I've Got My Duke to Keep Me Warm (The Lords of Worth) (7 page)

Chapter 7

O
f course she was.

It explained everything. Given everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours, he felt like a fool for not having figured it out sooner. A lady—and she was a lady, of that there was no doubt—did not learn how to do what she had done last night at a fashionable finishing school. She would have learned to do what she had done last night from experience.

He moved past Gisele to the far side of the room, noticing the dust motes dancing in the bright ray of sunshine slanting through the window and across the floorboards. He took his time, trying to make sense of this peculiar conversation, a jumble of questions vying for his attention.

“What’s your name?” He decided to start with the easiest. “Your real one.”

Gisele watched him with guarded eyes. “I was born Gisele Whitby. When I married, I became Lady Valence.”

“Valence?” A stirring of recognition hummed somewhere in his brain. “The Marquess of Valence?” He was trying to remember where he had last heard the name mentioned.

Gisele’s face was unreadable. “Correct.”

Jamie gave up trying to tease out the memory. “You are—were—his wife?”

“Correct.”

“But now you’re not.”

“No.” Her answer was tight, and the way she held her body put him in mind of a horse ready to bolt.

Very slowly he moved behind her and guided her into a chair, feeling the tension and stiffness rolling off her in waves. He wanted her settled before he asked his next question.

“Why?” he pressed.

She drew a sharp breath but didn’t immediately respond. “He was… unsuitable,” she said after a time.

“Unsuitable. Care to expand?” He kept his voice low, removing any inflection from his tone.

“The marquess was… not my choice, but then, I never imagined I would have the luxury of choosing. My father was a striving country gentleman whose greatest aspiration in life was a better listing in Debrett’s. By the time I was sixteen, I was known in our county as an
exceptional beauty
.” Gisele’s voice was thick with contempt. “I was a priceless asset for a man such as my father, and I knew very well what would happen when I came of age.”

“He married you to Valence?”

“Yes.” She studied her hands. “Valence seemed benign enough at the start. He was never anything but polite and charming in public, well-liked by those he met. But after, in private, he was… cruel. Violent. Vicious.” She shrugged carelessly as though she were describing how she liked her tea, but Jamie wasn’t fooled for a second.

“To you?”

A brittle smile preceded a humorless laugh. “Yes. He had some very specific ideas as to the duties and
responsibilities of a wife. The marquess seemed to enjoy my dissent and took great pleasure in correcting what he perceived to be my rebellious nature. When I resisted him, he quickly learned that his powers of persuasion over me were greater when it was Helena, his stepdaughter, who was threatened.”

He paced to the window, his jaw clenched. “I see.”

“I couldn’t kill him. I won’t deny I fantasized about it, but I would most certainly have been caught, and then Helena would have been left alone. I was the only family she had left, and she needed me.”

“So you faked your own death instead.” Jamie felt another tug of recognition and knew the memory he sought was right on the edge of his consciousness.

“He would never have stopped looking for us. For me. He would have hunted me to the ends of the earth if he thought there was even the slightest possibility I was out there—somewhere—drawing breath. My husband was exceedingly fond of me, you know.” She gave a tiny, mirthless chuckle.

A picture of a newspaper page—folded and mailed to one of his fellow officers—suddenly popped into Jamie’s mind’s eye, the text accompanied by a drawing of a massive explosion on the Thames. “You blew up a boat,” he whispered, turning to her.

Gisele looked up at him in surprise. “Yes.”

“The Marchioness of Valence and her stepdaughter were killed in the blast,” he recalled in wonder. “The barge sank to the bottom of the Thames, along with a fortune in diamonds. Nothing was recovered, with the exception of a few charred pieces of the vessel.”

“Your memory is sound. But the newspaper reports
might have been a little off,” she said wryly, and Jamie was relieved to hear that a small degree of normalcy had returned to her voice.

“Why the need for such extremes? Surely your father would have protected you?”

“My father?” Her brow rose in mock astonishment. “I told him. Six months after my wedding I told him exactly what was happening to me. And do you know what my father said?”

Jamie was suddenly quite sure he didn’t want to know.

“He told me to be glad I had a husband with such important connections and titles. He reminded me how much he had sacrificed to get me to where I was. And he chided me for being a whining shrew and ordered me to learn to accommodate my husband’s wishes. ‘All men have needs,’ he said. ‘And the only reason you were put on God’s green earth was to meet them.’ ”

“That’s reprehensible. I’m so sorry.”

Gisele frowned, puzzled. “Whatever for? It had nothing to do with you. I took care of it in my own way. Though I did have some help.”

“Sebastien.”

“Among others.”

“Iain.”

“Yes. Iain Ferguson has been my friend since I was four years old. We grew up together until he went to war, and I”—she faltered slightly before recovering—“and I became Lady Valence.”

Jamie leaned against the sill. “And where is Iain now?”

A genuine warmth touched her features. “He’s getting married. To Helena.”

“Your stepdaughter?”

“Yes.” She looked at Jamie in that direct way of hers. “Iain and I were never lovers,” she said. “At the time I escaped, Iain had just come back from the war in Spain, and we were both broken and wounded, just in different ways. I’d like to think our friendship healed us both.”

“I see.”

“Thank goodness. Does that mean we can now lay the topic of Iain Ferguson to rest?”

“God, yes,” Jamie said vehemently.

“Good.” Gisele stood and joined him at the window. “Because Valence is getting married again. The wedding must be prevented, and I need your help to do it. That is why I hired you.”

Jamie nodded. “You need my help to make the bride disappear? Like what we did for Polly Tuck?”

