Duke of Scandal (Moonlight Square, Book 1) (2 page)

“Hmm, yes, quite. That is the reason I am here, actually. I have written two letters to His Grace over the past sennight. Perhaps you noticed them?”

“Why, yes, miss. I put them on the master’s desk personally.”

“Did you? Oh! Well, thank you very much. I must say, I am relieved to hear it. I was beginning to think they hadn’t arrived.” Thank goodness at least somebody here had a brain—and was sober. “Um, I don’t know if anyone’s had a chance to read them yet,” she ventured ever so politely, “and I promise I should not have disturbed you all if the matter were not so terribly urgent—”

“No trouble at all, miss! You are
always
welcome here,” Woodcombe averred, his heartfelt utterance taking her and even himself off guard, it seemed, by the widening of his eyes.

With that, the old butler sealed his mouth shut, as though he suddenly feared he’d said too much.

She and Mrs. Brown exchanged a puzzled look before Felicity returned her gaze to the butler.

“Ahem, right. As I was saying,” she continued, “the only reason I decided to come in person is that I
do
need an answer to my question.”

“Shall I fetch Mr. Richardson for you, miss? He is His Grace’s man of affairs. He is here even now, working on the household ledgers.”

“Oh, that would be very fine, indeed!” she exclaimed. “But perhaps, Woodcombe, you may know the answer to this yourself.”

“I shall be happy to try, miss. What is the question?” the dear old fellow asked, tilting his head attentively.

“I need to get a message to my brother. That is all. I-I know His Grace has him off in some jungle…or valley…or desert somewhere in the…general vicinity of the, um, Himalayas? But that does cover…quite a bit of ground, and since His Grace is the mighty, moving force behind the team’s expedition, I just wondered if the duke might have a way, that is, some special means o-of getting in touch with my brother somehow?”

To her dismay, Felicity’s eyes suddenly welled with tears. “I’m afraid it’s a-a bit of a family emergency…”

# # #

Oh, bugger all.
Muffled voices woke him, coming from somewhere below.

Frowning, Jason Hawthorne, the sixth Duke of Netherford, obstinately refused to open his eyes. What was the point? He always hated this moment. Waking up.

Back in Town…another useless day.

But the people mumbling downstairs wouldn’t shut up, and then he became aware of the snoring harlot nearby.

No, wait—two snoring harlots.

God.
With half a mind to blow his head off on any given day, Jason finally decided he had nothing to lose by admitting that he was awake.

He opened his bloodshot eyes—and promptly found the ceiling fresco staring down at him, a lush, gaudy mockery. All the coy cupids and tawdry, romping demigods and amorous goddesses up there, still selling the lie that the fleshly life was one big, nonstop celebration.

To be sure, it all might start in gaiety and wine, but he was by now intensely aware of the truth: that the end of this road only led to despair.

Which was where he now resided.

Self-disgust rose in his throat. Surely it was grotesque of him to lack for nothing and yet to feel so alone. He wouldn’t have believed it, but despite his best efforts to the contrary, it was beginning to look like maybe money really
couldn’t
buy happiness, after all.

Who’d have bloody thought it,
he mused in cutting sarcasm. Surely he could’ve learned at least
that
little lesson from his rich and miserable parents.

Having just returned from his ancestral pile in the country where they—or rather, the servants—had raised him, his parents were on his mind, though both had long since departed from this earth.

Still irked at the voices coming from below, he heaved himself up to a sitting position on the divan where he must have passed out, and noted that his private party with the cyprians had never made it to his bedchamber last night.

The drawing room was littered with empty bottles and articles of clothing after his little welcome-home celebration.

Squinting against the golden morning sunlight and wondering what ungodly hour it was, he spotted his latest playthings, soon to be discarded.

He supposed they’d have been horrified if they could have seen what they looked like right now, sprawled and snoring, their mouths hanging open.

The room spun a little, but thirst consumed him, so Jason forced himself up from the divan. As he stood, he noticed he was still wearing the same clothes from last night, though these were unfastened. Well, the girls knew their trade.

Whoever the hell they were.

He did not recall actually having sex with them, though. If memory served, he’d had them both on their knees last night, taking turns at pleasuring him with their filthy red mouths, and then he’d enjoyed the show of watching them pleasure each other.

Same old.

He stepped over one prostrate, scantily clad form and then the other as he headed to the door to bellow for Woodcombe to bring him a pitcher of spring water, a glass of juice, and maybe a loaded pistol.

But on second thought, not knowing who the voices in the hall belonged to, perhaps a wee hint of discretion was in order.

On the way to the closed door of the drawing room, he glimpsed his own reflection in the pier glass on the wall and scoffed.

You look like hell, mate.

Indeed, he looked as debauched as he felt—tousled hair, eyes nearly as red as a demon’s, body stripped half-naked by his latest pair of whores. He buttoned the placket of his trousers and then gripped the handle of the door, opening it a crack.

Who the hell’s in my house at this hour?

Peering out discreetly, he looked down the staircase and saw three females standing in the entrance hall. A bony servant girl hung back behind the other two. A plump matron in a ghastly brown coat with a black feather on her hat stood protectively beside the third intruder.

This one—blond and slender—caught his attention.

His eyes narrowed with interest. Much too young and tasty to be clad all in black.
Ah, pretty young widow? My favorite. Hullo…

She was angled slightly away from him so he couldn’t see her face, yet she seemed a bit familiar…

Jason both stared and listened harder, the sleep and drink and dissipation slowly clearing from his eyes. It was the musical lilt of her voice that suddenly flooded him with shocked recollection, and whatever dying ember was left of his soul suddenly leaped to life within him.

Holy God!

His stomach flip-flopped, and his heart began to pound.

Felicity Carvel?

