Dangerous to Love (7 page)

S
he was the daughter of Sir Robert Ward. Julian cursed long and fluently under his breath. He would rather it had been any woman than she. No doubt the jade anticipated that he would come crawling on his hands and knees, begging her to marry him. She would wait till hell froze over before that happened.

Having tasted almost nothing of the breakfast he had ordered, he threw down his napkin and left the dining room. His look was so forbidding that when he paid his shot, the landlord decided not to mention his own troubles, which were considerable. Since the militia had not found the Jacobite they were hunting the night before, they had marched off instead with two harmless residents who could not give an adequate account for the money in their purses. Such goings-on were not only un-English, but frightened away customers.

Preoccupied, abruptly turning on his heel, Julian strode toward the stairs. There was something he should have done before he had rid himself of the girl, something that would soothe the small ripple of conscience that was contributing to his murderous temper. She could not possibly have been a virgin. He must have been mistaken in that, which was not inconceivable, since he had never tampered with a virgin before. How would he recognize the breed? No, not a virgin, he assured himself, but one of those bored ladies of fashion who would dare all just for the thrill of it. He knew her type. It was not he who had been the seducer, but she. He was the victim, for if he had
known her identity, he would not have given her the time of day.

When he came to the rooms they had occupied, he strode through the small parlor without looking to left or right, into the bedchamber and straight to the rumpled bed. Grasping the covers, he dragged them back.

Hell and damnation!
Streaks of dried blood stood out starkly against the white sheet. So she had been a virgin. She had told him the truth about that. But that did not mean that she was an innocent. She had known what she was doing when she’d entered these rooms with him. Hell, they had made a bargain—she would become his mistress if he would set her up in style. The daughter of Sir Robert Ward would never become any man’s mistress. Then what game was she playing?

As he had told her, she was no green girl. He judged her to be in her mid-twenties. Was it possible that she saw herself as a confirmed spinster, with no hope of marriage? Had she made up her mind that if only for one solitary night she would know what it was to be a woman? And in the cold light of day was it shame and remorse that had made her lash out at him?

He slammed out of the room and out of the tavern in a far worse temper than when he had entered it. He did not know which angered him more—the knowledge that she was Serena Ward or the growing conviction that she had chosen him at random to make a woman of her. Striking out toward the Strand, he damned Serena Ward to all eternity for making him the victim of her schemes, and he double-damned himself for not recognizing her before things had gone this far.

Though he had never been introduced to her, he had seen her often enough from a distance—a tall, graceful girl who gave every appearance of knowing her own worth. She was proud and dignified, and as cold as a block
of marble—that was the impression he got. She was also fair-haired. He remembered this particularly because the other members of her family were all as dark as ravens.

Last night, her hair had been ink-black, dyed, no doubt, and her costume anything but dignified. As cold as a block of marble? He almost laughed aloud. Serena Ward, baronet’s daughter, was as hot as a blacksmith’s furnace with the bellows going full blast. Not that she would admit to it. Oh no, she had to make him out the villain of the piece if only to salve her own conscience. Five minutes, less than five, that was all he needed to prove that behind that demure, ladylike exterior beat the heart of a harlot.

Damnation! What was he thinking? He already had proved it and now he was paying for it. He wasn’t a complete scoundrel. He knew what a gentleman generally offered when he found himself in this predicament. His parents had instilled in him the principles by which they had lived out their lives. But this case was different. This was Serena Ward. He could never shackle himself to the daughter of the man who had viciously brought his own family to complete and utter destruction.

Besides which, Serena Ward was no more eager to receive his addresses than he was to offer them.
I
would no more think of taking up with your kind than I would with thieves and murderers.

He was a gamester, and as aware as she of the great gulf that separated them. In his own setting, men of rank treated him as an equal. He was a fine fellow who could be counted on to extend their credit when they bet heavily at his tables. Out of his own setting, he was given a mixed reception. There were some, mostly those of a military background, who judged him on his merits. There were others who might welcome him into their homes but only through the door that gave onto the back staircase,
and only to all-male affairs from which the daughters of the house were excluded.

He entered his gaming house by a side door that gave onto a staircase. One floor up, he came to his private suite of rooms. At this time of day, the only people he was likely to meet were members of his domestic staff. None of his operators or croupiers lived on the premises, and his apartments, which were on two floors, were completely private. There was a door to the gaming house on the top landing, and no one entered that door except by invitation.

Julian’s manservant, who was part valet, part butler, came forward to greet him. It was not unusual for Julian to return home as dawn was breaking, or even later. Tibbets never passed comment on his master’s nocturnal habits when a woman’s perfume clung to his garments. This morning, Tibbets’s infallible nose caught no whiff of perfume.

About to offer the major one of his rare smiles, Tibbets checked himself. “If I may suggest, sir,” he said circumspectly, “a spot of breakfast and a pot of coffee?”

“No, you may not suggest,” snapped Julian. Brushing by the startled valet, he entered his bedchamber and locked the door. A moment later, he flung the door wide and roared for his manservant. “A bath,” he said, “with plenty of hot water. See to it, Tibbets.”

Unclean. He felt unclean, and that had never happened to him before. She had used him as if he were a stud, and she the mare that was in need of servicing. Restlessly, he paced back and forth as lackeys came and went, readying his bath for him.

Having dismissed the lackeys, Julian peeled out of his clothes and thrust them at Tibbets. “Burn them,” he said.

