Darius favored the longcase clock with a quirk of his lips. Natalia had told him she was invited to Vauxhall tonight with a party of old friends, friends he would not enjoy. He had not believed her. And hard as it was to admit it, he did not care. Solitary by nature, he was ready for an evening of his own company, an opportunity to catch up on the work he had been neglecting for the past few weeks.
No, devil take it, it was more than that. His Jewel’s final rejection had sent him spinning into chaos, his much-vaunted clarity and strength of purpose so badly shattered he’d risen from the ruins a changed man. Angry, defiant. Blindly surging toward the comfort of someone who would not say no. A haven, a shelter. And oh-so-temporary.
Fool, fool, a thousand times a fool! He’d stepped into the snare, eyes wide open, with a grim determination to hurt his Jewel as much as she had hurt him. Now look where that had led. All the visions he’d blinded himself with up in smoke after he’d seen how determinedly Natalia clung to the shallow butterfly existence of flitting from one social event to another. How easily she had fallen into a flirtation with Longmere at the Mablethorpe’s ball. And for all her enthusiasm for bed sport, he found it almost impossible to picture her willing to undergo the rigors of childbirth, the swelling awkwardness that preceded it, or loss of the ton’s admiration, even temporarily.
Well, he’d dug a few holes for himself in the past and managed to find his way out. Breaking a betrothal was a bit trickier than most situations, but he’d . . .
Hell and the devil! What was he thinking? Both he and Natalia knew this wasn’t a love match. Both knew they were constructing a compromise for their mutual benefit. He was giving up his Jewel; she was marrying a Cit—a man who actually worked for wages instead of living off the proceeds of his family acres.
Did he really want to give up this hard-headed vision of a settled future and go back to allowing Juliana Rivenhall to kick him in the gut? Twice a day and thrice on Sundays, as the saying went.
The knocker on the front door boomed a sharp tattoo, shattering the midnight silence. Although Nick Black had visited him only a handful of times since Juliana brought the financial expertise of her man of business into their campaign against Longmere, Darius recognized the rhythm. He and Nick had taken to each other, each acknowledging the other’s strength and ruthlessness. So much so that Nick had asked Darius to stand up with him at his wedding to Cecilia. The same day that had seen Holly Hammond wed to the captain of Nick’s ship Venturer. A very good day for both couples, as it turned out. Darius never denied the fact that he envied them.
And now, here was Nick at the witching hour. And somehow the sound of the knocker held more than the promise of a visitation by a creature of the night. It just might be the sound of Fate knocking on his door.
Since he had sent the servants to bed long since, Darius bounded down the stairs and unbolted the door himself, welcoming the man whose name was most often said in whispers, with the speaker glancing furtively over his shoulder. When they were both settled in the study, Nick took a sip of the brandy Darius had just poured, savored it, and said, “Very smooth, Wolfe. I think we must be acquainted with the same smuggler.”
“Yours likely came from my warehouse,” Darius returned smoothly before allowing his customarily controlled features to break into a genuine smile of welcome. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “I fear the Season has swallowed me up, keeping me from my old haunts.” Which included Ballard’s, Nick’s gaming house on Bennett Street, where they’d brought Longmere to his knees.
Nick leaned back in his chair out of reach of the candlelight, his rugged features suddenly shadowed, his brown hair and gray eyes going almost as dark as Darius’s. “You may not be so glad to see me when you hear why I’ve come.”
“Then out with it. We have not stood on ceremony for some time, my friend.”
“You are aware, of course, of the rumors circulating about Lady Rivenhall. Hurtful rumors, just when it appeared most of the nobs were ready to accept her return.”
“I am.” Darius straightened in his chair, his gaze suddenly intent. “You know who began this?”
“I do.”
“Well?” Darius demanded.
