by Jenna Jaxon
“Violet, my love. Please. Tell me what did he do?”
The horror in his voice brought her head up, her gaze riveted to his as he took in her disheveled hair, torn dress, tear-stained face. She clasped her arms across her ripped bodice, and her breasts ached at the slight pressure. God knew she looked like a strumpet and worse. “He tried to make me his mistress.”
Tris’s blue eyes darkened, his nostrils flared and his jaw tightened so hard it creaked. Death looked out of his face as he stalked over to the still form. He stood over him, chest heaving, hands opening and clenching. “Had I a sword or a pistol this piece of filth would never rise from this spot. He’s nothing more than a rabid dog that wants killing.”
“What in hell is going on here?” The imperious tones of Lord Downing sounded from the doorway.
Violet froze.
His lordship stood half over the threshold, his eyes popping out of their sockets. Standing behind him, Lady Downing, the Duchess of Ostroda, and Dora, all wide-eyed and white faced, stared silently at the carnage.
Chapter 28
The women’s shocked faces, carrying almost the exact scandalized expression, made Violet want to giggle hysterically.
In an instant, Tris appeared beside her, doffed his coat, and wrapped it around her. He stood in front of her, shielding her from their prying eyes.
Gratefully, she sank into the warmth of his steel-gray velvet jacket, even more comforted because it enveloped her in the fragrance of bergamot, citrus, and him. An overwhelming sense of safety settled over her and her tears renewed, although now they were tears of joy.
Lord Downing stumped into the library. “What have you done to Harper? Eccles!” he bellowed. “Eccles.”
The butler appeared at a sedate trot, but skidded to a stop at the bloodbath before him. Simon Harper lay bleeding from a dozen tiny cuts.
“Fetch the surgeon at once.” Downing gazed around, helpless. “Harriet, for the love of God, do something. Harper may be dying.”
“I sincerely doubt that.” Flexing and shaking his hand, Tris twisted his mouth in disgust as he viewed the moaning man. “Only the good die young, so they say. By that reckoning, your son will live to see one hundred.”
“How dare you.” Lady Downing knelt beside her son, patting his hands and face. “Eccles, fetch my reticule. It has smelling salts.”
“Oh, I have some here.” Dora darted forward to offer the vial. She stared first at Tris, then at Violet. Then more decidedly at Violet’s dishabille.
Heat touching her cheeks at her friend’s scrutiny, Violet pulled the coat more securely across her chest. Oh, why must Dora see her like this? Bad enough to be disgraced in front of her employers, but for her friend to be part and parcel of her ruin was another stinging blow.
Lady Downing applied the smelling salts to Harper’s nose.
From the floor he sputtered, gasped, and sat up. He pushed his mother away, knocking the vial from her hand, and it spun across the room. “What in damnation is that? Get it away from me before I choke to death.”
“Simon. Thank God you’re alive.” When Lady Downing tried to grasp him around the neck, however, she was soundly rebuffed, and promptly burst into tears.
The duchess, who seemed made of sterner stuff, helped her sister to her feet. “Come along, Harriet. Let’s get you a good strong cup of tea.”
“I demand to know what is going on.” Lord Downing planted himself in the doorway. With his cravat askew, his jacket pulled open, and his wig cocked at an impossible angle, he could have been mistaken for an inmate escaped from Bedlam.
“A gross deception, Father.” Easing himself up off the floor, Mr. Harper winced when his hand crunched on a piece of glass. He sidled over to a long sofa and sank onto it.
“A deception? What do you mean?” Wide-eyed, Lord Downing glanced from Tristan to his son to his wife.
“I mean Trevor here has perpetrated a fraud upon us.”
Everyone in the room turned, staring at Tris who continued to stand nonchalantly, arms folded across his chest, glowering at Harper.
“What fraud, boy?” Downing knit his brows, his gaze shuttling back and forth between his son and his future son-in-law. With each subtle movement, his wig slid lower.
“Miss Carlton has been brought here and foisted upon us under false pretenses by Lord Trevor.” Harper thrust his finger toward her.
