Four Nights With the Duke

  A moment later she was on her bed, two pillows over her head, sobbing as hard as she had when her brother and father died. Since she’d learned the terms of that bloody will.

  “I hate you,” she croaked to her brother, John. “How could you . . . how could you?”

  Talking to John sometimes made things easier, but not this time. She didn’t want to hate John. She had loved her brother. She loved his memory, even though he was irritating, with his conviction that a man had to head every household.

  He wasn’t there to defend himself.

  And yet: “I do hate you,” she said again, her voice cracking.

  Her husband had been smug about his ability to get his tool stiff, given the fact he thought she was plump enough to be carrying a child.

  When she whispered “I hate you” into her pillow this time, she was aware of two things: the first was that she was no longer addressing her dead brother.

  And the second was that she was lying.

  She hated Vander. But she didn’t hate those greedy kisses, and the way they made her feel sensual and treasured.

  She was a fool.

  An idiot to fall under his spell once again.

  She hated herself.

  That was true.

  Chapter Eleven

  NOTES ON BEQUEST SCENE

  Miss Flora Percival listened with disbelief to the solicitor as he informed her that she had just inherited a fortune with disbelief.

  “Sir,” she said, “I am but a poor maiden and . . . (something)”

  “Miss Percival, you are now one of the richest young ladies in all England,” the solicitor said, wiping his forehead. “But I must caution you: under the terms of this bequest, you are not allowed to give the money to anyone. You must spend it on yourself.”

  “That is a most perplexing stipulation,” Flora replied, knitting her fair brow.

  “My client watched you from afar for many months. He had determined to leave his money to a young woman of Excellent Character, with a Noble Mien and Aristocratic Bearing.”

  “My grandfather was an earl,” Flora admitted. “The family disowned my mother when she fell in love with an impoverished violinist.”

  The solicitor nodded. “Your breeding heritage is reflected in your bearing. I have taken the liberty of buying a furnished townhouse in Mayfair. I have also ordered a carriage enameled in gold, to be drawn by four white steeds.”

  (Does gold enamel exist ~ Painted in gold? Gilt?)

  Vander leaned his head against the door of Mia’s bedchamber. She was sobbing as if her heart was broken.

  The hell, she wasn’t still in love with him. Obviously she was. He’d never kissed a woman who exploded in his arms like a swift flame that singed and consumed. It had taken every bit of self-control he had not to push her onto the settee and rip that ugly gown from her.

  Even now, hearing her sob on the other side of the door, blood was pounding through the lower half of his body.

  He could make her feel better.

  No, he was being the self-righteous idiot that she believed him to be. Had he really said that she was mousy? He couldn’t remember saying that. In the depths of fury, he tended to say things he didn’t mean, as when he had glanced down to see her thick gown bunched under her breasts and said she was plump. He’d never cared much what shape a woman had. He just liked their bodies.

  Hell.

  He had to adjust himself again. Their kisses had started a wildfire in his loins. Round breasts, curved hips, warm skin, sweet mouth, wet . . . he hoped she was wet.

  The involuntary groan that came to his lips was like a splash of cold water. What in the hell was he doing? He straightened and returned downstairs.

  In the entry, he informed Nottle that he was leaving for Carrington House in order to collect his wife’s nephew, and told him to instruct the housekeeper to have the nursery in order by evening.

  To his surprise, his butler’s face curdled. The change was slight, but distinct. Vander raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “The boy is deformed, as I understand it,” Nottle said, lowering his voice. “I’ve heard some around the village say as how he turns the stomach. One leg is more like a flipper than a leg. Amphibious.” He shuddered visibly.

  Vander considered this new information as he waited for his carriage to draw around. It certainly clarified Mia’s desperation. He was fairly certain that she would fight to protect any child, not merely an unsettlingly incomplete one. But the boy’s deformity likely increased her panic.

