To Love a Hellion (The London Lords Book 1)

by Nicola Davidson

  “Of course I’m going to ask. Where is Ardmore?”

  He sighed. “Because you’ll harangue me until I tell you, The Marquess and I—”

  “Excuse me, Westleigh, can we talk a moment?”

  Her husband spun around at the tap on his shoulder. “Yes? Oh, hello, Taff.”

  Taff frowned. “Sorry to disturb. Is something wrong? You don’t look well.”

  Caroline looked skyward for patience, wanting to scream in frustration at the interruption. Stephen had been about to confide in her, she was sure of it. Damned interloper and his exquisite timing yet again.

  “He’s fine,” she said crisply, tucking her arm through Stephen’s. “My husband was just the victim of a heel and run, an enormous dowager on the hunt for an eligible supper partner for her equally graceful daughter. As a married man, Westleigh is boiled cabbage.”

  “Why thank you,” said Stephen drily, but his expression lightened at least. “Did you need something, Taff?”

  “Well, I—”

  “We were just about to venture onto the dance floor,” said Caroline, trying not to evil-eye the man and failing somewhat.

  Taff nodded. “A fine idea. Actually, I just wanted to let you both know I’m feeling a little poorly, so might make my way back to Forsyth House. Bit stuffy and crowded in here for me, making the old body ache a bit. Must admit I’ve also had my fill of peach.”

  Stephen relaxed further. “Know the feeling. Do you want to take my carriage and send it back later?”

  “No, no. With the number of people about your carriage could be anywhere. I’ll stroll down the street a little and find a hackney. Bound to be plenty around. Enjoy the rest of your evening, I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  With that, Taff inclined his head then turned and made his way towards the main entrance of Ardmore’s sprawling townhouse.

  She glanced at Stephen, but his expression was rather remote again, and soon they were joined by several other men who bowed politely then proceed to ignore her as they questioned him on estate matters. Double damnation.

  Doubts began to circle, making her stomach churn. Life had been so blissful the last few days, after spending a decent amount of time together, he’d even asked her to join him in the earl’s enormous bedchamber the previous evening. It took a little work, wriggling into positions which kept both their sore shoulders unjostled, but waking up this morning with her head pillowed on his chest, his arm actually curved around her, had been nothing short of perfection.

  Right. Enough was enough.

  “Westleigh,” she said loudly, deliberately interrupting some old boot boring the rest of the crowd to sleep with a tale about wheat and barley crops. “You have yet to dance with me.”

  A few of the men laughed.

  “Gads, my lord! Shameful behavior from a newlywed,” said one.

  “If you won’t oblige your pretty countess, I’ll certainly volunteer,” cackled another.

  Stephen made an exaggeratedly long-suffering sigh. “You’re right, gentlemen. I’d better do my duty or God knows what it will cost me in jewelry. Sounds like they are just starting a waltz. My dear?”

  Caroline took his hand. “I’d be delighted.”

  “Excellent. Excuse us, everyone.”

  “Tell me what happened with Ardmore,” she asked boldly, as soon as he began twirling her around the dance floor.

  “You didn’t forget.”

  “Never. Hurry up.”

  He frowned. “It’s not a ballroom conversation. Especially not his ballroom.”

  “Then let’s leave his ballroom and go home right now. I know you don’t want to be here. Actually I think most people know that, you’ve been rather sharp with a few of them in the past half hour.”

  “Except they are about to serve supper. You’d really give up a table that includes meringues, raspberry gateaux and crème brulee?”

  French desserts? No one mentioned they were serving French desserts!

  “Yes,” she said bravely.

  Stephen actually smiled, the hand at her waist gripping a fraction tighter.

  “A very noble sacrifice, wife, but I won’t deprive you of your sweets. We’ll have supper then leave.”

  “After which you’ll tell me everything?”

  “Everything you need to know.”

  Oh, her husband was lucky glares couldn’t melt a man to treacle. Ardmore’s staff would never be able to scrub the stain from the floor. “It doesn’t work like that, Stephen. I am a grown woman who neither wants nor needs to be protected from bad news. I’ve coped well enough with it in the past and cannot see that changing in the future.”

