The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke (10 page)

“As far as I know,” Heath said, his voice thoughtful. “Our brother-in-law trusts him implicitly.”

Emma lowered her eyes. “Dominic is a good man,” she said quietly. Dominic had survived a brutal murder attempt and brought his would-be killer to justice with the help of their sister Chloe. “He allows precious few people into his life.”

Heath stared at her. “As do you and I, Emma.”

She nodded. “I feel responsible for him.”

“Is that all?”

“How could it be anything else?” she asked quickly.

“I don’t know.” His concerned gaze searched her face. “He’s led a hard life.”

“Yes,” she murmured, swallowing. “What of it?”

“You’re my sister, that’s all.”

Chapter Nine

The physician had come and gone when Emma began her routine the following day. According to Julia’s report, Lord Wolverton had been awake when he arrived and had chased the man from his room. After that no one except his valet had dared disturb him again. It was to be hoped by the entire household that this was a sign he was recovering and would soon be himself again. Exactly
who
he was, what sort of man, was a topic upon which Emma reflected as she sat down with a cup of tea in the informal drawing room with its long scrolled-back sofa and matching rosewood table.

She’d gathered three of the girls together for a lesson on the finer points of paying a social call when Julia and her high-spirited aunt appeared and asked to be included.

Emma could hardly refuse. This was, after all, Julia’s home. Practical experience in the arts of etiquette was essential.

Furthermore, if any well-received person in London were capable of distracting one from troubling thoughts, it was Lady Dalrymple, or Aunt Hermia, as the entire Boscastle family had fondly come to call her. The robust beldame still had gentleman admirers. One could not help liking the lively Hermia and the ladies of her painting club, although Emma had privately warned her students not to emulate this unconventional circle of older women who thought themselves past the age of propriety.

“Don’t tell me we’re ’aving tea again,” Harriet said as she burst into the room unannounced and flopped into an armchair, dislodging the other three girls who were standing patiently awaiting Emma’s permission to sit.

Emma frowned. “What are you doing here, Harriet? I did not summon you.”

“Miss Charlotte sent me out to you. I was disrupting history.”

“I don’t doubt it, my dear. Hold your tongue, please.”

“How do I drink me tea if—”

“Silence, please.”

Harriet sighed.

Lady Dalrymple examined Harriet’s scrunchedup face with an encouraging smile. “Another diamond from the coal scuttle, it appears.”

Emma’s eyes gleamed. “We make exceptions at the academy for the young and the infirm.”

“Infirm as in Lord Wolf?” Harriet asked slyly.

Lady Dalrymple shifted around in attention, a woman with a keen instinct for mischief. “Lord who?”

“Not now,” Emma said hastily. “It isn’t a topic for young ears.”

“My ears are quite aged,” Lady Dalrymple said. “Are you keeping secrets from me, Julia?” she demanded of her niece. “What is this mention of a wolf in London? I do believe that the poor beasts died out almost two centuries ago.”

Emma exhaled slowly. “Miss Gardner was ill-advisedly referring to Lord Wolverton, and not a
genuine
wolf.”

Lady Dalrymple might be in her dotage; she might be as wrinkled and plump as the next fairy godmother. Her mind, however, was anything but ancient. Her fingers fluttered coyly in her pale butter-yellow gloves. “Did you say Lord Wolverton?”

Emma set aside her cup with care. The elixir of scandal wafted in the air, and clearly Hermia had caught an intoxicating whiff of it. “Yes, unfortunately, I did.”

“Adrian?” Lady Dalrymple pressed her gloved knuckle to her chin. “Adrian Ruxley?”

“I believe that is his given name,” Emma said evenly.

“That’s ’is nibs, all right,” Harriet chimed in, taking advantage of Emma’s inattention to stuff a whole gooseberry tart into her mouth.

“I saw that,” Emma said in an undertone, “and I am quite revolted.”

“Well, excuse me,” Harriet said, crumbs on her chin. “No one told me we was just supposed to look at ’em. Or are they for dippin’ in this piddle here?”

“You may leave now, Harriet,” Emma said, not raising her voice at all. “Your lesson is over.”

“Do I ’ave to take another nap?”

“Why don’t you help in the kitchen?” Julia suggested gently. “Learning what is needed to run a home is a useful skill for any gentlewoman.”

Harriet stood. “I’d rather rob a—”

Emma’s eyes widened in warning. “You are excused, Harriet.”

