by Sandra Dubay
The minutes ticked by, counted by the tortoiseshell and chased-gilt clock on the table near the bow windows which overlooked Piccadilly. Lost in her reverie Dyanna did not even hear the knock on the door. Charlotte swept past her to answer it.
"Inform your mistress that a gentleman is here to see her."
"A gentleman?" Dyanna asked before Charlotte could convey the message. "Who is it, Ipswich?"
"He gives his name as Lord Geoffrey Culpepper, miss."
"Geoffrey!"
Dyanna exchanged a delighted glance with Charlotte as she thrust herself to her feet. "Where is he?"
"In the red salon, miss," the butler replied uneasily. Having run afoul of his master's temper once already that morning, Ipswich wished the young gentleman caller had appeared while his lordship was at home to give or withhold his permission for the visit. "This way."
Dyanna followed him down the stairs and thanked him when he indicated the door to the red salon. Opening it, she found herself on the threshold of a chamber whose walls were hung with crimson Spitalfields silk. All around the long, rectangular room, portraits hung in their gilded frames. But Dyanna had no eyes for Justin's forebears, interesting as they might prove at some other time. All she saw at that moment was Geoffrey, resplendent in scarlet and silver, standing near the black marble fireplace.
"Geoffrey!" she called, hurrying toward him.
"Dyanna," he breathed, taking her hands in his and kissing her lightly on the cheek. "I can't tell you how furious I was to find that you'd left us. My grandfather never should have allowed DeVille to take you away."
''There was nothing he could do to prevent it," Dyanna soothed him, drawing her hands from his too-tight grasp. "My father's will gives JusLord DeVillecomplete authority."
"Even so . . ."
She pressed her fingertips to his lips to still his protests. "We must make the best of things, Geoffrey."
"Make the best of things! Surely you cannot be happy here! Not knowing the sort of people these DeVilles are!"
"Of course I am not happy. But for the present, there is nothing to be done. And Charlotte is here with me. Lord Summersleigh insisted she come along."
"That's some consolation, I suppose," he allowed grudgingly. "If DeVille mistreats you, Charlotte can be depended upon to get word to Grandfather or myself."
"I shouldn't think he would mistreat me," Dyanna reasoned. "You know, the rooms he has given me are quite extraordinarily lovely."
"Just take care, my sweet, that he does not lull you into dropping your guard. It concerns me that he might spoil you with kindness at first so that he might later take advantage of you."
"How black you paint him," Dyanna murmured.
Geoffrey sighed. "I fear for your safety. Is that so cruel? So unfair of me?"
"Of course it isn't," she hastened to assure him. "I'm grateful for your concern."
"Gratitude is not the emotion I desire most from you." His eyes filled with adoration. "I want to take you away from here. I want to protect you." Closing his eyes, he turned away as though overwhelmed by his emotions. "Forgive me, Dyanna, I know it is too soon for me to be saying these things to you, but"
"Geoffrey," she said softly, touched. "How good you are to me."
He turned back toward her, a mixture of relief and hope springing into his face. Covering the distance between them in two short strides, he took her gently into his arms.
Dyanna slid her arms about his waist. Her cheek lay in the crisp folds of his cravat and the coolness of a ruby stud chilled the corner of her mouth. She had never felt so cherished, so cared for, in all her life.
Together they stood, their arms around each other, until a voice from the doorway tore them apart.
"I don't believe I gave you leave to come courting my ward, sir," The words fairly dripped icy disdain.
Her cheeks blazing crimson, Dyanna turned from Geoffrey and found herself skewered by Justin's furious golden glare.
Chater Eight
Dyanna stood in the red salon, tight-lipped with anger, as Justin dismissed Geoffrey as if he were some impertinent tradesman who had overstayed his welcome. She glared at Justin as the hoofbeats of Geoffrey's horse faded into the distance.
"How dare you!" she hissed, her fury whipped to even greater heights by the cool, unperturbed stare Justin directed toward her. "Am I not to be allowed friends, then, my lord? Am I to be immured in this house like a prisoner?"
