The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (30 page)

A schoolmistress?
True patted his thigh. Perhaps he wasn’t such a good judge of character after all. She carried herself more like a duke’s daughter than a bluestocking.

She tapped her jaw thoughtfully. “Three girls, you say?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“Ages?”

“Five, nine, and ten.”

“I do not know if my parents will approve,” she said.

“Of what?”

“Of the children.”

He nodded. “I see.”

“I think not, my lord.”

True laughed. “You are correct. I do not understand at all. Perhaps I should ring for tea, and you should explain matters.”

An hour later, True called for his coach, and Miss Marianna Grantham left Trowbridge Manor with his word as his bond.

True shook his head. She actually trusted him to keep his word!

She was bound for London. She’d return the next morning with her belongings. She planned to reside with him at Trowbridge Manor for six weeks.

True walked to the window of the summer parlor and watched her mince primly down the Manor’s front steps. She was twenty-one years old, and already a high-stickler. She’d run like a striped ass when she’d thought he had a strumpet stashed under his desk. He couldn’t help chuckling as he watched her now.

She moved sedately across the drive to the waiting coach. Even for that short distance, she had unfurled a parasol. Her pale, salt-colored skin matched the white-blonde of her hair, which she wore in a smooth, tight bun at her crown, and she walked like she had a poker shoved down the back of her corset.

He watched her board the coach and opened his palm. A large, deep green emerald, exquisitely cut, sparkled there in the bright August sunlight. The jewel was a sort of down payment, a guarantee of her sincerity, she’d said. The rest of the gems—sapphires, rubies, diamonds, pearls, and more emeralds—were still in her little brown bottle, which she’d tucked away in her plain, proper little reticule once more.

True watched the drive long enough to see four of his men start out with the coach. Armed outriders. The silly chit was traipsing about the countryside with a deuced fortune in treasure. She had intended to hire a bloody post chaise back to London, but True had insisted she take his own coach. He didn’t need any additional trouble.

That female was going to be trouble enough already.

She was heading back to Lady Marchman’s School for Young Ladies, where she would arrange her affairs and then start back for Trowbridge Manor on the morrow. It seemed she really was a schoolteacher—practical, proper, and prudish. But she was also an heiress. A wayward, runaway heiress, a chit born and reared to be a lady. No wonder he’d not been able to size her up!

He strode back into his library and sat before the fire, pulling a decanter of brandy from a table as he passed. A gust of wind whistled down the flue, and for a brief moment, the fire glowed brighter ,and then it subsided, popping and hissing. That was about how long it had taken True to agree to Marianna Grantham’s little plan, once she’d explained the purpose of her visit. He sighed.

She was an angel sent from on high.

Or perhaps she was a punishment sent from the devil. A punishment meant to exact penance for all the many pleasures he’d taken from life.

He lifted the crystal decanter of amber liquid and poured a measure large enough to raise eyebrows in more proper drawing rooms, then tossed it down in a single burning gulp.

She didn’t want much from him. True was to act the part of her betrothed for a month, at the end of which time she would cry off the engagement, give him three-quarters of her sparkling cache, and walk away. Simple.

True growled. Nothing was simple.

She’d come because she heard he was in dun territory and desperate for funds. He gave a derisive snort. Word always did travel quickly among the fashionable elite. He supposed discussion of the mull in which he’d recently found himself was standard fare in breakfast rooms across London. But the rumor mongers hadn’t quite got it right this time.

They didn’t know just how desperate True Sin really was.

He’d lost a ship. It had gone down in a storm with his elder brother and sister-in-law aboard. The rest of True’s small fleet had been impounded pending settlement of the lost cargo, and his wastrel brother’s many creditors were demanding immediate payment. True was in danger of losing everything he’d worked so hard to achieve. Though he’d bargained for three-quarters of Miss Grantham’s bottle of gems, he knew it wasn’t enough to pluck his arse from the River Tick. Hell and blast, thrice her entire cache wouldn’t be enough. No, True needed more, much more, and there was only one way to get it.

He’d have to marry the scheming chit.

True swore.

She had been astonishingly frank with him as she’d told him why she’d been sent to London. Her parents were wealthy. Simple English country folk by birth, the elder Granthams were nevertheless shrewd people, and they had made a vast fortune planting and trading in the West Indies. Miss Grantham was an only child, an heiress, and she had journeyed to England to marry a titled gentleman, a gentleman who needed her money badly enough to overlook her family’s lack of connections.

