Not once in his life had he ever seen Eliza need smelling salts.
He tugged away the reticule and opened the sleek satin purse. A handkerchief lay inside. Beneath it, a small vial. He held the vial up between their faces. “What is this?” he said.
She gave him a defiant look, her blue eyes sparking in the candlelight. “It is the poison that killed Papa.”
“You shall not kill him, Eliza.”
“I shall.” Her gaze burned into his, and he gripped her wrist, as if he could restrain her from her intent.
He frowned at that lovely, young face with so much life left to live. “You cannot.”
“I can.” The wrist he held tightened beneath his fingers as her small hand clenched into a fist. “I shall not be dishonored as he dishonored my father.”
“Eliza—”
“You think I take my promise to my father lightly?”
“How will you do the deed with all the ton about you?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice lowered. “I shall contrive.”
Understanding struck with a force that punched out his breath. “You shall not be alone with him.”
“He holds Mama’s jointure and my dowry hostage.”
“Eliza—”
“He has pledged to release Mama’s jointure to Papa’s attorneys upon the announcement of our betrothal. Tonight” —she swallowed hard, her delicate neck convulsing with the movement— “we will be formally betrothed.”
“You believe he will keep his pledge?”
“Indeed not.” Her head lowered, as did her voice. “I allow him to believe I do. But his attorneys have drawn up the agreement. It has been signed and witnessed. They will be bound, upon his death, to do as was agreed. He will not be here to say otherwise.”
Anger beat hard in his head. “You need not become a murderess. He cannot legally hold what in right by marriage settlements belongs to you and your mother.”
“He is the Duke of Belville. The Nonpareil. The leader of the ton. He does what he wishes.”
“These are not the Dark Ages, Eliza.”
“We are penniless, Derrick.”
“One man cannot—”
“There is no time. No one to help me.” Desperation and the need to avenge twisted on her lovely, innocent face. “No one dare cross the Duke of Belville.”
He understood that desperation. Had lived for two years with that need to avenge. “I shall cross him. Tonight.”
She caught her breath, her lovely lips parting. “You dare?”
Dare risk the displeasure of the Nonpareil, the leader of fashion? Risk becoming out of fashion at the duke’s snub? Derrick laughed. He was risking the ultimate stakes tonight. He could dare on Eliza’s behalf, too.
His hand slipped over her white-gloved fist and pressed it gently. “I dare.”
Her gazed pierced his, hope and doubt fighting amid her anguish.
“I swear, Eliza, before this night’s end, your father will be avenged.”
Chapter Three
A thrill shivered through Eliza, Derrick’s touch a reassuring promise, and something more, his green eyes cold and hard as he spoke of avenging her father, his body strong and warm, purpose and resolve in his every move.
She slipped the vial from his gloved hand. “It is mine to do.”
The press of his fingers on hers rushed through her, her beloved Derrick here, of all nights, like an angel’s miracle, the longing, the anguish at his death gone in the instant of recognition. “Give me the poison, Eliza,” he said.
She gripped the tiny vial harder. “I shall keep it,” she whispered.
He stepped closer, head bent, intent on prying open her hand.
Heat swept through her, the storeroom abruptly hot, his hair, fair and lush, brushing her face, his fashionable hairstyle already gone from unruly to tousled, but Derrick had always been more interested in daring-do than fashion. A recent scar marked his brow, as if from a heavy, cutting blow, his features sharper than in his youth, his expression harder, and she wondered how many more new scars hid beneath his clothes.
With both hands on her closed one, he worked with fingers firm but gentle to open her fist, and something inside her tightened and flushed, and her breath gave another hitch. A tiny hitch.
A breathless hitch.
His hands stilled.
His body stilled. Slowly, his face bent closer to hers, the heat inside her building. Gently, his lips brushed across hers.
Her mouth opened beneath his. Her arms gripped his neck.
He groaned against her skin and stepped away, removing her grasp on his neck. “No, my love. The duke would know.”