"If necessary," Justin confirmed.
"My father made you my guardian, sir. Not my gaoler!"
"Your father entrusted me with your wellbeing. I presume that means moral well-being as well as physical well-being."
"Moral!" Dyanna jammed her fists into the soft gathers of muslin at her hips. "How prim and proper you are, my lord! This must be your London guise. I don't imagine you are quite so priggish when you are off a'pirating."
"Privateering," Justin corrected her icily.
"Your pardon, milord," she mocked him with a saucy little curtsy. "Privateering. And I know for certain you are not so stiff-necked when you are in the country. For I do seem to recall a tavern maid you were well on your way to seducing at the Angel Inn."
"That was different."
"Different?" she widened her eyes in taunting surprise. "My! You do have a convenient set of morals. When I was a tavern maid, it was all right for me to dally with you. But now that I am a lady" She glared fiercely at him as he smothered a derisive chuckle. "A lady!" she repeated. "It is not permitted for me to receive a friend in my guardian's home."
"Are you finished?"
"For the moment."
Hands clasped behind his back, Justin crossed the room to the lace-curtained, bowed window. He was furious but he'd long ago learned to hide his emotions. He pondered his words for a long moment, then turned to face her.
"Dyanna," he said softly, in the cool, emotionless voice the crew of his ship had come to know and dread. "My morals are not the issue here. If you do not know by now that proper behavior for women is governed by an entirely different set of standards than that for men, it is time you learned. It is not fair, perhaps, but that is the way it is. You are no longer a child running free on your father's estates. Neither are you the pampered darling of one and all at your grandfather's ancestral seat. You are a young woman now, and in London, and you are my responsibility. You will learn to behave as befits your station. And that includes not being alone with men without my presence or my permission."
Seeing the hot flush that rose into her cheeks, he softened his expression and went on:
"I know this is difficult for you, Dyanna. You've never had a proper model to emulate. Your father, certainly, was no model of decorum and"
"Don't you say a word about my father!" Dyanna hissed. "Not one word! You have no right! You, of all people! Your"
Realizing that to say another word would be to reveal too much of what she knew, Dyanna whirled and ran for the door.
"Dyanna!" The word was like the crack of a whip.
Spinning toward him, Dyanna seized the Chinese porcelain pot on the nearest table and hurled it, plant and all, at his head. Before it crashed against the wall, dangerously near both Justin's head and the elegant, curved windows, Dyanna was bolting up the stairs.
Bertran, who had been passing through the hall outside, saw Dyanna's flight and, at the same moment, heard the crash. Arriving in the red salon he found his master with fury seething in his golden eyes and a mottled flush on his sun-browned face. Clumps of dirt and fragments of greenery stuck to his hair and to the soft blue cloth of his coat. All around his polished boots, broken porcelain, dirt, and pieces of plant littered the priceless French carpet.
"Gardening, milord?" the valet asked, attempting, wanly, to diffuse some of the murderous temper he could see building in his master.
But Justin was beyond even BertRan's efforts. Without a word, a look, a gesture to show he was even aware of the servant's presence, Justin stormed from the room. As he mount
ed the stairs, he brushed the dirt and leaves from his hair and shoulders with short, angry strokes.
Dyanna, in her sitting room, heard him coming.
"Charlotte!" she screeched, jumping to her feet from the armchair in which she'd ensconced herself for a good long sulk. "Charlotte!"
"Miss?" The maid appeared in the bedroom doorway.
"Lock the hall door quickly. Before Lord DeVille can get"
But it was too late. Propelled by Justin's savage thrust, the sitting room door slammed back against the wall with a crash. Justin stood framed in the doorway, eyes glittering like topazes. He looked like an avenging angelor a hellborn demon.
Dyanna did not stop to ponder which. Picking up her skirts, she ran for the bedchamber. As she passed Charlotte, she caught the girl's arm and dragged her along into the adjoining room. Together they slammed the double doors and twisted the key in the lock.
"Dyanna!" Justin's roar sent shivers down her spine.
