With the large house went the expense of its large staff of servants that had been such an enormous drain on Mrs Raff’s meagre income. Alyssa’s success in untangling and improving her mama’s finances earned her no gratitude from Mrs Raff, who complained bitterly about each and every one of her daughter’s economies. But Mrs Raff, like Lord Eliot before her, discovered that Alyssa could be a strong, determined woman who would not be swayed from a necessary path either by the bluster and threats that her grandfather employed or by the whining and cajoling her mama used.
Alyssa rolled over on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Her only reward for helping her mother was the knowledge that if Mrs Raff would be frugal, she could easily live within her modest income. But frugality was foreign to the widow’s nature, and Alyssa’s efforts to run a prudent household brought her nothing but an unending stream of complaints from her spendthrift parent and half sister that she was excessively clutch-fisted.
Tears trickled down Alyssa’s cheeks. How she wished that she could return to Northumberland.
At Vauxhall Gardens, Mrs Raff and Rosina promenaded down the long, arched gallery and across the large square dominated by the orchestra, which was accompanying a buxom soprano of impressive range. Mrs Raff quickly ascertained that she was quite the most richly dressed woman there. All the others looked so insipid in muslin gowns like those Alyssa favoured. Even their hair was insipid, worn unpowdered in flat curls about their faces instead of in the grand manner that she had chosen.
On the other side of the square, illuminated by festoons of coloured lights suspended from elms and poplars, she guided her daughter past the boxes where the fashionable sat to sup and enjoy the entertainment. Mrs Raff was well pleased by the number of stares that she drew from the boxes and fancied that once she was established as the Marquess of Stanwood’s mother-in-law, she would quickly become the leader of fashion.
And she was determined that she would become his mother-in-law. Even though Alyssa was too sapskulled to appreciate her good fortune, her mama was not. Mrs Raff, who had twice snapped the parson’s mousetrap shut on unwilling men, was now determined to do the same for her elder daughter whether the vexingly stupid girl wanted it or not. There was, after all, a duke to be obtained for Rosina and a widowed lord for herself.
Since the marquess had made his offer, Mrs Raff had thought of nothing else but how best to ensure that the wedding took place. She was particularly alarmed by Alyssa’s foolish insistence that the betrothal be kept a secret, thereby leaving the way open for the marquess to try to wriggle off the hook.
His father, Mrs Raff had decided, would likely be the most, difficult hurdle, just as Lord Eliot had been to her own first marriage. The duke would have to be put on notice that Mrs Raff and her daughter were not women to be trifled with. If his son did not stand by his promise, Mrs Raff would create a magnificent public scandal. Although Alyssa had warned that the duke would care naught, her mama was certain that her daughter had windmills in her head. Mrs Raff remembered with satisfaction that even the recalcitrant Lord Eliot had given way before the scandal broth that she had brewed when he had refused permission for his son to marry her. Of course, the old tyrant had then been so disobliging as to disinherit his son, but Mrs Raff did not think that the duke would do that to the marquess, for unlike Lord Eliot, he had no other son.
“La, Mama, look at that man over there,” Rosina said. “Ain’t he the thing, though.”
Mrs Raff, glancing in the direction that her daughter had indicated, beheld a man so handsome that her ageing heart beat faster. He had an aristocratic face with luminous eyes beneath thick dark brows, and he moved with fluid, arrogant grace. The quiet elegance of his clothes quite put in the shade the other, more ostentatiously dressed, men in his vicinity. So commanding was his presence that he had drawn the attention of several parties standing near Mrs Raff, and she heard a woman in one of them exclaim, “Who is that dashing man?”
“None other than the Duke of Carlyle himself,” her gentleman companion answered.
“So that is Carlyle!” the woman exclaimed. “But he is so young. From all the tales they tell of him, I would have thought him older.”
