by Liz Carlyle
A Woman of Virtue
Liz Carlyle
Prologue
Who Can Find a Virtuous Woman?
June 1818
Lord Delacourt thought he’d finally found her. God’s most perfect creation. And she had breasts like plump summer peaches. Bathed in gold and brushed with pink by a shaft of late-day sun which streamed almost celestially through the open barn loft, her high, perfectly sculpted orbs bounced and glimmered as she moved, tempting a man’s mouth to unrepentant sin.
As he leaned precariously forward to better peer over the door, the peaches bounced yet again, and Delacourt found himself unexpectedly eager to be led astray. Rather shocking, that—both his lust and old Wally Waldron’s taste in women.
Initially, he’d not been at all sure that he wanted to take a tumble inside a dusty horse stall with a local strumpet, especially not one of another man’s choosing. The jaded and discriminating viscount preferred a different sort of woman altogether, one who took no one’s shilling but his and slaked no one’s need but his.
Nonetheless, this woman—with her bare breasts and her pile of flame-gold hair—was far too fine to leave unattended. And until now, it had been a dull day at Newmarket. The first four races had been both uneventful and unprofitable. Then in the fifth, Sands’ Setting Star had come in first with twelve-to-one odds while David’s horse had brought up the rear, draining his carefully allotted racing purse along with their last bottle of decent brandy.
But Waldron had watched Setting Star fly over the finish line with a frustrated devilment in his eye. His lips had quirked into a wry grin, and at once he’d turned to Delacourt to extend his generous offer. He had a luscious little armful cooling her heels in the stables, he’d glibly explained, but Waldron had decided Lady Luck was too hot to abandon.
Bored and bad-tempered, the viscount had decided to take a peek. “Just remember, old boy,” Waldron had cautioned with a knowing wink. “She’s a rowdy piece! A pretty cat with pretty claws likes a little tussle.”
“Ah, like that, is it?” Delacourt had responded, but with little concern. He had yet to meet the kitten that wouldn’t purr for him.
Still, this one did look like a handful—and in more ways than one. Balanced precariously atop an upturned feedbox, the viscount watched in fascination as the woman slithered back into her cotton shift with a motion so sinuous it sobered him. When she jiggled her peaches into place and reached for her stockings, his mouth went dry, his breath caught, and the roar of the Newmarket racetrack faded into sensual oblivion.
Oh, yes. Delacourt would gladly take Waldron’s place with this little fille de joie. Then, suddenly, insight dawned. “Peaches” was putting her clothes back on! And he was late. Before he could reconsider, Delacourt was off the feedbox and through the door, sliding it shut behind him.
At once, a mop of red-gold curls jerked up and a pair of stockings went gliding to the floor. One hand flew to her mouth as if she’d not expected anyone. Deep blue eyes popped wide as saucers. And in confusion, Delacourt yanked her against his chest and pressed his lips fervently to her ear.
“Hush, sweet!” he coaxed. “Wally sends his regrets. But I’ll gladly ease your disappointment.”
But the pretty thing seemed to have her heart set on Waldron. She pressed the heels of her hands into Delacourt’s shoulders and shoved him back. “Who are you?” she hissed. “Get out! Are you mad?”
But even half drunk, Delacourt had already seen that she was a sterling example of feminine pulchritude. “Oh, come now,” he coaxed, easing one hand down to cup her lusciously round bottom. “I’ll pleasure you far better than old Wally—and pay twice as well.” He yanked her hips into his, thrust one knee between her unsteady legs, and gently urged her backward.
With a gasp, Peaches jerked, stumbling back against the wall. Eyes widening further, she opened her mouth and drew breath as if to scream.
Vaguely alarmed, Delacourt clapped one hand over her lips. Something seemed amiss. But the blood was already rushing from his head to his loins. Her eyes were wide and lovely. Her scent was entrancing. All rational thought was fleeing. And before he could gather his wits, Delacourt shifted clumsily, catching his boot in her hems.
Together, they went sprawling into the hay. Delacourt fell half on top. Her shift ripped open with an awful sound. Still writhing like a wildcat, she sucked in a second breath. Delacourt’s lust fought his confusion.
