Virtue

28

A few days later, as he sat over the breakfast table, Marcus received an invitation from his old friend Colonel Morcby of the Seventh Hussars, requesting the pleasure of his company at a regimental dinner in the company of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington; Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Bliicher; and General Karl von Clausewitz, at eight o'clock in the evening of Wednesday, December 12 at regimental headquarters on Horseguard's Parade. December 12 was the night of the Duchess of Devonshire's ball.

Marcus drank his coffee, wondering how Judith would react if he cried off from the ball. It was the high point of the pre-Christmas festivities, and all fashionable London would be there. Would she feel neglected if she had to go alone? But her friends would be there, and her

brother, he reasoned. It wasn't as if he'd see much of her all evening, even if he did escort her. Besides, Judith was not a woman to demand her husband's company when he'd received an invitation so vastly more appealing. He didn't doubt she'd understand the appeal of the invitation from Colonel Morcby.

He left the breakfast parlor and went upstairs to his wife's chamber. The atmosphere in the room was steamy and scented. The fire had been built as high as safety permitted and heat blasted the room, augmenting the steam wreathing from a copper hip bath drawn up before the hearth. Marcus blinked to clear his vision and then smiled.

Millie was pouring more water from a copper jug into the tub while Judith stood beside the bath, one toe delicately testing the temperature. Her hair was piled on top of her head and she hadn't a stitch of clothiing on.

"Good morning, sir." She greeted him with a smile. "I think that'll do for the moment, Millie. But perhaps you should fetch up some more jugs from the kitchen for later… I'm taking a bath, Marcus," she informed him somewhat unnecessarily.

"So I see." He stepped aside as Millie hurried past him through the doorway, carrying empty jugs.

"I intend to spend the entire morning luxuriating in hot water," she informed him, stepping into the tub. "It's a pity you can't join me."

"Who says I can't?"

"Well, no one." She let her head fall back against the rim, drawing her legs up so that her dimpled knees broke the surface of the water. "I simply assumed, since you're dressed for town, that you were not in the mood for beguilement."

"Sadly, I'm in the mood but unable to indulge," he said. "I'm on my way to Angelo's."

"Ah," said Judith, sitting up suddenly, slopping water over the edge of the bath onto the sheet spread beneath it. "I should like to learn to fence."

"You amaze me," Marcus said, shrugging out of his coat and rolling up his shirt sleeves. "I didn't think there was anything you didn't know how to do. Weren't you able to find an admirer to teach you?"

"Sadly, no," she said, sitting back again, regarding his preparations through narrowed eyes. "Perhaps you would like to take on the task."

"It'll be a pleasure." Marcus picked up the lavender-scented cake of soap from the dish beside the bath and moved behind her. "Lean forward and I'll do your back."

"You'll ruin your pantaloons, kneeling on the floor," she pointed out, remaining with her back against the tub.

"They are knitted, my dear, and mold themselves to my wishes," he observed. "Unlike my wife, it would seem." He slipped an arm around her, bending her forward so that he could soap the smooth plane of her back with firm circular movements, occasionally scribbling down her spine with a tantalizing fingernail.

Judith arched her back like a cat beneath the hard hands, bending her neck for the rough exploration of a fingertip creeping into her scalp.

"Oh, I was forgetting," Marcus murmured, sliding his hand down her back beneath the surface of the water on a more intimate laundering. "I've received an invitation to dine in Horseguard's Parade on Wednesday. Would you mind if I don't accompany you to the ball?" Gentle pressure bent her further over his encircling arm, and the sudden tension in her body, the ripple of her skin, he ascribed to its obvious cause.

"Who invited you?" She tried to sound casually interested, even though she knew the answer. Charlie had engineered the invitation from his own regimental colonel. Initially, he'd been puzzled by Judith's request that he do so, until she'd explained that she wanted it to be a surprise for Marcus, who would find the ball a dead bore and would much prefer to dine with his military friends.

Marcus was unable to hide his pleasure in the prospect of such an evening in such company as he told Judith what she already knew. It was slight balm to her guilty conscience.

Millie's reappearance with fresh jugs of hot water put an end to tantalizing play, and Marcus dropped the soap into the water, dried his hands, and stood up, rolling down his sleeves. "I'll leave you to your bath, lynx."

"Don't forget to tell John to accept the colonel's invitation before you go."

"I won't." Fleetingly he touched the topknot of copper ringlets as he went to the door. "An understanding wife is a pearl beyond price."

Oh, what a tangled web we weave. The desolate refrain seemed to have become a part of her bloodstream these days, thudding in time with the life blood in her veins.

Bernard Melville cast a covert glance at his opponent across the card table. Davenport was drinking heavily. His hair was tousled, flopping untidily over his broad forehead, and every now and again he would run his hands through it with a distracted air. He had been losing steadily for three hours and Bernard felt the gut-twisting excitement of the gamester who has his opponent on the run. He had ceased to keep count of his winnings, and knew from his own experience that Sebastian, in the grip of the same fever, would have no idea how much he'd lost. He had run out of rouleaux long since and now scribbled IOUs without apparent awareness; the pile of vowels mounted at Bernard's elbow.

Twice Bernard had used marked cards, when Sebastian had won the preceding hands and the earl, so addicted now to winning against him, hadn't been able to endure even the slightest possibility of further losses. He could smell blood, the taste of it was on his tongue. In another hour, he reckoned, Sebastian Davenport would be a ruined man.

"Sebastian, you've been at cards all evening." Harry Middkton strolled across to the table, trying to conceal his concern as he took in the vowels and rouleaux at Gracemere's elbow. "Leave it now, man, and come and be sociable."

Bernard was unable to conceal his fury at this interference and his breath hissed through his teeth. "Leave the man alone, Middleton, can't you see we're in the middle of play?"

Sebastian looked up and smiled in rather dazed fashion at his friend. "Devil take it, Harry, but I lost track of the time." His eyes focused again on his cards. "Last hand, Gracemere. I'm all rolled up for tonight." He laughed with an assumption of carelessness and discarded the knave of hearts.

Bernard had no choice but to accept the end of play when, at the end of the hand, Sebastian threw down his cards and yawned. "What's the damage, Gracemere?"

Bernard added up the points. "Ninety-eight."

"Rubiconed, by God!" Sebastian yawned again. "Tot up my vowels and I'll send you a draft on my bank in the morning."

The staggering sum handed to him had its effect. The earl examined him covertly, noting the sudden slight tremor of his hands, the tightening of his mouth. Then Sebastian looked up, raised his eyebrows in an assumption of carelessness, and whistled. "You'll give me a chance to come about, I trust, my lord?"

"But of course-tomorrow, at Devonshire House?" Bernard almost licked his fleshy lips in anticipation.

Sebastian nodded, tried to laugh, but it had a hollow ring. "Why not? It'll be a dull enough affair otherwise, I'll lay odds." Flinging a comradely arm around Harry's shoulder, he strolled off with his friend.

"It looked like you lost a fortune," Harry remarked, giving his friend an anxious stare.

Sebastian shrugged. "I'll get it back, Harry, tomorrow.

"I told you, Gracemere's a bad man to play with."

Sebastian looked down at his friend and Harry saw a different light in his eyes. He spoke softly. "So am I, Harry, as Gracemere is going to find out. You'll see."

Harry's scalp prickled. He had never seen Sebastian look like that, never heard that note in his voice. He suddenly saw Sebastian Davenport as a dangerous man, and he didn't know how or why he should have formed such an impression.