The Wickedest Lord Alive

by Christina Brooke

  “You beauty,” Lizzie murmured into the horse’s twitching ear as she fumbled in her pocket for the lump of sugar she’d brought. She could not be angry at Steyne’s high-handedness. She rather wished Xavier were here with her so she could thank him, and …

  And what? Perhaps just talk to him. Real conversation, not that verbal jousting they so often engaged in.

  The ride was a pretty one, and after a night’s uneasy rest, it was refreshing to be outdoors on such a glorious day. Lizzie was also mightily pleased that Xavier had not chosen a plodding hack for her but a spirited aristocrat of a steed, easily worthy of Lord Bute’s elite stables. Perhaps Xavier had made specific inquiries as to her horsemanship along with her measurements.

  Even her joy in riding such a perfect horse didn’t distract Lizzie for long, however. Pondering the problem of Lord Steyne’s impatience to bed her, she scarcely took in the magnificence of the Harcourt estate. Her replies to Tom and Clare’s sallies were perfunctory at best.

  When they returned to the stables, Tom took Lizzie aside while Clare consulted with her groom over a stone in her mount’s shoe. “Is there something amiss, Lizzie? You have not been yourself since we came here.”

  She lifted her shoulders as if shrugging off his concern. “Amiss? No, nothing of the kind. I—I suppose I am not accustomed to such grandeur.”

  Even as she said it, she winced at the lie. What on earth would Tom say when he discovered the truth? But he would never discover the truth about her and Xavier. Not if she could help it. Thank Heaven he hadn’t noticed her new wardrobe.

  He was frowning still, as if far from reassured by her flimsy explanation. “It’s Steyne, isn’t it?”

  She gave a start, nearly dropping her riding crop. “I—no, indeed. Why should you think he has anything to do with it?”

  Tom took off his hat and bunched a hand in his dark curls. “Lizzie, I’ve seen the way he looks at you. The way he made you blush at dinner last night. What was he saying to you? Why did you look so—?” He reddened and his mouth twisted. “You will tell me it’s none of my concern, but I cannot believe he means anything good by these attentions, Lizzie.”

  She regarded Tom’s handsome, earnest face and hated herself. She made a move to deny Steyne had paid her any attentions at all, but stopped herself in time. She was supposed to be encouraging people to believe Xavier and she were courting.

  She licked her lips. “Lord Steyne is, er … that is, I mean he and I…” She trailed off as Tom frowned.

  “I thought you were promised to Huntley,” he said.

  Lizzie shook her head. “I refused him, but he won’t listen.” She fluttered her hands in a placating gesture. “Lord Steyne has, er, fixed his interest upon me.”

  Tom’s face darkened further. “The scurvy blackguard! Lizzie, you may not know it, but Steyne’s reputation doesn’t bear speaking of. If he weds, it will be some girl with bloodlines back to the Conqueror and eighty thousand pounds into the bargain, not a girl like…”

  He reddened, clearly realizing the insult his words implied.

  Tightly, Lizzie said, “Tom, you don’t understand, and I’m afraid I can’t explain it to you. Please believe the marquis has honorable intentions toward me. He is not the monster you believe him to be.” She squared her shoulders. “If Mr. Allbright has no objection, I am sure you need not.”

  “Mr. Allbright is an estimable gentleman, but he is a little naïve in the ways of the world.” Tom took her hands in a strong grip. “I have always been a brother to you, Lizzie. Please listen to my advice now. Anyone would be better than Steyne.”

  The click of a booted step was heard behind Tom.

  “My lord!” said Lizzie. He had to have heard the last, disastrous part of their conversation.

  His face set, fists bunched, Tom slowly turned around.

  “Tom?” said Clare, coming out of the stall a little farther down the row.

  “Ah,” said Lizzie weakly, never more relieved to see anyone in her life. “There you are, Clare.”

  Fortunately, Clare took in the situation at once. “Come, Tom. You must work the pump for me. I am dying of thirst and shan’t last until we reach the house.”

