“We both know what you are, Ravenscroft.” Her father’s voice was dark, void of the irrational amusement the earl seemed to derive from the situation. “Now kindly get the hell away from my daughter so that I can take her home where she belongs.”
Clara longed for home, but home was not and never could be the Belgravia mansion where she lived with her father, stepmother, and their growing brood of children. It had been years since she’d last seen Virginia, her beloved homeland. After tonight, her chances to ever see it again were almost certainly dashed. Her father would lock her in her chamber until she agreed to marry the next florid duke in need of her marriage settlement.
“Afraid I’ll ruin her?” The earl’s voice was cocky. Goading. “Perhaps that’s already been done, old boy. I suppose you didn’t think of that in your haste, did you? My hands are quite quick, and I know my way around a lady’s skirts.”
She stilled in the unattainable feat of righting her corset and decided to simply do her buttons instead, just as quickly as her fingers could fly over the small fabric-covered discs. An almost feral sound emanated from her father, so great was his rage. Mercy, why would the earl say such a thing? Did he intend to ruin her thoroughly before rejecting her? He was unpredictable enough, perhaps even cruel enough, to enact such a misguided sense of retribution.
“If you touched her, I’ll put a bullet in your miserable hide. Don’t doubt that I will,” her father warned.
Clara settled the final button into place and stepped out from behind Ravenscroft, praying she didn’t look as thoroughly kissed and debauched as she felt. “Father, please do calm down.”
“I touched her.” Ravenscroft issued the statement conversationally, as though he were imparting a fascinating on dit. “More than touched her, if you must know. Will you shoot me now, or wait to take a better aim? Will you shoot to maim, Whitney, or will you shoot to kill? The mind reels with the possibilities.”
Mad, Clara decided. The earl was, without question, utterly mad. She gawped at him. He was handsome and elegant, as cool and charming as he’d be in any ballroom. And yet, he had just admitted the unthinkable to her father, a man with the barrel of a firearm trained on his heart.
“You miserable cur.” Her father’s expression was filled with more rage than she’d imagined possible. He spared her a quick glance as if to ascertain that she had not been unduly physically harmed before pinning Ravenscroft with his glare once more. “Where I will shoot you depends a great deal on what you say and do next, Ravenscroft.”
Clara stepped in front of the earl, shielding him. If there was one thing she had come to know about her father, it was that he meant what he said. If he threatened the earl with bodily harm, he was deadly serious. And it was her fault that the earl faced the end of a Colt now, wasn’t it?
“Father, this is a dreadful misunderstanding. I’ll go with you. Please, do put the gun away. His lordship has done nothing wrong.” Not precisely true, that. But what could she expect from a man of his reputation when she had barged into his home alone? And she had been a more than willing participant.
“Step away from him, Clara.” Her father’s jaw clenched. He lowered the revolver to his side but didn’t seem inclined to holster it.
“Come, darling.” The earl sidestepped her and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her against him. “You needn’t defend me. The fault is all mine, is it not? It was I who asked you here. I who couldn’t wait another moment to have you in my arms.”
What in heaven’s name? Clara stared at his chiseled profile. He didn’t appear mad, rather the opposite in fact. He exuded an ease, a calm charm that was at odds with the situation. Did he think somehow to protect her by feigning culpability for her disastrous plan? If that was his aim, she had to put an end to it.
“My lord, this isn’t necessary.” She was responsible for her own unwise actions. She’d face her father’s wrath. She’d answer for her sins, since it seemed she couldn’t atone for them.
“But it is, it would seem, my sweet little dove, for your sire has rendered it so with the honor of his presence and the commotion he’s made with his…” The earl allowed his words to trail away in indolence for a moment, as though he were the one in control of the state in which they now found themselves uncomfortably mired. He made a fluid gesture toward the Colt. “With his armament.”
“It’s a decision maker, you rotten scoundrel.” Her father’s eyes narrowed. “You can decide to remove your hands from my daughter, or I’ll maim you. I’m a former soldier, sir. Don’t think my aim isn’t exceptional.”
