Duel of Hearts

by Anita Mills

  “Then let us go to the Childredges’, by all means.”

  “You are pluck to the bone, my dear,” he said approvingly.

  The reaction of their hostess was almost worth the appearance, Leah decided with a perverse glee. When they were announced, she and Lord Rotherfield made a truly grand entrance, with her sparkling amethysts and her fair skin providing a perfect foil for the earl’s austere dress and dark handsomeness. Lady Childredge appeared suddenly faint, as though overcome with acute indigestion, while her lord looked faintly amused by it all. Leah, of course, smiled serenely and made Tony’s apologies, saying that she had impressed dear Marcus into service on rather short notice. But when they were out of their hosts’ hearing, she could not help giggling. “I think you positively cultivate your sinister reputation, my lord.”

  “It has to be useful for something,” he agreed, tucking her hand in the crook of his arm.

  It did not take Leah long to realize that it was as Tony had said—she and Rotherfield were on the on-dit of the evening. Aside from waltzes with Ponsonby and Barrasford, most of the men gave her a wide berth, preferring to admire her from afar. The earl, however, was not above flouting convention, and elected to waltz three times and stand up for two country dances with her. Finally a rather elderly gentleman who had been watching them intently from the moment they arrived came forward. Rotherfield did not appear surprised.

  “Ah, Marcus, pray present me,” the old gentleman asked.

  “Leah, I make known to you Lord Milbourne. Milbourne, this fair lady is the Viscountess Lyndon.” His black eyes on the old man, Rotherfield murmured, “Perhaps you would wish to dance?”

  “Alas, but these old legs cannot move as quickly as the music anymore. But perhaps Lady Lyndon would favor me with a few minutes of her company?”

  “Well, I … ” Leah gaped at both of them, wondering how the Earl of Rotherfield could possibly be on civil terms with a man she’d only heard of, a man whose very name was synonymous with the ton itself.

  “Do go on, my dear,” the earl urged her. “I shall procure a plate and some punch for you.” Casting a significant glance at the terrace doors, he nodded to Lord Milbourne. “Perhaps you would wish to be more private out there.”

  “Marcus, whatever … ?”

  “At my age, your virtue is quite safe, my dear,” the frail old gentleman assured her. “And I have been waiting some twenty years to see you, Leah.”

  “Oh, I should not think otherwise,” Leah hastened to tell him. “Indeed, who has not heard of Milbourne? When the dowager listed those whom I—” She colored as she realized how that must sound. “That is, when she would tell me who must be met, my lord, your name was among the first on the list.”

  “Alas, but I do not go about as I was once inclined. My poor Anne is confined to her bed and there is little enjoyment without her presence.” He’d taken her arm and was propelling her gently toward the doors that had been opened to cool the ballroom. “Sometime you really must tell me how it is that you are so often in Marcus Halvert’s company, my dear.”

  She bristled, wanting to tell him that was none of his affair, but when she looked at him, she saw no censure. “My husband’s engagements are numerous, my lord, and I choose not to remain at home,” she mumbled, not wanting anyone to know the truth.

  The breeze was warm, wafting in over a profusion of flowers, carrying their intermingled fragrances, while the stars in the sky sparkled like diamonds against black velvet. For a time, Lord Milbourne studied her beneath the light of a Chinese lantern, and then finally nodded. “You are very much like my Marianna, I think. Our memories trick us, of course, but I am certain you have the look of her.”

  Marianna had been her mother’s name. “You knew my mother?” she asked in surprise.

  “It does me little credit to admit it, child, but I was her parent.” His eyes met hers soberly in the faint light and he nodded. “Aye, I am your grandfather—your mother’s father.”

  “But you cannot have been … That is, my mother was a Cit, sir!”

  “No,” He smiled faintly, as though the irony were almost amusing. “Your father was the Cit, Leah.”

  “But Papa—”

  “Ask your father—ask Jeptha Cole, my dear. I am not proud of the story, and I promised him I would not seek to see you. But as I have heard your name oft linked with that of Rotherfield, I asked him to arrange a chance meeting.”

