by Lydia Joyce
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Chapter Three
That the bloody hell did he think he was doing? Byron sat in the darkness of the Teak Parlor, nursing his scotch and the growing sense that he'd just made one of the greatest mistakes of his life. He flipped open his pocket watch. It had been half an hour since he'd dismissed the last of the servants with their instructions—over an hour since he'd ordered Lady Victoria up to her room. By now she should be fluttering with nervousness or seething with rage or some combination of the two. And, by all rights, he should be gloating.
But he didn't much feel like gloating. In fact, he was having second thoughts.
Why couldn't he have kept to his plan of revenge? He was an inventive man. Even if his original plan was flawed, he surely could have found a way to make Gilford's life miserable for at least half a dozen years. And if he were clever enough, it would cost him just as little.
And yet… even though the thought of Gifford's suffering still held a good deal of satisfaction, Byron could not say it would heal his wounds. For it wasn't so much what Gifford had done that angered Byron as what it had shown him about himself. Things Byron had lived thirty-two years without knowing, things he could have gone happily to his grave in ignorance of. But now that Byron had been forced to face his ugly side, he couldn't forget it again, and he couldn't honestly say he wanted to.
He tossed back the final swallow of scotch and regarded the empty glass in the firelight, pointedly ignoring the decanter that sat waiting by his elbow. That was a way to another kind of hell, one fit for men too careless or too reckless to see its dangers. And despite the bargain he had just made, he was neither by habit.
The bargain! He scowled at the light glinting off the glass. The first new bit of skirt he'd seen in over a year and he lost his senses. But he knew that wasn't true. Though the offer itself had been impulsive, he'd felt quite firmly in possession of all his faculties—more so than he had in a long time, as if Lady Victoria's mere presence took his moldering wits and shook some life into them. She was an enigma he was determined to solve—but he had the suspicion that Lady Victoria might not be content to be deciphered without doing some deciphering of her own. Byron shrugged uncomfortably at the thought of the questions that could arise between them in the course of a week. She might have her secrets, but he had more than enough of his own to keep.
Still… he could be opening the door to a wolf, but after so many months of no company but a handful of servants and his own dark thoughts, the challenge of a wolf might be exactly what he needed.
Somewhere deep in the bowels of the manor, a clock struck nine. Each peal unrolled slowly, striking just off key in a way that raised the hair on the back of Victoria's neck.
The slouching figure of Fane—Gregory Fane, as Victoria now knew, the duke's unlikely steward and possibly valet and butler as well—led her down the twisting staircase, the candelabra he held above his head casting slanting, dancing shadows across the dark-paneled walls.
Finally, the stairs ended. Whether she was on the ground floor, some upper story, or even an underground level, she could not guess. Her own chamber was on the third floor, but she'd already realized that the various annexes of the manor didn't seem to be aligned by more than accident and that four floors in one section could easily be six in another.
Fane slipped down a narrow passageway, then into a wide gallery with a row of black windows looking out into the night. It was too dark to see past the rain-lashed windowpanes until a sudden stab of lightning illuminated a rocky declivity that ended in a rush of frothing water. Then the grounds were plunged into blackness again as thunder rumbled through the bare hills, and the room seemed even darker than before. 'Victoria suppressed the urge to ask her silent guide how much farther the dining room was.
The gallery ended abruptly, and Fane opened an unobtrusive door against the long side, dwarfed by the massive paintings that flanked it.
"Lady Victoria Wakefield," he announced to the dark interior, bowing.
Victoria composed her features and swept past the servant into the room.
The duke lounged along one long side of the table, his back to the fireplace again. Not one to quickly surrender any advantage, she noted. As before, he did not stand as she entered, and rather than match his discourtesy, she bowed her head in an exaggerated manner. He was not as well placed as he had been in the Teak Parlor; even in the shadows, she could see irritation flicker across his face, quickly replaced by amusement.
