Heartless (3 page)

It occurred to him that it was scarcely proper for a young woman to be living in the residence of an unmarried male, but he cared nothing for the rules of convention and he wasn't about to put himself out any more than he already had. He would supply her with a lady's maid, one who knew, along with his other servants, the wrath they would suffer if they were anything less than discreet.

Justin reread the letter he had written, used a drop of wax to close it, and imprinted it with the Greville seal, the image of a hawk swooping down on a hare. He rang for a footman, who came on the run, gave him tuppence, and instructed him to post the letter.

*   *   *

Ariel left the bedchamber she had been given in the Earl of Greville's town mansion and hurried down the wide stone staircase. She had been living in the city for nearly two weeks, each day since her arrival more exciting than the next. She was in London! London! There was a time she never would have believed it.

It was still hard to accept the changes that had taken place in her life in four short years. She had a thorough education, could read both Latin and French, and speak as well as any member of the nobility. She dressed in fashionable clothes and traveled about in Lord Greville's expensive black carriage, though in truth, she hadn't yet ventured far. Of course, the house was nothing at all as she had imagined, nothing like the earl's magnificent country estate, Greville Hall.

Instead it was dank and dreary, built of thick gray stone and heavy timbered wood, a massive structure at least 200 years old, with smoke-blackened rafters and not enough windows. No wonder the earl had spent so much time in the country!

Still, she was in London, on the road to fulfilling her dreams. And though, deep down, there were times she still felt like the ragged cottager's daughter she truly was, there was no place on earth she would rather be.

Dressed in an apricot muslin day dress sprigged with white roses, a narrow frilled underskirt, showing merrily beneath the hem, she tucked a strand of pale blond hair into the ringlets swept up on her head and walked through the door of the Red Room.

She grinned when she saw her best friend, Kassandra Wentworth, seated on a burgundy velvet sofa. “You came! Oh, Kitt, I wasn't sure you would.” Her friend stood up, and the two girls hugged.

“You really didn't think I would come? Don't be silly—I could hardly wait to see you. It took a bit of doing, I'll admit. My stepmother would scarcely approve of my visiting you in the home of an unmarried man.”

“I suppose not.”

“Your note said the earl hadn't yet returned from his business trip.”

“Not yet.”

“What will you do when he does?”

Ariel worried her bottom lip and sank down on the edge of the sofa. “Talk to him. Try to make him understand. I realize he has spent a goodly sum of money in the past four years, but surely I can find a way to repay him.”

Sitting beside her, Kitt rolled eyes a brighter shade of green than the gown she was wearing. “You can repay him, all right—in about a hundred years.” Kitt was shorter than Ariel and less slenderly built, with fiery red hair and an irreverent, saucy smile. She was the youngest daughter of the Viscount Stockton, a widower in his fifties who had married a woman just a few years older than his daughter.

Ariel fidgeted, plucked at the folds of her gown. “Perhaps the money won't matter. Once I explain that at the time we agreed to the bargain I didn't really understand exactly what it entailed, I don't think he'll be unreasonable. He's an earl, after all, and extremely wealthy. If he wants a mistress, he can have any woman he pleases.”

“He wants you, Ariel. That's why he agreed to your insane proposal in the first place.”

Ariel's gaze shot to Kitt's face. “But the man hasn't seen me since I was a child. He doesn't even know what I look like.”

Kitt pointedly studied Ariel's blemish-free complexion, fine features, and silver-blond hair. “Well, he won't be disappointed, rest assured.”

Ariel stared down at her lap, her chest feeling suddenly tight. “I gave him my word. Whatever happens, I am bound by it. I shan't break the vow I made unless he releases me from it.”

Kitt sighed, knowing that when Ariel made up her mind there was little chance of changing it. “You said in your letter you had met someone. Maybe he can help.”

Ariel smiled brightly, her glum thoughts instantly fading. “Oh, Kitt—I can hardly believe it. It was an accident, pure and simple, a miracle—or destiny, perhaps—that we chanced upon each other the way we did. It was a lovely day and the house is not far from the park. I decided to go for a walk and there he was.”

