“She was supposed to give you a message about where to meet me. That won’t be necessary now,” Meredith said with a conniving twist of her lips. “You have two days. I’ll meet you here at ten sharp and you will provide a bank note for the ten thousand. In the meantime, I will stay away from your pretty ladylove. But know this, Gavin Barreten: If you cross me, I will slit the throat of her precious boy and send his blood-soaked clothing to her door. Do you understand me?”
Gavin felt the chill to his bones. He did understand her. Far more so than when he’d drunkenly married her. “Yes, Meredith, I understand you. Now, you understand me. If you harm that boy, there isn’t a place on this earth you will be able to hide from me.”
“You don’t even know him. You’ve never even met him!”
“But I know her, and I’ll not see her hurt by my mistakes,” he said. “And marrying you was a mistake, even if the union was never legal.”
She grinned. “But you were so earnest, wanting to save me from that terrible arranged marriage! What a dupe you were!”
“I was a boy of eighteen who’d had more ale than food for nigh on a week,” Gavin remarked. “Else I would have known better. Now go. And don’t let me catch sight of you again.”
When the woman had left, Gavin let out a sigh of relief. She was like a hurricane, swirling into his life with chaos and ruin and then exiting just as quickly. It had been that way since that fateful night when he’d seen her in a dimly lit tavern and thought her the most exquisite creature in existence. For more than a decade he’d been dealing with her showing up at even a hint of prosperity for him, demanding her share. He’d give it to her to spare Aurora any more trauma.
After a moment, when he was certain she was truly gone, he made his way down the alley and up the stairs. He knocked on the door before calling out, “Aurora, let me in.”
It was mere seconds before the door was unlatched, and he walked inside to find her angrily pacing.
“I will kill her,” Aurora said. “You need not worry about proving your freedom to marry when you should decide to do so, Your Grace, because I will see her dead. If I must rip her from limb to limb with my bare hands, it will be so.”
He’d expected to find her in hysterics. Weeping, wailing and copious tears—instead, she looked like a warrior queen ready for battle. “That will hardly be necessary. I appealed to Meredith in the only language she understands: money.”
Aurora stopped her pacing and gaped at him. “You will not pay this woman. You will not give her a shilling. Do you not understand that every time you pay her you only set the precedent for her to return and ask for more?”
“Then, what would you have me do?” he asked. “It is the most expedient way to ensure that both you and your son will be safe!”
“I would have you do nothing, Your Grace,” she said, biting each word out as she seethed with anger. “I will do it. I mean to challenge her to a duel.”
Why did he only ever become entangled with women who were completely mad?
CHAPTER TEN
Aurora knocked upon the door and waited. The butler answered and she presented him with her calling card. “Lady Sheffield for Mrs. Dunne,” she said.
If the butler thought it odd that his employer’s former mistress was calling upon his current wife, his impassive expression never revealed it. “This way, my lady.”
Having been shown into the drawing room, Aurora didn’t simply sit on one of the elegantly upholstered chairs and wait. No, she paced, just as she had been pacing since the day before.
When the door opened and the Honorable Mrs. Persephone Dunne entered the drawing room to greet her, the other woman’s surprise at her presence was quite obvious.
“Lady Sheffield, this is most unexpected but not at all unwelcome. In fact, I had thought to call on you at some point this week to thank you for your assistance with that little matter the other night at the Holland Ball.”
“Would you call me, Aurora? I feel under the circumstances that formality between us is a bit strange. And it will be even stranger after you find out why I am here.”
The other woman’s face fell. “If you are having regrets, I am afraid it is too late—.”
Aurora shook her head. “Oh, no! No regrets. I know that you and Algernon belong together. It’s quite obvious to anyone with eyes that he adores you. As well he should. You are all that is lovely and charming. No, I am here, Persephone—if I may call you that—because I need a favor. I never imagined that with the assistance we provided the other night I would suddenly be invoking that as a kind of currency, but here I am.”