"Please sit, your ladyship," he said, waving his hand to the chair opposite his with inflated geniality.
As she moved to take the seat, a strapping young man, hitherto invisible, stepped away from the wall directly into her path. She resisted the urge to jerk away, but he only pulled her chair away from the table. So she sat, facing the duke across the narrow width.
"I see you have an… interesting domestic staff," Victoria said mildly as the duke rang the bell and a round-faced maidservant bustled in bearing a soup tureen. It was the first safe topic that came to mind. .
He raised an eyebrow at her understatement. "My late great-uncle was an impoverished eccentric, and I inherited his staff and his debts."
"I see," Victoria said, though she didn't. "I'm sure you find it convivial, living here." She took a tentative sip of her consommé. It was bland but not unpleasant. Heartened by the discovery, she began to eat more vigorously.
Raeburn's jaw hardened. "I shall remain in this moldy pile of rubble only as long as it takes the Dowager House to be renovated. If not for a feeling of familial obligation, I should be happy to let it rot, but I suppose I shall soon have to begin the long process of making the manor house habitable again."
Victoria looked up, surprised. The thought that Raeburn liked the house as little as she did made him seem less forbiddingly remote. But that impression was shattered with his next words.
"Which is why I need the money from your brother."
He was mocking her. Victoria could see it in the lift of one corner of his mouth, in the glint in his fathomless eyes. She refused to rise to the bait and pointed out the flaw in his pretence instead. "Since you knew my brother would have no means to pay even the interest for years to come, you could not have hoped to exact anything until then."
Raeburn chuckled, and she was certain that he was fully aware of the sensual overtones with which he imbued the sound. "And he might not need to if you have anything to say about it, my dear."
She reddened, and she was angry with herself for doing so. "Exactly," she snapped and ate the rest of her soup in silence. Yet she couldn't help but be aware of the duke's nearness, the way he looked at her between sips and inclined his body in her direction. Strange that he should want to leave a house that seemed to suit him so well. Despite the trepidation that fluttered in her belly, Victoria's lips twitched at the thought of his "renovating" the Dowager House by adding dust, mold, and cobwebs.
The maid returned with a roast and some indefinable vegetable dish. After carving the meat, the manservant silently set a plate before her, the quantity heaped upon it more substantial than she expected for a second course.
"This is the rest of the meal," Raeburn explained, looking at her with an expression of amused condescension. "We eat simply here."
"I see," Victoria said, giving the two words ample significance.
The moon-faced maid curtseyed, and she and the manservant retired at Raeburn's wave, leaving them alone.
The silence spread between them, thin and tense, punctuated only by the hiss and spark of the fire on the hearth. Raeburn searched her face again with his too-personal gaze, though what he expected to find, she couldn't guess. Finally, out of sheer awkwardness, she tried to establish conversation on a more amicable level.
"Tell me, your grace, what is the history of the manor? It looks to be as old as the conquest."
"Older, though there's nothing remaining from those days. Ask Fane if you really wish to know." He looked at her, a forkful of meat
suspended in the air. "I would rather talk of more interesting things." He took the bite. "Such as you."
Victoria blinked, taken off guard. "I assure you, your grace, there is nothing about me that is of interest to anyone."
He gestured with the fork before scooping up another bite. "That's exactly what you want them to believe."
"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked stiffly. She shouldn't encourage him, but she was curious despite herself. What could he think that he knew about her? Certainly not her mad streak, the wildness she kept so carefully hidden that not even her family had ever guessed its presence.
He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then swallowed, his curiously shifting eyes never leaving her face. "Let me tell you how I see you, and you will know exactly what I mean."
She snorted indelicately. "You've already told me. A dull, aging spinster with a fondness for manipulation."
He chuckled softly. "You manage to make it sound so… well, dull." He set aside his knife and fork and leaned forward, studying her. "I see a woman who tries very hard to make herself unnoticed. A woman who sits against the wall by choice, not by necessity. The only daughter of an earl—one should think you'd find a husband easily. I see no obvious flaws."
