Miracle (5 page)

"Where is she?" he demanded in a threatening tone. "What have you done with her? If this is another of your bloody attempts to manipulate me—" Focusing on the duchess, he moved across the room, his stalk menacing, causing her to back away until, coming up against a table, she was forced to stand her ground, to raise her chin and meet his intimidating glower. "You told her already," he said through his teeth. "You meddling old witch. I should strangle you. Have you any idea what you've done? She's gone. Got away. No doubt returned to that despicable old haunt where I found her, all because you couldn't mind your own bloody business. Can you not see what you've done? She'll never forgive me for this, damn you. She'll never trust me—the lot of us—again, and I don't blame her."

"You'll go after her, of course," said the duke in a calm voice.

"Oh yes," Hawthorne said, still staring into his grandmother's eyes. "I'll go . . . for whatever good it will do me."

To love someone is to be the only one to see

a miracle invisible to others

FRANÇOIS MAURIAC

Chapter One

Wyndthorst
Hall, Cheltenham, England

Three Months Earlier

Clayton Hawthorne stood by the elaborate Renaissance mantel that was burdened by their grandmother's outrageous collection of porcelain cherubs and gold-plated clocks adorned by Roman winged messengers. One broad shoulder was propped against the stone fixture, and his arms were crossed over his chest. Clay's gray eyes regarded his twin brother wearily. In truth, he was exhausted. Having been summoned to
Wyndthorst
by his grace on the pretense of extreme urgency, Clayton had departed Basingstoke, his home in southern England, at just after midnight, arriving at the dowager duchess's estate just after daylight, only to discover that what he had anticipated as bad news concerning the aged duchess's health had turned out to be Trey's usual manipulations. The duke of Salterdon was up to something; Clayton was certain of it.

"I realize this all sounds like madness," said Trey as he critically studied his own reflection in the framed looking glass and adjusted his linen stock so it lay perfectly against his white shirt. Raising one dark eyebrow, he then focused on Clayton's image in the mirror, obviously regarding Clay's attire: his mud-spattered Hessians, patched breeches, and a shirt that had yellowed with age and too many washings. His brother hadn't so much as bothered to brush his hair. It lay mussed and feathered all over his
head, and was in dire need of trimming. Clayton could so easily read the thoughts swimming behind Trey's stone- gray eyes:
You've dressed like that just to spite me.

Absolutely,
Clay grinned back with that devil-may-care glint in his eye that told his brother his exact feelings on the matter. Clayton Wyatt Bishop Hawthorne, second son of Harry William
Dillion
Hawthorne, the duke of Salterdon before his untimely death in a shipwreck off the coast of Africa, was unequaled in his ability to mask his true thoughts and feelings. Grown wagering men had been known to sweat before the iciness of Clay's demeanor.

Facing Clayton at last, the duke continued, "A fortnight ago, I would've agreed. However, circumstances being as they are, I firmly believe that I have little choice. I swear upon the king's crown, Clay, that the dowager continues to live just to see me agonize."

"The dowager continues to live because she's perfectly healthy and obliged to see her first great-grandchild born into his proper place in the world—that being the future duke of Salterdon, of course. In short, my dear brother, she won't die until she sees you respectably married with a half-dozen brats tumbling about the floor like little rug rats."

For another long moment, Clayton's hooded eyes regarded Trey's, his hard body at ease and suited to the cavernous and austere surroundings of their grandmother's home. "Get to the point," he finally said. "You didn't hoodwink me into making that hellish jaunt from Basingstoke just to
prat
on about grandmother. You want something from me. What is it?"

"Ah, Clay. As always you're painfully direct, an almost enviable trait . . . had we been born into the socially or economically inferior classes. Obviously, somewhere in our distant past, you forgot to embrace the lesson of tact. But then, perhaps that's what makes you so infamous among our circle. There's something about your dark good looks and bucolic
virility
that is apparently incredibly alluring to the weak-hearted women who find themselves the focus of your attention. I suppose your reputation as a lover doesn't hurt."

Rewarding Clayton with a derisive smile, Trey lowered his voice and added, "I wonder what it is about women who find themselves drawn to a ruffian like you. Obviously, there's some feminine sexual appetency that causes them to risk an occasional dance with the devil. You've broken hearts from one continent to the next, and yet . . . there isn't a woman who has ever fallen under your spell who came away from your fiery affairs with anger and regret. As a wife of a mutual friend recently proclaimed, "If every husband who neglected his lonely wife would treat his spouse with as much consideration and affection as the superbly handsome and scandalous Lord Hawthorne, there would be no unfaithful wives. They would all be too deliriously satisfied to climb out of bed."

"I'm certain you didn't have me ride here throughout the night just to discuss my love life," Clayton said.

"You're absolutely right. I've brought you here to inform you that I've hatched a plan to get exactly what I want—and need—from the duchess."

"Don't tell me you again plan to sneak into her room and smother her while she sleeps," Clay teased with a laugh. "I bet you a hundred pounds last time that you wouldn't go through with it, and you didn't."

"Nothing so dramatic. I simply intend to give her what she wants. A granddaughter-in-law."

Silence.

"You?" Clayton replied at last, and somewhat smugly. "Marry? I beg your pardon, but I'll believe
that
when I see it."

