Never Surrender to a Scoundrel (9 page)

Claxton glanced over his shoulder toward the door. “Mr. Blackmer, it seems, is an agent of the Crown.”

The words rang like a bell inside her head, not at all what she'd expected to hear.

Clarissa's heartbeat took on a different tempo, still wild but…a degree slower. Yes, slower. Mr. Blackmer, the stranger she had just married, wasn't a murderer or a criminal then. She exhaled a shaky sigh of relief.

The duke continued, “A domestic operative, if you will.”

Silence held the room as everyone appeared to allow his revelation to sink in. At last Sophia spoke.

“An agent of the Crown,” she repeated breathlessly.

“That's not so terrible,” murmured Daphne, squeezing Clarissa's arm. “Indeed, it's rather…exciting. He still acted abhorrently, in luring you into a romantic entanglement, but at least we know he is not a fraud.”

“But an agent of the Crown? Why was he here?” Clarissa started, her thoughts and her memories now confused.

They were just a family. She couldn't think of a reason why their daily activities would interest anyone or require secret observation.

Her mother looked to Claxton. “Why did he pretend to be Wolverton's heir?”

Sophia tilted her head and moved closer. “Were we all being watched?”

“All this time? Did Wolverton know the truth?” Raikes asked.

“Yes, he did.” Claxton looked between the four of them. “His Lordship kept this secret to himself, so that none of us would be unduly concerned, but apparently, some two years ago, home intelligence became aware of a possible threat to Wolverton's person.”

“Someone wanted to hurt Grandfather?” Daphne asked, her face transformed in that moment by fear.

“He's elderly! Why?” said Sophia.

He lifted two hands in a calming gesture. “I was as alarmed as you when I first heard. Something to do with old enemies with a grudge from long ago. Perhaps French. But the threat turned out to be no threat at all, which is why Mr. Kincraig, as we had come to know him, had received instructions to depart. He had been reassigned. Received new orders, if you will.”

Lady Margaretta looked at Clarissa. “And yet you are married to a stranger in truth. Someone whose true identity even you did not know.” Her arm came around Clarissa and she gave her a comforting squeeze. “My dear daughter, you did not know, did you, dear?”

“No,” she answered truthfully, her mind still adjusting to this new truth. “I'm as stunned as the rest of you are.”

One realization filtered through. Wolverton had known Mr. Blackmer's true identity when the wedding took place. He had not, then, knowingly married her to a rakehell gambler and drunk but instead to a man who had protected him from harm. A man she could only surmise that he trusted. The dark cloud that hung over the day became less foreboding at realizing that.

Sophia touched Clarissa's arm but looked at her husband. “And now Clarissa will accompany Mr. Blackmer on his new assignment? How thrilling. Perhaps somewhere abroad. An embassy assignment? They have such marvelous parties.”

Clarissa's spirit lightened. Traveling abroad. Parties? Oh, she hoped so.

Daphne interjected, “Or better yet, she will remain here with us, while Mr. Blackmer fulfills his duties alone?”

She wouldn't mind that so much either.

Again, Claxton glanced to the door, his expression regretful. “I'm afraid not. Given the circumstances of what has taken place with Clarissa and the trust his behavior has broken, Mr. Blackmer's superiors at the Home Office have released him from service.”

“No,” exclaimed Clarissa, guilt striking her through. No. No. No.

Not only had she caused his identity as an agent in the household to be revealed, which she could only suppose was a terrible thing, but she had cost him his position as an agent. The anger she had seen in his eyes! It hadn't only been because he'd been impressed into marrying her, but because accepting the blame for her ruination came at a painful personal sacrifice.

 “Don't blame yourself, Clarissa,” said Lord Raikes from where he stood beside the bookcase. “Espionage agents are by nature calculating. They are fully capable of exerting the utmost in self-control. I suspect Mr. Blackmer knew exactly what he was doing by luring you into this entanglement.”

And there was the tragedy. Despite Mr. Blackmer having been revealed as a Crown agent, in their midst for necessary and honorable purposes, they all still considered him her seducer.

