by Sophia James
The stubborn anger in Lucinda’s brother’s voice was more than evident—a man who was at the end of his tether and showing it. Taking in a breath, Tay took a different tack. ‘Does Carisbrook know you have met me here this morning?’
‘He does. His instructions were to stick a knife through the place where your heart should be.’
‘Explicit.’
‘Very.’
Tay detected the beginnings of a smile. ‘Then perhaps we could forge a bargain that might suit us all.’
‘Indeed?’ The tone was not encouraging, but he needed to get at least one of the Wellinghams on his side and he had long admired Taris.
‘I propose that my wife continues to reside in your family’s town house for the next few weeks on the condition that I can escort her to various public functions of her choosing. That will allow you to see that I am not as black as you might paint me and give her time to see that I am not the bastard she thinks I am.’
‘Asher has control of Lucinda’s assets and all of her money.’
‘Good.’
‘And you will get none of it.’
His words were bland, no true reflection at all of the topic under discussion.
‘All I want is a chance.’
‘I can promise nothing without talking to my sister. I will, however, be advising her to run as fast and far away from you as she can and to refuse to partake in further dialogue or to accept other correspondence. If it is simply a case of enough money to be rid of you, then we have the means …’
‘It isn’t.’
‘I thought not.’
He raised one arm and his man came immediately to his side. ‘If Lucinda feels she would be interested in finding out more about the sort of man she has married, then I will not stop her and neither will my brothers. But it will be her decision, Alderworth, not yours.’
When Tay nodded and held out his hand, Taris Wellingham failed to respond. Laying his fingers upon the pristine white cloth covering the table, he stood as the other did and watched him leave, a tall dark-haired man who made his way with his servant beside him across the salon of a busy public bar, his lack of sight completely hidden to all those observing him.
Chapter Eight
‘You do not have to go to this ball with Alderworth, Lucy. We can fight any allegation he might make through the courts and completely ruin his name.’
Taris took her hand and tears pooled behind Lucinda’s eyes at both the familiarity and the safety.
‘The Church recognises the sanctity of holy marriage and Taylen Ellesmere made it clear that he would never agree to a divorce.’
‘Then let us talk to him again ….’
‘No.’ She was most adamant about that. There was nothing more to be said. The Duke of Alderworth had offered her a proposition and freedom looked admirable after years of being shackled to a missing husband. All her friends, save Posy, were married and bearing children whilst she had wilted, growing old upon a shelf of her own making, withering into someone she had never thought to become.
She could bear it no longer, this middle land of no choice at all, and, standing here in her best dress of light-blue shot silk, she knew that she wanted more.
‘I need the chance to understand the only husband I am ever likely to have.’
She did not tell Taris that she had never been the slightest bit attracted to any other suitor in all her years of being out in society or that there was something about Taylen Ellesmere that made her heart run faster. She did not say that his green eyes had a promise in them she had found shocking because of her own capacity for response or that when he had spoken of the things he might like to do with her body at the Croxleys’ ball she had finally felt … aroused.
Beatrice, from her place on the other side of the room, joined in the conversation.
‘You are sure that this is what you wish, Lucinda? Alderworth seems both dangerous and alarming, a man who might be hard to tame.’
‘He is my legal husband, Bea.’
‘Your husband of only a few hours.’ Her sister-in-law’s voice was tight, though beneath it lurked a tone that was surprising. If Lucinda could have named it, she might have chanced humour.
Taris interceded. ‘If there is ever any danger and you feel …’
‘I am going to a ball a half a mile from home, Taris, with hundreds of people I know all around me. How could that possibly be dangerous?’
‘Alderworth will not come here to get you?’
She shook her head. ‘He said he would wait for me at the Chesterfields’ in Audley Street because he does not wish for another contretemps. Every time one of you meet him someone has been hurt so I can well understand his point.’
‘Then I will ask you to give him this.’ He pulled a letter from his pocket sealed in an envelope. Looking over at Beatrice, Lucinda knew the pair must have fashioned the missive last night when she had returned with the news of her imminent departure, a plan that had been changed that very morning to include at least two weeks in London.
‘What is in it?’
‘A warning. If Alderworth does anything to hurt you, anything at all, Asher, Cris and I will hunt him down to the very edges of the earth.’ He swiped one hand through his hair, pushing back the darkness and looking as angry as she had ever seen him.
Goodness, if her brothers had any inkling of the agreement she had consented to regarding the conception of an heir, she doubted that they would have sent only a note.
The Chesterfield town house was one of the prettiest in Mayfair and one of the grandest, too, the sweeping drive of white pebbles leading to an imposing portico. Two men in livery stood at attention at each side of the wide flight of steps, Taylen Ellesmere between them, the darkness of his attire in complete contrast to the bright scarlet jackets they sported. He came forwards as he saw her and opened the door of her carriage, gesturing the Chesterfield servants away and shepherding her down a side path lit with lanterns, where they were hidden by trees.
