Lord Ruin

by Carolyn Jewel

  Devon unfurled from his chair and rose. Where Cynssyr moved like a cat, graceful and sinuous, Devon was feral, a wolf to Cynssyr’s lion. With a brief glance at her, he threw a letter on the desk. It hit the polished mahogany surface and slid toward Ruan. “Waiting for me when I got home. Intercepted quite by chance.”

  “What is it?” Anne asked.

  Ruan read the letter. Twice. The first time quickly, the second more slowly. “I’ll not keep anything from Anne.” He looked at her from over the top of the letter. “It’s from one Richard Harrow. To Miss Fairchild. Proclaiming, among other things, his undying adoration of her.”

  “Thrale.” Anne echoed the name.

  “Thrale,” said Devon. “He means the Marquess of Thrale.”

  Anne couldn’t imagine the stern man she knew becoming infatuated with Camilla Fairchild. “Camilla Fairchild is a perfect goose.”

  “There’s been talk, just lately,” Devon said, “that Thrale has certain tastes. For violence.”

  “Has he a mistress?” The question met with shocked silence. “Well, has he? Perhaps we might ask her if Thrale ever shows her any violence.”

  “We?” Devon asked.

  Cynssyr cleared his throat. “Much as your help has been invaluable, Anne, that is not a conversation you ought to have with anyone of that sort.”

  “Well, I think someone ought to.”

  “That may not be necessary. In order to prove his love, our devoted Thrale, he begs her to meet him. A clandestine meeting.”

  Anne rose. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You seem very certain of Thrale.”

  “He is a decent man. As I know Aldreth and Devon are decent men. Just as I am certain that you, Cynssyr, are a decent man. Thrale would no more turn violent than you or chase after a silly child like Camilla Fairchild. Than any of you.”

  Ruan leaned back and tossed the letter onto the desktop, his face a mask. “What if you’re wrong?”

  She leaned across the desk to snatch the letter, then froze as the truth came home, for she understood the man better now, the pampered, hardened, damaged aristocrat constantly searching for the love he believed did not exist. Without a thought, not even thinking of Devon, she touched Cynssyr’s jaw, brushed a lock of mahogany hair from his forehead. “I wouldn’t believe it of you, Cynssyr, and I don’t believe it of Thrale.”

  He held her gaze. Then, in a moment that seemed to last forever, he took her free hand and brought her palm to his mouth. His lips molded to her skin, warm and soft. “Thank you,” he murmured. Unnerved, she backed away from the desk. Devon remained settled in obdurate silence. Cynssyr, too, stayed silent for a time. Taking the sheet of paper, he refolded it, pinching the creases of the folds. “I’m sorry, Anne. I know you think him a friend. But right now, things don’t look promising for Thrale’s innocence.”

  “It’s happened before.” Devon put his hands on his knees and levered himself to his feet. “Just as you suspected, Cyn. Forty miles from Liverpool.”

  “I don’t understand,” Anne said.

  “Thrale’s estates are in Lancashire,” said Cynssyr. “About forty miles from Liverpool.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “That proves nothing,” Anne said.

  “In itself, no,” Ruan agreed. “But the concatenation of what we know is ever more damning.”

  Anne finished her bite of hot cross bun. It was excellent. Warm and buttery, comforting to her inconstant stomach. Devon drank the last of his tea and took a second bun.

  “One of these days, Cyn,” Devon said, “I will steal Jubert from you.”

  “You are welcome to try.”

  “What will you do about this, this, supposed tryst of Thrale’s?” Anne asked while Devon, rolling his eyes heavenward, took a mouthful of Jubert’s exquisite version of an English staple.

  “Go, of course.” Peridot eyes took her measure. Once, and not so long ago, that look would have had her pulse racing with fear rather than desire.

  Devon casually wiped his fingers on a linen napkin. “Shall I come along?”

  “No,” said Ruan, thinking Anne looked tired. “I need you to keep an eye on Thrale. In case it’s a trick.”

  “I tell you, so far the man lives a monk’s life.” Devon rose with a sigh. “I don’t know why I bother. I could follow Miss Emily Sinclair and know Thrale is close by. He dogs her every step.”

