Damn him for the biggest fool alive if he ever started stammering over a pretty girl as if he were a boy in short pants. Double damn him for thinking with his groin and not his head. Slam. Slam. Slam.
He needed a petticoat cure, he decided. He hadn’t had a woman for so long, he couldn’t remember. Eight months, ten. Something like that. Slam.
No wonder he was going crazy. Tonight, he decided, he’d go invade a seraglio, find some feminine company to set his body right, and return his brains north where they belonged. In his head. Slam. Slam. Slam.
For the next hour, Ian pummeled the training sack with all the force of his frustration, wondering how many more Hayes and Montroses and Walfords were out there waiting to make his life hell.
Breathing hard, he drew back and wiped sweat from his forehead, scowling at the sack in front of him. Why were the Italians always so much trouble? Especially one particular Italian, one who had a smile like the sun and the body of a goddess. She also had the soul of a house cat. She wanted to be pampered and spoiled, petted and adored. Until she didn’t.
Ian readied himself for another round, then hesitated for no reason at all. With a curse, he turned and walked away. He supposed he’d let off enough steam for one day.
There were times when being an accomplished actress came in very useful. Lady Hewitt’s rout that evening proved to be one of those times.
“Miss Valenti, I understand you are engaged to Lord Haye. Let me offer my congratulations.”
Lucia pasted on a smile for Lady Westburn, amazed by how many congratulatory sentiments one woman could get in only a few hours. “Grazie, Contessa, but nothing is decided until my father gives his permission,” she replied, thinking if she had to say those words one more time, she was going home.
“Of course, of course, but surely Prince Cesare cannot object to Lord Haye. Like yourself, Haye is a Catholic.”
Lucia ignored the other woman’s belittling tone. She merely shrugged her shoulders. “My father is sometimes difficult to understand. There is no predicting what he will say. We shall have to see.”
After a few minutes of polite conversation in which the countess tried to gain more information and Lucia delicately avoided giving it, Lady Westburn moved on.
Lucia leaned closer to Grace. “I wish I could simply tell everyone there is no engagement,” she murmured in exasperation.
“You cannot refute it to others until you have clarified the misunderstanding with Haye himself,” Grace replied for perhaps the tenth time since they had arrived at the party.
“I know, I know.” Lucia sighed, wishing Haye had been able to call on her that afternoon. Wanting to clear up this mess as quickly as possible, she had sent him a note first thing this morning, requesting he pay a call on her. Haye, however, had replied with regret that his day was fully occupied with matters he could not set aside. Given the earl’s feelings for her, such a reply was rather odd, but Haye had assured her he would call upon her the following day, and she had been forced to resign herself to twenty-four hours of pretending for others that she and the earl were intent on marriage.
“Miss Valenti, congratulations on your engagement to Lord Haye.”
Lucia smiled at Lady Kettering and gave her little speech yet again.
The marchioness smiled back at her. “When I introduced you to Haye at my little amateur concert, I had the feeling you two would suit. It seems I was right.”
Lucia widened her smile and laughed a little, but as soon as the marchioness walked away, she set her strawberry ice aside, half-eaten, and gave Grace a pleading look. “I have a terrible headache. Is there any way I could go home?”
“Of course we’ll go home if you wish.” Grace set down her ice and glanced around. “Let’s see if we can find Dylan and have him send for the carriage.”
The two women made their way through the throng of people crowding Lady Hewitt’s drawing room, then moved into her music room, but there was no sign of Dylan in either place. They did, however, encounter the Duke and Duchess of Tremore at the bottom of the stairs.
“Has either of you seen Dylan?” Grace asked them. “Lucia has a headache and wants to go home.”
“We saw him a moment ago,” Tremore answered. “He said he was going outside to get some fresh air.” The duke glanced at Lucia. “I understand you and Lord Haye are to be married, Miss Valenti?”
Lucia gave a groan.