  “Damn it, Caroline, stop—”

  “Acting like a wife?” she said impatiently, bobbing into a curtsy when the music came to a grand, flourishing finish. “No.”

  He scowled. “Let’s just go and have supper, shall we?”

  By the time they reached the tables practically groaning with exquisitely presented food her appetite completely deserted her, but she forced herself to add a small slice of gateaux to a fine china plate. After all his mutterings Stephen didn’t add much more to his, only two glazed berry tarts and a single meringue.

  Unfortunately their attempt at a swift exit was thwarted by another long stream of guests wanting to chat and wish them well. It was another full hour before they made their way down the wide front steps and across the neatly cobblestoned and lantern-lit courtyard, to where their carriage waited amongst dozens of others.

  “How long do you think it will take to get out of here?” she asked.

  “Depends how much time is required to tear the coachmen away from their card game. They are all over there in the far corner, see?”

  “Of course I can see, I’m not blind.”

  “Westleigh, you filthy bloody bastard!”

  They both froze.

  ***

  If this didn’t beat all.

  Peering furiously into the gloom where the loud, slurred voice had come from, Stephen yanked Caroline behind him. “Who’s there?” he snarled.

  A familiar brown-haired, broad-shouldered man stepped out of the shadows and sketched a mocking bow. “Just I.”

  “Rochland? What the devil is wrong with you, skulking around in the dark and three sheets to the wind?”

  Beside him, Caroline tapped her foot impatiently, clearly as fed up as he was.

  “Perhaps, sir,” she said tersely, “you need to return to your lodgings and sleep it off.”

  “I would, my dear Lady Westleigh,” the soldier replied, “but first I need to kill your husband…”

  What the hell? For a split second, astonishment held him immobile. Then he laughed. Except Rochland didn’t laugh with him, just watched with cold, flat eyes, like a snake about to strike.

  “Rochland,” he began placatingly, the back of his neck prickling wildly. “I think—”

  But the major continued as if he hadn’t said a word. “…or at least arrange a time to kill him. What say you, Westleigh? Dawn in some clearing? I’ve heard you are more than handy with a pistol so I choose swords. Name your seconds.”

  “I’m not naming anything,” Stephen snapped. “Is this some sort of joke? Did someone put you up to it? Because I have to say it is in extremely poor taste.”

  “Wrong,” said Rochland, half stalking, half stumbling forward, righteous fury etched across his face. “Extremely poor taste is you accusing me of murdering some young lightskirt. I’ve never even met a Clara Matthews.”

  Caroline swayed, her fingers clawing his arm. “Wh…what? Clara from the docks, Clara? She’s dead, Stephen?”

  “Yes,” he bit out, furious at the other man for his lunatic ramblings. Not even drunkenness could excuse this. “But I don’t know what the hell you are talking about, Major, I never accused you of anyt
hing.”

  “I got a very detailed note this evening,” said Rochland, now mere feet away. “Which makes you a filthy liar as well as a bastard. You’re not fit to hold the title. You’re not a quarter of the man Hallmere was.”

  Every muscle in Stephen’s body turned to stone. “You’re drunk,” he said quietly. “I suggest you take my wife’s advice and go sleep it off. Hopefully you won’t remember in the morning exactly how ridiculously you acted.”

  Rochland smiled. In a surprisingly swift action, he swung his fist at Stephen’s face, bone and bone connecting with a sickening, painful crunch.

  Damn. He reeled at the unexpected blow, his ear ringing, yet still heard Caroline’s muffled scream.

  “Major Rochland,” she hissed. “What are you doing? Stephen are you all right?”

  “Stay well back,” Stephen growled, shucking off his dark blue superfine jacket in one harsh movement, arm swiping at the small trickle of blood escaping from a cut cheek. “The soldier and I have matters to discuss.”

  As soon as Caroline scrambled to the relative safety of a spot between two empty carriages, he threw a brutal right hook of his own, and Rochland’s head snapped backwards. Good. It seemed his ‘discussion’ with Sir Malcolm had been an adequate warm up.