Tibbets opened his mouth, and quickly shut it. “Certainly, sir,” he replied, making a mental note to clean and
press the costly garments and set them at the back of the clothes press until his master was in a better frame of mind.

As the door closed upon Tibbets, Julian immersed himself in the near scalding water. With soap and washcloth, he went at himself, trying to dislodge the tantalizing scent of her. It wasn’t perfume. That was easily got rid of. This was something darker, and unique to the girl. After a prolonged scrubbing, he paused, resting his arms along the rim of the tub.

Now that he had time to think about it, there were things about Miss Serena Ward that did not add up. He knew of many ladies of fashion who made excursions to dens of vice for the sheer titillation of the experience, but never unescorted. Where, in all of this, was the girl’s escort of last night? He remembered something else. Serena Ward was reputed to be virtually in mourning for a lover, her betrothed to be exact, who had perished at Prestonpans. Many men since had tried to woo her but the lady, as rumor had it, was not to be won. He was glad he had remembered that.

His anger seemed to have cooled along with the temperature of his bath water. Surging from the copper tub, he reached for a towel and proceeded to dry himself vigorously. Having donned a brocade robe, he sprawled on top of the bed and gazed at the intricate plaster ceiling, his eyes tracing the designs on the cornices, over and over, as if to memorize them.

What was there about his family, he wondered, that they should attract the notice of a viperish brood like the Wards? Was it something in themselves, some fatal flaw that marked them out as victims? Was it blind chance, or was it the machinations of a capricious, malevolent fate bent on their destruction? And where would it all end?

It had started in 1715, at the beginning of the first
Rebellion, when Sir Robert Ward had taken one look at Lady Harriet Egremont and had promptly offered for her. Lady Harriet was Julian’s mother. The girl’s father, Lord Kirkland, had accepted Sir Robert’s offer against his daughter’s wishes. Sir Robert was everything he wished for in a son-in-law. Their families were both of the Jacobite persuasion. The earl’s heir, Lord Hugo, and Sir Robert were inseparable friends. The only problem with all of this was the lady’s infatuation for a most unsuitable gentleman. This was Julian’s father. William Renney, as he was then known, was tutor to Lady Harriet’s younger brother, James. When Renney was dismissed from his post, the young couple eloped, in defiance of Lord Kirkland, and went into hiding.

As a young boy growing up in Bristol, Julian had known nothing of this. His life was as happy and carefree as any child had a right to expect. His father, with the help of his mother, had opened a school for the sons of the local gentry. As Julian remembered, when he wasn’t at his books, he was off playing with the other boys, reenacting every skirmish and battle of the past Rebellion. Those were the golden years of his life.

He could never quite remember when the turning point had come. What he did remember was that the school failed and within a year or two, after several moves, they were in Manchester, and the only source of the family’s income was the private tutoring his father did at home. By this time, the little family had grown. There were two more mouths to feed, for the twins had arrived when Julian was eight years old.

Mark and Mary were delicate children, and a constant source of worry to their parents. For all their worries, all their shortage of funds, the family was affectionate and close-knit. And when the twins turned three, their circumstances
changed for the better, or so it seemed at the time.

William Renney had procured a position as tutor to Lord Hornsby’s sons, and Lord Hornsby was a generous employer. There was money enough to send Julian as a boarder to the grammar school in Oxford which his father had attended as a boy. Against all these material advantages, however, was the sad fact that the family was to be scattered. A tutor was not allowed to have a private life, but was required to reside where his charges resided. The Renneys were never to be reunited.

There was one other thing that had troubled Julian. They were to change their name from Renney to Wright. He remembered his mother holding his hand tightly as his father explained the reason for the change. For the first time, Julian learned of his parents’ elopement, and was given to understand that this act was regarded as so reprehensible by the nobility that his father could never find employment as long as he kept his own name.

It was the truth, and yet it was a distortion of the truth, and so his parents, with the best will in the world, had deceived him. What seemed incomprehensible to him now was that he had never sensed the depths of their worries, he had never questioned the life they led nor thought of the future with anything less than supreme confidence. He was a clever boy with all the advantages of his father’s private tutoring. It was expected that he would one day find a position in some government ministry or perhaps at the university. But not under the name of Julian Renney.

He hated to remember those few years he had spent at school in Oxford, not because they were unhappy, but because they were bought with money his parents could ill afford. It was worse than that. His father had gone into
debt to procure an education for him that befitted the son of a gentleman.

He groaned softly, shutting his eyes as though he could avert the memories that were rushing in to claim him.

Summoned from school, he discovered that his father had been dismissed from his position and thrown in debtors’ prison. His mother was in deep despondency. He was thirteen years old and hardly able to cope with the burdens that had fallen on his shoulders—the twins, household chores, dread for his father’s fate, and worst of all, fear for his mother’s sanity. It was very evident to him that his mother feared someone was out for their blood and that they must go into hiding.

Bailiffs came. He remembered going for them when they put their hands on his mother to evict her from their rooms. The next thing he knew, he had taken a blow that sent him staggering to his knees. When he recovered from the blow, they were in the parish workhouse, but he had no recollection of how they had got there. Hell could not have terrified him more. Hollow-eyed children, brutal, gaunt-faced women, and few males to speak of. There were three hundred people housed in that barracks of a building, and in the space of two months, twenty-seven of them left it as corpses. Three of those corpses were his mother and his young brother and sister.