Lucian, sitting down that night to a solitary dinner in his London house, was pleased with what he had accomplished on his first day back in town.
He had arrived last night, having made the journey from Hampshire in one long, exhausting day, taking shortcuts through fields and over heaths that were accessible only to a man on horseback.
Lucian had made it back by the queen’s stipulated hour, but barely. He had immediately presented himself at Whitehall, where the queen had made it clear that she was very displeased with him for not having returned much sooner.
He returned to Whitehall this morning for a three-hour meeting of the Council of Nine. Before leaving for the palace, he had sent a messenger to Orin at Belle Haven with his offer to make him his agent at Ardmore.
After the council meeting, Lucian had gone to see Thaddeus Wedge, then had hired Joseph Pardy, reputed to be the very best in the business of tracking down men and women who did not want to be found. He told Pardy bluntly why he wanted Maude located and of what he suspected the Crowes.
Pardy had assured Lucian that, although it might take him a few months, he and his people would eventually find Maude.
Lucian had spent the remainder of the afternoon surrounded by sketches and fabrics with London’s most fashionable dressmaker, Madame de la Roche, selecting clothes for his bride.
He had never before undertaken such a task for a woman, but he had a very clear image in his mind of how he wanted Angel to look. He was certain his selections would flatter her. She could choose additional gowns after she got to London, but given the pathetic, virtually nonexistent state of her wardrobe, he wanted to get her a few things immediately.
Lucian told Madame to have her minions make up his selections as quickly as possible and to bring them to his house when they were ready for fitting. He did not want Angel coming to her shop. Were any of the great ladies who patronized Madame’s to see his wife in that sorry black gown or one of Kitty’s cast-offs, they were certain to make unkind comments. He intended to protect his wife from that.
Lucian must also engage a woman who would prepare Angel for her debut in society. It would be a delicate task, and no candidate came to mind.
He took a sip of the excellent burgundy that Reeves, his butler, had poured for him. Lucian had installed Reeves, who had served under him in the army, as his major domo, not because he was skilled in that line of work, but because he could find no man who would be more loyal to him. Reeves would make certain that Lucian’s best interests were served.
With the exception of Reeves, the rest of the staff had come with this house when he had acquired it from its previous owner, Lord Dorton, three months ago. Lucian had decided to buy it less for the house itself than for its location on a large plot of land along the Thames with private steps to the river.
Lucian turned his attention to the roast lamb and pheasant that had been prepared for him. As he ate, Lucian was surprised to discover how much he missed Angel’s presence and her lively conversation.
Although he had not confessed it to her, he had hated their travelling separately to London as much as she had. He should have told her about the queen’s order that he must be back in London by last night, but he was unused to having to explain himself. It was a wife’s duty to accept her husband’s decisions unquestioningly. His mother always had his father’s.
“Will you be going out tonight, my lord?” Reeves inquired as he refilled Lucian’s glass with claret.
“I have not yet decided.”
Without Angel to enliven the evening, it stretched long and lonely before Lucian. He should call on Lady Selina Brompton, whose husband was away for the month visiting his estate in Derbyshire. Lucian’s brows knit at the thought of his beautiful, witty mistress, a sophisticated leader of society.
Lucian liked her better than any woman he had ever met.
Until Angel.
The realization staggered him, but it was true.
Selina and Angel were the only two women he knew that did not bore him.
He did not love Selina, but he was exceedingly fond of her. She was more than his mistress. She was a good friend, and that counted for more with him than being his bed companion. Best of all, she was a realist and that rare woman who preferred honesty to flattery.
At the start of their relationship, she had told him bluntly, “I want to hear no words from your lips that you do not mean.”
Lucian had never given her any.
She had shown him the same courtesy.
There was no pretence between them. He could be himself with her.
He wondered what Selina would think of his bride. He could count upon her to give him her frank opinion. She certainly had made no secret of her dislike for Kitty and her disapproval of his betrothal.
“I do not understand why you are marrying her,” Selina had said. “You can do much better.”
Although Selina was the nearest thing to a confidante that he had ever had, he had not confessed even to her the reason why the union with Kitty was so important to him.
Instead he had teased, “Jealous of the bride, my dear?”
“Not at all,” she had retorted.
Nor had she any reason to be.
“From my point of view,” Selina continued, “Kitty is an excellent match for you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because she is no threat to our relationship,” Selina had said with her customary bluntness. “Kitty is too young for you. The silly chit will bore you silly within a month of your marriage.”
It had not taken that long. By the time he had reached Fernhill with Kitty, he had known Selina had been right.
She had never confided to him why she and her husband, Lord Brompton, had gone their separate ways, and Lucian had not pried. But he was certain his lordship had been at fault. Selina was not the kind of woman who would cuckold her husband unless he had given her good reason to. Brompton was a damned fool.
Lucian wondered whether Selina had heard of his broken betrothal and hasty marriage.
