The Devilish Lord Will

by Jennifer Ashley

  Josette scowled. “I should pretend to be a featherhead in truth, you mean?”

  “The world has a low opinion of my family. They’ll believe I could be so duplicitous to you.”

  Josette planted her fists on her hips, which made her panniers sway. “You wish me to stand by while they take you away? Without lifting a finger to help?”

  “You’d only be dragged to the noose with me.” Will reached for her hands, prying them open so he could twine her fingers through his. “I need to know you’ll be free and unharmed. You can take Glenna and go to my family. My brothers will help you. Tell them your story and they and my dad will defend you with all their strength.”

  “Meanwhile, you swing from a noose or are drawn and quartered,” Josette snapped. “Hanging is the kindest thing they’d do, and you know it.”

  “Believe me, I’ll do my damnedest to get away. I’ll have more impetus to escape if I know you’re safe.”

  Josette gazed at him with her sweet brown eyes, the ones that could turn seductive or ferocious in the space of a heartbeat. “How much in love was this cavalryman with your brother’s wife?”

  “Quite a bit. Though he did help them escape together.”

  “For her sake?”

  “Oh, aye.”

  “Damnation,” she said softly, but with feeling. “Best corner him soon, then. I will decide what I will do if he arrests you.”

  Will started to argue, but Josette lifted his hand to her lips. She kissed his fingers, then gently bit his knuckle, flaring his need for her to life.

  “Lady Bentley is waiting,” she said.

  Will smothered an impatient sigh. He disentangled his hands from hers, pressing a kiss to her fingertips before releasing her.

  Another thing he loved about Josette, he thought as they straightened clothing and prepared to descend to Lady Bentley’s private sitting room, was that in their quiet tête-à-tête, Josette never once spoke his name out loud. She was careful, even in a whisper in the center of a room.

  Lady Bentley rose to greet them from a pink damask settee placed beneath a large chandelier in a room filled with mirrors. They lined the walls, filling every possible space.

  The ceiling, in contrast, was painted to depict a summer blue sky with clouds floating across it. No frolicking cherubs or naked gods and goddesses. This was very modern decor, where plainer themes took the place of overblown mythology.

  The chamber held no paintings, only the mirrors in gilded frames, each one sized to fit between and over windows. It was as though the architects had pried the Hall of Mirrors from Versailles and left it to shrink in the rain before installing it in this house.

  Or perhaps Lady Bentley simply liked her own reflection. She was a regal and handsome woman, Josette guessed in her forties. Her unlined face was well shaped, marred only by a hardness put there by life.

  Lady Bentley looked them over as they neared her. “Sir William Jacobs? And wife?”

  Will presented her his most flamboyant bow. “Indeed, we are. How thrilled we were to hear that Sir Harmon Bentley lived here. How fortuitous. How wonderful. A beam of light in this howling wilderness. We cannot thank you enough for rescuing us.”

  Lady Bentley’s smile turned satisfied. “You have heard of us, then.”

  “I pity the dismal fools who have not.” Will gave her another, only slightly less fluttering, bow. “Sir Harmon Bentley, who won so much for himself in Antigua, and advises his Majesty on trade. Quite a reputation.”

  As Lady Bentley preened, Josette curtsied. “Your home is beautiful, my lady. How did you manage it, here, of all places?”

  “One learns to be resourceful.” Lady Bentley eyed Will thoughtfully. “Jacobs? As in the Berkshire Jacobses?”

  “Beg pardon?” Will looked blank, then he dissolved into a smile. “My dear lady, nothing so lofty. My pater was a humble country squire—fell off his perch years ago, poor soul. The Jacobses of Berkshire might be distant cousins, but they’d never admit to such a thing. They do have a lovely house.” He trailed off wistfully.

  Lady Bentley’s mouth pinched. “So, I do not know your family.”

  “Oh, mine is nothing to speak of,” Will said, waving them away. “My wife is the one from the good family. She’s a Garfield, of the Garfields of Wiltshire and Virginia.”

  “Ah.” Lady Bentley’s manner changed swiftly.

