To his credit, he didn’t even blink at her threat. But she could tell she’d made her point, for if eyes were pistols, she’d be shot full of holes. “So we’re at an impasse,” he said icily.
She dragged in a shaky breath. Perhaps it hadn’t been so wise to meet threats with threats—especially when the man she threatened had power and wealth far exceeding her own meager resources. As Papa had cautioned her whenever she wanted to rail at his patrons, “You can’t taunt a cannon with a club, my child. Not if you want to keep your head.”
Deliberately, she softened her tone. “I don’t see it as an impasse. Things will merely continue as before. You’ll forget about my article, and I’ll forget we had this conversation. That seems fair.”
“It ‘seems fair’ that you’ve trumped up some scandalous tale about me just to influence your friend’s choice of husband? You may think it ‘fair’ if it pacifies your conscience, but we both know it for the nasty manipulation that it is.”
“I’m sure you would recognize nasty manipulations more easily than I, given your reputation. I regard it as a service to womankind. And now, I have work to do. Good day, Lord St. Clair.”
He straightened. “Very well, Miss Taylor. I’ll leave.” He walked past, pausing a few inches from where she stood. Leaning toward her, he lowered his voice until it resembled the timbre and volume of a wolf’s growl. “But I warn you, I’m a dangerous man to have as an enemy. If I ever see you anywhere near my house on Waltham Street again, you’ll regret the day you picked up a pen and wrote about me.”
Then he turned on his heel and stalked from the room.
She said nothing, ventured no flippant remark, no hot retort. Indeed, now that he was gone, it took all her effort to tamp down the fear springing full into her breast. For despite her brave words, despite her insistence to herself that he was only bluffing, she believed him most heartily.
And the last thing she needed in her life right now was a dangerous lord.
Chapter 4
One need only note the marriages of Miss Hinton to Mr. Bartley and Lady Anne Bowes to Mr. Jessup to realize why runaways throng the road to Gretna Green lately. When haughty papas betroth their daughters to ancient lords and decent young men lack the coin to please greedy mamas, couples must follow their hearts all the way to Scotland.
LORD X, THE EVENING GAZETTE,
DECEMBER 8, 1820
Deep in thought, Ian descended the carpeted stairs of the Taylor town house with grim purpose. Time for a new strategy. For if Miss Taylor thought he’d simply give up, then she was not only a tart-tongued, self-righteous spinster, but a fool.
He never left loose ends, and the sanctimonious Miss Taylor was most certainly one of those. Judging from her ridiculous pronouncements about men of his rank, he doubted she’d stay out of this matter, especially if Katherine ignored her warning and married him anyway. Then what would the mad Miss Taylor do? Pester Miss Greenaway until the woman told everything? Or even delve into his past at Chesterley?
No, he must end the young woman’s meddling at once. But how to change a woman’s mind for whom exposing “libertines with wandering eyes” was a holy cause? Regrettably, she was too intelligent to manipulate. She’d proven that when he’d tried out his nonsensical tale about Miss Greenaway being the sister of a dying soldier friend. And threats didn’t work either. The wisp of a woman had actually tried to threaten him—a man who’d made mincemeat out of soldiers three times her size.
Bloody hell, he didn’t need this right now. He had no time to deal with the likes of Miss Taylor. The clock was ticking. He had scarcely two years to marry and have an heir or he’d lose Chesterley to his bastard of an uncle. He refused to let that happen, no matter what “Lord X” wrote.
He reached the foyer, disappointed to see that Miss Taylor’s unruly brothers had vanished. Another chat with the loose-tongued brothers might have proved useful. Ah, well, another time. That would be easy enough to arrange.
Retrieving his coat and hat, he turned just as Mrs. Box emerged in the foyer. Here was someone he could make use of. And she didn’t yet know who he really was.
When she saw him, the woman could hardly suppress her mirth. Yet he couldn’t blame her. His typical male arrogance had kept him from realizing sooner that Lord X was a woman, yet he should have noted the feminine writing style and the slant of the columns toward women’s concerns. Well, he was paying for his blindness now.
