Virtue

1

What the devil was she doing? Marcus Devlin, the most honorable Marquis of Carrington, absently exchanged his empty champagne glass for a full one as a flunkey passed him. He pushed his shoulders off the wall, straightening to his full height, the better to see across the crowded room to the macao table. She was up to something. Every prickling hair on the nape of his neck told him so.

She was standing behind Charlie's chair, her fan moving in slow sweeps across the lower part of her face. She leaned forward to whisper something in Charlie's ear, and the rich swell of her breasts, the deep shadow of the cleft between them, was uninhibitedly revealed in the decolletage of her evening gown. Charlie looked up at her and smiled, the soft, infatuated smile of puppy love.

It wasn't surprising his young cousin had fallen head over heels for Miss Judith Davenport, the marquis reflected. There was hardly a man in Brussels who wasn't stirred by her: a creature of opposites, vibrant, ebullient, sharply intelligent-a woman who in some indefinable fashion challenged a man, put him on his mettle one minute, and yet the next was as appealing as a kitten; a man wanted to pick her up and cuddle her, protect her from the storm…

Romantic nonsense! The marquis castigated himself severely for sounding like his cousin and half the young soldiers proudly sporting their regimentals in the salons of Brussels as the world waited for Napoleon to make his move. He'd been watching Judith Davenport weaving her spells for several weeks now, convinced she was an artful minx with a very clear agenda of her own. But for the life of him, he couldn't discover what it was.

His eyes rested on the young man sitting opposite Charlie. Sebastian Davenport held the bank. As beautiful as his sister in his own way, he sprawled in his chair, both clothing and posture radiating a studied carelessness. He was laughing across the table, lightly ruffling the cards in his hands. The mood at the table was lighthearted. It was a mood that always accompanied the Davenports. Presumably one reason why they were so popular… and then the marquis saw it.

It was the movement of her fan. There was a pattern to the slow sweeping motion. Sometimes the movement speeded, sometimes it paused, once or twice she snapped the fan closed, then almost immediately began a more vigorous wafting of the delicately painted half moon. There was renewed laughter at the table, and with a lazy sweep of his rake, Sebastian Davenport scooped toward him the pile of vowels and rouleaux in the center of the table.

The marquis walked across the room. As he reached the table, Charlie looked up with a rueful grin. "It's not my night, Marcus."

"It rarely is," Carrington said, taking snuff. "Be careful you don't find yourself in debt." Charlie heard the warning in the advice, for all that his cousin's voice was affably casual. A slight flush tinged the young man's cheekbones and he dropped his eyes to his cards again. Marcus was his guardian and tended to be unsympathetic when Charlie's gaming debts outran his quarterly allowance.

"Do you care to play, Lord Carrington?" Judith Davenport's soft voice spoke at the marquis's shoulder and he turned to look at her. She was smiling, her golden brown eyes luminous, framed in the thickest, curliest eyelashes he had ever seen. However, ten years spent avoiding the frequently blatant blandishments of maidens on the lookout for a rich husband had inured him to the cajolery of a pair of fine eyes.

"No. I suspect it wouldn't be my night either, Miss Davenport. May I escort you to the supper room? It must grow tedious, watching my cousin losing hand over fist." He offered a small bow and took her elbow without waiting for a response.

Judith stiffened, feeling the pressure of his hand cupping her bare arm. There was a hardness in his eyes that matched the firmness of his grip, and her scalp contracted as unease shivered across her skin. "On the contrary, my lord, I find the play most entertaining." She gave her arm a covert, experimental tug. His fingers gripped warmly and yet more firmly.

"But I insist, Miss Davenport. You will enjoy a glass of negus."

He had very black eyes and they carried a most unpleasant glitter, as insistent as his tone and words, both of which were drawing a degree of puzzled attention. Judith could see no discreet, graceful escape route. She laughed lightly. "You have convinced me, sir. But I prefer burnt champagne to negus."

"Easily arranged." He drew her arm through his and laid his free hand over hers, resting on his black silk sleeve. Judith felt manacled.

They walked through the card room in a silence that was as uncomfortable as it was pregnant. Had he guessed what was going on? Had he seen anything? How could she have given herself away? Or was it something Sebastian had done, said, looked…? The questions and speculations raced through Judith's brain. She was barely acquainted with Marcus Devlin. He was too sophisticated, too hardheaded to be of use to herself and Sebastian, but she had the distinct sense that he would be an opponent to be reckoned with.