  Will had labored over the antecedents of Josette’s character long ago, providing a precise family tree that was intricate enough to be believable but convoluted enough that only a dedicated member of the Garfield family could unravel it.

  Anna’s “father” had almost the same name as a Garfield cousin who had emigrated to France decades ago and hadn’t been heard from since. There was no record of the man’s marriage, and he had passed on twenty years before. Easy to invent a French wife for this man—now also deceased—and say that his wife had brought him a fortune to leave to their half-French daughter, Anna.

  By the time letters could be sent to check their story—and most people wouldn’t bother—Will and Josette would be long gone.

  The real Garfields had dismissed the cousin Will had chosen to be Josette’s father as inconsequential, and showed no inclination to look for any descendants he might have left. Will Mackenzie was painstaking in a deception.

  The connection seemed to please Lady Bentley, however, and she would be unlikely to meet the Garfields or Jacobses Will claimed as relations if she remained in this remote corner of Scotland.

  Will exhaled a dramatic sigh. “Yes, dear lady, it was a misalliance. Many claim I pursued my darling Anna for her fortune, but I had no idea who she was when I saw her across the room at that soiree in Lucerne.” He faced Josette, taking her hands. The false light dropped from his eyes as he spoke only to her. “I looked upon her and saw a great and beautiful soul. I knew at that moment, she was the lady I would marry.”

  Josette did not have to feign her deep blush. The memory flashed of Will strolling into Alec’s studio, rumbling a greeting to his brother in his velvet voice. Sunlight streaking through dusty windows had brushed his tall, well-formed body and burned his hair red.

  He’d moved with confidence that stopped just shy of arrogance, and possessed a self-deprecating manner that told Josette he didn’t take himself too seriously.

  Everything about Will had seared itself into her heart—a keen glance from his golden eyes, the bow he’d made her when Alec had introduced them, his half smile as he’d roved his gaze over her exposed body.

  This is Josette, Alec had said. Do not annoy her—she’s the best model I’ve ever had.

  Will had raised his hands as though annoying Josette had been the furthest thing from his mind, and had dropped her that sly wink.

  Gazing into his eyes now made Josette’s breath stop and her knees weak. She’d tumble into a swoon if she wasn’t careful.

  “How pleasing for you,” Lady Bentley said. Her tone and manner had softened considerably—perhaps she was a romantic at heart.

  “Oh, and you can send word to the Earl of Marsden,” Will continued in the tone of a man who liked to boast of his connections. “We stayed with them one summer in their marvelous home near Salisbury. It was delightful, was it not Lady Jacobs?”

  Josette regained her senses quickly enough to nod and smile, as though dreaming of the golden days in that mansion.

  “Well,” Lady Bentley said, even more mollified. “You will find that, out of necessity, we live much more simply than Lord Marsden, but we will strive to make you comfortable. One more impertinent question, Sir William—your father—was he also ‘Sir?’”

  “A baronet, you mean?” Will looked aghast. “Dear lady, that would have been too much trouble for him. No, Papa was never a baronet, and I inherited no title, more’s the pity. I was knighted for bravery in battle—I forgive you for not guessing that.” He gave a high-pitched laugh. “But apparently, I was very brave. Pulled a chappie out from under a horse and took shards of artiller
y in my arm meant for him. Turns out, chappie was the son of a duke and quite grateful to me. His papa put in a good word for me to the king, and here I am, a very parfit, gentil knyght.”

  He laughed again, and Josette, as Anna, giggled with him.

  Again, Will had borrowed the story from a real young man of obscurity who had fought the French at a battle on the Rhine. A grateful duke had made certain the young man had been knighted.

  “An army gentleman, are you?” Lady Bentley asked with interest. “We have a captain staying with us as well.”

  “I spied him, yes. He’s cavalry, and I was infantry. That means we don’t speak.” Will shook his head mockingly. “But I will endeavor to be civil.”

  Lady Bentley tittered with him. Josette kept the smile on her face as she watched Will charm his way into yet another woman’s confidence.

  They did not see Captain Ellis until dinner, which commenced at three that afternoon in a lavish dining room. This chamber had been copied almost exactly from Versailles, Josette saw as they entered. Sir Harmon must have sent his architect over to France with a measuring stick and a notebook.