After a slight pause, Nick offered, “A jealous woman can be surprisingly vindictive.” He continued to turn the screw when he saw Darius’s instant comprehension. “It seems Lady Charlbury sensed that Juliana Rivenhall is more to you than an employer. She confided her supposed fears about the lady’s reputation to an acquaintance, a Mrs. Portia Osgood. Naturally Mrs. Osgood was much shocked and did not hesitate to pass along this information to others Exactly as intended.”
“And you know this how . . .? Never mind.” Darius waved away the question. Everyone knew Nick Black had a thousand spies in London, probably as many more scattered throughout the countryside. And as his friend, Nick would never bring him a tale he did not know to be true. “Oddly,” Darius admitted, “I find I am not surprised.”
“Would you be surprised to know Lady Charlbury is at this moment enjoying Vauxhall in the company of Longmere?”
Keeping his gaze fixed on his desktop, Darius murmured, “How enlightening. It would appear the lady is not a fortune hunter, after all.”
“It would appear you would do well to rid yourself of her.”
“Something with which I will not need your help,” Darius shot back with considerable emphasis, visions of Natalia dead in a ditch chasing through his head.
“I believe you can manage this one all by yourself,” Nick replied easily as he polished off the last of the brandy and rose to his feet. “Come back to Ballard’s, Wolfe. Bring your Jewel. We’ve missed you both.”
“I will.”
They descended the stairs, exchanging a significant look of understanding as they shook hands at the door. Darius shoved the bar home, wondering at his reaction to Nick’s words. All he felt beyond a slight twinge to his pride was a sense of relief. Euphoria, in fact. After years of using a nice mix of shrewd aggression and determined patience to increase the Rivenhall fortune to ten times its initial worth, he had finally lost his temper and nearly blown his life sky high by betrothing himself to a woman he could never love. Marriages of convenience were made every day, he had reasoned, so why not do as others did?
But in the clarity of midnight, with Nick’s words to point out his insanity, Darius had to admit he had nothing to offer Natalia, for he had no heart to give her. There was no way he could promise something long lost to Juliana, even at some distant point in the future. It simply was not going to happen. So convention be damned! He’d jilt Natalia with only the vaguest of qualms. She was no green girl. And it appeared she would have Longmere to fall back on.
Darius snuffed all but one candle, which he used to find his way to his bedchamber. But when he finally lay in bed, he realized that for all his midnight revelations, nothing had changed. He still wanted to marry his Jewel. Yet the situation remained as it had been since Geoff’s death. Juliana was too consumed by self-imposed guilt to marry him. He might have escaped the yawning pit of the wrong marriage, but the mountain of his Jewel’s intransigence rose as high and solid as ever.
Seemingly insurmountable.
Shite!
“Darius, my darling. How delightful of you take to time from your demanding schedule to call on me.” Natalia, artfully displayed on a sofa in a diaphanous gown more suited to the boudoir than the drawing room, patted a small space beside her. “You see, my dear, I have done just as you asked in your note—rid myself of all visitors so I might greet you in privacy.”
Ignoring the invitation to sit beside her, Darius, grim-faced, sat on the edge of a chair facing the sofa. “Oh dear,” she murmured, “you have heard about Vauxhall. How vexing. But I assure you it was nothing. Longmere put together the party, you see, and I knew you would not like it. And besides, my dear, you know quite well it is not the thing for husbands and wives to sit in each other’s pockets.”
“We are not yet husband a
nd wife.”
“Darius,” she chided gently, as if to a child, “how many times have you been seen with Juliana Rivenhall? What’s sauce for the goose—”
“Speaking of Lady Rivenhall,” Darius interrupted more than a little rudely, “is it true that you were the person who confided tales into the ears of one of the parishioners of St. Mark’s?”
“Where did you hear such nonsense?”
“From Nick Black.” An accusation from which both knew there was no recourse.
After a moment of utter stillness, Natalia shifted position, preening, showing off her undoubted beauty, though fire sparked from eyes as dark as Darius’s own. “Do you think I am such a fool that I would not know your relationship with that–that whoremonger is closer than you claim? Of course I wished to be rid of her. She was in my way.”
