Authors: Gaelen Foley
It was a new year, a new world free of war, and he knew it was time to make a new life. But he had to be sure that he was cleansed of the frightening urges he had felt before she had come into his room, that he was fit to take a wife.
Just then, Mr. Walsh broke into his thoughts as he marched into the library and gave him a bow. “Pardon, sir. Lord Hubert and his son, Mr. Crispin Sherbrooke, are here to see you. Are you at home?”
Algernon and Crispin?
he thought, furrowing his brow as he nodded. “I will see them. Escort them to the drawing room, please. I’ll be right there.”
“Very good, sir.”
Damien set Jason’s papers aside and abandoned his cold coffee, striding into the drawing room a few minutes later. Crispin shook his hand enthusiastically, but the straitlaced, unsmiling viscount sufficed with a cool bow.
“Winterley.”
“Hubert,” he replied with a nod. “Have a seat, gentlemen,” he offered, gesturing toward the furniture in the center of the salon.
Crispin swung down onto a cavalry chair off to the side, his legs sprawled over the armless corners. Algernon lowered himself to the couch with considerably more ceremony. Damien took a seat in the wing chair across from them. He sat back, crossing one knee over the other, rested his elbows on the chair arms, and waited with a lordly stare over his steepled fingers for them to state the purpose of their visit.
It was only out of respect for Miranda that he received them at all, but they did not appear to realize that. Did they expect his friendship? he wondered. Surely not. Perhaps his ward was willing to forgive her kin for ignoring her all those years, but he was not.
“Well, then, I understand you military chaps are not much for small talk, so I shall come straight to the point,” Algernon said, giving him a bland, artificial smile.
Crispin tittered nervously like a hapless cherub, while Damien raised his eyebrows with an arrogant stare.
“My son and I are here because, you see, Winterley, we would like to make it up to Miss FitzHubert for our—well, let us not mince words—neglectful treatment of her in days gone by.”
“Ah, yes, when you left her to rot in Yardley, you mean.” He matched the viscount’s bland aloof smile with one of his own.
Lord Hubert dropped his gaze to the floor and nodded in chagrin, the very picture of contrition, but no brother of Lucien Knight could hear such smooth talk and fail to realize that someone was trying to finesse him.
“Ahem, yes. Well, what, with her mother’s reputation, it’s just that we did not grasp the quality of the girl herself. We did not wish to endanger the reputations of our own daughters by association. I’m sure you understand.”
“Hmm,” Damien said, keeping his tone noncommittal.
Why, these sons of bitches.
“What did you have in mind for her in terms of reparations?” He supposed grudgingly that if they wanted to give a formal reception or ball for Miranda, he could allow that.
Algernon glanced at Crispin, whose cheeks turned red. The lad jumped to his feet and took a step forward.
“Um, my lord,” he said, clearing his throat. He clasped his hands behind his back like a schoolboy reciting a bit of Petrarch from memory. “Since I have met my fair cousin, all other young ladies hold no interest for me whatsoever.”
“Really,” Damien said mildly.
“Yes, my lord. I hold Miss FitzHubert in the very highest esteem. She is as spirited and clever as she is lovely. We get on quite well together. I do believe she’s fond of me. She says I make her laugh, and I do. And she makes me laugh, a-all the time,” he stammered, coloring again. Damien’s eyes narrowed in a quelling stare. Crispin paused. “She’s not like any of the other young ladies at all.”
“No, she’s not.”
The lad cast a quick glance at his father, who gave him a nod of encouragement. Crispin clenched and unclenched his fists a few times by his sides, as though working up his courage. Damien stared at him intently, offering nothing.
“I have my father’s blessing to offer for her. I now seek your permission, sir, to ask for Miss FitzHubert’s hand in marriage.”
Damien tapped his lips for a moment, incensed. He chose his words carefully, then shrugged and looked up at the lad. “No.”
Crispin’s china-blue eyes widened. “My lord?”
