She had never been a coward, but in that moment she sure felt like one. She swallowed heavily. Her heart pounded erratically. Her hands went damp and started to shake.
This is foolish, she told herself. The boys in the band would laugh themselves goosey if they could see her now, crouching in the carriage like some timid mouse.
She sucked in a deep breath for courage, licked her lips, then forced herself out the hack. She took one small step toward him. Her heart picked up pace, slamming so hard against her breastbone that she could hardly breathe. She felt as if she were being challenged to do something reckless. Daring. Absolutely forbidden. And he, the baron, was just waiting for her to take that first step into his territory so he could give her a good cuffing for her insolence.
Her gaze shot to his hands again; one lay curled loosely at his side, the other rested on the long brass grip that served as a knob. He looked harmless enough, and yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she walked through that door, her life would never again be her own. Heart pounding, palms sweating, she took a second step. Then a third. Her legs seemed to have developed a will of their own as they carried her toward him, almost as if he were reeling her in by an invisible string. She didn’t understand this power he had over her, but neither could she find the will to fight it.
Finally, she mounted the steps and stood at his level. Crikey, he smelled good. Like the sea and the wind and distant memories that were both comforting and distressing. She raised her gaze to his and lifted her chin, defying her weakness, him.
His lips twitched as if her qualms amused him and he gave a slanted nod, whether of mockery or approval, she couldn’t be sure, but strangely enough, it calmed her nerves a bit.
Then, with a click of the handle, the door opened beneath his hand. The baron offered her a slight bow. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
And Fanny gasped.
Long ago, when she was still gullible enough to believe that fairy tales came true, she would fancy herself walking through a palace on the arm of a dark and handsome prince. That the prince stood beside her, guised as a baron, was staggering enough. But even her wildest dreams never came close to the reality of Radcliff.
Humble abode? The place was a bloody palace! The foyer alone was as big as the common room of The Headless Woman inn! And no dirt floors, here, no sir! Instead white stone marble rimmed in black paved the entrance, so polished that she could see the reflection of her shabby shoes. Brass sconces with perfect tapers hung on walls paneled with dark wood on the bottom, papered from waist to ceiling in green velvet. Several lit candles cast a serene glow on the gilt-framed stag hunt and earth-toned landscapes that had been hung at precise intervals. Second nature had her mentally tallying up the value of her surroundings. “Crikey, guv, ye must be rich as Midas!” she whispered in awe.
“Don’t let these trappings fool you; I am far from wealthy.”
Either he was the most humble gent she’d ever met or he was hopelessly blind. The wall sconces in the foyer alone would feed the band for months!
“Ah, so the prodigal son has finally returned.”
The melodic greeting reached Fanny in the same wavelet as a powerful scent of roses. Even as the pressure built, she knew she’d not be able to control the—
“Achoo!”
Flushing from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes, she slanted a glance up at the baron, and found him looking at her with arched brows. “Sorry,” she mumbled, feeling as if she’d just cursed in a cathedral.
He nodded, then slid his attention toward the woman descending the flying staircase connecting the two levels. She looked every inch how Fanny thought a lady ought to, all graceful gestures, flawless skin, and glossy black hair braided down her spine.
“Devon, this is a surprise,” the baron said. “I thought we were meeting at Brayton Hall in the morning.”
“Circumstances changed my plans,” she replied in a mezzo lilt.
“What circumstances?”
“Nothing to concern yourself over, darling.”
As she came closer to take his hands and accept the kiss he pressed to her cheek, Fanny’s heart tumbled at the familiarity between the two. Was this the baron’s lady? He’d not mentioned a wife. Then again, why should he?
Another tickle swelled at the back of her nose. Her eyes watered and her face grew hot as she tried to rein in the uncontrollable and wholly bothersome reaction to certain fragrances. But even sheer force of will could not contain the sneeze. Fanny twisted at the last moment and buried her nose in her coat.
