Читать книгу Regency Affairs Part 1: Books 1-6 Of 12 - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 11

Rupert had been enjoying the last of his cigar and brandy when his solitude had been rudely interrupted by the sound of voices outside on the terrace. Believing at first that it was merely a man and woman involved in a lovers’ tiff, he had chosen to ignore them and continue his contemplation of the unhappy predicament in his own life. Namely, how best to deal with the problem of Patricia Stirling, his late father’s Duchess.

Having to think of the woman at all was enough to incite Rupert’s ire, at the same time as he accepted that he could not contemplate continuing with their present living arrangements any longer. Something had to be done, and soon. He—

The volume of the conversation outside on the terrace had then become such that Rupert found it difficult to think at all. So much so that he stood up to cross the library to where the French doors stood open, his intention to tell the couple to take their damned argument elsewhere. Instead of which it instantly became apparent to him that it was not a lovers’ tiff at all, but a gentleman whom he easily recognised as being that young pup Lord Richard Sugdon forcing his attentions upon a lady whom Rupert could not see clearly, held tightly in Sugdon’s arms as she was, but who was nevertheless obviously protesting those attentions, both verbally and physically.

A petite and fair-haired lady wearing a purple—correction—violet-coloured silk gown. None other than Pandora Maybury, Duchess of Wyndwood, if Rupert was not mistaken. And he rarely was …

‘Now see here, Devlin,’ Sugdon began to bluster in protest.

‘That would now be your Grace, the Duke of Stratton,’ Rupert corrected icily as he turned his glittering gaze to the younger man. ‘And I believe I have already seen and heard enough to know that you are bothering this lady.’

‘There’s nothing of the lady about her—‘ Sugdon’s insult came to an abrupt halt as Rupert grasped him by his neckcloth before pushing him up against the brick wall of the house.

Rupert lowered his face to within a few inches of the younger man’s flushed one, more than pleased to have a direction in which to vent his own inner frustrations. ‘Firstly, the Duchess,’ he bit out softly and succinctly, ‘is a member of the ton and so most certainly she is a lady. Secondly, she has clearly refused your attentions. Am I correct so far?’ The chill warning in his tone was enough to make the other man’s cheeks pale.

Sugdon’s Adam’s apple moved nervously up and down in his throat. ‘Yes.’

Rupert’s fingers tightened in the neckcloth. ‘Thirdly, if I ever see you within ten feet of her Grace again, I will ensure that you live to regret it. In fact, I believe it would be beneficial to your health if you were to take the next few days in which to deal with your affairs here before retiring to your home in the country for the rest of the Season.’

‘I—’

‘Finally,’ Rupert continued in that same dangerously soft tone, ‘before taking your leave you may apologise to the Duchess for your wholly unacceptable behaviour towards her just now.’

The younger man’s face twisted into a sneer. ‘I have no intention of apologising to one such as her.’

‘Now, Sugdon. Before I forget there is a lady present at all and decide to beat you to within an inch of your life.’ Indeed his mood was such this evening that Rupert would welcome—even positively enjoy—the opportunity of physically venting some of his seething emotions on the other man.

‘The woman has been flaunting her attractions for weeks now—’

‘I most certainly have not!’ Pandora gasped in scandalised protest, having listened to the exchange in ever-increasing dismay, and knowing, from the resentful glare Lord Sugdon now sent in her direction, that he held her totally responsible for his present humiliation. Quite how he came to that conclusion, when Pandora had done absolutely nothing to encourage his shocking behaviour, nor personally called upon the Duke of Stratton for help, was completely beyond her comprehension, but believe it Lord Sugdon most certainly did.

She repressed a shiver of apprehension as she turned away from the promised retribution in his glare to instead look at the Duke of Stratton. ‘I would far rather you just released him, your Grace, so that he might then leave my presence as quickly as is possible,’ she pleaded huskily.

Rupert Stirling did not so much as glance in her direction. ‘Not before he has made his apologies to you.’

Pandora shot another nervous glance in Lord Sugdon’s direction, accepting that, whilst he might fear the Duke’s immediate retribution, he harboured no such feelings of awe where she was concerned.

Indeed, she feared she would even now be prostrate on the terrace if looks could actually kill!

Lord Sugdon drew himself up stiffly as he spoke resentfully, ‘I apologise, your Grace.’

