Mystique by Amanda Quick
“I may have taught him how to contain and control those dark winds, Lady Alice. But you accomplished far more. You have stilled them with the alchemy of a loving heart.”
Hugh strode into Alice’s study chamber one morning a few weeks after Erasmus and Eleanor had departed. He had ordered a new list of compliments from Julian. He was eager to try them out.
But at the sight of Alice standing at the window, he came to a halt, briefly transfixed. The graceful words he had so carefully memorized a short while earlier were momentarily forgotten. He wondered if he would ever grow accustomed to the realization that Alice was his wife.
Her lively features were composed in an expression of intense concentration as she studied the chunk of rock crystal in her hand. Her hair glowed in the morning sun. The gentle lines of her body aroused a familiar, aching need within Hugh.
She did not turn to greet him. He realized she had not heard him come into the chamber.
Hugh cleared his throat and searched his mind for the first compliment on his list. “Madam, the glorious fire in your hair burns so brightly that I need naught else but your silken tresses to warm my hands on the coldest morn.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Alice did not look at him. She tilted the stone she held so that it caught more light.
Hugh frowned. Mayhap he had paid too many compliments to her hair, he thought. She was likely bored with them. He made a note to instruct Julian to be more creative.
“Your neck is as graceful as that of a swan.”
“Thank you, sir.” Alice pursed her lips and studied the crystal more closely.
Hugh tapped the sheet of rolled parchment against his thigh. Julian’s compliments were not having their usual effect. “Your skin is as soft as the feathers of a dove dipped in cream.”
“How kind of you to notice.” Alice put the rock crystal down on the table. She picked up a large, gray stone and bent over it intently.
Hugh surreptitiously unrolled the parchment in his hand and quickly scanned the list of compliments. “It strikes me that your feet are as small and delicate as the unfurled fronds of small frogs.”
Alice hesitated. “Frogs, my lord?”
Hugh scowled at the phrase. Damn Julian and his poor script. “Uh, ferns. As small and delicate as the unfurled fronds of small ferns.” He hastily rerolled the parchment. That last had not been the easiest phrase to utter.
“Aye, of course. Ferns. Pray continue, my lord.”
“Uh, well, that is about all that occurs to me at the moment.” What was wrong with Alice today? She was not responding in her usual manner. Hugh wondered if Julian’s skills were deteriorating.
“What of my eyes, sir? Do you think they are as green as emeralds or are they more in the nature of malachite?”
Hugh shifted restlessly. What if it was not Julian’s skills that were slipping, but his own? What if he was not repeating the compliments in the proper fashion? “Emeralds, I believe. Although malachite is a very nice shade of green also.”
“Thank you. Now, then, what of my breasts?”
Hugh swallowed. “Your breasts?” He generally saved that sort of compliment for the bedchamber.
“Would you say that they are still as delicately curved as ripe peaches?”
“Most assuredly.”
“And what of my waist?”
Hugh narrowed his eyes. “Your waist?”
“Aye.” Alice put aside the gray stone and picked up a darker one. She still kept her face averted. “Would you say that my waist is as dainty as the stem of a flower?”
There had been something about flower stems and small waists on Julian’s last list. Hugh was about to repeat the old compliment when it struck him that Alice was a bit more rounded in some places today than she had been a few weeks ago.
He very much liked her this way, he decided, but he was not certain that she would be pleased to hear that she was a bit more plump.
“I, uh, had not given the matter of your waist much thought,” he said cautiously. “But now that you mention it—” He broke off to study her form more closely.
It was not his imagination, he concluded. Silhouetted against the sunlight, Alice was not quite as slender as she had been when he took her from her uncle’s hall. He remembered the pleasant shape of her beneath his hands last night and sighed.
“Well, my lord?”
“In truth, madam, I would not say that your waist is as narrow as the stem of a flower, but I find the new shape very appealing. Indeed, you look quite healthy and fit with a bit more meat on your bones.” He paused, appalled, when he saw that her shoulders were trembling. “Alice, you must not cry. Your waist is exactly the width of a flower stem. I vow, I will challenge anyone who claims otherwise to a battle to the death.”
“Very gallant of you, my lord.” She swung around to face him. Her eyes were aglow with laughter, not tears. “But I much prefer you to be absolutely honest in such matters.”
“Alice?”
“You’re quite right. My waist is no longer as small as the stem of a flower. And, to be truthful, my breasts are a bit larger than summer peaches these days. And for a very sound reason. I am with child, my lord.”
For an instant Hugh could not move. She was pregnant. With his babe.
“Alice.” Joy surged through him with the force of bright sunlight after a storm.
Hugh freed himself from the fragile spell that Alice’s simple words had placed upon him. He swooped down on her and scooped her carefully, gently off her feet.
She put her arms around his neck. “Do you know, my lord, I never placed much credence in legends until I met you.”
Hugh looked into her eyes and caught a glimpse of their future together. It was filled with the promise of love and happiness. “We are even, then. I never believed in the alchemy of love until I met you.”
