The Veil of Night

by Lydia Joyce

  "Lady Victoria Wakefield!" the servant announced theatrically, and rather unnecessarily, Victoria thought with dry humor. She doubted the duke was expecting any other unfamiliar visitors that day.

  Victoria drew in a breath, preparing her practiced conciliatory speech of introduction, but the man spoke before she could open her mouth.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Peasebody. You may go. And take Lady Victoria's chaperone with you. She won't be needing one here."

  Victoria was brought up short by the sound of his deep, rich voice. Somehow, she'd been expecting something different—pettishly spoiled, perhaps, or nasally querulous—not me unshakable self-confidence that echoed in every purring syllable. The door clicked closed, and she turned to see that Dyer had left with the servant without waiting for her dismissal. Victoria suppressed an irrational flash of irritation at her abigail.

  Feeling that she had lost the initiative, she rallied her facade of imperturbability and strolled over to the nearest chair without waiting for the duke to offer her a seat. After all, he'd not stood when she entered, so there was no reason to believe he would suddenly begin to play the conscientious host.

  She had thought to soothe the duke and pander to his ego, but now she quickly reassessed her plans. Raeburn might be as arrogant as her brother's diatribes would have, but there was a canniness in his preparations that made her hesitate. He'd done everything he could to make her feel like an intruder, setting the scene carefully and even stripping her of her attendant as soon as she walked in the door. If she had relied on Dyer's support, Victoria would have been made to feel very alone and vulnerable by the maid's rapid dismissal.

  Well, she had never been the delicate type, but there was still something... disconcerting about the duke. He seemed to exude a kind of guarded watchfulness from his shadowed corner, a kind of physicality that made her want to shiver and rub her arms.

  Victoria sat in the intricately scrolled chair, quirking the corner of her mouth in the expression of mild, noncommittal interest she had mastered long ago. That the duke could see her face in the dim firelight, she had little doubt; he had carefully staged the encounter so she'd be left in no uncertainty as to who controlled the situation.

  He seemed to expect her to break the silence, but she had a paltry hand and cared to show none of her cards before she was forced, so she waited for him to lose patience and speak.

  Byron Stratford, Duke of Raeburn, regarded the woman with amusement, turning his tumbler of scotch slowly in his fingers. She was not what he expected—not from her letter, and certainly not from his acquaintance with her brother. Where Gifford was dark and dashing, she was fair and dowdy; where he was dandyish, she was austere to the point of severity; where he bore an air of extravagance, she seemed almost fiercely self-contained. He'd anticipated a mad tirade from the sister of the impetuous viscount, but as soon as she'd stepped into room, he'd realized the ridiculousness of imagining her doing such a thing.

  He'd assumed that Lady Victoria was younger than her brother, but she had to be at least half a dozen years his senior. He'd thought her rash when she'd accepted his half-jesting invitation, but now he realized why she hadn't worried about scandal. Every line of her bearing declared that she was a respectable old maid, from her tight, pale blonde bun and her prim, haughty smile to the hideously unflattering carriage dress. No, she would be above suspicion.

  He took a swallow of his scotch, savoring the slow burn down his throat. He would enjoy toying with her very much—would enjoy provoking her, if possible, until she forgot her steely control and showed herself for the hot-blooded Wakefield she still must be under her cool veneer. Then he would dismiss her from Raeburn Court with a negligent wave and leave her sputtering as she was hustled away. He smothered a quiver of conscience with another gulp of scotch. He was too old, too cynical for moral reservations, and besides, she was guilty by association. It was scarcely credible that she could share her brother's name and none of his character—or lack thereof.

  She seemed disinclined to fill the silence, so he cleared his throat.

  "My dearest Lady Victoria," he began in an insultingly intimate tone.

  Her eyes narrowed, and he leaned back in anticipation of her priggish, insulted reply.

  "My dearest duke," she returned instead in a throaty voice at least twice as suggestive as his own, going straight to his groin without consulting his brain.

