The Duke's Undoing (Three Rogues and Their Ladies) (10 page)

“Three years, for my sins.”

“Well, I imagine Field Marshall Wellesley saw to it that you perpetrated your damage on a bona fide enemy for a change. Something drastic had to happen to drive you to matrimony. Lud!” To his surprise, she suddenly reached up to his shoulders and clasped him to her bosom. “See that you behave yourself in the card room. No fisticuffs.”

“I intend to shun the card room, Lady Sumner. My fiancée is by far the loveliest lady in the room, aside from yourself, of course, so I dare not leave her side or someone will tell naughty tales and cut me out completely.”

“Well, your manners seem to have mended nicely, and I’m terribly sorry about your leg, but aren’t you being the tiniest bit selfish? It does seem a shame that the lovely Elise shouldn’t dance. She does enjoy it so.”

“Somerset will be along in a bit if he’s not already here. He’s the only one I will trust her with.” Their hostess laughed. “George barely speaks. You have chosen wisely. Try the card room. I’m quite certain you will find him at whist or loo.”

Elise made a delightful moue. “I don’t want to come between a man and his cards, dearest. It’s quite warm in here, don’t you think? Perhaps a stroll on the terrace? Lady Sumner has the most divine peacocks.”

“Not to mention a maze,” he raised an eyebrow.

Whacking him on the wrist with her fan, she said, “You’ve had your kiss already today, darling.”

Lady Sumner watched this exchange, her eyes sparkling with the intelligence she could quite probably not wait to impart to the dowager set. “Looks like you’ve traded one commanding officer for another,” she teased him.

Clasping the back of Elise’s milk-white neck with one hand, he assured his hostess as he guided his fiancée away, “I haven’t given up all my tricks, My Lady.”

Once they had entered the ballroom, Elise said, “You seem to be very fond of Lady Sumner, and she of you. Confess! You are not nearly as depraved as they say.”

He compressed his lips into a thin, hard line. “It’s been ten years since she’s set eyes on me,” he said.

For some reason, this grim pronouncement caused her to stroke his weathered face with the back of her glove. “Your leg must be paining you. Come, there’s a seat in that alcove. There is something I must discuss with you.”

His leg was paining him, beside which he was curious, so he led his affianced to the alcove she indicated. Lady Sumner’s ballroom was one of the largest in London. It boasted chandeliers made by the same glazier as those in Versailles. The windows were so tall, they nearly reached the ceiling, which rose three floors and was domed, sporting the requisite cupid frescos. The room was hung with silver silk. Their alcove was fitted with a cozy love seat, upholstered in anthracite velvet.

Ruisdell feared he was in for a scold, so he preempted it by asking, “How are you adjusting to your role as a future duchess of this isle?”

“That would be nothing were you not the duke in question! I tend to be less practical than the ordinary woman and temperamental with it. I also like to go my own way. I’m afraid we wouldn’t suit at all.”

Throwing his head back, he laughed his first genuine from-the-diaphragm laugh since crossing the channel for Portugal. He was thinking of all the pranks, masquerades, and mischief Sunshine and his adjutant had played at during their growing-up years. Oh, he had enough blackmail ammunition to keep her tamed well into the twentieth century! But, of course, he wouldn’t tell her that. The disembodied voice added,
Yet
. Ignoring it, he looked at her with amusement.

“Now what is it you wish to discuss?”

Rapping him again with her closed fan, she said, “I absolutely forbid you to meet Robert tomorrow. I know you said you wouldn’t; however, that’s what duelists always tell their ladies before sneaking out at dawn.”

He took one of the curls that lay on her shoulder and used it to tickle her ear. Batting him away with her fan (he must find a way to divest her of that article), she went on. “He might not kill you, but he could shoot your other knee. Then where would you be? I can’t imagine how impossible your temper would become were you confined to a sofa for the rest of your life!”

“I could still ride a horse. And how is it that you think I’m such a poor shot? I just returned from a war, where sadly, I shot many unfortunate men. I don’t like to dwell on it, but there it is.”

