Timeless Passion: 10 Historical Romances To Savor (251 page)

Eerily, the candles in the chandelier overhead flickered with the door opening and closing as ladies entered and left the fore chamber and, as they did, an image of Devlin’s face spiraled among the reflections. If only he were here. He wouldn’t be, of course. Her own presence at Benoits was defiance of his order. He probably had forgotten that ridiculous edict as soon as it was issued and he received benefit of its effect. He was only flexing his manly muscle, demonstrating his domination over women in his household. The declaration was too arbitrary to have been of actual consequence.

In spite of tales shared by the household staff, Jessica had seen little of the duke’s infamous temper, certainly nothing she could not quell, if she needed to do so.

Patterson went so far as to say His Grace’s close call with death or permanent injury had given him new humility and had made him a gentler man.

Others in the household suggested Devlin had become a dullard in comparison with his earlier, rowdier self. Recently, they said, instead of being the prowling predator of old, he had become as tame as a house cat.

As two women her age, new acquaintances, prepared to leave the withdrawing room, Jessica dismissed her scowl in the mirror, put an errant curl back in place, and joined them.

She was dancing by the time voices in the ballroom heightened with new excitement. Circling the floor in the rather limp embrace of a sweet, elderly contemporary of Lady Anne’s, Jessica looked around to determine the cause of the uproar.

All eyes trailed to two tall, rather attractive men. Jessica assumed they were two of the older, sought-after bachelors who usually avoided preseason balls to avoid the sometimes noisy attentions of young ladies anticipating their first season.

Both of the new arrivals were attractive, she supposed, but hardly worth the attention they received. Neither compared with either of the dowager’s sons. Jessica sobered as she realized that, in her opinion, both Lattie and Devlin set a high mark other men rarely approached.

The younger swains, like the novice ladies, new to the heady atmosphere of the ton and its social intercourse, lacked the sophistication and practiced boredom of the older gentlemen.

Murmuring swelled with other new arrivals. Jessica didn’t bother looking. The additions likely would be surrounded by doting females, fans aflutter, at first. She could join the gawking later.

As the musicians ended the selection and Jessica’s partner escorted her back to the dowager, she was aware of people looking at them. She blushed, suddenly self-conscious, as people nearby grew quiet and stared her direction.

Turning, she found herself looking down a human corridor, at the far end of which was a pair of ominous sapphire eyes staring at her from a face she nearly did not recognize. A second look verified: Devlin.

As people greeted him congenially, he glided along the makeshift corridor, looking neither right nor left, never shifting his menacing stare from Jessica’s face.

She attempted a smile, but the effort wavered at his unyielding glower. What could possibly be wrong? She reached for the old earl, might have taken his arm, but he had melted into the crowd. Looking at Devlin’s face, Jessica wished she might do the same, and vanish among the bystanders.

Men loitering nearby laughed nervously. Ladies pulled fans in front of their faces and giggled. Even the musicians held silent, emphasizing the murmurings of the onlookers.

Seeing no escape, Jessica stood paralyzed as Devlin’s jaws tightened and his lips thinned.

When he loomed, towering over her, he stopped, so close she could feel his breath brushing the curls about her face.

“Would you care to dance?” His voice was strained.

“The next is promised to … ” She could not look at her card, unable to elude his gaze for even a brief glance.

“He won’t mind.”

“You are certain?”

He nodded, his countenance grim. “Quite.”

To her horror, the musicians struck up a waltz, requiring partners to be close.

Devlin’s right hand slipped about her waist, gathering her roughly as his left caught her right too tightly.

“You do not realize your own strength, Your Grace.”

“And you, my dear, do not realize your own peril.”

As his mother hurried to intervene, other couples moved onto the floor and Devlin swept Jessica into a turn which might have thrust her from him, if he had not held her almost indecently close.

“Mrs. Conifer says it is not seemly, Your Grace, for a man to hold a woman thus.”

She could have sworn steam issued from his ears. “Consider yourself fortunate that I am not behaving in an even more unseemly manner, my darling, and wringing your swanlike little neck.”

