Heartless

by Jaimey Grant

  “Merri, I—”

  She swung around, fury engulfing her diminutive form. “Do not call me that! Never call me that! My father loved me. He called me that. It is reserved for my friends, Lord Derringer, and those that love me. You have made it all too clear that you feel no such emotion for me so I would greatly appreciate it if you would refrain from taking such a liberty.”

  Derringer stared at her. He was so completely shocked that he stood there blank-faced while she clenched her small hands into fists and actually screamed. He blinked once and reached for her as she dissolved into wrenching sobs.

  She shrank away. “No! Don’t touch me!” Each word was separated with much feeling and intense loathing. Her eyes sparkled like emeralds, as hard and unforgiving.

  The duke’s heart felt like a lead weight in his chest. He had lost. He admitted it. It was too late. But he could still retrieve that which was rightfully hers.

  With one last pain-filled look, Derringer left her to her grief.

  Leandra dried her face only to burst into tears again. It was just too much. She was ashamed of losing control of her tongue and her emotions. But being in love with a man as loathsome as the Duke of Derringer had finally pushed her too far. Where was that man she glimpsed so very briefly from time to time?

  He was still there, she admitted. But her hurt feelings over his well-known rudeness would not allow her to see him in any kind of objective light.

  With an effort, Leandra managed to get herself under control. She washed and dried her face at the washstand in her dressing room and rang for Liza. Dinner was soon and she wanted to be dressed as befitted her station.

  Granted, looking well had always acted as a sort of armor for a woman since times immemorial. This thought rested comfortably in the back of Leandra’s mind an hour later as she descended the stairs for dinner in a dark blue dress of shimmery satin with an overdress of silver net.

  Hesitating on the landing, she took a deep breath. How could so much have happened in one day?

  Her husband stood outside the doors of the drawing room, awaiting her arrival. His breath caught at the sight of her. She was like a midnight sky covered in stars. Her dark brown hair was swept up away from her face with silver combs encrusted in diamonds and sapphires and allowed to hang loosely down her back. It caused the most painful ache in his chest to realize that he had lost a brilliant piece of heaven because he was too used to having his own way all the time.

  He would have given her every farthing of his inheritance if he thought it would help. But she was not minded as other women seemed to be. She didn’t care for wealth and power. It was one of the main reasons he loved her.

  She paused before him, her poise once more a part of her. With a graceful curtsy, she murmured, “Good evening, your grace.”

  Derringer bowed, his heart breaking at her formal, emotionless tone. Her insistence on the improper form of address saddened him. How he wished she’d stop emphasizing her belief that she was so much beneath him on a social scale. How he wished he could tell her she was above him and everyone he knew, regardless of title.

  “You are beautiful tonight, your grace,” he said, meaning every word.

  He offered his arm to escort her into the drawing room, as manners deemed proper. She looked steadily at his face, glanced at his arm, and finally gingerly placed her hand on it.

  It was enough to make a grown man cry. The duke thought for a moment that he might disgrace himself in just such a way. But he managed to swallow the lump in his throat and smile down at his tiny bride.

  She stared hard at the floor. He wondered if perhaps there was some kind of insect or something that had caught her attention when he noticed her shoulders tremble.

  The duke removed her hand from his sleeve and, instead of entering the drawing room, he took her down the corridor to a small, little used salon.

  Turning her to face him, he said, “I wonder if you might let me say something.”

  Leandra looked up, tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. She brushed them impatiently away, angry that she had allowed her emotions free reign again. “What, your grace?”

  Derringer sighed. “I was wrong.”

  She blinked, stared at him silently for a long moment, blinked again, sniffed, and then released a mirthless laugh. “You almost convinced me, your grace. Excellent attempt.”

  She turned to go but found her way impeded by her husband’s grasp on her arm. She looked up at him. Would he beat her now?

  “I am in earnest, Lady Derringer. I was wrong for threatening you, wrong for belittling you, wrong for telling you that you were unimportant to me. I was wrong. I would beg your forgiveness if I thought I deserved it, but I do not. You would be far better off without me in your life and I daresay would welcome the respite.”

  Leandra mulled this over, fighting back a fresh onslaught of tears. He seemed so very sincere. His black eyes were sad, his expression somber, and his bearing held a note of defeat.

  She couldn’t just give in, however, no matter how much her heart and soul cried out for her to do so. It was suicide to trust such a man.

  “Why did you threaten me?” she asked instead.

  Derringer tensed. Every time he thought of that incident, he was tortured by new visions of her horrible death. In fact, he’d started having nightmares about her falling down the stairs. The same stairs that…

  “Hart! What is it?”

  The duke shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain. What was that all about? The same stairs that… what?

  Leandra shook his arm, reached up and shook his shoulder, and then slapped him lightly on the cheek. She didn’t understand what was happening, why he looked so distant, so frightened. What distressed him so?

  Derringer looked down at Leandra with a perplexed, distracted air. It was such an odd recollection that he still couldn’t grasp exactly what it was about. Her slap across his face snapped him out of it. His eyes widened considerably in surprise.

