Charlotte Louise Dolan (22 page)

Struggling to untangle himself from her, Simon finally managed to get to his feet, cursing himself all the while. To be caught like the veriest greenhorn in the oldest trap known to women!

“Well, Bellgrave, I am waiting to hear an explanation for this.”

All three women were watching him now, Florie with a smug expression, Lady Letitia like a duelist coolly taking aim at a doomed opponent, and Elizabeth ...

Simon could not interpret the look on Elizabeth’s face, but it didn’t matter. He knew what they were all expecting him to say—that he was wildly in love with Florie and that she had just done him the honor of accepting his offer of marriage.

Well, he was not going to step into parson’s mousetrap that easily. There were going to be no pretty lies about fictitious offers of marriage, accepted or not accepted. If the chit’s reputation was ruined, then she had brought it on herself by her wanton behavior, and she would have to live with the consequences.

On the other hand, no one knew anything about this whole sordid affair except the four people in this room, and if they all agreed to keep quiet on the subject, no one’s reputation need suffer.

And the women would all have to agree, because there was no way they could coerce him into playing the role they had assigned him in what was obviously a conspiracy among the three of them.

He opened his mouth to tell them he didn’t give a damn what any of them said, he was not going to marry the chit, when a third person appeared in the doorway.

The Duke of Colthurst looked nothing like he had that lovely June day nearly a year ago when Simon had slapped him in the face.

The Duke of Colthurst looked like death. Simon looked into the duke’s eyes and saw his own death staring back at him.

He had only a split second to wonder how he could have misjudged a man’s character so badly—a split second to remember the passionate note he had written to Elizabeth, which now undoubtedly rested in Florie’s reticule—a split second to consider the absurd hope Florie could be persuaded not to show it to her cousin-in-law—a split second to weigh the disadvantages of marriage against the even more unpleasant aspects of facing another man’s loaded pistol in the misty morning hours—a split second to contemplate that the duke did not look like an ordinary man, who might conceivably lose in a duel, but like an inhuman devil ...

Simon could almost feel the pain of the bullet piercing his heart, and he therefore strove to be his most charming and convincing when he said, “I want you all to be the first to congratulate us. Florie has just done me the honor of accepting my hand in marriage. She has made me the happiest man alive.” Alive ... alive ... alive ... seemed to echo through his head while he smiled down at the stupid chit and held out his hand to her.

Florie was instantly up off the settee and clutching his arm in a way that was bound to wrinkle his sleeve, and Lady Letitia, moving briskly into the room, set the candelabrum down on a small table and took his other arm. “Come along, you two. We must let the other guests share your happy tidings.”

Simon allowed the two ladies to escort him out of the room, feeling more like a convicted man who had just received a life sentence than like a prisoner being granted a last-minute reprieve on the eve of his execution, but still and all grateful for their protection, slight as it might be.

His knees felt so weak, he was not at all sure he could have walked past the duke without their help, but one thing he was sure of—he was not going to risk even the briefest glance in the direction of the Duchess of Colthurst.

From now on, the only interest he would show in her would be a cousinly one, and in general it might be best if he limited their association as much as possible. Already he was thinking up excuses to use if an invitation were issued to visit the duke and duchess of Colthurst Hall.

* * * *

“Welcome home.”

Darius kept his expression carefully impassive, but Elizabeth appeared not to notice. Moving toward him, she laid her hand on his arm and lifted her face for a kiss. She made no attempt to explain away the farce he had just witnessed, and he was amazed at her gall in expecting him to believe she had been an innocent bystander.

Her cleverness and daring exceeded even that of his sisters, neither of whom would have had the nerve to marry off one of her lovers to a close member of her own family just to have him conveniently accessible.

Steeling himself to keep from showing the revulsion he felt, he touched his lips briefly against Elizabeth’s in the most perfunctory of kisses.

Except it wasn’t revulsion he felt. The faint scent of lavender reached him, and the surge of desire was so unexpected and so strong that he almost pulled his wife into his arms before he caught himself in the nick of time.