True Sin qualified. Upon his brother’s death, he’d become the new Viscount Trowbridge. Along with his brother’s title, he’d inherited his brother’s estate, his brother’s three little girls, and his brother’s mountain of debts. Franklin had been up to his cravat in angry creditors. There was scarce a person in London who didn’t know True needed funds, and it was also well known he didn’t give a fig about family connections—his own or anyone else’s.

Of
course
Miss Grantham had come to him!

He was to play the part of her betrothed for a month, and then their engagement would be broken. Amicably, of course.

True wondered briefly why she needed a false suitor, why she hadn’t been indulging in the boring crush of a London Season instead of masquerading as an impoverished schoolmistress. She hadn’t offered any explanation, and he hadn’t asked her. Whatever her reason, he told himself, he did not care.

True poured another brandy. He’d encountered young women of her ilk all too often. Invariably spoiled and grasping, they did not care whom they wed as long as their husbands could give them a title and a voucher for Almack’s.

His lip curled as he imagined Marianna Grantham’s course of action should she not manage to find a titled suitor who was anything but repugnant. She’d marry him anyway, he was certain. Hell, True doubted she’d abandon her social climb even if she fell arse-over-instep in love with an untitled young man. Women like her didn’t give up lofty positions in Polite Society for anything as mundane as love. True tossed down the brandy. She’d give up love for position in a heartbeat. Not that she’d have to make that choice.

Seduction came easily to True Sin.

He knew he had a way of making even the most ugly of ladies feel beautiful, and when a man could do that, her affections were his for the taking. Marianna Grantham should present no challenge, for he had some raw material to work with; she was not altogether unattractive, though she was rather plain and terribly pale. Perhaps it was her agile mind more than her looks that made her seem within an ace of being pretty. He scowled into the fire and then slammed his brandy down onto a table.

She was pale and cold as a codfish, and True didn’t know why he should find her any more fetching than a codfish. Neither should he care. The woman was an antidote. But he would make her fall in love with him, marry her, and then abandon Trowbridge for the coast and his ships—after he bedded her, of course. But he’d bed her only once, and he’d take whatever precautions were necessary to avoid any . . . unpleasant consequences.

True told himself no guilt was necessary. Clever Miss Grantham would ultimately discover that she had not found love, yet True didn’t believe she would pine for it. On the contrary, she would soon revel in her situation. She would find herself the mistress of a large country estate and a fine house in London. She would have a title and her fortune, and thus the means to carry on in Polite Society. She would even have three children to satisfy any maternal longings she may possess. She would also have the freedom to carry on any sort of dalliance her heart commanded. What lady of the
ton
could ask for more?

And was that not what Marianna Grantham most wanted? To be a lady of the
ton
?

Thank God she hadn’t met True’s nieces. The three of them would have rubbed her fur in the wrong direction, starched-up hellcat that she was. If she’d spoken with them—or even seen them, wild as they were—Miss Grantham would have turned tail and run back to Town for certain. Back to the bloody drawing rooms of the
ton
, where the miserable chit belonged.

True sloshed some more brandy into his glass and sneered.

The
ton
was made up of men and women just like her. People who cared more for the loftiness of a man’s title than the loftiness of his ideals. More for the size of a man’s dwelling than the size of his heart. If anyone were in a position to know the ways of the
ton
, it was True Sin. Hadn’t he been one of them? Hadn’t he been as bad—no, worse!—than any of them? Aye, he’d been born to it, and for his first twenty years he’d reveled in it, celebrating callous artifice along with the rest of Society.

The same sort of artifice he was about to employ against Marianna Grantham?

He shrugged the thought off. Miss Grantham aspired to be one of the
beau monde
. She was getting what she deserved. And the hell of it was, she wouldn’t be unhappy about it.

For these past thirteen years, True had deliberately demonstrated he was not a part of the
ton
. He was a rogue. He kept his hair unfashionably long, dressed more like one of his sailors than a gentleman, and made it a practice to escort ladies no better than they ought to be—often one on each arm—to the most exclusive balls. He publicly sneered at Almack’s. And, most outrageous of all in the eyes of the
ton
, he’d even dabbled in commerce, founding a shockingly successful shipping concern. And yet, in distancing himself from the
ton
so infamously, True had succeeded only in fixing its fascination.

