Читать книгу From Duke till Dawn: 2018’s most scandalous Regency read - Eva Leigh, Eva Leigh - Страница 8

Chapter 1

London, England

1817

A woman laughed, and Alexander Lewis, Duke of Greyland felt the sound like a gunshot to his chest.

It was a very pleasant laugh, low and musical rather than shrill and forced, yet it sounded like The Lost Queen’s laugh. Alex could not resist the urge to glance over his shoulder as he left the Eagle chophouse. He’d fancifully taken to calling her The Lost Queen, though she was most assuredly a mortal woman. Had she somehow appeared on a busy London street at dusk? The last time he’d seen her had been two years ago, in the spa town of Cheltenham, in his bed, asleep and naked.

The owner of the laugh turned out to be a completely different woman—brunette rather than blonde, petite and round rather than lithe and willowy. She caught Alex staring and raised her eyebrows. He bowed gravely in response, then continued toward the curb.

Night came on in indigo waves, but the shops spilled golden light in radiant patches onto the street. The hardworking citizens of London continued to toil as the upper echelons began their evening revelries. Crowds thronged the sidewalk, while wagons, carriages, and people on horseback crammed the streets. A handful of pedestrians recognized Alex and politely curtsied or tipped their hats, murmuring, “Good evening, Your Grace.” Though he was in no mood for politeness, responsibility and virtue were his constant companions—had been his whole life—and so rather than snapping, “Go to the devil, damn you!” he merely nodded in greeting.

He’d done his duty. He’d been seen in public, rather than disappearing into the cavernous chambers of his Mayfair mansion,where he could lick his wounds in peace.

The trouble with being a duke was that he always had to do his duty. “You are the pinnacle of British Society,” his father had often said to him. “The world looks to you for guidance. So you must lead by example. Be their True North.”

This evening, before dining, Alex had taken a very conspicuous turn up and down Bond Street, making certain that he was seen by many consequential—and loose-lipped—figures in the ton. Word would soon spread that the Duke of Greyland was not holed up, sulking in seclusion. His honor as one of Society’s bulwarks would not be felled by something as insignificant as his failed marriage suit to Lady Emmeline Birks. The Dukes of Greyland had stood strong against Roundheads, Jacobites, and countless other threats against Britain. One girl barely out of the schoolroom could hardly damage Alex’s ducal armor.

But that armor had been dented by The Lost Queen. Far deeper than he would have expected.

Standing on the curb, he signaled for his carriage, which pulled out of the mews. He tugged on his spotless gloves as he waited and adjusted the brim of his black beaver hat to make certain it sat properly on his head. “Always maintain a faultless appearance,” his father had reminded him again and again. “The slightest bit of disorder in your dress can lead to rampant speculation about the stability of your affairs. This, we cannot tolerate. The nation demands nothing less than perfection.”

Alex’s father had been dead for ten years, but that didn’t keep the serious, sober man’s voice from his mind. It was part of him now—his role as one of the most powerful men in England and the responsibilities that role carried with it. Not once did he ever let frivolities distract him from his duties.

Except for one time . . .

Forcing the thought from his mind, Alex looked impatiently for his carriage. Just as the vehicle pulled up, however, two men appeared and grabbed his arms on each side.

Alex stiffened—he did not care for being touched without giving someone express permission to do so. People on the street also did not normally seize each other. Was it a robbery? A kidnapping attempt? His hands curled instinctively into fists, ready to give his accosters a beating.

“What’s this?” one of the younger men exclaimed with mock horror. “Have I grabbed hold of a thundercloud?”

“Don’t know about you,” the other man said drily, “but I seem to have attached myself to an enormous bar of iron. How else to explain its inflexibility?” He tried to shake Alex, to little avail. When he wanted to be, Alex was absolutely immovable.

Alex’s fingers loosened. He tugged his arms free and growled, “That’s enough, you donkeys.”

