by Cheryl Bolen
"It will be pleasure indeed to tend to such a lovely lady's needs"—Charles sketched Isabeau a bow—"but as for our cherished grandmère—"
"I fear you shall have to wait considerably longer to pay your regards to her grace, my lord." Alistair drew a scented handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, holding its folds at his long nose as he pointedly flicked his gaze over Griffin’s travel-stained garb.
"I don't understand."
The look of a man recently pardoned from the gallows crossed Charles's face.
"Annie has carried Grandmama off to Bath to take the waters, the old girl was so stricken with grief."
Griffin sucked in a deep breath then let it out slowly. Despite a lifetime of resentment, compassion stirred in him. "Aye. She would grieve for him. It is one thing we both share." He arched his neck in an effort to drive the tension from his stiff muscles.
"Of course, I also encouraged her to go." Charles's voice took on an annoying eagerness. "Wagered it would give us the best opportunity to set things right with the solicitor. I was overjoyed when I discovered you were guardian—knew we were of one mind regarding the meaning of life. Wenching, good claret, and plenty of coin to lavish about. No sense in letting it molder in the family accounts."
"Charles!" Griffin's voice silenced the boy's babblings. "I'm bloody exhausted, hell's own demons are pounding in my skull, and my brother is dead! Dead, curse you! At the moment I don't give a damn about your lights o' love, your liquor, and especially not your desire to gamble away the Ravensmoor fortune. And if you and Valmont expect me to be an ally in destroying what it took my brother a lifetime to build, then you are a fool."
Griff saw Alistair's eyes flash with triumph as the boy's breath whistled through his teeth.
"How—how dare you—" Charles started to sputter. It was not the fury of a man, but rather that of a willful child reined in when he expected his elders to laugh at his antics.
Griffin was immediately sorry, yet before he could soften his harsh words Charles snapped back. "So Alistair was right about you, eh? You did exactly what you damn well pleased when you were my age, but think that you can merely yank upon poor spineless Charles's leash, and he will come to heel. Well, since the day you left Darkling Moor I have been caught in Grandmama's and Father's chains—propriety, duty, grinding away studying accursed books and worse ledgers. I hated it! Just waited for the day when I would be a man—the duke—whom none but the king himself could say nay to." Charles's chest heaved, his lips trembling, his eyes over-bright with what Griff suspected were tears.
"I will have that money. I must..." Charles took a shuddering breath, and Griffin could almost see the boy struggle to calm himself. After a moment Charles's lips curled in a pathetic mockery of a man's scornful sneer. "Play the dull-spirited drone, Uncle Griffin, if you will. Level your orders, keep all beneath lock and key. But when I reach my majority there will be no one who can stop me from doing exactly as I please, will there, Valmont?"
"Charles," Griffin began in a warning tone.
"It is mine, this house, the Ravensmoor wealth." Charles's voice almost cracked as he rounded upon Griffin. "I thought you at least were different! All these years I wished that you would come back, now it would please me mightily if you were sucked straight down to hell."
Griffin's eyes locked with those of his nephew. The boy he had once regarded with such affection had become a stranger. Griff dragged a weary hand through his hair, not bothering to stop Charles as the youth charged past him out into the crisp country air.
Griff saw the boy vault up into the saddle of the horse the footman had brought around and rip the reins from the beleaguered servant's hands.
"Hurry Alistair," Charles called to the marquess. "Let us seek the company of those who know how to live."
"Even you cannot halt the march of time, Stone," Alistair challenged. "In three short years he's going to be a man. And then you are going to lose him as your brother did. In truth, Charles is already beyond your grasp."
Griffin stood silent, stiff, as the nobleman swept from the hall, mounting his own night-black stallion.
Griff watched Charles slam his heels into his horse's barrel, jarring it into a run, and he had the strange sensation that he was watching his nephew hurtle his mount toward some unseen abyss.
Behind him Isabeau cleared her throat. "It is true, you know," she said quietly, "what that iceman of a marquess was blathering about. You will lose the boy if you try to chain him."
Griff hated the look in her eyes—a strange mixture of defiance and empathy. It was the empathy that drove Griff mad.
