Never Entice an Earl (5 page)

With a start, Daphne remembered the matter at hand, and the time. “You had all best
be on your way. You don’t want to be late.”

The footmen reached for the doors, opening them for the party’s anticipated passage.

Clarissa waved a gloved hand. “I’ll tell you all the on-dits tonight when we return—what
everyone wore and who asked me to dance.”

“As will I,” Mr. Kincraig added drolly, pressing a hand over his heart, which inspired
a dramatic roll of her sister’s eyes. Yet Daphne did not miss the little twitch of
a smile on Clarissa’s lips—one that mirrored her own. Even the viscountess smiled.

In that moment her heart softened just a degree toward the man who had, through no
fault of his own, taken her father and her brother’s rightful place. Perhaps…perhaps
they could all one day accept Mr. Kincraig as a true member of the family.

“Tomorrow at breakfast,” Daphne responded. “Most likely I’ll be asleep when you return.”
Balls always ran late, and it would be two or three o’clock before they arrived home.
At least that was her hope.

At last, in a shimmer of pearls and diamonds, her sister and mother were gone, in
the company of a man who remained so much a stranger to them. Daphne breathed a sigh
of relief.

Finally—time to help Kate! Thank heavens Wolverton had decided to make an early evening
of it and take dinner in his room. She’d glimpsed O’Connell, his valet, descending
the servants’ staircase some thirty minutes before, having already been dismissed
for the night.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” she whispered to herself, as she rushed down the stairs, returning
again to the servants’ corridor.

She’d already considered every option. For her, simply paying off Kate’s debt wasn’t
possible; despite her privileged life, she had no access to money of her own, not
of the magnitude required. She couldn’t sell her dresses or her jewels. Anything of
value that went missing would be noted immediately either by her mother or the keen-eyed
Mrs. Brightmore, and the loss construed as theft. The servants would be questioned,
and she would be forced to step forward and declare herself the guilty party in stealing
from…well, from her own self. A strange predicament, indeed.

If only she could go to her grandfather or her mother and simply ask for the money,
but she knew from experience her grandfather, no matter how generous he might be,
would soundly reject the lending of money to a servant. The problem had presented
itself before, and she had heard his reasoning. What he did for one, he must do for
all. There would be no loans granted, only fair wages earned, and never in advance.

She could only imagine the earl’s explosive reaction, as well as her mother’s dismay,
if they learned that she’d involved herself in the financial affairs of a servant.
Likely by opening her mouth she would only find herself on the receiving end of a
lecture about proper boundaries between herself and the staff—and Kate in search of
a new position.

She couldn’t even go to Sophia, who very well might take pity on Kate’s plight. The
Duke and Duchess of Claxton had departed that afternoon for a week at their estate
outside of Lacenfleet, where Sophia could rest and be doted on by Mrs. Kettle, the
elderly caretaker’s wife, while His Grace approved recent renovations to the manor
house, necessary after a fire had destroyed much of the main hall just before Christmas.

Daphne hadn’t felt this helpless since the day her father died. She’d been powerless
to change the course of that tragedy. Now, having knowledge of the danger Kate’s family
faced, she had no choice but to act.

Hurriedly, she spoke to the nurse who had been brought in to tend to the stricken.
Afterward, she visited each of the female servants, fluffing pillows and coaxing spoonfuls
of weak beef broth through pale and unwilling lips. All the while, her brain churned
out one useless idea after another before returning to the only one that made sense.
At last she again arrived at Kate’s door. Inside, thankfully, Kate was sleeping, her
face pallid against the linen pillowcase.

Hands shaking, she took up Kate’s reticule from the table and searched inside until
she found what she wanted—a scrap of paper upon which all the necessary particulars
had been neatly inscribed in her friend’s familiar handwriting.

Cormack stared at the doorway from across the road, the scent of rubbish filling his
nostrils. Had he, indeed, found the Blue Swan? By all appearances, he stood outside
an abandoned warehouse. Just then, a hackney clattered down the pavestones and slowed
in front of him, only to speed off again. But there, in the shadows, he caught just
the barest glimpse of a man who rapped his fist on the door two times. The sound echoed
outward. After a moment, he rapped two times more.

