The Devilish Montague

by Patricia Rice

  Blake politely refrained from rolling his eyes at her apparent reference to the straw on her skirt and the noose dropping over his head. Instinct warned that she had turned the table and was holding the situation over his head as a threat. He had the urge to fling off her hand and stalk into the house, except with a bad knee and an injured toe, he feared he’d fall flat on his face.

  “Precisely, Miss Carrington,” his mother happily replied. “Blake is a brilliant visionary who could lead men out of darkness if he applied his talent appropriately, but he cannot see the food beneath his nose sometimes.”

  “Perhaps it has not been the proper food,” Ladybyrd suggested, patting Blake’s coat sleeve and offering him a dimpled smile as he limped up the stairs to the portico.

  As if she understood he’d like nothing better than to heave her down the stairs they’d just ascended, Miss Carrington slipped blithely into the house after Lady Belden, who had her pert nose so out of joint that it was a wonder it didn’t brush the door lintel as she passed under it. Women! He’d never understand them. Nor did he want to.

  “I forgot to leave instructions with the stable lad about my horse,” Blake said abruptly. “I shall see you at breakfast.”

  “Your foot!” his mother protested as he hobbled away. “It will become infected!”

  His head was likely to become infected if he lingered longer among musical voices and feminine scents while any chance of claiming Ogilvie’s—or a duke’s—reward rolled away with the luggage wagon. Why on earth would a duke want an obscene parrot?

  Leaving the ladies to dither inside, he reversed course and limped back to the stable.

  5

  Having discarded her damp cloak and bonnet, but still wearing her wilted evening gown, Jocelyn kept an eye on the stable yard out the window while Lady Belden paced up and down the parlor. The lady harangued the fates that had put Jocelyn and Blake Montague in the same location at the unfortunate hour of dawn, with more than one witness. She ended up bewailing the need to return Jocelyn to her family.

  “You must marry! I cannot let you return to Norfolk in the state I found you in,” the lady finally cried. “Your half sister behaved appallingly!”

  With a weary grimace, Jocelyn recalled the day Lady Bell had arrived, a particularly disastrous occasion if she did say so herself. One of Richard’s ducks had nested on her brother-in-law Charles’s head the previous night. Her half sister Elizabeth had rolled into an egg the duck had laid on her pillow. And when Charles had wrung the duck’s neck and roared down the stairs to swat at Richard with the carcass, Jocelyn’s kitten had crossed his path, tripping him until he’d fallen face-first into the maid’s slop bucket. She could almost smile at the memory now.

  She hadn’t been smiling when Charles had gone after the kitten with an ax and sworn that Richard would be sent to Bedlam and the rest of the damned family could go with him. She’d heard that threat from her other relations over the years. It inevitably meant more upheaval, and at the time, she had run out of options. Lady Bell had saved her.

  “Baron Montague has said he will provide his Chelsea home as a settlement on his son if Blake marries a wife of whom he approves,” Lady Belden was saying, disrupting Jocelyn’s reverie. “But I fear Blake Montague is a confirmed bachelor with violent tendencies and little income of his own who will not appreciate your social skills.”

  To be perfectly honest, after being relegated to rural desolation for so many years, Jocelyn had been having such a good time whirling about society these past months that she truly hadn’t given much thought to what kind of husband might suit her. She’d given a great deal of thought to ones who would not suit her, however.

  If it weren’t for her little brother and the desperate need to find a stable home for him, she would not worry about marrying at all. But she feared Lady Bell was making it clear that her own home wouldn’t be indefinitely available, and even with the caretaker Jocelyn had hired to keep Richard out of trouble, the time had come to make a decision. She truly didn’t want to be thrown out of still another home.

  “I can see that you might not be happy living in the country, although you could certainly afford to hire a companion and do so,” Lady Belden continued, her voice softening as it usually did once she vented her anger or dismay. Slender and elegant, she looked like a disapproving angel. “But if you wish to live in town and go about in society, you must marry. Blake Montague may be a decent man, but he does not meet your requirements by any means.”

