His eyes widened in surprise. “Of course.”
“I would never!”
“God, but you are a superb actress! But not fine enough to hoax me into believing that you care about my son.”
“I do care about him,” she cried, stung. If she had not been so concerned about wounding Jeremy’s sensitive young heart and pride, she would have refused his offer, and this humiliating confrontation with his father would never have occurred.
“Liar! You forget that less than an hour ago you admitted to me that no man had captured your heart. What will poor Jeremy think when I tell him that?”
“What would poor Jeremy think if you made his betrothed your mistress?”
“It would open his eyes to what you are!”
“And he will see you for what you are when I tell him you offered me a carte blanche!” she said venomously.
Carlyle started and his face paled, telling Alyssa that she had found the one weapon that could wound him.
“You will not tell Jeremy,” he said in a voice that sent a chill along her spine, “or I will make you rue the day you were born. Nor will it do you any good to tell him. I shall deny it and insist that it was you who offered to cry off from your betrothal if I would pay you, which is what you did.”
“You misconstrued my words.”
“Liar!” he ground out through clenched jaw.
“And what of you?” she demanded coldly. “You would lie to your own son.”
“I would do anything, including murder, to keep him from your evil coils.”
Alyssa did not doubt that he would, but she was so infuriated by all of the ugly things that he had said of her that she could not resist testing the weapon that he had given her. “So it will be your word against mine,” she taunted. “Pray remember, Your Grace, that Jeremy thinks me an angel.”
Carlyle looked as though he meant to strangle her on the spot. “And so you are! One of Lucifer’s fallen legions!”
“How complimentary you are, Your Grace.”
“Let me remind you, Jezebel, that Jeremy cannot marry you without my permission so long as he is a minor. What he feels for you is a silly infatuation that will vanish as quickly as a summer squall. By the time he is of age, he will have long forgotten you.”
Alyssa was as certain as Carlyle that he was right, but the smugness of his smile so infuriated her that she cried rashly, “You forget Gretna Green.” It occurred to Alyssa that she was playing with fire, but she was too angry to care. “Jeremy’s offer of marriage is infinitely more enticing than a temporary carte blanche with you.”
His eyes blazed. “Especially when you think the marriage will carry a title and fortune with it, but I promise you, it will bring you neither. If he elopes with you, I shall have your marriage annulled.”
“I will make certain that you have no grounds,” she retorted, determined to play to the hilt the role he had assigned her. The more convinced he was of her mercenary nature, the more worried he would be until he learned the truth.
“Then I will disinherit him, and he will have nothing.”
Knowing how much Carlyle loved his son, she said, “I cannot believe you would do that to him.”
His eyes were as hard and cold and cutting as a knife’s edge. “I would move heaven and earth to assure that you will never be the next Duchess of Carlyle. I promise that you will gain nothing by marrying him but a life of poverty and grief for him and yourself.”
“But Jeremy is your only son,” she reminded him. “If you disinherit him, you will have no heir.”
He shrugged carelessly. “I am six-and-thirty, young enough to father more sons.”
“But that would require you to marry. Can you bear such a great sacrifice for the sake of an heir?” Alyssa asked sarcastically.
“I doubt it, but it does not signify. I have several brothers, all of whom are married and blessed with male progeny who can succeed me.”
“Why do you have such an aversion to marriage?”
“I have known too many faithless women like you.” He raised his eyebrows tauntingly. “Venice, my dear?”
Goaded beyond rational thought, Alyssa turned and, with head held high, walked to the door. As she threw it open, she snapped back at him, “No, Gretna Green!”
Chapter 10
Alyssa slammed the door to the sitting-room and fled into the Hagars’ drawing-room. She had scarcely crossed its threshold when Jeremy was at her side, asking, “Where have you been? My word, Alyssa, you look dreadfully out of curl.”
“I have the headache.” She rubbed her throbbing temples with her slender fingers. “I beg you to take me home at once.”
Jeremy immediately ordered his carriage. As he and Alyssa were leaving, the door of the sitting-room opened and Carlyle emerged. Alyssa suspected that it had taken him this long to regain control of his temper. Even so, his face was set in hard, forbidding lines. It grew even more forbidding when he saw that they were departing. He said hastily, too hastily, “I also am leaving. Permit me to deliver you in my carriage.”
Alyssa suppressed a bitter smile. Clearly he was worried about what she would tell his son of their confrontation. Let him worry! “We must decline your kind offer, Your Grace,” she said sweetly. “Jeremy’s carriage is already waiting.” She gave him a provocative smile. “It has been so enlightening to meet you.”
If they had been alone, she was certain that her life would have come to an instant end at his hands. But she had checkmated him, and he would spend an uncomfortable hour or two wondering what she was telling his son.
When Alyssa and Jeremy were settled in his carriage, he said reprovingly to Alyssa, “I wish that you had let Papa take us. You had so little time together tonight, and I am persuaded that when you know each other better, you will become fast friends.”
Alyssa refrained from saying that she and his papa had had sufficient time together to make them fast enemies. Although she was seething over the duke’s insults and dishonourable offer, she had no intention of telling his son about them. To do so would sorely wound Jeremy. She could not do that to the boy, even though her pride rebelled at having the insufferable, toplofty duke think that he had cowed her into remaining silent.
