The Greatest Challenge of Them All Read online

  She emerged from the alcove and set about systematically quartering the room.

  Drake stalked into the cardroom. He halted just inside the doorway. He scanned the tables only briefly, then looked farther. His features eased a fraction when he spied a footman coming through a service door. When the door swung shut, it was well-nigh invisible, becoming just another part of the paneling.

  He skirted the room, acknowledging those who nodded to him. On reaching the area before the service door, he paused as if studying the activity at a nearby table. He waited until all eyes and all attention throughout the room were refixed on the play, then he silently turned, opened the service door, and slipped through.

  Inside the narrow corridor, barely wide enough to accommodate his shoulders, he stepped away from the door, put his back to the wall, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the poor light. Luckily, he had an excellent sense of direction. Instead of heading toward the kitchen and the cellars from where the footmen were ferrying bottles to the cardroom’s denizens, he turned and walked the other way.

  By dint of descending a set of narrow stairs and carefully trying several doors, he found his way to a minor parlor on the ground floor. The room had been left in darkness, but the curtains hadn’t been drawn, allowing moonlight to stream in through a set of French doors.

  The doors were his goal. He unsnibbed the lock, opened one, and stepped out into the night. After quietly closing the door behind him, he made his way around the corner of the house to the rear garden and the terrace that ran the length of the ballroom.

  At both ends and also in the middle, sets of stone steps led up to the flagstone terrace. Although the ballroom had multiple fully glassed French doors giving access to the terrace, November had arrived, and the night was chilly; none of the doors had been opened. Even better, when Drake climbed the steps at the nearest end and surreptitiously approached the first set of doors, he discovered that Lady Herrick had ordered the filmy curtains to be left drawn across the glass.

  The gauzy screen didn’t materially affect his view of the well-lit ballroom, but it would make it that much harder for anyone inside the ballroom to see him. In addition, the ivy covering the wall was old and thick and had been cut back from around the doors early in the year; through summer, it had grown back with a vengeance, and vines now encroached over the edges of the frames.

  Choosing a particularly dense fall of ivy for extra cover, he lounged against the wall beside the first door, peered past the edge of the frame, and searched the room.

  Louisa wasn’t difficult to locate; she was skillfully flitting from group to group. In her pale-green silk gown, with her dark hair gleaming, she appeared the epitome of a social butterfly. But the longer Drake watched, the more obvious it became that the circles in which she alighted were not randomly chosen. After ten minutes of observing her gyrations, he’d confirmed that she was targeting gentlemen of a similar age to Lawton Chilburn. Presumably, she was searching for men who might react to the rumors of Chilburn’s demise by dropping some useful comment.

  Although he couldn’t hear a word, now he’d guessed her intentions, he found it easy enough to follow the conversations as she encouraged her various marks to tell her their memories and all else they knew of Chilburn.

  One part of Drake’s mind—the coolly detached intelligencer—viewed her tactics with considerable appreciation. That part of him could admit that she’d been right to get rid of him; he had been cramping her style.

  Whether it was that surfacing of his alter ego, drawn to the front of his mind to observe her expertise in action, that made him glance aside and fix on the movement of a tallish gentleman passing between several chatting groups, he didn’t know. But once he’d focused on the man, hyperactive, hypersensitive instincts brought all his hunter’s faculties to the fore.

  Within a minute, he’d satisfied himself that the man was, indeed, stalking Louisa. Despite chatting with others here and there, he was tracking her through the crowd; every now and then, a calculating expression flitted over his face.

  The man’s approach, his intent, would have been difficult for anyone in the ballroom to detect. Viewing proceedings from the side, from the distance of the terrace, Drake had a much clearer, much more damning perspective.

  Finally, the gentleman made his move. He circled through the crowd and joined the group of guests Louisa would most likely approach next.

  Drake straightened away from the wall. He watched as Louisa, having chatted animatedly for several minutes with those with whom she’d been engaged, blithely farewelled them and moved on to the next group, where the tallish gentleman was waiting.

  Louisa smiled her engaging smile and spoke with the circle of gentlemen and ladies without apparent favor. Drake saw the gentleman start to speak, then he stopped. Louisa’s gaze rested on him measuringly, then she switched to a smiling exchange with two others.

  But once that was done, she moved to more specifically engage with her stalker.

  Drake had to hand it to the man; he played his part to perfection, giving a flawless performance as a reluctant source. He even had the nous, when Louisa clearly pressed him to explain further, to shake his head and glance around as if seeking escape.

  Louisa spoke again, more earnestly, then surreptitiously indicated the middle set of French doors.

  The man hesitated, then gave a slight nod.

  Predictably, Louisa pantomimed feeling overheated, and the gentleman, still appearing reluctant, played along and, with a great show of solicitousness, gave her his arm and escorted her to the French doors.

  Silently, Drake moved along the wall where the shadows fell darkly.

  The central pair of French doors opened, and the gentleman ushered Louisa outside.

  She stepped into the shadows and signaled to the gentleman to shut the doors, which he did.

  Meanwhile, she looked right and left, scanning the terrace, checking to see if anyone else was there. She didn’t look behind her, so missed the denser shadow that was Drake, looming against the ivy-covered wall.