Mrs Raff stared in admiration at Alyssa’s future father-In-law. Suddenly, her quest for a widowed lord became more specific and lofty. If her prim, scrawny daughter could snare his son, surely a clever woman of her own voluptuous charms could win the father, who was as prime an article as Mrs Raff had ever seen. She smoothed the wide skirt of her red satin gown with hands whose every finger was beringed, patted her soaring coiffure, and again congratulated herself on being the best-dressed woman at Vauxhall.
What a rare piece of luck, she thought. The duke could not help but be impressed when she introduced herself to him.
His Grace the Duke of Carlyle cordially disliked Vauxhall Gardens, but he had come because he had been informed that Lord Rudolph Oldfield—whom he disliked even more than Vauxhall—was there tonight. Oldfield, the most malicious gossip in London, could be counted upon to recall in awesome detail every shocking scandal and immoral liaison that had occurred among the ton during the past two decades. He would surely know under whose protection Miss Raff bad lived during those years that she had been absent from her parents’ house.
The duke, spotting Oldfield’s portly figure moving through the light-festooned square, sauntered casually up and greeted him with feigned surprise. His Lordship, fancying himself a pink of the ton, dressed with a foppish ostentation that Carlyle loathed, but the duke was careful to hide his distaste for both the man and his clothes behind a screen of inconsequential conversation.
Although His Grace detested gossip, he exchanged on-dits with Oldfield for several minutes before casually introducing Miss Raff’s name into the conversation. “I see Lord Palmer over there with a new beauty on his arm. Wasn’t he the one who sported that exquisite bit of muslin named Raff a couple of years ago? I wonder what has happened to her?”
“Raff?” Oldfield was perplexed. “I don’t recall any cyprian by that name.”
“I believe her given name was Alyssa.”
“An unusual name, one I would surely remember, and I have never heard of an Alyssa Raff,” Oldfield said with certainty. “The only woman named Alyssa that I know lives in Northumberland and is as proper a lady of quality as you would ever want to meet.”
“Then why would I want to meet her?” the duke queried mockingly.
Oldfield laughed so long and loudly at this sally that His Grace, who knew that Oldfield could recite the long list of Carlyle’s dalliances without skipping a single one, heartily regretted having made it.
Taking his leave of Oldfield, the duke pondered why the old gossip had never heard of the Raff woman. It must mean that she had lived abroad with her protector.
Carlyle strode across the square to return to the landing dock when he saw bearing down upon him two women of such stunning vulgarity that it momentarily checked him. The younger was poured into a purple satin gown that, even in this day of low-cut bodices, still revealed more décolletage than the duke had seen outside of a boudoir or a bordello. Although some men might have found the girl attractive, her petulant eyes, pouting face and overblown body that would run to fat by the time she was five-and twenty were not at all to the duke’s notoriously exacting taste.
The older woman with her was undoubtedly a bawdy-house proprietor out advertising one of her wares. She had her hair—and clearly a good deal of someone else’s as well—done up in a coiffure that in height and stability -reminded him of the Leaning Tower at Pisa. Her garish gown of vivid red satin was as outmoded as her hairstyle. But what most astonished His Grace was the remarkable quantity of tawdry paste jewellery that she had contrived to hang upon her person.
He was understandably thunderstruck when these visions of vulgarity accosted him. Surely, he did not look like a customer for the wares they were peddling.
“La, Your Grace,” said the elder of the two, who looked to b
e fifty, flourishing her fan of painted vellum and tortoiseshell as coyly and coquettishly as an innocent eighteen-year-old maiden, “I’m monstrously happy to see you.”
“I fear that I cannot return that sentiment,” His Grace said in his most freezing manner. “Who are you?”
His haughty coldness chilled the bold harpy into fluttering her fan nervously. “La, sir, though we have never met before, we are soon to be related.” Her shrill voice was as ungenteel as her dress. “I am Mrs Elias Raff—Fanny to you—and this is my younger daughter, Rosina.”
For the second time that day the Duke of Carlyle, famed for his sharp and ready tongue, was rendered speechless. Until now, he had thought his son an innocent, naïve stripling ensnared by a beautiful conniving cyprian, but as he stared at her horrifyingly vulgar mother and sister, he sincerely wondered—whether Jeremy was a candidate for Bedlam. Good God, was his son such a flat he could not recognise them for what they were?
