The Duke's Undoing (Three Rogues and Their Ladies) (6 page)

Something moved painfully in the duke’s chest. Surprised, he realized it was his heart feeling sympathy. “And what was Joshua’s surname, Miss Edwards?”

“Beynon. Sir Joshua Beynon.”

Stunned, for a moment the duke froze. As soon as her news had passed through him and become some insane reality, he turned aside, afraid that she would see his face. His feelings, a moment ago tenderly amused, underwent a radical change as fate dealt him a blow. It instantly rendered him a sick old man. The trill of the soprano on the stage irritated his nerves to such a point that he covered his ears and withdrew into that place inside himself that lived perpetually on the rocky peninsular slope covered with dead men. Men he had known, eaten with, drunk with, laughed with. And the one sight that would never leave: his adjutant and closest friend with his chest blown open. Blood everywhere, especially at night when his mind was full of the noise and stench of war.

I can’t stay here. I must have some air.

He felt George’s eyes upon him. The girl put a hand on his sleeve. “Your Grace . . .”

Standing with the aid of his stick, Ruisdell shook her off. “You must excuse me, Miss Edwards. I’m a rude, sick old man.” Then something like Beynon’s voice reminded him. “I’ll be by in the morning, of course. To take you to the magistrate.”

“But you’re ill!” she said with the forthrightness he knew she would have.

He owed her and Beynon at least part of the truth. “By morning, it will pass. Forgive me. I must have some air. George, come.”

Somehow, he made his way home, up the stairs, and tumbled on his bed, fully dressed, into his worst nightmares. The fleeting thought visited him that this woman was proving to be far more trouble than Marianne.

IN WHICH OUR HEROINE BECOMES ENGAGED (AGAIN)

Elise did not know whether to expect the duke the next morning or not. As she sat at her vanity table while Kitty dressed her hair, she thought about the queer turn he had taken at the opera. His face became so forbidding at the mention of Joshua that she was able at last to see past his charming exterior into the darkness beneath. The name of her first fiancé was clearly unwelcome to him. So unwelcome that he had become positively rude! She had never been on the receiving end of such a black look before. Elise appreciated the irony that Joshua had always called her “Sunshine.”

So it was possible that the duke had forgotten his promise about the magistrate. She sincerely hoped not. He was a rogue, but she hoped she might count on him in this. He was also, at the very least, an exceptionally complex man. Just the kind of person she needed to become acquainted with to give her fiction some sophistication and verisimilitude. One moment a hero, the next a cad. Well, not exactly a cad. Gregory was a cad. The duke had simply disappeared, first into some bad memory and then had rudely taken his leave.

She laughed at herself as Kitty wove through her ebony locks the daisies she had taken from the garden. Her light muslin sported a smattering of embroidered daisies as well. She looked to be not a whit older than seventeen. The age she was when she spun dark, gothic tales to Joshua as he reclined on a potato sack full of straw in their tree house in the middle of her father’s forest.

She had done far too much growing up far too fast after he left for the Peninsula. Her novels had acquired more sophistication as she tussled with the hard questions of life. But they were a way of holding at bay the blackness of Joshua’s death as well as the frightening happenings she had suffered at Robert’s hands. Gregory should be comic relief, but Elise was mortified by the way he had treated her. Her curiosity about the duke must be restrained. A rake was not at all what was called for in her life just now.

As Kitty used the tongs to create ringlets around her face, Elise realized how loath she was to consign even Robert to Bedlam. Surely, it would be best if whatever had taken the duke from her box last night kept him away from her this morning. Perhaps Gregory could prevail upon Robert to go back to Italy, using the flattery he had employed the night before with such success. Besides, even if he was a cad, Gregory was undoubtedly a safer rescuer than the duke. She didn’t wish to owe him anything. Her toilette finished, she dispatched Kitty at eleven o’clock to Gregory’s townhouse a short distance away with a note to call on her regarding Robert.

