by Gaelen Foley
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! Who does he think I am, the Queen?” she said under her breath to the cat, laughing a trifle nervously.
The gift was meant to awe her. And in truth, it did. But it also helped to crystallize her suspicions about his true motives for making sure she saw his house today. He thought he could bribe her into compliance by dazzling her with his wealth and power. Restless, difficult man. Did he really think that was what mattered in life?
The glitter of the necklace caught the cat’s eye. Its dark-tipped ears pricked forward. Daphne held up the necklace and swung it gently before the animal; the furry head followed its teasing motion. While the cat batted at the necklace with one velvet paw, a troubled expression settled over Daphne’s face.
There was still the possibility that her father had arranged this match to make up for his losses in the stock market, but if the situation was that serious, then surely, he would have told her so.
Papa kept saying there was no problem, and after the way things had gone today with her would-be husband, she desperately wished to take him at his word. She should probably go and ask her father point-blank, she thought, but the truth was, right now, she did not want to know.
All she wanted was to get out of this match that was beginning to feel like her doom.
Jonathon, she reminded herself halfheartedly. She was marrying Jonathon. Someday. He did not make her heart feel so threatened. It did no good remembering the helpless passion she had felt in Lord Rotherstone’s arms when he had kissed her.
What a relief to know she would never be plagued with that sort of thing when she married her childhood friend. It was just as well, for Lord Rotherstone’s sensual expertise threatened to sweep away her self-control.
“I am sorry, Lord Rotherstone,” she whispered. “I’m afraid you are just too fine for me.” With that, she wrapped the excessive necklace back up in the black silk, and put it once more in the box. Her mind made up, she retied the bow, wanting no more truck with the thing—or with the Demon Marquess.
He had volunteered to provide some assistance with the orphanage, but she had enough faith in his honor to believe he would not be so petty as to retaliate at her by refusing to help the children. If he was mean-spirited enough to renege on his offer of charity, then he would thereby prove himself truly no better than Albert, and she would be glad to know she had successfully avoided marrying yet another cad.
With a brooding expression, she went and sat down in her window nook with her portable writing desk on her lap. She sharpened a quill and pricked her finger on it, making sure it was as sharp as she would need to be to deal with him.
Taking out a creamy sheet of linen stationery with her monogram tastefully engraved, she dipped her quill in the indigo ink, and considered how to word her now fourth refusal of a suitor. Hm…
Maybe she deserved that reputation as a jilt.
The next day, Max hosted Warrington and Falconridge at breakfast after the three had spent the morning at the fencing studio. His friends were in high spirits, but Max was in a strange mood. After the unexpected turn his visit with Daphne had taken yesterday, not even the morning’s exertions at combat practice had exorcised his discontent.
Ripples of long-submerged anger had begun breaking the calm surface of his usual cool control. While his friends bantered about nothing in particular, merely glad to have the weight of the world finally lifted off their shoulders, Max found himself brooding on the price they had paid for their involvement in the Order.
Their families had done it to them, and that, he supposed, was the real reason he had been avoiding his sister since he had arrived in Town.
Of course, Bea had had nothing to do with Father’s decision to hand him over to the Seeker in exchange for a large sum of gold. Yet, whenever Max looked at his sister, he could not help but see a member of the party that had sold him off like a slave, knowing full well he could be killed. He had been but a child, an innocent.
No wonder he had not wanted to see his sister until he was good and ready. But now that Daphne had uncovered his callous attitude toward Bea—and now that he had seen his coldness toward her through Daphne’s eyes—he felt like a miserable cad for his neglect of his closest living kin.
He had been so concerned about his own scars that he hadn’t considered Bea’s feelings.
In addition, seeing his little sister all grown up, with children of her own, reminded him anew of all the time he’d lost. He knew the war against the Prometheans had to be fought; but he also understood now how he had been exploited when he was too young to understand what he was getting himself into. The Order might be the side of good in their battle, but they had certainly not hesitated to take advantage of his family’s misfortune.
Max did not know what to make of the resentment he felt surfacing toward his old mentor, Virgil. But with his father dead, he had no one else on hand to blame.
He pushed the whole painful tangle of it away, reminding himself again that the war was over. What mattered now was getting on with his life and his future with Daphne…
And yet, these leftover thorns stuck in his flesh from all his ordeals had already begun to pose problems between the two of them, like yesterday. Max saw now all too clearly how the Order’s requirement of secrecy isolated him and his friends and threatened to keep them from ever truly becoming a part of the world.
Their secrets separated them from the humanity they protected, and had left Max unable to tell Daphne who he really was.
She wanted answers, but her questions had put him adrift, oddly disoriented. His calculating brain was of no use in this realm. Who the hell was he, anyway? He could barely find the solid truth about himself beneath so many years of dissemblance and deception.
Given the shape-shifter he had become, which Max was supposed to answer her questions? Which version of him, for which audience? The Grand Tourist? The so-called Demon Marquess?
Or the man beneath it all? Isolated, lonely, though he would not admit it under torture. She would never want that Max. No one ever had.
