“Good-bye, Bella.”
She said nothing. There wasn’t anything left to say.
Bella willed herself to stand still when he walked away, not to call out or run after him as her heart insisted. She couldn’t find her usual rational self. This wasn’t a riddle she could unravel. Pain and confusion clouded everything, but intuition told her he wasn’t just walking out of her party.
Rhys Forester had just walked out of her life.
Forever.
Chapter One
July 1848
London, Lyon’s Gentlemen’s Club
Rhys Forester, Duke of Claremont, was a lucky man.
He told himself as much as a blade cut the air a hairsbreadth from his cheek, its glinting silver flashing in his periphery. A streak of heat whispered against his skin and his heartbeat spiked before the knife lodged in the wooden board at his back.
Partygoers crowding the opulent private room in Lyon’s Gentlemen’s Club let out a murmur of relief. Rhys swept his gaze across the assembly of noblemen and their paramours, forcing a rakish smile. One of the young lords he’d invited tightened an arm around his lady companion’s shoulders when she let out a flirtatious giggle.
He understood the man’s worry.
Rhys had spent years earning his scandalous reputation, and he’d had a hell of an example to follow. The late Duke of Claremont had been known for his decadent tastes and very few morals. Rhys had never been close to his father, but now he’d grown used to the same whispers about his own behavior.
Reckless affairs earned him constant mention in scandal rags and at least two breach of promise suits. Ridiculous luck at the gaming tables caused some to claim he cheated at play. But most of all he was known for the nightly revels he hosted. Parties so wild there had been injuries, infamies, and drunken brawls leading to fisticuffs and more than a few illegal duels.
For years, infamy had sustained him. He’d loved the endless parties. The attention of beautiful women. The envy of other men. Laughter filling his ears because he’d put on the best celebration his guests ever attended. He excelled at very little, but amusement he did well. That and giving pleasure. Giving people an excuse to have fun. Filling his nights with so much frivolity that he could push away thoughts of the duties he’d have to face when daylight came.
Of late those responsibilities were piling so high no amount of revelry could keep them at bay, but he was damned well determined to try. Now that he’d inherited a dukedom, he was compelled to make each party grander than the last.
He’d always been as willful as he was wayward, but what he could no longer deny was how tired it all made him.
This was the fourth party in as many nights with very little sleep in between. His eyes were dry as dust, his throat burned, and there were far too many hours left to go until this soiree died down. The circus theme had been a grand success, but now guests were inebriated and eager for more daring feats from the performers he’d hired.
“Throw another!” a drunk lordling shouted for the second time from the back of the room.
The muscles of Rhys’s arms and neck were stiff, tautened by tension, but when he shifted, the lady flipping a knife in front of him shook her head.
“Stay still, darling.” Jess, one of the music hall performers he’d hired as entertainment, winked at him. “Wouldn’t want to mar that pretty face of yours.”
“You wouldn’t dare. You’re too fond of my face just as it is.”
“Handsome man, you are. Can’t deny it.” She returned a knowing smile, one full of promises he considered holding her to later in the evening.
Party guests laughed at their repartee and gathered close to watch her toss another blade. Hosting a party in a private room at Lyon’s Gentlemen’s Club had seemed a good way to celebrate his latest investment triumph. The Duke’s Den had given him an opportunity to expand the wealth he inherited from his father even further via investments in England’s brightest entrepreneurs. But now that he was bleary-eyed, his patience for standing against an unforgiving wooden board and hoping Jess’s aim was as good as she claimed was waning.
“Above his head!” a gentleman called out.
“Between his legs,” his pretty redheaded companion said with a mischievous grin.
“I shall land this blade near the opposite ear.” Jess narrowed her eyes and drew back her arm to throw the next knife.
A nobleman’s buxom paramour gasped.
Rhys held very still and reminded himself once more that fortune was ever on his side.
