The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance (85 page)

Stourbridge looked at Southead and raised one eyebrow. “Is this what passes for civilized behaviour in your home? Brawls and name-calling? That might occur in schoolyards and the wilderness. I expected better from your hospitality, Duke.”

“He has proof,” Southead said. “I am convinced you have done grievous harm to these families, and to our brave soldiers. I’d listen to his offer, were I in your shoes. Your feet are set in quicksand.”

Stourbridge tried to look unconcerned, but his fingers drummed on the table. “Speak, then, savage.”

Ted nodded. “Very well. You can meet me outdoors, as I said. Right now, before you can hire a gang of ruffians. You will not survive, I promise. Or you can face a trial before your peers in Parliament. The sheriff’s men are waiting outside to arrest you.”

“What, a peer of the realm, on the word of a deserter?”

“I have sworn and witnessed testimony from one of Frederickson’s hirelings that you paid the commanding officer to have me and my troops ambushed. Frederickson confessed also, in front of several other officers. Your cousin, wasn’t he? He’s dead now, you know. An accident, they said, but his own men shot him.”

“And I will testify that you tried to rape my sister,” Cole added, which warmed Millie’s heart, there in the doorway. “You will find no friends in the Lords.”

The Duke concurred. “You’ll be convicted and hanged as a traitor.”

The drumming got louder. The sneer disappeared into a grimace. “I’ll leave the country. Give back the stupid chit’s dowry, if that’s what you want, Cole. You can have the whore and her money, Driscoll. You’ve been panting after both of them since you were in leading strings.”

Millie gasped, her brother turned red, but Ted forgot his best intentions and knocked Stourbridge out of his chair with a hammer-hard right punch to the mouth. Then he dragged him up by his neckcloth, which was already spattered with the Earl’s blood and teeth. “Apologise to the lady.”

Stourbridge mumbled something hard to interpret with his jaw broken. Ted tossed him back to the chair. “You have one other option. His Grace has offered you the use of a small room to the rear of his home. One door, no windows, no carpet. One bullet in one pistol. You can die a gentleman, even though you never lived as one.”

Before Stourbridge could decide, an older man pushed through the ever-increasing crowd at the door. “No,” Lord Walpole shouted. “That’s not good enough! My youngest son was one of the soldiers you had murdered in Canada.” He pulled a small pistol out of his inside pocket. “I came tonight to kill Driscoll. I see now I would have been a murderer then too.”

“I am sorry for your loss, My Lord,” Ted said, trying to calm the distraught man. “Your boy was a fine lad.”

“He did not deserve to die, not that way.” Tears were streaming down Walpole’s cheeks. He aimed the gun at Stourbridge. “But you do, you scum.”

He pulled the trigger.

The Dowager’s ball was more memorable than ever.

The vows were pronounced; Millie and the Viscount were wed.

The guests had left, the families — including Mr Armstead, who was as close as a bachelor could get to parson’s mousetrap without being caught — headed back to Kent for a month or so until Ted’s title was made official. Then they’d all return to London for the grand ball the new couple planned to celebrate.

The servants at Driscoll House in London were dismissed for the rest of the day and night. And maybe tomorrow too, while Lord and Lady Driscoll celebrated in private.

Millie set her hairbrush aside and smiled at Ted’s reflection in the mirror. She loved how his bare skin gleamed in the firelight, how he looked so at home in the massive master bed.

For his part, Ted could not take his eyes off his beautiful bride. Her red curls crackled from the brushing as they flowed down her back. She had red curls between her legs, too. He couldn’t decide which he found more appealing. He smiled again. Thank heaven he did not have to choose.

“Come, Millie mine. You’ve been gone far too long.”

“Ten minutes?”

“A lifetime, it seems.”

She smiled back and returned to the bed, to his arms. They lay together, comfortable and content for the moment. Then Millie sighed. “I cannot help worrying about poor Lord Walpole. Do you think there will be an inquest and charges brought against him?”

“I do not see why there should be. At least six men saw the pistol fire by mistake while Stourbridge was examining its design.”

She sighed again. “I’m glad.”