  She stared in open disbelief, trying to understand how it could be that she had never so much as heard she had any living relatives other than her father. And a man who held one of the most respected names in society was standing across from her telling her they shared the same blood.

  “Your grandmother is unwell, Leah, else I’d not have broken my promise. She wants to see you, child.”

  “ My grandmother, sir?” she echoed numbly. “But I … ”

  “I had thought to persuade Marcus to bring you for a visit,” he continued, his eyes still searching her face for something, “but then ‘twas decided we’d best determine your wishes in the matter.”

  She had a grandmother she’d never seen. She was relation to one of the finest families in England. Her mother came of a class she’d once despised for being useless.

  “I realize this must be quite shocking for you, Leah, and I am not unaware of how you have been received amongst the ton. I wished from the very beginning that

  I could have persuaded your papa to let us bring you out, but his hatred of me was too great,” he offered soberly. “Believe me, I did not wish us to meet as strangers at a party.”

  “I see,” she managed, although she did not see at all.

  “Would you indulge an old woman’s fondest desire, my dear? Would you visit your grandmother while she can yet know you?”

  Curiosity and a strange elation mingled, prompting her to decide. “Yes, of course—I should like that above all things, sir.”

  “I spoke with Marcus earlier today, and if you are willing to forgo the pleasures of Vauxhall this evening, he is amenable to bringing you to Milbourne House.”

  “Tonight? ’Tis so … Yes, of course.”

  Rotherfield was waiting with her shawl when they returned, and the three of them made their farewells to an astonished Lady Childredge. “My granddaughter has the headache,” Lord Milbourne explained smoothly, giving reason to their precipitate departure.

  “Your granddaughter?” Clearly taken unaware, that lady could only stare with slackened jaw as she attempted to digest this startling bit of information. “Leah Cole … that is to say, Lady Lyndon,” she amended hastily, “Lady Lyndon is your granddaughter, my lord?”

  “Of course she is,” the old man insisted proudly. “Blood will tell, do you not think? Only child of m’daughter Marianna.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Thought she was a Cit, didn’t you?” he acknowledged bluntly. “Well, she is a Milbourne also.” And with that cryptic comment, he offered Leah his arm. “Anne will be so pleased to see you, child,” he told her. “She has waited years for this night.”

  Rotherfield got the door before the Childredge butler could manage it, and waited for them to pass. Behind them, Leah could hear the buzz of excited gossip as their hostess spread the word, “Milbourne’s granddaughter, if you can but credit that. I vow I was never so surprised in my life.”

  30

  It was extremely late when Leah arrived home, so late that she let herself in with the key and kicked off her slippers in the lower hall to avoid disturbing the servants. Somewhere in the house a clock struck three. Tiptoeing silently in the near-darkness, she had just groped for the newel post at the bottom of the stairs when the library door opened behind her, sending a slice of light across the foyer and casting a long shadow up the wall beside her. She jumped in fright and her breath caught in her throat.

  “Oh, ’tis you,” she managed, still trying to control the panic she’d felt. “You gave me a s
tart.”

  He bowed slightly as his eyes glittered strangely at her in the semidarkness. “Home so soon, my dear?” His speech was softly slurred and there was a slight list to his walk as he came to face her. “Had I been your lover, I’d have spent the whole night with you—and I’d not have sent you home to face an irate husband.”

  “You are foxed, my lord,” she snapped. “And your accusations are offensive.” Her hand still on the bottom post, she started to climb the stairs.

  “Not so quickly, Leah—I am not done with you.” He caught her from behind and pulled her off the bottom step. Grasping her chin with his hand, he forced her to turn and look at him. “For the innocent Cit I wed, you have certainly learned to be the fashionable lady, have you not?” he gibed into her face. “You have even managed to acquire a lover.”

  “Unhand me, Tony,” she ordered coldly, still trying to still the painful beating of her heart.

  “But you have forgotten the most important rule, my dear—it is not at all the thing to engage in these little liaisons before you have given your husband his heir.” His other hand closed on her shoulder, gripping it tightly.