“Robert, being obviously touched in his upper works, as they say, has no concept of fair play. He’s perfectly capable of shooting you in the back while you are walking away from him to measure your ten paces.”

“Hmm.” The duke considered this. “I will have to contrive something to level the playing field.” He still could not bring himself to be wholly serious. “Do you think this would serve? Somerset can go to Hammersmith Common tonight and dig a trench just big enough to conceal his body behind some brush. He’ll be armed and ready to shoot to kill if the earl attempts any foul play. It’s not really playing according to the rules . . .”

“You’re not playing by the rules in any case,” she told him hotly. “I can’t believe there isn’t something in your code of honor that prevents you from meeting a man who is mentally unhinged!”

“Do you think he won’t make an appearance if he’s in his right mind?”

“I’m sure his right mind knows nothing about it. You must decide this for the both of you.”

By some design of the devil, Waterford chose that moment to appear in their alcove. Elise waited, holding her breath until she could determine which earl was paying them a visit.

Bowing to Elise and then to the duke, Robert said, “I have learned from Somerset that I owe you an apology, Your Grace.”

Ruisdell raised an eyebrow. It seemed, however, as though the man had his wits about him. “He was telling me that you are actually a hero. That you are a general and had an excellent war.”

“I’m no hero,” he said. “Somerset knows nothing about it. It’s my men who were the heroes. ‘Were’ being the operative word. Most of them died horrible deaths.”

Ruisdell closed his eyes.
No! Not now!
He brought a hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Hard. However, it did no good. The hated memories rose, and he saw his loyal men splayed on the battlefield, dead. Thoughts of Beynon had been near all day as he attempted to protect Elise. He saw him once again, only this time the vision was unspeakably horrible. He began to tremble in that hideous way that would not stop. Suddenly ill, he knew only that he had to leave wherever he was and find a suitable place to cast up his accounts.

Forgetting Waterford, and worse, forgetting Elise, he rose quickly and made for the doors to the garden.

IN WHICH OUR HEROINE’S LIFE IS OVERTURNED ONCE MORE

Whatever is wrong with the duke? Where is he going? How could he leave me?
Even as the panic rose in Elise’s breast, she knew she had to stay calm.
Somerset! I must find George!
“My lord Waterford, do you enjoy cards?”

“Do you not realize that I have been most rudely treated? The duke’s behavior to me was worse than the cut direct!”

“I’m afraid he owes you an apology,” she agreed. Robert was angry, but at least it was the anger of a sane man. “That was dreadfully rude.”

“He is jealous of me, isn’t he?”

Grasping at any reason for Ruisdell’s conduct, she said, “I’m afraid that must be it, Robert, for I can think of no other reason he would behave so.”

“And you are going to marry such a man? When you could have married me?”

Growing more afraid that his anger might turn him into his other, more violent self, she said, “You know what my mother is. And Papa is sadly dipped, I’m afraid. Nothing will do but that I restore the family fortunes.

“Now, besides the rudeness, the worst thing is that with the duke’s wounded leg, I cannot dance. You remember how I love to dance.”

Robert’s eyes lit. “You will dance with me? I dared not hope. Ruisdell was guarding you like the proverbial hawk.”

“Yes, let’s dance, Robert. We might not have another chance.” Elise knew she had thrown herself into one of her fictional melodramas. She must get hold of herself. She would have Robert thinking he needed to rescue her. Standing up, she put a hand on his sleeve, and went out on the floor. Fortunately, it was not a waltz, but the more staid minuet.

During the dance, she was silent. Her thoughts were flying in every direction from fear to anger to bewilderment. All while she tried to remain outwardly cheerful.
Keep calm. After this dance, we will find the marquis
.

