by Stacy Reid
The teacup slipped from his hand, dropped to the floor, and broke apart. A footman moved right away to clean the mess, and she could only stare at her brother’s flushed countenance. The fear that rushed through Maryann made her so aghast that she feared she would swoon. “Crispin, answer me!”
“Of course not,” he said. “Who…who is Arianna?”
Yet it was not her imagination that his voice trembled over the name.
“I believe her to have been a friend of Lord Rothbury.”
“You’ve spoken to him?” he demanded sharply.
“On a number of occasions,” she replied with casual ease.
“If he has the effrontery to ever approach you again…” Crispin choked on his outrage.
She would not lie to him about the attachment she felt for Nicolas. “Crispin, the marquess and I…we have an understanding of sorts. There will come a day when he will speak to Papa.”
The shock of that declaration propelled her brother to half rise from his seat. “Have you lost your senses?”
“Possibly,” she said gently. “And my heart is under threat as well.”
He slammed back down in the chair as if he had collapsed. Crispin pointed at the paper. “Do you understand this man’s reputation? He is disreputable. How…” He closed his eyes briefly. “You are to stay away from him. He is a threat to decency everywhere. This will prove to be the shabbiest affair, the worst scandal of the season, and we do not want to remind society that your names were recently associated. There is even a rumor at the club he is seeking a mistress,” he hissed.
A jolt went through her. A mistress?
“As you said, Crispin, it is a rumor.”
A black scowl settled on his face, and Maryann knew better than to agitate the matter any further, so she busied herself with slathering strawberry preserves on another slice of toast. But she did not remove her regard from her brother’s narrow-eyed contemplation. She held his gaze without wavering, appearing totally at ease.
“If you do not listen to me, I will most certainly inform our parents of this unsavory attachment.”
“Hmm,” she said around a bite of the crunchy toast. “I am positively quaking in my boots.”
His lips twitched. “Since I have been acquainted with you from the cradle, I can tell that you are decided, and I will not be able to aid you in this romance.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Do you recall what I told you yesterday after the carriage mishap?”
“Yes.”
“Remember it.”
It took him a bit, but the tension eased from his shoulders.
“Crispin?”
He paused in the act of spearing most of a kipper onto his fork.
“Do you promise that you did not know an Arianna?”
He met her unflinching regard. “I promise it, poppet.”
“Good, then might I ask you to accompany me to Vanguard Manor next week?”
“Whatever for?” he asked, disgruntled. “It is at least a two-hour ride.”
Maryann was certain it was only a bit over an hour, but her brother tended to exaggerate whenever he did not want to do a task. “It is not today I wish to go, only that you add it to your calendar to take me there next week. We do not need to stay overnight. I would much prefer to journey down in the morning and come back to town in the evening.”
“What nonsense did you leave there?” he asked with a heavy sigh. “And can we not send a note and have one of the footmen deliver it here?”
Maryann smiled, knowing she could always rely on her brother.
“I want to catch fireflies,” she murmured, standing.
“Fireflies!”
“Yes…fireflies,” she said over her shoulders, making her way to prepare for an outing with her friends in St. James Park. Their merry band of sinful wallflowers needed to be told that Nicolas St. Ives, London’s wickedest rake, had asked her, Maryann Fitzwilliam, a known wallflower, to wait for him.
And she needed to desperately ask their opinion on if she was being foolish at the dreams that had blossomed through her heart last night and the frightening realization that she was indeed falling hopelessly in love with Nicolas St. Ives.
Chapter Seventeen
Nicolas had sat in his study for the last few hours, staring at the same ledger. Well, there was some progress, for he had at least turned the first page. He was wholly distracted by thoughts of Lady Maryann and had no notion how to dismiss her from his awareness.
Lady Maryann was an unexpected, inexplicable force of chaos in his well-ordered and purpose-driven existence. Nicolas didn’t trust his unfamiliar, extraordinary reaction to her, simply because he had never felt it for another. She lingered too much in his thoughts and dreams and despite his honed willpower, he could not dismiss her from his awareness. He recalled the faint evocative perfume he smelled on her skin, suspecting it was more the lady’s unique fragrance.
Last night…and well into this morning had been like a dream, one he wanted to recapture and hoard deep inside his heart. Hell, it even perplexed him to be thinking about his damn heart. When he’d whispered to her to wait for him, the desire had surged from a place inside he hadn’t known existed. He had ached and hungered, and for the first time he had found himself yearning for an existence he had not allowed himself to contemplate even briefly.
So, you are not afraid to love then.
How delighted she’d sounded, how mysterious and naughty that curve to her mouth had been, and that look in her eyes. He swallowed, tipping his gaze to the ceiling. And when he had lewdly dragged her quim across his aching cock without any care for her sensibilities, he’d felt the start of surprise in her body, tasted the moan of surrender.
A loud knock on the door jerked Nicolas from his reverie, and then his normally unflappable butler entered, appearing distinctly harried. “I know you are to be undisturbed, your lordship, but despite informing this gentleman you are not available to callers, he has rudely barged in and is demanding—”
A shadow loomed behind him, and a large imposing figure pushed past his butler.