Thomas Powell, the Earl of Langdon and heir to the Duke of Northfield, grinned, a flash of white in his slightly unshaven face. “Come now, Greyland,” he chided. A hint of an Irish accent made his voice musical, evidence of Langdon’s early years spent in his mother’s native County Kerry. “Is that any way to speak to your oldest and dearest friends?”

“I’ll let you know when they get here.” Alex scowled at Langdon, then at Christopher Ellingsworth, who only smirked in response.

Alex took a step toward his carriage, but Ellingsworth deftly moved to block his path, displaying the speed and skill that had served him well when he’d fought on the Peninsula.

“Where are you running off to with such indecorous haste?” Ellingsworth pressed. He held up a finger. “Ah, never tell me. You’re running back to the shelter of your Mayfair cave, to growl and brood like some big black bear in a cravat.”

“You know nothing,” Alex returned, despite the fact that Ellingsworth had outlined his exact plans for the rest of the night.

Ellingsworth looked at Langdon with exaggerated pity. “Poor chap. The young Lady Emmeline has utterly shattered his heart.”

Alex shouldered past Ellingsworth, only to have Langdon move to stand in his way.

“My heart is not shattered because of Lady Emmeline,” Alex snapped. At least that much was the truth.

“But why shouldn’t your heart be strewn in pieces throughout Regent’s Park?” Langdon mused. “You courted the young lady for several months, and you told Ellingsworth and I that you’d already received her father’s grateful acceptance of a marriage offer.”

“She never agreed to anything,” Alex said flatly.

“A modest girl, that Lady Emmeline.” Ellingsworth nodded with approval. “She wouldn’t have said yes right away. They never do. Nothing to be alarmed by.”

“How would you know?” Alex’s voice was edged. Ellingsworth had little experience with offering for ladies’ hands, committed as he was to a life of reckless pleasure.

Langdon added, “It’d be unseemly for an earl’s daughter to eagerly snap up a marriage proposal the moment it was offered.”

Alex scowled. Despite the fact that, at thirty-eight, he was sixteen years her senior, they would suit well as a wedded couple. Lady Emmeline had been perfectly trained in the responsibilities of an aristocratic wife. Though he wished she stated her own opinion rather than constantly agreeing with him, there were worse faults one could find in a prospective bride.

They could marry at Christmas, eight months from now. It would be a small but elegant wedding, followed by a lavish breakfast and a wedding journey in the Lake District. And then, if everything went well, in less than a year, Alex and Lady Emmeline might welcome their first child—hopefully a boy so the line would be secure. It would’ve been precisely the sort of match Alex’s father would have approved, considering Lady Emmeline’s faultless background and her spotless reputation.

“Look at him now, mooning away,” Langdon sighed, smugly thwarting Alex’s attempts to step around him. “He looks poorly.”

It would be bad form to knock his friend to the ground. Damn the social niceties that dictated a man couldn’t punch another without repercussions.

“Perhaps he should be bled,” Ellingsworth suggested with his habitual smirk. It was his constant companion since returning from the War, as if he refused to take anything seriously.

“I am perfectly well.” Alex looked back and forth between these two rogues whom he called friends. “No need to call for a quack.”

“He’s already had an amputation,” Langdon noted, raising a brow as he always did. “One prospective bride—gone.” He made a sawing motion at his ankle, as if cutting the shackles of matrimony.

Alex glanced down at his own lower leg, as if he could see the invisible links that might have bound him to Lady Emmeline. He’d come so close to becoming a married man and sharing the rest of his life with one woman—the faultless duke his father had bred him to be. It hardly mattered that Alex felt nothing for the gel other than a sense of distant respect. She would have made a fine duchess.

“We were at White’s yesterday when we heard about what happened,” Langdon said with disapproval. “Didn’t even tell your two closest friends that Lady Emmeline had run off with a cavalry officer. No, we had to hear it from Lord Ruthven, of all people.”