She moistened the dryness of her lips before attempting a reply. ‘Your apology—’

‘Is not accepted.’ Once again it was the Duke of Stratton who answered the younger man. ‘For what reason are you apologising, Sugdon?’ he prompted. ‘In acknowledgement of your unacceptable behaviour just now towards her Grace? Or is it only that you regret being caught in the act of attempting to physically assault her?’ he added knowingly.

The younger man shook his head vehemently. ‘I fail to see why you are making such a fuss when everyone knows the woman is nothing more than an opportunist, on the look-out for the next man to share her bed now that her year of mourning her husband is over. Unless, of course, that next man is you, Stratton, in which case I apologise for having stepped upon your toes—or any other part of your anatomy—’ He got no further with the insult as the Duke suddenly released his neckcloth in order to swing back his arm and land a punch firmly upon the other man’s jaw, resulting in Lord Sugdon toppling unconscious to the ground.

‘Your Grace!’ Pandora stood up to stare down in alarm at the prostrate and unconscious man.

Rupert at last spared a narrow-eyed glance at the obviously dismayed Pandora Maybury, his gaze becoming positively appreciative as he took in the fact that the ripped front of her gown revealed surprisingly plump breasts beneath the thin material of her chemise, the nipples that adorned their firm, pouting tips showing a deep and alluring rose.

Her cheeks flushed a similar colour as she became aware of his intent gaze, her hand once again moving up to clasp the ragged edges of her gown together in order to hide that delectable plumpness from his view.

Rupert looked at her between hooded lids, taking in the gold of her hair arranged in fashionable curls at her crown, with several loose tendrils at her temples and nape, her face a pale oval in the moonlight, lashes lowered as she stared down at the prostrate man, making it impossible as yet for Rupert to see the full splendour of those ‘exquisitely beautiful’ violet-coloured eyes his friend had earlier described with such eloquence.

She moistened plump lips with the tip of her tiny pink tongue before speaking huskily. ‘What shall we do with him?’

Rupert arched dark, arrogant brows. ‘I have no intention of doing anything with him, madam. In fact, it is my intention to leave him exactly where he fell.’

‘But—’

‘No doubt he will have a slight jaw-ache when he awakens,’ he added with satisfaction. ‘But that, and the injury to his pride, will no doubt be all that he suffers. Unless, of course, Sugdon was right all along and you were actually encouraging the roughness of his attentions and now regret my interference?’ Rupert eyed her speculatively.

She gasped, that blush in her cheeks deepening in colour. ‘How can you even suggest such a thing?’

He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Some women prefer a little … enthusiasm, in their lovemaking.’

‘I assure you I am not one of those women!’ she snapped indignantly. ‘Now if you will excuse me—’

‘You cannot possibly go back into the house with your gown in that condition.’ Rupert made no effort to contain his impatience as he began to shrug out of his black evening coat. ‘Here, put this about your shoulders.’ He held the jacket out to her. ‘And I will go and arrange for the carriage to take you to your home.’

Pandora was careful not to allow her fingers to come into contact with the Duke’s as she took the tailored jacket from him, struggling slightly as she attempted to hold the front of her gown together at the same time as putting the jacket about her shoulders.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, woman, let me!’ The Duke sighed his irritation with her struggles as he strode across the terrace to take the jacket from her and place it about her shoulders himself, Pandora at once enveloped in the warmth it had absorbed from his own body, along with the smell of his cologne and the cigar he had recently enjoyed. ‘I will go inside and see to the carriage and at the same time ensure that our hostess is made aware of your departure due to a headache.’ He glanced down in disgust as the other younger man gave a pained groan as he began to stir. ‘A very large headache!’

Pandora’s lashes lowered as she avoided meeting Devil Stirling’s piercing grey gaze. ‘I—I do not believe I have thanked you as yet for your timely intervention, your Grace. I am much appreciative of your rescue just now.’

‘How appreciative, I wonder?’

Her lashes rose sharply at the speculation she heard in his tone. ‘Your Grace?’

‘Never mind,’ he dismissed tersely as he straightened. ‘Perhaps you should come through to the library, and then you may close and lock the doors after I have left and so ensure that you are not disturbed before I return.’ He gave the rapidly recovering man at his feet another cold glance.

Pandora gave an apprehensive shiver despite being huddled in the warmth of the Duke’s jacket, a warmth accompanied by a wholly masculine smell—the sandalwood and pine cologne, expensive cigar and another pleasant odour that was possibly uniquely Rupert Stirling—which was as reassuringly comforting as it was disturbing to the senses. ‘I will do so, gladly,’ she agreed as she preceded the Duke into the candlelit library, some of her trepidation leaving her as soon as she heard him locking the doors behind them before pulling the curtains across to secure her privacy.

