The Rogue (19 page)

“I will not marry Lord Michaels or Lord Gray.”

His fingers pressed harder into the desktop. “You will.”

“Drag me to the altar beside whichever nobleman you choose, Father, and then watch my naturally defiant nature
in action. I have no intention of continuing as a pawn in your unfeeling games, unwittingly or otherwise. I choose to remain unmarried.”

He moved, rounding the desk and coming toward her. Eliza hurried to her side.

“If you threaten this girl, Angus, I will make you very sorry you ever knew me.”

He ignored her. “I will cut you off. You will have nothing. No house in London. No allowance. No carriage. No gowns. No horse. And no companion to allow you to remain in society unwed. Within the day Mrs. Josephs will find herself homeless.”

Eliza grabbed her hand. “Don't listen to him, child.”

“You would cast her out after ten years as a member of our family? Father, you outdo yourself.”

“I will not have all the efforts I have lavished upon you wasted in a momentary fit of temper.”

“This is not a fit, Father. It is who I am, that self-reliant person you crafted so carefully.”

“I had thought better of you.”

“While I had thought both better and worse of you. For my entire life. And I begin to think my mother's fifty thousand pounds is more important to you than you have said. Is it? Do you have a plan for that money that will be ruined if I fail to marry by my twenty-fifth birthday?”

His eyes were as hard as she had ever seen them.

“I see.” She moved away from Eliza, folding her shaking hands before her. When she was on the other side of the room she turned to her father. “I am prepared to make a bargain with you.”

“What is it?”

“It is this: If you allow me to marry as I wish, including the dowry that you offered to the Duke of Loch Irvine, I will do so before my birthday and you may have your fifty thousand pounds—entirely free of other conditions, except this one: upon my marriage you will remove permanently to Castle Read and I will take up residence here or in the house
in London as I wish, and I will cease to pursue the Devil's Duke or any other mystery. I have no desire to continue to be involved in your web of secrets. Remarkably enough, it has all become distasteful to me of a sudden. Do you agree to my terms?”

“Who is your chosen groom?”

“Frederick Sterling.”

Eliza gasped.

Constance held her father's gaze with all the serenity she had learned during years of trying to please him, to be a daughter he might love enough to pay her attention. She had never dreamed he had been paying attention to her all along, training her to hunt and fetch as he dictated. Like one of his dogs.

“Mr. Sterling it will be, then,” she said into the silence. “Shall we shake hands on it, or shall I risk accepting your word alone?”

“If you do this solely to defy me, you will regret it, Constance.”

“Astonishingly, I do this because you have offered me an ultimatum and I do not wish to entirely relinquish the life I have lived for twenty-five years.” Her throat caught. She swallowed over it, hoping he had not heard. “And because he is a good man.”

“Is he? A man who would compromise an unwed woman in a public place? Is that honorable, Constance?”

“I
begged
him to.” Her breaths came hard but her voice remained strong. “I begged. These past weeks he has done everything he could to help me and yet remain aloof from me. Last night I was distressed, and when he offered me comfort I begged him to hold me. Does that disgust you, Father? Are you sorry now that you wasted so much effort on such an unruly specimen of femininity?”

“For pity's sake,” Eliza choked out. “Constance, I have failed you. Both of us have.”

“Father?”

“You are making a mistake in this, Constance,” he said.

“I don't think so. I trust him. Quite a lot more than I trust you.”

“So be it. Mrs. Josephs, send a footman for Mr. Sterling.”

Stunned, she watched Eliza leave. It seemed a dream. Reality was scampering away from her, the revelations of these minutes leaving an echoing chamber of disbelief inside her.

By the time Eliza returned and Saint entered the room, her father had taken up the position behind his desk again. He wanted to appear forbidding and threatening, she understood now.

The swordsman seemed not to notice this display of power.

“My lady,” he said with a graceful bow and eyes that showed both resignation and appreciation of her. He turned his attention on her father. “If you have summoned me here to chastise me, I beg you to save your breath. I told you weeks ago that I won't be threatened. And as you already know, I am even less amenable to scolds.” He looked to her again. “Constance, I cannot be sorry for having been the cause for the end of your betrothal to a man you do not wish to marry. But know that if I could silence the mention of your name upon the tongues of gossips now, I would do all in my power to make it so.”

“You can, Mr. Sterling,” her father said.

“A public hanging is much more likely to encourage gossip than diminish it, sir.”