Alice’s smile was glorious. “Love, sir?”
“Aye.” Hugh grinned, happier than he had ever been in his life. “Love.”
On a warm day in late fall, Hugh took his infant son up onto the walls of Scarcliffe Keep and showed him the lands that would one day be his.
Hugh cradled the babe in one arm and gazed out at his prosperous fief with a sense of deep pleasure. The harvest had been good. The wool was of excellent quality this year. And there was always the income from his spice business.
“There is much for you to learn,” he said to the babe, “but your mother and I shall be here to teach you everything you need to know.”
Little Erasmus drooled happily and gripped his father’s large thumb.
“Do you see those lands over there to the east? They belong to Rivenhall. Sir Vincent’s son is learning to manage them. Young Reginald is your blood kin. Never forget that.”
“Your father is correct, Erasmus.” Alice emerged from the top of the watchtower steps. “Family is very important.”
Hugh frowned at her. “Are you certain that you should be out here?”
“I am quite fit, as you can see. Indeed, I have been nicely recovered from childbed for several weeks. You are overconcerned, my lord.”
She did appear healthy, even radiant, Hugh decided. The birth of his son had driven him close to madness, but Alice had gone through it with the aplomb of a skilled warrior going into a joust.
“Have you told Erasmus about the Stones of Scarcliffe?” Alice smiled down at her son.
“Not yet. There are more important matters he must learn first,” Hugh said.
The infant gazed up at him with boundless interest. Hugh was convinced that he could already detect a keen intelligence in his son’s eyes.
“Well, then,” Alice continued, “have you told him about the legend of Hugh the Relentless?”
Hugh groaned. “Nay. That is a very dull subject. I would sooner instruct him on the spice trade.”
Alice laughed. “Very well, sir, I shall make a bargain with you. You shall instruct him on matters of business. I shall teach him what he needs to know of family legen
Hugh looked into her loving eyes. He thought back to that dark night in her uncle’s hall when Alice had offered him the bargain that had bound them together for a lifetime.
“You know that there is no one with whom I would rather strike a bargain than you, my love,” he said.
About the Author
AMANDA QUICK, a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz, is a bestselling, award-winning author of contemporary and historical romances. There are over twenty-five million copies of her books in print, including Seduction, Surrender, Scandal, Rendezvous, Ravished, Reckless, Dangerous, Deception, Desire, Mistress, Mystique, Mischief, Affair, With This Ring, I Thee Wed, Wicked Widow, and Slightly Shady. She makes her home in the Northwest with her husband, Frank.
Visit her website at www.amandaquick.com.
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PROLOGUE
The intruder’s eyes blazed with a cold fire. He raised a powerful hand and swept another row of vases off the shelf. The fragile objects crashed to the floor and shattered into a hundred shards. He moved on to a display of small statues.
“I advise you to make haste with your packing, Mrs. Lake,” he said as he turned his violent attention to a host of fragile clay Pans, Aphrodites, and satyrs. “The carriage will leave in fifteen minutes, and I promise you that you and your niece will be aboard, with or without your luggage.”
Lavinia watched him from the foot of the stairs, helpless to stop the destruction of her wares. “You have no right to do this. You are ruining me.”
“On the contrary madam. I am saving your neck.” He used a booted foot to topple a large urn decorated in the Etruscan manner. “Not that I expect any thanks, mind you.”
Lavinia winced as the urn exploded on impact with the floor. She knew now that it was pointless to berate the lunatic. He was intent on destroying the shop and she lacked the means to stop him. She had been taught early in life to recognize the signs that indicated it was time to stage a tactical retreat. But she had never learned to tolerate such annoying reversals of fortune with equanimity
“If we were in England, I would have you arrested, Mr. March.”
“Ah, but we are not in England, are we, Mrs. Lake?” Tobias March seized a life-size stone centurion by the shield and shoved it forward. The Roman fell on his sword. “We are in Italy and you have no choice but to do as I command.”
It was useless to stand her ground. Every moment spent down here attempting to reason with Tobias March was time lost that should be spent packing. But the unfortunate tendency toward stubbornness that was so much a part of her nature could not abide the notion of surrendering the field of battle without a struggle.
“Bastard,” she said through her teeth.
“Not in the legal sense.” He slammed another row of red clay vases to the floor. “But I believe I comprehend what you wish to imply.”
“It is obvious that you are no gentleman, Tobias March.”
“I will not quarrel with you on that point.” He kicked over a waist-high statue of a naked Venus. “But then, you are no lady, are you?”
She cringed when the statue crumbled. The naked Venuses had proved quite popular with her clientele.
“How dare you? Just because my niece and I got stranded here in Rome and were obliged to go into trade for a few months in order to support ourselves is no reason to insult us.”
“Enough.” He whirled around to face her. In the lantern light, his forbidding face was colder than the features of any stone statue. “Be grateful that I have concluded that you were merely an unwitting dupe of the criminal I am pursuing and not a member of his gang of thieves and murderers.”
