by Jaimey Grant
Levi glared at him. “I resent that, Prestwich,” he muttered as he crossed his arms over his massive chest.
The taller man mimicked his movements and ignored the jab in the ribs he received from Northwicke. “Why would you resent the truth, Vi? It is a fortune hunt, is it not? You need an heiress or at least a hefty dowry to reestablish yourself in Society.”
“You make it sound so…wrong,” the earl retorted lamely as his hands dropped to his sides.
“It is,” Adam replied with a lifting of his brows. He did not relax his stance. “Two years ago, even a year ago I would have been the first to tell you that marrying for love was nothing more than an air-dream. But now I think you would be stupid to settle for less.”
The earl stared at his cousin-by-marriage. “It was on your very pointed suggestion that I started this blasted marriage business in the first place. Now you tell me to marry for love? Perhaps I fall in love with an impoverished young woman who has several dozen dependents. Will you support us?”
“Of course not. Find yourself an occupation and support your own family. Better yet, fall in love with an heiress.”
Levi shook his head, exasperated. “If it were that easily done, all marriages would be love matches.”
Northwicke smiled and patted Levi on the back. “I agree with Adam, to an extent. But I also think you should ignore everyone’s well-meant advice and follow your own heart and mind, my friend.”
“Including yours?”
The other man laughed. “Of course not, you clunch. I am the only one making any sense these days.”
“Yes, well,” the earl muttered. “I was looking for Derringer. Have you seen him?”
Adam gave him a shrewd glance. “Are you going to berate the dangerous duke over his treatment of a certain young lady that my wife likes to talk about constantly?”
“That is none of your concern, Prestwich, and I’ll thank you to stay out of my affairs.”
“Be easy, Greville,” Northwicke said. “I am sure Adam thinks you should. Just be careful that you don’t anger him too much. Derringer is more than just dangerous. He is ruthless and some say heartless as well.”
Levi’s sense of humor saved him yet again. He laughed. “Do you know, some people call him Lord Heartless? I wonder if Hart knows. He would find it amusing, I am sure.” The earl shrugged and a troubled expression briefly crossed his face as he added, “Well, he would if he was amused by anything at all.”
Northwicke gave him a rather strange look. “Just how well do you know the duke, Vi?”
Levi shrugged again. “I don’t know. Not at all and better than most, I would say,” he replied with a half-smile. “Hart doesn’t befriend just anyone and he never turns his back on those he does befriend. He’s an enigma, that’s the long and short of it.”
“Quite,” Lord Connor murmured. “I have to find my wife, gentlemen. Excuse me.” He started to walk away but paused and turned back to the earl. “I saw Derringer headed for the exit, by the way. He looked none too pleased.”
“Thank you,” Levi said with a perplexed look at Northwicke’s odd behavior. Adam shrugged and took his leave as well.
Lord Greville turned to go and found Miss Suzanne Weatherby blocking his way. “Oh, my lord, how do you do?” she asked, her rouged lips tipping up in a seductive smile.
“I am well, Miss Weatherby,” Levi murmured politely. I was, in any case.
She laid her hand on his arm in a conspiratorial manner. “I have missed you, my lord.”
Like a cat misses a mouse. “Indeed?”
“Oh, yes,” the auburn-haired beauty said in a seductively arousing voice that Levi couldn’t help but react to. He was only human, after all, and the woman was dashed beautiful. “I have thought of nothing since that dance we shared and I find I quite long for another.”
“I am afraid I cannot oblige you, ma’am.” Thank God, Zeus, Hades, and the devil. His gaze darted to the door, a tightening in his chest hinting at panic.
She pouted prettily and turned guileless green eyes up to him. “I have been dying to waltz with you, my lord. Have you not been wanting to hold me in your arms?”
Can she be any more forward? It is positively nauseating. “Alas, fair lady, I am promised for the last waltz. I am sorry.” Nearly as sorry as a man who has suddenly struck it rich.
“Can you not un-promise it?” she asked as her hand slipped to his chest and started a downward path to his hard stomach and lower still.