When Kitty had gone, Elise let herself out into the garden. The day was sultry, even this early, promising thunderstorms. Walking in her aunt’s rose garden, she found herself considering the duke once more. Did he perhaps have unpleasant reminiscences of Joshua? Her dead fiancé had been universally liked, of cheerful disposition, and very sound in his opinions. Perhaps it was her whimsey, but sometimes she felt he was her guardian angel. How could the duke have anything against him? If he did, as far as Elise was concerned, it was but another strike against his character.

As a contrary stroke, however, she remembered the sketch of Old Father Tree that was propped up on the mantle of her bedroom, reminding her of Ruisdell’s kindness in the park, when she hadn’t known who he was. That did not square at all with her other experiences of the elegant, haughty man. Nor did his beneficence towards the wounded soldiers and his obvious care for their welfare. And what about the entire scene in the box last night? Now that she was removed from it by a good night’s sleep, it appeared to her to be the very best of comedy—Molière, even! The duke had been overrun with fiancés and had never cracked a smile. Instead, he had been overtly protective. She was a long way from understanding him.

Using her aunt’s shears, she began cutting yellow roses just touched with red at the end of their petals. They were unusually fragrant in the humid atmosphere. She would put them in the navy blue sitting room.

Considering her desire to put the multifaceted duke into a book, for the first time since she was sixteen years old she felt the uneasy suspicion that maybe her writing was not even passable as adolescent prose. She certainly did not seem to have the knowledge or gift of making out character.
Are my characters just pale imitations of those I have read about elsewhere? Are they an alternative to telling the real story, the one that is locked inside of me? What I’ve written and published seems immature and comical compared to my real life. What kind of heroine would I create if I allowed myself to explore my own past and present in prose? I have been brave in life. Why not on paper?

Her basket was nearly full when Bates showed the Viscount Chessingden into the garden.

“Good news!” he said, greeting her with a kiss on top of her head and relieving her of her basket. “After taking Violet home last night, I took Robert to the club for a brandy. He was reasonable and cogent, with no memory of what had happened in your opera box. I flattered him no end. Good job that Thomas actually did like his paintings! Then he took me to his townhouse to show some of them to me. Portraits. Fancies himself a Gainsborough or a Reynolds.”

“Hmm, really?” Gregory’s free arm was encircling her waist as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “He’s good?”

“Well, at the moment his art is not original enough. He is deriving all his style from other portraitists. I think I convinced him that Italian women possess more conflicted souls—situated as they are between the pagan and the Christian traditions in Florence. I suggested he make a study of them, and initiate a whole new school of painting—sort of an English rendering of the Renaissance. He became very excited. Even started throwing things into his steamer trunk.”

“So you think he really will leave? The duke was going to introduce me to a magistrate this morning to tell my story and try to get Robert sent to Bedlam.”

“That sounds like the duke. From what I know of him, he’s a very all-or-nothing sort of person. He’d rather squash someone who gets in his way than find a way to help the poor soul.”

“That’s not true. You know it’s not. He is one of the contributors to the soup kitchen! Besides, Robert is not in the duke’s way. He’s in my way. Believe me, Gregory, I’m not being melodramatic. I am in physical danger from Robert. I just hope you are right and that he is on his way back to Italy this moment.”

“Is it not a lovely day?” her former fiancé asked, kissing the end of her nose.

“Stop that.” Elise backed away from him. “It is a bit sultry, actually.”

“Whenever I’m with you, it is a lovely day, Elise. I have something for you.”

Out of his pocket, he once more drew her ring and placed it on her finger. She removed it at once, and holding it out to him, said, “I am grateful for your help with Robert, Gregory. But don’t think I don’t remember your caddish behavior yesterday. I only hope you’ll make Violet a decent husband and refrain from breaking her heart.”

Putting down the basket of roses, he pulled her to him so tightly she could feel his heart racing. “Don’t give me that look, Elise. I cannot marry where I do not love.” He began nuzzling her ear, dropping kisses on her neck.

