Don't Tempt Me

by Loretta Chase

  “That isn’t the point,” he said. “Merely because you once lived among unspeakable people doing unspeakable things doesn’t make it right for you to spend your time among the dregs of London. The point is, you’re the Duchess of Marchmont, and she doesn’t frequent low places.”

  Having peeled off the snug coat, she started unbuttoning his waistcoat.

  “You’re the Duke of Marchmont, and you mean to frequent this place,” she said.

  “I’m a man.”

  Oh, I know, she thought. The waistcoat undone, she let her hand stray over the front of his shirt. “A big, powerful man,” she said. “With big hard muscles and a godlike instrument of delight.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere,” he said.

  “I’ll be safe with you,” she said. “Who would dare to trouble me when you’re by my side? Even at Almack’s, everyone was amiable to me for your sake.” She let her hand slide over his muscled chest. She felt the heat begin, low in her belly, the snake of desire stirring.

  “No time for that,” he said gruffly. As her hand slid downward, he gently lifted it away. “Everyone was amiable for your sake, Zoe, not mine. Because you’re pretty and amusing—and because they were worried that if they weren’t amiable, you’d hit them with that great diamond of yours and break their skulls.”

  She smiled up at him. If he was making a joke, he was calming, and he would take her with him.

  “I see what will happen,” he said. “You’ll fondle and flatter and smile me into it. I might as well admit defeat, instead of wasting time fighting you. But you’d better run along—and dress quickly, because I will not wait one extra minute for you.”

  She reached up and grabbed his neckcloth, and pulled his face toward hers and kissed him hard. He was turning into a far better husband than she’d dared to hope for. He was not the shallow, capricious man she’d believed him to be. He was truly kind and truly caring…and she was afraid she was falling quite hopelessly in love with him.

  Two hours later

  The Bow Street Office stood a short distance from the Covent Garden Opera House, and on the same side of the street.

  Zoe and Marchmont were able to bypass the busy courtroom at No. 3—where, Zoe supposed, the thieves and prostitutes and pimps and drunkards were gathered at present. This was because Mrs. Dunstan was being kept in a room in No. 4, the house adjoining. Here, among other things, Bow Street held its prisoners.

  The housekeeper had been taken to a room separate from the felons’ room, in consideration of Marchmont, who’d asked to interview her privately. Otherwise she would have been shackled in the one room with all the other prisoners, Zoe learned.

  A Runner had caught Mrs. Dunstan before she could board a Dover packet, bound for Calais.

  She had not been cooperative, the Runner explained before Zoe and Marchmont entered the room. The housekeeper insisted she didn’t know where Harrison was. She had not been involved with him in any way, she said. She had left the duke’s house in a temper, she claimed, because the new mistress had questioned her methods. She refused to hang about, she said, and be accused of incompetence, and have her authority undermined in front of the rest of the staff.

  “That’s her story, Your Grace,” said the Runner. “Doesn’t matter how we ask or what we ask. It’s always the same.”

  When Zoe and Marchmont entered, they found Mrs. Dunstan seated stiffly upright upon a bench against a wall. Though the room was dimly lit, Zoe saw her eyes blaze at their entrance. She didn’t need to see it. The woman radiated hostility. But she was impotent, her ankles chained.

  “Oh, Your Grace has come, have you?” she said. “You and she, to see me like this, in chains, like a common thief.”

  “I should say, madam, on the contrary, that you are a most uncommon sort of thief,” Marchmont drawled. “I should say you are a genius among felons. Your aptitude with figures is a true marvel of sleight of hand.”

  This small show of bored arrogance instantly lit a very short fuse.

  “What did you ever have to complain of us?” she burst out. “We did our work. There’s no better-kept house in all of London. Everyone said so.”

  The officer attempted to intervene, but Marchmont held up his hand. “Let her have her say,” he said.