"You needn't look so shocked. It's done every day. Occasionally, compromise must be employed if one wishes to achieve what one deserves out of life."

"So tell me . . . have you someone in mind?"

His Grace removed a snuff box from his coat and flipped it open. "Yes, as a matter of fact," he replied with a flourish.

Silence again while Clayton pondered the surprising possibility. "Well? Don't keep me in suspense. What little featherbrain is so desperate as to consider marriage to
you?
"

"I shouldn't spar too loudly. Not with your reputation. There isn't a father in England or the Continent, for that matter, who would trust you five minutes
unchaperoned
with his daughter, not for all the guineas in your coffers nor your seven estates. The fact is, you're an incorrigible gambler—"

"Who wins. Who
always
wins. Who can spy a fraud a stone's throw away. Who, therefore, is not at the mercy of our guinea-pinching grandmother who continues to defy death in order to force you, the eldest Hawthorne, to marry and produce an heir. In short, I don't require the dowager duchess's money and therefore can happily invite her to burn in hell, should I chose to do so."

"But you wouldn't, of course. You like the old crone." The duke touched a pinch of snuff to each nostril before slipping the blue crested porcelain box back into his pocket.

"I can honestly say that, yes, I do," Clayton replied. "I find her amusing, if not predictable. Besides, I was always her favorite."

"That's putting it mildly. I could never understand it, actually. You were always the troublemaker, for her, and for me. You were quite the scalawag, you know. Still are, I daresay. I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you."

The brothers exchanged dry smiles, then turned at once and walked in unison to the immense double French doors overlooking the thousand-acre estate that had belonged to their family for the last two hundred years.

"So who is the chit?" Clayton asked after a moment of silence.

"The chit?"

"The lucky bride to be."

"Ah! Well, naturally, I thought it better to settle for someone out of the usual gossip vine; someone unfamiliar with my lifestyle or my friends, someone who would be perfectly happy to live out her life ensconced at one of my country homes, away from the life I live in London and abroad. Someone—"

"Ignorant of your supreme decadence."

"Hmm," the duke said softly and thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose that would be the most delicate way of phrasing it, though I rush to add there is absolutely nothing stupid about the lass—far from it."

"Where did you find her?"

"It was quite by accident. Never intended such a scam. There I was, sailing my yacht, the
Lady Lover
, with several of my friends around the south coast of the isle when a storm roared in, catching our mainsail in a tug of war and casting us onto that damned
Rocken
End Race."

"Please," Clayton encouraged, "the girl . . ."

"The girl . . . oh yes; the last thing I remember was the
Lady Lover
bashing her hull upon that long, wicked ledge of rocks stretching out into the sea. Then I woke up spitting seawater from my mouth, and there she appeared, sitting on a boulder that dripped seaweed and crabs. I am lying there, halfway drowned, and all she can say is, 'How do you do?' "

Clayton regarded the duke's profile. "How do you do?"

Trey replied with a short nod. "Just that. Then she proceeded to nudge a sand crab with her bare toe, giving me a generous glance of her naked leg, all the way up to here." He pointed to the top of his thigh, flashed Clayton the devastating smile for which the brothers were so famous, and asked, "Intrigued yet?"

"Possibly," Clayton muttered, narrowing his eyes. "Very well, you've described her naked toe and leg up to there. What else was she revealing?"

"She had the most glorious red hair down to the backs of her knees. Her face was white as dove down except for a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She dressed like a hoyden. A lot of rags sewn simply together and I vow to this day she wore nothing—I repeat, nothing—underneath. Her nipples were most prominent, possibly because she was cold. I should hate to think they remain like that all the time," Trey said with a flash of wit in his eyes. "However, she didn't seem to care a whit. When she left her rock to fall to her knees beside me in the sand, instead of crossing her arms over her round little breasts, she had the audacity to draw back her shoulders and gaze like some mermaid out to sea. I don't mind telling you, I was mesmerized."

"You? Mesmerized by a woman of lowly birth?"

Clearing his throat, turning away from the door, and staring off into space, the duke took a long, fond study of his surroundings, relishing the splendor of his grandmother's drawing room, from the lush carpets on the floor to the magnificent tapestries on the wall. "We'll get to that. But first things first. The girl crosses her long legs, props her elbows on her knees, and proceeds to stare at me. I'm shaking to my boots; teeth chattering, gut churning with water and squid. She bends near me and says, 'I trust I was sent here to save you.' I said, 'I beg your pardon?' I'm thinking,
The chit is allowing me to freeze to death and she's fantasizing about saving
me!"

"Did she?" Clayton grinned. "Save you?"

"I think not," the duke proclaimed. "What she
did
do was disappear into the spray and fog and return with a donkey with long, gray shaggy hair that bared his yellow teeth at me and brayed loudly enough to rouse Saint Peter, which didn't do my water occluded brain a mite of good. Somehow she managed to fling me onto the ass's back and with my friends stumbling along behind, escorted us up to some tumbledown old structure that was part chapel and part lighthouse that didn't spit out enough light to see a yard away, much less a mile away. The place was more than a little chilling. Obviously, the old chapel is submerged during high tides and whoever is keeping the pitiful torch lit in the crumbling octagonal structure is stranded some thirty-five feet above the rampaging waves."