He observed movement, but not so much as a glimmer of light. Men’s voices sounded,
a quiet rumble in the night, and the newly arrived visitor disappeared inside.

Crossing the road, he replicated the knock against the door.

A panel slid open, behind which he perceived the shadowed features of a very large
man, who stooped to peer out at him. “Say th’ word, govna.”

Hmmm. Entrance, it appeared, required more than a special knock, but he’d come prepared
for that possibility.

“The precise word slips my mind.” From his coat pocket, he produced a heavy pouch,
and on his open palm, he presented it to the man. “Might you be able to give me a
hint?”

The bully quickly took possession of the offered bribe and, behind the door, appeared
to weigh the pouch in his hand.

With a squint, he muttered, “The word is slippin’ me own mind at the moment—I’m tryin’
me best to remember—”

Another pouch, and the door swung open to darkness. “Enjoy your evenin’, sir.”

Cormack walked with outstretched hand until he touched a heavy velvet curtain, which
he pushed aside, only to be met with more darkness and a second curtain, but also
sounds—voices and female laughter. He swept aside another drape and entered the Blue
Swan.

“Cheatin’ nob!”

Cormack intercepted the fist that drunkenly hurtled toward his face. Grabbing the
red-nosed fellow by his shoulders, he spun him round and shoved him in the direction
of his intended opponent.

Lord, he despised bawdy houses. If only vengeance had not commanded him here tonight.

Tobacco smoke clouded the air, dimming his view of the men who crowded around the
faro tables, gentlemen in evening dress intermingled with tradesmen in dark suits
and rough-hewn men off the wharves. Gilt-framed mirrors cluttered the walls, and lopsided
chandeliers hung from the ceilings, trappings of faux luxury. A ramshackle quartet
was assembled in the distant corner. The establishment had the feel of transience,
as if every fixture, table, and drape could be snatched up at any moment, thrown in
the back of a wagon, and installed elsewhere for the same effect. Understandable,
as Cormack’s source had warned him the club changed locations often so as to avoid
discovery by the constables. Predators with painted lips and rouged cheeks circled
him, already taking note of the newcomer in their midst.

“Looking for a bit o’ company t’night, good sir?” inquired a redhead, boldly assessing
him with kohl-lined eyes.

“Two is company. Three is a party.” The brunette sidled closer, offering Cormack an
unrestricted view of her breasts, only barely constrained by a bodice of sheer muslin.
“You look like the sort of man who requires more than just one.”

Hmmm…perhaps. But his tastes were far more refined than what he would find here.

As far as London brothels went, the Blue Swan was the seediest he’d visited thus far.
But he wasn’t here to drink, gamble, or to whore. He was here to find the man he had
sworn to destroy. If only he knew who the hell he was looking for.

His hand passed over his coat pocket, confirming the existence of the hard lump within—the
gold amulet he’d accepted from Laura’s hand in the moments before her death, one bearing
a severed Medusa’s head and the Latin word
Invisibilis
.

Two years had passed, but in many ways time had stood still. His parents remained
mired in grief for the death of their beloved daughter, still unable to fathom the
mysterious circumstances in which she met her end—circumstances that Cormack now felt
compelled to avenge.

From what his parents had told him, he knew that Laura arrived at Bellefrost on the
back of a farmer’s wagon, in rags and with no possessions of which to speak, already
in the throes of childbirth labor. This had come as a shock, as they’d believed her
to be contentedly serving as a governess at the Deavalls’. Her letters had come with
all regularity, never giving the slightest hint of distress. Their questions had brought
no answers—only tears from his sister. In shock, they’d called for the doctor. Within
hours of what had seemed to be a normal birth, her health suddenly failed. She died,
never revealing the name of the man who had left her to give birth alone to a pale-haired
little boy. Was it because she wished to keep her seducer’s identity a secret, or
because she hadn’t expected to die?

