Pierce gaped after him.
Nearly gagging with alarm, Connor managed to uncurl the young Farnsworth’s fingers from his arm and turned to bolt out the door, but the jungle of young men proved nearly impassable. Connor took a deep breath and ruthlessly shoved and squeezed his way through them, ignoring the protesting, “I say, old man, have a care, now,” until he found himself on the threshold of the doorway once more.
But the Baron and Baroness Leighton-Hyde were just making their entrance, a limping, leisurely sort of entrance, as the baroness was immense and the baron suffered from the gout. The baron was an old friend of his father’s, a bluff friendly sort. Connor was forced to flatten himself against the wall, eyes lowered, chin tucked into his cravat, until they cleared the hallway.
He craned for a view out over the footmen to see if Pierce was still standing on the walkway, but another mass of people were now sauntering up it.
Two of those people were Sir Henry and Lady Tremaine.
Connor looked about wildly, seeking an escape route, and jumped when a familiar set of fingers gripped his arm again.
“Come t’ the ball, olman,” Farnsworth encouraged slurringly. He dragged Connor over to where Sedgewick was dutifully, stoically announcing each of the rowdy young men.
“And you are, sir?” Sedgewick said to Connor.
“He’sh my goo’friend,” Farnsworth enthused.
“Lord Goodfriend?” Sedgewick asked.
“No!” Connor blurted, writhing to free himself from Farnsworth’s viselike fingers. “God no!”
“Sir Godno?” Sedgewick suggested helpfully.
“Roarke,” said a voice softly behind them.
And before he could think to stop himself, Connor turned to the voice. Colonel Pierce stood there, shaking his head wonderingly in confirmation, a small smile of genuine joy playing about his lips.
“He’s the Duke of Dunbrooke,” Pierce said.
“His Grace, the DUKE OF DUNBROOKE!” Sedgewick bellowed, before he could plumb the recesses of his own mind and recall that the Duke of Dunbrooke had been dead for years. Farnsworth gave Connor an encouraging push into the center ballroom.
The violins playing the reel screeched to a halt, the chattering voices faltered to a dead silence, and finally, as the hundreds of eyes in the ballroom landed on Connor like so many greedy bees, the only sound that could be heard was the soft plop of a woman fainting.
Chapter Twenty
I do not,” Connor said slowly, because it seemed as though everyone expected him to say something, “feel very much like dancing at the moment, if that is quite all right.”
His words, spoken in a conversational tone, nevertheless reverberated in the silent room. No one else moved, breathed, or spoke. The bows of the musicians hovered, frozen, above their instruments. Silence ticked by, while faces, unanimously incredulous, remained fixed upon Connor.
Finally, a tiny woman dressed in gray silk and lace detached herself from the crowd and moved purposefully toward him, the click of her heels echoing throughout the ballroom.
Lady Wakefield stopped before Connor, lifted her quizzing glass, and peered up into his face.
“Why it is you, young Roarke,” she breathed finally. “I’d know the Blackburn eyes anywhere. You’re the spit of your father.”
“It is indeed I, Lady Wakefield,” Connor admitted.
His words sent a buzzing throughout the ballroom.
“. . . looks like my groom,” came a puzzled voice through the crowd. Good God. Sir Henry. Connor resisted yet another urge to bolt.
A movement in the crowd, as subtle as shifting light, caught Connor’s eye. He would have known her anywhere; after all, the way she moved was what had first drawn his eyes to her so many years ago.
“Don’t go anywhere, Pierce,” he murmured to the colonel, who had stepped up to his side.
He was in front of Cordelia in three long strides.
Slowly, as though her head was in danger of toppling from her neck unless she took great care with it, Cordelia lifted her eyes to Connor’s face.
“You can either take my arm and come quietly,” he hissed under his breath, “or I will drag you with me through the crowd. Choose.”
She hesitated a moment, and then her gloved fingers came up and landed, light as a butterfly, on his arm. A smile, slight and quivering, but a smile all the same, found its way to her pale lips, and she lifted her chin.
