How to Master Your Marquis (34 page)

Belgrave Square, London

February 1890

S
tefanie meant to sit quietly and wait for Hatherfield’s return. After all, what else could she do, dressed as she was? Double disguised as she was?

But her nerves were jumping, her blood still rushing deliriously through her veins after Hatherfield’s lovemaking. She couldn’t sit still on the chaise, the sacred chaise they had occupied together mere minutes ago.
My wife.
The words still rang in her ears.

She jumped to her feet and walked along one wall, shelves over cabinets, stuffed with books that looked as though they hadn’t been moved from their places in ages. Old leather bindings, long and obscure titles, mostly in Latin. A small collection of more modern novels. Stefanie concentrated fiercely on reading the titles. Occupying her mind, to keep her impetuous body from turning to the door and running outside and making matters worse.

It had been a mistake to come, of course. But how could she resist the urge to dress herself in her true colors?
You are nothing
, Lady Charlotte had sneered.
The dust under my slippers.

Well, she’d shown Lady Charlotte, all right. Now the damage she’d done might be incalculable.

She wandered along the shelves and came upon the large claw-footed desk at the end, heavy and substantial, like a great rectangular mahogany lion. Her fingers dragged along the gleaming surface, bare except for a lamp at one corner and a single framed photograph at the other.

Something about the photograph caught the corner of her eye. She reached out one hand and lifted it up.

Among the blurred sepia figures assembled on an unknown stone step, Hatherfield’s face leapt out at her. His was the only smiling mouth, and she knew that smile, that automatic and charming social smile, familiar and yet different from the smile he gave her in private. He stood in the center, tall and muscular in his racing jersey, golden hair gleaming ivory in the sunshine, holding a silver cup in his broad hands. The caption, scratched in white on the photographic print, read: University Boat Race, 1883. Won by Oxford, J.M. Lambert, Captain.

Her eyes began to sting with tears. She’d put him in danger yet again, her gallant Hatherfield, and still he went running to chase down her enemies. To hunt and destroy every threat to her well-being. He would kill for her. He would die for her. If she spent her whole life pouring her love into him, if she gave up her crown and her birthright to live by his side, if she gave him children and laughter and the comfort of her body until the end of her days, it would not be enough.

Without warning, the door swung open, crashing into the wall with a fearsome thump.

Stefanie straightened and hid the photograph behind her back.

The Duke of Southam stood before her in an avenging thundercloud. His white hair sprang boldly from his head, and his fists clenched against the shining black wool of his tailcoat.

“Who are you, madam?” he demanded, in a booming ducal roar. “And what the devil are you doing in my private library?”

But Stefanie was a princess of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, the daughter of Crown Prince Rudolf. She had danced with the Kaiser, she had faced down the Tsar at a state banquet and told him she didn’t particularly care for Black Sea caviar. She outranked this puffy old English duke with one gloved hand tied behind her back.

On the other hand, he was practically her father-in-law.

She told him so.

“Tut-tut, sir,” she said. “When I’m practically your daughter-in-law.”

“What?”

“I’m afraid it’s rather hush-hush at the moment. I suppose Hatherfield would rather tell you himself, in fact, but there it is.”

He took two quick steps toward her and stopped. His face was deathly white. His blue eyes, paler than Hatherfield’s, stared out from a pair of defeated red-rimmed sockets. “You have no right to spread such lies. My son is under a different engagement entirely, to Lady Charlotte Harlowe. We are about to announce the alliance, this minute.”

She lifted her eyebrows in exactly the way Miss Dingleby used to do, when Stefanie presented her with a hastily scribbled essay and demanded to be allowed outside to play. “How extraordinary. Have you bothered to confide the fact of this imminent disclosure to Hatherfield himself? I’m sure he’ll be delighted by the surprise.”

The duke brought his fist down on the desk with a crash. “You have no right! No right to destroy this family. No right to destroy my son’s happiness with your strumpet’s costume and your loose ways . . .”

“Destroy his happiness? How dare you. How dare you, sir. It’s you who have tried to destroy him, you and your evil wife. Do you have any idea what she’s done to him? Or did you stuff your pillow over your head and pretend that her late-night expeditions were due to some digestive complaint, or some mysterious desire to repair to her boudoir and catch up on her correspondence?”