She raised an eyebrow. "Then what are the less obvious ones?"
He chuckled again, leaning so close she could smell the cologne he'd used that morning, dark with spices and sandalwood. "Your flaws and perfections go so closely hand in hand it is impossible to separate them."
"Oh?" she said, trying to keep her voice even.
"Oh," he repeated teasingly. His eyes narrowed as he considered her. This close, they were more green than brown—amber-flecked emerald, she found herself thinking to her own bemusement. Yet the bemusement was detached because his nearness demanded almost all her attention. "Your face, for example—it is not beautiful."
"I never aspired to beauty," she said tartly, stabbing at a limp vegetable. "It incites neither my envy nor my admiration."
"Nor should it, for you are still a handsome woman, handsome in a way that makes mere beauty ashamed of its callowness."
Victoria smiled humorlessly. "'Mere beauty,' as you call it, has never envied me, either." Yet despite her reflexive cynicism, there seemed to be something honest in Raeburn's description that she hadn't sensed in anyone in a very long time. It intrigued her—and fed the warm flush that spread across her skin where his gaze touched her.
"It should," he insisted, his voice dropping on the last word. "Your forehead is high, but it is no flaw, for it balances your jaw, which shows a tendency to jut outwards when you are irritated. Like now. You should be more careful with that." He reached out, and before she knew what he was about, he touched her face, following the line of her cheek down to her chin and tracing it across. His touch was butterfly-light, but even so, she could feel the calluses of his hands, subtle and strong. She caught her breath, desire knotting in her center, and instinctively turned into the caress. In her mind whispered the words, Too long, too long, and she heard the dangerous, reckless rush of blood in her ears. "A strong jaw, but not heavy—stubborn yet feminine, like the thin thrust of your nose." He touched that, too. No one had ever touched her nose with such delicate inquisitiveness before. It was strange and somehow almost more intimate than a flagrant caress. He smiled as he surveyed her, his craggy face softening until it was almost gentle. But not quite. A proprietary gleam shone in his eyes, mat of a lord surveying territory soon to be his.
Shaking off the mesmerism of his touch, she straightened abruptly and pulled away from him. "There is no need for courting and fine words. I am yours by word and by contract."
A mask slid across Raeburn's face. "Pardon me, your ladyship. I didn't realize appreciation would be so ill-received."
"Appreciation—perhaps!" she returned. "Flattery? I think not."
"My dear Lady Victoria, as you have so cleverly put it, I have little need for flattery with you." He stood abruptly, shoving his chair away from the table. "Come. We are finished dining for tonight."
She froze. "I am still hungry." The words came out cold and brittle as apprehension seized her in its grip.
Raeburn sat as suddenly as he had stood, seeming to melt into an indolently boneless lounge as soon as he touched the chair. The ire he had just shown all but evaporated, evident only in the slightly stiff line of his back, the too-casual tilt of his head. Yet she had the feeling that he had won some obscure victory through her admission: She had shown the first sign of weakness.
"Then, my dear Lady Victoria, please continue—eat," he said. "I would not like it said that I starve my guests."
Victoria's stomach was clenched too tightly to do anything but lurch threateningly at the thought of more food, but she cut off a tiny sliver of roast anyway and began chewing it slowly.
Byron watched her blatantly, amusement softening his irritation. Lady Victoria had been almost completely collected up until the moment he'd actually suggested that they leave—then came the crack in the façade, more obvious for the contrast with the smooth perfection of her earlier demeanor. She was flushed, flustered—exactly as he wanted her. She managed to be far too disconcerting when she was on her balance.
Actually, how he wanted her was out of that damned dress. It was more hideous than her traveling attire, though he wouldn't have believed such a thing were possible an hour before. Her hair, too, was even more tightly and unflatteringly plastered against her skull. He had the obscure conviction that it was a deliberate mockery, and he resisted the urge to reach out and pluck away the pins, one by one. Instead, he sat back in his chair and watched her pick at her food.