“Winterley?” Algernon demanded.
“Over my dead body.” He swept to his feet and sauntered toward Crispin, glaring at him as though he were a recalcitrant new recruit. “My ward will never marry a spineless boy who cannot undertake a man’s business unless he brings his parent to help him along. If you cannot even propose without your papa looking over your shoulder, how can I possibly trust you to take care of my ward? You make her laugh, you say? Aye, with you as her husband, you’ll laugh yourselves hungry, laugh yourselves homeless, laugh yourself right into debtor’s prison,” he finished vehemently.
Crispin gasped in affront. “I say!”
His father attempted to intervene with oily finesse. “Lord Winterley, we are a family of means. There is no need to grow insulting.”
“I
am
insulted by this offer,” he replied. “It is disgraceful after the way you’ve treated her.”
“We wish to make amends. Isn’t that clear? She is an orphan, and we are her kin. We are trying to do our Christian duty by her.”
“And where have your morals been for the past nineteen years?” he asked sharply, pointing to Crispin. “Your son is a spoiled fop who only wants Miranda because she is the toast of the moment—”
“That is not true,” the lad cried. “I care for her!”
“Yes, it is; no, you don’t; and do not interrupt me again, Mr. Sherbrooke. You, sir,” he said to the father, “have created this man-boy by indulging his every whim. He wouldn’t last a day in my regiment. Perhaps in a month or two I could make a man of him, but you shall not be able to buy this particular bauble for your little heir. Even if Miranda wished the match, which I know she does not, I would never consent to it after the shameful way your family has treated her.”
Algernon stared assessingly into his eyes. “You make your point most passionately, my lord. Perhaps the great Winterley desires to keep my niece for himself.”
Damien lifted his chin. “Get out of this house.”
“Gladly,” Algernon said. “Come along, Crispin.”
The boy sent Damien a glare of humiliated rage and went storming out, his father walking at a stately pace after him. Damien was surprised to find himself trembling with anger and very much in need of his pretty ward’s soothing company.
The whole carriage ride home, Crispin prated in fury about Winterley’s intolerable arrogance, bad grace, and ill temper, while Algernon sat in enraged silence, his hand white-knuckled on the head of his showy walking cane.
“I don’t understand!” Crispin fumed. “I did it perfectly. I spoke it exactly as we rehearsed. Did you hear how he insulted me? I had half a mind to call him out!”
“Don’t be a fool.” Algernon flicked a scornful look at his son.
“Can you believe his outrageous possessiveness over Miranda? Do you really suppose there is something going on between the two of them? It’s not natural, the way he keeps her locked in that house all the time—”
“He has to bring her back out into Society sometime,” he answered impassively, watching the city roll by out the carriage window.
“Do you really think he is angling for her himself?”
“He need not 'angle' if he wants her, you fool. He is her guardian. He can do with her whatever he likes. But, no, Winterley might want her, but firstly, he is obsessed with honor. For Jason’s sake, he would never touch her because he knows he would never marry her. To wed such a woman—impoverished, a bastard—would be madness for a man of his rank.”
Crispin sighed disgustedly as their carriage halted. They both climbed out and went up the front steps into the entrance hall. Crispin turned to him wearily.
“What do we do now, Father?”
“Simple,” he answered, handing off his cane and gloves to his butler. He gave his son a silencing look until the servant had withdrawn; then he lowered his voice. “You must wait for the next time he brings her into Society and simply arrange to be found with the girl in a compromising position. Then Winterley will have to approve the match or Miranda will be disgraced.”
“You want me to compromise her—deliberately?” Crispin asked, wrinkling his aristocratic nose.
“That is what I just said, is it not?”
Crispin stared at him for a long moment. “I cannot do that, Father.”
Algernon lifted his chin. “I beg your pardon, Sir?”
