Incipient tears burned at the backs of her eyes, but she’d die before she broke down and wept in front of this array of coldhearted strangers. Of them all, only Rosamund showed her any true sympathy.
After a struggle, she said, “You must not blame Lord Davenport. He has acted with the utmost nobility throughout our association. But I quite see how it might look to the outside world. I was so desperate to get to London, I did not consider all of the ramifications of the journey.”
She lifted her chin. “If it were not for your neglect, Lord deVere, and that of my brothers, I should not have been driven to this pass. No doubt you think I did wrong to travel to London with Lord Davenport. I can only say that remaining at Wrotham Grange would have been worse.”
She caught Davenport’s eye and held his gaze. “I cannot be sorry for my actions, foolhardy though they might seem in retrospect. Thank you, my lord, for your efforts on my behalf. I only regret the trouble I have caused you and your family.”
* * *
Fury descended before Davenport’s vision like a red haze. How dare deVere make such filthy accusations against Honey?
He’d thought he had himself well under control, but the valiant speech she made tore at what passed for his heart.
The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. “My dear Miss deVere, there is no need for such tragedy. If my relations and yours are convinced I have compromised you, there is only one way to make amends. We must set a date.”
There was a collective gasp. Everyone pinned their attention on Honey, who stood frozen in place.
She eyed him as if he’d run mad. On the contrary, now that he’d committed himself he enjoyed a moment of sheer, blinding clarity. This was the only way to keep her in London. They’d pretend to be engaged.
“A—a date?” said Honey, all at sea.
He took no offense at her bewilderment. His own nearest and dearest seemed rather befuddled by this sudden attack of decency. Cecily and Rosamund regarded him with their eyes wide and their jaws slightly dropped. Even Montford appeared a little more pinched around his aristocratic nostrils than usual.
“For the wedding,” Davenport explained, beginning to rather enjoy himself. “In fact, there is quite a romantic story to all of this.” He smiled down at Honey. “Why don’t you tell them, my dear?”
The girl’s eyelids fluttered as if she might faint. In a wavering voice, she said, “Oh. Well…” She swallowed hard. “But my lord, you relate the circumstances so much better than I ever could.”
“Never say the two of you are engaged!” Rosamund exclaimed.
“But this is too fantastical,” said Lady Arden. “How comes this about?”
Honey gasped like a landed salmon and flapped her hands a little, so he manfully threw himself into the breach once more.
“You see, Miss deVere’s mother and mine were bosom bows. They arranged the match between them long ago.”
He couldn’t recall what the Devil Honey’s mother’s name was, but it made no odds. He was quite likely to forget such details even if the tale were true.
Fortunately, Lady Arden directed the obvious question to Honey herself. “Who is your mama, child?”
“Marigold Waterstone is—was—my mother’s maiden name,” faltered Honey, her eyes wild. “She … she died. Almost ten years ago, now.”
“Marigold Waterstone,” repeated Lady Arden slowly. “Yes, now I recall. You have the look of her, my dear.”
“So I’m told,” said Honey with an agonized glance at Davenport.
He took her hand, which lay, unresisting and cold, in his. Her creamy skin had turned pale. He trusted she wouldn’t faint. “My mother and Miss deVere’s mama settled it between them that we should be betrothed when we were older.”
“Why have I never heard anything about this?” demanded Cecily, who had at last found her voice.
Montford tilted his head. “Nothing in your parents’ effects suggested such an alliance had been made.”
However, Montford knew as well as Davenport that the former earl and his countess were prone to making unilateral arrangements for their progeny without documenting them, as in Cecily’s case.
Davenport smiled. “I knew of the arrangement from my earliest years. But then, of course, my parents were killed in a carriage accident before the betrothal could be formalized.”
Suddenly Hilary’s hand tugged and whisked from his clasp. She took a deep, shaky breath and he waited with a delicious kind of anticipation to see if she’d throw cold water on his ruse.
