Murder at Almack's: A Regency Romantic Suspense Short Story (2 page)

Her hands gripped his sleeves tighter, her head peering past his shoulder for an instant toward the door before she raised her gaze to his, a sheen of tears in her eyes. “I am to be betrothed,” she said. “His Grace the Duke of Belville and I.”

“
What?
”

Her head hung, in shame if he knew his Eliza, spots of a red flush rising high on her lovely cheekbones. “Tonight,” she said, and the word was barely a whisper, the tears dripping now down her pale, smooth cheeks.

Derrick gripped her arm. “He’s old enough to be your father.” Memory struck, and his grip tightened. “He
would
have been your father if…”

She nodded. “It’s why he wants me now. Mother says I look as she did at eighteen. We must be grateful.”

“
Grateful?
” His pulse hammered in his head. “This is outrageous. He’s nearly forty. And a brute. A bloody, traitorous brute.” The knife cleverly sheathed in Derrick’s waistcoat burned against his ribs. The small pistol concealed in his lemonade-damp sleeve itched to be in hand. “Your father is a…” Bloody fool, he wanted to say. Bloody fool, he
would
say, and to Lord Goodfield’s face. Quickly, he scanned his memory of the crowd he’d navigated when he’d made his way to Eliza.
“Where is your father?”

“Dead.”

Dead.

Derrick exhaled, silently, as he’d learned in the French prison he’d escaped ten days ago. So much loss in two years. So much changed.

Anger burned in his chest. In his throat, the words he needed to say—good God, he needed to say the words—held back until the time served his purpose.

But dead. He’d had no thought of others when he’d reached Britain’s shore eight days ago. There’d been no room in his head for anything but revenge. There could be no room until his revenge had been meted out.

Meted out here, tonight.

But Eliza and the Duke of Belville? The rage at his captors he’d suppressed for two years found a new target. “Surely you have other suitors.”

“I have no dowry. My mother and I are destitute. But by the grace of my aunt Vivian, who has so little herself, we would be without a place to live. I would have no season, no fashionable clothes, no…”

He didn’t need to hear the words to know what she would say. The only reason the Eliza he knew would care for a season and fashionable clothes when her family was destitute was to find a husband. A wealthy husband.

“You have no need for a dowry, Eliza. Your beauty alone is enough to turn every man in the
ton
mad with love for you.”

Her smile was bittersweet. “None dare tread where the Duke of Belville means to go.”

Derrick would dare before this night was out. “Your father was not destitute two years ago.”

And now her smile turned hard. “The Duke of Belville tried to ruin him when he refused to give me to His Grace in marriage. He poisoned the wells of my father’s estates. Killed his livestock in raids at night. Spread rumors that my father was insolvent, a cheat. A dishonorable man.” Her bosom began to rise and fall in the tiny hitches of breath she’d made when he’d first approached her. “When my father confronted him, the duke, insulted, challenged him to a duel. In anger, my father agreed. He could not, in honor, refuse.” Her voice lowered, her words nearly inaudible. “He made me promise to never marry the duke, no matter how difficult things might become.”

“When?” Derrick said, his voice hoarse. If only he’d escaped sooner, if only… “When was this?”

“A year ago. We have been in mourning until last week. I insisted on this, though the duke pressed me to an earlier wedding. Every day I have hoped that…”

“Surely the new Earl of Goodfield would help you.”

The hitches became louder, but in her eyes there was a lust for revenge, a need to strike back that he understood so very, very well. “The duke is the new Earl of Goodfield,” she said, her soft Eliza voice turned hard. “You forget, Derrick, His Grace is my father’s distant cousin, and only male relative.”

***

“Even for a duke,” Derrick said, “there are consequences for a dead opponent in a duel.”

Eliza’s hands twisted her reticule, the satin a dull gleam in the candlelight, a suppressed fury in her grip. “Papa did not die in the duel. The duke came to him the evening before to make amends. I saw Belville put something in a glass. I did not understand. I thought it was for himself.” Anguish wrenched in those brilliant, blue eyes. “Ten minutes later, Papa was dead. Oh, Derrick” —she gripped his wrist, tears streaming down those lovely cheeks, her voice breaking— “It was terrible. The pain…” She took a deep breath, abruptly and swift. “A stroke, the doctor said. Papa had a stroke.” She tugged her reticule from his grasp, her face hardening in a look he knew well. “Tonight, the Duke of Belville shall have a stroke, too.”