“What?”

“Do you pretend you did not understand my order that you were not to attend this affair?”

Jessica tried to twist out of his grasp, but Devlin pressed their bodies closer in a convincing demonstration of his superior strength and, perhaps, proprietorship.

Her anger piqued, Jessica gritted her teeth and, with the next step, brought an expensive heel down hard on Devlin’s foot. His biceps bulged against her breast as he lifted her feet from the floor and put his mouth against her ear. “If it’s combat you want, perhaps we should retire to the terrace where there will be more space and fewer witnesses.”

Before she could respond, he lowered her feet back to the floor, clamped her arm in a viselike grip, turned and nudged her along ahead of him toward the terrace doors.

As they stepped into the darkness and out of the sight of astonished observers, she yanked her arm from his hold and doubled her fists. “I will not be treated like this.” Her voice carried, drawing curious stares from onlookers attempting to follow the couple outside.

Devlin flashed a hard look at bystanders and followers alike, which seemed to quench their interest and encourage them to drift quickly down the steps into the garden or retreat into the ballroom.

“Treated like what?” he asked, his voice a low hiss. “Like a scullery maid? No, I forget myself, you had not achieved that, had you? You were a scullery maid’s assistant, were you not?”

She stared at him, cut by his tone as well as the hurtful words. Although she occasionally alluded to her lowly status, he had never before done so.

“At least servants treat one another civilly,” she countered. “Common folks see one another clearly, unlike the nobility,” she fairly spat the last two words, “who strut about pretending to be superior, as if human beings born without titles are somehow of less value. Even the most devoted servants are invisible to members of the ton.”

Devlin looked as if he had been slapped. “At this moment, I wish to heaven you had remained invisible to me.”

She glared at him, her blood roiling, angrier than she had ever been in her life. “As I recall, when you and I met, I was quite literally invisible to you, your haughtiness.” Her voice took on an ugly, sneering quality. “You were cowering in the leaves and foliage. You did not appear superior then. You didn’t bother asking if I were worthy to deliver you. You were happy enough then to welcome a scullery maid’s assistant into your life.”

For all his raging, arrogant disavowals, Devlin admired her, respected her, particularly as she stood there defying him, a veritable temptress of the first stare, flushing, vibrant, magnificent, swaddled as she was in righteous indignation.

Yet her words knifed into his soul and bled his spirit. When had her opinion of him become so important?

She had entered his life as his eyes and had insidiously attached herself to every vital part until he scarcely wanted to breathe without her near.

Here he stood hurling unforgivable insults at the one person who gave his life meaning.

He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Could you love me, Jessica Blair?”

She couldn’t believe he had said those words at the height of their furious exchange. She must have misunderstood. “What?”

“Could you ever bring yourself to love me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Are you saying you could not?” He locked his fists at his back and turned toward the shadowy forms of distant trees.

“No, you … hen wit.”

Her using that ridiculous term in addressing him made him turn. Without any warning, he exploded with whoops of bellowing laughter. Hen wit! He had never before heard the term used addressing a man. The insult flew beyond reason all the way to absurd. Looking at her, he shouted noisy guffaws, releasing his rage and sending pent-up emotions into the silent night in raucous, unbounded hilarity. Jessica wore a mischievous, satisfied expression. She had committed the
faux pas
intentionally, of course, a realization that made him laugh all the harder.

Finally, as he blotted tears streaming from his eyes, he sputtered. “Did you say ‘No,’ meaning you could not love me, or ‘No,’ you could not
not
love me?”

Scarcely controlling her own hilarity, Jessica stammered as she considered how to answer the convoluted question.

When she found appropriate words and was able to speak, her answer came quietly. “Yes, Your Grace, I could and I do, though saying so defies my own best judgment.”

“Love me?”

“Yes.”

He started toward her, but she stopped him with an open hand. “Truly, Your Grace, I did not know anyone like you existed in the world. You set me raging one moment, in black, murderous fury. With the next word, you send me to the heights. You have me shaking with laughter in one breath, and dissolved to tears with the next.”

