Barbara Metzger (7 page)

St. Sevrin decided he really had to give up drinking.

St. Sevrin sank down in a chair. It wasn’t the polite thing to do, of course, sitting before a lady, but he felt it was more courteous than falling in a heap at her feet. Many years had passed since he’d been knocked so cock-a-hoop. “Could you repeat that?”

The girl cleared her throat. “I am Lisanne Neville.” She jerked one angular shoulder toward the woods and beyond. “I am very wealthy, and I…I should like to marry you.”

Now there, he thought, that made everything clear. Clear as Kelly’s coffee. The outrageous chit just stood near the window, ready to flee, he thought, but giving him time to recover his wits and look his fill.

Miss Lisanne Neville was a tiny scrap of a thing, bird-bone thin. Those big blue eyes gave her an even more waiflike appearance as they made their own inspection. She didn’t like what she saw, he could tell by the downward pull to her soft lips, but she held her ground, only the clenched hands and white knuckles betraying her fear. Sloane had seen seasoned foot soldiers show less courage. Whatever her mission, the girl had bottom.

She also had dirt on her hem, twigs in her skirts, and
smudges down the front of her poorly fitted gown. There were leaves in her streaked blond hair, which was every which way around her face and down her back. No wonder he took her for some elven being; she even smelled of forest and earth. At least Miss Neville didn’t chatter on like most other females of his acquaintance, highborn or low.

Of course she didn’t blather; Lisanne was struck dumb now that she was face-to-face with the duke. He was everything she’d been warned about, and worse. No one had mentioned he might be half dressed. Naturally no one thought she’d come to call after midnight, either. No one had warned her he was such a firm, muscular man, obvious under the form-fitting breeches and the white shirt that was open enough to reveal reddish hairs on his chest. Did all men have hair on their chest, or only the devilish ones? Lisanne made herself look away from his body. It was even more unnerving than his frown.

Returning her gaze to his face, she could see the firm chin and well-defined planes of the hero; she could also see the lines of dissipation, the sallow complexion, the bloodshot, puffy eyes of the libertine. The duke’s auburn hair had no shine to it, and those eyes, hazel, she thought from this distance, seemed cold and weary, empty.

St. Sevrin, meanwhile, was trying to recall what he’d heard of the Neville offspring. The parents were dead of course, that was ages ago. Were there more children? He thought not. And there was something, some rumor or other that hadn’t mattered at the time, about the daughter. He’d only listened because the Nevilles were old neighbors. Was it that she was sickly? The chit didn’t look febrile despite her thinness. She had a golden outdoor tan, unless that was dirt on her face. And the talk couldn’t have been that she was a simpleton, for she’d quoted Latin and Shakespeare back at him. Most likely someone had mentioned she was a wayward baggage, hot to hand. What else could she be, wandering around the countryside at night, visiting bachelor quarters? Most likely this was some schoolroom prank, or a dare from her giddy girlfriends, who were undoubtedly safe asleep in their warm beds while this little wren was flitting through the forest at night.

No matter, the gossip would come to him later. For now he had to get the infant home before her guardians tossed a gauntlet in his face, or whatever it was that rustics did when great hulking lechers besmirched their innocent womenfolk. For if there was anything St. Sevrin knew, it was that this little girl wore the face of innocence.

“I’m sorry, sweetings,” he told her, deliberately drawing the words out, “you might have a yearning to be a duchess, but I’m not in the market for a bride. If I were, I most decidedly would not choose a hobbledehoy urchin.”

“That’s a hobbledehoy baroness, sirrah,” she retorted, “and the least you could do is listen to my proposition.” Her eyes ran around the room, noting the moth-eaten drapes, the water stains on the paneling. “I don’t see where you have much to lose.”

Some of the old baronies were like that, St. Sevrin knew, passing through the female lines. “Very well, Baroness, I acquit you of coveting my title. You still have to leave. It’s past your bedtime.”

Lisanne drew herself up to her five feet naught height, the naught giving her dignity. “I am eight and ten, Your Grace, not a child.”

“Forgive me, Baroness, but you appear to be no more than fifteen.”

“And you are said to be twenty and seven, yet you look nearly forty.”

“Touché,” he acknowledged. “Very well, you are not a child. Therefore, you know you have no business here. For one thing, the woods can be a dangerous place at night. I suppose you must have played there all your life, but there are unseen hazards in the darkness.”