“Nicely done, Cordelia,” Connor murmured. His body was nearly rigid with fury. He led her, with deliberate and almost cruel nonchalance, through the silent, staring crowd. He stopped when he reached Lady Wakefield again.
“Lady Wakefield,” he said quietly, “perhaps there is a room the duchess and Colonel Pierce and I can retire to momentarily? I must attend to business before I can consider pleasure, you see. We have much to discuss.”
“Why, of course,” Lady Wakefield said. “The library is up the stairs and to the right.”
“Thank you for understanding.” He gave her his crooked smile.
“You will share your story with me later, my boy,” Lady Wakefield said coquettishly, and tapped his arm with her fan, a triumphant smile playing about her lips. Her place in history was now assured. Not only was the king expected to make an appearance tonight, but Lady Wakefield’s soiree would now be forever known as the occasion of the long-dead Duke of Dunbrooke’s resurrection.
Connor kicked the library door shut behind him and shook Cordelia’s fingers from his arm.
“Sit.”
Cordelia, with admirable composure, settled herself on the edge of one of the large library wing chairs, her spine erect, and folded her hands in her lap. Colonel Pierce leaned against the mantel and watched the two of them impassively.
If anything, Marianne Bell was even more beautiful now that the blur of youth had left her face; her bones seemed more finely etched, which made her mouth seem as soft as a pillow. She held herself very still, but Connor thought he detected a slight trembling, like a breeze disturbing the surface of a pool of water. He sincerely hoped she was terrified.
Odd to think that he had once wanted her so badly, pursued her so ardently. He looked at her now. She might have been a vase for how profoundly she moved him. Rebecca. He clung to the thought of her like a talisman. And as he looked at Cordelia he felt only purpose.
And rage.
Rage fought for control of his voice. He finally took refuge in his breeding in order to speak. His words were soft, polite.
“Cordelia, have you by any chance been looking for this?”
He extended his closed fist and uncurled his fingers. In his palm lay the gold locket.
Cordelia drew in a sharp little breath through her nose.
Connor sprang the catch and handed the locket to Colonel Pierce. “The duchess, here, once upon a time, was my mistress. This locket was meant for me years ago, but I left her before she could present it to me. A recent twist of fate put it in my hands, and when she discovered I had the locket—that I was in fact alive—I do believe she decided to have me killed.”
By way of illustration, Connor shook himself out of his coat. Colonel Pierce and Cordelia stared speechlessly at his tattered, bloodstained shirt. Granted, the shirt wasn’t bloodstained courtesy of either of the highwaymen sent by Cordelia, but it did help make his point rather eloquently.
“If you read the inscription, Pierce, you’ll understand part of her motive.”
Pierce studied the locket, then glanced up at Cordelia.
“Ah. An actress, were you? And all the while you had the ton believing you were a half-French aristocrat. Very impressive. Yes, I can see how the reappearance of Roarke, not to mention this locket, might rather . . . ruin things for you.”
Cordelia ignored Pierce.
“You were living as a groom,” she said to Connor, in the soft, low voice he recalled so well. “With the family of Sir Henry Tremaine.”
“Yes.” Out of the corner of his eye, Connor saw Pierce’
s eyebrows go up.
“Sir Henry Tremaine was under the impression that you were Irish.”
“Yes.”
“’Tis a funny thing,” Cordelia said, pensively, her eyes traveling about the room, taking in the library’s expensive fixtures, the gilt and ormolu, so much like the library in the Dunbrooke townhouse. “Perhaps it is mere laziness, or lack of imagination. But I’ve found that, on the whole, people prefer to believe exactly what they are told.”
“Perhaps it has something to do with the skill of the teller,” Connor said.
Their eyes locked; a brief and peculiar understanding sparked between them, then died. Connor almost admired Cordelia’s achievement. She had used the skills at her disposal—beauty, acting, and an intimate knowledge of the Dunbrooke world—to marry his brother Richard and become the Duchess of Dunbrooke. He had underestimated her; more accurately, he had never estimated her at all. He had merely partaken of her. What had he ever really known about Cordelia, apart from the topography of her naked body? She had loved him once, or so the locket said. My dearest love. And yet . . . he looked at her, at the coronet in her gleaming blue-black hair, the mulberry satin gown corded in gold and scooped low at the neck to show much of her white bosom, the rubies at her throat . . . all of it purchased with Dunbrooke money. And he fully comprehended that regardless of whatever love she might once have felt for him, she would have killed him for all of it. Rebecca’s life had been threatened, and Connor had nearly been murdered, for dresses and jewels and a position in society. And his rage nearly choked him.