She gave a tremulous smile. “W-when Lord Davenport and I met by chance, it was as if Fate had brought us together, and I—we—realized our union was meant to be. We wished to keep our engagement secret while I came to know him a little and enjoyed my come-out, but now…”
She spread her hands and said brightly, “Surprise!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The company was quite dazed by the end of this thrilling recital. Davenport thought they’d brushed through it remarkably well. Now he needed to get Honey alone without delay so he could make it clear to her he had no intention of actually going through with the marriage itself.
He’d taken a drastic measure to save her from returning to the Grange, but what else could he have done? DeVere had as good as called Honey a trollop, accusing them of fornicating all the way to London.
If he had any sense of chivalry, he’d have thought of this before. He’d known as soon as they were obliged to spend the night on the road without Trixie they were taking a risk.
Still, he was damned if he’d marry any lady purely to satisfy deVere’s overweening ambition. Once Honey had enjoyed her month in Town, they’d call the whole thing off. By then, she was sure to have cut a swath through the eligible bachelors of the ton.
The thought gave him pause. He wasn’t entirely sure he liked the notion of her pursuing other gentlemen while supposedly engaged to him. He’d have to warn her to be discreet.
“One thing I ought to mention,” he said, “is that we agreed the betrothal should be kept secret for the time being.”
He essayed a fond look at his new betrothed. “I want Miss deVere to enjoy her season to the full while we become rather better acquainted. Should she decide that we don’t suit, or if she receives a more advantageous offer—”
Cecily snorted. “More advantageous than the Earl of Davenport?”
“Ah. You flatter me, dear sister.” Thank God Hilary deVere’s notions of eligibility were not the same as the rest of society’s.
He continued. “Regardless, I wish you all to keep this strictly to yourselves. As you have no doubt observed, we were wholly unacquainted before two days ago. It might be that Miss deVere will change her mind when presented with the choices a London season has to offer.”
“Then she’d be a fool,” said Cecily, narrowing her eyes. “She does not look like a fool to me.”
Before he could defend her, Hilary spoke up, her cheeks a trifle flushed. “I agree with Lord Davenport. I would also like the betrothal to be kept secret. In fact, I insist upon it.”
And wasn’t that the greatest compliment he’d ever received? Despite her untenable position, Hilary deVere didn’t wish to marry him any more than he wished to marry her. Regardless of his desperate desire to remain disentangled, her eagerness for secrecy struck him as just plain insulting.
“Bollocks,” said deVere, slapping his thigh. “You’re betrothed or you’re not. This business of keeping it secret won’t wash.”
“My dear sir,” drawled Lady Arden. “I beg leave to tell you that your language belongs in the gutter. Along,” she added, “with your linen and that coat.”
DeVere muttered something under his breath, but under Lady Arden’s haughty stare he subsided.
Hilary said, “Yes, we will keep it secret, and if anyone asks me if it’s true that we’re engaged, I’ll certainly tell them it’s no such thing.”
She turned to Cecily. “So you needn’t fear
your brother has been trapped, Your Grace. I know it must seem like that, but I assure you it is not.”
“My dear Miss deVere, I cannot imagine what you think I have to say in the matter of your marriage to my brother,” said Cecily with the kind of cool indifference that made Davenport want to turn her over his knee.
“Quite a lot, I imagine,” responded Honey quietly. “I can see you are fond of each other.”
“Fond? Of this termagant?” Davenport shook his head. “Must have me confused with someone else.”
The Duchess of Ashburn most improperly stuck her tongue out at him and then they both broke into laughter. Her eyes twinkling merrily up at him, she said softly, “What a cawker you are, my dear.”
“Children, children! Behave.” Rosamund, ever the peacemaker, steered them back on course, and soon the conversation turned to preparing Miss deVere for the season.
Stars sparkled in Honey’s eyes as the discussion moved deeper into the waters of fashion and balls and the myriad delights of the ton. Watching her drinking in the glittering world Rosamund revealed, ably assisted by Lady Arden, Davenport struggled to harden his heart.