Love. That thrill again crossed her spine, melding with the heat. “I will not tell him,” she said, fierce and needful, needing him, deep in her heart, deep in her body, and not clear why.
“You need not speak for him to know.” He clasped her hands in his, slipping the vial from her grasp. “Go,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Before you are missed, if you are not already so.”
***
Derrick pulled his hands from hers, his blood pounding in his nether parts, his mind dizzy with need.
She was lovely.
She was grown.
She most certainly was grown. Modest though her gown was, the creamy skin of her bosom was bared along the upper swells, her swift breaths bringing those swells to impossible-to-ignore notice, her innocence and womanliness calling to him, her sweet, innocent scent of lavender washing away the stink of prison that still clung to his nostrils. She was everything he’d lost.
Everything he’d regain tonight, if fate was with him.
What a fool he was. Love.
He had no right to speak of such a thing, but he’d been too many years from country and hearth. Too many years from those he loved. Loved as family. His own. Eliza’s.
Fool.
He was more likely dead by this night’s end.
Eliza stood as frozen as he, her beautiful bosom rising fast and falling with each breath.
And God help him, he brushed his lips against hers with something very like a promise. “Trust me,” he rasped out, her answering “Yes” like a benediction against his mouth, then he wiped the remnants of tears from her face and pressed her unyielding body out the storeroom door.
***
Eliza heard the storeroom door behind her close with a soft click as she hurried into the refreshments room that was still empty—the duke seemingly holding everyone else in thrall—her heart soaring. Derrick had touched her.
Her gloved fingers brushed silk across her lips. He’d kissed her.
For the first time since her father’s death, she felt alive.
Derrick was alive.
She pressed her palms to her flush-heated cheeks.
“Darling,” her mother said, rushing to her with a swoosh of satin skirts as Eliza crossed from the refreshments room to the ballroom. “The duke is asking for you.”
Dread shot Eliza’s soaring heart to the ground.
Chapter Four
The duke strode toward Eliza, the crowd of ton around him parting like Moses’s Red Sea, a flushed Lady Prysden—her auburn hair gleaming in the candlelight, her lovely face distorted with anger—taking two steps toward him before pausing and disappearing among the others watching the duke.
Eliza prayed for her mother’s sake His Grace would approve of her gown. She prayed for her own he would not.
An unfashionable wife would never do for the Duke of Belville.
A waltz began to play, the waltz Eliza wasn’t approved yet to dance at Almack’s.
Silently, she exhaled her relief. She wouldn’t have to suffer his touch. Wouldn’t have to be held in his arms.
One of the patronesses of Almack’s, Mrs. Drummond-Burrell, came to his side and led His Grace toward Eliza, a rare, but tiny, smile on her face, the patroness giving Eliza a glance that told her she was the luckiest girl in the world.
“I have given His Grace leave to walt
z with you, Lady Eliza,” she said, a tiny twist of disapproval on her lips as she said Eliza’s name—not Elizabeth, but Eliza, her father had insisted, much to the disapproval of the sticklers of the ton, none less than Mrs. Drummond-Burrell herself. If Eliza’s come out had been under circumstances not in the favor of the Duke of Belville, she doubted the lady would have consented to give her and her mother the vouchers that had admitted them this season to Almack’s.
His Grace bowed, a haughty, slight tilt of his upper body that in no way conveyed anything but his own belief in his superiority to all around him, including Eliza. He took her hand in his gloved one, holding it hard, unnecessarily hard, and he led her to the dance floor, the Wednesday night crush parting to let them—him—through.
He pulled her close, inappropriately so.
She tried to tug back to a respectable distance.
His grip tightened, cruelly so, digging into her waist, into her hand, and a cry of pain came from her lips, a cry unnoticed by all others but him.
His lips smiled, a smile as cruel as his grip. He bent his head toward hers, spinning her faster, faster, her body dizzy, the pain of his hold on her keeping her mind clear. “Have I hurt you?” he said, as if her pain pleased him.
