Willful Depravity

by Ingrid Hahn

  A knock sounded at the door, and they answered in unison, Patience telling whoever it was to leave them be while her father bade them enter. The result was an awkward silence. No movement came from the other side of the door. Then Mr. Emery went himself and opened it.

  Frances looked past him to Patience, her gray eyes huge. “A visitor for you, miss.”

  “I couldn’t possibly see anyone. Pray tell whomever it is to—that I’m indisposed or not at home or…or whatever you please.” She shook her head. There was no room in her topsy-turvy thoughts for making any decisions that didn’t pertain to either Ashcroft or manipulating her way out of the house.

  Frances didn’t move. “But, miss, you’ll want to receive this visitor, I’m certain. ’Tis a duke.”

  …

  Though English churches were not without their charms, they could have learned something from the Italian variety. Giles grimaced at the gray stone. It was just so…staid. Dour Protestants, never wanting to have any fun. They built stately places of worship, he’d grant them that, but did they think God had no whimsy? No ability to smile or laugh at the clever jokes of his children, as any proper father would do? Never take pleasure in a pretty object, however worldly?

  The sun fell on the upper portion of the building, keeping it half bathed in light, half in dark. Rather like the night he’d met Miss Emery and positioned his face just so for maximum dramatic effect. Giles frowned. The world was plotting to use his own tricks against him.

  Street urchins who’d followed from the thoroughfare down the twisting lanes caught up to the carriage. Giles tossed the poor creatures a few coins.

  He and the duke went up the steps and through the open doors. Normally, Giles didn’t dare to venture into a holy sanctuary without his mother by his side, reasoning that the Almighty, out of deference and love for his own mother, wouldn’t strike Giles down when a good woman stood by his side. Unfortunately, the duchess never ventured into the same quadrant of London as the duke, and wouldn’t be here now.

  The moment Giles walked over the threshold and caught sight of what awaited him, he woke up for the second time that day. This time his awakening was harsher and more jarring—like his previous care had been warranted because he was on the brink of being struck down once and for all.

  But Giles merely smiled. “How lovely. A wedding. I do love weddings. They make women so…” He took in a breath as he took in each of the five faces staring at him with varying degrees of stony distaste. If they knew to expect him, they had to have also known what they were in for. Far be it from him to disappoint. “Receptive.”

  The churchman had a sickly complexion indicative of consumption. The man reached out to touch the sleeve of the older gentleman—one unfortunate Lord Munge, if Giles weren’t mistaken, though his sympathy for the man’s unfortunate name waned as he met Giles’s gaze with a sour expression.

  “Well?” Giles looked around, feigning innocence. As if he didn’t know precisely what was going on. Outside, he was the jovial man people expected the Marquess of Ashcroft to be. Inside, he seethed. There were a hundred reasons he could name as to why this was the last straw with the duke. And one reason he couldn’t name…something else that bothered him and he couldn’t quite pinpoint why. How bloody irritating. “Who’s it to be? I suppose it isn’t you two.”

  He’d aimed that remark at the two ladies, a miniature one in fine pale-blue silks—the would-be bride, no doubt, Lady Sophie, was it?—and her taller companion. Rather careless of him, really. He ought not to have teased them. The taller one, a slim, auburn-haired woman, spinsterish in an appealing way, looked as if she’d very much like to ram a sword through his gullet. He deserved it.

  “I think you have a fairly good idea of what this is, Ashcroft.” The duke stood by his son’s side. How could Giles have for one second thought to do anything the duke asked? The manipulative old bastard. “You and Lady Sophie are to be wed.”

  “Are we now? How charming.” Giles raised his brows and looked directly at Lady Munge, who stood mute by her husband’s side, lips pressed into a thin line of severe distaste. She looked as though she’d rather make a pet of gutter scum than call herself mother-in-law to the infamous Marquess of Ashcroft. Without waiting for a response, he presented himself before Lady Munge, took her hand, and bowed deeply. “What an honor for me, my lady, to make you my bride.”

