Chapter 20

At two o'clock in the morning, Lord Dain emerged from his bath. Then

he was obliged to don his dressing gown and slippers and look for his wife because, as he might have expected, she was not in bed, where she was supposed to be.

He tried the South Tower first, but she was not hovering at Dominick's bedside. Mary was there, dozing in a chair. The boy was sound asleep, sprawled on his belly, the bedclothes kicked into a heap at the foot of the bed.

Grumbling under his breath, Dain untangled the sheets and blankets and briskly tucked them about his son. Then he gave the oblivious brat a pat on the head and left.

A quarter of an hour later, he found Jessica in the dining room.

Wrapped in her black and gold silk dressing gown, her hair carelessly piled and pinned atop her head, she stood before the fireplace. Her fingers cupped the bowl of a brandy snifter and she was gazing up at the portrait of his mother.

"You might have invited me to get drunk with you," he said from the doorway.

"This was between Lucia and me," she said, her eyes still upon the picture. "I came to raise a glass in her honor." She lifted her glass. "To you, my dear Lucia: for bringing my wicked husband into the world… for giving him so much of what was best in you… and for giving him up, so that he would live and grow up into a man… and I would find him."

She swirled the amber liquid in the glass, and sniffed appreciatively. Then, with a small sigh of pleasure, she brought it to her lips.

Dain stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. "You don't know how lucky you were to find me," he said. "I am one of the few men in western Europe who could afford you. That, I have no doubt, is my very best brandy."

"I did take your wine cellar into account when I weighed your assets and liabilities" Jessica said. "It may well have tipped the scales in your favor."

She gestured with the glass at the painting. "Doesn't she look splendid there?"

Dain walked to the head of the table, sat in his chair, and studied the portrait. Then he got up and moved to the sideboard and considered it from that angle. He examined it from the doorway leading to the Musicians' Gallery, from the windows, and from the foot of the long dining table. Finally, he joined his wife before the fireplace, folded his arms over his chest, and broodingly surveyed his mother from there.

But no matter what angle he viewed her from or how long and hard he stared, he no longer hurt inside. All he saw was a beautiful young woman who had loved him in her own temperamental way. Though he would never know the full truth of what had happened twenty-five years ago, he knew enough, believed enough, to forgive her.

"She was a handsome article, wasn't she?" he said.

"Exceedingly so."

"One can hardly blame the Dartmouth blackguard for making off with her, I suppose," he said. "At least he stayed with her. They died together. How that must have infuriated my father." He laughed. "But I don't doubt Jezebel's' son infuriated him far more. He couldn't disown me because he was too great a snob to leave his precious heritage in the vulgar hands of a sprig of the cadet branch. The great hypocrite couldn't even destroy her portrait—because she was part of the Ballisters' history, and he, like his noble ancestors, must preserve everything for his descendants, like it or not."

"He didn't even throw out your toys."

"He threw me out, though," Dain said. "The dust had scarcely settled behind my mother when he packed me off to Eton. Gad, what an obstinate old idiot. He could have cultivated me, won me over with the smallest effort. I was eight years old. Completely at his mercy. Clay in his hands. He could have molded me just as he liked. If he wanted revenge on her, that was the way to get it—and get the kind of son he wanted at the same time."

"I'm glad he didn't mold you," Jessica said. "You would not have turned out half so interesting."

He looked down into her smiling countenance. "Interesting, indeed. The Bane and Blight of the Ballisters, Lord of Scoundrels himself. The greatest whoremonger in Christendom. A cocksure, clod-pated ingrate." "The wickedest man who ever lived."

"A great gawk of a lummox. A spoiled, selfish, spiteful brute."

She nodded. "Don't leave out 'conceited clod-pole.'"

"It does not matter what you think," he said loftily. "My son believes I am King Arthur and all the knights of the Round Table rolled into one."

"You are too humble, my dear," she said. "Dominick is convinced that you are Jupiter and the entire pantheon of Roman deities rolled into one. It is thoroughly nauseating."

"You don't know what nauseating is, Jess," he said with a laugh. "I only wish you might have seen the animate pile of filth I encountered at the Golden Hart Inn. If the thing had not spoken, I might have mistaken it for a moldering heap of refuse, and pitched it into the fire."