“There who was?”

Ariel grinned. “My prince charming, of course. He is blond and fair, quite possibly the handsomest man I've ever seen. His name is Phillip Marlin. He's the second son of the Earl of Wilton.”

Kassandra tried to recall Marlin's face, whether she had met him somewhere in the past, finally gave up, and shook her head. “The name sounds familiar, but I don't think I know him. Perhaps my father does.”

“For heaven's sakes, you mustn't mention him to your father—at least not until I've worked things out. Phillip doesn't know anything about my past or why I am here. He thinks the earl is a distant cousin.”

Kitt scoffed, “From what you've told me, Greville plans to know you far better than that.”

Ariel ignored her. “Phillip and I have been meeting in the park each morning. Yesterday he took me for a ride in his carriage.”

A frown creased Kitt's brow. “Do you think that's a good idea? You don't really know anything about him.”

“I know all I need to know. Oh, Kitt—I think I'm falling in love with him.”

“In little more than a week?”

“You've heard of love at first sight, haven't you?”

“Yes, and I'm not convinced there is any such thing.”

“Well, I believe there is and I'm certain that Phillip does, too.”

Kitt reached over and caught her hand. “You may have learned a lot of things in Mrs. Penworthy's school, my dear, but you don't know tuppence about men. They'll say anything—do anything—to get you into their bed.”

Ariel felt a slow burn creeping into her cheeks. “Phillip isn't like that.”

“Just be careful,” Kitt warned. “I'm far more worldly than you. I know from experience how deceitful a man can be.”

There was something in her friend's voice that said more than her words. Ariel wasn't sure what had happened to Kitt, but it was obvious she hadn't completely got over it. Ariel wanted to ask what it was, but she wasn't sure her friend would tell her.

“When are you leaving for the Continent?” Ariel asked instead, opting for a change of subject.

“The end of next week. First they send me to a boarding school miles away from home. Now they're shipping me off to a cousin in Italy.” She sighed and shook her head. “My father's only doing it to please his wife. He knows Judith and I don't get along.”

“I wish you didn't have to go.” Ariel would miss her, the single friend who knew the truth of her past and never made her feel the least bit self-conscious about it.

“I'm scarcely eager to leave.” Kitt squeezed Ariel's hand. “Just remember what I said about men. And that applies to the earl as well as Phillip Marlin.”

*   *   *

Justin Ross, Earl of Greville, leaned back against the tufted leather seat of his carriage and picked up the several-days-old copy of the
London Chronicle
he had retrieved that morning at the inn. He had concluded his business in Liverpool several days early, a financial matter that involved the building and financing of a new fleet of ships, and, of course, there was the small matter of the bankrupt textile factory he had purchased for a fraction of what it was worth.

He had resolved his business exactly in the manner he had wished and was now on his way back to London. As he thought of the houseguest who would be waiting, it surprised him to discover how much he looked forward to the meeting.

In the past few years, aside from the challenge of increasing the Greville fortune, which he had substantially managed to augment in the two years since he'd become earl, there was little out of the norm that happened in his well-ordered existence. Perhaps that was the reason he had become so intrigued by Ariel's letters. Each week, when one of them arrived at the house, for a brief instant in time a faint ray of light crept into his dark, cynical world.

He had read every letter she had ever written and looked forward each week to the next. Now, before the day was through, he'd be arriving at his house in Brook Street and their long-anticipated meeting would finally commence.

He tried to imagine her face, but no suitable image arose. The vibrant young woman in the letters seemed nothing at all like the other women he had known: hedonistic, self-centered creatures like his mother or the featherbrained females of the
ton
who wanted nothing from a man but the coin in his purse and the power of his name.

Ariel was different. She was the embodiment of honesty, purity, and innocence. She was—

Justin frowned, wondering where his ridiculous notions about the girl had come from. He was no longer the lost little boy who cried in the night for the mother who had abandoned him or the naive young fool who'd been crushed by his sweetheart's betrayal with another man. That person no longer existed, hadn't for a good many years.