Daphne nudged her husband in the ribs, and he gave her a surprised glance in return. “What?” he asked, clearly ignorant of the circumstances. “The news is all over town. White’s was buzzing about it earlier. Is it not true?”
“Well—” Daphne hesitated and glanced at Lucia. “May I tell him?”
Lucia, who had already explained the entire mess to the duchess in whispers an hour earlier, said to Tremore, “Haye thinks we are engaged, but we are not.”
The duke raised an eyebrow. “I see,” he said in the tone of one who clearly didn’t.
“It’s complicated,” Lucia said, giving him an unhappy look. “I leave it to the duchess to explain, if you do not mind. My head is aching, and I just want to go home.”
“That’s why we were trying to find Dylan,” Grace said. “To send for the carriage.”
“We are waiting for our carriage as well,” Daphne said. “We’ve been waiting quite some time, so it should be here at any moment. This party is such a crush, if you wait for Dylan to send for his carriage from the mews, you’ll be here another half hour at least. We would be happy to escort you back to Portman Square, Lucia. That way, Grace and Dylan can go home at their leisure, and you can rest your head.”
Lucia looked at the duchess with gratitude, and a short time later, she was back at Portman Square. Dylan’s cook, Mrs. March, insisted on giving her a cup of foul-tasting herb tea that worked like magic. By the time Lucia crawled into bed, her headache was gone.
She drifted off, but her sleep was not peaceful. She dreamed that her father was insisting she marry Haye. Ian was there, too, agreeing with Cesare, saying that just because the poor sod couldn’t kiss was no reason for Lucia to refuse him. Then, she was in a church with Haye, the vows were spoken, and though she kept trying to scream, “No, no, it’s all a mistake,” no words would come out of her mouth. Then she and Haye were in a carriage, husband and wife, and the earl was kissing her with that fish mouth. It was so awful that Lucia woke herself up.
She sat bolt upright in bed, gasping with relief as she realized it was only a dream. She lay down again, but the dream was still so vivid in her mind that she could not fall back to sleep.
She knew that dream could become reality. She could be forced to marry Haye, or if not him, some other man whose kisses were equally un-appetizing. She had only three weeks left to find a husband. What if August came, and she had not found him?
She had been introduced to many men since arriving in England, but only one intrigued her. Only one captivated her. Only one had the passion she craved.
Lucia thought of the night before, of how Ian had looked standing there in the foyer, blazing with fury. She had wondered what would happen if his control ever slipped and his passions were unleashed. Now she knew. And even though his anger had been directed at her, it had been an impressive sight. Ian Moore was quite a man.
Not that it mattered. She couldn’t marry Ian even if she wanted to. Lucia rolled onto her side and wrapped her arms around her pillow. Three weeks seemed a woefully insufficient amount of time in which to find a husband. What was she going to do?
That horrible dream came back to her, and worry began to gnaw at her insides. Though she tried to go back to sleep, it was useless. Finally, after tossing and turning a few more minutes, she pushed back the counterpane and got out of bed. Thinking perhaps a book would take her mind off her troubles, she slipped a robe over her nightgown and went downstairs.
As she approached the open door of the library, she realized Ian must be home, for she heard his voice and that of another man. Her first thought was tha
t Dylan and Grace had also come home from the party early, but when she got closer to the library, she realized that the person with Ian was not his brother.
“It is insupportable!” an irritated male voice was saying. “Insupportable.”
Haye.
Lucia stopped several feet away from the door, frowning in puzzlement. What was Haye doing here?
Ian said her name and something else she didn’t quite catch. Lucia took a step closer.
“Sir Ian, she was carrying on a love affair! And with a blacksmith!”
Lucia caught her breath. They were talking about Armand. She heard Ian speak again, and she strained to listen.
“A most alarming rumor indeed,” he was saying, “but with no basis in fact. The girl is—”
“No basis in fact?” Haye’s voice held cold contempt. “Madame Tornay, as matron of this academy for young ladies, is a woman of scrupulous honesty. If she were not, I would never have placed my sister in her care. She would not impart such a tale to my uncle unless it was the absolute truth.”
