The Marquess

by Patricia Rice

  Michael laughed, then laughed some more when he saw her stony face with the tear streak down it. “You’re good, She-devil,” he spluttered, gasping for breath, then laughing again. “You’ve very good. Harpies, indeed! Quite definitely harpies.” He chortled, holding his side from the effort of containing himself.

  Dillian fought back a smile at his foolishness. She hadn’t thought she liked the mock Irishman, but she was coming to understand him a little better. Of course, she would no doubt like anyone who defended Gavin. That thought frightened her just a little.

  “Nuncheon?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.

  Moderating his laughter to a broad, admiring smile, Michael nodded at the window. “Would you care to share it?”

  Dillian glanced out to see they had stopped in a tangle of carriages before White’s. Just as she was about to admonish him for the impropriety of thinking she could dine there, her gaze fell on the two gentlemen in serious discussion outside those famous bay windows. The Marquess of Effingham and Lieutenant Reardon.

  * * * *

  Blanche stood in the doorway to the dining room and watched her silverware disappear up Michael’s coat sleeves, reappear from his pockets, and waft through the air, while he contemplated the mural of the goddess Diana hunting a stag on the wall. He knew she was there. He just didn’t see fit to acknowledge her. That fact and the disappearing silverware told her something troubled him. He had an odd way of concentrating on problems.

  “Did you find the journals?” she finally demanded.

  A silver candlestick joined the forks and knives. “Are all the patients in Bedlam lunatics?” he asked enigmatically, still not looking at her.

  “It’s better to ask if all lunatics are in Bedlam. The answer is no. Will you at least tell me what is happening? Dillian isn’t speaking to anyone since you brought her home.”

  The first part of her reply brought a smile to his lips, and the candlestick reappeared on the sideboard. One by one, the number of pieces circling in the air dwindled. “You should thank me for that. I’m certain Gavin would, should he deign to make an appearance. Somehow, we have to bring those two together. Gavin needs a woman in his life.”

  “Dillian would tell you quite unequivocally that she doesn’t need a man in hers. I am beginning to understand her decision. If you don’t put those silly toys down and tell me what happened today, I shall go to Winfrey and demand he release those journals at once.”

  Michael’s smile turned sad as the last fork disappeared, whether into his pockets or coat sleeves or the sideboard remained unclear. “Too late, my lady. It seems your solicitor suffered a small loss this evening when his office went up in flames. I understand they’re blaming someone with a smoldering cigar.”

  Blanche gasped and lowered herself into the nearest chair. She stared at him in mixed perplexity and horror. “That can’t be true. Neville wouldn’t do that. All our papers are in that office.” As she realized what she’d just said, she fell silent, her mind quickly darting to all the legal documents that encompassed: wills, deeds, powers of attorney, everything that governed her life and Neville’s. She stirred uneasily and glanced to Michael, who still studied the mural. “What will that do to the estate?”

  “I’d ask Gavin if he would put in an appearance. He’s not studied much British law, but he has a fine grasp of the legal system. Perhaps duplicates are filed elsewhere.”

  Blanche nodded uncertainly. “Surely, they must. I believe I’ve heard wills are filed with some court for public record. I’m certain I’ve seen copies of some deeds...”

  At Anglesey, in Neville’s possession. She closed her eyes and swore to herself. Dillian was right. She was much too trusting. Her eyes flew open again as she frantically tried to remember where she’d put the deed to the Grange. Surely, she hadn’t …. She almost certainly had. She kept the papers to her mother’s property with her in the house that had burned. She had counted on Winfrey keeping copies.

  Crushed, more depressed than she wished to let anyone see, she rose from her chair and started out of the room.

  “They’ll think they’re safe now,” Michael called softly from behind her.

