Angel Rogue

Chapter 27

After Maxie emerged from a luxurious bath, the duchess sent her own French maid to assist. The welltrained maid, Lavalle, did not betray disapproval of such an irregular guest by so much as a single twitch, though there was a pained expression on her face as she handed over the newly pressed gown. However, Maxie's fluent, if Canadian accented, French soon won Lavalle over.

Maxie donned her plain white muslin gown, then sat patiently while the maid twisted her dark hair into an elegant chignon. The result was presentable. Nonetheless, Maxie took a nervous glance at the mirror when a footman came to summon her. Then, head high, she followed him downstairs to the small salon.

Robin and the duchess were talking casually, their golden heads close together. His clothing had also been refurbished in the last hour, and a fresh shirt and cravat had been conjured up from somewhere, probably the duke's own wardrobe. He looked so perfectly at ease that Maxie's qualms returned. He might belong in a duke's house, but what the devil was she doing here?

Robin glanced up and stared, his azure eyes glowing. As he rose and came forward, he said softly, "You look absolutely delectable."

Maxie colored, but his admiring gaze warmed her right down to her toes. "It's good of you to say so, but this dress would not be fashionable even in Boston, much less London."

"Believe me, men are much less interested in fashion than in the total effect, which in your case is ravishing." He took her arm and guided her to a seat between himself and the duchess. "Mind you, I may be prejudiced because that is the first real dress I've seen you wear."

Robin's appreciation and nonsense relaxed her to the point where she could join the conversation without selfconsciousness. The duchess was wearing a dress as simple as Maxie's own, another example of the other woman's exquisite tact. Robin had also given warning of Maxie's drinking habits, because she was offered lemonade, even though her two companions were drinking sherry.

The duchess was frowning at the mantel clock when the door opened. Maxie knew instantly that it was the Duke of Candover who entered. While Robin was a chameleon, capable of playing a thousand roles, the duke was unmistakably an aristocrat, incapable of ever being anything else. He was also quite staggeringly handsome, a fit mate for the glorious Maggie.

"Sorry to be late, my dear," the newcomer said, "but Castlereagh waylaid me just as I was leaving." Seeing the visitors, he paused, a broad smile spreading across his face. "Robin, you rogue. What brings you to London?"

The two men shook hands warmly. Then Robin introduced the duke to Maxie. As Candover bowed over Maxie's hand, she saw that his hair and complexion were as dark as her own, but his eyes were a cool northern gray, with humor and friendly speculation lurking in the depths.

"Collins," the duke said as he straightened. "Are you related to the Collins of Chanleigh?"

"The present Lord Collingwood is my uncle, your grace."

"Then we're some sort of cousins, the second or third degree." Candover gave her a smile that for pure, paralyzing impact almost equaled Robin's. "It's always a pleasure to meet a new cousin, especially an attractive one." Offering his arm, he added, "Since I'm unfashionably famished, perhaps we can go right into dinner. I'm a great deal more amiable when I've been fed."

She smiled and accepted his arm, thinking that on the contrary, the duke could hardly have been more congenial. Perhaps Robin had been right to bring them here.

As the duchess had promised, it was a simple family dinner by British standards, though there was ample food, all of it superbly cooked. Maxie was grateful not to have to deal with the endless courses considered essential at Chanleigh. She had feared there might be some beastly London dining customs that would show her for an ignorant provincial, but her concern was unfounded. She had seen more forks and spoons in Boston.

Conversation was also easy as the three Britons unobtrusively made sure that the American would not feel excluded. Maxie was touched at the consideration, and a bit amused as well. Had she been so obviously overpowered by Candover House when she had first arrived? Apparently so, though not necessarily for the reasons that the duchess thought.

The men passed up the pleasures of port to join the women for coffee in the drawing room. Maxie was glad; even though the duchess had been everything amiable, Maxie was not quite ready for a tete-a-tete with Robin's mistress. Former mistress.

When the Candovers became involved in a discussion of an impending trip to the country, the guests drifted over to the French doors with their coffee cups. Behind the house was a garden so lush that it was hard to believe they were in the heart of one of the greatest cities in the world.

