“I accept responsibility for my mistakes, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to listen to you raging at me. This is none of your affair.”
“You made it my affair the moment you dragged the name St. Cyr into your scheme. Do you know what happens to girls who are ruined, Miss Blackheath? They are a shame to their families. Often disowned, cast out.”
Lucy shuddered as he touched a chord of memory, the bittersweet story of her mother, a frightened vicar’s daughter who had married a duke’s younger son, only to have both of them barred from the only life they’d ever known, left to struggle and suffer with their tiny daughter. Until she was taken from them as well.
Her chin jutted up. “My parents would love me no matter what I had done,” she said with absolute certainty. “They would never cast me out.”
“Then you are fortunate. You can go back to your precious Virginia with no repercussions from what you have done here. You can forget this ever happened, or look back on it with fond remembrance of how you managed to… what was it? Annoy an English earl.”
He was being far too agreeable. The fine hairs along Lucy’s spine tingled in the instinctive way that had always warned her of danger.
“Of course, there are those who will not be so fortunate,” Valcour continued in steely accents. “The Wilkeses will be scorned by everyone because of what you have done. They will be shamed and sneered at, whispered about and mocked. And as for John Wilkes’s effectiveness as an ambassador…” Valcour gave an ugly laugh. “How will anyone be able to take him seriously? After all, how can a man mediate crises between two countries if he cannot even keep one American girl out of trouble?”
Lucy chewed at her bottom lip. “I’ll go back to Virginia immediately. The scandal will die down.”
Valcour chuckled, a harsh sound deep in his muscular chest. “The English have a distressingly long memory when it comes to scandals, my dear. I speak from personal experience. But I wouldn’t trouble myself overlong about the Wilkeses. They will merely return to the colonies in disgrace, having failed in their mission. I’m certain they will get over it in time.”
“Blast it, I didn’t mean for this to happen!” Lucy burst out, stinging under the full impact of what she had done. “I said that I’m sorry.”
“Sorry.” Valcour mouthed the word as if it were the vilest of curses. “The single word that can magically erase any mistake. Make it seem as if it never happened. I’m quite sure that Mary Queen of Scots was heartily sorry for annoying Elizabeth. Especially in those moments just before the headsman’s axe fell. Unfortunately, her regret changed nothing. There are equally permanent consequences to your actions, Miss Blackheath.”
“I suppose you’re going to cut off my head because I accidentally got trapped at an inn with your brother?”
“Don’t be absurd. I’d never resort to such primitive methods.” Valcour paced to the gelding and stroked its muzzle. Lucy watched the horse turn traitor, nudging with some affection the earl’s hand. “Of course, these inevitable repercussions from tonight’s events are nothing for you to concern yourself with, Lucinda. You’ll be in Virginia making someone else’s life a living hell by the time the… axe falls.”
The flame from the lantern danced in the black irises of Valcour’s eyes. Devil’s eyes, Aubrey had called them. And as Lucy looked into those hypnotic depths, she wondered if the boy were right.
“What are you hinting at?”
“Just that it won’t be so simple for Aubrey to escape the consequences of this night. He has ruined you, no matter how noble his original intentions were. No matter how naive he was to be dragged into your scheme. Perhaps in Virginia honor is insignificant. But I would sacrifice the last drop of blood in my veins to preserve the honor of the St. Cyr name.”
Lucy swiped sweating palms against the dust-smudged blue damask of her petticoat. “What are you going to do, my lord? Challenge your own brother to a duel?”
“It would be swifter and more merciful if I did.” His voice slid like splinters of ice beneath her skin. “However, it could hardly be considered honorable to shed the blood of one so much weaker than myself.”
“How civilized of you.” Lucy should have been relieved, but she was not. A creeping sensation of doom pervaded the stable, making it seem as if the walls were shrinking inward, as if Valcour were taking up all the air.
