To Seduce a Sinner
Vale shook the dog in his hand. Mouse growled and held on. Vale calmly thrust his free thumb down Mouse’s throat. The dog gagged and let go. In a flash, Vale wrapped his hand around the dog’s snout.
“Come on,” he said to her, holding the dog in both hands. The crowd had scattered when the prospect of blood had disappeared. Now Vale led her back to their carriage.
One of the footmen saw them coming and started forward. “Are you hurt, my lord?”
“It’s nothing,” Vale said. “Is there a box or bag in the carriage?”
“There’s a basket under the coachman’s seat.”
“Does it have a lid?”
“Yes, sir, a sturdy one too.”
“Fetch it, please.”
The footman ran back to the carriage.
“What will you do?” Melisande asked.
Vale glanced at her. “Nothing terrible. He needs to be contained until he calms down a bit.”
Mouse had stopped growling. Every now and then, he gave Kthe/p>a violent wriggle in a bid for freedom, but Vale held fast.
The footman had the basket out and open when they reached the carriage.
“Close it as soon as I put him in.” Vale eyed the man. “Ready?”
“Yes, my lord.”
The action was done in a flash, the footman wide-eyed, Mouse struggling desperately, and Vale grim. And then her pet was confined in a basket that rocked violently in the footman’s hands.
“Put it back under the seat,” Vale said to the footman. He took Melisande’s arm. “Let’s return home.”
HE MAY HAVE alienated her, perhaps made her hate him, but it couldn’t be helped. Jasper watched his wife as she sat opposite him in the carriage. She held herself rigidly erect, her back and shoulders straight, her head tilted down just a little as she stared at her lap. Her expression was veiled. She wasn’t a beautiful woman—a part of him was coldly aware of that fact. She dressed in demure, forgettable clothes, didn’t do anything, in fact, to make herself known. He’d engaged—bedded—women far more beautiful. She was an ordinary, plain woman.
And still, his mind furiously worked as he sat, planning his next assault against the fortress of her soul. Perhaps this was a kind of madness, for he was as fascinated by her as if she were a magical fairy come to lure him into another world.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, her voice dropping into his thoughts like a pebble into a pond.
“I’m wondering if you’re a fairy,” he replied.
Her eyebrows arched delicately upward. “You’re bamming me.”
“Alas, no, my heart.”
She looked at him, her light brown eyes unfathomable. Then her gaze lowered to his hand. He’d wrapped a handkerchief around the bite as soon as they’d entered the carriage.
She bit her lip. “Does it still hurt?”
She still frowned down at his hand. “I should like Mr. Pynch to bandage it properly when we return. Dog bites can be ugly. Do make sure he washes it properly, please.”
“As you wish.”
She looked out the window and clasped her hands tightly together in her lap. “I’m so sorry Mouse bit you.”
“Has he ever done it to you?”
She stared at him, puzzled.
“Has the dog ever bitten you, my lady wife?” If the animal had, Jasper would have it put down.
Her eyes widened. “No. Oh, no. Mouse is terribly affectionate with me. In fact, he’s never bitten anyone else at all.”
Jasper smiled wryly. “Then I suppose I should be honored to be the Kredghtfirst.”
“What will you do with him?”
“Merely let him stew for a bit.”
Her face was once again expressionless. He knew how much the mongrel meant to her; she’d all but confessed that it was her only friend in the world.
He shifted on the seat. “Where did you get him?”
She was quiet so long that he thought she might not answer.
Then she sighed. “He was one of a litter of puppies found in my brother’s stables. The head groom wanted them drowned—he said they already had enough ratters about. He’d put the puppies into a sack while a stable boy went to fetch a bucket of water. I came into the stable yard just as the puppies escaped the sack. They scattered and all the men were running about and yelling, trying to catch the poor things. Mouse ran to me and immediately caught the hem of my dress between his teeth.”
“So you saved him,” Jasper said.
She shrugged. “It seemed the thing to do. I’m afraid Harold was not best pleased.”
No, he doubted her stodgy brother would’ve been happy with a mongrel in his house. But Melisande would’ve ignored any complaints and simply done as she pleased, and poor Harold would’ve had to eventually give up. Jasper was learning that his wife was almost terrifyingly determined when she set her mind to something.
“We’re here,” she murmured.
He looked up to find they were drawn up in front of his town house.
“I’ll have the footman bring Mouse inside.” He caught her gaze to impress upon her his inflexibility in this matter. “Don’t let him out or touch him until I say you may.”
She nodded, her face as serene and regal as a queen. Then she turned and descended the carriage without waiting for his help. She walked to the town house steps and climbed them unhurriedly. Her head was erect, her shoulders level, and her back straight. Jasper found that back oddly provoking.
He frowned, cursed under his breath, and followed in his wife’s wake. He may’ve won that round, but in some ways he felt as if he’d been ignominiously routed.
Chapter Nine
Princess Surcease stood high on the battlements of the castle and watched as her suitors arrived below. Beside her was Jack the Fool. She’d become quite fond of him, and he accompanied her everywhere. He stood now on an overturned piece of masonry, the better to see over the wall, since he was only half her height.