  “Half the bucks in London dog her steps.”

  Anne looked between the two men. “Do you think Emily’s in any danger?”

  “So long as we know where he is,” Ruan said. “Aldreth will stay with Emily.”

  Devon nodded. “I’ll show myself out. Cyn. Anne.”

  “Good morning, Dev.” Anne stifled a yawn.

  When they were alone, Ruan went to her chair and stood over her. “You’re tired.” He brought her to her feet, and she stepped unhesitatingly into his arms. Imagine that, feeling comfortable in Cynssyr’s embrace. “Go to bed, my love.”

  She rested her head against his chest and yawned again. “I’m to make calls with Mary this morning.”

  He pushed her back just enough to look at her, a long and searching stare. Anne drank in his features, the straight, strong nose, firm mouth, the pure green eyes. A face that had to her once represented all that a woman ought to avoid. “You have good sense,” he said at last. “I trust you’ll use it.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Go nowhere alone. Nowhere without me or Henry.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I want to take you upstairs and finish what we started.” He traced a line just beneath her eye. “But you need rest, not a randy husband in your bed.”

  An impish grin flashed across her face. “Perhaps I need both.”

  “You are an impertinent minx.”

  Anne spent her morning making calls with her sisters. Breakfast with Lady Prescott, a levee for the duchess of Cumberland, an appearance at Lady Kinross’s salon and several at-homes at which she managed to find food sufficiently bland to keep her stomach settled. Finally, they arrived at Ormond House for a recital featuring a French tenor in magnificent voice. She met Devon at most of the affairs because, as he’d predicted, Thrale, and a host of other admirers, followed where Emily went. Neither Devon nor Thrale, however, were present here.

  Brenley Cooke and his wife and daughter came in as the tenor concluded a second glorious aria. Emily and Miss Fanny Cooke had become bosom friends, and Fanny immediately left her mother’s side to sit by Emily. The two whispered to each other as young women do when there are beaus to discuss. Anne was content to listen to Monsieur Faurer. Her sheltered life in the country meant she was not terribly familiar with Opera, certainly not as it was sung by this man. His voice wholly captured Anne’s attention and took her mind off Cynssyr and her increasing awareness of him as a man. As her husband. Of herself as a woman who could arouse a man. And be aroused herself. A major revelation, that, for she’d believed herself incapable of passion. Now she knew she wasn’t.

  “Duchess?”

  “Mm?” Enthralled by the music, she didn’t look.

  Someone tugged on her sleeve. “Your grace.” The voice, urgent and clipped beyond the point of rudeness, belonged to a woman. “I should like a word with you. Now.”

  “Yes?”

  “A word, please.” The woman’s eyes flashed.

  Even while she wondered what she could have done to make her angry, Anne tried to place her. “Mrs. Fairchild?”

  “In private, if you would be so kind.” She pulled on Anne’s sleeve again. Anne stepped out of her reach. “It’s important that we speak.” Mrs. Fairchild took a deep breath and said, “Please?” in a voice that trembled with her attempt at politeness.

  “All right.” They went to an empty parlor a few feet from the salon where she could even now hear the clear, liquid notes of song. “What is it, Mrs. Fairchild?” She was a lovely woman, nearly forty, but still a beauty. A woman, she thought, in whom Cynssyr would take
an interest.

  “This.” She thrust a note into Anne’s hand.

  “What is it?”

  “Read it, and you shall see.” She picked up a bit of carved ivory from a table and turned it in her hands.

  Anne opened the note and read the opening paragraph. She looked at Mrs. Fairchild from over the top of the sheet of paper. “A love letter.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The sentiment is a bit overblown, but should not every letter from a beau be exactly so?”

  “‘Eyes of soft brown, lips of red rose,’” Mrs. Fairchild quoted as if the phrase had some deeper meaning for her.

  Anne scanned the lines then said, “I’m not sure why you’ve shown this to me.”

  Mrs. Fairchild’s thumb pressed one side of the carved piece. “I thought you might like to know what sort of letters your husband is writing these days.”

