by Jaimey Grant
“You frighten me, Hart.”
~~~~~~
Aurora walked into the room, unsure how her husband would receive her. When she saw the duke, she scowled in his direction, unaware that her pixie face made her look as dangerous as an angry kitten. Derringer stood up with a smile of welcome, both actions odd for him since he seemed to go to some trouble to appear every bit the conscienceless rogue Society named him.
“Good afternoon, Lady Greville. I trust you are well?” he asked solicitously.
Aurora viewed this strange behavior askance. “I am well, all things considered. But I fear you may have some sort of brain fever,” she couldn’t help adding. “You are acting all out of character. Would you like to lie down? Perhaps a rest would do you some good.”
This observation made the duke laugh with genuine mirth. “I assure you I am well, my lady. Don’t trouble yourself on my account.” He moved toward her, keeping an eye on her husband in a way that Aurora couldn’t like. “I am convinced that you don’t care a rap for my health anyway,” he told her mockingly. He bowed over her hand in a courtly gesture.
As he straightened, Aurora drew in a sharp breath at the sudden, unaccountable anger in the duke’s black eyes. She stiffened in preparation for whatever he was about to say.
In a voice as caressing as silk but as deadly as a rapier, the Duke of Derringer asked, “Why do the Millers have your daughter?”
Aurora reeled back as if struck. Levi hurried toward her and slid his arm around her waist to support her as she swayed unsteadily. The duke released a sharp, humorless laugh and returned to his seat behind the desk.
“There is hope for you yet, Vi,” he commented. He settled himself in the chair and leaned back, swinging his booted feet up onto the desk and crossing his ankles. He linked his hands behind his head and looked for all the world as if he owned the place.
Aurora sagged against her husband, relishing his strength, but her eyes never left the duke’s. “It was not Desmond?” she asked weakly. “It was the Millers?”
“It was both,” replied Derringer. His voice was once again blank, although the mocking look remained in his eyes.
This statement snapped Aurora out of her shock. “They are working together? How can they be so utterly horrid? She is just a little girl.”
“You are very observant,” commented Derringer, his scorn grating on her nerves. “What is that cousin of yours thinking, Vi, poking her nose around in Cheapside?” he asked Levi in a swift change of subject.
“Bri?” said Aurora and Levi together.
“Yes, Lord and Lady Featherhead. Lady Brianna Prestwich, Countess of Rothsmere. Tiny saw her with Northwicke’s wife asking questions that are likely to get Rhiannon and themselves killed. I assume Prestwich and Northwicke are unaware of their actions?”
“They would have to be,” Levi agreed. “If Adam, I mean, when Adam finds out, he’ll kill her himself.”
“And Lord Connor would lock Doll up if he knew she was aiding Bri,” inserted Aurora. “I cannot believe Doll would even consent to such a mad scheme.”
“She is probably trying to keep Bri from attempting something even more foolish,” Levi told them dryly.
“That is how I saw it,” agreed Derringer, his eased pose behind the desk belying the rigidity of his face. “I’d feel better if it was Prestwich poking around. Even though he’d likely get in the way, he would be a good deal more able to handle himself when Forester’s hired cutthroats ambush us all during our first rescue attempt.” He paused, his expression a mixture of speculation, annoyance, and consideration.
“Our first attempt?” Levi uttered in accents of disbelief. “What do you mean, our first attempt?”
But the duke appeared not to be listening. His brow cleared suddenly. “We need Prestwich and Northwicke after all.” His tone suggested that he liked the idea not at all. “Do you think they’d be willing to act as decoys?” he inquired of Levi, who seemed to be having trouble processing all that had been said.
“That is it!” Derringer exploded before Levi could answer. “You are right. We should make only one attempt. Forester wants Aurora to deliver the money personally. So we will need her to accompany us, as much as I hate the idea. No, Vi, listen before you fly up into the boughs. She will not be hurt. She’ll have you and Northwicke watching her, you see. I trust that you can sufficiently keep her out of harm’s way?” he asked with thinly veiled insolence. He chuckled at the earl’s outraged countenance. “I will have Prestwich and Tiny watching the Millers’ house since I am positive Forester will not take the child with him to meet Rory.”
