She was right. He didn’t owe the vile old man a damned thing. Common sense told him not to engage, but instead he heeded his burning anger, the old hurts and betrayal, and he threw open the door, sidestepped around the footman in his family’s livery, and crossed over to the spot where his father leaned out of his carriage window.
“I knew you’d come running right to your whore.”
“Worried enough to track me down, Father?”
“Your fun is past, boy. You’ve had your taste of blood, pricking me with the fates of all my past concubines, but it’s over now.”
It would never be over, especially now that he’d gotten a whiff of victory. No, he would never give up—but he would never let his father see how much it cost him, either.
So he pasted on his most infuriating, devil-may-care smile. “To no one’s surprise, I find I disagree with you. I’ve not had nearly enough fun.”
“You won’t get any more out of this gambit. The Mitford widow is vain and shallow. Do you think she’ll help you, at her own expense?” He laughed. “She’s had a hint of what she’s up against and knows better than to fight it, even if you haven’t caught on, yet.” He cast a withering glance at Half Moon House. “You should learn to make better choices when it comes to your friends. I have, and I want you to watch while I start to reap the benefits.”
Vickers smoldered, but suddenly Addy’s voice rang in his head. It’s harder to scare someone. Then you have to know what they don’t want to hear—or make a good guess.
Instantly, it all became clear.
He shook his head, thinking quickly, all the while keeping that insouciant grin in place. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be watching. I wouldn’t look away now for the world. I’m about to have more fun than I’ve done in all my life.”
His father sneered. “You’re a fool and you’ll know it soon enough.”
He laughed. “No, Father. That lesson will be yours to learn. Both Marstoke and I are eager to see the moment when it all comes clear.”
“What?” His father paled. “What do you know of—”
“Marstoke?” He threw back his head and looked at the sky. “I take it back. Perhaps I am a fool,” he mused, rubbing his chin. “Yes, I’m a damned idiot for suffering some remnant of those old lessons in family duty—because I’m seriously considering telling you.”
“You’re bluffing,” the viscount sneered.
“Fine, then. Goodbye, sir.” He turned on his heel.
“Wait—Damn you, James! Marstoke is no joking matter. Tell me what you know, right now!”
He stared, considering. “I’ll give you the warning you don’t deserve, if you promise to hand Mother over to my protection.” He examined his fingernails. “If you’re smart you’ll be halfway to the Americas by tomorrow, in any case, and she’ll only slow you down.”
“These scare tactics aren’t going to work. I know when you’re blowing smoke.”
Vickers laughed. “That’s a pony you’ve just won me, Father. I told Marstoke you’d say that.”
“Told him when? You don’t travel in his circles.”
“Neither did you, until . . .” He shook his head. “No, never mind.”
“Tell me, damn you!”
“Are we agreed about Mother?”
“Fine! You can have the addled cow.”
He shook his head. “Evil to the end. Very well. I told Marstoke so, when I handed you over to him on a silver platter.” He rolled his eyes. “Did you really think he needed help in setting a pigeon amongst the Queen’s women? Or help plucking up one lone little Russian girl? What he needed was a scapegoat—and I gave him you. Someone dull-witted but tainted enough to believably pin the deed on.” He snickered. “The Home Office might be slow in putting the pieces we left together, but they’ll be along soon enough.”
His father had gone fish-eyed. “You lie!”
He laughed. “You may believe it if you like. Just don’t expect me to visit you while you await trial.” He pulled out his watch and consulted it. “Enjoy your last day or so of freedom.” He dropped the grin at last. “If you run, steer clear of France, I believe they’ve had word that Marstoke might have run there, and he won’t take kindly to you escaping his net. Goodbye, Father.”
“This isn’t over,” the old man yelled as he walked away. “I can destroy you from abroad as easily as from across Town.” He shouted to his driver to head for home, quickly.
Vickers turned to watch him go, stunned that it might have actually worked. “On the contrary, I think that it finally is over.”
Dumbfounded, he stood there for several moments. Then he turned and sprinted back inside.
Hestia was waiting at the window. “Did you just make that up, on the spot?”
He nodded.
Shaking her head, she laughed. “Well, done.”
“Where is she?” he asked.
Hestia smiled. “She’s waiting for you in Hyde Park.”
Once committed, Addy toiled all day to see the thing done right. She chose her location carefully, putting her team of carpenters to work at Hyde Park Corner, where she could be guaranteed not only a crowd of aristocrats, but also a large party of spectators spilling in from the junction of busy streets.
The musicians arrived mid-afternoon. She gave them their direction then headed home to make her own preparations.
By the fashionable hour she was back, arrayed in her most exquisite blue ball gown, standing atop her newly constructed, raised dance floor, listening to the lovely strains of music competing with the noise of the traffic—and waiting.
Onlookers gathered. Word spread. The crowd grew.
Still, she waited.
They called questions, advice, bawdy offers and taunts.
She adjusted her newly, scandalously lowered bodice and waited.
At last a disturbance broke out on the edges of the crowd.
“Look, there!”
“On the Knightsbridge side,” someone shouted.
