“I should burn this,” she said to herself, looking up inadvertently at the duke. “In fact, I shall do so right now.”
His eyes widened in warning. “I forbid you to set another room on fire, Miss Gardner. Give it back to me, if you would.”
She nodded, pretending not to notice that he carefully slipped the print into the top drawer of his desk. She wondered again if he intended to dispose of the thing or examine it during his private hours. Harriet found herself inexplicably flustered that he might derive pleasure from a depiction of their coupling. She felt, in fact, as though she could finish the rest of her brandy and not suffer any ill effects at all.
Again, oddly enough, it was Edlyn who sought to calm the storm of emotions that threatened to spoil the evening’s peace. With a tactfulness that Harriet could only attribute to the academy’s influence, Edlyn rose from the sofa and retrieved the book that had fallen from Harriet’s lap. “Is this the sort of novel that entertains you, Harriet?”
The duke looked up from his desk. “She is apparently attracted to the dark and horrible.”
“I enjoy a good fright now and then,” she admitted. “Would you like to read the book, your grace?”
“Not yet.” He paused as Edlyn returned to the sofa, leafing thoughtfully through the well-worn pages. “Perhaps I may borrow it after my niece has had the pleasure.”
“It might keep you up at night,” Harriet murmured. “And it’s more than a little morbid.”
“Does it have a happy ending?” Lady Powlis asked, attempting to look over Edlyn’s shoulder.
Harriet sighed. “Let us just say that I am still hoping for a sequel.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Whose is the love that, gleaming through the world, Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn? Whose is the warm and partial praise, Virtue’s most sweet reward?
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
“To Harriet” from Queen Mab
At ten o’clock that evening, Griffin and his aunt escorted Edlyn back to the academy. Lady Powlis chattered benignly for the first minute or so of the drive. Buoyed up on a crest of hope for Edlyn’s future, she seemed to have forgotten that earlier in the day she had denounced Griffin as a demon and threatened to excommunicate him, bell, book, and candle, from the body of the Boscastle clan until he repented of his sins.
For the life of him, he didn’t understand why he continued to put up with her nonsense. He was past the age of embarrassment. She was past the age of doing him a serious injury with her cane. But somehow the thought of a future without Primrose or Edlyn seemed too empty to contemplate.
As did a life without his aunt’s companion. It was tempting to attribute his attraction to Harriet to basic instinct. But it wasn’t physical desire alone that had turned a quiet evening by the fire into one of the most contented he could remember. And it wasn’t sexual need that had provoked him to laugh when Harriet had found the print of him swiving her to a fare-thee-well. Not that he hadn’t imagined engaging in the act those lewd pictures revealed. He’d given himself away, keeping the print right in the drawer where he kept his most important papers, property deeds, marriage contracts, his brother’s journal. Furthermore, he would probably take it out again later tonight and study it when he was by himself.
It might keep him from her door tonight.
Then again, it might just send him there on winged feet.
“I hope you have learned a lesson,” his aunt murmured as the carriage neared Bedford Square.
“What lesson was I meant to learn?” he inquired, girding his loins for his next trial.
“That one can always be improved.”
He blew out a sigh. “Do you wish to turn around and drop me off at the academy, too?”
“Don’t be silly, Griff. I meant that you should look upon Harriet as a source of inspiration, not as a, well, as a young woman to dally with.”
He frowned. “I don’t believe I have ever dallied with anyone in my life.”
“Then you are trifling with her affections.”
“You’re the one who put away all that trifle at dinner.”
She leaned back, shoulders straight, and knocked him on the ankle with her cane. “Don’t you know the proper way to address me by now?”
He bent to rub his foot, muttering, “Why? Are you an envelope?”
“The ladies accepted to that academy attend for one purpose, Griffin.”
“To learn to hurt people with canes when they’re older?”
“For marriage. Harriet Gardner will either find herself a decent husband and enter a state of holy matrimony, or she will stay on as my companion-”
“-in a state of holy misery?” He drew his feet in quickly. “Sorry. Only a joke. No need for corporal punishment.”
“She will never make a good marriage or establish a reputation for service if this scandal continues. In effect, what I am saying is that your actions can ruin any chance of happiness she has worked for.” She paused, her wrinkled face concerned. “Are you listening to me?”
“Indeed, madam. Every word you have uttered is embedded into my skull like a nail.”
“There is no need for rudeness. If you do not take immediate action to remedy this situation, I shall insist Miss Gardner return to the sanctuary of her academy. Yes, Griffin. Sanctuary. That is what I meant.”
“I know what-”
“A consecrated place of refuge, where she will be protected from unscrupulous inclinations on your part that shall not be mentioned. And if I have to lose her because you refuse to behave, well, it will be the end of me. And of you.”
He turned his face to the carriage window, hiding a smile. “I understand.”
