The Royal Talisman

Patrick came back to the library once he had shut the front door on Sutherland-Bruce. He dropped onto the cushions of the window seat next to Bian. For several long minutes, he stared at the worn tapestry on the cushion.

“Are you sure about this, Bian?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, as gently as she could.

Baring came back to the table and lowered himself onto the chair Bian had occupied. “You played him beautifully, child. He was staggering by the time you were done with him.”

“I needed him disoriented. The last thing I can afford is for him to see me as an ordinary woman. I don’t have time for that.”

“Well, you succeeded,” Patrick added. There was a sour note in his voice and she thought she knew what it meant.

“I tried not to have you involved, Patrick.”

“Yes, I know. It was my choice to help. But Bian…why on earth do you think that he would see you as an ordinary woman?”

Baring gave a small laugh and Bian smiled at his reaction. He knew her answer already.

“Because to that man, Patrick, every woman is an ordinary woman and an ordinary woman is a commodity he can move around as he pleases and discard when the novelty has worn away. I needed to find a way to ensure he won’t discard me until I’m ready to leave.”

Patrick turned pink. “You’ve heard some of the rumors about his ways, then?”

“I didn’t have to,” she countered. “I could see it in his eyes as soon as we met.” She gave a small laugh. “I’ve met the type before. More than once.”

Patrick turned a deeper shade of pink but managed to speak firmly. “You should have asked him to tea, or something.”

“A lady isn’t that forward,” Bian countered.

Baring pursed his lips thoughtfully. “All in all, I’m surprised he didn’t try to find a way to speak to you alone.”

“He did.”

Baring’s brow lifted. “He did, did he? And yet you refused him?”

“If a lady is considered forward if she is the one to invite a single man to tea, how much more forward would she be if she was seen meeting him alone on a busy street corner?”

Baring shook his head. “The nerve of him!”

“Yes, he is daring, isn’t he?” Bian said thoughtfully.

Patrick was frowning. “But…if you refused to meet him and can’t invite him to tea…then…you’ve lost him.”

Bian smiled. “Oh, he’ll be back.”

* * * * *

It took the swaying of the carriage for Stuart to finally notice the tiny tug on his waistcoat pocket. He opened his coat and jacket and looked down at the delicate gold filigree charm bracelet snagged in the flap of his fob pocket.

Carefully, he broke the little figure free of the loose thread that had caught it. Then he pooled the golden jewelry in his palm and felt the surprisingly heavy weight of it. It was, without doubt, a unique piece. Clearly eastern in origin and probably of high value in gold and gems alone. It was possible the bracelet had sentimental value too.

He had to ensure it was returned to her.

CHAPTER TWO

It took two days of letter exchanges to Baring’s secretary before Stuart managed to learn that Bian did not live at Baring’s townhouse and to acquire her address. There was no easy way to ask after a lady’s address and not betray one’s intentions but Stuart knew a few indirect but effective paths to such information. He used them all to coax the information from Baring.

On the third morning he presented himself at the red brick townhouse in a little mews off Adam’s Row in Mayfair, while his cab waited obediently at the curb. The townhouse was old but well maintained and in summer would be shaded by two magnificent oaks that stood in front of it. Many leaves of the oaks were golden now and some were already drifting to the footpath.

It was a respectable address and a well-presented house. Just as everything about Miss Bian appeared to be reputable and elegant.

For the last three days Stuart had been replaying the moments he had sat next to her and re-examining every word. Bian had been a model of deportment, he had reluctantly concluded. Her swift verbal parries had been no more than a hostess might exchange over a dinner table if she wished to provoke the conversation among her guests. As he had been the only guest, he had chaffed under the stimulus.

In no way had she given word or signal that she was anything other than a well-bred and well-behaved lady.

Regardless, Stuart had tossed in his empty bed for two nights, unable to dismiss her from his mind. She had a hidden quality that drew his attention like filings to a magnet…or else he was simply going out of his mind. Because he could not locate even a hint of this hidden quality in anything she had said or done, Stuart had truly begun to wonder if he was imagining things.

For that reason he was delivering the bracelet in person. He needed to see her again. He needed to find even a hint of that hidden quality. He would sit in her drawing room and play the perfect gentleman all day, if necessary, until he saw the element in her that would not leave him in peace.

That was, if she forgave him for not calling ahead in the first place.

He rang the bell and prepared to wait but was surprised when it was answered almost immediately. The maid took his card, showed him in and hurried over to the big, closed doors on the other side of the foyer, where she knocked gently on the door and waited.

Stuart watched, puzzled, as the door was opened a few inches and the maid pushed the card through the crack. The door was shut on her again. She smiled reassuringly at him before moving down the hallway to the back of the house, which left him alone in the foyer, cooling his heels.

He looked around the empty hall. This was not what a woman like Bian would consider proper, surely?

The recently closed door was suddenly flung open. Bian herself stepped through. And Stuart could feel his heart literally stammer to a stop, before it managed to recover and hurry on, hurting with each beat.

She wore…what was she wearing? It took him a moment to identify the garment simply because he would not have equated a silk dressing robe with the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. The robe was too large for her tiny frame. As she hurried toward him, the wide neck slid down one shoulder and dropped off altogether, revealing a creamy shoulder and the smooth, flawless skin of her upper breast and neck.

Is she naked beneath that robe? he found himself wondering, with genuine bewilderment touched by a swiftly-evoked craving. There was too much flesh on display for her to be wearing any undergarments and the curves the robe outlined were too soft to be the product of corsetry.

Not only did the robe hang from one shoulder but it was so ridiculously long that it trailed behind her like a ball gown, which pulled the fronts of the robe open as she walked.

Bare feet…bare ankles…bare calves… Stuart found himself clutching the top of his cane as he focused on her shapely limbs as they flashed beneath the opening of the robe, until she came to a stop before him, her hand out to greet him and a warm smile on her face.

For a moment he was genuinely unable to form a coherent thought. Her appearance was quite simply shocking.

He lifted her hand to bow over it but a puppet would have executed the movement more smoothly.

She did not seem to mind. “Lord Sutherland-Bruce,” she acknowledged. “How kind of you to call on me.”

“I…I seem to have arrived at an awkward moment.” It was stilted, proper and not at all what he wanted to say. Or do. He could barely tear his gaze away from the soft mound outlined by the silk clinging to her chest. He forced himself to look her in the eye.

“An awkward moment? Not at all. Why do you say that?” She looked puzzled.

He lifted a hand and gestured helplessly at her robe.

She actually lifted the robe with her hand, which opened the panels again and allowed him to glimpse a knee. “In my own home, I prefer to be comfortable. Please, come in, won’t you?”