Darius stood. Bowed. “Then how fortunate I have come to my senses. I wish you well, Natalia. Perhaps you and Longmere may console each other.”
“Darius!” Just short of the door, he paused and turned, face stony. “You cannot cry off. It isn’t done. You’ll be ostracized—”
A bit of last night’s euphoria swept through him. Unkind perhaps, but Natalia seemed bent on making the break easy for him. “My dear Lady Charlbury, tell the ton what you like. I am a fiend, I eat small children, practice satanic rites. I truly don’t care. I should, in fact, welcome a respite from the ton. Now good-day.” Another bow, a swift turn, and he was out the drawing room door, accepting his hat from the butler, his pace increasing as he ran down the front steps. If only there were a full orchestra and choir, shouting Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” to the heavens!
With nerves of steel and a skill for organization that defied mistakes, Darius Wolfe had never understood that old phrase about being on tenterhooks. Today he did. He’d gone straight from Berkeley Square to Rivenhall House, only to be told his Jewel was spending a few days at Thornhill Manor. A blow that nearly had him howling with frustration in the middle of Mayfair. Hell and the devil and all his minions! Just as he gained his freedom, his Jewel left town?
His carriage was bowling through Kensington, heading toward Richmond, before his mind settled enough to question what he was doing. Any confrontation with Juliana in her lair would go exactly as such meetings had in the past: Darius reasoning, cajoling, chiding, ranting, reminding her it was time to put the past behind, and Jewel stubbornly countering every point, saying, no, no, and again, no. I can never be whole. I am not a fit wife. Go, Darius. Find a better woman.
Had he actually thought Natalia a better woman? Of course not. But he had hoped she might bring him a modicum of peace. A bit of normalcy to a life that had been anything but.
He knew better now. Natalia should feel relief as well, for she had been spared marriage to a man whose life was totally devoted to another. Darius would have his Jewel, though how he was to manage it when all his heart-felt words had proved futile, he had no idea.
Darius called to his coachman to stop, turn back to his office in the City. He could not go to Juliana until he found a new method of approach. One that would not find him a supplicant battering his head against the stone wall of her certainty she was forever tainted by her past. Not an easy task. But he was, after all, Darius Wolfe, the Machiavelli of the City of London. The man who could make his way through the merchant princes of Britain, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the New World and never miss a step. Coming out of each encounter with an increase in his Jewel’s fortune. As well as his own.
Surely getting around one small, stubborn female could not be all that impossible . . .
But as the day progressed, the tenterhooks dug in. He could swear he felt their pain piercing his flesh from every angle.
Dammit, Jewel. This is it. I’m coming for you.
Tonight.
But it seemed the sun would never set, the streets never go quiet, not even in the heart of London’s financial world. Yet at long last Darius made his way to the river, where boats large and small were somnolent, secured to their moorings for the night. All but one. The one that would take him to the Thornhill dock in Richmond. To the tunnel Geoff had so assiduously maintained.
Devil take it! Not the best moment to even think of his erstwhile employer, friend, partner in crime. Yes, crime it was when he hadn’t objected to Geoff debauching his innocent young wife. If only he’d been stronger. Turned his back on all that money and simply whisked her away. Surely life in a cottage would have been better than . . .
Liar! You’ve amassed one of the greatest fortunes in England and enjoyed every minute of it. You love power almost as much as you love Jewel. And look what she’s accomplished, the many girls she’s helped to marriage, a safe position, or the independence of controlling their own lives. She relishes her role as much as you do. This is what you are, the pair of you. You were meant to shake the earth. You’re as likely a candidate for an obscure life in a cottage as is Nick Black.
Darius responded to the scold delivered by his inner voice with a snort of disgust. Lips thinned to a straight line, he stared at the black waters of the Thames, attempting to use the soft slap of the oars, the soothing cool of the damp night air, to quiet the thumping of his heart.
Calm. Cool. No hot head or precipitate action allowed.
Still a risk, a dangerous risk, but he would take it. The impasse must be broken.