The duke nodded. “I'm afraid what Raikes says is true. Mr. Blackmer is no master spy but something far less dazzling. He is a low-level security officer.” He shrugged. “One step above a Bow Street Runner. I can only imagine he came from modest circumstances and rather liked playing the part of a gentleman of wealth and connections and sought to secure a more legitimate position within the family by whatever means possible. That means being you, my dear girl.”

“That's not true,” Clarissa said in a firm voice.

But her vow to her grandfather and Mr. Blackmer kept her silent and more frustrated than ever that she could not speak the truth.

Mrs. Brightmore entered the room and murmured something to Lady Margaretta, who announced, “The meal is ready. Shall we all go in?”

Clarissa answered firmly, “Not without Mr. Blackmer.” To Claxton, she said, “Where is he, do you know?”

“When I came here, he went outside,” he answered. “Why, I don't know.”

“Most likely to escape us.” Clarissa frowned reprovingly at them all. “We haven't been very welcoming.”

She looked out the window and observed Blackmer speaking to a footman near the street. The servant nodded deferentially and set off to do his bidding, whatever it was. No doubt he was arranging some means of escape. Most likely without her, and she wouldn't blame him.

She saw something then, she hadn't noticed before. Her new husband moved with an air of confidence, his shoulders straight and his chin high. He appeared to be more than comfortable speaking to servants. Masterful, even. A low-level agent working security detail for an elderly earl? A man of little importance? Something in his manner contradicted that. Perhaps it was only her wishful thinking, in wanting to be married to a man of distinction.

Turning back, she saw Daphne cross her arms across her bodice and frown. “I don't want to make you feel any worse than you already do, but did you truly believe we'd make him feel welcome, given the circum—”

Anger, and the fierce need to defend Mr. Blackmer, surged through her in a lightning rush. Clarissa interrupted, pointing a finger at her sister.

“I will hear nothing more of circumstances. Do you hear? Mr. Blackmer and I are married now. He is my husband and I must insist that you extend to him every measure of respect.”

Daphne's eyes widened, and a long moment passed where her mouth hung open as if caught on an unspoken word. At last she closed her mouth and blinked.

“Why, of course, you're right,” she said, contrite. “All that matters is that you are happy.”

Emboldened, Clarissa stood an inch taller.

“That goes for the rest of you as well,” she added, leveling a steady glare upon her family. “I might approach some modicum of happiness if you would all stop behaving like savages.”

They had always considered her an impetuous child. Now they all looked back at her with expressions of surprise, clearly stunned by her strong words and finger jabbing. Lady Margaretta…smiled. “Oh, Clarissa.”

Sophia lifted a hand. “I'm so proud of you. Truly I am. Good for you for calling us out.”

Claxton scowled, but the sharpness of his gaze decreased. After a long moment, he nodded in assent.

Suddenly, Raikes stood beside her. “Why don't I go and find him, and bring him here?”

 “Thank you, Raikes, but no,” Clarissa replied. “He is my husband, and I will go to find him, after which I shall bring him back here, where my hope is that we can enjoy our wedding breakfast together, as a family.” Her throat tightened with emotion as she looked into each of their faces. “You are the people I hold most dear. I can look back on this day as a nightmare or a happy memory. It all depends on you.”

They all nodded at her. She turned on the heel of her slipper to quit the room. She paused just outside the door, gathering herself so as not to go to Blackmer with tears in her eyes. A happy memory. Was that even possible?

Just then, she heard her mother say, “We must all do as Clarissa says. Out of love for her, we must let go of our grudges, do our best to forgive Mr. Blackmer, and accept him as part of our family.”

“I am in complete agreement,” Sophia quietly said.

Daphne spoke then. “We shall be nothing but accommodating from this moment on.”

There wasn't much to smile about today—but Clarissa smiled in this moment.

She descended the staircase to the ground floor and approached the front doors. She sought out a footman to deliver her request to Blackmer that he rejoin her—

Only she didn't find a footman or her husband. Instead, she came face to face with Lord Quinn, standing on the threshold, as if he'd just stepped inside, with his top hat in hand.

“Quinn—” she gasped, feeling as if the world had opened up underneath her feet.

