A kindred moment stretched between them as they shared a smile.
Gillian opened her mouth to speak when her gaze landed on someone beyond Justina’s shoulder. She followed her gaze and swallowed down a curse.
The Marquess of Tennyson, his eyes fixed on her, wound his way through the crowd. “Go, see to your hem,” Gillian murmured, giving her a nudge. “I will distract him.”
Spinning on her heel, Justina lost herself in the crowd. As a young lady, she’d lamented her mere five-feet three-inches of height, now she gave thanks for the advantage it gave in escaping notice. She slipped out of the ballroom and rushed down the hall, her skirts rustling noisily in the quiet.
“Well, Miss Barrett, we meet again.”
Those words, eerily familiar, uttered by Nick a week prior, now delivered coldly by another, brought her jerking to a stop. Justina wheeled around and fear iced her veins. “How…?” How had he found her so quickly?
An ugly, triumphant grin split the marquess’ face. As he stalked slowly forward, it occurred to her that if it weren’t for the soullessness of that stare, he would almost be described as handsome. But there was that emptiness. “Tsk, tsk. You do have a history of sneaking off. Quite scandalous,” he teased and that frosty jeering snapped her back into movement.
Justina retreated several steps. “It isn’t proper for us to be here, alone, my lord,” she reminded him. Then, would a beast like the Marquess of Tennyson, who’d made it a point of stalking her whereabouts, be bothered with such trivialities as propriety? She continued retreating, not taking her gaze from him.
“No,” he said in gleeful agreement that gave her momentary pause. “Particularly not with your torn gown.” Involuntarily, her gaze fell to the floor and flew back to his. He smirked. The marquess continued coming. “Imagine the scandal if La Belle Ferronniere were discovered alone, with a gentleman?” Her back knocked hard against the wall. His grin expanded, revealing even white teeth in a cold smile the Devil would have envied, and then he continued advancing. “Do not flatter yourself, love. I’ve no intention of ruining you.” He paused and smiled a slow, unfeeling grin. “Not anymore.”
She held up a hand to ward him off. What was he on about? Her mind spun, trying to make sense of that cryptic assurance that wasn’t much of an assurance. “Stop,” she demanded in quiet tones.
With an infuriating calm, Lord Tennyson yanked off his gloves and stuffed them inside his jacket. “I’ve received a better offer than the one your father presented. That isn’t why I’m here.”
“My father is a fool,” she said tersely and took a step to move around him.
He slid into her path. “I do not disagree there, Miss Barrett,” he said, grinning. “Regardless, I’m not here to ruin you, as that tragic look in your eye worries over,” he said casually. She remained tightly coiled, the mocking glint in his eyes fanning her wariness of this man. “I am here to warn you.”
Warn me?
He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a single missive. Justina flicked her gaze between the scrap and Lord Tennyson’s face. “Come, surely you’d care to know what’s contained upon the page.” He was the Devil in that original garden with an apple extended in his evil hands. And damn her for being as weak as the first woman for allowing him to toy with her.
Justina wetted her lips. Then she proved she had far more strength than Eve, for she snapped her skirts and wheeled about to leave.
“Aren’t you curious about the gentleman who has you so captivated? Your precious Duke of Huntly?” he called out. Heat slapped at her cheeks. “Tell me, Miss Barrett,” he went on, temptingly. “How well do you truly know the gentleman?”
Unease knotted her belly. She would not let him toy with her like the cat that had a mouse between its paws. A man such as Tennyson throwing aspersions upon Nick’s character was like the Devil condemning God himself.
Except… She lingered.
“Ah, I see you are curious, Miss Barrett. Come, come,” he taunted, waving the note. “Have a read.”
She bit the inside of her cheek and, fool that she was, with stiff fingers, took it from him, and skimmed the elegantly scrawled letters.
Miss Barrett,
If you were wise, you’d be wary of Huntly. Surely you are not so stupid, you believe in chance meetings?
