The Sinful Nights of a Nobleman

by Jillian Hunter

  “Mr. Griffin,” Devon said in an undertone. “If you are here to discuss what happened between us today, then let me speak first on the matter. I was entirely in the wrong to assume that you—”

  “We can apologize to each other later,” the young man said in a manner that Devon might have interpreted as brash had he not perceived the sense of panic beneath it. “I have come here about your wife, my lord.”

  “My wife? What about her?” he asked tightly, not appreciating the fact that Drake was listening with obvious relish to this discussion.

  “Pray,” the Latin master said in earnest appeal, “do not believe that I in any manner encouraged what I am about to show you.” He reached into his vest pocket. “Nor do I believe for one instant that your wife wrote this.”

  Devon drew a breath. He could feel Drake at his back watching, as with a trembling hand, Mr. Griffin pulled out a folded note and handed it to him. He opened it and read.

  Know that my heart is yours, even as I pay for the regrettable mistake of my marriage. You have spoken of the wild beauty of Wales with such passion that I yearn to escape there with you. Will you challenge my husband for our freedom?

  Your Cleopatra

  J

  “I swear to you upon my soul,” the young man said in an earnest voice, “I did not encourage—”

  Devon looked up with a flash of emotion, realizing that the fellow was afraid he would be accused of adultery. Well, no wonder, the way Devon had behaved toward him today. Still, even if he had been misled once by a forgery, he knew Jocelyn’s handwriting now and he would not be deceived again. “My wife did not write this. Do you think for a moment I would be so easily deceived?”

  Mr. Griffin practically collapsed with relief. “Who would conspire thus against such a good-hearted lady? Who would want to destroy innocent people?”

  Silence fell. Devon stared distractedly out the window into the street as a bell-ringing zealot paused outside Grayson’s mansion to mutter a warning to the Hell-bound guests within. Religious disciples had been targeting the Boscastle family ever since he could remember, generally to no avail. And it had not escaped his attention that the Latin instructor had remarked upon Jocelyn’s good heart, but not that of her husband. Well, it was an omission well-deserved.

  “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” the zealot outside cried up at the house. “How art thou—”

  The cloaked figure had barely resumed his sermon before two liveried Boscastle footmen hoisted him up under the armpits and unceremoniously bore him off into the night. “I am a messenger of God….”

  “Well, brother of Lucifer,” Drake said amusedly to Devon after a long moment passed, “it seems you have an enemy, indeed.”

  Devon looked away from the window. Messenger of God. The words echoed; a recollection stirred.

  “I don’t have any enemies,” he said, shaking his head. “I only have friends. You said it yourself.”

  “Who?” Drake asked quietly. “Think hard. Review each moment in your memory for the answer.”

  “A messenger of God,” Devon said slowly. “ ‘Wives and concubines.’ That is what the gossip paper said of our family, and I do not think it is an original phrase.”

  “It is from the Bible, my lord,” Mr. Griffin said. “The Book of Daniel, as I recall. Could this malefactor have connections to the church?”

  “Most of Devon’s acquaintances attend church only when eulogized after an early death,” Drake remarked.

  Devon frowned at him. “Yet I think Mr. Griffin is right. And I also think I know who the malefactor is. ‘What say you we bring down Babylon?’ ”

  Someone gave a loud cough behind them. Devon glanced around distractedly to see Gabriel dressed in the flowing royal-blue robes of a medieval wizard. “If Babylon has fallen,” Gabriel said, obviously not grasping the gist of the conversation, “I will probably be blamed for it even though I have not been in London the past few days. I don’t suppose anyone missed me while I was gone?”

  Drake laughed. “I thought the town seemed rather quiet lately. What have you been up to, or shouldn’t I inquire?”

  Devon stepped forward to seize Gabriel by the arm. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not?” Gabriel demanded in mock alarm.

  “Because you’re coming with me.”

  “Am I?” Gabriel asked in surprise, lowering his twisted willow wand. “Let me make sure I understand this. Are you asking for my help?”