He grasped her hand and held it captive before she could reach her ultimate destination. “No, Miss Weatherby, I cannot. And might I add that your behavior is disgraceful,” he said through clenched teeth.
Miss Weatherby only smiled, something in her beautiful eyes alerting Levi to imminent danger.
~~~~~~
Aurora was parched. Logically, she entered the refreshment room.
Instead of the lukewarm lemonade she anticipated, she found the Earl of Greville and Miss Suzanne Weatherby. The earl held the hand of the beautiful redhead, smiles of apparent delight wreathing both faces. Their disregard for their surroundings was appalling. Anyone could enter and see the scandalous position they were in.
Aurora felt a twinge in her heart that curiously resembled disappointment.
This was her dance, she thought rebelliously. And no Friday-faced hussy was going to steal it from her!
Aurora marched up to them and smiled with all the condescension she could muster. “Am I to offer congratulations, my lord?”
“Good God, no!” the earl exclaimed with a horrified look. He dropped the lady’s hand as if it was a hot coal and turned to Aurora. “This is not what you think, Rory.”
Aurora ignored the pleasant swirl of emotion in her breast at his use of her personal name.
“Oh, but it is,” Miss Weatherby contradicted with a feline smile. “I have been compromised by you, Lord Greville. Now you must marry me to save face.”
“The devil I do, you little hellcat!” He glanced at Aurora. “I apologize for my language, Miss Glendenning,” he murmured. He turned back to the beautiful witch. “I will not marry you and I did not compromise you. How can you be compromised in the middle of Almack’s?”
“We have been in here alone all of five minutes. The ton requires much less as proof.”
Society was just as nonsensical as Miss Weatherby insisted, Aurora knew. They would delight in shredding a few reputations, forcing a marriage guaranteed to be a misery.
“Who do you think they will believe, Greville?” the beauty hissed. “You are known as a rake and libertine and I am the famously beautiful Miss Suzanne Weatherby, a most proper young lady.”
“Proper, hah! You are nothing more than a courtesan in the garb of a lady…barely. I will not attach my name to that of a whore,” he said, raking her over with contempt-filled eyes.
The look on his face made Aurora uneasy. What if he ever found out…?
Miss Weatherby slapped him and Aurora gasped. “How dare you, sir?” the beauty said shrilly. “I will show you, you bastard.” She marched away with her nose in the air and the light of war shining in her emerald orbs.
Lord Greville muttered a foul oath. With an apologetic glance at his companion, he added, “Forgive me.”
“Do not worry so, my lord,” Aurora said. She forced a confidence into her expression that she didn’t feel. “I will help you come about, you’ll see.”
“How?”
With a tight knot in her middle, Aurora glanced up at him. “Let us just say I have a few tricks up my sleeve, my Lord Greville. Things the ton doesn’t know that they may find far more interesting than the accusations of London’s most notorious…lady.”
*
Chapter Six
Scandal, courtesy of Suzanne Weatherby, awaited them in the ballroom when Levi entered with Aurora on his arm. Several pairs of accusing eyes were trained in their direction, those of Suzanne and her father foremost among them. As was often the case at executions, the impend
ing death of a reputation was looked on with almost as much glee.
“How do you propose to help, Sprite?” Levi asked low enough that it didn’t go beyond her hearing.
“I will tell the truth,” was Aurora’s enigmatic reply.
Brow furrowed at her odd tone, all he could say was “Very well.”
Bri made her way in their direction along with Verena and Miss Ellison, Adam and Northwicke trailing along behind. The countess took up a martial stance as if she would fight anyone who dared to come near her beloved cousin. The gentlemen stood with the earl and Verena stood on Aurora’s other side with Miss Ellison.
As far as vanguards went, it was insufficient. But it was better than nothing.
“Greville, you have compromised my daughter,” Lord Weatherby blustered as he advanced on the earl with his spiteful daughter in tow. “I demand that you do the honorable thing and marry her.”
