“Bonjour, Grandmère,” Lucien greeted the duchess, a smile on his lips as he kissed the hand held regally out to him.
The duchess snorted. “A good morning, indeed. Keeping me waiting two and a half hours. It’s outrageous, but then you always have been.”
“Thirty minutes of those two hours were of your own making, if I remember correctly?” Lucien advised her audaciously.
The duchess laughed grudgingly. “Trying to best me at my own game?”
Lucien sat down, laughing softly. “No one has been able to do that yet, Grandmère.”
The duchess smiled and leaned forward on her cane, her blue-veined hands thin and shaking slightly as she tapped Lucien’s booted leg. “You insult me by coming to my house like a lackey from the stables. You young blades don’t give a damn how you appear. No wonder Blanche is scared half out of her wits by you. I sometimes think I made a mistake in selecting her for you.”
Lucien stared expressionlessly into the same sherry-colored eyes as his own. “I think perhaps it is the scar, Grandmère, that makes the fair damsel ill at ease. She fears that my buccaneerish visage is more than skin deep,” Lucien commented dryly.
“In my day—well, that’s past, but the fancy pieces strutting about today have no spirit. A lot of lace and pretty bows are all they are made of. No sense of adventure in them,” she complained contemptuously, then catching Lucien’s smile demanded, “Well, what are you grinning about?”
“Oh, just that I wish you and a certain person could’ve had the opportunity of meeting.”
“A woman, eh?” the duchess guessed.
“Very much so; however, I’ve seen her wield a rapier, sit a horse, and scare the wits from twelve men so well that you might be doubtful of her sex.”
The duchess chuckled. “Sounds like quite a woman. Must not know her, though,” she pried.
Lucien smiled grimly. “No, and if you did meet her I doubt whether it would be under circumstances you’d enjoy,” he told her obliquely.
The duchess banged her cane. “You’ve piqued my curiosity. Tell me, who is she?” She raised her eyebrows in sudden thought. “Oh, I see. If she has that much spirit, she must be one of your opera singers or a little dancer, eh? Well, you’d better concern yourself for now with getting Blanche to the altar. Time enough for your other type of friend later.”
Lucien smiled without humor. “You remind me very much of this other woman. Both of you are willful, obstinate, and a thorn in my side. You and your pack of solicitors must have sat up all night figuring out that damned condition you added to your will.”
“Bitter, Lucien?” she baited him.
“I dislike having my life interfered in, and I dislike being given an ultimatum,” he said angrily.
“You always were headstrong and difficult, even as a baby. In and out of trouble, always answering me back. Impertinent brat, that’s what you were, but I must admit I preferred your insolence to little Percy’s sniveling virtue.”
“Then why are you giving dear Percy the chance to inherit my estate?” Lucien asked coldly.
The duchess laughed with delight. “Only thing that would finally bring you around. Thought at first all I had to do was keep a tight rein on the purse strings, but no, you have to go out and win yourself a fortune and create quite a reputation for yourself at the same time,” she spoke coolly. “I’m still not certain I have forgiven you for ignoring me for two years. You didn’t come to see me once, Lucien,” she told him, remembered hurt in her voice.
But Lucien remained unmoved. “Obviously it didn’t affect you too deeply, or you would not be threatening me now. You resented the fact that I didn’t have to depend on you for my every need. I proved that I could support myself, and managed to acquire a fortune three times as large as that which I should have inherited, but you still have to try and rule my life. Well, this time you have succeeded. My freedom, or my heritage? An interesting choice, but I am no longer quite the hothead that I once was when I stormed off the first time, denouncing you and my heritage. I find that I can swallow my pride, because Camareigh means more to me than your machinations. It is mine, and I intend to have it.”