Jess loosed the knife and it came at him so fast, he only heard the thwack as it struck the board. Then a pinpoint of pain bloomed at the side of his head. Rhys winced. Jess covered her mouth with her hands, eyes widening.
Reaching up, he swiped at a trickle of blood at the edge of his ear.
“Just a scratch,” he told her, and then louder for the guests leaning close, whispering worriedly. “A tiny knick. No harm done.”
“Lucky that,” one man shouted.
“No man is as charmed as the Duke of Claremont,” a brunette said, her eyes wide.
“Another!” Lord Southwell called out. “Let’s see if his luck can hold.”
Jess looked unsteady as she drew the final knife from the belt she wore. Her hand shook when she lifted the implement. Rather than aim and toss the blade, she held his gaze and offered the tiniest shake of her head.
“Go on,” another man urged.
Rhys was on the cusp of calling it off. Jess’s mouth quivered, her facade of confidence faltering.
“Claremont, may we have a word before this young woman impales you?”
Rhys recognized the voice. Aidan Iverson had been invited to the party, but Rhys had given up on him attending. He was happy to see his friend, if only because it meant freeing himself from further target practice.
Though now that Iverson was here, he didn’t look at all festive. And he wasn’t alone. Nick, Duke of Tremayne, stood beside him. Both of Rhys’s partners in co-ownership of Lyon’s lingered on the threshold of the crowded room, their faces a grim contrast to the evening’s gaiety.
“Please, everyone, carry on.” Rhys gestured toward the quartet of violinists in the corner of the room and stepped down from the platform. “Time for music and dancing.”
He cast a look at Tremayne and Iverson. They definitely wouldn’t be dancing. Their gazes were so serious that he dreaded whatever news they’d come to deliver.
“Quite an impressive performance, Your Grace.”
Rhys looked over his shoulder and found the brunette who’d called out to him earlier watching with an assessing gaze. She’d come with a friend, a viscount who had been a member of Lyon’s for years. He couldn’t bed her, but she possessed a porcelain beauty that was hard to ignore.
“Everyone says so.”
One gossip rag claimed he possessed all the qualities a bon vivant nobleman could ever require: charm, wealth, an insatiable appetite for pleasure. He was renowned throughout London as the blazing spark of any party. A man whose smile could charm a lady from across a crowded ballroom. The most daring investor of the Duke’s Den.
Rhys almost believed the stories others told about him. Almost.
A good tailor helped with the appealing facade he presented to the world. An adept valet was a godsend. Being a lucky man, he possessed both.
Wealth had come easily. As the firstborn son of the Duke of Claremont, he’d been afforded the best education. Excellent tutors. Long-suffering types who remained in their post no matter how difficult it was to teach a duke’s son who couldn’t read or memorize his numbers like other children. University had been a bit of a nightmare, but the allowance from his father had started then. With those funds he’d been lucky enough at gambling to grow a sizable wealth of his own.
And now, atop all of his other blessings, he’d added his father’s title. A dukedom could only enhance a man’s merits.
He was the most favored of men.
Which
was why he’d confided to no one that the weight of the responsibilities that had been heaped on his shoulders in the past weeks were crushing him like a millstone.
He glanced back at the brunette, her long shiny ringlets swaying in a sinuous fall above a petite waist and shapely hips. She turned as if she sensed his notice and a wicked smile curved her lush lips. When he winked in reply, he fought a wave of fatigue that made him want to close both of his eyes and lean heavily against the nearest wall for a short nap. How long had it been since he’d tasted a bit of the pleasure he was renowned for seeking?
No. He could do this. He’d hear whatever news his partners had for him and then return to his guests.
Revelry was his talent. Revelry and the instinct to know when an investment might go well and turn a profit. Unlike Iverson and Tremayne, he didn’t rely on facts and reports or carefully calculating the return on his investment. He simply felt his way through decisions. And he applied the same principle at gaming tables and to every amusement life had to offer.
