Beastly Lords Collection

by Baily, Sydney Jane

  “Lord Alder might’ve been a tad wild, even inappropriate in the past,” she said, hoping to reassure them, “but he has declared his devotion to me, and I have no reason to suspect him of dishonesty on that account.”

  “Ada,” her father began, his voice dripping disappointment, “has it occurred to you he has attached himself to you because of your usefulness in growing his fortune?”

  Goodness! Her father really did have the wrong end of the stick.

  “I know positively that is not the case. For Lord Alder has no idea I am the one who has been giving stock advice to Mr. Brunnel.”

  “I see.” Her father ran a hand over his face, and she hoped he was somewhat soothed. Then he looked at her, and she saw the worry in his expression.

  “We have always stood by you, even after…” he trailed off, and Ada felt tears prick her eyes. “I cannot bear for you to be hurt again,” he concluded.

  “Oh, Papa,” she said, rushing to sit beside him. “I am not the same naïve young lady I was then. I promise you, I’m not. Nor am I letting Lord Alder pull the wool over my eyes. This time, instead of letting a situation be forced upon me, I am making my own decisions.”

  Glancing up at her mother, she added, “I love him, and Harry does, too. And Lord Alder cares for us both without question, even believing I am a widow and not a pure bride. He got off on the wrong track, so to speak, when his heart was hurt years ago. I believe without your love and support, I might have had a terrible life. I was blessed where he was not.” She pondered the truth of her words.

  “Yes, he made mistakes, and I believe he drank too much and conducted himself with less than gentlemanlike behavior—”

  Kathryn Ellis evoked a strange snorting sound of displeasure, for obviously, she had heard all about Lord Vile’s behavior and passed the information along to her husband.

  But Ada knew Michael was a changed man. She believed it with her whole heart.

  “I think Lord Alder has transformed himself. Moreover, he makes me happy. I hope you’ll welcome him as a son-in-law when the time comes.”

  Her father’s lengthy sigh was the only answer for many moments.

  Then James Ellis exchanged glances with his wife.

  “Very well. Because as I said, you are no fool, we shall trust in your decisions. However, if Alder hurts you, I shall tear him limb for limb, just as I would the scoundrel who gave us Harry.”

  Ada decided then and there not to mention they were one and the same man.

  “How about some tea and cake?” she offered. “And I’ll fetch Harry.”

  *

  Michael wished something wasn’t niggling at him, but there were, in fact, two matters slicing through his happiness with knives of misgiving.

  For one, he knew in his heart he’d sniffed the unknown lady at Stafford House, as he did nearly every female he met, especially in that type of setting, at a ball. He’d done it without meaning to and before he could stop himself, and Ada had seen him, thinking he was nuzzling the stranger’s neck.

  In truth, involuntarily and while completely in love with Ada, he still searched for his golden goddess. However, he’d vowed he would stop the imbecilic practice when he’d gone to the Earl of Cambrey and convinced him of his utter devotion to Ada.

  Secondly, he knew his beloved was holding something back from him. Call it instinct, call it experience with the ability of people—even those who professed their love—to betray and to lie.

  He longed to pour himself a large glass of brandy, but he was trying to be the man Ada St. Ange deserved, not a weak lout who was always reaching for the flask or decanter. He had, in fact, consigned his silver flagon to a drawer in his wardrobe the night she’d thrown it at him.

  Was it important he suss out her secrets? It was. Perhaps her past and her parents held the answers. Thus, the next day when he went over, he was surprised to learn she’d told her parents already about their engagement.

  “I’m still standing,” he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her before she could say another word.

  When at last he lifted his head, she looked dazed and utterly beddable, with her languid gaze, her pink cheeks, and her reddened lips. The engagement was, at that moment, still open-ended, something he wanted to change.

  “Seeing as how your father hasn’t shot me or run me through—yet—may I assume we can set a date for our nuptials?”

  Her eyes widened, and then, to his delight, she smiled.

  “Yes. How about in the spring?”

  *

  Two days later, Michael took Ada’s front steps at a run, always with the same feeling—he simply couldn’t wait to see her. She engaged his mind, made him laugh, stirred his blood so he couldn’t imagine how he could put off claiming her body until after the wedding, though he was determined to do so.

  Moreover, he’d told his parents about their engagement, and they were thrilled for him. Knowing there would be no underhanded sneakiness on their part at this stage of his life was a relief. His father liked that Ada had her own money. His mother was pleased his wife-to-be had already demonstrated she was fertile.

  Randall opened the door and informed him Mrs. St. Ange was in the library.

  “She has a visitor, my lord. If you’ll wait in the parlor, I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  Michael had not taken two steps when the library door on the other side of the marble foyer opened and Clive Brunnel emerged, a smug look on his face. It changed the instant he saw Michael. Then the man paled.

  Michael’s brain froze with astonishment, unable to make sense of how his investment advisor could be at his fiancée’s home. A coincidence?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ada appeared behind Brunnel, following him into the front hall, her face looking peevish and displeased. However, when she saw Michael, her mouth dropped open and her expression changed to one of shock—and guilt—telling him this was no coincidence.