But if the duke mistakenly thought his threats had bought her silence, her pride would have to pay that price. It was a trifling compared to the unhappiness she would cause Jeremy and the rift that would occur between him and his father if she broke that silence. Having decided against telling Jeremy about her private session with his father, she must also prevent Carlyle from inadvertently doing so. “Promise me that you will convey to your father immediately upon seeing him my apologies for our early departure, which left me no chance to become acquainted with him tonight.”
“I will,” Jeremy assured her. “I am persuaded, though, that brief as your time was with Papa, he could not help but be quite taken with you.”
Taken enough to murder me, Alyssa thought, resting her pounding head on the quilted satin squabs of the carriage. She wondered again what the duke had said to her mother at Vauxhall. Mrs Raff’s odd behaviour today convinced Alyssa that Carlyle had succeeded in intimidating her for the first time in her life.
“Isn’t he the best of fathers?” Jeremy asked eagerly.
She could honestly agree with the youth on this point, for however ugly and insulting Carlyle may have been to her, his goal had been to save his son from a dreadful mésalliance, and she could not quarrel with that sincere motive. Indeed, had the duke not outraged her by so misreading her own character, she would have been the first to agree with him that she was not a suitable wife for his son. “Yes, he is. How unfortunate that I could not spend more time becoming acquainted with him.” She could not resist adding with secret amusement, “I cannot imagine why I should have been stricken with a headache tonight.”
For a few moments, only the clatter of hooves and carriage wheels on the cobblestones broke the silence. Alyssa wondered what Carlyle’s duchess had been li
ke that he should have such a distaste for marriage.
“You have told me a great deal about your papa, but you never mention your mama,” Alyssa noted. “She was a French princess, was she not?”
Jeremy nodded. “Yes, but I do not remember her at all. She died when my sister, Ellen, was born, and I was not quite two. People say how sad it was for Ellen and me to grow up motherless, but it was not at all. Papa was so devoted to us. He was very different from the fathers of my friends, who could not be plagued with their children. He was never stern and remote or patronising and overbearing and unreasonable like they were.”
“How odd that your papa, young as he was when your mama died, never remarried,” Alyssa said, anxious to keep Jeremy talking about his father.
“I used to pester him about it, and he always told me that he did not want to inflict a wicked stepmother on Ellen and me.”
Alyssa, possessed by a desire, as strong as it was strange, to learn everything that she could about the duke, prompted Jeremy to talk about him. As she listened in fascination, she was struck again by how very different the charming portrait the youth painted of his father was from the picture the world held of the haughty, cold duke. How different, too, from the harsh, insulting man she had faced tonight.
As the carriage drew up in front of Alyssa’s house, she said, “Two of my dearest friends have arrived in London, and I wish that you would go with me to call upon them tomorrow.”
It was the first time that Alyssa had asked Jeremy to accompany her anywhere, and he said eagerly, “I shall be honoured. Who are they?”
“Lady Braden and her daughter, Letty. Perhaps,” she added innocently, “you know them. They originally hailed from Berkshire.”
“I do. But how is it that you are acquainted with them?”
“I met them while I was visiting at Ormandy Park, which adjoins their new home in Northumberland.”
“Why were you there? You never mentioned visiting Northumberland before.”
“I was visiting... a—a very distant relative.” Indeed, no one could be more distant than her grandfather was to her now.
* * *
Carlyle was slumped in a large wing chair in his book-room, staring morosely into the glass of brandy in his hand. He had not been foxed since his teens, but tonight he intended to make up for his years of moderation. Damn Alyssa! She was driving him to drink, to dull the pain of knowing that at this very moment she was destroying the trusting relationship that he had spent nineteen years nurturing with his son. He ached to strangle the perfidious witch.
For the first time in his life, he dreaded facing Jeremy and did not know with whom he was angrier, Alyssa or himself. He had never intended to offer her a carte blanche. But his rage when she had asked for money in exchange for crying off from marrying Jeremy, thus proving just how cruel and uncaring and mercenary she was, coupled with the galling knowledge that he had been as enchanted by—and wrong about—her as his son had, betrayed him into giving her a lethal weapon to turn against him. She had recognised it immediately for what it was, and his threats of dire consequences if she used it clearly had not fazed her.
She was a worthy opponent, he conceded grudgingly. He had insulted her viciously with the intent of unmasking her to his son as a vulgar, screeching shrew. Although the flash in her lovely emerald eyes had told him he had succeeded in infuriating her, he had failed to shake her cool composure. Instead, she had turned the tables on him with disastrous results.
Carlyle had never been so shocked as when he learned that she had been old Lord Eliot’s convenient. The Eliots were a very old and illustrious family; His Lordship’s fortune was large, his intelligence acute, and his histories critically acclaimed. But, besides being old enough to be Alyssa’s grandfather, the sanctimonious old goat was a notorious high stickler and pattern card of propriety, who, in addition to his histories, wrote witheringly critical essays on modern behaviour that called for a return to high moral standards. The damned hypocrite! While he had fulminated in print about the morals of others, he had been keeping Alyssa as his mistress.
