Virtue

3

"Good morning, Charlie." Marcus greeted his cousin the next morning. Charlie was already at the breakfast table facing a platter of sirloin and mumbled an answering greeting through a mouthful of beef.

"How much did you lose at the tables the other night?" Marcus inquired casually, pouring himself coffee. "When you were playing macao at Davenport's table." He regarded the chafing dishes on the sideboard with an appraising eye.

Charlie swallowed his mouthful and took a gulp of ale. "Not much."

"And how much is not much?" Marcus helped himself to a dish of deviled kidneys.

"Seven hundred guineas," his cousin said with an air of defiance. "I don't consider that beyond my means."

"No," Marcus agreed affably enough. "So long as one doesn't do it every night. Do you play often at his table?"

"That was the first time, I believe." Charlie frowned. "Why do you ask?"

Marcus didn't reply, but continued with his own questions. "Did his sister suggest you play at her brother's table?"

"I don't remember. It's not the kind of thing a fellow does remember." Charlie stared at his cousin in puzzlement and some apprehension. In his experience, Marcus rarely asked pointless questions, and it seemed this series might well be leading up to a stricture on gaming… familiar but nevertheless mortifying.

But Marcus merely shrugged and opened the newspaper. "No, I suppose it's not… By the by…" He folded back the paper and spoke with his eyes on the page. "Don't you think Judith Davenport s a little too rich for your blood?"

Charlie flushed. "What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing much," Marcus replied, glancing briefly over the newspaper. "She's an attractive woman and a practiced flirt."

"She's… she's a wonderful woman," Charlie exclaimed, pushing back his chair, his flush deepening. "You cannot insult her!"

"Now don't fly into the boughs, Charlie. I doubt she'd deny the description herself." Marcus reached for the mustard.

"'Of course she's not a flirt." Charlie glared at his cousin over the stiffly starched folds of his linen cravat.

Marcus sighed. "Well, we won't argue terms, but she's too much for a nineteen-year-old to handle, Charlie. She's no schoolroom chit."

"I don't find schoolroom chits in the least appealing," his cousin announced.

"Well, at your age, you should." He looked across the table and said, not unkindly, "Judith Davenport is a sophisticated woman of the world. She plays a deep game and you're way out of your depth. She eats greenhorns for supper, my dear boy. People are already beginning to talk. You don't want to be the laughingstock of Brussels."

"I think it's most unchivalrous, if not downright dishonorable, of you to insult her when she's not here to defend herself," Charlie declared with passion. "And I take leave to tell you-"

"Please don't," Marcus interrupted, waving a dismissive hand. "It's too early in the morning to hear the impassioned rambles of a besotted youth." He forked kidneys into his mouth. "If you want to make a cake of yourself, then you may do so, but do it when I'm not around."

Charlie huffed in speechless indignation, his face burning, then he stormed out of the breakfast parlor.

Marcus winced as the door slammed shut. He wondered if he'd chosen the wrong tactic in this instance. In the past, a cutting comment, a decisively adverse opinion, had been sufficient to bring Charlie back on the right track when he'd been about to stray into some youthful indiscretion. But then Charlie was no longer a schoolboy, and maybe the tactics appropriate for schoolboys wouldn't work with the tender pride of a young man in the throes of first love.

He'd have to try some other approach. His fork paused halfway to his mouth as the approach presented itself, neat and most enticing. What better way to remove Charlie from dangerous proximity to Miss Davenport than to take his place? At present, Marcus had no mistress living under his protection. He had brought his last affaire to an expensive close without regret, before coming to Brussels. Supposing he made Judith Davenport an offer she couldn't refuse? It would most effectively remove her from Charlie's orbit. And just as effectively, it would cure Charlie of his infatuation, when he saw her for what she was. And for himself…

Dear God in heaven. Images of rioting sensuality suddenly filled his head as he found himself mentally stripping her of the elegant gowns, the delicate undergarments, the silken stockings, revealing the lissome slender-ness, the supple limbs, the white fineness of her skin. Would she be a passionate lover or passive… no, definitely not passive… wild and tumbling, with the eager words of hungry need, the tumultuous cries of fulfillment unchecked upon her lips. Impossible to believe she could be otherwise.

