Dancing With A Devil (14 page)

This letter will reach you before I do, but I had to tell you right away I believe Gwyneth is alive.

Shock slammed him in the chest and set his blood to rushing in his ears. He blinked and read the line again, yet it remained the same. Bloody, bloody hell. She couldn’t be alive. He’d seen her body himself. The image of her form burned beyond recognition became clear in his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, his held breath filling in his chest until he felt he would explode. His cynical inner voice cut through the roaring noise that was the cacophony of swirling thoughts.
I never saw her face.

Somewhere in the room, the loud crackling of paper made him cringe. Something hard jabbed his right palm. He dismissed the mild irritation, pushing every distraction away but the night he’d escaped Bagne de Toulon and gone to find her to confront her for what she’d done to him.

Her body lay in her bedroom burned black and reeking of charred flesh. The only way he’d known it was her was his signet ring he’d given her when they’d married. His thumb went automatically to his finger to caress the ring he’d retrieved from whom he’d thought to be Gwyneth. He inhaled sharply and the acrid, sickly sweet smell he would never forget filled his nose. Confusion clouded his thoughts. Instantly, he started to gag as he’d done that night.

“
My lord?”

The words were like a shot in his ear, the warm hand on his shoulder intrusive and threatening. Trent jerked up and out of his chair. The years of ingrained combat training resurfaced in a flash. Blindly, he grabbed the unseen hand and twisted.
Strike first for best protection
. A loud yelp filled the room. Behind him, hands grasped and tugged.
I won’t go back to prison. Can’t.

“
Lord Davenport, you’re hurting him!”

The voice was urgent, desperate and
familiar
. Trent blinked and his study came back into view. He stared in horror at Pickering hunched before him, his face twisted in a grimace of pain. Trent released his butler and helped the man to stand. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

Sweat dripped down Pickering’s face as he straightened his coat and carefully pushed back the lock of silver hair that had become dislodged from its neat side-swept position. Once he was perfectly presentable again, the butler met Trent’s gaze. “Are you quite ready for Harris to run your errand for you?”

Trent looked between his gaping footman and his unflappable butler.
The errand
. His intended letter to Audrey’s father to speak with him about courting her. Trent shook his head. “Leave me.” He choked out the words.

With a swift nod, Pickering elbowed an unmoving Harris into submission. When the door closed, Trent collapsed into his chair and gripped his head. He stared at the dark wood of his desk. It was so dark it was almost black. Blackness threatened to consume him. Damn Gwyneth. Only she could manage to destroy a man’s life twice. Shame swept through him. To wish for his wife to be dead was deplorable and dishonorable. He was both. Had to be, because he did not want her to be alive. Yet she might live.

His gut twisted as hollowness filled his chest. He could not write that letter to Audrey’s father now. Hell, he really should not even go near Audrey. He wasn’t sure he could control himself around her. He couldn’t offer her marriage. He laughed bitterly. The muscles in his neck knotted, the tension moving down his shoulders in spiraling waves to his back. The scar on his right cheek throbbed. Another gift from Gwyneth delivered personally the one night she came to see him in prison.

His chest ached as if something were crushing him. Was that loneliness? He turned the feeling over and stilled. Shock reverberated through him. Not loneliness. Loss. Growing deeper and curling around his heart. Squeezing. Squeezing. He had not allowed himself to truly want a real connection with a woman in so long and now that he had― He roared in anger, picked up the glass on his desk and threw it across the room.

It smacked against the wall, glass shattering everywhere and showering the room with shiny slivers. It wasn’t enough. Tension throbbed in his veins. His muscles. His bones. Gwyneth had taken everything from him. His ability to trust. To love. And now she had marched back from her grave and taken Audrey. He shoved back from his chair, hooking his hands under his great wooden desk and heaving it up and over. It crashed against the floor with a thundering boom that reverberated throughout the room. Papers, pens, books and ink spilled across the floor a cream, white and black mess. A disaster. Just like his life.

Kicking out at the still-twirling clock that had been on his desk, he caught his foot on his chair, lost his balance and went down hard on his back. His head smacked the wood floor, making his teeth rattle together in his head. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, and all the rage and bitterness pent inside flowed out in peals of laughter.

His study door swung open with a bang, but he could not seem to make himself care or move. Footsteps tapped slowly across the floor and Pickering loomed above him, his bushy silver eyebrows raised. “I take it you fell, my lord, and tried to use the desk to catch yourself?”

Pickering’s offered theory was utterly implausible, but Trent nodded, knowing they would both cling to the charade to keep a semblance of normalcy.

“
Indeed.” He pushed to a sitting position, his boots sliding against paper and his palm landing in a wet ink spot. Without a word, Pickering produced a cloth, which Trent gratefully took and wiped the dark ink off his palm as best he could.

The first thing he needed to do was protect Audrey from himself. Stretching to his right he grabbed several sheets of parchment paper scattered on the rug. Before he could search or ask for his quill, Pickering reached behind the overturned desk, and when he stood again, had Trent’s quill in his hand and the inkpot. Pickering eyed the pot. “I believe there is enough ink in here to write a few correspondences.”

Despite everything, Trent chuckled and took the inkpot and quill Pickering handed him. “Where is the stack of invitations I was going to have Jones respond to?”