Violet shrank back into the coat, her stomach sickening. Now the whole sordid story would come out in a room full of people. In front of Dora, who she’d come to like very much. If the floor could swallow her whole she would count it a blessing.
“What are you talking about, Harper. Spit it out.” Downing drummed his fingers on the back of a chair.
“Miss Carlton is his mistress.” With a triumphant toss of his head, Harper threw the words at them.
Gasps from the ladies near the doorway sent Violet shrinking further behind Tris.
“Is this true, Trevor?” Downing’s voice deepened, he leaned toward Tris, and his wig finally slid down his back and plopped onto the floor.
“No, it is not true.” Tris spoke calmly and Violet started at the lie. He put a hand on her shoulder, urging her to stay silent.
“The devil it is.” Harper sprang out of the chair, then turned pale and slowly lowered himself back into the seat. “I saw you leaving the House of Pleasure with her in November.”
A wailing moan arose and Lady Downing sank to the floor in a swoon.
The duchess shook her head and motioned to Dora. “Fetch the smelling salts again, my dear.” She knelt beside her sister, fanning her with Lord Downing’s wig, which she had snatched from its resting place at the viscount’s feet.
Searching for the vial, Dora scrambled under the library table. When she stood again, she handed the bottle to her aunt, without taking her attention off Tris and Violet. She stared at the two of them, completely ignoring her mother’s plight.
“What do you have to say about this, Trevor?” Downing’s complexion neared a frightening shade of puce. “How dare you bring your light-skirt from a brothel to take care of my granddaughter? Under the same roof as my daughter, your soon-to-be wife?”
The look of contempt Tris fixed on Harper was so severe the younger man slid back in his seat. “Miss Carlton is not, nor has ever been my mistress. I’ll swear an oath to that on a stack of Bibles as tall as you, Harper.”
Violet trembled.
“But I saw you leaving with her the night of the Zeus’ Desire masquerade at Madame Vestry’s.” Petulant to the point of irritation, Harper’s voice rose shrilly. “If she’s not your lady-bird, then she’s certainly a trollop. Not one to bring into a decent household to teach my innocent child.”
“Or mine.” Lord Downing pointed to Dora. “The good Lord knows what salacious things she’d been teaching Dora.”
“Just to play the harp, Father,” Dora spoke up eagerly, with a quick nod to Violet. “She taught me the fingering for a glissando.”
“Fingering a glissando!” Shrieking from the chaise, Lady Downing bolted up from her sister’s arms, ignoring the duchess’s attempts to wipe her face with a handkerchief. “Oh, I shall never live down the shame.” Eyes rolling back in her head, she flopped into her sister’s arms once more.
“It’s a way to strum,” Dora added helpfully, peering at her prostrate mother, then at her father. “The strings, you know. That’s all.”
“Of course it is, Dora.” With a sigh, Her Grace pushed Lady Downing into a sitting position. “Do get up, Harriet. Your swoons are just as bothersome now as they were when you were a girl. Melchior, take her.” She waved a hand at Lord Downing. “She’s your burden, not mine.”
Swearing under his breath, Downing bustled forward, grabbed his wife beneath the arms and heaved her up. “So what do you have to say for yourself, Trevor?” After a tussle, the viscount managed to get his wife on her feet long enough for the duchess to move to the chair. He lo
wered his wife down again and wiped his brow. “Eccles, fetch the brandy.” Tenderly, he patted his wife’s cheek. “Do you deny what my son says? Will you declare him a liar before us all?”
Tris stared malevolently at Harper, who sat picking shards of glass from his clothing and hair. “No, I may accuse him of being depraved, but not of lying in this instance. He may indeed have seen me leaving—” Hesitating, he rested his gaze on Dora’s rapt face a little longer than necessary. “An establishment of interest to certain men, young and old alike.” He glared at Downing, who grunted and looked away. “I do remember speaking to a friend that night in November. I had not made Harper’s acquaintance at the time, and if he was disguised for the masquerade I would not have recognized him in any case. If you say you were the shepherd I will not gainsay you.” Tris’s lips quirked in a smile. “Why you, a married man, would be entering such a house I will leave for you to explain.”