"He's going to kill us," Charlotte whispered, plainly terrified.
"Of course he's not," Dyanna insisted. But as the doors shook with the impact of his fists, she was not as confident as she sounded.
"Open this door, Dyanna," he said calmly, almost coolly. His voice was deceptively mild, but there was an undertone to his words that promisedor was it threatened?dire consequences if his errant ward did not obey.
"Go away!" she called back. "Leave me alone!"
"I said, open the door. Now!"
Dyanna said nothing as she stood in the center of the bedroom, her hands clasping the trembling hands of her maid.
"He'll go away," she whispered to the quivering servant beside her. "He'll go away and calm down and then, perhaps"
The stillness of the moment was shattered by the splintering of rose wood as Justin slammed his booted foot against the center of the double doors. Charlotte screamed as they flew open, whipping back to crash into the curving walls. She took one look at Justin who stood in the doorway, fists clenched, knuckles white, face flushed with anger. Then, abandoning her mistress to her fate, Charlotte fled into the dressing room.
Dyanna swallowed hard as she heard the click of the key in the lock of the dressing room door. Her wide, black-lashed, sea-blue eyes, never left Justin's face. She watched him, wary as the vixen before the huntsman's hounds, as he moved into the room.
"Do not everever!lock a door against me in my own house again," Justin snarled. "Do you understand me? Do you!"
"Yes," Dyanna breathed. She too was trembling now, though not with the nervous fear that had shaken the timid Charlotte. Hers was a far more visceral fearthe terror that descended when one was in fearreal or imaginedof one's very life. "I understand."
"I am your guardian, Dyanna," he went on, moving closer, careful to block her most obvious avenue of escape, the broken doors which hung sadly on their bent hinges. "It is not a position I asked for, but it is one I have decided to accept. And do you know why?"
"No," Dyanna answered honestly. "I cannot imagine. I suspect it is because you and my father"
The small, impatient shake of Justin's head stilled her speculations. "It has nothing to do with your father. It has to do with your mother."
A frown creased Dyanna's forehead. "My mother?"
"I don't imagine you remember your mother well. You could not have been more than two or three when she died. But I remember her." The memories Justin summoned to mind softened the rage that had twisted his handsome features earlier. "I remember her very well. She was a beautiful creature. The most beautiful woman of her generation, they said. You look very like her. But there, unfortunately, the resemblance ends. Your mother, you see, was a lady. Something, it is obvious, you are not."
"The McBride wildness has left its mark," she said with a philosophic shrug.
"The McBride Wildness," he sneered. "That is a convenient excuse, nothing more. If your mother and your mother's mother and her mother had been whores, would that mean you would have to be one as well?"
White-hot temper flared in Dyanna's eyes, but for once she held her tongue. It was Justin's first victory, though neither recognized it. She bit back the razor-sharp retort that sprang to her lips, and instead asked simply:
"What is your point, my lord?"
"My point, Dyanna, is this: You are the last descendant of two noble houses. The Conways, Earls of Lincoln, and the Viscounts McBride have both come to their culmination in you. I think there is nothing so sad as watching the greatness of the past degenerate, wither, and die until nothing is left but a single, blighted blossom. I am responsible for you. I am determined to see that the noble houses that bred you and the ancient bloodlines that are mingled in your veins are not shamed by your foolishnessyour willfulness."
"Such high and mighty words," Dyanna flung back, "particularly when one considers your"
She stopped, suddenly realizing the folly of exposing too much of what she knew.
Justin stood very still. He could guess the gist of what she had been about to say. It didn't surprise him. The rumors and scandal surrounding his father had haunted him most of his life. He let the moment pass. He did not want their confrontation steered in another, futile, direction.
''In any event," he went on, coolly unruffled, "I will not tolerate behavior that could put you outside the pale. You will become a lady, Dyanna, a lady of whom your mother would have been proud. Scenes such as that tantrum downstairs will not be tolerated."
"What will you do?" she asked skeptically. "Send me to bed without supper? Lock me in my room?" Arching a taunting brow, she directed a meaningful look toward the broken doors with their useless locks.