  Blanche hesitated, then shook her head. “No, they won’t. They didn’t go after Dillian to get the journals. They went after Dillian because they thought she knew what was in the journals.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  That evening, Gavin didn’t lurk in shadows but strode up to the front door of Blanche’s town house and pounded his fist against the panels. The lady hadn’t hung out the knocker to announce her presence. To hell with London society. To hell with the Duke of Anglesey. He’d had enough playing games. The time had come for direct action.

  Michael appeared more promptly than expected, this time dressed as himself instead of one of his more disreputable characters. Gavin recognized the glare in his brother’s eyes and ignored it, pushing past him toward the stairs.

  “She locked herself in hours ago,” Michael called after him. “And she has a gun.”

  Why didn’t that surprise him? Gavin didn’t lose a step as he took the stairs two at a time. He’d had a bloody awful day hanging around the rarefied atmosphere of London’s gentlemen’s clubs. He was in no mood to tolerate defiance now.

  As he approached Dillian’s room in this richly carpeted, elegantly furnished home, Gavin knew a moment’s hesitation. Perhaps he had stayed too long from civilization, after all. He had no right whatsoever to storm through someone else’s home as if he belonged there. Nor did he have any right to demand entrance to a lady’s bedchamber.

  True, the four of them had dispensed with formality while hiding in the upper floors of Arinmede, but that didn’t mean the rules of civilized behavior no longer applied. If he walked in there now, he branded Dillian his mistress for all to see.

  It wasn’t lack of civilization that drove him. It was a burning need to see Dillian. Shocked at this discovery, Gavin halted halfway down the carpeted hall. Most of the grand chambers in his ruin of a home had never seen carpeting. Apparently, even the humble halls in this house sported them. What in hell was he thinking of coming here like this?

  As he hesitated, Blanche slipped from the room he knew as Dillian’s. She glanced at him uncertainly, then looked back at the door behind her. Apparently reaching some decision, she closed the door without warning the room’s occupant of his presence. Gavin wondered what that signified, but he thought the lady might tell him as she drifted in his direction.

  She didn’t wear her scarves or veils in candlelight, and in the flickering light of the wall sconces, he could readily see the raw burns healing on her cheeks. She had discarded the bandages on her hands, but the damage was still too severe to irritate with gloves. He imagined she must suffer a great deal of pain, but the relief of her returning sight kept her brave enough to ignore her other injuries. For now.

  “I don’t think she’s in a humor for listening to reason,” Blanche stated bluntly when she stood before him. “Dillian is usually the most rational of creatures, but she’s up in the boughs now. I don’t know what is between the two of you to make her so, but I would not think it wise to go in there.”

  “Even with a chaperon?” Gavin asked wryly.

  “I don’t think a chaperon is much protection for either of you. I suppose I ought to be shocked at the idea of sending you in there at all, but somehow, in relation to other events, it seems rather insignificant in the scheme of things. Talking reason to her appears more important.”

  “She’s on a real tear, then?”

  Blanche nodded. “I gave her all my jewels to take to the cent-per-centers in the morning. She has decided you are no longer trustworthy.”

  Gavin gave a vivid curse that caused his hostess to wince, but he didn’t linger to hear her admonishments. He strode down the hall and slammed open the door Blanche had left unlocked.

  Dillian started up from her packing with a surprised jerk that quickly became ire when she saw him. “We no lon
ger have need of your services, my lord,” she informed him coldly. “Therefore, you no longer have any right to mine.”

  Gavin slammed the door closed and stalked across the room. “Services? Is that what you call them? When I put my tongue in your mouth and you melt in my hands, that’s a service? When I lay you down in my bed and you shiver with desire, that’s a service? Don’t lie to yourself any more than that, Miss Whitnell. Did I want your ‘services’ right now, I could have them, and you would have no more right to complain than I.”

  “You arrogant, conceited oaf!” Dillian flung the flimsy muslin gown she held at his head. “Do you think you need only crook your finger, and I will fall at your feet?”

