The demon lord could hardly know that, yet he smiled with cool sarcasm.
“Your sister, my dear Lenwood, intends to marry my brother, Quentin. That’s him over there on the couch—sadly insentient.”
“I do not!” Joanna said with emphasis. She sat down.
“Alas, she will not allow me to soften the blow. In fact, she intends to live with him in sin. It must be delightful for you to find me here to witness that.”
Richard dragged his gaze from Joanna and focused on Tarrant, almost as if he had to force himself to look at Medusa.
“It is not, sir. It is far from delightful. I had hoped never to have to speak with you again.”
His voice was quiet, even courteous, yet every line of his body betrayed loathing.
Tarrant turned and strode to the window.
“No, I can see that. Indeed, I am sorry enough about the whole bloody business myself. Nevertheless, I am here. And Lady Joanna is right. She cannot simply go home as if nothing has happened. If you would like to take off your coat and gloves and sit there by the fire, we may have tea. It would be a shame to allow it to get cold. Mine host has had it made with freshly boiling water.”
“I would rather leave now. Joanna?”
She couldn’t bear to see Richard look at her like that. Although Joanna would always be closer to Harry, Richard was the eldest and she had looked up to him with something close to awe throughout her childhood. His wife, Helena, had been more than kind to her when she had been an unhappy and awkward fledgling one strange and magical Christmas at Acton Mead.
“I can’t, Richard, truly. Go home to Helena and baby Elaine. It’s too late. Lord Tarrant is right.”
Richard tore his dark eyes away from her. His rigid control barely masked some deep sorrow, yet he was also very angry.
“Very well. Pray, tell me the worst, Tarrant.”
The other man stood in silence for a moment. Then he spun about and crossed the room to sit by the fireplace. He poured tea and handed a cup to Richard. It was taken in stiff fingers, but he also dropped into a chair.
“Lady Joanna and my brother have just spent the entire night together. Nothing can change that. Alas, Quentin gave no thought to concealment. My father’s crest decorates the panel of their carriage. When they arrived he announced his own and your sister’s names without compunction in the public rooms.”
Richard set down his tea without tasting it. “For God’s sake!”
“Indeed. He was very foxed, I understand. Innumerable respectable travelers are thus privy to the sad facts. Among that busy number, so mine host informed me, are Lady Pander and Mrs. Charlotte Clay, two ladies of execrably slow wit and fast tongue, who were enjoying breakfast together. Such a delicious piece of scandal was no doubt welcome spice to add to their curried eggs and Bedfordshire muffins. By tonight, all of London will know about this imprudent elopement. By tomorrow, all of England will revel in the gossip. An immediate marriage is the only possible outcome, whether you mind so very much or not.”
Richard crossed his booted legs at the knee. The vertical line cut deep between his winged brows.
“I am very aware that she will be forced to marry your brother. Do you think that I care because Quentin is a drunken rake? Who knows? If he loves her, he may reform. It has been known to happen.” He smiled, entirely without mirth. “Oh, no, Lord Tarrant, the reason I mind so very much is that you will become her brother.”
Joanna’s tea had gone cold. It had developed an unpleasant oily scum on the top.
“Stop it,” she said. “I do not intend to marry Quentin Mountfitchet, and I cannot be forced into it.”
Richard slammed his fist onto the arm of his chair.
“Damnation, Joanna! In law you are Father’s chattel. He may dispose of you as he wills. How the devil do you think you can stand up to him?”
She knew her color was high and she was furious that her voice trembled at all.
“Not easily, but I shall. How you men love to order the lives of females! What do you think this is about? You sit there, both of you, like avenging angels, disputing my fate as if it were yours to dispose of. You make the assumption that I am with Quentin because I am dazzled by his address, and charmed into silliness by the winks and kisses of a libertine. Am I not allowed a mind of my own, and plans, and ideas for the future that I want?”
Richard stood and took her by the shoulders. “Dear God, Joanna, and you thought that this was the way to get it? You have given Father no option, dear girl.”
Lord Tarrant leaned back in his chair and gazed up at Richard through narrowed lashes.