After a moment of apparent indecision, Harriet took heed of the militant fire in Emma’s voice and made a quick escape. Aunt Hermia, however, had not been sufficiently diverted to forget the scandalous topic of conversation.

“What is Adrian doing in this house?” she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

Emma rose. “He is recovering from an unfortunate mishap. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”

“Well, I just got back from Tunbridge—what sort of mishap?” she asked sharply.

“I’m sure Julia will be happy to answer your questions, Aunt Hermia,” Emma murmured. “I’ve really left the other girls alone far too long.”

A silence enshrouded the room upon her departure. Julia sipped her tea, and studiously nibbled at her tart. Lady Dalrymple sat and stared at her until Julia began to squirm.

“I will not leave this house until I am told the truth, Julia.”

“Oh,
really.
How do you know Adrian, anyway?”

“It has been brought to my attention by one of my friends that he would make a fine addition to our deity collection. I knew his father and his aunt some years ago.”

“You are not going to paint an injured man au naturel,” Julia said heatedly. “I will not allow it.”

“This is a matter of art, my dear,” Hermia said with an offhanded shrug. “Is the man possessed of a grand physique?”

“Art?” Julia asked with a disbelieving laugh. “You aren’t deceiving anyone. You and your friends like to draw naughty pictures of handsome young gentlemen. There is no excuse for any of you. I’m quite ashamed, at your age.”

“Need I remind you, Julia, of a certain woman who unleashed upon the populace a sketch of her lover’s primary appendage as a cannon? The Wicked Lady Whitby. Wasn’t that your signature?”

Julia was beyond blushing over that particular faux pas. Most likely the notorious cartoon of her husband’s royal scepter would be immortalized on her gravestone. “I don’t know whether Adrian has a grand physique or not,” she said irately. “He has been abed with a head wound, and it did not occur to me to examine him.”

Lady Dalrymple drained her cup. “I must pay the heroic man my regards.”

Julia’s gray eyes widened in shock. “You are
not
going to disturb him. It’s indecent of you, Aunt Hermia. It’s—”

“—none of your affair, darling. I’m old enough to be his grandmama. I shall simply offer the gentle consolation that only a lady of some years can give.”

Julia sprang to her feet. “Don’t you dare ask him to pose for your painting circle. He’s a duke’s son. Moreover, he has suffered a blow to the head and hardly knows what he’s about.”

“Goodness, my dear, you make me sound as if I mean the brave man harm. I’ve met his family, as I just told you. His father, old Scarfield, had a passion for me many years back. It’s only common courtesy that I pay his son a call.”

“Alone, Aunt Hermia?”

Lady Dalrymple stood. “Unless you would like to accompany me?”

Julia flushed. “I should like to restrain you. Short of that, however, I’ll only ask you to promise that you will not harangue my guest about posing for your embarrassing club.”

Chapter Ten

Adrian swept his sword into the air, his knees bent in a classic fencer’s pose. He had come to the regrettable conclusion that his ruse would not work. He’d been bedridden for—how long? not two whole days—and he was ready to jump from the window and climb the rooftops from lack of activity.

Even as a child he had not been able to sit still for more than three minutes at a time. His nursemaids had chased him for hours on end across his father’s vast country estate. As a soldier he’d held the conviction that a man’s prowess began to deteriorate from the day he did not demand sacrifices of his body. Even if he did come into the dukedom, he had no intention whatsoever of sitting plump-arsed on a bejeweled saddle and trotting about his acres while others broke their backs in labor.

He wanted to fight, to move, to—to make wild love to Emma Boscastle. But as that appealing option seemed to be temporarily denied to him, he wasn’t about to laze about in bed like a cosseted empress waiting for a daily bowl of stewed prunes to move his bowels.

Riposte.

Retreat.

He kicked over the stool, leapt onto the chaise, and attacked a nonexistent assailant at the door.

Unfortunately, at that instant, the door opened to admit an unsuspecting chambermaid bringing fresh towels and a pitcher of wash water. She took one look at Adrian, standing on the chaise with his sword directed at her, then emitted a shrill cry and barely managed to unburden her delivery on the floor before whirling to escape.

Adrian lowered his sword. “I’m sorry. Did I frighten you?”

The gamine-faced maid shook her head, suddenly looking more curious than alarmed. Adrian climbed down from the chaise and frowned at her. “Have I seen you before? Aren’t you supposed to knock before coming into a gentleman’s room?”

“I dunno,” she said with an impertinent shrug.

He narrowed his eyes. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m whoever she tells me to be.”

“Lady Lyons?”

