Master of Love (27 page)

“Thank goodness you're here!” she exclaimed, stepping back down and taking hold of his arm. “I must speak with you, please.” She'd become near frantic with worry.

He gave her an inscrutable look and inclined his head. “As you wish.” He offered his arm to lead her into the St. James's Square central garden, deserted as late spring's dusk gathered purple shadows under the limes and laburnums of the park. She waited as he used his key on the wrought iron gate and they began a circuit along the gravel paths around the greensward. Then she screwed up her courage.

“I am going to ask you something and on the strength of
whatever
”—she circled her free hand helplessly in the air—“there is between us, I beg you to answer me with the truth. Can you do that?”

“The truth, Callista, is a slippery beast,” he said darkly. “Are you sure you want to wrestle it down?”

She sighed heavily. A potential murder plot was not her only problem. She knew he was pushing for some resolution of the fire that snapped between them whenever they were together. But she had to keep him alive first, if they were ever to have a chance of sorting
that
out.

She dove in. “Are you the author of the anonymous essays that have appeared over the last few issues of
Philosophers' Quarterly
?”

A long moment of silence passed; the ducks in the central basin quacked as they squabbled over their dinner of pond weeds. “If I give you the truth, will you finally trust me?”

Her gut wrenched. “I do trust you, Dominick.”

“No, you don't.” He flattened his lips into a tight line, although not even his displeasure could hide their dimpled curves. “You dismiss me as a shallow fool.”

“I don't—truly I don't! I never would have”—she swallowed hard, remembering—“done all I did with you, if I thought such.”

He stopped on the path and turned her to face him, hands tight around her upper arms. “If I entrust you with my story, will you give me a chance to win your heart?”

To win her heart, so he could trample it? To live in dread of the day he'd take his next mistress? To save his life, if it were indeed in jeopardy, she had to agree. But if he confirmed her suspicions, she'd have to betray his confidence to keep him safe. She screwed her eyes shut at the conundrum before opening them on a long shuddering breath. “Yes. Tell me the whole truth. If you want me after that, I won't shut you out.”

He laughed harshly. “
If?
God, Callista,
all I do,
night and day, is
want
you.” He grabbed her by the arms and squeezed hard. “I want you, body and soul—do you understand?” His eyes flared hot. “Be warned, I'll hold you to that promise.”

“I hope you will, Dominick,” she whispered, moved to near tears. “But first, please, tell me.”

“The truth”—he dropped his hands and turned away—“is I'm not sure what's true anymore, except I'm a fraud and have been all my life.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, truly bewildered. “How can that be?”

He hissed out a breath and then, as if some damn burst, said all in a rush, “I'm no smooth society lover; it's all a mask. That's not me at all. I'd spend all my days in the library, if I could. I want to read and write as a philosopher and a scholar.”

She let his words echo in the quiet of the gathering dusk and then asked gently, “So the essays are yours? You are Amator Philosophiae, the Lover of Philosophy?”

“Yes,” he answered heavily. He began to walk again, heading toward the central statue of William III, looking grander atop his horse than he ever had in real life. She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and stayed close to his side.

“I use that pseudonym for all my essays,” he said. “There's no way to connect me to them. I even write anonymously to the journal editor when arranging their publication.”

“None but Mr. Thompson, and now I, know this?”

“As far as I know—why do you ask?”

She avoided that question for now. “Do you intend never to go public?”

He shook his head. “Not at this point. I doubt anyone would believe me. I don't want my connection made known; it would only seem ridiculous.”

“But why do you say that?” she asked. “Your father was a philosopher; why couldn't you carry on the family tradition?”

He smiled down ruefully at her. “It can't be done, apparently, if one looks as I do.”

She looked up at him, her brow still furrowed, and waited for him to explain. He sighed and led them over to the small open building that held the garden seat. Its heavy pediment and ionic columns sheltered an empty stone bench, cast in deep shadow. He pulled her down onto it and sat, playing with her gloved fingers as he looked out across the darkening park.

“Mother always said I looked perfect even as a baby, not red and wrinkly like other newborns, but plump and smooth. Apparently, I had ‘satiny pinkish skin and the most adorable cap of silky blond curls.' ” He twirled a finger mockingly in the hair escaping from his hat. “By the age of five, this adorableness already struck me as an impediment: ladies pinched my cheek, boys teased, Father curled his lip. So when I was twelve, I announced my desire to be a philosopher, like my father.”

“What did he say?”

