Alexander, 2nd Marquess of Courtland, aged six and twenty years and one month.
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Prologue
The face …
It was the face that haunted her nightmares—but here, in clear daylight, distinct amid the crowd.
Clarissa Fallon drew a deep, disbelieving breath. It couldn’t be. A moment ago she had been happily engrossed in the street scene, inhaling the aromas of savory meat and pastry that drifted from a street vendor’s cart, as his call of “Hot meat pies!” rose above the clatter of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels. She had paused on the sidewalk to relish the sparkle of sunlight off the polished panes of shop windows and admired enticing wares like a new bonnet trimmed with yellow roses, a pair of elegant ecru kid gloves, or a flowing swathe of crimson silk draped artfully across a stand …
And Clarissa herself was free, at last, to consider such once-unheard of luxuries, free to lift her head to meet the eyes of the ladies and gentlemen strolling along the walkway. Free …
And then she’d caught sight of the once-familiar face, and fear pierced her like a thorn hidden amid a nosegay of roses.
Her brother had promised that Clarissa would be safe now. He’d said … But the face was here, and it was turning—at any moment, those dark bulging eyes would meet Clarissa’s horrified gaze, and then—
Clarissa jerked her head aside and plunged away from the specter which had appeared so abruptly out of the cheerful melee. She pushed her way past two chatting women and ran as if the devil himself waited to snare her soul.
Behind her, someone called, “Miss Clarissa, wait!”
Ignoring the cry, Clarissa plunged ahead. Her heart beat so loudly, the blood pounding in her ears, that she could hear nothing else. Even the noise of the busy London street faded, and she was lost in her worst nightmare.
She ran.
Chapter One
Dominic Shay, seventh earl of Whitby, sipped a glass of port. His head was lowered, and he didn’t seem to notice when Timothy Galston paused, standing just to the side of the comfortable club chair. “Whitby!”
Timothy had practiced his tone of righteous indignation carefully in the privacy of his own rooms, and he was annoyed to observe the other man ignore his greeting. They were old acquaintances, and there was no reason for the slight prickle of unease that the earl always seemed to provoke in the younger man, but there it was. Timothy almost had second thoughts about his rehearsed speech, wishing for a moment he could just slip away, but dash it all, the girl was his cousin.
He cleared his throat and said, more loudly, “Whitby, I’m speaking to you!”
And the earl lifted his face, his perfect features set in an expression of arctic disinterest, his deep brown eyes so dark that they could make one shiver. “Oh, hello, Galston. Have some wine; the butler has just uncorked a quite tolerable bottle.”
Timothy waved away such a minor consideration. No, perhaps not minor, but he could not be distracted until he’d aired his grievance.
“How could you do it? Why shoot down a girl in her first Season, who needs all the advantage she can muster, what with those freckles and the habit she has of smirking—” He paused. No, no, he was getting off the track. “I mean, she’s a perfectly nice girl, with only a moderate dowry to recommend her, and you had no call to say that she dances like an African giraffe who’s drunk too much homebrew. The girl can’t help being tall, you know!”
The earl frowned, but it seemed more in puzzlement than in anger. “Of whom are we speaking, Galston? Some new infatuation of yours?”
Timothy shook his head. “No, dammit. But she’s my cousin, and she deserves better. You dashed her chance of a good Season with one careless bon mot, and you don’t even recall? Miss Emmaline Mawper, that’s who!”
When the earl continued to stare, Timothy added, “At Almack’s last night, don’t you remember?”
The earl shrugged. “I was in a bad mood, old man, wishing I hadn’t allowed myself to be cajoled into looking into that wretched Marriage Mart in the first place. And I’m sure no one remembers one careless comment of mine.”
“You think wrongly, then,” Timothy retorted. “I’ve heard it repeated twice today already, with more jests tacked on, and Emmaline is in tears, my aunt says. Aunt Mary hauled me out of bed—at any ungodly hour, let me tell you—to complain, although what she thinks I can do … But you’re the mostly-eagerly heeded arbiter of the Ton since Beau Brummel took himself off to the Continent to evade his debtors. If you weren’t so damned perfect, with your elegant neckcloths and impeccable tailoring, not to mention that perfect Grecian coin of a face the ladies swoon over—”
This time the earl shook his head, and a strand of dark hair fell back. For the first time, Timothy had a clear view of the ragged scar that marred the earl’s left cheek. It started above the temple and ran past his ear and on beneath the erect shirt collar, the jagged line almost—but not quite—hidden beneath the earl’s slightly too-long hair, and damned if that shaggy hair hadn’t started a new fad among the calflings who aped Whitby’s casual elegance …
“Perfect?” The earl’s voice was icy.