  Gavin swiped the flimsy cloth from his face and threw it on the floor. “I’m not so foolish as that. You have the will of a stubborn mule. I would have to do far more than crook my finger, and falling at my feet is not the result I would want in return. But since we cannot have what we both want with your cousin waiting in the hall and my brother, no doubt, clinging to the ledge outside your window, we shall have to settle for something a little more rational than our own physical desires.”

  He watched with curiosity as the anger went out of her like air from a deflated balloon. A more experienced woman would have accepted the challenge, played the seductress, then walked out, leaving him cold and aching. But Dillian was too new to her sexuality to know her own powers, and too honest to deny the blunt truth of his words. For a moment Gavin’s hopes soared at this unspoken admission of desire. Then he remembered himself, and returned to his mission.

  His gaze fell on the trunk she packed, and Blanche’s warning came back to him. “You’re planning on going somewhere?”

  “We’re leaving. Blanche’s injuries will heal soon enough. I think we can conceal her until she’s twenty-one. Then she can hire another solicitor, take control of her funds, and do as she likes.”

  “With Winfrey’s office destroyed, Neville can wreak havoc in the courts in those six months. He could have himself named Blanche’s guardian, declare her incompetent, claim he’s discovered a new will, any number of things, and the courts will quite willingly accept the word of a duke over a mere woman.”

  Dillian stared at him through eyes grown wide with horror. Gavin regretted terrorizing her, but he had no intention of letting her out of his sight. He feared the duke was the very least of their worries.

  When she didn’t say a word, he continued, “You’ll have to trust me. I have nothing to gain from any of this.”

  “Nothing besides a rich heiress or the influence of a powerful duke,” she replied bitterly. “You need only turn us over to Neville to win a friend for life and all the cash reward you could ask. Blanche and I can offer you nothing until year’s end.”

  Gavin scowled, struggled with his suffocating cravat, and took the wing chair beside the fireplace, completely ignoring the fact that he crushed the tails of his evening coat. “I suppose you have no reason to trust me over anyone else. What must I do to convince you that I have no interest in anything but your safety?”

  She regarded him with scorn. “Go back to complaining of what a nuisance we are and return to your Gothic ruin.”

  Well, he couldn’t ask for a more honest reply. With a sigh of exasperation, he studied her. She wore a dreary brown gown designed to deflect the eye from all her most estimable physical assets, diminishing her worth to spinster companion again. Unable to agree to her wishes, having no ready solution to the problem, he diverted the subject.

  “I like that gown on you. It keeps anyone else from the pleasure of knowing your loveliness but me.”

  She scowled and turned her back on him as she pulled another dowdy creation from the wardrobe. “That ploy won’t work. I’ll not don a fancy gown just to spite you. I’m Blanche’s companion, and I dress the part.”

  “Well, I need the aid of the dashing Miss Whitnell to solve our problem. The dull Miss Reynolds won’t do.”

  “I went to Dismouth’s as Miss Reynolds,” she reminded him, folding the gown. “Miss Whitnell is far more likely to carry pistols and curse like a trooper.”

  “Even better.” He smiled with delight at the image. “I don’t suppose you had the modiste make one of those military riding habits for you? The ones with all the buttons and the shakos to match?”

  “They went out of style two years ago,” she said scornfully. “Blanche has one she scarcely ever wore. She looked ridiculous in it.”

  Gavin noticed she was watching him out of the corner of her eye now, so he’d finally captured her interest. Settling in the chair, he realized that he’d not once concerned himself with the effect of his appearance on the general populace since he’d become involved with solving this mystery earlier in the day. Thoughts of Dillian and her danger had erased any trace of his self-consciousness.

  He was setting himself up for a tumble, but he enjoyed a sense of purpose for a change. He felt alive again, not some rattled ghost hiding in shadows.

  “Pity,” he commented. “It would look good on you. I don’t suppose you could do some female magic on it and make it fit you by tomorrow, could you?”

  Dillian’s amused glance told him he’d made some male faux pas, but he accepted it gladly if she looked at him again.

  “Not unless some magic fairy could take three inches off the bottom and add it to the top,” she answered without any hint that she’d taken umbrage at his ignorance.