Levi stared at the man as if he’d lost his head. “Your daughter was not compromised, my lord,” he bit out. If anyone was, it was I.
“Do you have proof of that?” the man asked belligerently.
There was an answering murmur from the assembled crowd. Even the patronesses, who possessed the power to put a stop to it from the very start, stood back and watched the contretemps with ill-concealed delight mixed with only a small measure of contempt. It was sickening to see adults behaving so very much like children.
“Of course I have no proof, Weatherby. How would I have proof?”
“Miss Weatherby was not compromised, my Lord Weatherby,” Aurora inserted in her soft tones. The crowd silenced instantly. “I attended them the whole time. Nothing untoward occurred.”
Levi gave Aurora a searching look. She returned a barely perceptible nod that he follow her lead. He looked back at his would-be wife and her father. “Miss Glendenning is right. Nothing happened.”
“And who are you?” Lord Weatherby asked insolently, as if her identity had anything at all to do with her honesty.
Aurora smiled brilliantly at him. “As Lord Greville just said, I am Miss Glendenning…of the Staffordshire Glendennings,” she added after the briefest of pauses. “Who are you?”
Apparently, no one there had known she was one of the Staffordshire Glendennings, a family that could trace their noble lineage as far back as William the Conqueror. There may not have been any titles in the family, but one of Aurora’s ancestors was one of the knights who crossed over from Normandy beside the first King of England—King William’s most favored knight, in fact.
The hush that fell over the guests was deathly. Then it became a buzz of sound as everyone turned to the lady or gentleman next them.
“How utterly ridiculous to believe the word of a person based entirely upon their lineage.” She turned laughing eyes up to the earl and froze at the look of suspicion she saw there.
“What is it?” she whispered.
Levi murmured something placating and wondered what else she had kept from him. And she had lied for him so easily, quite as if it came naturally to her to tell less than the truth. What did he actually know of this girl?
“But you cannot be!” insisted Baron Weatherby, quite beside himself with outrage. “You cannot be! I knew the late Theodore Glendenning. He had no children.”
“Of course he did not, Lord Weatherby,” Aurora offered, her soothing voice washing over the assemblage. “He was my father’s brother and never wed. But I am indeed a Glendenning, my lord. I am sorry if this distresses you.”
“All stuff and nonsense,” the baron sputtered rudely. “And this has naught to do with Greville’s compromising my Suzy.”
“It does not, does it?” Miss Glendenning’s thoughtful tone swept over the crowd. “The fact is, Lord Weatherby, I fail to see how anyone could have been compromised. We were in the refreshment room. Anyone could have entered at any time. This disturbance should never have occurred. ”
Dark laughter floated over the gathering. The crowd turned as one to the door, witnessing the odd merriment of the Duke of Derringer. Lord Connor had been mistaken. Derringer had not left. Then again, what patroness, or lock for that matter, could stop Lord Heartless if he chose to return?
Applause filled the room. The duke’s delight apparently knew no bounds. Levi couldn’t repress a groan, knowing his friend well enough to suspect they were in for a scandal of monumental proportions.
When he had everyone’s attention Derringer stopped clapping. His dark gaze surveyed the crowd, finally settling on Lord Weatherby. “Good evening, Weatherby. Enjoying the party, are you?”
The baron sputtered out a response, flummoxed by the duke’s mild tone.
“For the love of…” Levi muttered, closing his eyes briefly.
Derringer smirked, a flare of what seemed to be annoyance lighting his black eyes. “I do hope you are enjoying yourself, Weatherby. It will be the last gathering you will attend for quite some time, I should imagine.”
Levi, although the wronged one, felt the need to step forward at his friend’s dire words. “Hart, this is really not necessary.”
The look he received for his impertinence was eloquent. “This doesn’t concern you, my lord.”
“How does this not concern me?”
The blasphemy that emerged from the duke’s mouth had mothers all over the ballroom clapping their hands over their daughters’ ears. Nervous giggles were heard throughout. Levi threw his hands up in surrender, retreating from the contretemps for fear of making matters worse.