“Surely during the time you have spent with Aubrey you’ve noticed certain… shall we call them weaknesses in his character, Miss Blackheath? He’s a scapegrace boy, addicted to expensive clothes, extravagant carriages, and horses whose hooves might be cast of gold they come at such a high price. Aubrey is constantly running afoul of his creditors. And you might be interested to know that I’ve rescued him from sponging houses on numerous occasions the past two years. You see, you are not the boy’s only passion. He has an insatiable lust for hazard, an equally perilous game. But as his guardian, I have paid his gaming debts and furnished the other accouterments he desires. Every shilling that jingles in Aubrey’s pocket originates with me.” Valcour paused, staring meditatively at the gold signet ring that glinted on his first finger. “How long do you think my brother would survive, Miss Blackheath, if I suddenly cut him off without so much as a guinea?”
Lucy’s chest tightened with disbelief. “You wouldn’t do that. You—you dueled to save his life.”
“You mistake my motive. I dueled to save the St. Cyr honor. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been if Aubrey had been cut down by a miscreant like Sir Jasper d’Autrecourt.”
“But Aubrey is your heir!” Lucy groped desperately for some way to deny Valcour’s threat. “The estates are entailed. Even if you wanted to you couldn’t keep them from him.”
“Aubrey will inherit only after my death. And I intend to live for a very long time. Use your considerable imagination to picture what would happen to that fresh-faced, foolish boy you bewitched if he were subjected to years of grinding poverty. There is not a useful thought or a practical ability buried anywhere in that empty head of his. I doubt he could tie his cravat without a valet and three servants to assist him.”
Lucy stared at the implacable lines of Valcour’s face, her hands trembling. “What kind of a monster are you? Willing to fling your own brother to the wolves over something as worthless as honor! Honor means nothing in the face of real love!”
“Love is not an emotion that has ever troubled me overmuch, thank God. My honor, however, has come at a high price. I was a mere boy of fifteen when I began to scrape and claw my way out of the abyss of disgrace that was my birthright. I have shed my blood and the blood of other men to douse the fires of scandal. Believe me, Miss Blackheath, disinheriting my reckless fool of a brother would be easy in comparison to some things that I have done.”
Lucy wanted to rage at him, but his features were unyielding as a mountain cliff, Aubrey’s softer, gentler face rising up before her, tormenting her. “You can’t do this,” she entreated. “Aubrey didn’t mean for things to go awry. It wasn’t his fault.”
“He chose to accompany you.”
“He discovered I was planning to journey alone! He was worried that I would get lost or be hurt.”
“I can’t imagine why. I’m certain the d’Autrecourts would have welcomed you with open arms, considering the circumstances.”
The earl’s acid mockery burned Lucy to her very marrow. “Aubrey told you.”
“You must forgive him his indiscretion. He had drunk a quantity of brandy. Of course, stone sober, my brother has never been known for his prudence.”
“Perhaps, then, he is known for his generosity,” Lucy fired back in Aubrey’s defense. “He only meant to help me.”
“The reasons for what he did are immaterial. He dishonored—”
Lucy’s mouth twisted in loathing. “You can take your infernal honor, my lord, and thrust it up your—”
Lucy couldn’t stifle a gasp as Valcour’s hands shot out, manacling her arms in a ruthless grasp. “I would m
ind my tongue if I were you,” he growled, his dark face mere inches from her own. “I was roused from my mistress’s arms by my frantic mother. I rode in the pouring rain, at night, trying to find the two of you. I was greeted in the inn by my drunken brother, who was so belligerent I ended up slamming my fist into his jaw and knocking him senseless. Don’t tempt me to do the same with you.”
“I’m not afraid of you!” Lucy shot back, praying Valcour couldn’t feel the traitorous quivering in her knees.
The earl’s lip curled in derision. “You should be. I guarantee you, Aubrey has the wit to be afraid of me. He has had enough experience to know that I never make idle threats, Miss Blackheath. And I never cower from taking whatever unpleasant steps I deem necessary to achieve my goals.”
“Even if it means destroying your own brother?”
Valcour sketched her a bow that reeked of insolence. “Even that.”
“You are a monster.”