“You have not asked her, Lenwood, what future she wants so very badly.” He glanced over at Joanna. “Why don’t you tell us, Lady Joanna? If you are not eloping and not in love with my sodden brother, then why have you run away with him?”
Joanna gazed steadily up at Richard. “I needed an escort, that’s all. I knew there was no chance to escape by myself. When I met Quentin at the house party at Fenton Stacey, he offered to help me. So I took him up on it. He’s a fast driver and in possession of a carriage, which I am not.”
“And so he took my father’s curricle,” Tarrant said dryly. “And thus alerted the household.”
Richard dropped his hands and turned away. He seemed austere, the control back in place, his features set in lines of stone.
“If it was so urgent, you might have asked me,” he said.
“And you would have taken me?”
“That might have depended on where you were going,” her brother replied.
Joanna laid her fingers on his sleeve. “Richard, you and Helena have your own lives. You aren’t responsible for me. I’ve made up my own mind. I shan’t marry Quentin Mountfitchet, and I don’t care if all this has put me beyond the pale.” She waved one hand around the room, casually including the unconscious figure of Quentin, breathing softly on the chaise longue. “I could not stay at Miss Able’s Academy another minute. If you must know, I’m going to Harefell Hall.”
“For God’s sake!” Richard said on a sudden exhalation. “Joanna!”
“Would you mind very much,” Tarrant interrupted calmly, “telling us what the devil you expect to find at Harefell, Lady Joanna?”
She turned to face him. “A group of artists, of course. A lady, Mrs. Barton-Smith, told me about it at Fenton Stacey. I intend to paint—not silly watercolors suitable for ladies, but real paintings. The owner of Harefell Hall allows any artist to live and work there, ladies as well as gentlemen, with complete artistic freedom.”
“Dear God!” Shock clear on his face, Richard spun away.
“You didn’t know, Lenwood?” Tarrant asked. “You have so much concern for your sister, yet you had no idea that she harbors a longing to be a painter?” He turned to Joanna. She gazed at him in fury. “Rather a bold ambition for a lady—not the painting, but the desire to join the infamous community at Harefell.”
“Why?” she said. “What do you know about it?”
He stood up and stretched, then continued with a deadly edge of humor to his subtle voice.
“I have had occasion to visit there myself. I enjoyed it. Yet I don’t believe much painting or sculpture gets accomplished. In fact, I’m fairly sure that it doesn’t. But they do hold splendid, wanton, and very dissolute orgies.”
He paused for a moment, as if to let the implications of this sink in, before turning to face her with that infuriating smile curving the corner of his mouth.
“Did you know?”
Joanna only knew that she was scarlet.
Chagrin burned in her like smoldering pitch. She hated her impotence in the world, and this arrogant certainty only highlighted it, forcing her to face her ignorance and naiveté, and the fact that she had just made a complete fool of herself.
“But Mrs. Barton-Smith said—”
Richard interrupted. “Of course, she didn’t know. What the devil do you think my sister is?”
“She is nothing to
me, Lord Lenwood.”
Fitzroy saw the flush wash up her cheeks as she dropped back to her chair. The humiliating color stained those perfect high cheekbones, making her black eyes brilliant in contrast. They shone with unshed tears, restrained with a determination and bravery that took his breath away.
She blinked them back, leaving her long lashes damp. The gesture was painfully vulnerable, and feminine, and defenseless.
Dear God! She had ruined her future for a chimera, a dream that did not exist.
He stalked back to the window and took a deep breath.
His own brother, Quentin Mountfitchet, had not flinched from leading this innocent to her damnation, and he himself had reacted by kissing her as if she were a doxy.
Let Richard Acton shoot them both down!
Lady Joanna could not be saved, and Lord Tarrant had just spent the last hour proving that he was no better than Quentin, that they were both equally beyond the reach of grace, beyond any hope of salvation.
The bitter knowledge rose in his throat like bile. Almost blindly, he watched a coach pull into the yard below, a chaise and four with two outriders. His family crest was emblazoned on the panel.
She is nothing to me, Lord Lenwood.