  What’s more, it provided something of an excuse for the absent fiancé. He found it unlikely that a man who had seen through Mia’s ugly clothing and reserved demeanor would jilt her. But now there was the possibility that the blackguard hadn’t been able to face the responsibility of raising a crippled child.

  He swung into the vehicle, feeling a bit disturbed. There had been a boy at school who was missing two fingers; other boys had been cruel to him. Vander and Thorn had never joined in, and in fact they had pummeled a couple of fourth-form boys who were being particularly vicious.

  But he couldn’t lie to himself and claim he and Thorn were high-minded about the matter. The boy couldn’t wield a cricket bat properly, and so they left him alone.

  When Vander arrived at Carrington House, Mia’s butler emerged from the house to greet him. “My name, Your Grace, is Mr. Gaunt.” He paused as if waiting for a response, likely to do with the fact that he was round as a plum pudding.

  Vander nodded and handed over his coat. He didn’t care to bandy words with the man about the incongruity of his name any more than he would comment on his nose, which had obviously been broken in the past. Gaunt didn’t look like a butler in a lord’s household, but that wasn’t his concern.

  “May I convey the household’s congratulations on your marriage?” the butler asked.

  “Thank you,” Vander said. “I’d like to speak to Sir Richard.”

  Sir Richard Magruder turned out to be a slim fellow with a beard trimmed to a stiletto point, a style that hadn’t been fashionable for two centuries. Vander took an instant dislike to everything about him: the shrewd look in his eyes, the way his hair had been coaxed to a curl, the gleaming surface of his boots.

  “Your Grace, it is a pleasure to welcome you to Carrington House,” the man said, coming out from behind a large desk with a hospitable air that failed to acknowledge that the desk now belonged to Vander.

  Vander bowed, and watched as Sir Richard dipped and stayed down, making a few extra flourishes with his right hand while bent over that, along with his Elizabethan beard, seemed to indicate that he fancied himself living in the past. A servant to the queen, in short.

  He’d barely straightened before Vander strode to a chair and dropped into it. “As you know, Miss Carrington is now my duchess.”

  Sir Richard seated himself neatly and pressed his knees together. “I offer you my heartiest congratulations,” he said, his face positively wreathed with happiness, quite as if he wasn’t on the verge of filing a lawsuit. Vander’s solicitor didn’t seem to know precisely what the lawsuit would assert, but Sir Richard was famous for using the court to conduct personal feuds. He’d already sued Vander over a horse he bought from the Pindar Stables, though the suit had never made it farther than their respective solicitors’ offices.

  After a moment, Sir Richard said, “Look here, Duke, you aren’t still chafing about that lawsuit a few years ago, are you? I was misled by my stable master, who insisted that the horse’s droop ears meant he couldn’t possibly be the product of Matador. He was incorrect, and I fully accepted the evidence submitted by your stables.”

  Vander didn’t bother to answer. Sir Richard had claimed that a horse from the Pindar Stables had come with falsified papers, an allegation that Vander’s solicitors had promptly squashed.

  Now Sir Richard began to go on and on about droop ears and thoroughbreds, doing nothing more than proving himself an ass.

  “Your lawsuit was fr
ivolous,” Vander finally said, cutting him off, “and cost me more than fifty pounds to counter.”

  Sir Richard blathered about the prevalence of unfair practices and a man’s entitlement to breach of warranty.

  Vander cut him off again. “My solicitor tells me that you are likely considering another lawsuit, resulting from my marriage to Miss Carrington and ensuing guardianship of young Lord Carrington.”

  Sir Richard’s face cracked into a smile. “Your Grace, it is clear to both of us, I’m sure, that your eleventh-hour marriage to Miss Carrington—scarcely a month after she was jilted by another man—was cobbled together to enable you to absorb my ward’s estate, which not coincidentally runs alongside your own.”

  “In fact, that was not part of my reasoning,” Vander said.