  Drake’s angular face darkened. “The hell he is. If anyone is going to help him, it’s me.”

  “I need you to stay here and keep an eye on my wife, Drake.” Devon nudged Gabriel toward the door.

  Drake stared at him in astonishment. “What?”

  “Don’t take offense,” Devon said. “You’re a happily married man, and I don’t trust Gabriel alone with my wife for a single moment.”

  Gabriel smiled mildly. “I wouldn’t trust myself with her, either.”

  They drove southeast in Gabriel’s carriage from Grayson’s home to St. James’s Street, Gabriel not asking unnecessary questions, yet willing to offer his support. Devon thought fleetingly that he did not know much about Gabriel’s background, except for the fact that his cousin had apparently known some rough years. Gabriel never talked about himself, or his past.

  “I appreciate your willingness to help me,” he said as the carriage rolled to a halt over the cobbles. “I can’t think of another person I could ask to help me—and who would agree without asking why.”

  “Better the devil you know?”

  “From one devil to another,” Devon conceded.

  Gabriel nodded in good humor. “I’ll take that as a compliment to my character. I don’t receive many these days.”

  “May I assume that you’ll be my accomplice if I commit murder?”

  Gabriel shrugged beneath his costume. “You ask that as if it were my first time.”

  Devon shook his head.

  “Who are we hunting tonight, by the way?” Gabriel inquired.

  Devon’s lips curled into a sneer. “Captain Matthew Thurlew.”

  “The pastor’s eldest son?” Gabriel asked after a pause.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, damn me. Wasn’t his brother Daniel your accomplice in that botched highway robbery not long ago?”

  Devon gave a snort of self-disgust. “I’d rather you didn’t remind me. But, yes. You’re right.”

  “Did you know his brother had taken to robbing coaches for a living until he was caught three months ago?” Gabriel asked almost conversationally. “I’d heard he killed a banker’s clerk on Crawley Downs. Word is the damned idiot is due for an execution.”

  Devon shook his head again. “That I didn’t know.” But now that he knew, he supposed that Matthew Thurlew might blame him for leading his younger brother astray, although Daniel had never displayed much of a social conscience to begin with. He’d been an amusing if amoral young vandal when Devon had met him. They would not have remained friends for long under any circumstances.

  “In my opinion,” Gabriel remarked as they walked toward the entrance of the club, “there’s nothing worse than hiding one’s sins behind the shield of religion.”

  “I would venture to say that you and I have not bothered overmuch to hide our sins at all,” Devon said.

  “Perhaps if you and I had put our heads together,” Gabriel continued, “we might have realized that Thurlew was trying to destroy you all along. I might even have helped you.”

  Devon grunted. “You helped yourself to Lily Cranleigh, didn’t you?”

  “I really didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “I didn’t.” He paused, scowling. “But my wife is another matter.”

  “Thurlew must have put those rumors in the scandal sheets.”

  “I expect so,” Devon muttered.

  “And the invitations to the tower.”

  Devon nodded grimly. “Yes.”

  Gabriel gl
anced at him. “It was Thurlew who planted the coffin at Fernshaw’s party.”

  Devon nodded again, stone-faced, and started to walk toward the club. “Let’s put an end to his pranks once and for all.”

  But to his frustration Captain Thurlew had not been seen at the club in the last two days, according to the waiters, one of whom informed Devon in private that the captain had moved his lodgings recently to a more decent Downing Street address.

  “I remember he complained of the riffraff in his old neighborhood, my lord. Said it offended his morals.”

  “Morals,” Gabriel mused under his voice as he and Devon exited the club and stood once again on the sidewalk. He glanced at his cousin. “Are you in love with your wife?”

  “What business is it of yours if I am?” Devon asked indignantly, the question taking him completely off guard.

  Gabriel gave a deep chuckle. “I thought you were.”

  “Sod off, would you?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Jocelyn smiled at each guest who was presented to her at Grayson’s masquerade until her lips ached from doing so. She made excuses for Devon’s absence until she ran out of both breath and conviction. She had no idea how to explain his disappearance; she only knew that his older brother Drake was watching her as if there were some mischief afoot.