“Cordelia, tell me—how did my brother die?”
“His throat was slit by a footpad,” she said evenly.
Connor nodded once, thoughtfully.
“How tremendously convenient—oh, forgive me, I mean wrenching—that must have been for you.”
Cordelia stared at him in silence, her dark blue eyes huge and nearly black in her face. He could see her pulse beating in her throat.
“Clearly it was wrenching for you,” she said finally, ironically.
A devastatingly skillful play on his own guilt. Connor inhaled audibly.
Cordelia smiled slightly at the sound.
“Knowing Richard and his . . . predilections,” Connor said slowly, when he was able to speak again, “I can imagine that life with him was not easy. And I can almost understand why you would want to kill me. Perhaps you wanted revenge—I left you without a farewell, which, believe it or not, I am not proud of, and I do regret. And then you must have worked hard for the life you fraudulently won, a life as Richard’s wife and the Duchess of Dunbrooke. I can almost understand why you would do anything at all to preserve it. But you sent highwaymen—cutthroats with guns—after Rebecca. A highwayman put his hands on her. And for that, I would happily see you hang.”
It seemed to Connor that Cordelia swayed a little then, but perhaps it was a trick of a light. Only her hands truly betrayed her state of mind: they were twisted into a tight white knot in her lap.
“Could it be that you intend to faint, Cordelia? I expected more originality from you.”
Cordelia gave a low scornful laugh.
“You know nothing of me, do you, Roarke? You never did. If you had any idea of what I have survived in my life, any idea of the things that I have lived through, you would know that nothing you say or do to me could possibly cause me to faint.”
Connor regarded the beautiful woman before him, half awed, half repulsed. She had the pride of an aristocrat, the soul of a criminal, and the heart of . . . ? Possibly she merely had the heart of a woman. It mattered little now. The only thing that truly mattered at the moment was the love of a redheaded girl. As long as Rebecca loved him, he felt he could forgive nearly anything. And all at once, his rage drained away.
“I want you to witness, Pierce, that the duchess denies nothing,” Connor said, tearing his eyes from Cordelia. “She very likely had my brother killed, and attempted to kill me.”
“So witnessed,” Pierce said in a deceptively bored tone. “Although, Roarke, as a price for such, I believe you owe me your entire story. An Irish groom? For five years?”
“Ah, yes, er . . . that. You’ll know my story soon, I promise, but first I must go to the Cambridge Horse Fair. Immediately.”
“The Cambridge Horse Fair?” Pierce’s brow furrowed. “Why the devil—”
A tap on the library door made all of them jump.
Connor jerked the door open. Lady Wakefield stood there, her face flushed from an excess of excitement.
“You missed him! You missed him!”
“I beg your pardon, Lady Wakefield?”
Lady Wakefield was staring at Cordelia.
“I say, Your Grace, are you quite well? You look—”
“Lady Wakefield,” Connor interrupted as Cordelia opened her mouth to speak. “Who did we miss?”
“The king! He was here but a few minutes. But he learned of your return, and he wants to see you. He demands to see you. Tomorrow evening for a private dinner.”
“Tomorrow? No. I simply cannot. Tell him—”
“Roarke,” Pierce interjected quietly. “He is the king.”
Connor absentmindedly shut the door in Lady Wakefield’s very surprised face and turned back to Pierce.
“You do not understand.”
“You best explain then, lest I decide you’ve lost your wits,” Pierce said
Connor inhaled deeply. “Rebecca Tremaine,” he said. “It’s Rebecca. My fiancée. I’ve left her with an old friend, Raphael Heron, at the Cambridge Horse Fair, and I promised to return for her by morning. I must return for her. I originally intended to take her to my aunt in Scotland and then leave for America on my own, and . . . well, my plans changed.”