Harriet had decided to tidy up the duke’s library. She’d been about to call in one of the maids for company, but then she discovered another print hidden under his blotter, this one so graphic she actually sat down in his chair, her mouth open, to stare. She was still staring when she heard hoofbeats in the street and coach wheels grinding to a bumpy halt.
She flew about the library, smoothing the cushions, setting the brandy glasses on a tray, picking up the book Miss Edlyn had leafed through and left on the sofa, a small piece of paper marking her place.
There. Now she could sit in her chair by the fire, innocent-as-you-like, reading her book. The duke would never dream by looking at her that she’d had a good gander at those prints.
But then a woman’s voice at the door-and Butler gently rebuffing-pulled Harriet right back to her feet. She knew who the caller was. She darted across the room and slipped into the armchair at the duke’s desk.
When Lady Constance entered the room a moment later, the butler shaking his head at Harriet in apprehension, Harriet appeared to be busy answering invitations. “His grace is not home tonight,” she said, dipping her pen into the inkpot. “Was he expecting you at this late hour?”
“No, he wasn’t,” Constance snapped. “And I didn’t come to see him. I wanted to talk to you.”
Harriet raised her chin. “About?” she asked haughtily.
“You know perfectly well. It is the talk of London.”
Harriet lowered her quill. “Oh, that. You mean Lady Powlis buying all those French knickers from Madame Devine’s shop. Isn’t she a scandal?”
“I don’t know anything about her knickers, you little witch. Only fast French girls actually wear them. A lady would not be caught dead in the vulgar things.”
“Is it considered more ladylike to be caught dead in the buff?”
Constance reached into her white fur muff and threw several crumpled broadsheets across the desk. “Do not pretend that you or the duke know anything about propriety. There is nothing proper about these, is there?”
Harriet felt sick as she looked down at the satirical drawing of a gentleman feeding a riderless horse an apple. There was no question that the horseman rewarding his mount was the duke. The body that lay at his feet like a broken puppet could only be his brother.
T
he Duke’s Heir Feeds the Apple of Evil to His Apprentice.
“It was an accident,” Harriet said between her teeth. “There were witnesses to what happened.”
“The groom who works for him?” Constance asked with a laugh.
Harriet wanted to crumple up the paper and pelt her with it. “You knew this before.”
“Yes, I knew,” Constance said. “But it wasn’t until after I met him that I realized he might actually be capable of murder.”
And so might Harriet.
“Has he tried to hurt you?” she asked, suddenly curious.
“Of course not,” Constance retorted. “It’s just that whenever I see him, there is-” She shook her head as if unable to describe the duke’s impact on the female heart.
“Thunder and lightning?” Harriet offered helpfully.
“Yes.” Constance shuddered. “With a pinch of brimstone thrown in.”
As much as she was enjoying this little chat, Harriet decided it would be a disloyalty on her part to continue. “Well, for what it’s worth, I have not witnessed him murder anyone since I have been in this house.”
“I’m not talking about murder,” Constance said, swinging around the desk. “It’s this other rumor.” She stabbed a gloved finger at the print beneath. “Read this,” she ordered, looking more like a dragon than a china doll.
“Why should I? It’s all rubbish.”
Constance made a face. “Can you even read?”
Harriet scratched the top of her head. “I know me letters sommat. If I sees ’em slow and big like.”
“Has he slept with you?”
Harriet looked up slowly. “What did you say?”
Constance lowered her voice. “I asked if he has slept with you.”
“Ask him yourself.”
“I’m asking you.” Constance sifted through the broadsheets, holding one to Harriet’s face as if she had taken it from a rubbish heap. “Even if you cannot read, I assume you can decipher a cartoon.”
Harriet glanced in reluctant interest at the drawing. Some filthy-minded sod had depicted the duke, blade-nosed and in a billowing black cloak, bent over a woman sprawled in the gutter. If the crudity of the cartoon weren’t insult enough, the artist had portrayed Harriet’s thighs to be five times their natural size, like enormous satin bolsters. And, good grief, either she needed spectacles, or there were three of them.
“Do you have any idea how humiliating this is?” Constance said coldly. “Fortunately, most people with an ounce of intelligence ignore these outrageous fabrications. There are, however, those in the fashionable world who take gossip as gospel.”
Harriet drummed her fingers against her upper arm, her eyes fixed in a vacant stare at the window. Another carriage had stopped in the street. She heard the petulant voice that had become familiar. And those boots thundering up the steps. They had become welcome sounds.
“Do you understand what this means?” Constance asked in an urgent whisper. “The duke and I will live primarily in London. I will not be mocked by sly rumors that my husband is a ravaging beast when in truth he has been seduced by a common strumpet.”
“I see.”
“Do you? Then you must decry these rumors in public, accept your guilt, and go away.” Constance gathered up her papers and produced a small purse from her reticule. “I suggest country employment. Perhaps it is overly kind to do so, but I shall have letters of character written for you to take.”
