How To Vex A Viscount (36 page)

No more impulsive chances for her. It was time to play it safe. Daisy moved one of her pawns instead.

“And so,” she said, finishing up the narrative of her experience on Braellafgwen, “I’ve come to the firm belief that adventures are highly overrated.”

“You didn’t used to think so.” Isabella knocked Daisy’s unprotected knight from the board.

She hardly noticed. She was running the events of the last fortnight through her mind. “I didn’t know then what I know now.”

Uncle Gabriel and Meriwether had freed her and Lucian from their little prison. They offered to help Lucian remove his father’s body from the cave, but he declined. Gabriel Drake was taking care of his family. Lucian would care for his. Mr Tinklingham would return at sundown. Lucian planned to hire him to help bear Lord Montford’s body off the island, and then Lucian would wait for Mr Crossly and his sons to return with their tilt boat the next day.

Besides, it might look better for all concerned if Lucian didn’t return to London in their company.

Daisy had been relieved to see her uncle and Meri, but couldn’t imagine how they’d trailed her to the island. She learned they’d paid a quick visit to her residence on Singletary Street after gleaning her whereabouts from the usually closemouthed Nanette. Mr Witherspoon might be an efficient butler with connections on the wharf, but she evidently hadn’t paid him enough to ensure his silence when faced with the likes of Gabriel Drake and his first mate.

After they knew their destination, Gabriel and Meri hadn’t bothered with a tilt boat. Being master mariners, they sailed up the Thames in a little skiff, using the tide and bending the wind to their will. That meant there were no rowers for whose ears they must have a care on the little craft. Daisy was grilled like a goose on a spit all the way back to London.

She told her uncle everything about Lucian’s excavation and following the clues to the location of the Roman payroll. She told of the Jacobite plot and Lord Montford’s unfortunate involvement, while touting Lucian’s innocence in that part of the scheme. She even admitted to masquerading as Blanche La Tour.

“Did that bastard take your maidenhead?” her uncle demanded.

“Lucian is no bastard,” she returned smoothly. “And the answer is no.”

It was even the truth. He hadn’t
taken
her maidenhead. She’d given it to him freely.

Along with her heart.

When she saw Lucian last, he was standing alone on the island at the foot of the hidden stone steps. As the skiff pulled away from Braellafgwen, he was swallowed in mist as completely as if the fairies had stolen him away to their hollow hills.

And she hadn’t seen him since.

Daisy convinced her uncle to allow her to remain with Isabella instead of being dragged back to Cornwall. Of course, she had to promise she’d have no more adventures disguised as a courtesan. Isabella and her husband vowed to hold Daisy to it.

They needn’t have worried. She had no desire to play Blanche with anyone but Lucian, and he was nowhere to be found.

He said he loved me.

Evidently love wasn’t enough to erase the pain of his father’s ugly death.

A voice told Daisy it was her turn to play. She moved one of her chess pieces mechanically, not caring one way or another what befell it.

“Checkmate!” Isabella sang out. “Oh, my dear heart, I fear you are not attending to the game.”

“I’m weary of games,” Daisy said, not meaning chess.

Nanette appeared at the parlour door. “
Pardonez-moi
, there is a gentleman caller who wishes to see Mlle La Tour.”

“Who is it?” Daisy asked, hope making her body thrum like a plucked string.

Nanette squinted at his calling card before handing it over. “Do you know the Marquess of Chadwycke?”

Isabella raised a silver brow at Daisy.

She frowned in disappointment. “I have no idea who he is. Tell Lord Chadwycke that Blanche has gone to France and never intends to set foot on the British isle again.”

“If that is the case, then he instructed me to request a moment with Miss Drake,” Nanette said.

“Persistent, I’ll give him that.” Isabella leaned back from the playing table. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

Daisy snorted. “He’s just someone who either wants to tumble a French courtesan or court a fortune, and doesn’t much care which,” Daisy said. “I don’t know any Marquess of Chadwycke, Nanette. I have a new rule on adventures, you know. The answer is still no.”

“My dear,” Isabella said after Nanette scurried to do her bidding. “I wish you wouldn’t shun all adventures. It’s not your nature. Take this new lord, for example. You haven’t even given him a chance.”

“And why should I when all I really want is—Lucian, what are you doing here?”

He filled the doorway, resplendent in dark blue velvet. The frogs and epaulettes on his frock coat sparkled in silver, and his tricorne sported a jaunty white plume.

“Lady Wexford, Miss Drake.” Lucian made an elegant leg to them. “I hope you’ll forgive my intrusion, but sometimes a man can’t hear ‘no’ unless it comes from the lady’s own lips.”

“Of course, my dear Lord . . . Chadwycke, is it?” Isabella purred as she stood and crossed to him, hand extended for his gentlemanly kiss. “From viscount to marquess. That is a tale I’d love to hear, but I believe there is only one set of ears you need to share it with just now. If you two will excuse me, I’ll see to some refreshments.” She glided past him with a wink. “And . . . it may take some time for me to return, so please make yourself at home.”

Once Isabella left the room, Lucian set his hat on the side table. Daisy rose to her feet slowly. She’d dreamed so often of him coming for her just like this, she couldn’t be sure she wasn’t asleep.

“Is the answer still no, Daisy?” he finally said.

“No! I mean no, the answer is yes!” she cried, and ran to him. He caught her up in his arms and swung her around in a circle. His lips settled over hers in a warm, wet kiss, tasting, questing and then pouring his love into her.

