Dunsaney's Desire (Historical Romance)

by Brianna York

  Rosy appeared to be thinking very hard and she nodded abstractedly. “Yes, Alex. That was most instructive. You see, I think that I...” she began when suddenly, the door swung open to reveal Rob. Rosy blanched and went mute.

  “Oh hallo,” Rob greeted them. “Sorry to barge in on you. I was actually in search of Matthew.”

  “I believe that he is in the library, Rob,” Alex replied.

  “Of course,” Rob answered, smiling brightly. “Sorry to have bothered you two.” He ducked out of the room, pulling the door closed quietly behind him.

  “What were you saying, Rosy?” Alex asked, turning to look at her companion.

  Rosy however, was still pale and drawn looking. Alex was concerned until she saw the determined, thoughtful set of the girl’s mouth. “It was nothing,” Rosy replied firmly before meeting Alex’s eyes again and smiling. Some color returned to her face and she rose. “Thank you for answering my question. I feel much better now.”

  Alex rose and nodded. “I am glad that I was helpful to you, Rosy. You know that I am always happy to see you.”

  Rosy grinned at Alex. “Thank you, Alex. I shall let you return to Lord Tyndale.” With that said, she left the room in a patter of tiny feet. Alone once again, Alex shook her head. Rosy was unexpectedly complicated and difficult to understand. Just when Alex thought that she had put her finger on precisely what the girl was like, she revealed another new facet of her personality.

  It seemed as if she was going to make some sort of confession when Rob surprised us, Alex mused to herself as she climbed the stairs again. She thought for a moment, but could not decide precisely what Rosy might have been planning to say. She had reached the door to Forrest’s room at this point, and Rosy slipped from her mind completely as she opened the door and stepped inside.

  ∞∞∞

  Rob found Matthew in the library sitting before the fire with a book open on his lap and a glass of port in his hand. “Hello there,” Rob greeted his friend

  “Oh, hallo, Rob,” Matthew replied, glancing up from the pages of his book to smile at Rob. “You look awake now,” he observed, a laugh lurking in his voice.

  Rob smiled lopsidedly. “You have not slept in that chair, my friend. You would have looked at least as terrible as I did this morning if you had.”

  Matthew nodded. “I have no doubts, Rob.” He rose then and crossed the room to pour his friend a glass of port. After he had handed the glass to Rob, he went to lean against the mantle. “What say you and I go to the club tonight for dinner?”

  Rob nodded agreeably. “It would be wonderful to get out of the house.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Matthew answered. “I shall drop Marcus a note to invite him as well.”

  Rob snorted inelegantly. “I am quite certain that ‘business’ will be more to his liking than our company, but if you insist on inviting him, I suppose I shan’t stop you.”

  Matthew chuckled. “I tend to agree with you that Marcus is a deadly dull dog, but I did spend many a summer with him and so therefore feel compelled to attempt to keep the acquaintance between us up even if he does not.”

  “Suit yourself,” Rob replied, his abstracted tone indicating that his attention was again turned to his reading.

  Matthew closed his eyes a moment, savoring the warmth of the fire, the excellent taste of the port in his hand and the sense of relief that accompanied Forrest’s safety. He was determined that he should live to see one member of the Hargreve family happily married, despite he and Alex’s apparent penchant for unfortunate events muddling their love affairs.

  Thirty

  Marcus,

  Rob and I are going to the club tonight. Meet us at eight o’clock?”

  Matthew

  Marcus smiled down at the note in his hands. Matthew was playing right into the plan that he and Dartmoor had concocted. He stared at Matthew’s flourishing signature for a moment. It was bold and so strongly written that one could feel the imprints of the letters on the other side of the paper like braille. Underneath Matthew’s cool and proper demeanor was the innocent arrogance and often restless energy revealed by the deep indents and strong strokes of his signature.

  Struck by a sudden unpleasant thought that he was playing with a man that one could liken to a force of nature, Marcus refolded the note and tossed it onto his desk with an impatient flick of his wrist. He rounded the desk and sank into his chair. He selected a quill and smoothed a piece of foolscap out before him. He thought a moment, then wrote:

  Matthew,

  So sorry, but I am already engaged for the evening. Enjoy yourselves.

  Marcus

  He folded the paper swiftly, then sealed it. He tapped the letter against his palm for a moment, knowing that he might prevent things from going any farther if he so chose. He wanted his revenge most desperately, but a glimmer of doubt kept him from feeling entirely confident. If only he did not feel so certain that Matthew would somehow manage to thwart their careful plans. He sighed, then rose quickly, calling for his butler and directing the man to have someone deliver the note to Matthew’s house. He then returned to his desk to compose a note to Dartmoor.

  ∞∞∞

  “A note has arrived for you, Mr. Dartmoor.”

  Dartmoor glanced up at his butler. “Give it here,” he demanded, his eyes returning to the books, but his hand stretched out imperiously. The butler did as he was bade, placing the letter in his employer’s hands. Dartmoor abandoned the books as soon as he saw the seal on the letter. “You may go now, James,” he informed the servant. He ripped open the letter and read the single line that marched across it. He leaned back in his chair and smiled contentedly. He folded the letter again, then tossed it onto his desk. He contemplated how very smoothly the plan they had formulated was working, then rose to his feet and left the room. He jogged up the stairs two at a time.