If she had not approved of the lovely Kitty for his wife, she most certainly would not approve of Angel. And Selina had the power to destroy Angel if she put her mind to it. The thought sent a chill through Lucian. He would make it clear to Selina that he would not tolerate that.
He should do so tonight. Before Lucian had left for Fernhill, he had told Selina that he would come to her as soon as he returned to London.
But she would expect him to make love to her, and fond as he was of her, he had no desire to do so tonight. He wanted no woman but Angel in his bed. The realization astonished him.
How the devil was he to explain it to Selina when he could not explain it to himself.
She was too astute to be fooled by anything less than the truth. And he himself was confounded as to what that was.
No, he decided, he could not call on Selina tonight. Nor did he have any desire to attend any of the several glittering social affairs to which he had been invited. Instead he decided to spend a quiet night at home.
When he told Reeves that, the butler asked in alarm, “Are you feeling unwell, my lord?”
Only then did he realize how novel this choice was for him.
Lucian went up to his bedchamber, where he had left the volume of Lord Ashcott’s journal that he’d lifted from Belle Haven’s library. He had carried it back to London with him in one of his saddlebags.
The miniature of Angel, which he had also purloined from Belle Haven, was next to the journal on the table beside his bed. Lucian picked it up and studied the likeness of his wife’s lively countenance.
A rueful chuckle escaped his lips as he remembered her naive questions about how a wife shared her husband with his mistress. Lucian could laugh now, but he had been damned uncomfortable at the time. He had feared that she would ask him if he had a mistress.
Having promised her honesty, he would have been compelled to tell her the truth. Yet he did not want to hurt her, and he had
been enormously relieved that she had not asked.
Settling in a chair by the bed, Lucian opened Ashcott’s journal, turned to the entries after the death of Angel’s brother, and began to read.
Here, in these pages of his private journal, Ashcott had written frankly of his distrust of Thaddeus Wedge, which had been growing over a number of years, and of his decision to consult a different London attorney.
“A sorry thing,” the scientific earl had written, “for both Wedge’s father and his grandfather served the earls of Ashcott, but I dare not trust him with so important a document as my new will. Angel’s future depends upon it. I must protect her. Nothing could be more terrible than for my estate to fall into the hands of her dreadful mother.
“What a consummate fool I was to marry a woman who did not want me and could never love me. But I was young and unwise, and I did not yet realize the importance of mutual love and respect in a marriage.”
Lucian frowned. Mutual love and respect. He would not have expected such sentimental nonsense from the scientific earl.
He quickly skimmed the next pages of the diary. In them, Ashcott chronicled his trip to the city to have his new will drawn up by a “most reputable and recommended” attorney, whom he referred to as “Mr. K.”
On Jan. 21, 1689, Angel’s father recorded that he had executed his new will, “lifting a great burden from my mind.”
The journal left no doubt that the missing will had existed and that Ashcott had hidden it at Belle Haven. On his return from London, Angel’s father had noted: “My will is safely home with me. After showing it to my daughter and my brother, I took care to conceal it where no mischievous hands can find it. Only Angel will know how to locate it.”
Lucian frowned at that entry. Why had Ashcott neglected to tell his daughter? It did not make sense that the scientific earl would have overlooked or forgotten something that important.
Lucian sat up until the small hours of the morning, reading the rest of that year’s journal carefully, but nowhere in the volume did Ashcott identify the attorney who had drawn up the will except as Mr. K. Nor could Lucian find any clue in it to what Ashcott had done with the will.
The next day, Lucian went to Whitehall for a meeting of the Council of Nine.
Then he initiated inquiries aimed at finding out who the Mr. K in Ashcott’s diary might be.
He did not call on Selina. Nor did he go out that night either. Although realistically he did not expect Angel to reach London before the next night at the earliest, he told himself that there was a remote chance she might arrive early and he wanted to be there to greet her.
She did not come, but Orin did. He was eager to serve as Ardmore’s agent provided he could return to Belle Haven when it belonged to Angel. Lucian readily agreed, then filled him in on the situation at the Hampshire estate and what he expected of Orin there. The new agent promised to leave for Ardmore at dawn.
The following day Lucian, assailed by guilt for his unwarranted neglect of Lady Selina, decided he must pay her a visit.
When Reeves inquired whether Lucian wished his coach or his barge readied, he replied, “No, I am only going to Lady Selina’s.” The Brompton mansion was also on the Thames, not far from Lucian’s. “I prefer to walk.”
“‘Tis a fine day for that,” Reeves agreed. “I intend to take one myself while you are gone.”
Lucian set out at a brisk pace for Selina’s. Nearing it, his pace slackened as he wondered what the hell he was going to say to her.
How did a man explain to a mistress he still cared about that he had suddenly developed a reluctance to bed her? If she could understand it, she would be doing better than he was.
Absorbed by this quandary, he failed to notice the stunningly lovely blonde, tall and statuesque, with unusual lavender eyes descending from an elegant coach ahead of him.
She noticed him, however, and headed toward him.
He was so lost in thought that she was upon him before he recognized her.