"Phelps told me," she said. "I went downstairs while you were bathing and cornered him when he was on his way out. He described the state Dominick had been in, and how you faced it and dealt with it, yourself… with your own two hands."

She slipped her arm through is, through the one that his own fears and need had paralyzed, and a little boy's greater fears and need had cured. "I did not know whether to laugh or cry," she said. "So I did both." Silver mist shimmered in her eyes. "I am so proud of you, Dain. And proud of myself," she added, looking away and blinking hard, "for having the good sense to marry you."

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "Sense had nothing to do with it. But I will give you credit for making the best of a situation that would have driven any normal female to leap, screaming, from the top of the nearest tower."

"That would have been unforgivably gauche," she said.

"It would have meant admitting defeat, you mean," he said. "And that you cannot do. It isn't in your nature. As Vawtry has learned, to his everlasting mortification."

She frowned. "I know I took advantage of him. In spite of everything, he was too much the gentleman to fight back properly. All he could do was try to shake me off. But I should not have taken advantage if the curst fool had let go of the icon. Then, by the time he finally did, I was much too overwrought to stop smashing him. If you had not come when you did, I fear I might have killed him." She leaned her head against his brawny upper arm. "I do not think anyone else could have stopped me."

"Yes, we big, mean lummoxes have our uses," he said. He scooped her up and carried her to the dining room table. "Luckily, I had both arms working by then, else I doubt even I could have managed it." He plunked her down upon the gleaming wood surface. "What I should like to know, though, is why my levelheaded wife hadn't the common sense to keep at least a few servants with her, fire or no fire."

"I did," she said. "But Joseph and Mary were up in the South Tower, too far away to hear anything. I should not have noticed Vawtry myself, if he hadn't come down the main staircase. But I had gone down to the ground floor to watch for you. Someone had to be there when you arrived, to make Dominick feel welcome. I wanted to be the one. I wanted to prove I was looking forward to his arrival." Her voice quavered. "I wanted to reassure him and—and give him a h-hug."

He tilted up her chin and gazed into her misty eyes. "I hugged him, cam," he said softly. "I took him up in front of me on my horse, and I held him close, because he is a child, needing reassurance. I told him I would take care of him… because he was my son. And I told him you wanted him, too. I told him all about you—that you could be kind and amazingly understanding, but that you wouldn't tolerate any nonsense." He smiled. "And when we came home, the first thing Dominick saw was active, incontrovertible proof of that last. You proved that Papa was telling the truth, and Papa knows everything about everybody."

"Then I shall hug Papa." She wrapped her arms about his waist and laid her head against his chest. "I love you, Sebastian Leslie Guy de Ath Ballister. I love you, Lord Dain and Beelzebub, Lord Blackmoor, Lord Launcells, Lord Ballister—"

"That's too many names," he said. "We've been wed more than a month. Since it appears that you mean to stay, I might as well give you leave to call me by my Christian name. It is preferable, at any rate, to 'clod pole "

"I love you, Sebastian," she said.

"I'm rather fond of you, too," he said.

"Immensely fond," she corrected.

Her dressing gown was sliding down from her shoulders. He hastily drew it up. "Immense may well be the word for it." He glanced down at where his shaft was stirring against his dressing gown. "We had better get upstairs quickly and go to sleep forthwith. Before my feelings of fondness swell to an unreasonable degree."

"Going directly to sleep would be unreasonable," she said. She slid her hands up and into the opening of his robe and stroked over his chest. The muscles there tightened and pulsed, and the pulsations raced downward.

"You're exhausted from your ordeal," he said, swallowing a groan. "Also, I'm sure you must be bruised in a hundred places. You don't want a fifteen-stone brute heaving about on top of you." She drew her thumb over his nipple.

He sucked in his breath.

"You could heave about under me," she said softly.

He told himself to ignore what she'd just said, but the image rose in his mind's eye, and his rod rose eagerly with it.

It had been a month since she'd told him she loved him. It had been a month since she had actually invited him, instead of simply cooperating. Enthusiastic as the cooperation had been, he'd missed her brazen overtures almost as much as he'd missed the three precious words.

Besides, he was an animal.

Already he was as randy as a rutting bull elephant.

He lifted her off the table. He meant to set her down, because carrying her would be too dangerously intimate. But she wouldn't be set down. She clung to his arms and wrapped her legs round his waist.