“Miranda is my friend. She is a sweet, trusting young lady. It would be dishonorable to us both—”
Before he could complete the sentence, Algernon hauled back and punched Crispin across the face as hard as he could. His son went stumbling across the entrance hall and sprawled on his rear end with a stunned look. He raised his pampered fingertips to touch the trickle of blood on the corner of his mouth, then looked at his father in frightened astonishment.
Algernon strode toward him and leaned down into his face. “You ungrateful, stinking whelp. Don’t you dare contradict me. You’re the reason I’m in this predicament, but I have had my fill of you, sir! Winterley was right, you know. You’re nothing but a parasite. Now, you will do as I have told you. Get her alone, tear her clothing, make her scream, if you wish—”
“Father, I cannot believe you wish me to carry out such a vile bit of business!”
“If you argue, so help me, Crispin, I will disown you.”
“But Winterley will kill me if I do it!”
“And I will kill you if you don’t.” He took in his son’s look of horror with a bitter smile. “You think you are finer than me with your dandyish ways. Oh, you are just like your Uncle Richard, but let me tell you something, my pretty fellow: I got rid of him and your brave Uncle Jason, to boot, and if you cross me, I will do the same to you.” He straightened up and kicked his son in the stomach for good measure.
As Crispin grunted with pain, Algernon stepped over his curled-up body and went into his office across the way, slamming the door behind him.
Damien and Miranda returned to Holland House to attend the baroness’s Twelfth Night Ball one week later. It was the grand finale of the winter social season. After Twelfth Night, the Christmas decorations would be taken down from all the houses, Parliament would begin sessions again, and life would return to the workaday world. It would be a long, gray, dreary wait for spring, when the social whirl would start anew.
Miranda gazed across the ballroom at Damien, where he stood chatting with some of his acquaintances, a glass of wine in one hand, the other thrust boyishly into his pocket. He had worn civilian clothing this evening, one small but important outward sign that he was making an effort to let go of his old army life. In his formal black tailcoat and white brocade waistcoat, he was dressed so similarly to Lucien that only a handful of people could tell them apart, a fact the twins seemed to find tremendously diverting.
With a sigh of lovelorn misery, she tore her stare away before anyone noticed her ogling the beautiful man.
One question had obsessed her for the past seven days and seven nights:
What is Damien going to do?
He was a strong man of few words, but, Lord, how she wished he would say what he was thinking and feeling, for her very fate was in his hands. The matter rested with him now. She had done all she could to prove her case, that they were better together than either of them was apart. Penniless, illegitimate, she knew she was unsuitable for a man of his rank and consequence. That was why she had denied him the full consummation of their passion—she had left him a way out if he chose to take it. She would not force her honor-bound guardian into marrying her if he did not want to, but she was certain that no other woman could ever love him as fiercely as she did. Surely that counted for something. His silence and his delaying made her anxious because if he planned on marrying her, shouldn’t he have said something by now? Still, she was determined to be patient until he was ready to make his decision about her, and, she told herself, if he chose not to have her in his life, somehow she would find the strength to accept that.
Shrugging off her nagging uncertainty, she turned her attention to the festivities in progress around her. Tonight, all she wanted was to dance and to laugh, to enjoy her new friends, and to play the silly, traditional Twelfth Night games, forgetting her cares in merriment.
Mingling among the guests, greeting friends throughout the room, she caught sight of her cousin, Crispin, looking very glum. She knew that he and his father had come to Knight House and had proposed a match between herself and Crispin, but Damien had told her that he had soundly refused them on the grounds of their past treatment of her. Knowing how harsh her guardian could be when his protective instincts were riled, she was anxious to make sure that Crispin was not hurt or angry at her, that they were still friends.
It was absurd of him to have proposed in the first place, she thought, as she made her way toward him through the ballroom. She was sure he had merely done it on a whim, or perhaps because he worried that no one else would want her because of illegitimacy. He was rather silly, but he was not an unkind lad and Miranda knew that he was indeed fond of her. She plucked two wineglasses off the tray of a passing waiter and brought them over to him, offering one as a peace offering.
