Wicked, wicked, wicked man that he was. Her words flowed without thought.
“More, Radolf. More.”
“Yes, my Jaclyn. You’ll have more than you can imagine. Do you like what I do to you?”
“I can’t imagine anything more glorious than your touch on me. It’s unbelievably hot, searing me, urging me, and makes me want more of the same. When I close my eyes, I can smell the scent of your cologne and it’s heady. It’s like I’m on fire and I need quenching. It’s like I’m someone else. It’s torture, but a beautiful agony. Sweet Heaven, all I know is that I don’t want you to stop.”
“I want to show you that when a man loves a woman, he gives her unbridled pleasure. I see the ecstasy on your face, in your eyes, and the way you wet your lips. You’ll soon experience paradise, but I want this time with you to be special.”
He slid his hand back up under her dress and then found her taut stomach, circling fingers again. She was slick and her ardor kept tempo with his. He withdrew his hand and his arms splayed the planes of her back, cupping her buttocks, pulling her to his arousal.
“Oh,” she arched into him.
He then aligned his mouth to hers and if a kiss could excite and explode, hers did so ready for him.
Radolf moved her back toward a tapestried wall, her skirts still lifted, and he skimmed her soft thigh again and with slow, teasing movements, two fingers entered her, again, gently exploring, but when he started to rub her bud, slowly at first, and then as the sound of her breath hitched to his ear, he increased the movement, she screamed his name.
“Radolf.”
Then finally, Jaclyn shattered into a thousand moonlit pieces and he heard her cry out his name again. “Radolf. Oh, Radolf!”
Breathless, when he pulled her close to him, there was a silence between them. Sounds became elevated. The beat of his heart. The racing of her breath. The rise and fall of her breasts. The tick of the mantel clock. All were pronounced.
The fire within had been abated until the next time.
“Strange, Radolf. I still have a dizzying current within, though strong before, it has lessened and I find myself content. I do want more, but I feel pleasantly torn asunder. What did you do?”
She nested comfortably to him. “This is only the beginning. I wanted you to understand there are many ways of pleasuring each other.”
“But what about you? How do I give you pleasure?”
“That will be the next lesson, my Jaclyn. I will not take your virginity until we marry. Then, my darling, you’ll scream longer and harder.”
“Is that a promise?” she whispered with a smile.
“I do believe I have a coquette on my hands.” He kissed the tip of her pert nose.
He helped her arrange her skirts and tucked wayward tendrils of hair back behind her ears. “I don’t know how long I can wait for our marriage date. I’ll be outside the door while you make yourself presentable. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, and then again went to her lips. “I have great plans for us.”
The door closed. She wrapped her arms around herself and circled the room. Her happiness simply too hard to contain. Jaclyn relived the velvet warmth of his kisses and the ascent into ecstasy. All her dreams were now true.
And then she noticed that the wolf’s eyes twinkled blue, and the archangel’s mouth changed from gold to scarlet. She sighed, it was preordained. No one could hurt them now. She winked at them with a vivacious smile of a woman who had enjoyed her pleasuring, with more to come. Sweet Heaven.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Evil Lurks
Halifax paced the floor of his small townhouse parlor room. He’d heard that Wolferton was back in London to make arrangements for the family’s last ball. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t manage an encounter. Visits to White’s Men’s Club proved futile. Nor could he find Wolferton at Boodles or at any of the other establishments. He tried a stroll in front of the residence, lurked in a corner, but to come upon Jaclyn or Wolferton had no success.
From what he gathered from friends who had received invitations, his name was not on the list. Determined not to let anything thwart him, he prepared to beg, borrow, or steal an invitation. After some requests, perseverance rewarded him. He now had the invitation addressed to the friend who had given it to him since he could not attend. Halifax kept it on his desk in a drawer until the appointed time.
