by Gaelen Foley
While Lady Thurloe gushed on and Max smiled in stoic silence, the children studied her warily, and Daphne cursed herself for ever having agreed to come into this house in the first place.
She had known better, but she hadn’t been able to resist him, and now what a perfect pickle she was in.
She maintained a polite smile, but she felt trapped.
Worse, she could hardly think what to do, with her head still spinning after that thrilling brush with passion. Events seemed to be whirling beyond her control, but at the same time, seeing the obviously good-hearted Lady Thurloe’s delight over the news of her brother’s alleged engagement, Daphne could not bring herself just now to dash the woman’s hopes.
It seemed her safest option was to go along with it graciously for the moment, but a panicky feeling was rising in her. Even though she was fairly sure Max had not planned his sister’s interruption, every tick of the long-case clock nearby somehow attuned her awareness to his cold, calculating will to make her his own.
Dashed if she could not already feel him breathing down her neck in his will to power over her—as much an invasion of her sovereignty as any of Napoleon’s incursions across the Rhine.
No, she was not accusing him of deliberately arranging for his sister to catch them unchaperoned together; he had appeared as genuinely surprised by the ill-timed visit as she.
But then again, she would not put something like it past him. Was he not the same tricky fellow, after all, who had feigned drunkenness so convincingly in Bucket Lane?
True, he had done it to rescue her, but such deception seemed to come all too naturally to him. Could he really be trusted? Or was he willing to use whatever it took to get what he wanted—his wits, his wealth, his wondrous body?
But why? What in the hell did he think was so special about her, anyway?
But it wasn’t about her, and that was the problem. It was all about what Lord Rotherstone wanted and what Lord Rotherstone intended to have.
Why, he thought he could add her to his collection like these paintings and statues, to show her off as Albert had wanted to do, and worse, to breed more Rotherstones for future portraits on his ancestors’ wall.
For a fleeting instant, Daphne wanted to kill him.
She felt duped, but was too polite, too well-trained a lady to start the battle now. Not in front of the children or his sister. After all, if Daphne abjured the marriage now, how would she account for her scandalous visit here?
She was between a rock—a stone, no, a Rother-stone—and a hard place.
“Oh, you will love being married,” the countess said wistfully. “I know everyone complains of it, but it really is quite nice when you have someone who cares for you.”
“Lady Thurloe, if I may impose on your good humor,” Daphne spoke up, doing her best to hide her desperation, “we are not, um, really ready to announce our nuptials yet. His Lordship only asked me yesterday.”
“His Lordship? Ah, I see. You two are still just getting to know each other. How adorable! I understand completely!” she reassured them, beaming. “I can be discreet until you are ready to tell the world. I wouldn’t dare overstep my bounds. After all, my brother does not easily forgive. Be warned of that, Miss Starling.”
Daphne nodded in relief, but fortunately, Lady Thurloe didn’t stay long. She introduced her children, then took each by the hand, preparing to take their leave.
“Well, brother dear, I’m glad I finally found you at home. Do have a care when you go back out, you lovebirds. All the fashionable fools are still milling about on promenade out there. We wouldn’t want any gossip to taint your happy news. Come along, children.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Max said.
“Not necessary, my dear brother. You stay here with your fiancée. Dodsley will show us to the door. I’m sure he will be quite happy to do so.”
“Madam,” the butler intoned, stepping forward to perform his duty without giving any sign of a reaction to her pointed remark.
The countess paused on her way out, stopping in the doorway to glance back at them. “Max,” she said hesitantly, “do please try to keep me apprised of what’s going on in your life, won’t you? Our parents may be gone, but you are still my brother. You’re all that I have left.” She turned to Daphne with a warm smile. “And Miss Starling, if I can be of any use at all in helping plan the wedding, do not hesitate to call on me. It would be the delight of my life to be involved!”
“You are altogether kind, my lady. I will write to you, most certainly.” Daphne was touched by her kindness.
Lady Thurloe nodded. “Dodsley can give you my address at our estate in Berkshire. You both are welcome to visit anytime. Congratulations, again!”
“Good-bye!” the children called, waving.
“Good-bye, thank you!” Daphne answered, waving back.
Still, the master of the house just stood there, arms akimbo, his demeanor gone dark and cold and brooding, inexplicably remote. Daphne looked at him after they had gone. What’s the matter with you? she wondered, but when he eyed her grimly, she decided not to chance it.
“I should go, if you don’t mind,” she said with guarded restraint. “It’s getting late. My father will be wondering where I am.”
He dropped his gaze, withdrawing into his own obscure thoughts. “Of course.”
Stiffly and self-consciously, they returned downstairs, where the butler gave Daphne back her hat and gloves, and held Lord Rotherstone’s coat while he slipped his arms into the sleeves.
A silent walk back out to the cabriolet was followed by a long and uncomfortable ride back to her family’s villa in South Kensington.
“I am,” he said at length, “deeply sorry about that intrusion.”
