Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
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“Monsieur Junot. A hungry little man with a wife and four children. He was pleased enough to accept your proposal. Strange as it sounds, since he’s a bloody Frog, I trust him.”
“He will see that everything is duly recorded in the public registry?”
“Indeed he will. You will have the papers, all signed right and tight.”
She nodded, stepping back for Spears to unlock the door. It made a prodigiously loud grinding noise. But Spears didn’t seem to be concerned. He stepped inside the dark entrance hall, paused, and listened. Then he walked toward the staircase to the left, the Duchess and Badger behind him. She stumbled once, her foot hitting a table leg. Another horrendous noise, but Spears, again, seemed not to be at all concerned.
They were midway up the narrow staircase, walking as quietly as vicars in a brothel, when suddenly a candle was shone in their faces from above them, and a man’s mocking voice said, each word in a loathsome drawl, “Well, well, do I have a quiver of thieves here? No, I daresay you, Spears, would not choose to rob me in the middle of the night.”
“My lord,” Spears said very gently, “do put down the gun. Perhaps your fingers aren’t all that steady at the moment.”
“Certainly they are. The two of you made enough noise to awaken the dead. Besides I wasn’t asleep. Is that you, Badger? Whyever—no, wait, there are three of you. Good God!”
Marcus simply went silent with surprise. “You,” he said at last. “May I inquire as to why you are here, in my lodgings, at three o’clock in the morning?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes, what, damn you?”
“You may inquire, if you wish.”
“You and Badger and Spears. Do I scent a conspiracy here? Surely not. What kind of conspiracy would bring together the three of you? Why Spears, are you that concerned that I won’t be able to afford your wages on my allowance? I showed you the draft from Mr. Wicks.”
“No, my lord, I’m not concerned, nor does our presence here have anything to do with robbing you, my lord. Now, may I suggest that I assist you back to bed? Surely your ribs are protesting. Are not your knuckles very sore tucked about that gun?”
Marcus said very slowly, enunciating each word, “I want to know what is going on and I want to know this instant. Not in the next instant, in this instant. Well, no, I want to know in the instant I designate. Now, let us go downstairs to the drawing room. Spears, you may lead the way and light some candles. Duchess, you’ve scarce opened your mouth—not that I expected you to in any case. As is your wont, you’ve merely sprinkled me with a mere smidgen of words. Badger, take her arm. I don’t wish her to go break her neck falling down my stairs. If there is any neck breaking to do, I will be the one to do it. Go, now, all of you.”
She felt Badger take her hand and gently squeeze it.
She felt her heart thud heavily. He’d heard them because she’d clumsily fallen against that table. Well, it was her own fault, no one else’s. Nothing was easy with Marcus. Nothing. Why was he awake? Obviously the laudanum hadn’t been enough.
He was behind them. He was wearing only a dressing gown, his feet bare, his black hair tousled. How, she wondered, her heart thudding even more heavily now, had she noticed all that?
Spears had lighted a branch of candles. He held it high, stepping back as the Duchess and Badger stepped into the small drawing room. He lowered it slowly to a tabletop when Marcus came in.
She turned to face him and saw that he was still pointing the gun toward them. It was an ugly thing with a long barrel, an obscene hole in the end of it.
“Sit down,” he said, waving the gun toward a settee.
They sat, the Duchess between them.
She saw then as he walked toward them that he was in pain and that he wasn’t standing upright. His ribs, she thought. She said aloud, “You should be in bed, Marcus. Surely this isn’t good for your ribs.”
He laughed, then stopped immediately, sucking in his breath at the sharp pain it brought him.
“My mother,” he said. “Is that why you’re here, Duchess? To minister to my wounds? To coo at me?”
She just stared at him, unmoving. “Like Lisette?”
He grinned. “So Spears told you of my ministering angel? Ah, she just removed herself not very long ago, Spears.”
“But I—”
“I know. You doubtless put something in that tea you gave me to drink. But you see, I wasn’t thirsty. What I wanted was Lisette, again.”