The bright red tinge of Harper’s cheeks rivaled a ripe pomegranate. “Why I was there is none of your business. Why were you there?”
Again Tris searched the duchess’s and Dora’s faces and shifted. “This is hardly a conversation to be had in front of ladies. If the duchess, Dora, and Lady Downing would retire—”
“Well, I for one want to hear the end of the story.” The duchess’s gray eyes snapped with excitement.
“And I as well.” The determined set of Dora’s jaw belied her soft tone. “He is my betrothed, after all.”
Moaning anew, Lady Downing, burrowed her face into the chaise.
Tris shrugged. “Very well.” He looked straight at Dora. “I had gone there to deflower a virgin.”
Lady Downing’s shriek rent the air.
The duchess’s eyes widened.
Dora paled until the only color left were two pink spots on her cheeks.
Scandalized, Violet hung her head, stifling a sob. Why would Tris shame her this way?
“By God, Trevor.” Lord Downing took a step toward him. “You cannot speak this way before my wife.”
“My pardon to Lady Downing, although I believe she has swooned again.”
The duchess glared at the figure lying supine on the daybed and sniffed. “Proceed young man.”
Tris’s lips trembled, with repressed laughter Violet would wager, the wretch. This was no laughing matter.
“My wedding day was approaching. I wanted to be able to control my baser urges when I lay with my wife for the first time.” Turning to Dora, he softened his gaze. “I didn’t want to hurt you or frighten you, my dear.”
Face as white as the plastered walls, Dora clenched her jaw and studied the gold and purple feathers on the duchess’s hat.
“So instead you terrorized this young woman.” Downing stabbed a finger at Violet.
The words hit like a blow. Cringing, trying to disappear within herself, she sobbed aloud. If only she could sell her soul this moment to be anywhere else in the world, she would do it gladly.
“No, I did not.”
That brought her head up with a jerk. Peering up at Tris, she recoiled at the stern set of his jaw, the demonic gaze he threw at Lord Downing.
“What do you mean?” Downing’s frown almost touched his nose. “You don’t think you terrorized her? She’s trembling there this very moment.”
Ducking behind Tris, she tried to make herself as small as possible.
“But not from fear of me.” He turned to her, stroked her cheek.
Soft as a kiss, his touch steadied her.
“When I found Miss Carlton in the House of Pleasure, I immediately noticed her reluctance. Her fear. So I asked her why she was there.” His gaze lingered on her face, his eyes pools of love. “She told me she had been kidnapped.”
Astounded by the lie, Violet sucked in a breath. What tale was Tris concocting now?
“The devil you say.” Lord Downing staggered back.
“My word.” Raising her quizzing glass, the duchess peered at Violet anew.
Dora stared at her, white-faced and speechless.
“Don’t believe a word of it.” Harper stepped forward, still rubbing his jaw. “She was a whore who spun him a story, nothing more. Madame Vestry probably told her what to say, in order to make more money.”
“Indeed, she was not, Mr. Harper.” Tris’s eyes glittered and his fist tightened. “I will have a word to speak with you directly, never fear.” Slowly he returned his attention to Lord Downing. “This sort of unfortunate occurrence has happed there before. If you doubt my word, I suggest you call upon the Marquess of Dalbury and ask him.”
The elder man sputtered and backed away, a hand outstretched. “Dalbury, you say? Dalbury has experienced such a thing before?
“Ask him.”
“Oh, no, no. That will not be necessary. I take your word on that, Trevor. No need to bring Dalbury into this at all.” Sweat popped out on Lord Downing’s lined brow.
Puzzled, Violet glanced from one man to the other. Tris’s satisfied smirk startled her.
“Yes, I expect you wanted no further dealings with the marquess.” Tris stared pointedly at Harper, who refused to meet his eyes.
The tenor of the room had changed. Never had two men looked so uncomfortable as Harper and Downing. She hoped she could tease the tale out of Tris at some later time. For now, it was enough to draw his coat closer around her. Unless she missed her guess, the drama in the room had not yet seen its climax.