It was he. He came pelting in from the intersection, staring wildly at the assembled throng. People shouted, slapped him on the back, then parted, forming a path—and he caught sight of her.
He rushed through the open space and thrilled them all with a magnificent leap atop her dais.
“Hell and damnation, Addy. What are you doing?”
She swept into a curtsy, graceful and magnificently low. “I’m asking you to dance.”
He reached for her, looking chagrinned. “No, no. You don’t have to—”
She stayed where she was. “But I do.”
“Stand up!”
“Not until you agree to dance with me, Mr. Vickers.”
Shouts of encouragement nearly drowned out the music.
“Come on, Vickers, give the lady a dance!”
“No, keep her bent over, just like that!”
“Oh, very well, I’ll dance with you. Just please get up!”
She did, keeping hold of both of his hands as he helped her to her feet. “I’m not The Celestial any longer, James. I’ve taken a wrong step, in spectacular and memorable fashion. I’m not perfect—and now everyone knows it.”
Exquisite awareness beat through her every vein as he lifted a finger and smoothed her brow. “Oh, but you are. All your imperfections fit seamlessly with mine. Together we are perfect.”
“My name will be on every gossip’s lips tonight. My image in every scandal sheet tomorrow.” She grinned. “Now I’m exactly the sort of girl your father would not wish you to consort with—which I very much hope means that you will.”
His laugh touched her in secret places. “Scandalous or not, you are the only girl I mean to consort with.” He took her in his arms. “The only one I mean to marry.”
He bent over her and this kiss, so soft and warm, tasted of purpose and joy instead of indecision and doubt.
“Will you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, and the crowd sighed.
He lifted his head. “Let’s do it
quickly. I’ll get a special license tomorrow.”
“We’d best, or Great-Aunt Delia will have your head on a platter.”
The musicians struck up a waltz.
“Dance with me,” she whispered.
The mob fell silent as he took her hand in his and set his other at her waist. The music drifted on the breeze and the sun shone down a benediction as he led her out.
Never had there been a dance like this. Alone on the platform, they moved together as if they’d practiced every day of their lives. He held her scandalously close and she pressed closer still, reveling in his scent and warmth and the incredibly safe, stimulating feel of him surrounding her. Their feet might have been on air, so lightly they moved, so perfectly in time with each other and the swell of the music. The traffic, the park, the crowd all faded and she was just a woman, sublimely suited to a man.
Applause broke out as the song faded.
“I promise, James, now that I am wicked too, that I’ll do anything to help you in your cause. I’ll don a disguise or flirt with your father’s disreputable friends or bribe my way in to see your mother. Anything that will help or ease your mind.”
He gripped her shoulders. “Thank you for the offer, my sweet, but we may not have to worry any longer. In fact . . .” He gazed speculatively out over the crowd, then pulled her to the edge of the dais.
They all fell silent, waiting.
“It would seem that my father, the viscount, has been implicated in crimes against the government. If, by chance, he owes any of you money, I’d see about collecting now. I predict he’ll be running for the nearest port any minute now.”
She covered her mouth, questioning him with a look as several men detached themselves from the group to head for the street. “What’s happened?”
“It turns out that I can tell a story, too.” He explained.
“James! That was brilliant!”
He shrugged. “You inspired me. I admit I’m disheartened, though, that you won’t need to resort to disgraceful behavior. If I ask nicely, will you flirt, bribe and wear a disguise, just for me?”
“Any time you ask,” she promised. “I’m aiming to gain a new nickname, now that the old must be tossed aside.” She nodded toward the crowd. “I mean to give them plenty of stories to tell about me and they’ll need to call me something.” She tilted her head. “Do you have any ideas?”
“I quite like the sound of Mrs. Vickers.”
“Hmm . . .” She bit her lip. “I think I prefer . . . the Wicked Mrs. Vickers.”
He held her tight. “So do I.”
Addy leaned across and kissed her husband as the carriage made its way to the manor house in Crawley. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Of the two of us, I always knew you were the angel.” She gave him another quick, smacking kiss. “Not many men would agree to start their bridal trip with a visit to an infant.”
She smiled when he kissed her back. “I confess, I’m looking forward to meeting her, although I don’t know much about infant girls.”
“You won’t have to,” she reassured him. “Mary writes that she’s in a bossy stage. She’ll likely tell you what to do.”
Everyone was out to meet them again. Addy made the introductions, then looked around. “But where is Muriel? Is she at her nap?”
“No, she’s coming along.” Her aunt suppressed a smile. “She’s got a surprise for you.”
“Another pinecone?”
“No,” someone said behind her. “Better than that.”
She gasped and spun about, then clutched at James as her knees threatened to give out. “Papa?”
He stooped to pick Muriel up, then rushed her, holding them both while Addy sobbed and Muriel patted her head.
“I’m sorry,” he said into her hair. “I was wrong. I’m so sorry.”
“I was already having doubts,” he told Addy later, at tea, while Muriel directed James in how to rearrange all the curios in a cabinet. “Then I started dreaming of your mother, shaking her finger at me. When we were delayed in Spain, I thought it must be a sign.” He looked sheepish. “Then Hestia’s letter arrived.”