“Did you talk to the ‘master,’ sir?” the housekeeper asked, eyes gleaming.
“You know the answer to that, Mrs. Box.” He made his tone both teasing and reproachful. “You misled me quite effectively.”
Her papery cheeks pinkened. “It was naughty of me, I know. But runnin’ after the three Terrors of Taylor Hall has made me as mischievous as them in my old age.”
“Old age?” he said smoothly. “You can’t be more than forty.”
She waggled her finger at him. “Now, Mr. Lennard, you know better than that. What a flatterer you be.”
“Only with beautiful ladies. And how can I resist when the house is full of them?”
Her smile disappeared. “You didn’t flatter the miss, did you? She don’t like that. She used to scold that Mr. Winston somethin’ awful for things he said.”
“I’m sure she did,” he said dryly. “Scolding men is clearly her specialty.”
“With good reason, too. Men are always makin’ unseemly advances t’ward her.” The old woman eyed him with suspicion. “You didn’t do nothin’ like that, did you?”
He hoped his expression of outrage looked convincing. “Mrs. Box, for shame! I’m a gentleman—I would never mistreat a lady!”
But he’d wanted to. Oh, yes. Because along with the overwhelming urge to strangle Miss Taylor had been an equally overwhelming attraction. For all her annoying ideas, the woman knew how to make a man lust after her without even trying. It was that hair of hers that looked as if she’d just been tumbled. And those vibrant lips that needed kissing—
Bloody hell. This wasn’t helping. Forcing himself back to the matter at hand, he donned his coat and asked, “Did Mr. Winston make advances to her?”
“The scoundrel did more than that—backed her up against a wall one day and tried to put his hands on her.”
A sudden, powerful urge to throttle the absent newspaperman assailed him. He told himself he was merely reacting to the disturbing thought of any young woman being assaulted in her own home. It had nothing to do with Miss Taylor in particular. “And what did she do about it?”
“Oh, the miss can look after herself most of the time. She kneed him in the you-know-what, then told him if he ever tried it again, she’d shove him down the stairs. The man’s behaved himself since then.”
A smile touched his lips. He should have known Miss Taylor wouldn’t act like a typical female. From the moment she’d leveled those lethal green eyes on him and given him the rough side of her tongue, he’d realized she was anything but typical.
“So Mr. Winston isn’t to her liking,” he mused aloud. “Does she have any suitors? Or a fiancé?” That would be ideal. He could ruin her marriage plans the same way she was trying to ruin his.
Mrs. Box shot him a knowing look. “She don’t have no fiancé, and not too many suitors either. But I think the right one ain’t presented himself yet, know what I mean?”
When she nudged Ian and winked, obviously misconstruing his intent, he nearly laughed aloud. This could work in his favor. He leaned toward the housekeeper with an air of confidentiality. “I’ll tell you a secret, Mrs. Box. Your mistress intrigues me, even if she does hate me.”
Mrs. Box’s upper lip wrinkled in a moue of disbelief. “She can’t hate a fellow nice as you. You just got to keep at her, do you hear? I know she seems to have a cold heart, but it’s only been starved by—”
The door slamming at the top of the stairs cut off her words. He and Mrs. Box looked up to find Miss Taylor standing outside her study, a quivering pillar of rage.
“Come here, Mrs. Box, I need you at once.” The glare she shot him would have fried the snow falling outside. “And Lord St. Clair, if you don’t leave this house immediately and stop pestering my servants, I’ll have my footman throw you out!”
“I told you, she hates me,” he said to the gaping Mrs. Box. Then he flashed Miss Taylor a smug smile. “I can’t see what harm there is in speaking to your servants after you questioned my friends.”
“Joseph!” she cried, obviously making good on her silly threat.
Although he could trounce any of her footmen with both hands tied behind his back, he’d made his point—and questioning Mrs. Box could wait for another time.
He clapped his hat on his head. “Don’t trouble your footman—I’m leaving.” He added, with a nod to Mrs. Box, “We’ll finish our discussion later.”
