“And a lie that is, to be sure. I give you more credit than you deserve,” she replied, folding her arms over her middle. For the first time, Angelica noticed a bit of Irish lilt in her voice. “And it lightens my coffers more than I care to admit.”
“But Rubey,” he said, his voice still easy, “you know I’m good for it.” His voice lowered and Angelica felt a little responsive shiver in her belly.
“That you are, which is why I keep you around. But a little slow on the settling up. After this”—she gestured abruptly at Angelica and moved toward Voss—“I expect your account to be settled most generously.” Then, to Angelica’s shock, she poked him in the chest with her finger, just below the loose neckcloth.
Voss didn’t seem to care. “I am always generous,” he told her in that low, nearly purring voice that made Angelica vacillate between warmth and annoyance. He was fairly ignoring her and quite clearly flirting with this woman.
She didn’t like it at all.
Rubey gave a little huff of laughter that ended on a low note. “Indeed,” she added in a more husky tone. “When you are finished here, I’ll expect you to see to all of it.”
She glanced briefly at Angelica to say, “I’ll send clothing up for you shortly. And a maid.” And then she left the chamber, closing the door in her wake.
For a moment, Angelica sat stunned and speechless. She was alone in a bedchamber, clothed in little more than a thin shift, with a man.
With Voss.
He turned to look at her, but before she could speak, he gave a little smile. “Ah, yes. Propriety.” To her relief, he opened the door, leaving it more than halfway ajar.
“Thank you,” she said, fumbling her hands over the top of the puckered coverlet. The thing that frightened her most was that the idea of being alone in the bedchamber with Voss didn’t frighten her, or concern her. In fact, the thought was more than a bit alluring.
Standing near the door’s corner, against the wall, he nevertheless seemed to fill the room, his shoulders wide and solid against feminine wallpaper. Though he remained near the darker side of the room, his skin picked up a hint of the golden glow of sunlight. Thick hair, the color of her old ginger cat, streaked with all shades of bronze and honey caught by the light, had been combed back neatly and rose above his high forehead. Yet its very color and the hint of untamed waves near his ears and throat suggested something less staid and proper lurking beneath.
The sensual little curl at one side of his mouth contributed to that lack of propriety…along with the fact that his neckcloth hung loosely knotted from the opening of his shirt. The shallow V of golden skin and the hollow of his throat she found fascinating, and more than a bit disturbing as her imagination ran to places it had never been.
“Angelica.”
Her gaze flew to his and the expression she saw there made her insides plunge. Oh.
“If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to close the door again,” he said in a voice that tempted her to ask him to do so.
Heat rushed to her cheeks and Angelica caught her breath, aware of a sudden, very pleasant tightening in her insides. What if he did? What if he came to sit on the edge of the bed—no. That was outside of proper. She swallowed.
As if to put a distance between himself and that enticement, Voss stepped away from the opening and sat on an upholstered stool in front of a small dressing table. His long legs were bent up a bit and, sitting amid lace and glass, he appeared more out of his element than she’d ever seen him…Yet with him there was no real awkwardness. He wore no coat, but the crisp white sleeves of his shirt and the intricate pattern on his waistcoat detracted from the pink and yellow florals surrounding him.
Angelica decided she should be relieved that he’d taken a seat so far from her. “Where are we? And who is Rubey? Is she your…sister?”
Her cheeks warmed when he gave a short little laugh. “No, indeed, Rubey is not my sister.”
Angelica drew herself up a bit and pulled the coverlet higher. “I suspected not,” she added in what she thought of as her Maia voice. “I was simply giving you the benefit of the doubt. She is a proprietress of some sort, I suppose. Is this her home?”
A suspicion had begun to form during Voss’s exchange with Rubey, wherein Angelica realized she was missing some of the underlying meaning of their words. She didn’t know much about the demimonde or the sorts of women who would become a man’s mistress, but the way Rubey had looked at Voss and the ease of manner between them—along with the very low line of her bodice—made her wonder. She’d spoken of services and of settling accounts…Angelica became more suspicious.