“Ha!” Eliza cracked a laugh. “I said you were a fool to bring him here, Angus. Some men are not as easily intimidated as you like.”

“In fact I am sufficiently intimidated, Mrs. Josephs,” Saint said. “I have no doubt he could make my life exceedingly uncomfortable if he chose. I will depart this hour.” He turned to her, and Constance felt as though the world was ending and beginning at once. “I only wished to first ask your daughter to give me leave to do so.”

“She will not,” her father said. “Mr. Sterling, I offer to
you my daughter's hand, including all the attendant benefits accruing from such a match—dowry, properties, privileges, etcetera. Do you accept?”

Silence seized the room, the only sounds a distant clatter of a carriage passing by on the rainy street and a servant's whistle in an upper chamber.

“I beg your pardon?” he said in a low, quiet voice.

“What do you not understand?” the duke said with an edge of impatience.

“What do I not understand?” Saint repeated, and then sharply: “Is this a—is this some sort of ruse, like the lie that brought me here initially?” He turned to her. “Is it?”

“No. He is sincere,” she managed to utter.

“Mr. Sterling, the public sensation that my daughter and you have created has caused the Duke of Loch Irvine to withdraw his offer. She must wed before her twenty-fifth birthday in less than four weeks or forfeit a large sum of money. The latter is, of course, undesirable. But arranging another suitable match for her at this late date is not possible. The simplest solution is for the two of you to wed. If you agree to it, she will retain possession of that money, but her dowry, which is considerable, will be yours.”

“I don't want it.”

The duke frowned. “What sort of man refuses a dowry of twenty-five thousand pounds?”

His lips parted without speech. Finally he said, “The sort of man who never thought to have a bride upon whom a dowry of twenty-five pounds had been settled, let alone twenty-five
thousand
. I came here to earn enough money to feed and stable my horse through the year. You are offering me a noblewoman and a fortune. I need a moment, if you please. With Constance.”

“Not until you are wed. Not a minute alone before that, or accompanied by Mrs. Josephs or Lord Michaels.”

“Hmph,” Eliza snorted.

Constance dragged her attention from the astonishment upon Saint's features to her father's implacable stare.

“Father—”

“Do you accept my offer, Mr. Sterling? I will not make it a third time.”

There was a heartbeat's pause.

“I accept it.”

A strange weakness rushed through her, crowding out the elation she had felt since stating her ultimatum. Saint's shoulders were rigid, and now he did not look at her.

“My man of business will prepare the contract,” her father said. “There is still time yet for the banns to be read. That nod to propriety should quiet the gossips if not silence them.”

“I must go to London to see to my brother's affairs,” Saint said.

“Of course. The contract can wait until your return.”

Left hand on the hilt of his sword, finally Saint turned his gaze upon her. “My lady.”

Throat closed, she nodded. He departed.

“You have your wish,” her father said. “I hope that you understand what you have sacrificed.”

She thought of Saint's distant eyes before he left the room, and she understood entirely.

Baker & Chambliss, Solicitors

London, England

D
ylan opted to travel to London with him. “The old curmudgeon won't let me see my pearl anyway. No cause for me to hang about Edinburgh. And I cannot abide Read's frosty glowers.”

“He doesn't glower.” The Duke of Read rarely revealed any feeling. Saint wondered how his vibrant daughter had borne that steely parenting. But then he found himself thinking about her eyes hazy with passion and her hot mouth and her fingers scraping across his back, and forgetting the street he was looking for, and the reason he'd just ridden hundreds of miles, and his own name.

“'Course he does,” Dylan insisted, doffing his hat to a pair of ladies in a passing carriage. “Hope it's not catching.
Wouldn't like to see you start glowering too, now that you're going to be a member of the family.” His eyes twinkled.

“Enough already.”

“Saint, my boy, you are the most peculiar fellow I know. Any other man would be shouting for joy that he'd just nabbed the most beautiful girl in Scotland—Britain! And twenty-five thousand pounds in the bargain. What your difficulty is with celebrating your good fortune, I can't for the life of me see.”

The difficulty with his good fortune was that it was too good.
Unbelievably
good.

One kiss, and she was to be his? The heiress who had turned away men of rank and fortune? The stunning beauty with a thirst for danger who had engineered a courtship from a man she suspected of crimes so that she could investigate him closer? The passionate woman whose eyes flared with panic even as she reached for him?

He wasn't ready to celebrate. Not until he understood what in the hell was going on.

