Willful Depravity
Page 14
At Patience’s side, Mrs. Emery took her arm, warning her with a firm squeeze of the fingers into her elbow. Patience put her right hand protectively over her left and rubbed her empty ring finger. She would never wear that man’s golden shackle.
“Patience”—her mother pulled a bright smile over her face as she bit out words from between clenched teeth—“I absolutely forbid you from saying anything that will drive that man away.”
“Very well.” Patience held her head high and nodded to Mr. Wilshire when he came to stand with them. Her backbone was straight and firm, extending upward as if stretched by the force of newfound pride that would not be contained. “I won’t say anything to drive him away.”
Neither would she be coerced into doing anything with a man that she didn’t want to do. Even something so simple as dancing. She might accept a dance from a goodhearted man in whom she had no interest, if she, in a spirit of goodwill, were the one bestowing favor. The days of accepting pity were gone. Forever.
“Miss Emery.” Mr. Wilshire beamed at her. He wasn’t altogether the worst sort of man. Very plain, surely, but not homely, in spite of an unfortunate set of crowded teeth.
It was his character that dealt the death blow. Having remembered to address her properly was in his favor, but he’d need another three thousand points at least to begin tipping the balance—and he couldn’t earn a fraction of that amount, even if she gave him the whole rest of their lifetimes.
“I’m so pleased you’re here tonight. Your mother has been telling me…” He faltered and cleared his throat. Because, with the power of her eyes alone, Patience had attracted his attention.
She fixed her gaze unabashedly upon his falls, narrowed her eyes and frowned, then stared at him like she knew all his secrets. The message unspoken. But perfectly clear. No, sir. Whatever your endowment might be, it is absolutely without question not enough to satisfy a woman.
Mr. Wilshire went the sort of red usually acquired after ten long hours making hay under an unrelenting August sun. Ah. Good. So he wasn’t so oblivious as his manner sometimes made him seem.
Muttering something indistinct, he scuttled away. If he didn’t have the inclination to put his hands over his man parts to shield himself from what he no doubt believed were her superior powers of observation, her name wasn’t Patience Emery.
Warm with satisfaction, Patience started to smile but quickly went sober under her mother’s flat stare.
“What did you do, Patience?”
“He left, Mama. You saw the whole thing. I had naught to do with it, I’m sure.”
“Your protestations of innocence wouldn’t fool a corpse.”
“Of course not. What does a corpse know?”
“Patience.”
“Oh, really, Mother.” Patience waved her hand in the direction Mr. Wilshire had gone. “Him?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. Which was worse, that her mother had the power to make her feel as if she were a girl of eight? Or that she, Patience, acted a girl of eight again when the two engaged in this manner?
The duke stalked close, snuffing the conversation out as easily as extinguishing a candle. His eyes were dark and shone of malevolent intent. There was no doubt, then, why he’d come to the ball tonight. Silverlund was there for one reason. To intimidate her. He’d promised he’d be watching. Apparently, the man did not say what he did not mean.
The man glanced between Patience and her mother—a none too subtle warning—and stalked past them.
Something Ashcroft had said about leverage flitted through Patience’s mind. When one held leverage, one did not let it go, else it was lost forever.
Actually, he hadn’t put it exactly in those terms. But he had said that his father had taught him about leverage and power, which made perfect sense now.
Mrs. Emery, pale and uncertain, cast her daughter a wary look. “He’s the Duke of Silverlund, is he not? That was strange. I can’t begin to guess what he’s about, to walk past us in such a state and…” She grabbed Patience’s arm and shook it, pointing her folded fan at the duke’s back and leaning close. “He has a vile son. What they hint at when they write of the man…”
Mrs. Emery shook her head, lips squeezing together. She huffed. “I’m glad you don’t read them, so you don’t know. But mark my words. Like father, like son.”
Patience only half heard her mother; her thoughts had gone away in another direction.
There was something the duke wanted her to know. That’s why he’d come tonight. She had to push him, propriety be damned. Whatever he sought to convey, he did so by playing a game that forced her to be the instigator. Very well. She was willing to be manipulated a tiny bit. So long as she went in with her eyes open and her guard up, she would rise to the bait.
Fluttering in her silk gown, Patience hustled to catch up with the duke. “Your Grace, we seem to be missing the honor of your son’s company this evening.”
He’d stopped to take a drink from a yellow-liveried servant circulating through the guests with crystals full of lemonade. Silverlund gave her a haughty look as he took a slow sip.
Patience watched him intently. Every flicker of a muscle under the surface of the skin could tell her something. Even those best at schooling their features to perfect blankness were not above registering a flash of emotion on their faces.
“My son’s arm was inopportunely broken. I’m afraid he won’t be able to attend Society functions for a spell.” The subsequent smile the duke wore was the same as a deranged man about to brag about how many wings he’d ripped from butterflies.
Ashcroft’s arm was broken? Was broken. Not “he broke his arm.” The duke had carefully constructed his sentence… Patience went cold. The duke…had he broken his own son’s arm?
The scream. The one that had pierced her when she’d been fleeing Glenrose. That damn scream that echoed in her breast, haunting her like a ghostly caress.