  When he realized that she was very nearly embracing him, he did the only natural thing he could do and wrapped his arms around her.

  Leandra tried to frown but was tempted to laugh. “I was not offering you anything other than comfort, your grace.”

  “You called me Hart a minute ago and I promise I am very comfortable.” He leaned closer and placed tiny, nibbling kisses along her neck and behind her ear.

  A giggle escaped before she could stop it. Her husband released her with a smile and held out his hand. “Shall we go in to dinner, my duchess?”

  She hesitated. “Hart, what happened just now? You seemed to be miles away.”

  He tried to shrug nonchalantly but was afraid he failed in the attempt. “I honestly do not know, my dear. It was nothing.”

  Her eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. “Nothing? I saw an injured child once with less fear in his eyes than I saw just now in yours. How can that be nothing?”

  It is said that one cannot change overnight. This universal truth had little to do with Derringer. He had only been striving to change for a few hours. His annoyance levels were increasing dangerously, mainly because he was frustrated by his own inability to understand what had just happened.

  But, remarkably, instead of snapping at her, he said, “I don’t know what happened, I don’t understand any more than you, in fact, I am through discussing it.”

  Leandra wisely heeded the warning tone in the duke’s voice. She had no desire to bring about another onslaught of his sharp tongue.

  She took his arm and together they joined the others.

  27

  Derringer nearly burst out laughing when the redoubtable Lady Brianna, loving and… hmm, obedient wife of Sir Adam Prestwich entered the drawing room with all the magnificence of a queen. He strode over to greet her before her husband had the chance.

  “My dear lady, you have no idea how welcome you are,” he told her, bowing over her hand.

  Bri gave him a startled glance. “Why?” she
asked, green eyes narrowing in her stunningly beautiful face.

  “I believe I will allow your husband to tell you that if he so chooses. Meanwhile, please join us for dinner.”

  Prestwich joined them, frowning, clearly suspecting that the duke had something to do with Bri’s escape from her apartment. “Well, my lady? How did you do it?” he inquired, his voice soft but intent.

  Before Bri could form a response, Derringer inserted dryly, “She picked the lock on the window and climbed down the ivy, Prestwich.”

  Adam looked his wife over carefully. “How do you know that?” There were no telltale marks or tears on her lovely gown of lemon yellow silk and her hair appeared to be in perfect order. He looked at the duke.

  Derringer smiled at Bri, a bit of his old glee in the discomfort of others peeking through. She seemed to plead with him to hold his tongue, but he was nearly as worried about her getting involved with his problems as his own wife. The last thing he needed was the death of two or three ladies on his conscience.

  “I think perhaps this should wait, Prestwich,” the duke said lightly. “Very bad ton to murder your wife in a duke’s crowded drawing room, you see. Not sure even I can get away with that.”

  Prestwich was livid; anyone with eyes could see that. Derringer patted him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture of understanding just as Stark entered to announce dinner.

  Leandra presided at the foot of the table entertaining her dinner partners. Gabriel St. Clair sat on her right side and Lord Greville on her left. She was talking to Greville about nothing really when she suddenly remembered of the letter she had found in her predecessor’s journal. She glanced at Gabriel who laughed at something Michaella was saying. Had Derringer even read the note, or had events prompted his forgetfulness as it had hers?

  “Lady Derringer?”

  Leandra turned a bright smile on Greville. “Why so formal, my lord?”

  “Because I have said your name several times with no response. What is going on in that very fertile mind of yours?”

  “I don’t know why I should tell you, Levi. A woman in this day and age has very little left to her other than her thoughts. I think I prefer to keep mine to myself.”

  “If I suspected you of getting involved in something you shouldn’t, Leandra, I would feel obliged to put a stop to it.”

  “I don’t think I care for your tone, sir.”

  Greville sighed and lowered his voice. “This situation with Hart is dangerous, Leandra. I think you know that. He would be destroyed if you were to get hurt trying to protect him.”

  “Is that not a decision for me to make, my lord?”

  “No, Lady Derringer, it’s not,” Greville told her adamantly.

  There was a lull in conversation just as those words left the earl’s mouth. Everyone turned surprised eyes on the couple at the end of the long table. The duke’s expression was faintly inquiring but he said nothing.

  Leandra smiled and shrugged. “Simple misunderstanding,” she murmured.

  The duke cocked an eyebrow but returned his attention to Aurora on his left.

  The gathering in the drawing room after dinner proved entertaining to nearly everyone present.

  Derringer watched Adam Prestwich as he managed to inveigle Harwood’s empty-headed wife into willingly giving up her locket. This was done off to one side of the spacious room, out from under the eyes of everyone else. Derringer made sure the rest of his guests were entertained elsewhere, leaving Adam to charm his victim.

  The duke noted Leandra chatting with Aurora, Michaella, and Bri, while trying to get his cousin Kathryn to open up a little. She was paying Adam no heed whatsoever, he was pleased to see. He returned half his attention to Greville while still watching Adam.