“Thank God it's you,” he murmured fervently, striding toward her, taking her hands while searching the corridor behind her. “I've come under the pretense of seeing Claxton, just hoping for a moment with you. Quickly, my darling, where can we go? I must speak to you alone.”

F
rom the street, Dominick observed Lord Quinn—with his distinctive gold Adonis curls glinting beneath the brim of his top hat—climb out of a town carriage and make his way up the steps to the front door.

The muscles along the back of his neck tensed, and his blood went cold. He stood motionless only long enough to determine, with cool calculation, what his response would be and then proceeded, following the same path His Lordship had taken just moments before. Once inside, he heard the voices of Clarissa's family echoing faintly down from the drawing room upstairs.

However, at just that moment Mr. Ollister crossed his field of vision, escorting one of the younger, second footmen, to whom he gave quiet instructions.

“—you and the others must prioritize duties amongst yourselves, so that at all times the front doors remain attended so that visitors are welcomed properly.”

Behind the young man's shoulder's, Ollister gave Dominick a hard stare and jerked his chin in the direction of the corridor located just across the rotunda, a silent communiqué Dominick instantly understood.

He nodded his thanks and strode briskly across the polished marble floor into a shadowed space, where he found three doors. It took only a moment to locate the one from behind which voices could be heard. Quiet voices, speaking in urgent tones.

He leaned closer, listening—and didn't feel the slightest bit guilty for it. After all, he wasn't
eavesdropping,
per se, but educating himself about his new bride's feelings toward the man who had so recently compromised and abandoned her.

Because, bloody hell, Clarissa was his wife now and he would not play the cuckold, most especially not on his wedding day, within an hour of speaking the vows.

It wasn't about loving or even possessing her. It was because he was a man, by God, and he damn well had his pride.

He heard Quinn's voice first.

“Blast those Aimsley sisters for telling you before I could do so myself. Yes, I married another. I had no other choice but to do so, but I love
you,
” Quinn murmured ardently. “Forever. That will never change—”

Boots scuffed across the carpet. Then lighter footsteps—Clarissa's. But away, as if in escape. Interesting.

“And as I said, you have my sincerest congratulations,” she said.

“Your words offend my ears. You're punishing me, aren't you? You want me to beg. You want me to crawl on my hands and knees.”

“What I want is for you to
stand over there
.”

There came the sound of scuffling. Some unseen piece of furniture scooted against the floor, a small chair perhaps.

“Stay where you are,” she insisted in a clandestine whisper. “Don't come any closer.”

At that moment a footman came round the corner. One sharp glance from Dominick stopped him in his tracks. The servant lowered his gaze before quickly retreating. Dominick turned back to the door, where Quinn's voice could be heard again.

“What choice did I have, except give in to my father's demands? He threatened to place a hold on all my accounts and send me off to Scotland until I was forty if I did not agree to marry that girl for her connections and her fortune, which I regret to say he determined to be a minuscule degree greater than yours, enough to tip the scale. He doesn't care what I want or that I'm happy. It's all a game to him. I'm merely a pawn in his march toward greatness.”

Dominick glowered, recalling the look of pleasure on Lord Quinn's face the day before when he'd observed him at the church, moments after having taken the vows. The enthusiastic kiss he'd shared with his new wife. Truly, a pawn in his father's game, or his own?

“It doesn't matter anymore,” Clarissa answered tightly. Dominick heard the emotion in her voice, and could tell she struggled to keep control of herself. “Everything's changed. You see—”

“How can you say that? You must be as miserable as I am. Don't deny that you still love me as well,” said Quinn. “My dear, there's no reason we can't still be together, if we are discreet—”

Clarissa answered in a shocked voice. “How dare you suggest such a thing!”

“Come here,” Quinn commanded imperiously. More masculine steps. “Stop running away.”

Dominick's lip curled and he closed his eyes, seething. The lady—his wife—had made herself quite clear that she did not wish for her companion in conversation to approach her. A gentleman would respect that. Apparently His Lordship was no gentleman at all.

But then, Dominick had already known that.