  Rochland eventually came back at him hard, but he easily feinted left to avoid it, then plowed a fist into the other man’s stomach. Tonight they wouldn’t be exchanging a few blows, spitting a few curses then sharing a bottle somewhere. There was a dark, ugly undercurrent here, like Rochland truly wanted a fight to the death.

  But why? He’d only met the man the other day. And as for that horseshit about a written murder accusation…

  A weak jab barely grazed his shoulder, and he immediately retaliated with a left cross/right uppercut combination to his opponent’s face.

  “Oooof,” groaned Rochland as he stumbled, his cheek puffy and one eye rapidly swelling shut.

  Stephen gritted his teeth. All icing and no cake, but the soldier refused to slink away. He glanced again at the group of coachmen. Still engrossed in their cards and utterly useless, but the fewer witnesses to this madness, the better. The last thing he wanted was an appearance in the scandal rags due to this Bedlamite.

  “Rochland,” he muttered, “For God’s sake—”

  “That all you got, Westleigh?” the major spat, wiping sweat, blood flecks and spittle from his chin with a sleeve. “Opium-eating milksop. Soon as I’m finished with you, I’m going to fuck your wife all night. Body like hers is made for punishment, bet she’d beg for it too. With us both having brown hair, no one will ever know the brat is mine. Except you.”

  Thud.

  Rochland sprawled on the hard cobblestones, blood gushing from a thoroughly misshapen nose. Yet seconds later a bone-chilling roar reverberated as the man rolled onto his knees, launched himself up at Stephen and bear-hugged him in a wrestling hold, his boot heels scraping the ground as he tried to hook a foot around Stephen’s ankle and trip him over.

  He could hear Caroline’s frightened gasps in the background, but didn’t dare take his eyes off his opponent. Not when they were spinning around and around, him forcing a forearm under Rochland’s chin to shove him away, the soldier hanging on like a barnacle.

  “Oi! What’s goin’ on!”

  Time slowed to a crawl, and he couldn’t exactly say how the next events actually came about. In the space of a moment, four coachmen were sprinting towards them and Rochland’s whole body jerked and collapsed hard against him.

  “Bassstard…” the soldier hissed, the unnatural sound sending cold chills down his spine. Stephen staggered backwards under the inert weight, lost his footing on the uneven ground and fell heavily.

  “Stephen?” said Caroline, and he wanted to see her, reassure that apart from seeing stars he was fine. That Rochland had just passed out, but he couldn’t get the drunken fool off him.

  Suddenly she screamed.

  “Ma’am?” said an urgent but unfamiliar voice. “Ma’am? What’s wrong?”

  There was a long pause, then someone else breathed “Jaysus…”

  Stephen blinked furiously, trying to wade through the fog in his brain. Christ, Rochland was heavy. And wet. How could anyone sweat so much?

  Yet even as the thought lodged, he stilled at a horrifically familiar scent. Not sickly-sweet, but metallic. Blood. Lots of it. As from a mortal wound. Had he been shot? He didn’t seem to hurt anywhere except a tender cheek from Rochland’s first blow and a bruised backside, but he was cold and so damned dizzy.

  Eventually he managed to coordinate his limbs, and half-slid out from underneath the other man. Then he saw the dagger. Buried solidly to the highly decorated hilt in Rochland’s white-shirted back and surrounded by a large red stain.

  A very familiar weapon. Most recently on display in his own library.

  Rocked to the core, he lifted and stared blankly at his blood covered hands. Black spots swirled in his vision and bile burned his stomach and throat.

  Had he just killed a man?

  “I’m not. I didn’t,” he muttered jerkily. “A doctor. Call for a doctor.”

  Two of the coachmen gently lifted Rochland’s body away from Stephen, their eyes flint hard. Accusing.

  Another knelt down and pressed two fingers to the major’s neck. He shook his head and spat on the ground near Stephen’s boot. “No damned point callin’ for a sawbones. What we need is a constable. Looks like your knife to the back did the poor bugger good and proper, may he rest in peace.”