Alex didn’t need reminding that the whole world knew about his embarrassment. He’d been ensconced in his study reviewing land reports from his holdings when the butler announced a surprise visitor. Lady Emmeline’s father came into the chamber, pale and shaky and full of abject, groveling apologies. He’d handed Alex a note written by his daughter that stated she’d run off to Gretna Green with a poor but dashing cavalry captain. Alex had stared at the short missive for a good five minutes, trying to understand its significance.

“You should have come right to us with the news,” Ellingsworth drawled. “So you could spare us the humiliation of learning about it secondhand.”

“Forgive me for failing to consider your feelings in all this,” Alex snapped.

What could he say to his friends that would make them understand how the pain he felt was mostly embarrassment, not sadness? He wasn’t even certain he desired their understanding.

He was a duke. The holder of countless profitable estates and assets. A prime mover in Parliament. A frequent advisor to the Prince Regent—though the profligate fool almost never took Alex’s advice. Marriage to the Duke of Greyland would be considered a huge coup for any young lady of gentle birth. But Lady Emmeline had thrown away a chance to be a duchess . . . for love.

That’s what her note had said. “Forgive me, Your Grace. But I love him terribly, as he loves me. You deserve better than a wife whose heart belongs to another . . .”

“Ah, he’s well off without the feckless chit,” Ellingsworth insisted. “Had no backbone, that girl. She trembled like a willow whenever he spoke. A fearful lass can’t be very amusing in bed.”

“Don’t talk about Lady Emmeline that way,” Alex said, but there wasn’t much heat in his words.

He backed away from Ellingsworth and Langdon, thinking perhaps he could dodge around them. But they were clever, curse them, and Ellingsworth edged behind him, blocking him in.

Ah, damn and damn.

Alex scowled at his friends tormenting him in the depths of his ill humor. While he felt no loss of affection from the girl’s elopement with another man, pain lanced him at her desertion. Was there something about him . . . ? Something that made women flee from him? Was he truly that intimidating? Was he—was he unlovable?

But that word, that concept—love. He’d never felt it at home, though he’d heard it existed. He’d seen it in the way cottagers at the family estates acted with their children—the fond looks, the touches and smiles. Love was real, but it had been in short supply for the Duke of Greyland’s children.

His jilting brought back that same, gnawing question. If his own mother couldn’t show him affection, perhaps there was something about him that was fundamentally unworthy of love. An absence, a lack of a key inner component that would cause someone, anyone, to feel for him.

Lady Emmeline would have been a fine mother, raising sons and daughters in a way that befitted their station. She wouldn’t have loved him, but that wasn’t a requirement for marriage. They could have gotten along with mutual respect. If he felt a cold emptiness from this thought, he shouldered it aside. He’d gotten this far without love in his life. He could exist without it now.

Alex still smarted at her desertion but the greatest damage was sustained by his pride. At least neither Langdon nor Ellingsworth looked at him with sympathy.

“He’s definitely going home to sulk,” Langdon said disapprovingly.

Ellingsworth looked horrified. “I never spend a night at home, unless I’m too ill, and even with a scorching fever, I go to the theater.”

“I’ve had a meal out, and now I’m heading home to read a new translation of Euclid’s Elements.”

“You see, Langdon,” Ellingsworth noted. “He’s got a romping good time already planned. He’s no need of us.”

“Right about one thing.” Alex grabbed hold of Langdon’s shoulders and forcibly moved his friend aside. He stepped up into his carriage, but to his annoyance, Ellingsworth and Langdon followed, seating themselves opposite him. “I don’t have need of you.” He rapped on the roof of the carriage, and the vehicle began to merge into traffic.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Langdon grinned in the semidarkness of the carriage’s interior. He pulled a flask from inside his coat, then took a swig. “Stewing at home is for spinsters.”

“I’ve done my duty,” Alex said in a clipped voice. “Paraded my carcass on Bond Street so everyone could get a good eyeful of me, let them know that Lady Emmeline’s sudden marriage has not one speck of impact on me.”