He sent another letter to Jaclyn at the London address. This missive was warm and expressed concern for her safety with the usual innuendo, but this time, his concern was also for Wolferton’s safety. He ended with a closing statement:
Wolferton has been fortunate that his despicable behavior has not garnered him enemies. However, at White’s last night, I overheard that there is a certain group who wishes to punish him for all his misdeeds and have formed a plan to harm him. I do hope when he leaves his townhouse, he is armed. Exercise caution when you are with him. I hope to see you soon.
Your Obedient Servant,
Alistair Halifax
While he’d now gained access to the Wolferton ball, he wanted to assure that the duke would not be present for Halifax to offer his hand to Jaclyn. He wrote another letter, this time addressed to Wolferton. He dated it the day of the ball. The return address was from Mr. Clifford Anderson with a Hertford address.
Your Grace, I beg to inform you that an emergency requires your presence here forthwith. The matter is delicate, and I cannot give you further details other than to say only you can make the decision. Therefore, your presence here is imperative as I am not empowered to authorize such exorbitant funds. Time is of the essence otherwise I would convey this in person.
Your obedient servant,
Clifford Anderson
Halifax kept the letter on his desk for delivery the morning of the ball. He presumed that after Wolferton read the contents, he would arrange to go to Hertfordshire where Halifax had a special surprise in store for the duke. With luck on his part, Wolferton would no longer present a problem to his plans.
Confident of his strategy, Halifax went to a gaming hell where he lost some five hundred pounds. The house didn't take IOUs. They required cash before anyone left the establishment. In desperation, he borrowed the sum from a moneylender on the premises. He couldn’t mortgage his house to a lender since it now belonged to the bank. Double in debt now, he dared not walk home but instead arranged for a ride from an acquaintance.
His lack of funds became a great concern. Three weeks to the ball was a long time. He would stay out of sight and out of mind. But he needed funds to pay the mercenary highwaymen. He looked around at the meager possessions he still owned—that were unencumbered by liens—and remembered his mother’s brooch of diamonds and sapphires, which were in his safe in a special compartment known only to him. Halifax visited a notorious jeweler on the edge of town and got the funds to accomplish his goal.
Yes, he marked off each day on a calendar with a strikethrough. Soon, he was down to the week of the ball. He would find an assassin. Then he’d laugh at Wolferton six feet under, help Jaclyn mourn her guardian, and laugh all the way to the bank with her money. All of this after he convinced her to marry him while she was most vulnerable.
At the gaming hell where he had no choice but to resist the faro games he favored, he reconnected with the moneylender who would introduce him to two men to perform the robbery and murder of Wolferton. They met in a public tavern with Halifax wearing a great coat that hid his aristocratic clothes. His fine blond hair was tied back in a queue and covered with a three-cornered hat. He wore an eye-patch to disguise himself. At the table, a wench poured ale, but he waited for the barmaid to move to other customers.
His French accent was deliberate. “Messieurs, do not mistake me for a fool. I’ll give you thirty-five pounds now and the balance of one-hundred sixty-five when you’ve performed the deed. We’ll meet here on this date.” He handed each a slip of paper with the date after the ball, Thursday, the twenty-sixth. “Don’t f
ollow me,” he warned. “I never keep large sums of money on me in these instances. I have a pistol and knife at the ready.”
He left them at the table, hurried to the exit door, and clung to the dark walls away from gaslights, looking behind him more times than he cared to think about. Halifax ducked into a doorway and listened for footsteps, and with extreme patience waited fifteen minutes to ensure no one followed. Then he ventured out, a hand on his pistol until he came to a more appropriate part of town.
Perspiration beaded his cheeks and his forehead. Pleased at his success, he relaxed and smiled. He hailed a hackney and gave instructions for the driver to go to White’s Men’s Club where he advised the driver he changed his mind and gave him the true address of his bachelor quarters, convinced no one was in pursuit.