“Please, my lord.”
Marcus waved the gun to silence his valet. He stared hard at the Duchess. “No, I can’t imagine you ever cooing, even to your bloody roses. But you felt you had to come in the middle of the night to care for me? You feared I wouldn’t be pleased to see you and thus toss you out if you came in the light of day? You could only come when I was drugged senseless by my utterly loyal valet?”
“I came for another reason, Marcus. I will tell you if only you will sit down before you fall down. Please, Marcus.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
She rose and walked to him, her eyes on his face, shadowed in the candle light, but she saw the haggard lines, the black eye and swollen jaw. “You’re not well, Marcus.”
He just stood there, watching her walk toward him. “Stop right there, Duchess,” he said pleasantly. He reached out his left hand and gently closed his fingers around her throat. “Tell me, do I inherit your fifty thousand pounds if you stuff it?”
“I believe so, though I don’t think my father even considered that. Perhaps it would go to the Americans, I don’t know. I will write to Mr. Wicks.”
“I could simply strangle you on speculation.”
“I don’t believe that either Spears or Badger would allow you to do it, Marcus.”
“They don’t know you as well as I do. If they did, they would cheer my actions.”
“Actually, you don’t know me at all.”
He shrugged, wincing. Any movement seemed to bring renewed pain to the continuous dull throbbing in his ribs. “Actually, I don’t care. Now, why are the three of you skulking about in my house? The instant has come and I am frankly tired of all this. Tell me now.”
At that moment, there was a gentle knock on the front door, a sly knock, a surreptitious knock. Marcus, surprised and taken off guard, turned toward the sound. Both Spears and Badger were on him in an instant. He struggled, but he was weak and he hurt and the two of them bore him to the carpet quickly enough. Spears very gently removed the gun from his right hand.
“My lord,” he said gently. “I fear you must drink a bit of tea now. All right?”
“You’re fired, Spears.”
Badger said quietly, “Duchess, it is Monsieur Junot. Let him in.”
The following ten minutes were fraught with silence so thick she thought she would choke on it. Spears and Badger had to pry open Marcus’s mouth. He struggled to the point she knew he was hurting himself. Yet still he fought them. Finally they managed to pour a goodly amount of tea laced with laudanum down his throat. Monsieur Junot stood over them, holding a candle, saying not a single blessed thing.
He appeared to be enjoying himself.
Marcus fell back. She saw that he was fighting the drug, but he was losing. She hated this, but she knew it was no time to have an attack of scruples. Nothing had changed. True, he had complicated things, made all of them jumpy and feel guilty, but he’d succumbed in the end. There was no other way to save him, the damned stubborn sod.
She gently touched her fingertips to his swollen jaw. “It will be all right, Marcus. I promise you. Don’t worry, just lie still, please.”
He said in a slurred voice, “I will kill you, Duchess.”
“Perhaps you will want to, but you won’t.”
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I will kill you.”
Monsieur Junot approached. “Is he ready for the ceremony?”
Spears looked into the earl’s vague eyes, saw that he was more compliant tha
n he’d been but a moment before, and said, “In two more minutes.”
In four more minutes, Monsieur Junot said in a jovial voice, “It is done, my lady. You are now the countess of Chase. Fancy how he said I do when Mr. Spears gently nudged him. Now, he will have to write his name on the certificate.”
Spears guided the earl’s hand, but he did write his name and it was legible and strong. She signed her own beside his. Then she rose and dusted off her cloak. She took a slender gold band from her pocket and slipped it over the knuckle of her third finger. “Good,” she said, and smiled at all of them in turn. “It is done.”
“Yes,” Badger said, rubbing his hands together. “No more Dispossessed Earl.”
“I wonder,” Spears said, “if his lordship will remember that he dismissed me when he awakens.”
Monsieur Junot laughed. “This is quite the most interesting night I have spent since my house was very nearly shelled by Russian cannon two months ago.”
