Dangerous Duke

by Scott, Scarlett

  “If you do not wish to answer,” he said at last, “I am left to assume it is the latter rather than either of the former.”

  She blinked, her flush beginning to recede as her quick wits returned to her. “You are wicked, Your Grace.”

  “So I have been told.” He came closer, drawn to the sweetly floral scent and warmth of her. So close, he noted her pupils grow large and round, dominating the verdant jade of her eyes. “It is one of my most distinguishing traits.”

  “I can see why Lucien does not care for you,” she said then, startling him.

  He had expected her to be half-wooed, and yet her clever mind was still analyzing. “Arden does not like me because he is an arsehole. Forgive me my plain speaking, my dear. I know he is your brother, but the enmity between us is mutual. I have never liked or trusted him, and it would seem he has had the same notion about me.”

  She frowned, those luscious lips of hers firming into a thin line of disapproval. “Lucien is a caring brother and a kindhearted man. You merely need to know him better. He does not allow many people to get close to him or to see the man beneath the mask he wears for the benefit of the world.”

  Griffin knew all about masks and hiding in plain sight. He had been doing what he fancied was an excellent job of hiding the nightmares that plagued him, and the fear of his impending lunacy from the world. His father had been mad, and with the terrors Griffin had experienced in France, it was only to be expected he would not be far behind his sire.

  “I shall take your word on the matter, my lady.” He paused, the first reason for his presence in her chamber—to assure himself of her well-being and learn any details and news concerning what had happened—returning to him again. “Tell me what happened in the carriage.”

  It was his every intention to woo her and win her. But there was one reason, and one reason only, why he took her hands in his then, and it was because he wanted to touch her. Plainly and simply, he longed for that physical contact. For the linking of their fingers, the joining of their palms. The connection between their bare skin sent a heady flash of heat straight through him.

  But he was instantly aware of an impediment. Glancing down, he noticed a bandage upon her hand. “You were shot?” he demanded, rage blossoming inside him.

  He would tear the man who had dared to injure her limb from bloody limb.

  “No,” she was quick to reassure him. “It is a minor cut, caused from one of Charles’s broken flower pots.”

  He relaxed. “Thank Christ. Tell me what happened in the carriage, if you please.”

  Rather than recoiling or withdrawing her hands, her fingers tightened upon his, as if she too relished the connection. “There was a loud sound, and then the abrupt shattering of the coach wall. At first, I did not even realize what had occurred. Aunt Hortense sank to the floor of the carriage and said we had been shot at. I did not initially believe her, but then the second shot arrived.”

  Two shots through the carriage. Hell and damnation. One shot could well be a mistake, an errant bullet that had somehow, inconceivably found its mark in the Arden carriage. But two shots was not a mistake. Two shots was certainty.

  It was a message.

  His blood chilled and the hackles raised on his neck.

  But still, he forced himself to maintain his calm and remain determined. “Were you able to look out the carriage window at any point?”

  “Yes.” She frowned, her expression growing troubled.

  She had seen something. That much was apparent.

  “Were you able to spot anyone who appeared suspicious?” he asked carefully. “Was there anyone with a weapon or anyone who may have been guilty of the attack upon the carriage?”

  “There was a man,” she revealed. “I saw him as we grew nearer to Lark House. He was slight of form, with a hat pulled low over his brow so that his particular countenance was rendered indiscernible.”

  “And did you see him holding a weapon?” His instincts as a League agent were taking over now, reminding him of how much was at stake.

  Not much, really.

  Only everything.

  Only his entire life and everything he had worked to build: reputation, friendships, fortune. Most of all, his freedom. How odd it was that the key to everything lay in one beautiful, tempting woman.

  “I believe I saw the hint of a pistol,” she said then. “He was hiding something in his coat, I feel certain. He turned away before I could see his face, but there was something about him that filled me with suspicion.”

  Damn it.