  “Tess?” he called out as he approached his sister’s room. “Tess?” he rapped at the door with his knuckle.

  Inside the room, Tess scowled at the door. Her brother had been true to his word, having food sent up to her twice a day by a servant that set it just inside the room and then withdrew so that Dartmoor might lock the door again. She had spent the first few hours of her captivity feeling sorry for herself over Matthew and what her brother had said about the way he would see her after he discovered her involvement with her brother’s plot.

  After she had come to terms with her imprisonment, she had begun to think about the situation more clearly. She knew that what her brother had said about Matthew was the truth, but she had begun to realize that it was her responsibility to manage to warn him if she could, no matter what the consequences of her actions might be for herself. She did not care if he hated her and refused to see her again after she had done her duty; she cared only that she prevent further harm from coming to Matthew and his friends. She had examined the trellis outside her window and she thought that it might bear her weight. All she had to do was wait for nightfall.

  “It is too early to feed me, Brother,” she called in reply to her brother’s voice, her tone flat and bored.

  She heard him chuckle. “I know that,” he informed her, unlocking the door and entering her room. “I wish to speak with you about something else.”

  She regarded him with little interest. “Such as?”

  He leaned against the door jam and smiled at her. “I am off to Scotland tonight. I just received word from Marcus. I thought I might ask you if you would like to come along. I think perhaps the Earl might be convinced to take a wife as well.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes on the open door. She smiled at him sweetly then and rose to her feet. “I have always wanted to see Scotland, brother,” she said conversationally as she approached him. She slipped the shawl that had been draped over her shoulders onto one arm. “However, I am not so certain that the Earl would ever agree to marry a commoner like myself.”

  “Why ever not?” Dartmoor snapped. “You were good
enough for a duke, were you not? Why not an earl then?”

  She nodded. “Perhaps you are correct, brother dear,” she replied. She suddenly dropped her shawl to the floor. “Oh, how clumsy of me!” she exclaimed. Dartmoor bent down, driven by automatic courtesy to retrieve it for her, but before he could reach it, she brought her fists down upon his head and neck with enough force to cause him to fall to his knees. She ignored his muffled curse and flew through the doorway and down the hall.

  “James!” Dartmoor bellowed for the butler. “James! Catch her God damn it!”

  Tess stumbled down the stairs and threw herself against the front door. She had just wrapped her hand around the knob when the butler caught up with her, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her away from the door. She cursed and struggled with all of her might. She felt his grip loosening somewhat and she lunged forward against his hands, managing to break his grip on one of her arms.

  “Let me go!” she screamed, wrenching away from him and trying to yank her other arm free of his grasp.

  “Hold her, man!” she heard her brother’s voice saying just beside her, and she made one last violent leap for freedom before something solid smashed into the back of her head and everything went dark.

  Thirty-One

  “M

  atthew?”

  “Yes?” Matthew called through the closed door to his room.

  “Lord Coulthurst has arrived,” Milton replied.

  “Thank you, Milton,” Matthew answered. “I shall be down shortly.” He eyed his reflection critically and tweaked a recalcitrant curl back into place. He pulled buff gloves from the drawer and snatched the gold-headed cane that completed the outfit off his bed. He halted in the middle of the room, and made sure that all was as it should be. The buff coat made his eyes and hair more gold in color, and the deep black of his hessians made a striking contrast to the lighter tones in the rest of the outfit. His stickpin which was shaped into a delicate horseshoe caught the light with a twinkle as he turned his head. He attempted a smile at his reflection, but found that the expression still didn’t sit quite right on his face. He supposed that maybe one day he would be free of the bone-deep ache of Tess’s betrayal. Until then, he would just forgo smiles.

  “Ah there you are,” Rob said from the foyer when he saw Matthew at the head of the stairs.

  Matthew bounded down the stairs. “Thank you for bringing your horses on such short notice,” Matthew said to his friend. Jupiter had come up a bit lame, so Matthew had asked to borrow Rob’s horses for the evening.

  “It was no trouble,” Rob replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They have not been out in nearly a week anyway. I am sure that they will be glad for the exercise.”

  Matthew nodded. “No doubt. Well, shall we be off?”

  The pair stepped out into the street, Matthew valiantly attempting to ignore the behavior of Rob’s fractious horses as they approached his friend’s carriage. Robert smiled quickly at his friend, his white teeth flashing in the darkness. “I have missed driving my own horses, I must confess. They are quite the handsomest horses in London to my mind.” Matthew just grunted in reply, sidestepping quickly to avoid the sudden bullish forward rush of one of the horses as he crossed in front of the carriage.

  “So sorry, Your Grace,” the footman holding the horses said quickly, panic evident in his voice.

  Matthew held up a hand and shook his head at the servant. “There is nothing to apologize for,” he assured the young man. He winked broadly at the footman and received a relieved smile in reply before he swung up onto the perch of the carriage.