Marcus opened one eye. He saw soft white hangings overhead. That couldn’t be right. Even if he were in Lisette’s bedchamber, there were no hangings over her bed. There was a huge mirror.
He slowly opened the other eye. Bright sunlight poured through a wide window to his left. It was morning sunlight, late morning, if he wasn’t mistaken. He was wearing his dressing gown, he knew that, and it was odd, for he wore nothing at all to bed.
He sat up, shaking his head, clearing the odd muzziness from his brain. He was in a lady’s bedchamber. The furnishings were all fragile-looking and gold and pale green, everything looked soft and vague. It was not a man’s room.
He stilled, hearing footsteps outside the door opposite the bed. He watched as the door slowly opened.
The Duchess came in, carrying a tray on her arms. She turned and gently closed the door with her foot.
“You,” he said. “So it wasn’t a dream. You came to my house last night, in the middle of the night, and you were up to no good. What was the no good?”
“Good morning, Marcus. I’ve brought you breakfast.”
“Spears and Badger were with you. I remember now, there was a knock at the door and those two bloody bastards knocked me down and took the gun. Then—” He paused, his brow furrowed, trying to remember. “You drugged me.”
“Yes, but it was necessary. You’re a stubborn man, Marcus.”
He fidgeted and she said kindly, as would a nanny to her two-year-old charge, “Can I assist you?”
“If you don’t leave this instant, Duchess, I will relieve myself in front of you. Men have no sensibilities, not one speck of modesty.” She didn’t move, just stared at him, and he threw back the covers and swung his black hairy legs over the side of the bed. She made no sound, just turned about, set his tray on a table, and left the bedchamber.
When she returned, he was seated at the small table eating the breakfast she’d brought him. The brioches were delicious, warm and flaky, the coffee hot and strong. His dressing gown was securely fastened around his waist.
“How do your ribs feel?”
He grunted and drank more coffee.
He looked like a brigand with his black eye, the heavy beard stubble, his tousled hair, and the bruises along his jaw.
He continued to eat and drink. He paid her no more mind.
She seated herself opposite him and poured herself a cup of coffee from the lovely Meissen pot.
He said then, in a voice she recognized as the eye of the storm, “I will kill you, Duchess. After breakfast.”
“But you don’t yet know why or if you would still want to.”
“I’ll want to. It doesn’t matter, it—”
“I’m your wife.”
She watched his hand holding a butter knife become perfectly still. He had a brioche halfway to his mouth. It remained halfway. He shook his head, then winced from the pain it brought him in his ribs. He looked over at her, then shook his head again.
He said very politely, “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m your wife. We’re married.”
Still he couldn’t take it in, he couldn’t make the words take on sense. She thrust out her hand toward him. He stared at it, bewildered, then watched her waggle her third finger.
He saw the plain gold band.
He said, still staring at that finger with its ring, “You said that you’re my wife?”
“Yes, Marcus. I can explain everything if you will allow me to.”
“Oh yes, I will allow that. Then I will kill you.”
“We drugged you. I insisted because I knew you would never agree. You’re much too proud, too stubborn. You would have never listened to reason.”
“Spears assisted you.”
“Yes, as did Badger. I hope you won’t blame either of them. They believed strongly in what we did. They didn’t want to see you lose your inheritance because of—”
“Yes, Duchess? Because of?”
“Because you’re such a stubborn sod. And because you somehow imagine that this punishes my father, who is dead and doesn’t know a thing. And because you dislike me so very much.”
“I see. So first, Spears tried to drug me, but he didn’t know that I wanted sex with Lisette more than his lukewarm tea, and didn’t drink it. Thus I heard the intruders break into my lodgings. I should probably have shot all of you.”
“We had only until June sixteenth, Marcus. Otherwise the American Wyndhams would have inherited everything. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Surely you must see that.”
“May I ask how long you’ve been planning this?”
“Since the morning you ran away.”