“Yeah.” She went down on her knee to collect her towels. “I thought you was laid up.”

“I was—I am. There was a cobweb on the ceiling. I was trying to reach it with my sword. I can’t abide spiders.”

She glanced up shrewdly. “I don’t see any cobweb.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I sliced it to kingdom come.”

Her knowing gaze sized him up. “You don’t look like there’s anything wrong with you, either.”

He sat down on the end of the bed. “And you don’t look like a chambermaid.”

She straightened, a look of delight brightening her elfin features. “I know what you are.”

“Do you?” he asked disinterestedly, his sword balanced between his knees.

“You’re a scaldrum-dodge.”

“A what?”

“You’re a fakement.”

He gripped the sword hilt. “I beg your pardon.”

“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with your ’ead.”

“There must be,” he retorted. “Or I wouldn’t be talking to you.”

She dropped her voice. “You ain’t a duke’s son, then?”

“That’s—this is none of your business.”

“Why are you fakin’ it? You gonna rob the house?”

He looked up in irritation. “You cheeky monkey.”

“Then why—” She started to laugh. “If it’s not money, then it has to be—There’s only two things a man goes after.”

“How old are you?” he demanded.

“Seventeen. I think.”

“Well, you sound as if you were brought up in a brothel.”

“How’d you know?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

“Go away,” he said wearily.

“How much?”

“How much what?” he asked in mild vexation.

She leaned her bony shoulder up against the door. “How much will you pay me not to peach?”

“What?” he said, his voice soft with disbelief.

“How much will you pay me not to tell Mrs. Killjoy you’re puttin’ her on?”

He stood suddenly, the sword gripped loosely in his left hand. He’d never hurt a female in his life. Then again, he’d never been blackmailed by one, either. “Do you know how I spent the last ten years of my life?”

“Growin’ marigolds?”

He walked up to her until she stood pressed flat against the door. “Death. Dismemberment. I’ve been accused, rightly or wrongly, of a beheading or two.”

“I see.” She swallowed, nodding in understanding. “So that’s why she likes you.”

Adrian knew he shouldn’t ask. A guttersnipe in any land was hardly the most reliable source of information. But, on the other hand, the girl didn’t seem stupid. “How do you know she likes me?”

“’Cause you’re in a bad way. She prides herself on fixin’ up people, making them all proper and pretty. Ye’re pretty, no doubt. But you ain’t proper. There’s the devil in your eyes.”

He smiled coldly. “In that case, you’d better not cross me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She thrust her hand at him. “The name’s Harriet and I’m gonna be a lady. Shake?”

“No. Just fetch me some clean towels. You’ve stepped all over the ones you brought, and I’m a bit particular about my personal habits.”

She bobbed a shaky curtsy. “I’ll have ’em bloody well embroidered in gold thread and ironed, if you like.”

He grinned. It never hurt to have an ally. “Then we understand each other?”

She had the nerve to grin back at him. “We cheats and swindlers got to stick together, I always say.”

An hour later Adrian had reached the end of his tolerance for inactivity and escaped his room to wander downstairs and into the garden.

He hoped he would catch Emma alone. Her well-meaning scolds cheered him up. He liked the thought of walking with her in the garden, teasing her into a bit of temper. She’d probably admonish him for being out of bed. Perhaps she would take his hand and offer to sit with him for a few minutes.

He walked past a shed and suddenly found himself surrounded by a gaggle of sketching debutantes. He froze. By the expressions on their young faces he knew he’d done something very wrong by interrupting their class. Either that or they’d been warned he was a man to avoid.

Emma would strangle him if he embarrassed her in front of her students. Still, it was too late to make an escape unseen. One of the girls had spotted him over her sketchbook and gave a cheery shout of recognition.

“Crikey! Look who’s risen from the dead. It’s the duke ’isself.”

That voice. He cringed. That impudent young face. The guttersnipe again. He nodded pleasantly as Emma looked up from the bench to stare at him in…well, her face gave nothing away. She wasn’t exactly strewing rose petals of welcome at his feet. She merely sat in a pose of guarded attention as if she were a figure in a painting. Perhaps she was afraid he would give her away.

“Excuse me,” he said, bowing politely and coming to a halt. “I didn’t mean to cause a disruption.”

A disruption.

Emma breathed out a rueful sigh. A disruption would be defined as a cat chasing a squirrel up a tree, or one of the maids arguing with a butler. Adrian’s presence before a dozen or so sheltered debutantes was more akin to the heavens opening up to deposit a demigod in their youthful midst.