“So, you’ve learned your lesson,” the duchess smiled. “I’m surprised it took you this long to realize that I intended to have my way. You don’t like the idea of your cousins spending your money and living in your home? Odd to think that Percy would have been master of Camareigh and Kate its mistress, for you know that she would be there. Percy’s wife has little to say when Kate is around—which is all of the time. Kate the beautiful, the heartless, the aspiring, and so jealous of you, Lucien. Wasn’t it over some toy of yours that she scarred your cheek, my boy? She can be a vicious creature when she can’t have her way. I wonder how Percy’s wife feels about having his sister living with them now that Kate is a widow. The poor-spirited little mouse, Kate will walk all over her.”
“Would you really have turned Camareigh over to Percy and Kate, Grandmère?” Lucien demanded, his voice frigid.
The duchess looked sad for a moment, then straightening her shoulders, replied regretfully, “You are still angry with me, resentful. I fear I have lost your love, my boy, but I intend to see future Dukes of Camareigh inherit all that your ancestors built. I’ll not have our line die out. I do not want a Rathbourne to walk the halls of Camareigh, but at least Percy has children, our blood will continue through them,” she said obstinately, then her eyes softened slightly as she gazed on Lucien’s face. “But I would prefer that they were your children, Lucien. If it were left up to you, you would never marry, and I despaired of your death before you could insure that our name and title would live on.”
“Well, you will have your cherished wish, Grandmère,” Lucien answered quietly, “and I will have Camareigh—but don’t ask me to forgive you.”
The duchess’ lips trembled as she spoke in little more than a whisper, “I never expected to have a complete victory over you, Lucien. I knew I would lose something as well.”
Lucien looked away from his grandmother’s face, tired and lined with age, but still alive with emotions. He felt guilty, but he resisted his feelings, knowing that this was probably one more of her stratagems to bring him under her influence. He knew her too well to fall for her act of suffering a broken heart. He looked back quickly and caught the duchess watching him, a smile curving her mouth which quickly disappeared as he turned to her.
“I think we both know one another by now. After all, Grandmère, I am your grandson.”
There was a knock on the door, and the majordomo announced visitors below. The duchess smiled tartly. “Show them up.”
Lucien walked over to the mantelshelf and stared at his reflection in the large mirror overhanging it.
“Were I a young, pretty thing, I’d find that scar of yours most intriguing, Lucien,” the duchess commented as she saw him run a finger down it.
Lucien smiled at her in the mirror. “Ah, but you, ma’am, were and are a woman of spirit and adventure, and as you yourself have said, there are few of that caliber of female left today.”
The duchess was laughing when the majordomo showed Percy Rathbourne, Lord Feltham, and his sister, Katherine, Lady Morpeth, into the room, their smiles of greeting fading abruptly as they saw the casually dressed figure of their cousin standing before the fireplace, completely at home.
“Lucien,” Percy greeted him shortly, a petulant look on his face before he turned to accept the duchess’s hand, a smile of delight now lighting up his features. “Dear, Grandmama, how lovely you look today.”
“Nonsense! I’m old and wrinkled, but I’m not a fool yet, so you can stop humoring me.”
Percy flushed and then, shrugging, turned to Lucien in puzzlement. “I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you and the duchess were not speaking.”
“Oh, we manage to call a truce every once in a while, much to yo
ur disappointment, eh, Percy?” Lucien inquired dryly.
“Why should we care?” Kate commented as she sat down, her perfect profile turned for Lucien’s admiration.
“As always, you are looking lovely, Kate,” Lucien told her to her satisfaction. “A pity it goes only skin deep,” he added, wiping the smile from her lips.
Lucien watched as the pale blue eyes narrowed with malice. Her features were unbelievably perfect, like those of an angel. Her silver-gold hair and translucent skin created an almost ethereal quality about her that contradicted the diamond hardness of her eyes. Percy came to stand behind her, his face as delicately molded as hers, his silver-gold hair hidden by a wig. The only difference was Percy’s sherry-colored eyes. Twins, with Kate being older by a few minutes. They seemed to think and breathe as one as they faced him. It had always been like this when they were children. Kate and Percy against him, banding together to gang up on him. He had been lucky that he’d always been bigger than they, and could usually manage to fight them off. Only once had they caught him off guard, and in that instant Kate had scarred his cheek—branding him for life. He still remembered the triumphant smile on her angelic face as the blood had dripped from his face.
