Regard the stodgy Duke, himself, just this morning. Demand this and demand that, without a by your leave, if you please. Be there or be damned, he had all but said.
Well, be damned to him. She would not be there.
Sabrina dressed in her second best black bombazine, empire-style gown, wondering again why she wore mourning for a barbaric brute of a man she had wanted to murder, herself, more times than she cared to recall, a man she still feared someone must have murdered.
Someone, whose name she knew, she also feared.
A short while later, looking in on her children, she remembered the reason she wore black. She did it for them. Respectability, it was called. She would do anything to earn that for them. Even marry a doddering old man, or worse, a virile young one.
After she left the boys in Miss Minchip’s able care, she took the servants’ stairs to the kitchen, conferred with cook, and set out for a walk toward Old Souls Church. There she would seek guidance from a higher authority as to how she might best deal with her mystifying rogue.
She had not waddled half a block, however, when a closed carriage pulled up beside her, and to her surprise, the door was thrown open by an unseen hand. “Come in, your grace, and rest from your burden.”
The voice prickled the hair on Sabrina’s arms and sent a chill down her spine. Familiar, yet not, and even as the words invited, the voice struck terror.
“Come,” it coaxed. “I will convey you wherever you wish to go.”
Though Sabrina was certain she must have heard the voice somewhere before, she could not seem to recall it.
And she believed she should.
Oh, she was certain she should.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sabrina faltered as she tried to decide whether to turn and run or peek into the dark, forbidding interior of the nondescript conveyance. But her decision was taken away by a top of the trees Corinthian out for a stroll. In his many-caped greatcoat, his black curly beaver at a jaunty angle, and tipping his gold-tipped cane her way, the rogue offered her his arm.
Almost at once, the door of the mysterious carriage closed and the driver pulled the vehicle smoothly into traffic.
“Who was that?” her husband asked.
Sabrina looked down her nose at him, but she took his arm, nevertheless. “Someone looking for directions, I expect.”
Damned if her Duke did not resemble the devil incarnate this morning, wicked as sin and elegant as ever. Amazing what a bath and a change of clothes, or clothing at all, could do for a man.
Not that he appeared a fragment less than magnificent without his clothes.
“Do we feel better after our bath?” he asked, both patronizing and annoying.
“If you mean, by we … do I?” Sabrina asked. “And does the baby? Yes we do. If you are asking after you and me, then I suppose you will have to answer at least part of the question, yourself. Do you feel better, Your Surliness?”
His bark of laughter surprised and delighted Sabrina. She had only heard it in the dark, in bed, and supposed that any and all playfulness on his part would be kept strictly in the bedchamber.
Glad to be found wrong on that score, Sabrina smiled, relaxed, certainly for the first time since she annoyed him by refusing to share her past with him.
“For some odd reason, despite the nature of our wedding night,” he said with a wink. “I feel incredibly well-rested this morning. But I must admit that I find myself concerned about your missing breakfast. You are eating for two, you must remember.”
“Mrs. Chalmer force-fed me toast and milk in the kitchen when I went down to approve today’s menu,” she said. “But thank you for your kind concern.”
“Balderdash!” he said.
“Balderdash?”
“You mock an honest emotion, Sabrina. I am genuinely concerned for you. While you may not always like what I have to say, you may be certain that I will always speak in earnest.”
“I see.”
“I am glad to hear it. Let us then proceed to the dressmaker, shall we, and get you out of your blacks?”
Sabrina stopped walking. “In this condition? Now?”
“If you had rather go out of mourning after the baby….”
“Honestly? I had rather bury the blacks now, but I find myself weary and feeling rather exhausted, I am appalled to admit.”
Sabrina had no sooner spoken than Gideon snapped his fingers and bundled her into his carriage, which must have been following at a discreet distance, for the two-block trip back to Stanthorpe Place.