That is what the missive said? She was expected to trust this man who’d pursued her relentlessly since the start of the Season. Justina shoved it back into the marquess’ hand. “I don’t need your rubbish warnings,” she said sharply. And not simply because Tennyson was a snake who kept company with her father. A man who, by his own words, had admitted to colluding with the viscount.
He frowned. “You will not give up on your girlish longing for Huntly and his title?”
Tennyson and whoever had penned his bloody note clearly had not gleaned that Nick Tallings, the Duke of Huntly, had tired of her. Nor did she give a jot about Nick’s dukedom. “It is not about his title—” Justina promptly closed her mouth. She’d be damned ten times until Sunday before she spoke of her feelings with this man.
“So, you do care for the gentleman.” The marquess sighed and stuffed the note inside his jacket, as though bored by their exchange. “You could not make this easy for me, Miss Barrett. Very well, you truly leave me no choice then.”
Fear ran amok at the cryptic resignation to that statement. He took a step and she held a staying up. “What are you doing?” She prided herself on the steely strength of that deliverance.
“Why, I’m ruining you, of course.” He started forward.
Her heart lurched. “But you said you didn’t intend to ruin me.”
“No,” he corrected. “Alas, you now leave me no choice.”
Bloody hell.
This was the last night that he’d see Miss Justina Barrett. Oh, granted, given their statuses in the ton, they’d move through the same Social spheres. Yet, there was no need for their paths to cross with anything more meaningful.
Searching for her in the crowd, Nick sought to determine why that truth left him oddly…bereft. Hollow inside. His gaze landed on the pale-haired and brown-haired misses, so often with her, and he cursed himself for looking for Justina even now.
By God, he wanted to leave this infernal affair. Wanted to go to his home or his club, or ideally both, and get himself well and truly soused. The whole reason he was in attendance at Chilton’s ball even now, was because it was at Nick’s bequest that the formal affair had been thrown together, with the intentions of trapping Rutland’s sister-in-law and ultimately forcing her hand. As such, he’d an obligation to at least suffer through the event.
But as he continued his systematic work seizing the Viscount Waters’ debt and the debt of that man’s son, Justina had retained a tentacle-like hold on Nick’s thoughts. Having convinced himself that poetry and any other piece of literature was nothing but rot, and that he’d not picked up a book of poetry in thirteen years—until her.
Nick stared over his glass of champagne at the tops of the heads of Chilton’s guests and took care to avoid anyone’s eyes. He didn’t want bloody company. He didn’t want to don the roguish smile the peerage had come to expect from the always affable Duke of Huntly, who inside had a soul as rotted as the scoundrel who’d been the scourge of London.
And he most certainly didn’t wish to see Justina Barrett and all the gentlemen eyeing her with covetous stares, the way they might hunger for those shining gems that couldn’t hold a flicker of actual light to the young lady’s spirit.
With a sound of disgust, he downed his drink.
Chilton sidled next to him, a glass in his own fingers. “I’ll have you remember this was entirely for your benefit,” he pointed out with far too much relish.
“I recall,” he bit out. And the misery of this affair was to be his punishment for embroiling Justina in his plans for Rutland.
The mirth faded from his friend’s grin and the harsh planes of Chilton’s face settled into a somber mask.
“Other than the furtive glances you’ve been casting in the young lady’s direction, you’ve made otherwise little move toward her.”
Given the hushed quiet of that observation, Nick could very well pretend to fail to hear the words and question there. Yet, this man had been his friend since he’d been a youthful lad with a love of poetry to the then transformed boy who’d cut his father’s dangling body from a rope. “I, of course, thought on your…advice,” he said, stiffly. Chilton had always been remarkably clear in logic when Nick had been hotheaded with emotion. It was, no doubt, the reason for the baron’s brilliant success upon the battlefields of Europe.
Goddamn the other man. Must he always be infernally correct? And more, goddamn himself for putting a young woman he’d known but a handful of days before a lifetime of hunger for revenge against Rutland.
His friend gave a brusque, approving nod. “It is the right decision.”
“It is a weak one,” Nick muttered. And here he’d spent years lauding himself a worthy opponent to Rutland.
