Heartless (10 page)

It would be the height of stupidity to return home now, the duke thought. He was so close to finding Gabriel, a search that had lasted five long years. But why was the Earl of Harwood in France? As Derringer’s new brother-in-law, shouldn’t he be making a nuisance of himself at Derringer Crescent? And what the devil was the man doing with a loose screw like Fraser D’Arcy?

Derringer had once had a run-in with D’Arcy that nearly ended both their lives. Unfortunately, the crazy Frenchman survived.

Harwood’s relationship with D’Arcy was a mystery and Derringer felt he was not best equipped to solve it at the moment. He needed information, and the only place he could get that was at home. Home, where his bride waited, a bride he’d thought of far more often than he’d wanted to.

Derringer kicked Satan into a run, racing toward the cliff’s edge. It appeared that he would run the animal right off the crag and into the sea but he turned Satan’s head right at the last possible moment and steered him onto a hidden cliff path that led down to a little cove below. To the casual observer, he vanished over the edge of the bluff.

He slowed the great black beast and let Satan pick his own path along the rocky path. They were soon at the bottom and standing near a small yacht anchored just off shore.

Within moments they had set sail for Folkestone. Derringer was suspicious of Harwood’s presence in France. He wanted to make sure Merri was safe. And perhaps she would know something of her brother’s activities.

Gabriel would have to wait. For now.

“Here? Now? But why?” The dismay in Leandra’s voice was very much at odds with the smile that stretched across her face.

“I hate to speak ill of the Quality and all, your grace, but I would venture to say it’s because our a duchess now,” Mrs. Stark told her in a rare bout of cynicism.

“Oh, why did they have to come now? If Hart were here he’d know what to do to get rid of them,” she murmured to herself. “But I can’t bear the thought of being rude to them. I can’t.”

The housekeeper’s eyebrows rose at this evidence of Leandra’s unwarranted faith in her absent spouse but she said nothing.

“There is nothing for it but to welcome them, I suppose. Show them in, Mrs. Stark.”

“In here, madam?” the woman asked, surprised that the duchess would want her family in her little sanctuary.

Leandra looked around the morning room and sighed. “Have they all come?”

“As to that, I wouldn’t know. So far there are four ladies and three children.”

“The earl didn’t come?”

Mrs. Stark shook her head.

“Very well. Have the children taken up to the nursery—we do have a nursery, do we not?—and appoint Bessie to watch over them if they have not brought their own maids. Have the blue, rose, and violet chambers prepared on the second floor. Be sure to place Lady Michaella in the yellow chamber on the third floor. Escort the ladies into the drawing room until their chambers are ready and I will join them shortly.”

The duchess withdrew to the door, then paused. Without turning around she said, “He will not be pleased about this, will he?”

“No, madam, he will not,” the old woman replied. She didn’t even pretend to misunderstand.

Leandra took her time about changing her gown and freshening up her appearance, delaying the inevitably distressing confrontation. Liza arranged her dark brown hair in curls and waves with a pretty gold ribbon and helped her into her emerald green silk gown with the gold velvet piping. She wore little gold slippers and a gold locket around her neck that had been loaned to her by Mrs. Stark. The dress was a trifle fancy for afternoon wear and lower at the neck than she was used to but the ensemble gave her a confidence that she was very much afraid she would need.

What she didn’t realize was that the gown made her look quite pretty. The green of the dress made her eyes stand out behind her spectacles like emeralds of the finest quality. The flecks of gold were still there and perhaps even more prominent because of the gold trim on her gown.

Leandra walked with a natural grace that most other women envied. The ladies from her old home were no different. When she entered the drawing room, Leandra noticed the barely veiled anger and hatred in the stares of her family. She ignored it and welcomed them to her home, hiding well her disinclination to do so.

The maid and footman standing at attention in the room were astonished at the lack of warmth in their mistress’s soft voice. She held her head at a haughty angle that was unusual and her smile did not reach the emerald of her eyes. In fact, they thought proudly, she looked every inch a duchess.