  Will had tried to run down Captain Ellis to confront him in private but hadn’t managed it. Partly because their host, Sir Harmon, had returned from a muddy fishing expedition and taken Will aside to question him almost as thoroughly as his wife had.

  Josette had wandered the house while Will was closeted with Sir Harmon, searching for Captain Ellis herself while she pretended to be fascinated by the decor, but the captain had remained elusive.

  Captain Ellis’s chair at the dining table was next to Sir Harmon’s at the head, but Will had been placed by Lady Bentley at the foot, with Josette across from him and one down.

  The remaining guests, three couples and an older widower, were spaced up and down the table, ladies between gentlemen, no married pairs together.

  All guests were English, from the Heartland, they called it, meaning Staffordshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire and several other shires Josette could not remember at present. The gentlemen wore brightly colored and well-embroidered frock coats much like Will’s, though he surpassed them in number of ribbons along the sleeves.

  The ladies likewise wore bright colors, their gowns decorated with cascades of lace. Jewels glittered on bosoms, wrists, fingers, and earlobes.

  They were an unlikely group to be found in the remote countryside of Scotland, but Sir Harmon’s lavish house strove to shut out the landscape. If one did not look out the windows, they might be dining in the gentle parkland of Berkshire or Kent or on the plains of the Ile de France.

  The ladies and gentlemen all knew each other, and chattered like the old friends they were. They were curious about Will and Anna and bombarded them with probing questions. Josette was grateful to Will’s thorough preparation, so she could easily answer about her life on the Continent, her marriage to Will, and their sojourns in Basel and Lucerne.

  Captain Ellis said not a word. He glanced down the table at Josette from time to time, brows drawn. He clearly wondered who the devil she was and why she was with Will, but to her relief he said nothing.

  Waiting for a dramatic moment to denounce them? Or was he a friend to Will after all?

  Will, meanwhile, flirted shamelessly with Lady Bentley. She blushed and simpered, enjoying every moment.

  Josette did not like the jealousy that flitted inside her. Will played a part, she knew, and his behavior with Lady Bentley was to some extent Josette’s doing. Before dinner she’d overheard one of the gentlemen wonder if Will, with his myriad laces and high-pitched giggles, was really a molly, his pretty wife a blind.

  When Josette had conveyed this to Will in a whisper, he’d been neither surprised nor offended.

  “Hmm. Could be useful, though I don’t want Sir Harmon, who seems a bit prim, to decide to have me arrested for it.” He grinned. “Never fear, love. I’ll be a silly young man, but randy for the ladies.”

  Now he focused on Lady Bentley, making it obvious to stare at her ample bosom as often as possible. He did not neglect Josette, taking every opportunity to rake his gaze over her, or hold her attention while he touched his tongue to his upper lip. She found herself growing far too hot when he did that, and was thankful she’d brought her fan.

  Lady Bentley might have claimed they lived simply, but they’d imported a chef who’d managed to find plenty of beef, poultry, and other very English comestibles to supplement the fish from Sir Harmon’s catch today. The fish, being the freshest thing on the table, was excellent, served with a cream sauce flavored with dill and pepper. The meat was indifferent, but again excellently sauced.

  The overly pampered ladies and gentlemen complained, of course, that no good thing could be found this far north of the border, in lands full of crazed barbarians.

  “They’re said to be very handsome,” one of the ladies said. “The Highlanders, I mean. Tall and robust. Very robust.”

  “If you like them murderous and hairy,” her husband answered with a sniff into his handkerchief.

  “Their women are the same,” the gentleman next to Josette said. “Hairy and murderous.” The table roared with laughter.

  Will joined the laughter, but Josette saw the dangerous glint in his eyes.

  “I wouldn’t mind a look at these robust gentlemen,” Josette broke in too loudly. “What is the word they use to describe them? Braw? A braw Scotsman, dancing, big knees tossing up his skirts?”

  “Kilts,” another gentleman corrected her as more laughter ensued. “You won’t see those, my lady. They are forbidden to wear kilts and plaids, or to have claymores and whatever other fool things they gather to themselves.”