“Nonsense.” Daphne gave him a nervous smile. “Your sister is a lovely woman.”
“Yes.” He stared between the horse’s ears down the road ahead.
Daphne studied him, wondering what was wrong. She recalled his referring to his gambling father as “cursed,” and thought of how he had mentioned having torn down his childhood home and building over it. All those years of travel, and his sister’s account of his neglect even after he had returned—and then Lady Thurloe’s cryptic warning.
My brother does not easily forgive.
“You keep a distance from your family,” she said softly.
Silence.
“Did they wrong you somehow?”
“We are not close. That is all.”
He drove a little faster as they rolled along down a shady lane, but the tension pulsating from him began to fray Daphne’s nerves.
She wished that he would tell her what was wrong.
He was locked up like a fortress, and she was stuck outside the walls. She did not understand it. Nor did it seem fair.
After all that she had told him about herself, and the things that he had guessed, private things that she had never told anyone—like yesterday, when he probed into her hurt over the terrible loss of Mama—it bothered her that he would seek to know everything about her, and then shut her out when she asked for answers, in return.
As she rode along beside him, her resentment of his continued silence grew. If the man desired to be her husband, why was he now acting like a stranger?
She could no longer contain herself. “I cannot think what you could have against Lady Thurloe. She seems very good.”
“Oh, that she is, to be sure. And her husband’s even more virtuous.” He practically spat the word.
His vehemence warned her back. She stared ahead again, her heart pounding. “What are we going to tell her? She thinks we’re getting married.”
“We are. What?” he demanded when she went silent.
Daphne shook her head, holding on to her tact against the urge to clobber him. “Oh, I don’t know. If this is the way you treat the people who care about you, it really doesn’t bode well for your future wife.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? Why do you h
ate them so much? What did they ever do to you?”
“I don’t hate them,” he replied. “I just don’t give a damn.”
“Max,” she chided gently. “You’re not a very good liar.”
This remark made him turn to her with a startled flash in his eyes; but if he had any response, he swallowed it, and drove on without a word.
“I guess I might as well be talking to myself here,” Daphne remarked to the air as she flicked a piece of lint off her glove. “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Because there is nothing wrong.”
“So, you ran off to the Continent to escape your family, then. They were more of a threat to you than a war going on everywhere?”
He gave her an impatient look, indeed, a warning look, but he still did not reply. She knew he was getting angry at her, and though he was formidable in the extreme, she was not quite ready to give up yet.
The longer he refused to answer, the angrier she got.
She waited another moment, then steadied her courage for one last try. “Why didn’t you go and see your sister when you returned to Town? I mean, for her to have to find out from others that you were at the Edgecombe ball, that must have been hurtful and embarrassing—”
“Do me a favor,” he cut her off sharply. “Don’t tell me how to treat my sister, and I won’t tell you how to deal with your stepmother, agreed?”
She flinched at his harsh tone, but she had caught a fleeting glimpse of turbulent pain beneath his hard, polished veneer.
He sent her a dark glance. “Her brats will get a large inheritance from me. That’s all that matters to them, or to anyone else.”
“No, it’s not. She obviously loves you!”
“You are naïve,” he uttered bitterly.
Stung, Daphne stared at him. “At least I am not heartless.”
He took a deep breath, and shut her out completely.
For the rest of the ride home, there was nothing more to say. Fortunately, they were almost there. The final minutes seemed to drag. At last, he brought the carriage to a halt before her home. Once more, he set the brake, stepped down, and came round to assist her.
“Here we are.” He lifted his hand as before to help her down, but far from the charming persuasion that he had employed to lure her into his Town mansion, his expression now was quite inscrutable.
His eyes, so full of secrets, only mirrored her unanswered questions back to her defiantly, as polished and unyielding as the flat surface of a blade.
She fought with herself to let the matter go. Fine. If he did not wish to confide in her, what was that to her?
If that’s how he wanted to be, she only wished she wouldn’t have let him kiss her or have been foolish enough to be lured into his house, alone with him.
It had been mad of her to jeopardize her reputation further with a man who wanted only a china doll to set up on the mantel, not a wife, not a living, thinking person.
She lowered her gaze in simmering fury, accepted his steadying hand as she picked up the hem of her skirt a bit, and climbed down from his stupid, show-off cabriolet.
Without another word, he walked her to her door.
She sent up a prayer of gratitude that no one from her family came out to pester them. They were probably off having a party over the hope of getting rid of her at last.
Little did they know their celebrations were premature, because there was no way she was marrying this hard, cold, rude, domineering iceberg of a man.
People said that Hell was flames, but they were wrong. This Demon Marquess ruled over an underworld of darkness and cold.
“Must the day be ruined?” he inquired in a mild tone as they neared the graceful entrance of her home. “It was all going so well, I thought.”
Unable to hold back, she pivoted sharply to face him. “I want to ask you a question!”
“Another one?” he murmured dryly.
“Yes, and you’re not going to like it! But I would appreciate it if you would answer with perfect honesty.”
He just looked at her.