“Dieu vous bénit,” she heard the baron say.
When she turned back around to accept his blessing and offer another apology, she found the lady watching her through narrowed eyes. Fanny clutched the folds of her coat tighter around her, keenly aware of the threadbare condition of the shirt and trousers she wore beneath.
“Who is your friend, West?”
“Oh, yes. Devon, meet—” He leaned down, and his warm, brandy-laced breath caressed her ear. “You never did tell me your name.”
A moment passed before Fanny recovered from the disturbing sensation of his whisper against her skin. Of course she’d have to give him her name; she couldn’t very well let him introduce her to his lady as Queen Victoria.
“Me name—” The Cockney accent of her environment slipped unwelcome into her speech. Maybe it was the impervious lift of the lady’s brow, or the nearly imperceptible sneer of her mouth, or maybe it was the opulent surroundings that drove home an awareness of where she’d come from, and where she was now.
Whatever the source, it struck her suddenly that this was no place for the likes of Fanny Jarvis, notorious knuck. Maybe, just maybe, this was her chance to rise above the sewage fumes and vermin. No more huddling in the freezing rain, waiting for marks. No more skulking in the shadows to avoid the coppers.
No more Gentleman Jack Swift.
From the recesses of her soul, the blossom of a memory unfurled. Of a little girl with plaited saffron braids and boundless spirit. A girl she’d long lost hope of ever seeing again. And in a single, defining moment, the innocent child she’d once been beckoned to the jaded adult she’d become. “My name is Faith.” She tipped her chin decisively. “Faith Jervais.”
From this point forward, Light-Fingered Fanny, as the boys in the band had taken to calling her, no longer existed.
As if sensing the newborn strength in her decision, the baron smiled. A flash of dimple in his left cheek, a spray of creases at the corners of his eyes. A warm and unexpected glow spread through her breast at his approval.
“Devon . . .” he dragged his gaze away, “meet Faith Jervais. Faith, may I present my sister, Lady Devon de Meir Heath, Duchess of Brayton.”
His sister? Well, that explained their familiarity with each other. The swell of relief that the lady was not his wife slipped into her system so quickly that it caught Faith unprepared. Why their relationship would matter one way or the other, she couldn’t begin to guess.
Nor did she want to speculate.
Looking closer at Lady Brayton, however, the resemblance did become more noticeable. Both were strikingly fine-looking folk, sharing the same dark hair, sloping features, and patrician postures. Faith wasn’t sure where “duchess” ranked in the nobility chain but the way the woman carried herself, she suspected it was pretty high up there.
The baron set his hat on a narrow cherrywood table, hung his coat upon a tree, leaving him clad in impeccably tailored coat and dove gray trousers. “Miss Jervais will be joining my staff.”
The glow instantly vanished when his sister gasped. “Troyce, you cannot be serious!” She shuddered delicately. “She smells abominable, and I do believe I see her hair crawling.”
The blood drained from Faith’s face, then rose again, swift and blazing at the implication. “Why you . . .”
A tight grip on her arm held her from charging forward. “Faith . . .” he warned.
“I do not have bugs!” she cried.
A short, heavyset woman in a white mobcap and a somber gray robe appeared in the entryway, holding a candlestick. She was seventy if she was a day, and had obviously been roused from her bed.
“Yes, milord?” came the housekeeper’s monotone query.
“Miss Jervais requires a meal, a bath, and suitable clothing, s’il vous plaît.”
“I do not have bugs,” she repeated to him, hating the tears of humiliation stinging her eyes. “I don’t smell, neither!”
He spun her toward the maid by the shoulders and gave her a gentle push. “Go with Millie. She will see to your comforts.”
The housekeeper curtsied, then guided Faith by the arm toward a doorway. Faith cast one last glare at the baron’s insufferably rude sister before allowing herself to be led away.
Once out of earshot, Devon rounded on him. “Troyce, have you gone mad? What do you mean, bringing that filthy creature into this house?”