“Rubey owns the place,” Voss told her. “One of several, in fact. She’s agreed to let you stay here until I can make other arrangements.”
“Is she your mistress?” Angelica asked. “Or is this a brothel?”
The slight widening of his eyes was the only indication of his surprise. “I didn’t believe young, well-bred women knew of such things.”
“Am I to presume that is a confirmation?” she asked, trying to decide why she felt so uncomfortable. Right in the pit of her belly.
“You needn’t presume anything of the sort,” Voss said. “Rubey is merely a woman with many skills and assets—not unlike yourself, Miss Woodmore.”
She couldn’t help but wonder just exactly what sort of skills and assets Rubey had.
And then she realized a moment earlier, he’d called her Angelica. Now it was back to Miss Woodmore.
Angelica frowned and all of her warm thoughts dissipated.
But Voss didn’t seem to notice, for he continued. “In fact, I was hoping you might use one of your talents to assist me.”
Her attention flew to him, but his expression was neutral. Perhaps even…apprehensive. For the first time, she noticed that despite his easy manner, his eyes held weariness. “What exactly do you mean?” Angelica asked, resisting the urge to ask if he hadn’t slept well.
Voss shifted in his seat, his long legs ruffling the lacy tablecloth, causing the glass bottles to clink gently. “You foretold the death of my associate Lord Brickbank. And I understand that you have been able, in the past, to predict or foresee the death of others.”
When she would have spoken, something like dismay and perhaps anger bubbling up inside her, he continued. His voice lowered and became…tentative. “I confess, it was more than a bit of a shock to me—that which happened with Brickbank. You’d warned us, you’d foretold it…and yet we couldn’t prevent it.”
His face seemed to sag in the uneven light. Emotion clouded his eyes, and the bit of annoyance she had with him ebbed. “Perhaps not,” she said, but gently. “If you had stayed away from the bridges—”
He looked sharply at her. “But you clearly said which bridge. We went nowhere near it, and he still died in the manner you’d foretold.”
Angelica eased back against her pillows, closing her eyes briefly. Yes, that very same realization had settled uncomfortably in her thoughts, as well. It made her fingers grow stiff and icy, despite the mild summer day, and her insides tighten.
There was no escaping fate.
And she was fated to bear its knowledge.
“How do you manage it, Angelica?” he asked suddenly, as if it burst from him. Earnestness and something much deeper blossomed in his gaze. “Seeing death at every turn?”
She sensed he needed an answer; that it was a need for him as much as an understanding about her. “It’s become part of my life,” she said. “Since I was very young, I would touch something and sometimes the flash of a vision would rush through my mind. I didn’t understand what it was at first.”
“The first time you realized it was something more, you must have been quite distraught.” His voice had gentled.
“I was perhaps five or six. One of the footmen had dropped a glove and I picked it up. The vision was very strong and it startled me. I had an image of him lying on the floor of the stable. He looked odd, but I couldn’t have kn
own it was because his neck and legs were broken. I returned the glove to him and two days later, he fell from the loft of the barn.”
Voss’s eyes glinted golden green. “Were you the one to find him?”
Angelica shook her head. “No, I was spared that, at least. But I’d told Maia about the vision, and she had managed a peek into the stable when all of the activity was happening. She wouldn’t let me look, but she did.” Her lips moved in the hint of a smile. “Chas was at Eton, or he would surely have taken charge himself.”
Voss wondered if Chas had been tossed in the privy his first week at school, or if that sort of tradition had gone away with the powdered wigs and knee breeches of his own young generation. Regardless, having encountered Chas more than once, Voss was inclined to suspect he’d not been subjected to such an indignity at that age. He might even have been one of the ones doing the dunking of pretty but scrawny underclassmen.