Mrs Raff, apparently mistaking Carlyle’s shocked silence for surprise at news of his son’s engagement, said, “Surely the marquess has told you that he is about to marry my daughter.”
“My son, the marquess,” said the duke through clenched teeth, “can marry no one without my permission until he reaches his majority, which is two years away.”
Mrs Raff forgot her fan. and drew herself up indignantly. “I will not permit your son to use and abandon my daughter,” the affronted mama cried dramatically. “He—and you as well—will learn to your sorrow that he cannot trifle with my innocent daughter’s honour and not pay the piper.”
The duke’s thick, dark brows snapped together in a fearsome scowl, and his eyes glittered with such anger that the mother instinctively drew back from him in fear. So threatening scandal was to be the Raffs’ game, was it? Anyone who was in the least acquainted with Carlyle could have told them it was a game they were bound to lose. He snapped, “No innocent, honourable twenty-five-year-old woman seeks to shackle a calfling.”
“He made her a promise,” Mrs Raff persisted. “He will marry her or I will create the scandal of the century.”
“You may create the scandal of the millennium for all that I care! I would consider it a very small price to pay for my son’s escaping the clutches of the likes of you and your daughter.”
The duke garnered small pleasure from the startled, crestfallen look in the woman’s eyes. It was a moment before she could recover her nerve sufficiently to say, “I will not permit. you to insult me.”
“I will do far more than insult you! Any effort to trap my son will gain you only excessive grief.” Although the duke’s eyes were blazing with fury, his tone was as cold as death. “Perhaps you are not familiar with the laws on extortion. I am a very powerful man, and if you attempt to extort my son into marrying your daughter, I swear to you that I will see you in Newgate. Do not think for a moment that you will escape my vengeance.”
The woman’s bravado crumpled before the harsh, determined set of his face that confirmed he would carry out his vow as surely as the sun rose in the east. Her body sagged like a garish rag doll that had lost its stuffing. The startled fear in her eyes assured Carlyle that she would not dare to carry out her threats.
He whirled and strode furiously off. A union with that wretched creature’s daughter would mean only unmitigated misery for Jeremy, and the duke would prevent it, no matter what! And he would destroy Miss Alyssa Raff and her disgusting mother in the bargain.
Chapter 5
After a restless night the duke, who, like his son, preferred the country to the city, awoke early and decided upon a quiet ride in the park before anyone would be about.
The morning was grey and unseasonably cold. The rain had come during the night, turning the paths in the park to mud. As he rode the big sleek black that he used when he was in London, the duke, normally a keen observer of nature, was so preoccupied with thoughts of his son and the two vulgar trollops who had accosted him at Vauxhall the previous night that he scarcely noticed the dripping trees and the fog—sometimes thick, sometimes thin and wispy—that swirled about the horse chestnuts and hawthorns. Even the cascading golden splendour of a Scotch laburnum tree did not elicit his admiration. What did finally capture his eye, however, was a young woman on a spirited chestnut hack with a groom trailing behind her at a respectful distance.
Her demeanour and the tailoring of her riding-habit, although not the very latest style, proclaimed her to be a lady of quality. Yet London’s fashionable ladies did not quit their beds until the day was much farther advanced than this. Furthermore, His Grace appreciated good horsemanship, whether the rider be male or female, and this woman had as good a seat as he had ever seen among her sex. As she stopped her hack by the golden glory of the laburnum and dismounted, he saw that she was strikingly lovely. Although she was tall, she made no attempt to minimise her height as a more self-conscious woman might have done, but instead carried herself with proud dignity. Her riding-habit revealed a slender, beautifully proportioned body. Carlyle reined up not far from where she stood by the tree. Rich auburn hair, sparkling with reddish-gold lights in the morning sun, framed her delicate face with its beguiling dimple in the cleft of her chin.