"Chain him? William should have taken a switch to the idiot years past! Did you hear him? His father is scarce cold, and—" Griff stopped, suddenly aware of the weight of her stare. "What are you gaping at?"
"You asked me if I heard your nephew. Did you? Really hear him? He was hurting."
"Aye, so much he can't wait to squander the Ravensmoor fortune."
"I suspect it is just his way of handling his grief. If you would—"
"Enough!" Griff roared. "It is none of your concern. You will bloody well forget what has transpired here, milady Isabeau, before I decide to give you the thrashing my nephew deserves. Now get the devil abovestairs and scrub the filth off yourself! It is not the London stews here!"
"You’re right," the girl agreed in frosty accents, peering down her pert nose. "In the stews we have better manners. Aye, and we are kinder by far to those we love."
With that Isabeau DeBurgh swept toward the grand staircase, ascending it as regally as though Charles, Valmont, and Griffin were coarse villeins and she was their blasted queen.
Chapter 6
The tapers illuminating the richly appointed study guttered in their silver holders, and the faint light made the columns of figures swim before Griffin's burning eyes. He raised his fingertips, rubbing them against his throbbing temples. But the pain thrummed on relentlessly, mingled with the sharp, fresh sting of grief.
Sweet Jesu, how long had he been here, trapped in a maze of William's precise notes? It seemed an eon had passed since he had thrust Isabeau DeBurgh into the hands of a bevy of maids and stalked into this chamber, resolved to delve into the mind-numbing task of familiarizing himself with William's business affairs.
He sank back against the carved mahogany chair and bit out a curse. Griff knew his plans to entrust Charles and the estate to others and return to the colonies were futile.
All of Ravensmoor was in disarray, and even if it were not, there was still the girl to consider. Lianna Devereaux's daughter. Granddaughter to the Dowager Countess Sophie.
Ten years ago he would have shrugged, resigned to letting the strong-willed Isabeau run headlong into the executioner's arms if she chose to. Or, more likely still, he would have dumped her, kicking and swearing, on the Devereaux’s doorstep. He would have reasoned that it was far better for the unfortunates at Devereaux House to deal with the mayhem than to suffer the inconvenience himself. But he'd changed. Responsibility—a yoke that had never proved much of a bother to Griffin before—now seemed to chafe relentlessly against his shoulders. Now, whether he willed it or not, he felt responsible, for his brother's lands and his brother's son. And for the girl who, despite her lowly upbringing, descended from a family heritage that rivaled Griffin's own.
There was only one thing to do. He would have to fashion Isabeau into some semblance of a lady. He didn't want the chit to give her esteemed relative apoplexy. Furthermore he would have to try to find some way to free the Dowager Countess Sophie of responsibility for the girl.
It would be too cruel to destroy Sophie's well-deserved peace now that her snarling dog of a husband had died.
If Griffin could fix Isabeau up a bit, polish her manners, her dress—and, pray God, her curb her infernal cursing—perhaps he could free them all from this coil by arranging a suitable marriage with an unsuspecting male. That way the dowager countess would only need to give the girl an appropriate do
wry, and she could wash her hands of the chit forever.
Finding Beau a husband should not prove to be such an impossible task. In her way she was handsome enough, he supposed. She did not fit the current milksop-pale fashion, but she did possess a certain dash. Surely he could find someone to wed her, especially if he added some of his own funds to sweeten her dowry.
Still, even if he did manage to find a suitor for her, there was Charles. And this pile of stone that William had so loved.
Truth was, he had changed from the scapegrace Griffin, the man who was able to dash off, heedless, to indulge in his own reckless adventures. And the knowledge terrified him.
It was hours later when Griffin exited the study, exhausted. He ached for a steaming hot bath, food and a soft bed where he could find peace—in sleep.
But he had barely reached the corridor to the family's private apartments when he heard an ungodly racket.
Curses. Griff was almost certain he heard curses—as black as any that could spew from a sailor's tongue.
It could only be... Isabeau.