  “A pity.” Josette fingered her wine glass. “I don’t object to a fine pair of legs.” She sent a merry look to the young man next to her, and he all but leered back at her.

  Will’s laughter died into a scowl. “I see nothing beauteous in a man’s bare legs, my love. A bit disgusting, I’d think. A lady’s legs, now …” His face softened, his smile returning. “Ladies are the most wondrous creations, are they not, gentlemen? As Milton says, Heaven’s last, best gift.”

  He looked straight at Josette as he spoke the words, and then reached for a strawberry from the bowl between them. Holding her with his golden gaze, Will lifted a berry and dragged it through a bowl of sweetened cream, swirling the cream to a point on the strawberry’s tip.

  “Poets have compared a lady’s bosom to the finest strawberries, nestled in cream,” he said softly.

  Will laced his tongue around the tip of the berry, drawing the cream inside his mouth. He then bit down on the strawberry itself, closing his eyes to savor it.

  The heat inside Josette curled into flames. He teased, he played, he pretended, but the true Will looked at her when he opened his eyes, the promise and the wanting unfeigned.

  As laughter floated up and down the table, Josette lifted her fan and flapped it before her scalding face. “Husband, you are unseemly. What will our hostess think?”

  Exactly what he wanted her to think—that Will had a healthy appetite for the ladies, including his own wife. Indeed, Lady Bentley stared at Will in fascination, her lips parted as he finished the strawberry and licked cream from his fingers.

  Captain Ellis, on the other hand, drank wine in silence. Sir Harmon, a red-faced man with his wig canted on his round head, looked slightly perturbed. Prim, Will had called him.

  “Do you write poesy yourself, Sir William?” Lady Bentley asked, eyes bright.

  Will shook his head. “Nay, I am only an indifferent poet. If I could pen lines about my lady’s breasts, I would.” He waggled his brows up and down at Josette. “But alas, I am no Bard of Avon. I can only borrow from others, like the good Herrick and the other Will. Shakespeare, I mean.”

  The ladies and gentlemen chortled, probably more at his feeble attempt at a joke than any appreciation of his wit.

  Josette kept up her side of the play, closing her fan to tap Will’s hand. “Yo
u are both overly flattering and mortifying at the same time. I can only blush.”

  And look very pleased that this handsome, virile man had singled her out to be his wife.

  Will’s wife. Josette pushed aside the temptation of this vision and hurriedly finished off her wine.

  The other gentlemen then tried to be witty and complimentary to the ladies, some more successfully than others.

  Dinner finished at half past five. It was full daylight, this being June, despite the efforts of the clouds to blot out the sun. As the guests slowly drifted from the dining room, Will peered through its long windows to the lush grounds beyond.

  “I heard you have a water garden, Sir Harmon,” he said. “Of all things.”

  “That is true.” Sir Harmon joined him at the window, his shoulders straightening. “Fountains and little jests, and so forth. Marvelous things, hydraulics.”

  “I don’t understand in the least how they work, but they can be so amusing.” Will turned to him eagerly, his gaze taking in Captain Ellis, who lingered behind their host. “Do say I can view them. Captain Ellis, wouldn’t you like to see the water gardens? Oh, perhaps you have already.”

  Will’s crestfallen look was perfect. Captain Ellis, with the air of a man forcing himself to be polite, bowed and said, “I would, of course, be happy to observe them with you.”

  Sir Harmon eyed the mist outside with distaste. “I’ll send one of my chaps with you. He knows what’s what on the estate. Best put on some wraps, though, or you’ll catch your deaths. Sun never shines in this blasted country.”

  In a quarter of an hour, Will, Josette, and Captain Ellis were assembled to roam the gardens. A lad of about eighteen or so summers, with black skin and in footman’s attire, led the way, pointing out features as they went. His tone was weary, as though he’d given this tour once too often and was thoroughly tired of it.

  “Roses cover the south terrace along with blooms from every part of the empire,” the young man said in a flat voice. “The first fountain is Apollo and his chariot, which is the same as the one at Versailles.”