Dominick lowered his voice deeper into imperious sarcasm: “ ‘Sow your wild oats, boy, then get ready to manage the estates. You'll never be a philosopher.' ” He blew out a humorless laugh. “For years, he did his best to discourage my every attempt and made sure my tutors at home and at college did the same. Eventually, I learned to hide my love of books as deep as I could.”

She squeezed his hand, aching for the boy he had been. “I'm sorry, Dominick.”

He shrugged. “There seemed only one path open, so instead of philosophy I ended up studying the one role everyone expected of me.”

“What happened?”

He dropped her fingers. “I became what I am. Not a Master of Love”—he scoffed at that label—“for what do I know of love? But a master, I suppose, of this ridiculous façade of flirtation and seduction. By the time Father died and I came into the title, people had long grown accustomed to calling me Lord Adonis. My mother took on a string of lovers and, frankly, encouraged me to do the same. Everyone always seemed to think because she and I favor each other in looks, we're alike in temperament and interests as well. That's when that Master of Love idiocy started up—God, I still want to cringe every time I hear it.”

“So you play a role, pretending to be someone you aren't, in order to protect yourself and carve out a space in which you can write?”

“More or less.” He shifted away from her on the bench. “Pitiful, isn't it?”

The lifetime of pain in his flat tone wrung her heart, but there was another question she forced herself to ask. “What about all your lovers over the years? Marie tells me your name has been linked with dozens of ladies.”

“It's all rumor and innuendo, no more.” He lifted one broad shoulder carelessly. “I charm, I flirt, I never take it beyond that.”

“Never?” she had to ask.

He moved back toward her and looked into her eyes. “I had a mistress for many years. One—only ever one. A year and a half ago, with my blessing, she went home to marry her sweetheart. My bed has been empty since then, Callista.”

She blinked, digesting this news. “And Lady Barrington?”

“It suited both our purposes to allow people to think what they would. She's been a friend and my hostess; that's all.” He slid closer and gathered both her hands in his to press a kiss against her knuckles. “It's the truth, Callista, I swear.”

She hesitated, looking down at their joined hands, and then raised her chin to meet his gaze. “I believe you, Dominick. Thank you for trusting me. Your essays are wondrously fine; you must know that. I admire both them and you as their author tremendously. May I think over all you've told me whilst you're in Edinburgh? Perhaps we could talk again upon your return?”

He searched her face. She trembled with the secrets she kept from him but held her eyes steady. Let him see what he would.

He was apparently satisfied, for he nodded once. “I'll be back Sunday next. We'll talk then.”

She stretched up and pressed a quick kiss to the perfectly chiseled plane of his cheek. When he raised his arms to deepen the embrace, her breath caught on a sob; she didn't expect he'd ever let her touch him again.

“Promise me you'll be careful, Dominick”—she twisted away and rose, slipping from his grip—“and have a safe trip.”

She waved off his escort, fighting tears, and headed quickly into the dark, back toward the carriage and the gas lamps now flickering along the park fence.

She understood him so much better now.

But understanding only made it worse.

At home in bed that night, after her bath, she went over it all again in her head.

Bizarre though the situation was, it made sense. Thompson had Dominick's essay in his possession. The young man had the motivation and, with the recipe for poison, the means to murder his patron and claim the entire lauded series of philosophy essays as his own. The tutor's future would be secured.

But if she were wrong, had somehow misunderstood . . .

Dominick would never forgive her. If she exposed his great secret, betrayed his trust for no good reason, he'd have every grounds to hate her. And if she were mistaken about Thompson, it would ruin the young man's career to bring such charges against him. She knew too well what it was to be the victim of false accusations; she wouldn't bring these charges against him without more evidence. Nor did she care to destroy Dominick's faith in his protégé Thompson, the one person he'd trusted enough to show his writing.

What she needed was a way to remove the Cambridge instructor's motivation without having to publicly accuse him of the crime. But her top priority had to be Dominick's safety; she couldn't ignore her suspicions when doing so might lead to his death. She remembered urging him earlier, weeks ago, to share his writing with Thompson and felt a stab of guilt for her responsibility in what might have led to such a betrayal. It was she as well who'd brought the recipe for poison into Dominick's household. A hard shudder racked her frame at the thought of Dominick contorted in pain, dying from the toxin. No matter how their odd connection was destined to end, even if it meant she'd never see him again, she couldn't bear to risk his coming to such a horrible death.

She had to do something.