  Standing in the bay window, Jocelyn watched the wretched man in question. He was systematically dismantling the baggage wagon’s load under the bemused gaze of the driver.

  Hardheaded, determined, with a strong streak of cynicism and snobbery, Blake Montague would not be easily manipulated. His clever wits would spin circles around her. But she had tricks he’d not encountered, ones developed out of necessity and over the course of many escapades while dodging Harold and her half sisters, who disliked bird poop in their soup. Getting caught in a stable was just one in a long string of misfortunes that would have flattened her by now if she wasn’t resourceful.

  Besides, Blake Montague apparently had something she might use—a house in Chelsea. She and Richard had grown up on their father’s estate in Chelsea, and her younger brother would be ecstatic to be back by the river again. The village was less than an hour’s ride from London, so it wasn’t entirely rural oblivion. Lady Bell was correct, though. Blake Montague did not suit her in any way—except that he wished to go off to war. A house in exchange for his colors. That was something to consider.

  There were any number of reasons why the incredible notion forming in her addled brain was probably terribly, horribly wrong—starting with the fact that she just might need to kill the man if he didn’t leave her brother’s parrot alone.

  She preferred confronting problems to dithering over them. Now that she’d found Percy, the bird would require Richard’s care. Richard needed a home with an aviary. She could afford no suitable house in London.

  Her brother-in-law would not tolerate Richard’s childishly inappropriate tantrums and her mother’s disconnection with reality for very much longer. Charles would insist that Richard be institutionalized. Or worse yet, that he be returned to his proper guardian, Harold. Richard had no defense against Harold’s rages. That would be an abomination. Mama was not quite so intrusive and might escape his fury, but Lady Carrington deserved a home of her own, too.

  Jocelyn needed a husband so she could have a home. Blake Montague needed a wealthy wife so he could go to war. He’d recklessly stained her reputation. The conclusion seemed obvious.

  Montague might conclude otherwise, but she wasn’t above a little blackmail. He was a gentleman, after all. His reputation had as much to suffer as hers.

  If she hadn’t killed Harold in all these years, then she should be able to hum along just fine with an overeducated snob who would spend the better part of a year a thousand miles away.

  Jocelyn swung about, dropped an elegant curtsy, and hurried across the parlor, forcing Lady Belden to halt in midsentence. “Perhaps Blake Montague belongs on a battlefield,” Jocelyn acknowledged. “But he does not belong in my baggage. If you will excuse me, my lady—”

  She left without waiting for permission. She knew better. She was extremely well versed in etiquette. She could converse eloquently with a queen or a housekeeper. She might be as simpleminded as others called her, but she had learned all the rules so she knew how best to work around them.

  She also knew how to play the rules to get what she wanted, and right now, despite all her misgivings, she had Blake Montague in her crosshairs.

  She took the side steps to the cobblestone stable yard and hastened across, wishing she had a riding crop. “Stop that this instant!” she shouted in a most unladylike fashion.

  Not that a mere shout would stop a tenacious rogue like Montague. The man could scarcely walk! Yet he was unloading her baggage while hobbling about on a bloody ba
ndage and a gimpy leg. Even so, without a pistol of her own, she couldn’t physically force him to cease his depredations. He was far larger than she. With his short-waisted coat unbuttoned, his neckcloth unfastened, and the damp linen plastered to his formidable chest, he revealed far more of his muscular physique than she wished to encounter.

  Fortunately, physical strength failed before her arsenal of weapons.

  “If you do not stop that this instant, I shall tell your mama that you lied and that we spent the night together in the stable!” she called.

  The annoying man narrowed his eyes and immediately removed his hands from the crate next to the bird box. She could hear Percy stirring. In another moment, the poor creature would be screaming for his breakfast, in words that would make a seaman blush.