He tried not to look down, but he couldn't help it.

He saw soft white thighs encircling him, caught a glimpse of the sleek, dark curls just below the sash that was no longer holding the gown decorously in place.

She shifted a bit, and the robe slid from her shoulders again. She slipped first one, then the other arm from the loose sleeves. The elegant robe became a useless scrap of silk dangling from her waist.

Smiling, she brought her arms up to circle his neck. She rubbed her firm, white breasts against the opening of his dressing gown, and it gave way. The warm, feminine mounds pressed against his skin.

He turned and came back to the table and sank down upon it.

"Jess, how the devil am I to climb the stairs in this condition?" he asked hoarsely. "How is a man to see straight when you do such things to him?"

She licked the hollow of his throat. "I like the way you taste/' she murmured. She drew her parted lips over his collarbone. "And the way your skin feels against my mouth. And the way you smell… of soap and cologne and male. I love your big, warm hands… and your big, warm body… and your immense, throbbing—"

He dragged her head up and clamped his mouth over hers. She parted instantly, inviting him in.

She was wicked, a femme fatale, but the taste of her was fresh and clean. She tasted like rain, and he drank her in. He inhaled the chamomile scent mingled with the fragrance that was uniquely hers. He traced the delectable shape of her with his big, dark hands… the graceful column of her neck, the gentle slope of her shoulders, the silken curve of her breasts with their taut, dusky buds.

He slid back and down upon the table, and drew her down on top of him, and traced those feminine outlines again with his mouth, his tongue.

He stroked down her smooth, supple back and molded his hands to the sinuous turn of her slim waist and the gentle flare of her hips.

"I'm clay in your hands," she breathed against his ear. "I love you madly. I want you so much."

The soft voice, husky with desire, swam in his head and sang in his veins, and whirled its mad music through his heart.

"Sono tutta tua, tesoro mio," he answered. "I'm all yours, my treasure."

He grasped her sweet rump and lifted her onto his manhood… and groaned as she guided him into her. "Oh, Jess."

"All mine." She sank, slowly, down upon his shaft.

"Sweet Jesus." Pleasure forked through him, jagged and white-hot.

"Oh, Dio. I'm going to die."

"All mine," she said.

"Yes. Kill me, Jess. Do it again."

She came up and sank again, with the same torturous slowness. Another lightning bolt. Scorching. Rapturous.

He begged for more. She gave him more, riding him, controlling him. He wanted it that way, because it was love that mastered him, happiness that shackled him. She was passionate chatelaine of his body, loving mistress of his heart.

When the storm broke at last and, trembling in the aftermath, she fell into his arms, he held her tight against the hammering heart she ruled… where the secret he'd hidden for so long pounded in his breast.

But he wanted no more such secrets. He could say the words now. So easy it was, when all that had been frozen and buried inside him had thawed and bubbled up, fresh as the Dartmoor streams in springtime. With a shaky laugh, he brought her head up and lightly kissed her.

"Ti amo," he said. And so ridiculously simple it was that he said it again, in English this time. "I love vou, Tess."

If love had not exploded into his life, her husband informed Jessica a short time later, he might have made a mistake he'd never forgive himself for.

The sun was inching up from the horizon when they returned to the master bedroom, but Dain wasn't ready to sleep until the evening's events were clarified, explained, and settled.

He lay on his back, gazing up at the canopy's golden dragons. "Being besotted myself," he was saying, "I was forced to see how easily any man —especially one of Vawtry's limited intelligence—could stumble into a quagmire."

In a few contemptuous sentences, he told her of his suspicions about Beaumont's role in the Paris farce, and how the spitefulness had continued. Jessica wasn't much surprised. She had always considered Beaumont a particularly unpleasant human being and wondered why his wife hadn't left him long since.

She was, however, both surprised and amused by her husband's approach to the problem. By the time Dain had finished describing his intriguing methods for dealing with both Vawtry and the repellent Beaumont, Jessica was laughing helplessly.

"Oh, Sebastian," she gasped. "You are too wicked. I should give anything to see the expression on Beaumont's face when he reads Vawtry's th-thank you n-note," she sputtered. Then she went off into whoops again.

"Only you would appreciate the humor of the situation," he said when she'd quieted.

