Lady Windermere's Lover

by Miranda Neville

  “Lower your fists, Windermere,” she snapped. “And you, Denford. I will not have any fighting in my house.”

  Damian did as he was bid, though his stance remained tense. He pierced her with a bright, unwavering regard. She was glad to see him tense and emotionally overwrought with not a hint of unnatural calm.

  “Now sit down like civilized creatures,” she said, “instead of a pair of snarling hounds leaping for each other’s throats, and you can tell me what this is about.”

  Julian relaxed onto his heels, hands behind his back, a faint smile twisting his mouth. “By all means. Why not ring for tea and cakes while we are at it?”

  Damian took her elbow and turned her toward the door. “Please leave us, my lady. I shall deal with Denford, and then we will talk. In private.”

  “No,” she said, shaking him off. “You were discussing me when I came in and I have a right to hear it.”

  “Certainly you do,” Julian said. “It concerns you intimately.” What mischief had he caused before he made his outrageous offer? “I want to marry you.”

  “What?” She backed away from both men. “That’s absurd. In case you haven’t noticed, I am already wed.”

  “That’s why I need to speak to your husband about a divorce.”

  Divorce! Typical of Julian, he spoke as though he’d asked for nothing so very unusual. She’d only ever heard of anything so shocking and had no idea how a marriage could be dissolved. It was the kind of thing ladies whispered about in horror.

  “Do you want to ruin me?” she asked furiously.

  “On the contrary. I want to take you away from your ungrateful lout of a husband and cherish you as you deserve. We’ll go abroad.” Julian’s blue eyes flashed. He was enjoying the confrontation.

  She scowled at him and turned to Damian, who was red in the face as though about to have a seizure. “And you, my lord? What do you think of this proposal?”

  “There has never been a divorce in my family and there never will be.”

  Wrong answer. “I see. You married me for an estate and want to keep me to prevent a scandal. And because another man wants me. You’re nothing but a dog in the manger.”

  “You’re very busy with the canine metaphors today,” Julian remarked.

  “Be quiet,” she said through clenched teeth. “You’ve caused quite enough trouble. I think you should leave.”

  “I’ll leave if you come with me,” Julian said. His dark, sardonic presence intimidated some, but to her, today, he was merely annoying.

  She turned to the man who could make her bones melt with a look or a touch. “Well, my lord. What do you have to say?” Silently she begged him to ask her to stay, to show that she was more than a piece of property he refused to give up. Julian was right about one thing: She did deserve to be cherished. But the wrong man had offered.

  Damian wasn’t getting the message. Once again he steered her toward the door. “Please, my lady. Leave us so that I can get on with giving Denford the beating he’s been asking for these last seven years.” Without waiting for an answer, he left her standing and launched himself at the duke, knocking over a fire screen on the way and catching Julian by surprise. The two of them landed on the carpet in a tangle of limbs, accompanied by grunts, bangs, and a good deal of swearing.

  She had had enough. “I’m leaving,” she said, though she doubted they heard her. “I was invited to spend Christmas at Castleton House and I have decided, belatedly, to accept the invitation.” She didn’t care if she never saw either of them again.

  Chapter 19

  By the time they fought each other to a standstill, everything hurt. Damian sat on the floor, inhaling great gulping breaths, sure that every inch of his body was bruised. Julian was in the same condition, panting heavily, his long hair, which Damian remembered pulling in violation of all gentlemanly rules, failing to disguise one eye swollen shut. He put a hand to his own aching nose and found blood.

  It had been a messy fight. They used to fence together but neither had been fond of boxing.

  “Why did you do it?” Damian asked. He didn’t have to explain the question. Kicks, bites, gouges, and flailing fists had cut through the accumulating detritus of seven years of enmity and brought them back to the evening at Cruikshank’s gaming house. “You urged me to wager Beaulieu.”

  “No one forced you.” A fat lip muffled Julian’s words.

  “You took me home.”

  “That’s what a friend does. Should I have left you passed out in a corner?”