Fury tore through him. How dare she set the house in an uproar? He stalked down the hall from the serenity of his chamber toward the noise. Suddenly the door to the gold room burst open and a brawny maid rushed out. She was soaked from head to foot with water, her bobbly eyes bulging from their sockets.
"What the devil?" Griff barked.
With a screech the servant wheeled to face him and stumbled against a mahogany table against the wall. A figurine teetered, and only a miracle saved it from smashing to the floor.
Yet though the figure did not topple, a loud crash reverberated from the chamber the maid had just exited, and the woman all but jumped from her skin.
"Gor' save us! 'Tis a demon she be! Mad! Pure mad!"
"I swear I'll send her to the devil that spawned her!" Griff muttered, but his voice was lost in the fresh spate of cursing that shook the walls, another, more desperate voice piercing through it.
"Nay, mistress! You must not—not her grace's Ming—"
With an oath Griffin stormed past the quivering maid, through the half-open doorway.
The three other maids stood trapped in the far corner of the room, wailing. One of the women was clinging desperately to a bundle that could only be Isabeau's clothing. The rich Tabriz carpets were drenched with sudsy water, rivulets from the half-full bathtub upon the hearth trickled past shattered bric-a-brac and overturned buckets.
Amidst the mayhem stood Isabeau, her damp hair clinging to cheeks flushed with fury, her naked body gleaming wet from its recent soaking.
Griffs rage froze in his throat, the image branding itself in his mind. Fragile coral nipples crowned small breasts, narrow ribs sweeping to a waist so tiny he could have spanned it with his hands. Hips almost boyishly slim gave way to long, sleek legs while candlelight glistened on the droplets of moisture that beaded the dainty flame-red down that arrowed between her thighs.
Griff swallowed hard, trying to drag his eyes away from her rose-blushed, ivory-satin skin, its perfection marred only by the half-healed wound upon one shoulder. He was almost astonished to discover that the girl who had seemed as frail as a child in the inn was in fact a woman. A woman whose nakedness made his loins tighten, his heartbeat quickening in a way that infuriated him.
He tore his gaze away from her, forcing himself to look at her hands—hands that were clamped about one of Judith Stone's most prized Chinese objects d' art as she took a threatening step toward the maids.
"Give them to me," Beau snapped, oblivious to Griffin's presence. "Now, or I'll break this over your thick skulls!" The Ming jutted out before her, as threatening as one of her pistols.
"Don't you dare!" Griff commanded as the maids' screams pierced his eardrums. "That vase is worth a queen's ransom."
Beau spun toward him, blazing with outrage. She'd been humiliated, bullied, skewered and bellowed at since the moment she'd faced the point of his rapier on the dark night road. But this—this—was bloody well the outside of enough!
"You!" she raged, murder in her eyes. "You craven dog! You son of a swine! How dare you order them to take away my clothes! You tell them to give back my breeches or I swear I'll smash this monstrosity into a million shards!"
"When hell freezes over, you little barbarian!" Griffin stormed. "You will cease this infernal racket and do as you are bid. And the first thing you will do is bloody well put that vase down!"
Eyes the hue of emeralds flashed green fire, and berry-red lips tautened into a devil's smile. Griff guessed her intentions in that instant, and tried to lunge toward her as her slender fingers released their hold upon the priceless artifact. But it was too late. The object that had survived four hundred years of war, revolt, and countless natural disasters was demolished in a heartbeat by Isabeau DeBurgh's temper.
"Damnation!" Griff roared as the girl darted behind the tub, evading him as easily as if he were some clumsy oaf. He stormed toward her, fully intending to wring her blasted neck, but as he charged the toe of one polished boot snagged on an overturned bucket.
He pitched toward Beau, his outstretched hand grazing sleek damp skin as he hurtled toward the copper hip bath. Then he plunged headlong into the tub. Soapy water filled his nose and mouth and drenched his hair.
Griff jammed himself upright, gripped by the most savage fury he had ever known, a fury that deepened as he heard Isabeau DeBurgh's laughter.