“No, Your Grace,” she said, schooling her face. Serene. Soft.
His grip dug deeper.
She gasped at the pain, stifling the cry that rose in her throat, the muffled cry reaching her lips with a whimper.
His smile grew. “Perhaps that gave you pain.”
“N-no, Your Grace,” she said.
‘Never contradict him,’ her mother had said. ‘He is a duke, and a duke must be obeyed.’
His hand on her back pushed her hard against him. The flounces of her skirt brushed his ankles, her breasts crushed to his chest and straining against her modest neckline. “I look forward to bedding you,” he said, and she gasped again at his impropriety, her skin heating with a furious flush.
She lowered her eyes. She was the impoverished daughter of a deceased, impoverished earl, the daughter who’d made a solemn vow to her father.
He was the wealthy duke who would keep her mother from penury.
Her grip on her reticule tightened, the tiny paper packet of poison still hidden deep inside her handkerchief inside the small satin bag, the vial she’d given Derrick filled with the smelling salts her mother insisted she carry.
When, when? Eliza’s mind wondered, whirling as fast as the dancers around them. When—at her hand—would she watch the duke die?
***
Derrick slipped from the storeroom minutes after Eliza had departed, bitterness at all the duke had taken from him burning in his throat, bitterness and a triumph he held in close check.
Too soon to count a victory here. He understood too well the danger of that. But the thought of denouncing the Duke of Belville, to accuse him, with proof, of treason, to regain Derrick’s own and his family’s reputation and honor, after these two years, was triumph too great to not savor.
He would do it here, tonight, among men of honor, not the duke’s cronies. Men of honor, who would hear Derrick’s words, peruse his proof.
Clear his name.
Clear his family’s name.
It had seemed at the time a good notion. Threaten the duke with a solid, sleek knife as sharp as the one Belville had figuratively thrust into Derrick’s back when His Grace had ruined him. Use the solid, sleek knife to hold Belville’s attention while Derrick ruined the duke in front of the ton.
He hadn’t counted on Eliza.
He passed through the refreshments room into the ballroom.
On the dance floor, the Duke of Belville pulled Lady Eliza against his groin.
With an oath, Derrick pushed forward through the crowd.
Chapter Five
The duke’s head bent toward Eliza’s, his breath with the faintest of brandy scent and hot. His lips neared hers.
Her heart raced, her feet moving to the music with an instinct trained into her, her gaze searching for an escape from the crowded dance floor, couples twirling around them, the music loud in the air. Would he shame her with a kiss in front of them all? Seal his ownership of her by ruining her in the eyes of other men?
Behind him, Derrick pushed through the crowd, murder in his features.
The duke laughed, inches from her face. “My dear Lady Eliza, even I would not—aughhh,” he cried out. His hand dropped from her waist. Raised over his shoulder and clapped against his back. A loud groan broke from his throat, and he slumped hard against her.
The hand he’d clapped on his back fell forward and down, limp and brushing her primrose skirt, leaving a trail of red. His feet stumbled. His chest bore down harder on hers.
His weight too much for her to bear, she tumbled backwards, losing her footing, falling with a scream to the floor.
His body landed on hers, squeezing out her air, and frantic to breathe, she pushed at his chest.
Blood trickled from his mouth, dripping onto her cheek. Blood flowed down the side of his elegant coat, onto her dress and gloves.
The chest she shoved at didn’t breathe. No heart beat.
Eliza had her miracle. His Grace the Duke of Belville was dead.
***
The crowd pressed around Eliza, a scream, then another, filling the air, skirts rustling by her head, men’s voices exclaiming, the scents of lavender and starch and blood overwhelming her senses.
Horror at the duke’s blood mingled with relief she and her mother were saved.
The Earl of Atterhill rolled the duke off of her. His countess knelt at Eliza’s side and helped her to sit, then wiped at Eliza’s cheek with a white silk handkerchief, Eliza tugging off her stained gloves with trembling, plucking fingers, her stunned eyes searching for Derrick.
