Lord Ruin

by Carolyn Jewel

  Lord Ruin - Copyright

  Copyright © 2002, 2011 by Carolyn Jewel

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Cover copyright © 2012 by Patti Schmitt

  Cover image: Corbis

  LORD RUIN

  BY

  CAROLYN JEWEL

  The mind cannot long act the role of the heart.

  François de la Rochefoucauld

  Table of Contents

  About this Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  About Carolyn Jewel

  Books By Carolyn

  Excerpts

  Change Log

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About This Book

  Ruan Bettencourt, the Duke of Cynssyr, intends to marry London’s most beautiful debutante. A case of mistaken identity forces him to marry her sister, spinster Anne Sinclair. Before long, he’s head-over-heels in love with his wife while Anne is determined to make the best of her unwanted marriage. Can the man society calls “Lord Ruin” convince Anne he’s fallen in love with her?

  CHAPTER 1

  London, 1818

  Cynssyr glared at the door to number twenty-four Portman Square. “Blast it,” he said to the groom who held two other horses. “What the devil is taking them so long?” He sat his horse with authority, a man in command of himself and his world. His buckskins fit close over lean thighs, and the exacting cut of his jacket declared a tailor of some talent. A Pink of the Ton, he seemed, but for eyes that observed more than they revealed.

  “The Baron’s a family man now, sir.” The groom stamped his feet and tucked his hands under his armpits.

  “What has that to do with anything?”

  A handbill abandoned by some reveler from one of last night’s fetes skimmed over the cobbles and spooked the other two horses, a charcoal gelding by the name of Poor Boy on account of the loss of his equine manhood; and a muscular dun. The groom had a dicey moment what with the cold having numbed his fingers but managed to send the sheet skittering to freedom.

  “Man with a family can’t leave anywhere spot on the dot,” the groom said.

  “I don’t see why.”

  The door to number twenty-four flew open with a ringing crack of wood against stone. Of the two men who came out, the taller was Benjamin Dunbartin, Baron Aldreth, the owner of the house. He moved down the stairs at a rapid clip, clapping his hat onto his blond head as if he meant to cement it in place. The other man gripped his hat in one hand and descended at a more leisurely pace. The wind whipped a mass of inky curls over his sharp cheekbones.

  “My lord.” The groom handed Benjamin the reins to the dun. Before the groom could so much as offer a leg up, Ben launched himself into the saddle without a word of greeting or acknowledgment. Most everyone liked Benjamin. With his good looks and boyish smile, it was practically impossible not to. At the moment, however, Cynssyr thought Ben did not look like a man who cared for the family life.

  “Come along, Devon,” Benjamin said to his companion. He spoke with such force his dun tossed its head and pranced in nearly a full circle before Ben had him under control again.

  Cynssyr’s green eyes widened. “Have you quarreled with Mary?”

  “Certainly not,” said Ben.

  “Well, you look like you’ve been hit by lightning from on high and still hear the angels singing. What’s put you in such a state?”

  “None of your damned business.” The dun stamped hard on the cobbles, and Ben swore under his breath.

  Cynssyr’s bay snorted, and he reached to soothe the animal. “I should say it is, if I’m to endure such behavior from you.”

  “Devon!”

  “Is this, by any chance, about Devon’s letter?”

  Ben’s neck fairly snapped, he turned so quickly. “What do you know about that damned letter?”

  “He wouldn’t let me read it, but it must have succeeded. Camilla Fairchild is too young to be looking at a man that way.” Cynssyr’s mouth quirked and with the slight smile his austere features softened. When he smiled, he was about as handsome as a man could get, a fact not lost on him. He knew quite well the effect of his smile on the fairer sex.

  Devon reached the curb in time to overhear the last remark. Coal-black eyes, at the moment completely without humor, slid from Ben to Cynssyr. “Disgraceful, ain’t it? Her mother ought to set the girl a better example.” He, too, accepted the reins of his gelding from the groom. He glanced at the stairs.

  “Do you think she will?” Cynssyr managed, quite deliberately, to sound as though he hoped she wouldn’t. Christ, he hoped not. He fully expected to soon discover what Mrs. Fairchild’s backside felt like under his hands. Soft, he imagined. Energetic, he hoped.

  “You ought to know better, Cyn,” Devon said. “Even Mary said so.”

  “You will be relieved to know that at lord Sather’s rout Miss Fairchild’s passion was as yet untempered by experience. I merely provided her some.” His smile reappeared. “A regrettably small amount, to be sure.”

  “You know, Cyn,” Ben said, “one of these days you’re going to miscalculate and find yourself married to some featherbrained female who’ll bore you to tears.”

  “What else have you done, Devon, that’s made him such wretched company?” Cynssyr kept one eye on Benjamin.