He gave her a sulky look but accepted it, clinking her glass with his own. “What are you doing in public?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Winterley locks you away like you are his private treasure. Why won’t he share you with the rest of the world?” he whined. “What do the two of you do together, locked up in that house day after day?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she drawled, giving him a sly, teasing smile.
“What, are you in love with him?” he cried indignantly.
“My guardian? Heavens, no. Crispin, tell me you are not pouting.”
“I am pouting,” he retorted. “And you know deuced well why. May we speak of this in private? It’s embarrassing enough without anyone overhearing about how my pretty cousin jilted me.”
She smacked him with her folded fan. “Don’t be daft, I didn’t jilt you. My guardian did. I thought it was sweet of you.”
“
He
didn’t.”
“I know,” she said, taking his arm as they strolled down the same hallway she had walked down with Damien at the last ball. “But, there, there, my dear, think of it. We would never have suited.” She tried to cajole a smile out of him. “I would have bossed you around constantly until you fled into the arms of some mistress, and it all would have been a most unpleasant row. This way, we shall always be friends.”
“Aha, friends. In that case, I take it that he was right. Even if I had been granted permission to ask you, you would have given me the jilt.”
“Not necessarily,” she chided, trying to soften the blow. Heavens, he seemed genuinely put out. Of course, he was very spoiled and coddled, used to getting his way. “It all depends.”
“On what?” he demanded, opening a side door and sauntering into a dimly lit salon.
Miranda leaned in the doorway. “On how prettily you would have asked me, of course. Would you have complimented my eyes, for example? Waxed poetic on the roses of my cheeks?”
“How could I not? And the stygian splendor of your hair, your alabaster forehead, fine nose, regal chin, et cetera, on down to your lovely ankles—”
“You have never seen my ankles, coz,” she interrupted, swirling her wine jauntily in the glass.
“I can imagine,” he said with a half smile.
“Don’t,” she said flatly.
“Ah, Miranda, you silly creature.” He set his glass down on the small table by the couch and hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat, shaking his head as he gazed at her. “You make me smile just thinking of you.”
She returned his stare for a long moment, studying him. There was a troubled look behind his blue eyes. “Is something wrong? Have you been honest with me? You are upset, aren’t you?”
“No, it’s not that.” He came and took her hands, drawing her farther into the room.
“What, then, my dear boy?”
“I am not a boy,” he murmured.
“Crispin—”
He shoved the door closed with one hand and slipped the other around her waist. “Kiss me, Miranda. Just once, let me taste your lips.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’ve dreamed of their sweetness.”
“For heaven’s sake, Crispin! If I’ve given you the wrong impression, I am sorry—”
“I want you, Miranda.”
“Stop it! Crispin, you are beginning to scare me.”
“Good,” he whispered, grasping the edge of her gown as though he meant to rip it off of her. “Perhaps then you’ll take me seriously.”
“Crispin!” Her heart beating frantically, she clutched the fabric to stop him from ripping it, knowing that if he succeeded, it meant her ruin. Her fragile reputation would never survive it. With her mother’s scarlet past, she knew all of Society was watching and waiting for some scandalous folly to overtake her. Furiously unwilling to taint the Knight family with scandal, she held on fast to the satin, pushing her amorous cousin away with her other hand.
He strained toward her, forcibly trying to kiss her. “I will have you, my sweet girl,” he panted.
“Stop this indecency!” She let go of her gown and slapped him across the face with a resounding
crack
.
“That wasn’t very smart,” he said through gritted teeth, snaking his other arm around her, pinning her wrist up behind her back. He swooped his mouth down violently onto hers, bruising her lips against her teeth with the urgent force of his kiss just as the door banged open explosively.
In the next instant, Damien was between them, hauling Crispin back by his collar. Enraged, Crispin took a swing at him. Miranda gasped, but Damien caught Crispin’s fist in his white-gloved hand in midair and held it in an iron grip, glaring at him.