“For pity’s sake, Peaches!” he whispered, suddenly desperate to have her. “I’ll pay twice your price.” By way of persuasion, he slid what he hoped was a soothing hand down her leg while starting to unclamp her mouth.
In response, the redhead clamped down and bit him. Hard. Then her claws raked down his neck.
The pain was wildly arousing. Delacourt jerked his hand away and felt his gaze heat as it swept over her. “So that’s how it’s to be?” he whispered silkily, marveling at staid old Wally’s taste in women. Rowdy piece, indeed!
Beneath him, Peaches shifted as Delacourt’s mouth sought and captured hers. For a moment, her motions stilled. Fleetingly, she responded, her mouth almost parting beneath his, her hips arching delicately against him.
Well! It seemed Waldron was on to something. Persuasion was bloody exhilarating! He kissed her hard, surging inside her mouth with wild abandon. At once, Peaches moaned sweetly. And then she kissed him back. Unmistakably. With a deep shudder of pleasure, she lightly touched her tongue to his, and her hands slid from his shoulders, down his arms, and almost around his waist. Her right leg began to slide enticingly up his own.
And in the next instant, she regained herself. Up jerked her left knee, with every intention of unmanning him.
She missed. But it was ever so close.
Suddenly, a grave misgiving seized him. Then Peaches seized a fistful of his hair. It was altogether too much seizing for Delacourt. He had to get out. Enough was enough.
But before he could flee, the chit yanked at his scalp for all she was worth, then drove a solid fist into the side of his ribcage. Bloody hell! Delacourt was beginning to doubt there was enough liquor in all of England to give him the ballocks to bed this red-haired hellion. Devil fly away with Wally. And his rowdy piece. “Point taken, madam,” he growled, bracing his weight to lift himself off her.
But just then, hinges squalled alarmingly. Delacourt’s head jerked toward the door. The woman went limp, as if relieved, and at once, a small, sickly looking fellow clad only in his small-clothes jerked open the lower door and darted into the stall.
Abruptly, he jerked to a halt. “Gor blimey, m’lady!” he gasped, whirling about to avert his eyes.
Gracelessly, Delacourt staggered to his feet, only to find himself staring at a second man. A young gentleman whose name completely escaped him. But through the haze of thwarted lust, he realized something had gone horribly awry. The wrong stall, perhaps? The wrong woman, certainly.
“Oh, Jed!” cried the girl in a rich, throaty voice. “And Harry! Oh, thank God!” She scrambled up from the floor, her torn shift clutched awkwardly in one fist.
Harry? Yes, that was the name! Young Harold Markham-Somebody. Impoverished Earl of... Something. Manfully, Delacourt shook himself off and extended a hand.
But no one moved to take it. Harold Markham Whoever just stood there blinking in stupefaction.
“Beg pardon, Harry!” Delacourt muttered sheepishly. “Thought the girl was Waldron’s. Damned ill mannered of me, to be sure.”
To his shock, however, the woman collapsed back against the stall, arms crossed over her chest in a pathetically protective gesture. And then, she exhaled deeply, a ragged, tremulous sigh which racked her delicate ribs, shook her narrow shoulders, and sounded as if it had been wrenched from her soul.
Unease pierced him. Oh, God. Oh, God, no. Don’t let her cry.
He felt panic begin to churn. His hands began to tremble. What was wrong? What in God’s name had he done?
Delacourt felt suddenly sick. Worse than sick. It was as if his life had come full circle. For the briefest of moments, the flame-haired girl was another young woman altogether. In another dark and lonely place. Another time. Frightened. Violated.
Delacourt clutched his stomach.
Good Lord, he was going to disgrace himself. Right here in the middle of a Newmarket box stall. He fought for control, willing a day’s worth of drink and dissolution to settle back into the pit of his belly. And then, slowly, he lifted his eyes to stare at the girl, who was still shaking against the wall.
She was so beautiful. And for the briefest of moments, she looked so alone, so desperately in need of protection. And without his understanding how or why, Delacourt felt all his hidden rage, his carefully crafted arrogance, and a decade’s worth of bitterness surge, and then drain away, as if it were his very blood being spilt upon the stable floor.