Maxie studied their hosts. There was a bond between the duke and duchess so powerful that it was nearly tangible. "Even if she married him for his money," she murmured, "there is a good deal more than that between them now."

Robin gave her a quizzical glance: "Where on earth did you get the idea that Maggie married Rafe for his fortune?"

"From you, that morning at the Drover Inn. You said that your Maggie had gone to a man who could give her more than you could." She gestured expressively at their surroundings. "All this, and a ducal title as well. It is rather a lot. Still, it doesn't ring quite true. The duchess doesn't seem especially mercenary, and by your own admission you are also a wealthy man."

"Another case of me accidentally misleading you. Your instincts are quite correct. Maggie is not a woman who can be bought, only won." He turned and looked out the glass doors. "When I said that she went to someone who could give her more, I meant emotionally, not financially. Money and position were never the issues."

"Is it still so painful, Robin?" she asked quietly. "Now that I've met her, I understand why she is so hard to forget."

"The pain is in the past." He gave Maxie an oblique glance. "Now I'm thinking about the future."

It was Maxie's turn to stare outside. They seemed to be moving in a complex emotional minuet. One of them would find and share an insight, then they would swing apart and absorb what had been said before coming together again. Then there would be another moment of revelation, and another stepping back. But each time they moved together, they came a little closer.

Perhaps it was necessary that they learn about themselves and each other in small steps. Certainly she wasn't ready to comment on Robin's latest remark. Too much had happened.

She shifted her gaze so that she saw her own reflection in the glass rather than the darkened garden beyond. In her simple dress and restrained coiffure, she could almost have been an elegant Boston lady. Her lips quirked upward. "Covered with mud and looking as if I had been dragged through a bush backward?"

"Not the most poetic compliment, but true. The first-" Robin chuckled, "or rather, the second, thing I noticed after you jumped on me at Wolverhampton was how beautiful you are."

"I did not jump on you," she said indignantly. "I tripped. If you hadn't been lurking there like the serpent in Eden…!"

He grinned, then drained the last of his coffee and set the cup and saucer on a table by the French doors. "For someone who had misgivings about London society, you seem quite at ease."

She arched her brows. "Surely you don't expect me to believe that everyone in the beau monde is like the Candovers."

"They would be exceptional anywhere," he agreed. "But society is merely a collection of individuals, and London has great diversity. One can find a congenial circle and ignore the rest. For that matter, one needn't even spend time in London."

"My experience of society has not always been so fortunate." Maxie heard the brittleness in her tone. She considered stopping there, but on impulse she continued. It was time for another step in the minuet. "Though America is a republic, there are those who are fascinated by the aristocracy. As the son of a lord, with considerable wit and education, my father was welcome in the homes of many of what are called the 'better families.'

"Max was considered eccentric, of course, because of being a book peddler, and he had no money. But even so, during the winters when we lived in Boston, we were invited out to dinner two or three times a week. Clergymen, professors, wealthy merchants- they all welcomed the Honorable Maximus Collins."

She finished her coffee and set it aside, then stared into the garden again. "It was one such evening when I was about twenty that I overheard Mrs. Lodge, my hostess, talking with some crony of hers. That's when I learned that Max wouldn't accept an invitation unless I was invited also. Mrs. Lodge was willing to tolerate that in order to enjoy dear Mr. Collins's charm and breeding, but if the little halfbreed cast any lures out to the menfolk, Mrs. Lodge was fully prepared to cut the connection. Standards must be maintained, you know. Hard to believe that a gentleman like Mr. Collins had married a savage, but men were helpless victims of their lusts."

She gave Robin a sidelong glance. "And of course, everyone knew what those sluttish heathen women were like."

He muttered a blistering oath. "No wonder you think poorly of society, if that has been your experience." He laid a light hand on her shoulder. The comforting warmth of his touch made it easier for Maxie to shrug dismissively.

"Not everyone was like that. In some houses I was welcome rather than being an inconvenient necessity. I never told my father what I had heard. Max enjoyed those evenings so much. It would have been a pity to take some of them away from him."