Ellingsworth grabbed the flask from Langdon and took a drink. “You did right by that, old man.” He leaned over and jabbed his knuckles into Alex’s shoulder—as close to showing affection as Ellingsworth ever got. “But your night’s not finished.” He held the flask out to Alex.

But Alex didn’t take the flask, much as he craved a drink. “It is.” He swayed with the movement of the carriage. “I can’t stomach a ball tonight, and I’m not interested in going to the theater, or anywhere else I’ve got to show a good face in wake of—” He glanced out the window. “In wake of everything that’s happened.”

“We aren’t going anywhere respectable,” Langdon said with a wink. “The people there won’t give two figs if you were jilted by a goat.”

Alex curled his lip. “I’m not going slumming.”

Jabbing a finger toward Alex, Langdon said, “Nothing but the highest company tonight. The most stylish. The most esteemed. But they’ll be too busy calculating odds to worry about whether some girl dropped you.”

“Are you drunk already?” Alex demanded. “I don’t understand any of the gibberish flapping from your lips.”

“He means that we’re going to a new gaming hell,” Ellingsworth explained. “It’s so new and fashionable it doesn’t have a name. Langdon and I were there last night, after we heard about you at White’s. The hell’s been open for a fortnight. People queue up around the block to get in.” He leaned forward. “You have to go. It’s going to be open for just a month. Then it closes shop and disappears like a faerie kingdom.”

“Haven’t heard of any new gaming hell,” Alex muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ellingsworth rolled his eyes. “You’ve been embroiled in le scandale de la Mademoiselle Emmeline. Doubtful that you’d know if St. Paul’s burned down. Which it hasn’t, by the by.”

“Come on, Greyland,” Langdon cajoled. “I guarantee that a night at London’s most à la mode gaming hell will raise your spirits. Wine. Cards and dice. An abundance of pretty ladies.” He said this as though the presence of lovely females was the ultimate trump card. “Join us there tonight, even if only for a few minutes.”

“What’s your alternative?” Ellingsworth added. “Geometry? Calculating the surface area of a sphere?” He feigned a yawn.

Indeed, what was Alex’s alternative? Home was huge and empty, a reminder that his attempt to fill it with a wife and children had been an utter failure. And it was in moments like this—quiet, introspective times—that thoughts of The Lost Queen couldn’t be held at bay. They flooded him like a monsoon in a tropical climate. If he didn’t keep moving, he’d drown.

He growled, “Give my driver the direction of this den of iniquity with its wine and dice.”

“And ladies,” Langdon added with a grin. He and Ellingsworth wore matching smiles of satisfaction. “You’ll have no cause to regret your decision.”

Regret. He’d done everything right. He always played by the rules, never forgetting the importance of his ducal role. He shouldn’t regret anything. But tonight, he’d loosen his grip on the reins of his ducal propriety. After all, what had being proper ever gotten him?

A spring drizzle settled over the streets, calling forth scents of wet stone and manure. The slick cobbles gleamed like onyx as pedestrians and horses picked their way over the uneven stones. London grew loud with the rain as people shouted to each other and hooves clattered.

The gaming hell was situated in a slightly raffish part of Piccadilly. It nestled between other stone-faced buildings, sporting a colonnade and the slightly overdressed look of a prosperous banker. Heavy velvet drapes concealed the windows. True to Ellingsworth’s word, well-dressed prospective guests were queued up on the curb, waiting for the doorman to admit them entrance. No one seemed to care about the rain—they were far too busy craning their necks to see how much farther they had to go before being admitted entrance.

Alex had never seen such a thing in his many years of sampling London’s entertainments. He didn’t know he could still be surprised—which was both alarming and intriguing.

The carriage drove past the queue on the way to the front door. He, Langdon, and Ellingsworth got out of the vehicle, then stood in the street, looking at the latest in gambling establishments.

“I’m not getting in line,” Alex stated flatly. The very idea that a duke would queue up like a clerk buying his luncheon was utterly foreign.