“You shouldn't even be here,” Clarissa warned. “Neither of us should be here, not alone in this room. Quinn, no—stay where you are.” Clarissa's whispering intensified. “I said
no
.
Don't touch me.
”

The muscles along Dominick's shoulders clenched, and his hands seized into fists.
Enough.
He turned the door handle and pushed.

His temper flared, finding Clarissa crowded into a corner by Quinn, who had one hand clenched on her shoulder and the other squeezed on her chin, in an obvious attempt to force her face toward his.

Clarissa shoved the flats of her hands against Quinn's shoulders, grappling against him in a valiant attempt to push him away.

“A-
hem
,” Dominick said loudly, announcing his presence.

“Oh!” Clarissa exclaimed, her gaze contacting his over Quinn's shoulder.

She shoved again and broke free but only because Quinn released her, pivoting around to slide several feet away, where his top hat conspicuously lay half overturned on the carpet. At first His Lordship's eyes widened in alarm, but then, upon seeing who had interrupted them, they narrowed with suspicion.

“Well, that was an enthusiastic congratulations if ever I saw one,” Dominick announced, lightly touching the back of a settee on his way toward them. He left the door open behind him.

“Who are you?” Quinn asked haughtily, straightening his coat sleeves from where they'd bunched at the shoulders during the attempted assault of his former lover. With the heel of his boot, he slyly nudged his errant hat behind an upholstered chair.

Dominic had been introduced to Quinn previously as Mr. Kincraig, and they had subsequently crossed paths on more than one occasion, but as with everyone, Dominick had played a part and played it well. Quinn didn't know it, but he hadn't paid that much attention to the actual details of Mr. Kincraig, only to those superficial details Dominick had wished him and everyone else to see.

Dominick was at least half a foot taller than the other man. He took wicked pleasure in staring down his nose at him. “I am an acquaintance, if you will, of that lovely young lady who you were just embracing, so…very…enthusiastically.”

Quinn tilted his head. “An acquaintance, you say.”

“You haven't yet heard our happy announcement?”

Dominick took a few steps more. Arriving at the bow window, he pushed aside the curtain to peer out. On the street, servants were strapping several trunks atop the rented carriage he had procured.

“
Our
announcement?” Quinn repeated frostily. “Whose announcement?”

Dominick turned round again.

“Ours. As in hers and mine,” Dominick answered succinctly. “But I'm a forgiving sort. Since the news hadn't got out quite yet, I shall try very hard to overlook your most inappropriate—and apparently, from what I heard upon entering, unwelcome—show of affection toward my new bride.”

He watched as his words filtered through Quinn's pretty head.

His Lordship exhaled sharply, then smirked nastily, slowly shaking his head as he turned his chin to glare at Clarissa, who didn't even notice because she stared intently at Dominick, a dazed sort of amusement turning up the corners of her pretty lips.

“Darling?” he said, and extended his hand to her.

After a moment's hesitation, she moved toward him, her small hands wrapping around his larger one. He drew her to his side, so close her skirts touched his trouser leg, and the side of her beaded mule aligned with his shoe.

Quinn looked between the two of them, his nostrils flared. “Your…bride, did you say?”

Dominick nodded, and grinned.
Wickedly.

“I know it's a shock. Everything happened so fast, our feelings for one another—my proposal and her acceptance.” He spoke with a deliberate edge of drama to his voice. “Yesterday morning, after she accepted my suit, we pondered a Christmas wedding, but then…” He glanced at Clarissa and lifted her hand to press a kiss to the tops of her fingers. “We both decided we just couldn't wait to start our lives together. Isn't that so, my love?”

Clarissa stared at his lips, clearly fascinated by the untruths they spoke. After a moment's hesitation, she said, “It was all very sudden.”

Her gaze lifted another degree, meeting his. For a moment, everything else disappeared as the unexpected brilliance of her eyes dazzled him like a thousand faceted blue diamonds caught in the rays of a summer sun. The room around them became a blur of color and light. The man who stood eight feet away ceased to exist at all.

He had the sudden urge to kiss her.

And by God, she was his wife, so why shouldn't he?