The man who returned this day to London knew from brutal experience that honesty, purity, and innocence were qualities that simply did not exist.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

Laughter drifted up from the open black carriage as it rolled through Hyde Park. A man's deep voice joined with the lighter, crystalline tones of a woman. The ground still shimmered with the last of an early-morning mist, and though the breeze blew steadily, a warm sun beat down through a scattering of clouds, brightening Ariel's apricot parasol and Phillip Marlin's tall beaver hat.

“My dearest Ariel.” He captured a white-gloved hand and brought it to his lips. “With the wind in your hair and the blush in your cheeks, you look like a princess.”

Ariel flushed and lowered her lashes, hoping to shield the effect of his words. As she had done each day, she had met Phillip that morning in the park. He was tall and fair, his hair a shiny golden blond, the image of a London aristocrat. Though he wore his clothes with a casual air, they were cut of the finest cloth and perfectly tailored to fit his square-shouldered frame.

“You flatter me, sir.” Ariel toyed with a strand of long blond hair that had escaped from beneath her bonnet. “The wind is blowing. I probably look a fright. You are simply too gallant to say so.”

“‘The southern wind doth play the trumpet to his purposes, and by his hollow whistling in the leaves foretells a tempest and a blustering day.'”

Ariel laughed at the quote she recognized as being from Shakespeare's
Henry IV.
“‘We shall be winnowed with so rough a wind that even our corn shall seem as light as chaff, and good from bad find no partition.'”

Phillip smiled with pleasure at the sally. “You are a delight, my sweet Ariel. I am a fortunate man to have found you.”

Ariel said nothing, just allowed herself to bask in the rays of Phillip's adoration and listen to the sound of his matched bay horses clopping along the lane. But the clouds overhead began to thicken and grow dark, and the breeze kicked up even more. When thunder rumbled in the distance, Phillip turned the horses toward her home.

“We'd better hurry,” he said. “It's going to start raining any minute.”

The wind blew leaves around their feet as Ariel took his hand and they rushed up the steps of the big stone mansion in Brook Street. She wasn't exactly certain how it had happened, whether it was his idea or hers, but a few seconds later Phillip stood beside her in the entry and it seemed he would be staying to tea. She remembered he had asked if her cousin was yet returned and she had told him with a shake of her head that he was not due for another two days.

She flashed a brief smile at the butler, a man named Knowles, whose expression remained as blank as a clean sheet of paper.

“Mr. Marlin will be joining me for tea in the Red Room,” Ariel informed him airily, having discovered that all you had to do to gain a servant's obedience was pretend that you deserved it. “Will you see to it, Knowles?”

Scarecrow thin and balding, the man gazed from Ariel to Phillip and back again. This time, there was no mistaking the disapproval on his face. He merely lifted his bushy eyebrows and said, “As you wish.”

Working to suppress a smile, Ariel took Phillip's hand, led him down the hall and into the Red Room, guiding him over to a sofa in front of the fire.

The tea arrived a few minutes later, and Ariel poured, saying a silent prayer of thanks that she had learned the social graces necessary to move in Phillip's world.

He took a sip from the gold-rimmed cup she handed him, his eyes, the blue of pretty Delft china, moving slowly over her face. “I cannot begin to tell you how much I have enjoyed these days we've spent together.”

Ariel rested her cup and saucer back down on the table. “I've enjoyed them as well.” It
had
been fun, being wooed by a handsome man, the son of an earl, no less, trying out her feminine wiles for the very first time. In the beginning, she had been self-conscious—Phillip was, after all, a member of the aristocracy and socially miles above her—but his ready smiles and easy charm had quickly put her worries to rest.

“You've been wonderful, Phillip. If it hadn't been for you, my days in this house would surely have been dismal.”

He smiled. “The pleasure was mine, I assure you. ‘Your fair discourse has been as sugar, making the hard way sweet and delectable.'”