“All is well, Dobson, you may leave,” Nicolas murmured, staring at the Earl of Tremelle, who was Viscount Weychell’s father. “To what do I owe the honor of this unprecedented visit?”
The earl took his time looking around the large study, from the wall of bookcases, to the globe tossed casually on the green and gold oriental carpet, the scrolls on the sofa closest to the fire, and then to Nicolas, who sat behind a large oak desk with a pile of ledgers before him and a half decanter of brandy.
Nicolas saw an arrogant man, slim and impeccably but conservatively tailored in almost unrelieved black. His waistcoat gave the only variation in color from the pristine black of his costume and white of his linen. A faint golden stripe was barely perceptible in its black silk cloth. Nicolas admired the conceit; it was effective. The earl’s face might have once been considered handsome, although the lines now cut deep and around his thin mouth were set into a permanent expression of sour disdain.
“I have been watching you for some weeks now,” the earl said, walking over to the bookshelf and taking up a small leather-bound book.
The words fell in the air, the tone of the earl a man confident in his societal power.
Nicolas leaned back in his chair, reposing at ease, one leg stretched out before him, adopting an indifferent mien. “You have been watching me,” he repeated softly.
“You are a hard man to pinpoint with your erratic schedule.”
“Then I tip my hat to your investigators.”
The earl smiled, but his eyes were chilled. This man was furious. And he was Weychell’s father.
Ah, so it’s you.
The shadowed man on the board was the Earl of Tremelle. This was the man who sought his weakness…and this was the man who had ordered for Maryann
to be placed in harm’s way. And how unconcerned he appeared standing in Nicolas’s study, casually thumbing through the pages of a book he’d plucked from the bookshelf.
“I have taken my son and removed him from your reach. He will be living abroad for the next few years.”
The anger icing through Nicolas’s veins felt so visceral, he had to take a few deep breaths and steady himself against the feeling. He had never been the kind of person to feel or display an excessive use of emotions, and he would not start now.
“After reading about Farringdon in the papers early this morning, I had to act with all haste.”
“Did you?” Nicolas murmured, leaning back in his chair.
“As we speak, my son is boarding a ship down by the docks.”
At Nicolas’s silence, the earl slipped the book into its place on the shelf and walked over. The earl peered down at him, and Nicolas kept his expression inscrutable. A silence lingered, throbbing with undertones of tension. He did not rush to speak, patiently waiting, unruffled that the earl loomed above him.
“You are very different from what you present to the world,” the earl said thoughtfully. “As I suspected you are not a coxcomb at all, but a man very driven and intense.”
Nicolas stood and made his way to the windows overlooking the small garden of his town house. There he leaned against the wall, keeping his back to the earl. “You went to the Asylum asking about me.”
“That I did.”
“There is a rumor you and your son have not spoken in seventeen months.”
“More than a rumor, I’m afraid. In fact, I believe it was you whispering in his ears which gave him the courage to defy me. Instead of sending that actress and his two bastards away, he instead provided them with a fortune. You were the devil on his shoulder, and he was simply too naive to see it.”
Nicolas shifted so he could regard the earl fully. “And as he was about to be hooked, you ran to the rescue,” he murmured with dangerous restraint.
Lord Tremelle’s lips flattened. “My son might not be the brightest of them, but his spate of bad luck I could no longer ignore. He is my heir, and one day I will leave him a considerable inheritance. I would have neglected my duty if I had ignored that everything he damn well touched turned to a rotten fruit. No man is that dim-witted or has that much ill-luck. Every misfortune was from your machinations.”
The earl’s intervention was a situation Nicolas had not anticipated. The viscount himself had often lamented about the distance between himself and his father, forced even wider after his mismanagement of his sizeable allowance and the loss of a few unentailed estates his father had left in his care. Estates Nicolas had won from him while gambling, but to gain Weychell’s trust, he had refused the deeds or the monies he had won.
“And of course, you did everything to save him from the devil,” he said mockingly.
“My investigation took several months, and it was clear to me you were a damn snake in the garden, and they did not know about it! You have been silently stalking him for more than a year, destroying everything he tried to invest in. When the ruination of the duke began, I suspected my son would be next in your wicked scheme.”
“Ah, so you are not at all curious about what he did to earn my displeasure.”
The earl took a step to him. “I cannot imagine what could have happened that you would betray a fellow gentleman in such a manner.”
“The manners of your son are not of someone of quality. He is in truth little more than a soft piece of turd.”
The earl flushed angrily, and his gaze narrowed. “My son has some untidy habits, but nothing that requires this scheme against him.”
Nicolas’s brows rose in polite surprise. “Untidy habits? Never heard rape so stated before.”
The earl froze. “I beg your pardon. My son would not partake in an act so vile. What need he have to force anyone? He is a future earl!”
“Yet he did. Ten years ago, he and a few of his friends did. He escaped justice then; he will not escape it now.”