Miss Taylor’s outraged threat to shoot him should he speak to anyone in her household again followed him out the entrance door. He grinned to himself. So Miss High-and-Mighty wasn’t as impervious to threats as she pretended. Well, the little witch would soon discover what it meant to cross the Viscount St. Clair. Every woman had her weakness, and he would learn Miss Taylor’s if he had to hound all her servants to do so.
He descended the outer stairs in a much better mood. Motioning to his coachman, who’d kept the carriage waiting for him in a spot down the street, he paused at the bottom of the steps to relish the chilly air after the decided stuffiness of Taylor Hall and its mistress. The snow continued to sow winter along the muddy thoroughfare. At the moment, it gilded everything with white, but it would soon turn the roads into an icy morass unnavigable by any sane man.
It reminded him of Miss Taylor herself—pure, white, and innocent at first glance. But ice was ice, whether shaved into fluffy flakes or packed solid in sheets, and it must be put to the flame to render it into harmless water. Well, he fully intended to put Miss Taylor to the flame. Before long, he’d have her scrambling to write a retraction.
But first, he had more important matters to attend to. The light was dimming and the snow thickening. He, along with Katherine and her parents, had been invited to spend a few days at the country estate of Jordan’s sister, Lady Worthing. They were traveling there together in his coach this afternoon, and if they were to make it before the roads became impassable, they should leave at once. That scarcely left him time to go home, fetch his bags, and change clothes before he arrived at the Hastings town house.
The thought of two hours in a carriage with the Hastings family banished his good mood. They’d probably all read the damned column by now. He wouldn’t be able to speak privately with Katherine, and even if he could, he wasn’t sure what to tell her. Yet he must say something, if only to force her into a decision. He was bloody tired of looking for a wife. And two years gave him little time in which to sire an heir. Their first child might be a girl, or it might take him and Katherine months to conceive.
His coach halted in front of him, and he climbed in, ordering the coachman to drive on. As they pulled away from the front stoop he glanced up at the window to Miss Taylor’s study, but there was no sign of her. Probably gone to wax her broomstick and add a few toads to her cauldron.
He could envision her bending over a steaming pot, prominently displaying that fetching derriere that made a man’s mouth water and his hands itch to cup the soft—
Damn! There he went again, lusting after the woman like the cheap libertine she thought he was. He’d have to keep close rein on those thoughts. The woman was trouble, pure and simple, and her attractions only made her doubly so.
Better that he concentrate on his far less troublesome fiancée, the one Miss Taylor seemed determined to scare off. He needed to invent some explanation about the article that would assure Katherine of his intention to be faithful to her.
He sighed. The irony was that he intended exactly that. He’d never approved of infidelity. His father, for all his faults, had been scrupulously faithful to his mother, and Ian had admired that. Those people in the ton who held “sophisticated” ideas about marriage annoyed Ian, for they were shallow, concerned only with their own pleasures. But convincing Katherine would be difficult now. How could he make her believe him over the famous Lord X when she was already so shy of him?
When he arrived at the Hastings town house an hour later he was no closer to determining what to say to Katherine, which irritated him. So when the butler showed him to the drawing room, he was already in a sour mood. As the servant announced him, Ian’s mood darkened even more at the sight that greeted him.
Inside the elegantly appointed room, the generally haughty Lady Hastings perched on the edge of a lavender settee like a squirrel on a branch, her head erect and her gaze darting back and forth as if to scent the approach of danger. Sir Richard, who could barely walk, had nonetheless pushed to his feet on the Aubusson carpet and was using his cane to struggle toward the sideboard and its selection of brandies.
Where was Katherine? Why wasn’t she part of this strange family tableau?
“Lord St. Clair!” Lady Hastings cried as soon as he entered. “Do come join us! I’ll ring for tea.” She lifted a little silver bell and rang it repeatedly, until the tinkling echoed in the drawing room like a strident opera chorus.
“Agnes, that’s enough!” her husband commanded. “Put the damned bell down, for God’s sake! We’re not having tea at a time like this!”