  The baronet proved to be very adept at negotiation and soon had the young woman willing to part with all of her jewels if he wished it. Adam assured her he only desired her locket and she handed it over.

  “Thank you, Prestwich,” said Derringer as the other man joined him. “I appreciate it.”

  Adam grunted. “How did she do it, Derringer? I have racked my brain all night and the answer eludes me.”

  The duke laughed, drawing the eyes of some close to them. “When you retire, ask your bride to undress before you.”

  Adam opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it, and shook his head.

  “And if you can’t even determine how your wife escaped her room, I’m not sure I believe you will be of any help apprehending my attacker.”

  Adam made no reply to this and walked away to join his lady.

  It wasn’t until later that night that Derringer recalled the note he had taken from his wife. He sat down behind his father’s desk in the study and pulled it from his pocket. He read the short missive once, twice, and a third time before the words really sank in. Then, his eyes blank, the duke rose from his seat and left the room.

  Gabriel was awake, reading a book that the duke remembered from their schooldays. He walked over and tossed the paper onto the bed. “Read that and tell me what you think,” he commanded curtly.

  Gabriel was surprised at his cousin’s tone but forbore mentioning it, reading the note instead. His eyes grew wider and wider the further he read until he finished and fixed his blue gaze on Derringer. “Is it true, do you think?”

  “It is the duchess’s hand, I’ve no doubt. Why she would lie about such a thing, I don’t know. So how can it be other than true?”

  The other man shook his head. “It must be. But how the devil did she manage to keep the servants quiet about this? Someone must have been here at the time. Someone must have known.”

  The two men looked at each other in surprise. “Mrs. Stark!” they said at once.

  The duke would have left right then to question the housekeeper but Gabriel stopped him. “It is too late, Hart. Wait until morning.”

  “Don’t you want to know now? I do.”

  Gabriel said nothing for several seconds. “Do you realize someone wanted me dead in France?” he finally asked softly.

  “Of course they did,” scoffed the duke. “Those French bastards wanted as many English dead as possible.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he said, “Yes, you are right.”

  Derringer stared at Gabriel for a minute before leaving. He was suddenly very much aware that his closest friend and relative kept secrets from him and he was very much afraid they might be to that man’s detriment.

  Leandra woke slowly from a deep sleep plagued by bittersweet dreams. As a result, part of her refused to wake while the other part refused to remain asleep. She went in favor of waking over sleeping and stretched her arms far above her head. Her hazel eyes flickered open, focused blearily on an object dangling before her face. She blinked several times before she realized what it was.

  “My locket!”

  Stretching out her hand, Leandra reached for her precious possession only to have it jerk back out of her reach. Startled, and not quite awake enough to realize it was obviously being held by someone, she screamed.

  “Lord, Merri! Your screeching will wake the dead, love.”

  Leandra paused mid-scream. “Hart! What are you doing?” She retrieved her spectacles from the bedside table and plopped them on her face. Derringer’s face came sharply into focus, his dark eyes rife with laughter.

  “Why, returning your property to you, my dear lady. What other possible reason might I have for invading my wife’s bedchamber?” he asked in all seriousness.

  She blushed, as he knew she would. “Thank you, Hart. How ever did you convince her ladyship to part with it?”

  The duke smiled. “That is, I think, a secret I will take to my grave, duchess.”

  The thought that immediately crossed Leandra’s mind made her glare at her husband. “I suppose you enjoyed it, too,” she said darkly.

  “It was entertaining, I admit,” he replied with a pointed look at her.

  “I’m sure it w
as, your grace. Well, you can leave and return your reward to your whore!” She was so angry she thought she might spit. She settled for throwing a pillow at him.

  Derringer laughed, catching the missile. “A whore she may be, Merri, but she isn’t mine. I don’t know that anyone would actually lay claim to the woman.”

  “She’s not? Then how…?”

  “Have a little faith in me, my blushing bride. I am not so lost to propriety that I would take a mistress under my wife’s very nose.”

  “Are you not?”

  He shrugged. “Well, maybe I am. The point is, I didn’t, I haven’t, and,” he reached over and grasped her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes, “I won’t bring a mistress into our home.”

  The duchess studied his sharp features for any signs of duplicity and, finding none, ventured to ask, “Why not?”

  Derringer sat back, stunned. “I promise to keep my amours far from home and you want to know why?”

  She released a breath and admitted, “No, actually, I don’t. Never mind. What are your plans for the day, your grace?”

  His brows drew down. “I am probably wasting my breath, but why am I ‘your grace’ all of a sudden?”

  “For the same reason you always are, I suppose,” she replied with a careless shrug. “I am annoyed with you.”

  “If I inquire as to what I’ve done to incur your wrath, would you tell me?”

  “You just told me you will, one day, take a mistress. Should I be relieved you have at least promised to keep the woman from my sight?” Her fingers clenched in the bedclothes. “Was that reassurance meant to be comforting?”

  “You would like a promise that I will never take a mistress?” He leaned back, studying her tense features. “And why would my word mean anything? I am not known for keeping my word, nor am I known for bowing to the whims of another.”