“So you condemn Miss Valenti based on stories imparted by others.”
“Madame Tornay was quite clear in her account of the episode. Miss Valenti carried on this liaison with a blacksmith named Armand Bouget for months. It was well-known among her friends there, and Madame Tornay got wind of it. Miss Valenti—Miss Pelissaro, as she was then, for this was prior to her father’s acknowledgment and she was actually living under her mother’s name, of all the unconventional things! I did not even know Francesca’s surname was Pelissaro until my uncle informed me today. Anyway, to return to the point, Miss Valenti would creep out of her room in the dark of night for clandestine meetings with this Bouget fellow.”
“Perhaps they merely talked.”
“Sir Ian, really! We are men of the world, you and I. We both know such conduct cannot be innocent.”
Ian started to speak again, but Haye interrupted. “When you and I first discussed the matter of Miss Valenti’s situation, I was hesitant even to consent to an introduction, given her mother’s profession. But against my better judgment, I agreed to meet her.”
Lucia bristled at that, highly indignant.
“When I did meet her,” Haye continued, “she captured my heart at once, and I chose to overlook the matter of her mother and her illegitimacy. I became willing to forgive her misfortunes of birth as matters outside her control.”
Lucia’s hands balled into fists. She took a step closer to the door, thinking to interrupt and tell Haye what he could do with his forgiveness. She’d tell him what he could do with his kissing skills, too, while she had the chance. But then Haye spoke again, and she halted, curiosity overcoming her outrage.
“But Armand Bouget is a different matter. I had thought that the forward manner in which Miss Valenti kissed me indicated her affection for me. But now I discover that her affection has also been given to at least one other man, and probably her virtue as well. It seems she takes after her mother more than I would have liked to believe.”
“Haye,” Ian began, but the earl cut him off.
“My uncle and I, being gentlemen of discretion, will keep this knowledge to ourselves, but it does impel me to withdraw from this engagement. Miss Valenti is soiled goods. I cannot marry soiled goods.”
Lucia wrapped her arms tightly around herself and closed her eyes. Whatever reply Ian might have made, she did not hear it, for it was his past words that echoed through her mind.
It will be difficult enough for me to find you a suitable husband in the short time we are allowed…you brought a great deal of this situation about by your own past conduct…I have no desire to clean the Augean stables…
Until this moment, she had not taken his words all that seriously, but now she began to appreciate the fragility of a woman’s reputation, how her own past might come back to haunt her. Lucia’s outrage dissolved into dismay.
All this time, she had been concentrating on finding a husband to love her. She’d been so fixed on that emotion, it had never occurred to her that her past might prevent her from finding a man who respected her. It was not fair, but it might very well happen. She didn’t care what Haye thought, but what would another man think of her?
What did Ian think?
That question deepened her dismay into dread. Did Ian think she was soiled goods? He must. With his exacting standards of propriety, how could he think otherwise?
Pain squeezed her chest at the notion that he might think ill of her, and she realized she cared what he thought. His good opinion was hard to earn, but she wanted it. To think she did not have it, that he regarded her with the same disparagement Haye did, hurt more than she would have believed possible.
Memories of her past flashed across her mind. Did she regret her past? She thought about Armand, about that Carnival night in Bolgheri, and about all the rebellious, defiant things she’d done. The nuns had always called her sinful and wicked, and perhaps it was true, for she couldn’t find it in her heart to regret any of the things she’d done. She had loved Armand. She’d given Elena a night of freedom the other girl would never forget. She’d had some wild times—smoking, drinking, gambling, sneaking out—and she’d enjoyed them all. Truth be told, she’d enjoyed rubbing her father’s face in it most of all. Ian wouldn’t understand that, she supposed. He certainly wouldn’t approve of it.
In all honesty, Lucia had no regrets about her past, but when she thought of Ian, of how she would never have his respect or his good opinion, her lack of regrets wasn’t much comfort.
