Seducing the Rake (Mad, Bad and Dangerous Heroes) (19 page)

Then it came to him. Wellington was to attend tonight, in one of his first social evenings since his return to England from the Peninsula.

Leave it to the Duchess of Cranford to secure
that
triumph.

With a sigh Morland sat back and prepared to wait, while his lips twitched in black humor. He could always throw open the door and walk. He would be at the duchess’s steps in a little over five minutes.

But the man who had daily walked twenty miles on the Peninsula and had survived an agonizing trek through icy mountain passes at Corunna knew that walking was out of the question.

London Society had its unassailable rules, after all. And in their own way, Morland knew, they were every bit as merciless as the rules of war he’d encountered in Spain.

~ ~ ~

“Ah, Morland, there you are. Damnable squeeze, ain’t it?”

Clad in claret silk and a vast amount of gold braid, Sir Reginald Fortesque surveyed the dazzling company through a silver quizzing glass. “Everyone’s turned out, I vow. Even Ravenhurst and his incomparable wife are on hand.” The dandy dropped his glass. “I believe I shall pay my respects. The viscountess set me on to a wonderful old inn as I was passing through Rye. The Angel, it is called. Ever heard of it?”

Morland gave the foppish fellow a thin smile. “The name occasions a memory or two.”

“An excellent place. And that steward—Hobhouse, his name was. The most complete hand! The fellow had some of the finest brandy I’ve tasted outside Paris. Well, I must be off and thank the dear lady, you know. Just pray that husband of hers ain’t hanging about. Blast, it don’t do to monopolize one’s own
wife,
after all!”

With a flutter of lace, Sir Fortesque vanished into the sea of satin and damask.

Morland did indeed remember the quaint fourteenth-century inn on Mermaid Street. Before she had become the viscountess, Tess Leighton had run the old inn with an expert hand. There, too, she had overseen an audacious smuggling operation with France, an operation so successful that Lord Ravenhurst had been sent down to squelch it. Morland supposed, in a way, that he had lost his heart there, to the brave woman whose laughter had never quite managed to conceal a vast, consuming sadness.

And sadness was something Anthony Morland understood very well.

A light hand fell upon his wrist.

“Woolgathering, are you? At the social triumph of the year?”

Morland turned to see the Duchess of Cranford surveying him with narrowed eyes. He cursed mentally, praying his momentary melancholy had not shown upon his face.

His voice was light as he patted the duchess’s frail hand. “Not precisely, Your Grace. I was trying to calculate where you would possibly find an inch of spare space to hold any latecomers.”

The duchess studied the glittering assembly with a look of satisfaction. “Quite a squeeze, isn’t it? Poor Bartholomew would have hated it. But things should grow calm now that everyone has had a chance to ogle the Duke of Wellington.”

“So the Great Man is truly here? You’ve finally done the impossible and lured the Iron Duke from his lair?”

The duchess nodded. Only her fine eyes betrayed her triumph in carrying off what would surely be the social event of the season. “Although I cannot say for how much longer he will remain. I overheard him mutter that if another mama set her Friday-faced daughter on him, he’d find the nearest window and jump.” Her voice grew thoughtful. “I fancy all is not as it should be between him and that meek creature he took to wife. A great shame. She is such a shy, dutiful thing, and he is so very forceful. One can only wonder…”

Morland frowned. “One does far better
not
to wonder, I assure you.” He hesitated over whether to drop a word of warning in the duchess’s ear to scotch her meddling.

Any interference in that quarter would be looked upon with hearty contempt by Wellington. The uneasy state of affairs between him and his wife had escaped none of his young officers on the Peninsula. Although Morland had the highest respect for the fierce determination and steely will that had made Wellington a successful campaigner, the earl could not help but think those same qualities must make him a very difficult sort of husband.

But loveless marriages were hardly rare among the
ton.
Morland could name any number of couples among his acquaintance who smiled dimly at one another over the breakfast table while they planned an illicit rendezvous with a lover that night.

It was quite the done thing, actually. The only requisite was that such
affaires
be conducted with discretion and without any messy excess of emotion.

Morland had been a partner in a fair number of such liaisons himself.

And what about his brother? His twin’s marriage had been just such a one, the two partners affable enough while both pursued their diverse and cold-blooded pleasures with different—and numerous—partners.

But Morland had been shocked when his sister-in-law had invited him to share her bed not a fortnight after her wedding ceremony to his brother. Even now, he felt a wave of revulsion as he remembered how her crimson nails had trailed down his chest to stroke his manhood.

In a way it had been a blessing when a storm had carried away the yacht she had been traveling in during a summer excursion to Scotland. Then only a few months later his twin brother had died and the title had devolved to young Jeremy.

Morland sighed. His twin brother, he was honor bound to admit, had been even more dissolute than his wife. In five years Andrew Morland had whored and gamed his way from one end of England to the other. In another three or four more years he would have run through all the Langford fortune, losing Sevenoaks, the beautiful sixteenth-century manor house in Suffolk and several large holdings in Somerset in the process.

Luckily, Morland had not been home to observe these excesses. But even in Spain snippets of gossip had reached him, enough to make him curse the brother he had never liked, much less respected, for a complete and utter fool.