“Percy. Call me Percy,” she instructed. “Let me ring for tea. And please, Aurora, sit down before you wear a hole in the carpet. I’m thinking of replacing it, but I’d prefer not to have to rush into that decision.”
Aurora halted her pacing. "Forgive me, Percy. I'm afraid that what I’ve come to ask you is not easy. In fact, it is so very unusual that I’m not certain how to begin.”
“I find,” Percy said, stepping forward and seating herself on one of the chairs before gesturing toward the one beside her, “that the best place to begin is usually the beginning.”
Aurora nodded and seated herself, and when she opened her mouth, words simply flooded out. “Years ago, the Duke of Westerhaven was tricked into a sham of a marriage. It’s been nullified in the courts of America where it occurred, but the woman to whom he was so briefly and not legally married to has arrived in England and she proposes to get her due by any means necessary, fair or foul. She has threatened me to make him comply. More specifically she has threatened my son. He means to pay her but I think it’s a terrible plan. If he does, there is naught to stop her from returning, issuing those same threats again, and demanding even more. So, I mean to put a stop to it.”
“And how do you mean to do that?” Aurora asked.
“Men are not the only ones who must see to matters of honor,” Aurora said. “I mean to challenge her to a duel.”
“A duel?” Percy echoed. “Are we talking blades or pistols? Although I’m not certain one is any less mad than the other.”
“Pistols, I think,” Aurora stated with a nod of her head. “I’m quite a good shot, you know?”
“I did not know,” Percy said. “You do understand that this is illegal?”
“Of course I do. But men duel all the time, legal or not. And I can’t simply let this stand. I can’t allow her to bully me, to threaten my child, to extort my…”
“Lover?”
Aurora had hesitated on that word. She’d thought of it as being an arrangement, not an affair. Certainly not a love affair. But her feelings for Gavin were not simple. In fact, they were so beyond complicated she had not even really let herself look too closely at them. Examining them meant that she might then have to do something about them. “I suppose he is.”
“And do you love him?” Percy asked.
“I can’t be sure. I think perhaps I do. I also think I do not really know what love is, so how can I possibly be certain?”
Percy smile softly. “It's quite simple really. Imagine your life without him.”
And that was when Aurora realized that somehow, when she had been focusing her attention on getting Helen eloped and Algernon betrothed and wed, that somehow, in the course of it all, she had fallen in love herself. Gavin Barreten, the Duke of Westerhaven, had become intricately and inexorably woven into the fabric of her life so much that she could not imagine her days without him as a part of them.
“Oh dear.”
“Indeed,” Percy commiserated. “Oh, dear. Are you certain that a duel, given that you have so very much to live for, is how you wish to proceed?”
“I do not have a choice,” Aurora stated. “I cannot have this threat hanging over my son’s head, and while I may have developed a significant attachment to the duke, he is possessed of the same flaw all men have.”
“And what is that?”
“The perpetual underestimatio
n of women. He sees this woman as a nuisance. He does not grasp how much of a threat she is. Or, because she is a woman, he feels he must temper his response to her accordingly. Thankfully, I am not similarly afflicted.”
“Then, what would you have me do?” Percy asked.
“I need a second, and there are few people I can ask whom I can trust to be discreet,” Aurora explained. “The only friend I had whom I could trust, until recently that is, is in trade. She does not have the luxury of indulging in such foibles. The law works very differently for people of her class. And if word were to get out that she had been involved, it might ruin her business.”
“I see,” Percy said. “And all that is at stake for me is my reputation.”
Aurora blushed. “You are a married woman. Reputations are not so very important now. Also, as I sincerely doubt this woman, Meredith Brandon, has ever managed to cultivate or maintain a friendship in her life, a second will need to be provided for her, as well. Do you think Lady Holland would be willing to serve?”
“We can but ask,” Percy stated. “Let me ring for the carriage. We will go and take care of that now.”
