Duke of Scandal (Moonlight Square, Book 1) (19 page)

With a sad sigh, he walked slowly to his desk, sat down, and pulled a sheet of paper toward him. He picked up a pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote a short answer that he hoped would finally bring Felicity Carvel to her senses.

And show her that only a fool would try to love him.

Dear Me,

Regret to say am no longer going to that ball. My plans have changed. The company there is tiresome. Wear your new gown or go starkers for all I care. Either way, you’ll be magnificent, I’m sure. But recall, this is none of my concern.

Yours indifferently,

You

Postscript: See? I told you I actually do read my mail.

He almost wrote a second postscript to answer her final question with a no, he didn’t miss her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Not even he was that great a liar.

Instead, he called for his butler to take his disappointing reply to her at once, before he lost his nerve.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
He couldn’t quit now, when his addiction to her was almost truly broken.

He had stayed away from her house. He had kept his distance, barely greeting her every time their paths had crossed in Society since that day. He had hung back, drawing on herculean self-control while other men had crowded around her, making sure none of them got too close.

Of course, he could still taste the sweet nectar of her body on his tongue and feel her caresses running up and down his sides. It did not signify.

The echo of her laughter haunted him like a ghost, but he wouldn’t break. Not even when his whole body ached to feel her arms around him. To let her love enfold him and fix all the things in him that were so broken.

She deserved better than him.

Still, he couldn’t help wondering how she had reacted upon reading his cold reply. With any luck, she hated him by now.

Then life could go back to normal.

That night, certain he was finally rid of her for good, Jason walked out to the garden park in the middle of Moonlight Square and stood in the gazebo, cloaked in shadows.

He gazed up at the white, jagged horns of the crescent moon and felt as alone as the last man on earth.

Swallowed up in darkness.

CHAPTER 10

Butterfly

W
hen the night of the ball at the Grand Albion Assembly Rooms came, fast-moving clouds curled and whisked their way across the sky. It looked like it might storm, but so far, there was no rain. Just a warm, moist wind and a warning rumble of distant thunder every now and then.

As the ladies’ carriage rolled once more into the gloomy elegance of Moonlight Square, Felicity could not deny that she was disappointed by Jason’s callous response to her friendly letter. He did not seem to appreciate the courage it had taken her to send it in the first place.

But she still held out hope he might come tonight, no matter what he said.

As her coachman drove past Netherford House to join the queue of carriages waiting to let off passengers in front of the Grand Albion, she leaned to gaze out the carriage window at his dark corner mansion.

Silvered by the moonglow before the dramatic clouds could plunge his grand house into shadow once again, she saw the lightless windows and thought it looked like no one was home.

She had only seen him from a distance of late, but the Duke of Scandal did not seem to be doing too well these days. Indeed, he looked more alone than ever when their paths crossed in Society, even when surrounded by his rakehell friends. But it was his own fault, his own choice.

A lady had her limits. The friendly letter was more than he’d deserved, in truth, for the way he had walked out on her. The coward.

Still, Felicity was nervous down to the very pit of her stomach.
This might be it,
she thought grimly. She could feel him slipping through her fingers, drifting ever further away. Tonight might be her final chance to win him. If he would just
talk
to her, stop shutting her out…

One dance was all she needed and she could fix this, she was sure. At least she was allowed to dance now that she was finally out of mourning.

Dressed in her glorious new gown, this was the very best she could make herself look, and if it wasn’t enough…

She swallowed hard at the thought. Of course, it took more than beauty to win a man’s love, but if she could at least turn Jason’s head tonight, then maybe he would talk to her, and if he would talk to her, then all hope was not yet lost.

That was, if he even came in the first place. If he didn’t—if, knowing how important this was to her, he didn’t show up—then she had made up her mind that their little dalliance was well and truly over. She would shut him out of her heart forever, just as he had done so easily to her. If he didn’t come tonight, his absence would make it painfully obvious even to a stubborn woman like her that he
really
didn’t care. That he didn’t want to try, and therefore, was not worthy of her love. In which case, he could go to the devil.

While her carriage waited in the slow-moving line, Felicity watched the wind rippling through the treetops of the park at the center of Moonlight Square. They swayed as though beckoning her to come explore the night-clad garden.

She studied the place, wishing she and Jason could have strolled along the winding walks, hand in hand, or sat together in the pearl-white garden folly that she could just make out above a tuft of blowing bushes.

It’s a lot of trouble to go to, remodeling this place, when I doubt you’ll live here very long,
he had said, predicting she’d be married and living somewhere else by the end of the Season.

Why not here with you?
she wondered, glancing back at his massive house.
I know we could be happy together.

His servants, at least, were in favor of her plan. Behind their master’s back—and for his own good—his fiercely loyal staff had joined in her matchmaking effort.

They hated seeing him miserable and despaired of him ever settling down. So his adorable butler, Woodcombe, his darling old cook, Hannah, and a few others had become her trusty spies within His Grace’s household, providing her with discreet intelligence on his schedule so she could appear everywhere he went and foil his efforts to forget that she existed this time.

Lucky for her, the bachelor duke’s staff clearly wanted him wedded and settled down, and filling the house with children for them to spoil. Mostly, they trusted her because she was Major Carvel’s sister, and they were well aware that Peter had been Jason’s best mate since boyhood.

So, no, it wasn’t by magic or chance or destiny that she had known when to show up where. It was all part of her relentless plan to plague the “monster” into loving her.

Indeed, she had made a bit of a game of it. She knew the old saying
Out of sight, out of mind.
She did not intend to let him do that to her again.

Jason was hers. He just didn’t know it yet.

At last, their turn came to get out of the carriage and go up to the ball. Mrs. Brown swiveled her portly body toward Felicity with a surprising sparkle in her eyes.