She had not far to search. He stood opposite them, the duke at his feet, His Grace’s body on its side, His Grace’s blood pooling on the parquet floor, Derrick’s face hard and cold.
Lady Prysden stepped from behind him and pointed at Eliza. “You killed him,” she said in an awful, fierce, hushed tone.
Accusing stares lashed at Eliza from the circle forming around her, Eliza, the duke, Derrick, and the Atterhills in the center. “Her ladyship was dancing with him,” a man said, then another, a mad hum of voices rushing through the crowd.
“And where would her ladyship conceal such a knife?” Derrick called out.
The voices hushed. All eyes fixed on Eliza.
Flushed, Eliza gripped the reticule she had dropped and rose to her feet.
“She was dancing with him,” Lady Prysden demanded.
“Then she is the least suspect,” Derrick said. “How could she thrust a knife in His Grace’s back while he held her in his arms?” He stepped over the dead duke and raised Eliza’s bare forearm, his gloved touch hot against the shivers running cold through her body. “Where would she conceal such a weapon that she could unsheathe it and wield it with such deadly intent? Surely not in this gown. Not in this trifle of a reticule.”
A rustle of satin pushed its way through the crowd. Eliza’s mother reached the inner circle, her face paling at the sight of His dead Grace, and put her arm around the back of Eliza’s waist in a protective grip. “This is not fit for my daughter to witness,” she said, tugging Eliza toward the crowd behind them, Eliza resisting, loathe to leave Derrick.
“Your daughter will witness the deed she has done,” Lady Prysden said.
Mama’s cold stare sent ice to the other woman, then she turned with Eliza toward the front door, stepping as she turned between Eliza and Derrick’s unmoving figure, her gaze faltering as she saw who stood at her side. “Derrick?” Lady Goodfield said.
Chapter Six
Derrick stiffened.
Eliza pushed between them, clutching her reticule, her face deathly white. “Shh, Mama,” she said.
Lady Goodfield stared.
The ton stared.
He’d come to renounce the duke. The t
ime was now.
“Thank you,” Eliza’s soft voice murmured in a low tone only he could hear as she turned to him, and he realized she thought he was her savior. ‘You dare?’ she’d said, and he’d answered ‘Yes,’ and he wished it had been his knife, his thrust, that had done the deed.
“’Twas not I,” he murmured back. “I thought perhaps it was you.”
She looked at him in horror, but he remembered the fearless, daredevil child she’d been. He’d seen the anguish tonight in her blue eyes.
A woman rushed to Lady Goodfield’s side—who stared at Derrick, then the duke—the woman in an elegant, burgundy gown befitting a matron of forty-plus years, a young lady Eliza’s age and dressed in modest blue at her side.
Derrick’s mouth went dry. His heart jumped into his throat. He hadn’t expected his family to be here this night. The Trulingtons were in disgrace. Because of him.
“Derrick?” his mother said in a queer, suffocated voice, her childhood friend Lady Jersey—a leader of the ton—rushing up behind her.
He froze. His mind said ‘run.’ His body wouldn’t move. Anguish twisted in his heart. This was not how he’d wanted this to go. This was not how he’d wanted to return. He needed to clear his name, clear his family’s name, before he’d be fit to grace their presence.
What they must have suffered because of him.
What they would suffer if he were caught here before his honor was restored.
“Trulington,” the whispers began, spreading swiftly through the ballroom. “Traitor.”
And mingled among the two words was a new one. “Murderer.”
Three men, the Earl of Walson and his two sons, cronies of the Duke of Belville, moved forward, anger and vengeance on their faces.
But Derrick would have his own vengeance first. “The true traitor is the Duke of Belville,” he called out over the crowd.
An offended gasp swept the ton.
Derrick pulled a folded sheaf of papers from his waistcoat, leaving the knife sheathed. For now. He held the papers in the air. “I have proof. In the duke’s own hand.”
Murder at Almack's: A Regency Romantic Suspense Short Story Page 2