Clara’s mouth felt painfully dry. Dear Lord, there was no way her father would dare to shoot the earl, was there? He raised the revolver once more, training it on Ravenscroft’s left foot. Clara attempted to slip from the earl’s grasp so that she could shield him again, but he held her fast. What was he about? He had dismissed her offer with arrogant disdain. Had told her he would never marry her, not even for a handsome portion of her marriage settlement. And then, he had kissed her, touched her, placed his mouth upon her most sensitive and forbidden places. Now, he seemed almost to be her champion.
“Would you maim your future son-in-law, Mr. Whitney?” Ravenscroft’s question cut through her whirling thoughts. “It seems unwise, as it would not only possibly make your daughter the object of all manner of scurrilous gossip but also invite the law to come down upon you. Just think of what would happen, sir, if you should kill me while my babe is in your daughter’s womb and she hasn’t even yet enjoyed the benefit of marriage to me.”
Her father’s expression, Clara was sure, mirrored her own. Stunned shock warring with disbelief. She may be an unwed lady, untutored in much of the pleasures of the flesh, but even she was not ignorant enough to believe that anything which had transpired between them would have gotten her with child.
“My lord,” she protested, attempting another escape from his grasp.
His fingers tightened on her waist, telling her with actions what he hadn’t told her with words. This man was not letting her go. Had he decided that her offer was worthwhile after all? Could it be?
“Hush, darling Clara.” He looked down at her now, and she didn’t like what she saw at all. He appeared hard, his blue eyes dark and cold, his beautiful mouth pulled taut in a grim frown, all harsh angles and a sense of foreboding. His words suggested that of a lovelorn suitor. His gorgeous face, however, showed nothing of the kind. “I am sorry that I’ve compromised you so completely. Sorrier still that your father has had to learn the news in such an undesirable manner. But the damage is done, and it cannot be mended. We’ll need to wed as soon as I can acquire a license.”
“You’ve compromised her?” Her father lowered the revolver again. His expression was even more grim than the earl’s. “We can keep the details of this night a secret. No one ever need be the wiser, Ravenscroft. How much for your silence?”
Clara couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been outwitted by the sinfully handsome earl. He was quick and complex, a rattlesnake, yes. It would seem he had chosen to strike. “But you didn’t compromise me, Lord Ravenscroft.”
“Darling.” He drew her to him and pressed a kiss between her brows, as though he were besotted. He didn’t fool her for an instant. “You are far too innocent to understand that I have.” He looked back to her father once more. “I have no price, Mr. Whitney, that will buy my silence. I’m afraid it will be marriage to your daughter or nothing else. I’m in love with her, you see, and she is in love with me as well. Is that not right, my darling?”
Misgiving filled her. Not one bit of her plan had unfolded as she’d so meticulously strategized. Yet now, the earl was giving her precisely what she wanted. The opportunity to marry so that she could leave England forever after she received her marriage settlement. The lush magnolias and verdant fields of her youth called to her now. Home was suddenly within reach.
“Yes.” She trained her gaze on her father, not without a pang of sympathy for him. She had
grown to love him over the past few years, but he was inflexible on the one thing that meant the most to her—returning to Virginia. “Father, I am in love with Lord Ravenscroft. I wish to wed him as expediently as possible.”
“What makes you think I’ll give you even a shilling, you misbegotten bastard?” Jesse Whitney demanded.
Julian sipped his brandy, still wishing for the easy obliteration of liquor that never seemed to find him. Miss Clara Whitney had been trundled home in her papa’s carriage, the better to protect his future wife from further scandal. Now he faced the angry father bear, who still looked inclined to take up his Colt revolver and send a bullet straight into Julian’s black heart. Perhaps it was well-deserved, especially given what he’d decided to do.
The tattered remnants of his conscience could bloody well go to hell and wait until his soul inevitably joined it there one day. He turned his mind to the task at hand.