He paid the hackney driver, then two-stepped up his front entrance, and ripped off his eye patch. A waiting servant opened the door. Proud of his ventures, Halifax left his coat and accessories at the table and went straight to his parlor where he partook of a rather large glass of cognac. As his nerves settled, he laughed riotously. It wouldn’t be long now. He prided himself on his cleverness to execute the plan for the murder of the hated Wolferton.
During Halifax’s inability to spend time with Jaclyn, his grudge against the duke grew to an obsession. What had started as retaliation for past grievances at the university grew more intense. On her dying bed, a few years ago, his mother had admitted that she had a dalliance with Wolferton’s father which resulted in Halifax’s birth. The shock blew him away. He was the bastard son of that vile man. His mother had…kept this secret all her life. So Wolferton was his half-brother—the penniless half-brother while full-blooded Wolferton had everything a man could want. Not for long if he could help it. He had waited a long time for his revenge.
Halifax plotted these last three weeks in many ways. Without an excess of funds, he would not have the ability to woo Jaclyn. He went to his safe to see if perhaps he missed some item of value he could sell and found an envelope that contained a portrait of his mother, a woman of rare beauty with dark raven hair and blue eyes. Of those who vied for her hand, it was the man he thought to be his real father who succeeded. He remembered as a lad, many men were stunned with her good looks and charming personality. But, at an early age of perhaps seven years, he became aware of his father’s dissipation of fortune. Many an argument would ensue as merchants were not paid, staff came and went and the estate fell into disabuse.
Halifax heard a particular argument between his mother and father where she was accused of infidelity. He had hidden under a long circular tablecloth not to be seen by his callous father.
“You must think me a simpleton, Allison. I should never have married you. You were anxious for me to seduce you and I fell under your spell. Is Alistair really mine or is someone else the father? Have you foisted a bastard on me?” When she tried to leave the room, he barred the way. “No, you’ll stay here until you admit the truth, or I swear I’ll kill you. Who is the father?”
Drink after drink made the man’s behavior erratic and uncontrolled until at the end, after a beating, she admitted what he wanted to hear.
“Who is the man who cuckolded me?” Halifax listened carefully, and after hearing his mother’s screams, she said, “Stop. No more. The Duke of Wolferton.”
To the frightened little boy under the table, frozen in movement, he dared not utter a sound, afraid the man might beat him, too.
“Get that bastard out of my sight for I’ll kill him. I’ll kill Wolferton, too. He’ll pay for this outrage. I never want to see you again.”
His father walked out of the room and they never saw him again. The next day Halifax was told of his father’s death the evening before in a street robbery by footpads who murdered him. That circumstance allowed him to become the new Viscount. Fortune smiled on him.
His mother recovered but became a recluse and did not venture back into society. He would raise the subject, and she denied the allegation. “Your father was weak and a mad man, but you are his son. I never knew any other man.”
Alistair never believed her, but he accepted her word rather than have everyone know he was a bastard. She died after Halifax was sent to Eton. Lady Halifax had stolen the jewels and negotiable pound notes from her husband, after his death, and pawned them for a hefty sum, in order to pay for her son’s tuition. It was there he met Wolferton, whom he admired—and hated. The upstart had everything he ever wanted, but Halifax knew he was the more charming, and cunning of the two. In fact, he was proud of the heritage from the reprobate older Duke of Wolferton. But at the moment, he was a viscount and not a bastard. England did not look kindly on bastards, unless of course, they were recognized by the father or came from royalty.
True, he hated his mother because she disrupted his life with her infidelity, and he suffered. At a young age, he learned to blame others for mishaps and realized that his charm and glibness were the traits he inherited. He took joy in manipulating those around him while his irresponsibility and impulsiveness always got him in trouble.
Now, he held the picture in his hand. The resemblance to Jaclyn astounded him. Was there something inside him that equated the two of them—his mother and Jaclyn—as two of a kind deserving utmost punishment?
