She lives in Harrowgate, but a spa town has so many ill people, I think it contributes to her melancholy . . .” He trailed off, then said briskly, “My concern will not, of course, interfere with performing my duties.”

Beatrix frowned. “Why have you not mentioned this?” She rose purposefully. “Of course you will send for her. We shall set her up in rooms near Harley Street with every consideration. The best doctors . . . I’ll give her a recommendation to Dr. Derwin . . . and . . . a female companion! Someone cheerful—that’s what she needs. And of course, the support of her brother.”

“I . . .” Symington seemed for once at a loss for words. “I . . .”

“Draw a draft on Drummond’s for whatever you need.”

The old man drew himself up. “You are too good, my lady, to bestir yourself like this.”

“What nonsense! You are the one who will bestir yourself. And you must run up and accompany her to town. Take the barouche. I shall make do with the phaeton.”

Symington turned quickly away. “Thank you, my lady,” he murmured with a full throat as he closed the door. How dear that he hesitated to ask for something so easily accomplished. He liked to be depended on, not to be dependent.

Left alone, her thoughts returned to Langley. Now, how to see him? Tonight she was promised to the prime minister. The Prince Regent would be there. They were trying to get on together. If the old king died everyone knew the prince would replace all the ministers posthaste, but they must appear to be on good terms in case the king recovered. She would probably be the only woman there except for Mrs. Fitzherbert. It might be good sport but for the fact that one person would
not
be there.

Beatrix forced herself to lie down. Monday was soon enough to send him a card for her next soiree. He must think he was an afterthought. Where did he go for a month at a time? He was not as bad as he put about. Why did he encourage the world’s misconceptions? She had seen his core of steadiness. She did not think she could be mistaken about that.

But she had been mistaken about people before. Stephan for instance. Asharti . . .

AMSTERDAM
, 1101

Beatrix pushed the lout off her with a growl that sounded more animal than human. He thought to take advantage of her. They all did, to their cost
. I shall surprise you, bastard whoreson,
she thought. He stumbled back. She plunged into the dark of the alleyway after him, into the
mud and the night soil. Her ragged shawl drooped over one arm. The oaf must outweigh her by six stone. Before he could right himself, she shoved him up against the wall, his jowls heaving, codpiece dangling, surprise making his dull eyes widen. His head thunked against the wood covered with wattle. Power surged in her veins as the hunger welled inside her. She pulled his head down. He struggled but it was no use, of course. Her vision dimmed with the familiar red film. The smell of him, acrid with sweat and fear, filled her nostrils as she ripped at his neck. His high-pitched keening sounded over her low growl. The thick life flowed over her lips and tongue from his torn throat, on and on. He went quiet, sagging against her
.

A strong hand pulled her away. She whirled, growling as the lump of flesh behind her slumped and fell. Who dared to interrupt her feeding?

A man grasped her shoulders. A well-made man, clean, tall, dressed in a rich hauberk and the chain mail of a warrior. That was all she noticed. She curled to shrug him off
.