Duel of Hearts

by Anita Mills

  “Not that I am wishful of causing her ladyship any mischief, mind you,” Blair sniffed, “but a man of his stamp should not be calling on any lady, and certainly not on Lady Lyndon.”

  Being in wholehearted agreement with the lot of them, Tony sought his wife in her bedchamber, where she prepared for supper. Jeanne pinned up the thick hair into a twisted knot on Leah’s crown, chattering all the while about the Lyndon servants, warning her about this one, poking gentle fun at that one. And of them all, it appeared that only Blair received her approval.

  “Leave us, Jeanne.”

  “But Madame’s dress—”

  “I’ll hook it for her,” he offered, gesturing politely toward the door.

  From where she sat before the mirror, Leah could tell by his reflection that something was amiss. “Is aught—?” She did not get to ask, because as he shut the door, he exploded.

  “I won’t have it, Leah—not in my house! Do you hear me?”

  Stung and nonplussed, she rose quickly to face him. “Of course I hear you, and so does everyone else, Tony. You will not have what?”

  “Rotherfield!”

  “What about him?”

  “I won’t have him in my house!”

  “Lower your voice when you speak to me,” she retorted coldly. “I know not where you had the story, but I assure you that nothing improper—”

  “His being here is improper! I absolutely forbid the association—I forbid it!”

  Her own temper rising now, she snapped back, “I have assured Lord Rotherfield he is welcome in my house, Anthony Barsett! You cannot leave me alone in this place and tell me whom I can or cannot receive!”

  “This place? What the devil are you speaking of?” he demanded incredulously. “ ‘This place’ is your home!”

  “Then as mistress of my home, I extend my welcome to anyone I choose.”

  “Leah, the man’s a rake and a scoundrel—and he’s not received by anyone,” he attempted to explain in a more rational voice.

  “Really? I met him at your aunt Davenham’s, as you recall, and if you tell me she is not up to every rig and tow in town, I will laugh in your face.”

  “That is different, and well you know it. Aunt Hester has the credit to do as she pleases, while you—”

  “While I am but a Cit, I suppose.”

  “No, but you are not yet established, Leah.”

  “If I were approved to waltz at Almack’s, you’d not approve my receiving Rotherfield—admit it!”

  “If you received Rotherfield, you’d not be invited to Almack’s in the first place! As a newly wed lady, you must be circumspect.”

  “As circumspect as you, my lord?” she spat at him. Picking up the perfumed note she’d filched, she threw it at him. “How dare you talk to me of circumspection, when you are still buying jewels for that … that fancy piece!”

  “An extremely vulgar expression for a lady,” he chided, leaning down to pick up the paper. “And I have not the least notion whom you mean.”

  “I should not doubt it—their numbers are probably legion!”

  He read the letter quickly and a smile of relief crossed his face. “This is what overset you? My dear—”

  “And I am not your dear—not until you explain that!”

  “ ’Twas my parting gift to an old friend.”

  “Old friend!” she snorted. “I daresay you are friendlier with her than I ever mean to be with the Earl of Rotherfield! And before you think me the complete fool, look at the date—’twas but two weeks ago!”

  “I had Max take care of the matter while we were gone.”

  “You what?”

  “Leah … Leah.” He came up behind her and attempted to put his arms around her, but she broke away. “Your jealousy is flattering but unwarranted, I promise you. I did not even wish to see Elaine after the way she chose to embarrass you. I had Max select a trifling trinket and send it while we were gone. ’Tis the last you will ever hear of her.”

  “When you are returned, and your little Cit no longer amuses you, I am here,’” she mimicked. “I am not the fool you think me!”

  This time he managed to slide his arms beneath hers and lock them in front of her. As she struggled to escape, he nuzzled her hair. “As I expect my little Cit to amuse me for the rest of my life, I think she will have to find someone else.” When she tried to duck away, he dropped light kisses on her neck, and still imprisoning her with one arm, began to caress a breast with his hand. “You know you are devilish desirable when you are overset,” he whispered, his own anger dissipated by the nearness of her.