Timothy swallowed. “Oh, that don’t signify. It just adds a touch of the exotic, don’t you know, romantic war wound, and all that—in fact, the ladies love it,” he protested, but he knew his voice wavered. Damn, he always forgot.
“But that don’t change my argument,” he said, trying to recapture his momentum. “The Ton still looks to you, Whitby, and it ain’t right—you misuse your power over Society’s opinion.”
“If I have any power, as you claim, it is quite unsought and totally irrelevant.” Whitby lowered his face again to sip his wine.
Timothy swallowed, almost tasting his relief.
“Not to the persons you cut down, it ain’t,” he argued. “It’s easy enough to put someone down, much harder to build someone up. Why don’t you do something agreeable for a change?”
“I assure you, Galston, the next time I see Miss Mawper, I will be charm personified—”
But a new voice interrupted.
“Look, a woman—a lady, I should almost say!”
The earl turned back toward the bow windows of White’s, where several younger gentlemen lounged, watching the street. This was male territory, and any respectable lady knew it and avoided St. James’s Street with utmost care.
So why was a young and very pretty girl dashing down the pavement, pursued doggedly by a stout, red-faced female?
Even Timothy paused to stare. None of the onlookers could make out the words spoken outside the window, but they saw the older woman catch the girl by the arm and her lips move in what was obviously an energetic scold.
The young woman’s expression twisted. Was she a lady or not? She was dressed decorously and with obvious expense, but her attitude to the older female—mother, aunt, governess, whatever—didn’t seem in keeping with her youth, nor did she seem abashed by her social transgression. In fact, now she jerked away from the other’s hold, and while the men watched, entranced, landed a passable left hook into the woman’s rounded midriff. The woman staggered back. The girl’s hands curled into fists, and her bonnet slid off her fair hair as she waited for the woman to recover.
“Ten pounds on the younger lady!” one of the watchers called.
“Done. But hardly a lady, I’d say,” another of the gawkers suggested. He added a comment which made the other men guffaw and offer a few disparaging guesses of their own as to the girl’s social status—or even profession.
The earl frowned. One of the men sitting closer to the window looked up to see it, and beneath Whitby’s reproving glance, the laughter faded. The other men turned back to watch the mill in progress.
“See,” Timothy muttered. “I told you people listen to you. All you have to do is frown or s
mile, and the Ton obeys …” He paused to stare out the window at the continuing struggle between the two women. He had obtained what he had come for, so why did he still feel dissatisfied? Someone ought to show Whitby just how misguided the arrogant earl was, he thought.
Outside, the stout woman—apparently thoroughly out of temper—slapped the girl’s cheek. But the younger lady did not give in. She ducked and evaded the next blow. When she glanced up again, her cheek was reddened from the impact, and her eyes were wide with fear.
Timothy thought that the earl had stiffened. Timothy said, “I repeat, raising people up is much harder than cutting ’em down. For example, I’d bet you a hundred pounds you couldn’t make a lady out of—out of—well, whoever that girl is.”
“Probably some rich cit’s daughter who hasn’t heeded her lessons in deportment.” The earl shook his head. “Or mayhap some escapee from Bedlam, judging by her barbaric behavior. Can’t make a silk reticule out of a sow’s ear. Anyhow, we don’t even know who she is.”
“And if I can find out her name? What about the bet?”
“I can’t change her birth, and I’m sure as Hades no damned governess to give lessons in ladylike conduct.” The earl’s dusky eyes seemed to darken even more, but there was something in his tone Timothy had not heard before.
So this time Timothy, elated to at last observe a chink in Whitby’s armor, stood his ground.
“So you admit my point? You can cut down an aspiring miss without a second thought, but you can’t lift an awkward girl with, obviously, no sense of propriety, nor expend any real effort in the attempt? Afraid it will be too difficult a task, eh?”
Whitby narrowed his eyes.
Timothy’s surge of confidence faded just a little; he tried not to gulp.
“If you learn her name, if she has any pretension to gentility at all, I will see that she is the toast of the Ton. Are you satisfied?”
Timothy grinned, looking up just in time to see that the matronly woman had finally succeeded in pulling the still-struggling girl back up the street. They were almost out of sight.
One of the men in the window groaned as his mate urged, “Pay up!”
“Oh, very.” Timothy tried not to laugh in the earl’s face. “I’ll let you know her name when I find it out.”
And he hurried out of the club to follow the two women.
Truly a Wife
© 2005 Rebecca Hagan Lee.
ISBN: 0425201945
BERKLEY
Ed♥n
Rebecca Hagan Lee, Truly a Wife
(Series: Free Fellows League # 4)
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