How to Romance a Rake (31 page)

“I hope this doesn’t mean that
Il Maestro
has moved on to painting Mrs. Turner,” Juliet responded. “If so, we’ve got to find her as soon as possible.”

Nodding, Alec pulled her closer to his side, giving her the protection of his body as they slipped down the servants’ hall and out of the Wallingford town house.

Eighteen

When they returned home from the Wallingford ball, Alec refused to let Juliet retreat into the solitude of her room.

“It changes nothing between us,” he told her, pulling her by the hand through the connecting door into his room.

As sometimes happened, Juliet was struck anew at just how beautiful he was. She knew that he would not wish to be described so, but his fallen-angel looks were much too gorgeous to be called simply handsome. The way his golden hair curled just over his brow, the fine lines of his facial features, even the fullness of his lashes, would have made him a lovely woman. But the strength of his jawline and the hard muscles that filled out his clothing marked him as deliciously male. A shiver ran through her as Juliet allowed him to pull her to him, even as she fretted about what effect her newfound notoriety would have upon him.

“Stop worrying,” he ordered, kissing her just below her earlobe, even as his hand slid down to cup her breast through her clothing. “The
ton
have the attention span of a flea. They will be on to some other scandal by tomorrow.”

But the next day came and went and still all the gossips could speak about was Juliet and her shameful secret. Her distress at being ridiculed at the Wallingford ball, however, was greatly diminished by the relief she felt at finally knowing that her secret was a secret no more.

She had known of course that maintaining her deception was difficult on a practical level. But never had she realized just how great a toll lying about the extent of her injuries had taken on her soul. No one, not her cousins, not her aunts, not even her dear friend Anna, had been allowed to know about her amputation. Only Alec, and he only recently, had shared in her burden.

“I hope this will not affect your standing in society,” she told him that night as they lay together in his bed. “It is unfair that you should suffer because I failed to disclose the extent of my injury before we wed. I should have told you.”

But he would have none of it, and tucked her against his shoulder with a proprietary air. “Don’t be a goose. I told you before that I knew, or guessed, your secret before we wed. It makes no difference.”

She began to argue, but he silenced her with a kiss and Juliet was forced to let the matter rest.

But it was difficult to ignore her situation the next day when her drawing room was filled with society ladies intent upon ensuring that she knew very well just how lucky she was.

“For I heard he was on the verge of offering for Caroline Simpson,” the Countess Downes, and the mother of Lady Felicia Downes, informed her. “You did well to keep your…” she paused, whether for effect or because she was trying to find a polite way to say “amputation,” Juliet couldn’t tell.

“Your foot trouble,” Mrs. Snowe, a buxom social climber who also happened to be the mother of the Ugly Ducklings’ arch nemesis, finished for her friend. “You did well to hide it from him, my dear,” she continued, her approval rankling with Juliet in a way her disapproval would not have. “For gentlemen do seem to be concerned about appearances, don’t they?”

Juliet could think of no polite response, and she was saved from giving one by the appearance of Hamilton.

“My lady,” he said quietly, “you have a visitor in the small sitting room.”

Desperate for any reason to escape her present company, she excused herself and gave a nod to her sisters-in-law who were chatting with friends on the opposite side of the room. When she reached the hallway, however, Hamilton paused.

“His lordship has refused his uncle admittance more than once, but Mr. Devenish pushed past me and refuses to leave. I can have him removed by the footmen but I wished to inform you first.”

Juliet frowned. She had met Alec’s uncle many times when he had been an intimate of her father’s but it had been some years since she’d had any contact with the man. Unlike Alec, Roderick Devenish bore a striking resemblance to the previous viscount, in both manner and looks. He also rivaled his late brother’s reputation as a reprobate.

It would be unwise for her to meet with him without having her husband present, but curiosity, and a reluctance to return to the drawing room, made her say, “I will see him, Hamilton. But please remain nearby lest we need to employ the footmen in his removal.”

At the butler’s nod, she gripped her walking stick and walked calmly into the sitting room.

