Dancing With A Devil

by Julie Johnstone

  “Not well, but I plan to be extremely tactful.”

  Dinnisfree leaned forward. “I suggest you start now,” he whispered.

  “Good evening, Davenport,” Cringlewood slurred as he pulled out a chair and plopped into it. “I assume you need a fourth for a card game.” Cringlewood swayed in his chair before steadying himself. “I can only play one more hand. Shouldn’t play that, but I need my luck to turn.”

  Trent shuffled the cards, assuming the banker responsibilities. “Well, hopefully this is your lucky hand. Do you have chips?”

  “He does not,” a deep voice grumbled behind Trent.

  Nash Wolverton stared down at Cringlewood. A fierce frown marked the club owner’s rugged face, and his dark hair hung over his eyes. He shoved it back as if only now remembering it. “Need I remind you, Cringlewood, that your account here is frozen until you pay down your debt?”

  “Come now, Wolfie, if you’ll advance me a bit more blunt I vow I’ll take these gentlemen and pay you back.” Cringlewood’s words ran together, making Trent want to grab the man by his lapels and shake him for his foxed state. How the devil was this fool to keep his sister safe?

  “Do not call me Wolfie.” Wolverton’s clenched jaw and his steely tone left no room for doubt that the man was close to throttling Cringlewood. And if one still doubted, Wolverton’s hands clenched by his side were an excellent indicator of his irritation. Trent could not blame him for wanting to throw Cringlewood out, but he needed Audrey’s brother to remain here long enough to reveal where Audrey was tonight. Cringlewood’s chair squeaked loudly as it teetered backward. Sliding his booted foot behind the chair leg, Trent slowly tilted the man back toward the ground.

  “Give him a rouleau,” Trent said. “I’ll be responsible for paying you back.”

  Wolverton nodded. He raised his hand and within seconds, his moneyman appeared, suit and glasses askew and silver hair sleeked back. He looked past his hawk nose and over the rim of his spectacles at Wolverton. “Sir?”

  “Give him twenty guineas,” Wolverton said and motioned to Cringlewood. “Lord Davenport has taken on responsibility for Cringlewood’s losses.”

  “For this roleau only,” Trent clarified.

  Wolverton flashed him a grin. The man’s gleaming teeth reminded Trent of a wolf. Fitting.

  “Of course, Davenport.” Wolverton leaned down, a long a haul considering his great height, and clasped Cringlewood by the shoulder. “After this hand, call it a night.”

  Cringlewood shoved Wolverton’s hand away. “I intend to. I’m simply killing time waiting on Thortonberry. I’ve better places to be than this.”

  “Good. You should go there.” Wolverton departed without a backward glance. His assistant gave a perfunctory bow and scampered after him.

  Trent dealt the cards before asking, “What event are you attending tonight, Cringlewood? Anything exciting?”

  Audrey’s brother picked up his cards, glanced at them and then looked up. “Nothing you’d be interested in. I don’t wish to go, but my father insists I help keep a watchful eye on my sister.” Cringlewood opened and closed his eyes, as if he was having trouble focusing. “Did you know I had a sister?”

  Trent did not look at his friends. Dinnisfree coughed and Sutherland shifted in his chair. What should he say? Audrey’s family had no idea she had never been betrothed to a private investigator named Roger Wentworth. Audrey and Whitney had concocted the tale so Audrey would not have to leave London and go back to the country with her father. Whitney had posed as the investigator and duped Audrey’s father. Trent cleared his throat. “I met her when she was betrothed to Mr. Wentworth, as he is a personal friend of the Duke of Primwitty’s, an old school chum of mine.”

  Cringlewood nodded. “Makes sense. I suppose you know she mucked that up, as she does everything.”

  Trent pressed his lips together. He did not care for the man’s negative view of Audrey. As her brother, he should be one of her most stalwart supporters. “It’s my understanding that Lady Audrey caught Mr. Wentworth with another woman.”

  Whitney and Audrey had contrived the explanation so Audrey’s father would not blame her for what he thought was a genuine broken engagement. Pity her father and brother seemed only to care about the fact that she had not ended up married, whether the man respected her or not.