  Well, whatever the reason Devon had disappeared, there was definitely mischief at work inside her body. She was not at all herself, she realized in the middle of a waltz with one of Devon’s cousins. She felt queasy and tempted to weep all of a sudden, prompting her young dance partner to stare at her in concern.

  “Perhaps you ought to eat,” he suggested under his breath. “They never feed you enough at these formal affairs. All this dancing works up the appetite.”

  “Perhaps a bite or two would help,” she agreed, surprised that the thought of food sounded tempting.

  “Let’s find Jane,” he said, taking her hand. “There’s no fun in waltzing about on an empty stomach.”

  A few minutes later Jane sought Jocelyn out in the refreshment room. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked with a smile of concern, motioning the footmen in attendance to close the door.

  Jocelyn put down the bowl of rose jelly she was in the process of finishing. “Tell you what?”

  “I craved jellies like a fiend when I was carrying Rowan,” Jane whispered. “And cake. And custard.”

  “But I can’t be…it’s too soon.”

  “No, it’s not,” Jane said with a wistful laugh. “As a matter of fact, we could announce it at the end of the party. Grayson loves that sort of surprise, although on second thought, perhaps we shouldn’t. Not quite yet.”

  “When will I know?” Jocelyn wondered aloud.

  “Soon enough, believe me,” Jane replied. “I wonder whether you shall have a son or a daughter. There’s an apothecary in town who swears he can tell what gender a child will be before it is born. But it does require passing water into a pan of ashes, I’m afraid. I never told Grayson that I went, mind you. I made Weed swear to keep it secret.”

  Jocelyn released her breath. Pregnant. She had conceived a child, one with a lustful appetite it would seem. At least that explained her moody reaction to Devon’s behavior, but it did not explain his behavior at all. He wasn’t enceinte, tearful, and eating like a battalion of soldiers. He simply wasn’t here.

  “It would not be kind to share such news while Chloe is still grieving her loss,” she said reflectively.

  Jane nodded. “And one never knows. Those first months are precarious as the baby takes hold in the womb. Oh, Jocelyn, I am happy for you—would you like to come up to the nursery and sit with my son? I shall send the nurse to the kitchen for pastry and chocolate for a private celebration.”

  Jocelyn could not refuse her sister-in-law’s offer, even if pastry seemed a poor substitute for Devon’s presence. “Let me tell Drake first where I am going. He’s guarded me so diligently that I fear Eloise has been quite ignored.”

  Indeed, Drake was watching her from the doorway as she wended her way through the crowded room to inform him of her plans. Jocelyn had the sense that he had not taken her out of his sight for even a minute.

  She understood that the Boscastle family only meant to protect her, to cover for Devon’s absence, but all their attention only heightened her anxiety because she had no idea where her husband had gone. And then she overheard a group of young guests talking at the refreshment table, and her worry seemed to multiply.

  “Where is Devon, anyway?”

  “He and Gabriel went to the club.”

  “And he left his wife, looking as fetching as she does in that costume? Damned arrogant devil. He’s asking for her to enter an affair.”

  “Well, he’s made it no secret that he never considered himself a man for marriage. One wouldn’t expect him to stay chained to her side.”

  Jocelyn backed away, straight into the arms of her brother-in-law Drake. He glanced at the guests standing around the table. The group fell into an awkward silence.

  “Is anything wrong?” Drake inquired, his eyes narrowing as he guided her toward the door.

  “No. I’m—” She did not trust herself to behave for another minute. She felt cross, concerned for her husband, and concerned that she was proving to be such a bother to the Boscastle family. “If you don’t mind, I shall heft my ball and chain back upstairs to the nursery and remove my dull presence from the party.”

  “As you wish, Jocelyn.” He sent a withering stare over his shoulder at the guests who still had not resumed their conversation at the table. “Although I do not think it is your presence that should be removed.”