Troyce slid his attention from the doorway into which Millie and Faith had disappeared. Only a blind man would have missed seeing the deep wounding in her eyes at the welcome she’d received from the Duchess of Brayton. Only the respect he’d always held for his sister compelled him to explain at all. “I’m short on household help, and she has agreed to work for me. It’s as simple as that.”
He headed for the library to quench a sudden craving for a nightcap. He should have known that he would have a shadow.
“What did you do, drag her out of the Thames?”
She had no idea how close her guess, Troyce thought, reaching the sideboard. “She encountered a bit of trouble outside a tavern on the docks, and I offered my assistance.” He uncapped a fluted decanter. “And that’s the end of it, Devon.”
Heeding the warning in his tone, her own pitch dropped to a more courteous level. “Tell me that you at least made an appearance at the Countess of Haversley’s ball before embarking on your little”—she flipped her hand—“errand of mercy.”
A healthy dose of the last of his father’s Napoleon brandy spilled into a crystal goblet. “I had a more pressing engagement.”
“Yes, I can see that. Gallivanting from pub to pub, consorting with riffraff, dragging that filthy . . . guttersnipe into your home like a common Samaritan . . .”
Troyce turned to look at his sister with thinly concealed impatience. At thirty-one, a year older than he, she was still a strikingly beautiful woman. Glossy black hair neatly braided, flawless ivory complexion, and trademark blue-gray eyes of a de Meir. . . .
Unfortunately, the vibrancy had gone out of her years before. So, apparently, had her compassion. “Would you have preferred I left her to fare on the streets?”
“Better there than here! Heed my words, brother, she will rob us blind.”
The remark had Troyce throwing his head back with laughter. “Oh, but Devon, dearest, have you not heard? There is nothing left to rob.”
“Which brings us back to my point. The season is nearly over, West. By this time next week all of the eligible ladies will have been betrothed.”
“I can only hope.”
She all but stamped her foot. “How do you expect to make a successful match when you continuously avoid opportunities to find a suitable wife?”
Troyce barely restrained a sigh. “I’ve told you before, I have no interest in taking a wife—suitable or otherwise.”
She stiffened her spine and sniffed in displeasure that plainly said that she didn’t appreciate his mocking a topic near and dear to her heart. Namely, seeing him tied to an heiress.
“You are being unreasonable—not to mention derelict in your duties. It is well past time you settled down and set about securing a legitimate heir.”
“As opposed to an illegitimate one?”
“Do not even jest about that!”
Troyce fought the urge to rake his hand through his hair and laughed instead. “For God’s sake, Devon, I have been in London barely a fortnight, and already you are trying to arrange my schedule as well as my life.”
“And you have been back from America over three months and have made no attempt to ingratiate yourself into society.”
“I have no desire to ingratiate myself with anyone.”
“What of your responsibility—”
Any sense of humor he found in their sibling banter disappeared. “My only responsibility, thanks to our dear feckless father, is to see to it that the people who now entrust me with their livelihoods do not lose everything they have spent their lives working for.”
“Then marry, for God’s sake!” She swept further into the library and propped her hands upon the desk. “Find yourself a wealthy, virtuous maiden, fulfill Grandfather’s terms, and be done with it. I can personally recommend several ladies of impeccable breeding willing to exchange their doweries for your title and good name. Arrangements such as this are made all the time. It’s business.”
Troyce turned away from her imploring examination and nursed his brandy. As much as he hated to admit it, his sister’s reasoning was sound. But everything within him rebelled at conducting such business. He’d learned long ago that the only fate worse than marriage was marriage to the wrong woman. He only need look at his parents’ union as example. His father had spent his life trying to please his mother, and look where that had gotten him. Troyce had no desire to repeat the mistakes of Charles de Meir.