Robin's hand tightened. "Mrs. Lodge was surely a bigot, but she may also have been speaking from the cattiness that some aging women feel toward young, attractive females."

Her mouth twisted. "You really think so?"

"I doubt if Boston beldams are very different from London ones. Take away the race prejudice and what is left is exactly what any jealous matron might say about a lovely young girl."

"Perhaps you're right. Mrs. Lodge had three muffin faced daughters with not a waistline among them." Maxie gave a wicked smile, suddenly amused by an incident that had been a secret pain for years. "Why is it so much easier for us to be clear sighted about another person's problems than about our own?"

"It's a law of nature, like the sun rising in the east, and apples falling down from a tree rather than up." Seeing that she had recovered her humor, he dropped his hand. "I suppose that tomorrow we will go to the inn where your father died?"

She was going to nod, then stopped as she was gripped by sudden panic. She had come the length of England to find answers, yet now she was afraid of them.

Did she fear what she would learn, or the fact that when the mystery of her father's death was resolved, she would be faced with a decision about Robin? She loved him, he wanted to marry her… It should be simple, but it wasn't.

"Rather than go there directly, perhaps I should call first on Aunt Desdemona. She saw my father several times before he died. She might be able to tell me about his activities."

Robin nodded. "Shall I accompany you, or would you rather ask Maggie for the company of a maid?"

She made a face; "Respectability is so tedious. Since a frail flower like me can't cross town in a carriage without a companion, I would rather have you. Besides, if Aunt Desdemona proves villainous, you would be far more useful."

"For which vote of confidence I am duly grateful," Robin remarked. "If you don't mind waiting until the end of the morning, I'd like to visit my banker and my tailor first. I was having some new clothing made up. With luck, it won't have been sent to Yorkshire yet." He cast a jaundiced eye on his frayed sleeve. "I shan't miss this coat."

"May I have it? I've some very fond memories of that coat."

"Take it with my blessings." Robin hesitated. "Would you allow me to have another gown or two made up for you? Having only one will prove a nuisance here in London."

"I suppose you're right," she said without enthusiasm. "But I don't want to waste time on fittings."

"No need. Maggie's maid can take the measurements from this dress." His gaze moved appreciatively over her figure. "It looks simple, but the cut and fit are excellent."

"Thank you. I made it myself. Lack of funds makes one wonderfully versatile." She raised a hand to cover her yawn. "I'm ready to retire. It has been a very long day."

Under her breath, Robin said, "I'm going to feel very alone in that bed tonight."

Their gazes caught. Lord, it was only last night that they had become lovers. This very morning, they greeted the dawn like pagan fertility gods, naked and unashamed. At the memory, heat coiled through her, molten and urgent.

Robin felt it, too. A rapid pulse beating in his throat, he murmured, "I'd give you a goodnight kiss, except that I'd end by carrying you upstairs and not letting you go until morning."

She tried to smile. "We might not make it that far, which would be a real breach of hospitality."

"No one stands watch in the corridors here." He reached out and touched the center of her palm. "We could spend the night together and no one would be the wiser."

Her heartbeat accelerated as he drew slow, sensual circles in her palm with a fingertip. She looked at their hands. Even the highest stickler would not be shocked to see that light touch, yet she felt… wanton. As depraved as if she had publicly stripped off her gown.

His fingers glided to the fragile skin on the inside of her wrist. Back and forth, caressing the pulse point, raising her blood to fever heat. She swallowed, ready to agree to anything.

He said huskily, "Shall I come to you later?"

His heated gaze drifted over her. They were lovers, they knew each other's bodies intimately, and with the deftness of a thief, he was picking the lock of her willpower…

The image made her want to giggle, which broke the spell he had cast. She pulled away. "I'm sorry. It doesn't make much sense, but it doesn't seem right to lie with you in this house."

She meant Maggie's house, of course. Robin closed his eyes and his face changed, the planes seeming to shift and harden. When he looked at her again, reason had returned. "I understand why you feel that way, though I wish it were otherwise."

She paused on the verge of leaving. "You won't have nightmares if you're alone, will you?"

"If I do, they won't be as bad as the ones in the past." He smiled with a warmth as intimate as a kiss. "You were right-burdens are lighter for being shared."