On a rare rush of compassion, he turned to gather the young woman into his arms, frantically wanting—no, needing—to pull her against his chest.
Then he froze.
No. Innocent or not, she clearly belonged to Harry. Still, the chit hadn’t bolted for Harry’s arms as one would have expected. Instead, she merely stiffened her spine, came away from the wall, and bent down to snatch up her stockings.
She looked fine now. Angry. But perfectly fine. Whatever he thought he’d seen had been but a figment of his imagination.
The viscount struggled to regain his composure and his devil-may-care expression. “Well,” he lightly interjected. “No harm done, it seems. I’ll just get out of your way.”
At last, Harry’s mouth dropped gracelessly open. “Ahh, L-l-lord Delacourt?” he finally managed to wheeze. “B-b-before you go—I daresay I’m supposed to ask—why were you forcing yourself on m’sister?”
———
The Reverend Mr. Cole Amherst was enjoying an afternoon of divine intervention inside his lady wife when the butler knocked upon his dressing-room door to announce that Lord Delacourt, his rakehell of a brother-in-law, had come a-visiting again.
With a long-suffering sigh and a few finely calculated motions, her ladyship discreetly finished what she’d started, then retied her husband’s cravat, patted him on the rump, and sent him off to see what new misfortune had occasioned this particular visit.
Never a paragon of patience, Jonet, Lady Kildermore, lingered for a few more minutes, willing her notorious temper under control. Of late, she had been a bit out of charity with her brother. And sadly, David was really just her half-brother—and a secret, illegitimate brother at that, if one wished to be strictly technical.
But Jonet did not wish to be technical. She loved David dearly, and kept his secrets willingly. But heaven above! His temper and his timing were dreadful. And now he was back at Elmwood to beleaguer her again.
And yet, David had not asked for her, had he? He had asked for Cole. How very strange! Her husband and her brother took great pleasure in pretending not to like one another. Or perhaps it was better said that they enjoyed tormenting one another. And in truth, never were two men more different.
So what on earth could her brother want with Cole? It was now almost dark, and David was to have spent the week at Newmarket. And yet, here he was in the middle of Cambridgeshire, almost thirty miles away!
Suddenly, her brother’s angry voice boomed up the stairs and down the corridor. Curiosity got the better of Jonet, as it always did. Stabbing one last pin into her hair, then smoothing a hand over her slight belly, she turned from the pier glass and bolted downstairs at a pace which was most inappropriate for a lady in her delicate condition.
The actual tenor of the argument was made plain before she had hit the first-floor landing.
“And I say she damned well will wed me!” Jonet heard her brother bellow from behind the drawing-room door. “And I want you, Amherst, to send to the archbishop right this instant! Use your influence, man! Fetch me a bloody special license! And fetch it now!”
Jonet heard the high, feminine shriek which followed. “Good God, you really are mad!” the unknown woman yelled. “Not just an ordinary rapist—a deranged rapist! A drunken and deranged rapist! And you may well fetch yourself a dozen such licenses—be they special or regular or tattooed upon your back-side—but I’ll die a dried-up old spinster before I’ll take a lunatic to my bed!”
Over the din, Jonet could hear her husband murmuring, his gentle voice grappling for control.
But David was having none of it. “Yes, I’ll grant you I may well be mad—after all, I’ve just spent three hours trapped in a barouche with a mean-mouthed, red-haired shrew!” he boomed.
“Oh! Oh—!” she screeched. “And just whose fault was that?”
At that moment, Mrs. Birtwhistle poked her head through the kitchen door. Cook stood right behind, peering over the diminutive housekeeper’s head. With a withering glance at them, Jonet strode across the hall and through the drawing-room door.
“My!” she said brightly, pushing it shut again. “This sounds like a most stimulating debate! Certainly all of the servants find it so.”
Three sets of wide eyes swiveled toward the door to stare at her. Her husband’s face had gone utterly pale. Her brother’s gaze burned with a hard, bitter mockery. But it was the delicate, flame-haired woman who ultimately caught Jonet’s attention. And her sympathy.
