“Not if it is my intention for you to become very familiar with much more than my name, and sooner rather than later,” he came back huskily.
Her cheeks felt very warm, and she knew there would be a blush to her cheeks. A most unbecoming occurrence in a widow of almost thirty. But she challenged any woman not to become flustered when a man such as Darius Strong seemed determined to flirt with her.
“How beautiful you look this evening, Lady Bea.” Landbourne was out of breath once he reached her side, his hand very hot even through the material of her glove as he grasped one of her hands in his and raised it to his lips. “A vision of loveliness.”
Bea really wished she had not invited this oafish man into her home. Having one gentleman in hot pursuit of her was unbearable enough, but having two seemed somewhat egging the pudding. If she had been a beauty, she could perhaps have understood their interest, but as she was not, she found it uncomfortable to be the focus of both these men’s attention. It was obvious Landbourne’s interest in her was based upon the fortune Charles had left her as his widow and only remaining relative. Wolferton stating his own interest in seducing her made far less sense.
Out of patience with both gentlemen, she could not help but breathe a sigh of relief when Kilby stood at the door of the salon and signaled dinner was waiting to be served.
Landbourne released her hand and turned to the duke. “Wolf—erton,” he completed quickly as the duke looked at him coldly down the length of his aristocratic nose for daring to even think of using such a familiarity.
“Landbourne.” Wolferton made no effort to hide his contempt for the other man.
The earl quickly turned back to Bea. “Are you ready for me to escort you into dinner—”
“I believe that, as I am the senior ranking male here, it is now my privilege to escort Bea into dinner.” Wolferton stepped between the two of them to offer her his arm.
As the duke was perfectly correct in his claim, Bea was left with no choice but to place one of her black-lace-gloved hands on the duke’s arm and allow him to be her escort out to the entrance hallway and into the dining room, knowing the rest of her guests would fall into line behind them. “I wish you would behave, Darius,” she murmured under her breath.
Darius did not take kindly to being told what to do by anyone, but as Bea had just addressed him by his first name, he was willing to overlook it this time. “I much prefer to misbehave,” he answered as softly.
“A fact I have noticed.” She frowned. “My female guests seem somewhat wary of you this evening, leading me to wonder what you said or did to them this afternoon to cause such awe.”
He raised arrogant brows. “Why should you assume I have done anything to them?”
She gave him a reproving glance. “I have heard it said, more than once, that the Duke of Wolferton is a law unto himself.”
“Oh?” He eyed her coldly. “What else have you heard about me?”
“Nothing good,” she came back pertly.
Darius found himself chuckling as he moved forward to draw back Bea’s chair for her to sit down, before bending forward so that he spoke closely to her ear and the conversation could not be overheard. “I believe I am enjoying having you chide me in this way, Bea.” Strangely enough, he was. It was certainly arousing his cock as he imagined all the ways in which he might cause that disapproval and have her chastise him again.
“No, not there.” Bea stopped him as he would have taken the seat to her left, her gaze challenging. “As the senior ranking male here, you are, of course, seated opposite me at the other end of the table.”
Hoist by his own petard, by God!
Nor was Darius fooled for a moment by the sweetly insincere smile which accompanied Bea’s comment.
Nor, once he was seated at the other end of the table, was he inclined to make himself pleasant as he saw the distance, and the twenty or so guests, now separating him from Bea.
To add insult to injury, Landbourne was now smugly seated on Bea’s left.
“I am afraid I must insist you tell me what further acts of rudeness you have practiced upon my female guests this evening?” Bea shook with indignation as she confronted Wolferton.
He and the other gentlemen had remained at the table after dinner to enjoy a glass or two of her best brandy. Bea had waited until the other gentlemen had passed by on their way to joining the ladies in the blue salon before speaking to the duke.
Those of the ladies who had not already excused themselves and gone to their bedchambers, that is.
“Why should you assume I have done any?” he drawled.
Bea did not trust Wolferton’s too-innocent expression in the slightest. She should have known there would be repercussions for those few moments of triumph she had experienced earlier after consigning this man to the other end of the dining table. The silence at that end of the table, after the first flourish of breathless conversation by the ladies seated either side of Wolferton, had been very noticeable.
She eyed him accusingly. “Perhaps because four of the ladies have already excused themselves and gone to bed after claiming they have a headache.”
“Perhaps it was something they ate?”
“Or perhaps it was something you said or did,” she insisted stubbornly.
“Really, Bea, if this is the way in which you speak to your guests, I am not surprised the ladies have retired for the night. Nor, I might add, am I accustomed to being spoken to in this manner.” He frowned his displeasure.
Bea was very aware she was being less than polite, but it was difficult to be any other way when she could see her week of hosting an enjoyable time with friends—Landbourne apart, she now accepted—disintegrating in front of her eyes. Besides, Darius Strong’s conversation to her since his arrival had not exactly been polite either. “I apologize if I am accusing you unjustly, but how else can you explain the ladies’ behavior when everything was going swimmingly until you arrived?”