And he excelled at all of it when he wasn’t so bloody exhausted. The fatigue that weighed on him like ballast had begun a month past on the evening he’d received news of his father’s death. An estate, tenants, a seat in Parliament, a coterie of servants—all of it had passed to him overnight, along with a pile of unexpected debt.
He admitted to no one that his nerves jangled like the traces on a runaway carriage.
“What is it?” he said as he approached his friends, trying to temper the panic welling up in his chest.
“We need to talk.” Tremayne glanced around the room. “Not here. The balcony.”
Rhys followed the men, each step building a wave of unease. Upon reaching the private space high above the gaming tables of Lyon’s, Iverson gestured toward a cluster of upholstered chairs. “Shall we sit?”
Rhys ignored him and headed for the drinks cart. “Don’t coddle me. Let me get a swig of whiskey down and say whatever you must as quickly as you can. The long looks on your faces don’t give me much hope for pleasant news.”
Iverson took up a position near the cart, boots firmly planted and arms crossed.
The same nervousness making Rhys’s hand shake as he lifted a glass to his lips was also radiating off of Tremayne, but Iverson simply stood, still and calm. He’d always been the steadiest of the three of them.
“When was the last time you were in touch with your sister?”
Rhys cocked his head and locked eyes with Iverson. “Is she unwell?”
“No.” Iverson lifted his hand in a calming gesture. “Nothing like that.” He gazed over his shoulder at Tremayne. “But you haven’t brought her to London or taken her back to the estate in Essex?”
Two drums began a fearsome tattoo in Rhys’s head, one behind each temple. “My sister is at finishing school in Hampshire.”
“She’s finished,” Tremayne said drily. “Lady Margaret sent me a letter because she hasn’t heard from you. She graduated nearly a fortnight ago and was expecting a carriage to escort her home.”
“Christ.” Rhys scraped a hand through his hair. He’d been living so hard of late the days had merged together. So much so that he’d bloody forgotten the date and his only sister. “I’ll send for her immediately.”
“Already done,” Nick told him in the voice he usually reserved for frustrated noblemen who came to complain that they’d lost too much at the club’s gaming tables. “She should arrive at Edgecombe tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” Rhys let out a sigh of relief but none of the tension in his body loosened.
Meg had inherited their mother’s kindness along with a full measure of their father’s impatience. He could well imagine the words she’d have for him when she returned home. He deserved them all.
“She’s concerned about you,” Nick added in a gentler tone. “We all are.”
Rhys looked up. He deserved whatever disappointment his longtime friend felt for his irresponsibility. But Tremayne lowered his head and stared at the carpet. He couldn’t look Rhys in the eyes.
“There’s more. Don’t spare me. Just say it.”
Iverson crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. “You recall Mr. Carthorpe?”
“Yes, of course.” Rhys didn’t have Tremayne’s aptitude for numbers or Iverson’s shrewd head for business matters, but his memory rarely failed him. “The horseless carriage chap.”
Rhys recalled him as young and fidgety, but the man’s invention was an exciting prospect and every member of the Duke’s Den had been eager to invest.
“Don’t tell me he’s run off with our money.”
Nick cleared his throat and then rubbed a hand along the edge of his jaw. It was a tic Rhys had observed many times in the Den. The gesture was the same he used when he was loath to tell an inventor that none of them wished to invest in his or her device.
“Out with it,” Rhys barked, too exhausted for delicacy.
“Carthorpe did not receive our full investment,” Iverson told him in a firm voice. Then he paused and cleared his throat. Rhys could virtually see whatever else he wished to say lodged in the man’s throat.
Iverson dipped his head and flicked back his suit coat to place a hand on each hip. When he finally looked up, his eyes were filled with what Rhys thought looked a great deal like regret.
“Your bank reported that the amount you promised could not be fulfilled.”
“That’s not possible,” Rhys scoffed. The air rushed out of him in another bluster of denial.
The claim was absurd.
