Dangerous Games. Charlotte MedeЧитать онлайн книгу.
once the thunder had subsided and the audience was beginning to shift from their seats to the splendid atrium offering champagne and ices and juicy tidbits of gossip. He took in her dark green satin dress with its flounced skirt and demure lace-trimmed neckline as befitted one in the late stages of mourning. Bellamy patted her hand approvingly, his touch dry and impartial.
“Wonderful play,” she murmured. “And Sarah Woolgar’s talents are quite remarkable.” She had not been able to keep her attention on the farce, her own personal drama intruding—the searing memory of a man and a woman and a diamond playing before her eyes on center stage. She’d imagined it all, or so she wanted to believe. And yet when she’d returned to her townhome on Mayfair early that morning, her small pistol was gone as promised. St. Martin had been in her private rooms, finding the weapon secreted away up the fireplace flue. The knowledge of a stranger rifling through her personal things was beyond belief, and she shivered, despite the layers of crinolines and chemises insulating her.
She wanted to forget that sharply planed face, haggard and austere, and that tall, tightly coiled body whose imprint still burned against her skin. There had been the touch of demon in his stealthy menace, a trace of night and saltpeter. St. Martin had looked as though he’d been to hell and back—and eager to take her with him.
She unclenched her jaw. It was ludicrous. He had no proof—even with the pistol supposedly in his possession. And there would be no more opportune encounters, as she had already instructed her servants not to answer the door this evening or the next. It was simply a matter of avoiding the man and his strange intensity that, if she was entirely honest with herself, pointed to an unstable and eccentric character. He was hardly reliable, as Seabourne had described him, a man whose reason had become undone.
Lilly straightened a flounce on her voluminous skirts, wondering just who was the unstable one. She didn’t want to remember those moments trapped in his arms. And, in particular, she didn’t want to remember her response to his mouth on hers.
Although her hands were cold, the air around her seemed stifling. Suddenly eager to leave the privacy of the box, she made to rise, the wide hem of her skirt impeding her progress. “I am quite parched,” she murmured by way of excuse to Bellamy. “A lovely, cool ice would do nicely.”
Bellamy rose in tandem, disentangling her skirt from the curved legs of the settee. “I shall have it brought immediately.” He was all solicitousness, a gleaming host in his dove gray evening coat. Ruby cuff links shimmered against the pristine white of his shirtsleeves as he gently but definitively motioned her back into her seat. He gestured to the major domo who stood behind them in the shadows, the young man disappearing an instant later.
“Thank you. You are too kind, Mr. Bellamy,” she said, hiding her eagerness to quit the small space. “Truly, you do too much.” From the carriage that had collected her from Mayfair to the best loggia in the theater, her companion had set about charming her with a businesslike ferocity that was his calling card.
He beamed, his ruddy face almost the same crimson shade of the red velvet that draped the private box. “My dear, all of what I have is nothing unless I have someone to share it with. And I must apologize again for not keeping our rendezvous yesterday evening at the Tower. Inexcusable on my part, but certain business dealings had to be attended to. I so much wanted to show you the Koh-I-Noor myself, given that our offices had it transported from India.”
“You must be very proud,” she said, her mind reluctantly returning to the Tower room.
“Indeed. The Koh-I-Noor left the shores of India on board the HMS Medea,” Bellamy supplied, his barrel chest puffed with pride. “So shrouded in mystery was its departure that even the captain of the Medea did not know the precious cargo his ship carried. I ensured every possible security.”
“Quite the responsibility, the British East India Company taking on the duty for such an important undertaking.”
“All the more reason that I wanted to show the diamond to you personally. Before the hordes have their chance at the opening of the Crystal Palace.” He paused. “And I believed, if you’ll forgive me, that the venue last evening would provide us with a somewhat more personal, even, dare I say, romantic backdrop.” He took a deep breath, the buttons on his waistcoat straining, waiting for her response.
For some reason that she didn’t care to analyze, Lilly wished to change the subject, and so kept her expression deliberately vague, allowing his opening to slide by. A shrewd man, Bellamy let out a sigh, detecting her unease. “But enough of that for now. And by the by, you must call me King, what with all the time we’ve already spent together. Not to mention the good relations that I shared with your late husband, Charles.”
Appraising him over the playbill in her hand, she decided that Isambard Kingdom Bellamy reminded her of the overstuffed, taxidermied bears that she’d seen in the collection of the Royal Geographic Society. Formidable and dangerous if awakened. Which was precisely what she needed. He had helped Charles in the past and now he would keep her own troubles at bay. “No apologies necessary, King,” she said in a light voice. “We shall have another opportunity to view the gem together I’m certain.” She sat back in her seat. Although he had made no move to come closer or to touch her again, she felt that they were sharing the same, all too intimate, breath.
Her response was irrational, irritating. She needed to defuse her tension by trying to focus on something else. “I adore this theater,” she said, her gaze sweeping admiringly from the lofty ceiling with its sparkling chandeliers to the picture frame proscenium. “John Nash is one of my favorite architects, and I never fail to appreciate how he designed this area so that the front Corinthian portico can be seen from St. James Square.”
Bellamy patted her hand and this time she almost flinched. “In any other woman less beautiful, such learning and preoccupation would render her a bluestocking. Of course, I understand your love of architecture comes from your association with your late husband, no doubt. He often shared with me the details of the various projects that required his prodigious and, might I say, passionate attention.”
No doubt. Lilly pretended to concentrate on the coved ceiling with its classically strict lines rather than dwell on Charles and his passions a moment longer. Then laughing lightly and deliberately, she said, “I’m hardly beautiful, Mr. Bellamy—I meant to say, King,” she hastily corrected herself. “And given your association with my late husband, I hope you don’t feel compelled or obligated to spend time with me.”
His brows raised in surprise. “Compelled? Obligated? My dear, I am most eager to extend any protection I can, given your situation,” he continued diplomatically.
Protection. She looked away from Bellamy and over the balcony to see the last of the theatergoers filing from their seats, reassured that she had not glimpsed an errant inspector in their midst. She was jittery these days, a strange pattern of anxiety creeping into her mind and possessing it like a noisome disease. She would do anything to make it stop, to halt the guilt, to expiate her sins and do penance for her monstrous transgression. The monies from the Crystal Palace commission would be given to charity, and she would invest every ounce of her talent into ensuring the final design would honor the queen and her country.
Her eyes darted into the corners of the now-empty hall, looking for something that she could not see. Momentarily relieved, she forced herself to consider once again the man at her side. She arranged her face into a smile. “If I haven’t said it before,” she began, “I should express again my gratitude to your coming to my assistance at Covent Gardens. Had you not come to my aid—” The sentence remained unfinished.
Bellamy snorted, punctuating the air between them with a blunt forefinger. “The insufferable cur! Imagine the audacity, the temerity to accost a woman on my arm. And such slander! You may not realize it, my dear, but you do require a man’s protection, as the last few unsavory incidents attest.”
She actually envied Bellamy’s confidence in her, so convinced was he of her innocence and so at the ready to use everything at his disposal to come to her defense. He was everything a woman could wish for and more, and yet her instincts contradicted her at every turn. Noticing