  If she had definitely seen a pistol, it would have been more helpful. He knew all too well from experience that witnesses could grow easily confused.

  “You feel certain you saw a pistol, or you are certain? No answer is right or wrong. Which is the closest to your interpretation of what happened earlier?”

  She grew pensive. “I am not certain. I do not think I saw a weapon.”

  Hell.

  Disappointment, thick and threatening to drown him, hit. “What made you suspect this man was the same person who shot the carriage?”

  “He seemed suspicious.”

  She was not giving him much to use as he proceeded, moving forward.

  “What about him, specifically, seemed suspicious?” he asked.

  Even if he was wrong about his misgivings, there was no harm in hearing what Lady Violet had seen and experiencing the same sights and sounds as she had. Witnesses to a crime could be asked the same question half a dozen different times or more. When the answers changed, a man had cause for concern. When they remained the same, they were clearly true.

  “He caught my eye,” she said. “It sounds so nonsensical now, but after the shots had rocked the carriage, I was in shock for a few moments, and then I became instantly concerned with who had perpetuated such an outrage and why they had done it. I went to the window, determined to put my eye upon the villain.”

  Foolish, brave woman.

  “You ought not to have done that, my lady.” His gut clenched at the mere thought of her lovely face framed in the window as some mad Fenian with a pistol was stalking her carriage as a hunter would a prized stag. “If you had been seen, you likely would have been shot.”

  “I refuse to cower.” Her eyes flashed, her stubborn chin pointing upward.

  “There is bravery, and then there is stupidity, Lady Violet. Protecting one’s self is not cowering.” Even so, he could not help but feel a spark of admiration for her, along with a burst of kinship. He too preferred to face his enemies, to stare them down and let them see the fire and the fury in his eyes.

  It was what made his current predicament so damned frustrating. He did not have a man waving a pistol in his face, or a bomb about to detonate laid before him, or a vicious enemy soldier burning and slicing his skin or plucking his fingernails. He had instead an unseen enemy, plotting in the shadows and planting evidence against him, rather than facing him like a man.

  “I want a pistol,” Lady Violet startled him by announcing then, as matter-of-factly as if she were discussing nothing more banal than the lace embellishing the bodice of her dress. Yet another shade of purple, he noted, this time amethyst. “I am not stupid, Strathmore. I do realize no one should face a dangerous man without the means of protecting themselves. It is why I asked Lucien to provide me with a weapon and to teach me how to use it.”

  The thought of the prim Lady Violet holding a gun and firing it made his cock hard all over again. “A wise request. It would benefit you if you were at least capable of aiming to hit a man should the situation prove necessary. With the League’s existence common knowledge, and news of the John Mahoney investigation filling The Times each day, it is my great fear you will continue to find yourself a target of such scurrilous villains.”

  “That is precisely what I told Lucien, and he refused me.” Lady Violet’s tone was indignant.

  Of course he had, the stubborn arsehole. Griffin frowned down at her, trying not to notice the bec
koning invitation of her lips or the light smell of roses clinging to her skin. For a brief, mad moment, he wondered if she would taste as sweet, if he pressed his face to her throat, tongued the hollow at the base. And then he thought about suckling that flesh, kissing it, his fingers finding the line of small buttons lining her bodice and undoing them one by one, as he had longed to do from his first sight of her when she’d stepped over the threshold.

  Controlling himself in her presence grew more difficult by the second. He was not a man accustomed to governing his impulses. He believed in living unfettered, unapologetically. He did and said as he pleased, unless orders from the League forbade him.

  “I will procure you a weapon and lessons,” he said, before he could stop himself.

  Her brows rose. “You will?”

  “Yes.” Though he had voluntarily left all his weapons in Arden’s keeping for his forced stay at Lark House, he had his means of getting what he wanted. Lessons would prove far more of a challenge, but he had never allowed a challenge to stop him before, and he certainly was not about to start now.