He knew empirically that even the most prunes-and-prisms matrons secretly swooned for him, while their husbands emulated his mannerisms and boasted of his friendship. And yet, even as they vied to speak with him—or even to be seen standing next to him—at some ball or rout, amongst themselves, they professed to despise him. Such was the fickle nature of
le haut ton
, and now he found himself on a path to marry a woman who would soon be one of them.

He didn’t know whether to toast his good fortune or to drown his sorrows.

In the end, Truesdale Sinclair, the new Viscount Trowbridge, did a good bit of both, which was why, when Marianna Grantham returned in the middle of the night instead of in the morning, as she was supposed to, she found him standing in the fountain at the center of the grand circle in front of Trowbridge Manor, singing and loudly accompanied by a couple of dear friends from the village, Whosits and What’s-His-Name—and a duck, who was there to keep them all on key.

It was close on two in the morning, and ol’ Mistress Mary didn’t look happy!

Chapter Two

M
ARIANNA SCOWLED AT
the three men up to their knees in the water of the enormous round fountain pond. The large structure dominated the center of the lawn, its dark gray stone well-nigh fading into the inky depths of the night shadows. She wished the sounds emanating from it could be as unobtrusive. The three men were singing quite raucously, off-key and loud enough to wake the dead.

She was tired and sore, having endured one jolting ride after another since close on dawn the previous day. There had been no accommodations for six extra men—the coachman, footman, and four outriders—at Baroness Marchman’s School for Young Ladies, and she’d been obliged to start back for Trowbridge Manor as soon as her affairs were settled in London. She had thought to pass the night at an inn, but none of the four inns they encountered on the way back had any open rooms, and she’d been forced to press onward into the dark and weary hours.

She was so fatigued, she wouldn’t have given the spectacle in the fountain a second glance if, from the window of the coach, one of the men had not looked suspiciously like her betrothed.

They appeared not to have noticed her approach. One of the viscount’s companions had a half-empty bottle of brandy clutched in his fingers. Trowbridge brandy, no doubt, and Marianna was certain it was not the first of the evening. She was within a stone’s light toss of them before they noticed her and subsided. The viscount grinned, while his companions each attempted to bow and had to clutch each other to keep from falling over.

“You are foxed,” Marianna remarked to no one in particular.

“You’re early,” the viscount slurred.

“You look terrible.”

“You, too.” He grinned.

“At least I have a long day’s journey for an excuse, my lord, rather than a large quantity of spirits.”

“More’s the pity,” Trowbridge said, “for I’ll wager that with a swallow or two o’ brandy under your belt, you’d think I’m a right dasher, but here I’ve had half a bottle an’ you’re still plain as a post”

Marianna winced. She was well aware her looks were unspectacular. Skin and hair colorless, her features nondescript. Once, she’d thought herself beautiful, but that time was past. She’d learned the truth here in England, and she wouldn’t delude herself again.

The viscount swayed and clutched one of his friends for support. He was so foxed, Marianna doubted he’d remember his unkind remark in the morning. She’d have to remind him of it, if she desired an apology—assuming she would still be at Trowbridge Manor come morning, a circumstance under considerable doubt at the moment. One look at Trowbridge was enough to convince her she had chosen unwisely. He would never be able to masquerade successfully as her betrothed if he were often in his cups, with his tongue as loose as his stoppers.

And yet, if she did not stay, what was she to do? Her parents were to arrive in England from their home in the West Indies in little more than a fortnight—sooner if the winds were kind—and they would expect her to present her betrothed without delay. She could not even lie to them and say the engagement was broken, for they would still want to know who the gentleman was. No, she had to have a besotted suitor up to scratch, and she had to have one soon. Too soon to take a chance on fleeing back to London now. What if Ophelia Robertson could not find another gentleman to agree to the madcap plot?

She looked at the viscount. It was quite dark, but even in the gloom she could see him still grinning drunkenly at her and struggling to stand up straight. His two “friends” resumed singing, and one of them cuffed Trowbridge on the shoulder suddenly. He rejoined the chorus and they all sang loudly, and in different keys.

The duck quacked right along.

Marianna pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and shook her head. She had no choice. She had to stay. Some water splashed on her skirt and she swiped at it viciously.

Curse Ophelia Robertson!