The supper room lay beyond the ballroom, but instead of guiding his companion around the waltzing couples and the ranks of seated chaperones against the wall, Marcus turned aside toward the long French windows opening onto a flagged terrace. A breeze stirred the heavy velvet curtains over an open door.

"I was under the impression we were going to have supper." Judith stopped abruptly.

"No, we're going to take a stroll in the night air," her escort informed her with a bland smile. "Do put one foot in front of the other, my dear ma'am, otherwise our progress might become a little uneven." An unmistakable jerk on her arm drew her forward with a stumble, and Judith rapidly adjusted her gait to match the leisured, purposeful stroll of her companion.

"I don't care for the night air," she hissed through her teeth, keeping a smile on her face. "It's very bad for the constitution and frequently results in the ague or rheumatism."

"Only for those in their dotage," he said, lifting thick black eyebrows. "I would have said you were not a day above twenty-two. Unless you're very skilled with powder and paint?"

He'd pinpointed her age exactly and the sense of being dismayingly out of her depth was intensified. "I'm not quite such an accomplished actress, my lord," she said coldly.

"Are you not?" He held the curtain aside for her and she found herself out on the terrace, lit by flambeaux set in sconces at intervals along the low parapet fronting the sweep of green lawn. "I would have sworn you were as accomplished as any on Drury Lane." The statement was accompanied by a penetrating stare.

Judith rallied her forces and responded to the comment as if it were a humorous compliment. "You're too kind, sir. I confess I've long envied the talent of Mrs. Siddons."

"Oh, you underestimate yourself," he said softly. They had reached the parapet and he stopped under the light of a torch. "You are playing some very pretty theatricals, Miss Davenport, you and your brother."

Judith drew herself up to her full height. It wasn't a particularly impressive move when compared with her escort's breadth and stature, but it gave her an illusion of hauteur. "I don't know what you're talking about, my lord. It seems you've obliged me to accompany you in order to insult me with vague innuendos."

"No, there's nothing vague about my accusations," he said. "However insulting they may be. I am assuming my cousin's card play will improve in your absence."

"What are you implying?" The color ebbed in her cheeks, then flooded back in a hot and revealing wave.

Hastily she employed her fan in an effort to conceal her agitation.

The marquis caught her wrist and deftly twisted the fan from her hand. "You're most expert with a fan, madam."

"I beg your pardon?" She tried again for a lofty incomprehension, but with increasing lack of conviction.

"Don't continue this charade, Miss Davenport. It benefits neither of us. You and your brother may fleece as many fools as you can find as far as I'm concerned, but you'll leave my cousin alone."

"You talk in riddles," she said. There was no way he could prove anything; no public accusations he could bring, she told herself. But when they went to London… supposing he put the word around…?

She needed time to think. With a dismissive shrug, she turned from him, as if intending to return to the ballroom.

"Then allow me to solve the riddle for you." He caught her arm. "We'll walk a little away from the light. You will not wish others to hear what I have to say."

"There is nothing you could say that could be of the remotest interest to me, Lord Carrington. Now, if you'll excuse me…"

His derisory laugh crackled in the soft June air. "Don't cross swords with me, Judith Davenport. I'm more than a match for a card-sharping hussy. You may live upon your wits, ma'am, but I can assure you I've been using mine rather longer than you've been using yours."

Judith abruptly dropped a clearly useless pretense. It would only increase his antagonism and thus the danger. She said evenly, "You can prove nothing."

"I'm not interested in proving anything," he replied. "I've said, you may make gulls of as many of these

empty-headed idiots as you wish. But you'll leave my family alone." He took her elbow and began to walk down the shallow flight of steps onto the lawn. Twin oak trees threw giant moonshadow at the edge of the grass. In the dim obscurity, the marquis stopped. "So, Miss Davenport, I want your word that you will put an end to Charlie's infatuation."

Judith shrugged. "It's hardly my fault if he fancies himself in love with me."

"Oh, but it most certainly is your fault. Do you think I haven't watched you?" He leaned against the trunk of the oak, folding his arms, his eyes on the pale glimmer of her face, the golden glow of her eyes. "You are a masterly coquette, madam. And I would have you turn your liquid eyes and undeniable arts upon some other young fool."

"Whom your cousin chooses to love is surely his business," she said. "I fail to see how it could have anything to do with you, my lord."

"It has everything to do with me when my ward's embroiled with a fortune-hunting, unprincipled baggage with no-"

Her palm cracked against his cheek, bringing a sudden dreadful silence in which the strains of music drifted incongruously from the house.