  Sir Richard scoffed. “Shall we be honest between ourselves, Duke? You married the woman to get your hands on the unentailed estate, and I do not blame you for it. However, you understand that there will have to be compensation. I had the expectation of living in this house and enjoying the lands for at least ten years and quite likely longer, given the frail health of my ward. As it happens, my lands also adjoin the estate, to the east of here.”

  Vander knew he was rough around the edges for a duke. He had a darkness that came straight from his childhood, bred from an instinct that had warned him that his father’s mind was not just chaotic, but dangerous.

  That instinct was urging him to squash Sir Richard like a maggot. He stretched his legs, contemplating the situation, allowing the silence in the room to grow. There was no way in hell that Vander would pay him off.

  The real question was whether he should thrash Sir Richard now or wait to see whether the ass carried through with his implicit threat of a lawsuit.

  Better to wait, he decided, eyeing Sir Richard’s fastidiously groomed face. The man seemed unafraid, which was interesting. Perhaps he knew enough about fighting to offer a proper challenge.

  More likely, his lordship was under the illusion that the spring dagger concealed in his pretty walking stick would protect him.

  “I will pay you nothing,” Vander stated. He added a silent self-congratulation; he had managed to keep his tone even.

  Sir Richard had groomed his eyebrows to a point, hence surprise—feigned or otherwise—made him resemble a pet rat Vander had once had as a child. “Are you quite certain, Your Grace? I will bring a suit of law against you, as I’m sure you are aware, in Berkshire, where I am not unknown.” He paused just long enough to make it clear that the justice of the peace was in his pocket.

  If Vander remembered correctly, the Honorable Mr. Roach had been justice of the peace for some fifteen years. The beast inside Vander growled softly, thinking of the many people who had likely been abusively treated in that period.

  Sir Richard wasn’t just a man with a feeling that the world owed him, paired with a reckless disrespect for the law.

  He was a villain, the sort who would slip a dagger between a man’s ribs and continue on to the opera, completely unperturbed.

  Vander nodded, as if he were actually considering Sir Richard’s threat. He could kill him, of course, but that was messy, unproductive, and might lead to trouble. Even dukes were not encouraged to make themselves judge, jury and, especially, executioner.

  And his conscience occasionally reminded him that he had no right to play those three roles.

  “We both know it would be best to avoid the courts,” Sir Richard added, his voice oily with confidence. “It might be different if Mia were a great beauty; you could claim to have been stricken with Cupid’s arrow at first sight.” He chuckled quietly. “But given her limited charms and your parents’ scandals . . .”

  That did it. Vander was going to kill him. It was just a matter of when. He leaned forward, wielding his body’s leashed power as a weapon. “If my wife’s name passes your lips again, I will become extremely angry, Sir Richard.”

  One of those absurdly pointed eyebrows rose again. “I applaud your loyalty. It’s such a rare quality in your family.”

  The man had a death wish.

  And Vander was damned sick of being blackmailed. “I want you out of this house today.” It was good to realize that he was in complete control of his temper. There were a few moments with Mia when he almost started bellowing like a madman, but here he was, confronted by a veritable weasel, and he was in no danger of going off like a half-cocked pistol.

  “I shall bring suit against you today,” Sir Richard hissed. “I shall make your name a byword, not that it isn’t already. After all, isn’t your marriage incestuous? Oh, wait, your mother wasn’t married to your bride’s father.”

  “Will you remove yourself on your own feet, Sir Richard, or shall some of my men assist?”

  Sir Richard rose and went to the fireplace, silent for a moment. When he turned about, as trim as a china figure on a music box, he said with an appealing catch in his voice, “I feel that we have got off on the wrong footing, Your Grace.”

  “Do you?”

  “I merely wish to be compensated for the losses that you inflict upon me by a marriage calculated to disinherit me.”

  “As I said, my marriage was not contracted with the Carrington estate in mind,” Vander reminded him.

  “Are you saying you’re in love?”

  “It’s none of your damn business why or who I marry, any more than it’s the business of the courts.” Vander rose.