Marcus shook his head clear of the images. If they alone could arouse him, what would the reality do? The proposition took concrete shape. Yes, he would make Miss Judith Davenport an offer she couldn't possibly refuse: one beyond the wildest dreams of a woman who earned her bread at the gaming tables.

An hour later, in buckskin britches and a morning coat of olive-green superfine, his top boots catching the sunlight like a polished diamond, his lordship set out in search of Miss Davenport. There was a powerful tension in the Brussels' air, knots of people gathered on street corners, talking and gesticulating excitedly. He discovered the reason in the regimental mess.

"It looks like Boney's going to attack," Peter Wellby told him as he joined the circle of Wellington's staff and advisors deep in an almost frenzied discussion. "He issued a Proclamation a larmee yesterday, and it's just come into our hands." He handed Marcus a document.

"He's reminding his men that it's the anniversary of the battles of Marengo and Friedland. If they've succeeded in deciding the fate of the world twice before on this day, then they'll do it a third time."

Marcus read it. "Mmm. Napoleon's usual style," he commented. "An appeal to past glories to drum up spirit and patriotism."

"But it usually works," Colonel, Lord Francis Tallent observed a touch glumly. "We've been sitting on our backsides waiting to catch him off guard, and the bastard takes the initiative right out from under our noses. We're prepared to attack, not defend."

Marcus nodded. "It would have been worth remerrt bering that Napoleon has never waited to be attacked. His strategy has always been based on a vast and overwhelming offensive."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Marcus Devlin had been vociferous in this view for the last week, but his had been a lone voice crying in the wilderness. "We did receive a report from our agents that he was taking up the defensive on the Charleroi road," Peter said eventually.

"Agents can be fed mistaken information." Marcus's wry observation generated another silence.

"Marcus, I'm glad to see you, man." Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, came out of a next-door office, a chart in his hand. "You seem to have had the right idea. Now, look at this. He can attack at Ligny, Quatre Bras, or Nivelles. Do you have an opinion?" He laid the chart on a table, jabbing at the three crossroads with a stubby forefinger.

Marcus examined the chart. "Ligny," he said definitely. "It's the weakest point in our line. There's a hole where Bliicher's forces and ours don't meet."

"Bliicher's ordered men up from Namur to reinforce

his troops at Ligny," the duke said. "We'll concentrate our army on the front from Brussels to Nivelles."

"Supposing the French swing round to the north toward Quatre Bras," Marcus pointed out, tracing the line with a fingertip. "He'll separate the two forces and force us to fight on two fronts."

Wellington frowned, stroking his chin. "Can you join me in conference this afternoon?" He rolled up the chart.

"At your service, Duke." Marcus bowed.

His own plans ought to seem less urgent in the face of the present emergency, but for some reason they weren't. He would see Judith tonight, of course, at the Duchess of Richmond's ball, but he was in a fever of impatience, almost as if he were still a green youth pursuing the object of hot and flagrant fantasy. Reasoning that he could be of little use until the afternoon's conference, he decided to continue his search.

He ran her to earth at the lodgings of one of Wellington's aides-de-camp. It seemed as if half Brussels were gathered there, chattering and exclaiming over the news that, incredibly, Napoleon had taken Wellington by surprise and was even now preparing for an attack on the city.

"But the duke has all well in hand," a bewhiskered colonel reassured a twittering, panicked lady in an An-gouleme bonnet. "He'll concentrate his troops on the Nivelles road to meet any attack on the city."

"I'm sure there's nothing to concern us, dear ma'am," came the dulcet tones of Miss Davenport. She was standing by the window and a shaft of sunlight ignited the rich copper hair braided in a demure coronet around her head. She was in flowing muslins, a wisp of lace doing duty as a hat, and Carrington regarded her for a minute in appreciative silence. There was something wonderfully tantalizing about the contrast between her demurely elegant dress and the wicked gleam in the gold-brown eyes as she surveyed the room and its alarmed inhabitants with the faintest tinge of derision. A jolt of anticipatory excitement surprised him. He didn't think he'd felt such powerful lust since his youth.