“What in God’s name are you saying?” he whispered.

“
You
ruined him. She ruined him, and you let her. You failed in the single inescapable duty a father has to his son: to protect him. And he’s suffered all his life for it, without ever saying a word, without once complaining. His noble soul, and she did her best to destroy it, except she couldn’t. Because he’s too strong for her, too good for her.”

“It’s not true.”

“It is true. You know it’s true, don’t you? You’ve always known, in your heart. Damn you to hell.” She leaned forward. “And if you harm him again, if that horrible woman even speaks to him again, I will destroy you, do you hear me? You don’t even begin to know my power.”

“Get out.” But the note of command had vanished from his voice. “You are not
welcome
here.”

“Very well.” Stefanie withdrew the photograph from behind her back and placed it in his hands. “But look at him. Just look at him, won’t you? That smile of his. Just think what it cost him, to smile like that. He’s your son, Your Grace. He needed you.” She lowered her voice to a soft plea. “He still needs you.”

She left him there, standing by his own desk, with the silver-framed photograph cradled in his hands and an expression of utter vanquish on his face.

S
tefanie halted in shock on the curving marble stairs.

The tepid party she’d left an hour ago had grown into a crush of historic proportions. In the entrance hall below, a kaleidoscope of silk dresses ebbed and flowed and shifted; a thousand jewels glittered in the blazing light of the chandelier; a frantic twitter of conversation threatened to raise the stained glass dome at the very top of the staircase. The Duchess of Southam’s ball had turned into a success after all.

At least Stefanie wouldn’t be conspicuous.

She skimmed down the remaining stairs and plunged into the miasma of perfume and damp wool and perspiration. Moving about was nearly impossible. She squeezed between tailored black shoulders and bare powdered bosoms; she smiled her best royal smile and pardoned herself for jostling a dowager. The dowager appeared not to notice. She was discussing something in animated detail with her companion: something about musicians and police. Stefanie didn’t pause. She soldiered on, searching out Hatherfield’s golden head in the crowd, or Lady Charlotte’s spray of pale pink ostrich feathers. Hardly anybody wore a mask. Perhaps they were all too hot. Stefanie tried not to breathe the warm and stagnant air. She had always hated these stifling long affairs, had always escaped at the earliest opportunity to breathe the good clean air of the palace garden. Emilie would come with her. They would bring cake and stolen champagne and set up a contraband picnic near the roses.

Emilie. Stefanie’s heart squeezed painfully. If all went well tonight, this charade would be over at last. She could greet her sisters openly again. Everything would be as it was, only better, because now there was Hatherfield. Hatherfield and Ashland. What a lovely life they would have together, if only she could survive the night.

She spent nearly a quarter of an hour simply pushing her way to the ballroom, which proved little better. The musicians were still playing, sawing away at yet another waltz, but nobody seemed to be dancing. There wasn’t room. She rose on her toes and scanned the room. No sign of Hatherfield’s head, no glimpse of Lady Charlotte.

And where in all this chaos was the Duchess of Southam?

“Good evening,” said a dark masculine voice, so close to Stefanie’s ear she felt his breath on her jaw.

She pirouetted in shock. “Good heavens, sir! Who the devil are you?”

The man was tall and broad shouldered, as big as Hatherfield, with thick dark hair and a thin-lipped mouth. His eyebrows lifted high above his slender black silk mask. “What indelicate language. Are you a friend of the duke and duchess, or merely an acquaintance of their son?” He said the word
acquaintance
with a certain delicate emphasis that meant
whore.

Stefanie straightened her shoulders and said, in her best state banquet voice, “I am the affianced wife of the Marquess of Hatherfield. You, sir, are not a gentleman.”

He tilted his chin and laughed. Stefanie realized, on closer inspection, that the stranger’s upper lip alone was thin. The bottom lip appeared rather decadently full. In fact, there was something decidedly familiar about him altogether, as if she had just seen him recently, somewhere in the City, that thin upper lip curled in disdain . . .