Two hours later, the carriage rolled to a stop in the inn yard of The Lion and Dove Inn. It was on the edge of Cheapside, still respectable but only just barely. It hovered on the last street before middle-class London gave way to the rookeries.
Olivia, Lady Holland, peered out the window of the coach and shuddered. “Let us get this over with and return home quickly. I don’t need to remind either of you what might happen if we are seen here.”
Behind their hooded cloaks, each woman nodded. Then, one by one, they disembarked from the nondescript hired coach and made their way into the inn.
As they entered, a servant girl was walking past, bearing a tray laden with empty tankards. Aurora reached into her pocket and withdrew a coin that likely represented a month’s wages to the girl. She placed on it the tray as the girl moved past them and, instantly, she stopped.
With the girl’s attention secured, Aurora said, “We’re looking for a woman who is staying here, by herself. Blonde hair. Late thirties. Where can we find her?”
“Third floor. Last room on the left,” the girl said. “She’s a nasty sort. Mind yourselves.”
With that warning, the servant girl walked away and the three of them, completely out of place, were left standing there in the taproom.
“Are you certain this is the only way?” Olivia demanded.
“Yes,” Aurora said. She was more certain than ever. There were other ways, but none that would allow her to have any power or any semblance of control in how it all was carried out. That was terribly important to her. “Let’s go.”
They climbed the stairs in single file for the simple fact that the staircase was too narrow to do otherwise. Once they reached the third floor, Percy opened her cloak and presented one of the pistols tucked inside it to Aurora. She kept the other for herself. “You know what to do?”
Olivia scoffed. “Yes, I know what to do. I am to issue a challenge on the behalf of our demented friend. And then I will take this untrustworthy woman to my home and keep her there for the night so that she does not run off prior to the due—uh, dance.” The last word was altered on the off chance anyone was listening. Even as she said it, Olivia was glancing about nervously.
“Precisely,” Aurora stated.
“Fine. Let’s get it over with,” Percy seconded.
Olivia gave one short, jerky nod, turned and tapped her knuckles on the door. A moment later, the door was flung open and Meredith Brandon stood before them. Her hair was in disarray and she was drinking from a bottle that appeared to be brandy. Not good brandy, but brandy nonetheless.
“What do you crows want?” she asked.
Aurora pushed back her hood. Percy and Olivia followed suit.
“I’ve come on behalf of my friend, Lady Sheffield, to issue a challenge,” Olivia stated with all manner of pomp and circumstance. “She demands to meet you on the field at Hampstead Heath tomorrow at dawn to settle the matter of your insult to her honor, your threat to her son, and your attempts to extort the Duke of Westerhaven.”
She blinked at them. “What?”
“A duel, madame,” Aurora clarified. “I have brought witnesses and Lady Holland has agreed to serve as your second, as you do not have anyone here currently who can perform those duties. We will meet on the field of honor, we will duel with pistols, and we will see these matters settled.”
Meredith Brandon laughed at that. “A duel? Well, I must say this is a novel approach. Don’t you trust Gavin to fight your battles for you?”
“I trust him to do many things, and that includes being a man of honor. His honor, sadly, will not allow him to see you for what you are or to respond accordingly.”
Meredith grinned. “Oh, he’s seen me. All of me. I might have a few years on you, Lady Sheffield, and perhaps my face isn’t as devoid of lines as yours currently is. But I’ve never let a man put a bastard in my belly nor had to push it out from my nethers. I daresay, in regards to our figures, I may have a point or two in my favor.”
Percy gasped. Olivia’s lips thinned into a hard line. But Aurora knew what the woman was doing. After all, she’d lived with an abusive bully for many years. She recognized all the tactics. “Be that as it may, Mrs. Brandon, he has clearly made his choice in that arena. Regardless, I would have your answer, madame. Will you meet me at dawn, or will you prove yourself a coward?”
Meredith glanced at Olivia. “You’re my second?”