Justin allowed himself a small smile. "I'm quite certain both those methods have been tried in the past. I'm equally certain of their futility."
"Then what will you do?"
With the sleek swiftness of some night predator, Justin had Dyanna's finely boned wrist in his iron grasp. Though she struggled against him, she was no match for the strength that months at sea had built into his tall, broad-shouldered body.
"Let me go, damn you to hell!" she shrieked. "Charlotte! Charlotte!"
"That mouse won't help you," Justin snarled as he sat on the edge of the bed and tried to pull her across his knees.
"Bertran!" she screamed in desperation. "Help me!"
Justin muttered an oath. If nothing else, Dyanna's long years of running wild on her father's and grandfather's estates had made her stronger, more lithe and agile than most gently reared girls of her station. She struggled and twisted, redoubling her efforts when she felt the first slap of his hand against her backside. It was not until then that she realized that, at almost eighteen years of age, she was in imminent danger of getting her first spanking.
"Don't you dare!" she growled, her eyes flashing with hot blue fires of purest loathing. "Don't you dare!"
Justin's anger and determination were fueled by his frustration at finding that she was so thickly padded with skirts and petticoats as to be untouchable. His efforts were met by little more than layer upon layer of fluffy muslin and springy lace.
Furious, he turned, rising, and threw her down on her stomach across the bed. Before she could writhe away from him, he had braced his knee in the small of her back and was digging at the yards of fabric with both hands.
Dyanna kicked her heels at him but there was nothing she could do. In the end, she could only claw at the gold and pink coverlet of the bed and shriek as he administered his punishment with little between his flesh and hers save the diaphanous silk of her chemise.
When he'd finished, Justin moved swiftly away. He was well out of range of her swinging fists before she managed to scramble to her feet.
Dyanna ground her teeth. No epithet seemed foul enough, no curse dire enough. She wanted to hit him, kick him, curse him to the deepest firepits of Hell. But in the end, all she could do was bite her lip against the tears of fury and mortification, and clench her fists to keep from rubbing the smarting flesh of her
backside through her crumpled skirts.
"Let that be a lesson to you," Justin said quietly. "And let us hope it is not one you need to have repeated."
Dyanna said nothing as he turned on his heel and left the bedchamber. He was halfway across the sitting room when he heard a movement behind him. Turning, he found Dyanna, framed in the doorway, a porcelain shepherdess in her raised and trembling hand.
Their eyes locked and something in Justin's calm golden gaze seemed to start her bruised flesh aching all over again. A moment passed. Then another. The tortoise-shell and gilt clock chimed the hour. And then, slowly, haltingly, Dyanna lowered the shepherdess back onto the polished tabletop from which she'd taken it.
A glint of satisfaction glimmered in Justin's eyes. He allowed himself the smallest of smiles before leaving the sitting room.
He was not quite to the head of the stairs when he heard Dyanna's ear-splitting shriek of frustration and outrage. He paused, one hand on the bannister, waiting for the crash he feared would follow. But there was only silence. He waited a minute. Nothing. The pent-up breath he hadn't realized he was holding slipped out in a relieved sigh as he started down the long, elegantly curving staircase.
Chater Nine
Seated at the gilt-bronze desk in his gold moiré-hung study, Justin looked up from his ledgers. Head cocked to one side, he listened to the sonata issuing from the harpsichord in the nearby music room. He could imagine Dyanna's face as she played, brow furled in concentration, small, pearly teeth tugging at her lower lip, frowning as she approached the passage that had been troubling her for the past hour of her music lesson. He held his breath as she began the passage, then smiled, shaking his head in sympathy as she once again struck the wrong keys. After a few moments' silence, she began again.
He could picture her tutor, the formidible Herr Kemmel, a florid-faced Viennese whose elaborately curled white wig sat atop his large bald head like snow atop a mountain. The man would be frowning and muttering, reminding Dyanna yet again that Mozart had written the sonata at eight, while Dyanna could not master it at almost eighteen.