  “I do not have a lover—yet,” she informed him, striving to keep her voice level. “Though I shall certainly inform you when I do, so that we may be even on that score, my lord. After all, you were so kind as to arrange a public display of yours.”

  His fingers still on her chin, he forced her head back to stare into her face. She put her hand on his wrist to break the hold. “Release me, my lord,” she tried again. “You are hurting me.”

  “Release you?”

  He gave a derisive half-laugh and pulled her against him despite her protest, while his mouth sought hers hungrily. She tasted the wine and felt the heat of his breath as she tried to push him away. For answer, his hands slid down her back, imprisoning her, forcing her body into the hard contours of his. With an effort, she willed herself to remain motionless even when his tongue traced the edges of her teeth. When at last he left her mouth, it was to trail hot kisses from her earlobe to her throat. An involuntary shiver sliced downward from where the hairs stood up on her neck.

  “Leah … Leah . . .” he whispered hungrily, “do not deny me what you give him so freely.” His hand slipped under the fabric of her dress and kneaded the soft skin against the bones of her shoulder. “Let me love you, Leah.”

  She wanted to yield, but not like this, not when he’d had too much to drink, not when he believed the worst of her. With an effort, she broke away from him, moving back so violently she almost tripped on the first step of the staircase.

  “You mistake the matter, Tony—Marcus is not my lover,” she spat at him.

  “Do you think me blind, Leah?” he rasped, grasping her wrist painfully and pulling her back to him. “I made you mine—I’ll keep you mine.”

  She’d never seen him like this and it frightened her. “If you do not release me this instant, Tony,” she threatened, “I shall scream and bring this house down about your ears.”

  “You’ll have to hurry then,” he whispered undeterred against her ear. While one arm held her against him, his other hand began unhooking her gown. His mouth sought hers again, and as the material slackened across her bodice, his hand left her back to find her breast.

  “Please, Tony—not this way,” she gasped desperately, trying to resist his assault on her reeling sense. “Please.”

  “Please what?” he murmured against the corners of her lips. “I shall try to be as good as Rotherfield this time.” Still nibbling, playing, sampling of her mouth, he slackened his hold enough to finish taking down the bodice of her gown and the thin camisole underneath. “You are beautiful, Leah,” he breathed.

  She could not let him know how much she wanted him, how much she had missed his touch. His hunger was evident, his desire blazing in his eyes as they raked over her bared breasts. And every inch of her body wanted to slake that desire and feed her own, but she forced herself to meet his gaze. “No, you will have to take me by force,” she lied.

  “You have no reason—”

  “I have every reason.”

  “Why Rotherfield, Leah?” he rasped thickly, his eyes still glittering.

  “Why Elaine Chandler?” she retorted. Wrenching free, she ran up the stairs, pausing only from the safety of the top to pull up her gown. This time, he did not follow her, but flung himself back toward the library, from whence she heard the crash of a bottle or glass against the fireplace.

  Unnerved, she managed to undress without waking Jeanne and, turning the key in her bedchamber lock, she retired to agonize over the way things stood between them. Her life was in shambles, a wreckage brought about by jealousy, greed, and distrust, and she had not the means to rebuild it. She’d been married to satisfy her father’s ambition for her, when in fact it had not been necessary at all. And the worst of that was that she was not really even a Cit—her own mother came from the very class that she professed to despise. Her Milbourne grandparents could have made her a lady without Viscount Lyndon’s title.

  In an effort to draw herself out of her self-pity, she considered her newly discovered relations. They were kind, they were obviously haut ton, and appeared quite proud of her, making it even more incomprehensible that her father had hidden their existence from her.

  She heard Tony’s steps on the stairs, heard them come down the hallway to pause outside the door. She sucked in her breath and waited, afraid she had not the will to deny him again. The doorknob rattled as he tried it, and then there was silence for a moment. Finally she could hear him retreat to his own chamber at the other end of the hall. Then, after a time, his door opened and his footsteps sounded again, first on the stairs and then in the hallway below. The door slammed.