Mr. Chalmer reset the breakfast room, posthaste, and half the household rallied round to be certain “the little mother” consumed enough “good healthy fare” to recover herself, while Gideon relaxed and partook of the breakfast he had been too remorseful to enjoy without her.
He gave her a sidelong glance as he buttered his toast and wondered if she realized the importance of the lessons they had taught each other today.
He had showed her that she could not run anywhere he would not find her. And he hoped she noted that he would not let his temper get the better of him, no matter how much she annoyed him.
Direct orders, she had demonstrated, like surly behavior, she as much as said, would not be tolerated or obeyed by her.
Gideon grinned as the implication sank in. As he had suspected, his bride did indeed make for a worthy opponent, in and out of bed.
Anticipation filled him at the thought.
He liked nothing better than a proper challenge, except, perhaps, winning.
“What, pray tell, do you find to amuse you?” she asked, as she regarded him, perhaps a bit worried, but more than a trace smug as well.
So, she did comprehend her power, or she thought she did. Gideon gave her a grudging nod of approval, while she had the audacity to acknowledge, what amounted to, her rebuke of his high-handedness, with a vainglorious grin.
Round two to Sabrina.
“Oh my,” Miss Minchip said.
Gideon saw that the others had been watching and likely bestowed a somewhat sensual bent to their individual translations of the silent by-play between him and his new wife.
Gideon chuckled but did not reveal the source of his humor, even when pressed. Instead, he sought to change the subject. “I had a remarkable experience during the night.”
Sabrina squeaked and nearly choked on her eggs. Miss Minchip’s eyes grew huge and eager, and one of Mr. Waredraper bushy white eyebrows rose high enough to kiss his bald pate.
To halt speculation, Gideon held up his hand. “You will pardon my poor word choice,” he said, winking at Miss Minchip then fearing she might swoon. “I awoke,” he said, starting again, “and could swear that I came face to face with a child, a lad, I believe.”
Doggett sat up as if he had been called to attention. “Did he have a mustache?” he asked. “Or a gold hoop in his ear?”
Everyone’s head turned swiftly in that man’s direction.
“You know a child who looks like this?” Gideon asked.
“Er, no, but you can never be too careful with the silver.”
“We do not keep the silver in the bedrooms. Most people do not.” Perhaps that lack in Doggett’s education was the reason he seemed not to have succeeded in his chosen profession. If thievery was his chosen profession.
“Perhaps I should call in the runners,” Gideon said.
Doggett blustered and cited any number of aristocrats who hid their baubles in as many varied and unusual places.
When his recitation ended, Gideon thanked him for the lesson, pondered from whence Doggett’s knowledge had come, and turned to the others at the table. “Do any of you know who our midnight visitor might have been?”
If their previous reactions could be called rapt, then their current expressions could only be termed wary. Interesting, indeed.
“Who? The child, or the intruder who made that mess in the library?” Doggett asked.
“Oh no,” Sabrina said. “What happened in the library
?”
“Not to worry,” Gideon said. “Nothing was taken. But if one of the servants is keeping a child, without my knowledge,” he added, more to Sabrina and the hovering Chalmer than to his boarders. “All his mother has to do is come to me and we will discuss the matter and see that her child is properly housed and schooled. The boy should be given an opportunity to flourish, rather than stagnate.”
Silence, ponderous and bleak, served as his answer. And the nature of that quiet, or disquiet, he should say, ruffled Gideon’s feathers. What the deuce was going on?
“You must have been dreaming.” Sabrina laughed, not sounding nearly as light-hearted as she pretended.
“Yes,” Waredraper said, too eager by half. “Last night’s supper gave me vile dreams, too. Er, pardon to Mrs. Chalmer,” he said, nodding toward Mr. Chalmer, who had ceased pouring Gideon’s tea.
Rather than bristle, Chalmer released his breath. “Apology noted. She will not hear a word from me.”
“There, that is settled,” Sabrina said as she rose.
Gideon concluded his meal as well and took her arm. “Perhaps,” he said. “The child made the mess in the library.”
