He shook his head. “Only one of them, and she is nearly twenty-five. I have never cared for ingénues; they are not so, well, they are not so polished, I suppose one could say, and their conversation isn’t what—” His brain seized. “Even though you are wearing only two thin layers of clothes and standing not six inches from me, your heart flying so fast it could split the air like an arrow, you are a lady. I thank the good lord for the candle between us, else I might have you against the wall. Do you know what that would lead to?”
“I am a spinster, Devlin. I am so high on the shelf it would require a ladder to pull me down. Perhaps it is time I understood a bit more about this lust business. I think the wall sounds like a fine idea.”
He laughed this time, couldn’t help it. He lightly touched his fingers to her smooth cheek. “What you are, Roxanne, is you, and that is a very fine thing. Good night.” He lightly kissed her mouth, turned quickly, and disappeared back into his bedchamber.
She sighed and ached and wondered. She stood in the dark corridor for a moment longer, then turned resolutely toward her bedchamber. As she locked her door, she thought of Leah and Richard Langworth. Should she tell her sister Richard was using her to get to Julian? She couldn’t begin to imagine what Leah would have to say to that. Well, she could, and it made her stomach hurt. She would have to make certain there was no weapon within sight.
She refused to think about Devlin Monroe. But there, blossoming full in her mind, was a lovely image of their two very white selves naked, blending perfectly togethe
r.
Roxanne fell asleep aching and smiling.
42
When Julian stepped into the drawing room the following morning, it was to see his mother, her brow furrowed, holding a piece of paper in her hand, Pouffer hovering over her.
“Good morning. What is this?”
He watched her close her hand over the paper, open it again. “Rupert told me when he first showed me the portrait yesterday that he’d noticed the brown paper had peeled loose on the back of your father’s painting. Pouffer and I decided to see to it. Look what I found stuck inside. It is a letter, written to you, from your father.”
She handed him the letter. It was yellowed with age, the creases set deep in the paper. Julian unfolded it and read the bold black handwriting, firm and vigorous, penned more than thirty years earlier.
To the Prince of Ravenscar
A jewel beyond understanding awaits you.
It is flat and ugly and can feel
its magic pulse to your bones.
It lies beneath spears of stone.
I could not use the magic, since it is for you, if your brain is tuned to find it.
You are now a man. Do you look like me?
I wonder—
Your father, Maximilian Monroe,
5th Duke of Brabante
His father’s black scrawled name filled the rest of the single sheet of paper, letters thick and firm, though faded by the thirty years that had passed. Julian read it through again, and once more, then raised his head. “You read this, Mother?”
“Yes, but it makes no sense to me. Never did your father mention leaving a jewel for you—and a magic jewel? Flat and ugly? What sort of jewel is flat and ugly? You find it beneath spears of stone? What stone spears?”
Pouffer was unable to contain himself. His voice was deep and awed. “I had forgot how fanciful your father was, Prince, how he adored mysteries and puzzles. Your father tells you the jewel is for you, that it awaits you. Only you.”
Julian nearly laughed. Didn’t that sound like fine melodrama?
He made his excuses and walked to the stables. Ten minutes later, when he was saddling Cannon, he looked up to see Sophie striding like a boy toward him. Long legs, he thought, momentarily distracted.
“Your mother told me about the note, but she couldn’t remember it exactly. May I see it?”
“Do you walk a lot, Sophie?”
She blinked at him. “Walk? Well, certainly, all my life.”