“I have only your word that the villains were using my shop as a place to exchange their messages. Frankly Mr. March, given your rude behavior, I am not inclined to believe a single thing you say.”
He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. “Do you deny that this note was hidden in one of your vases?”
She glanced at the damning note. Only moments ago she had watched in stunned amazement while he shattered a lovely Greek vase. A message that looked remarkably like a villain’s report to his criminal employer had been tucked inside. Something about a bargain with pirates having been successfully struck.
Lavinia raised her chin. “It is certainly not my fault that one of my patrons dropped a personal note into that vase.”
“Not just one patron, Mrs. Lake. The villains have been using your shop for some weeks now.”
“And just how would you know that, sir?”
“I have watched these premises and your personal movements for nearly a month.”
She widened her eyes, genuinely shocked by the infuriatingly casual admission.
“You have spent the past month spying on me?”
“At the start of my observations, I assumed that you were an active participant in Carlisle’s ring here in Rome. It was only after much study that I have concluded you probably did not know what some of your so-called customers were about.”
“That is outrageous.”
He gave her a look of mocking inquiry. “Are you saying you did know what they were up to when they came and went in such a regular fashion?”
“I am saying no such thing.” She could hear her voice climbing but there was little she could do about it. She had never been so angry or so frightened in her life. “I believed them to be honest patrons of antiquities.”
“Did you indeed?” Tobias glanced at a collection of cloudy green glass jars that stood in a neat row on a high shelf. His smile was devoid of all warmth. “And how honest are you, Mrs. Lake?”
She stiffened. “What are you implying, sir?”
“I’m not implying anything. I am merely noting that most of the items in this shop are cheap replicas of ancient artifacts. There is very little here that is truly antique.”
“How do you know?” she shot back. “Never say you are an expert in antiquities, sir. I will not be taken in by such an outlandish claim. You cannot pass yourself off as a scholarly researcher, not after what you have done to my establishment.”
“You are correct, Mrs. Lake. I am not an expert in Greek and Roman antiquities. I am a simple man of business.”
“Rubbish. Why would a simple man of business come all the way to Rome in pursuit of a villain named Carlisle?”
“I am here on behalf of one of my clients who employed me to make inquiries into the fate of a man named Bennett Ruckland.”
“What was the fate of this Mr. Ruckland?”
Tobias looked at her. “He was murdered here in Rome. My client believes it was because he learned too much concerning the secret organization that Carlisle controls.”
“A likely story.”
“Nevertheless, it is my story and mine is the only tale that matters tonight.” He hurled another pot to the floor. “You have only ten minutes left, Mrs. Lake.”
It was hopeless. Lavinia took two fistfuls of her skirts and started up the stairs. But she paused midway as a thought struck her.
“This business of making inquiries into murders on behalf of your clients—it seems a rather odd sort of profession,” she said.
He smashed a small Roman oil lamp. “No more odd than selling false antiquities.”
Lavinia was incensed. “I told you, they are not false, sir. They are reproductions designed to be purchased as souvenirs.”
“Call them what you wish. They look remarkably like fraudulent imitations to me.”
She smiled thinly. “But as you just said, sir, you are no expert in rare artifacts, are you? You are merely a simple man of business.”
“You have approximately eight minutes left, Mrs. Lake.”
She touched the silver pendant she wore at her throat the way she often did when her nerves were under a great strain. “I cannot dec
He looked briefly, chillingly, amused. “Does it make any great difference?”
“No.”
The situation was impossible. She had no choice but to concede the victory to him.
With a soft exclamation of frustration and anger, she whirled and rushed on up the stairs. When she reached the small, lantern-lit room, she saw that, unlike herself, Emeline had made good use of the time allotted to them. Two medium-size and one very large trunk stood open. The smaller trunks were already crammed to overflowing.
“Thank goodness you are here.” Emeline’s words were muffled, as her head was inside the wardrobe. “Whatever took you so long?”
“I was attempting to convince March that he had no right to toss us out into the street in the middle of the night.”
“He is not tossing us into the street.” Emeline straightened away from the wardrobe, a small antique vase cradled in her arms. “He has provided a carriage and two armed men to see us safely out of Rome and all the way home to England. It is really very generous of him.”
“Rubbish. There is nothing at all generous about his actions. He is playing some deep game, I tell you, and he wants us out of his way.”
Emeline busied herself rolling the vase into a bombazine gown. “He believes we are in grave danger from that villain Carlisle, who used our shop as a place to send and receive messages from his men.”
“Bah. We have only Mr. March’s word that there is any such villain operating here in Rome.” Lavinia opened a cupboard. A very handsome, extremely well endowed Apollo gazed out at her. “I, for one, am not inclined to put much faith in anything that man tells us. For all we know, he wants the use of these rooms for his own dark purposes.”
“I am convinced he has told us the truth.” Emeline stuffed the cushioned vase into the third trunk. “And if that is the case, he is right. We are indeed in danger.”