“I merely expect the terms of the marriage settlement to be fair, Mr. Whitney. It stands to reason that a man doesn’t wish the daughter he loves to live in penury, without a roof over her head or bread in her mouth.” Julian shrugged. “I’m afraid I cannot provide her with the life she’s accustomed to living.”
Julian had no experience in angry fathers or dowries or the finer art of arranging marriage settlements. Angry husbands, he could ward off with his fists quite nattily. An unsavory business, this. But if he wanted to save himself and his sisters from ruin, he knew what needed to be done. He thought of Alexandra and Josephine, who certainly deserved to be spared the legacy of their father’s profligacy. The little Virginia termagant had been right.
“You seem to have forgotten something, Ravenscroft,” drawled Whitney, “I don’t have to allow her to wed you.”
By law, an heiress needed to reach one-and-twenty before she could marry without her parent or guardian’s permission. Apparently, his bride had not yet reached her majority. A bit young for his tastes, but he would make do with her, and the prospect wasn’t at all unappealing.
But there was also the possibility of her father refusing to provide a dowry or providing a marriage portion that was hers alone to control. He would need to proceed with caution, deftly maneuver Whitney into seeing things his way.
“Of course not, and yet there is, one must note, the matter of her possibly carrying my child.” He kept his tone mild. “If you wish her to give birth to a bastard and be forever ruined, I cannot change your mind. However, I can obtain a license and we can be married with such haste that no one will ever be the wiser should a child arise from our…indiscretion this evening.”
Julian wasn’t a man who was prone to prevarication. Nevertheless, he was currently and unabashedly engaged in an outright, utter lie to Clara Whitney’s father. Something had shifted inside him as he’d stared down the barrel of that revolver. It had all seemed rather serendipitous suddenly. He’d been on the brink of ruin, and into his study sailed a beautiful American heiress, ready to pluck him from the maws if he just played his cards properly.
He still had a price after all, it seemed.
But he wasn’t selling himself for one hundred thousand pounds. He was selling himself for a far greater amount, for Jesse Whitney’s wealth—even greater now that he had joined forces with Levi Storm of the North Atlantic Electric Company—was quite well known, even to Julian. After all, if Clara had been willing to part with one hundred thousand pounds, it stood to reason that there was a great deal more to be had. His little dove thought she’d bought him and was about to set sail for her homeland with the bulk of her marriage portion. Poor, sweet dove. She hadn’t realized he’d never agreed to her terms.
Whitney clenched both fists, his countenance rigid with his anger. The Colt stayed mercifully in its place for the moment. “You do realize the…possibility to which you allude is the sole reason I haven’t either already beaten you into oblivion or shot you dead where you sit, don’t you? I suppose you do. You don’t seem stupid, Ravenscroft. Merely lazy and greedy, which is why you decided to make poor Clara your unsuspecting prey. My daughter deserves far better than a lowly parasite who would ruin her to line his own pockets, goddamn it.”
Yes, she did. Julian couldn’t argue that point with Whitney, for no one deserved him, a man who had whored his body and pretty face since the age of fourteen. A man who had never done anything more important than bring misguided duchesses and countesses to shattering orgasm with his tongue. Ah, well. It was a skill, he supposed, making a woman come. Not every man could claim to do so, and certainly not as proficiently as he.
He considered the man who would be his father-in-law, who didn’t appear to be terribly advanced in years. Indeed, he’d wager they were somewhat of an age, which was deuced awkward. He’d guess old Whitney had about nine years on him. The man must’ve been little more than a stripling when he’d become a father.
“Mr. Whitney, I do so hate to dispel your assumption that I’m a fortune hunter who importuned your daughter, but I must correct you on that score.” Ha, what utter tripe. But he had to make his soliloquy convincing or he’d never get this boulder-headed American to give up his daughter or his coin. “We’ve fallen in love, you see, and tonight when I begged her to visit me, I had no intention of compromising her. I would never dream of causing her harm in any way. It was merely my love for her that—”
“Cease talking,” Whitney interrupted, his ire evident in his heavy drawl and the booming thunder of his voice. “Do you think me a bumbling fool, Lord Ravenscroft? Do you think your protestations of love will ever be believed by me? Oh, I have no doubt that your silver tongue charmed my sweet Clara. But it has no such effect upon me. I can see a hog’s turd for what it is.”
