Dangerous to Love (9 page)

“I spent five years in India,” said Julian, and to hasten things along, he told the earl what he wanted to know before he could put his questions to him. “When I returned to England, I took up the only thing that I knew, the only thing of any worth I had learned with my stint in the army—gambling. I had a gaming house in Manchester, did I tell you?” He knew that he had. “But the Gaming Act of Forty-five shut me down. I was at a loose end and went back to being a soldier. After Prestonpans, I tried my luck in London. And the rest you know.”

“Whatever happened to Mrs. McGuire?”

Julian almost choked on a swallow of wine. Mrs. Mc-Guire
was Billie McGuire, the harlot who had adopted him when he had escaped from the workhouse. For three years, he had lived in a brothel, and though it was strange at first, it was not as terrifying as the workhouse. He had liked the girls well enough, and had soon ceased to be shocked by how they earned their living. Like him, their ambitions were reduced to immediate survival, and morals and scruples did not enter into it. When he could, he paid his way with the winnings he made playing cards in inns and taverns in the area.

“Mrs. McGuire?” he said, looking puzzled. “Oh, the widow who adopted me when I ran away from school? She died and left me a legacy.” This was no lie. “It was because of her generosity that I was able to buy my commission.”

Lord Kirkland nodded. “You were very fortunate to find a home with her after you ran away from school. She sounds like a most generous-hearted lady.”

Billie had certainly been all of that.

“And you never knew who your parents were or who paid for your schooling?” asked the earl.

“No, never. Good Lord! How did we get on to this? I beg your pardon. I had not meant to monopolize the conversation. We were talking about Sir Robert, were we not, and you were about to tell me what kind of man he is.” He could be as persistent as the earl when it suited him, and he wondered idly if persistence was a family trait.

“Stern. Nasty. Single-minded,” said the earl emphatically. “He h-hates weakness of any description.”

“And yet, he was Lord Hugo’s friend, was he not?”

“Yes, well, my b-brother didn’t have a s-stutter.” Realizing that he had inadvertently betrayed himself, Lord Kirkland gave an embarrassed laugh. “You will think I am being p-petty, but when I was a boy, I would rather be silent than talk in Sir Robert’s presence. My stutter
irritated him, you see. As though I s-stuttered on purpose!”

“Not a very likable gentleman by the sound of things?”

“No.”

“And since then?”

“I have rarely exchanged m-more than a few words with him. Why are you so interested in Sir Robert, Julian?”

“Mmm? Oh, those bills and mortgages of Jeremy Ward’s? I was merely wondering if he will ever be in a position to redeem them?”

“I shouldn’t count on it, not if he is set on buying a p-pardon for his father. They don’t come cheap.”

Julian’s tone was carefully neutral. “Do you think the Crown will grant him a pardon if he pays for it?”

“Oh yes. Money can buy a lot of f-forgiveness.”

It was exactly what Julian wanted to hear.

   He was one step closer to achieving his objective. Julian savored that thought as he went over his ledgers later that same evening. He had amassed quite a number of bills and mortgages belonging to Jeremy Ward. When Sir Robert finally received his pardon and set foot in England, it would be in Julian’s power to bring him to ruin. Lord, if they only knew it! He was the one who was footing the bill for this pardon, yes, and he never expected to see a penny of his money again. He considered it money well spent.

Hearing a sound from the wall behind his desk, Julian put down his pen and went to open the doors of the dumbwaiter that connected his private office to the pantry on the floor below. He took the tray on which sat a jug of coffee and a cup and saucer, and returned to his desk. In his private suite of rooms there was no kitchen. When he
ate at home, all his meals were sent up to him from the kitchens in his gaming house by way of the small lift.

His thoughts did not dwell for long on Sir Robert Ward. Any thought of the Wards always brought to mind Serena Ward in particular.

