The horses slowed as the coach turned onto the circular drive. Soon the driver brought the vehicle to a halt. A footman opened the door. Lovingdon stepped out and then handed her down. Offering his arm, he escorted her up the stairs.
“How can you be so sure about Lord Bentley?” she asked.
“I know Lord Bentley.”
Turning to face him, without thought she reached up and brushed the thick strands of blond hair from his brow. “Can a man not reform?”
“You deserve better than a man who requires reforming.”
Laughing lightly, she gave her hand leave to fall softly onto his shoulder, to feel the firmness there, the sturdiness, the strength. “Now I am suspect of all praise.”
“I would never lie to you, Grace.”
Her hand slid down a fraction, to his chest, to where his heart pounded so steadily. But he appeared not to notice. “Yet, you did. In the coach.”
“That was merely a lesson, one I hope you took to heart.”
“You’re an abominable teacher. You might as well have taken a switch to my palm.”
“It was not my intent to harm you, but to spare you from harm.”
With a quick release of breath, she stepped back. “So in the future I shall not take flowery words to heart.” She glanced up at the eaves. “Unless, of course, I know him to be a poet.”
“Not even then, Grace.”
“We shall see what my heart says. One more question.”
“There’s always one more question with you.”
She ignored the irascibility in his voice. “Do you think you might see your way clear to coming to the Midsummer Eve’s celebration that my family hosts?”
“Probably not.”
She nodded, bit her lower lip, debated—there was always so much left unsaid between them. “I remember watching you dance with Juliette at the Midsummer Eve’s ball, the summer before you married.” He went so still, she wasn’t even certain he was breathing. “Does it hurt when people speak of her?”
“Sometimes. It’s equally hard, though, when no one speaks of her.”
“I’m always available to listen, Lovingdon.”
He glanced down at his shoes. “We were so young, she and I. We met at the very first ball I ever attended. I’ve never been to one when she wasn’t there.”
With his admission tears stung her eyes and her chest tightened until it ached. “You think you’ll feel an emptiness.”
He lifted his gaze to her. “I don’t know what I’ll feel.”
Nodding, she swallowed hard. “I’ve not experienced the kind of loss that you have. I can’t know the depth of your pain. But I have suffered loss, and I have found it is easier to carry on if I focus on what I have to be grateful for.”
He turned to face her fully. “What loss, Grace?”
She shook her head. “I don’t wish to talk about it.”
“Does it have to do with this fellow you loved? The one who married someone else?”
She released a quick bubble of laughter and lied, because it was easier than baring the truth. She wished she’d not traveled this path and wanted to get off it as quickly as possible. “Yes. Silly really. To compare the two. Good night, Lovingdon. May you sleep well.”
She was aware of his gaze following her as she entered the residence. She was grateful that he didn’t pursue the conversation, although a part of her wished he’d called her back, wrapped his arms around her, and insisted she tell him everything.
Drake Darling made a final notation in the ledger. It was late, he should be abed, but sleep did not come easily to him. He always felt as though he had something to prove, something to make right, something left undone.
Closing the ledger and his eyes, he settled back and let his past have its way with him. He’d been born Peter Sykes, the son of a thief and a murderer, although that he was aware of the last was his secret. No one knew that he’d made his way to the gallows, watched his father swing for murdering his mother. Frannie Darling had thought she’d protected him from the truth. But he was a child of the streets. No matter what he changed, he could not change that.
When Miss Darling married the Duke of Greystone, she no longer had use for her surname, so Peter had taken it to use as his own in an attempt to wash off his father. When he was a lad, he’d sometimes pretend that Greystone was his true father. He’d had a dragon inked onto his back because the duke had one. When the duke pointed out the constellation Draco, Peter had insisted he be called Drake, in honor of the dragon shaped by stars. Although he’d been embraced by the Mabry family, he’d always known he wasn’t one of them. At seventeen he’d come to work at Dodger’s, determined to earn his own way, to prove—
“Tell me what you know of Bentley.”
Drake opened his eyes. A storm in the form of Lovingdon had just blown into his office. The man looked as though he needed to rip something—or someone—apart. They were close in age, had become fast friends as they’d traveled similar yet different paths. “Viscount Bentley?”
Lovingdon gave a brusque nod. “What is his financial situation?”
“I don’t know all the particulars. He runs up a debt here, pays it at the end of the month, repeats the cycle. Boring, predictable really.”
“Yes, boring, predictable.” Lovingdon walked to the window, gazed out. “I don’t understand what she sees in him.”
“She who?”
“Grace.”
“Sees in whom?”
“Bentley,” Lovingdon snapped. “Aren’t you paying attention?”
“Grace told you she has an interest in him?”
“In the carriage. She mentioned that he was reciting garbage.”
“Garbage? And that appealed to her?”
Lovingdon glared at him as though he hadn’t the sense to come in out of a rainstorm. “She thought it was poetry, beautiful. But it was garbage—how he dreams of her and such dribble.”
Why would Lovingdon care? Why would Grace confide in him? “What was her appearance here earlier truly about?”
