Jane Feather - Virtue

The quill scratched on the parchment. A log spat in the grate. The guttering tallow candle flared as a needle of night wind pierced the ill-fitting shutters.

The man at the table paused in his writing. He dipped his nib in the inkstand and looked around the dim, shabby apartment. The paneled walls were cracked and inlaid with years of grime, the floor sticky beneath his booted feet. He huddled into his cloak and glanced toward the fire. It was low in the grate, and he bent to pick up a log from the basket. Then he let it rail back again. It was an extravagance he didn't need. Not now… not in a very few minutes.

He turned back to his writing, and the scratching of the quill was the only sound. Then he reached for the sander and dusted the epistle. Without reading what he had written, he folded the paper with scrupulous care and neatness, dropped a thick blob of candlewax on the folds, and pressed his signet ring into the seal. He sat for a minute, gazing fixedly at the initials imprinted in the wax: G D. Then he wrote again on the front of the sealed paper.

He rose from the table and propped the paper on the mantelpiece against a tarnished candlestick. There was an inch of brandy in the bottle on the table. He poured it into a glass and tossed it back, savoring the rough burn on his tongue, the warmth as it slid down his throat. It was a rough and ready brew for a man who had once known only the finest cognac, and yet it comforted.

He went to the door and opened it softly. The passage outside was dark and quiet. Soft-footed, he crept along the corridor and paused outside the two facing doors at the end. They were securely shut. Gently he turned the knob of the right-hand door. The door swung open and he stood in the opening, looking across the darkness to the shape of the bed and the mound beneath the covers. His lips moved soundlessly as if in benediction, then he closed the door with the same gentleness and repeated the exercise in the other doorway.

He returned to the candlelit apartment, closed the door, and went back to the table. He opened a drawer and drew out the silver-mounted pistol. He spun the chamber. There was one bullet. But he needed no more.

The single shot shattered the silence of the night. The letter on the mantelpiece bore the legend: Sebastian and Judith: My dearest children. When you read this, you will at last understand.

What the devil was she doing? Marcus Devlin, the most honorable Marquis of Carrington, absently exchanged his empty champagne glass for a full one as a flunkey passed him. He pushed his shoulders off the wall, straightening to his full height, the better to see across the crowded room to the macao table. She was up to something. Every prickling hair on the nape of his neck told him so.

She was standing behind Charlie's chair, her fan moving in slow sweeps across the lower part of her face. She leaned forward to whisper something in Charlie's ear, and the rich swell of her breasts, the deep shadow of the cleft between them, was uninhibitedly revealed in the decolletage of her evening gown. Charlie looked up at her and smiled, the soft, infatuated smile of puppy love.

It wasn't surprising his young cousin had fallen head over heels for Miss Judith Davenport, the marquis reflected. There was hardly a man in Brussels who wasn't stirred by her: a creature of opposites, vibrant, ebullient, sharply intelligent-a woman who in some indefinable fashion challenged a man, put him on his mettle one minute, and yet the next was as appealing as a kitten; a man wanted to pick her up and cuddle her, protect her from the storm…

Romantic nonsense! The marquis castigated himself severely for sounding like his cousin and half the young soldiers proudly sporting their regimentals in the salons of Brussels as the world waited for Napoleon to make his move. He'd been watching Judith Davenport weaving her spells for several weeks now, convinced she was an artful minx with a very clear agenda of her own. But for the life of him, he couldn't discover what it was.

His eyes rested on the young man sitting opposite Charlie. Sebastian Davenport held the bank. As beautiful as his sister in his own way, he sprawled in his chair, both clothing and posture radiating a studied carelessness. He was laughing across the table, lightly ruffling the cards in his hands. The mood at the table was lighthearted. It was a mood that always accompanied the Davenports. Presumably one reason why they were so popular… and then the marquis saw it.

It was the movement of her fan. There was a pattern to the slow sweeping motion. Sometimes the movement speeded, sometimes it paused, once or twice she snapped the fan closed, then almost immediately began a more vigorous wafting of the delicately painted half moon. There was renewed laughter at the table, and with a lazy sweep of his rake, Sebastian Davenport scooped toward him the pile of vowels and rouleaux in the center of the table.

The marquis walked across the room. As he reached the table, Charlie looked up with a rueful grin. "It's not my night, Marcus."

"It rarely is," Carrington said, taking snuff. "Be careful you don't find yourself in debt." Charlie heard the warning in the advice, for all that his cousin's voice was affably casual. A slight flush tinged the young man's cheekbones and he dropped his eyes to his cards again. Marcus was his guardian and tended to be unsympathetic when Charlie's gaming debts outran his quarterly allowance.

"Do you care to play, Lord Carrington?" Judith Davenport's soft voice spoke at the marquis's shoulder and he turned to look at her. She was smiling, her golden brown eyes luminous, framed in the thickest, curliest eyelashes he had ever seen. However, ten years spent avoiding the frequently blatant blandishments of maidens on the lookout for a rich husband had inured him to the cajolery of a pair of fine eyes.