  “Stop it!” she muttered angrily, slapping his hand away. “I warn you, Tony, if I so much as hear of your seeing Elaine Chandler again, you will find that Lord Rotherfield runs tame in this house—at my invitation!” She could feel him rub against her back, sending shivers down her spine. And the hand she’d slapped away slid beneath the soft cotton of her underchemise, prompting a sudden sharp intake of breath. “Stop it—I have to dress for dinner. Tony!” she squealed as his lips began tracing soft kisses from her earlobe to her neck.

  “There’s not a fancy piece alive as could compare with you, Lady Lyndon,” he whispered as he felt her resistance dissolve.

  26

  The subject of Rotherfield did not stay buried for long. As Anthony Barsett became more absorbed with his business ventures, the earl began paying increasing attention to his bride in his absence. And Tony, certain that he’d stamped out the problem by ordering Leah not to receive Rotherfield, was shocked and infuriated to learn otherwise, particularly when he heard of it from his friends one afternoon at White’s.

  “Can’t think why you allow a fellow of his stamp around Lady L.,” Gil murmured offhandedly over a pleasant hand of whist.

  “Gil,” Hugh warned, casting a sidelong look at Lyndon, “he don’t like anyone meddlin’ in his business.”

  “What fellow? What the deuce are you speaking of?” Tony demanded suspiciously.

  “Well, I would not wish my wife racketing about with him if I had one,” Gil retorted peevishly to Hugh. “Ain’t at all the thing, you know.”

  “Gil—”

  “Racketing about with whom?” Tony demanded ominously. “Leah is not racketing about with anyone that I know of.”

  “Daresay you ain’t home much then.”

  “Been to Tattersall’s to get a mare for Lady Lyndon?” Hugh asked quickly. “Ought to have one, you know.”

  “I have not had time for Tattersall’s,” Tony snapped. “I have spent every day with my father-in-law at Gangway’s with the commodities brokers until I scarce know whether ’tis Spanish tobacco or sugar I have bought for speculation. I am beginning to bid in my sleep.” His blue eyes turned suspiciously on Gil Renfield. “And I am in no temper to guess whatever ‘tis you would tell me on this, my first day amongst company for well over a week. Now, out with it!”

  “It ain’t nothing, really—just don’t think Rotherfield fit to be seen with her, that’s all.”

  “I have made it plain that he is not to be received.”

  Gil coughed apologetically and squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. “Maybe they just chanced to meet,” he offered.

  “Oh, if you must play the tattlemonger, play it right!” Hugh interrupted in disgust. “What Gil is attempting to say is that Lady Lyndon was in Hyde Park with Rotherfield yesterday. Daresay she had reason to be, after all.” Casting a reproachful look at Renfield, he defended Leah. “Ten to one, it ain’t nothing—she don’t know how it is with him, you know. Not up to snuff yet as to what ain’t done.”

  “Taking little thing,” Gil mumbled, aware now of the wrath in Tony’s eyes. “Not a dissembling bone in her body—ain’t one of them simperin’ females neither. Well, dash it—I like her! Don’t want to see her run aground before her sail’s set, after all.”

  “Then you should have told her—not him,” Hugh retorted.

  “Ai
n’t up to me. She ain’t my wife.” Turning back to Tony, he was dismayed to discover that the viscount was already in the process of collecting his hat and stick. “I say, Tony, but it ain’t—”

  “Sometimes, Gil, you are a positive slowtop. Now look what you have done! Your interference will start a row between them, and Tony can be deuced unpleasant when he is on his high ropes.”

  “No, I ain’t—he ought to know! Rotherfield’s dangerous and she ain’t up to his weight at all, Hugh! Tell you the fellow’s a devil bent on seduction, if you want my opinion of ’im—and if Sally Jersey gets wind of it, Lyndon’s lady ain’t ever going to grace the Assembly Rooms at Almack’s.”

  Tony seethed all the way home, his anger mounting as he considered and discarded a dozen or so scathing comments on Leah’s inexcusable behavior. He’d told her, ordered her to avoid the man—had forbidden the association even, and she’d not only received the earl at Lyndon House, she’d actually dared to be seen with him. The iniquity, the utter perfidy of her deliberate disobedience defied all reason and was not to be borne. His sense of ill-usage increased with each block as he thought of the hours, the days he’d spent elbow to elbow with corn merchants and speculators, hazarding more than he could afford in an effort to give her what she was used to having. And all the while, she’d been seeing the Earl of Rotherfield behind his back.