“You should know about things going only skin deep,” Kate retaliated, caressing the smoothness of her cheek with the back of her hand as she stared at his scarred cheek.
“Odd, isn’t it,” Lucien said conversationally, “how some of the worst-looking apples on the outside are the sweetest to the taste, and yet how often, I wonder, does one find that shiny, red apple to be rotten to the core.”
Percy’s face paled and he clenched his fists as he heard Kate’s gasp of rage. “I’d like to cut you open to see how rotten you are, Lucien,” Percy threatened.
The duchess banged her cane on the table, attracting their attention. “Enough! You carry on like brawlers in the street. While under my roof, you will act civilized.”
“I apologize, Grandmère, for offending you,” Lucien said, “and now I must bid you adieu, I’ve appointments to keep.” His bow was just short of being insulting by its briefness.
“Lucien,” the duchess called out in a shaky voice, but he had gone.
When Lucien reached his home he was not in the mood for further irritations, and so it was with anger in his eyes that he stared down at the papers on his desk impatiently. Nothing. Not one word, not one clue to the whereabouts or identity of Bonnie Charlie or her two cohorts. This report his servants had sent up from the country was useless. How could someone just vanish into thin air as she had? No, he realized, it wasn’t magic—it was just not knowing where to look or whom to ask. These villagers were notoriously close mouthed when it came to discussing their own with outsiders. They’d probably spun a pretty tale for his servants, sending them on a wild-goose chase to God knows where, and laughing all the while.
He should be able to forget the little wretch, but here he was, still mooning over her like Lysander, who, with love juice clouding his vision, fell madly in love with Helena. But his life was not a Shakespearean play with fairies causing mischief and mayhem.
Enough is enough, he thought in disgust. He would join the social whirl and enjoy himself. There were several balls and routs he should take Blanche to, and he would renew certain acquaintances he had neglected recently.
Reaching out, he poured himself a brandy from the decanter on his desk, and raising the glass in a toast said beneath his breath, “That black-haired, violet-eyed vixen be damned.”
***
“Thought I must be seeing a ghost when I walked in and saw that damned scarred face of his,” Percy cursed as he threw down his cane and gloves onto a satin chair, and began to pace nervously up and down.
Kate tossed her burgundy velvet cloak onto the bed, her cheeks still flushed with anger as she turned on her brother. “I thought he would be dead this morning. Instead, one more failure to add to the list. I don’t know why I believed that this time he would be finished off. You haven’t had the best of luck in your past attempts. How you imagined that bungler Jensen could kill Lucien in a duel is quite beyond my comprehension. I’ve come to suspect that our dear cousin, Lucien, leads a charmed life. What is it now, the third accident we have rigged that he’s managed to survive?”
“If I remember correctly, the first two were your ideas. Let me see, first we hired a couple of cutthroats from the docks to accost and murder Lucien in the street some evening after leaving Vauxhall, the unfortunate victim of a brutal robber—just one of many such incidents that happen all of the time. So what happens? Lucien drives his sword through one, and puts a bullet in the other.”
“Fools,” Kate commented in a bored tone.
“Fools?” Percy laughed nervously. “I think we’re the fools to think we can get rid of Lucien. What was our other, oh so clever, plan? We paid that charming little actress from Drury Lane an exorbitant price to seduce Lucien, and then while he slept stick a knife in him.”
He sent a speaking glance to his twin. “I believe she left town quite suddenly, suffering from a broken wrist, and doesn’t plan on returning to England in the near future. Oh, yes, we’ve been absolutely brilliant, have we not?”
“Oh, do shut up, Percy, you’re giving me a migraine,” Kate told him sharply, tapping her fingers with their reddened nails on the dressing table.
“I tell you though, I am becoming quite peeved. One can’t get away with anything anymore. Try to plan a simple murder, and you have countless busybodies hanging over your shoulder. And these absurdly ridiculous Bow Street Runners of the Fieldings. I don’t know what London is coming to.”