  Rob finished bestowing sugar and kind words on his horses and joined Matthew on the seat. He waved the footman away and then clucked to the horses. The poor young man barely had time to remove himself from harm’s way as the horses leapt in two different directions at the same time and then stumbled drunkenly into the street.

  Rob laughed, wrestled with his very hot horses for a second, and nodded to an acquaintance. Matthew watched his friend argue with the horses about which side of the road they belonged on for a quiet moment. “I know that I have mentioned this before, but I feel compelled to bring the subject up again. I must admit that your horses are unrivaled beauties Rob, but they are also outrageous idiots. Frankly, I don’t know how you have avoided a wreck for this long. Don’t tell me you enjoy fighting with them every time you drive them?” Matthew winced as Rob barely managed to steer around an oncoming hack.

  Rob leveled an appropriately condescending look on his friend. “One must work for all things that are worthwhile.”

  Matthew stared at his friend for a long moment that hung between them. “I believe that the saying you refer to applies to working to earn things, not working to survive the things one has bought.”

  Rob shook his head. “You see, you just don’t understand, Matthew. It’s really too bad, that. You are so good at other things, but you are an abominably atypical rich man.”

  Matthew grunted, rolled his eyes and slumped back on the narrow seat, listening to the horse’s rhythmic, frenzied snorts. “Just see that you don’t get us both killed between here and St. James Street, all right my friend Paragon?”

  Rob tsked softly and gave Matthew another disparaging look. “Oh ye of little faith,” he said in a properly wounded tone before clicking to his team and narrowly escaping locking wheels with a curricle. Matthew closed his eyes and prayed.

  A few minutes later, Rob pulled his horses up haphazardly in front of White’s. He dismounted long before the horses were truly stopped, blithely ignoring the ill-fated boy that was struggling to hold the rearing, striking horses. Matthew hastily leapt off the rocking carriage onto safe, solid ground and joined his friend on the sidewalk.

  “Ah! Solid ground. How I’ve missed thee!” Matthew cried dramatically. He made a large production out of smoothing wrinkles from his clothes while Rob told the child what to do with his horses.

  “I hardly think that so much fuss is necessary,” Rob told Matthew with a huffy sniff. “They are simply high-spirited.”

  Matthew snorted loudly at that, causing Rob to glare at him for a moment, then stalk past and enter the club. Chuckling, Matthew followed his friend inside. They proceeded to the dining room and sat down at a table.

  “Was there some particular reason that you wished to get out of the house tonight?” Rob asked conversationally once the first course had been placed in front of them.

  Matthew nodded and sipped at his wine. “Indeed. I was reflecting this morning on the many things that I have to thank you for, my friend.” He set his glass down and regarded Rob across the table. “I am not certain that I have ever properly thanked you for being such an incomparable, irreplaceable friend.”

  Rob flushed a bit at Matthew’s words and looked down at his plate. “I assure you that I did not require any thanks for what I have done for you in the past, Matthew. I have never once been given cause to doubt that you are my greatest friend.”

  Matthew smiled in reply to that. “Thank you, Rob. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable. I simply wished to settle a debt long overdue.”

  Rob looked up and met Matthew’s gaze then. There was a smile in his eyes that outdid the one on his lips. “Consider it settled, then, my friend.” He raised his glass. “A toast. To true friends.”

  Matthew leaned forward and tapped his glass against Rob’s. “To true friends and truly great people,” he said.

  A moment of contented silence passed between the two men before Matthew spoke again. “I think that someone caused Apollo to bolt in the park.”

  Rob’s bright blue eyes snapped up to meet Matthew’s. “You do? But why would anyone want to hurt Forrest?”

  Matthew shook his head slightly. “I don’t know. But something welted Apollo’s haunches. I am guessing something shot from a slingshot or some such thing.”

  Rob frowned and stared moodily into his glass. “You think that Forrest was the target? Or is it possible that it was you
that was the intended victim?”

  Matthew sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “I honestly don’t know, Rob. I do know that my friend is hurt, that my sister’s wedding was ruined and that I have no idea why or who to suspect of such ill will.”

  “I suppose we had best discuss this some more then,” Rob replied. “I suppose that one of us had best hire a bow street runner or two for protection as well.”

  Matthew cringed at the thought of having a personal protector, but he knew Rob was right. “I had planned to do that very thing tomorrow.”

  “Well, let us see if we can come up with any ideas about who would wish to harm you or Forrest,” Rob said practically, taking another sip of his drink.

  Thirty-Two

  A

  lex watched Forrest sleep, and smiled softly. His long lashes which lay almost flush with his high cheekbones combined with his tousled hair to lend him a look of youth that he seldom possessed when awake. Alex had never before imagined that she could take such pleasure in watching another person sleep, but she was greatly enjoying the experience.

  Her eyes traveled to his long-fingered, well-shaped hands where they rested on the smooth, white sheets. One could tell so much about the character of a person from their hands, she reflected. Every line of Forrest’s hands spoke of the sensitively alive depths of his personality. One might not often see his capacity for enjoyment in his face, but one could always see it in his hands. They were hands that could do anything they were called upon to do; hands that were incapable of less than victory. They belonged with the rest of the man.