Her new uncle by marriage was staring up at the portrait of Lady Sophia Deveril, which hung in the room that was once that lady’s sitting room.

“Her beauty still takes my breath away,” Roderick said as she entered the room. “It’s a shame what happened. A damned shame.”

Ignoring his epithet, Juliet squared her shoulders and said, “Mr. Devenish, I am afraid my husband is not here to receive you. If you will return later this evening I feel sure he will see you then.”

“I wouldn’t wager on that, my lady,” her husband’s uncle said with a bitter laugh. “My nephew and I are not currently on speaking terms. But you knew that already, didn’t you, my dear?”

The way he murmured the endearment sent a shiver of disgust down Juliet’s spine. “Then I will have to ask you to leave, Mr. Devenish,” she said firmly. “I have guests in the drawing room. If you’ll excuse me?”

She began to turn but before she could make it to the door, Devenish stopped her with a hand on her upper arm. He wore gloves, but she flinched at the touch nonetheless.

“But it is you I’ve come to speak with, Viscountess Deveril,” he said sharply. “There are some things I believe you should know about your darling husband.”

Unwilling to show him just how unsettled she was by him, and curious about what the man had to say, Juliet waved him back into the room and took a seat herself on the settee.

“You have my attention, sir.”

Satisfaction flickered across Devenish’s face. “Then I will be to the point. I spoke earlier about the late Lady Deveril’s death. I wonder if your husband has ever told you just how his mother died?”

He was like a cat toying with a mouse, Juliet thought grimly. He threw out questions in the hope that she’d rise to his bait.

“He has said little about his mother,” she admitted. “I believe she died in a carriage accident.”

As soon as she said the words she knew it was untrue. She also knew she was about to hear something she did not wish to.

“What if I were to tell you that Lady Elizabeth Deveril died in this very room. By her husband’s hand.”

She opened her mouth to refute the claim, but Devenish wasn’t finished. “What if I told you that your husband watched and did nothing?”

Juliet instinctively gasped. She’d expected Devenish to implicate his late brother. From everything she’d heard, the previous Lord Deveril had been a drunk and a brute. She had little doubt that the man would have been capable of killing his own wife.

But that Alec had witnessed the murder? It was too much to be borne. She stood, prepared to order the man from the house, but a voice behind her stopped her cold.

“Get out,” Alec said from the doorway. “Get the hell out of this house.”

*   *   *

Alec had returned home from White’s with the shushed whispers of his peers ringing in his ears. Gentlemen were not so overt in their gossip as ladies, but they were not immune to the lure of a good story. And the tale of how the Viscount Deveril had been trapped into marriage with a cripple was a compelling one. Never mind that it had been obvious before the marriage that she had some sort of injury to her leg, and never mind that Juliet was lovely and one of the finest musicians in London. And, most importantly, never mind that he told more than one man that he’d known the true nature of her injury
before
they’d married.

There was also the fact that the
ton
felt betrayed by the fact that they themselves had been tricked into thinking Juliet was merely injured instead of maimed. The distinction was laughable to Alec, who felt only admiration for the fact that Juliet had managed to pass for so long without having anyone suspect her of hiding the true extent of her injuries. But society’s pique could not have been greater if Juliet had revealed herself to be an Amazon princess rather than a gently bred young lady. And it would take some time for them to recover from the upset.

He returned home hoping to learn that Juliet’s morning calls had been more successful, only to be informed by Hamilton that she was in the small sitting room with his uncle of all people.

Angered because he’d informed the older man that he was no longer welcome in Deveril House, and worried that his uncle would reveal secrets he had no right to betray, he stalked into the small sitting room.

The room was silent, save for Juliet’s sharp intake of breath at something his uncle had just said. From the look on Roderick’s face it was not something particularly pleasant.

“Get out,” he ordered, his anger rising as he saw Juliet’s stricken face. Damn it, if Roderick had told her anything about what had happened in this room …

“Get the hell out of this house,” he repeated, unable to stop himself from raising his voice even as he saw his uncle’s pleased expression.