  “Thank you, Strathmore.” The mouth he could not seem to stop imagining kissing curved into a full, beaming smile that took his breath. “I shall feel safer if I am at least able to defend myself if the need arises. Or poor Aunt Hortense, for that matter. She could scarcely rise from the floor of the carriage after our commotion on the return trip from paying a visit to Charles and his mother.”

  Her countenance gave away her true feelings for Flowerpot’s sainted mama. Lady Violet had the most expressive face he had ever seen. She hid nothing, and there was no doubt she would make the world’s least effective card player. Bluffing was not a sport he imagined she could ever master. It should render the task ahead of him far easier, but he found the trait strangely endearing.

  Christ, the madness must be settling in already, rotting his brain as surely as it had done his father’s. Why else would he find anything at all bloody endearing?

  “You dislike Mama Flowerpot,” he drawled.

  Her eyes widened. “Lady Almsley is a loving mother to Charles.”

  He squeezed her fingers, reminding her, wordlessly, they were more united than she likely wished to believe. “You hate her.”

  She bit the corner of her lower lip. “Hate is too aggressive an emotion. But I will admit to finding little in her ladyship to love.”

  “An aspic and a harridan mother.” He did not intend to rub salt in her proverbial wounds, but now she had mentioned it, and she had all but admitted to kissing Flowerpot earlier amidst his oranges and his orchids and his green goddamn bulb fungus. Truly, did not the man put himself to sleep? “What a lovely, winning combination.”

  She withdrew from him at last. Perhaps he had missed his mark. Certainly, he had revealed too much about himself to the both of them. One, he was jealous of Flowerpot. Two, there was something about Lady Violet that made him feel deuced possessive, as if she were his, instead of betrothed to another man. Betrothed to fucking Flowerpot, he reminded himself. Third, he wanted her to be his.

  And not just for revenge.

  There was a niggling, irritating, frustrating, humiliating, wholly unwanted and unnecessary emotion running wild and unfettered through him, and he did not like it. Not one bit.

  Tenderness. Tender sentiments, what bollocks.

  Tender sentiments, to be specific, for the sister to the Duke of Arden.

  He was not meant to feel anything for her, damn it all to hell. He was meant to manipulate her. To gain his revenge. To use her as his leverage against Arden. And she was meant to be his ultimate checkmate.

  “You are unkind to call Lady Almsley a harridan,” she defended, interrupting his inner battle with himself.

  “Is she not one then?” he could not resist asking.

  And again, he could not help but to wonder why, when he intended to use her as a pawn and nothing more, he bothered to insert himself. First, he had been counseling her on the wisdom—or to be more precise, the foolishness—of her wedding a man like Flowerpot, and now he was prying into the way she felt toward her future mother-in-law.

  “Yes.” Lady Violet heaved a sigh, startling him with her sudden capitulation and candor. “She is. I do not like her at all, if you must know, and I despair of the notion of spending the rest of my life living in the same household as a woman who cannot look at me without bearing an expression of long-suffering disgust and disappointment.”

  He should not be affected by her revelation, but he was. The more he learned about her betrothal to Flowerpot, the more enraged he became on her behalf. A woman like Lady Violet did not deserve a boring milksop who was ruled by his mother as a husband. She deserved someone who would appreciate her.

  Someone who would bring the fire burning within her to life. Someone who would worship her with his body, who would make her happy, keep those luscious lips smiling and the heat in those brilliant emerald eyes kindled. Someone who would take her like a man. Someone who would…

  Damn it.

  He was getting angry just thinking about the nameless, faceless bastard who was deserving of her. Because all he wanted was for it to be him.

  And that would not do.

  He had to recall what his true intention was: seduction. Clever maneuvering. Routing the Duke of Arden at all costs. It would not be Griffin’s neck in a noose, and certainly not on charges that had been falsified against him. He could only gather, from his meeting with Arden and Swift earlier, that they intended to proceed with the case against him, and soon.