"Witch!" he bellowed. "You infernal little—"
"You condemned me to a scrubbing. It is only fair that you suffer one as well!" The jaunty aura beneath her anger that drove Griffin mad. "Now tell these blithering idiots to give me back my breeches, or I'll—"
In that instant what little rein Griff still held on his self-control snapped, and he charged at her, his hands closing in a bruising grip about her upper arms. "Break one more thing in this room, and you'll be in Newgate so fast your head will reel!"
She tried to break away, and though her struggles were surprisingly strong, Griff held her fast. He gritted his teeth and yanked her against him, his arms banding her as he battled to subdue her. The soft swell of her breasts was crushed against his chest, his wet shirt no barrier against the pebble-hard tips of her nipples. They burned into his flesh, torturing him, but he dared not ease his hold upon her.
"Out! All of you!" Griff bellowed at the maids, knowing that the whole house, from gardener to the lowliest spit boy, would be abuzz with this tale before an hour passed. "And as for Mistress Isabeau's breeches—burn them."
"Nay!" Beau shrieked, kicking him in the shins, battling to tear free. "Damn you—"
"Now!" Griff roared at the trembling servants. "And if I hear the slightest of whispering as to what transpired here, the three of you will answer to me. Do you understand?"
"Aye, your lordship!"
"Never your lordship! Not a word!" the servants babbled, yet they still hung back against the wall, eyeing Beau as though she were a fiery dragon.
"Leave us!" Griff commanded. "For God's sake, I'm holding on to her! She cannot harm—oof!" Her knee slammed dangerously close to his groin. As if they feared the monster would indeed break free, the women made a mad dash across the chamber, spilling out the door, slamming it behind them. Griff would not have been surprised if they had shoved a heavy table up against it.
Once they'd left he dragged Beau three steps to the massive bed that graced the chamber. Its regal elegance dated from before the Restoration, but still he slammed Beau down upon its softness, pinning her there beneath the weight of his own body, her curses deafening him as she warred against his grasp.
"Damn you, you little fool!" He shifted himself so that his hips crushed against hers, his legs twining with her flailing ones in an effort to restrain her. "Be still!"
"Let go of me, blast you!"
"And let you unman me? I think not! Now you will bloody well listen to me, woman, or I vow I'll cast you into Bow Street's hands without a pang of conscience!"
&
nbsp; "You'd not—"
"Wouldn't I?" Griff barked. "It is a man’s duty to kill a mad cur, is it not, milady? And you have most certainly been acting like an animal."
"And what of you? Grabbing me? Pawing me?"
Griffin nearly choked upon his laughter. "Pawing? Do you think I am so desperate as to want a starveling cat the likes of you clawing at me? No, thank you. I prefer women who do not draw blood every time they touch me!"
"Then get... the hell... off... me!" She bucked up her hips in an effort to dislodge him. The pressure of that damp triangle of curls against his shaft put the lie to his claim of indifference. In that moment he wanted to crush his lips to her impudent rose ones, subdue her with his mouth in a way he could not with his hands.
But the knowledge that she had moved him made Griffin feel vulnerable, and the thought of being vulnerable to anyone—especially Isabeau DeBurgh—seared him like an open wound.
Abruptly he released her, rolling to his feet. A moment later the stunned Beau struggled to right herself amid the tumbled coverlets.
"There, milady, you are free," he said, danger threading his voice.
Her green eyes held his, wary, yet with the indomitable spirit of a wild stallion. Tentatively she reached up and touched her shoulder as if the half-healed wound pained her. "If you expect me to thank you," she said, "you can go to the devil."
"I expect nothing of you, milady, except that you do exactly as you are told! It is obvious I was too gentle—"
"Gentle!" Beau roared.
"—in explaining to you your exact situation here at Darkling Moor. To obliterate any further misunderstandings, I shall put it in language you can comprehend. You, Isabeau DeBurgh, are going to conduct yourself as befits a daughter of Devereaux blood and Lord Griffin Stone's ward. You are going to wear women's clothes, learn to dance, to flirt, and to hold a fan and every other wile a woman can employ to ensnare some poor, hapless man. The greatest gift I can give poor Lady Sophie will be to find some suitable fool to wed you so she can be rid of you for good."