He blamed his mother for his ill fortune. Even the admitted bastards of a duke were held in high regard, but she never told him until it was too late. She had denied it and refused to speak further about it, until her death. If she wasn’t dead already, he’d kill her now with glee.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The Scorpion’s Sting
Wolferton could not believe how long it took staff to prepare the Main Ballroom for the family’s final social event. For the past three weeks, servants, maids, footmen, under-footmen, gardeners, and under-gardeners, not to mention the entire cook staff and kitchen help, prepared for the gala. Hired outside confectioneries brought their cakes and desserts since ice containers at the townhouse were not sufficient. Extra cooks had been hired to assist in food preparation. The kitchen was a frenzy of activity and food supplies were doubled. No one would go away hungry he was assured.
Chandeliers sparkled, and candles were in place ready to light at the appropriate time. Silver candelabrum shined along with china and crystal. Wolferton spared no expense so this would be a special day for Jaclyn.
In his study, he reviewed the elaborate plans for the ring—a diamond and sapphire heirloom encased in platinum—he would give her that evening. He had the jeweler size it to her finger. It wasn’t customary to seal an engagement with a ring, but his ancestor’s belied tradition and did so. Why was he so restless? His gut told him something was wrong, but what? Years of training to trust his instincts had helped him win battles and keep his men alive.
He glanced at the still Guardians. Nonetheless, he checked behind curtains, so to speak. There was still the issue of Halifax who remained incognito. Wolferton did not believe the man had given up.
The signed deed donating the townhouse to the Quarters School Foundation was now a part of his history. It brought contentment. He would still visit London when Parliament was in session and would stay at the revamped school. It would give him the opportunity to nurture the boys into manhood—something he never had.
It was at that moment, he realized the reason he founded the school. If I had a father who loved me enough to prepare me for my inheritance, my life would have been different. A young man looks to his father with pride and admiration and wants to emulate all that he sees. He laughed. His lascivious father had feet of clay.
Halbert walked through the open door, yanking him from his thoughts. “A letter for you arrived by special messenger.” He handed the card plate to Wolferton and waited.
The letter was from his major. The letter opener at hand, he broke the seal and read the contents. An urgent matter required his immediate attention on this day to Hertfordshire? He could send a messenger in his place, but it was so unlike the
major to request his personal presence. It must have been important enough. What kind of expenditure? Why couldn’t it wait? Out came the pocket watch. It was a little after seven in the morning. The trip was a twenty-seven mile trip by the Great Northern Road.
“Summon the coachman, Halbert.” Wolferton went to his map case and took out the map of the area. He cleared the top of his desk and laid it flat.
Soon his coachman entered the room with Halbert. “Y’er Grace, you sent for me?” He stood at attention.
“Yes. Both of you, how long do you estimate it would take me to get to the town of Hertford one way?”
“By coach, sir, it’s a long ride with stops at toll gates. We’d have to consider the time of day. Private carriages have to stop at every gate on the turnpike, and they are only two or three miles apart. I’ll keep to five miles per hour, or about six hours in between rest for the horses.” He pointed a straight finger to the road on the map.
Wolferton frowned at the information. “What about the curricle?”
“Its light weight will make it faster without the horses’ need to stop for a long rest. But it will only seat one, perhaps two. No room for luggage ’cept a small bag.”
“I go alone which leaves me the choice of riding Midnight at a steady slow canter. He’s a fit horse, but I won’t push him.” He placed his hand under his chin and thought a while. “I’ll take the horse. This errand had better be worth the trouble. I must be back before nine tonight.”
Halbert and the coachman exchanged glances.
“When I arrive there, I’ll leave Midnight and take one of the other stallions back.”
“Yer goin’ alone for sure, sir?” asked the coachman.
“I don’t seem to have a choice. I do confess I’ve not paid much attention to road travel because you were in charge.”
“Sir, them highwaymen look for single travelers…and rich ones at that.”
The Blue-Eyed Black-Hearted Duke Page 27