The thought had no sooner surfaced than did Marianna give a guilty flinch. True, Ophelia was the one who’d steered Marianna toward True Sin in the first place, but she was certain the old woman had meant well.

Inhaling deeply, she sighed before planting her hands on her hips and calling to the footman, who hurried over. Marianna was not one to dwell on what she could not change. She was well-used to giving orders, and there were definitely some orders that needed to be given here. Goodness knew the viscount was in no shape to give them. The viscount was in no shape to do anything at all.

Her four outriders had already disappeared, and the manor windows were all dark. Evidently, there were no servants on duty, for no one had stepped out to greet them.

It took both the coachman and the sleepy footman to pull the protesting revelers from the fountain and bundle the two villagers, one by one, into the coach. Marianna sent the servants on their way with orders to see Whosits and What’s-His-Name home, which left her to attend to the viscount. He needed someone to assist him to his bedchamber.

She looked up at the large house, which stretched far to the left and right. In spite of the cacophony, no lights shone in any of the many windows. That was a blessing, at least.

She could wake up the household servants to see to his needs, but if she did that, there would be talk. After all, it was the middle of the night, and she was alone with a drunken viscount. It would be better if there were no witnesses. Certainly she could escort him to his bedchamber door and be back downstairs before the coach returned with her trunk.

The sound of the coach’s wheels receded into the foggy darkness, and Marianna was left alone with the viscount. He looked down at her and hummed a little.

“You know ‘Greensleeves’?” he asked.

“No.”

“I will teach you, then.” He grinned and filled his lungs with a huge breath.

“No! No, thank you. I cannot sing.” She tugged him toward the front steps and got him moving in that direction, albeit slowly.

He exhaled. “Cannot? Or
do not
?”

“Where is your bedchamber—unless you would care to pass out in the library?”

“Changing the subject, Mary?”

“My name is Marianna, my lord, and I do not believe I have given you leave to use it.”

“Ah, but we have an
understanding
. It is customary for a couple as affectionate as we are to call each other by our given names. And Mary is my pet name for you.”

“
Humph
!”

He laughed. “I ask again: do you sing? Up the stairs and to the right.”

Marianna shoved him against the balustrade and braced herself half behind him and half beside him. “Up you go now.” She gave him a hearty push.

As they climbed, Marianna grew uneasily aware that the viscount was better able to negotiate the stairs than any man in his condition ought to be. In fact, by the time they reached the last step, she was sure he did not truly require her help at all. But, then, upon gaining the top, he stopped and hesitated, as though confused in direction. He swayed a little, and she put a steadying hand on his arm.

“You said your chamber was to the right.”

“Oh . . . no. No, it is to the left. Quite so. Definitely to the left. This way.”

She walked beside him down a long gallery filled with pictures that looked rather dark and eerie in the dim sconce light. She shivered and kept her gaze on the floor.

He noticed. “Singing might help you feel better,” he remarked.

“Singing would wake the whole household.”

“What’s the matter? Afraid to be seen with me tonight?”

“Yes.”

He gave a shout of laughter and then held his fingers to his lips and shushed himself. “The next right,” he said. They went up another flight of stairs before entering a long, windowless passage with doors at intervals on either side. “‘Tis a pity you don’t sing, for your voice is quite lovely, and you’d be good at it, I wager. We’re here.” He stopped abruptly and turned to her. “In fact, I wager there are quite a few things you’ve never done that you would be good at.” He waggled his flawed eyebrow at her suggestively.

She pointedly ignored his remark, stepping around him and working the door latch. The room was dark but for the weak hall sconce light shining into the room. She couldn’t help it; her eyes were drawn to his bed, which was large and hung with sumptuous curtains. She was unsure of their color, but she thought they looked to be a deep blue. She wondered suddenly how many other ladies had looked upon his bed. A hundred, as one of the rumors said? One or two? Or none at all?

The latter brought a sudden, ridiculous stab of disappointment, and she realized in a lightning flash of understanding that a part of her did not want the rumors to be false. Even though she had no intention of . . . of
cavorting
with the viscount, it was still fun and exciting to think him a little dangerous.

Rubbish
!

She shook off the illogical notion, grateful for the dimness of the light. She could feel the heat in her cheeks as she blushed. Quickly, she looked away and turned to bid him a hasty good night

It was a mistake.