  His timing could not have been worse. As his curricle rounded the corner, Marcus Halvert’s pulled away from the curb. Throwing his reins to his groom, Tony jumped down and stalked for the house with his whip still in his hand. His temper rising dangerously with each step, he flung open the front door and found her still stripping off her gloves in the foyer.

  “Where the devil do you think you have been, Leah?” he raged at her. “Answer me! If you think I mean to be cuckolded by the likes of Rotherfield, you are very mistaken! Answer me—where did you go?” Wrenching her arm, he thrust her before him into his library. “Well?”

  Shocked by the utter fury in his eyes, she tried to pull away. “I will answer when you speak civilly,” she retorted, rubbing where he held her arm.

  “Civilly?” he fairly howled. “How dare you, Leah? How dare you? I told you I would not have him in this house! And yet as soon as my back is turned, you not only entertain him here, but you also accompany him publicly! I won’t have it, I tell you!” Releasing her, he flung her toward a leather-covered settee. “Why? Are you so lost to propriety that my wishes mean nothing to you?”

  “Tony!”

  “Do not cry ‘Tony’ to me! ’Tis all over London that you have been seen with him! I warned you, Leah—I warned you!” He advanced to stand over her, and for one moment she thought he meant to strike her with the whip. Her eyes widened in horror at the unrestrained anger she saw. “Answer me! Do I have to shake out of you where you have been?”

  “No,” she answered coldly with a calmness she did not feel. “And you have no right to come here and accuse me of baseness.” Righting herself to stand in front of him, she met his eyes squarely and jutted her chin defiantly.’ ‘You have not even given me die opportunity to defend myself.”

  “Your want of conduct is the on-dit of London!” he shouted. “Are you such a peagoose that you do not know what you have done? ’Twill be said—”

  “That the Cit seeks her level?” she cut in, her own anger fueled by the injustice of his attack. “That the Cit does not know how to go on? Do you think I care what that den of witches you call the ton thinks of me? I have not won their approval—and I do not care whether they like me or not! I never aspired to be the lady you and Papa would have me be!” Brushing past him wrathfully, she flung over her shoulder, “I like Lord Rotherfield— he does not try to make me what I am not!”

  “Just one minute, Lady Lyndon!” The sarcasm fairly dripping from the address, he caught her from behind and spun her around to face him. “What he makes of you is not a very pretty word, my dear!”

  “He is my friend!”

  “I am your husband, and I forbid the association!”

  “Well, you cannot! If I choose to enjoy his company, ’tis none of your affair! Other ladies of the ton engage in far more nefarious associations—and no one accuses then of the least impropriety!”

  “None of them encourages Rotherfield to dangle after ’em! You cannot afford the gossip!”

  “No? Because of what I am?” she demanded dangerously. “Or because of what people say of him?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, I do not agree with either reason, my lord. Lord Rotherfield has been naught but kind and pleasant to me. You have been gone every day for a week, and do I ask you to account for where and with whom? No, I do not!” she answered emphatically. “And if I wish to see the flowers in Hyde Park or watch the balloon ascension from St. George’s Field, why should I not go? ’Tis far more entertaining than sitting at home waiting for condescending ladies to call.”

  “Nonetheless, you will not see him again. I will inform him that he is unwelcome here and that you will not be taken up to go anywhere with him again,” he answered stiffly.

  “You will not! You have your friends and I have mine! It was agreed from the outset that—”

  “That was before …”

  “Before what? Before you wheedled your way into my bed? You have not the right to—”

  “I have every right, madam wife! And if you insist on making a laughingstock of me, I will send you to the country until you are able to learn town manners,” he threatened.

  “I won’t go—and I will not cut Marcus Halvert! Do you hear me?”

  “Aye, I hear you! ’Twas a mésalliance on my part—I should have known that you would not comport yourself like a lady!”