If only she had been the girl she pretended to be. As he drank his coffee, he let that thought turn in his mind. If she had been Victoria Noble and not Serena Ward, he knew he would be in hot pursuit by now. He had never met a woman like her. It wasn’t only that she appealed to his senses. She appealed to something else in him as well, something he could not quite identify.

This was a fruitless train of thought. She wasn’t Victoria Noble. Victoria was the name of a character she had been playing. She was Serena Ward, and that was that.

She had been a virgin. A man of conscience did not dishonor an innocent young woman without making amends. Albeit unwittingly, he had taken her innocence, and now he was planning to compound the harm he had done by ruining her father. That did not sit well with him.

A man of conscience did not shrug off his responsibilities. This was one of the tenets by which he had been raised. Staring morosely into space, he drank his coffee.

Come what may, he had to do right by her. The thought drummed inside his head like a dirge.

   Dark had settled over the city when Lord Kirkland came out of Julian’s gaming house and summoned a sedan to convey him to a coffeehouse in St. James. He did not linger in the coffeehouse, but after a suitable interval, slipped unobserved through a side door. From there, he made the short walk to the exclusive Temple of Venus in King’s Place.

It was his conversation with Julian that had brought on
his melancholy.
What manner of man is Sir Robert Ward?
More to the point, what manner of man was
he,
James, Earl of Kirkland? He had a wife who loved him, three children on whom he doted, and money enough to do whatever he liked. And now there was Julian, Hugo’s son. And he deserved none of it. On Judgment Day, he would surely get what he deserved. Hadn’t his guardian told him so?

His visit was not expected, and there was a delay as the proprietress of the establishment rearranged things so that he could be accommodated. It was, after all, a Thursday night, and he was a creature of habit. He was not expected till Saturday.

Here, naked, manacled to chains on the wall, his sins were beaten out of him by two stalwart, birch-wielding Amazons who had been well warned in advance to disregard his pleas for clemency. After his humiliating ordeal, he was allowed to rest until he had come to himself. He required no other services from these Vestal Virgins. Purified, purged of sin, he was ready to go home to his wife.

W
hen Serena next encountered Julian Raynor, it was two o’clock in the afternoon, and she was entering her sister-in-law’s boudoir unannounced to return a fan she had borrowed from Catherine the night before. As Serena parted the crimson damask curtains that gave onto the little dressing room, she came to an abrupt halt. Catherine was dressed in a filmy negligee, at her dressing table, her face turned up to the gallant who was in the act of lowering his head to hers.

There could be no mistaking that handsomely chiseled profile nor the cut of the claret frock coat that perfectly molded his broad shoulders. Speechless with shock, Serena watched as the gentleman’s fingers brushed Catherine’s cheek in a voluptuous caress. When his head dipped, she was torn from her paralysis.

“Sirrah!” she cried out. She had given the servants explicit instructions respecting Major Raynor. Under no circumstances was he to be admitted to the house. That he should turn up here, in Catherine’s boudoir, was insupportable.

Eyes flashing murder, she advanced upon him. “How dare you! How dare you!”

Two steps into the boudoir, and she became excruciatingly aware that she had made a royal ass of herself. There were several other ladies and gentlemen lounging around the room, and footmen were dispensing glasses of chocolate or coffee, and freshly baked pastries. This was no amorous assignation, but an informal levee, where a married lady of fashion, having just risen from her bed, might
entertain members of both sexes while her maids prepared her for the day’s round of pleasure.

At Serena’s precipitous entrance, the gentlemen made a valiant effort to rise to their feet, no mean task when both hands were occupied with beverages and delicacies and their dangling smallswords were inclined to catch in the voluminous skirts of their richly embroidered coats. Julian Raynor slowly straightened and turned slightly to meet Serena’s mortified stare. The twinkle in his eyes betrayed a complete knowledge of her gaffe, a gaffe which, happily, seemed to have escaped the notice of the other members of Catherine’s little court.