  Gavin measured her with his mind’s eye and nodded reluctant agreement. Blanche was one of those willowy beauties who wore clothes well but possessed nothing beneath for a man to grasp. He much preferred Dillian’s shorter stature and bounteous charms. She’d snap his head off if he told her so.

  “All right, then, did you have some fancy walking dress made up? I want to take you out tomorrow morning, and I want us to look every inch the dashing couple.”

  Gavin loved causing that look of perplexity. He’d just about decided he owed Michael a great deal, but he didn’t owe him Dillian. He would fight until his dying breath to keep this delightfully opinionated, immensely challenging woman. She might not want him. He could live with that. But he’d damned well fight to hold her until she said so. Just deciding that made him feel better.

  “I cannot be something that I am not,” she protested. “I am not dashing. I am just plain Miss Whitnell. Should I play the part of anything else, I will make a laughingstock of myself.”

  “I know the feeling,” he answered dryly, casting a glance, at his starched cravat and pulling at it with distaste. “That’s why I thought the military outfit would make you feel better. You could even carry your pistol in your pocket, if you liked. I’ll have horses, so we can ride, if you prefer. Personally, I think you’re dashing in that gown, but I will admit that society operates under one blind eye and a terminal case of stupidity, so we needs must knock it over the head before it sits up and takes notice.”

  Gavin could see her biting back a grin. He felt better as he sat there, watching her flower beneath his gaze. He’d not entirely lost his way with women, then. All he needed was a woman with sense enough to look beyond the scars.

  She didn’t want to trust him. She didn’t want to trust herself. She planned on running and hiding, just as he had all these years. He would teach her to confront her enemies with pistols drawn. He could see already that she warmed to the idea, that she recognized something of the truth of his words.

  “What, exactly, did you have in mind?” she asked carefully.

  * * * *

  “I feel like a blithering idiot,” Dillian muttered the next morning as she stepped out of the house wearing a walking dress of delicate lavender and twirling a matching parasol, complete with ruffles and bows.

  “You look like a porcelain confection, the kind people sit on their mantels and admire,” Gavin admitted. His gaze slipped to the cleverly designed neckline, which gave glimpses of soft curves while still concealing them with gauzy ruffles. “But I’m a man who wo
uld rather touch than look.”

  Dillian sniffed. “I daresay you’ve broken your share of porcelain in the process.”

  As they proceeded to the carriage he’d procured, she gave him an equally appraising look. She feared he had gone far in debt for this day’s elegance.

  In his high starched cravat, gold silk waistcoat, and fitted blue morning coat he looked every inch the aristocratic marquess. His high-crowned hat did nothing to conceal the scars, but he made no attempt to keep his face averted. In fact, he met her gaze boldly, waiting for her approval. The look in his eyes nearly took her breath away, and she had difficulty maintaining the conversation until she retrieved the ability to breathe.

  “You are looking unusually uncomfortable this morning,” she finally discovered breath to say. “How do you find wearing shoes again?”

  The flash of white teeth against bronzed skin almost sent her into transports. Gavin helped her into the carriage. She remembered very distinctly what had happened the last time they rode together like this. She had sworn she would not demean herself again. That didn’t mean she had achieved total resistance.

  “Quite comfortable, thank you very much,” Gavin replied as he swung in beside her. “The ability to dress as I choose certainly recommends living as a hermit.”

  Dillian stared straight ahead, struggling not to react to the lean figure lounging so close to her she could feel the heat of his thigh. She admired the polish of his newly shod feet as they sprawled in front of hers and fought stray thoughts about how his toes looked when bare.

  “I told you last night that you need not remain here for our sakes. You are quite free to return to haunt your hovel anytime you like.”

  Gavin had propped a walking stick with an ebony knob between his legs, resting his gloved hands on it as he looked down on her from his lofty height. She watched those hands tighten around the knob, but his voice remained pleasant.