  “I wish you’d all stop,” she whispered as he began to walk her to the stairs.

  He frowned. “Stop what?”

  “Watching over me as if something is wrong. There isn’t anything wrong, is there?”

  He came to a halt at the bottom of the staircase. “Devon and Gabriel have gone to confront the man responsible for the personal attacks upon you and my brother. My brother is pursuing honor, not another woman, if that’s what you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t wondering that at all…. Do I know this person?”

  “I doubt it,” Drake said somberly. “His name is Matthew Thurlew.”

  She strained her memory for only a moment before another thought beset her. “There won’t be a physical confrontation between them, will there?” she asked, recalling how Devon had flown into the boughs at the park. “Shouldn’t you have gone with him instead of watching over me?”

  He guided her onto the staircase, a man evidently comfortable with calming females. “Will there be a physical confrontation? I should be surprised if there were not. Should I have gone with him? He deemed it more important that I stay with you.” His blue eyes smoldered with dark humor. “And as deeply as it pains me to admit it, I believe that with Devon and Gabriel joining forces, I would only be in the way.”

  Devon and Gabriel drove southeast to Thurlew’s Downing Street lodgings only to discover not their quarry in residence, but instead one of their mutual acquaintances, a harmless fop named Gilbert Amherst, dozing on the sofa. He opened his eyes and swallowed in speechless horror upon realizing that a pair of pistols were pressed at the ready against either side of his head. “I don’t have any cash,” he whispered. “Nor jewels except for my grandmama’s pearl ring sewn in my—”

  “Shut up, you blithering idiot,” Devon said between his teeth. “Where is Thurlew?”

  “Boscastle?” He blinked and glanced from one corner of his eyes to the other in recognition. “And Boscastle? We’re friends, aren’t we? I’ve never done either of you a wrong. Aren’t we all friends?”

  Devon lowered the pistol in disgust.

  Gabriel laughed. “That depends. Do you know where Thurlew is?”

  Gilbert swallowed. “Isn’t he here?”

  “No,” Devon said roughly. “He isn’t, but if you know where he is you damned well better t
ell me.”

  “He must have gone to the masquerade,” Gilbert said meekly, leaning his head back on the sofa.

  Devon wrenched him up by the ruffles of his shirtfront. “What masquerade?”

  “The-the one at your brother’s house. You invited him, didn’t you?” His lower lip quivered. “Shouldn’t you be there?”

  Devon released him instantly and sprang to his feet, Gabriel right behind him. “He’s right. I should have stayed with her.”

  “Drake is there.”

  “So are a hundred other people, one of them Matthew Thurlew. And nobody invited the bastard, either.”

  Drake escorted Jocelyn to the nursery with a glance inside to note Mrs. O’Brien dozing in her chair by the low-burning fire, and Rowan asleep in his cradle. There was a pot of chocolate and a plate of orange-cream cake sitting on the two-tiered table.

  He grinned. “Not exactly the makings of an exciting evening, but it looks safe enough.”

  Jocelyn smiled. “I don’t mind the quiet.”

  “Well, just be warned that Mrs. O’Brien is prone to singing lullabies when the whimsy strikes. Jane and the baby find her crooning pleasant. Grayson does not.”

  Jocelyn settled down on the stool that sat beside the cradle. “I feel sleepy enough as it is. I should hate to shame myself by dozing off like an old dog.”

  “Another warning,” Drake added, hesitating at the door. “Rowan is an infamous farter.”

  “A what?” she asked.

  He rubbed the side of his nose. “For a small blighter, he breaks copious amounts of wind. I wouldn’t want it to frighten you. He almost put out all the gaslights in the city not long ago.”

  She got up, trying not to laugh. He looked so serious. “I shall bear that warning in mind.”

  “Fine then. I suppose you’re safe enough here. I’ll send Weed or another footman up to stand outside for your convenience.”

  “Quietly, please,” she said with an amused glance at the unmoving nursemaid. “I wouldn’t want to awaken either of them.”