“Bloo—blooming—” Dane sputtered.
“Oh, just say it. Bloody hell,” Cassandra snapped. “We are all adults here, none of us are virgins, and by some amazing coincidence, every lady presently in this room, at one time or another, has been scorned by Polite Society for no particular reason other than because Polite Society can do so.”
“She’s right,” Evie said.
Dane’s mind raced. Marriage to Cecily would allow Harry to get his hands on the profits from her book, regardless of what the contract stipulated at Dane’s behest. Harry’s rights as the husband could easily override Dane’s ducal powers.
Cassandra tore into his whirring thoughts. “Yet I also have the impression that neither Lady Althea nor her daughter is keen on this entire scheme. The daughter just wants to marry this Mr. Eastman. Naturally Lady Althea would like a better husband for her younger daughter, but she’d also prefer that her son not marry a cousin. Finally, Lord Willard shouted for them to come out already so they could go back to his other daughter’s residence on Green Street before Harry sobered up or worse, tried to sneak out to some gaming hell.”
“Is that why he didn’t come here tonight?” Tabitha queried. “Because he was foxed?”
“That should not have been a deterrent, as I received more than a few ripe and ready lords this evening,” Dane said grimly. “Very well, I shall leave at once to stop that marriage.”
“But how?” Evie asked. “There are carriages lined up for a mile in every direction out there.”
“Then with any luck, they’re still in the vicinity and haven’t been able to move more than a few dozen feet,” Cassandra replied.
“I shall don an oilskin cape and run on foot to Green Street,” said Dane. “It’s the quickest way. I’ll wait there all night if I must.”
“What about all the guests?” inquired Tabitha. “And the Prince Regent?”
Dane made a beeline for the library door. “They can dance and drink and sup in the meantime—all night if they wish, and they likely will, what with the rain. It won’t be any different from the usual Mayfair crush.”
At the door he almost collided with Osbert. “Your Grace? This parcel just arrived for you.”
“Then put it on my desk. I can’t look at it right now.”
“Wait a minute!” Evie cried. “Is that the book? I remember receiving a parcel of that size and shape, when Lord Kingsley tried to propose marriage to me. The scoundrel thought he could win my favor with a brand new copy of Pride and Prejudice that he actually stole from a lending library.”
Dane snatched the parcel from Osbert and tore it open.
Evie was right. It was Cecily’s book. He held it up to show the beautifully embossed cover to the three ladies. All three of them smiled and sighed as if swooning, slapping hands to their bosoms.
“How could Cecily not marry you after seeing that?” asked Tabitha.
Cassandra gasped. “Do you mean to say Cecily wrote that book? Jolly for her!”
“She did,” Dane said proudly, as he hastily rewrapped the slim volume and handed it to Evie. “Keep this safe till I return with her.”
“If the two of you do return before the stroke of midnight, then I daresay I shan’t regret coming this evening,” said Cassandra.
“I hope you’ll stay,” Dane replied. “Thank you for your help.”
Moments later, he was dashing through the pouring rain to his Cousin Marianne’s house on Green Street, draped in an oilskin cape.
Evie was right about all the carriages parked everywhere around Bradbury House, from one end of Park Lane to the other, twisting around to Piccadilly on the south and Oxford Street to the north and thence to the east and even to the west, bordering both sides of Hyde Park. He couldn’t fathom how any one carriage could easily leave from here, especially in the rainy dark. For all he knew, he’d long since passed the carriage in which Cecily was trapped.
But he made it to the more modest Pilkington house on Green Street, where faint light glowed from a window on the first floor. No carriage was parked out front. Dane charged through the front door and threw off his oilskin cape, ready to raise ducal hell.
The first person he saw was the butler, who reacted to his sudden appearance very much as Dane expected. “Your—” He gulped. “Your Grace? I—I—wha—wha—”
“What am I doing here when I’m supposed to be hosting a ball in my own manse down in Park Lane? Why, it’s simple. I seem to be missing a certain young lady with whom I have an understanding, and I have reason to believe she might be here, or soon will be.”