  “Oh, I’ll say, all right,” she spat out. “Not one of all those servants in that great house ever gave you any trouble at all, did they, Your Grace? But you don’t know what a trouble it was to us, to keep it that way. Everything always done for you. Like magic, wasn’t it? It was the best-run house in London, in all of England—and you had to bring her in and spoil it.”

  She shot Zoe a murderous look before reverting to Marchmont. “What did we ever do that harmed you? We had a right to our perquisites and more, for all we did and how well we did it. When did you ever need to take any notice of the running of the house, Your Grace? When didn’t the windows sparkle and the floors shine? When was the sheets ever dirty or damp or the fires not lit when wanted? When was the dinner not laid exactly to the minute, whether you and your guests sat down on time or half an hour late? When was it ever cold or overcooked? When did you ever have to ask, ‘Why wasn’t this done?’ When did you ever have to ask for anything? Wasn’t it always as you wanted, before you even knew you wanted it? What was so wrong that she must come in and start looking for a fault? Why did she ever go looking in those books but because she couldn’t find any fault anywhere else?”

  “Yet such a great fault there turned out to be, in those books,” Marchmont said. “And there, you see, is the nub of the matter: theft and fraud, fraud and theft. So unnecessary. You might have asked for an astronomical salary, and I’d have paid, without question—because what did I care? Instead, you made a great deal of unnecessary work for yourselves with your clever conspiracy. I would have paid you as much as you stole and cheated me of, and I’d never have noticed or cared what it cost. But no, you must commit forgery and fraud and theft and make it a hanging matter, you foolish woman.”

  “I won’t hang! I did nothing wrong!”

  “You disappeared at the same time Harrison did,” Marchmont said. “Why didn’t you two simply go abroad? It’s easily enough done. If Brummell could sneak away unnoticed, with that famous face and physique, surely you could. But no, you must hang about and plot with Harrison to attack my horses. For what? Spite?”

  “I never did that!”

  “John Coachman and two of our footmen saw Harrison take a knife to one of my horses,” said Marchmont.

  “I had nothing to do with that!”

  “You and Harrison fled my house at the same time,” Marchmont said. “You didn’t warn the other servants. They all stayed. One can only conclude that you and Harrison were in communication and still are. One can only conclude that you aided and abetted a violent attack.”

  “I never did! If I’d known what he was about, I would never have stayed with him. I’d have run to Dover before today, and your dirty Runners wouldn’t have caught me.”

  “But you did stay in London for a time. With Harrison.”

  She realized, too late, what she’d revealed. She bowed her head and pressed her fist to her mouth.

  “I don’t care about you,” Marchmont said. “I should be very sorry to see you hang simply because you were silly. But if you’d anything to do with what I’m bound to see as an attempt on my wife’s life—”

  “It wasn’t me!” she cried. “I didn’t know until he came back and told me.”

  “He came back and told you,” Marchmont repeated quietly.

  “I didn’t want to stay in London, but he said we had to. He had to get the money we’d put aside.”

  “My money,” Marchmont said with a thin smile.

  “We were going to become innkeepers,” she said. “When he went out, I thought it was to do with the money, and making arrangements. But it wasn’t, was it?”

  “He was watching us,” Marchmont said. “Watching where we went and what we did. He was waiti
ng for his chance.”

  She nodded. “He told me afterward, and it was then I knew he must be out of his senses. He always had a temper, but I never knew him to do violence. He never needed to. No one dared to sauce him or cross him. He’d gone wrong in the head, that was clear. But I had to wait, because I feared he’d try to kill me if I left him, knowing what I knew.”

  She told them how Harrison had regretted not being able to stay to watch.

  Zoe saw Marchmont’s hands clench, but he un-clenched them immediately. His countenance told nothing, as usual, except to her. He wore his customary, sleepily bored expression. He controlled himself as he always did. He hid his feelings as he always did.

  “The way he talked—it wasn’t like him,” the housekeeper went on. “I didn’t see until then how bad it was with him.”