“If you agree, yes,” Olivia said primly, as if they were discussing an invitation to tea.
“And you’ll put me up in fine lodgings and stand watch over me tonight to ensure that I don’t scamper off for parts unknown?”
Again, Olivia nodded. “You will be a guest in my home for the night and I shall escort you to Hampstead Heath in the morning.”
Meredith cocked her head. “And your husband? What does he have to say about it?”
Olivia looked away. “Nothing. He went to take care of a matter at one of our other properties and is not in town. It hardly signifies.”
“I think it does,” Meredith sneered. “Look at the three of you! Playing at being bold and outrageous. Playing at being a woman with power who isn’t afraid of breaking rules! You are nothing but children playing adult games. I have lived what you only aspire to! But yes, I shall meet you on the field, and I shall smile while Gavin weeps over your corpse.”
Aurora lifted her head higher. “We shall see who prevails. Now, allow us to escort you outside to the carriage that awaits.”
Meredith looked about. “I’m not packing my things. I’ll be returning for them tomorrow. I’m certain my second will have a gown she can lend me for the occasion? Something luxurious, of course.”
“You’ll be adequately turned out,” Olivia replied.
Meredith leaned forward and tested the fabric of Olivia’s velvet cloak. “Oh, I think we can strive for more than adequate. After you, ladies.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gavin was roaming the house, bored and alone. There were no planned engagements for the evening. He was simply biding his time until he could slip under the cover of darkness to Aurora’s home.
In his library, he chose a book from the shelf, then replaced it because it held no interest for him. A sigh escaped him just as the butler knocked on the door.
“There is a woman to see you, Your Grace. Lady Sheffield.”
Gavin moved away from the bookshelves. “Show her in.”
The butler frowned in disapproval. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Moments later, the door opened, and she stepped inside. Wearing a dark, heavy cloak, she pushed the hood back as she entered. “I needed to see you.”
“I was coming to you later,” he stated.
“Will is coming home early tomorrow. There was an incident at school and…Well, he’ll be spending a few days at home. I thought it better to come to you tonigh
t rather than risk you crossing paths,” she said. “You understand?”
She was lying. Gavin stared at her for a moment, awaiting further explanation, but the lie hovered between them. It was a first. She had elected not to tell him things or to keep details to herself, but outright fabrications had never occurred between before. “I see.”
One eyebrow raised in challenge. “I can go if now is not convenient for you.”
No, he didn’t want her to go. Whatever she was planning, whatever she was hiding, he couldn’t let her just walk away from him. “I have something for you,” he said.
“Oh?”
Gavin moved back to the desk and opened the top drawer. The necklace, a delicate confection of interlocking leaves wrought in gold and set with pearls, was not the most expensive piece of jewelry. But it was of excellent craftsmanship, and there was something about the piece that had instantly reminded him of her.
“Hold out your hands,” he instructed, “and close your eyes.”
She smiled a bit but did as he bade.
Placing the leather-bound box on her palms, he opened it. “Now you may look.”
Aurora’s eyes fluttered open, and she stared down at the delicate necklace. “Oh, Gavin, it’s lovely!”
“I had intended to purchase diamonds or sapphires. But that spoke to me,” he admitted. “Like you, it is unexpected.”
She lifted the necklace from the case and raised it to her throat as she turned to peer into the small mirror beside the door. “It speaks to me too. It’s lovely. Help me put it on.”
Gavin stepped behind her and placed his hands over hers, holding the fine piece of gold gently as he worked the clasp. “What sort of incident at school?”
“It was nothing, really,” she hedged.
He let his hands drop from her shoulders and stepped back. Something was very wrong, but if she wouldn’t talk to him, how could he know how to fix it? Crossing the room, he opened the doors of the secretary there and poured himself a brandy from the bottle stashed inside. “Would you care for brandy?”
The Other Wife (The Dunne Family Series Book 3) Page 8