“Ask him, my dear,” his father’s brother said with a cryptic smile. “Ask him about what happened here in this room.”

His poisonous work done, Roderick left the room, and Hamilton and the footmen were waiting for him just outside the door to escort him from the house.

“Alec,” Juliet said, hurrying toward him.

“So, I suppose you have guessed my own little secret now,” he said bitterly. “That makes us even, does it not, wife?”

As he had intended, her expression changed from concern to hurt. But, resilient as ever, Juliet quickly hid her pain. “I had not thought of it in those terms, my lord,” she said calmly. “And whatever secret you harbor, I know we can get past it. After all—”

“There is no need to ‘get past it’ as you so eloquently phrase it,” he said, knowing he was behaving like an ass, but unable to stop himself. “We are well and truly wed, and no amount of secrets and lies can put that asunder.”

“That is true,” Juliet said, ever reasonable, “so—”

“Do you not understand it, my lady?” he interrupted her. “I have duped you!
I
have duped
you.
All of London is atwitter with the news that the
ton’
s most eligible bachelor was tricked into marriage, but the joke is on them. For I’m the one who tricked you.”

“How?” she demanded, her voice remarkably calm despite her pallor. “How have you tricked me?”

Stepping closer, he lifted her chin with a finger, and said quietly, “I let you think that I am a decent man. I let you think I am worthy of you.”

She shook her head, as if trying to keep the words from worming their way into her ears. But the truth, as Alec well knew, was more insidious than the deadliest poison.

“I let you think…” he told her, kissing her gently, then stepping away from her, dropping his hands as if she were a hot coal.

“I let you think,” he continued, backing from the room, “that I am not the son of a murderer.”

Unable to watch the confusion on her face turn to loathing, he turned and fled the room.

*   *   *

When Alec finally stumbled home that night, in the wee hours of the coming day, it was to find his bed empty, and the connecting door between their rooms very firmly closed.

Just as well, he told himself. Now that she knew just what kind of stock he hailed from, Juliet would do well to protect herself from him.

He unwound the woefully wilted cravat from around his neck and closed his eyes against the memory of Juliet’s face just before he turned and left the room. He had hoped to explain the most awful day of his life to her, but in his own time. After he’d assured her that he had done everything in his power to prevent himself from becoming the same kind of man his father had been. The same kind of man his uncle now was.

His uncle’s revelation had put paid to that hope. He’d spent his whole life trying to atone for his own role in his mother’s death. And when he’d seen the opportunity to save Juliet from her own hellish existence in her mother’s house, he had, foolishly he now knew, hoped that he would at last have a chance to settle the score with fate.

But now that hope was gone. And he would have to find some other way to make his peace with fate. To prove to himself and the world that he was not just like his father. To show every member of the
ton
who whispered in hushed tones when he passed that though he bore Devil Deveril’s blood in his veins, he would not, could not, turn into the kind of rage-filled monster who could beat a helpless woman to death in front of her child.

Yet the very urge to prove them all wrong was a kind of rage, he thought bitterly as he struggled to remove his boots without the help of his valet.

“Damn it,” he said through gritted teeth as he tugged. The sound of the connecting door between their two chambers alerted him to Juliet’s presence, which perversely made him tug harder.

“Let me help,” she said, moving toward him, the thin fabric of her nightgown and peignoir shushing against itself as she walked.

Kneeling, she gripped the leather of his boot and tugged, her fingers brushing against his. He could not fail to notice that her lips were pursed in pique. Her auburn hair, neatly done up in the braid she wore to bed, hung down her back, giving her the look of an outraged schoolmarm. Unable to go in bare feet, or even the kind of night slippers worn by other ladies of quality, she wore the simplest of her prosthetic feet with a pair of lace-up half-boots. It was a sign of her agitation that she had ventured out of her own room in such attire, for she was as yet still worried about revealing her infirmity to anyone but him. He wanted to fold her into his arms and protect her from the world. But it was, it seemed, too late for that.