Wedged as she was between the jamb of the open door and his massive body, she found herself close enough to see the dark whiskers on his sculpted chin, the smooth whiteness of his teeth as his lips parted ever so slightly. His exposed skin glowed in the lamplight, and what was not exposed might as well have been, for his white linen shirt was wet and it clung to his muscular arms and torso, revealing every powerful contour. Her eyes fastened once more on the dark hair at his neck—only to follow it downward over his chest and his belly, where it tapered into a thin line before it disappeared altogether into his— She jerked her gaze back up to his face.

He laughed knowingly.

His breath was sweet with fine brandy, but suddenly he seemed perfectly lucid. His eyes were like molten onyx, black as the deepest midnight, and as she stared into them, they changed suddenly. The laughter deserted them, and he became frighteningly intense. He leaned toward her, and for one horrifying moment she thought he intended to kiss her, but he reached behind her head and pulled out the comb that tightly secured her hair in place instead. The pale, limp mass fell down her back before she could stop it.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, taking a handful and pulling it over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t hide such a treasure up in a tight little coil.”

Marianna danced away from his touch, and her hair slipped from his fingers. She knew, having grown up on an island frequented by sailors and plantation laborers, what drink did to a man. It made all women seem beautiful, desirable.

Drink and money. They both worked the same sort of black magic. She knew she was not beautiful—though she’d grown up being told she was a prize every man would treasure, a beautiful girl no man could resist. Once in London, though, she’d discovered the truth. No, he was foxed, and she was an heiress. A plain heiress. She inhaled deeply. “Good night, my lord. I trust I can leave you now. You should be able to manage from here.”

“I have gone to bed a few times before,” he agreed, his eyes sparkling.

“Yes . . . well. Good night, then.” She turned and fled.

It took a little more than an hour for the coach to return, and it was half-past-three in the morning when the footman, pulling a little cart with her green-painted trunk on it, finally led her through the dark passages of Trowbridge Manor to her own bedchamber. She’d endured two trips out from London and back, a flurry of packing at the school, a frenzied visit to Ophelia Robertson, and, of course, two encounters with the Viscount Trowbridge. She was almost in tears from exhaustion and plodded behind the footman, barely able to keep to her feet and quite oblivious to her surroundings.

“Here we are, miss,” he said finally. “Your chamber.” He opened the door, and Marianna moved to step inside, but he gave a sound of dismay before she could put a single foot across the threshold. “Here now, miss, hold! The room’s not ready. We didn’t expect you till tomorrow, you see, so if you’ll give me but a minute and wait here in the hall, I’ll have a lamp lit and a fire—”

“No,” Marianna said with a grateful smile she knew he had almost no chance of seeing in the gloom. “No, it is quite all right. I can see well enough to get into bed. The room is quite warm already, and in the bed I shall be perfectly comfortable.” She thought she’d be perfectly comfortable in a cave with a covering of leaves as long as she could lie down and go to sleep.

“Yes, miss.” The footman sounded pitifully grateful and stifled a yawn as he deposited her trunk just inside the door. “I shall send for a maid to unpack it for you.”

“No. Truly, I can manage. Thank you. I won’t require any help until after I awaken in the morning. There is a bell pull inside, isn’t there?”

“Yes, miss. Right next to the bed.”

“Thank you, then. I shall ring in the morning when I awaken.”

“Very well, miss. Good night.” The man bowed and moved off down the hallway.

Marianna closed the door, latched it behind her, and sighed heavily. She didn’t even attempt to extract her night-rail from her trunk. Instead, she pulled her tired brown serge over her head, untied her stays, and felt her way toward the bed wearing only her thin chemise. With the outer door closed, there wasn’t even the dim glow from the hall sconces to light her way. It was darker than she had thought it would be, but she made it to the bed and burrowed gratefully under the thick, fluffy covers anyway.

The last conscious thought she had was that the sweet, heady odor of the viscount’s brandy had somehow managed to cling to her chemise. She fell into a dreamless sleep and did not wake until morning.

THE VISCOUNT, FOR his part, lay in bed a long while before he slept, listening to the soft, even rhythm of Mistress Mary’s breathing only a few inches from him. If she’d been perturbed to find him drunk and singing in the fountain, how much more dismayed would she be to awaken in bed with him? He smiled, fell into a deep sleep, and dreamed of her.

She was splashing naked in the fountain and singing “Greensleeves.”