  She gripped her brother’s arm and hustled him away. He cast Lizzie a meaningful look as he went, and she knew the subject was far from closed between them.

  Xavier watched Clare and Tom go with a thoughtful expression. Then he said, “Young Galahad offering to save you from the evil dragon?”

  “Something like that,” Lizzie said lightly. “But you must not mind it.”

  She swallowed hard. Xavier’s face was unusually stony, which meant he was probably in the worst possible temper. He’d warned her he would not be a complacent husband, hadn’t he? He couldn’t possibly be jealous of Tom!

  Lizzie lifted her chin. She raised her voice in a pointed manner, to signal to him that while he might have forgotten there were servants about, she had not. “While you are here, my lord, let me thank you for choosing Bathsheba for me. She is the most delightful mare. Such a silken, smooth mouth. Truly, a delight to ride.”

  “I’m glad you approve,” he said. There was a disquieting light in his eye, as if he was well aware she would do anything to escape a conversation about Tom. “I should have liked to ride with you. Perhaps we might do that tomorrow morning.”

  The glint in his eye told her he had plans for her that did not only involve hacking about the estate. She licked her lips. “I should like that.”

  “Is this the hour you usually ride?” he said, falling into step with her as she moved beyond the stalls.

  “Actually, I am accustomed to going out much earlier when I’m at home,” she said. “But I shall be happy to arrange a mutually agreeable time.”

  “The earlier the better, as far as I’m concerned.” He waited until they were outside the stable block and added, “I suffer from insomnia, you see.”

  “Oh?”

  They walked on. She ventured, “Something troubles you, Xavier?”

  She still was not accustomed to calling him by his given name so familiarly. It was such an intimate thing, to use a name for him only his family was permitted to call him. She liked it, even if it felt dangerous.

  “Not at all,” he answered, shutting her out. “It is a chronic condition.”

  His dismissive tone made her want to needle him. “Perhaps it is your conscience that pricks you.”

  That produced an expression—not a pleasant one. The Marquis of Steyne certainly was master of the sneer. “I have no conscience, ma’am.”

  So melodramatic. She laughed at him. “Nonsense, my lord. If you had no conscience, you would not have come back for me on the night of our marriage. You would not have kept in touch with Mr. Allbright to inquire after my welfare all these years, and you would not have come back for me now.”

  He looked at her. “Perhaps on all three counts, I simply followed my own inclinations. Have you thought of that, Lizzie?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “I had not considered that.” If only it were true.

  “We could deal well together, you and I,” said Xavier, his voice growing graveled. “If only you would trust me.”

  “If you want me to trust you, then explain to me why there is such a rush? Are we not to go through the charade of a marriage soon enough? Why must you have me now?”

  She knew her voice rose dangerously, together with her panic.

  When he didn’t answer, she said, “You are like a spoiled child, my lord, thinking that the fact of your wanting something is justification enough. If you cannot give me a good reason—”

  His eyes glittered with malice. “Maybe I just haven’t had a good hard fuck in a while.”

  Lizzie reared back as if he’d struck her. She had never heard the word he used before, but it wasn’t difficult to deduce what it meant.

  He watched her reaction with an impatient air. “Don’t you know why, Lizzie? I’m pressing you for the same reason I need to kis
s you whenever we are alone. I desire you. I burn for you. Every minute we are not together like that chafes at me like a rope around my wrists.”

  She was astonished. She’d expected some logical, calculated reason for haste. He was telling her that his desire for her drove him to push her this way.

  “Well, I am very sorry to make you … uncomfortable,” she said awkwardly. “But you will have to wait. It is not so very long, after all. Can’t we get to know one another better first?”

  He gave a sound that could have been a laugh or a groan. “Now, that would be dangerous, indeed.”

  She regarded him a moment, then took his arm again. “Well, Xavier, I have been known to take some risks in my time.”

  * * *

  There was an excursion planned for today, but Xavier never participated in such things. After his encounter with Lizzie that morning, he had an added reason to avoid it. Not even to further his scheme of appearing to court her would he give himself up to her curiosity for an entire day.