They stared at each other for several moments. The earl retrieved a pocket watch and peered at the time. “His ship has set sail. You will have to suffice with the many discomforts you have already caused him. Because of you, he will be living on a plantation in America, in a place called Virginia for the foreseeable future. That place is not refined like here and his life will be hard without his society.”
Nicolas gently scoffed. “Your son is a traitor to the crown. With the right agitation, he will never be able to return to England’s shores.”
The earl’s eyes grew cold. “My son never was a bloody traitor. And should you start such a scandal, I will see you finished,” he roared.
“You could try,” Nicolas said with infuriating calm. “I promise I will extend my arms of influence across the oceans and ensure his life is miserable. And you…you I will absolutely kill.”
The earl did a credible job in retaining his composure, but Nicolas saw the flicker of apprehension in the man’s gaze.
“I believe you,” the earl said with a vein of shock. “I declare you are more savage than I believed. What did my son do to—”
“It was what you did,” Nicolas hissed, pushing from the wall. “You attempted to harm Lady Maryann without any regard of her person.”
“This…this is about her?”
An inexplicable feeling blossomed inside Nicolas when he realized all the emotions rioting through him since the earl had revealed himself and had clearly been responsible for the danger that had almost shattered Maryann. Because this man had plotted such a vicious attack against her when she was innocent in this whole mess. “You arranged for a carriage to run her over.”
The earl scrubbed a hand across his face. “I gave orders that she should not be harmed. It was meant only to scare her.”
“Is that so?” Nicolas said with soft menace. “If she goes to Hyde Park tomorrow, stubs her toe, falls and hurt herself, I will believe it was done by your hand. If anything happens to her, blame will be laid at your feet.”
“Do not be ridiculous—”
“And I will kill you.”
“You speak of murder so casually—” the earl began with seething outrage.
“I will kill you.”
“By God, you mean it!” The earl frowned. “She means that much to you,” he said with cold calculation.
“She means nothing to me.” Maryann is becoming my world. But no one must know it until everything was done.
Incredulity filled the earl’s gaze and he shook his head, sharply as if disconcerted. “Do you know who I am?” the earl snapped, his light gray eyes darkening. “You dare threaten me?”
“Of course,” Nicolas said, his tone one of icy civility. “But it has become clear to me you do not know who I am. I am the man willing to do anything and destroy everything you hold dear if you even think to harm Lady Maryann. The only thing that is important is you believe this to be possible, Lord Tremelle.”
The earl faltered, and they stared at each other, the only sound in the room the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Lord Tremelle glanced away, and a deep sigh of wariness rolled from him. “It was a mistake sending those ruffians to Lady Maryann. I assure you, such a mistake will not happen again.”
The earl whirled around and walked away. His hand on the doorknob, he hesitated and said, “Let my son go out of your scheme, Rothbury.”
“When your son was finished with the girl he attacked, she flung herself into a river to her death. She was only sixteen.”
Lord Tremelle stiffened and he sucked in a harsh breath. “My son would never act with such rank dishonor.”
“The lord with the blond hair and blue eyes with a scar splitting his lower lip. He laughed through my screams, ’tis a sound I shall remember on my way to hell, for I am no longer worthy of heaven. It was a sound th
at demeaned and ridiculed…it was a sound that found humor in my torment.” A harsh chuckle slipped from Nicolas. “That is what she said in her letter about your honorable son.”
The earl’s knuckles whitened on the doorknob. “Let his exile from everything that he loves, his children, his mistress, his mother, and his sisters, all his vices and the balls and races to attend will be no more. I will exile him for ten years. He will feel the pain of it all. Let that be punishment enough.”
Then he wrenched open the door and vanished down the hallway.
…
Precisely three days after Lord Tremelle’s visit, Nicolas admitted himself to another town house in Mayfair gardens. Keeping his hat firmly on his head and tugged low, he padded down the hallway, and then made his way up the winding staircase. For the last few days, a man had been watching Stamford’s home, while another ferreted out every detail of information about the earl’s coming and goings, which an overworked but ill-favored scullery maid had gladly provided for a few coins.
Nicolas waited until after midnight before stealing inside the man’s residence. The information gathered said Stamford would be home tonight, and that a lady from a bordello would soon appear in a carriage and spend the night being debauched by the earl. Nicolas had an hour before she would arrive.
He only needed five minutes.
He twisted the doorknob and opened the door soundlessly. The earl stood by the fire dressed only in a red silk banyan, sipping from a glass. Brandy perhaps. Nicolas deliberately allowed the door to creak when he pushed it wider, but Stamford did not turn around.
“You are early,” he said, sounding repulsively displeased.
Nicolas padded over to the shadows cast by the man’s massive four-poster bed, arching a brow at the sexual instruments laid out in a neat row on the mattress. An ivory dildo, a flogger, and a jar of cream.
“I have intruded,” Nicolas said, keeping his voice low.
Stamford was not a man easily startled, for he displayed an admirably calm composure at the sound of someone in his private rooms. He turned slowly, still drinking his liquor, but his gaze unerringly went to the spot Nicolas stood. Nor did Stamford waste any time with inane questions as to how he had gained entry.