She could tell him to avoid all wine and spirits, on the assumption Thompson would place the poison in such, but what gentleman would give up drink without explanation? And Thompson, if he were intent on murder, could always find another means. If only there were a way, within the next few days, to let the world know Lord Rexton, the Master of Love
,
was really Amator Philosophiae, the Lover of Philosophy—and to do so without revealing herself as the source of the information or Thompson as the source of the threat. If the world knew Dominick was the essays' author, Thompson would have no way to claim them as his own. His motivation for killing his patron would cease to exist. Dominick would be unmasked but safe. And if he didn't attribute the unmasking to her, perhaps they would still have a chance—at something.

As she tossed in bed, an idea slowly formed in her mind. It was risky, mad, even dangerous, and Dominick would hate it. If he found out she was behind it, he'd denounce her publicly; her book trade would be gone for good. She'd also need the assistance of Billy and Marie to pull off the scheme, and they'd be sure to lodge even greater protests. But the more she reflected, the more her plot seemed the only chance to ensure Dominick's safety and neutralize Thompson without exposing the tutor and creating even more problems.

If she proceeded, however, Dominick would be the one exposed.

Very, very exposed.

Yet it seemed the only way.

She had no time to lose. Tossing back her covers and ignoring the cold night air, she set to work.

Chapter 18

I
f she hadn't felt so nervous about the success of her mission, the clothing would have been quite enjoyable. Such freedom males experienced in their less restrictive trousers and coats—especially as a scruffy street boy! The attire, however, didn't make up for the discomforts of the third-class railcar on the overnight train from London. Callista had slept horribly in the cold and drafty coach, propped up in her seat, worried about Dominick and worn out from the fierce dispute she'd had with Marie and Billy.

She'd wasted precious hours arguing with them and had had to bully Marie ferociously, but once she let her friend know of her suspicions regarding Dominick's safety—and, she feared, betrayed something of her confused feelings for the man himself—Marie relented and helped with her plan. Billy offered to go in her stead or to accompany her, as he claimed the idea was far too dangerous for Miss H. to undertake alone. But the task seemed too delicate for the sometimes hotheaded boy. In the end, although he remained deeply disapproving, a direct command that she needed him to stay and watch over Daphne got him to cease his protests. He bought her the third-class ticket from the Euston station and the clothes she required to fill out the set she'd used before as “Callum Higginbotham.” He'd handed over the items with a silent glower, putting his own cap on top like a reproach. She'd then wasted precious funds she couldn't afford to spare on an expensive emergency rush order to print one hundred broadsides at a press shop in Great Russell Street.

She arrived in Edinburgh Monday morning with a crook in her neck and looking even scruffier than when she'd left London. The dust and coal soot from the voyage helped with her disguise, however, so she passed up the water pump in front of Waverley Station, double-checked her satchel for the broadsides, and headed into the city on foot. The traffic in Princes Street outside the station was chaotic, with carriages, wagons, passersby, and hawkers of all sorts out in the busy thoroughfare. As she hadn't eaten since luncheon the day before, she stopped to buy a hot apple dumpling from a pie man with grizzled hair and a greasy apron. She got directions from him as well to the Royal Society of Edinburgh's assembly house, where the conference was due to start that very morning. From the plans Dominick and the rest of the London party had made, she knew they'd arrived two days earlier and settled into the Oak and Dove Inn.
They,
no doubt, were well rested and well fed. She, however, was exhausted, starving, filthy, and eating her breakfast in the street, on a mad mission to protect the life of a gormless viscount who wrote brilliant essays he wanted no one to know were his.

Why,
she asked herself grumpily,
am I engaged in an act so insane?

Honest to the core, she feared there could be only one answer.

She shied away from it like it was the plague.

Munching on the pastry, she followed the pie man's directions through St. Andrew Square and down George Street to the corner of Hanover, where the stately porticos and domed copper roof of the Scottish national academy gleamed in the May morning sunshine.

Callista wiped her fingers off on her trousers—the requirements of hygiene were so much simpler as a street boy, she thought darkly—and pulled a broadside out of her satchel to review her plan. It was a simple one. Hawk the broadsides to the conference attendees, expose Amator Philosophiae for who he truly was, and turn tail back to London before Dominick was any the wiser.

It could work.

She hoped.

She took a deep breath and walked up the building's steps.