Judith spun away from him with a little sob, pressing her hands to her lips, as if struggling with her tears in an excess of wounded pride and sensibility. Marcus Devlin had to be disarmed, somehow, and if honesty wouldn't do it, then she'd have to take another tack. She couldn't run the risk that he would spread his accusations around the London clubs when the Davenports made their entry into London Society. On the spur of the moment, she could think only to offer him the picture of deeply affronted innocence and hope to create if not compassion then some willingness to make amends with his future silence.

"You know nothing of me," she said in stifled tones. "You can know nothing of what we endure… of how we are in this situation… I have never knowingly injured anyone, let alone your cousin…" Her voice died on a gulping sob.

She was certainly a consummate actress, Marcus reflected, for some reason not deceived for one minute by this masterly display. He stroked his stinging cheek, feeling the raised imprint of her fingers. There had been more conviction there, but such a violent exhibition of outraged virtue seemed hardly consonant with the disreputable woman he believed her to be. Ignoring the bravely stifled sobs, he observed dispassionately, "You've a deal of power in your arm for one so slight."

That was not the response she'd hoped for. Raising her head, she spoke with a brave, aloof dignity. "You owe me an apology, Lord Carrington."

"I rather think the boot is on the other foot." He continued to rub his cheek, regarding her with a penetrating scrutiny that did nothing to reassure her.

It seemed most sensible to escape the close confines of the shadows and an increasingly unstable confrontation that was not following her direction. Judith shrugged faindy. "You are no gentleman, my lord." She turned to go back to the house.

"Oh, no, you're not running off like that," the marquis said. "Not just yet. We haven't concluded our discussion, Miss Davenport." He caught her arm and for a second they stood immobile, Judith still turned toward the house, her captor still leaning against the tree. "That was a singularly violent assault, madam, in response to..."

"To an unmitigated insult, sir!" she interrupted, hoping she didn't sound as back-to-the-wall as she was beginning to feel.

"But one not without justification," he pointed out. "You have admitted by default that you and your brother are… how shall we say… are expert gamesters, with somewhat unorthodox methods of play."

"I would like to return to the house." Even to Judith's ear, it was a pathetic plea rather than a determined statement of intent.

"In a minute. For such an accomplished flirt, you're playing the maiden of outraged virtue most convincingly, but I've a mind to taste a little more of you than the sting of your palm." He pulled her toward him like a fisherman drawing in his line and she came as reluctantly as any hooked fish. "It seems only right that you should soothe the hurt you caused." Cupping her chin with his free hand, he tilted her face. The black eyes were no longer hard and Judith could read a spark of laughter in their depths… laughter, and a most dangerous glimmer that set her nerve endings tingling. Desperately she sought for something that would douse both his laughter and that hazardous glimmer.

"You would have me kiss it better, sir, like a child's scraped knee?" She offered an indulgent smile and saw with satisfaction that she had surprised him, and surprise afforded advantage. Swiftly she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "There, that'll make it better." After twisting out of his abruptly slackened hold, she danced backward out of the shadows into the relative light of the garden. "I bid you good night, Lord Carrington." And she was gone, flitting under the moonlight, her body lissome as a hazel wand under the fluid silk of her topaz gown.

Marcus stared after her through the gloom. How the hell had such a disreputable baggage managed to win that encounter? He ought to be more than a match for a slip of a girl. He was annoyed; he was amused; but more than anything he was challenged by her. If she wouldn't be warned away from Charlie, then he'd have to find some more potent inducement.

Judith returned to the card room, but only to make her farewells, pleading a headache. Charlie was all solicitude, begging to escort her home, but Sebastian was on his feet immediately.

"No need for that, Fenwick. I'll take m'sister home." He yawned himself. "In truth, I'll not be sorry to keep early hours myself tonight. It's been a hard week." He grinned engagingly around the table.

"A demmed lucky one for you, Davenport," one of the players said with a sigh, pushing across an IOU.

"Oh, I've the luck of the devil," Sebastian said cheerfully, pocketing the vowel. "It runs in the family, doesn't it, Judith?"

Her smile was somewhat abstracted. "So they say."

Sebastian's eyes sharpened and his gaze flickered to the door of the card room, to where the Marquis of Carrington stood, taking snuff. "You look a little wan, m'dear," Sebastian said, taking his sister's arm.

"I don't feel quite the thing," she agreed. "Oh, thank you, Charlie." She smiled warmly as the young man arranged her shawl around her shoulders.

"Perhaps you won't feel like riding tomorrow," Charlie said, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. "Shall I call upon you-"

"No, indeed not. My aunt detests callers," she broke in, touching his hand fleetingly as if in consolation. "But I shall be perfectly well tomorrow. I'll meet you in the park, as we arranged."