Aye, he would have to marry someday. Produce an heir to carry on the barony. He accepted that. But God’s teeth, he was barely thirty. Hardly a relic yet. If and when he took a bride, it would be a woman of his choosing, at a time of his choosing. And it certainly would not be one of those vapid, socially ambitious twits Devon and their grandfather would foist upon him given half a chance. Just the thought of being anchored for life to some la noblesse saisir la fille made him shudder.
No, the woman he took to wife would be impulsive and exciting. Independent and quick-witted. Courageous and uninhibited. If he chose to take off for Africa or Ireland or aye, even back to his beloved America, his lady would be eager and willing to go with him. And she would not care if he bore a title or nay, nor would she hold him at fault for pursuits considered unacceptable to society. His friend Miles often mocked him for holding such high standards. But Troyce cared little. She was out there somewhere. He simply hadn’t met her yet.
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” his sister accused.
Troyce brought the glass to his mouth and paused. “All of England can hear you, Devon. I’m hardly an exception.”
“Then you agree that marriage is the best solution.”
For whom? “Has Grandpère put you up to this?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t spoken to the man in years.”
“Then why this haste to see me wed?” he challenged. “One would think you, of all people, would respect my decision not to marry.”
Devon turned three shades of pale, and Troyce could have kicked himself for the careless remark. Never before had he thrown his sister’s folly in her face. Never before had he broached the subject of her youthful indiscretion with her husband’s brother. Never before had he judged her for throwing her heart away for the sake of duty. Hadn’t she suffered enough? “Devon, forgive me. I shouldn’t have said that.”
But she’d already turned away. As he watched her wander aimlessly about the room, trailing her fingers along an intricately molded mantel, fidgeting with the globe of a fringed lamp, rearranging a carved set of chessmen on a gaudy Hepplewhite table near one of the crown-backed sofas, it struck him then that everything she did was just that way. Aimless. Without purpose. Movement just for the sake of movement.
Maybe he should be grateful that his sister was passionate about something, even if it was the dem
ise of his bachelorhood. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her this alive, this animated. How often had he wished for a glimpse of the bold, vivacious swashbuckler he’d grown up with? The one who used to command the helm of their imaginary pirate ship and take no quarter? The one who used to slide down banisters and sword-fight with him in their father’s study? The one who used to laugh—just for the joy of laughing?
But now, in typical Devon de Meir—correction: Devon Heath—fashion, she tipped her chin and stared at him through stony gray eyes. “The last thing I wish to do is see you repeat my mistakes, Troyce. If I saw any other way out of this situation, I would seize it in an instant. Unfortunately, I do not see any other choice. Father’s debts are no closer to being paid off today than the day you arrived, and we are running out of time.”
Troyce clenched his jaw. He well knew the consequences of his inherited pecuniary obligation; the demise of his personal fortune, the dissolution of the de Meir holdings, the loss of the family’s ancestral estate, and the fate of villagers who depended on the Baron of Westborough for their livelihoods. He certainly didn’t appreciate being reminded of his failures, and by his own sister at that. “I told you that I would see the situation remedied and I shall do so. Once I secure an investor for La Tentatrice—”
“You have spent months trying to find someone feebleminded enough to pour money into that ship to no avail. Why can you not at least consider other alternatives? You would have a fortune at your disposal if only you will swallow that blasted pride of yours.”
Pride? She thought it pride that kept him from bowing to their grandfather’s whims?
Damn. If only it were that simple.
“That fortune you speak so highly of comes with strings. I will not be controlled—not by him, not by you, not by anyone.”
It was the one thing he’d always taken pride in, being an authority unto himself. Of being in control of his own actions and reactions. Everything he did, he did by design. He lived the way he wanted in the manner he wanted. No one told him what to do unless he allowed it. He maintained a good sense of humor because it kept him sane and he smiled often because it pleased him to smile. He took risks because he liked not always knowing the outcome; sometimes he was disappointed, and sometimes he was pleasantly surprised.
A Scandalous Lady Page 5