  Damian closed his eyes and relived the fetid atmosphere of the Pall Mall hell, the odor of tallow, sweat, vomit, and desperation. “Better than leaving Robert alone. You could have guessed what he would do. I trusted you.”

  Julian avoided his eye, as he had the day after when he delivered the news that Robert had lost the deed to Beaulieu to a well-known cardsharp. “I didn’t think Robert would wager your property. I’m sorry.” And Damian didn’t believe him now, any more than he had at the time.

  “Admit it, Julian. You knew there was a chance he’d lose it. Damnation, even drunk as a wheelbarrow I would have known it. The only reason I didn’t was that I was unconscious. No friend of mine would have left Robert alone.”

  “I’ve committed many sins. Believe it or not, Damian, failing to protect your handsome little inheritance from the depredations of our demented friend is not the worst thing I’ve done, or the worst thing I’ve seen, by a very long way.”

  “What kind of an excuse is that? I ask you one more time, why did you do it?” The question had hovered at the back of his mind for years, tormenting him whenever he thought of his loss, the loss of Beaulieu and of friendship. “Did you resent me? That’s it, isn’t it? You were jealous because I came into my fortune and you had nothing. And yet,” he added bitterly, “I would have shared it with you. You had only to ask. We were like brothers.”

  “Were you going to give me half your estate? I don’t think so. The world doesn’t work like that. You and Robert were born with everything, you especially. Marcus and I had nothing. Every penny in our purses, every thread on our backs, had to be begged or earned. I’m sorry about Beaulieu because I know it was important to you, but its loss didn’t ruin you. You still had your title and Amblethorpe and the connections to succeed as a diplomat. When you took away the Maddox collection you set me back years. I failed you, Damian, but you failed me too. I returned from France and found you and Robert still playing at being rich boys. And why not? That’s what you were. But I had seen terrible things in Paris and I was no longer in the mood for playing.”

  “What happened? We knew you must have seen the Terror and the public executions by guillotine. When I asked you about it you put me off with satirical jests. If you were so troubled, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because talking changes nothing. Look at us now. We’ve spoken about our differences but it hasn’t made them go away.”

  “Talking may not have. Perhaps fighting helped. You’re going to have a hell of a black eye tomorrow.” Damian shifted again, trying to find a way to rest that didn’t hurt. Gingerly he used his handkerchief to dab at his nose, which seemed to have stopped bleeding. “I think you may have broken my nose.”

  “We are an insult to the noble art of pugilism,” Julian said.

  On one level Damian wanted to laugh, but while the fight had drained his poisonous rage, it left him with a new anxiety. When Cynthia left the room she’d said something he’d been too drunk on bloodlust to comprehend. He pulled himself onto his knees. “Can you walk?”

  “Can you?”

  Swaying, Damian managed to get onto his feet. “Yes. I’ll send a servant to show you out, if you need help.”

  “What, no lovely lady to tenderly bathe my wounds?”

  The fight hadn’t made Julian less provocative. “If that’s a reference to my wife, you are right. Talking makes no difference.”

  “I assume that means you are rejecting my offer.”

&nb
sp; “You assume correctly.”

  “So dear Prince Heinrich won’t be getting his pictures.”

  “Prince Heinrich can go drown himself in the North Sea for all I care.”

  “Tsk, tsk. Such lack of regard for the future of Great Britain, let alone your own future with the Foreign Office.” Julian, who had also risen, retrieved his ebony walking stick from the floor behind a chair. For once, he genuinely needed its support. “So lucky you have a good estate and a rich wife and can afford to kiss a career good-bye.”

  Damian discovered that even grinding his teeth hurt. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t be seeing my wife again.”

  “Which is where we came in. You know I don’t respond well to threats, my dear Damian.”

  “Fine. Let me try a statement of fact. Cynthia is my wife, and I am keeping her.”

  “You may certainly try. If she hasn’t already left you. But you still have Beaulieu and that’s all you care about.”