Secrets had a way of slipping out from time to time, and until that moment, Max had managed to hide this one from himself: the real reason he had chosen Daphne.
Gazing into those heaven-blue eyes, he had sensed in her a great capacity for love, and the softness of her heart, based on all he knew about her, made him hope that one day, his own most secret longing might finally be fulfilled. A longing for something he had never known and never thought he could have until he had met her.
It was too threatening. Inwardly, he backed away from it, shocked to grasp in that instant what was really driving him.
The desperate need for love.
But, God, if he could not share himself with her, he thought in despair, then how would he ever win her heart and the love he craved from her?
“By the way,” Jordan spoke up, “are either of you going to that End of Summer Ball next week? The one down in Richmond?”
Max masked his suffering from his friends. The men exchanged a jaded glance.
“Why the hell not,” Rohan said wryly. “Stir things up a bit. Maybe Max will introduce us to his future wife.”
The other two looked at him expectantly.
Max heaved a rueful sigh. He wanted his friends to meet Daphne, but Lord, these were his fellow Inferno Club hellions, and after yesterday, he was already on shaky ground with her.
Dodsley marched in with his tray before Max could explain. “My lord?”
“Yes?” He turned to him. “What is it?”
“A footman from Miss Starling’s residence just delivered this with a note for you, sir. I was asked to see that you got it right away.”
Max glanced at Dodsley’s silver tray, and his stare homed in on the jewelry box containing his gift to her. The second he saw it, his blood ran cold; his heart began to pound. “Bring it here.”
Dodsley did so, advancing into the morning room.
“Isn’t that sweet,” Rohan drawle
d. “Where can I get a chit that sends me presents?”
“I don’t think she sent it to him, Warrington,” Jordan said warily, eyeing Max’s ashen countenance. “I think it may be something the young lady’s…sending back.”
“Oh, damn,” Rohan murmured while Max opened her short note and read it:
Dear Lord Rotherstone,
I thank you again for the honor of your offer, but regretfully, must decline. If you consult your heart, I think you will agree we’d never suit. Our values are too different. But please know I wish you all the best and hope we can be friends.
Respectfully,
The Hon. Miss D. Starling
Friends? He looked up from her letter with flames in his eyes. “Tell the stables to saddle the stallion.”
“Is she jilting you now, too?” Rohan asked bluntly.
“Over my dead body.” Max rose from his seat in one angry motion and headed for the door. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, it appears that I have business to attend to.”
“Good luck, Max,” Jordan offered.
“Don’t need luck,” he ground out. “I know just how to handle her, believe me.” Slipping the note and the sapphire necklace into his breast pocket, he stalked outside in a cold rage with a vow that she’d not get away with this. He refused to be cast off like he was nothing.
Beneath his fury, however, lay an unnerving fear, that if someone as softhearted as Daphne Starling could not be made to care about him, then surely he was always going to be alone. He could not bear it, would not stand for it; he would not be denied. Not after all he’d given, all he’d sacrificed. This was his time, and she was his reward that he had chosen, the prize he would obtain at any price.
Moments later, he was swinging up onto his towering black stallion, urging him out of the mews, and galloping hell-for-leather toward South Kensington.
It was a blessing to be home alone for once. The whole villa was so marvelously quiet. Penelope had taken the girls shopping in Town, bringing Wilhelmina along to assist. Papa had driven them in and would visit with his gentlemen friends at White’s while the ladies shopped.
Curled up on a stone bench on the terrace behind her house overlooking the garden, Daphne balanced her sketchpad on her lap, her hand moving in long, idle strokes over the page. She was making a charcoal drawing of the birds that congregated around the birdbath.
With her noisy family gone, there was nothing to hear but the breeze rustling through the yellowed leaves, and the birds chirping as they flittered about the garden. The silence suited her pensive mood, though she was keeping one ear anxiously cocked for the sound of footman William returning from his errand.
Considering the great expense of the sapphire necklace, she had asked him to deliver it personally into the hands of Dodsley, Lord Rotherstone’s butler.
The great mystery now was how the Demon Marquess would respond to her rejection. Honestly, though, she thought, after the unpleasantness of their parting yesterday, he was probably going to be relieved.
It should be easy for him to find some other woman who did not mind if he locked himself away behind walls of silence. But she did not wish to spend the rest of her life trying to decipher the hidden meanings behind his words or riding out the storms of his inscrutable moods.
And yet, strangely, having sent off her note with the sapphire necklace, she had begun to feel as though she had abandoned him. He didn’t know anyone in Town, her heart insisted as softly as the whisper of the wind. People did not understand him. The things they said about him were almost as unfair as Albert’s lies about her.
Unpredictable as he was, she knew better than to try to foretell what answer he might send back, if any.
That was why she had not yet told her father that she was refusing Lord Rotherstone’s offer.
It seemed prudent to make sure first that it was truly finished between them before she broke the news. After all, if she spoke up too soon before the break was truly decisive, then her father and would-be fiancé might unite against her once more to coerce her into the match.