“Since that night in November, I have been assisting Miss Carlton in finding respectable employment. Her family is dead and she has no friends, the reason, I suspect, she was the target of the kidnapping in the first place.” He drew Violet from behind him to his side.
She was loath to move out of the shelter of his tall frame, into the pool of light that exposed her to the curious stares. Like the bugs Jamie used to stick a pin through, anchoring them to a board so he could watch them squirm. The family seemed to have abandoned good manners, for they stared unabashedly at her, even Lady Downing who had regained her senses once more.
“So you can imagine my outrage that, having at last secured Miss Carlton a position in what I believed a decent household, Lord Downing, I find her being attacked by your son.” He clutched her to his side, shielding her from their gaze.
The room erupted into furious cries, screams, moans and shouts.
Violet drew closer to Tris, in an attempt to cover her ears against the deafening uproar.
Poor Dora sank down on the sofa, whiter than milk. She twisted her hands in her lap, staring first at Violet, then Tris, and finally her brother. The unmasked hatred in her face sent a shiver through Violet.
All Violet could see of the duchess was her eyes, like two huge saucers with gray centers. She glared at her nephew, who stood sputtering, opening and closing his mouth like a huge carp.
Her sister moaned and slumped back onto the chaise, her head lolling over the side of the lounge, while Lord Downing stared stonily at Tris.
“That’s a damned lie.” Harper finally found his voice and leaped toward Tris.
“That is the second time in ten minutes you’ve impugned my honor, Harper.” Tris grabbed the man by his ruffled cravat that had come undone. He twisted it until Harper’s face went red. “One would be enough for me to call you out. However,” Tris let go the necktie, shoving the man into his father, “I will take greater pleasure in demanding satisfaction of you for the assault and slanders you have heaped upon Miss Carlton. Name your seconds, sir.”
No, no, no. The words screamed inside Violet’s head. Her heart beat at a frantic pace, as though trying to hammer its way out of her chest. “No, Tris…Lord Trevor, I cannot allow—”
He turned sharply, his finger raised and she gulped back the words.
“I will defend your honor, Miss Carlton, if it is the last thing I do on this earth.”
She bit back a moan at the import of his words.
“I cannot believe you would do this,
Trevor.” Lord Downing straightened, gathering his dignity. “Such an accusation is cause for Harper to challenge you.”
“He is welcome to do so if he survives my challenge.” Calmly, Tris pulled down the sleeves of his rumpled shirt, as though he had not a care in the world. “Although such behavior on his part goes far in explaining why you have lost two governesses in the span of three months. The child is obviously not the cause.” With that pronouncement, Tris slid his arm around Violet’s shoulders, drawing her close once more.
Harper had attempted to straighten his clothing, though it remained bedraggled and blood stained. The tendons on either side of his neck stood out like thick ropes. “I’ll meet you, Trevor. Glad to do it. Swords. Tomorrow. There’s a nice clearing in the woods about a mile from the house at the pond. The ground may be a bit soggy, but it should serve to mix your blood with the mud.” He sneered. “Lord Stanley of Witsop and Mr. John Cox will stand as my seconds. I’ll write them now.”
Tris shook his head. “We must postpone the date to allow my seconds to arrive from London. I will write them directly I remove to the inn at Devizes.” He chuckled and Violet shivered at the icy sound. “Although the Earl of Manning and his brother-in-law, the Marquess of Dalbury will not be pleased at such a summons, I am certain they will be here as soon as the post roads allow.”
Florid face paling considerably, Lord Downing sucked in a breath and sat down hard, narrowly missing his wife’s outstretched body.
“Lord Dalbury will attend your seconds as soon as he arrives.” Tris glanced down at Violet, warming her with his gaze. “I will lodge Miss Carlton at the inn as well. She will be well enough tonight. I can get one of the servants to serve as her companion for now. I’ll instruct Dalbury to bring her maid.” He returned his searing gaze to Harper. “Three days, sir.” Then to Downing, “Your servant, my lord.” Pressing his hand into the small of Violet’s back, an intimate touch that thrilled her despite the disastrous swirl of events that had just transpired, Tris urged her toward the door.
“Lord Trevor.” The quiet voice reverberated like a bell in the silence.