  Byron jerked upright before he could stop himself. His interest was sparked, and it had been a very long time since he'd felt that. Lust, yes; a man his age could not earn a well-deserved reputation for being a dissolute reprobate without frequently feeling—and almost as frequently indulging in—the urgings of lust. This, though—this was different. This was genuine interest. He'd become so jaded he'd almost forgotten what it was like.

  "I suppose I needn't say why we are meeting here," he murmured, watching the lady closely. Was that a faint blush on the woman's pallid cheeks, almost invisible in the sullen light of the coals? He experimented. "Together. Alone."

  The blush deepened minutely. It wasn't a flush of anger, though now that he was looking closely, he could see a hint of that, too. This was a purely physical, sensual reaction to his intimations, the slow spread of heat from the edge of the modest collar to her hairline. More than her voice belied her prudish facade.

  "Your… indelicacy is hardly necessary," she said. Her strangely pale blue eyes flickered blindly over his face. "Your grace," she added, as if it were an afterthought.

  More and more intriguing. He leaned forward in his chair. "I didn't think you'd come," he heard himself admitting.

  Lady Victoria sniffed, an oddly prim gesture to be followed by such a velvety voice. "No doubt. Which is why I am here." She settled farther back into her chair, her muscles subtly relaxing.

  Feline, sleek, and satisfied, Byron thought. She was digging in for a fight. Narrowing his eyes, he decided to change tactics and dove in bluntly. "I promised you nothing."

  "Which is exactly what you'll get if you continue on this foolish course of action." She didn't raise her voice, nor did her words grow sharp, but Byron heard the steel beneath the velvet.

  The cat has claws, he noted, obscurely pleased. "In what way?"

  Lady Victoria smiled slowly, not the superior quirk of the lips mat had been plastered to her face until that moment, but an honest if malicious smile.

  It transformed her suddenly and alarmingly. Despite its cruel edge, it lit her face, erasing the hard, unflattering lines she had fixed it in. If it had been a happy smile, Byron might have almost called her… beautiful. The thought surprised him. He'd been democratic in his affections, bedding the gorgeous and homely alike when the mood suited him, but he'd always prided himself on his fine aesthetic when it came to judging relative merit. Lady Victoria was fashionably tall, yes, but her hair was limp and pale, and her body—He frowned. Byron could say nothing of her body except that it was slighter than, was the mode, encased as it was in that ghastly frock and likely an equally ghastly corset. Somehow, though, he was not repelled by the thought of her hideous underthings but perversely curious.

  She laughed once, a hard, artificial sound—he was convinced that her real laughter sounded as lush and rich as her voice—and tilted her head back so she was looking at him from under the pale lashes of her slitted eyes.

  "My brother has no money," she said simply. "None. Father cut him off cold this month. If he wants even a paltry allowance, he must remain at Rushworth."

  Byron sighed as if disappointed and let silence slip between them again. The woman didn't move—didn't even twitch. She just let the long seconds stretch out, her eyes shifting slightly under the fringe of lashes as she seemed to search out his face among the shadows. He watched her, tracing the firm line of her jaw with his gaze, studying the way her thin, delicate nose cast a shadow across her cheek. He felt an unexpected twinge of possessiveness, as if she were some exotic puzzle box or enigmatic cipher he wanted to own and decrypt.
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br />   Finally, he spoke. "I would say it is unfortunate, but I don't feel that it is. It is exactly as I had expected." He paused to let that sink in. "It is exactly as I had hoped."

  Lady Victoria stiffened minutely. That got a reaction, at least. "What do you mean?" she demanded. The control slipped from her voice, and Byron was pleased to note it was just as luscious as when she had been deliberately needling him. It would have been a pity to discover that such a fine instrument were a sham.

  "I mean, my dear Lady Victoria, exactly as I said." He allowed some of the satisfaction he felt to seep into his voice. "I would have been disappointed if Gifford didn't default."

  Now the woman was scowling. Byron rather thought it an improvement over the disinterested mask, but nothing, of course, compared to that fleeting promise of a smile. "You want him to be thrown in gaol?"