  What could it mean? Without doubt, Ada knew Brunnel was associated with Michael. What’s more, she obviously hadn’t wanted Michael to know she knew the man.

  With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he faced them squarely.

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  After a brief pause, Brunnel spoke first. “I am… advising Mrs. St. Ange.”

  However, by the way Ada startled at his words, it was plainly a fabrication.

  “No,” she said clearly. “He is not.”

  Michael said a silent word of thanks. She wasn’t going to lie to his face, for that would surely be the end of their relationship.

  Brunnel, though, looked irritated. “Mrs. St. Ange, I warn you.”

  He warned her? Michael took a step forward.

  “Are you threatening my fiancée?”

  “I, that is, of course not.” Brunnel glanced at Ada, who merely shrugged, crossing her arms, apparently unwilling to help the man out of the sticky situation.

  Looking again at Michael, Brunnel added, “As you know, investing is a personal matter and not to be discussed in a foyer.”

  Michael’s fingers twitched. He wanted to punch the man in the face, and he didn’t even know why.

  “That’s rubbish!” he said. “I demand an explanation.”

  Ada lowered her arms and dropped her gaze to the floor. When she looked at him again, a streak of fear shot down his spine. Her eyes told him something very bad was happening, something akin to the betrayal by his parents that had destroyed his engagement to Jenny.

  “This is all my fault,” Ada confessed, her voice barely above a whisper. “Mr. Brunnel gave you advice regarding investing that I, in turn, gave him.”

  Brunnel winced at her disclosure, then sighed. He seemed to know his ruse was finished. Michael’s gut twisted uncomfortably at learning she had been secretly conferring with another man about him.

  However, she had helped him, so why was she looking so glum?

  Ada straightened her shoulders and said in a firmer voice, “Now, he sim
ply won’t leave me alone, and despite having made a great deal of money from my advice, Mr. Brunnel has threatened to damage my father’s reputation.”

  “Is that so?” Michael narrowed his eyes at the man, who suddenly seemed to resemble a common garden weasel. There was much to be explained and even more to be sorted out between him and Ada—in private—but first, he would do everything in his power to rid her of Brunnel.

  “I assume your threats were made only in order to keep me in the dark. Now that I know of your association with my fiancée, there is no point anymore in your trying to harm this lady or her father, is there?”

  Brunnel’s mouth formed a thin line of annoyance.

  “Well?” Michael prompted. “Hear me, if you say any of the trades or purchases you’ve done on my account were anything to do with either Mrs. St. Ange or Baron Ellis, I will gainsay you, even before a judge.”

  Brunnel looked as if something unpleasant was being waved under his nose.

  “I see,” he said at last, and tried to walk around Michael to the door.

  “You will offer an apology and promise on your honor to leave her and her family alone. Perhaps you should thank her as well.”

  Brunnel glanced back at Ada. “I will leave you alone,” he promised tightly, then to Michael, he added, “Ask her if you should thank her, too, for the instruction to buy tallow.”

  With that remark, he pushed past Michael and left.

  He stared at Ada, whose cheeks had infused with pink at Brunnel’s remark. It was true, the man last advised him to buy tallow. But so eager was Michael to follow up with cocoa beans after his discussion with Ada, he had ignored Brunnel’s advice, only now to find it actually came from her, after all.

  Then it dawned on him. He’d learned afterward it was a terrible stock to purchase.

  If he’d put all his money into tallow shares, he would have been ruined.

  Ruined!

  “My father spoke the truth when he said you had an interest in stocks?”

  She nodded.

  “And you paid Brunnel to encounter me by happenstance and start giving me advice?”

  “Yes.” The small word seemed wrenched from her.

  Michael let out a long breath, processing her deceit as he did.

  “He was a very good actor. He should take to the stage. Perhaps you should as well.”

  God’s truth, he wanted a drink. He wanted to numb the emotions swirling through him with some good Belgian gin.

  She blinked at him, saying nothing, only worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. Normally, he would find it charming and clasp her to him to kiss her concerns away.

  But she had lied to him. Who was she anyway? Some other man’s widow, a man she wouldn’t even speak about. A woman who knew the stock market and kept that knowledge hidden. A woman who’d left London hurriedly and inexplicably, cutting short her Season. What other lies had she told him?

  “The tallow advice was recent,” he pointed out, realizing the awful truth. She’d still been in contact with Brunnel even after saying she loved him. “If I’d followed it, the entire estate would have been in jeopardy.”

  Ada nodded, not even bothering to defend herself. He needed to leave at once, to get away from her achingly beautiful face, which now looked like absolute betrayal to him. He’d been along this path before—having loved ones surprise the hell out of him with what treachery they could accomplish.

  “I’m going now,” Michael told her, and she flinched.

  He intended to get uproariously drunk, if not on gin, then, at the very least, on brandy.

  “Will you come back?” Her voice sounded like a child’s, and his heart squeezed painfully.

  “I don’t know.”

  It was the honest truth. He might get into his carriage, go to a gin palace, and never come out.

  Could he ever look at Ada again and not mistrust what was going on behind her blue eyes? He remembered how cold those same eyes had been in the beginning, which he took to be reserve, protecting herself as any woman should from an eager suitor.