As was often the case, the servants had uncovered the circumstances of Leandra’s birth, something not very astonishing since Leandra herself was rather outspoken about it. Though at first they were inclined to condemn her, it didn’t take long for them to, for the most part, accept that she was a person worthy of their devotion and respect. Hence, they answered to no one but her or those directed by her.

“My dear,” the Dowager Lady Harwood—Leandra’s stepmother—gushed with every appearance of enthusiasm. “How are you, child?”

Something flickered in Leandra’s green eyes. They suddenly dimmed in color and appeared to change to a gold color very much like that of the dowager’s. Anyone who knew her well would notice the change. Her servants noticed.

She smiled though everything in her resisted. “My lady. I hope your journey was uneventful.”

Miss Michaella Harcourt, Leandra’s unwed stepsister, stood and curtsied properly, as befitted her half-sister’s new station. Rising gracefully, she then approached Leandra. “Are you well, Merri?” she asked, sincere concern quivering on every word.

Leandra gave her sister a genuine smile. “Oh yes, dearest Michaella. I am quite well. You look tired, though. Would you like to retire to your room for a rest?” She sensed it would be best for her gentle sister to be absent from the room when the other ladies’ spiteful tongues were given permission to let loose their venom.

Michaella released the breath she’d been holding. She’d sensed it, too. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

“Alice, please show Lady Michaella to her chamber. Mrs. Stark will tell you which one, if she hasn’t already done so,” she told the maid, favoring the servant with the same bright smile she’d given her sister.

“We will have a comfortable coze later, hmm?” she told Michaella. The young lady nodded and excused herself to her mother who reluctantly let her go.

“And now,” Leandra said coldly, turning back to her unwelcome guests, “why are you here?”

The remaining ladies gasped. Who would have thought the little viper would get so above herself just because she married a duke? Her husband’s station did not change her parentage one whit.

“We are here to help you adapt, of course, my dear,” the dowager said with a hard edge to her well-modulated tones.

“Adapt?”

“Yes, of course,” Lady Schuster, Leandra’s half-sister, agreed. “How could you possibly know how to go on in a household such as this? Why, we have been here all of an hour already and you have not even offered tea.”

“And you have not curtsied as befits my station above you, so let us not quibble over the definition of proper behavior.”

They gasped again.

“You little slut!” screeched the younger Lady Harwood, wife of the current earl. She strode up to Leandra, blond curls bobbing, and stood looking down at her with a malevolent gaze. “Are you increasing, you little whore? Is that why he married you? Does he know you’re a bastard?”

“It was his primary reason for asking me, I think,” she replied calmly. “And no, I am not increasing.” Her tone was exceedingly dry.

Young Lady Harwood’s expression revealed her shock at Leandra’s denial. “You’re lying! Why would anyone willingly marry a bastard unless she’s with child?”

“Why would I lie?”

“Maybe you told your husband that you’re increasing and he doesn’t know that you are not and you want us to keep the secret.”

“Just so,” murmured Leandra. She caught the look of horrified amusement in the footman’s eyes. She winked at him surreptitiously. “Would you like tea?” she asked with a mocking curtsy directed at her stepmother.

Alas, she’d underestimated the hawklike gaze of her stepmother.

“How dare you mock me!” The dowager turned to the footman. “You, leave this room immediately. And if you show such disrespect again, you will be dismissed.”

Everyone froze. The footman glanced nervously at his mistress. Leandra looked her stepmother in the eye and said in the iciest voice she had ever used, “You will not order my servants about nor threaten them with dismissal. If I hear that you have tried during your stay here, you will be tossed out. Do I make myself clear, my lady?”

A moment of extremely tense silence passed.

“Very well,” the dowager said grudgingly. “It will be as you wish, Merri, but do not come crying to me when the lazy creatures have turned the duke’s home into a circus.”

“Please address me properly, my lady,” was all Leandra said to this comment before she swept from the room as regal as a queen.