The man was as pugnacious as a prize fighter. Damn it.
“A hog’s turd, am I?” He made a great show of looking down at his person. “And here I thought myself a peer of the realm. An earl.”
“Titles mean nothing to me,” Whitney growled. “They aren’t the measure of a man.”
Well. This certainly would not be the first or the last time that someone had found him morally lacking. Hardly shocking. “I’m a man of reason, Mr. Whitney. I shall count your remarks as those of an overset father. Regardless of your opinion of me, I am the man who will marry your daughter. Do let us try to remain civil.”
“Civil is me refraining from shooting you.”
“But we are here to discuss the marriage settlement, are we not, and the marriage itself?” His head had begun thumping, and no amount of brandy could cure what ailed him. Best to tie up this matter neatly. “I can secure a license as quickly as possible. We will marry quietly. I propose a dowry of two hundred thousand pounds to refurbish the estates and provide your daughter with a standard of living to which she is accustomed and another hundred thousand pounds in stocks of North Atlantic Electric. Whatever else you decide to settle on her will be hers, free and unencumbered as the law states.”
“Son-of-a-bitch. You’ve been planning this, haven’t you?” Whitney’s hand was creeping back toward his revolver, which he’d holstered at his waist like a common outlaw.
Actually, his sweet little dove had planned it. Julian had merely turned the tables on her. She was a clever thing, he’d give her that, but no match for a man of his ilk. “Of course not, sir. But I do know what the estates require and what your daughter will require as my wife. Should you think it judicious to bless her with more, that is your choice.”
“You’re a cunning bastard, I’ll say that for you.” Whitney stood abruptly. “Before I agree to anything, I’ll need to speak with my daughter directly. I’ll send word to you in the morning. In the meantime, sleep well knowing I’m a merciful man who spared you a painful death tonight because I love my daughter. And never forget, Ravenscroft, just how much I love her. For if anything should ever happen to make her unhappy, retribution will be mine.”
Perhaps it would be best to allow the man to retreat, lick his wounds. Julian was fairly confident that C
lara would maintain his ruse. She wanted her freedom. So too did he.
He stood and bowed to Jesse Whitney. “I will expect to hear from you tomorrow.”
“Four years in the hell of war, Ravenscroft. I know how to kill a man.” Whitney tapped the revolver-shaped lump beneath his jacket. “Never forget.”
Julian didn’t suppose he would any time soon. Fortunately for him, murder remained a punishable offense. But he knew a worthy foe when he’d met one, and Jesse Whitney was certainly that.
lara received the summons she’d been dreading just after breakfast. Her stepmother gently knocked at her chamber door, apparently the messenger.
“Clara dear? May I enter?” Lady Bella’s voice was tentative, worried, muffled by the wood separating them.
No, Clara wanted to deny. You may not. She eyed the window with dedicated purpose. It wasn’t the first time she’d contemplated an escape via the deep ledge and accommodating architectural effects adorning the front of her father’s stately home. But perhaps it would be the last. She’d cast her fate in Ravenscroft’s study, and she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that decision had brought with it enough trepidation to shake an entire phalanx of soldiers.
She clasped her hands before her and took a staying breath. All night she had waited for someone to address what had occurred. Her father’s wife had said little as she’d escorted Clara from the carriage upon her return from the earl’s home. What have you done this time, Clara? A footman had promptly been stationed at her door as if she were a prisoner.
She’d waited, still dressed, until her father had returned home, having realized far too late that her buttons were one off and her bodice tellingly skewed. And still, nothing had happened. No one had come. No caterwauling, no hollering, no wildly waving revolvers. There had been instead a deep, troubling quiet.
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