“I am what life has made me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must inform my brother that he is penniless. The brandy he was guzzling was, without doubt, the most expensive available. I wouldn’t want him to run up a high ticket at the inn.”
Valcour spun on one glossy boot heel and started to walk from the stable.
“No, wait!” Lucy flung herself in front of him. Her hands flattened on Valcour’s muscular chest to detain him as she faced him with steely defiance. The damp cloth of his shirt was heated by his skin, his pulse throbbing beneath her palm. She wished she could rip his unfeeling heart from his breast.
“Aubrey did nothing!” she insisted, his buttons cutting into her hand as her fingers clenched in desperation. “There must be something I can do to make things right. I’ll do whatever you wish if you’ll just—just not destroy him.”
Valcour looked down at her, a glitter that might have been triumph in his eyes, if it weren’t for the roiling darkness that obscured it. “You aren’t willing to let him suffer in your stead? How infinitely refreshing.”
For an instant, Lucy felt as if the entire conversation, from the first moment he’d walked into the dimly lit stable, had been building to this point. She was suddenly and excruciatingly aware of her hands on Valcour’s chest, his stone-carved musculature brushing her knuckles. She released him, falling back a step. Even so, she had the sensation that she had been dancing on the edge of a precipice and had just jumped off.
Valcour’s inky brow arched in consideration, and for a moment Lucy wondered if he was going to insist on some hideous primeval torture. The rack. The iron maiden. Either would have been preferable to being impaled by those devil’s eyes.
“Perhaps there is one way you can save your errant knight from the dragon, Miss Blackheath,” Valcour mused. “But I warn you, his ransom is high.”
Lucy’s hands knotted in her skirts. “Name your price.”
“Become my countess.”
“Wh-What?” Lucy staggered back, incredulous, horrified.
Valcour’s mouth spread in a slow smile that sent shivers racing for cover at the base of her spine. “You might find it difficult to believe, but when I was a boy I was partial to worthless drivel like myths and legends. One of my favorites was the tale of Persephone, the beautiful young goddess who was carried down to the Underworld to be Hades’s bride. If you are willing to descend into my domain, Aubrey will be spared.”
Lucy’s head swam with the image of the statue outside Perdition’s Gate that first night she had met the dark earl. Never had she imagined that the rendition of Persephone’s descent into the Underworld would be a foreshadowing of her future. She reeled beneath the weight of Valcour’s words, Aubrey’s claim echoing in her mind: There are times it almost seems as if Valcour wants you for himself.
“You can’t possibly want to marry me!” she protested. “You don’t even know me! I’ll marry Aubrey if that will make things right. But—”
“Allow you and Aubrey to wed? I place more value on my sanity than that. No, Miss Blackheath, you asked my price. I have told you. The decision is yours.”
Lucy’s heart thundered painfully against her ribs, her stomach churning with desperation, fury. Marry this man with his riveting intensity? The dark fires that glowed like live coals in his eyes?
Marry this arrogant Englishman who was ruthless enough to disinherit his brother over a simple mistake made, not out of recklessness or cowardice, but, rather, out of kindness?
It would be madness. Insane to consider even for a moment binding herself to Valcour.
Lucy closed her eyes tight, seeing her mother’s face, tender and loving and so understanding. Hearing Ian Blackheath’s indulgent laughter, his eyes shining with unconditional love and approval. If she married this man, she might never see her family again. Never urge Norah in mischief, or look into the new baby’s unfocused eyes.
And yet, how could Lucy allow Aubrey St. Cyr to suffer for what she had done? How could she abandon him? Everything Valcour had said about the youth was true. Like so many of the aristocracy, Aubrey had been born to a life of idleness and plenty. He was little more than a spoiled child in spite of his seventeen years. Lucy doubted he could survive for three days without the wealth and power of Valcour shoring him up.
Lucy raised her eyes to Valcour’s, feeling the crushing burden of inevitability settle on her shoulders.
“You want a wife who doesn’t love you?” She attempted to reason with him one last time. “A wife who loathes you?”