  Ignoring Mr. Montague’s escalating temper—as indicated by his ominous silence—Jocelyn stalked toward the side of the stable where Lady Belden couldn’t see them from the parlor window. And where the miserable rogue couldn’t disturb Richard’s parrot.

  She tried not to glance down at his bandaged toes. She hated that she’d shot him, but she couldn’t stifle her curiosity. She’d never seen a man’s bare foot. His was arched high, with long, elegant—manly—toes.

  “That is the stupidest threat I’ve ever heard,” he finally said, limping along beside her. With his overlong hair coming loose from its unfashionable queue, he looked more disreputable than ever.

  When she lifted her skirts to step over a puddle near the horse trough, he cupped her elbow and assisted her over, even though he was the one who could barely stand. She glanced at him in incredulity when he continued to rant as if his fingers weren’t still gripping her arm.

  “You would ensnare yourself as well as me in my family’s coils,” he protested. “And for what? A featherbrained fowl?”

  He was protecting her from her own actions? What kind of man was this? Not one her experience would allow her to believe.

  “Percy is from a rare and ancient lineage and should be treated with the respect of kings,” she informed him. “He should not be fed ale and carried about at dawn. Really, if there were a bird police, the duke would be shot for leaving Percy with his nephew. Mr. Ogilvie is a spiteful sort who probably pulls out Percy’s feathers when no one is looking.”

  She tried to ignore the strength of Mr. Montague’s hand clasping her elbow, but now that the treacherous notion of marriage had taken root, she couldn’t help thinking of his strong, capable hands elsewhere on her person. That made her a trifle uneasy, but not enough to give up.

  She would do anything to provide her small family with the home they deserved. What good was a fortune if it could not create happiness for the ones she loved best?

  Mr. Montague emitted the long-suffering sigh she’d heard from countless men over her twenty-three years. She had innumerable arguments to counter those sighs, but she was tired of spouting them. She had her own wealth now. She didn’t have to care what men thought.

  She really, really loved that freedom. She owed Lady Belden her life. She shouldn’t flout the lady’s wise advice so hastily. But she had already set this wheel in motion, and she couldn’t seem to stop.

  Perhaps a man who argued with her as if she had thoughts of her own, instead of ordering her about as if she were a beagle, excited her hopes. Then again, she suspected Mr. Montague simply liked to argue.

  “You don’t care about Percy.” She halted on the far side of the stable and climbed up on a mounting block so she could meet Blake Montague eye to eye. He did not look his best after a night of carousing, with his icy gray eyes shadowed, his black hair tangled, and his jaw covered in heavy whiskers. Despite his general dissipation, he’d just assisted her over a mud puddle while she was threatening him. She knew his type—all blazing arrogance, but with the social graces so ingrained he couldn’t cut them out with a knife.

  “I think the bird ought to be shot,” he agreed, not in the least intimidated by her stance. He crossed his arms over his powerful chest, his broad shoulders pulling his shirt linen taut beneath his unfastened waistcoat. The lack of neckcloth revealed more of his bronzed throat than was respectable. “But I promise not to shoot it. I just want the thousand pounds Ogilvie offered for its return.”

  Jocelyn straightened her shoulders and clenched her fists at her side. It was a good thing she seldom took time to ponder her decisions or she’d run screaming into the woods, never to be seen again. “Ogilvie lies. He does not have a ha’pence to his name. Lady Bell’s man of business has already advised us that he lacks funds. He lives off his uncle’s goodwill, which is why he wants the bird back, even though he despises Percy.”

  Montague scowled so blackly that Jocelyn feared he’d frighten the sun into falling. He had understandably been counting on such a large purse. To his credit, he refrained from uttering the curse that was so blatantly on the tip of his tongue.

  “You cannot be faulted for believing him,” she offered generously. “Men are inclined to believe in the honesty of their fellows. Unfortunately, women cannot be so sanguine, or we fall victim to scoundrels. Lady Bell says investigating potential suitors is good business.”

  “I’ll keep the blasted fowl until the duke pays up,” he growled.