And the small vial he’d felt when he’d held the small satin purse took on new meaning.

Not once in his life had he ever seen Eliza need smelling salts.

He tugged away the reticule and opened the sleek satin purse. A handkerchief lay inside. Beneath it, a small vial. He held the vial up between their faces. “What is this?” he said.

She gave him a defiant look, her blue eyes sparking in the candlelight. “It is the poison that killed Papa.”

“You shall not kill him, Eliza.”

“I
shall.
” Her gaze burned into his, and he gripped her wrist, as if he could restrain her from her intent.

He frowned at that lovely, young face with so much life left to live. “You cannot.”

“
I can.
” The wrist he held tightened beneath his fingers as her small hand clenched into a fist. “I shall not be dishonored as he dishonored my father.”

“Eliza—”

“You think I take my promise to my father lightly?”

“How will you do the deed with all the
ton
about you?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice lowered. “I shall contrive.”

Understanding struck with a force that punched out his breath. “You shall not be alone with him.”

“He holds Mama’s jointure and my dowry hostage.”

“Eliza—”

“He has pledged to release Mama’s jointure to Papa’s attorneys upon the announcement of our betrothal. Tonight” —she swallowed hard, her delicate neck convulsing with the movement— “we will be formally betrothed.”

“You believe he will keep his pledge?”

“Indeed not.” Her head lowered, as did her voice. “I allow him to believe I do. But his attorneys have drawn up the agreement. It has been signed and witnessed. They will be bound, upon his death, to do as was agreed. He will not be here to say otherwise.”

Anger beat hard in his head. “You need not become a murderess. He cannot legally hold what in right by marriage settlements belongs to you and your mother.”

“He is the Duke of Belville. The Nonpareil. The leader of the
ton.
He does what he wishes.”

“These are not the Dark Ages, Eliza.”

“We are penniless, Derrick.”

“One man cannot—”

“
There is no time.
No one to help me.” Desperation and the need to avenge twisted on her lovely, innocent face. “No one dare cross the Duke of Belville.”

He understood that desperation. Had lived for two years with that need to avenge. “I shall cross him. Tonight.”

She caught her breath, her lovely lips parting. “You dare?”

Dare risk the displeasure of the Nonpareil, the leader of fashion? Risk becoming out of fashion at the duke’s snub? Derrick laughed. He was risking the ultimate stakes tonight. He could dare on Eliza’s behalf, too.

His hand slipped over her white-gloved fist and pressed it gently. “I dare.”

Her gazed pierced his, hope and doubt fighting amid her anguish.

“I swear, Eliza, before this night’s end, your father will be avenged.”

Chapter Three

A thrill shivered through Eliza, Derrick’s touch a reassuring promise, and something more, his green eyes cold and hard as he spoke of avenging her father, his body strong and warm, purpose and resolve in his every move.

She slipped the vial from his gloved hand. “It is mine to do.”

The press of his fingers on hers rushed through her, her beloved Derrick here, of all nights, like an angel’s miracle, the longing, the anguish at his death gone in the instant of recognition. “Give me the poison, Eliza,” he said.

She gripped the tiny vial harder. “I shall keep it,” she whispered.

He stepped closer, head bent, intent on prying open her hand.

Heat swept through her, the storeroom abruptly hot, his hair, fair and lush, brushing her face, his fashionable hairstyle already gone from unruly to tousled, but Derrick had always been more interested in daring-do than fashion. A recent scar marked his brow, as if from a heavy, cutting blow, his features sharper than in his youth, his expression harder, and she wondered how many more new scars hid beneath his clothes.

With both hands on her closed one, he worked with fingers firm but gentle to open her fist, and something inside her tightened and flushed, and her breath gave another hitch. A tiny hitch.

A breathless hitch.

His hands stilled.

His body stilled. Slowly, his face bent closer to hers, the heat inside her building. Gently, his lips brushed across hers.