  Having established, as she thought, that she and the gentleman were alone, she swung to face him. “All right—what is it you know that you can’t speak of—”

  “Not here.” The gentleman roughly seized her arm. “Down there.”

  He went to sweep her down the stone steps and into the garden, but before he could move, he started to choke.

  He let go of Louisa’s arm and clutched at his collar as he came up on his toes, gasping and struggling for breath.

  Having by then seen Drake, Louisa waited for a few more seconds—allowing Drake to dangle the impertinent man from his own collar, which apparently continued to tighten—before she humphed and said, “Oh, do let him go. I would have kneed him in another second.”

  Drake looked at her, then opened his hand and released Sir Phineas Painter’s collar.

  Sir Phineas fell to his feet. He staggered, wheezed, and clutched his throat. He glanced around wildly.

  Drake regarded him dispassionately, much as he would a fly, then in his darkest, most menacing voice, said, “It seems you’ve had a lucky escape. On several fronts. I would flee if I was you.”

  She promptly added, “While you can.”

  Whether it was her tone or Drake’s that punctured the last of Sir Phineas’s bravado, she couldn’t tell, but he forced himself upright, stared at them as if they were dangerous beasts, tried to utter words, but they came out in a meaningless gurgle, then, still clutching his throat and his abused cravat, he darted around Drake, opened the French door, dashed over the threshold, and quickly shut the door behind him.

  Her gaze on the door, Louisa sighed. “That was Sir Phineas Painter. He spun an excellent tale about having known Lawton and meeting with him just last week.”

  “No doubt.” Drake fought to keep his temper from his voice. “However, I believe his foray suggests that your window of opportunity for learning more tonight has closed.” Hauling his gaze from Pain
ter, who was as unobtrusively as possible making his escape via the ballroom, Drake finally allowed himself—the self that was very much uppermost at that moment—to focus on her. “Time to leave.”

  He gave her no chance to argue, simply took her elbow in an unbreakable grip and drew her along the terrace to the steps at the end.

  To all her inquiries, such as “Where are we going?” and “Aren’t we going back to the ballroom?” he paid not the slightest heed.

  But when, with rising temper ringing in her voice, she acerbically reminded him that she needed her cloak “for God’s sake,” he clenched his jaw even harder and consented to detour and leave via the front hall.

  Lady Herrick’s butler took one look at their faces and almost fell over his toes rushing to retrieve her cloak.

  Drake seized the garment from the fumbling retainer, shook the folds out, then with exquisitely controlled care, draped the cloak over Louisa’s bare shoulders.

  She turned her head and shot him a furious glare, then smiled sweetly at the uncertain butler. “Thank you,” she said—to the butler.

  Immediately, Louisa felt her elbow gripped again; even through the combined thickness of her cloak and evening gloves, Drake’s long, hard fingers burned like a brand. Her temper, already beyond simmering, boiled.

  He more or less marched her out of the house. Her carriage, summoned by a footman, was waiting by the curb. His expression less informative than a stone carving, Drake steered her—propelled her—down the steps and across the pavement to where her footman stood holding the carriage door open.

  Inwardly seething, she allowed herself to be all but thrust inside the carriage. She swept her skirts close, sat, and bided her time. Drake, apparently, had forgotten just who he was dealing with; as Lady Wild, she was only too ready—nay, burning—to remind him.

  She waited until he’d entered the carriage, until he’d sat in the dark beside her.

  Waited some more while the footman scrambled up and her coachman gave the horses the office.

  The Herricks’ house was on a side street off Gloucester Place. She peered out of the window at the shadowed façades slipping past and timed her move carefully.

  She waited until the now-trotting horses had started to swing into the larger road, then abruptly stood.

  Drake was jerked from his battle to keep his tongue leashed. For a split second, he stared as Louisa, facing forward, swayed as the carriage tipped—then her leg hit his knee, and she tumbled.

  Instinct overrode caution; he reached for her and gripped her waist, but she was falling toward him, and it was easier to cushion her.

  She landed on his lap in a froth of silk skirts, lace petticoats, and soft, silken limbs.

  His wits scattered.

  Before he could regather them, she wriggled around to face him—annihilating his concentration—clamped her palms to either side of his face, stretched up, leaned in, and drew his head down and kissed him.

  It was not a tentative kiss.

  More an incitement to madness.

  One he, the man he was behind the mask, instantly responded to. Before he knew what he was doing, he was enthusiastically participating in an exchange of bold challenge and flagrant desire, of heat and hunger and erupting need.

  Her lips were teasing, tempting, alluring and enticing; her mouth, surrendered, was a honeyed haven of delight, a gifting he hadn’t been able to resist.

  Pleasure welled, more potent and intense with her than any other.

  That realization—that warning—weakened the spell, enough for him to haul in a deeper breath, break the seal of their lips, and demand, “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  He might have all but lost his wits, but he hadn’t forgotten who she was.

  “You had your way over us leaving the ball. Now it’s my turn to dictate.”