With the lessening of those feelings of immediate danger came the full realisation of what had just happened to her. The knowledge of what more might have happened to her if Rupert Stirling had not come to her rescue. Lord Sugdon, for all of his foppishness, was a large man and so much stronger than her, and if the Duke of Stratton had not come to her aid then she feared the other gentleman would have continued with his ravishment to the bitter end.

‘I believe it would be best if you don’t dwell on thoughts of what might have occurred,’ Rupert advised as he easily guessed the reason for the colour draining from Pandora’s cheeks.

‘Not dwell on it?’ she choked emotionally. ‘How can I not dwell on it when but for your own intervention he—he might have—’

‘Oh, good lord, now you are crying!’ Rupert gave a small groan as he saw the evidence of those tears as they spilled over her long silky lashes before proceeding to fall down the delicacy of her pale cheeks and knowing himself to be as impotent as the next man when faced with a woman’s tears. ‘Recall that I did intervene, madam, and let that be an end to it,’ he begged hastily.

Those long silky lashes now rose, at last allowing Rupert his first glimpse of Pandora’s ‘exquisitely beautiful’ eyes. Eyes, he instantly discovered, that were indeed the colour of the deepest, darkest violets in springtime. Eyes a man—and at least two other men, to his certain knowledge—might gaze into and find himself lost to all reason as he drowned in those seductive violet depths …

‘I apologise for troubling you with my tears, your Grace.’ Pandora was visibly battling to stop any more of those tears from falling as she delicately patted the evidence from her cheeks with a lace-edged handkerchief she had recovered from the beaded reticule at her slender wrist.

Rupert had indeed been troubled—was still troubled, if the truth be told, but by the mesmerising effect on him of those violet-coloured eyes, rather than the tears this woman had shed. ‘If you have any sense at all you will not attempt to move from the library until I have returned from arranging for the carriage to take you home.’

Pandora could not help but flinch at the unmistakable steel she could hear underlying the Duke’s dictatorial tone, along with the expression of deep irritation on his aristocratically handsome face as he glared down the length of his arrogant nose at her, as if he now regretted having come to her aid at all. Or perhaps, having done so, he was merely eager to rid himself of the responsibility of her as quickly as was possible?

‘I assure you that I am perfectly sensible to my predicament, your Grace,’ she confirmed softly. ‘And should you appear out in the hallway without your jacket?’ Her eyes were wide with consternation as she saw that was his intention.

‘It would seem I have little choice when you are obviously more in need of it at present than I.’ With one last brief glance in her direction the Duke turned abruptly on his heel and stepped out into the hallway before closing the door firmly behind him. ‘Lock it,’ he directed audibly from the other side.

Pandora quickly complied before pulling Rupert Stirling’s jacket more tightly about her as she leant weakly back against the door. She felt slightly safer now, but knew she would not feel completely secure until she was well away from Clayborne House and most of the people in it.

Including her reluctant rescuer?

Yes, that did indeed include the Duke, Pandora acknowledged as she now seemed unable to stop her trembling. There had been something in Rupert Stirling’s eyes when he had looked upon her in the candlelight just now, an expression of purely male assessment on his austere and aristocratic features, as he had seemed to take in everything about her in a single glacial glance. Followed by his swift exit from the library just now, as indication, no doubt, that having looked his fill, he was now in a hurry to be rid of her.

No doubt the Duke would have already made his planned excuses to leave if this obviously unwanted sense of responsibility towards Pandora had not delayed him.

Her legs began to shake in earnest as the full horror of what had almost transpired earlier once again washed over her. Indeed, if Rupert Stirling had not interceded, then she was certain that Lord Sugdon would have succeeded in his obvious intention of ravishing her. With or without her permission. And, in the case of Lord Sugdon, it would most certainly have been without!

Oh, she was well aware of what society thought and said about her, of the belief that she had cuckolded her husband with Sir Thomas Stanley, which had resulted in a pistols-at-dawn duel, which minutes later had left both gentlemen lying dead upon the ground.

All, and every part of it, a lie.

But it was a lie which the ton had wanted to believe a year ago, when Pandora had attempted to claim her innocence of any wrongdoing in her marriage. Unfortunately, tonight’s events proved they did not believe in her lack of guilt now, either.