He wasn’t in daily contact with his banker and had no real notion of the balance in each of his accounts, but that was precisely the point. His funds on hand had always been so healthy that he’d never worried about paying an invoice or offering his money to an inventor in the hopes of getting a generous return.
“Your bank hasn’t contacted you about this matter?” Tremayne asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.” Rhys stared at Nick but in his mind’s eye he saw the stack of unopened letters he nudged aside every time he sat at the desk in his study. “The post has piled up in the last few weeks.” Letters, invitations, and notes of condolences had arrived in a flurry after his father’s death. He’d struggled through reading a couple before allowing them to accumulate.
“Avoiding your post? Forgetting the commencement of your sister’s studies. Unaware of your finances.” Iverson’s usually calm voice ebbed toward concern. “Is something amiss, Claremont?”
Every damned thing, apparently.
“How could it be?” Rhys forced a rusty chuckle and shrugged his shoulders, wishing he could dislodge the tightness that had taken root there. “I’ve inherited a dukedom.”
“And yet you remain here in London,” Iverson pointed out unhelpfully. “Have you returned to Essex at all since your father’s funeral?”
Mention of the funeral made Rhys long for another finger of whiskey, but Iverson stood like an enormous red-haired oak tree blocking his path to the cart.
The funeral had been as bleak as any event Rhys had ever attended. The duke had isolated himself in his later years and those who’d come to see him laid to rest had done so out of duty rather than affection. Guilt weighed heavy on Rhys. He too had been among the dutiful, rather than those who’d felt any warmth toward the old man. Only Meg had cried genuine tears for their father.
It hadn’t always been that way. Once upon a time, Rhys had looked up to Tarquin, Duke of Claremont. Idolized him. He recalled the duke’s visits to the nursery, the occasional encouraging pat on the head, and how his father often gifted books for Rhys to read.
That was where it had all gone wrong. As soon as his struggles with learning became evident, his father lost interest. A duke’s son who couldn’t read properly? Unthinkable.
“Enderley was a shambles when I inherited,” Nick admitted in a tone that was far more sympathetic than pitying. “What is the state of Edgecombe?”
Rhys hated admitting that he
hardly knew. Without his mother and sister to brighten its halls, the old estate had all the charm of a mausoleum. He’d stayed in a guest room the single time he’d visited and departed as soon as he was able.
But thinking back to his conversation with the estate’s staff, Rhys was beginning to form a theory. “There were debts attached to the estate.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair before looking at each of his friends in turn. Fortunate, he may be, but he knew his faults. Even admitted them once in a while. To himself, if no one else. He had a tendency toward irresponsibility and a refusal to be anything but the feckless nobleman others expected him to be, which left very little room for anything he truly wished to be.
Disappointing the friends who’d stood by him when others in polite society called him a ne’er-do-well and a cad? That was a fresh low.
“I directed the steward to contact my bank and see to any financial obligations my father had yet to meet.”
Nick’s dark brows arced up. “How steep were the debts?”
Rhys turned to Nick, intending to offer one of his charming smiles. His typical devil-may-care reassurance that all was well in hand. But the muscles of his face rebelled.
Weariness washed over him and honesty was the only thing that took no effort. “Apparently mountainous.”
Nick let out a heavy sigh.
“Is there more?” Rhys had known the two men long enough to sense there was a great deal Tremayne and Iverson were leaving unspoken.
“You agreed to fund two other inventors after Carthorpe,” Nick said. “They’ve received nothing yet, but Iverson and I can see to your share between us.”
Rhys tried to concoct reasonable excuses, rationales for why his accounts had been drained and he’d somehow been too busy to notice. But they knew his reputation. His ducal town house was such a mess from the last party, he’d been forced to host this one at Lyon’s.
They deserved more than justifications.
“I’m sorry,” he heard himself say. The words were unfamiliar and felt misshapen on his tongue.
Nothing Compares to the Duke Page 2