Gasps. Squeals. She lifted one hand in annoyance to quelch this little rebellion. “Control yourselves, please. A young lady does not twitter at the sight of a gentleman.”

But what a gentleman.

She was discombobulated herself at his appearance. He’d strolled across the grass with long-boned grace, his artless beauty enhanced by his white Irish linen shirt, tight buff pantaloons, and well-worn boots. That his short dark-wheat hair appeared a little disheveled only enhanced his devilish appeal. Beautiful pagan. Her secret lover. Oh, how he made her ache for the forbidden.

Try as she might, Emma could not discourage the girls from staring at him. Unfortunately, she had a hard time ignoring him herself. It did not help matters that he was staring quite frankly at her. Grinning with genuine delight, in fact. She shook her head, apprehension muddling her wits. What on earth did he think he was doing?

If she didn’t know better, she would think he was smitten with her. But didn’t scoundrels always play their games with such conviction? Half their pleasure came not from the conquest but from the pursuit.

After all, he had admitted he was not inclined to heal the rift with his father in any great hurry. Could a man who had lived as he ever be content with the quiet life of gentility that Emma envisioned for herself? He decided he could.

But could she be content with him.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said. “I was dying for some exercise.” He waved his arms about in a physical way. “Fresh air, you know. Nothing like it.”

She managed to nod. “Yes. However, we were in the middle of a lesson on—” Adrian’s arrival appeared to have sent every thought out of her head. “On the correct form of etiquette should one ever be invited to a foreign court.”

“A subject close to my heart,” he said gravely.

Emma regarded him blankly for several moments. Was he trying to impress her? Could he possibly be as sweet as he seemed? “Indeed. Anyway, as I was about to explain to my students, the wife of a foreign ambassador shares her husband’s rank. Therefore, she should be announced after his entry at an entertainment—”

“What if he’s late?” Miss Butterfield asked in a worried voice. “My father never arrives anywhere on time.”

“She will wait for him,” Emma replied. “Now, let us continue to the order of seating.”

“Lord Wolverton was a foreign diplomat, wasn’t he?” one of the girls cried in excitement. “Perhaps he could enlighten us on diplomatic society, Lady Lyons.”

Emma’s eyebrows arched at that suggestion. She met Adrian’s wry regard for a moment. She doubted that diplomatic society counted a disreputable English mercenary in its elite ranks. “I believe Lord Wolverton was more acquainted with—”

He shrugged modestly. “I don’t mind sharing my knowledge. I had to break the news once to the occupants of a harem that their master had been slain in an uprising. Granted, this is not a situation any of you young ladies are likely to encounter.”

“One trembles at the thought,” Emma murmured.

“He was a rajah,” Adrian added, his eyes twinkling.

“Did he own tigers?” Harriet asked.

“Yes. And they escaped after his death.”

“I do not see how this is an example of foreign diplomacy,” Emma said, terrified at what he would reveal next.

“Well, I was getting to that,” Adrian replied. “We had to get the rajah’s closest relative on the throne before we had a bloody revolt on our hands. And if you think that doing so was easy in a palace overrun with hungry tigers and weeping women, you don’t know what diplomacy really is.”

Emma glanced around in dismay; Adrian held thrall over an enrapt audience if ever she had seen one. The girls were hanging on his every shocking word. As she had been. She would indeed have enjoyed hearing more colorful stories from his past, but in private. An adventurer. What did he see in proper Emma Boscastle? Would she become one of his wicked little stories?

She surged to her feet. “Thank you so very much for that elucidating perspective, Lord Wolverton. As it is a social challenge my students will hopefully never face, as you yourself pointed out, I suggest we return to our more mundane instruction. Can anyone tell me the correct form of address for a French ambassador’s wife?”

Harriet stood up. “May I ask a question of his dukeship?”

“No,” Emma said quickly, “you may not.”

“What I want to know,” Harriet continued, “is what a girl has to do to marry a duke.”

The other pupils gasped in ill-concealed delight at this forward inquiry.

Emma sat down on the bench, resisting the urge to raise her voice.

“I think,” Adrian said carefully, “that such a question might be better answered by your head-mistress.”

Everyone looked expectantly at Emma, who found, to her chagrin, that
she
was awaiting Adrian’s response to the highly improper question as eagerly as her class. His answer would certainly not be the usual advice. He was anything but the typical aristocrat.

He coughed quietly, a smile hovering on his lips. “Lady Lyons?”

“Class dismissed until after late afternoon,” she announced in a wry voice.