  Cynthia had said something about Beaulieu too, before she left. You married me for an estate. Everyone thought so because it was, of course, true. But not anymore. If he lost Beaulieu tomorrow, along with every penny of Chorley’s fortune, he’d still want her. As Julian was intelligent enough to notice, his wife was beautiful, clever, and kind. Damian was supremely fortunate to have married her, but instead of telling her so, he’d lost his temper and ranted about scandal.

  Damian tore out into the hall, where Ellis was in the act of closing the front door.

  The butler stared at him. “Ahem, my lord. I had thought it better not to interrupt the—er—contretemps in the library but perhaps I was wrong. Should I summon a physician?”

  “Where is Her Ladyship?” Damian shouted.

  “I just handed her into the traveling chaise, my lord. She said you were aware that the Duchess of Castleton had summoned her suddenly.”

  He hobbled through the door and stood on the front steps clutching his bruised ribs as he watched Cynthia’s carriage disappear into Brook Street. A worse pain afflicted his heart at the thought of losing her.

  “I’m going to join Her Ladyship,” he told Ellis. “I’ll travel post. Send a footman to the inn. No, never mind, I’ll ride. Organize a horse and send my valet up to me.”

  “Are you well enough, my lord?” Ellis asked. He must look like a savage with hair awry and a bloody nose.

  “I’m fine. I am also in a hurry.” He stopped on the stairs. “Did Her Ladyship travel alone?”

  “Of course not, my lord. She took a footman and her maid. And the kitten, Pudge.” Damian’s heart sank. If she intended to leave him for good she wouldn’t abandon her pet.

  As he washed his face, which had survived the battle unmarred aside from the nosebleed, his valet fussed.

  “Never mind that. Put my shaving gear and a change of linen into a saddlebag. If I’m not back with Her Ladyship tomorrow, I’ll send for you and my trunks.”

  When he even thought about failing to change her mind he suffered a panic that numbed all physical pain and left a single, bright truth. He burned for his wife with a passion that excluded any other concern. Nothing else mattered.

  It was bitter cold and starting to drizzle but with luck he ought to overtake the carriage before she’d covered even half of the thirty-mile journey. Dame Fortune teased but did not abandon him. An overturned cart, an argumentative toll keeper, and a flock of sheep delayed him a little. On the other hand he learned that Cynthia’s chaise had passed the tollgate at Hounslow. He was on the right road and not far behind.

  As the miles passed, his aches and pains became harder to ignore. He vowed never again to undertake a lengthy journey on horseback after a hard fight. Or maybe he should avoid fighting, though that might prove difficult while Julian, Duke of Denford, remained on earth. Their conversation had solved nothing between them. His one consolation was that Cynthia, in fleeing London, had left Denford too. As the countryside opened up and the traffic grew lighter, he was able to progress from a trot to a canter, much easier on his bruises. But away from the heat of the metropolis, a light rain turned to sleet and then a steady snowfall. Passing an abandoned coach that had slid off the slippery road, he prayed she’d had the good sense to stop at an inn.

  He inquired at every inn in Staines but to no avail, wasting precious minutes. Snow coated his hat and shoulders; his sore nose risked the added indignity of frostbite. He was forced to slow his mount to a walk as the road disappeared in a coating of white, so that he could no longer see ruts or holes. The beast would need to be rested soon, even if the early winter dusk wasn’t looming. Surely Cynthia couldn’t be too far ahead, and if she was he’d have to speak sharply to his coachman for putting his mistress in danger.

  Blinded by the swirling snow, he didn’t see the smart blue carriage before he almost rode into it. He’d ordered the new vehicle when he’d become betrothed, thinking then that he would stay in England and settle down with his new bride, before he’d escaped to Persia in dismay. How he wished he’d stayed, for many reasons, one of which was that he would not now be dealing with a wife, servants, and equipage in a snowstorm that looked fit to rival a Russian buran.

  Drawing his mount alongside the stalled chaise, he pulled open the door. “What do you mean, going out in this weather?” he demanded, relief making him surly. He addressed the sole occupant of the carriage, who was not, he realized with stark horror, his wife. “Where is Her Ladyship?” The maid gaped and pointed to the open door on the other side. “What the devil? Are you mad, Cynthia?” he called. “Get back in immediately.” There was no sight or sound of her.