His
twin
brother.

Even now, Morland caught an occasional stare, as if he were being measured against some memory of his twin.

But Andrew was dead now. And if Tony had a certain cynicism about women and the staying power of that vaunted emotion called love, it was only to be expected, considering the things he had seen.

All these bitter recollections took place in the span of several seconds. When he turned, the Duchess of Cranford was studying him keenly.

“You’re quite the only moth among the butterflies tonight, young man. But this severe style becomes you. Black breeches. Black waistcoat. Very elegant. And that embroidery is impeccable. French, I suppose?”

Morland nodded absently, searching the room. He realized belatedly that he was searching for a slender pair of shoulders and a cascade of blue-black hair. For a pair of violet eyes that could shift from sadness to fury in the space of a heartbeat.

He shrugged. “Paris still has its uses, I find.”

The duchess was in no way deceived by the earl’s casual rejoinder. She had seen the bleakness sweep Morland’s face, the tension that gripped his jaw as he drifted in dark recollections.

Yes, she had seen. And it had wrung her heart.

Knowing the
ton
as she did, she guessed it had something to do with his repulsive twin. Or the man’s equally odious wife.

But her face was perfectly impassive, with just a hint of mischief in her blue eyes. “And now I have a charge for you. Here’s Palmerston, red-faced and irritable, looking like a cannon about to explode. He’s searching for Wellington, so I’m told. Some odious bit of consular business, no doubt. You might as well go and fetch the Great Man.”

Her air of careful nonchalance did not reach her eyes, which were intent on Morland’s face.

“I’d be delighted to. But surely Palmerston will sight the duke himself.”

“I’m afraid Palmerston will have no luck, for the Great Man has fled the field. Said Waterloo was
nothing
compared to one of my routs.” She chuckled softly. “Yes, I believe you must fetch him.”

Morland bowed and turned to leave.

The duchess touched his arm. “Did I forget to mention that Miss Cameron has arrived? She is with the duke, I believe.”

“You quite astound me, Your Grace.” He offered her a second elegant bow. “My compliments. You have accomplished the impossible
twice
tonight,” he added softly.

The duchess merely smiled, remembering her involvement in furthering the attachment between Lord Ravenhurst and his lovely wife. It had been a near thing, however, and certain parts of the affair did not reflect to her credit.

She planned to do much better
this
time.

 “You have quite a dangerous charm, you know. With every passing day you remind me more and more of your father.”

Morland smiled at this singular compliment.

“Now off with you. I must attend to my guests. That odious man Atherton has just arrived. Louisa Landringham, meanwhile, has not yet glimpsed her rival. She is simpering at two matrons by the punch table. You will find Wellington and Miss Cameron in the conservatory, unless I miss my guess. They can be quite alone there.” She frowned slightly. “Except, of course, if Louisa Landringham finds out where they’ve gone.”

“I shall endeavor to be before her, Your Grace.” With a cool smile Morland disappeared beneath an arch covered with trailing flowers.

The duchess watched him vanish into the throng. It was her sincerest wish that she
would
work a miracle this night. The two young people were obviously in love, after all.

And what better way to occupy her time than to see them thrown together until they acknowledged that affection?

Ten minutes and any number of silent curses later, Lord Morland had finally maneuvered a course around the card room, through the ballroom, and along the corridor that led to the narrow conservatory that ran the length of the duchess’s London townhouse.

The duchess enjoyed having flowers about her, and the conservatory had been designed to supply her with fresh flowers year round. It was at any time a lovely room, warm and fragrant with the scent of peat, orange blossoms, and the variety of flowering plants that she treasured. Tonight was especially lovely, as the newest batch of peonies had just come into bloom.

Morland had a sudden thought of a dewy-eyed Chessy Cameron sequestered in a candlelit corner, while the famous general held forth about one of his hair-raising episodes during the late Peninsular campaigns.

His jaw hardened, and his pace increased abruptly.

He didn’t like the idea by half.

When he opened the door to the glass-walled room at the back of the house, his fears were confirmed. Wreathed in a halo of lamplight, the duke stood between two potted palms and a flowering hibiscus, gesturing animatedly to his slender companion, who was wearing the most remarkable necklace Morland had ever seen.

His breath caught. His eyes ran along the slender line of Chessy’s neck, where blue-black hair was caught low and adorned with two creamy gardenias. Even from where he stood, Morland fancied he could catch their scent, as elusive as the woman who wore them.

And her gown—by heaven, it clung to every soft curve and hollow, shimmering in a dark flow of purest violet silk.

Just like her luminous, unforgettable eyes …

Morland watched, stiff-lipped, as Chessy laughed at some witticism made by Wellington. Then she began an earnest recitation of her own, to which the general listened with equal seriousness.

The duke moved closer, his aquiline face intent as he nodded at something she said. At that moment Morland was feeling anything but charitable toward the hero of Waterloo. In fact he discovered he was feeling downright furious.

His fingers tensed on an overhanging plant. If the man so much as touched her, he’d—-

Hearing a snap, Morland looked down to see that he’d broken a twig of flowering orange cleanly in two. At the sound the pair looked up, but Morland was hidden by the surrounding greenery, and they soon returned to their conversation.