Becoming aware of his bold stare, she turned her green eyes to him, meeting his with a curious and unflinchingly direct gaze that was not in the slightest nervous or coy or flirtatious. After a moment of mutual contemplation, the intrigued duke flashed her his most seductive smile. Immediately, the emerald eyes became frosty. She tilted her head back in an unconsciously regal rejection of his overture, remounted her chestnut hack, and rode off.
He smiled appreciatively at the silent, queenly setdown that she had given him. Rarely were the Duke of Carlyle’s overtures repulsed, but he was not in the least affronted that she had done so. Instead, she piqued both his interest and his curiosity. What an uncommon woman, he thought, wondering who she could be. He did not recall ever having seen her in London society, yet clearly she was a lady of quality several years out of the schoolroom. Connoisseur that he was of female charms, he could not believe that he could have overlooked her.
* * *
Alyssa rode away from the golden laburnum without looking back at the man on the magnificent black. It was his horse that first caught her eye, but it was immediately forgotten in favour of its owner. Alyssa, an excellent rider herself, was impressed by how skilfully he handled his difficult mount. However, it was his arresting eyes beneath thick, dark brows, rather than the handsome face in which they were set or his equestrian ability, that most fascinated her. She had no idea who he might be, although it was clear from the elegance of his clothes and the arrogance of his bearing that he was a gentleman of the first water. Yet he was riding at a shockingly early hour for a member of the London ton, and he was alone, without even a groom to attend him.
She had regarded him with her usual directness and curiosity, which clearly gave him the impression that she was a vulgarly forward woman, if not worse. For she recognised the invitation in his seductive smile for what it was and blamed her own want of conduct for erroneously convincing him that she was a bold, fast piece.
For some reason the idea that the stranger might think anything but the very best of her sorely distressed Alyssa. She was amazed that she should be so concerned about what a man thought of her. Certainly that had not been the case with any of her suitors. Poor things. She smiled at the memory. Her tyrannical grandfather, who preferred her company to that of any other member of his family, had been determined to keep her a spinster at his side. He had even denied her a London season to keep her from the attention of would-be suitors, but several persistent gentlemen had made their way to Ormandy Park. Three had even possessed sufficient courage and perseverance to ask her grandfather for her hand, but he had refused them all without so much as consulting her. Since none of the trio had won Alyssa’s heart, she did not regret that Lord Eliot sent them packing, although she had argued violently with him for not consulting her b
efore he did so.
If Alyssa could not find a man whom she loved, she preferred to remain with her grandfather. Mrs Raff might scorn her daughter’s romantic notions, but as far as Alyssa could see, neither of her mother’s marriages had brought her much happiness. And, at least, Mama’s husbands had treated her kindly. Alyssa had seen enough unloved wives, ignored or mistreated, to realise that her mama had been fortunate in that respect. To Alyssa, the saddest example was the Duchess of Berwick, one of the loveliest, gayest, most enchanting creatures that Alyssa had ever met. Before her marriage, they had been neighbours in Northumberland, A half-dozen years older than Alyssa, Lady Selena Wright had been the incomparable of her first London season. Almost every eligible bachelor in England had been in hot pursuit of her until the Duke of Berwick claimed her hand.
For Selena, it had been a love match as well as a brilliant marriage, but her duke did not return her affection. As that odious gossip, Lord Rudolph Oldfield, had once quipped, the duchess had won the heart of every man in the kingdom save one—her husband. Selena hid her pain at her husband’s rejection behind a charming, madcap façade of extravagant gaiety. How any man could resist her was beyond Alyssa’s comprehension, but the duke did.
In time, the despairing duchess sought solace for his neglect with other men. It was then that Lord Eliot, as high a stickler as ever there was when it came to morals, prohibited his grand-daughter from any contact with Selena. Although he could stop Alyssa from seeing the disgraceful duchess, as he called her, he could not prevent his grand-daughter’s heart from aching for her. Alyssa was convinced that no fate could be more devastating than to be married to a man whom one loved wildly and not have that affection returned.
The Duke's Revenge Page 4