  One of the party made a hissing noise. “This is not to be borne.”

  The speaker was Lady Sophie. She might have been all of five feet tall, if the person taking the measurement were feeling generous, and almost no stone of which to speak, but fire lurked in her depths as plainly as if smoke poured from the orifices of her head.

  That fire would work in their favor. There was no way this woman would want to wear his ring. Not in this life, or the next. Not for any inducement.

  Which gave him pause. Curious, that. How had her parents forced her to agree to this? Beaten her? “No? And pray tell what I’ve done to offend, my lady.”

  Her jaw set. “All you are doing is trying to give offense.”

  “Dear me. Am I?” Pretending to be taken aback, he widened his eyes and touched the fingers of his right hand to his chest.

  “Enough!” The duke slammed the point of his walking stick against the stone floor. “You.” He pointed to the fuming would-be bride. “Get yourself to the altar. And you, Reverend, marry them.”

  The irritation scraping at the back of Giles’s mind like a stray pebble in a shoe, the one he hadn’t previously been able to name, finally became clear. What was that last reason why it was wrong he was here? The answer was at once so obvious and so surprising that one stray puff of goose down could have knocked him to the ground.

  Miss Emery. She’d come to him, not once, but twice in his darkest time. When he’d had no hope. No use for company. No concept of who he was without his ability to paint. She’d stayed strong when he’d been weak.

  He wanted her forever…and for a whole host of reasons. Mostly very dull reasons. To grow old with, to complain about aches and pains with, to squabble with over trivial domestic complaints…to fuck. To be bound to, legally and—God help him—spiritually. In this life and the next. He wanted to slip a gold band on her finger and not live to see it come off again so long as she trod this mortal coil.

  Once he had seen old age as a way to run headlong into eccentricity, acting how he pleased no matter who was near to fall into vapors or jeer their disapproval, and never going into public without one fat woman on each arm. That notion now seemed better suited to a farce, or perhaps a bawdy song. What Giles wanted—really wanted—was to keep Miss Emery by his side through the dark times as well as through the light.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Fortunately, in the face of discovering the shocking truth hidden inside himself, Giles maintained his equilibrium. “Why the haste? We were just getting to know one another.”

  Lord Munge spoke in a drawl. He had dark lines set deeply on either side of his mouth. “The more we know, the harder we find it to overlook our dislike.”

  A heated argument burst out between the duke, the earl, his wife, and the clergyman. They were all speaking at once. Apparently a few details had yet to be ironed out.

  Dropping the pretense, Giles addressed Lady Sophie. “How did they talk you into this? Blackmail?”

  She and the second woman exchanged a glance. He’d already had his lifetime’s full of such glances the other day when Holbrook and Miss Emery had intruded upon him. Giles made a noise of disapproval but caught himself. He narrowed his eyes, studying the two women more carefully.

  And there it was. The truth. It was so obvious, he almost laughed aloud. Because nobody was looking for it, nobody had seen it. Fools. One needed a certain turn of mind. And though he could no longer paint, his mind was sharp as ever, turning and turning in the particular way unique to him.

  They caught him staring. He gave them a significant look and darted his eyes between them, rai
sing his brows in question. Lady Sophie scowled and turned away. The second woman paled, eyes as wide as a cornered animal’s about to face her death by a hunter’s hand.

  Giles raised his brows in a question to which an answer was not required. Just as well that it wasn’t. The second woman probably wasn’t capable of giving any response but denial. The secrets she kept weren’t anything people readily owned. Indeed, most never acknowledged it, which he’d always thought was a shame.

  Now, though, it assumed new significance. It wasn’t simply a shame. It was heartbreaking.

  With a few strokes of a clerk’s pen, he and Lady Sophie could be married in a minute’s time. They knew nothing of each other except that they’d shared an instant dislike. If forced to share their lives, they would probably be miserable for the rest of their years. Yet two people who were in love couldn’t think of being married. Ever.

  In the face of such rank injustice, his complaints about his arm became nothing more than petty. In the matter of building a better world, however—that’s where he was truly helpless.