The other man shifted closer and dropped his voice even lower. “Weak, because you will not ruin a young lady?” Chilton shook his head. “You are weaker if you see that end of your plan through,” he said, motioning over a servant. He traded his empty glass for a full one. After the liveried servant walked off, he went on. “We do not ruin young ladies.” That harsh, veiled, but still clear reminder of Nick’s own sister, miserably wedded off with his grandfather’s pressuring to a cruel bugger roused all the deepest hatred Nick had long carried for Rutland. He pressed his eyes closed a moment willing back the always-present guilt. “We only exact our revenge on other men, lest we become those men.” Something dark flashed in the baron’s eyes and then was quickly gone. “As I said, the lady’s fate will be decided by her father, through actions you carried out, and you will not be bound to her.”
Wasn’t that truly the same as if I had ruined her myself? It does not matter what happens to Justina Barrett from here. It does not matter.
Nick searched his gaze over the floor for the lady who refused to relinquish her hold over his thoughts.
“She slipped away a short while ago,” Chilton murmured, gesturing to the back entrance of his ballroom.
…There was a gentleman pursuing me…
He did a quick sweep of the ballroom seeking the relentless Marquess of Tennyson. Gone. He silently cursed. By God, he’d had the gentleman’s word. Then, was there truly any value in the pledge given by a man who’d hunt a lady uninterested in his suit?
She is not my responsibility. She is not my responsibility.
Nick silently cursed and handed his glass over to his friend.
“What is it?”
Ignoring Chilton’s question, he quickened his strides through the crowded ballroom. He kept his gaze forward, avoiding the stares of interested ladies and mamas eager for an introduction. He continued walking to the back of the hall, to the back entrance. Of course, it was madness to assume just because he’d been unable to locate Justina that she was at risk from Tennyson’s advances. He’d purchased Waters’ vowels and, through it, her dowry. There were more than two hundred guests present and countless reasons why he couldn’t single-handedly identify either her or the marquess in the crowd.
Do you truly trust the word of a man like Tennyson? With his own black soul, he should know better.
The same knot of unease in his belly that had portended doom all those years ago with Lord Rutland’s visit was now the same pit as he stalked through Chilton’s townhouse. “Madness,” he muttered. He was utterly—
“I said let me pass.” Justina’s voice ringing with spirited fury brought him jerking to an abrupt stop at the end of the hall. The lady stood in a breathtaking display of spirit; a bold, fearless energy radiating from her person.
Nick quickly worked his gaze over the scene—Tennyson in his shirtsleeves, his cravat loose, Justina’s hem shredded. A primal fury better suited to the beasts of old surged through him. “Tennyson,” he bit out and the pair at the end of the corridor whipped around to face him.
A staggering relief lit Justina’s eyes. With the marquess distracted, she rushed out from behind the man and raced down the hall. Nick caught her by the arms and ran his gaze over her face. “Did he hurt you?” he demanded. By God, he’d shred the man with his bare hands and stuff his entrails down his throat.
She gave her head a tight shake.
“Huntly,” the other man greeted calling Nick’s attention. “Bad form to interrupt a tryst.” Lord Tennyson smirked. “Then, invariably, the result will be the same as if we’d trysted.”
Voices sounded in the distance, fast approaching. The smug grin on the marquess’ face contained his triumph. The air left Nick on a hiss as he and Justina, as one, swiveled their gazes to the opposite end of the corridor. To the rapid footfalls. Her pink-tinged porcelain skin went a deathly white.
Nick’s pulse pounded loudly. He’d believed, in purchasing Waters’ vowels and holding control of Justina’s dowry, that Tennyson would move on to a wealthy heiress. With his maneuverings, she would be bound to this man. Society would see her ruined and wed to a lecher like Tennyson. “Marry me?” he urged, the question tumbling out from a place of illogic.
Her eyes flared wide. “I don’t un…” She followed his gaze to Tennyson and she gave a quick jerky nod.