  “Not one word,” Ben said, glaring not at Cynssyr but at Devon.

  Devon stopped with one foot in the stirrup to gift the world with affronted innocence. “All I did was—”

  “Not one!” Ben turned a warning glance on him, too. “Not a word from you, either, Cyn.”

  Dev shook his head and mounted, exchanging a glance with Cynssyr who shrugged and found himself still mystified.

  Only when the three were long out of earshot of the groom and riding toward Hyde Park did Ben speak. “How dare you?” He took a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and thrust it at Devon. “How dare you!”

  “My personal correspondence is none of your affair.” Devon, who had never expected to come into his title, could nevertheless exude more condescension than ever his father had managed, and the previous earl had been a master.

  “Give me one reason I oughtn’t call you out.”

  “Now see here,” Cynssyr said, more than a little alarmed.

  “Frankly, Cyn, if you knew about the letter, I ought to have satisfaction from you, too.” Ben turned back to Devon. “Well?”

  “I asked permission to court her wh
en we were at Rosefeld for your wedding. But I had not the proper credentials then.” Devon laughed bleakly. “I am Bracebridge now.”

  “Four years ago,” Cynssyr said, “Camilla Fairchild was all of what, twelve or thirteen?”

  “Good God,” said Benjamin. “Not Miss Fairchild.”

  Devon snatched the crumpled paper from Ben’s hand. “I won’t lose her a second time.”

  “Lose whom?” Cynssyr drew even with Devon. “What are you two talking about? Devon, I thought your letter was for Miss Fairchild.” Two women out for a morning walk stopped their stroll to stare at the men riding by. Out of pure habit, Cynssyr gave them an assessing glance, which made Devon laugh.

  “Have you declared yourself?” Ben waved at the paper in Devon’s hand. “Besides in that note of yours, I mean.”

  “If not Miss Fairchild, then whom?” Cynssyr said, by now more than a little annoyed. “Miss George?” When that got no reply, he said, “Not Miss Willowby. Oh, please, no. If it’s Miss Willowby, I forbid it.”

  Devon slid the note into his pocket. “She has not the slightest idea of my feelings.”

  “Good God.”

  “Now that she is here in London,” Devon said, “I mean to change that.” He pulled back on his black, waiting for Ben’s dun to draw alongside. Once again, Cynssyr found himself maddeningly excluded. “With your permission, of course.”

  “It isn’t my permission you need be concerned with,” Ben said. “It’s her father’s.”

  “The old man can bugger himself for all I care.” The black-as-the-depths-of-hell eyes that even Cynssyr, who knew better, sometimes thought devoid of life flashed with a violent fire.

  Benjamin grinned.

  They were at the Park now, off the streets and onto the riding paths. “Would one of you,” said Cynssyr, “please tell me what the devil you’re talking about?”

  “Dev thinks he’s in love.”

  “That much I gathered.” He looked over at Devon. “In love with whom?”

  “My sister-in-law,” Ben said, throwing up one hand. “That’s who.”

  Cynssyr gave Devon a look. “Which one?” He moved out of the path of a fat gentleman on a white mare. To the best of his recollection, there were four Sinclair sisters and Benjamin had married one of them. That left three. And, if memory served, the Sinclair sisters deserved their reputation for beauty. Ben’s wife, Mary, was among the most beautiful women of Cynssyr’s rather vast acquaintance. He almost didn’t blame Ben for marrying her.

  “I don’t think I’m in love.”

  “The youngest? Miss Emily?” His green eyes flickered with interest. “If she turns out half as beautiful as she promised, she’ll cause a riot at her debut.”

  “No. And stay the hell away from Emily, Cyn.”

  “Then it must be the brunette. Lucy.” The name rolled off his tongue replete with his recollection of ebony hair and features of heartbreaking perfection.

  “No.”

  “You mean the eldest?” He could not for the life of him summon an image of the eldest Sinclair sister. “That’s impossible. I don’t even remember her.”

  “Blonde? Gray-blue eyes. Yay tall.” Ben indicated an inch or so below his chin which meant a tall woman, perhaps even an ungainly one. “You’ll meet her tonight at the ball. Meet her again, that is.”

  “Why don’t I recall her?” Cynssyr glanced at Devon.

  “And by the way,” Ben said. “Stay away from Lucy, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when it comes to women, damn you, Cynssyr, you’re a rogue, that’s why.”

  “Mama begins to despair. Perhaps I ought put to rest her doubts of a succession.”

  Ben snorted. “I’d not curse any of my sisters-in-law with you for a husband.”

  “Now that,” Cynssyr said, “wounds me deeply. When at last I marry, I expect I’ll make a most excellent husband.”

  “Hah,” said Devon.

  “Et tu, Bruté?”

  “You can’t even settle on what woman to seduce tonight.”