"And the artistry of it," she said. "Vawtry, Charity—even that spiteful sod Beaumont—all dealt with, settled in a matter of minutes. And all without your needing to lift a finger."

"Except to count out bank notes," Dain said. "It's costing me, remember?"

"Vawtry will be grateful to you for the rest of his life," she said. "He will race to the ends of the earth to do your bidding. And Charity will be con-tent, because she'll be set up comfortably with a man who adores her. That's all she wanted, you know. A rife of idle luxury. That's why she had Dominick."

"I know. She thought I'd pay her five hundred a year."

"I asked her how she came to that addled conclusion," Jessica said. "She told me it was when all the grand folks came to your father's funeral. Some of the gentlemen had brought their birds of paradise along and deposited them at nearby inns. Along with other London gossip, Charity heard tales—exaggerated, no doubt—of settlements and annuities made for certain noblemen's illegitimate offspring. That, she told me, is why she didn't employ the usual precautions with you and Ainswood, and why, when she found herself enceinte, she took no corrective measures."

"In other words, another brainless trollop put the idea in her head."

"Charity thought all she had to do was have one child, and she'd never have to work again. Five hundred pounds was unheard-of wealth to her."

"Which explains why she settled so easily for your fifteen hundred." Dain still had his eyes fixed upon the dragons. "You knew this, yet you threatened to give her my icon."

"If I'd had to deal with her by myself, I could not risk her creating an ugly scene in front of Dominick," Jessica explained. "Like you, he is acutely sensitive and emotional. The damage she could do with a few words in a few minutes might take years to repair. But with you there, that risk dropped considerably. Still, I preferred she go away quietly. That is why I armed Phelps with a bribe."

Dain turned onto his side and pulled her into his arms. "You did right, Jess," he said. "I doubt I could have dealt with a sick child and his screaming mother simultaneously. I had my hands full—both of them— and my mind fully occupied with him."

"You were there for him," she said, stroking his hard, warm chest. "His big, strong papa was there for him, and that's all that matters now. He's home. He's safe. We'll take care of him."

"Home." He looked down at her. "This is permanent, then."

"Lady Granville brought up her husband's two bastards—by her aunt, no less—along with then-own legitimate brats. The Duke of Devonshire's by-blows have grown up in his household."

"And the Marchioness of Dain can do what she damn well pleases and the hell with what anyone else thinks," said her husband.

"I do not mind starting my family with an eight-year-old boy," she said. "One can communicate with children at that age. They are very nearly human."

At that moment, as though on cue, an inhuman howl rent the early morning quiet.

Dain pulled away from her and bolted up to a sitting position.

"He's having a nightmare, that's all," Jessica said, trying to tug her husband back down. "Mary's with him."

"That caterwauling is coming from the gallery." He scrambled from the bed.

While he was pulling on his dressing gown, Jessica heard another earsplitting shriek… coming from the gallery, as Dain said. She heard other sounds as well. Other voices. And thumps. And the faint thudding of hurried footsteps.

Dain had already stalked out barefoot while

Jessica was still trying to disentangle herself from the bedclothes. She quickly donned her dressing gown and mules and hurried out after him.

She found him standing just outside the door, his arms folded over his chest, his expression inscrutable while he watched a naked eight-year-old boy race toward the south stairs, three servants in hot pursuit.

Dominick was but a few feet from the entryway when Joseph abruptly appeared in it. The boy instantly turned and ran back the way he'd come, dodging the adults trying to catch him and shrieking when they missed.

"It would appear that my son is an early riser," Dain said mildly. "What did Mary feed him for breakfast, I wonder? Gunpowder?" "I told you he was devilish quick," Jessica said.

"He ran past me a moment ago," Dain said. "He saw me. Looked straight up at me and laughed—those screeches are laughter, you will note —and never broke stride. He went headlong toward the north door, stopped one half second short of dashing his brains out against it—turned, and ran back the other way. I collect he wants my attention." She nodded.

Dain strode out into the gallery. "Dominick," he said, without raising his voice.

Dominick darted into an alcove. Dain followed him, picked him off the draperies he was attempting to climb up, and hoisted the child over his shoulder.

He carried Dominick into the master bedroom, then into the dressing room.