He crossed the room toward her. "Your sangfroid is estimable, ma'am. Don't you feel the slightest tremor at the thought of the ogre?"

"Not in the least, sir." Idly she twirled her closed parasol on the floor. "I trust you've recovered from your losses last night. They were rather heavy, I believe."

"Are you referring to my losses to your brother, or to his sister, ma'am?" His eyes narrowed as he flipped open his snuff box and took a delicate pinch.

"I was not aware of any winnings, sir." She looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Only of the need to keep up my point."

"I'm hoping to persuade you to lower that point." He replaced the enameled snuff box in the deep pocket of his coat. "I have a proposal to make, Miss Davenport. May I call upon you this afternoon?"

"Unfortunately, my aunt, who lives with us, is indisposed and visitors quite put her out of curl. The sound of the door knocker is enough to throw her into strong hysterics," she said with a bland smile.

"What a masterly fibber you are, Miss Davenport," he observed amiably. "I won't ask why you see a need to keep your direction a close secret."

"How gentlemanly of you, Lord Carrington."

"Yes, isn't it? But perhaps I could induce you to call upon me."

"Now, that, my lord, is not a gentlemanly suggestion."

"I was, of course, assuming your aunt would escort you as chaperone," he murmured.

An appreciative twinkle appeared in her eyes. This was much more amusing than an ordinary flirtation. Marcus Devlin was certainly an entertaining opponent when it came to challenges. "I'm afraid she doesn't go out of doors, either."

"How very inconvenient… or do I mean convenient?"

"I don't know what you could mean, Lord Carrington."

"Well, what's to be done? I wish to have private speech with you; how is it to be contrived?"

"You seemed remarkably expert at abduction the other evening," Judith heard herself say, astonished at the recklessness of her response.

He bowed, and his black eyes glittered. "If that's how you'd like to proceed, I am always happy to oblige. Make your farewells, we're going in search of privacy."

"You would find it difficult to abduct me from this room, I think, sir." She gestured to the crowd.

"Do you care to make a wager, ma'am?"

She caught her lower lip between her teeth, putting her head on one side as she considered the question. This was infinitely more entertaining than simple flirtation. "Twenty guineas?"

"We have a wager, Miss Davenport." The next instant, he had swept her off her feet and bundled her into his arms. It was so startling, she was momentarily speechless. And then he was pushing through the crowd with his burden. "Miss Davenport is feeling faint. I fear the news of Napoleon's advent has quite overset her."

"Oh, goodness me, and it's no wonder," the be-whiskered colonel said. "We must protect the delicate sensibilities of ladies from such news."

"Just so, Naseby," Marcus agreed. "I'm going to take her into the air. It's very close in here." People fell back, clucking solicitously, clearing his path to the door. Judith, recovered from her surprise, still found it impossible to say anything that wouldn't make the situation even more farcical, and was obliged to close her eyes tight and remain still as he carried her out of the house and into the street.

There he set his seething burden on her feet, dusted off his hands with great satisfaction, and said, "You owe me twenty guineas, Miss Davenport."

"That was shameless!" she exclaimed. "And to say I was swooning with fear of Napoleon was… was… was… Oh, I can't think of the right words."

"Dastardly," he supplied helpfully. "Despicable, shabby…"

"Unsporting," she snapped. "Adding insult to injury."

"But irresistible, you must admit."

"I admit nothing." She smoothed down her skirts and adjusted a pin in the diminutive lacy cap, before putting up her parasol. "I don't have twenty guineas with me, my lord. But I will send it around to your house this afternoon."

"That will be quite convenient." He bowed. "However, I'm more interested at the moment in finding somewhere private. We'll walk in the park, I think." He drew her arm through his.

"I don't care to walk in the park." Petulance seemed to have replaced mature challenge.

"Would you prefer me to escort you home?" he offered with prompt courtesy.

"You know I would not."

"Then it must be the park."

And that seemed to be that. Short of turning and

running, which would be ridiculously undignified, there seemed no alternative but to do as he said. She'd husband her resources for the time being.