  What was there about him that she needed to know, anyway? She’d discovered a great deal more than most of his lovers ever knew simply by existing among his family and taking chaste country walks with him.

  There wasn’t an awful lot about him to like.

  His looking glass told him he appeared dissipated, which was rich because he hadn’t indulged in a good old-fashioned bout of dissipation since he’d renewed his acquaintance with Lizzie.

  Maybe that was why he felt so edgy and raw in her presence. Knowing she was his and yet unable to do anything about it. He’d rushed her last night when he’d meant to finesse his way into her arms, into her bed.

  That was unlike him, and he blamed the threat that drew ever closer. Even now, he wasn’t sure he hadn’t dreamed it all. Perhaps he was going mad and his uncle had written merely an innocent letter of condolence to his twice-widowed mother upon her late second husband’s death.

  Maybe it was as Madeleine had said. No one had put her up to poisoning him. That had been her idea alone. Martin had sent him word that Madeleine had, as Xavier ordered her, left London. Insufficient punishment for what she’d tried to do, but the last thing he wanted was the scandal that would ensue if he alerted the authorities.

  So. He would exercise some discipline. He would imagine there was no threat to him, no threat to the succession, that there was nothing more important between him and Lizzie than mutual desire.

  Desire and a certain … What would one call it? Sympathy? Compatibility? They were lukewarm words, and yet he couldn’t think of a stronger one that would fit.

  Perhaps he’d grown too accustomed to the way women simply fell into his lap like ripe plums. That was not to his credit, of course, and probably not to theirs, either. Some women liked his rank and wealth; some were attracted to his saturnine air. Few had tried very hard to resist him. And none made the slightest attempt to know him.

  There was the rub. Lizzie had persuaded herself they must share every thought and feeling before she would let him into her bed. She wanted him to trust her with his confidences, yet she would not trust him with her body. Not until their marriage was safely acknowledged and open and she knew he could not betray her.

  That rankled. But having thoroughly earned his reputation, having reveled in it, he had no right to feel slighted. She couldn’t begin to guess at his personal code of honor, which was quite different from that by which men like Tom Beauchamp lived. He might hold orgies and keep a string of mistresses, but he would never use Lizzie Allbright and toss her aside.

  The thought of young Galahad hardened his resolve. He knew precisely how to go about this game. It would merely require a little discipline on his part.

  So he did not go on the excursion. He met Lizzie at dinner that night as a mere acquaintance, conversing about safe, impersonal subjects until he saw a small frown pucker between her eyebrows.

  He stayed away from her as much as he could, hoping that by playing least in sight, he’d pique her interest, make her more amenable to his will. Days passed in this fashion, but he could not tell if his tactics worked. All he seemed to do was multiply his own frustration.

  When Xavier entered the library after breakfast one morning, he stopped short on the threshold. There was the bloody poet, sitting side by side with Lizzie on the love seat in the window embrasure.

  They made an arresting picture, poring over a sheaf of paper Cyprian held. Morning sunlight streamed through the window behind them, burnishing each fair head to gold and silver.

  Lizzie said, “I think it says ‘care,’ for the previous line is ‘bare,’ and you have written this in rhyming couplets.”

  “I’d thought that as well, but it makes no sense at all,” said Cyprian, pulling at his full lower lip with his finger and thumb. “I was so pleased with it, too.”

  “You were writing in a frenzy of inspiration, from the looks of this,” said Lizzie, tilting her head as if to decipher the page better. “Perhaps you need an amanuensis. I should be happy to—”

  “Missing your calling as resident slave, Miss Allbright?” said Xavier, moving into the room. “I thought you’d left all that behind in Little Thurston.”

  She regarded him coolly. “It would be a pleasure to work with such a talented poet, not a chore.”

  That made Xavier go very still. “If my cousin needs a scribe, he may employ one.”