Left with no answers and his sister’s honor to defend, Cormack had asked questions
of his own. Against the wishes of his parents, who wanted only to grieve and raise
Michael with as much dignity as possible, he had traveled to the Deavall estate, only
to be informed by the housekeeper that Laura had abruptly left her employment some
five months before her death. It did not take long for him to discover she had spent
the first week after leaving holed away at an inn in the neighboring village before
moving to another, this one much shabbier than the first. Before long, she had simply…disappeared.

He wasn’t a fool. He knew she’d gone into hiding to conceal her condition from the
world. From her own family. But Laura had always been so smart, and so strong and
self-disciplined. She wasn’t
that
woman. How had this happened to her? The questions ate him up inside. Who was the
child’s father, and why, in the end, had Laura suffered such a shocking dishonor alone,
and left her child to suffer the lifelong stain of illegitimacy?

Of course, his suspicions had immediately fallen to the Deavall estate, but a chance
encounter with a local tavern girl—very pretty, except for the shadows in her eyes—had
provided a more startling answer when she glimpsed the medallion in his hand. She
shared of her harrowing experience with a group of aristocratic young hell-raisers
at the Duke of Rathcrispin’s hunting lodge, which lay adjacent to the Deavall estate.
For two weeks the libertines had gambled, drank, and done their best to debauch every
woman within a ten-mile radius of the place, including herself, which was why she
now had a little girl of her own and no husband.

Desperately accepting the coins Cormack pressed into her hand, she’d told him she
knew from intimate experience that several of the men had worn a medallion identical
to the one in his possession. She believed them dangerous and powerful enough for
her to warn him against showing the medallion freely. Perhaps, like her, Laura had
been momentarily dazzled and seduced, she’d said. But she would not exclude a more
sinister explanation, had his sister been unwilling. The men exuded entitlement and
a lifetime of privilege. They had no qualms about taking what they wanted.

Truly, it was all the answer he needed, save for a name.

Simmering with rage, not only for the wrong done to his sister but to the girl as
well, he had gone to the hunting lodge, even though the men were no longer in residence.
He had been seeking answers. Seeking names. The place teemed with guests, a house
party, yet in his attempt to make inquiries he hadn’t made it past the door. Though
he had been raised as gentry and possessed a fortune from his time in Bengal, he was
no aristocrat. He might as well have been a street beggar in rags in the haughty eyes
of those he sought to question. He had been rebuffed like so much rubbish.

So for two years he’d tended to his parents and little Michael, ostracized by their
neighbors now not for their poverty, but because of scandal, so much so that even
their neighbor, Sir Snaith, had declined to honor his gentleman’s agreement to sell
their lands back to them. Yet winter had delivered to him an unexpected gift—the key
to obtain the answers and, yes, the vengeance he sought. An unexpected series of deaths
had made his father the new Marquess of Champdeer and him an earl. At last Cormack
had the necessary entrée to step behind the high wall of aristocratic protection that
had held him back for so long.

For that reason he had come to London for the season when twelve men who remained
unnamed—and one who remained unpunished—would in all likelihood converge from all
corners of England, like the others of their kind.

Having arrived one week ago, he found himself woefully without connections, but at
night he frequented their favorite gaming halls and discreetly asked questions, not
of those men of privilege with whom he rubbed elbows, but of those who found themselves
trampled beneath their well-polished heels, who in common whispered one word, but
only after glancing fearfully over their shoulder: Invisibilis. At last, he felt…close.

His hatred renewed, Cormack made his selection carefully and caught her wrist as she
moved past, a woman in an ill-fitted, jade green gown. Older than the others, with
a faded complexion and dull hair, perhaps she would be more eager than her competitors
to earn a bit of coin in exchange for a whispered, forbidden secret.

“’Ay!” The harridan’s eyes widened in outrage but, upon assessing him, softened into
heavy-lidded seduction. “Well, ’ow do you do, ’andsome?” she breathed. “’Aven’t seen
you ’ere before. I’m Nellie. What are y’ lookin’ for tonight?”

“I’m looking for you, Nellie.” He took care to remain in the deepest of shadows. Though
few would recognize him in London, he expected that might change, depending on how
long this business of retribution kept him here.