Aurora started at this. “He will not? But I thought you said…”
“He will not,” Derringer replied firmly. “He will leave her with the Millers, who will then extract the rest of your fortune from you by threatening to haul you before the magistrate charged with kidnapping.”
Aurora gasped. She hadn’t thought of that. “Why do I have to be the one?” she asked in a choked voice. Levi tightened his hold on her and she gripped his lapel.
“Forester’s orders. Likely, he is counting on your continued silence in regard to your sins. He thinks you will go alone, without even telling your husband or your friends, thus giving him a chance to take from you all that he wants.” The duke paused, studying Aurora’s face. She stared back questioningly. “What he has already taken, actually.”
Confusion crossed Aurora’s face. “You speak in riddles,” she told him. “He wants my money and he has taken Rhiannon. What are you talking about?”
She glanced at her husband.
Levi knew. Perhaps it was because he was a man or perhaps it was because he could suddenly read the duke’s face. His look was pitying, sad almost. That was a very bad sign.
“A fallen woman and yet so innocent.” Derringer’s voice was soft. Aurora bristled at the insult.
“He wants you, Aurora,” the earl informed her harshly. “He wants what he has already had, that which he believes he already owns. He means to have you by force if necessary. The money was a ruse and he no doubt instructed that you go alone.” He glanced at the duke for support of this theory. Derringer nodded.
“But why?” she exclaimed in confusion. “He could have married me three years ago but he refused. He could have had me forever. Why must he resort to this?”
Her words caused a look of jealous rage to suffuse Levi’s countenance. Aurora stared up at him in complete shock, unable to understand why he should be jealous now.
Derringer’s next query seemed to stem more from simple curiosity than need. “Would you have actually married him?”
Aurora didn’t bother to look at the duke. She continued to stare up at her large husband. Her reply was so soft she wondered if she spoke aloud or simply thought the words.
“I don’t know. The naïve young girl I once was might have leapt at the offer. I did not know what love truly was, or the feeling one gets when in the presence of the one person who understands and loves beyond all transgression.”
She paused, searching for some sign from Levi, some tiny inkling that there was a softening in his features. “I am not that naïve girl now. I have been stupidly blind and willfully ignorant, believing I could keep secrets and keep you separate from what I’ve done. I am so sorry, Levi.”
Her voice broke, and tears started to her eyes but she refused to look away. Everything in her warned that she had to make him see, make him understand how wrong she knew she’d been.
It was all in his hands now.
~~~~~~
Levi studied his wife’s face. The sincerity of her words blazed in her eyes along with all the love she felt for him. He drew in a ragged breath. His anger dissipated and he raised a hand to cover hers where it still clenched the lapel of his coat.
Staring into her luminous turquoise eyes, Levi knew he could never let her go. She could tell him a dozen more lies and he would forgive every last one. He couldn’t bear the thought of life without Aurora, his litt
le sea sprite. She was everything to him, his reason for living.
Some may have called him a fool but he would rather be a fool with her than the lonely, broken man he’d be without her.
“Aurora, when this is all over, I think we should leave Rhiannon with Adam and Bri for a few weeks,” he told her softly.
Her hand seemed to clutch him even tighter and her face took on a half-fearful, half-hopeful expression. “Why?” she asked on a tiny breath.
Keeping one hand tight around her waist, he moved his other hand up to gently cup the side of her face. “Because I don’t think she would enjoy accompanying us on our wedding trip.”
A radiant smile touched her face and her husband, oblivious to the watching duke, kissed those smiling lips with all the love and tenderness he felt for her.