His Grace could not imagine how a young woman of her spirit and that acerbic old man could have dealt together. And the thought of Eliot’s wrinkled old hands touching Alyssa made His Grace oddly furious.
Carlyle, hearing the voices of his son and his butler in the hail, gulped down the contents of his brandy glass to fortify himself for the ordeal that lay ahead. So agitated was he that he was unaware that he still held the empty glass in his hand as he went out to greet Jeremy.
Braced for a dreadful scene, full of recriminations, Carlyle was astonished to see his son smiling happily at him. Jeremy said affably, “I am glad you are here, Papa. I am so eager to hear what you think of Alyssa.”
Carlyle was dumbfounded. If Alyssa had revealed anything at all of what had passed between them, Jeremy would know very well indeed what his father thought of her.
And Jeremy would be furious, not smiling.
“She made me promise that I would immediately convey to you her apologies for having to depart, when she had no chance to become acquainted with you tonight.” Jeremy repeated Alyssa’s message faithfully, even to the odd stress that she had placed on “no chance’.
“Did she, now?” Carlyle said, startled by the message that his son had unconsciously delivered to him. He was certain that his threats had not induced her silence about their confrontation, So what the devil was her game? He regarded Jeremy through narrowed eyes. “Why did you leave so hastily?”
“Alyssa developed a dreadful headache.”
The duke could well imagine that she had, after her session with him, but he asked innocently, “What, pray, was responsible for this affliction?”
“She said she could not imagine what had caused it. Oh, Papa, can’t you see now why I love her so?”
“Yes, I can see why you are bewitched by her,” his father admitted. “Do you mean to plague me now with pleas for permission to marry her immediately?”
“No, Alyssa said that I must not tease you about that.”
Because, the duke thought grimly, she knew it would be a waste of time. Did it also mean that she had begun her campaign to get Jeremy to Gretna Green? Carlyle’s lips tightened into a thin, hard line. Not a moment was to be wasted in launching his counter attack. Knowing how much his son loved family gatherings at Beauchamp, he forced a smile to his lips, exclaiming with false enthusiasm, “What a great celebration we shall have when the time comes for you to marry. It shall be a grand affair with all our family—your aunts and uncles and cousins—and friends gathered at Beauchamp to fête you and your bride and to share your joy with you! What a happy day that shall be for all of us! I could not bear it if you were to deny me and all the rest of our family who love you that golden day.”
“I would never do that!”
“I am relieved. I know what a fatal attraction an elopement holds for young lovers. When one is wildly in love, it seems so romantic and exciting. Unfortunately, it is neither. The reality of being married over a blacksmith’s anvil in Gretna Green by a sham minister, with not a single relative or friend to toast you, is a very shabby way to begin a life together with the woman you love. Yes, it is a sordid piece of business and deservedly scandalous in the eyes of the world. There is never any justification for eloping.”
“Never, Papa?”
“Never under any circumstances,” his father replied firmly. “Indeed, it would break my heart for a son of mine to become involved in such a sordid, scandalous piece of business. When you wed, I want you to be surrounded by your family and friends.”
“I do, too, Papa!” Jeremy exclaimed.
The duke raised his empty brandy glass in a mock toast. “To your wedding day, my son.” May it be several years away! He turned back towards the book-room. “I will see you in the morning.”
Carlyle shut himself up again in his book-room and poured himself more brandy before again sprawling in the wing chair. He had begun hi
s campaign to keep Miss Alyssa Raff from luring Jeremy to Gretna Green, but he did not delude himself that this was only a first and far from decisive skirmish.
She baffled him, and no woman had ever done that before. Why the devil had she not told his son about his offer of a carte blanche? There could have been no surer way to alienate the boy from his father. Carlyle could think of only one answer to this perplexing question. Her silence also ensured his. He was caught in a quid pro quo. She would not tell Jeremy of his dishonourable proposal, but in return, Carlyle could not tell his son that his faithless betrothed had admitted that she did not love him and would cry off her betrothal for a price. The duke’s hands curled into tight fists. Yes, she was a very worthy opponent.
And one he could not help reluctantly admiring. She had not even tried to make herself agreeable to him but, instead, had given him as good as she got. It had been many years since the duke had met a lady of either the haut monde or the demi-monde from whom he had received more than token resistance to anything he might say or wish.
Beyond doubt, she was the most singular incognita that he had ever met, neither flirtatious nor coy, neither dramatic nor vulgar. Her modest, tasteful garb was not designed to display flatteringly her superb body. If Lord Eliot were responsible for her manners, he had outdone himself. He had not merely rubbed a veneer of quality over her, he had seemingly infused it into her. If Carlyle had not known what she was, had not heard from her own lips how callously she would barter his son’s love he would swear that she was a lady of quality.
It seemed impossible to him that she could have spent a day under the same roof with that dreadful mother and sister of hers. It was as if they had come from different worlds. She recognised that, too, for her cheeks had reddened with embarrassment when he had told her of their accosting him at Vauxhall. Why the devil had her mother not told her about their meeting?
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