Darius did not have the luxury of playing nicely with Bea Hanwell’s guests. Time was of the essence, as Stonewell had pointed out so succinctly the previous week. They needed to find and identify the spy as quickly as possible and so avoid any further incidents in regard to Napoleon’s second banishment.
Nor was he comfortable pursuing a woman in this obvious manner. Indeed, he was usually the one trying to avoid being the pursued. With Bea Hanwell, he had no choice but to forge ahead, by any means necessary, so that he might seduce her into sharing his bed as soon as possible, and hopefully take him into her confidence. Many secrets could be, and often were, divulged during postcoital euphoria.
Besides which, Darius had not been able to take his eyes off Bea during dinner, which accounted for the fact the women seated on either side of him, and vying with each other for his attention, had received a short, sharp set-down when they attempted to divert his interest to themselves.
He had very soon realized he had been even more wrong than he thought in regard to Bea not being a beauty. She did indeed possess beauty in abundance, but it was of a subtle kind, rather than the glaringly obvious charms of so many other women in Society. Most gentlemen might, and obviously had, failed to see it.
But the beauty was there in the mischievous tilting of her head.
The sparkle in her dark brown eyes.
The blush in her cheeks.
The rosy sensuality of those pouting lips.
As for her nonexistent breasts… This evening, they were pushed up and emphasized by the black corset she wore. Darius judged—and the engorging of his cock had agreed with him—they were not nonexistent at all, but would fit perfectly into the palms of his hands as he squeezed and pleasured them.
As he pleasured her.
Something Darius had every intention of doing, to some degree, before the night was over.
Chapter 3
What was Wolferton up to now? Bea fretted as she watched him surreptitiously from behind the fan she was using to cool herself in the warmth of the
room.
The duke was currently standing on the other side of the drawing room in conversation with the portly Sir Edwin Greaves, the local squire and magistrate, rather than participating in the game of charades with the guests who had remained downstairs. The older gentleman was obviously somewhat in awe of the illustrious company in which he found himself as he listened to the duke intently.
After Wolferton’s behavior this evening, Bea trusted his presence here even less than she had his arrival this afternoon. Nor did she believe he had followed her to Bedfordshire for the purpose of seduction. The whole idea of that was preposterous.
Which begged the question, what other reason could he have for being here?
His friendship with the Prince Regent was well known, so could he perhaps be here on some errand for the prince? An errand which involved becoming closer to her? Bea could think of only one reason for that, and the thought someone might have somehow discovered her secret caused a nauseating knot of tension in her stomach.
The duke’s claim he was here because his friends were “busy doing other things” did not sit well with her either. Wolferton must have received dozens of invitations to attend parties this summer, and from members of Society of much higher social standing than her. Indeed, another one of the things she had heard about the duke was that he did not attend any summer parties, but preferred to spend his time on his own country estate in Warwickshire.
He— Oh dear God, the squire and his wife were now approaching her and about to make their excuses before leaving, the former having a somewhat hounded expression.
What was Wolferton saying or doing to her guests to make them desert her in this way?
Whatever it was, Bea did not intend to let this continue. She would very soon have no guests left at all if Wolferton continued to frighten them away in this manner.
“You have retired very early this evening.” A slightly flustered Quinlan rushed into Darius’s candlelit bedchamber shortly after midnight.
“I am not retired at all.” Darius was fully dressed as he lay on top of the bedclothes, both arms raised and supporting the back of his head as he rested against the pillows, his booted feet crossed at the ankles.
His valet appeared puzzled by the reply. “Then what are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“Might I ask for what?”
Darius gave a pointed glance at the door that adjoined his bedchamber to Bea’s.
Quinlan’s brows rose. “Is that not rather a premature assumption to have made?”
“We shall have to wait and see, shall we not,” Darius mused before sobering. “Have you had opportunity as yet to question any of the household staff further about Lady Hanwell?” Darius knew the quickest and easiest way to garner information about anyone in Society was through their servants. They always saw all, and would often tell all for a monetary exchange. Quinlan’s complete trustworthiness in regard to Darius’s private life was an exception and not the usual way of things.
His valet nodded. “Discreetly, of course.”
“Of course.”
The other man ignored his sarcasm. “Her maid, Jane, would not be drawn on her mistress other than to confirm the adjoining bedchamber as being hers. But another source assures me that Lady Hanwell is not a woman who becomes involved in affairs of the heart or of the body.”
A mocking smile tilted Darius’s lips. “Would this ‘source’ happen to be a young and pretty butler by the name of Kilby? I could not help but notice him as he served dinner,” Darius supplied as his valet’s cheeks began to redden. “I also observed he seemed rather…distracted as he did so. I instantly thought of you,” he added dryly.
“You notice far too much,” Quinlan snapped, but he did not deny the suggestion of his interest in the young butler.
Darius sighed dramatically. “It is a burden in life I have to bear.”
“I have noticed how much you suffer,” the other man said without any attempt to hide his sarcasm.