From the conversation she had overheard earlier between Rupert and Dante, it was obvious that they had also heard, and believed, the rumours that had been rife a year ago.

Before her marriage to Barnaby four years ago, Pandora had been the naïve and trusting Miss Pandora Simpson, the only child of the impoverished landowner and Greek scholar from Worcestershire, Sir Walter Simpson, and his wife, Lady Sarah.

With Pandora’s first successful Season behind her, during which she had received several offers of marriage from gentlemen she liked but whom her father considered unsuitable, she had later come to realise that none of those gentlemen had been wealthy enough for her father to tap for the funds necessary to alleviate the family’s impoverished state due to Sir Walter’s complete incompetence as a landowner; her father had always preferred his books to the running of his estate.

Then had come the offer during her second Season, from the young, handsome and extremely wealthy Barnaby Maybury, Duke of Wyndwood, an offer which Sir Walter had grasped greedily with both hands.

Perhaps Pandora was being a little unfair in laying the blame for her marriage upon her father, when he was no longer alive to defend himself, Sir Walter having succumbed to the influenza three winters ago, her mother following him only weeks later. After all, Pandora had been equally as flattered by the attentions of such a handsome and wealthy gentleman as Barnaby Maybury and excited at the prospect of becoming his Duchess.

Neither had there been any indication, during those heady days of her short betrothal to the Duke of Wyndwood, when he had been both charming and attentive towards her, of the nightmare her life would become once the two of them became husband and wife.

A nightmare which had refused to end following the scandal which had dogged her every footstep since her husband’s death in a duel supposedly over her honour and culminating in the final and humiliating indignity of Lord Sugdon’s attack on her earlier this evening.

Final—because this evening had shown Pandora that it would be better for everyone—but most especially herself—if she were to seriously consider withdrawing completely from society.

The majority of Barnaby’s wealth had been left to a distant cousin, his male heir, upon his death, but her marriage contract had ensured that Pandora was left with some funds of her own, along with a property in London which was not entailed in the Duke’s estate. Not in a particularly fashionable part of London, admittedly, but certainly a house she had been able to occupy in quiet seclusion during her year of mourning. But with the money she already had, added to what she might expect to receive from the sale of that house in London, she would surely be able to buy a suitable property and retire to the country, where hopefully she might be allowed to live out the rest of her days in peace and solitude?

She knew that Sophia and Genevieve would both decry such a course of action on her part. Both women had been kindness itself since declaring, when they’d first befriended Pandora, the one with kindness, the other with vehemence, that what wife had not, on occasion, wished to cuckold her husband and possibly even dispatch him?

Close as Sophia and Genevieve now were to her, Pandora could not reveal even to them that she was not guilty of doing either of those things. There were reasons, and others even more innocent than she who could be seriously wounded by the truth.

But after the unpleasant events of this evening, much as Pandora valued the other ladies’ friendship, she now felt sure that the only future left to her if she stayed in London was to become prey to opportunists such as Lord Sugdon. A fate that was wholly unacceptable to her.

‘You may safely unlock the door now, Pandora.’ A brisk knock accompanied the Duke of Stratton’s terse instruction.

Rupert knew at a glance, as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, that Pandora was a little more composed now than she had been earlier. She was very pale still, of course, that pallor giving a haunted depth to the deep violet of her eyes, but the expression on the delicate beauty of her face was one of resigned dignity rather than the emotional upset she had been verging on before he left the library just minutes ago.

Hers was a beauty of such delicacy—ivory skin, high and intelligent forehead, those incredible violet-coloured eyes, a short straight nose above the perfect bow of her full and sensuous lips, with a slightly stubborn tilt to her small and pointed chin—that Rupert found he was not in the least surprised that two gentlemen, her husband and her lover, had challenged each other to a duel in order to claim sole rights to that beauty.

His mouth thinned. ‘Our hostess has been informed of your departure and the carriage is now waiting outside to take you to your home. I have brought this for you to wear.’ He held up the black cloak he had requested from the Duchess of Clayborne’s butler. ‘It has the advantage of returning my jacket to its rightful place, as well as covering your own … damaged gown.’

‘Thank you.’ Her voice was husky and she kept her lashes lowered over those violet-coloured eyes as they exchanged Rupert’s jacket for one of the Duchess of Clayborne’s own evening cloaks.

Rupert pulled on his own jacket and straightened the cuffs before looking down at her with disapproving eyes. ‘What on earth possessed you to walk outside with a man like Sugdon in the first place?’