“How do I look?” she asked eagerly.

“Gorgeous,” Felicity assured her. “Gerald will be stunned.”

The older woman beamed. Praise heaven, it did not seem to matter to her beefy cousin that Mrs. Brown was nearly twenty years his senior. The older woman had inherited a sizable chunk of Aunt Kirby’s fortune, and unlike Felicity,
she
was willing to accept his suit.

In her early fifties, the long-widowed Anastasia Brown had given up on men ages ago. But Cousin Gerald’s attentions, however unscrupulously motivated, had brought new life into her recently, and quite seemed to have turned back the clock. Mrs. Brown had been much more lively and easygoing, and literally looked ten years younger than she had just a fortnight ago.

Felicity was tickled by the change. Well, romantic pursuits did seem to have that effect on people. Aunt Kirby would have laughed merrily for hours over this.

Of course, Mrs. Brown was not blind to Gerald’s dubious motives, but these did not prevent her from enjoying the long-forgotten pleasures of male attention.

And bully for her,
Felicity thought. According to her dandyish cousin Charles, Gerald had quickly taken to his older woman.

Charles had privately confided to Felicity that Gerald had no success at all with ladies of his own age.

“It’s those demmed ruddy jowls,” the fashionable viscount had said with a disapproving frown.

“I don’t think it’s ruddy jowls that are his problem, coz,” Felicity had answered. “More the fact that he’s obnoxious.”

But it seemed that Mrs. Brown had been a chaperone long enough to have learned how to snap a younger person into line, and she had put these skills to good use on Felicity’s rude cousin. Gerald had begun showing signs, almost, of gallantry.

As the ladies stepped out of the carriage, the evening breeze ruffled the peacock feather in Mrs. Brown’s hair and lifted the gauzy pink overskirt of Felicity’s fantastic ball gown a bit, baring her ankles. She pushed it back down with a small cry and hurried across the pavement in her dainty dancing slippers, dashing up the front steps of the massive, hotel-like building.

As she stepped into the marble-floored entrance hall alongside her chaperone, she braced herself to learn whether or not Jason had come. The hall was bright and crowded and noisy, with countless conversations in progress at various levels of volume. The slow-moving queue from outside now continued on foot, inching up the grand staircase toward the fabled Assembly Rooms.

She wondered if her lovable red-haired friend Trinny would be in attendance. Her family always came, but Felicity hadn’t seen the Earl of Beresford’s firstborn daughter since the last time she’d attended one of these coveted events, and that had been before Aunt Kirby had passed away.

As far as Felicity knew, Trinny was still on her honeymoon in Scotland with Lord Roland, after the two had so romantically eloped. After all her disappointments in love, Trinny had captured the man of her dreams—one of the rakes from Jason’s own set—and Felicity couldn’t wait to hear how her friend liked married life.

She glanced around and did not see the newlyweds in the crowd, but couldn’t help admiring the elegant interior of the Grand Albion as she waited in the line on the staircase. Twin colonnades of gray-veined marble flanked the huge entrance hall. Behind them, stately oak paneling went partway up the walls; above it the walls were painted dark green and adorned with masterful oil paintings in gilded frames. Brass sconces added light to the bright glow of the chandeliers overhead.

Then she spotted a quiet side corridor leading toward the back of the building. At the end of the hallway, between two potted palms, she glimpsed shining wooden double doors.

Ah,
she thought.
The famous gentlemen’s club at the Grand Albion.

She knew Jason was a member because he had often taken her brother along to play cards or dine with him there. Certain rowdy things went on sometimes behind those well-polished doors. Or so she had heard.

As she continued inching up the wide, red-carpeted staircase beside her chaperone, Mrs. Brown nodded to her many acquaintances. The older set seemed stunned to see their erstwhile dowdy friend resplendently arrayed in royal blue.

For her part, Felicity soon noticed that her own gown was having the effect the modiste had promised. Indeed, she was a little taken aback to note the open stares directed her way before she had even reached the top of the staircase.

Gentlemen gawked at her from the lobby below and leaned on the railing overhead to get a better look. Despite the attention she had been subjected to since word of her fortune had got out, the way they were looking at her now felt different.

It came as rather a shock to her system. But then, she was not in regular attendance at these famous Thursday night balls at the Grand Albion, and their kind thrived on novelty.

A little overwhelmed by all the male stares, she kept her gaze down, watching her step; old habits, like her prim and proper bearing, died hard. Carefully lifting her hem a bit, she ascended the staircase. It wouldn’t do to go tumbling headlong down the stairs with all these eyes upon her.

Her heart was pounding when she and Mrs. Brown finally arrived at the landing above. While Mrs. Brown handed their voucher to the majordomo, Felicity noticed one fellow nearby pointing discreetly at her and asking his comrade, “Who is that stunning creature?”

It was flattering, but only one man mattered.

Would he come?

Her heart was in her throat at the prospect of learning the answer to that as the majordomo beckoned them toward the doorway.

A silent chant ran through her mind.
Please be here. Please don’t let me down. Please don’t break my heart, not again, or I swear I’m done with you. It’s your last chance, Jason…your last chance…

Then the majordomo announced them. “Mrs. Anastasia Brown and Miss Felicity Carvel!”

They stepped into the vast ballroom. The brilliance of the many chandeliers and the warmth from the crowd washed over her, for it was already thronged. On tenterhooks, she scanned the glittering company. With her brittle smile pasted in place, she felt her heart slowly sinking as she searched for that one beloved face…

All London seemed to be admiring her gown in that moment, but she despaired with a sense of utter defeat. The ballroom may as well have been deserted. To her, it was as empty as the deep black pit of a dormant volcano on the far edge of the world.

He’s not here.