The butler blinked and his mouth snapped open and shut without a sound, save for the faint smacking of the lips.
Dane raised an index finger. “I know, my good fellow, I know. You want to say that you have no idea what the bloody hell I’m talking about, but it’s not the sort of thing you can say to a duke. Allow me to rephrase the question: Is anyone else here? I mean, besides the other servants?”
The butler continued blinking and snapping his mouth open and shut as if trying but failing to catch a morsel of food on a hook swinging in front of his face. Dane swaggered into the candlelit drawing room, stopping short at the sight of his vicar, whose spectacles promptly slid down to the end of his nose.
“Well! Fancy meeting you here, Mr. Eastman. Had I known you were in Town, I might have invited you to Bradbury House this eve. Perhaps you might explain what’s going on, because the Pilkingtons’ butler certainly doesn’t seem to know. Is there a chance Miss Logan is here—or soon will be?”
Eastman pushed the spectacles back into place. “Lord Willard said that to obtain his blessing to wed his younger daughter, I would have to—”
“Marry Miss Logan to Mr. Armstrong, yes, I know that, and that’s why I’m here. Where are they? Surely I’m not—” He broke off as he heard the front door swing open and then slam shut, followed by the angry sliding of the bolt.
Mr. Eastman jumped, hastened out of the drawing room, and said, “Miss Logan?”
Dane’s heart leaped. Where were the others? Surely she wouldn’t have come here alone, and of her own volition? Was Cassandra right? Or had she gulled Dane with some farfetched Banbury tale?
“None other, Mr. Eastman,” replied Cecily. “I suppose my bedraggled aspect and unladylike ways made me easy to recognize.”
“That, and you are expected. Where are the others? Where is Miss Rebecca?”
Some prattle ensued about how her female relations remained in the carriage for fear they might get wet and melt, and then Cecily said, “So you mean to perform a marriage ceremony between me and my cousin, utterly against all of my wishes, desires, dreams, ethics, and beliefs, in exchange for my uncle’s blessing on your marriage to Rebecca?”
“No, Miss Logan, that is not so. I fear you have it all wrong. You see—”
“My uncle has just informed me that I am to marry Mr. Harcourt Armstrong, and that you are here to perform the ceremony.”
“Yes, he did state his intentions in that direction, Miss Logan. But—” Any further words were drowned out by a horrific banging at the front door, as if whoever was out there had the devil on his heels. From his position in the drawing room, Dane heard Willard demanding to be allowed entry.
Dane smiled. Little did Willard suspect that the devil was already here, waiting for him.
“I will not go through with this marriage,” Cecily was saying. “I’ve been abducted. I’m being forced. And I will be forced to marry no one, Mr. Eastman. I love only the Duke of Bradbury! I’ve loved him for as long as I can remember.”
The words Dane had been longing to hear from Cecily’s lips, and his heart soared. He thought of making his presence known to her at this point, but frankly he was having too much sport eavesdropping on his beloved’s quarrel with his vicar.
Eastman directed her into the drawing room. Good for him, sending her straight into Dane’s arms! He quickly straightened his coat, donned his most dazzling, devilish smile, and hel
d out those arms, ready to receive her.
Alas, she didn’t come in. She couldn’t have been more than a dozen paces away from the drawing room doorway. Yet she didn’t appear.
The front door finally crashed open. “Cecily!” Willard shouted. “Don’t even think of trying to escape down the servants’ backstairs! It’s already guarded with servants under orders to stop you. I know you! You’re as predictable as this bloody rain.” Heavy footsteps thundered up the staircase, and Dane finally did what he should have done when Cecily first came in, and returned to the front hall.
The butler stood at the gaping door, as if waiting for Willard’s womenfolk to come in, while Eastman stared aghast at Dane. Now he was the one snapping his mouth open and closed like a confused goldfish, oblivious to his spectacles clinging for dear life to the very tip of his nose.