  Her face went white as his words cut into her like a sword. “You knew what I was when you married me,” she managed as her throat constricted painfully.

  “Leah … ” He too was stunned by what he’d said to her.

  “No.” Gathering her dignity about her, she walked from the room.

  “Leah! I did not—”

  “Pray spare me the apology, my lord.”

  “Leah, will you listen to me, you little fool! I love you!”

  “Tell that to Mrs. Chandler, Tony. My door will be locked tonight, and tomorrow night, and every other night of this miserable mésalliance! She, on the other hand, will welcome your attentions.”

  He stood rooted for a moment as his brain tried to account for what he’d done, and then he ran after her, catching her on the stairs. Just as he reached to touch her shoulder, she turned on him and blazed, “You will have your doxy—and I will have the earl!”

  “Play me false and I’ll kill him!”

  “You could not.” Supporting herself with the banister, she began to climb again. “Give my regards to Mrs. Chandler, my lord. I will be certain to convey yours to Rotherfield.”

  “Very well!” he shouted after her. “But do not come crying to me when you are cut everywhere!”

  Flinging himself down the several steps, he grabbed his hat and jammed it on his head. She looked down from the railing above him, calling out, “Where are you going?”

  “To see Elaine!” he yelled.

  “Good!”

  Slamming the door after him, he called to his astounded groom to put his curricle to. His jaws still working to control the rage he felt, he made up his mind to call on the Chandler woman just to prove he could do it.

  Still shaking, Leah watched the carriage house behind the garden from her bedchamber window and saw him leave. Her own fury gone in the face of her loss, she threw herself on her bed and indulged in an impotent bout of tears. Self-pity and a sense of ill-usage overwhelmed her. In the heat of his anger, he’d told her what he really thought of her—she was but a low-class convenience and that was all she could ever be to him.

  No one, not even Jeanne, ventured upstairs to her as the servants shook their heads and whispered in small groups, some
siding with her and others with his lordship in the matter. Even Mrs. Fitch, who’d considered that Lyndon had married beneath him, thought that perhaps he’d been too harsh with her, while Blair insisted that if a man could not tell his wife how to go on, he was naught but a man-milliner. For was not the husband head of the wife? he demanded of all who would listen. “Fiddle,” Jeanne fired back at .him. “Only a pig-person would be so gothic, Monsieur Blair.” And in a trice, the argument shifted to them.

  “Ahem,” Horton interrupted with the superiority of one who is uninvolved in the altercation. “Will someone please inform her ladyship that lords Renfield and Rivington are paying a call?”

  “Tell them that Lyndon is out,” Jeanne snapped, forgetting her awe of the butler.

  “I did, but ’tis Lady Leah they would see.”

  “The poor thing is in no state to receive anyone,” Mrs. Fitch reproached him.

  “Mais non,” Jeanne decided instantly. “ ’Twill divert her.”

  Still lying across the bed, Leah twisted the tear-soaked sheet with her hand. At first she ignored Jeanne’s knock, but the little maid called through the door, “There are

  Rivington and Renfield to see you, madame. Shall I tell them you are not receiving?”

  Tony’s friends Gil and Hugh. Leah opened her mouth to tell her to send them away, and then thought better of it. Why should Tony be out amusing himself while she wept bitter tears? Resolutely she slid off the bed and walked to open the door. “Tell them I will be down directly,” she ordered, wondering how she could ever repair the damage to her face.

  “We will apply cold cloths to your face, madame,” Jeanne reassured her. “He must not know you have cried out your eyes, n’est-ce pas ? Horton will tell him that gentlemen came to call, and he will not know he has hurt you.”

  “I do not care what Lyndon thinks,” Leah maintained stoutly. “Not a fig.”

  “No, and if he goes to see this pig-woman, you will show him that you can serve him the same soup with a different spoon—won?” Jeanne observed with Gallic practicality.

  By the time Leah emerged some twenty minutes later, there was little to betray the agitation of her mind. If she appeared in high color and her eyes were perhaps brighter than usual, she nonetheless forced a convincing smile as she extended a hand to each man. “Gentlemen, so kind of you to call. Alas, Lyndon is away at the present, but perhaps you may find him at one of his clubs later.”