  "A future peer of the realm, sent to debtors' prison? I doubt it's possible. But humiliation… yes, I want your brother to suffer humiliation so great it will stain his line—unto the seventh generation." He allowed himself a smile at that reference, enjoying the small blasphemy of casting himself in the role of a righteous God.

  Lady Victoria, however, did not look amused. Lady Victoria looked like she wanted to throttle him. "Why?" she asked, her voice low and tense with controlled fury.

  The question robbed Byron of the satisfaction of her reaction. "Because he took something that was mine." Every word was as bitter as gall. He spit them out at her, not knowing why he was giving her an answer when she had no right to any—much less a right to the truth. But what could it matter? What could she do about it? She was hardly in a position to take advantage of any knowledge. Still, the wound burned, even after three years. "Because he ruined it, and when he was finished, he expected me to take it from him, flawed, imperfect, and pretend it had never been touched."

  Lady Victoria's eyes widened in surprise he doubted could be feigned. "A woman," she breathed.

  "Yes. A woman. A paltry, mewling thing, but one I wanted. Gifford wanted her, too, but only as a toy. A wife of the heir presumptive of a dukedom or lover to an earl's son. Gifford made it seem so easy, I'm sure." Freak. Unnatural monster. He knew Gifford had called him these things in the wooing of Leticia; what else he might have said between his sweet blandishments, Byron could only guess. "Now I'll take my revenge. Better than a pound of flesh—I'll strip a ton from his pride."

  She was silent for a long moment. Her face was unnaturally still, so perfectly composed he could read nothing from it. Finally, she spoke, her eyes somehow finding his in the shadows. "And so you brought me here to begin the humiliation. To start your revenge." She cocked her head as if expecting a response. He said nothing; the answer was patently obvious. "Then you have already begun to fail." An edge crept into her voice, hard and cynical and mocking. In a sudden revelation, Byron realized it was the tone of a woman who knew too much, who had seen too much, who had been stripped of her illusions years ago. She wasn't a bitter, dry old spinster. Not even a jaded sophisticate. She was an observer who'd sat in the shadows all her life just as he was sitting in the shadows now, disengaged and watching, judging. Was she judging him now? The idea was vaguely disturbing.

  With a delicate sniff, she continued. "My brother would have to care for his sister—for her inconvenience, her honor, her person—to be humiliated by your treatment of me. And he does not. As for the rest? Jack shall flee to Paris or Naples or Vevey once he convinces my father to relent, and he'll live there in dissipated penury until he inherits. Since he cares nothing for his reputation, only the personal discomfort that beggary brings him will cause him a moment's pause."

  The words falling from her mouth seemed out of some gross farce. To be deaf to insults, insensate to pricked pride, blind to degradation…Could such a man exist? Gifford had everything in the world that Raeburn had ever wanted; instead of skulking about the fringes of the aristocracy in a black cloak, Gifford could bask in society's light, smiling in the assurance of being accepted, even adored, while Raeburn's eccentricities were tolerated only for the sake of his title. And when Raeburn threatened to snatch it all away, Gifford's own sister blandly announces he wouldn't care? The pangs of his own injured dignity were so intense he could almost taste them.

  Yet Byron felt in his bones that she was telling the truth. His only consolation—and that a small one—was that if revenge failed, Gifford remained a good investment, like the half a dozen other young dandies he'd secretly directed his agent to buy up for pence on the pound. But Byron could not accept the possibility that he'd failed—not yet. Vengeance might never have been more than a wistful fantasy, but if so, it was a sweet one.

  "Then why are you here?" he demanded, stifling the urge to shake the smug smile from her face. "Do you dote on your brother so that you wish to save a name he does not value?"

  "Dote? Hardly. He was putting toads in my bed when we were both still in the nursery."

  "Then why?" he repeated, truly baffled.

  She did not reply to his question, her expression remaining as frozen as if he had said nothing. She was a stranger, but he began tentatively feeling his way toward an answer as if he'd known her all his life.