“I didn’t run away. I left an intolerable situation.” He stopped, leaning back in his chair. He looked at his fingertips tapping rhythmically on the tabletop. “I didn’t want to ever see Chase Park again, you know.”
“You don’t have to, but you own it. You now have no more worries. There will be no more allowances, no asking Mr. Wicks for permission to do this or to do that. Everything is in your control now, Marcus. Everything.”
“And the only price to pay is having you for my wife.”
He’d said it calmly, quietly, but she felt herself stiffen nonetheless. There would be more, she could practically hear the words forming on his tongue. She didn’t have long to wait after she said, “I hope, I pray, that having me as your wife isn’t too heinous a prospect.”
It was as if she were purposefully asking for insult, she thought, and wondered what he would say. He said, “It is a prospect that I am still unable to credit. Yesterday, I was a single man with his very charming mistress, content with his two-hundred-pound quarterly allowance. This morning, I awaken to find myself back in the earl’s boots. I had thrown those boots away, Duchess. I didn’t want them back.”
“Then why did you fight the man who called you the Dispossessed Earl?”
He roared to his feet, nearly toppling the table. One coffee cup fell to its side. She watched the coffee drip onto the table and run in a thin quick line to the edge and then to the floor.
“How the hell do you know about that, damn you? Ah, it was that bloody Spears! I’ll kill him after I’ve seen to you. Good God, have all of you been planning this?”
His face was white, his hands tight fists. If his ribs hurt, she doubted he felt it. He was finally furious. He was finally over the edge. Very slowly, she rose to face him. She splayed her fingers on the table. “Marcus, you don’t have to keep me as a wife. Indeed, I had intended to go back to London at the end of the week to spare you the sight of me. What I wanted to happen has happened. Everything is as it should have been. Surely you can forgive me, or at least forget me without too much anger.”
“You damned sacrificed female goat! I won’t have it, Duchess. You have tricked me, manipulated my valet, drugged me, all to give me back what I didn’t want. Don’t you remember what I told Mr. Wicks? I don’t want it, none of it. That damned pederast, Trevor, will become the next earl.” He paused and rubbed his fingers over his j
aw. “Well, that can still happen, can’t it? My thinking processes aren’t quite sharpened yet this morning, doubtless because of the dose of laudanum you forced down my throat.
“But I’m thinking now. Yes, Trevor could easily be the next earl. After all, I would have to force myself to bed you, probably many times, to get you with child. And what if it were a girl you birthed? Then I would have to force myself to take you again and again for the male child.” He stopped again this time because he saw that her face was perfectly white. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t care. “To bring myself to seek out your bed would require more than I have, Duchess. It is true what I said to Mr. Wicks. Whispering love words to a bloody inert woman would shrivel me into oblivion. Is your flesh as cold as you are, Duchess? Would you perhaps sob softly whilst I had my filthy way with you? No answer. Well, what did I expect? How did you bring yourself to say your vows during our eminently forgettable marriage ceremony? Yes, just look at you, all tight and stiff and cold.
“I would have to lay Lisette there beside you so that I could look at her while I took you, hear her laugh and moan and scream so that I could force myself to even touch you.” He was doing it again, he thought vaguely, hurling insults at her again, insults that had to cut deep. But this time she’d done it, she’d gone too far—drugged him for God’s sake—and he refused to take them back or apologize. Besides, it was possible that what he said was true.
Oddly, although she knew intense pain at his words, she felt no anger. She said then over his harsh breathing, “You don’t know that, Marcus.”
“Don’t know what, curse you?”
“If you would need your mistress there to stimulate you.”
He shook his head, his right hand lightly stroking over his ribs. But the pain dulled, oh yes, dulled to practically nothing when he looked at her perfidious face again. “I don’t believe this, any of it. I will spend the day determining if I wish to strangle you. Send me Spears. I have a meeting with Wellington and have no wish to miss it.”
She merely nodded and left him.
10
HOTEL BEAUVAU, RUE ROYALE