“No,” said every member of his household, from his wife to his butler.
“Well that is an end to that,” he said, tongue in cheek.
What dire secret lived in his own damned house, Gideon wondered, as he escorted his wife from the dining room, that kept everyone from revealing it?
Whatever it was—and he would bet fifty guineas there was a child nearby who might, or might not, be a thief—he had best nip this little intrigue in the bud, before suspicion destroyed the foundation of his household.
What could the lot of them possibly have to keep from him, anyway? And what could a child he had not even been certain existed have to do with it?
That he was being kept in the dark, rankled, and Gideon bloody well wanted to know why.
* * *
Sabrina discovered that very first morning that as Stanthorpe’s expeditious and unexpected bride, she had become the newest form of entertainment for London’s beau monde, an experience she had rather do without.
The gears of the gossip mill must have started grinding the moment Lady Veronica left their wedding, Sabrina mused, because all and sundry seemed to be working those gears into a powerful head of steam.
Almost the instant her first collection of morning callers arrived, they began to regard her as if she were a rare specimen under glass, or an exotic creature in a zoological exhibit.
As the unique display in question, Sabrina began to entertain an absurd image of herself roaring, or crouching—to the horrified delectation of her audience—like one of the tigers brought from India and kept on display at Exeter ‘Change.
In her maternally-girthed widow’s weeds, however, Sabrina very much feared that she more closely resembled one of the ill-kept beasts at the Tower’s Royal Menagerie. She dearly wished, now, that she had felt up to visiting the dressmaker earlier, for she might well be there, still.
The one boost to her pride and confidence was Stanthorpe Place, particularly the drawing room where she received her visitors. A veritable showpiece, the room boasted twin fireplaces of topaz-marble, carved cypress-wood ceilings, and six wide, full-length windows, that admitted just enough illumination to spotlight its luxurious appointments.
Butter cream damask covered the walls, with the same pale yellow, robin’s egg blue, and soft fern green, picked out in the upholstered furniture, cushions and curtains. Subtle scents of beeswax and citrus hung in the air and complimented the serene atmosphere.
Bright, welcoming, and subtly beautiful, the room had already become Sabrina’s favorite in the house. The first time she had seen it, she had experienced the most wonderful sense of having arrived home, safe, finally.
At this moment, she reveled in the sentiment, wrapped it around herself like a mantle of spun gold and wore it with her head held high.
She needed all the help she could get.
Her guests were so much a drain on her self-confidence as to be more likened to weapons of utter destruction.
Claws bared and innuendo at the ready, refined ladies in silk and satin—vultures in disguise—tore her up one side and down the other, barely stopping long enough to collect the bloody shreds. They simpered and they smiled, wielding compliments like swords.
As each party left, Sabrina sighed in relief, but if she thought her first group of visitors concealed lethal talons, they were nothing to Lady Veronica Cartwright and her toadying train of twittering trollops.
“Congratulations, your grace,” said one mawkish matron. “So you are the new Duchess of Stanthorpe? Quite a rise in station, I should say. Would that we were all so fortunate.” Her bristly brows rose with the last, giving her the look of a startled porker. “An heir apparent, as well,” she simpered, examining Sabrina’s middle through her lorgnette. “You certainly know how to procure that which you fancy, do you not, my dear?” The woman smiled artfully and raised her teacup in salute. “No matter the rest of the world’s opinion, I say, well done!”
Verbal swordplay must be a form of entertainment with the scandal broth set, Sabrina mused, offering her tormentor more tea, wishing she could tip the pot and drench yon feathered bonnet. She thought it amazing, really, and sad, that she had imagined herself the tigress, and her guests the innocents, when all along, things stood the other way ‘round.
Lady Veronica, herself, acted as if upon a theater stage, an edgy desperation stiffening both manner and movement, like a marionette, clumsily worked. As if her very life depended upon the success of her performance.
Not many minutes after thinking so, Sabrina began to understand what Lady Veronica might actually be attempting.