Tonight he was dressed in charcoal, his long-tailed coat and breeches of the best-quality superfine. His cravat was loosely tied, no artifice in it, the snowy white of the fabric showing up the darkness of his skin and hair. A tall man and graceful with it. Where he touched her arm she felt the heat of contact. The ring she had given him all those years ago lay on his wedding finger and the small spark of recognition made her feel warmer. She was sure he had not been wearing it yesterday.
‘I did not think you would come.’ Lucinda could smell strong drink on his breath as he turned and stopped.
‘I have a message for you.’ In his company tonight she felt … uncertain and she hated the fact that she did. But in a crowded ballroom she knew she could simply slip away if she needed to. The thought calmed her as he turned the envelope over and looked closely at the writing. Breaking the seal, he opened the letter, reading it quickly before handing it back to her. ‘This concerns you.’
Alderworth. One wrong move with our sister and you will pay for it.
The message was unsigned, but the parchment had the Wellingham insignia emblazoned at the top, an eagle argent on sable.
‘You are fortunate in your protection.’ His voice was an echo of some lost thing, surprising her.
‘My brothers have been the most wonderful support in the world but … I am tired of being for ever thankful.’
Sacrilege to even utter such a sentiment, but she did, the words running into the silence between them like sharp daggers. Taking a breath, she looked around her at the other carriages coming up the drive. She was glad for the privacy the trees here afforded them.
‘And the proposition I gave you yesterday?’
‘You said you would not rush me, your Grace.’ This time she looked directly at him, catching his eyes with her own in challenge.
‘So formal?’
‘We are strangers, you and I, who have been tied by the binding agreement of a marriage that is to neither of our liking. I barely know anything of you.’
>
‘Which might be a good thing,’ he returned, his words overlaid with just a tinge of regret. It was enough for Lucinda to press her conditions further.
‘I couldn’t tolerate the sort of parties you have made famous. An endless list of drunken guests parading through the places I reside within would be abhorrent to me and until …’
She could not finish because he leant forwards to take her hand, stroking the palm with his thumb so that small frissons of desire ran in ever-increasing strength up her arm.
‘Until you are ripe with child?’
The shocking reality of the words made her pull back. That she could even have thought to control a man like Taylen Ellesmere, whose very world was so far from her own, was naïve.
‘You may well laugh at our situation, your Grace, but I know that you accepted a large sum of money from my brother to disappear for ever. It is hard to trust a groom who only thinks to profit substantially from his bride.’
He looked away, a muscle in the side of his neck rippling with the tension only the guilty could feel. Asher had told her last night of the enormity of the sum Tay Ellesmere had taken and for a moment she had thought to rescind every agreement between them completely. But she had not. Why was a notion she found difficult to fathom, the thought of being tied to a man who had gained much fiscally from her misery more than demeaning. Lucinda waited for him to explain, to find some honour in his actions and clarify his reasons, but he stayed silent.
She felt the breaking of hope almost as a pain.
He was greedy and he was reckless. He was also dangerous, distant and intimidating. But there lay beneath the image he showed to the world other shadows, too, quieter and more beguiling. Tragedy was one such veil. She had seen it once when he had spoken of his uncle.
Secrets and silence stretched between them, the sound of the world around distant, though her heartbeat drummed at a frantic rhythm in her ears.
He could not bring himself to say he had paid her brother back each and every single penny twofold, penance for the only time in his life where his integrity had been held to ransom. Not now. That would come later, far away from accusation and dishonour and the reality of an enticement he had succumbed to in desperation.
Breathing out hard, he tried to take a stock of things. His estranged wife looked a little like his mother used to, beautiful and prickly and angling for a fight, wanting high emotion to wreck what little peace he had left.
God. Patricia Ellesmere had used every single second of her life to make it harder for those near her and as her son it had often been him. Tay did not want acrimony and argument. He did not want greed and wrongdoing to punctuate everything that he was now, leaching out contentment and serenity.
Had he made a huge mistake by coming back after all, searching for an elusive something he could not quite forget? Almost three years of separation had hardened Lucinda. He could see it in her eyes. She was a different woman now, less innocent, more worldly.
‘If it is of any use, I would apologise for the way I left. Excuses can only go a certain way in the alleviation of great pain so I won’t bore you with them.’
‘I have not heard even one explanation as yet, your Grace.’ Her blue eyes were reflected in the silk of her dress, almost a match in colour.
‘The dukedom was bankrupt.’
Surprise crept across her face. ‘Surely my brother did not promise to rescue the Alderworth estate in its entirety?’
‘No. He gave me the chance to do that myself. I hit a rich seam of gold in a river at the foot of the North Georgia mountains and had the luck to sell my claim for a tidy sum. After that I invested in the only services on a gold field that truly raise capital, the transportation facilities. The fortunes in mining are random, you see, but the large profits in the adjoining industries are not.’
‘So you have arrived home rich?’
‘I have.’
‘And because of it you feel the need of an heir.’
He nodded.
‘An unbroken line?’
‘Precisely.’