Brother and sister made their way out of the card room. Marcus bowed as they reached the door. "I bid you good night, Miss Davenport… Davenport."

"Good night, my lord." She swept past him, then, on an impulse she didn't quite understand, murmured over her shoulder, "I am riding with your cousin in the morning."

"Oh, I fully understand that you've thrown down the glove," he said, as softly as she. "But you have not yet tasted my mettle, ma'am. Take heed." He bowed again in formal farewell and turned away before she could reply.

Judith bit her lip, aware of a strange mingling of apprehension and excitement unlike anything she'd felt before, and she knew it was as dangerous as it was uncomfortable.

"What's amiss, Ju?" Sebastian spoke as soon as they were out of the mansion and on the cobbled street.

"I'll tell you when we get home." She climbed into the shabby carriage that awaited them on the corner, sitting back against the cracked leather squabs, a frown drawing her arched brows together, her teeth dosing over her lower lip.

Sebastian knew that expression. It usually meant that his sister's eccentric principles were aroused. She wouldn't say anything until she was ready, so he was content to sit back and wait for her to tell him what was absorbing her.

The carriage drew up outside a narrow house on a darkened lane in a part of town that had definitely seen better days. Brother and sister alighted and Sebastian paid the driver for the evening's work. Judith was already unlocking the front door, and they stepped into a narrow passage, lit by a single tallow candle in a sconce on the stairway wall.

"One of these days someone's going to notice how we never give anyone our direction," Sebastian observed, following his sister up the stairs. "The tale of the irritable aunt won't hold good forever."

"We won't be in Brussels for much longer," Judith said. "Napoleon's bound to make his move soon and then the army will be gone. There'll be no point in our remaining in an empty city." She pushed open a door at the head of the stairs onto a square parlor.

The room was dark and dingy, the furniture shabby, the carpet direadbare, and the gloomy light of tallow candles did nothing to improve matters. She tossed her India shawl on a broken-backed couch and sank into a chair, a deep frown corrugating her brow.

"How much did we make tonight?"

"Two thousand," he said. "It would have been more, but after you'd gone off with Carrington, I lost the next hand by miscounting an ace." He shook his head in self-disgust. "It's always the way; I grow careless if I rely on you for too many hands."

"Mmm." Judith kicked off her shoes and began to massage one foot. "But we need to practice now and again to keep our hands in. In fact, I think we must spend some serious time perfecting the moves because I must have made a mistake, although I can't think how. But the Most Honorable Marquis of Carrington is wise to us."

Sebastian whistled. "Hell and the devil. So now what?"

"I don't know exactly." Judith was still frowning as she switched feet, pulling on her toes with an absent vigor. "He said he'd not call foul on us, but he issued a most direct command that I cure Charlie of his infatuation."

"Well, that's easily done. You've never had any difficulty disentangling yourself from an overzealous suitor."

"No, but why should I? I have no intention of hurting Charlie. In fact, a little sophisticated dalliance will do wonders for him, and if he loses a few thousand at cards, it's not as if he can't afford it. Apart from those few minutes tonight, the only unfair odds he's faced are in your native talent. He plays because he chooses to, and I fail to see why Carrington should be allowed to meddle."

Sebastian regarded his sister warily. It was definitely a case of offended principles. "He is his guardian," he pointed out. "And we're a disreputable pair, Ju. You shouldn't take it too much to heart if someone realizes that and behaves accordingly."

"Oh, nonsense!" she said. "We're no more disreputable than anyone else. It's just that we're not hypocrites. We have to put a roof over our heads and bread on the table, and we do it in the only way we know."

Sebastian went to the sideboard and poured cognac into two goblets. "You could always go for a governess." He handed her one of the goblets, chuckling at her horrified expression. "I can just see you imparting the finer points of watercolors and the rudiments of Italian to frilly little girls in a schoolroom."

Judith began to laugh. "Not at all. I would teach them to play piquet and backgammon for large stakes; to flutter their eyelashes and offer amusing little sallies to gentlemen who might be induced to play; to know when it's time to move on; to find the cheapest lodgings and servants; to slip away in the night to avoid the bailiff, to create a wardrobe out of thin air. In short, I would teach them all the elements for a successful masquerade. Just as I was taught."

The laughter had left her voice half way through the speech and Sebastian took her hand. "We'll be avenged, Ju."

"For Father," she said, lifting her head and taking a sip of her cognac. "Yes, we'll be avenged for him."