“You’ll have to ask her, and while you’re at it, warn her off of Bentley.”
He watched as Lovingdon charged from his office. Something very strange going on here tonight. Perhaps a word with Grace was in order.
“What are you up to, Grace?”
Within the duchess’s sitting room, which looked out upon a rain-drenched garden, Grace lifted her gaze from Little Women to see Drake leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. “Surely you recognize a book and the act of reading.”
It was early afternoon. She’d slept into the late morning hours and was still recovering from her clandestine adventure the night before. It did not bode well that Drake, who usually slept until early evening, was disregarding his own habits.
“Bentley?” Drake’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“What of him?”
Drake uncrossed his arms, strode to the chair across from her and dropped into it. “You would no more consider Bentley a serious suitor than I would consider pursuing a March hare for a wife.”
She smiled brightly. “Are you considering marriage? Mother won’t be half pleased.”
“Dammit, Grace.”
“Who have you set your sights on?”
“Be forthcoming with me, will you?”
She settled back against the plush chair. “How do you know about Bentley?”
With dark eyes narrowing, he studied her long and hard. She refused to squirm. “Lovingdon returned to the club last night, asked after Bentley’s debt.”
She tried not to appear too satisfied with the knowledge that Lovingdon, for all his blustering that he didn’t care whom she married, did in fact care.
“What dodge have you got going on?” Drake asked.
Like her mother, Drake had begun his life on the streets, and in spite of the years since he’d fought to survive on them, he still remembered the tricks of his trade. A dodge referred to a swindle. “Don’t be silly.”
/>
Leaning forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, he scrutinized her as though he could see clear into her soul. “You’re scheming something, and it has to do with Lovingdon. I’d wager that you lost that last hand on purpose.”
“You’d lose that wager. My intent was to win.”
“And the boon?”
Drake was as close to her as either of her brothers, more so. He was the one who had held her hand when they went to the country fairs, hoisted her upon his back when she grew too tired to walk, stolen pastries from the kitchen and given her half. He would not betray her confidence, even without a promise exchanged. “Men are swarming around me like bees to honey. I wanted him to help me determine if a gentleman truly loved me.”
“You’re too wise to fall for some man’s ruse, and I’m too smart to believe that’s all there is to your request.” Drake’s eyes widened. “You want him to be one of the bees?”
“Absolutely not. He’s completely inappropriate.” Setting aside the book, she rose to her feet and glided over to the window. Raindrops rolled along the glass, nature weeping.
“He won’t marry again, Grace. Something inside him broke with the death of Juliette and Margaret. You can’t put him back together, sweetheart, not the way he was.”
“Were you not listening? I have no interest in him as a suitor, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. That we shouldn’t. Try to put him back together, I mean. I don’t care that he doesn’t love me—but I do care that he is wasting his life.”
“I’ve watched him for two years, Grace. Been his companion through the worst of his grief. If he mends at all, he’ll still have cracks and jagged edges.”
“We all have jagged edges.” Hers more hideous than any Lovingdon might possess. Only when Drake came to stand beside her did she notice her own faint reflection in the glass.
“Those on the inside are much worse than those on the outside,” he said.
“But those on the inside are not as ugly. They’re invisible.”
“Which is what makes them all the more dangerous.” He sighed. “How long have you loved him?”
She shook her head. “I don’t love him. Oh, I was enamored of him when I was younger, but that was little more than childish fantasy. I am not so dense as not to recognize it for what it was. Besides, I won’t be a man’s second choice, and I fear with him any other woman would always fall short. But he has knowledge that can assist me, and if in the process he becomes part of Society again, more’s the better. He won’t be vying for my attention, as he certainly has no need of my dowry.”
“Neither do I.”
Before she could read his expression, he turned about and was heading for the door.
“Tread carefully, Grace. If you place him in a position where he hurts you, I will be forced to kill him.”
She should have gone after him. Instead, she sank down to the footstool. To her, Drake had always been an older brother. They were not connected by blood, but by their hearts.
What she had felt for Lovingdon when she was a child was far different. He stole her breath with a look, warmed her body with an inadvertent touch, caused her heart to sing with a single word spoken. But he no longer had such power over her. He was the means to an end—one that mattered far more than she dared tell him.
She was grateful that he had given her a bit of advice regarding Bentley. But could she trust it? He had promised to never lie to her—
But what if the promise were a lie?
“Words that are too flowery,” Grace said as she poured tea at the cast-iron table in the garden.
“Too flowery?” Lady Penelope, her cousin, and daughter to the Countess and Earl of Claybourne, asked. Grace had always envied her black as midnight hair because it made her blue eyes stand out.
“Yes, you know. Lots of adjectives and adverbs and pretty words.”
“But I like pretty words,” Lady Ophelia, sister to Lord Somerdale said. Her hair was a flaxen blond that reminded Grace of wheat blowing in a field. Her eyes were the most startling green.
“Yes, that’s the whole point. That’s why they use them, but if they do use them, then they don’t truly fancy us.”