His hand came up under her chin to gently lift her face toward his. His heart skipped a beat—perhaps two—as he bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers.

Her lips parted, emitting a gasp. No…something softer and sweeter.

A sigh.

Delicious. Her breath tasted of fragrant tea, and her skin smelled like…flowers. Clean white flowers and green summer grass. He shifted, opening his mouth ever so slightly against hers, loving the sensation of hers, plush and warm, beneath his.

“Again, who are you?” Quinn demanded, but in a tempered, hollow voice, as if he were doing his best not to sound demanding.

Ah, that voice. It was a reminder of all the things he wished to forget. He dropped his hand from Clarissa's face and straightened, ending the kiss.

Clarissa peered up at him, looking dazed and shocked, her lips a deep shade of rose now.

Claxton entered the room, his expression both annoyed and relieved. “There you are, the both of you. If you would come now, please, Lady Margaretta is asking for you. Your wedding
déjeuner
awaits and you know Cook, he will lose his mind if we don't go into the dining room immediately—”

He paused at seeing their visitor.

“Well, hello there, Quinn. I didn't realize you were here.”

Quinn exhaled through his nose, looking very angry. And yet, in the next moment, a warm, gregarious smile spread across his face.

Hmmm. Impressive. Dominick wondered if he'd ever considered a position in the secret service. He was admirably good at faking.

Quinn strode toward the duke. “Ah…Your Grace, I stopped by to speak with you about…something or other, but find I have interrupted a…celebration. My bit of nonsense can certainly wait. I don't wish to intrude.”

The duke rested his hand on the carved upper frame of a chair. His ducal ring glinted in the midday light shining through the open window. “Blackmer and I were at the office of the archbishop this morning. We heard something about you having gotten married as well.” His cheek drew back in a grin. “Is that true?”

“Lord Quinn had just informed us,” Clarissa responded with a nod. “We had not yet even had the opportunity to offer our congratulations before you entered.”

Dominick chuckled darkly. Clarissa discreetly pinched the back of his arm, as if to silence him, which only made him chuckle again.

Lord Quinn threw him a sharp look. Claxton, a curious glance.

“I'll walk you out,” the duke offered to Quinn, and together they walked toward the door.

“Lord Quinn,” called Dominick.

Both he and Claxton turned back. Though the duke couldn't see Quinn from his perspective, the other man's countenance had gone icy cold.

Dominick bent toward the floor. “You…forgot your hat.”

“My thanks,” Quinn gritted between his teeth. He snatched the hat from Dominick's hand and, turning on the heel of his boot, disappeared into the corridor. Claxton followed.

Dominick offered Clarissa his arm, and she accepted. Together they followed the other two toward the entrance hall.

“Thank you for that,” Clarissa whispered confidentially. “I'm eternally grateful. His expression! Priceless. I shall never forget.”

“I did it more for me than for you,” Dominick murmured in response.

“Will there be a honeymoon?” the duke inquired as they arrived near the front doors of the house.

Lord Quinn nodded curtly, and turned on his heel toward them. Behind him a footman signaled out the door, toward the street, motioning to his lordship's driver. “We were to have departed yesterday after the ceremony, to my family estate in Wilshire, but Lady Quinn is…” A flash of annoyance crossed his countenance. “Well, she is very attached to her mother and needed another day.” He looked sharply at Clarissa and Dominick, his jaw tautened and nostrils flared. “And what about the two of you?”

“A honeymoon?” Clarissa said, lifting a hand to her throat.

Dominick answered smoothly. “Why, yes, indeed and we've a long journey ahead of us, so we will depart within the hour.”

Clarissa could no longer criticize her family's treatment of her new husband. Indeed, as they had enjoyed Cook's masterfully prepared repast, they had all done their best to be gracious and draw Blackmer into conversation. Only now it was he who persisted in making everyone ill at ease. For the entirety of the meal he remained steadfastly aloof, refusing to engage in all but the briefest exchanges. After a miserable hour confined to the dining room and what quickly became forced small talk, they again adjourned to the drawing room, and everyone scattered to opposite ends of the cavernous chamber.