  Then her lips were on his again, and his seemed to have a will of their own—they’d rather taste hers than obey his commands. As for his hands…he couldn’t seem to stop them from responding to her blatant enticements; he couldn’t seem to rein in his own flaring need.

  She leaned into him, the ripe swells of her breasts firm against his chest; everything male in him salivated. She was a bundle of warm, feminine curves, sleek and supple, infinitely tempting; her warm weight across his thighs, the feel of her firm flesh shifting against his harder muscled limbs was pure provocation.

  Her hands slid beneath his coat. Splayed, they moved over his chest; the evocative pressure as her fingertips sank into the broad muscles sent heat streaking through him, sent desire spiraling.

  There was no power on earth that could have stopped him from reacting. From drawing his hands from their exploration of the silk-clad planes of her back and sending them instead to stroke, caress, then flagrantly possess the firm mounds of her breasts.

  He’d expected a gasp from her—at least a hesitation. Instead, she purred low in her throat, and her hands flexed, and her lips blazed, and their kiss turned molten.

  Her response, and his to hers, was so shockingly intense, so primal and powerful, he could entertain no doubt about where this would end.

  Where, at that moment in time, both he and she wanted this to go.

  His head spun as he fought to grapple with that reality, but she only pressed on and, with her kisses, lured him into following…

  Abruptly, he found himself teetering on an edge of raging need that was far too close to desperation.

  When had it ever been this difficult to exercise control in this sphere?

  The answer—never—streaked through what remained of his mind. Shaken, he forced his head up and back, breaking the kiss. Through the shadows, he searched her face. “Do you have any notion of what you’re doing?”

  His voice was nearly gone, the words gravelly and rough.

  Through the heated darkness, Louisa stared at him. Their eyes were almost level, but in the gloom, she couldn’t read anything in his. Slowly, she swept her tongue over her burning lips. “Yes.” She arched one brow. “At least I think so.” Deliberately, she wriggled her hips. “Is it working?”

  He cursed. Against her hip, his erection felt like forged iron.

  She laughed—sultry, low, as provocatively as she could. “It certainly seems—”

  He shut her up as she’d hoped he would—by kissing her ferociously and wrenching control of the engagement from her. Or at least attempting to.

  She wasn’t of a mind to cede everything to him. She was willing to share, but she would not be dominated. Would not be dictated to.

  Naturally, her stance led to a tussle of sorts, one that in short order escalated the engagement into realms that should have sent any well-bred lady running screaming…

  She was definitely well bred, but she wasn’t the sort to run screaming, especially not from this. From an engagement she’d dreamt of for years. From an exchange she’d always felt should be.

  She was with him every step of the way, through every hard, heated, and increasingly passionate caress, eager, encouraging, enthusiastically participating.

  Equally hungry. Equally wanting.

  They broke apart only when the carriage rocked to a halt outside St. Ives House.

  Through the heated darkness, they stared at each other. They were both breathing rapidly, his chest rising and falling, her breasts all but heaving.

  Drake couldn’t be certain of her expression, but he didn’t need the evidence of his eyes to sense her burgeoning satisfaction.

  Rather breathlessly, she purred, “Very nice.” He caught the curving of her lips as she added, “I always thought it would be.”

  Then with calm efficiency, she gathered herself and rose from his lap.

  He fought down a nearly overpowering urge to reach up and haul her back—and damn any and all consequences. Increasingly grim, unforgivingly tense, he managed to rise and reach for the door. He opened it and nearly fell onto the pavement. As smoothly as he could, he recovered and turned to hand her down.r />
  She gripped his hand and leaned on his arm as she alighted.

  By the time she’d released his hand, shaken down her skirts, and raised her head, he’d recollected enough of how things were supposed to be. He narrowed his eyes on hers. “This will go no further.”

  Anything else was too…dangerous.

  His words hung between them, an edict backed by his considerable authority.

  She tipped her head and studied him for an instant, then her glorious smile bloomed. Lightly, she tapped his arm, then swung toward the house, crossed to the steps, raised her skirts, and started climbing.

  He stared after her.

  Without looking back, she called, “I’ll see you at eight-thirty.”

  She reached the porch, and Crewe, alerted by the footman, swung open the door. Drake watched her glide inside, then Crewe nodded to him and gently shut the door.

  Behind Drake, her carriage rattled off on its way to the mews.

  He stared at the closed door, then he set his lips, compressed them, turned, and stalked home.

  Sadly, his home was too close to allow him to walk off his mood—aggravated, irritated, and unsettlingly uncertain.

  As far as he could recall, he’d never before felt so trepidatious about what the next day might bring.

  CHAPTER 19

  G riswade watched the last of the workers hurry through the gates into the yard.

  He waited and watched until the city’s bells pealed seven o’clock before, finally, giving up. Stepping out of the alley in which he’d lounged, he walked up the street.

  The fourth man who had helped Lawton transfer the gunpowder on Monday night should have been among those reporting for work. Even though the fog was hanging low, Griswade had had a sufficiently clear view and had watched closely enough to be beyond certain that the man hadn’t turned up.

  Griswade didn’t know the man’s address, but if the fellow had gone to ground, he might not even be there.