  There would be no marriage today. He wouldn’t demand to know how Silverlund had secured a special license on their behalf. Another example of the duke abusing his power and influence would only enrage Giles further. The thing to do now was thwart him, and Giles was well practiced in that pursuit.

  He addressed the woman next to Lady Sophie. “As a point of interest, you are?”

  “Miss Abigail Cartwright, my lord.” She curtsied. “Her ladyship’s companion.”

  “By ‘her ladyship,’ you mean Lady Sophie, not her mother?”

  Miss Cartwright confirmed with a shallow nod.

  Giles drew himself up, affected his most imperious expression, and let his voice boom. “Cease this nonsense.”

  Silence settled over the group. Giles’s command was ducal, a point on which he would not dwell. “You have an unwilling groom. An unwilling bride. Tell me how you plan to compel us to the altar.”

  Silverlund remained cold and reserved. “You will do as I say.”

  “Your hand is weaker than I believed, if that’s your answer.”

  Lady Munge stared at Lady Sophie. “My daughter is prepared to do as her father and I ask.”

  It was impossible that either the earl or his wife knew their offspring’s secret, else Miss Cartwright would not have been allowed to be present. But they knew enough, or were close enough to discovering, to have blackmailed her here.

  Lady Sophie gave Giles the sort of look usually reserved for piles of rotten cabbage. “I will.”

  “As will you, Giles.” Silverlund spoke with deadly certainty.

  “If you seriously expect me to do as you say, I have a few choice words on my estimate of your mental state.”

  “I do indeed expect you to stay, whatever you might care to say. Your choice words have never mattered a whit to me. You’ll do it because it’s high time you learned to become a proper duke.”

  Giles sneered. “You don’t care what sort of duke I am. You want nothing more than to control me. That’s all you’ve ever wanted. This isn’t about marrying me to a woman of a good family. For all this trouble you’ve gone through is nothing but a game to exert your power over me.”

  “If you insist, then I will compel you. You know I can, because I know you’re eager to protect the identity of a certain old maid lately in your company.”

  It came to that, did it?

  All eyes in the room turned to him. Lady Munge wore unabashed interest on her face, as if she wouldn’t mind knowing this person’s identity and rather hoped it was somebody she knew.

  Without warning, the duke tucked his walking stick under one arm, grabbed Lady Sophie by her gloved hand, the churchman by his frock, and dragged them both toward the altar. At the end of the long walkway, he turned. “Come, Giles. This is your last warning.”

  Lady Munge gasped and approached her husband, but he held up a hand and shook his head. Miss Cartwright sent Giles a pleading look.

  The churchman, perhaps recalling that underneath the layers he wore rested a pair of bollocks, however shriveled, cleared his throat. “Now, see here, Your Grace—”

  Silverlund slid his gaze toward the man and silenced him with one deadly look. “See here. I happen to be a very close personal friend of the archbishop. You’ll do as I say or he will hear about it.” The duke looked back to Giles, his voice echoing in the empty space. “Defy me now and you’ll wish you could break a thousand arms in favor of what I will do to you.”

  At the front of the church, in the far left corner, a narrow door opened. Two faces appeared. The group at the altar didn’t notice they now had an audience hiding in the vestry.

  But for Giles, all it took was seeing. He drew himself up straight, with all the poise of the unbroken man he used to be. His arm ached. He ignored it.

  Lady Munge gasped when Giles began marching slowly down the aisle. The stone beneath his feet was worn concave by centuries of worshippers processing in and out. The air was chilled in the way a dark place had when no warmth penetrated the walls, no matter how high the heat on a long and relentless summer’s day.

  Somewhere in the back, Miss Cartwright had started weeping. Though she tried to stifle the sounds with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth, the sniffles broke through the tense atmosphere. Giles vowed that he would make this up to Lady Sophie and Miss Cartwright in a way that only he, the Marquess of Ashcroft, could manage.