Society must perceive her as pitiable—suddenly and publicly abandoned, as she was, by Stanthorpe. So to maintain her social rank and associated power, the poor woman needed to show the ton why she had been displaced, or, replaced,—please God—in Gideon’s affections.
How better to prove one had not been thrown over lightly, or even willingly, than to reveal the true reason for one’s abandonment—the imminent possibility of an heir.
Sabrina smiled knowingly and raised her chin higher. Rather than being embarrassed by her delicate condition, she wore her maternity like a medal of honor.
‘Twas she, not Lady Veronica Cartwright, who bore the title Duchess of Stanthorpe. In the eyes of the world, at least, Sabrina—not the ruthless Lady Veronica—carried Stanthorpe’s child.
Unfortunately, Sabrina could not shake the notion that she should not underestimate the Lady. Not only had she married the man Veronica had chosen for herself, but she was afraid she had made a powerful enemy in the bargain.
When the requisite time for the visit was up, Veronica and her entourage rose as one—a covey of bright, chattering birds startled into flight.
Before departing the room, however, Veronica, his head mistress, narrowed her eyes and stepped close enough for Sabrina to detect the acrid scent of hate. “I will have Stanthorpe yet, one way or another,” she promised. “He desires me, not you.”
The way Veronica preened before her friends, made Sabrina want, for all the world, to slap the smile from the woman’s face.
“Do not forget that Stanthorpe was still bedding me,” she went on, looking down her nose at Sabrina’s figure. “When he put that in you.”
“Odd, you should say so.” Sabrina placed a hand on her belly. “For I believe our child is proof to the contrary.”
“As do I,” her husband said from behind Sabrina’s tormentor, turning the woman on her heel with a gasp.
“Lady Veronica mistakes the matter.” Gideon regarded Sabrina. “My tastes have matured. Improved, I daresay.”
He returned his gaze to his former mistress. “I now prefer sweet to...tart.”
CHAPTER NINE
Gideon stepped around his dumbstruck mistress, kissed his wife’s hand and gazed with adorati
on into her eyes, a move for which Sabrina would remain forever grateful.
Then he placed her hand on his arm and covered it, possessively, with his own. “It took no one less powerful than Napoleon Bonaparte, himself, to keep me from marrying Sabrina sooner.”
He encompassed Veronica’s intimates in his smile. “Surely you, dear and lovely ladies of the ton, understand the sacrifices war demands.” By the time he bowed to them, he had made conquests of them all. “We shall bid you a good-day.” He swept Sabrina from the room.
“Chalmer,” Gideon snapped as they crossed the hall. “Her grace is not at home to visitors for the rest of the day—no, for the rest of the week. He examined Sabrina’s face, his brow a study in concern. Amend that; she will not be receiving for a fortnight.”
Sabrina smiled gratefully.
Lady Veronica Cartwright had overplayed her hand.
* * *
Lady Veronica Cartwright’s dislike of his wife was beginning to worry Gideon. He knew her too well not to be concerned.
They had been childhood friends, of a sort, and he had seen her at her worst, or what he hoped was her worst. At the age of eight, he had failed to keep her from strangling the life out of a baby bird, whose only crime had been falling from its nest and landing in her lap.
As an adult, he had fooled himself into thinking she had outgrown her ghastly childhood antics. He told himself she had changed and he proceeded to use her body, as she used his.
In retrospect, Gideon was ashamed of his ongoing liaison with the viper. He hated to admit, even to himself, that keeping her as his mistress had satisfied him, because he could bed her one minute, and walk away without looking back, the next.
He had, God help him, reveled in the disconnectedness of their alliance.
As he escorted Sabrina up the stairs for a rest after Veronica’s fateful visit, he berated himself for having placed his wife in danger by virtue of association. Veronica must be de-clawed, he knew, so that he and Sabrina could get on with their lives.
Undeniable Rogue (The Rogues Club Book One) Page 8