Pickering glanced around the floor, his mouth turning down in a frown. Then he moved toward Trent’s chair, knelt and reached under it. “Here, my lord. But the steward can do this. Why don’t you―”

He waved his hand at Pickering. “I want to do it. Give them to me, please.”

Without a word, Pickering handed him the invitations. Trent glanced at them briefly before fanning them against the crimson and green carpet. Dinners. The theater. A trip to the museum. All social events where Audrey would likely be present. He reached beside him, grabbed one of the tomes that had been on his desk and a sheet of foolscap and responded no to the first invitation he had been intending before to respond in the affirmative to.

Once finished, he reached for another invitation when Pickering cleared his throat. Trent glanced up at his butler. “Go to bed, Pickering.”

“
My lord, I can straighten your study and allow you to answer these correspondence in a dignified manner.”

“
No,” Trent said more sharply than he had intended to. “The business that has brought me low is not dignified. It’s messy and occurred because of a single mistake I made.” Giving his trust to Gwyneth would never quit costing him.

“
As you wish, my lord,” Pickering responded with a steady, no-nonsense voice. He bowed out of the room and shut the door. Trent did not move. He stayed on the floor, legs thrown out in front of him, and summarily responded no to each invitation that would put him in contact with Audrey in the next week. He knew he would see her in public eventually, but he needed a bit of time to reestablish his guard.

The thought that she might be betrothed to another man the next time he saw her filled his mouth with a bitter taste, but the knowledge that his abruptly ending their friendship would likely make her despise him twisted his insides into knots. And knowing there was no way to explain his actions made it all the worse.

So Gwyneth might be alive. If he were still a praying man, he would pray it was not so. Looking around him, he spotted Dinnisfree’s letter, and leaning on his side, stretched his right arm out and picked the letter up with his fingertips.

Once resettled, he unfolded it and read.

I should be home within a week.

Your loyal friend,

Lord Justin Holleman, the Duke of Dinnisfree.

A wry smile pulled at Trent’s lips.
Leave it to Dinnisfree to leave me in the dark. A week?
He glanced to the top of the letter for the date. If this letter had gone out the day Dinnisfree had written it, that meant the duke would be home in roughly seven days, if travel went well.

He set the letter down, stood and picked his way around the mess on his floor toward the bar. Three glasses of whiskey later, the iciness inside his chest hadn’t thawed in the least and
the same acute sense of loss gnawed at him. Audrey had never been his, and now she never would.

With a week passing since Audrey had last seen Trent and the deadline for her accepting Mr. Shelton’s proposal arriving tomorrow night at the Lionhursts’ fete, Audrey’s nerves made it fairly impossible to stand still, let alone think clearly and rationally. Luckily, she, Whitney and Mr. Sutherland stood close to the balcony, which put them out of the line of direct sight and most people mulling around the Marlow’s ballroom were either dancing or trading the latest on dits and paying her no heed. Gripping Whitney’s arm she whispered, “Are you sure Trent said he was coming here tonight?”

Whitney gave her a sympathetic look and nodded. “He said he was recovered from whatever ailed him all week and would be here. I feel certain he will. Aunt Millie specifically requested he attend, and I’ve yet to ever see him deny his mother a thing.” Whitney quirked her mouth. “Except, of course, getting married, but I’m certain that will change with you!”

Audrey wished she felt as certain, but after a week of not seeing him, the warm feeling that had infused her at Whitney’s wedding breakfast when she had caught him gazing at her from across the room had now all but disappeared.

Once more, she glanced around the ornate ballroom for him and groaned. Mr. Shelton was striding toward her. “This night has taken a decided turn for the worse,” she muttered. For a moment, she contemplated giving Mr. Shelton the cut direct, but there was no reason to start a war with her father before absolutely necessary. She forced a half smile as Mr. Shelton strode up to the little group she was standing in.

He bowed slightly, which made the excess skin under his chin jiggle. Audrey struggled not to wince as she acknowledged him. “Mr. Shelton.”

“
Lady Audrey,” he said in a stiff, formal tone. “I believe this is our dance.”

Only because she glanced up and caught sight of her father staring down at her from the overhead balcony did she relent. “Yes, indeed, my lord. I hope you have light feet,” she said in way of joking. “I’ve been known to crush some toes.”

Mr. Shelton raised his eyebrows but didn’t crack a smile. “I assure you, you’ll not step on my feet.”

Was that a command or a reference to his superior dancing abilities? She didn’t know, but she didn’t care for the haughty way he spoke to her. Yet if she could just keep her father happy long enough so that she could see Trent tonight, perhaps he would indicate his feelings and she could offer her father a very real and promising reason not to try to make her marry Mr. Shelton. With an inward sigh, she took his preferred elbow and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.

Once the dance began, and Mr. Shelton started moving her about with jerky motions. She forced herself to smile, so her father would think they were getting along nicely. “Tell me, Mr. Shelton, what hobbies do you enjoy?”

“
Hobbies are frivolous. I’m a busy man.”

She nibbled on her lip. She could ignore his superior attitude, if only she were the meek kind of woman. “I suppose I’m rather frivolous,” she said gaily. “I love horseback riding, gardening and painting. Oh, and I like to pound away on the pianoforte, though I must confess I’m dreadful.”

He regarded her for a long, silent moment with an odd expression before a faint smirk twisted his lips. “Women are frivolous by nature and need a good husband to show them better ways to occupy their time. Speaking of a good husband, has your father talked to you about anything special?”