Honey could have her season, but he needed her promise that she’d break off the engagement before the wedding was due to take place. There was no way he’d actually marry her.
While the other ladies probed his betrothed for more information about this whirlwind courtship, his sister drew him aside.
With a gleam of humor, she said, “You got yourself into this, dear brother. Now how are you going to get yourself out?”
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “What in the world makes you think I wish to get out?”
“You might play your cards close to your chest, but I know you. You’d no notion of changing your ways and settling down when you left London. You cannot have altered that much in a matter of days.”
“But weren’t you telling me only recently about love’s transformative effect?” murmured Davenport.
“And that’s another thing,” said Cecily, ignoring the frivolous interjection. “Only one night is accounted for in your romantic tale of rescue. But you were gone for two.”
His mouth quirked in a cynical smile. “So you were in on the kidnapping plot, were you?”
“It was my idea. I needed help with the execution, of course.” Cecily threw up her hands. “We had to do something, or you would have been forced to marry Lady Maria. Yarmouth was making all sorts of veiled insinuations in that odiously unctuous, smiling way of his until Montford stepped in. Whatever else she may be, Lady Maria is not some round-heeled tavern wench, Jonathon. She’s a lady and Lord Yarmouth is a powerful man. You ought not to have seduced her. And now, just when we’d saved you from that catastrophe, you’ve gone and landed yourself in the suds again.”
“I didn’t seduce Lady Maria,” he said. “And it doesn’t become you in the least to talk that way, Cec, let me tell you.”
He hadn’t succeeded in seducing Lady Maria when he’d been shipped off to the country willy-nilly. Or rather, she hadn’t succeeded in seducing him. Despite her gentle birth and her demure demeanor, the girl was a consummate tease, with far more experience in dalliance than her adoring father knew.
Well, she could forget her ambitions to snare a tarnished earl.
At this moment, he could not quite remember what the point had been to chasing Lady Maria. Last night, he’d realized he’d never even liked her very much.
Not that any of it was Cecily’s business. “Stay out of my affairs, sister mine.”
“Yes, I see you brought me fit punishment for my meddling.” She flicked a glance at Honey.
He frowned down at her. “You are quite wrong about her, you know. Miss deVere is a woman after your own heart.”
That caught her attention. “How do you mean?”
“In the course of our acquaintance, she has pushed me off a horse, dumped water over my head, and punched me in the jaw.”
He passed a hand over the jaw in question, which had now lost its tenderness from his cousins’ pummeling. Honey’s slap had more fury than power behind it and she’d missed, but still, the sentiment was the same.
Cecily gave a ladylike snort of laughter and her dark eyes gleamed. “Did she, indeed? Well, it appears there is more to this Miss deVere than meets the eye. I reserve judgment on her character, but I still do not believe you wish for this marriage.”
That he most certainly did not.
While he exchanged a few words with Montford and Lady Arden, he wondered if Honey understood why he’d stipulated that the betrothal be kept secret. Though he’d tried to get her alone so he could make his stance clear on the point of their eventual nuptials, he couldn’t get near her once the announcement was made. The women corralled her between them.
The conversation had turned to fashion as it so often did when Cecily and Rosamund put their heads together. They deemed it vital to cart Hilary off to Bond Street without delay.
And didn’t deVere look like the cat in the cream pot? This was what he’d been angling for all along with those accusations of illicit behavior, the old Devil.
DeVere’s rumbling growl cut through the female twittering. “Miss deVere will not be staying here, so you can forget about your plans for this afternoon.”
Rosamund turned to him with a supercilious lift of her brows. “I assure you, sir, I am more than happy to accommodate my cousin’s future bride.”
Keep her under scrutiny, more like, thought Davenport, eyeing his female relatives warily.
That was the trouble with women. They were so mercurial. One minute, they looked daggers at the girl; the next, they were bound and determined to take her shopping.