Or, more likely, he allowed reluctantly, the pulling of them out of the muck.
Removing himself from such circuitous musings, he asked, “What happened after you made the connection between the vision and the groom’s death?”
She understood what he meant. “Maia, and later Chas, knew about it, but I never told my parents. They were still alive then.”
He stilled, arrested in the midst of a movement on the short stool. “Did you know they would die?”
Angelica focused on her fingers, playing with a loose thread on the coverlet. “It was another year before it happened again. I was playing with my cousin’s coat and wrapped myself up in it while we were playing hide-and-seek. In the dark corner under the piano, I was hidden and had to remain quiet…and that was when my mind—it was rather like it opened. I saw him in his bed. His face was pale and his lips and eyelids blue. At the time, he was nine or thereabouts, but in the image, it was clear he was some years older.”
“He died, then? A few years later?”
She nodded. “I didn’t tell anyone about the vision that time because…well, I didn’t really know what it meant. But later, my old Granny Grapes came to me. She knew about it. She’d figured it out.”
“Granny Grapes?” A smile flickered in his eyes.
Affection swarmed her. “She died five years ago, but she was the one who inherited the Sight in our family from her mother. She was part Gypsy.” She’d been the one to help Angelica understand, learn to accept and control her gift. If it hadn’t been for her wisdom and knowledge—
“How do you live with it? With knowing that everyone you meet will die?” His voice was filled with compassion, but also with desperation. He needed something…but she didn’t understand what it was. “Don’t you ever wonder what happens after?”
Angelica looked at him. Their eyes met, but not in the sort of heated, explosive way they’d done at the masquerade ball, or even when he came into the chamber just now. Something tugged inside, soft and deep, as she connected her gaze with his. “Everyone dies, my lord.”
His handsome face seemed bleak. “Why must they?”
“It’s the natural way of things, the cycle of life. To everything there is a season, and a time.” She dropped the little thread she’d been curling around her fingers. “If there is one thing I’ve learned from this gift I have, it’s that one cannot fear death. It’s rarely pleasant or expected or convenient. Most times it’s tragic and painful. But we can’t avoid it. And for some, it can even be a relief.”
She nibbled on her lip, thinking about how long it had taken for her to become comfortable with her Sight. How many nights of worry and anguish she’d slogged through in darkness—both literal and figurative—before Granny Grapes had taken her under her wing and helped her to understand death was merely a transition to another part of life.
Voss didn’t say anything, and she was struck by what seemed to be deepening shadows beneath his eyes.
“I don’t mean to sound nonchalant or uncaring,” she told him when the silence stretched moments too long. “I didn’t always feel that way.”
“Didn’t you try to block it out? Did you not try to keep it away? Or did you revel in the knowledge?”
“Yes, and yes…and, at times, yes.” She spread her hands. “I’ve become comfortable with it now. I’ve learned to control it, and I’m judicious in my use of the Sight. Careful with how and when I call on it.”
Except…she hadn’t controlled the image of Lord Brickbank falling to his death. That had been visited upon her in her dreams.
She’d never met the man, never touched any of his belongings.
While she’d had other dreams of death in the past, they’d been just dreams. She’d not seen or met the persons portrayed in them.
And that was what made this incident with Lord Brickbank particularly discomfíting…and frightening. Had those other dreams actually happened, without her realizing it? And why did she dream some deaths, but “see” others by touching a personal item? Angelica had looked away as the reminder of Brickbank came to her thoughts, but now she glanced over at Voss. Strangely silent and contemplative, he sat unmoving. For the first time, she saw him without a coy or charming demeanor. Without a light in his eyes or even the dangerous fury that had been there last night during the attacks.
“My lord,” she began…but then her voice trailed off.
He shifted suddenly on the little stool, and then that smile was back…the sensual, smooth one that had sent little prickles down her spine. “Well, then,” he said. “I cannot say that I’ve ever had such a moribund conversation with a woman in a bedchamber.”