Chapter Fourteen
Juliana woke with what would have been a gasp, except for the hand clamped tight over her mouth. No! Heart racing, she fought the constraint, fists pounding at the dark shadow leaning over her, her legs struggling to free themselves of the bedcovers and join the fray.
“Hush, Jewel, it’s only I.” A long moment suspended in time, their shadows forming a frozen tableau, before the hand fell away from her mouth.
Juliana gulped for air, flopped back against the pillows, fury rushing in to fill the void left by vanished terror. “How dare you come to my bedchamber in the middle of the night?”
“Because I have been your husband in every way but inscribed in the church register for more years than either of us cares to remember. You are mine and I am yours.”
“You would say this to me when you are betrothed?” she hissed, barely able to form the words. Dishonorable beast. Liar. Sneak. Truly, there were no words bad enough—
“I am free, Jewel. Come to my senses and returned to where I belong. And do not deny it. Our destinies have been entwined too long to be untangled.”
Shock. Relief. Pain. A moment of hope followed by the devastating truth. Nothing had changed. Darius might have escaped a disastrous marriage, but she was still caught in the same saber-toothed trap.
She’d been speechless too long. This was Darius, the great manipulator, and she could show no weakness. “La Charlbury has given you your congé?” Juliana said, pleased at the flippancy she managed to inject into her tone when all she could think was, how could any woman in her right mind reject Darius Wolfe?
She had, of course, but she’d laid no claim to sanity since the early days of her marriage.
“Believe me, Jewel, despite so-called rules to the contrary, it’s remarkably easy for a man to break an engagement. All it requires is a bit of ruthlessness, which I have in excess. I told Natalia she could tell any tale she liked, but the truth is, I realized I could never make another woman happy. And I would be miserable married to anyone but you.”
Into the palpable silence, Darius added, “I have a proposal for you. A gamble, perhaps a risky one, but we both know we cannot go on as we’ve been these past years. In my anger I made the error of telling myself Natalia would do for me, even as I gnashed my teeth while you turned to Longmere.” He spoke the name with such loathing Juliana felt a smile twitching at her lips. Hopefully, it was too dark for him to see it. “Give me this night, Jewel. Let me show you our love is possible. That beauty can rise from the ugliest dregs, like spring flowers rising above the dead stalks of winter.”
Oh, dear God, where had
that come from? Darius, who juggled figures all day long, who controlled mills and shipping and the vast Rivenhall acres that stretched from Cornwall to the Highlands of Scotland suddenly displaying a touch of the poet?
Yet how she missed him! She needed . . . wanted. Never dreamed his betrothal could hurt so much. Yet . . .
A frisson of panic shot through her. She couldn’t, simply couldn’t.
She owed him.
And as much as Juliana hated to admit it, she was dependent on Darius Wolfe. Emotionally as well as financially. She had never denied their love, only the possibility of enjoying it, of ever being able to fulfill Darius’s dream of happily ever after.
There was, of course, a time-honored saying that covered her intransigence. For all the supposed wisdom she had acquired over the last few years, it was possible she was cutting off her nose to spite her face. Martyring herself by rejecting what she loved most. And truthfully, if she sent him away now, she would never forgive herself for, truly, his betrothal had made her physically ill. Had she not fled London, wracked with pain, thinking she might die of it? Darius. Gone. Forever.
She couldn’t bear it.
So now she had no choice. Even if she shattered, his proposed experiment was worth it. And still a frisson of panic nearly distorted her words beyond recognition as she murmured. “One night. No promises.”
Not even a small sigh, the slightest huff of breath to indicate he’d heard her. And then she felt movement, heard the whoosh of the bed’s silk curtains sliding back, soft footfalls on the rug followed by the draperies parting, letting in the pearly glow of moonlight. No longer a dark shadow, Darius loomed over her, a man whose grim determination seemed to overwhelm his role as lover. Ever so slowly, he shrugged out of his tightly fitted coat. Juliana only realized she was holding her breath when she had to gasp for air.
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