  Now, he understood he’d seen emotionless calculation in her gaze.

  Putting his hand on the door latch, he shook his head. It had been only a few minutes—hadn’t it?—since he’d walked in thinking the sun rose and set on her. It seemed eons ago.

  Randall appeared as he always did when someone was near the door. Her butler looked from Michael’s grim face to Ada’s devastated one, turned on his heel, and left. Smart man!

  Michael wanted to say something more to her, some sort of farewell, but he couldn’t think of anything, so he simply walked out, closing the door carefully behind him.

  Waving to his driver to follow, Michael walked toward Hyde Park.

  If he got into his carriage, he would end up ran-tan drunk in some hellhole. He would awaken with a pounding head, feeling like dung, and Ada would still have betrayed him, and he would still be minus one fiancée whom he adored.

  Why? His footsteps slowed as he passed Elizabeth Pepperton’s residence and then reached the end of the block.

  Why had she set out to destroy him?

  Her words from the night of the Sutherland’s ball echoed in his head: “If breaking our engagement hurts you even a little, that only makes it all the sweeter.”

  Made what sweeter? What was this all about?

  He had known she was hiding something, but he’d never expected this. He stopped. Four years ago—was it five already?—he’d felt the sharp betrayal of his parents, and then he’d made a hash of his life. Unfortunately, drinking came easy to him. Wenching, too.

  And now he had no better plans than to drown himself in liquor.

  Had he learned nothing since meeting Ada? Hadn’t he become at least a little more mature? After all, he’d made peace with his parents and was saving the earldom, stock by stock.

  Was he really going to follow the very same path of degradation as before and take on the mantle of Lord Vile once again? As if loving hadn’t changed him, not only his love for Ada but also the newly rewarding love for Harry.

  He turned around. No, he wasn’t. What’s more, he deserved a goddamn answer!

  *

  Ada watched him close the door without histrionics or rancor. It might have been easier on her if he’d slammed it rather than slipping out so quietly, so wounded.

  Everything seemed to be in tatters, her horrible, terrible plans—thank God—and her horrible, terrible heart.

  Slowly, she climbed the stairs. It was only midday, but she was exhausted. She knew she should go visit with Harry in the nursery, perhaps suggest a walk with Dash, but she simply couldn’t rally.

  Sinking onto her bed, she put her head in her hands. Desperately, she wanted to weep the way she had done when she thought Michael was being unfaithful on the terrace at Stafford House. Yet, she couldn’t.

  Tears of sorrow seemed a luxury she didn’t owe herself. She should have come back to London, grateful for her health, fortune, and, of course, for Harry. Instead, she’d sought revenge and ruined her own life in the process.

  She loved Michael Alder with all the fascination of her former youthful self who’d fallen for the viscount upon first sight at a dinner party, even though he was then beyond her reach. And she loved him with the full breadth and depth of the woman she had become who now knew him deeply and adored everything she knew.

  Her heart felt as if it were bleeding. Was that possible? Was there truly a crack in the middle of it?

  *

  As quietly as he’d left number twenty-seven, Michael returned, opening the door, peering in, and slipping inside. Standing still, he listened, most assuredly not wishing for an encounter with Mr. Randall, who might turn him away or, at the least, would warn his mistress. Michael intended to beard the lion in her den, for at that moment, he certainly viewed Ada as a dangerous opponent with the power to destroy him entirely.

  Most likely, she was in the library where he knew she spent much of each day—apparently readi
ng about the infernal stock market.

  And stupidly, he thought women only read the fashion and gossip pages.

  Unfortunately, with the butler’s uncanny ability to guard the front of the house, Randall appeared from inside the parlor as Michael crept across the foyer.

  “My lord?” Randall queried, an eyebrow arched, and Michael felt like a naughty child caught stealing cake from the pantry.

  “I must speak with her at once. I shall go insane if I don’t.” He couldn’t believe he’d spoken about such a personal matter to the butler, and in those terms, but he needed an ally.

  Randall paused, taking a visible breath. Michael knew him to be torn between his duty, which had included training of utmost loyalty to his mistress, and pity toward the beseeching man before him.

  Making it even harder on Randall, Michael added, “I don’t want you to summon her to me. I don’t want her prepared and ready. I must meet with her in an unguarded moment. It is the only way she and I will get to the truth of the matter. Will you allow me that?”

  Randall’s jaw was working, clenching and relaxing as he determined the best course of action.

  Then he surprised Michael with a question. “Do you love Mrs. St. Ange?”

  That a butler would be asking him such an intimate question! That he should feel compelled to answer. Indeed, it was once more a topsy-turvy world.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Very well,” Randall said and nothing more.

  “Um, where…?” Michael gestured around the hall with its various doors and also toward the stairs.

  The pained look upon the butler’s face bespoke how difficult it was for him to betray Ada, and Michael felt genuine gratitude she had such a servant.

  “Her room,” was all Randall said, glancing at the staircase, before he turned away and walked down the hallway to the back of the house.

  Michael didn’t hesitate in case the good man changed his mind. His heart drumming in his chest, he took the stairs two at a time.