Her face flushed as she stared at the bed. “I-I can’t believe I did this…”
“Hush.” He stroked her cheek.
She pulled away. “What am I doing? What on earth have I done?”
Needing to reassure her, he said the first thing that came to his mind. “Nothing anyone need know about. I’m as much at fault as you. You’re intoxicating, my lady. The moment I saw you I wanted you, and had you been different, I’d have made you an offer then and there. A disreputable one, I’m afraid.”
“Oh!” She clapped her hand to her mouth. “I don’t know whether to laugh or be offended.”
Backing off hastily, she tugged at the folds of her fichu and covered the upper slopes of her bosom.
“Be complimented, at least in the confines of this room.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he strode toward the door and back again. “We must keep our voices low. This is not a house of friends.”
Stilling, her hand to her bosom, Claudia stared at him, eyes wide. “What do you mean?” Groping in her pocket, she found a couple of folded papers. She stepped forward, her shoes on the boards the only sound in the room. Raucous carousing came from below but here all was quiet.
Dominic scanned them the papers she gave him. She owned this place. This house had belonged to a relative, recently deceased, and now it had come to her. Bequeathed rather than inherited. Interesting.
His lips compressed tightly together, he lifted his head and silently handed back the papers. “You have the originals safe?”
She nodded. “I wanted to see the place for myself before my brothers sold it. It’s mine, in trust. Nobody can touch it.”
“If they sell it, that will cast aspersions on you. Your family is famous for its loyalty to the Crown. You have fought against the Jacobites, one family in particular, have you not?”
A frown creased her brow. “The Dankworths, yes. The feud started with a stupid boundary dispute centuries ago. At least, that’s what I was always told. Then, after the death of the last Stuart monarch, something mysterious happened.”
He lifted a brow.
“I don’t know what it was!” she said, with more than a touch of exasperation. “I’m a woman. They don’t tell me delicate matters, and this one seems to have been hushed up. The Dankworths went abroad in support of the Stuarts, and my family took the opposing camp. Ever since, society assumes our main disputes are political.” She shook her head. “Sometimes it seems to get very personal.”
She glanced up, into his eyes. The jolt of blue fascinated him. Nothing could prepare him for that candid regard.
“I see.” He spread his hands. “Did you notice anyone downstairs? In particular, I mean?”
She bit her lower lip and frowned. “A fat man with two women dancing attendance on him kept staring at me.”
“God in heaven, give me strength! Don’t you know who that was?” After what she’d told him, surely she knew?
She shook her head.
“Your brothers are right. They should not have allowed you out of the house without an escort. That, my dear, is your family’s avowed enemy. Charles Edward Stuart, otherwise known as the Young Pretender. He prefers people to address him as ‘Your Highness.’”
* * * *
Claudia heard his words in a state of dull acceptance. Of course it was. What else could go wrong with her inheritance? Perhaps she’d discover that they sold smuggled goods here, too. Or counterfeit coins, or something else equally disreputable. “Why would I know him? The pictures of him show a slim, handsome man, beautifully dressed.”
“After the ’forty-five he turned to drink,” Lord St. Just said. “And women. He has a regular mistress, and he beats her. He has not yet married. Some of us believe it’s because he has not given up hope of the throne. In that case, he will marry a princess. Perhaps one of the King’s daughters or grandchildren to unite the two branches of the houses.”
“Who are you discussing when you say, ‘us’?” She picked that out of his words as worth further information. Clubs and secret societies abounded, and he might be with one of those. “What are you doing here in any case? Did you follow me?”
He spoke so quietly she could hardly hear him. Was it to make her move closer? Stubbornly, she planted her feet to the floor.
“To answer both of your questions, when I was in the army, I rendered some few services to the intelligence unit. Therefore I have some experience in the field, and my superior officer requested that I visit someone in Horse Guards.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I am working for the British government. I am only to follow Stuart. That’s why I’m here tonight. I was watching. I only came in when I saw you. I wanted to know where he was so I could take him quietly. Some factions would prefer that he be arrested and brought to trial for treason. Others wish him to leave, so they can forget him.”
“Yet others want him to be king,” she said quietly. That was the part she was familiar with. “What does this house have to do with it, apart from having him in it?”
Instead of answering her directly, he said, “Pick up your wine and hold it to the candle.”
Suspicious of his meaning, she nevertheless did as he asked and held up the glass. It was engraved, as many were, but she hadn’t explored it properly. Now she did.
The design was of a thistle and a rose twined together, with a crown over the whole, blatantly a Jacobite drinking glass. Some of his supporters had a bowl of water to hand. They’d pass the glass over it before drinking to symbolize the king over the water.
If this house had these glasses, had they bought them to please their new customer, or was it a known house? “This is a traitor house?” Distastefully, she put the glass down as if it held poison. “The wine is sour. That seems appropriate.”
“Yes, it’s a traitor house. They call themselves loyalists, so take care what you say here.” He stepped closer.
Claudia clutched the folds of her skirt, ready for another onslaught. She could not resist him. He could do whatever he wanted to her. For the first time she wanted someone safe with her, instead of chafing at the bit to get away.
This powerful man presented a potential danger to her. She’d never resist him if he pressed her to give him more than a kiss.
When he laid a finger over his lips, she nodded and swallowed. Now she stood away from him, she could see him properly.
This man appeared more like the man in the park than the one at the draper’s. He wore his own dark hair tightly tied back. His hat, which had tumbled off his head in their previous bout of passion, was undecorated. He wore no rings, had no embellishments at all on his person. His clothes were sober and respectable but not made of expensive material. Fancy lace didn’t decorate the sleeves, only a small ruffle of linen.
He’d been a soldier, and not in an ornamental regiment, and now he looked every inch the man of action. This man understood danger, had probably seen death, and she was more than half afraid of him.
“Don’t raise your voice,” he murmured, his tone far too intimate. “In this house, no room is safe, not even the ones with closed doors.”
Taking her hand, he led her to the other side of the small space, to a spot by the begrimed window. “Please, don’t fear me, ever. I will never offer you violence. I swear it.”
She believed him. “I was startled because you look so different.”
He gave that lazy half smile that remained a constant, however he looked. “I’m the same person.”
“Is this who you are? Not the man of fashion?”
“I am both,”