Jessica followed them only as far as the bedroom. She could hear her husband's low rumble and the higher-pitched tones of his son, but couldn't make out the words.

When they emerged from the dressing room a few minutes later, Dominick was wearing one of his father's shirts. The pleated front extended below the boy's waist, while both sleeves and hem trailed upon the carpet.

"He ate his breakfast and washed, but he refuses to don the skeleton suit because it makes him choke, he claims," Dain explained, while Jessica nearly choked trying to keep a straight face.

"This is Papa's shirt," Dominick told her proudly. 'It's too big. But I can't be bare-arsed—"

"Naked," Dain corrected. "You don't refer to your hindquarters when there are ladies present. Just as you don't gallop about with your pump handle waving in the wind—even if it is vastly amusing to hear the shocked females scream. Also, you do not make a great row at dawn's crack when my lady and I are trying to sleep."

Dominick's attention immediately went to the immense bed. His black eyes widened. "Is that the biggest bed in the world, Papa?"

He pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and, grabbing up two fistfuls of the fabric billowing about his scrawny legs, trotted to the bed and gaped at it.

"It's the biggest one in the house," said Dain. "King Charles the Second slept in that bed once. When the king visits, one must give him the largest bed."

"Did you put a baby inside her in that bed?" Dominick enquired, directing his stare to Jessica's belly. "Mama said you put me inside her belly in the biggest bed in the world. Is there a baby in there now?" he demanded, pointing.

"Yes," said His Lordship. Turning away from his startled wife, he walked to the bed and scooped his son up. "But it is a secret. You must assure me you won't tell anybody until I give you leave. Will you promise?"

Dominick nodded. "I promise."

"I know it will be difficult to keep such an interesting secret," Dain said. "But I'll make it up to you. In return for that special favor, I will let you be the one to surprise everybody with the news. Thaf's a fair trade, isn't it?"

After briefly weighing the matter, Dominick again bobbed his head up and down.

It was clear by now that the two males had no trouble communicating. It was also clear that Dominick was, to all intents and purposes, clay in his papa's big hands. And the papa knew it.

Dain turned a smugly superior smile upon his bemused wife, then carried his son out.

He returned alone a moment later, still smiling.

"You are very sure of yourself," she said as he approached her.

"I can count," he said. "We've been wed five weeks and you have not pleaded indisposition once."

"It's much too soon to tell," she said.

"No, it isn't." He scooped Jessica up as easily as he had his son and carried her to the bed. "It is easy enough to calculate. One fertile marchioness plus one virile marquess equals a brat, sometime between Candlemas and Lady Day."

He did not put her down, but sat on the edge of the mattress, cradling her in his muscular arms.

"So much for hoping I could surprise you," she said.

He laughed. "You have been surprising me, Jess, since the day I met you. Every time I turn around, something goes off in my face. If it isn't an obscene watch or a rare icon, it's a pistol—or my tragically misunderstood mother—or my hellion son. There have been times I've been convinced I didn't marry a female, but an incendiary device. This at least makes sense." He tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "It is not in the least astounding that two people with insatiable carnal appetites have made a baby. That is perfectly natural and reasonable. It does not distress my delicate sensibilities in the least."

"That's what you say now." She smiled up at him. "But when I begin to swell up and grow moody and short-tempered, your nerves will become completely unstrung. And when the birthing starts, and you hear me yelling and cursing and wishing you at the Devil—"

"I'll laugh," he said. "Like the conscienceless brute I am."

She reached up to caress his arrogant jaw. "Ah, well, at least you're a handsome brute. And rich. And strong. And virile."

"It's about time you saw how fortunate you are. You have married the most virile man in the world." He grinned, and in his eyes, black as sin, she saw the devil inside him laughing. But he was her devil, and she loved him madly.

"The most conceited, you mean," she said.

He bent his head until his great Usignuolo nose loomed an inch from hers. "The most virile," he repeated firmly. "You are pathetically slow if you haven't learned that by now. Fortunately for you, I am the most patient of tutors. I shall prove it to you." "Your patience?" she asked.

"And my virility. Both. Repeatedly." His black eyes glinted. "I will teach you a lesson you'll never forget."

She tangled her fingers in his hair and brought his mouth to hers. "My wicked darling," she whispered. "I should like to see you try."