"No. I suspect it wouldn't be my night either, Miss Davenport. May I escort you to the supper room? It must grow tedious, watching my cousin losing hand over fist." He offered a small bow and took her elbow without waiting for a response.

Judith stiffened, feeling the pressure of his hand cupping her bare arm. There was a hardness in his eyes that matched the firmness of his grip, and her scalp contracted as unease shivered across her skin. "On the contrary, my lord, I find the play most entertaining." She gave her arm a covert, experimental tug. His fingers gripped warmly and yet more firmly.

"But I insist, Miss Davenport. You will enjoy a glass of negus."

He had very black eyes and they carried a most unpleasant glitter, as insistent as his tone and words, both of which were drawing a degree of puzzled attention. Judith could see no discreet, graceful escape route. She laughed lightly. "You have convinced me, sir. But I prefer burnt champagne to negus."

"Easily arranged." He drew her arm through his and laid his free hand over hers, resting on his black silk sleeve. Judith felt manacled.

They walked through the card room in a silence that was as uncomfortable as it was pregnant. Had he guessed what was going on? Had he seen anything? How could she have given herself away? Or was it something Sebastian had done, said, looked…? The questions and speculations raced through Judith's brain. She was barely acquainted with Marcus Devlin. He was too sophisticated, too hardheaded to be of use to herself and Sebastian, but she had the distinct sense that he would be an opponent to be reckoned with.

The supper room lay beyond the ballroom, but instead of guiding his companion around the waltzing couples and the ranks of seated chaperones against the wall, Marcus turned aside toward the long French windows opening onto a flagged terrace. A breeze stirred the heavy velvet curtains over an open door.

"I was under the impression we were going to have supper." Judith stopped abruptly.

"No, we're going to take a stroll in the night air," her escort informed her with a bland smile. "Do put one foot in front of the other, my dear ma'am, otherwise our progress might become a little uneven." An unmistakable jerk on her arm drew her forward with a stumble, and Judith rapidly adjusted her gait to match the leisured, purposeful stroll of her companion.

"I don't care for the night air," she hissed through her teeth, keeping a smile on her face. "It's very bad for the constitution and frequently results in the ague or rheumatism."

"Only for those in their dotage," he said, lifting thick black eyebrows. "I would have said you were not a day above twenty-two. Unless you're very skilled with powder and paint?"

He'd pinpointed her age exactly and the sense of being dismayingly out of her depth was intensified. "I'm not quite such an accomplished actress, my lord," she said coldly.

"Are you not?" He held the curtain aside for her and she found herself out on the terrace, lit by flambeaux set in sconces at intervals along the low parapet fronting the sweep of green lawn. "I would have sworn you were as accomplished as any on Drury Lane." The statement was accompanied by a penetrating stare.

Judith rallied her forces and responded to the comment as if it were a humorous compliment. "You're too kind, sir. I confess I've long envied the talent of Mrs. Siddons."

"Oh, you underestimate yourself," he said softly. They had reached the parapet and he stopped under the light of a torch. "You are playing some very pretty theatricals, Miss Davenport, you and your brother."

Judith drew herself up to her full height. It wasn't a particularly impressive move when compared with her escort's breadth and stature, but it gave her an illusion of hauteur. "I don't know what you're talking about, my lord. It seems you've obliged me to accompany you in order to insult me with vague innuendos."

"No, there's nothing vague about my accusations," he said. "However insulting they may be. I am assuming my cousin's card play will improve in your absence."

"What are you implying?" The color ebbed in her cheeks, then flooded back in a hot and revealing wave.

Hastily she employed her fan in an effort to conceal her agitation.

The marquis caught her wrist and deftly twisted the fan from her hand. "You're most expert with a fan, madam."

"I beg your pardon?" She tried again for a lofty incomprehension, but with increasing lack of conviction.

"Don't continue this charade, Miss Davenport. It benefits neither of us. You and your brother may fleece as many fools as you can find as far as I'm concerned, but you'll leave my cousin alone."

"You talk in riddles," she said. There was no way he could prove anything; no public accusations he could bring, she told herself. But when they went to London… supposing he put the word around…?

She needed time to think. With a dismissive shrug, she turned from him, as if intending to return to the ballroom.

"Then allow me to solve the riddle for you." He caught her arm. "We'll walk a little away from the light. You will not wish others to hear what I have to say."

"There is nothing you could say that could be of the remotest interest to me, Lord Carrington. Now, if you'll excuse me…"

His derisory laugh crackled in the soft June air. "Don't cross swords with me, Judith Davenport. I'm more than a match for a card-sharping hussy. You may live upon your wits, ma'am, but I can assure you I've been using mine rather longer than you've been using yours."

Judith abruptly dropped a clearly useless pretense. It would only increase his antagonism and thus the danger. She said evenly, "You can prove nothing."

"I'm not interested in proving anything," he replied. "I've said, you may make gulls of as many of these

empty-headed idiots as you wish. But you'll leave my family alone." He took her elbow and began to walk down the shallow flight of steps onto the lawn. Twin oak trees threw giant moonshadow at the edge of the grass. In the dim obscurity, the marquis stopped. "So, Miss Davenport, I want your word that you will put an end to Charlie's infatuation."