They finally came to a halt on the third turn.

“Better sit down before we fall down.” Daisy led him to the settee. “Tell me, Lucian, what’s happened?”

“Many things.” He clasped her hand between his. “I’ll start at the beginning. After you left Braellafgwen, I returned to the cave and covered my father’s body with my frock coat, since I had nothing else to do until Mr Tinklingham came later with his punt.”

The thought of him alone in the dark with his sorrow made her heart ache.

“Then I realized we hadn’t really done an exhaustive search of the Roman hoard, so I rigged up a little bridge of sorts, using an old log, and went back to investigate.”

“Oh, Lucian.” He might have plunged to his death and she would never have known what happened to him.

“You were right,” he admitted. “The Roman army was paid in salt.” A grin spread over his face. “But the proconsul was paid in silver. Lots and lots of silver.”

He pulled a coin from his cuff and put it in her palm. The hapless Emperor Honorius glinted up at her from the coin’s face.

“Oh, I’m so happy for you,” she said. “But now you’re Marquess of Chadwycke. How did that happen?”

“For that, I must thank your uncle,” he said. “It seems he went to the king with word of the Jacobite plot and embellished my hand in foiling it out of all knowing. Your uncle even told His Majesty that my father had died trying to stop Sir Alistair’s plans. So, in gratitude, the king awarded my father the marquessate posthumously.” Lucian sighed. “And it devolved immediately to me.”

“Uncle Gabriel was never your father’s enemy, you know.”

“He certainly proved it by protecting his memory,” Lucian said. “My father wasn’t always as you saw him last.”

“I know. Hold on to the good in him,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze.

He nodded. Then a smile stole over his face and he slipped off the settee to drop to one knee. “Someone told me once that my proposal of marriage was ‘singularly lacking in elegance.’ I thought I’d try to rectify matters.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said impishly. “Now that I think on it, there was something in the previous proposal about paddling your arse, which I’ll admit does hold a certain appeal.”

He choked out a laugh. “Daisy Drake, you are without doubt the most trying woman in the world, but I love you with all my heart. And if you think you’re done vexing a viscount, I wonder if you’d consider marrying a marquess?”

“Hmm. Viscount Rutland, Earl of Montford and Marquess of Chadwycke,” she said as she palmed his cheek, kissing him once for each of his titles. “I’ve vexed the viscount and I’ll marry the marquess, but perhaps you’ll allow Blanche to return on occasion so she can finish the education of the earl!”

He swallowed her laughter in a kiss that quickly lost all trace of hilarity and left them both breathless. When he finally released her, his hot gaze seared her.

“Blanche may return whenever she likes, so long as she knows it’s Daisy I love.”

“Then maybe she’ll stay in France,” Daisy said, “and you and I can educate each other. After all, I intend to learn you by heart. And won’t that be the grandest adventure of all?”

EPILOGUE

Thus I end this account. Of my life, I will say that I have known joy and sorrow, passion and loneliness, love and hate. Even though I have lived as a woman of pleasure, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of men I have actually taken to my bed. I loved them all. In my way.

And now in my advancing years, I am the wife of a husband who cannot love me except in his way. The irony is fitting. Is that heaven I hear laughing?

At last, I lay aside my nom de plume. Blanche La Tour has written her final scandalous entry. I now sign my true name.

Her boudoir door opened a crack and Isabella laid aside her quill. “Geoffrey, what are you doing here? It’s not Thursday.”

“No, Bella. It’s not Thursday,” he said sheepishly, stepping in and closing the door softly behind him. “But you asked me to stay one night, and I’ve been thinking and . . . well, you know nothing can . . . We started as friends, Bella, and by God, if I don’t think we like each other better than some who actually . . . What I mean is—”

“Geoff, please come to the point.”

“If it would be all right with you, I would like . . . to just hold you.” He shrugged. “May I stay?”

Nothing had changed. There would never be passion between them, but perhaps the warmth of their friendship was a treasure itself. Isabella smiled.

“Of course, Geoffrey. Please stay.”

The End

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Even in a work of fiction such as
How to Vex a Viscount,
there is always some basis in fact. The Society of Antiquaries met regularly in 1731, and the association still exists today for the express purpose of “the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries” (Royal Charter, 1751). The earliest recorded minutes of the group are dated December 5, 1707. But instead of having their own edifice, complete with lecture hall, as described in this novel, the Society was obliged to meet in various taverns until 1780, when George III granted them use of Somerset House. I hope readers will forgive my slight shuffling of the facts to serve my story.

The disastrous South Sea Bubble, which so devastated my hero’s father, was an historically accurate stock swindle. The debacle has been dubbed “the Enron of England.” Shares in the South Sea Company soared to such ridiculous heights in the summer of 1720, it inspired shysters everywhere to urge investment in
their
schemes. One newly formed enterprise advertised itself as “a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.” When the South Sea Company defaulted, the entire market crashed with it. However, since the principal cargo the company intended to market to the New World was slaves from Africa, I can’t help but feel the cosmic justice of total financial ruin was fitting.

Rome controlled portions of Britain for four hundred years. The time referenced in
How to Vex a Viscount
(405 A.D.) was near the end of that occupation. Rome was imploding. By 410 A.D., the Emperor Honorius advised Romans in Britain to defend themselves, for he would send no more troops from the south. My freedman, Caius Meritus, is fictional, but he would have been pleased by their fate, had he lived long enough to see it.