Immediately, he pulled back into the drawing room, out of sight, his blood throbbing in his veins. A tremor ran through him.

What in the world is
she
doing here?
he thought as titanic shame filled him that she should find him thus. She had never set foot in his house before!

It had been a fortnight since he had last spoken to her, at her great-aunt’s funeral. It was always difficult seeing her, but even more so under such sad circumstances. Felicity had lived with the dear old dragon lady ever since her mother’s death several years ago.

With her father dead, too, and her brother away on his expedition, Jason had stood as near to hand as he dared during the funeral, feeling awkward, saying little, but loath to leave her side, for he was well aware she had no one left now. Well, no one in England at the moment. No one she was close to. She
did
have an uncle of some consequence and two cousins, but they were more or less idiots.

Not that he was much better.

On that hard day, Jason had done his best to remain present for her, though in the background. And he’d tried not to stare, but he had been impressed with her grace in the midst of her grief. He had to admit the little freckled menace had grown up into quite a lady. On the other hand, God knew she’d had enough practice by now at the grim ritual of putting loved ones in the ground.

All the
ton
had been sad to hear of Lady Kirby’s passing, the old spitfire. She’d had a sharp tongue and mirthful naughty streak, with an eye for the young bucks. She often liked to prod them in the backside with her cane as they walked by, which was always rather startling. In short, most of the rakehells in the
ton
had quite loved the old girl.

Jason had been worried about Felicity ever since Her Ladyship’s passing, naturally. Yet for all his concern over what would become of her after her aunt’s death, at the funeral, he had remained—as always—afraid of venturing too close. Afraid of what it could lead to. He never knew what the hell to say to her. God, there was so much to say.

But he wasn’t allowed to say it. Wasn’t allowed to think it, or feel what he felt about that particular girl.

She was Pete’s little sister, for God’s sake.

Then it dawned on him that she wouldn’t have ventured here today into his den of iniquity unless something was very, very wrong. He leaned again toward the crack he had left in the doorway, and, listening for all he was worth, heard a phrase that chilled him to the marrow.

Family emergency?

Jove’s beard, was she crying? Had something
else
happened on top of her aunt’s death while he’d been off attending to his business in the country?
Bloody hell. I wasn’t here for her.
He felt sick at the realization.

He had just got back into Town last night after dark, and had immediately sent for the requisite female companionship. He did not, as a rule, go more than a few days without having some pretty creature see to his needs, but it was also his strict rule not to poach on the locals back at Netherford Hall. So he had waited until he’d returned to London to have a couple of girls brought to him from the Satin Slipper.

Too bad he had to drink copious amounts of liquor to drown out the protests of his conscience and his heart over his dubious choice of bedmates.

All vestiges of sleep fell away immediately, however, at the thought that Felicity might need him. Jason strode back into the drawing room and went over to the ice bucket, in which the several bottles of wine had chilled last night.

The ice was melted now, and he reached into the porcelain-lined urn and cupped his hands full of water. He splashed it on his face and shoved his fingers through his dark hair, smashing it into any sort of order he could make of it.

He quickly rinsed his mouth, pulled on his wrinkled linen shirt, and hastily tucked it in. Then he glanced around until he found his waistcoat, cast across the pianoforte. He put it on, as well, even though it was clearly eveningwear: She would know he had fallen asleep in his clothes.

Damn.
Normally, he would not risk making himself look like any more of a colossal jackass than Felicity Carvel already must think him, but that phrase—
family emergency
—clanged in his head like a fire company’s bells. And contrary to what she probably thought, he still felt more like a member of the Carvel family than he did his own. He had to find out what was wrong and see if he could help.

Fortunately, this time, the mirror gave him a slightly better report. Now he simply looked like a rakehell the morning after rather than a whore-mongering pervert.

He took a deep breath at the drawing room door and braced himself. With a quiver in his stomach, he shoved it open and walked out. To his relief, he quickly observed that she was not crying anymore.
Thank God.

Alas, for his part, he had already started down the steps when he noticed that he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

He rolled his eyes in frustration with himself.
Perfect
.

Well, a grown man could do as he liked in his own home, could he not?

His secretary, Richardson, was still talking to Felicity when she must have heard his footsteps, for she turned, lifted her glorious sea-green eyes, and saw him coming.

Time stopped.

As usual, with her.

Emergency or not, calamity or not, despair or not, Jason could not fight the tender, lopsided grin that formed on his lips at the sight of her.

No more than it seemed she could fight that particular, tremulous smile that he knew with his heart and his loins alike had always belonged only to him.

There was no other smile like it in the entire world.

It was daybreak and sunrise. Soft as rabbits’ fur. As warm and sweet and homey as a mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night.

In short, it was torture.

And liar that he was, he refused, as always, to show how deeply that smile affected him.

“Felicity Joy,” he greeted her matter-of-factly.

“Your Grace.” Her cheeks turned pink as she dropped a slight curtsy.

“Don’t you dare stand on ceremony with me,” he warned as he joined them in the entrance hall. He propped his hands on his waist and pretended not to know she had been upset a moment ago, curious to hear what she had to say for herself, and rather determined to cheer her up, in any case. “What are you doing here, girl?”

Her virginal gaze skimmed over him with searing awareness, but she quirked a brow and pointed at his bare feet.

He shrugged. “I’m starting a new fashion.”

“Ah.”

“So what’s afoot?” he jested.

She gave him a droll look at his pun. The maid behind her giggled, then coughed self-consciously.

Before answering his question, Felicity nodded at the older lady beside her. “Your Grace, you remember Mrs. Brown, my chaperone?”

“Ma’am.” Jason bowed to her.

The portly matron nodded in answer, but pursed her lips and eyed him with the sort of scathing review he was well accustomed to from young ladies’ chaperones. He offered the maid a brief, cordial smile, as well.