  The duke straightened. He might even have smiled a bit. Giles cared not. He came close to the group. Lady Sophie had gone pale. The churchman looked deeply uncomfortable, glancing between the bride and the man who would be her father-in-law. He might have been locked in indecision, but by failing to act, he’d picked his side.

  So had Giles. There was a woman here who would be his destiny. It wasn’t Lady Sophie. At the front of the church, Giles went left. Shouts broke out. He ignored them and kept walking…straight to her.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Patience was swept up into Ashcroft’s one good arm. His mouth came down upon hers, and weighty, impatient need tightened between her legs. Her blood pounded, and she shook, tears from hours of impotent worry pouring from her eyes in relief.

  The marquess broke the kiss and sent a significant glower to Holbrook, jerking his head toward the door. “I’ll thank you later.”

  The duke didn’t need to be told twice, ducking under the arch as Ashcroft was kicking the door of the vestry shut with his foot.

  Patience rushed forward to throw the lock. Just in time, too, from the sound of the commotion outside. Shouts were answered in Holbrook’s level tones. Someone banged on the carved oak panel.

  Ignoring them all, Patience brushed the wetness away from her cheeks and faced Ashcroft, not daring to blink. They were alone in the vestry. Under a big window to the side, a prie dieu stood in front of a narrow table cluttered with fat pillar candles. Beeswax perfumed the air.

  Ashcroft retreated to the shadows at the far end of the room. “What happened to you?”

  He answered drily. “My father’s valet.”

  She made a sour expression. “You allowed it?”

  He turned and stepped into the light. “Is it that bad?”

  “No. You’re…you look like…” Her throat tightened. It was more than the shave, the cropped curls, and the sober clothing. She couldn’t speak her thoughts aloud, though. In a very short period of time, he’d endured more than most ordinary men did in a lifetime and come far too close to true darkness.

  That he was here now, eyes bright and hungry—that was the one thing keeping her steady. Patience wouldn’t fall into more tears, she wouldn’t. She was stronger than that.

  She shifted the conversation. “You’re not going to do this, are you? Marry her?”

  His face went hard. “I can’t fault you for asking, though I wish you had no need to do so. No, I’m not going to marry her.”

  “There was a notice.”

  “A notice
?”

  “In the newspapers.”

  He glowered. “Silverlund’s doing.”

  The marquess was upon her again, pressing his body against hers, so she stepped back, finding the wall behind her as she answered him, kiss for kiss.

  His touch was more potent than a whole cask of wine. She’d had him between her legs several times before, but her quim went swollen with heat and arousal. It seemed impossible she’d ever tire of his cock ramming into her.

  With surprising presence of mind, she stopped midkiss and pulled back to stare into his eyes, the jade green of the irises unusually bright and intense, even for him.

  “We’re in a church.”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t…not here.”

  He smiled. And suddenly, there he was. Ashcroft… in all his glorious wickedness. The man who’d pursued her on the terrace at the ball the night she’d met him in the library. The confident, cocky, conceited marquess who so keenly felt his worth. She reached out and touched the smooth skin of his face, shaved so perfectly closely, following the sharp line of the hard jaw.

  Oh good grace of heaven, save her. She was helpless to refuse. Even here in the vestry.

  “But…they’re all on the other side.” It was a faint objection, lacking real feeling behind it. More a nod toward putting up the barriers some part of her, stuck in propriety, thought should be erected…

  Erected. Oh no. One stray thought over a seemingly innocent word was all it took. Her thoughts took a sharp turn. His cock appeared in her mind as she’d last seen it when she was on her knees taking it into her mouth.

  Then he took her mouth. Objections vanished. The rest of the world mattered not at all.

  They feasted on one another. His kisses slowed. Became longer, more drawn out. Softer one moment, deeper the next. His warm breath was soft on her skin as he set to exploring her ear, her throat, and the line of exposed skin on a border of her neckline.

  “Let them listen. Maybe they’ll learn something.” Ashcroft moved aside a stray curl and whispered in her ear, “Turn around.”