They passed through the iron gates at the entrance to the park and Lord Carrington directed their steps unerringly to a small copse.

Judith hesitated as they moved into the cool, green seclusion. Something didn't feel right. "Can't we have this discussion in the open, my lord?"

"No, because I can't be walking around when I say what I wish to say, and if we were to stand still in the middle of the path it would look very odd." Releasing her arm, he sat down on a stone bench encircling the trunk of a pine tree and patted the space beside him.

Judith was unsure whether it was invitation or command, but it didn't seem to matter. She sat down, curiosity now getting the better of unease.

"I'll come straight to the point," he said.

"Do."

He ignored the sardonic interjection. "A house and servants in Half Moon Street; a barouche and pair, or laundelet, if you prefer; a riding horse; and a quarterly allowance of two thousand pounds."

"Good God," Judith said. "Whatever are you saying?" She turned to look up at him, her eyes wide. "I think you are run mad."

"It seems reasonable," he said. "Such an allowance should be more than enough to keep you in style… of course, there'll be presents. You'll not find me ungenerous, my dear."

"Sweet heaven." The color had drained from her cheeks. "Could you be utterly precise about what you're offering me, my lord?"

It struck him she was being unusually obtuse. "A carte blanche," he elucidated. "And I will make provision for your future should we… should we tire of one another." He smiled. "There now, what could be fairer than that?"

Judith rose from the bench. Turning her back on him, she walked a few paces away. Her game of intrigue had suddenly got out of hand. It was one thing to engage a man in a pointful flirtation, quite another to be his paid whore. How dared he make such a proposition… make such assumptions about her?

Marcus watched her fumble in her reticule and thought perhaps she was looking for her handkerchief. Such an offer would be sufficient to bring tears to the eyes of the most grasping female.

"I don't have anyone to defend my honor, Lord Car-rington, so I must do it for myself." She turned. In her hand was a small, silver-mounted pistol, and it was pointed in the most workmanlike fashion at his heart. "You have insulted me beyond bearing. Davenports are not whores. Even highly paid whores."

Carrington was vaguely, aware that his jaw had dropped and his mouth was hanging open as he stared in shocked amazement, his eyes riveted to the small, deadly muzzle pointing at his chest. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, swallowing hard. "Put the gun away, Judith, before you do something stupid."

"I am an excellent shot, I should tell you," she said. "I'm not about to do anything stupid. Indeed, I consider putting a bullet in you, my lord, to be one of my more sensible notions."

"God in heaven," he whispered, trying to order the turmoil raging in his brain. For some reason, he had the unshakable conyiction that Judith Davenport was more than capable of pulling the trigger. "I intended no insult," he tried. "Not to you or to your family. The manner in which you and your brother live led me to assume

you wouldn't be averse to an unconventional but nevertheless convenient source of income. You don't live like a woman of virtue, ma'am, however skillful you are at the masquerade. You and your brother lead a raffish, hand-to-mouth existence in the shadows of the gaming tables. Can you deny that?"

Judith didn't attempt to do so. "That doesn't justify offering me such a dishonorable proposal. My circumstances are not of my own making. You can know nothing of them."

Marcus swallowed again. His mouth was very dry. He wondered if he could cross the space between them before she pulled the trigger. He couldn't. He watched, mesmerized, as she squinted down the barrel, extending her hand with the pistol straight in front of her. The sharp report and the flash of fire from the barrel were simultaneous. The smell of cordite hung in the muggy air. He waited for the pain, but there was nothing. He followed the direction of her eyes, between his feet. The bullet had dug a neat hole in the ground, directly in the middle of the space between his boots. It was no accident.

"I decided you weren't worth hanging for," Judith said coldly. She dropped the pistol in her reticule. "I'll send the twenty guineas to your house as soon as I return to my lodgings."

Marcus cleared his throat. "In the circumstances, I am prepared to forgo the wager."

"I always pay my debts of honor," she said. "Or did you think that I was without honor in that respect also?"

He waved his hands in hasty retraction. "It was only a suggestion. One quite without merit, I realize."

