Authors: The Duel
“The girl is a young lady, as you very well know, not a child.”
Lady Paige tossed the robe over her shoulders and sat at the dressing table, taking the pins from her hair while she looked at his reflection in the mirror. “All the more reason for my presence.”
“All the less reason for you to be here. Why the deuce did you come, anyway? You knew our affair was over. You yourself selected that extravagant diamond bracelet you are wearing as a parting gift.”
“Ah, but I thought you might have missed me, as I did you, darling. You could have had second thoughts.”
He did, and third and fourth ones, too, about what a fool he had been. “I would have come to you had I reconsidered. You know I never invited you to my home, even when we were, ah, friends.” They had never been friends, never more than acquaintances. Ian could not, in fact, recall having a single weighty conversation with the overweight woman.
“Tish-tosh. Some foolish gentleman’s scruple.”
He said nothing.
“Yes, well, to be honest, I had nowhere else to go. I could not stay on at Paige House, not once all the servants left, the disloyal dastards.”
“When had they been paid last?” he asked.
“That was Reginald’s job.” She shrugged her shoulders, sending the robe sliding to the floor, giving him what she obviously assumed was an enticing sight of bare shoulder. Then she shifted her position to make sure he could see her nipples through the thin fabric. Ian had seen enough. He turned. No, the bed was in that direction. He moved toward the open window, looking out on the gardens. The dark paths were illuminated by a single lantern on the rear gate.
“But what made you come here, of all places?” he wanted to know.
“Well, you were the one who was responsible for forcing Reginald to leave town. That makes you responsible for me.”
“I do not see it that way at all. If I had made you a promise, or sworn eternal love or some such rot, then perhaps. But we had no such understanding. Whatever arrangement we had was ended before your husband challenged me. And while we are splitting hairs”—she was combing hers and it was not half as silky as Miss Renslow’s—“you told me Paige never cared what you did.”
She frowned as her comb snagged on a knot. She had been without a ladies’ maid too long. “He didn’t care until I told him what a good lover you were.”
“Gads, you told your husband that? No wonder he did not take you along with him when he fled his debtors.”
She got up and put her hands on his shoulders. “But it was true.”
Ian moved farther away. He’d be falling out the window, next.
Mona went back to combing her hair. “Well, he was not a good provider, not paying my dressmakers’ bills or the vintner. The least he could have done was provide a bit of excitement, and so I told him.”
Paige had provided excitement, all right.
Mona went on: “Besides, you were younger and handsomer and had deeper pockets. Of course he hated you.”
“You were his wife. And you still are,” he reminded her.
“Oh, I am not asking you to help me get a divorce so we can marry.”
Ian choked back the response he might have made, something about pigs and wings.
“All I want is a place to stay for a short while, without bailiffs at the door. Reggie will send for me eventually, you know. He really does love me.”
So someone was a greater fool than Ian, he was happy to learn. “Well, you cannot stay here.”
“Because of the Renslow chit?”
“Because I do not want you.”
“Of course you do, darling.” She puffed her chest out.
Ian shut the window so she did not catch cold. “No, I do not. And no, I do not want you anywhere near Miss Renslow.”
“I do not see why not. It is not as if her reputation can be damaged more. And for all those vaunted scruples of yours, I am not the one who has had a marriageable miss under my roof for days.”
“That is as may be. Even if her reputation cannot be salvaged, though, her morals can. You, madam, are no fit company for a lady. You are no fit company for a lapdog or a lamplighter. And I do not want you in my house.”
That was when Ian’s athletic ability came into play.
He ducked and dodged whatever flying objects he could not catch. Nothing hit him, and only one priceless pink jade figurine hit the wall. He made a point of picking up her hairbrush and putting it into her open, still packed trunk.
When Mona realized she could not move him with missiles, she resorted to tears. “I have no money in the bank and no place to go,” she cried.
“Neither of which is of the least concern to me.”
“And I am growing old and ugly and no one wants me.”