“Touching,” drawled Derringer with such acidity that neither of his companions noted the underlying pain. He rose to his feet and walked to the door as the couple broke apart, annoyed and embarrassed. “Now that you have worked out the details of your relationship, perhaps we can take care of more important matters, hmm?”
Levi was tempted to plant the duke a facer but he refrained from doing so. Aurora appeared to be calm and collected, her serious expression turned to Derringer.
“You are right, of course, your grace,” she replied calmly.
Derringer paused in the act of leaving. He looked down at his friend’s tiny wife, his face an odd combination of exasperation and weariness. “Do you not think it is time for you to call me something other than that blasted title, Rory? I have never been able to abide it and when you say it, it is with such contempt it makes me want to laugh.”
Lady Greville’s pixie face took on a look of mock horror, her tone filled with sarcasm. “We would not want that, now would we? If you go about chuckling all the time, why, people may start to think you’re not quite the scoundrel that you want Society to believe you to be. How would you explain that heartless Lord Derringer has a sense of humor?”
The duke snorted and Levi was quite sure the black-clad man rolled his eyes. “I take your meaning.”
“Then I will bid you adieu, my lord Heartless. I expect to see my daughter soon.” The jocularity died from her face.
Levi looked at the duke, uneasy at his friend’s carefully blank expression. The other man continued to stare at Aurora until she looked away from him self-consciously.
“I apologize, Lord Derringer, for all the rude things I’ve said to you,” she told him, surprising Levi and the duke.
Derringer bowed slightly. “Your apology is unnecessary, Rory,” he told her softly. “I deserve your contempt and more.” With that said, he left.
*
Chapter Eighteen
Cursing himself for ten times a fool, the Duke of Derringer downed another glass of brandy, barely noticing the path of fire that scorched his throat. The decanter beside him was nearly empty and sitting beside it were two more bottles, one empty, one full. So much for having little affinity for strong spirits. At the rate he was going, his reputation as a drunkard would be true in no time at all.
He sat with his feet propped up on his desk, looking calm and at ease. The only indication that his thoughts were far from pleasant was the death grip he had on his glass.
He was reaching that dangerous point of inebriation where a person acted without thought or care for the consequences. His anger at the world, Society, and life in general added more than a token threat to his physical state of well-being. He had a casual disregard for propriety, nobility, the ton, and his own life. All this made for an explosive combination, much like a cannon with too much gunpowder.
Unfortunately, the duke had an object at which he could aim his rage. Desmond Forester would pay for taking that little girl, swore Derringer as a sneer curled his lips. And he would not live to harm Rhiannon again.
In an unprecedented occurrence, Derringer found himself to have fallen in love. He had always sworn never to have anything to do with such a maudlin sentiment, but was honest enough to admit that it had happened. He loved that little girl of Aurora’s as if she were his own daughter. Ever since the first time he’d made the child’s acquaintance and she’d accepted him without question, he’d been enchanted by her. She was everything he hoped for in a child of his own.
This admission startled him. When had he ever thought about having a child? Devil it, he had no time for a brat! And why the hell had he gotten so attached to Rhiannon Glendenning in the first place? He’d only seen her a few times in the park with her mother. But every time she saw him, she had to walk with him, tell him all about her toys and butterflies, ask him a thousand questions about everything under the sun, and wonder why she wasn’t allowed to ride Satan. The last time he’d seen her, only a few days before she was taken, she’d confided that she was in love with him. It had made him want to cry.
He snorted into yet another tumbler of brandy. A grown man nearly brought to tears by the innocence of a child. A grown man known ‘round the world as Lord Heartless.
That sweet, innocent little girl was in the hands of a conscienceless bastard, who would harm her to get what he wanted. He had her completely in his power. But not for long.
Desmond Forester had made the worst mistake of his life when he’d threatened to harm someone who could claim Lord Heartless as friend.
~~~~~~
Sir Adam Prestwich received the Duke of Derringer with mixed feelings. He didn’t care for the man at all. He was too unpredictable, too edgy for comfort. He was a duke, however, and very deeply involved in Levi’s affairs, so the baronet had the butler send him up.