“Glad the muckworm is dead? So am I. I cannot help the twinge of sympathy I have for the poor devil though. I don’t know what I would have done if you kept saying no to a hurried wedding.”

“I shouldn’t have, not so soon …”

He wrapped a long curl around his fingers, and the fingers of his other hand found the short curls. “Six months? I’d have been tempted to carry you off to my lair and ravish you.”

She kissed him on the lips, the chin, then breathed into his ear. “I thought that’s what you just did.”

“What, are you complaining about my lovemaking, wench?”

“Not if you promise to do it again soon.”

He pretended to groan. “Now who is trying to kill me?”

“With love. Only with love.”

With a bit of encouragement he rose to the occasion and proved his own love with tender words and passionate kisses that led to more celebrating.

“I did not know marriage could be so … stirring. Will it be like this for ever, do you think, Ted?”

“Now and for ever, Red, now and for ever.”

Lucky Millie. Blessed Ted.

“
She
is the widow, Madame Beauchere?” Hatred pounding in his veins, Gerard Arnfield, His Grace the Duke of Hawkworth, observed the lush woman in peacock blue on the dance floor.

Charlotte. After all this time.

But not the Charlotte he remembered.

The curvaceous form looked the same. The violet eyes and glossy chestnut tresses struck achingly familiar chords. But for the rest? Pure artifice. A neckline designed to draw the male eye to the swell of creamy breasts. The full lips promised of heaven to any man who won them, but instead led to hell.

Nothing about her rang true.

Beneath the chandeliers, her skin glowed with the translucence of a pearl. A pearl he’d once claimed, only to discover he held nothing but smoke.

Something as sharp as a knife twisted in his gut. Damn her for coming back.

“You know her?” His old friend Brian Devlin stepped back, his pale, thin face rife with curiosity.

“I know her,” he said without emotion.

“Biblically speaking?” Dev looked hopeful.

Gerard allowed himself a grim smile. “For a man requesting a favour, you ask too many questions, Dev.”

A brief nod acknowledged the set down. “Will you do it, though? I can’t think of anyone else who could draw her off. My aunt is frantic.”

“Why not?” Why not pay her back in kind for her cruelty? Although, on the one hand, he should thank her for teaching a naïve youth about the ways of women, except it would be like thanking his father for beating sense into his head.

Madame Beauchere laughed up at her partner, Dev’s cousin and heir to the Graves fortune. His fair, open expression beneath its thatch of carefully coiffed sandy curls reminded Gerard of a besotted calf.

Much like the expression Gerard once had plastered on his face.

Devlin sighed. His brow furrowed. “It won’t be easy. She’s got her claws firmly hooked.”

Seeing her so beautiful, so womanly, Gerard’s anger flared anew, a blazing inferno of rage — along with lust for her delectable body. Something he hadn’t expected. Something he quickly controlled, but didn’t fight. Yes, he still wanted her. Only this time it would be different. This time he’d make it impossible for her to leave until
he
decided she would go. This time he would get her out of his mind and his blood entirely.

He gave his friend a cool glance. “You may bank on my success.”

Dev must have heard something in his voice, because his frown deepened. “Don’t tell me you have fallen for the wench.”

“I don’t fall, Dev,” he said gently. “I fell them.”

The benighted ladies of the ton had called him Axe Arnfield for years, because they fell at his feet at the snap of his fingers.

And bored him nigh unto death. At least Charlotte represented a challenge.

“Well, I hope you haven’t met your match,” Dev grumbled under his breath.

Once she had been his match. Now, she was simply another female to conquer and leave behind.

Gerard observed her glide sensually down the set. Graceful, alluring and utterly feminine. He could see how an impressionable youth like Graves would end up bewitched.

“I’ll introduce you when the set is over,” Dev said.

“No need. She’ll remember.”

Devlin gave him a morose glance. “My aunt will pray weekly for your soul in gratitude.”

He laughed softly. “Tell her not to bother. I don’t have a soul.” Not where Charlotte was concerned.

Charlotte couldn’t shake off the sensation of being watched. No, it wasn’t quite that. She had been stared at from the moment she arrived in London, mostly by jealous females. This felt more intense and not completely unpleasant.