And she hadn’t turned around. Ashcroft had been in agony, but she’d stayed in the plush squabs thinking about her own troubles. A new kind of agony bloomed in her breast. One that soured her stomach and made her breathless with the knowledge of what she’d done. Adulterous betrayal couldn’t have been worse. She’d left him. With the duke. While he’d suffered torturous pain.
Patience’s head went light. Never in her life had she fainted. Never in her life had she had so much provocation to do so.
“You might think you have some authority over me. You’re wrong, though. You don’t.”
“You’ve seen what I will do.”
“What you’re capable of, more like.”
“Then I suggest you don’t cross me.” His mouth turned down at the corners, and he wrinkled his nose slightly as he glanced over her. Gaze down. Gaze up again. “You disgust me. I’ve seen pigs more becoming than you.”
Around them, people snickered.
“I’m not a joke.” Patience stood firm. She was doing what she had spent twenty-five years avoiding: making a spectacle of herself. But if she didn’t speak, nobody would speak for her. That was plain enough. “I’m a person.”
The bastard actually smiled. “Come now, dairy maid. You’re at least two people. Maybe three.”
Laughter boomed around them. A bit of Patience’s strength withered, as if it had been no more than a slip of paper unable to withstand the proximity of flame. Her cheeks stung. All she wanted to do was give in to the tears threatening to burst forth, run away, and never—never—show her face in public again.
But that was just it, wasn’t it? If she ran now, that’s all she would ever be able to do. Run.
Taking a stand once made the next time easier. On the night she’d met Ashcroft, she hadn’t thought of herself as a fighter. Things had changed. Substantially. And it wasn’t merely her maidenhead that had been altered.
The duke sneered at her. “Don’t you have a flock of pheasants to go sink your teeth into?”
“Why, Your Grace. You surprise me.” Patience, tremblin
g with the effort of remaining strong—this man would not get the better of her—offered a sweet smile. If she couldn’t use the word she wanted to use, she could bloody well use one that rhymed. “Everyone knows I prefer”—she lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes—“duck.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Despite having prohibited herself from turning tail, Patience wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole. A dark one. Populated by sweet and innocent magical beings that would care for her and never speak of England because they’d never heard of it and didn’t care whether the country existed or not.
She left the ballroom with her head held high, but the moment she was safe in the darkened room, she leaned against a wall and wilted. The sensational and lurid reports of the upper ten thousand figured heavily into her mother’s daily pleasures.
Now Patience had gone and secured a place in the columns herself. She could already hear the words in her head. A printer’s daughter of no birth and distinction was present last night at a certain ball hosted by Lord and Lady R and was overheard in a verbal tussle with a very distinguished duke. One can only guess at how the creature came to be there in the first place. Was she invited? Or did she sneak in through the servants’ entrance?
Only it would be worse, wouldn’t it? Those writers had a way of making every word sound ripe with sneer for those they despised.
What was she going to do?
The Haunted Tower might need a new villain. He’d never see himself represented in print, but it would make her happy. Already a little smile blossomed on her lips at the idea.
“Oh, Miss Emery!”
Patience started and righted herself, tensing as if preparing for another battle, and hid her trembling hands behind her back.
The woman of the house swept into the room, holding herself with a stately bearing. She had an open countenance, light-brown hair, and a motherly air. Lady Reyne.
Lady Reyne’s lips had that pinched look that Patience knew only too well on her mother’s face. Really, did women have some training in facial expressions when they…well, not when they became mothers, because Lady Reyne was childless, but perhaps when they reached a certain age. Lady Reyne was almost forty.
All Patience’s mother’s aspirations toward a higher social status ended here.
“My lady, may I beg leave to ap—”
“That horrid man. He deserves to wake up in a bed of rotting herring with fish innards dried in his hair.”
Patience’s mouth promptly shut again. Whether it was the unexpected image or the person expressing such imaginative disdain, it was difficult to tell. But Patience was robbed of the ability to speak.
Without warning, Lady Reyne swept Patience into her arms. “I can’t believe the things he said to you. And in front of my guests. Duke or no, he will not be allowed to enter these doors ever again. Wretched, wretched man. He doesn’t have the manners of a diseased gutter rat.”
Patience squeezed her eyes shut and went lax, relaxing into the comfort. Wasn’t this what she should have been accepting from her mother?
“You inspired me, Miss Emery, truly you did. I’ve wanted to stand up for myself in that exact fashion for many a year, but I’ve always held my tongue on the grounds that I must be a lady first or that I can’t embarrass my husband. Then tonight you…” She took a step back and beamed at Patience, pride in her sympathetic eyes, a rosy glow to her cheeks. “You were magnificent.”
“I was? I mean…well, I…” Patience reached up to rub the back of her neck, realized what she’d done, and put her hand down by her side again.
“The nerve of him coming here and trying to intimidate you. Oh, I’m so angry I could just—”
She glanced over her shoulder at the new arrival and abruptly stopped short, features hardening.
The person entering was a tall man about Lady Reyne’s age. Maybe a little older or a little younger. It was difficult to tell. Lady Reyne certainly wasn’t pleased to see him; her look could have set off winter in July.