She shook the purse as if the jingle of coins would rouse Harriet from the trance that had befallen her.
“All you have to do is admit the truth.”
“All I have to do is admit the truth.”
“And go away.”
“And go away.”
“Must you repeat everything I say? Oh, never mind. Just do as I tell you.” Constance stuffed the papers back into her rabbit muff. “If anyone asks, and they will, you will deny that the duke ravished you like a beast. You will admit that you seduced his grace.”
“I did what?”
Constance cast a nervous glance under the table as if to assure herself she’d left no other papers behind. “This has taken me longer than I thought. My driver is waiting across from the carriage house. Should I be spotted leaving at this late hour, you are to say that I called on Lady Powlis to ask after her health. These papers must have upset her, too.”
“Oh, they did,” Harriet said, rising from the chair.
Constance tucked the coin purse into Harriet’s bodice. “There. Remember what to say.”
The gesture would have been offensive enough if it had been made by a man, although in that event a measure of dubious flattery at one’s desirability might have eased the sting. But at Constance’s hand it became a vile insult. Harriet considered flinging the purse back in her face. But money was money, and she had a nephew now who could use a little gent’s wardrobe, if not a few warm blankets.
Constance spun on her heel, her scheme apparently executed to her satisfaction. Harriet waited until she reached the door before calling her back.
“There is only one problem,” Harriet said with an abashed smile.
Constance flashed her an impatient look. “Which is?”
“The truth. About the duke. And the darkness he cannot conquer.”
The color slowly faded from Lady Constance’s cheeks, and in that moment Harriet knew that the true monster in her nature had cast off its feeble grasp on gentility. “The rumors about the duke are true,” she said, her voice clear and articulate. “Every one of them.”
The fur muff drooped from Constance’s grasp. “He murdered his brother?”
Harriet waved her hand. “Probably. But that’s neither here nor there.”
“Then-”
Having chosen to take the low road, Harriet hurtled down it with wholehearted enthusiasm. “I meant the part about him ravishing me like a beast.”
The muff slid to the floor. Constance looked ill. “He… ravaged you?”
“Ravished, ravaged, pillaged, plundered. I might have been a tender rosebud bruised by a great storm, plucked from my virtuous-”
“He…” Constance wrinkled her perfect nose. “In the gutter?”
“Of course not. It’s bleedin’ cold on the cobbles, and there are rats, besides. I do have some pride.”
Constance drew a breath of distress. Clearly Harriet’s description implied a sacrifice on the altar of carnal affairs at which Constance would not kneel, even for a duchy.
“Would you care for a vinaigrette?” Harriet inquired solicitously. “I think the duke might still have one in the brandy cabinet from when he sent me into a swoon yesterday.”
Constance shook her head, opening the door and disappearing down the columned hallway as if the fiends of hell were nipping at her little behind.
“What about your money?” Harriet shouted, running after her.
“Oh-oh. Keep it!”
“Thank you.” Harriet grinned up at the chambermaids hanging slack-jawed over the stair rails. “I’ll buy you a pair of knickers if I’ve got anything left over.”
Well, she had done it again. She knew full well that she would have to admit to Lady Powlis what had happened and that she would have to pay for her sins. She had defamed the duke’s character, and she must be in shock over it, because she didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty. It was this lack of remorse that a magistrate had once warned her was the mark of the true criminal.
Wait. She thought she might be starting to feel a twinge of regret.
No, she wasn’t.
She’d do exactly the same thing if the nasty woman provoked her again. She dashed through the front hall and back toward the library. She might as well wring every drop of sweetness from her revenge. The only thing that could have made it better was if the fleeing damsel had run smack into the duke and popped him proper for being such a wicked defiler of paid companions.
And the only thing that could have made it worse was when his diabolical figure appeared from
one of the columns behind her. Almost as if he had been lurking in the hall for quite some time. Perhaps even long enough to have overheard the inflammatory confession his aunt’s companion had made.
Chapter Twenty-three
What then became of me? I know not; I lost sensation, and chains and darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
She edged toward the door. “You’re-”
“-a ravaging beast?”
Heaven help her, he looked it, too, in the dark, speaking in the deep voice that seemed to enwrap her in heat. “I didn’t know your grace had returned.”
As he advanced on her, Harriet wove in and out of the marble columns until she stood, trapped, behind the middle pillar in the hall. “Do you know what you’ve done?” he asked quietly.
“I’ve… slandered you,” she whispered.
“And mortified Lady Constance right down to the hairs of her little white muff.” He circled the column, each step forcing her farther and farther down the hall. “You have cost me the wife I was supposed to bring home.”
She frowned. “You’re better off without her. Lady Powlis thinks so, too.”
“And when is it that I become this ravaging beast?” he mused. “At the stroke of midnight? Once a month, when the moon is full? Or do I merely need to throw off my cloak to make you tremble in terror?”
The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife Page 14