  The housekeeper went on to describe a degree of vengefulness others might have found shocking. Zoe wasn’t shocked. She’d seen worse cases than this, murderous rages and vendettas over trivial matters: a hair comb, a bracelet.

  Harrison had devoted twenty years to climbing a ladder of power. Then, when he thought himself securely at the top, she had come along. In a matter of days, he’d fallen off—and this time there could be no climbing back.

  Mrs. Dunstan snapped her fingers, drawing Zoe’s attention back to her. “That’s what he did, again and again,” the housekeeper said. “Snapped his fingers. ‘Like this she knocked me down,’ he said. ‘And I’ll knock her down. I’ll finish her, I will, like this.’ He snapped his fingers and ‘I’ll finish her,’ he said, ‘because she finished me.’ He drank and talked mad like that and finally he drank himself senseless. He fell onto the bed, dead to the world. Then I packed up and ran.”

  “But he’s still here?” Marchmont said. “In London?”

  “He knows where to hide,” Mrs. Dunstan said. “No one knows London like he does, and no one has the kinds of friends he has. He can hide right under your nose and you’ll never know. He knows everything, doesn’t he? Knows what you’re going to do before you do it. A proper servant, he is. And like a proper one, he’ll find a way to do it, whatever it is.”

  Since Mrs. Dunstan could tell them only where Harrison had stayed last, there was nothing more for Marchmont to ask her. Zoe had nothing to add. He’d done a fine job of provoking the woman to reveal what she knew.

  She told him so when they were back in the carriage and on their way home.

  “She was right, you know,” he said. He looked out of the carriage window into the lamplit streets, where the pedestrians were merely anonymous dark figures, hurrying along the pavement. “It was a wonderfully well-run house. They did their jobs brilliantly. I took them completely for granted.”

  “But that’s the way it ought to be with good servants,” Zoe said.

  “I understand that,” he said. “But I know, too, that had I paid the slightest attention—taken an interest, however cursory—none of this would have happened.”

  “You can’t know that,” she said. “Some people are simply dishonest. Many are corrupted by power. Harrison was no lord, but in his world, he wielded great power.”

  “If he was corrupt, I should have been the one to discover it,” he said tightly. “Because I didn’t, I endangered your life.”

  “That’s illogical,” she said. They were sharing the carriage seat. She drew nearer to him and took his hand. “You’re a clever man—much cleverer than you let on—but your logic isn’t good. If he’s gone mad, then his mind has become diseased. That’s no more your fault than the state of any wretch in Bedlam. If he hasn’t gone mad, then he’s evil. You didn’t make him evil. You didn’t corrupt him. That was the path he took. For the upper-level staff he hired the kinds of people he could corrupt. For the lower levels, he chose the kind he could bully.” She twined her fingers with his. “I told you I could manage a household. With the troublemaker gone, all will be well.”

  “Nothing will be well until I see that man hang,” he said.

  “The Bow Street Runners will find him,” she said. “You’re the Duke of Marchmont, and you’ve offered a large reward. They’ll ignore every other task in order to hunt him down. These are men who know London, you said. They must know it as well or better than Harrison does. It’s their business to know it. Finding people is their livelihood. He won’t get away.”

  “No, he won’t.” His grip on her hand tightened. “I don’t care what it costs. I’ve doubled the reward. I’ll triple it if I have to.”

  “They’ll find him,” Zoe said. “Leave it to them. We’ll go to Lady Stafford’s rout and count how many people step on our feet and how many elbows stick into our ribs. Shall I wear the lilac gown or the blue?”

  “We’re not going to the rout,” he said. “We’re going home and you are not leaving the house until that man is in custody.”

  Seventeen

  For a moment, Zoe couldn’t form a thought, let alone speak. It was as though she’d plunged into a deep, cold well.

  To be trapped in a house for who knew how long, after she’d only begun to taste freedom, and while everyone else about her was free—when she wouldn’t have even the companionship, such as it was, and the amusements, such as they were, of the harem…

  Her heart was racing, and her mind raced, too, pointlessly.