“Damien, no!” she cried, terrified that he would kill him on the spot. He glanced blackly at her, saw for himself that she was only a bit tousled, not harmed; then his stare returned to her cousin.
“You spoiled little shit.” He knocked Crispin to the floor, knocking his legs out from under him with a sweeping kick. He swept the fire poker out of its holder and held the sharpened tip of it to Crispin’s throat like a sword. “This is your final warning, laddie. Come near her again and you die.” Then his glance homed in on Miranda for the first time seemingly in days. “Let’s get out of here,” he said tautly.
She drew in her breath, her heart lifting like a bird on the wing. She gave a swift nod, ready to follow him anywhere.
Algernon knew something had gone wrong. He felt it in his bones even before Crispin finally came home hours later, drunk and insolent, his cravat hanging open around his neck.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
“At my club.”
“You failed.”
“I hate you for making me do that,” Crispin said, glaring at him. “I hate myself for being a part of it. Let it go, Father. They are in love with each other.”
“What?” he asked sharply, with a galling twinge of betrayal in his heart, the memory still fresh of how Miranda’s beautiful mother had chosen his brother over him. Now it seemed the daughter had chosen Winterley over his son, and somehow that brought back the rage and indignation he had suffered all those years ago.
“For God’s sake,” Crispin was saying, “forget the money. Let the two of them be.”
Algernon shook his head in disgust at his son’s drunken sentimentality and walked away from him across his office. “Every time I think I have plumbed your depths, you sink lower.”
“At least I have never stooped to fratricide,” Crispin said softly.
Algernon turned to him, tempted to draw his pistol on him, but he shrugged off the urge. “What happened? How do you know they are in love?”
“I just know. I know Miranda. I had her alone; then Winterley barged in and would have beaten me senseless if she hadn’t told him not to. He obeys her as a man only obeys the woman he worships.”
“Is that so?” he murmured to himself, stroking his chin. “What happened then?”
“They left the party.”
“Alone?”
“I think so. It was rather hard to tell from where I had been knocked onto the floor,” he muttered in sarcasm, pouring himself a drink.
Egann burst in the front door at that moment and hurried into his office. “Master! Master!”
“What is it?” He shut the door quickly behind his servant.
Egann bobbed a bow, his voice breathless with his haste. “I was in the carriage watching Knight House, just as you ordered, when I saw Lord Winterley and Miss FitzHubert come back from the ball, then leave again at once in the sleigh.”
“Did you follow them?”
He nodded eagerly. “I followed them to the edge of town. They went out onto the Bath Road.”
Algernon’s mind whirled. By God, was Crispin right? Were they running off together, eloping? He knew that Winterley’s country seat lay to the west, in Berkshire, not far, he believed, from Windsor Castle, if memory served. It had been in all the papers when Parliament had bestowed the earl’s title and lands on him this past November.
If they married, Miranda’s fortune would become Winterley’s property by law.
“I’ve got to stop them,” he said aloud, almost to himself.
“Father,” Crispin pleaded, turning to him.
“Shut up,” he ground out. He turned and began pacing, racking his brain for one last-ditch solution. His four thugs had failed; Egann had failed; Crispin had failed. Now it was clearly time for him to take matters into his own hands. He had no hope, of course, of battling the likes of Winterley man-to-man, but he surmised that the rest of the Raptor gang would certainly relish the chance to take revenge on the man who had slaughtered their four mates up in Birmingham.
A cruel smile flicked over Algernon’s mouth. He still knew where to find those Cockney scum. Yes, he mused, he’d let the so-called Raptors deal with Winterley, but as for his luscious little niece, he’d take care of her personally. He would enjoy the favors that her mother had so cruelly denied him. Then he would cut her pretty throat.
He pushed Crispin out of his way and stalked out to the entrance hall, throwing on his greatcoat as he strode out into the black, chilly night.