He dipped his head and claimed her lips. She deserved far better than him or Tennyson or most of the other miserable blighters in London, but Tennyson would destroy her spirit. Having witnessed his own sister’s demise into darkness, he could not live in the same Society and bear witness to that transformation. But with Justina’s body close to him and her mouth pliant under his, the reasons for the kiss transformed so all he felt was her. He angled his head and further deepened his exploration of the soft contours of her flesh.
Great gasps and exclamations went up and doused the momentary madness that had gripped him.
Nick wrenched his head back, and quickly positioned himself between Justina and the small audience assembled in the corridor. Her father’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish thrown ashore. The notorious gossip, Lady Jersey, nicknamed Silence, in the greatest irony for the leading matron could have talked Boney out of battle with the amount she prattled. Hope stirred. Though unpredictable and eccentric, the lady, however, had proven capable of great kindness amongst the ton. As soon as the thought slid in, he cast it out. No young lady could weather this gossip without being fully ruined and without Nick himself being forever labeled a blackguard.
Then, isn’t that what I have prided myself on secretly being?
“I don’t understand,” the viscount whined, scratching his sweaty pate.
“I daresay, it does not take much to gather,” the countess drawled. The respectable hostess looked to Nick with a glimmer in her eyes. “Tsk, tsk, Your Grace,” she drawled, tapping her fan against her opposite palm. “Your reputation precedes you.” Then, she flicked her gaze to where the Marquess of Tennyson hovered. “An evening for trysts, I see,” she stretched out those syllables in an erroneous supposition. “You should run along, Tennyson, while this matter is settled.” The marquess hesitated. The countess clapped her hands once. “Run along, Tennyson.”
Then, like a child scolded by a stern tutor, he gathered his jacket, shrugged into it, and stalked off. Not before he withered Nick with a hard glare.
Chilton stepped forward. Disappointment steeped in his gaze, he took in the group assembled, lingering his stare briefly on Justina’s rumpled gown. Then he politely averted his gaze. It looked damning. As he’d intended. But the motives that had first driven him to Justina Barrett were not the same motives that now saw him in this compromising position with her. This unexpected, but necessary act had not been intended to destroy, but rather to save.
Will she still see it that way when I ruin her father and brother?
“But…” Viscount Waters let out a small wail.
Lady Jersey patted
him on the arm. “Rest assured, Huntly is a good boy. He’ll do right by the gel,” she assured. “Isn’t that right, Huntly?” She winged a dark eyebrow up.
A thick, tense pall of silence fell over the gathering. His skin pricked with the heat of Justina’s gaze and he looked down. Uncertainty filled their cornflower blue depths and she spoke in words that barely reached his ears. “You do not have to do this.”
Nick told his brain to tell his head to move and he managed a semblance of a nod for the countess.
“It is settled then,” the woman beamed. “He’ll marry the girl. You’ve caught yourself a good one, Miss Barrett,” she called loudly.
And standing there, with Lady Jersey’s words ringing mockingly in the hallway, the older woman couldn’t be more wrong.
He curled his hands tightly. With the treachery he’d originally intended for Justina and the revenge he still intended to have against Rutland, he was as much a spawn of Satan as Rutland himself.
Chapter 13
The following morning, Nick was shown through the corridors of Viscount Waters’ townhouse. As he walked, he took in the fraying red carpets, the faded paint upon walls where portraits, now gone, had left the indelible mark of their presence. Paintings, that with his own machinations and his solicitor’s efforts, had been carted off and sold part and parcel at auction. The peeled satin wallpaper stood as a stark testament to the Barrett family’s circumstances.
This was the state the viscount had left his family in. Nick tightened his jaw. And soon, they’d be stripped of every last vestige of wealth they possessed. Justina, however, would be spared. Would she wish to be spared if she knew what I intend for her family? What I have already done?
He tamped down the taunting questions at the far corners of his mind. She’d be saved from a marriage to Tennyson. She’d live the life of a well-cared for duchess, with vast wealth at her fingertips so that there would be no need for those visits to circulating libraries. A life far safer, far more secure, than the hell his own sister knew.
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 129