“Don’t make no odds if you’re happy,” grunted deVere, heaving his big frame out of the chair. “I am the girl’s guardian and I say who chaperones her while she’s in London.”
He jabbed a finger at Hilary. “The wedding will be one month from today. One month is all you get for your precious season, my girl. Then you’ll be shackled to his lordship all right and tight.”
The light in Honey’s eyes dimmed a little, but she bowed her head submissively and made a dutiful curtsy. “Yes, my lord.”
She was a bundle of suppressed excitement. Even this setback did not seem to bother her unduly.
“Yes, my lord,” mimicked deVere nastily. “You’ll stay with Mrs. Henry Walker. She’s a deVere by birth, some sort of cousin of mine. She will bring you out in society.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tenderhearted Rosamund was clearly troubled by this exchange. She addressed deVere, her tone frigid. “May we not entertain Miss deVere to tea today, at least?”
DeVere folded his arms. “No. I’m taking her to Mrs. Walker directly.”
Rosamund looked to the Duke of Montford, but he made no move to intervene in this scheme. He watched Honey intently. The Devil only knew what conclusions he drew about her and the reasons for this betrothal.
Davenport might have argued with deVere’s high-handedness, but he didn’t. He wasn’t acquainted with Mrs. Walker. He’d have to find out how suitable the lady was to act as Hilary’s chaperone—and how he might circumvent that matron’s watchful eye. He needed to get Honey alone, and Rosamund had proven herself far too vigilant a chaperone for his liking.
Seeing no help forthcoming from her male relatives, Rosamund took Honey’s hands and squeezed them. “You’ll come to us often, won’t you? Do not look so downcast, my dear. You will have a wonderful time in London. We’ll see to it that you are invited everywhere, won’t we, Cecily?”
“Yes, indeed,” Cecily murmured with a glance at deVere that signaled a clear challenge.
Amazing how little it had taken for Cecily to change her mind about Miss deVere. No sooner had she heard about Honey’s mistreatment of Davenport than she’d formed a favorable, if tentative, opinion of the chit.
He needed to speak with Honey before this all went too far. “I’ll call on you when you’re settled,�
�� he told her as he took his leave.
After the cornucopia of delights the ladies had laid out for her, not even the prospect of Mrs. Walker’s dubious chaperonage could dampen Honey’s enthusiasm.
“I’ll look forward to it,” she said, smiling, giving him her hand.
She glowed up at him as if he’d hung the moon and stars for her, and a curious warmth spread through his chest. Her expression was so much in the manner of a lady regarding her sweetheart that he had to get a firm grip on himself to stop from falling into those honey brown eyes.
If anything had put that look on her face, he reminded himself, it was the prospect of a London season, not him.
The syrupy warmth turned to a burn of chagrin. His resolve hardened as he bowed over her hand.
Honey. His Honey was getting the dearest wish of her heart, just as he’d promised. Now, he would claim his reward. It was time to take all of that sweetness and softness and make it his own.
* * *
When Davenport reached his own house that afternoon, his cousins were waiting for him in his book room. Obviously, they’d caught wind of the news. At this rate, the whole of London would know about his fake betrothal by the evening.
“Davenport.” Beckenham nodded a greeting. Absentmindedly he passed his palm over a series of contusions that mirrored Davenport’s own, then ran his fingers through his closely cropped black hair.
Lydgate, impeccably attired in blue superfine, high shirt points, and snowy cravat, lounged elegantly in a deep overstuffed armchair. His classical features were marred by bruising around one of his startlingly blue eyes.
“But how remiss of me, Lydgate,” Davenport drawled. “You need another black eye to go with the one I gave you. I know how you like everything to match.”
“Pax,” said Lydgate, holding up a well-manicured hand in a gesture of peace. “I haven’t been able to show my phiz abroad since you rearranged it, Cousin. I’m in no mind to spill any more blood on your account.”
“We hear you are to be congratulated,” said Xavier, emerging from the shadows. The only one of them without a mark on his face.
London's Last True Scoundrel Page 17