“That’s not a concern,” Langdon assured him. Leading the way, he ascended the front steps and approached a man in green livery.

“Back of the line,” the doorman said without looking at Langdon.

Langdon scowled. “I was here yesterday! With my friend.” He shook Ellingsworth by the shoulder.

“Back of the line,” the servant intoned. “Got to make room for fresh faces, fresh blunt.”

“We brought a new face with plenty of blunt,” Ellingsworth insisted. He pointed at a very irritated Alex. “This is the Duke of Greyland.”

At last, the doorman’s impassive façade cracked. His eyes widened as he reached behind him to open the door. “Right this way, Your Grace.”

“And my friends,” Alex said coolly as the other people in the queue shifted and muttered in discontent.

“May of course enter.” The doorman waved them forward.

Alex climbed the steps, then entered a foyer where another liveried servant took his coat, hat, and walking stick. The servant performed the same task for Ellingsworth and Langdon.

“Ah, Your Grace! My lords!” A man of middle years with silvering hair and an extremely amiable countenance came striding forward, his hands outstretched as if welcoming old friends even though Alex had never met the man before. Somehow, word must have already reached him from the front of the house that a duke and two other noblemen were in attendance. “Welcome! All of you are most welcome to my humble establishment.”

Humble wasn’t quite the word Alex would have used to describe the place. From the foyer, he could see into a large chamber adorned with crystal chandeliers, shining brass fixtures, equestrian paintings, and curtains fringed with gold braid. It was a cross between Carlton House and a brothel—though the two weren’t all that different from each other.

“I am Martin Hamish,” the proprietor continued, a hint of Scottish burr in his voice. “And this institution of fortune is at your disposal.” Hamish snapped his fingers, and a footman appeared with three glasses of sparkling wine, which Langdon and Ellingsworth immediately seized. Alex slowly picked up the remaining glass and sipped at the wine. He was pleasantly surprised to find it of an excellent vintage.

Hamish waved his hand toward the main gaming hall. “We have hazard, vingt-et-un, faro, which was quite favorable toward Lord Langdon. Plenty of excellent food and drink. I employ a cook straight from the court of poor Louis XVI. Lord Ellingsworth most particularly enjoyed our lemon cakes yesterday.” He beamed at them. “Trust me, Your Grace, my lords, you will find no more pleasant way to spend an evening than under my roof.”

Alex nodded at Hamish, then ambled toward the large gaming hall.

Ellingsworth turned to him. “Stake me a hundred pounds.”

“What? No,” Alex said immediately. He had the money, but he’d seen his young friend lose cash like raindrops in a cupped hand. Ellingsworth went through his quarterly allowance at an alarming rate.

“Then give me five thousand pounds,” Ellingsworth said easily.

“Did you secretly imbibe a cask of whiskey on our way here?” Alex demanded.

His friend rolled his eyes. “I’m sober.” He thought about it for a moment. “Mostly.” He exhaled. “The hundred pounds would set me up at the tables so I could win that five thousand.”

“Which you need because . . . ?”

“I have a project I’m working on.” Ellingsworth grinned. “A secret project.”

Alex could just imagine what folly his friend wanted to finance. “An expensive secret.”

Langdon dug into his coat pocket and produced a hundred-pound note. He held it out to Ellingsworth. “Enjoy, old man.”

“My thanks.” Ellingsworth grabbed the money and hurried off toward the tables.

“First of all,” Alex said with exasperation, “what the hell are you doing walking around with that much cash on your person? You’re a duke’s heir.”

Langdon shrugged. “Most underground gaming in London is cash only. They’re not interested in my vowels, duke’s heir or no. Your other question . . . ?”

“Why on earth did you give Ellingsworth the hundred pounds? He’s just going to lose. He usually does.”

“He’s my friend, Greyland.” Langdon smiled faintly. “It costs me little to make him happy for a few hours. Mayhap you ought to consider the price of your own happiness.” With that, Langdon ambled off.