As she wrenched herself away, the Duke of Ruisdell was ushered into the garden by Bates.

“Bit early in the day for that, is it not, Chessingden? Where’s your fiancée?”

Reluctantly releasing Elise, he said, “Right here.”

“Oh, are we to reenact the comedy of last evening?”

“We are not engaged,” Elise said. “The viscount is afflicted with a very short memory.”

“What the devil is he doing here pestering you?” Ruisdell asked.

Elise put a further distance between herself and Gregory, picked up the basket, and started on her way inside. “He is under the impression that, no matter what I say, I am betrothed to him. Gregory has obvious problems with the word ‘no.’ I suspect his nanny of having too acquiescent a disposition, giving him a false picture of the female sex,” she said. “But I am grateful to him. He’s talked Robert into going back to the Continent and taking up his painting again. He was even packing when Gregory left him.”

Frowning, Ruisdell said, “Well, he’s changed his mind again. He sent a fellow to wait on me this morning. He means to meet me on Hammersmith Common at dawn tomorrow.”

Elise stopped and turned to face the duke whose eyes she could now see plainly. They were free from alarm, looking merely bored. And their color was a heart-melting brown.

“That will not do!” she said with heat.

“You’re right,” the duke said. “Not that I wouldn’t be willing fight a duel for you, but it seems you are already affianced to one if not two men. Whereas I am nothing to you. I’m not certain I understand the man’s motive, exactly.”

Frustrated that her only male relative was her father in Shropshire, she said, “He doesn’t need a motive to become inflamed. And as I can attest, he is very strong.

“Your Grace, are you still planning to take me along to your friend, the magistrate?”

“I think it would be best if your, uh, second fiancé accompanied us. Waterford was just lighting out in his curricle when I reached his home. I questioned the servants to no avail.”

She shuddered. “He really is the most frightening man.”

Chessingden said, “I had better ask your aunt for a room. I must watch over you, darling. This appears to be serious.”

The duke shook his head. “He’s got a good six inches on you and three or four stone, at least. If your silver tongue does not work, you will not be able to restrain him. You did not see him seize hold of Miss Edwards last night. I imagine her upper arms are quite black and blue this morning.” Pausing, he raised a brow at Elise. She nodded and bit her lip. He continued, “If we are unable to discover his whereabouts, it would be far more satisfactory if I stayed here. Not only am I a soldier but I am a boxer as well. There is also the fact that I am not likely to be distracted by Miss Edward’s considerable charms.”

“But you’ve an injured leg!” Chessingden protested. “And what of the
ton
? They know you for a degenerate rascal. I will not have you sullying the name of my fiancée by moving into her home with nothing but two scatterbrained women for protection!”

“Really, Gregory! Aunt Clarice saved me with a poker last time. She is not scatterbrained. Sukey is a well-respected entomologist. And I will remind you once again that you are not my fiancé. Not now. Not ever.”

The duke treated Chessingden to a one-sided smile. Walking over to Elise, he went down on one knee and took her hand. “Your vast charms and keen mind have made me yours ’til death. Say you will add me to your list of fiancés!”

Laughing at his antics, she said, “Your Grace, this is so sudden! I hear you are a shocking rake. And didn’t you just disclaim any interest in my vast charms?”

He smiled and reiterated, “I am a far better choice for your protection. And if Chessingden thinks my reputation will sully you, we must have a pro forma engagement. But I shan’t dangle after you. Think of me as a friend.”

“I cannot approve of you, you know,” she said and grinned. “Not only are you a rogue but a Tory! However, it will be a famous masquerade. I have only one small question. Why would you do this for me?”

His face grew solemn. “I owe it to another.”

“To whom?” Chessingden asked as the duke rose to his feet.

“No one in your sphere, my dear viscount. A little mystery is good for those who tend to be too sure of themselves.”

“I say! If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black . . .”