His mouth twisted into a caricature of a smile. He was watching the arrival of his doom. All the many possibilities that the situation might have contained now began to collapse together into one inevitable and appalling certainty.
The veins stood out starkly on his hands as he spread his fingers over the window frame.
What the hell! What the hell did it matter?
He thrust his fist hard against the wood, making the latch rattle, before he turned back to face them. Lenwood sat next to his sister, holding her hand in his own with a natural tenderness. She had buried her face against his coat.
“I’m sorry about all of this, Lenwood,” Fitzroy said quietly. “It has no doubt been damnable for you to be forced into my company in such a way. But the situation is about to be taken out of our hands. The Black Earl has arrived, Lord Evenham, my father. He is descending from his carriage as we speak. He bears the rattle of wedding bells at his coattails, and the sour taste of the nuptial toast in his mouth.”
“He will make Quentin marry me?” Lady Joanna asked faintly, rubbing away the trace of tears.
“Oh, no, my dear,” Fitzroy said softly. “You are safe from that. He cannot do so. You see, Quentin is already married.”
Flat silence filled the room as Lord Lenwood gazed blankly at Fitzroy for a moment, then Joanna began to laugh.
“Married!” she exclaimed. “Quentin has a wife? Then I’m free, after all.”
“You will never be free again, after this,” Fitzroy said fiercely. “That’s what your brother has been trying to tell you. An elopement can always be covered up and turned into a respectable marriage. But for a young lady of your station to run away with a married man destroys her forever in the eyes of society.”
“But—”
“Yes. Whatever you may think or desire, your father has absolute legal control of your person. He may take what revenge he will. I’m sorry, but there’s not a damned thing your brother can do about it.”
“Would you be kind enough to tell us about Quentin’s mysterious spouse, Tarrant?” Lenwood asked, his voice cold and deadly.
Fitzroy smiled at him, a smile that he knew could only be interpreted as an insult in the circumstances.
“She’s a singer, some years older than Quentin. They met when he was nineteen. In an excess of youthful passion he carried her off to Scotland, married her, and fathered two children. Two years later she abandoned the children and left him, but unfortunately not for another swain. She turned to religion and lives a life of blameless chastity, seeking converts in the marketplaces and wynds of Edinburgh. The bawdy songs of the stage have been supplanted by ardent hymns of praise and invocation.”
“But unless she is caught in adultery, Quentin cannot divorce her,” Lenwood said flatly.
“Indeed. My father has paid for spies and set up traps, but the fervor of her faith sustains her in holy purity. Quentin could legally force her to live with him, but he cannot stand her prating company. So he sends her money, pays for care for his offspring, and drowns his sorrows in drink. Only the family knows of it. Ironic, isn’t it? Alas, we Mountfitchets don’t seem to have much luck when it comes to matrimony.”
Lenwood flushed, an angry burn of color that washed over the fine bones of his face, then left him unnaturally white.
“Damn you!” he said quietly. “It’s not by my choice that we mention your marriage, Tarrant.”
“No,” Fitzroy replied coolly. “Least said, soonest mended.”
Joanna stared at two men, the brother she loved, and the dark, forbidding man who had tracked her down and kissed her so ruthlessly. Quentin’s wife made no difference to her. She had never intended to marry him.
But what on earth was she going to do now? And how was her father going to react when he heard about this?
* * *
Two hours later, her face blotched with tears, Joanna had her answer. The Black Earl, Lord Evenham, had swept into the room carrying a package of papers from Lord Acton. He handed them to Richard in silence. Joanna watched her brother turn white as he read the covering letter. He barely glanced at the other documents.
“For God’s sake! But my father doesn’t know what this man is!” he exclaimed. “It’s impossible!”
“It is done, sir!” Lord Evenham snapped. “You will please apprise my son Fitzroy of the contents.”
“What man?” Joanna asked. The tension pressed around her like a thick bank of ice.
Richard thrust the papers at Lord Tarrant and dropped back onto the chair beside her.
“Joanna, listen. There are things in life that cannot be undone. But if he harms one hair on your head, or causes you a moment’s disquiet, I shall happily kill him.”