Thick lashes surrounded those violet-coloured eyes as they widened indignantly at the accusation in his tone. ‘I did not go outside with Lord Sugdon! I had been standing outside on the terrace alone for some time when he found me—’ She broke off her protest abruptly, the colour deepening in her cheeks, as she obviously realised she had just revealed her presence on the terrace directly outside the library whilst Rupert and Dante conversed privately.

How much of their conversation had she overheard? Rupert wondered ruefully. Certainly the latter comments concerning herself, if the deepening of that blush in her cheeks was any indication!

‘Indeed?’ His nostrils flared. ‘And did you overhear anything of interest whilst standing there?’

She drew herself up to her full height of a little over five feet. ‘Not in the least, your Grace.’

He quirked a mocking brow. ‘No?’

‘No.’ Pandora had no intention of admitting to overhearing this man’s conversation regarding his stepmother. The remarks about herself, on Dante Carfax’s part at least, had not been too insulting, and the Duke’s less-than-flattering opinion of her had, as with so many of the ton, been formed on hearsay rather than personal knowledge of her.

Or, at least that had been the case before Rupert Stirling had been forced to rescue her from the unwanted attentions of Lord Sugdon!

She sighed heavily. ‘I think it best if I leave now, your Grace.’

‘I think so, too,’ he agreed. ‘The Duchess’s butler has arranged for the carriage to be brought to the back of the house rather than the front so that we might leave through the servants’ hallways and kitchen rather than run the risk of running into any of the Duchess’s other guests, and so cause them to question your current … appearance,’ he added drily as Pandora gave him a startled glance.

‘“We”, your Grace?’ she repeated slowly.

Ah, her surprise was not, as Rupert had believed, caused by their means of leaving the house, but more by the fact that he so obviously intended departing with her. ‘We,’ he confirmed authoritatively as he took a light grasp of her elbow before opening the door and indicating she should precede him out of the room.

Something Pandora made no effort to do as she instead looked up at him with obvious uncertainty. ‘I have long been acquainted with what society has to say of me, your Grace, but I feel I should warn you—’

‘And I am only too well aware of what that same society has to say about me, madam.’

He scowled down the length of his arrogant nose at her. ‘But you may rest assured that I am in no mood this evening to confirm any of the … less-than-complimentary remarks you may have heard in regard to my conduct towards the ladies.’

Pandora was pleased to hear it, having briefly wondered if she might not have succeeded in being rescued from one unacceptable situation only to now find herself in an even worse one!

Although she seriously doubted that most women would find the interest of a man as aristocratically handsome and challenging as the eighth Duke of Stratton in the least unacceptable!

Indeed, once upon a time, before her unhappy marriage, she would have been delighted—nay—ecstatic, to have attracted the attentions of such a handsome and eligible gentleman as he. No longer. Pandora’s only wish now was to draw as little attention to herself as possible.

‘Then let us both depart, your Grace,’ she accepted reluctantly as she reached up to pull up the hood of the cloak so that it covered part of her face and all of her hair.

A disguise that proved absolutely useless in helping her to pass unnoticed through the servants’ hallways and kitchen!

How could it be any other way, when a gentleman as recognisable as Rupert Stirling strode arrogantly along at her side? Sophia Rowlands’s household staff were obviously all agog at seeing a handsome Duke marching through their midst, their gazes speculative as they moved to the cloaked woman at his side.

‘Not quite the unobserved departure we might both have wished for,’ he acknowledged ruefully as they emerged outside into the dark lane at the back of the crowded and candlelit mansion house.

‘No.’ Pandora frowned as she saw there was only one carriage awaiting them there. A fashionable black carriage, which bore the Stratton coat of arms upon the door the groom now hurried forwards to open. ‘My own carriage does not appear to have arrived as yet, your Grace—’

‘Nor will it,’ the Duke assured her briskly, maintaining that firm hold upon her elbow as he strode towards his own carriage. ‘Whatever society may say about me, your Grace, my nanny and tutors ensured that I grew up knowing my manners perfectly, even if I do not always choose to put them into practice.’ He raised an expectant brow as he waited for her to precede him into the interior of the ducal carriage. ‘One of those precepts being that a gentleman does not abandon a lady in distress,’ he added softly.

The only distress Pandora suffered at this moment was the thought of being seen driving through the streets in the Duke of Stratton’s carriage and then arriving back at her home in that so-called gentleman’s carriage rather than her own!