  “Is that you, my lord?” The coachman, on foot, looked up at him.

  “Yes, Harrison, it is. Why did you stop? I would have hoped you had the sense to take shelter by now.”

  “Yes, my lord. I wanted to stop at Staines but Her Ladyship said to go a little farther. With the snow getting deeper I reckoned I’d better lead the horses. We’re less than a mile from Egham now.”

  “Very good. Now where is Her Ladyship?”

  “Excuse me, my lord,” said the maid. “A minute ago, when we stopped, my lady opened the door and the kitten escaped. She went after it and I was about to go after her.”

  The encounter was degenerating into farce and Damian was not amused. He dismounted, handed the reins to Harrison, and strode around the carriage in the direction the maid had indicated. “Cynthia!” he shouted over wind whistling through trees invisible in the swirling white fury. Nothing. He yelled louder and thought he heard a faint cry. Following the sound he swore under his breath as his boots slid on the grassy edge, almost casting him into the ditch. Only a dozen feet away he found her sprawled on the ground. “Are you hurt?”

  “Damian! What are you doing here?” At least she wasn’t unconscious. “I slipped.”

  “Not surprising when you go walking in the snow. Can you get up?”

  “Not without dropping Pudge. She won’t stop wriggling.”

  “Give her to me.” He leaned over and took the creature, who protested piteously when he thrust her into the capacious side pocket of his greatcoat, and reached down a hand to pull Pudge’s owner upright.

  “I’m not hurt,” she said. “Just wet and cold.”

  “That’s your own fault. Now hurry. You can ride with me to the inn.”

  He settled into the saddle with Cynthia secure in his arms, took the reins, and headed forward, praying to make it to safety without wandering off the road or laming the horse. It seemed likely to be the longest less-than-a-mile of his life.

  He’d come after her. She didn’t know why. But if he was going to be so unpleasant, he would have done better to remain in London.

  As she lay winded in the road, his voice had called through the freezing misery and she’d thought for a minute that she’d died, which was odd because things hadn’t seemed to have reached such a desperate state in the short time since she’d left the carriage. But while a soul on the spiritual plane might
imagine her husband’s voice, being clawed by a kitten was a distinctly living experience. So was snow down the back of her neck.

  “You’re a fool to set out on a journey in this kind of weather,” he said brusquely, after he and the coachman bundled her onto his horse without so much as a by-your-leave. She felt helpless, little stronger than her kitten. Her cloak, warm enough for a carriage, was not designed for rescues in the snow and was soaked through.

  “I didn’t know it was going to snow, did I?” she complained through chattering teeth. “How convenient it would be if the newspaper printed a daily forecasting of climatic conditions in different parts of the country.”

  “It’s the middle of winter. You should have guessed.”

  “It hasn’t snowed a single flake all month.”

  They were arguing about the weather.

  She stiffened when he tried to draw her closer against his chest. “Keep still. This will be warmer.” He adjusted his heavy coat to protect her from the wind.

  “Why did you follow me?” she asked sullenly.

  “Why did you bring the kitten? A carriage journey is no place for a cat.”

  “She was perfectly good.”

  “Until she escaped and nearly killed you.”

  “She thought we’d arrived. And I was fine.” Her shivers belied the claim.

  “Oh yes, fine indeed. Lying in the ditch where you might have frozen to death if I hadn’t turned up.”

  “Harrison would have helped me.”

  “You have no business endangering yourself and my servants.”

  “I suppose you’re worried about the carriage too.” The anger that had driven her out of London lingered although he had responded the way she wanted. He’d come after her. Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop the pointless sniping.

  “Certainly. It’s only a year old.”

  “What have you done with my cat?”

  “Warm and snug in my pocket. She’s probably fallen asleep.” His voice turned gentle, with a note of humor, and her indignation slipped away. She’d left because she wanted him to want her. Wasn’t chasing her on horseback through a storm a step in the right direction? She relaxed and rested her cheek against his chest “We’ll get you warm and snug too, very soon,” he promised.