In one fluid movement, he stepped up, wrapped his arms about her, and sealed her to his chest.

Finally, feelings incubating all these weeks had escaped, prompting her revelation and clearing the confusion between them. At last, she was where she belonged, with no pretense that this embrace was anything other than a man holding the woman he loved.

Holding her, he noticed a garden gate ajar midway down the fence that paralleled a dark side street. Devlin nudged Jessica’s shoulders to turn her around and said, “Look.”

Reluctant to disengage, she held fast. He clamped both hands on her shoulders and forced her to pivot until her back was spooned against the front of him. Then he put his mouth to her ear. “Do you see the open gate?”

She peered into the night. “Yes.”

“What do you see beyond it?”

“A coachman on his box. The carriage door is open and the outer lanterns alight.”

“Yes. That is Steen’s carriage. The interior is under full wraps, as if against the weather. As you may observe, this is a fair, perhaps overly warm evening.”

She nodded. “Do you wonder why the carriage is enclosed?”

“I know why. It is to muffle a lady’s screams and conceal her struggle as she fights her abductors. The coachman is to go as soon as Steen and his hirelings force the man’s ill-gotten prize inside.”

Jessica turned unbelieving eyes on her companion. “Lord Steen is too decrepit to be a rake or a highwayman, assuming he ever was.”

“He has hired help for tonight. He planned to lure you into this very garden, Nightingale.”

Her eyes grew large as saucers, but he did not allow her to interrupt.

“He would take you through that gate and into that carriage, whisk you off and hold you overnight. On the morrow, I would have to accept his offer for your hand to save your reputation.” Devlin released her. “Or, I could call him out and kill him, which I might be inclined to do. A duel, however, would destroy your reputation as surely as spending a night with the man.”

So that’s what Fry meant by his threat, and his invitation to walk with him in the garden. She turned wondering eyes to Devlin’s face. “You thought to avoid all that by forbidding my attendance here?”

“Precisely.”

“Whyever didn’t you tell me?”

“I am not accustomed to explaining myself, Nightingale. Normally, my orders are obeyed.”

“Yes, well, I’m afraid you have spoiled me to the point I no longer feel bound to obey what appear to be unreasonable commands.”

“I see. Are you saying your disregard of my edict was in some way my fault?”

“One might see it that way. Yes.”

“What of your declaration of love?”

She gave him an unbelieving look. “Do you think you could demand I say I love you and I would do so, if I did not? I am the same person who defied your lesser command not to attend a ball?”

He grinned. Her reasoning made perplexing sense. “Will you marry me?”

She regarded him skeptically. “Why?”

“So you may continue to live under my protection and in my homes. So you may continue knitting and reading and playing the spinet evenings with Mother and me, and live in peace, without a constant parade of suitors.”

“Are those your most compelling reasons why we should wed?”

“They seem adequate. The three of us are compatible. We are comfortable together. You say you love me. You enjoy my family, my homes, the gardens and the stables. As my wife, you will share my title and may have anything money can buy.”

Her chin quivered. “I already have access to your family, your homes and your holdings. You already provide all I need or want. I would not marry you for the reasons you have named.”

He reached for her hand, but she sallied back. His mercurial mood took a decided turn.

“All that I possess is not enough? You say you love me. Is love not enough?”

She blinked at him and swallowed hard, but did not respond.

“You entertained thoughts of marrying John Lout, whom you did not love, a man who could not give you any of the things I can. Do you deny my suit because I offer you the world?” He looked genuinely perplexed.

Swiping at determined tears, Jessica did not answer. Her chin dimpled. She turned back toward the ballroom. Devlin growled unseemly words as he pivoted to follow her inside.

His frustration became full-blown rage when he met Lord Steen sauntering up the terrace steps from the garden, trying to appear casual as he scanned the area. Devlin’s voice was menacing. “I will murder you here with my own two hands if you advance one step more in her direction.”

Those within the sound of his words withdrew several paces. The Duke of Fornay’s infamous temper obviously was restored to its legendary vehemence and unleashed.