  Cringlewood took a card and frowned. “All men have mistresses. My sister has a false notion of what marriage should be about, which is precisely why my father is forcing me to attend the Allreds’ ball tonight. He is determined to see her married and out of the house before this season ends.”

  A very odd feeling tightened Trent’s insides into hard knots. He did not need to hear anymore to know her father was uncaring and her brother was an addle pate. Convenience and arranged marriages were the norm, but usually the father arranging such things loved his daughter and did his best to ensure she would be in a good marriage. Trent laid his cards down in front of him faceup. “Vingt-et-un, gentlemen.”

  “Damnation!” Cringlewood cried and threw his cards on the table. “Would you be willing to let me pay you back next month?”

  “Let this be a gift between friends,” Trent replied. “I’m sure your mind was occupied with concern for your sister, as well it should be. Does she have any particular suitors currently that bother you?”

  “No. No,” Cringlewood replied, standing. “In fact, she is not aware of it yet, but Father has lined up several interested gentlemen for her to meet tonight.” Cringlewood looked away from Trent and across the room. “There’s Thortonberry now, gentlemen. I better take my leave before I’m too tardy for the ball and join my sister in Father’s bad graces.”

  Trent raised an eyebrow at Cringlewood, though he wanted to stand, forcibly detain the man and demand answers. With a casualness he did not feel, he asked, “Is Thortonberry one of your sister’s suitors?”

  Cringlewood chuckled. “Hell no. Thortonberry thinks of Audrey as a sister. He is our neighbor and they have known each other since we were all in leading strings. If I thought I could hoist Audrey off on Thortonberry I would, but as you can see”―Cringlewood waved toward the marquess who stood some twenty brown-lacquered wood tables away, locked in the embrace of the demirep he had been speaking with―“he has no interest in marriage. But he did generously offer to do me the favor of helping to keep an eye on my sister, so we really must go.”

  Trent did not like the sound of that at all. He did not trust Thortonberry to keep nothing but his gaze on Audrey, even if her doltish brother did. His gut told him Thortonberry was not as he seemed, and intuition had saved him more times that he could remember when he was on assignment for Prinny in France. The only time it had ever failed him was with Gwyneth. He had never suspected she was anything other than the simple Frenchwoman she had pretended to be, working in a bookstore with her brother.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Thortonberry’s appearance. The marquess regarded everyone at the table with assessing green eyes before his gaze locked with Trent’s. “I seem to be running into you at all the hellfire clubs this week, Davenport. Have an itch you cannot get scratched properly?”

  “I could ask you the same,” Trent replied, making sure his sarcasm laced his tone, instead of the irritation strumming through him. Thortonberry’s caustic remark had touched a nerve.

  Thortonberry’s gaze sharpened. “I’m perfectly satisfied, just voracious. And late.” He glanced at his pocket watch, then turned to Cringlewood. “I took the liberty of requesting the supper dance with your sister. I thought that way you would be free to do as you please at supper, and I can keep a watchful eye on her.”

  “That’s grand of you,” Cringlewood boomed. “Gentlemen, many thanks for tonight.”

  As Cringlewood and Thortonberry disappeared into the crowd, Trent stood. “I’m going.”

  “Going where?” Dinnisfree asked.

  “To the Allred ball.”

  “Devil take it. I knew you were going to s
ay that.”

  Sutherland stood, a grin stretching his face. “I’m going there as well. Whitney is expecting me. Are you coming, Dinnisfree?”

  Dinnisfree shrugged into his overcoat and shook his head. “Even if I did not have somewhere else pressing to be, I would not willingly go to a ball crammed full of supposedly perfectly proper lords and ladies. I cannot think of anything phonier or less enjoyable.”

  Sutherland shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “You know I will.”

  “I’ll see you there, Davenport,” Sutherland said before taking his leave.

  Trent shrugged into his own coat before speaking. “Why do you always do that?”

  “Do what?” Dinnisfree asked.

  “Keep everyone at arm’s length.”