Silently Sebastian joined her in the toast, and for a moment they both stared into the empty grate, remembering. Remembering and reaffirming their vow. Then Judith put the glass on a side table and stood. "I'm going to bed." She kissed his cheek and the gesture reminded her of something that brought a glitter of determination to her eyes. "I'm in the mood to play with fire, Sebastian."

"Carrington?"

She nodded. "The gentleman needs to be disarmed. He said he wouldn't cry foul on us, but supposing he decided to alert people in London to beware of playing with you? If I can intrigue him… engage him in a flirtation… he'll be less likely to concern himself with what you do at the tables."

Sebastian regarded his sister dubiously. "Are you a match for him?"

Was she? For a minute she felt again the press of his fingers on her skin, saw again the sharp shrewdness in the black eyes, the unconciliatory slash of his mouth, the prominent jaw. But of course she was a match for any town beau. She knew things, had seen and done things, that had honed her wits to a keenness he would not be expecting.

"Of course," she declared confidently. "And there'll be great satisfaction, I can tell you, in seeing him succumb as easily as his cousin did. It'll teach him to be so high-handed."

Sebastian looked even more dubious. "I don't like it when you mix motives like that. We're so close to catching up with Gracemere, Judith. Don't risk anything."

"I won't, I promise. I'm just going to show the most honorable marquis that I don't take kindly to insults."

"But if you arouse his curiosity, he's going to want to know who we are and where we come from."

She shrugged. "So what? The usual fiction will satisfy him. We're the children of an eccentric English gentleman of respectable though obscure lineage, recently deceased, who, after the death of his wife at a tragically early age, chose to travel the Continent for the rest of his life with us in tow."

"Instead of the truth," Sebastian said. "That we're the children of a disgraced Yorkshire squire, disinherited by his family, driven out of England by scandal and his wife's subsequent suicide, forced to change his name and earn his bread at the gaming tables of the Continent." The story rolled glibly off his tongue, but Judith knew her brother and could hear his pain; it was her own, too.

"And he taught his children all he knew, so that from a horribly precocious age they were his enablers and assistants," she finished for him.

Sebastian shook his head. "Too harsh a truth for the delicate sensibilities of the Quality to handle, my dear."

"Just so." Judith nodded with a return to briskness. "Don't worry, Sebastian. Carrington won't get so much as a sniff at the real story. I'll invent some playful reason for that piece of dubious card play this evening. Mischief rather than need, I think. And if he doesn't catch us at it again and I manage to charm him a bit, I'm sure he won't mention it again."

"I've not yet met the man you can't entangle when you put your mind to it," Sebastian agreed, chuckling. "Just watching you at work is an everlasting delight."

"Wait until I turn my charms on Gracemere," his sister said, blowing him a kiss. "That'll be a treat, I promise you."

She went into her bedroom next door-a room as dingy as the parlor and none too clean. The landlord's serving maid was less than thorough at her tasks, but the Davenports had been living in such lodgings for as long as they could remember and were accustomed to seeing only what they chose to see.

Undressed, she climbed into bed and lay looking up at the faded canopy. Gracemere was in London. They would need maybe twenty thousand pounds in ready money to set themselves up in London in a reasonably fashionable part of town. There would be servants to pay, some form of carriage and horses, even if they were only hired. They would both need large and elaborate wardrobes and at least an illusion of a generous income. The gaming would take care of their everyday expenses once they were established, but they would have to tread a fine line. High-stakes gaming was an accepted activity in Society, for women as well as men, but one must never give the impression that it mattered whether one won or lost.

They would operate their double act only in the final stages of the plan, when it was time to administer the coup de grace. It was too dangerous and powerful a tool to be used except in extremity.

George Davenport had never known of the double act. He had taught his children to rely on wits and skill at the tables, but there had been times of dire necessity… those days, sometimes weeks, when he had retreated into the dark world of his soul and there had been no money for food or fuel or even lodging. Then Judith and her brother had learned to fend for themselves.

Tonight they had been practicing, as they did now and again, but somehow she had slipped up and been discovered.

Marcus Devlin, Marquis of Carrington.

Bernard Melville, third Earl of Gracemere.

Her strategem with the one must advance her plans for the other. Sebastian was right about the dangers of mixed motives. She must concentrate only on the need to disarm the marquis in order to guarantee his silence. And any personal satisfaction she might garner from his submission would be a purely private and secondary pleasure. Nothing must be permitted to jeopardize the grand design… the driving force behind the life she and Sebastian presently led.