  He was about to turn on his heel and hobble off, which was what she really ought to let him do. He’d be willing to give Percy away soon enough. But that choice did not solve her long-range difficulties. Nor his, come to that. Annoyed that she should even remotely consider his problem, Jocelyn daringly grabbed his lapel and tugged him back. “You do not have the bird!”

  He captured her hand to pry it loose but hesitated when he caught sight of her expression. Perhaps she was demonstrating her desperation a little too forcefully. “Lady Bell’s man of business also confirmed that your father would provide his Chelsea home for your use if you marry a wife of whom he approves,” she said, before releasing him.

  “My parents want me to marry a woman they’ve chosen,” he corrected. “And my father will surround the settlement with all sorts of disagreeable stipulations.”

  “I have already met the approval of your parents,” she countered. “Unfortunately, Lady Bell has rejected you due to your propensity for violence.”

  Outrage hardened his already harsh features. “I don’t wish to hear more. If you will excuse me—”

  Jocelyn sighed as she watched him stride—or hobble—away. Blake Montague was a fine figure of a man, admittedly, but probably too hardheaded—and much too smart—for her purposes.

  And yet, if she wanted a house, Montague was the best opportunity to cross her path. She simply needed to come up with terms they could both accept—and that would include allowing Richard to live with them. Really, she should have thought of a soldier sooner.

  6

  Blake would rather take a hot bath and fall between the sheets than change into dry clothes and venture out again, but his instincts warned him that preventive action was required. Curse and damn all interfering females! He couldn’t believe a helpless twit like Miss Carrington could maneuver him into an unconscionable position, but he would take no chances.

  Propensity for violence, be damned! He was no more violent than any other man he knew. Well, perhaps more violent than Ogilvie. Or Nick. Or . . . No matter. He had no desire to be forced into marriage because of a lot of twittering gossips, even if they included his family. And he had a strong suspicion that was precisely what Miss Carrington was set upon.

  He suffered an appalling thought—had she learned that Carrington House could be his? There would be no stopping her, if so, no matter how his father tied up the deed.

  If he was to be married, it would be on his terms and no other’s. He’d rather risk enlisting than fall under the thumb of still another nervous, smothering female who would take to heart his mother’s foolish superstition about his impending death.

  After finding Ogilvie’s valet to help clean and bandage his toe, Blake winced while pulling on shoes. His
boots were now unwearable. Breakfast was still not on the sideboard by the time he took the stairs and pounded on Hoyt’s door.

  Lord Quentin Hoyt was a younger son of the new Marquess of Belden. He’d come to London over a decade ago to make his fortune and had done so. The rest of his very large family remained in Scotland, where they continued to live modestly—because the dowager Lady Belden had inherited all of the late marquess’s unentailed wealth. Fortunately, the Hoyts had little interest in society beyond allowing Quentin to provide for his sisters and nieces as they reached marriageable ages.

  Scorning the traditional roles of the younger sons of society, Quentin had gone into shipping and secured funds of his own during his untitled years. Until his father had come into the marquessate, society had scorned Quent for his ambition. Now, he purported to act as his father’s London liaison with the dowager marchioness. Blake assumed Quent had finagled an invitation to the house party just to annoy the lady because tradesmen wouldn’t normally be invited to dirty a duke’s parlor.

  In Blake’s cynical observation, his friend seemed to enjoy challenging the tart-tongued Lady Bell. At the very least, Hoyt knew her better than anyone, which made him a good man for the advice Blake needed.

  Lord Quentin answered the knock himself. Dressed in a silk banyan, his jaw already shaved, he quirked a dark eyebrow at Blake, which told him Quentin had already been briefed on the morning’s events.

  Once inside, Blake limped up and down the chamber, organizing his arguments. “Lady Bell is matchmaking,” he declared, still furious in so many ways he could not direct them all. “And this time, I’m Lady Bell’s bait,” he declared with disgust. “Worse yet, I’m discarded bait. She believes I am violent.”