  “That’s just it,” said Cyprian rather glumly. “The dibs aren’t in tune, Coz. Not while my father holds the purse strings.” He struck his forehead with his palm. “That reminds me. I forgot to write to him. He wants a full account of my doings every day I’m here.”

  That sharpened Xavier’s interest. “To what address are you sending these missives?”

  “Chartley Place,” said Cyprian.

  Damn. He had it on good authority his uncle was not in residence there.

  “Have you received a reply?” said Xavier.

  “No. Why?”

  Xavier narrowed his eyes in thought. “I did not find your papa at home when I called and have not been able to track him down since.”

  He questioned Cyprian further, but the poet had no idea where his father might have taken himself, and Xavier let it go.

  “Rosamund thinks Cyprian needs a patron, and I am inclined to agree,” said Lizzie.

  One guess who Lizzie thought should fill that role. He snorted. She could forget that. There was no way he intended to pander to this youth’s misguided notions of what was due to his art.

  “Nonsense,” said Xavier. “My cousin would be far better off making himself useful. Don’t you have some sort of post as bear leader to some spotty youth or other, Cyprian?”

  “Young Burbidge, yes,” said Cyprian vaguely, still frowning over his scribbles. “I’m afraid Sir Harold Burbidge did not find my work satisfactory.”

  “You shock me,” said Xavier. What next? he thought. If even social-climbing mushrooms like the Burbidges couldn’t put up with Cyprian, whose cousin was a marquis, who would be prepared to employ him?

  Lizzie regarded Xavier severely. “Have you ever actually read Cyprian’s poetry?”

  “Of course I have,” lied Xavier. “Very moving. But unfortunately, it does not move me to support him while he swans around London looking pale and interesting.”

  “My lord, that is not at all fair,” Lizzie began.

  “Not ‘care.’ The word is ‘fare,’” announced Cyprian, triumphantly waving his paper about.

  “Oh, yes!” Lizzie clasped her hands together with equal delight.

  Shaking his head, Xavier left them to it.

  The poet seemed to forget all about Rosamund’s idea of a play, being thoroughly engaged with whatever project he’d been slaving over with Lizzie. Miss Beauchamp announced that she would pen the work instead, and was much occupied in scribbling.

  Rehearsals were arranged in the small private theater in the west wing of the house. Unless one wished to be roped into acting a part, one stayed away. />
  Xavier saw Lizzie at dinner and for early-morning rides and at neither time were they ever completely alone. His family seemed to take it for granted now that the two of them would make a match of it. He wondered if Rosamund had judiciously fanned the flames of expectation with hints of her own.

  Having allowed several days to pass in this fashion, Xavier requested Rosamund to place Lizzie between the duke and Beckenham at the table that evening.

  “Why?” said his sister, looking at him in concern. “Did you two have a falling out?”

  “Not at all,” said Xavier.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why, then?”

  He shrugged. “The duke would like to get to know Miss Allbright. And Beckenham will help her through the ordeal if she needs it. I somehow doubt she will.”

  Rosamund pressed her lips together. “She needs you, not Becks.”

  He nearly smiled at that. No woman but Rosamund had ever needed him. “I shall sit next to Georgie, if you please. With…” He debated with himself. “Miss Beauchamp on my other side.”

  “I suppose I can guess to what end,” said Rosamund. She rolled her eyes. “You are toying with Lizzie, but she is not a lady for those games. This is not the way to go about securing a happy marriage, Xavier.”

  He scowled. “Damn it, Rosie, what woman could be happy with someone like me? Lizzie was condemned to wed me, and that was her tragedy. The only thing we can do now is try to make the best of it, ensure the sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “I need an heir. Lizzie needs a family and to assume her rightful position in life. This way, we both get what we want.” He dropped his hand by his side. “But when you talk of a ‘happy marriage’ … Lord, I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Then look around you.” Rosamund gripped his shoulders, her eyes fierce. “You have ample evidence right here at Harcourt. Look at Georgie and Beckenham, Hilary and Jonathon, Griffin and me. It’s right under your nose, Xavier.”