The disgust he felt for himself was immediate. He, who had always felt such scorn for men whose carnal desires made them weak slaves at the mercy of a woman’s whims, had almost been caught in the selfsame trap.

“Oh, Darius, I am so glad you are home.” Her words were scarcely more than a whisper, and her hand still lay so softly on his arm, her touch burning him through the sleeve of his jacket. She looked up at him with such gentle eyes ...

Not gentle—they smoldered with such passion, he wanted to throw her down on the settee and feel her arms twine around his neck, feel her soft curves beneath his hands, hear her murmurs of delight.

No! They were deceiving eyes. Their gentleness was a delusion, their promised passion a deliberate snare trying to entice him into forgetting everything but her charms.

Never would he be so weak as to trade his honor for the momentary delights of the flesh.

“I leave tomorrow for Colthurst Hall. I will expect you to follow with the carriage within a day or two,” he said bluntly. “Munke will wait to escort you.” Turning abruptly on his heel, he strode back down the hallway toward the main part of the house.

He heard her footsteps behind him but made no effort to moderate his pace. As much as he had been in a hurry to find his wife, so now he felt an overwhelming desire to escape from her presence, and again he cursed himself for such weakness.

“If you can wait just a moment until I let Aunt Theo know, I will come home with you now and supervise the packing,” she said.

“Nonsense, you will not want to cut your pleasures short. The servants are capable of carrying out my instructions.” He reached the last turn in the hallway and paused, not wishing to make a spectacle of himself by allowing his wife to trail along behind him, arguing all the way. Who knew what guests or servants they might encounter?

Before she could utter another word, however, her aunt rounded the corner, and he immediately turned his face into the shadows before she could recognize him. Just one word of congratulations from her, and he would lose control of his temper completely.

Aunt Theo’s attention was all on his wife, however, and she did not so much as glance his way. “Oh, there you are, Elizabeth. Do hurry. We are ready to make the announcement. Is it not wonderful? Here I thought Simon was still dangling after you, and it seems that all the time he was trying to fix his interests with Florie.”

Darius watched his wife carefully and noticed the guilty expression, which lasted but a second. A less acute observer would have believed her thoroughly in favor of the upcoming nuptials, but she had made the mistake of marrying a man who was adept at spotting when a prisoner was lying during interrogation.

Despite her smiles, which were undoubtedly for her aunt’s benefit, he could tell Elizabeth was not at all pleased at the way the evening had gone.

Unfortunately, with his attention focused on his wife, Darius lost his opportunity to make an unobtrusive exit.

“Darius! Merciful heavens, when did you get here? Elizabeth,” his aunt-in-law scolded, “why did you not tell me
his Grace
was here? You must forgive me, your Grace, but I didn’t even notice you standing here, my mind is so in a flutter with the wonderful news about Florie. Well, as long as you are here, you may as well join with the rest of the family while we make the announcement. Is it not wonderful? Florie and Simon. Who would have thought it!”

“You must excuse me, Aunt Theo,” Darius said smoothly, “but I am afraid if I step one foot into the ballroom, I will steal the limelight from your daughter, and that would never do on such a momentous occasion.”

“Oh, to be sure, to be sure. I had not thought of that, but now that you mention it, perhaps you had better run along and we will see you in the morning—er, that is to say, tomorrow afternoon perhaps? I fear that we will be up so late this evening receiving congratulations that we will have to sleep at least until noon. Come along Elizabeth, if I have to wait much longer, I vow I will burst.”

* * * *

Elizabeth paused in the doorway of the ballroom and watched her husband descend the stairs. He was home and apparently bodily intact—at least she had not noticed any new scars—but his eyes were so cold and so empty.

“Don’t dilly-dally so, Elizabeth.” Her aunt’s tug on her arm was surprisingly forceful, and Elizabeth allowed herself to be led into the overheated, noisy, crowded room.

Why, oh, why had she let her aunt talk her into coming to the ball this evening? She remembered her husband’s last homecoming and wished he had again swept her up in his arms and carried her away from all these people.