  Lying back among her pillows, she was certain he’d gone to seek his mistress. Fighting back tears, she wondered if she’d played the game all wrong, if she should have yielded to his desire, for at least then she would have been the one to share his bed. No, she decided resolutely, she had too much pride to share her husband with anyone. It was time she went home.

  As for Tony, he drove his curricle recklessly through the streets of London, oblivious of the Charlies who rounded up the more boisterous drunks. The fog had rolled in up the Thames, making the gaslights into hazy yellow dots that faded into the gray mists. An occasional dog, one of those half-wild denizens of the city, reluctantly fled from scavenged garbage before his wheels, only to slink back in his wake. Somewhere in the distance, the watch called five o’clock and the bargemen could already be heard shouting at each other in the fog. … Elaine Chandler’s house was dark when he reached it. He reined in and stared for several minutes at the whitewashed brick structure, knowing full well of his welcome there. But he didn’t want Elaine. Even before his precipitate marriage to Leah Cole, he’d known that if the fairest Cyprian in the world cast lures at him, he’d decline, and it was still so. There was some justice in his predicament, he supposed, for he’d raked about with hedonistic abandon, deserving every epithet Leah flung his way. His ardor cooled in the chill mists of morning, replaced by the quiet reflection of self-reproach, he clicked his reins and returned home at a much slower pace.

  As difficult as it was to accept it, he concluded that she wanted Rotherfield—whether because he’d driven her into the earl’s arms with his jealousy, or whether the attraction had always been there, the fact remained the same. His wife wanted Rotherfield, had chosen the notorious earl over him. And Rotherfield certainly wanted her. Given that pass, what was to be done? Maybe he ought to simply apologize for his jealous behavior and hope that somehow he could win her back.

  The next morning, she was already gone when he came down. His head ached from the night’s wine, his mouth was dry and tasted as though Napoleon’s army had marched through it, and his mind was fogged from a lack of sleep. Seeing the footmen lugging heavy trunks down the service stairs, he was befuddled for a moment.

 
; “What the devil … ? James, what is this?” he demanded in alarm. As his voice rose, the pain in his head hit like an ax blow from somewhere between his eyes to the base of his skull. Combing his hair distractedly with his hands, Tony tried to assimilate what was happening. “Where’s Leah—where is Lady Lyndon?”

  John Maxwell coughed apologetically behind him to attract his attention. “I believe she wrote to you, my lord.”

  A sick knot formed in the pit of Tony’s stomach as he followed his secretary into the library. Dropping into the chair by his desk, he leaned his aching head in his hand. “You might as well let me have it, Max.” He spoke tiredly.

  “ ’Tis on the desk, sir.”

  Tony found it and withdrew a folded sheet from the envelope. The color drained from his face as he began to read:

  My lord,

  After much consideration of the matter, I have decided to leave your house. You have accused me of the basest violation of my marriage vows, and I have done the same with you. We were wed for the wrong reasons and I find it repugnant to remain in what can only be called a mésalliance at best.

  Papa will be overset at first, but his natural affection for me will outweigh his objections. And you must not blame Lord Rotherfield, for the decision is mine alone.

  LCB

  “That’s it—she said nothing else?” Tony asked, too stunned to believe it. Leah had left him over Rotherfield. She was gone from his house.

  “Nothing, my lord.”

  “Well, she cannot do it!” Tony exploded. “The little fool—she will ruin herself!” Heaving himself up despite the ache in his head, he ordered loudly for any who would hear, “Put my curricle to! Blair, my coat!” He was going to face Rotherfield down if it was the last thing he ever did.

  Alternating between despair that she’d left him and fury at Rotherfield for encouraging her, Tony took the ribbons himself and careened through the London streets like a madman. How could she possibly have fled to the other man? Whatever could have possessed her? And what if he found her? He could scarce grasp her by the hair and force her to return to him, after all. And he would not want her that way if he could. As he took a corner on two wheels, he considered going to Jeptha Cole and discarded that idea. The old man’s health was too precarious —he’d not overset him if it could be helped. No, he had to find Leah and reason with her.