Gisele sighed in obvious frustration. “It’s not as simple as that. I can’t make anyone disappear who doesn’t want to. Society is completely ignorant of the nature of the marquess, as is his intended bride and her family. His fiancée has no reason to believe she is in danger. She has no reason to walk away from this marriage.”

“So you don’t have a plan?”

“Not yet.” Her forehead creased. “I only know Sebastien and I can’t do it alone. I cannot reenter London society, obviously, because I’m supposed to be dead, and Sebastien, as you’ve guessed already, was a sought-after valet before I escaped. He is bound to be recognized as a servant, which limits his access to Valence’s elevated social circles. That is where you come in.”

“I have little experience with the ton, Gisele.”

“Exactly. Your obscurity will serve us well, I think. You can essentially become whoever we need you to be.”

Jamie wasn’t sure he liked this strategy, but he let it slide for the moment. “Who is the girl the marquess is set to marry?”

“Lady Julia Hextall. Daughter of the Earl of Boden. She comes with a spectacular dowry, a must for Valence, since he lost most of his own fortune to the bottom of the Thames.”

“And when is the wedding?”

“In seven days.”

“Seven days!” Jamie spluttered. “How the hell are we supposed to thwart a wedding that’s set to take place in a week?” His voice had risen a full octave, but he didn’t care. “They’ve probably started decorating the church already.”

Gisele scowled at him, eyes glittering. “I only just found out about it myself,” she said. “I haven’t exactly been an avid reader of the London social pages since escaping from my gilded cage.”

He scowled right back. “You’re mad. What could
I
possibly do to stop this marriage in seven short days?”

Gisele considered him. “You could ruin the bride. Seduce her and make sure you’re caught doing it. That would render her unmarriageable, at least to a marquess.”

Jamie blanched. “You can’t be serious. I will not ruin an innocent girl’s reputation. While I understand it might save her from whatever danger Valence poses, society will rip her to shreds. She’ll be destroyed anyway.”

Gisele was grim. “I’ve met her, Jamie. She’s like a pretty porcelain doll. She’ll never… she won’t be able to…” She cursed under her breath, flailing for words.

“Jesus Christ, what did Valence do to you?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Gisele—”

“I said, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he doesn’t do it to someone else.”

He watched as she unclenched her fingers with deliberation. It was clear she would say no more on the subject, and they were both silent for several long minutes.

“If we run out of time, you may have to kidnap Lady Julia,” Gisele said suddenly. “She won’t go willingly, but her reputation can be preserved if you do it right.”

Jamie looked to the ceiling. “If I do it right? There is no right way to kidnap someone, Gisele, and the result will be the same as if I ruined her. There has to be a better solution than that.”

“Fine. You could marry her yourself.” Gisele crossed her arms.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You could marry—”

“Yes, that’s what I thought you said.” Jamie was staring at her now in shock. “I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. That you hadn’t lost your mind altogether.”

“It would work.” She had completely ignored his last words and was considering him in the way he imagined she might evaluate a prize bull at a country fair. “We would just need a few selected family members to stumble upon a romantic interlude that has gotten a little out of hand. There would be some talk, of course—that will be unavoidable—but she wouldn’t be ruined by any stretch of the imagination. You could certainly do worse, all things considered.” She looked at him expectantly.

“No,” he growled, annoyance starting to weave its way into his disbelief.

Gisele huffed before turning back to the window. She grew pensive as she pressed her palms to the sill, obviously lost in deep thought. “What if you just made her fall in love with you instead?” she asked suddenly. “Ply her with pretty words and empty promises. You wouldn’t need to do anything untoward, only make her believe in your tender feelings enough so that she calls off the wedding on her own.”

Jamie didn’t much care for this farfetched idea either, but it was a sight more appealing than the others.

“I suppose I could try.” He hesitated. “But I warn you, I haven’t had much experience playacting. I don’t know that I would make a convincing Romeo.”

“Well,” she sighed, “perhaps you’ll surprise yourself and discover you have a natural talent for the stage. And if not, I doubt a botched performance will matter very greatly to Lady Julia. You are
quite
irresistible just as you are, you know.” Her cheeks suddenly colored. “Ah, I mean, objectively speaking, you hold great, um, appeal,” she stammered. “For young, sheltered society girls, that is. As a war hero and, er, all that. The debutantes will swoon, I promise you.”

Jamie’s lips quirked as he watched her scramble in verbal retreat. “But an experienced woman such as yourself would never succumb to my pedestrian allure. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” He couldn’t resist teasing her, if only to draw forth some healing laughter. Everything in the past Gisele had just revealed had exacted its toll, and Jamie sensed a terrible weariness beneath her mask of determination.

“No, there is little danger of that,” Gisele assured him evenly, displaying a disturbing amount of control for a
woman who had seemed entirely flustered seconds earlier. “I’m sure you realize now that what happened between us in the courtyard was all for show. I am as indifferent to you as I would be to any other man. You were convenient, that is all.”

Convenient? That stung. He’d been called a lot of things in his life, but
convenient
had never been one of them.

He frowned. The kiss they had shared earlier had been no less than shattering for him. Was he really to believe the feeling was one-sided? No, he concluded, it couldn’t be. Or at least, he fervently hoped not. And he damned well wasn’t going to accept her declaration of indifference without testing his theory. At least a little.

He stepped forward so that their bodies were almost touching, and watched her reaction. Gisele’s eyelids immediately dropped to half-mast, and her breath hitched audibly.
Indifferent, my ass
, he thought fiercely. Before his own rapid breathing betrayed his intent, he continued his assay.

“Then you are a very skilled actress, Gisele.” Jamie’s voice was now muted, his tone honeyed even to his own ears. “For you seemed to find me much more than
convenient
earlier. Perhaps you should reveal the secret of your convincing performance so that I might better snare Lady Julia?”