“Who?” Joanna said. Blind panic was undermining her determination, as if a storm surge attacked dunes. “Kill whom?”
Lord Tarrant perused the letter rapidly. He looked up with a hard, clenched line at the corner of his mouth, and an unholy light of deviltry in his eyes.
“This man, my dear,” he said, indicating himself. “There’s only one rogue here whose very existence stirs up murder in every peaceful breast. Your brother means me, of course.”
“What is it?” Joanna stood up. She wanted to break the air and see it shatter in shards. “What does Father say?”
Tarrant did not reply. He turned to the Black Earl, his movements fluid and deadly, like a swordsman facing an enemy.
Lord Evenham stood at the window, tall, imposing, elegantly inhaling a pinch of snuff. As calm as when he had first entered, he was in complete, quiet command, an absolute, certain authority, without bluster or excess.
He met his eldest son’s cold anger with equal implacability.
Tarrant held up the letter and faced that merciless will with an identical determination and dark, icy depths in his voice.
“You have arranged this, sir, for your own ends. You know that I will not stand aside to see Quentin hanged. But do not think that, by forcing my hand in such a way, you will avoid seeing the singer’s little waifs finally inherit Evenham Abbey. I will do it, but you may have my oath upon it that there will be no joy in it for you and Lady Evenham.”
“I will see you wed, sir.” Lord Evenham closed the lid of his snuffbox with a snap. “And if force is what it takes, so be it. You have a duty to your house and to your blood. Your Spanish bride has been dead for two years. As the next earl of Evenham, it is incumbent upon you to take another wife. Lord Acton and I have agreed to the settlements. But do not think for a moment that Lord Acton is bluffing about Quentin, or that I will intervene. If you refuse, you will see your brother hang.”
“And which do you think is more trying to my tender sensibilities?” The subtle voice betrayed depths of sarcastic awareness. “A hanging or a w
edding?”
Joanna was shaking. “Whose wedding?”
Tarrant turned to her and grinned. He looked wild, dangerous.
“Why, yours and mine, my dear,” he said gaily. “Our fathers have agreed without consulting either of us. Your father will overlook my family’s stain to your honor, if I redeem your reputation by marrying you. Otherwise he will have his revenge on that poor clay.”
He indicated the still flaccid figure of his brother, breathing more noisily now on the couch. Quentin groaned and turned over.
“But how?” she said.
Tarrant held up the two sheets of paper that Richard had handed him with the letter.
“This is a legal complaint drawn out against Quentin Mountfitchet for the kidnapping and rape of Lady Joanna Acton. And this is a special license for the marriage of that same lady to Fitzroy Monteith Mountfitchet, Viscount Tarrant. It is up to us which one is acted upon.”
“What?” Joanna exclaimed. “This is absurd. I won’t marry you.”
“Oh, no, my dear, on reflection I think that you will, though it is as far from my inclination as it is from yours. Sadly, I am quite a catch, however black my character.”
Suddenly hating the hostility he saw in her face, Fitzroy turned to Richard.
“Unless you think that when you tell Lord Acton what kind of man he is forcing is daughter to wed, he will change his mind?”
Joanna caught at her brother’s sleeve. “You can stop Father from doing this, surely?”
“He won’t care,” Richard said, gently touching her cheek. His eyes were bleak with devastation. “Unfortunately Tarrant doesn’t make a false claim about his value on the marriage mart, Joanna. As heir to Evenham, he’s a fine catch.”
Lord Evenham laughed. “If my son had murdered and ravished his way across Europe and back again, Lady Joanna, your father wouldn’t mind.”
“But you will always have the backing of your brothers, sister mine,” Richard said quietly. “Either Harry or I will happily cripple or dispatch him for you, if you ever say the word.”
“And if I still refuse to marry him?”
Richard’s distress was clear in every feature. “Then Father will press charges against Quentin and see him hanged, and you will live out your days confined to King’s Acton, publicly disgraced. There will be no reprieve and certainly no painting. He means it, Joanna. Quentin may deserve death, but only you can decide what to do. I hope that it will be to tell all the Mountfitchets to go hang.”
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