Judith glared at him for a minute, then she turned and marched away through the trees.

Marcus let out his breath on a slow exhalation, run-

ning his hands through his hair. He had assumed she received such proposals often enough. She lived by her wits, it was only to be expected that she might use her body, too. But what had her brother said? Something about his sister's eccentric principles. Presumably, he'd just been given a lesson in them.

Sweet heaven, what an exciting partner in passion such a woman would make. Perversely, he found he had not the slightest intention of giving up his pursuit.

"Good God, what's happened to send you into such a temper, Ju?" Sebastian looked up from the chess board as his sister banged fuming through the door of their living room.

"I don't think I have ever been angrier," she said, drawing her gloves off her trembling hands. "Lord Car-rington has just had the… the unmitigated gall to offer me a carte blanche." She tossed her gloves onto the sofa and pulled the pins loose from her hat.

Sebastian whistled. "What did you say?"

"I shot him." She pulled the pistol from her reticule and hurled it onto the sofa.

Her brother reached over and picked up the weapon. The smell of cordite was acrid on the muzzle. He spun the chamber. It was empty. "Well, you certainly shot something," he observed. "But somehow I doubt it was the marquis. You've the devil of a temper, but I don't see you as a murderess."

Judith bit her lip. Sebastian could always bring her down to earth. "I shot between his feet," she said. "But I frightened him, Sebastian. He really thought for a minute he was about to meet his maker." She chuckled suddenly, relishing the memory. "Pour me a glass of sherry, love. It's been a most trying morning, one way or an-odier."

Sebastian filled two sherry glasses from the decanter on the sideboard. "What were the terms of the carte blanche?" he asked with a bland look. "Just as a matter of interest, of course."

When she told him, he whistled once more. "If it weren't for Gracemere, it might have done very well for both of us."

"You would sell your own sister?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, only to the highest bidder," he assured her solemnly.

Judith threw a cushion at him, then bent to examine the chess problem positioned on the board. Chess was a way of sharpening their wits, particularly before an evening's gaming.

"Of course, if anyone suspects for one second that we're not what we seem when we get to London, we'll never be able to move in Gracemere's circles," Sebastian said, serious now. He sipped his sherry. "You've inadvertently given Carrington the wrong impression. I think, m'dear, that it may be time to cultivate higher necklines and a pious air."

"And what will you cultivate, brother?" She regarded him over the lip of her glass.

"Oh, I shall be a most serious student of foreign parts," he declared. "I shall have traveled extensively and be most amazingly knowledgeable, and most amazingly boring, as I prose on and on about the flora and fauna of exotic places."

Judith chuckled, imagining her good-humored, insouciant sibling in such a guise. "You'd have to forsake striped waistcoats and starched cravats, and play whist for penny points."

"Well, that I don't think I could manage," he said.

"Not if we're to have enough to pay our expenses." He came to look at the chess board with her. "Can you see it? White to move and mate in three. I've been looking at it for half an hour and can't get beyond queening the pawn. But then it's stalemate."

Judith frowned, considering. What if the pawn knighted, instead? She ran through the consequences in her head. "Let's try pawn to queen seven."

Sebastian moved the pieces, following the logic now on his own, bringing the problem to solution. "Clever girl," he said, toppling the black king with a fingertip. "You've always been able to see farther than I can."

"At chess, but you're better at piquet."

Sebastian shrugged, but offered no disclaimer. "Shall we have nuncheon?" He gestured to the table.

Judith wrinkled her nose at the dull and insubstantial repast laid out by their landlady. "Bread and cheese again."

"But we're dining with the Gardeners," he reminded her, cutting into the loaf. "And supper at the Duchess of Richmond's ball should be more than palatable."

"And I daresay the Most Honorable Marquis of Car-rington will be present." Judith sat down and dug a knife into the wedge of cheese. "I don't seem to have done too well at disarming him, do I?" She frowned. "Threatening to shoot a man isn't very flirtatious." She took the cheese off the knife with her fingers and absently popped it into her mouth. "Oh." She was suddenly reminded. "I have to settle a debt of honor. I owe Carrington twenty guineas."