“Where is Miss Logan?” Dane demanded.
Unlike the butler, Eastman was able to break out of goldfish mode to answer. “Upstairs, Your Grace. I directed her to the drawing room, thinking she might be pleasantly surprised to find you. Instead she fled upstairs. And her uncle has followed her. But—but Your Grace...” Eastman faltered and fell back into his goldfish bowl.
“What is it?” Dane prodded.
Eastman lowered his voice to a whisper. “Mr. Harcourt Armstrong is also upstairs—but I suspect he’s with another woman.”
This really shouldn’t have surprised Dane, but it did.
Or maybe, what really surprised him was Cecily’s utterly unpredictable move in fleeing up the staircase instead of following Eastman’s direction into the drawing room.
Dane pounded up the staircase, listening to screams and yells from the next floor. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, a hallway yawned before him, dark save for the faintest glimmer of light coming from what he assumed was a bedchamber. He barely discerned a figure darting out of that room and rushing in his direction.
That figure smacked into Dane with a shriek and enough force to push him back a step. He promptly wrapped his arms around her and held her close against him.
She was damp. She was furious.
She was Cecily.
She writhed in his grasp. “Unhand me, you—you—let me go or I’ll scream!”
Dane tightened his jaw to suppress his laughter as he refused to loosen his hold on her.
“I won’t marry my cousin!” she cried. “Not that cur. And especially not right after he’s bedded the dowager”—She pounded Dane on his left shoulder—“Countess”—She punched him on his right shoulder—“of Tyndall!” Now she pounded both shoulders in unison.
Nothing surprised Dane by now, for he knew firsthand of the dowager Lady Tyndall’s desire to find a new young man to play with. He could only be happy for them both, and he didn’t doubt that in time, Cecily would feel the same.
“Then marry me,” he murmured, though he wasn’t sure she could hear him over all the screaming and yelling in that bedchamber.
“I said let me go or I’ll—”
“Marry me,” he said again, his voice still low, but now above a murmur.
Cecily all but froze in his arms. “What did you say?”
“What I said in the portrait gallery when I came to Tyndall Abbey that rainy afternoon. Marry me, Cecily.”
She finally gaped up at him, her eyes wider and bluer than ever. “Why?”
“Why?” he echoed in astonishment. “First Evangeline, now you! Why are you asking why?”
Cecily grabbed his shoulders. “Why, oh why did I not have faith in you, Dane? You did come to rescue me, after all! Oh, I know you must have thought I jilted you, but—”
“I can’t deny it. I did think that for a few moments,” he said, remembering how his heart had nearly shattered at the knowledge that she’d suddenly left without a word to him. “But Evie and Tabitha were quick to explain matters to me, and so did Cassandra Frey. And before you respond to that by asking, ‘Cassandra Frey?’ let me just say she’s a long story as she usually is and can wait for later.”
“Drat, but her name was exactly what I was about to ask,” Cecily said, sounding not a little miffed about it. “I fear I’m still as dull and predictable as ever.”
“Not entirely, but that’s all right. After the events of this evening, I do believe I much prefer you that way, my love. And speaking of love...” His lips found hers in the darkened hallway, and at once he thought he would melt at the taste of her, the sweet scent of her, the feeling that he was in heaven with Cecily in his arms, even if she thought he was a devil.
She broke the kiss and breathily said, “I love you, Dane. And yes, I will marry you.”
“You don’t want me to ask?”
“You may if you really want to. I trust we’re in a place where you’ve never before proposed marriage to anyone?”
“True, but I still don’t wish to do it here.” Especially with the imbroglio down the hall. Willard was loudly reminding his son that he couldn’t get married unless he was wearing breeches. Oh, and shoes would be nice, too.