“I’ve never had any conversation with a man in a bedchamber,” she replied primly. Her heart had begun to beat harder, but despite his light comment, she noticed the glint was missing from his eyes.
Voss stood, suddenly looming over her, and she realized once again that she was dressed only in a night rail. And, she decided, this was not the time to ask if he had been the one to arrange for that event. She sincerely hoped he had not, her cheeks warming at the very idea.
“I should like to dress now,” she said. Her throat was dry and her lips felt suddenly very full and warm.
Now his gaze lit with humor. “Indeed. Are you requesting maid service from me?”
“No, indeed!” she said, the flush bursting hotter over her face.
“Very well, then,” he said, his voice oozing with exaggerated reluctance. “I shall send for someone.”
“Vo—” she said as he started toward the door, then realized her mistake. “My lord, I mean—”
He turned, his hand still on the knob. “Call me Voss. I like the way you make it sound. Angelica.”
She could hardly breathe when their eyes met, and for a moment, the only sound was that of low breathing and the distant thumps and bumps of others in the house. “Dewhurst,” she said firmly.
He made an odd sort of movement, as if to step toward her and then halting himself at the last moment. Something like a wince crossed his face, and he turned sharply. “I’ll send a maid,” he said, and then left the room.
Angelica heard the steady, solid clump of his shoes as he strode down the corridor and then, it seemed, down a flight of stairs. Then it was lost amid the other household noises.
Her heart didn’t stop pounding, nor the tingling in her belly cease until several moments later when the first servant arrived with buckets of steaming water for her bath.
Angelica closed her eyes and sank back into the tub, the water swishing over her shoulders. Whatever scented oil the maid had sprinkled into the bath was sweet and citrusy, and its residue sat atop the steaming water like circular rainbows.
“What is it called?” she asked without opening her eyes. “The scent you poured into the water?”
Ella, whose movements were neat and exceedingly efficient, had moved behind Angelica and was brushing out her hair. “It’s named neroli,” she said as Angelica sighed at the heavenly feel of the bristles over her scalp. “The mistress would give you a small bottle of it
if y’like.”
“That would be very kind,” Angelica said, and lifted her head as the young woman tucked a folded towel between her neck and the edge of the metal tub. “It’s a lovely and unique scent.”
“Comes all the way from It’ly,” said Ella. “Or is it Ind-ya? Alack, I don’t try to remember it all.” She giggled and continued with the brushing.
Angelica had noted that a gown, chemise and under-necessaries were waiting for her on the dressing table, and marveled to herself at what comfortable lodgings Rubey provided. If she felt a pang of unease in regards to what other services the red-haired woman might offer, Angelica pushed it away with relative ease.
Voss was trying to keep her safe, and so far he’d succeeded. She had made the decision to trust him, and so far he hadn’t given her reason to question his motives.
But then, Maia’s disapproving expression, complete with wagging finger, popped into Angelica’s mind and ruined the relaxation of the bath.
Pickle bumps and fern-dots and blast it all! Her eyes opened and she realized that her mouth had twisted into a frown, all on its own.
She could just hear Maia, like an annoying shriek of conscience: “But you don’t know the man, Ange. And you’ve gone with him without a hesitation! What are you thinking?”
What was she thinking, indeed.
She was thinking about his beautiful eyes and the way they made her feel when he looked at her. And the lush kiss he’d coaxed from her, making her knees weak and her body rush with heat.
And she was thinking about the deeply hidden, lost expression in his eyes when they’d been speaking only a few moments ago. He needed something from her.
Perhaps he was afraid of dying. Or someone he loved was dying, or had died. Something.
Ella had set aside the brush and had just finished pinning Angelica’s hair into a loose knot at the base of her neck. Now Angelica watched as Ella bustled about the chamber, preparing towels that had been warming in a little metal trunk near the fire. Such a luxury she’d never even conceived.