A frantic expression crossed her lined face as she patted the seat next to her with uncharacteristic energy. “Of course we are! Don’t listen to him, Lord St. Clair. Do come sit down beside me.”
Something was amiss; any fool could tell that. “What’s happened?” Ian asked Sir Richard, ignoring the man’s wife.
“Nothing has happened,” Lady Hastings retorted. She shot her husband a murderous glance. “You mustn’t discuss this now, Richard.”
“There’s no point in pretending,” her husband replied as he reached the sideboard. “My man could find no trace of them. If not for these legs, I could’ve gone, but…” He trailed off, splashing a generous amount of brandy into a glass.
“You shouldn’t be drinking,” she said as she rose and went to his side.
The couple were trying Ian’s patience. “Find no trace of whom?”
“My daughter,” Sir Richard said. His wife let out a little squeak, but he forestalled any further protests. “He has a right to know, Agnes.” He met Ian’s gaze squarely. “You proposed marriage to my daughter, but she gave you no answer. Is that correct?”
An uneasiness settled into the pit of his stomach. “Yes.” Had she run off to avoid him? Had she been that upset about that bloody article?
Sir Richard held the brandy glass up to his mouth, but his wife removed it before he could drink any. He scowled at her, then at Ian. “I’m afraid, Lord St. Clair, that our daughter has run off—eloped—with another man.”
Eloped? Timid Katherine who had putty for a spine? His temper rapidly rose to a boil.
My God, not again. This had happened to him last year when Lord Nesfield’s daughter, Sophie, had run off with a barrister. What was wrong with these young girls, always flying off to marry men without their parents’ approval?
He must have the worst luck in Christendom! Despite his efforts to choose reasonable, dull women, he only found the ones whose quiet natures masked raging passions. Passion had never been part of his offer, but then, he’d assumed that a sensible woman didn’t want that fickle emotion. Apparently, he’d been wrong. Bloody hell.
“Who did she run off with?” Ian asked.
Sir Richard snatched the glass of brandy from his wife, then downed it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Our steward, Mr. Gerard.”
Their steward. Katherine had eloped with a man she must have known for some time. He suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling he’d been duped. “Was there a prior attachment between Katherine and your steward, sir?”
“Yes,” Sir Richard said at the
same time his wife cried, “No!”
“Which is it?” he asked in a frigid tone.
Sir Richard scowled at his wife. “Why don’t you tell him, my dear? I don’t think you’d like what I have to say on the subject.”
She glared at him, then faced Ian with a rustle of muslin skirts. “You see, Lord St. Clair, my daughter began fancying herself in love with Mr. Gerard years ago.” She cast her husband an arch glance. “I warned my husband that he should dismiss the man, but he thought nothing would come of it. ‘It’s a girlish infatuation,’ he used to say. ‘She’ll ne’er act upon it. And I shan’t lose a good steward for such an idiotic reason.’”
Under other circumstances, Ian might have been amused by Lady Hastings’ uncanny ability to mimic her husband. Just now, he wasn’t. “Go on.”
“Richard thought she’d grow out of it. She didn’t. Then last year, the man had the audacity to ask for her hand. He was declined, of course. Clearly, he lacked the necessary prerequisites of birth and fortune.”
“Necessary to you,” her husband added.
She sniffed. “Don’t quibble with me, Richard. You know I was right to insist on that. And you should have dismissed the man as soon as he made his feelings known.”
Her husband leaned back against the sideboard. “I thought him an honorable man. Besides, I feared that dismissing him would merely tempt him to run off with the silly girl, and if I kept him on he wouldn’t risk his position. They both seemed to accept the situation.” He glanced apologetically at Ian. “When you came along and she acquiesced to your attentions I thought she’d forgotten her girlish fancy.” His attention turned briefly to his wife. “I didn’t know she wasn’t pleased with your courtship.”
Ian didn’t have to ask what the man meant. Apparently, he’d underestimated her fear of him.
His wife waved her hand as if to erase her husband’s words. “My husband doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Katherine was perfectly pleased with you until…”
The Dangerous Lord Page 5