  “Because I have to, just as you once did. I cannot afford to trust anyone, but tell me, lately I find myself curious if that feeling has ended for you since retiring.”

  The question made Trent uncomfortable. “Are you considering retiring?”

  “Never. And do not try to avoid what I asked. Do you trust as you once did?”

  Trent knew what Dinnisfree meant. His life would never be the same as before he was a spy. He rubbed his chin for a moment, the already burgeoning whiskers prickling his fingers. He had been trained extensively―just like Dinnisfree―to trust no one but his fellow spies, yet he had slipped with Gwyneth. She had broken down his walls one by one and gained his confidence. He’d been too in love to recognize what was happening and too late he had realized that Gwyneth was a French spy on a mission to secure the secret correspondence it was his job to transport between Prinny and the men who guarded Napoleon.

  “No. I don’t trust as I once did.” And he never would, but that had more to do with what Gwyneth had done to him than anything else. She had shown him just how wrong he could be about a woman, and it was a lesson he would never forget.

  Dinnisfree nodded. “I did not think so. You have that same haunted look in your eyes as you did the day I rescued you from Bagne de Toulon. Which begs the question of why you are going to the Allred ball to help Lady Audrey if she will never be anything to you.”

  “She is something to me,” he said, surprising himself with the verbal admission. “She is a friend, and I don’t bloody well know why, but I’m compelled to watch over her. Speaking of which, I need to be departing.” They strolled through the crowded room side by side, retrieved their hats from the coatroom and walked down the brick steps of the club and into the dark night made glowing thanks to the lit street lamps. “Will I see you at Gritton’s tomorrow?” Trent asked as his coachman slowly pulled his carriage up to the curb.

  Dinnisfree shook his head. “No boxing for me tomorrow. I’ll be headed to France.”

  Trent stilled and checked the streets for anyone who might overhear them, a habit that would likely never fade. “Is this a job or are you running away to wrestle your demons?” Not an unusual occurrence for Dinnisfree. Sometimes Trent envied the man’s lack of family ties that enabled him simply to go as he pleased, but then he would see his mother, brother or cousins and his envy for Dinnisfree would be replaced by pity.

  Dinnisfree compressed his lips into a thin line. “I keep my demons in a steel box and I threw the key away long ago, my friend. They can’t get out and I can’t get in.”

  Trent grunted. It was typical of Dinnisfree to refuse to talk about his past, or even acknowledge he had one. With a wave, the duke disappeared into his carriage and Trent stood on the cobblestone streets without moving until it pulled away. He closed his eyes and breathed in the crisp scent of soil and grass that accompanied the aftermath of a sunny day ending.

  An ache he recognized as loneliness seeped into his bones as a pleasant breeze blew around him. Slowly, he opened his eyes and stared up at the sky. The moon and stars overhead reminded him of many long summer nights when he had been a lad. He would sneak out of his room to go and fetch his cousin Whitney when she was visiting, and they would swim in the creek at night, oblivious to the dangers or the pain of life. He yanked his greatcoat tighter and climbed into his own carriage before tapping on the side and telling his driver where to go.

  As the carriage prattled down the street and past St. James Square, he reconsidered if he could ever trust a woman enough again to open his heart and soul. His carriage rounded the corner and the canal became visible in the distance. With the stone wall rising to one side of the canal and the trees lining the banks, it reminded him of the small sliver of the Oise he had just been able to make out from a crack in his cell wall in Bagne de Toulon.

  He curled his hands into fists, then spread his fingers out and examined his nails. It had taken over a year, but the ridges and constant blue tinge underneath the nail had faded finally. No one would look at them now and wonder what had happened. If he allowed himself to remember too long his time in the dark, dingy rat-infested cell, the intense sharp pain of each nail being yanked out one by one would shoot through his fingers and up his arms like it was happening again. He had been starved, beaten and mentally sliced to shreds, all because he had trusted a woman.

  Yet every woman was not Gwyneth. His gut twisted with the knowledge. It did not matter. His head knew this, but it did not matter. No. Much better to be lonely for the rest of his life than to risk getting close to anyone ever again.