“Mr. Wright!” she gasped.

His smile disappeared. She couldn’t see his expression properly beneath his mask, but she had the feeling his eyes had narrowed and were staring at her. Calculating her.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he said. “My name is Nathaniel Wright, a friend of Lord Hatherfield’s affianced wife.”

“Really, sir? I don’t recall counting you among my friends.”

“I mean Lady Charlotte Harlowe.”

“How very strange. Everybody here tonight seems to believe that Lord Hatherfield is on the point of announcing his engagement to dear little Lady Charlotte. Everyone, that is, except Hatherfield himself. Perhaps one of you might trouble to ask him about the matter yourselves. You might be taken rather aback at his answer.”

Mr. Wright cast a slow gaze down her length, from the tip of her nose to the hollow between her breasts. “Are you quite certain of that, Miss—? Ah. I beg your pardon. I’m afraid I don’t recall your name.”

“Having accepted his heartfelt proposal scarcely half an hour ago, I have the utmost confidence in my engagement to Lord Hatherfield. Perhaps you have your ladies crossed, Mr. Wright. I’ve often observed that gentlemen who play with sums of money all day long become rather muddled about the relative qualities of the female sex.”

For a moment, Mr. Wright stood absolutely still, regarding Stefanie with unblinking eyes while the crowd eddied about him. “By damn,” he said at last, under his breath.

“If you’ll forgive me, Mr. Wright.” Stefanie turned to leave, but his hand closed around her arm.

“It’s no use, you know,” he said softly. “He’s already gone upstairs with Her Grace to sort it out. The two of you, you’re finished.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean. Kindly remove your hand.”

“I mean we’ve got our man. The engagement will be announced any minute, you’ll see.”

“You’re mad.”

He shrugged his thick shoulders, as if the point were not worth arguing. He brought his masked face in close, until his lips nearly brushed her skin. She tried to yank her arm away, but he held firm. “You’ll survive it. Look at you. You’re too magnificent to let yourself be crushed down for long.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“Let me know when you’re feeling yourself again, my dear. I’ll give you whatever you want. You’ll live like a princess.”

She jerked her arm again. This time he released her, but before she could deliver his prominent cheekbone the stinging slap he deserved, he had melted away into the crowd with astonishing grace for a man so large.

We’ve got our man.
What did that mean?

Stefanie struggled to look about her, to find a single familiar face, but there was none. A thread of cold fear wound its way through her ribs. Where was Hatherfield?

He’s already gone upstairs with Her Grace.

What was going on? Surely the duke wasn’t plotting against his own son.

Stefanie turned back toward the doorway to the entrance hall and pushed her way through with irresistible force. The guests fell away before her in their colorful dozens, tossing off expressions of mild contempt for her single-minded determination. She found the hall, the iron-railed staircase reaching upward in a noble curve. With an agile leap she laid her hands on the rail’s base and levered herself around the throng of newly arrived guests pooling on the bottom steps.

. . .When the first shots rang out
, someone was saying, but the words hardly registered in Stefanie’s alarmed mind. She rushed up the stairs and found the landing. To the right was the library, where Hatherfield had told her to wait for him. But that was before the duchess took him upstairs, for whatever purpose she had in mind.

If Mr. Wright told the truth.

She hovered between right and left, and had just taken her first steps away from the library when an arm snaked around her waist and hauled her into an immense black-coated chest.

“Stefanie! Thank God!”

Hatherfield. Breathless, heated, his heart pounding against her ear. But here. Still hers.

“Oh, thank God, thank God.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, her fists around his clothes. “I thought something had happened.”

He grasped her by the arms and set her back against the wall. His eyes locked with hers, alert and full of purpose. “Something
has
happened. Listen to me. This crowd, Stefanie. It’s come from your uncle’s house, from Park Lane. Something’s gone wrong, the whole place erupted into fighting.”

She gripped his lapels. “Emilie!”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. There were shots. The police arrived. Everybody was turned out in the streets, and naturally they came here, the only other party tonight.” He ran a hand through his hair and took her hand. “Come along. I don’t know what the devil’s happened, but I do know I’ve got to get you away from here.”