  “It’s my business now.” Sir Richard’s face darkened. He lost the air of an Elizabethan and looked like the rodent he was. “You are stealing my estate. Did you really think I wouldn’t fight back? That I would simply hand over the keys with a smile?”

  “I can do without the smile.” Vander prowled forward, noting the way that Sir Richard was fingering his cane. If only he would pull out a blade, Vander would be perfectly justified in beating the living daylights out of him.

  But Sir Richard had to strike first; Vander had given up on fisticuffs except as a matter of self-defense.

  “Everyone will know!” Sir Richard was growing shrill. “Do you think that anyone in polite society will acknowledge your homely wife, given the disgraceful relations between your parents?”

  Vander’s fist tightened and gladness unfurled in his chest. If there was ever a man who deserved a beating, it was Sir Richard.

  The man fell back a step and, sure enough, he pulled out his tinsel-dagger. “Don’t touch me!” he shrilled. “I’ll sue you for assault and battery. And I’ll tell the world that you attacked me merely because I was brave enough to speak the truth: you married a fat wallflower in order to steal an estate from an orphan.”

  A second later the tinsel-dagger was in Vander’s hand and poised at its owner’s throat.

  “You have just said a great many things that displeased me,” Vander remarked.

  “My servants know you’re here,” Sir Richard gasped. “You can’t kill me.”

  “I don’t plan to. Unless you neglect to offer a groveling apology, that is. My wife is a lovely, intelligent woman. She has the kind of curves that a man longs to find in his bed. I may not have been the first to wish to marry her, but I am the one who succeeded.” To his total astonishment, he discovered that he meant every word.

  Sir Richard’s eyes narrowed. The wretch was dredging up some sort of nasty and irrelevant retort. Vander thought about perforating him with his own dagger just to shut him up, but daggers were for cowards. He threw it across the room and it pierced the door and stuck there, quivering.

  Sir Richard fell like a sack of flour after a single blow to the jaw, a disappointingly quick finish. Vander prodded him with his boot. The man’s head rolled to one side; he was alive, but insensible. Satisfied, Vander walked to the servants’ bell and rang for assistance.

  Gaunt materialized within moments. He took in the situation with one swift look, and said, “Dear me. Sir Richard seems to have fallen and injured his head.”

  Vander shrugged. “Something l
ike that. Have a footman load him in the carriage. He can recover in his own home.”

  “Would you prefer he be sent to his country estate or to his townhouse?”

  “Where is his estate?”

  “It runs just to the east of here.”

  “That’s right,” Vander said, remembering what Sir Richard had said. “What happened to Squire Bevington? His family’s been on that land for generations.”

  “I believe that Sir Richard took Squire Bevington’s estate as partial payment for an action he brought for assault and battery against the squire.” Gaunt put his toe in Sir Richard’s ribs none too gently. “He appears to be devoid of consciousness.”

  Vander boxed regularly in Gentleman Jackson’s salon. When he struck someone squarely on the jaw, the bout was over.

  “Assault?”

  “Squire Bevington was under the impression that Sir Richard had interfered with his daughter,” the butler said, his face expressionless. “Unfortunately, it was proved in court that the young lady was an impudent young baggage who had made advances to Sir Richard herself, thereby rendering her father’s attack an unjustified action of battery. The Bevingtons have since emigrated to Canada.”

  “Christ.” All this had happened under his watch. He damn well should have known about it. Hell, the Dukes of Pindar may be responsible for appointing the justices of the peace in Berkshire, though in view of his father’s condition, Lord only knew how the Honorable Mr. Roach had been appointed. “Pack Sir Richard off to Bevington’s house for the time being, Gaunt.”

  The butler summoned a pair of footmen, whose faces revealed a mixture of glee and pure hatred as they hauled Sir Richard from the room.

  “Send his things after him within the hour,” Vander said. “He is unmarried, is he not?”

  “To the best of my knowledge. His valet can pack his clothing. It’s a matter of a trunk or two.”

  “You’d best lay on more men to patrol the grounds. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sir Richard attempted revenge.”