As she went to say good night to her hosts, she realized how easy it would have been for Robin to use her concern to talk his way into her bed. Underneath all his dangerous charm and wicked skills there really was an honest man.

It was a warming thought to take to her solitary rest.

The Duke of Candover was brushing his wife's long wheatgold hair. Margot leaned back, face contented and eyes half closed. "What do you think of Robin's friend Maxie?'

He smiled. "I like her. Did Robin tell you how they came to turn up on our doorstep?"

"Not in any detail." After a moment she added, "He wants to marry her."

"Really!" Rafe's hand stilled. "He can't have known her long."

"What does that matter? I wanted to marry you the first night I met you."

"You never told me that before." He felt absurdly pleased as he resumed brushing.

"You are quite conceited enough," his wife said, then jumped with a squeak when he tickled her ribs.

"She's not at all in the common style," Rafe observed. "Intelligent unconventional, versatile. Rather like Robin, in fact. And very lovely, in a very individual way."

"I knew you would notice that," the duchess said tartly.

Rafe grinned. "I prefer blondes myself." Setting down the brush, he began to massage her neck and shoulders. "Does it bother you to see him with another woman? I find it a little surprising that he brought her here."

"On the contrary, I would be surprised, and hurt, if Robin didn't feel he could come to me." She gave a self mocking smile. "I suppose every woman, in some selfish corner of her mind, would like her former lovers to remember her with a heartbroken sigh and the words, 'What a woman she was. If only things had been different."

"Like I thought about you for a dozen years?"

"Exactly like that," she said with a gurgle of laughter. "But I truly want to see Robin happy, not pining for the past or marrying some vapid girl because he is lonely and there is no one better to be found."

"I can't imagine him doing anything so foolish."

"I'm not so sure," Margot said, a line appearing between her eyes. "I've been concerned about Robin ever since we left Paris. Even though his letters were always amusing, they felt brittle, as if he was hiding his real state of mind. But tonight when I saw him, he was like his old self again." After a moment, she added, "No, better than that."

"Do you approve of the inappropriately named Maxima?"

"Very much so." Margot chuckled. "The poor girl was bristling like an angry cat when we were introduced because Robin hadn't bothered to explain where he was taking her, but on the whole, she behaved with great restraint. In a world full of nobodies, she is very much somebody."

"I suggest you go slowly with your overtures of friendship," Rafe said dryly. "Miss Collins may not be enthusiastic about Robin's close friendship with another female."

Hearing between the lines, Margot tilted her head back to look up at him. "Surely you know that you needn't be jealous of Robin? I had thought that you and he had become friends."

Rafe ran a caressing hand down her slim arching throat. Though he had learned to accept his wife's relationship with Robin, it had not been easy for a passionate and possessive man. "Not jealous. Envious, perhaps, for all the years he had you and I didn't."

She shook her head, her solemn gray green eyes fixed on his. "He had Maggie, the spy. But the circumstances that created her are done, and so is she."

"I know that. You are Margot now." Rafe leaned over and gave his wife a slow, possessive kiss. "And Margot is mine."

Then he swept her up in his arms and carried her to their bed and proved it, in the most profound and satisfying of ways.

It was very late when Lord Collingwood reached the Clarendon Hotel, but in spite of his fatigue, he had trouble getting to sleep. After a half hour of tossing, he sat up and reached for the flask of spirits he had left on the bedside table.

In the dark, he drank directly from the flask while he contemplated his mission. Maxima might be in London already. Perhaps, God forbid, she had already discovered the truth about her father. The thought made Collingwood queasy.

He took another swig of brandy. As if the situation wasn't sufficiently fraught with potential scandal, there was also the question of the blond mountebank his niece had taken up with. If he was still with her, the fellow would be another source of trouble. He'd have to be removed from the picture.

It was a damned bad business any way one looked at it. What made it worse was that he was rather fond of Maxima, in spite of her irregular upbringing and ancestry. That was why he was going to all this effort. If he failed, Althea would say that it was his fault for not being more ruthless.

Stilling a groan, he buried his head under the pillow again. Family was the very devil.