  Which meant his opportunity to save himself before he was cast into prison was fast disappearing. All he had left was Lady Violet and his own determination to remain free.

  Once again, he moved across the distance between them, this time framing Lady Violet’s face in his hands. She made no move to resist. Instead, she brought her hands to his wrists, caressing them. Her eyes were wide, the bright green of fresh spring grass newly revitalized after winter’s thaw. How easily he could lose himself within their vibrant depths.

  “The answer you are seeking is clear, Lady Violet,” he said. “You cannot marry Flowerpot.”

  “But if I do not marry him, who else shall I wed?” she asked, her voice hushed, almost sad. “I cannot rely upon my brother forever, and I must find a husband. I am already four-and-twenty.”

  Marry me.

  They were the two most ludicrous words in the English language when placed in conjunction with any woman, let alone in relation to Lady Violet West, sister to the Duke of Arsehole. They were wrong. Deadly wrong. Horridly, altogether reckless and witless and…

  He could not speak them aloud.

  Here, obviously, was more evidence of Father’s madness bearing down upon him, for there was no other reason why he would, even now, be so tempted to make the offer to the beautiful siren standing before him. He had witnessed his friends and compatriots fall to the parson’s noose.

  It had begun with Bast, his oldest and dearest friend, and it had then claimed Leeds and Carlisle thereafter. It had changed them all irrevocably. Griffin was happy as he was, except for the small matter of his incarceration, and he was well on his way to solving that problem.

  So he did the sensible thing. He smiled benignly at Lady Violet. He ignored her lips. Took one last inhalation of the sweet bloom of roses. “Marry anyone else, my lady. Anyone but Flowerpot. Now, if you will excuse me, I must return to my cell before my jailer discovers I am gone. It would not do to be discovered alone with you in your chamber.”

  But as he took his leave and slipped back into the hall undetected, he could not help but think of the disappointment in her expression. Nor could he deny the uncomfortable knotting in his gut at the thought of her marrying anyone else, Flowerpot included.

  It was not until he reached the guest chamber he had been assigned, that an idea planted itself into his mind like a tiny seed, growing roots and taking hold.

  Chapter Seven

  Marry anyone else. />
  The Duke of Strathmore’s casual pronunciation remained with Violet for the days following her impromptu interview with him in her chamber. It haunted her each time she flexed her hands whilst crocheting and felt the pull and slight twinge of pain from the cut she had received from Charles’s flowerpot.

  She huffed a sigh at the appearance of Strathmore’s insulting sobriquet for her betrothed within her own thoughts and cursed the scarf in her lap. This one, a drab brown affair, looked no better than the misshapen ruin she had crocheted for Lucien. It was meant for Charles, but with each chain of stitches, her thoughts were increasingly devoted to a different man.

  Strathmore.

  She had been trapped within Lark House, a virtual prisoner, and yet she had been denied the presence of her fellow prisoner, the man she longed for most. A handful of days had passed—three and a half, to be precise—since she had seen him last. In the wake of the carriage shooting, Lucien had assigned Violet a guard for her every waking and sleeping moment.

  She supposed he meant it to be comforting. Instead, it was merely vexing.

  With another sigh and a mumbled expletive, she began stitching another line.

  Marry anyone else.

  Naturally, he had not volunteered himself for the duty of marrying a nearly-on-the-shelf spinster such as herself.

  Why would he?

  Perhaps kissing her had been a means of entertaining himself through his boring forced imprisonment. Perhaps the thought of kissing the sister of the man he must surely view as his nemesis had pleased him. He claimed to have means of procuring her a pistol and giving her lessons, but thus far, she had received nothing from him but silence, and with the louts Lucien had assigned as her protectors dogging her each footfall, she could not escape.

  It was insupportable. She was once more boring Lady Violet West, in possession of an equally boring fiancé, who loved his orchids and his mother more than he loved her, and who kissed with the precision of an invading army looting a village. Her brother had no time for her. Aunt Hortense was her only companion.