Feeling totally apart from everyone in the room, she barely listened to the announcement of the engagement and paid no attention at all to the congratulations that were offered from every side.

She felt instead the urge to wring Florie’s neck for instigating such a cheap stunt. How could she have acted in such a dishonorable way? Elizabeth had known from the first glimpse of smug satisfaction on her cousin’s face that Simon had fallen for the oldest trick in the arsenal of scheming young ladies and their matchmaking mamas.

It had to have been obvious to Darius, also, that Simon had been entrapped. What else could he think—a secluded anteroom, she and Lady Letitia obviously confronting the “loving” couple, whose faces were flushed and whose clothes were in disarray? It would not take a brilliant mind to figure out what had been going on in the room, especially since no candles were lit except the branch Lady Letitia was carrying.

This was not the homecoming Elizabeth had envisioned, nor the welcome a soldier deserved when he returned safely from the war. As if Darius needed another example of the perfidy of women, after his experience with his mother and sisters, which had led him to expect nothing better than treachery and deceit from the females in his life.

The finishing touch to the whole ghastly episode was the abrupt realization that Simon Bellgrave was going to be in her life permanently now as her cousin-in-law.

Elizabeth pressed both hands to her mouth to hold back the hysterical laughter.

* * * *

“Ah, Fairlie, did you hear the news? Bellgrave’s got himself engaged again, to that little Donnithorne chit. Don’t think she’ll be inclined to let him off as easily as Elizabeth, neither. This time he’s catched proper.”

Fairlie looked up from the hand he was playing, astonishment written on his face. “The devil you say, Megler! Must be some mistake. Why, I left him not an hour ago, and he said nothing about... Oh, damnation!” He threw his cards down on the table. “It’s all my fault. Told me himself Lady Letitia was meddling in his affairs. Should have dragged him out of that ballroom by force soon as I heard her name. Can’t think where my wits had gone.”

“Good lord, man, never say you simply abandoned him to his fate? Thought you was his friend.”

There were cries of” Shame! Shame!” from around the table.

“He was planning to shab off in the morning, too. ‘Course he didn’t realize his time had already run out. Now what’s to be done?”

“Nothing nobody can do now. Lady Letitia announced it herself. No chance of pretending it was a misunderstanding. All we can do is drink a toast to his memory.”

A bottle was called for and glasses were duly filled and drained.

“That old woman’s a cursed witch,” one of the players said, staring down into his empty glass. “Can’t count the number of good men she’s brought down. Just like those three old hags in
Macbeth.
Lures a man into doing something he wouldn’t normally do; then, before he knows it, he’s a goner.”

Fairlie was still feeling shaken at the thought of how easily it might have been him caught in Lady Letitia’s net rather than poor old Bellgrave. “Somebody ought to put a stop to her mischief.”

There was general agreement on the desirability of that happening, but no one stood ready to actually volunteer to confront the most dangerous woman in all of London.

“Whose deal?” Fairlie asked nervously.

Putting unpleasant thoughts out of their minds, they resumed their play.

* * * *

As soon as he reached Colthurst land, Darius left the road and cut across the fields, following a route he and his cousin had taken time out of mind. It felt good to ride with no thought of ambushes or snipers—doubly good to be riding over familiar ground.

Deliberately approaching the house from the rear, he reined in his horse on a low hill where he and Algernon had often sat and talked about the future—about Algy’s plans for improvements in the estate and his own plans to become a general. Once again Darius cursed the fate that had changed those plans irrevocably.

Without conscious effort his mind turned back to the first time he had come to Colthurst Hall as a small boy. How terrifyingly huge the house had seemed to him, as if he could get lost there and no one would even notice.

Instead, he had received more attention each week he was there than he was accustomed to receiving in a year. In Colthurst Hall he had found an uncle to admire, an aunt who was kind to him, dozens of servants who, he had to admit, delighted in spoiling him, and a younger cousin who looked up to him and followed him around like a shadow. It had been an incredible change from the life he had been used to, like waking up after a nightmare.