“Where did you learn this?” Miss Minerva Dodger asked. As she was Lovingdon’s half sister, Grace knew she couldn’t very well tell her the truth. She would no doubt confront her brother and any hope Grace had of securing his assistance would be dashed. Minerva was not nearly as fair of complexion as Lovingdon. It came from having vastly different fathers, she supposed. Minerva’s hair had the fine sheen of mahogany, her eyes were as black as sin.
“A gentleman told me.”
“Which gentleman?”
“It’s not important who. He’s had a great deal of experience on the matter.”
“Very well. I’ll write it down, but it sounds like poppycock to me.”
“You don’t have to write it down.”
“I thought we were going to publish a book to help ladies determine when a gentleman was merely after their dowry. A Lady’s Guide to Ferreting Out Fortune Hunters.”
“Well, yes, but I don’t know that we’ll have enough material.”
“I think we need to do it,” Lady Ophelia said. “Even if it’s only two pages. Look at Lady Sybil. Her husband nearly had her in tears last night at the ball with all his ranting just because she wore a new gown in the same shade as the one his sister wore. Why would he care? If you ask me he should put her ahead of his sister, tell his sister to go change her frock.”
“I always thought he was so nice,” Minerva said.
“We all did,” Grace said with conviction. “Last Season, I was even considering him as a serious suitor, but then I realized that Syb was terribly fond of him. I feared I’d lose her friendship if I encouraged him. Now I feel rather badly that she’s with him.”
“It’s not your fault,” Lady Penelope assured her. “I would have stepped aside as well in favor of a friend. Which is why we must help each other identify the worst of the lot, so we might all avoid a similar sorrow-filled fate.”
“I’ve heard something rather disturbing,” Lady Ophelia said, “but as it involves my dear friend Lady Chloe, you must not tell a soul.”
“We never would,” Penelope said. “This round table is like the one at King Arthur’s court. We are honor bound to hold the secrets spoken here.”
Minerva laughed. “You are always so dramatic. You should go on the stage.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it. I don’t think Father would mind. He doesn’t care much what anyone thinks, but Mother is another matter entirely. She says our behavior reflects not only on our father but on our uncle.” She gave Grace a pointed look.
“I doubt Father would mind.”
“I’ll think about it if I don’t find a beau this Season. Meanwhile, Ophelia, tell us about Chloe.”
“Well.” She glanced around the garden. “She’s making merry with Lord Monroe. She has been since last Season, but he hasn’t asked for her hand in marriage. She’ll be ruined if he doesn’t.”
“Surely he will,” Grace assured her. “If they’re . . . well, you know, being cozy and all, surely it’s only a matter of time.”
“I’ve thought about confronting him . . .”
“Bad idea, there. Don’t want to get into the middle of it.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Lady Ophelia gazed out over the lawn. “Finding a good husband should not be so difficult.”
“Who are you going to choose?” Minerva asked Grace.
“Oh, I haven’t a clue. The first one to send me my favorite flower, I suppose.”
“Your favorite flower. What has that to do with anything?” Penelope asked.
“Something my elusive gentleman told me. A man who loves me will know my favorite flower.”
“I’m going to jot that down as well,” Minerva assured them. “Is this gentleman advisor of yours happily married? I’d like to know how he came to be such an expert.”
She looked up. “He’s old, then?”
Grace forced her expression not to give anything away. “Terribly old.” To a child of two.
“I’d like to meet this mysterious gentleman of yours,” Minerva said.
“I’ll see what can be arranged, but I must confess that he is not one for going out.”
“Decrepit as well, then. Does he still have his mind? Is he sharp enough to remember how he came to have his wife?”
Grace fought not to reveal any sorrow when she said, “He’s sharp enough to remember everything.”
Chapter 5
Noon was far too early for a disreputable man to awaken, but when Lovingdon received word that his mother was waiting in the parlor, staying abed no longer seemed wise. She was not averse to barging into his bedchamber, and while his bed was empty of female companionship, she did not need to see him in his present state, when he had not shaved in eons, his eyes were red and puffy, and he reeked of tobacco and strong drink.
So he hastily bathed and shaved, donned proper attire, and went downstairs to pretend that he was glad she had come to see him.
Pouring tea, she sat in a green wingback chair, and it struck him with the force of a battering ram that she had aged considerably since he’d last seen her. He doubted any son loved his mother as much as he did, and if it made him a coddled mother’s boy, so be it.
“Mother,” he said as he strode across the room, then leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’re looking well.”
“Liar. I look dreadful. I’m not sleeping much.”
“And which of your children is to blame for that?” he asked, taking the chair near her and stretching out his legs. After she married Jack Dodger, she’d given birth to two sons and a daughter. Her lineage gained them entry into Society, while Jack Dodger’s wealth made them acceptable. Lovingdon had no doubt that they would each marry someone who carried some aristocratic blood in their veins.
His mother said nothing, simply sipped her tea, and that was answer enough.
“You needn’t worry about me. I’m fine,” he assured her.
“It’s been two years. You’re not back into Society. You can’t mourn forever.”
When the Duke Was Wicked Page 5