Valcour waved one elegantly sculpted hand in dismissal. “I do not want a wife at all. But I will take you in order to preserve my honor and my foolish brother’s inheritance. You see I am not completely heartless.”
“Yes you are.” Tears of futility burned Lucy’s eyes, but she would suffer the fires of hell before she would let them fall. “You’re an unfeeling, cruel bastard and I’ll hate you until the day I die!”
“I shall attempt not to be heartbroken at the prospect,” Valcour said, negligently straightening the lace at his wrists. “Now make your decision. What will it be? Countess of Valcour or Aubrey taking up residence in a rat-infested garret on Fleet Street?”
Lucy’s hands knotted into fists. There would be time, she assured herself desperately. Time to figure out a way to escape this insanity before it was too late. The banns would have to be cried, and then she could drag out the betrothal, find some weapon to use against Valcour. Anything could happen in the month before they could be wed.
“I’ll marry you, damn your eyes,” she conceded. “But I swear, I’ll make your life the same hell that you’ve given to me.”
Valcour’s teeth gleamed white in a tigerish smile. “A most original wedding vow, my dear. But I’ve no objection. We’ll start our wedded life with more honesty than most—no promises of connubial bliss or eternal passion. Just clean, clear hatred from the moment I slip my ring upon your finger.”
That will happen the day England sinks into the sea! Lucy vowed inwardly. She fully expected Valcour to see the rebellion in her eyes, but the sound of coach wheels clattering into the yard made him cross to the dingy stable window. He swiped a hand against the cobweb-laced pane and peered out.
When he turned again to confront her, the hard satisfaction on that ruthless face sent tiny frissons of alarm racing through Lucy’s veins.
“Who… what is it?” Lucy demanded.
“The bishop of Lothshire.”
Lucy’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What would a bishop be doing here?”
Valcour’s eyes glinted like slivers of jet beneath hooded eyelids, the smile that spread across his face grim and predatory. “He’s come at my request to bring us a special license, my dear. You see I am a most impatient bridegroom. We are passionately in love, you and I, and cannot wait until the banns are cried.”
“What?” Lucy shrank back, the hard reality of Valcour’s words all but driving her to her knees. “You planned this from the beginning, didn’t you?” she raged. “You planned to force my hand!”
&n
bsp; “Let’s just say that I make it a point to prepare for any eventuality. I sent for the bishop in case you could be brought to see reason. In case you could not, I sent a note to my solicitor, telling him that Aubrey would no longer be allowed to make withdrawals from my accounts until further notice.”
“But I can’t marry you right now!” Lucy protested, feeling as if she were being sucked beneath the current of a raging river. “I need time to—”
“To what?” His eyes were ebony fire, stripping bare the deepest secrets of her soul.
“T-To get a proper gown,” she stammered, raking her fingers back through her disheveled curls. “To tell the Wilkeses of our betrothal. I’m certain they will—will want to plan an elaborate celebration. After all, a man with your monstrous arrogance wouldn’t want to take a bride who smelled of the stables and had half a bale of straw tangled in her hair! You will want all of London present at the wedding of the great and glorious earl of Valcour. You appearing the grand seigneur, with me trussed up in some preposterously expensive gown.”
“And the entire time the seamstresses were stitching on that preposterous gown, you would be scheming to find a way out of this marriage, wouldn’t you, my dear? Searching for any skeleton in the St. Cyr family crypt that you could use as a weapon against me?”
Lucy felt the blood drain from her face, certain her expression had betrayed her.
Valcour was smiling, that sensual twist to his lips that made her think not of ice but of the fire that hooded gaze seemed to ignite beneath her skin.
“You say that I don’t know you,” Valcour said, low. “But I know enough.” He was close, much too close, taking up all the air in the stable. And hot—he was making the room seem so hot and dark and… intimate. “I know that you have the devil’s own temper, Lucinda. That you’re brave to the point of madness, and that you gasp with pleasure when I touch you… here.” His finger dipped into the hollow at the base of her throat and traced a delicate line along the fragile bow of her collarbone.
Lords of the Isles Page 164