Treacherous Temptations(49)

“I suppose you are right, but you are much changed, Hadley.” Her lips pursed in a show of disappointment. “You have grown selfish. Once you might have shared your pleasure.”

“I only act with the discretion you seem to lack. You pay too little heed to servants. They are neither blind, deaf, nor dumb. Scandals are nurtured and spread below stairs. It would behoove you to remember that. Moreover, you would act with unseemly haste. I must make proper arrangements or all will surely go afoul.”

“But you must do it now!” Barbara insisted. “Before Sir Richard can contract an alliance with another. He plans to do so tomorrow night. He’s already prepared the contracts and only awaits the signature of the one he chooses.”

“Nevertheless, if a contract is signed tomorrow eve, they will do nothing more than congratulate themselves with much drink. If Sir Richard insists on a hasty union, you must stall them for a time. Claim her flux indisposes her. That excuse will put off the eager groom for half a fortnight for a certainty.”

“We don’t have half a fortnight!”

“No. We do not,” he agreed. “But I will need at least a day or two to take care of urgent business.” Like getting Mary the hell out of Barbara’s clutches. The sheer depths of her depravity had taken him by surprise, even after all this time.

“What can be more pressing than this?”

“How about leaving the country with a whole skin?” he suggested with a steely stare.

“What do you mean?” she asked, penciled brows raised.

“You know what kind of activities I have been involved in. Do you not understand the risk I take by crossing Sir Richard?”

“But once out of the country—”

“Getting out undetected is precisely the issue, Barbara. Do you honestly think I am the only man involved in the games? Sir Richard has eyes and ears in diverse places. I must take extreme care or he will surely have me imprisoned…or worse. As I said, I need a bit of time. But I will go to the girl this night and see the deed done.” He extended his hand, palm up. “The key, if you will?”

Barbara dangled it from her fingers. “You will report to me when it is finished?”

He snatched it from her with a scowl. “I see no need to share the details, but I will inform you when my plans are solidified.”

He could feel Barbara’s suspicions and jealousy. It filled him with an urgency to get Mary away to someplace safe, someplace they could begin a life together, and where he could forget his guilt, bury his shame-filled past, and start anew.

…

Barbara poured herself a drink and downed it on a swallow, incredulous that she’d lost him. She who had always had her pick of men, who had teased and tormented and left scores of them begging to grace her bed, had lost Hadley! Of all the men she had known, Hadley had been the best. He knew how to read a woman’s most intimate thoughts, how to evoke her most salacious desires, how to make her scream with rapture. He had been the perfect lover because she had taught him everything he knew. The knowledge that she had lost him to that coarse little slut, made every pore seethe with jealous rage.

Even worse was his deception. As soon as she’d laid eyes on Mary, she’d known something was amiss. The little baggage thought herself so clever, but Barbara could smell the deception in the air. It was, after all, a most familiar perfume. Either she or Hadley was lying, or perhaps both. If he hadn’t f*cked her already, he certainly would tonight. And then he would spirit her away at the earliest opportunity.

Though he tried to conceal it, he had betrayed himself with his protective display where Mary was concerned, as if he sought to position himself between them. It was also clear he had no intention of sharing. He intended to keep both the girl and her money for himself…a betrayal she would not tolerate. After all she had done for him? She would make that lying, manipulating whoreson pay dearly for his treachery and greed. She would make them both pay!

How delightful.

How titillating.

Consumed with delicious visions of vengeance, Barbara penned her first missive to a private address in Bloomsbury, and then a second note to Sir Richard. Then, not wishing to waste even a moment waiting for her coach to be put to, Barbara called for her sedan chair, directing it to the Houses of Parliament where she dispatched her running footman with her urgent message.

Sir Richard came to her chair with a scowl. “What the devil is so pressing that you would call me away from my duties, Barbara?”

“There’s something afoot, Sir Richard. Both Mary and Hadley are playing exceedingly coy. I can only surmise that they are planning an elopement.”

“The hell you say!”

“Hadley is in need of an heiress and intends to steal her right out from under your nose. He will secrete her out of the country, just mark my word!”

“But you called him here for precisely that purpose, didn’t you, Barbara? To claim her fortune? But now he would abscond and cut you out, eh? Is that it?”

She pouted. “But how can you even think such a thing? I have always been devoutly loyal to you. I even keep the girl under lock and key, but I doubt that will suffice should Hadley decide to whisk her off.”

“He won’t succeed,” Sir Richard replied. “I advised him to return to Rome. I even warned him what would transpire if he defied me. Now he will suffer the consequences.”