Her mouth opened beneath his. Her arms gripped his neck.

He groaned against her skin and stepped away, removing her grasp on his neck. “No, my love. The duke would know.”

Love.
That thrill again crossed her spine, melding with the heat. “I will not tell him,” she said, fierce and needful, needing him, deep in her heart, deep in her body, and not clear why.

“You need not speak for him to know.” He clasped her hands in his, slipping the vial from her grasp. “Go,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Before you are missed, if you are not already so.”

***

Derrick pulled his hands from hers, his blood pounding in his nether parts, his mind dizzy with need.

She was lovely.

She was grown.

She most certainly was grown. Modest though her gown was, the creamy skin of her bosom was bared along the upper swells, her swift breaths bringing those swells to impossible-to-ignore notice, her innocence and womanliness calling to him, her sweet, innocent scent of lavender washing away the stink of prison that still clung to his nostrils. She was everything he’d lost.

Everything he’d regain tonight, if fate was with him.

What a fool he was.
Love.

He had no right to speak of such a thing, but he’d been too many years from country and hearth. Too many years from those he loved. Loved as family. His own. Eliza’s.

Fool.

He was more likely dead by this night’s end.

Eliza stood as frozen as he, her beautiful bosom rising fast and falling with each breath.

And God help him, he brushed his lips against hers with something very like a promise. “Trust me,” he rasped out, her answering “Yes” like a benediction against his mouth, then he wiped the remnants of tears from her face and pressed her unyielding body out the storeroom door.

***

Eliza heard the storeroom door behind her close with a soft click as she hurried into the refreshments room that was still empty—the duke seemingly holding everyone else in thrall—her heart soaring. Derrick had touched her.

Her gloved fingers brushed silk across her lips. He’d kissed her.

For the first time since her father’s death, she felt alive.

Derrick was alive.

She pressed her palms to her flush-heated cheeks.

“Darling,” her mother said, rushing to her with a swoosh of satin skirts as Eliza crossed from the refreshments room to the ballroom. “The duke is asking for you.”

Dread shot Eliza’s soaring heart to the ground.

Chapter Four

The duke strode toward Eliza, the crowd of
ton
around him parting like Moses’s Red Sea, a flushed Lady Prysden—her auburn hair gleaming in the candlelight, her lovely face distorted with anger—taking two steps toward him before pausing and disappearing among the others watching the duke.

Eliza prayed for her mother’s sake His Grace would approve of her gown. She prayed for her own he would not.

An unfashionable wife would never do for the Duke of Belville.

A waltz began to play, the waltz Eliza wasn’t approved yet to dance at Almack’s.

Silently, she exhaled her relief. She wouldn’t have to suffer his touch. Wouldn’t have to be held in his arms.

One of the patronesses of Almack’s, Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, came to his side and led His Grace toward Eliza, a rare, but tiny, smile on her face, the patroness giving Eliza a glance that told her she was the luckiest girl in the world.

“I have given His Grace leave to waltz with you, Lady Eliza,” she said, a tiny twist of disapproval on her lips as she said Eliza’s name—
not
Elizabeth, but Eliza, her father had insisted, much to the disapproval of the sticklers of the
ton,
none less than Mrs. Drummond-Burrell herself. If Eliza’s come out had been under circumstances not in the favor of the Duke of Belville, she doubted the lady would have consented to give her and her mother the vouchers that had admitted them this season to Almack’s.

His Grace bowed, a haughty, slight tilt of his upper body that in no way conveyed anything but his own belief in his superiority to all around him, including Eliza. He took her hand in his gloved one, holding it hard, unnecessarily hard, and he led her to the dance floor, the Wednesday night crush parting to let them—him—through.

He pulled her close, inappropriately so.

She tried to tug back to a respectable distance.

His grip tightened, cruelly so, digging into her waist, into her hand, and a cry of pain came from her lips, a cry unnoticed by all others but him.

His lips smiled, a smile as cruel as his grip. He bent his head toward hers, spinning her faster, faster, her body dizzy, the pain of his hold on her keeping her mind clear. “Have I hurt you?” he said, as if her pain pleased him.