The girl—for she was really little more than that—stood rigidly by the hearth in a shabby pelisse and a blue gros de Naples carriage dress which had obviously seen better days. But atop her head sat a rakish little bonnet, and upon her tear-stained face was a look of grim, implacable resolve.
Jonet’s husband turned to look at her. “My dear, you will take Lord Delacourt into my library, if you please. Ring for coffee. Heaven knows he needs it.”
“I damned well do not!” insisted David, his voice hoarse and more strained than ever she had heard it.
“Coffee, of course,” answered Jonet smoothly. “But pray introduce our guest.”
“Good heavens, where are my manners!” Cole ran a hand wearily through his hair. “Lady Cecilia, this is my wife, Jonet Amherst, Lady Kildermore. My dear, this is Lady Cecilia Markham Sands.”
“Soon to be Lady Delacourt!” growled David.
Tossing a disparaging glance at David, Lady Cecilia turned and made Jonet a very pretty curtsy. Despite her shabby clothing, the girl seemed a well-bred little thing. Well! There was quite a story here, Jonet did not doubt. But it would keep. Laying one hand upon the doorknob, Jonet turned to her brother and extended the other. “David?”
“No!” Her brother’s scowl deepened, and he crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly. “I shan’t leave this room, do you hear? I have been accused, abused, and, I do not doubt, well nigh swindled. But I am nonetheless here to see this dreadful mistake rectified.”
“A mistake—?” Lady Cecilia Markham-Sands set one hand on her hip and glared at him. “Your mistake was made when you forced your attentions on me! I’m not some spineless idiot to be debauched at your whim!”
With a glittering challenge in his eye, David lifted his chin. “You seemed willing to be debauched for a moment there, Cecilia. You kissed me back. Rather passionately, too. Indeed, I think you wanted me.”
Cecilia stamped her foot. “Your reputation precedes you, sir! I could never want a man of your ilk!”
“Apparently, my ilk wasn’t so readily apparent when your tongue was in my mouth,” snarled David.
“You wretch!” She jerked as if she might leap at him and claw out his eyes, but Cole laid a gentle hand upon her arm.
David drew back a pace and turned a desperate face toward Cole. “You see! She’s a madwoman! A shrew! And I shan’t leave merely to permit her”—he jerked his head disdainfully in the girl’s
direction—”to further impugn my honor.”
Arms going rigid at his side, Cole’s hands balled into eager, un-Christian fists. “Oh, for pity’s sake, David! Your own admissions have impugned your character a vast deal too much for my taste! Now, you will go with Jonet, or you and I shall set about something far more bruising than our usual silly squabbles.”
A ghost of some painful emotion passed over David’s face. Abruptly, his stance shifted. His arms fell, and to Cole’s surprise, he strode through the room, past his sister, and into the hall.
Cole listened as the door softly closed behind them. Muttering a low, uncharacteristic curse beneath his breath, he crossed to a small table beneath the double windows and unsteadily sloshed out two glasses of wine.
He returned to the girl, pressing one of them into her hand. “My dear child,” he said softly. “I think you must drink this. Or if you will have it, I’ll pour you a tot of brandy.”
The girl drew herself up regally. “Thank you,” she said very stiffly. “But I shan’t require any spirits.”
Cole said no more but merely gestured toward a chair. Reluctantly, the girl took it, neatly folding her skirts about her knees with one hand. Cole put down his glass and went to the fireplace. Drawing out the poker, he jabbed it viciously into the coals and stirred.
Damn David to hell and back!
No, no! Assuredly, he did not mean that. But David! Oh, the man had a way of stirring up the very worst sort of trouble. And this time, Cole very much feared his brother-in-law had stirred up something which could not now be set to rights.
Lady Cecilia Markham-Sands was unknown to him. But then, much of England’s nobility and gentry was unknown to him. Cole simply did not care to trouble his mind with remembering the finer points of something so unimportant. He was a scholar, and a simple man of God, and so he confined himself to the things he understood.
But this! Even Cole could see that this was a scandal which would set all the ton on its ear, were it to become known. And at this point, all he could pray for was that he might somehow mitigate the damage.