  All the past rushed at her in an icy wave of panic—the moment they’d taken her away in the bazaar…the voices speaking a language she couldn’t understand…the darkness…the men touching her…she, screaming for her father, until they gagged her…the drink they’d forced down her throat that brought strange dreams but never complete oblivion…the slaves stripping off her clothes—

  She shook it off and made herself stare out of the window and breathe, slowly. This was England. She was in London, with her husband. She was safe, and all he wanted was to keep her safe.

  He was upset, she reminded herself. When men were upset, their instincts took over, and their instincts were not always rational. Even she was disturbed by what had happened, though the danger was nothing to what she’d lived with day after day and night after night in the harem.

  She made herself answer calmly. “I know you wish to protect me, but this isn’t reasonable.”

  “Harrison isn’t reasonable,” Marchmont said. “We’re dealing with a man who’s either deranged or evil. You said so yourself. He thought nothing of brutally attacking a dumb animal. He didn’t care what a creature maddened with pain would do. He didn’t care who else might have been injured when the horses panicked. There’s no predicting what he’ll do.”

  “There’s no predicting how long it will take to find him,” she said. “It could be days or even weeks. What if he comes to his senses and runs away from London, as he should have done? What if he falls into the Thames and drowns? His body might never be found. You’d make me a prisoner in Marchmont House indefinitely?”

  “I am not making you a prisoner,” he said. “I’m making sure he can’t get at you.”

  “It’s prison to me,” she said. “You ought to understand this. I thought you did. I was kept caged for twelve years. I lived in a vast house, larger than yours—a great palace with a great, walled garden. A prison is a prison, no matter how big or how beautiful.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “It’s the same to me,” she said. “I can’t abide to be confined.”

  “And I can’t abide risking your life,” he said. “Until we know he’s in custody or dead or abroad, you’ll stay home. You said the Runners would find him. You said they had every reason to do so. You were the one reassuring me about this. Reassure yourself.”

  “You cannot keep me in the house,” she said.

  “I can and will. Don’t be childish, Zoe. This is for your own good.”

  “Childish?” she said. “Childish? I risked my life to be free. You don’t know what they would have done to me if they had caught me. I risked my life for this.” She waved her hand at the window, where the shadowy fig
ures hurried along the pavement, and riders and carriages passed in the busy street. “I risked everything to be in a world where women can go out of their houses to shop and visit their friends, where they can even talk to and dance with other men. For twelve years I dreamed of this world, and it came to be my idea of heaven: a place where I could move freely among other people, where I could go to the theater and the ballet and the opera. For twelve years I was an amusing pet in a cage. For twelve years they let me out only for the entertainment of watching me try to run away. Now I have my own horse, and I can ride in Hyde Park—”

  “Only listen to what you’re saying,” he said. “Everything you want to do will expose you. Hyde Park is completely out of the question.”

  “You can’t do this,” she said. “I won’t be locked up. I won’t hide from that horrible man. He’s a bully, and this is bullying, and you’re letting him do it. You’re letting him make the rules, because you’re afraid of what he’ll do.”

  “He’s not making any rules, Zoe! I’m making the rules. You’re my wife, and on the day we wed, I promised to look after you—and you promised to obey.”

  She started to retort, but paused.

  She knew that keeping his word was a strict point of honor to him.

  Everyone knows that he regards his word as sacred, Papa had said.

  When she had promised to obey, she’d given her word, too. To fail to keep her word to him would be dishonorable, a betrayal of trust.

  “I did promise,” she said. “And I shall obey.”

  They traveled in silence the rest of the way home. All the while Marchmont’s gut churned.

  He heard it over and over: the snap of the housekeeper’s fingers, and the words she’d repeated.

  I’ll finish her, I will, like this.

  The words echoed in his mind as they entered Marchmont House and crossed the marble entrance hall.