  Horror choked him. He was a murderer.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Right sorry, guv, but there seems to be a spot of trouble up ahead. Cor, look at that! It’s a gent being taken away, all covered in blood. Wonder who he is.”

  He smiled grimly at the hackney driver. “The Earl of Westleigh.”

  “Westleigh? Never you say! Always heard he was a good sort.”

  “Wolf in sheep’s clothing, my friend. Do you think they would ever take away a lord unless they had ample proof of his guilt?”

  The older man shrugged. “Guess they wouldn’t, at that. You want to stay an’ gawp with the crowd or carry on?”

  “Let’s be on our way. Quite a distance to travel.”

  “Aye then,” said the driver, expertly brandishing his whip as they ducked and weaved around meandering passer-bys, carriages and carts.

  Eminently satisfied, he sat back in his seat and glanced up at the heavens. Had she watched his tireless crusade for justice? Did she nod and smile?

  Because all this was for her, his lost beloved.

  His angel.

  Hermia.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Do I need to repeat the question, Lord Westleigh?”

  Stephen stared coolly at the senior constable. The stuffy, sparsely furnished room might be shrinking by the minute, but by God he wouldn’t blink first.

  Verity and his much younger, greener colleague Fyfe had been first to arrive at Ardmore’s courtyard after the alarm was raised, and they’d politely offered the option of Forsyth House or their Wapping offices for a ‘discussion’. Stephen had immediately chosen Wapping; as if he wanted those two ferret-faces traipsing through his home and scaring his staff. But as the hours passed and the questions got more direct, he’d begun to yearn rather pathetically for the spacious comfort of his own domain. And a few dozen bottles of whisky.

  “No, Mr. Verity.”

  “I must say, you aren’t being very helpful. May I remind you a man is dead in highly suspicious circumstances?”

  Like he needed reminding.

  The suffocating heaviness of a corpse sprawled on top of him, the gut-roiling stench of blood and gore and death on his hands, his hair and soaked through his evening clothes would be difficult to forget. As would the sight of Caroline’s face when she’d stared
at him with shocked, uncertain eyes. Somehow her reaction was the worst part of the entire evening.

  He knew she recognized the ceremonial yet deadly sharp dagger, a gift from his father when he’d graduated from Cambridge, which usually sat in a display case on the mantelpiece above his library fireplace. But for his wife to ponder guilt, to think he might commit murder let alone something as despicable as stab an unarmed man in the back, felt like a thousand jabs to the solar plexus.

  Stephen forced himself to breathe evenly. Verity might look like a favorite uncle with his neatly-pressed clothing, salt and pepper hair and deep-set amber eyes, but he was a cunning old bastard. Getting agitated and punching him in the nose would not help anything, no matter how temporarily pleasant it might be.

  “I am well aware of the outcome of events, Mr. Verity. What I am unable to assist you with is exactly how they occurred.”

  “Hmmm,” Verity replied, continuing his slow pace around the perimeter of the room, the labored drag and shuffle of his booted feet against the stone floor about as annoying a sound as could be mustered. “Then perhaps Mr. Fyfe should summarize the key points again. It might help your recollection of matters.”

  Fyfe beamed like a puppy given an unexpected treat. It was perhaps unfortunate the rookie constable also resembled one, with his rumpled clothing, equally rumpled light brown hair and wide brown eyes.

  “Of course, Mr. Verity. Number one…”

  “That really isn’t necessary,” Stephen bit out.

  “All right,” said Verity. “Perhaps we should just start at the point where it all gets rather, er…hazy.”

  Stay calm. You are not a murderer.

  “I wouldn’t say hazy,” he replied as steadily as possible.

  “Oh? I do beg your pardon. What would you say?”

  “I would say difficult to explain. One minute Rochland and I were fighting, the next he slumped hard against my chest, whispered the word ‘bastard’ and died.”

  “I’m not surprised. A six-inch blade had just been buried with great force in his back.”

  Stephen ground his teeth. “But not by me.”