Addy’s eyes widened. “Oh, my.”
“Yes, you can imagine. She didn’t hold her punches. And she was right. Your mother would never have forgiven me, had I left you for so long.” He glanced at her. “It was long enough, I see. I didn’t like what I heard about The Celestial. It didn’t sound like my spitfire, story-telling girl.” He cleared his throat. “But I see she is back.”
“She is,” Addy replied contentedly.
“And she’s happy?”
“Very happy, indeed.”
She repeated the sentiment to James later, as the coach pulled away, headed for Brighton.
“I am glad,” he said.
She leaned into his hand as he tucked away a stray strand of hair.
“I was very interested in seeing how well you looked holding a babe in your arms,” he whispered.
She blushed. “There are so very many things to see before then, though. I was thinking of seeing how you look sprawled nude against a Parisian backdrop.”
He raised a brow. “Nude?”
“It’s artistic, is it not? Don’t many young women go to Paris to hone their artistic skills?”
“You, my sweet, are a story teller, and that’s a different sort of artist.”
“I’ll learn to paint, if it means having you nude against a Parisian backdrop.” She squealed as he hopped across to her side of the carriage and gathered her in his arms. “Or perhaps I’ll write a naughty story about it.”
“Will you? Who will you tell it to?”
“Only you,” she said.
“That sounds . . . perfect.”
Deb Marlowe adores History, England and Men in Boots. Clearly she was destined to write Regency Historical Romance.
A Golden Heart Award winner and Rita nominee, Deb grew up in Pennsylvania with her nose in a book. Luckily, she'd read enough romances to recognize the true modern hero she met at a college Halloween party--even though he wore a tuxedo t-shirt instead of breeches and boots. They married, settled in North Carolina and produced two handsome, intelligent and genuinely amusing boys. Though she spends much of her time with her nose in her laptop, for the sake of her family she does occasionally abandon her inner world for the domestic adventure of laundry, dinner and carpool. Despite her sacrifice, not one of the men in her family is yet willing to don breeches or tall boots. She's working on it.
Want to learn when a new release is coming out? Sign up for my Newsletter at www.DebMarlowe.com. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter!
Don’t Miss the Other Books in
The Half Moon House Series
The Love List
An Unexpected Encounter
A Slight Miscalculation
Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
and coming soon:
The Leading Lady
For Deb Marlowe ~ I will never forget your willingness to help a fledgling author by reading my first attempt at a query letter. You are, without a doubt, a saint.
~Ava
April 1816 – Hyde Park, London
Lady Elspeth MacLaren’s morning could not have been better. Not only was it a bright, sunny day – a rarity, most certainly – and not only had she recently acquired her older brother’s vow to attend the remaining social functions of the Season – a feat thought impossible a mere sennight ago – but strolling down Rotten Row, in the opposite direction, and staring quite pointedly at her, was the most devastatingly handsome man in all of London. And he was most definitely the reason Ellie was in Hyde Park today.
Sebastian Alder, the oh-so-handsome-and-charming Earl of Peasemore. Just the sight of him could make her heart flutter and her breath catch.
Lord Peasemore touched the brim of his beaver hat in greeting, his hazel eyes twinkling a bit devilishly, and Ellie somehow managed not to stumble or faint. She didn’t even outwardly sigh. Doing so would only tip her ha
nd and that was the very last thing she intended to do. No, with a man like Peasemore, one had to be witty, crafty, and make him think that falling in love with her was all his idea. He was halfway in love with her as it was. After all, he wasn’t tipping his hat to anyone else along the row, now was he?
She did allow the briefest smile to grace her lips before she and Sophie Hampton passed the earl as they continued on the path before them. Thankfully Sophie waited all of two minutes before she whispered, “He looked right at you.”
Ellie’s heart lifted at the memory, though it was only moments ago. Still, she would think about that look, that tip of his hat the rest of the day. Now if only she could somehow devise a way to learn which event the earl planned to attend this evening. It would be nice if Ian could ferret out that sort of information, but her brother was still ill-humored at having been out-witted into attending the remaining functions of the Season with her. He would not be in the mood to conduct espionage, no matter how little effort it would take, on her behalf.
She cast a sidelong glance at Sophie and wished her friend was in the possession of a brother who might be of assistance. Cousins Sophie had in spades, but nary a brother to be found. More’s the pity. Still, it couldn’t hurt to make an inquiry, could it? Ellie smiled at her friend and said, “You don’t have any plans to see Mr. Winslett today, do you?”
Sophie giggled. “Isn’t it enough you have Lord Peasemore’s notice? Now you want Chase Winslett’s attention too?”
Mr. Winslett was hardly Ellie’s sort. For one thing, he didn’t seem the least bit devilish and for another, he…Well, he wasn’t the heir to anything. Ellie could never utter those last words aloud, however. They would make her sound like the worst sort of social climber. But she was the daughter of the late Earl of Ericht and sister to the current earl. She hadn’t begged, manipulated, and pleaded her way out of Scotland only to end up married to some Englishman without a title. What a complete waste of her efforts that would be. “I only thought he might be persuaded to find out which event Lord Peasemore planned on attending this evening.”
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