That earned him a disdainful look. Compared to her uncle’s wrath and this gentleman’s uncertain temper, Sevrin Woods was the last danger she had to worry about.

“Bats? Spiders? Poachers?” She didn’t flinch. It was a peculiar female he had on his hands, but St. Sevrin was determined to make his point. “What about the witch who’s supposed to live there, casting spells?”

Lisanne laughed.
She
was the enchantress everyone feared! Then she laughed again, in relief. The duke wasn’t a total ogre, not if he cared about her well-being. She found a chair whose seat cover wasn’t totally ripped and sat down.

Her laughter was like honey, sweet and soft. The duke let it flow around him, but he wasn’t to be swayed. “Don’t get comfortable, my intrepid lady, for there’s still a matter of reputation.”

“Yours or mine?”

“Both. Someone has sullied your tender ears with mine, I’m certain.” He quirked an eyebrow in inquiry; Lisanne nodded. “Therefore the meanest intelligence could calculate the damage this visit could do to yours.”

Lisanne brushed that aside. “I have no reputation to speak of, and no one whose high esteem I desire.”

Thunderation, Sloane wished he’d listened harder to the gossip about this chit. “What, have you blotted your copybook so badly that you were denied vouchers at Almack’s? If you are of age, you should have been presented at court this past year.” The duke was sure he would have remembered that. Gossip about a debutante baroness would have penetrated even his alcoholic fog. “You should be in London now, dancing at balls in silk gowns, having mooncalves write sonnets to your eyebrows.” They were very fetching eyebrows, he couldn’t help noticing, a bit ragged, as though his fingers could smooth the golden hairs into line.

“Is that what those cabbage-heads do? I’m even more glad I never went, then. My cousin Esmé comes out in the fall. She’ll be thrilled, although I’m not sure…”

“Platter-faced, is she?”

“Spots,” Lisanne confided. “Uncle Alfred and Aunt Cherise are hopeful she’ll outgrow them over the summer.”

St. Sevrin was positive the spotted Esmé wore silks and lace. “What about you? Shall you go to Town with them?”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to, and Uncle does not want to lay out the expenses for a Season for me, so we are agreed for once.”

“Ah, the wicked uncle. I knew there had to be a villain in this piece.”

Lisanne gave her answer serious consideration. Actually the man in front of her was the villain, but she didn’t think she ought to say that.

He seemed to read her thoughts. “No, no, sweetings. I cannot be the villain and the hero both. You did come to me for rescuing, didn’t you?”

“I don’t think Uncle Alfred is wicked, precisely. He is greedy, certainly, and miserly. Mostly he is discontented that the Nevilles have so much and the Findleys—that’s Uncle Arthur’s family—have so little.”

“I believe certain Frenchmen felt the same way about their monarchs, and look what happened there. You are very forgiving, Baroness.”

St. Sevrin wasn’t. He already despised this unknown Alfred Findley for keeping his niece in rags and letting her go unguarded, hidden away in Devonshire. The man should be finding a splendid young husband for his ward, someone of equal rank and fortune to cherish her and protect her from evil beasts like the Duke of St. Sevrin.

“Go home, sweetheart. You’ve got your fairy tale all wrong. The dragon isn’t allowed to rescue the damsel in distress.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the chair.

A moment later he felt a gossamer touch on his shoulder. “Sir? Your Grace?”

She was so close Sloane could smell rose water under the other, more earthy scents. He opened his eyes. “What, still here, Baroness? You are a stubborn little thing, aren’t you?”

“When I have to be, Your Grace. Won’t you hear me out?”

“Will you go home after?” She nodded.

“Then bring me the bottle over there, child, and let’s have your story.”

Lisanne found the bottle on the floor near the window, with some brandy miraculously still in it, and handed it to the duke. She searched for a glass.

“But I’m not half civilized, Baroness, haven’t you heard?” He tipped the bottle to his lips and swallowed. “I’d offer you some, but I’m sure one of us ought to stay sober.”

Drunk, unmannerly, bitter…could she bear this in a man? She’d have to. Lisanne found the glass where it had fallen behind a chair still in holland covers. She took the bottle from his limp fingers and poured out a scant thimbleful. “I’d think you’d want a clear head to hear my proposition,” she told him, handing over the glass instead of the bottle.