  “My husband?” Anne checked the signature. Indeed. Her husband’s name was signed at the bottom. Cynssyr. A bold flourish. What she would expect of him. She lifted her eyes from the page. Had all of Cynssyr’s fine and touching words last night been empty? Likely, she decided, or, rather, he may have meant them only in the moment. But the letter bothered her, struck a note discordant with what she knew of him. “You are his diversion?”

  “His diversion?” Mrs. Fairchild threw down the piece of ivory. “Just long enough for him to write this bit of filth to my daughter.”

  Camilla Fairchild flashed into her head. A beautiful girl, but silly and an incorrigible flirt. Far too young to be Cynssyr’s lover and simply not the sort of woman Thrale would pursue. “No, that’s not possible.”

  “Thank God I found out before it was too late. Camilla would have met him. The girl’s convinced herself she’s in love with the man. And your husband, well, he’s convinced her he loves her and means to leave you for her. And he would have ruined her. I did not dare show it to Mr. Fairchild, for I know he would demand satisfaction. And Cynssyr would kill him without an instant’s hesitation.”

  Quickly, Anne read the rest, down to the final, chilling, entreaty to meet him at a particular address. A familiar address. One she’d heard just this morning. “Cynssyr never wrote this letter.”

  “You’re as dazzled as Camilla.” Her lower lip quivered. Anne thought of herself a few years from now, just as protective of her own children.

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Tell him to leave my daughter alone. You’re his wife. Keep him away from innocent girls.”

  “Mrs. Fairchild. I am so sorry. It’s a trick. This letter is a trick. A base trick as has been played on others to their sorrow.”

  “You don’t strike me as a weak-minded woman,” she said in a voice fully capable of freezing water on the spot.

  “Attend me, Madam.” She adopted her best stern nanny voice, throwing in a measure of Cynssyr at his most imperious. The basic tone had worked well with her sisters, and it worked with Mrs. Fairchild. “This morning, my Lord Bracebridge brought Cynssyr a letter he’d intercepted. A letter to your daughter Camilla. Not from Cynssyr. From someone else. That letter asked her to be at this address.” She shook the page, willing the woman to understand. “At five o'clock. Not three o'clock, as this one does. Don’t you see? It has to be a trick. Why else would there be two such letters? Cynssyr was meant to see the other. Not this one.” Quite plainly both letters had been sent to cast blame on an innocent man, and never mind at what cost.

  Mrs. Fairchild gave her a scornful look. “I see why he chose you. The perfect little wife. Just pretty enough. Respectable. Sensible. You’re probably hopelessly in love with him, too, which only feeds his vanity. All he needs to do is show you off to his friends, and they’ll all think he’s turned over a new leaf. Well, he’s not fooled me. He’s on to girls now he’s safely married.”

  “Your daughter is lovely, but her youth is not to his liking,” she said grimly. “You know that. You know his tastes. The letter is a ruse, Mrs. Fairchild. Cynssyr never wrote it.” Anne’s foreboding increased. “There is to be a certain man at this address, and Cynssyr is intended to come upon him and, well, it was to be Miss Fairchild he’s to discover him with.” She began to pace. “Only, Bracebridge and my husband would have been too late to do anything but blame an innocent man.” Mrs. Fairchild was no fool. She couldn’t be if she’d been Cynssyr’s lover. Cynssyr didn’t choose foolish women. She waited for her to come to the correct conclusion.

  “So you say,” she whispered.

  “You must believe me.”

  “Why ought I?”

  “You were his lover once.” Squaring her shoulders she faced Mrs. Fairchild and saw she’d guessed correctly. “Tell me, is Cynssyr the sort to write a letter like this? He’ll give expensive trinkets. Gowns, perhaps. Jewels, certainly.” Mrs. Fairchild touched her throat, remembering, Anne was sure, a particular gift from him. “But writing letters of such sentiment, mawkish or otherwise? You know him at least a little. He is not capable of that.”

  “Dear God. Oh my dear God.” She sat down clumsily, her anger vanished. “Camilla,” she whispered in a voice so tortured Anne felt tears rise up. “Who would do this to her? Why?”