At that moment, in the quiet, she heard a muffled clatter of hoofbeats approaching around the front of the house, entering the courtyard.
William.
At once, her heart began to pound. She threw her sketchpad and charcoal pencil aside, jumped to her feet, picked up the hem of her dark green walking gown, and hurried inside, cutting through the house to see what tidings her footman had brought back from Lord Rotherstone.
Hastening through the central corridor, she reached the front door, threw it open, and rushed outside, only to gasp aloud. William was not back yet.
It was the Demon Marquess himself who had arrived, galloping up to the villa astride a powerful black stallion. Instinctual fear darted through her when he sent her an ominous glance, his pale eyes full of fury as he reined in his horse to a stamping, snorting halt.
Daphne gulped as he swung down from the saddle, commanding the horse to stay. The blood drained from her face when she saw him striding toward her with a look of wrath. “Daphne!”
She let out a small cry and fled back into the house. She threw herself against the door to shut it, but before it could close, his black-gauntleted hand was planted on it, one dusty riding boot shoved in the way.
“Don’t you dare,” he warned. “We are going to talk about this. Let me in.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” She tried to push against the door. “Go away!”
“Daphne. You cannot keep me out. Move!” When he thrust the door harder, she tried to stay planted, but instead, her soft kid slippers skipped over the hardwood floor.
“Damn you!” she cried, jumping out of the way.
“Such language,” he drawled, his eyes glittering with reproach as he stepped over the threshold, looking much too large and darkly threatening in his black clothes, a loose white shirt beneath his jacket.
He wore no neck cloth and appeared as tousled and dangerous as he had that first day in Bucket Lane, when she had first spied him leaving the brothel—with one exception.
He had shaved off the goatee, just as he had promised yesterday in an effort to please her. How sweet. Goodness, she could not take her eyes off him as she backed away. He looked simply gorgeous clean-shaved, a few years younger, and ten times more handsome. She refused to admit, however, that his chiseled male perfection had any effect on her.
She was not marrying him, and that was final.
He glanced around, taking in the fact that no one else was home. A glint of wicked intentions passed behind his eyes when he turned to her again. Staring at her in chilly, fierce reproach, he drew off his black riding gauntlets. “That is no way to greet your future husband, my love.”
“How dare you barge in here like some sort of robber?”
With a defiant look, he walked over to her, captured her in his arms, and roughly kissed her.
Her heart pounded with wild confusion as he invaded her mouth with his claiming kiss and got her foolish body to react much as it had yesterday in the long gallery. In fact, her burning reaction to him was even worse now, since his shaved chin did not chafe her. But she refused to revel in the sensuous rubbing of his skin against hers.
His smell was that of pure, potent masculinity, and when she planted her hand on his chest to try to push him away, she felt hot bare skin where the V of his shirt fell open slightly. He tried to gather her closer, but with an aching moan, she summoned up her fury and found the strength to push him away.
“Let go of me! You are not,” she added, panting, “my future husband.”
“Daphne,” he chided softly. “You are already mine.”
“The devil I am! I belong to no man—and you should not be here.” She took another backward step. “As you can see, I am alone.”
“Not anymore,” he whispered with a lusty stare.
It routed her. Her body trembled. Striving for clarity, she shook her head. “You can show yourself out. My father will be home v
ery soon,” she lied as an afterthought.
Forbidding herself to linger for fear of getting caught up in him again, she pivoted with a show of great confidence and retreated into the familiar safety of the parlor on legs that shook beneath her.
To her trepidation, however, with every step, she could already hear the slow, rhythmic striking of his boot heels following her, like a hunter stalking his prey.
When she reached the parlor, she turned around again to face him, folding her arms tightly across her chest. Thankfully, though he joined her, at least Lord Hellfire now saw fit to keep a slightly safer distance. As if he somehow knew that she did not really want him to leave.
He eyed her warily as he reached a hand into his pocket. When he took it out again, the glittering strands of the sapphire necklace spilled through his clenched fist.
“Why did you send this back to me?” he demanded, his eyes aglow with cold accusation.
She swallowed hard, lifting her chin a bit. “I saw no way I could accept it. Returning it was obviously the proper thing to do.”
“Proper?” he echoed, his lip curling in slight mockery. “Do I look like a man with whom you can play games, my dear Miss Starling?”
“It isn’t a game,” she replied calmly. “If anyone’s playing games here, it’s you.”
“The hell I am!” he bit back. “I’m not taking this back. It’s yours. I don’t care what you do with it.” He tossed it onto the end table as though it were some cheap trinket. “How dare you send me this, this—dismissal without any sort of explanation? Exactly whom, Miss Starling, do you think you’re dealing with?”
Daphne fought the urge to shrink from his show of bluster and forced herself to sound as calm as possible. “I put my explanation in my letter. I believe I said quite plainly that I feel we will not suit.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because we are too different.”
“In what way? Defend your argument. Prove to me you are not just being fickle and vain, as Carew said!”
She inhaled sharply through her nostrils at his goading, for she recognized those charges. “We are too different in our values, my lord, as I said plainly in my note.”