She said softly, “Remember me?”
“Selina!” he exclaimed, stopping abruptly. He was flustered and embarrassed that he had nearly passed her by.
“How glad you are to see me, Lucian,” she observed mockingly.
“But I am,” he said, kissing her bejewelled hand. “And the sun sets in the east,” she retorted, her remarkable lavender eyes frosty.
“I was on my way to call upon you.”
“Were you now?” Selina sounded sceptical. “When did you return to London, Lucian?”
He would not lie to her. “Three nights ago.” He could offer her no real excuse for his failure to call on her sooner, and he did not try.
Her pretty mouth quirked wryly. “One of the things I most like about you, Lucian, is your honesty. I heard you were back in London.” Her voice took on a sharper note.
“Why have you not been to see me?”
She was annoyed with him, and she had every right to be.
“I have been busy,” he offered weakly. Busy trying to understand himself.
“So I have heard. Very busy at Madame de la Roche’s buying gowns for your new wife.” Selina lifted her exquisite, arched eyebrow. “How unlike you, Lucian, to take an interest in a female’s wardrobe.”
“It is,” he conceded. “You have heard about my marriage?”
“Everyone in London has. It is the talk of the town. I own I can scarcely credit the stories.” Her gaze was suddenly intense. “Nor the unflattering descriptions of your bride.”
His mouth tightened angrily at that. Angel might not be a beauty in the conventional sense, but her spirit and vitality more than compensated for that.
Selina said thoughtfully, “It was never in your style, Lucian, to seduce innocent, young virgins, even pretty ones.”
“I did not seduce her,” he said through suddenly clenched jaw.
Selina frowned, “I hardly see how you can deny it under the circumstances.”
“Circumstances are sometimes deceiving.”
“But you married her.”
“Aye.”
“You have suddenly• become a man of very few words, Lucian.” Her lavender eyes were studying him intently. “When you left London, it was to celebrate your betrothal to another woman.”
“Considering your strong dislike for Kitty, I should think you would be relieved that connection ended short of the altar.”
“Will I like your new wife better?”
What would the sophisticated Selina’s reaction be to a naive innocent like Angel? Would she be even more contemptuous of his wife than she had been of Kitty? “I do not know.”
“When will you introduce her to those of us who missed that most entertaining party at Fernhill?”
He scowled at that. “She is country bred and not ready for London society. I must find a woman to prepare her for it. Perhaps you can recommend someone.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized how ill-advised they were.
Selina’s lovely arched brows soared upward. “I shall give it some thought,” she said noncommittally. “You seem quite concerned about this wife you were forced to take.”
His scowl deepened. “I am,” he said brusquely.
There was a moment’s awkward silence. Then Selina said on a challenging note, “You told me that I would likely see more of you, rather than less, after your marriage.”
“I did,” he agreed, his brow furrowing in confusion.
“But now you have married a different wife, and you have not come to call on me.”
“Aye,” he agreed again, not knowing what else to say. Another awkward silence ensued until Selina said coolly, “It is not like you to lose your heart to a female like that.”
“I did not lose my heart,” he retorted, affronted that she could think such a thing. She, better than anyone, knew his scorn for that foolish weakness called love.
“Then why did you marry her?”
“I was caught in a trap, and honour required that I do so.”
“She is… ah… ah…” He floundered around searching for some word that would adequately describe her “... unique.”
Aye, that was it, he thought, grinning at the memory of Angel duelling him.
Unique.
“I look forward to meeting her,” Selina said, an odd glint in her lavender eyes. “Good day, Lucian.”
He started to protest her abrupt dismissal of him, then decided against it.
Chapter 20
Lucian’s mud-spattered coach, accompanied by its two outriders, pulled up in front of his London home no more than three minutes after he had left for Selina’s.
As Angel descended from it, she could hardly wait to see her husband, yet she was uneasy about the reception she would receive from him. She had been crushed by how easily he had left her at Ardmore. Apparently their nights together had meant nothing to him. She schooled herself for the awful possibility that he would not even be at home• to greet her but with his mistress.
Angel was acutely dissatisfied with her own appearance. Her quick eye had not missed how attractively and richly dressed were the London women whom she saw being helped in and out of coaches, and she felt woefully plain and drab in comparison.
A young footman opened the door to her. Discovering she was his new mistress, he said, “Oh, my lady, you have only just missed your husband. He left no more than two or three minutes ago.” The servant clearly did not know what to do with her, and he blurted uncomfortable, “Unfortunately, Reeves stepped out, too.”
Angel swallowed her disappointment that Lucian was not here to greet her. She had no idea who Reeves was nor why his stepping out should be unfortunate.
The footman was rescued from his dilemma by the appearance of a stout gray-haired woman. “I will show my lady to her quarters,” she said.
She turned to Angel. “I am Mrs. McNally, the housekeeper. If you will follow me, my lady.”
As the woman led her upstairs, Angel asked, “Do you know where Lord Vayle went and how long he will be gone?”
Devil’s Angel Page 21