She was growing fat, too, he thought, but he liked the other jade statues too much to say so.
When he did not immediately disagree with her effort to win his pity, she shrieked, “Then you do think I am old and ugly?”
This time Ian did not move fast enough. Her knotted fist caught him smack on the ear. At least he did not have to listen to her screeching for a while. Unfortunately, when the ringing stopped she was still nattering on about bounders who used women and then abandoned them.
“If you toss me out I shall tell everyone how heartless you are.”
Ian rubbed his ear and gave a Wiggy
humph
of disinterested disdain.
“And how miserly.”
Now he raised his eyebrow. They both knew no one would believe that, especially when she had that diamond bracelet weighting down her arm.
“And you are keeping Miss Renslow all snugged away here where no one can see her.”
That caught his attention. “We shall leave the young lady out of this conversation, if you please.”
“And her brother, so he does not tell anyone how he came to be shot.”
“That, too, is not open for discussion.”
“Or why Paige is being blamed.”
“You can stay here tonight, but you leave in the morning, without speaking with Miss Renslow.”
“Why, so I do not discuss the duel with your little chick? Or do you mean she does not know?” Mona made an unladylike noise. “Only a green cabbage head would believe that fustian of a gentlemanly competition of skill. Someone”—someone who was temporarily homeless and penniless—“is bound to tell her the truth.”
“Very well, I shall pay your shot at a hotel.”
Mona played her trump card, now that the game was almost won. “What, are you afraid the little peagoose will stop thinking you hung the moon and the stars?”
“I do not know what you mean.”
She snorted again. “Come now, darling. I am not the one born yesterday. Your little virgin thinks you can walk on water. I should hate to be the one to disillusion her.”
So he gave her the keys to his Kensington house. Ian would be the one to move to the hotel. “But this is not permanent, mind you. We had an affair, not an arrangement, and it is over. I am not taking you into my keeping, not paying your bills, not giving you an allowance. I will not be seen with you. In fact, I do not want to see you at all, and I particularly do not want to see you anywhere near Miss Renslow. Is that understood?”
She kissed his cheek, near where his ear was still red from the blow of her fist. “Perfectly, darling.” Then she wrapped her arms around him in a grateful hug.
Ian was not cad enough to shove her away. Instead he vaguely patted her back and looked over her shoulder, out the window. Right into the upturned faces of Miss Athena Renslow and her deaf dog.
He should have jumped out the window when he had the chance.
*
It was a very good thing that Athena’s heart was not irrevocably committed to Lord Marden. Otherwise she might have been upset. She was not—not in the least. She brushed a drop of evening mist off her cheeks and went inside. She brought Roma up to Troy’s room and made sure that he was resting. She removed her cape and straightened her gown, and then she went back down the stairs, telling Hull she would wait for the earl’s departure in the entry hall. The butler took one look at her militant crossed-arms stance, her flashing turquoise eyes, and found an errand in the wine cellar.
Lord Marden had said he was spending the night away again, to muzzle the rumormongers. She would give him ten minutes, no more, to come down the marble stairs. If he was not out of the house, out of that woman’s room, in that time, she was going to start packing. She was not about to stay under the roof of a rutting rake and his rotund mistress. She could not, knowing they were in the pretty rose bedchamber, twining themselves together like rose vines on a trellis. The very image made her blush…and bristle like an irate hedgehog.
No matter that they were adults.
No matter that it was none of her business.
No matter that Lord Marden owned the house and had every right to behave as promiscuously as he wished here.
No. He had told her to consider Maddox House her own. Well, no lady put up with such goings-on while she was in residence. Athena’s sister-in-law had dismissed a footman and a maid when they were found holding hands, nothing more. The earl had been holding a great deal more than Lady Paige’s hand!
Why, Athena’s brother could be corrupted. Yes, that was what Athena decided to say, that Troy was too young to be exposed to licentious behavior. He admired the earl, and so might come to believe that such lewd behavior was acceptable for a gentleman, even dashing.