She let her gaze wander as her feet followed the music. As a girl, she’d loved dancing, but now it was simply a means to an end. It showed off her charms and grace, and allowed her to flirt.

There. Leaning against a pillar. A tall, exquisitely tailored man with dark-blond hair, sardonic amusement in icy blue eyes. Their gazes clashed.

Heat flared in her body, the fire of desire, even as her heart twisted in pain and her stomach plummeted to her royal-blue slippers.

Gerard. The sound of his name in her head was a cry of despair.

He acknowledged the brief meeting of their eyes with a slight dip of his head.
I dare you
, those cold eyes said. Her smile suddenly felt stiff, her cheeks tight.

Her heart rattled against her ribs while her mind absorbed this latest disaster
. Nom d’un nom
. He wasn’t supposed to be in town. Her spy had promised he would not return until autumn.

His gaze drifted away.

Perhaps she’d imagined the challenge. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized her after five long years. Lord, she hoped so.

Dragging her gaze back to Lord Graves as he took her hand in the centre of their four, she swallowed dry fear. Serious-faced and hazel-eyed, he was the answer to all her prayers — and Father’s last hope of rescue from his dank Calais prison.

She smiled and he flushed a bright pink. She wanted to ruffle his gleaming curls, pat his shoulder. He was a nice young man. The kind of man to whom she’d be a loyal and dutiful wife. That he had more than enough money to cover father’s debts made him the perfect suitor. If she could bring him up to scratch.

Worry gnawed at her stomach. Gerard was here. His presence sent her mind spinning, her heart tumbling.

The cotillion concluded and Lord Graves walked her back to Miles O’Mally, her father’s loyal friend and her supposed uncle. A dandy in his youth, he was still a fine figure of a man with a penchant for flashy waistcoats. Tonight ivory brocade embroidered with pink roses hugged his paunch.

With a light laugh, she fanned her face. “So energetic. I protest, I am quite parched.”

“Let me fetch you a drink,” Lord Graves said eagerly.

“A true knight indeed, My Lord.” She gave him a glowing smile of approval. He hurried away.

A twinge of conscience twisted her insides.

Why should she feel ashamed? She was doing exactly what the nobility had done for centuries, binding two families together for the good of both. She would be good for the feckless youth. A steadying influence. Not for a moment would he have cause to suspect her lack of emotional engagement. Never would he know the sting of betrayal. Such loyalty as she promised came at a price: her father’s freedom.

She leaned close to Miles, her fan hiding her lips, her voice lowered. “He returned.”

The charming Irishman’s florid face frowned. “Are ye sure?”

“My dance, I believe,” a rich tenor murmured behind her.

O’Mally’s brown eyes widened, then his brow lowered.

Dread filling her heart, her breath held fast in her chest, Charlotte turned and faced Gerard.

The Duke took her hand. He deftly turned it over, his lips brushing the pulse point at her wrist as he bowed. Her mind went blank. Fire tingled up her arm. The searing scorch of his warm lips had taken no more than the time required to blink, yet left her trembling.

“Madame Beauchere,” he murmured. “Such a delight to meet you again.” The modulated voice held an underlying warning.

“I—”

“The music starts.” One hand in the small of her back, the other clasping her fingers, he guided her between the guests towards the dance floor. One or two heads turned to look. Her mouth dried. This was a catastrophe.

Her gaze travelled to a pair of mocking blue eyes. “This is a waltz,” she said, frowning. “I don’t waltz. Ever.” It always felt much too personal for her taste.

“Really?” He swirled her into his arms and on to the dance floor. He was taller than she remembered. Broader. A man, no longer a boy, and more handsome than ever.

“Despicable,” she muttered.

“I beg your pardon?” His drawl shimmered and danced over the skin of her shoulders as if he’d stroked her nape, yet all the while his hands remained decorously placed.

She glared up at him. “You did that on purpose. Made it impossible for me to refuse without causing a scene. So I said ‘despicable’.”

His eyes warmed to cerulean and one corner of his mouth kicked up a fraction. Attraction sparked, crackling in the air like unspent lightning bolts. Incendiary. Explosive. She found it hard to draw a breath.