  "Because it is you who fear ostracism," he said slowly. "You didn't come for Gifford's sake but for yours."

  Her eyes tightened, and he saw he had hit home. "I do it for the sake of my family."

  "Of course. Such selflessness, to preserve your family's reputation—and through it, your own."

  "What would you know of my motives?" Her eyes narrowed further to slits, and her words grew dangerously hard.

  Byron relaxed as her control slid, and he began to invent a story, gauging her reactions and shaping it to suit. "And what would you know of mine? Gifford and I were once friends. He told me of you, bragged about how he could make you do anything for him. I privately thought you the cleverer of the two, what with your inconspicuous power reaching out through all the members of your family. Now I see that my estimation wasn't mistaken. As Gifford said, you would do anything at all for him—if it would save your own hide or advance your own interests." He leveled the words like a weapon. "You are selfish, my dear Lady Victoria, and you and I both know it."

  Lady Victoria's face had grown more and more livid with each word he spoke, and by the time he had finished, she was sheet white and trembling with rage. She jerked to her feet and glared at him, blue-gray eyes flashing silver. "You clearly never had any intention of reaching a compromise, and I will not sit here and be insulted a moment longer. If it were my own pride I wished to save, I would better serve it by leaving. Good day, sir." Her back unnaturally straight, she spun on her heel and strode to the door.

  Away from him.

  The thought was jarring, and he called out instinctively to forestall her as she reached for the knob.

  "You are not dismissed!"

  She hesitated, anger and energy coiled in her muscles. Even across the room, he could feel her waiting for him to give her a reason to stay. A shock ran through him, surging through his lungs and belly to his groin. Did she feel it, too, that strange fascination that bound them? He had no idea what he might say, and he fumbled for something to delay her until he could produce a rational thought.

  "There's a storm," he said, making his tone indolently reasonable, "and the next mail coach won't be by until tomorrow."

  "Then you may lend me the use of your carriage, I'm sure," Lady Victoria replied icily, her spine growing straighter, if possible, in a show of indignant propriety. She began to turn the knob.

  "If I were you, I shouldn't be so hasty to leave," he temporized, a bizarre desperation overtaking him.

  "Oh?" There was no interest in her tone, but the hand on the doorknob froze again even if she didn't let go. From the back, not even the awkward lines of her unflattering corset could disguise the grace of her lithe figure, the unconscious seductiveness in the arch of her neck.

  The prim dress and severe bun angered him suddenly. H
e saw them thrust between them as a barrier, keeping him beyond her spinsterish defenses. She thought she could defeat him so easily, did she? They'd just see exactly what her propriety was worth. He'd lost his opportunity for revenge—it had been gone before he'd started to plan it, had he only known. Was he so unmanned that he could not even keep hold of a woman? A pettish flare of anger hardened his voice.

  "You want payment of your brother's debts forgiven. Impossible. I've put too much into buying them up; they're quite a promising investment. But not demanding payment until he inherits—that isn't so ludicrous."

  Lady Victoria released the doorknob, still without turning to face him. "What is it you want in return?"

  Byron folded his arms across his chest. The daydream of vengeance, so dear to him only minutes before, was already fading. But if he couldn't have revenge, why should he deny himself the sister?

  "You."

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  Victoria whirled. "What?" she cried, torn between laughter and outrage.

  "You." The voice came rumbling out of the shadows as if it were the most reasonable suggestion in the world, and for a moment, she was almost convinced of it. She shivered suddenly. The duke was most certainly a dangerous man.

  "Your grace, I am not a bargaining piece." She'd meant to sound crisply offended, but the words slid out of her control and came out with a hint of invitation, as if she were only waiting to be persuaded. She cursed her tongue, behaving like an overawed ingenue of sixteen instead of a disillusioned spinster of two and thirty. She had faced unwelcome suitors before. Now was no different, and even if it were farcical for someone to propose a liaison at her age, she could see no other interpretation in his words, twist and turn them as she may.