“Here's the place.” Dylan gestured to a modest brass plaque on a door and drew his mount to a halt. “I won't play coy with you, cousin,” he said less cheerily. “I'm damn glad we're finally here. Can't lay old Tor to rest entirely till this is done.”

A narrow man wearing spectacles opened the door to them. “My lord.” He bowed. “Mr. Sterling? I have been expecting you for months.” He led them into an office furnished sparsely but expensively. “Tea?”

“I'll take a spot of claret, Chambliss,” Dylan said.

The wine was poured, its year and bouquet appreciated, while Saint waited. He hadn't come here to chat with the solicitor over vintages. But Dylan would be Dylan. And he was in no hurry to learn the truth about his brother's business ventures. He was doing this only so that he would not bring Constance unexpected trouble.

“Shall we begin?” Chambliss finally said, opening a portfolio across his desk. “Mr. Sterling's holdings were not
terribly diverse, but they were lucrative. I was instructed to withdraw all investments upon notification of his death—”

“He instructed you of this?” Saint asked.

“Five years ago. When Lord Michaels informed me of his death in January, I did as your brother instructed, leaving only one investment active, which is due to pay out in June. That is a shipping venture currently en route to Port-au-Prince. It should net a considerable sum.”

“All right then,” Dylan said impatiently. “Give us the grand total.”

“Without including the investment that I have just mentioned, or the property in Kingston and the house in Devon, all told, Mr. Sterling, your brother's worth at the time of his death was eighty-four thousand pounds.”

Dylan's face went white.

Saint closed his eyes.

“If you wish, I will be glad to find purchasers for both properties,” Chambliss continued. “The Devonshire house is a fine specimen of Elizabethan architecture on a valuable parcel. According to the surveyors Mr. Sterling hired last autumn, it is also sitting on a cache of coal. It should bring a fine price. While property is not as sought after in Kingston as it was several decades ago, the warehouse will still interest buyers, of course. Those should be easy to convert to liquid assets. The two ships are, of course, also of value.”

“Mr. Chambliss,” Saint forced through his tight throat. “How much of my brother's money came from the sale of human cargo?”

The solicitor's brows peaked. “Sir?”

Saint leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “Please. I have no intention of exposing you or my brother's associates to the law. But I need to know.”

“None of it, sir.”

“None?” Dylan exclaimed.

“My brother gave us to understand that his ships transported cargo that, on occasion, could not bear official inspection.”

“The investments he hired me to oversee were all entirely legitimate. Your brother was a savvy investor, and astonishingly fortunate.”

“He did have the Devil's luck at cards,” Dylan mumbled.

“Could the ships have made journeys unknown to you?” Saint asked.

“Impossible. I will study the records again, if you wish, but for ten years I have followed them closely and I recall nothing odd in the itineraries. The
Queen Anne
's route was regular between Boston and Kingston. And while the
Gladiator
occasionally took a turn through the North Sea, as you know, sir,” he said with a frown, “its usual itinerary was Kingston to Portsmouth, and for the past few years since the treaty, occasionally Nantes. Neither ship sailed to African ports. I have no records of human cargo shipped from the West Indies, either. Only passengers.”

“Passengers?”

“It is common for merchant ships to take on a handful of passengers to increase the gross earnings of a journey.”

Dylan shifted in his chair. “While this is all as fascinating as rust on a carriage wheel, I would like to know the distribution of my cousin's gold.”

“The land, houses, shop, ships, and warehouse all now belong to Mr. Sterling, and the liquid assets are to be divided into four parts: one to you, my lord; two to Mr. Sterling; and the fourth to a charitable institution that your brother designated specifically.”

Dylan's breath exploded from him. He leaped up, grabbed the solicitor's hand, and pumped it up and down.

“Good show, Chambliss! This is cause for celebration. What say you, Saint, let's head over to that pub down the block, buy the most expensive bottle in the place, and get soused, shall we?”

Saint stood. “Take no action on the properties at this time, Mr. Chambliss. I would like information on that charitable institution sent to Lord Michaels's flat today, please.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

They departed, Dylan with a skip in his step.

“Twenty-one thousand pounds! This is a capital day. An exceedingly capital day! Edwards won't be able to deny me his daughter now.”

Edwards: provincial petty gentry, reluctant to marry his daughter to a baron because of his lack of funds.

Read: a duke bestowing his heiress upon a man of no status with no more than fifty pounds to his name.

Not right.
Read was not to be trusted. And his daughter . . .

She would be his wife.