A stream of gentlemen-scholars headed inside with her, in eager and companionable groups of two or three, making their way to the grand lecture auditorium. Her timing, at least, had worked out perfectly; the conference was about to begin. According to the program posted in the marble entrance hall, Dominick Avery, Viscount Rexton, distinguished patron of the British Philosophical Society, was to deliver the opening address. He would then introduce four professors for a symposium on Continental versus British philosophy due to go on until noon, when a luncheon banquet would be served in the Great Hall. As the first speaker of the day, Dominick was surely already onstage, so she should safely have two to three hours to distribute her posters in the academy's lobby.

Her palms were slick with sweat. She wiped those on her trousers too, before pulling out her thick sheaf of broadsides. The dumpling rolled queasily in her stomach, and she cleared her throat against nerves at the caper she had to pull off. Billy's cap kept sliding into her eyes over the slippery mass of her braided and pinned-up hair. The poor fit seemed a good thing, however, as she feared her disguise wouldn't bear close scrutiny if people peered too closely at her soot-darkened face.

Luckily, as a street boy, she found she was invisible, although her broadsides caused an immediate uproar. She barely had to squeak out more than “Learn the true identity of Amator Philosophiae!” before conference-goers began to flock around.

A rumpled professor tossed her a penny for the first one. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed, holding up the poster for his equally shaggy companion. “Have a look at this!”

“
Lord Adonis, Master of Love and Lover of Philosophy!
” screamed the bold title. Under it, Marie had drawn a cartoon that mocked Dominick most viciously. Callista's talented designer friend had sketched an excellent caricature, clearly recognizable as Rexton to those who knew him, but with his shoulders ridiculously broad, his jawline impossibly squared, his eyelashes preposterously long. Bevies of ladies swooned at his feet, yet he had eyes for none but “Lady Philosophia,” whom he ravished in his arms, her diaphanous Grecian gown scandalously awry.

The broadside had turned out quite wonderful—or truly awful, depending on your perspective. Callista had wanted the association to stick, so none would ever forget the essays were Rexton's—and no one else's.

“Who made these up, boy?” demanded one man.

“It were reporters in London, sir, who found out the truth,” she replied gruffly, ducking her head. But the how and why of the matter seemed of less interest to the crowd, as more and more scholars asked for copies.

“Here, lad, I'll take two.” Another man thrust coins at her, practically grabbing the broadsides from her hand. “Listen to this, Hodgson”—he turned and read to the man beside him—“you'll never believe it!”

A small crowd gathered to hear the text she'd composed. “
The mysterious learned writer Amator Philosophiae, author of five essays published over the past two years in the prestigious journal
Philosophers' Quarterly,
has had scholars everywhere guessing after his real identity. The truth is he is none other than Dominick Avery, Viscount Rexton, popularly known as Lord Adonis, the Master of Love!!!
”

The crowd gasped—literally gasped—and she would have been pleased, except for the shocked exclamations of “That's impossible!” and “Rexton's no scholar; he's a gadabout ladies' man!”

Please don't let Dominick hear any of this,
she thought, sending up a silent prayer.

The man went on to read her list of the titles and dates of Amator's five previous essays on the philosophy of love, along with a notice to look for his newest essay forthcoming in the journal's next edition.

Within an hour, she began to fear her plan was succeeding a little
too
well. She hadn't counted on the extreme level of interest her revelation would arouse among the conference scholars. A steady stream of gentlemen came out of the auditorium, jostling each other to buy the broadsides before returning excitedly inside to show them to colleagues. A buzz was rising up from the audience in the lecture hall.

She had only a dozen or so left when the crowd parted, first on a stunned hush and then to shouts of “Is it true, my lord?” and “Rexton, are you really Amator?”

Oh no. Oh no. Please no.

She started to run, but someone caught her arms from behind and wrenched her around in place.

And then there he was.

Dominick arrived in front of her, looking every inch the outraged aristocrat with haughty glare and tossed-back shoulders. She suspected she alone saw in his stiff neck and the whitened corners of his mouth the scared and humiliated boy who'd been caught out.

She wished—oh, how she wished!—the floor would open and swallow her whole. She'd have done anything to avoid this moment, to avoid hurting him. Her last hope was that he wouldn't recognize who she was.

He stood in front of her, clearly furious, and then suddenly narrowed his eyes. “You!” he exploded. “What are
you
doing here?”

She swallowed. “What d'ye mean?” She tried to brazen it out, keeping her voice deep and her accent rough.