Once the dance was ended, however, the still rational Robert was obliged to take her into supper, for without realizing it, she had asked him to dance the supper dance with her. The sight of Elise’s discarded fiancé taking her into supper together with news of the duke’s engagement and subsequent disappearance had tongues wagging loud enough for Elise to hear. How dare Ruisdell do this to her! She had begun to warm to him but now wanted nothing more than to douse him with a whole magnum of fizzy champagne. Hopefully, he would choke. Protect her, indeed! She should have realized that he would do no more than subject her to more gossip than ever before.

Asking civilly after her companion’s mother, she managed to direct the flow of his conversation to a catalog of the dowager’s illnesses and all the wrongs that had been done to her by her daughter’s husband. “That is the reason I came home from Italy,” he said. “I would much rather have stayed. The Italians are emotional, it’s true, but on the whole, far more civilized than Britons.”

Embarking on this topic, Elise thought she was safe. Once supper was ended and they were again headed for the ballroom, however, she saw Robert scanning the crowd. “The devil has flown. He has actually left you at a ball by yourself.” Putting a hand on her arm, he said, “This is a grave insult not only to me, but to you, Elise. We must find a way to prevent your marriage to that beast, or you will be miserable all your life.” Leading her to the dance floor once again, he was so sunk in thought that he missed his step more than once.

At the dance’s conclusion, he said, “I see what must be done.” His voice was firm and calm. Elise was relieved he still remained rational. “I will escort you home this minute. Then I will go to the duke’s residence and call him out both for cutting me in the rudest way and then for deserting you. I took lessons in Italy from the finest shooting masters in the world.”

Elise felt fear seize her. However badly the duke had treated her, she didn’t wish him dead.

“Tomorrow we will meet, and I will not delope. I will shoot him through the heart. Even your mother cannot make you marry him then.”

She put a calming hand on his sleeve. “Robert, I appreciate your concern for me. But remember that dueling is now against the law. You will have to flee back to Italy!”

The loving look she both remembered and dreaded came into his very light blue eyes, and he took her hand gently in his. “You will not fly with me?”

Had she not known he was mad, Elise would have been sorely tempted. Before his illness settled on him, he had been an attentive and considerate companion. And she did long to see Italy. But . . .

At that moment, they were approached by the marquis of Somerset. He looked upon Waterford with a touch of fear. “But . . . Ruisdell. Where’s Ruisdell?”

Elise pulled herself up, trying her best to look haughty. “I’m afraid he paid us both a great insult. My lord Waterford is about to escort me home.”

Somerset was stunned. “Where is he?”

“We do not know,” Robert replied. “The last we saw of him, he was headed for the gardens. If you should encounter him before I do, you will kindly convey to him that I expect to meet him at dawn tomorrow on Hounslow Heath. His behavior to his fiancée, not to mention to me, was unforgiveable.”

“Not Hammersmith?” George asked.

“Hammersmith? Far too close to London, my friend. Now, we take our leave. As soon as I have conveyed Miss Edwards to her home, I will call on the duke. Good evening.”

*

It ended that Elise had two escorts home from the ball that evening, neither of whom was her missing fiancé.

Though she had never liked the marquis, she had to admit that his loyalty to the duke was outstanding. Ruisdell must have informed him that Robert’s instability was the real reason for his engagement. And so, it was logical to carry on his friend’s task, whatever might have happened to him. She could see by his puckered brow and puzzled eyes that the disappearance of his friend altogether flummoxed him and appreciated his concern for her outweighing his obvious desire to search for the duke.

Robert remained intent on his desire for a duel the next morning, but he also put escorting Elise home above his personal desire to find the man who had so insulted him. She knew (and if she were not so worried, she would have laughed about it) that he considered Somerset to be the “dashed loose screw” that he was.

They rode in the marquis’s carriage, and all were silent. She imagined that each was wondering what could have happened to the duke. If he had no finer feelings, why had he executed their false engagement in order to watch over her? Elise had assumed at the time that he was up to some devilry, teasing Gregory by cutting him out. Now she wondered. There was definitely something amiss with the duke. As they were all too wont to do, her thoughts strayed to her writing. What a character he would make in a book! Not the kind of book she normally wrote, of course. His character might provide the lever to boost her into a new level of writing.