“Damned interference, but what are we to do, Kate?” Percy demanded in despair.
Kate fingered the golden cross around her neck unconsciously as she stared at her reflection in the mirror.
“If our side of the family hadn’t been Catholic, and involved in so many damned plots against the Crown, we wouldn’t be in this fix now,” Percy said bitterly.
“If we weren’t all spendthrifts we wouldn’t find ourselves in this fix today, m’dear,” Kate corrected him acidly. “The awful truth of the matter is that we spend money with an unsparing hand.”
“Well, hang the expense, Kate,” Percy complained. “What the blazes is money for if you can’t spend it and enjoy yourself?”
“Yes, well, it’s quite a shame that we should be the improvident branch of the family, rather than our dear cousin.”
“Damned pinch-fist. Treats us pretty shabbily, making us go down on hands and knees so he can dole out a few pence,” Percy said resentfully, a truculent look on his face.
Kate got to her feet and stared around her in despair. “Bills, bills, bills. Lud, but I grow fatigued of dodging the creditors, and I’d like to once answer the door without fear of it being some low-browed lout demanding to be paid. We must, at all costs, keep Lucien from inheriting his estate. Since he seems unwilling to die, I think we’d better put our other plan into action,” she told Percy decisively, expectant smile curving her lips. “You should enjoy that.”
Percy smirked. “I’ve been most discreet, m’dear, and have the little pigeon in the palm of my hand.” He squeezed his hand together, his fingers curving into his palm like a vise.
“What a pity, and how embarrassing for poor Lucien, to be stood up at the altar, for I fear that is what is about to happen to him.”
Percy gave a low laugh. “You’d love to see Lucien humiliated, wouldn’t you? I’ve often thought, dear sister, that you suffered from a case of unrequited love for our dear, arrogant cousin. But he’s never looked your way, has he? Not surprising, considering what you did to his face.”
“Careful, brother dear, or I’ll have your wretched heart carved on a platter for dinner,” Kate replied tightly.
“I call truce,” Percy laughed, holding up his hands placatingly. “As a team we are invincible
and shall see our fondest desires. We shall have Lucien groveling in the mud at our feet.”
“When do you plan on kidnapping Lucien’s fiancée?” Kate asked curiously. “Time is running out for us, so we must act now.”
“Oh, I think tomorrow evening at the ball being given by Lord and Lady Harrier will be soon enough,” Percy told her complacently.
Kate smiled in anticipation. “It should prove to be an interesting evening.”
***
“Breathe in,” Mary ordered as she pulled tight the laces of Sabrina’s corset and tied them behind snugly. The front was low, with black, crisscross lacing down its length, and barely covered the top of Sabrina’s breasts.
Sabrina sat down on a chair, sighing deeply as she rolled black silk stockings up over her knees and secured them with two frilly garters tied with silver ribbons.
Mary glanced at her worriedly. “Too tight? I wish the contessa would hurry up with her toilette so we could use the maids. I’m afraid I’m not too good at this,” Mary apologized.
“You’re doing just fine, Mary. Now help me into this hoop.” Mary held the wide hoop while Sabrina stepped into it. Next came a black petticoat, the fine silk shot through with silver threads, and then the gown of white satin with black and silver embroidery and frilly black lace flounces falling from the elbows and opened down the front to reveal her petticoat.
“It’s exquisite, Sabrina,” Mary said in awe as Sabrina slipped her feet into white silk shoes trimmed with silver, the heels high and slender.
“Rather startling,” Sabrina answered in amusement, “but then that is what the marquis has in mind,” she said as she fastened diamond drops in her ears and then clasped a diamond pendant around her neck.
“You first,” she told Mary, indicating the velvet patches in the small box before her. Mary stuck a small black silk patch on her cheek, then looked into the mirror to see the effect.
“It isn’t quite me, I think,” she laughed as she removed it, leaving her cheeks smooth and pink, her gown of white silk damask, heavily embroidered with flowers and birds, rustling as she turned from the mirror.
Moonstruck Madness Page 18