It was a mistake. His face darkened further. “What the devil is going on?” He took a step toward the man holding her. “Let go, there!” Dominick pushed him roughly aside, with a glare like he wanted to tear out the man's throat, then grabbed her arm himself and started pulling. “I'm getting you out of here.”

The crowd had grown to fill most of the entrance hall. She spotted Mr. Thompson at its edge, clutching a broadside and staring at her intently. The men burst out with questions:

“Rexton, are the essays really yours?”

“How did the reporters find out?”

“What are you going to do?”

He turned toward them all, still holding her arm tight. She felt the tension radiate from his broad frame as he took a deep breath. “It's true. The essays are mine,” he said. “I wrote them under the pseudonym Amator Philosophiae. Apparently,
someone
I trusted with that knowledge chose to betray my trust, and this
urchin
”—he glared daggers at her and gave her arm a shake—“is peddling the betrayal. I promise you I'll find out why. Gentlemen, please carry on without me.” He bowed and began to stalk away with her in tow.

“Wait, my broadsides!” She managed to grab her satchel off the floor and swing it over her shoulder before he dragged her out of the hall. An excited babble rose up behind them.

“I think you've done enough with those.” He reached into her bag for the remaining copies and tossed them over his shoulder to the sound of a mad scramble as he pulled her through the doors. “They'll become quite the collector's item, I suspect.”

She tried giving him a weak smile.

He didn't return it.

“It's not what you think. Not exactly.” She chewed nervously on her lip. This was not going to be easy to explain.

“I have no bloody idea what to think, except you've gone insane.”

As the same thought had occurred to her this morning, it was a hard accusation to deny. But she couldn't go down without a fight. “Would you please let go of my arm before you rip it out of the socket!”

He loosened his grip but didn't let go. “You're coming back to the inn with me, where we can discuss this in private. I've got to get you out of the public eye. Has anyone else recognized you?”

“No! It's a good disguise! It took me a long time getting ready yesterday, especially to rub all the coal soot in evenly.”

“Oh, that's just charming,” he sneered. “And your disguise, I'll have you know, is pitiful. I could spot you as a female a mile away. You're only making a huge fool of yourself.” He hauled her down George Street at a pace that had her jogging to keep up; the gray stone buildings of Scotland's capital whizzed by in a blur. “I hope to God you've got Billy here with you.”

“Umm, I'm afraid not,” she said, panting. “I made him stay back in London, to help out there. I'm here by myself.”

“By yourself! God, Callista, anything could have happened to you! Where are you staying?” he demanded.

“Nowhere. I arrived on the morning train and was planning to leave again this afternoon before you got off the stage. We weren't supposed to meet at all.”

His breath hissed out between clenched teeth. “You slept on the train? With all the riffraff? Did anyone bother you? Have you had any problems?”

“No—I'm fine, Dominick.” Save for a sore neck from sitting up and listening to men snore all night. “You needn't worry. All has gone very smoothly.” She swallowed hard at the black scowl he shot her way. “Until now.”

“Well, you're going back to London tonight, if I have to put an armed guard on you.”

This last was too much. “You can't order me around!” She dug in her heels as they crossed Castle Street, with Edinburgh Castle rising to the south.

Her abrupt stop caused Dominick to collide with a costermonger's barrow traveling in their wake. “Oi!” yelled the monger, clutching at his piles of gooseberries and currants to keep them from tumbling into the dust. “Watch where ye go, ye fancy tosh! Sum of us got t'work for our livin'!” The irate street vendor looked askance at Dominick's hard grip on the arm of a smooth-cheeked street boy. “I'm not surprised a lordling as pretty as ye goes for the lads, but do ye have to drag 'em off the streets to serve yer pleasure?” he said mockingly.

Dominick's glance slid from the costermonger to her and back, his countenance flushing even darker with anger. He snarled a curse and took off with her again without loosening his grasp.

“You'll do what I tell you, my girl. Or have you some other plan for ruining my life? Your mischief isn't done yet?”

“I'm not trying to ruin your life! I'm trying to help you!”

“Ha! This is the most bizarre show of help I've ever seen. Now be quiet before I strangle you. You can explain when we're in my room.”

He finished dragging her around the corner off Rose Street to the elegant inn that was the Oak and Dove. He marched her past the gathering lunch trade in the common rooms to his private chamber upstairs, tossed her through the door, and locked it shut behind them. “You will scrub your face and get out of those disgusting rags,” he ordered contemptuously. “You should be ashamed of yourself, appearing in public like a bedraggled chimneysweep.”