“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” the duke began again, moving further into the room to stand before the silent Baron Weatherby, “this will be your last party for some time. No one will want to entertain your daughter when she is no better than she should be.” Leaning closer, he added in a stage whisper, “Trust me, I know.”
A wave of horror swept the crowd. Levi could just imagine what was being said.
“What was that?”
“What did he say?”
“He knows?”
“Miss Weatherby and Lord Derringer?”
“Can it be true?”
“It must be. The duke himself admitted it.”
“Oooh, she’s so lucky.”
Levi swiveled his head to see a young girl, barely out of the schoolroom, being reprimanded by her mother. Good Lord, if girls that age were daydreaming about Derringer, his dangerous reputation was becoming highly romanticized.
The baron’s florid countenance paled. As a loving father, he should have challenged Lord Derringer. At the very least, he should have insisted the duke marry his daughter. He did neither. He just stared mutely while his only child dissolved into horrified tears. Her reputation was irreparably damaged, destroyed beyond redemption. She would never marry well now.
Levi sighed. Derringer ever was one to settle a situation to his own satisfaction with little regard for others. Perhaps he’d found the Weatherbys a nuisance and wanted them out of Society.
“How terrible,” Aurora murmured, the disgust she felt apparent in her tone.
The Weatherbys made their way out, the haughty glances of the patronesses letting everyone know the truth of Derringer’s threat.
Before Levi knew what Aurora was about, she’d left his side. He followed, knowing with a sinking feeling that Suzanne was not the only one who would lose her reputation this night.
She marched over and looked up at the Duke of Derringer with righteous indignation. “That was very ill-done of you, your grace,” she reprimanded in a harsh whisper. “That young lady now has no chance of marriage because of you. How could you be so…heartless?”
Derringer looked down at the little pixie-fury and almost smiled, truly smiled. Instead, he shrugged. “That lady, and I use the term loosely, is a spiteful witch with less morals than a cat. She needed to be put firmly in her place.”
“And who deemed you judge, advocate, and jury? Have you no honor?”
Any shred of amusement the duke might have felt disa
ppeared. His eyes glittered dangerously. Levi felt a need to intervene.
“Hart, she means well.”
“Levi, you are like a fly, buzzing in my ear. Take yourself off.”
Levi released a frustrated sigh, knowing it would not do to lay hands on a duke in the middle of Almack’s. Even if he did deserve a sound thrashing.
Aurora sucked in a breath, visibly outraged. “I know you are capable of insensitivity but this goes beyond the pale. How can you treat your own friend so shabbily?”
“Take care, my dear. I anger easily,” he growled for her ears alone. “One word of what I know about you and you would be treated worse than Suzanne Weatherby could ever dream.”
Levi’s brows lifted, having heard just enough of the duke’s words to arouse his curiosity. What had he heard? And why was he even looking?
Miss Aurora Glendenning’s complexion paled, her voice dropping to an agonized whisper. “I don’t know what you are referring to, your grace.”
Derringer glanced around, his face forbidding anyone to come closer. Levi ignored the expression, choosing to take his life in his hands instead.
“That is quite enough, Hart. You have made your point. Cease baiting Miss Glendenning and find some other sport to relieve your boredom.”
The duke eyed his friend for a long moment, his features revealing little of whatever dark thoughts consumed him. Coming to some decision—Levi prayed it was one that didn’t involve bloodshed—he turned back to Aurora. The earl did not trust the smile on Derringer’s lips.
“Here is your champion, my dear.” His soulless black eyes never left the petite blond he tormented. “Keep her in line, Greville. I’ve no desire to ruin another reputation tonight.” This last was said loudly enough that several standing close by heard and the duke’s words darted around the room.
Leaning down, the duke put his lips nearly to Aurora’s ear. As Levi stepped forward to put a stop to such unseemly behavior, Derringer said something that turned her face to the color of paste. Levi would have sold his mother to the devil to find out what it was.
“You are heartless,” she hissed through white lips.