  Most debutantes would have been thrilled if the Duke of Clarington had singled them out for conversation at a ball. Not Audrey. Long ago, she had realized she was not like most other debutantes. If she had wanted to marry simply for money, then she would be thrilled to be trapped conversing with Lord Clarington and his friend Lord Spencer, but she wished to marry for love. She peeked at Lord Clarington’s hard-set face and shuddered. She could never love him. He appeared colder than a frozen pond. She stole a look at Lord Clarington’s friend, Lord Spencer. He had a smile on his face, but it was a practiced smile. The vain peacock probably sat in front of a looking glass for hours to get the effect he desired.

  How long had it taken him to pick out the blue-and-white striped jacket he wore tonight? Hopefully not long since it obliterated the boundaries of good taste for evening attire, not to mention the elaborate peeks jabbing his cheeks appeared quite painful. As for Lord Clarington, it did not matter what he wore, because his pinched face and cold eyes told her everything she needed to know.

  As the men stood directly in front of her and argued over which one of them was the best huntsman, she raised her fan and flicked her gaze across the guests at the Allreds’ ball. She searched the grand ballroom to see whether her father still watched her, while simultaneously she hoped to catch a glimpse of Trent and discover that by some happy fate he had decided to attend the ball tonight.

  She started her examination at the right side of the room, which shimmered with warm light provided by hundreds of candelabra and dozens of enormous crystal chandeliers. Near one of the large white columns that circled the perimeter of the marble dance floor she caught site of broad shoulders and light hair. Could it be Trent? Gripping her fan, she discreetly rose on her tiptoes to see the man’s face.

  As she got a good look, disappointment filled her. How could she have mistaken his almost white hair for Trent’s beautiful golden hair? Wishful gazing she supposed.

  Where was Trent? Perhaps the more pressing question at this moment was where was her father? If he was preoccupied in conversation and no longer watching her like a hawk maybe she could slip away and hide in the powder room until the supper dance. Then Lord Thortonberry would come to claim her for their dance, and at least she did not have to worry about pretending with him or being concerned her father would try to get a marriage offer from him since Lord Thortonberry was a longtime family friend and most definitely not interested in her.

  As the notes of the cotillion drifted over the balmy orchid-scented air to her, the dance floor drew her gaze once more. Since Lord Clarington and Lord Spencer still stood arguing with each other, she allowed herself a mo
ment more to pay them no mind. In the center of the ballroom, lords in exquisite black evening attire and gleaming shoes twirled ladies in delicate silk gowns of jonquil, cerulean blue and Pomona green.

  Whitney’s sister Gillian and her husband, Lord Lionhurst, spun by Audrey. Longing flittered in her stomach. She wanted to look at a man and have him stare back at her as those two did, as if no one else was in the room. Perhaps it was because they had just returned from their extended wedding trip abroad that their faces held a certain enraptured glow. Audrey swallowed hard. That was silly. They were in love. Very much so. She peered at Gillian. Her friend looked magnificent in a rose gown of satin covered in pearl rosettes.

  Self-consciously, Audrey ran a smoothing hand over her favorite gown from last season, a silk indigo creation with a layer of white spider gauze over it. She had felt like a princess in this last year, but now it was a tad faded and not quite as fine. Well, it would have to do since father had denied her request for new gowns, no doubt to punish her for what he called her most recent colossal failure to catch a proper husband.

  She trailed her tongue over the sore she had developed on her inner cheek. Every time her father lectured her this week since she had returned home, she bit her cheek to keep herself from speaking out and defending herself. She could not very well tell him the truth that she had not mucked up her betrothal to Mr. Wentworth, because Mr. Wentworth did not exist and there had never been a betrothal. Admitting to her father that she had fabricated the whole story to avoid having to return home to him because she feared whom next he would try to force her to marry would not help his anger at her at all.

  Distinctive throat clearing snapped her attention back to the gentlemen, who both stood staring at her expectantly. Heat singed her cheeks. She hated nothing more than being caught unaware. Lord Clarington held out his arm to her. “I do believe we have come to the dance I requested from you.”