Shaking his head at his youthful friends, Alex stood alone and surveyed the chamber. Unlike at some gaming hells, this unnamed one permitted women as well as men to risk their fortunes. Jeweled diadems and plumes were as plentiful as stickpins and Brutus-styled hair. Perfume, sweat, and alcohol scented the noisy air as the guests clamored at the various card and dice tables. More servants in green constantly moved through the room, bearing trays of food and drink.

He moved deeper into the room, taking his time, assessing. Perhaps Alex might be able to carry through with his plan and forget himself for a while in this place. Let slip the tether that always bound him.

By nature, he wasn’t a man given to gambling. It was the curse of his class, the need to wager outrageous sums on nearly anything. The betting book at White’s was proof of that. And this gaming hell was, too.

The large vaulted chamber was packed with patrons eager to know the thrill of a bet, the highs of winning and the crushing despair of a loss. Boredom ran riot amongst aristocrats, especially now that Bonaparte had been exiled to St. Helena, never to escape again. That boredom bred a need for sensation, for emotion. Alex had never felt this ennui, too busy with his responsibilities, but he knew several who did. Ellingsworth and Langdon were two of many men hungry for experience in the midst of privilege. Langdon, especially, seemed to thrive on challenge and danger.

Alex was slightly older, and perhaps he flattered himself to think he was wiser, too. But what had that gotten him?

He took a step toward the hazard table. The hell with it. Time to give up some of his control. Sink his teeth into the meat of life.

Yet before he made it to the table, he saw more than a few of the patrons looking in his direction. Some of them were whispering behind hands and fans. A few glanced at him with that dreaded emotion: pity.

He threw back the last of his wine. Damn and hell, was there nowhere he could go to feel at ease?

If they wanted something to talk about, by the devil, he’d give them enough ammunition to set their chins wagging for the next decade.

He stalked to a vingt-et-un table. People’s gazes and whispers followed him. The Duke of Greyland never gambled. Tonight, he would.

He wagered wildly, heedless of his cards. Wins and losses piled up, until he no longer cared how much money he’d lost or gained. It could have been a pittance, or a fortune. What did it matter?

A small crowd gathered, watching with barely concealed amazement.

“He’s gone mad,” someone whispered.

“The chit broke his sense,” another answered.

He moved to place another substantial, careless bet. A voice behind him made him freeze, however. It planted him like roots from an oak, and he couldn’t move under its memorable feminine, familiar spell.

“Won’t you play another hand, my lord? I’m certain the house will give you credit. Come, I shall fetch you a glass of wine.”

He knew that voice. Her voice. The Lost Queen.

Yet it couldn’t be. Had to be another illusion, like that woman’s laugh at the chophouse.

“Are you hungry, my lord? Cook has just prepared a superb steak avec poireaux vinaigrette.”

No—this was no illusion. Two years melted away like ice in a fire as Alex slowly turned around, uncaring that he was in the middle of a game. His body roared with pain and pleasure.

There she was. Achingly unforgettable. Devastatingly beautiful. As slim as a birch tree, with pale golden hair framing a face of shattering loveliness. Dressed in a bronze satin evening gown, her hair held up with amber clips, she stood next to Lord Coleman, smiling at the old earl in her winning way. Her hand rested lightly on his sleeve.

She wasn’t one of the patrons. She . . . worked here. But how? Why? What did any of this mean?

“Cassandra.” The word came from his lips like a rasp, as though his body was a cavern that had been closed for a millennium.

He didn’t speak very loudly—at that moment, he couldn’t. Yet she looked up at once. Her hazel gaze met his.

For half a heartbeat, her expression registered joy, longing. Then horror.

He blinked, and both expressions were gone from her face. She looked smooth and unreadable. It was as if he’d imagined her emotions.

He felt both numb and acutely aware of every nerve. His heart pounded and his mouth went dry.

“Alex?” she whispered.

It truly was her. Cassandra Blair. The Lost Queen. The woman who’d shattered his heart two years ago.