Dane took Cecily by the hand and led her down the staircase. “Let us go back to Bradbury House, my love. The Prince Regent awaits us, and is hoping to see you jilt me before the stroke of twelve.”
Cecily paused at the foot of the staircase, still clutching his hand. “Like this?”
Now that they were practically in the front hall, and they had light by which to see, Dane swept his gaze from her damp, disheveled coiffure, her mud-spattered face reminiscent of the ink stains she’d worn that fateful day she came calling on him, and down the front of a gown that only a few hours ago was the white of the alpine peaks in his grandmother’s native Lasotania, but now resembled the grayish-brown haze usually hanging over London.
He smiled. “Would you change your mind about marrying me if I told you I might not recognize you otherwise?”
She smiled back. “I do believe I would be the veriest fool to do so.”
The front door swung open, and in fluttered Thea and her daughter. “Dear me, I thought that rain would never—” They froze in their tracks at the sight of Dane and Cecily.
“Your Grace,” Thea whispered. She didn’t just sink into a curtsey. She collapsed.
Rebecca, however, had her own priorities. “Mr. Eastman! Where is he?”
“Last I saw, he was in the drawing room,” Dane replied.
“Oh!” Rebecca practically leaped over her mother’s crumpled body and into the drawing room, while the butler stepped forward to help Thea to her feet.
“What the bloody hell?” demanded Willard’s voice from the top of the staircase.
Dane and Cecily craned their necks to look up at him.
“Bradbury!” Willard exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to inform you that Miss Logan will not be marrying your son tonight or any night, or any day. She’s marrying me—as soon as I can find the ideal place to propose.”
Since Willard’s mouth was already open, he snapped it shut only briefly—what was it, Dane thought furiously, with all these men snapping their mouths open and shut this eve?—before opening it again to say, “I’m not certain you wish to do that.”
Dane planted his fists on his hips. “What the devil is with everyone suddenly saying unpredictable things to me this evening? Even you. You’re not certain? Why would I not wish to marry her, Uncle Willard? Do tell.”
“My son compromised her. She even confessed it to me. She’s long considered herself ruined. That is why she wrote that book, and that is why they must marry. A duke cannot marry a soiled dove. As the brother of your late father—may he rest in peace—I would be remiss if I did not persuade you from such an imprudent match. Even now she may be carrying my son’s by-blow.”
Dane only shook his head, knowing all of this was so much fustian nonsense. If Cecily was carrying anyone’s—well, it was Dane’s, and it wouldn’t be a by-blow. All the same, his simmering anger rose to a boil at Willard’s words as Cecily very nearly sc
reamed in outrage, all but rupturing his eardrum.
And then—because this was a night for the unpredictable—Cecily hitched up her damp skirts and dashed back up the staircase again, roaring like a lioness all the way.
How Dane loved her for that, and everything else.
FIERY RAGE AT HER UNCLE fueled Cecily’s rapid flight up the staircase. “Now you acknowledge the vile things your son did to me! All those years when you and Aunt Thea accused me of lying—of making it up—”
Willard didn’t budge. He’d never been scared of her, and apparently he had no intention of showing any fear toward her now. “Well, you did persist in writing stories all the time, so how was anyone to know whether you were speaking truth or fic—oof!”
Cecily smacked headlong into him, much as she had with Dane in the adjacent hallway. Willard lurched back more than one step. He tottered into a plinth upon which reposed a Grecian-style urn that tipped over straight to the floor and smashed into pieces.
“Have a care now, you hoyden!” he barked. “That’s—that’s—”
With both hands, she swiftly scooped up the largest and heaviest chunk. “I know—it’s a genuine fake. Just like you, Uncle Willard.” She ducked and jabbed the jagged edge right into the falls of his satin pantaloons.
Willard screamed like a girl—no, like his son—as he slid down the plinth to the floor.
“I should cosh you over the head with this now!” she exclaimed, as sudden hard warmth enveloped her and Dane gingerly removed the deadly shard from her hands.
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