“You didn’t happen to arrange for your sister to pop by while we were together, did you?”
Angry astonishment flashed in his eyes. “Of course not.” He shook his head at her. “God, you don’t trust me at all, do you?”
“You, who would set out to manipulate the whole ton? Dashed right I don’t!”
“Daphne.”
“How can I trust you if I don’t know you, and how can I know you if you won’t talk to me?” He dropped his gaze with no response for that, it seemed. She studied him intently. “You are a difficult man, Lord Rotherstone.”
“It is a difficult world,” he replied, his whole demeanor turned to steel. He had shut her out now as completely as he had his sister.
Was this the sort of marriage he was offering, as well? Sharing her life and her bed with a virtual stranger?
His riches as a substitute for love?
Very well Daphne nodded in taut anger and a cutting pang of disappointment. “Very well.” She turned away, already knowing what she had to do. “Good-bye, Lord Rotherstone.”
“Miss Starling—wait.”
“What now?” She jerked her elbow out of his light hold.
He searched her face, at a loss. “I’m sorry.”
She did not know what to say. “Is this bitter attitude supposed to be endearing?”
“This bitter attitude is simply who I am,” he said with a benighted shrug. “Please don’t be angry. I told you I’m not perfect. But I’m trying.”
“No, you’re not, Max.”
“Yes, I am! Shall I prove it to you? Done! When I go home, I will, I’ll…” He cast about for some worthy evidence of his sincerity. “I will shave off my beard!” he declared, actually thinking, it seemed, that she would fall for his charm again. That he could get away with it.
The hopeful, roguish half smile that he offered said it all. But Daphne stared icily at him.
“Don’t bother,” she replied, then walked back into her house, and let the door bang in his lordly face.
Chapter 10
That night, Dresden Bloodwell arrived in London, his new post, replacing Rupert Tavistock. He got settled in his luxurious new quarters, and prepared to get down to work.
On the journey over from France, he had studied the information that Malcolm had given him about Tavistock’s various projects and contacts.
Well-versed in the details of his new post by now, he was eager to pick up where Tavistock had left off; however, he had a very different approach to things than his predecessor. Tavistock had been lazy and rather timid.
Dresden did not share these flaws. Nor did he believe in wasting time. He was nothing if not efficient.
That was why Malcolm had specifically entrusted him with an additional task that the leader had purposely concealed from the rest of the Council.
Dresden had orders to find a replacement for their agent in Carlton House, the Prince Regent’s private residence in London.
Carlton House in Pall Mall was always filled with Prin-ny’s various toadies and courtiers, pampered dandies and assorted eccentric bon vivants.
The Prometheans’ spy among the Carlton House set had been discovered and dispatched by one of the Order’s thrice-damned warriors some months ago.
Now Dresden needed to find or recruit someone new to put in there, someone he could rule through fear or greed or both. The selection was very narrow, however, considering how few men were highborn enough to be worthy of the Regent’s royal conviviality.
It would be no small feat, but Dresden was eager for the task. His forte of killing had grown dull long ago.
Now he was armed with a copy of Debrett’s Peerage on one hand, with its neat listings of every aristocratic male in London; Malcolm had also given him the name of one of their lesser members who could get him into Society.
From there, it would be a simple process of observing different highborn men until he could identif
y a few possible new recruits.
By and by, he would home in on one by a process of elimination. Finding the right pressure point to apply once he’d picked out his man—that would be the fun part.
He smiled to himself in anticipation as he glanced out his window at bustling London Town. He intended to show Malcolm that his trust in him had been well-placed.
Soon, there would be changes in the Council.
Later that night alone in her bedchamber, sitting at her vanity, Daphne slowly, hesitantly, picked up the little box that Lord Rotherstone had brought for her yesterday.
Until now she had been afraid to open it. But she supposed she owed the enigmatic marquess the courtesy of at least acknowledging his gift.
As she pulled one end of the ribbon tied around the box, the family cat joined her, leaping up onto her vanity with an agile pounce.
The bow came undone. The cat played with the ribbon, while Daphne’s mind churned, filled with thoughts of him.
Going near the Marquess of Rotherstone, she mused, was like standing in front of a deep, stone cave that led down to God-only-knew-where in the earth, some dark, subterranean maze. Where other women might have succumbed to the irresistible pull to climb in and start exploring his darkness, Daphne could feel the palpable danger around him, and ever the rational being, she had the good sense to turn around and walk away as quickly as possible.
And yet…
Sliding a fingertip into the edge of the painted pasteboard box, she opened the lid and stole a peek inside.
A swathe of black silk still concealed the gift. She reached in and lifted it out, but when she unwrapped the silk handkerchief, her jaw dropped.
The silk drifted away, sliding down onto her lap. She lifted up an eye-popping sapphire and diamond necklace.
Holding it up to the candlelight, she stared at it in amazement. The luxurious thing glittered like sunlight on the sea, especially the bright blue central stone, round-cut, surrounded by diamond brilliants.