It was not acceptable. Athena understood that bachelors—and too often married men—kept mistresses, but not in their own homes, and not when they had polite company, surely. Squire Dayton had been accused of dallying with his housekeeper, and it was the scandal of the countryside. No one accepted his invitations.
Besides, Lady Paige had a husband! Athena could not decide if an unwed mistress was better than a married one, although an adulterous married man was far more despicable than a carefree bachelor. Lady Paige might have lied about her missing spouse too, though, as she had lied about being a friend of the earl’s sister.
No matter. Either Lady Paige or Athena had to go. Athena very much feared which of them Lord Marden would choose, the lush dark-haired beauty or her too thin, troublesome self. Athena could go to her uncle’s house for the night, and pray that Troy was ready to be moved by morning. She could not like living at Uncle Barnaby’s with no one but Macelmore for company, but that was better than the company here at Maddox House.
That was it: she would leave tonight, and take her pleasant memories with her. The silly infatuation
could stay behind, over and done, finished, extinguished, erased, exterminated, out of existence. So there.
Her decision was the right one, Athena told herself when the earl eventually did come down the marble steps. His hair was mussed, his neckcloth was askew, and he had a red mark on the side of his face—from kisses, Athena supposed. Heavens, how had they grown so torrid, so fast? The ten minutes had not half elapsed. She would not permit herself to acknowledge that the man looked indecently attractive, in his indecency.
“I am leaving,” she said.
“That is not necessary. I am going to Kensington.” To pack yet again. “And Lady Paige will go there in the morning.”
Athena made a strangled sound.
Now both his cheeks turned red. “That is, she will take up residence in the morning and I shall already be moved to a hotel.”
Athena knew very well why the earl had a second London residence. It was not to store his snuffboxes or to write poetry in private. A gentleman kept a love nest to house his ladybirds, nothing else. She also knew that he could alight there any time. He could also lie to her about where he was staying.
“You said Lady Paige was no one I ought to know. You might have told me you and she were…close.”
“We are not close, not by miles.” He looked longingly at the front door, which also seemed miles away, with an angry little shrew standing between him and escape.
“She is your mistress.”
He did not bother denying it. “Was. She was my mistress. At one time. One short time.”
“How long ago?”
“Thunderation, one does not discuss such matters with innocent females.”
“I am nearly twenty years of age, my lord, and have an older brother. How innocent in the ways of the world do you think I could be? If I did not know about Susie at the Duck and Drake, and the Widow Johnstone and her gentlemen callers, then my sister-in-law’s warnings about wicked London ways would have informed me. She said I could trust no man here except Mr. Wiggs. She was right.”
“Deuce take it, she was not right. Furthermore, your sister-in-law should have taught you that ladies are not supposed to acknowledge the existence of these trifling affairs, anyway.”
“Trifling? When they are on one’s very doorstep? That is, I know this is your doorstep”—which Ian was inching closer to—“but you did say I should treat Maddox House as my home.”
“As well you should. And will. This was an unfortunate set of circumstances which shall be corrected. You have my apologies for any insult to your sensibilities.”
More than her sensibilities were hurt, but Athena knew she had no right to anything but an apology. After all, she had befriended the woman herself. “Does everyone know?” she asked.
Ian supposed there must be someone in all of London—someone isolated, illiterate, and as deaf as the dog—who did not know that he and Lady Paige had been lovers. “Of course not.”
Athena did not believe him. The fact that he was twisting his leather gloves into corkscrews might have given away his lack of confidence in his answer. “What about the servants?”
“They are paid not to gossip about their employers.”
“Which means
they know. They all know. Mr. Hull is so embarrassed he cannot look me in the eye.”
“The old fellow needs spectacles, that’s all. And it does not matter who knows what, anyway.”
“How can you say that? No one will hire me now.”
“Hire you? What maggot has crawled into your brain box?” He tried to unwind the gloves and shove his hand into one at the same time. One of his fingers went right through the soft leather. “Blast. Now see what you have made me do with your nonsense about seeking a position.”