“Rebecca Tremaine? The mysterious sister that Lorelei refers to as ‘indisposed’?”
“So it’s ‘Lorelei’ is it, Pierce, and not ‘Miss Tremaine?’ ”
Pierce, usually unflappable, looked flustered for a moment, and Connor almost laughed.
“The subject is you and Rebecca Tremaine, so please do not attempt to divert me from it. By ‘indisposed,’ did Miss Lorelei Tremaine by any chance mean ‘missing’?”
Connor nodded.
“And did you, when you were a groom to Sir Henry Tremaine, assist Rebecca in becoming ‘missing’?”
He nodded again.
“And no one knows?”
“You and the lovely murderous duchess. And one other friend who does not move in the circles of the ton.”
There was rustle, a restless sound: satin against satin. The heretofore statue-still Cordelia had shifted in her chair. Connor and Pierce swiveled to stare at her.
“Perhaps the lovely murderess duchess objects to her new . . . sobriquet,” Connor said to Pierce.
“Taunting your captive,” Cordelia mused. “How gallant of you, Roarke.”
“My apologies, Cordelia,” Connor said in mock contrition. “But my finer qualities have never before been challenged by the presence of a murderess, and it seems they are not equal to the test.”
“Roarke,” Pierce interrupted gently. “Is Rebecca safe with your friends?”
“As safe as if she were with me.”
“Then she will be safe for one more day. You’re the Duke of Dunbrooke, Roarke. And the King of England has requested your presence tomorrow.”
The words sucked the breath out of Connor. He was. He was the Duke of Dunbrooke. And it would be deucedly difficult to escape now, given that all of London, not to mention the king, knew he had returned.
“Will you help me secure the . . .” Connor almost facetiously called Cordelia “the duchess” again, until he realized that Rebecca would soon be his duchess, and suddenly it was no longer amusing. “Will you help me discreetly secure my brother’s widow until I return from Cambridge? I will decide her fate then.”
They both looked at Cordelia, who, though white-faced, gazed back at them levelly, her chin high.
“Oh, happi
ly,” Pierce said. “House arrest, a few armed Bow Street Runners, a word dropped to Lady Wakefield that the duchess is feeling unwell . . . leave it to me.”
Connor’s hope for a discreet and hasty retreat from Lady Wakefield’s townhouse was quickly dashed: a small crowd had gathered at the foot of the stairs awaiting his exit from the library.
And planted at the very foot of the stairs was the unmistakable, very solid form of Sir Henry Tremaine.
Connor swore so colorfully under his breath that Pierce, who had a firm grip on Cordelia’s arm, looked at him askance.
Feeling panicked, Connor contemplated simply barreling past Sir Henry and out of the door of the townhouse. Surely no one expected a duke to be polite all the time . . .
Did Sir Henry know his role in Rebecca’s escape? But how could he know? Guilt did lazy cartwheels in the pit of Connor’s stomach.
“I wonder if he’ll challenge me to a duel,” he muttered. “The man is an excellent shot.”
“He certainly is.” Pierce sounded amused. Connor slanted him a quelling look.
Finally, with the enthusiasm of one approaching the gallows, Connor took the stairs one at a time, Pierce and Cordelia behind him.
Sir Henry’s gaze, unreadable from the top of the stairs, never moved from him. Connor’s gaze never moved from Sir Henry.
At last Connor reached the foot of the stairs and eyed Sir Henry warily.
But Sir Henry didn’t look angry. Or even accusatory.
He looked . . . tickled.
“Er, good evening, Sir Henry.” Connor felt a trifle strangled.
“By God, it is you, Riordan,” Sir Henry breathed.
“Well, sir . . . I suppose it is.”
“Dunbrooke, is it?” Sir Henry sounded delighted to be trying out the name. “The Duke of Dunbrooke? My groom is the Duke of Dunbrooke? I told Elizabeth when you walked in, I said to her—”
“Yes, Sir Henry, ’tis I. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must be—”
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