“If I had a clear head,
cherie,
you’d be home in your bed, or upstairs in mine. Now, say your piece, little lady, and get out.”

Lisanne put the bottle out of his reach and pulled her chair a little closer. She closed her eyes a moment. “I am the only child of Lord and Lady Neville,” she began. “When they died, I inherited the title and great wealth. I cannot give you exact amounts, for no one shows me the account books, but I believe my fortune to be over a hundred thousand pounds.”

He whistled. “Now, that’s a number to gain any man’s attention.”

“That’s without the income from Neville Hall, which has been earning a handsome profit, and the returns on Papa’s investments, which fluctuate. My solicitors in London could give you the precise details. They hold the funds while Uncle Alfred…holds me, until I marry or reach five and twenty. But I think—no, I know—that he has plans to extend his control by legal means after I
reach my majority.”

“What, does the dirty dish want you to marry his nephew or something, to keep the money in the family?”

“No, I think he intends that I never marry.”

“What, never give his permission? Never let you go into Society?”

“That needn’t concern you, Your Grace. What must is that I have all these funds I don’t need and cannot touch, and you have none.”

It would be useless to deny the obvious. St. Sevrin stared at the minute amount of wine in his glass. “Why me? A hundred thousand pounds could net you any number of handsome young beaux ready to sweep you away from Uncle Alfred and off to Gretna Green. What could I possibly have that you’d want? A crumbling monastery, a hellish reputation, a mountain of bills? Perhaps this old, battered body?”

If he thought to put her to the blush, he was wrong. “Sevrin Woods” was all Lisanne said.

“Excuse me?”

“Sevrin Woods. That’s what you have that I want. I can put a fortune in your hands, if you’ll give me Sevrin Woods.”

Sloane thought he must be more foxed than he realized—or she was. “Sweetings, if I could sell Sevrin Woods or any part of this monstrosity I’ve inherited, I wouldn’t need your fortune.”

She brushed his objection aside impatiently. “I know you cannot sell the property; I wasn’t born yesterday. It’s what’s on it that I want, what’s in the woods. I cannot simply buy the trees and such like the lumber mills can. I told you, I cannot touch my moneys. But Sevrin Woods could be written into the marriage settlements, that the woods are to be mine, absolutely inviolate in perpetuity.”

“Trade a king’s ransom for marriage to a curst rum touch like me—to get a forestful of trees? Lady, you’re crazy!”

Lisanne jumped to her feet, fists clenched at her sides. “Never, ever, say that to me!”

He watched her through narrowed eyes. “And prickly as a hedgehog. Almost as grubby, too. Well, I wasn’t born yesterday, either. What’s in Sevrin Woods you want so badly, you’re willing to marry me to get? Did you find gold under the surface? A diamond mine? The fountain of youth in one of the streams?”

“It’s nothing like that.” Lisanne stared at the mud on her shoes. “It’s hard to explain. I spent my childhood playing among the trees. After my parents died my only friends were the, ah, sylvan creatures.”

Although Sloane had spent his childhood at schools or being passed from relative to relative, he sympathized with her. “Poor puss.”

“No, no, I was never sad in the forest. My happiest memories are there. That’s why I cannot bear to see it all destroyed to pay your gaming debts. No, I shouldn’t have said that. I know you inherited debts and mortgages you could never have repaid. I don’t blame you, truly, but I can help.”

“What did you say your name was?”

He
was listening! More important, he was hearing her! Self-interest was a wondrous tool sometimes, Lisanne decided, and who could be more self-centered than a hedonistic, care-for-nothing rake? Instead of disdaining the duke for his profligate ways, she was relieved. Given enough time and his favorite peppermint drops, even Lester Roarke’s most cantankerous bull could be gentled a bit.

“My name is Lisanne. Lisanne Margaret Finella Neville. My cousins call me Annie, but I hate it.”

“As do I. It’s common. Lisanne suits you, something that’s a combination of many things, but with its own flow, its own grace.”

That may have been the first compliment Lisanne ever received from a man. She didn’t need flattery from this cup-shot stranger, only his cooperation, but she was pleased all the same. “And you, Your Grace? Do you prefer something to your title? Or does that suit your consequence?”