“What troubles you, o fair and gusty maid?” Jack asked.
“Oh, Foo Nckql, I wish my father would let me choose a husband of my own liking,” the princess said. “But that will never happen, will it?”
“More likely that a fool marry a beautiful princess royal,” Jack replied. . . .
—from LAUGHING JACK
Mouse was barking.
Melisande winced as Suchlike set a pin in her hair. The sound was muffled, true, because it came from three floors below. Vale’d had the dog locked in a little stone storage room off the cellar. Mouse had begun barking shortly after he’d been locked in. Probably when he realized that he wasn’t going to be let out again right away. Since that time—late this morning—he’d barked steadily. It was evening now. Once in a while, he’d stop as if listening for a rescue, but when none came, he’d start up again. And each time the barking seemed louder than before.
“Loud little dog, isn’t he?” Suchlike said. She didn’t sound particularly put out by the racket.
Maybe the household wasn’t as affected as Melisande thought. “He’s never been locked up before.”
“Do him good, then.” Suchlike set another pin and then stepped back to eye her handiwork critically. “Mr. Pynch says he’ll go stark raving mad soon.”
Her lady’s maid sounded as if she’d relish the valet’s insanity.
Melisande arched an eyebrow. “Has Lord Vale returned?”
“Yes, my lady. A half hour or so ago.” Suchlike began to tidy the dressing table.
Melisande stood and wandered across the room. Mouse’s barking stopped suddenly, and she held her breath.
Then he began again.
Vale had forbade her from going to the dog, but if this lasted much longer, she didn’t know if she could stay away. Mouse’s distress was terribly hard for her to bear.
A knock sounded on her door.
She turned and stared. “Come.”
Vale opened the door. He may not’ve been home long, but from the dampness of his hair, he’d had time to wash and change his clothes. “Good evening, my lady wife. Would you care to accompany me on a visit to the prisoner?”
She smoothed down her skirts and nodded. “Yes, please.”
He stood aside, and she led the way down the stairs, the barking becoming clearer the nearer they got.
“I’ve a boon to ask, my lady,” Vale said.
“What is it?”
“I’d like you to stand back and let me handle the dog.”
She pressed her lips together. Mouse had only ever responded to her. What if the terrier tried to bite Vale again? Her husband seemed a gent S seipsle man, but she sensed that the gentleness was but a surface layer.
She turned. He had stopped on the stairs, waiting for her answer. His turquoise eyes seemed to gleam in the shadows.
She nodded jerkily. “As you wish.”
He descended the last steps and took her hand, leading her back to the kitchens.
The hallway became more dim as they entered the servants’ domain until they reached the kitchen. The room was huge, dominated by a large arched brick fireplace at one end. Two windows at the back of the house let in light, making it a bright room during the day. At the moment, candles supplemented the fading light from outside.
The cook, three scullery maids, several footmen, and the butler were all in the midst of dinner preparations. At their entrance, the cook dropped her spoon into a pot of simmering soup, and everyone else stilled. Mouse’s barking echoed from below.
“My lord,” Oaks began.
“Please. I don’t wish to interrupt your work,” Vale said. “I’ve just come to deal with my lady’s dog. Ah, Pynch.”
The valet had risen from a chair by the fireplace.
“Did you find a scrap of meat?” Vale asked.
“Yes, my lord,” Mr. Pynch said. “Cook has most kindly given me some of the beef from last night’s supper.” He proffered a lumpy folded handkerchief.
Melisande cleared her throat. “Actually . . .”
Vale looked down at her. “My heart?”
“If it’s for Mouse, he loves cheese,” she said apologetically.
“I bow to your superior knowledge.” Vale turned to the cook, who was hovering near her soup. “Have you a bit of cheese?”
Cook curtsied. “Aye, my lord. Annie, fetch that round of cheese from the pantry.”
A scullery maid scurried into a room off the kitchen and reappeared with a wheel of cheese nearly as large as her head. She set it on the kitchen table and carefully unwrapped the cloth about it.
Cook took a sharp knife and cut off a slice. “Will this do, my lord?”
“Perfect, Mrs. Cook.” Vale grinned at the woman, making her thin cheeks tinge a light pink. “I am forever in your debt. Now if you will show me your cellar, Mr. Oaks?”
The butler led the way through the pantry and to a door that opened to a short flight of stairs leading into the partially underground cellar.
“Mind your head,” Vale admonished Melisande. He had to bend nearly double to descend the stairs. “Thank you, Oaks. You may leave us.”
The butler looked greatly relieved. The cellar was lined in cold, damp stone, the walls stacked with shelves holding all matter of foo S malood and wine. In one corner was a little wooden door, behind which Mouse had been imprisoned. He’d stopped barking at the sound of their footsteps on the stairs, and Melisande could imagine him behind the door standing with his head cocked to the side.
Vale looked at Melisande and put his finger to his lips.
She nodded, pressing her lips together.
He grinned and cracked the cellar door. Immediately a small black nose peeped through the opening. Vale squatted and pinched off a bite of cheese.