"So, your ladyship, if we are not to discuss you, what can we talk about?" he mused, more than half to himself. "Politics? Society? The weather?"
Lady Victoria looked up, her pale eyes slanted dangerously. "I've heard it said that every man's favorite topic is himself." She put a slice of roast into her mouth and bit down hard, her jaw muscles bulging slightly with the force of her anger.
"I am not accustomed to discussing myself," Byron said elusively, frowning at her sudden redirection. "We shall speak on something else."
"Oh, yes, your grace, I forgot," she said, her voice sweet with spite. "The Duke of Raeburn does not stand up to scrutiny. He desires to lurk in shadows, to wrap the fabric of dark night and darker rumors about himself." She raised her fork and waggled it at him as she spoke, and he felt an angry heat rush into his face as she smiled archly. "He only travels in a heavy-draped carriage, is only seen in society between the hours of dusk and dawn, and even rides under the cover of night Everyone wonders, What does he fear? Why does he hide? Is he deformed? Unnatural?"
The white heat overtaking him, Byron snaked his arm across the table and seized her hand, stilling the fork at the end of its swing. How dare she mock him? How dare she come, an old society maid, and march into his life to make judgments on subjects she knew nothing about?
A small piece of him realized that he was being irrational, but he didn't care. Her hard-edged expression reminded him of all the other faces that had gaped at him over the years—speculative ladies whispering behind fans, children gazing at him with the bold curiosity of youth, and, years before, the half-pitying, half-fearful looks of his own nursery servants and the image of one young face set in an expression of such horror and revulsion that another quarter century could not begin to erase a single detail from the picture burned into his mind. The memories flooded over him, as if the prying, judging eyes of his thirty-four years were staring at him all at once, and he shoved them away with vicious desperation.
"What do you know of me and my reasons?" he rasped out. "What right do you have to make such ignorant pronouncements?"
Lady Victoria kept her silence. Her hand felt cold in his, small and frail. He could crush it with a single squeeze. He could feel the weakness in her bones, and when she looked up across the table to meet his eyes, he could read in her expression that she felt it,
too.
But there was no fear in those blue eyes, no shrinking away from his strength, his control. Instead, they were lit with contempt, and a sneer curled her lip when she spoke.
"Let go. You're hurting me."
Each word was leveled as an accusation, more damning than the most furious diatribe. He released her as if burned. Monster. Beast. The words could not have hung more piercingly between them if she had spat them at his face.
Byron sat back, exhaling sharply. "And so what do you think?" he said, shifting the conversation back toward its original course. A form of morbid self-flagellation, he knew, but he had never earned it more than today.
"About you?" Lady Victoria sat back, too, her eyes hidden by a pale fringe of lashes as she regarded the play of light across the surface of the fork that she twirled idly in her fingers. She looked at him meaningfully and set it down across her plate with exaggerated care. "Your grace," she demurred, "as you say, I should hardly dare have an opinion about you."
Byron snorted. "I don't believe you have ever 'not dared' to have an opinion in your life."
A flash of humor passed across her face, and a rag of surprised laughter was torn from her, a sound that thrilled up his spine and left him hungry for more. The expression was gone in an instant, but when it disappeared, it took with it the hint of malice that had tightened her eyes and made her face seem older, harder.
"Such unexpected levity, your grace. For that alone, I must consider." She tipped her head to the side, examining him, and he found himself uncomfortable under the intrusion of her gaze. It wasn't that she seemed to see beneath his clothes—he had given and received plenty of those looks in the past and enjoyed both thoroughly—but she seemed to look through his skin, too, to the sinews that bound his muscles to their bones, to the surface of his brain where his thoughts were read as they flashed fleetingly across. Could she also see the hidden debility, the one no doctor could ever understand? He almost believed anything was possible for her.