Derringer entered the room, dressed head to toe in black. Adam wondered only briefly why the duke chose to go around like he was in the deepest mourning. It was absurd.
Rising smoothly to his feet, Prestwich inquired, “To what do I owe this honor?”
Derringer smirked at Adam’s modulated tones. Adam knew his dislike of the duke was known to the other man. He cared as little about that as the duke.
After seating themselves across from each other, Derringer launched into speech. Well, he started ordering Adam about, at any rate.
“What do you mean, keep everyone out of your affairs?” demanded the suddenly irate baronet.
“Did I stutter, Prestwich?” sneered the duke. “I want you and that meddling wife of yours to make sure everyone is at the Donners’ rout tonight. I need only a few hours and I will have Rhiannon back unharmed.”
Adam opened his mouth to tell the bastard to go to the devil when he realized something. When the duke mentioned Aurora’s daughter, his voice softened considerably and his dark eyes held a note of gentleness that was as foreign to the heartless duke as air to a fish. There was something missing in all of this. Why was the heartless Lord Derringer taking such an avid interest in the welfare of a child he’d only known for a month or so?
Instead of commenting on this observation or asking outright what the duke’s game was, Adam assumed a remote expression and asked, “Why do you call my wife meddlesome?”
Derringer was not fooled by the baronet’s tone. “Ask her why she was in Cheapside, Prestwich. I would be very interested to hear her answer.”
Adam remained silent, inwardly fuming. If that hardheaded brat he’d married were involving herself in this ugliness, he’d thrash her…after she had the baby, of course.
“What exactly do you require?”
The smile that crossed the duke’s sharp features was neither happy nor pleasant.
“I have taken the liberty of sending your acceptance to Lady Donner. She will be expecting you, your charming wife, as well as your friends the Northwickes and Grevilles. I want you to be sure everyone attends and stays for at least two hours. By the time Rory returns home, her daughter will be asleep in her bed.”
“And what if your plan fails?”
“It won’t fail,” replied Derringer with such firm resolve that Adam nearly believed him. “I will not go alo
ne, if that is what concerns you.”
“I don’t worry about you in the least, I assure you,” scoffed Adam. “I think the devil will see you through this night should anything untoward occur.”
He paused, studying the face of the younger man intently. His look revealed nothing at the moment. “I am curious, Derringer. How did you manage to send in our acceptances when we had already declined?”
Derringer grinned. “I would never divulge my accomplices, Prestwich. It goes against my somewhat dulled notions of honorable behavior.”
This answer nearly had Adam smiling but he was uneasy about the whole situation. No matter what he told the hotheaded young duke, he did worry that his rash actions may get someone hurt. But, as did most gentlemen in England, Adam had a healthy respect for the Duke of Derringer. He was too dangerous to take lightly.
“Convince everyone that it is best to act as though nothing has occurred,” Derringer was saying now. “Tell Aurora that she needs to put on a brave face and go on as normal until Rhiannon is safely recovered. But not a word to any of them that I have taken matters into my own hands. Understood?”
Resenting his tone as well as his highhandedness, Adam responded with some asperity. “I am not deaf. I understand the King’s English, Derringer. I will do what I can since I think you are right on that score. Everyone should behave as though nothing has happened. Was there anything else?”
“Yes,” replied the duke with contempt. “Take a damper, Prestwich. You weary me with your air of disapproval. I know you are anxious to give me a proper setdown, but I’ll not heed anything you say, so don’t waste your breath.” He bowed mockingly. “Give your daft wife my greetings and tell her that Cheapside is no place for a…lady.”
~~~~~~
Bruiser and Tiny were the only ones to accompany the duke when he went out that night.
The weather had turned cold and blustery and the three men were wrapped in greatcoats of midnight hue. Derringer shivered slightly as they moved swiftly through Cheapside, near London’s East End.