  “That’s what Cynssyr is trying to find out.” She touched Mrs. Fairchild’s shoulder. “Camilla is safe. Give thanks for that.” The older woman looked at her and Anne with fear like a lead ball in her chest said, “Are you absolutely certain you prevented her from going?”

  “I think so. But she’s a headstrong girl, and she believes herself in love.”

  “Go home. Go home and be certain she’s safe.”

  With Mrs. Fairchild gone, Anne picked up the bit of ivory scrimshaw. She feared the reason Devon and Thrale were not at Ormond House, and more, she feared if she did not do something, an innocent man would find himself accused of a crime. She considered going directly to Cynssyr, but changed her mind. Even with Henry along, going alone courted danger she had to balance against the passing of time.

  The first thing she did was summon her carriage. Then she made her way back to the salon and found the only man she knew well enough to plead for her favor. Julian Durling.

  “Please, you must come with me,” she said when she’d pulled him aside.

  “Why, Duchess, I should be delighted to go away with you.” His eyebrows waggled in a ridiculous arch.

  “Don’t be a fool, Mr. Durling. I daren’t go alone. Cynssyr would have my head if I did.”

  “The question is whether he would also have mine.”

  “There’s no one else. It’s urgent. A matter of a young woman’s life.”

  He dropped the Dandy’s drawl. “As you wish.”

  “I’ll just tell Mary I’ve been called away. My carriage is outside. Meet me there.” He nodded, and they parted ways.

  “What’s this about?” Durling asked when he’d joined her in the carriage.

  She showed him Camilla’s letter and explained the matter and the trap she thought had been set for Thrale. “Lord Thrale will have been lured into coming, Mr. Durling, with Cynssyr to arrive just in time to find him with the poor girl. No doubt he intended to brutalize her first.”

  Durling rested a fisted hand on the edge of the window. “I don’t approve of you being involved in this. Cynssyr ought to know better.”

  “While I appreciate your concern, you are not my husband, Mr. Durling. Besides, Cynssyr trusts me.”

  He gave her a depthless look. “You were right to fetch me. A neat trick, if you’re right. Girl or no girl, my Lord Thrale showing up at all looks bad. It’s fortunate her mother discovered the letter.”

  “What if some other girl hasn’t been as lucky?” She saw from Durling’s expression that he had already asked himself the same question. “What if he’s found someone else?”

  He leaned out the window and shouted, “Faster, John Coachman. Faster!”

  The address was a modest flat off Tottenham Court Road. Dead and shriveled leaves remained of the geraniums that had
once grown in a window box. Though the windows were shuttered, and the knocker had been removed, the door was unlocked. Durling put out an arm, blocking her way up the stairs. “Stay outside. You there!” He waved to Henry. “Watch out for the duchess.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Durling.”

  “Look here,” they heard someone shout. “All I want to know is what the blazes are you doing here?”

  From the landing, Anne heard Cynssyr calmly reply, “I’d rather have the answer from you.”

  She caught Durling’s arm and tucked her hand under his elbow. “Remind me,” he said with uncharacteristic solemnity, “to tell His Grace that a husband must be firm enough with his wife so as to obtain her complete obedience even when he is not present.”

  “Cynssyr,” she said softly and with complete innocence, “is firm precisely when a husband ought to be.” At Durling’s sharp look, she gave smile of wicked innocence.

  He colored. “Ahem.”

  They strolled into a darkened parlor like a couple without a care in the world. Manifestly this was not a house in which anyone lived. Sheets covered the furniture. Carefully rolled up carpets lined the floor along one wall.

  “Oh, I say,” Durling said with a wooden surprise not meant to fool anyone. “Sorry to intrude, Cyn old man.”

  The Marquess of Thrale whirled. “What now?”

  “Anne.” Cynssyr faced her. “Always a pleasure to see you, my dear.” His expression spoke volumes, and Anne’s anxiety on that account vanished. He knew she would not be here except for good reason. A tightness in her chest eased. “And Mr. Julian Durling.”

  Thrale bowed to her. “Duchess.”

  “Thrale.” Anne nodded curtly. “Is anyone else here?”

  The Marquess threw up his hands. “I should very much like to know if there is.”

  “Have you been upstairs yet, Cynssyr?” she asked.