“Your Grace.” She gave a curt nod.
Another duke? Patience barely refrained from wrinkling her nose. Why did such a large fraction of the few dukes England boasted have to be here in this ballroom tonight? And were they all members of some sort of…duke alliance? Would this one be taking her to task for what she’d done to his brethren?
“Lady Reyne.” The man bowed before them. He was deliberate in all of his movements. There was a quietness about him that seemed…deceptive. As if there were much, much more behind the surface than met the casual observer’s notice. His eyes, for one. His gaze was level and direct and seemed to swallow everything it landed upon. “And this is Miss Emery, I suppose? You’re quite a sensation in the ballroom.”
Lady Reyne, with obvious reluctance, made proper introductions. The man was the Duke of Holbrook. He was…tall. Reserved, too, but with the quiet innocence of a metal spring wound far beyond intended capacity.
“I was rash and unforgivably caught up in the heat of the moment.”
Holbrook. Holbrook. Patience turned the name over in her mind. Had she ever heard it connected with Ashcroft?
She heaved a weary sigh. Oh, how she would pay for her conduct. Would her mother ever forgive her? This would be remembered forever. She would be stained with scandal forever. Forever and ever and ever. It couldn’t possibly be any worse.
So many years of trying to hide and blend in with her surroundings were difficult to overcome. The thought of having made herself notorious was almost enough to make her want to flee to a convent.
Except for the obvious reason that she’d never have the chance to be with a man again. Ashcroft was lost to her, but there was still the option she’d been thinking about the night she met Ashcroft—the one about being able to hire a man to pleasure her the way men hired women.
“His Grace is a particular friend of my husband.” Lady Reyne’s mouth pinched again as if this were distasteful.
“I think we have a friend in common, Miss Emery,” the duke said in a low drawl.
“Oh, I don’t know Lord Reyne at all, sir.” Immediately, her face scorched at her blunder. Was she an English miss, or was she some hayseed from the wilds of the New World? For years she’d resented Mr. Wilshire for his errors and here she was blundering along herself, not with the common folk, but a duke. “Your Grace, that is. Pray forgive me.”
How could she have done unspeakable things with a marquess and be reduced to this ninny here with Holbrook?
The duke wasn’t Ashcroft. No. Ashcroft was…a man and a pagan god, but always both so powerfully at the same time. He made her realize depths to herself she didn’t know could exist. Made her feel every inch a woman. Hierarchy was nothing when they were together, nothing more than an absurd construct of a strange and foreign world to which they’d once been a part. Or to which she’d once been a part. Ashcroft was somehow above it all.
Holbrook, by contrast, was pure duke. He made her remember she was a commoner, and secretly the daughter of a foundling nobody, who didn’t belong. Not now. Not ever.
It wasn’t malicious, what he made her feel. It was simply the enormity of his stature, which he wore effortlessly.
If he made note of her blunder, he made no outward show. “I would like a moment alone with Miss Emery, if you don’t mind, my lady.”
Lady Reyne looked like she did mind…terribly—that she would like nothing less, in fact, and would refuse the request. Instead, she gave a single terse nod. “All right, but I’m staying on the other side of the room.”
As if Patience would need a chaperone.
Then again—her cheeks went hot again—she’d done all the things chaperones were supposed to prevent.
Holbrook spoke in low murmurs. “I think you should know that Ashcroft is not well.”
“It’s true, then?”
“About his arm? Yes.”
“Was it his father who did it?”
“I don’t know. He won’t speak of it.”
“Miss Emery?”
“You know of his proclivities?”
“I won’t pretend I don’t know what you mean.” He spoke with perfectly level smoothness, ever the picture of all a duke ought to be. “But believe me, I don’t see you as a proclivity. I see you as a person. And so does Ashcroft.”
Patience was leaving the room to rejoin the guests when Mr. Wilshire appeared, righting himself from where he’d been studying a potted orange tree placed in front of a door to deter unwanted guests. No doubt the man had been waiting for her. Just what she needed. “Prudence, dear—”
“Patience. My name is Patience.” She was about to tell him that he could bloody well call her Miss Emery as was proper, when he interrupted.
“I prefer Prudence. And when we’re married—”
Patience veritably squeaked, her voice shooting up to a painful pitch. “When we’re what?”
She didn’t have time to process the fact that he’d blithely suggested he could change her name to suit his whim. Change her name.
“Don’t pretend it will be otherwise.” In the look he gave her—the smile a touch too wide—she could all but hear him chanting to himself, It’s all right if she’s fat because I will become accustomed to it in time.
Patience’s eyes narrowed, and her teeth set. How dare he? If he didn’t care for her shape—fine. It didn’t matter one whit. Besides, what he liked and didn’t was absolutely none of her business.
But he could not treat her like she was an object of sympathy. She needed his pity like she needed her ears sliced off her head. She took a deep breath, trying not to seethe…and failing. Miserably. “Oh, no, sir, you don’t have the authority to decide—”
With annoyance on his pinched face, he interrupted her. “You know you must do as your parents wish.”