‘The saying that one person’s luck is another’s misfortune comes to mind.’ Her mouth was a single tight line of fury.
She spoke as the forgotten wife who was suddenly recalled for duty a thousand days after he had left her. Such a thought was sobering, the contract for an heir stretching between them.
‘If there is someone else who has gained your affections whilst I have been away, then I would—’
She did not let him finish. ‘There isn’t.’
Tay could not even begin to understand the relief he felt at her answer.
‘After … us … I was largely left alone by others. Ruin has its own particular brand of isolation that is not easy to shake off. Besides, your reputation for debauchery and sexual experience meant all were wary.’
‘When did you return to London?’
‘Last year. My brothers insisted on it and their influence paved my way. It was all going well until …’
‘I came back.’
She nodded and looked aside.
‘Why, then, did you agree to come with me?’
He thought for a moment that she might not answer, as her eyes flinted in anger, but then she did, her voice shaking. ‘Because anything is better than the stigma of abandonment.’
‘I should not have let your brothers threaten me. I should have stayed and taken you to my home.’
‘And forfeited your gold?’ Her tone was neither soft nor conciliatory. It was hard and biting. ‘No, your Grace, your promised largesse will go a long way in allowing me the freedom of a future I want.’
Tay shifted his stance and looked at her closely. She made him feel like the low-life he had not been, her lies cornering him into defending himself before her brothers, the licentious duke who had ruined a favoured sister.
Only he hadn’t.
He had bundled up a woman who, with little persuasion, would have been easy to bed, but instead he had ordered a carriage and driven her home.
He had been paying for it ever since, by God, because the Wellinghams bore a grudge with great persistence, even one based on deceit.
He had sent his own correspondence, too, of course, a few careful letters explaining his daily routines and the harsh beauty of the countryside around Dahlonega. His wife had never written back. Not once. Tay wondered if Cristo Wellingham had stayed true to his promise and delivered the notes.
He could ask her, he supposed, pull the truth out of lies, but he had no more stomach for it and an idea hatched in the lonely fields of American dreams made little sense here.
The brothers’ latest missive sizzled in his hand full of threat, the careful illusions of their wedding day dissolved here into only disappointment.
For them both.
‘When we go to Alderworth Manor you will be given your own suite of rooms. I shall not presume on you for anything save for the fulfilment of our bargain.’
He turned away as she nodded and felt his body respond in anticipation of all that was implied.
I shall not presume on you for anything save for the fulfillment of our bargain.
A duty that had turned into obligation, the giving of her body for a sum of money and the promise of future freedom. A chore and a task that sounded onerous tonight. Lucinda couldn’t decide just where she had lost all sense of herself: at Alderworth Manor three years ago or here, hurtling towards her marital requirements, only a womb for rent.
She could find no common ground with a husband who was a stranger, forged in hatred and anger by a family that gave no credence to close bonds or honest discourse.
‘If I come, I would need at least a few weeks to settle in.’ She blurted the words out, each one running on top of the other in a stream of quickness. ‘I could not just be …’
She found it hard to finish.
‘Pounced upon?’
Humour laced the query and she was glad for it, but still she pressed on.
‘I would als
o require some sort of kindness, your Grace.’
This time he did laugh. ‘How many men have you slept with, Lady Lucinda?’ He did not use her married name and she did not answer. The corded arteries in his throat were raised in the dim light.
‘I realise, of course, that you are used to faster women, women who would think nothing of sharing around their charms and making certain every man got their portion, but I am not of that ilk, your Grace, and if you think that I might change …’
‘I do not wish for that at all.’
‘Oh.’ All of the wind went from her sails and she stood there, exposed and waiting. ‘I need at least a few weeks,’ she repeated, the quiver in her demand easily heard. Should she have bargained for more time? A month. A year?
‘Very well.’ His voice was hoarse, a promise coerced only under duress. When he turned and offered her his arm, she could do nothing other than take it as he walked her back to the portico. Joining other couples who made their way up the wide staircase, the light from the lamps showed up his face as a handsome and distant mask.
Lucinda had not understood just exactly what it meant to be at the side of a man who was the most vilified and envied Duke in all of London. When their names were called as they stood waiting to go in, she heard the distinct murmur of surprise and a momentary lull in conversation of the three hundred or so guests present.
‘The Duke and Duchess of Alderworth.’
‘Notoriety has its own set of drawbacks and this is one of them.’ His voice was soft and steady, not a care in the world showing as he smiled at those who might crucify him. ‘Let us just hope that your unblemished pedigree shelters you from some of it.’
‘With an attitude like that it is a wonder you still receive invitations to anything at all, your Grace,’ she replied.
‘No one wants to be the first to leave the lofty ducal title off their guest list and especially now they know all the coffers are full.’
‘How full?’
The tone in his voice changed somewhat as he replied. ‘Full enough to call in the chits of men with fewer morals than I have.’ As she pulled back he made an effort to lighten such darkness. ‘Full enough so that you could order as many gowns as you desire and I would barely notice, Duchess.’