“No?” he said whimsically. “Then where do you suggest I position it?”

Serena’s eyes fell to the small enamel box in his open palm, and everything became clear to her. Raynor was advising Catherine on her toilette, and in particular, on where to place a black silk patch to dramatize her best feature.

“Where do you suggest I position it?” he repeated.

She longed to tell him. Oh, how she longed to tell him. Gritting her teeth, she tapped her borrowed fan in the middle of her own cheek. “Here,” she said indifferently.

In faint amusement, he raised the eyeglass which dangled from a ribbon on his neck, and his bold gaze wandered over her, from the frilled lace cap atop her knot of unpowdered blond curls to her dainty slippered feet, taking in the blue silk overdress with its white hooped petticoat, and the white gauze scarf tucked decorously around her throat. When his eyes finally lifted to meet hers, they were laughing openly.

Serena rarely blushed. It wasn’t in her nature. In that moment, however, she distinctly felt her skin begin to heat. His lingering inspection of her person was meant to press home the point that he knew her as something quite
different from the refined lady of taste who now stood before him.

“Not here?” he murmured suggestively, and touched one finger to the corner of her mouth, reminding her vividly of the patch she had worn the night she had met him at The Thatched Tavern.

When she flinched from that touch, anger blazed momentarily in his eyes, then was swiftly suppressed.

His voice altered. “Catherine,” he said, “pray present me to this charming child.”

Catherine, who had been watching the pair with lively interest, readily complied. “Julian,” she said, “you must know that this is Sir Robert’s daughter, Serena. Serena, I have the honor to present Major Julian Raynor.”

To Serena’s credit, she managed to utter a polite commonplace and did not betray her relief when she was saved, by Letty’s artless intervention, from further conversation with a man she had good reason to hate.

Flouncing to her feet, Letty quickly interposed herself between Serena and Julian. “Julian,” she said, her smile bewitching, “may I suggest that a patch should always draw attention to a lady’s eyes?” Her own lashes fluttered flirtatiously.

Seizing the opportunity to escape, Serena turned aside and seated herself beside a young gentleman who moved over to make room for her on a pink brocade sofa. She smiled and nodded at the several persons present, but her attention never wavered from the little tableau by Catherine’s dressing table.

“Only if the lady’s eyes are as strikingly beautiful as your own, Miss Letty,” replied Julian. “Would you be kind enough to hold the box for me?”

Flirtation and frivolity, Serena reminded herself, were the hallmarks of a lady’s levee, and no one, least of all a lady’s husband, would raise an eyebrow at what was going
forward in Catherine’s boudoir. At this moment, all over London, scenes like this one were taking place. Ladies, married ladies, whose wardrobes were bulging with fine clothes, would be entertaining their guests in little more than their shifts. It was the mode, but it was also naughty, which, she supposed, explained why gentlemen attended levees in droves.

Julian Raynor’s purpose in being here was a puzzle to her, but she knew that it was not innocent. Was he trying to humiliate her, or frighten her? Did it give him some kind of perverse pleasure to hound her like this? Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?

For a whole week, she had hardly ventured outside the door, knowing that if she chanced to come face-to-face with him, it would be beyond her powers to keep a civil tongue in her head. Raynor had made his presence felt nonetheless, for his name was forever being mentioned by Catherine or Letty. They came home from every drive or rout, with their conversation, especially Letty’s, full of Major Raynor. He was so handsome, so manly, so much the hero that Serena was hard-pressed not to box her sister’s ears.

To her knowledge, Raynor had never bothered with Catherine or Letty before now. They were hardly his style. Within a week of seducing one sister, he was assiduously courting the other two. Damn the man! What was he up to?

Serena’s fears were not for Catherine, but for Letty. She was a green, impressionable girl. Naturally the attentions of a man like Raynor would bowl her over, if only because he stood out from the crowd. A quick comprehensive glance around the room confirmed Serena in her opinion.