Darius gave a throaty chuckle as he moved to sit on the side of the bed. “Help me off with my boots, and then you may consider yourself dismissed for the rest of the night, and so free to pursue any more opinions your source might care to give.”
Quinlan moved down onto his knees and began to pull off Darius’s boots. “Jerem— Kilby,” he corrected firmly, his head lowered as he concentrated on the difficult task of removing a boot specifically tailored to Darius. “The butler has nothing but praise for his employer. He was also quite specific as to Lady Hanwell’s private life consisting only of charitable acts and calls upon the families in the village, as well as friends and acquaintances, when she is here.”
“Those things might keep her occupied during the day, but what of her nights?”
“Always spent alone since her husband died.”
“Good God, you cannot possibly be saying she has not had a single liaison with a gentleman in the past two years?” Darius did not care to go two weeks without some form of sexual release.
Besides, he had felt Bea’s arousal earlier in the trembling of her hand on his arm as he had taken her in to dinner. Had seen it in her dilated pupils. Breathed in that heady combination of flowers and musk between her thighs.
“I believe that to be the case, yes.” Quinlan rose to his feet once the second boot had been removed.
“I find that improbable,” Darius dismissed.
“But not impossible if her marriage to Lord Hanwell was not a particularly happy one.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you saying it was not?”
“Apparently not.”
“Then it would seem it is as well I am here to bring some relief to her mundane existence.”
“I have long admired your lack of an ego, Your Grace.”
“Bastard,” Darius returned good-naturedly.
“And if you discover Lady Hanwell is not the lady you are looking for?”
“Then I still intend to give her, and consequently myself, the benefit of sexual relief.”
“Is that not rather harsh?”
“It would seem you are becoming soft in your old age.” Darius rose abruptly to his feet. “Or have you forgotten the seriousness of the allegations against the lady?”
“Of course I have not.”
“Then perhaps this uncharacteristic concern for her has something to do with the fact the man currently taking your fancy is also the lady’s butler?”
Quinlan winced. “Do you have to be such a calculating bastard all the time?”
He shrugged. “Why bother to change the habit of a lifetime?”
“Because this time, you just might be wrong in your assumption—” Quinlan broke off his protest as a knock sounded softly on the door between the two bedchambers, followed by the turning of the key in the lock on the other side of that door. “I withdraw my earlier comments, as it would seem you are once again proven correct.”
Darius gave a humorless grin at the acknowledgment. He was not as pleased as he should have been by this confirmation.
Having been surprised by his own sexual interest in Bea, he would have preferred she not be Napoleon’s spy. Not because Darius had any interest in pursuing anything longer than a weeklong affair with her or any woman—God forbid he ever should!—but because he would have enjoyed their sexual encounters more if he did not have to choose his every action and word with care so as not to alert her too soon to his real reason for being there.
“I usually am,” he answered Quinlan evenly.
The other man snorted his opinion of that. “Nevertheless, I cannot express strongly enough that the lady’s household staff are devoted and very protective of her.” He collected up the boots ready for taking them away to be polished. “Or that they can as easily take note of and discuss your own behavior. Especially if you are…spending time with their mistress.”
“Then it is as well you intend to keep Jeremy occupied for the rest of the night, is it not?”
“Bastard,” Quinlan repe
ated under his breath as he left the bedchamber.
Darius’s attempt at humor departed with the other man. He had no doubt Bea had come to rebuke him for the disarray in which her dinner guests had departed this evening, either to return to their local homes or their bedchambers here in the house, as all became visibly discomforted by his chilling and brooding presence in their midst. Only Landbourne had stuck it out for the duration, and even he had eventually slunk off to his bed—wherever that might now be—shortly before midnight.
Darius had fully expected to receive this reprimand from Bea at some time, but the fact she was doing it now, and through the access of the door adjoining their two bedchambers, seemed to him to have been a little too easily achieved.
Was it possible she was the one guilty of treason, and consequently knew of his real reason for being here and had decided to play him at his own game?
When Bea finally retired to her bedchamber, she did so not knowing whether she wanted to sit down and cry or throw back her head and laugh.
To cry at the dismal failure of an evening she had hoped would be one of laughter and fun.
Or laugh at the manner in which all her guests had scuttled away like frightened rabbits in response to the cold and silent presence of the autocratic Duke of Wolferton.
That he had frightened them off on purpose, she had no doubt. It was the fact they had allowed him to do so that she found so incredulous and…yes, amusing.
Even so, he might be a duke, but he still deserved a set-down for behaving so badly. At the same time, Bea could not help but admire his accomplishment in having cleared her salon of all guests in a matter of two hours. And, as far as she could tell, by doing nothing more than staring at them all with cold disdain.
At least she had her answer now as to how he must have behaved at afternoon tea, and why his end of the dining table had quickly lapsed into tense silence.
His end of the dining table?
Bea’s anger returned. It was all her table, damn it, and one of the benefits of widowhood was that she could choose who could and would sit at it.
Wicked Torment (Regency Sinners 1) Page 3