Chapter 12
Throwing an earl through a window would probably ruin his diplomatic career. Ian took a deep breath and rose to his feet, thinking if he didn’t get Haye out of his sight in very short order, he’d do it anyway and be forced to find himself a new profession.
“I quite understand why you would come to these conclusions,” he said through clenched teeth as he ushered Haye to the door. “I will give Miss Valenti your letter breaking the engagement. I am sure she will feel as you do, that ending it is for the best.”
“I hope so,” Haye answered. “Despite her past conduct, I fear hurting her feelings, but it cannot be helped.”
“I am sure she will survive the disappointment.” The ironic inflection of his voice was lost on the earl, who nodded in agreement.
Ian walked with Haye as far as the corridor, but he could not stomach giving him the courtesy of showing him out, and he was relieved that Haye was too preoccupied to notice. The earl went down the stairs, and Ian waited until he had passed the landing and disappeared from view, then he turned around to return to the library. The moment he did so, he froze.
Lucia was standing by the library door.
She was dressed as if for bed, her hair tumbled down around her shoulders and her bare feet peeping out from beneath the hem of her lacy white nightgown and wrapper.
Ian looked at her face, and he knew she had heard at least part of his conversation with Haye. She pressed her lips together as if in pain, and his chest tightened, for he remembered what she had overheard.
The silence grew, compelling him to say something. “I thought you were at Lady Hewitt’s rout with Dylan and Grace.”
“I was,” she answered. “I came home early because I was tired and had a headache. The Duke and Duchess of Tremore brought me home in their carriage. I went to bed, but I had a bad dream and could not fall back to sleep.”
She paused and drew a deep breath. “I wanted a book. Something dull, to make me sleepy.” She lifted a hand to the library door. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but you know how it is. One hears one’s name and—” She paused again, lifted her chin, and shook back her long hair. “Hell,” she said, and walked into the library.
He followed her. “Lucia,” he began, but she cut him off.
“You were right about my past, Sir Ian. It has come back to haunt me.” She tried to smile, but it seemed a brittle one. “Your job just became more difficult. If word of Armand get
s out, it will become much harder to find me a husband.”
“Haye has given his word to be discreet. He is an honorable man. A prig, but honorable. He will keep his word.”
“Word might still leak out, and then Cesare will have to increase the dowry.” She gave a cynical laugh that hurt him. “If he expects me to be engaged within the next three weeks, that is.”
“You could ask your father for more time.”
Her expression took on a hardness he had never seen before. Her eyes narrowed. “I would crawl to the devil,” she said in a low voice filled with loathing, “before I would ever ask my father for anything.”
“Would you like me to ask Prince Cesare on your behalf?”
She thought about that for a moment, then she said, “Do you think he would agree?”
“Under the circumstances, with the Carnival incident sure to leak out, and now, with the possibility that your indiscretion with Bouget might also become known—” He paused, but he could not lie to her. “No. It is my opinion he would not give you more time. As you said, he would raise the dowry high enough that some impoverished peer would surely step forward.”
Ian watched as she walked over to the table where a decanter of Dylan’s favorite brandy sat on a tray. She poured a hefty amount into a crystal snifter and downed the contents in one swallow.
Having indulged in alcoholic excess a time or two himself, Ian pointed out the truth nobody in pain ever wanted to face. “That isn’t going to help matters,” he said in a gentle voice, and walked to her side.
“I know.” She poured herself another drink, then turned toward him, decanter in one hand, glass in the other. “I suppose I’m now going to get the lecture about how proper young ladies aren’t supposed to get drunk. I don’t think we’re even allowed to drink spirits, are we?”
“I’m afraid not. A glass or two of wine is all young ladies are supposed to be allowed.”
She took a gulp of brandy and gave him a defiant look. “Too bad.”
Ian studied her without replying. There was something raw and painful behind the defiance in her face, something that hurt him, that made him want to go throttle Haye. He reached out to take the bottle from her instead.
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