  “If not for Napoleon, I’d likely be years married. A positive dullard, like Ben here.” But Napoleon there was, so Cynssyr wasn’t married at all. Love, naturally, would have but a limited role in any marriage he contracted. The war had burned out his capacity, if ever he’d possessed it, for such saving emotion.

  “A dullard?” said Ben, spoiling his attempt to appear insulted by breaking into laughter. Devon rolled his eyes.

  “Whatever you two think, I’m quite aware I need a wife. A man of my station requires a wife, as my desperate mother so often reminds me.”

  “God help the woman fool enough to marry you,” Ben said.

  “Why not one of your sisters-in-law, Ben? It seems an excellent idea.” Dozens of suitable candidates were thrown his way every season, this one being no different from any other since the war. But he’d not been able to bring himself to the sticking point with any of them.

  “No.”

  “I’ll reform.” He grinned. “I promise.”

  “You’ll reform when hell freezes over.”

  A faint memory tickled at the back of his mind. He tapped his temple. “You mean the spinster, don’t you, Devon? The eldest. The one with the spectacles.”

  “Blond hair, gray-blue eyes. Yay tall,” Benjamin repeated.

  “What was her name?”

  Ben’s blue eyes chilled another degree. “Anne.”

  “Gad. I still don’t remember her. Except for the spectacles.” He looked askance at Dev. “I have never understood his taste in women.”

  “You truly want to marry Anne?” Ben asked Devon. Curiosity and relief lingered at the edges of the question, but hearing him, no one could doubt the seriousness of the matter. No doting father could have sounded more cautious.

  “Yes.”

  “I meant to introduce her to Declan McHenry,” said Ben, looking thoughtfully at Devon. “Or Phillip Lovejoy.”

  “I’d be obliged if you didn’t.”

  “Good God, you are serious, aren’t you?”

  “It’s been four years. I am done waiting.” Amusement brightened Devon’s brooding eyes and made his severe mouth curve in a surprisingly warm smile. It did interesting things to his face, the way severity gave way to warmth. At times like this, when he saw Devon smile, Cynssyr understood exactly why women went so eagerly to his bed.

  If Devon had really decided the Sinclair spinster was the woman he wanted, then the matter was done. He would have his way. The why of it mystified him. Even as plain Devon Carlisle, he could do far better than some dried-up female who wasn’t even pretty enough to bother taking off her spectacles. As matrimonial material, the earl of Bracebridge was nearly as sought after as he himself. Nearly. But, not quite.

  “Enough. No more blather about love and marriage, you two,” Cynssyr said. With a flick of the reins, he steered his horse past a fallen branch then cantered to the edge of a meadow where he waited for Ben and Devon.

  “Jade,” Ben accused when he reached the meadow.

  Cynssyr flashed a brilliantly arrogant smile. “The trouble with you, my lord Baron Aldreth, is you love your wife. And you, Devon. For shame. You disappoint me. You disappoint all our sex, falling for this Miss Sinclair.”

  “Love,” said Dev with one of his wry grins. “A most heinous crime.”

  “Love.” Cynssyr lifted one brow in the supercilious disdain he usually reserved for certain rebuttals in the Lords. “You mean a man’s delusion he’s not been robbed of his freedom and a woman’s that she’s gained hers?”

  “Exactly,” Devon said.

  “How can you trust your judgment now?” He lifted his riding whip, but brought it down on his boot leg, not his horse. “Fools the both of you.” So saying, he urged his horse to a gallop. “Anne Sinclair,” he muttered. He heard Devon and Ben thunder after him and gave his horse its head. They had no chance of catching him now. Only the best horseflesh found its way into his stables. He had the best of ever
ything. Wine. Horses. Women. Friends.

  He wanted to roar with disgust and dismay. Devon married. What was he to do with himself then? To the devil with spinsters who set their caps on marriage, he thought as the chill wind whipped past him. “To the very devil with her.” Thus did the duke of Cynssyr, so deservedly referred to as Lord Ruin, dismiss the woman with whom he would soon be desperately in love.

  CHAPTER 2

  “The duke of Sin and the Divine Sinclair, surely a match made in heaven.”

  “Well,” said Lucy, folding the page from which she’d read out loud. The rest of the paper slid off her lap and onto the floor. “Quite a triumph for our youngest sister.”

  Mary held out Anne’s gloves. “He’ll propose to her at Corth Abbey.” They were in Anne’s room, about to leave for Sussex and Mr. Devon Carlisle’s country retreat now that Anne was at last well enough to think of such a journey, illness having kept her abed since the day of the Sinclair family’s arrival in London.

  “He won’t,” Anne said admitting just to herself that in actual fact she prayed he would not. She drew on a glove. She didn’t yet know the extent of the disaster, but according to Mary, all anyone had talked about during her three week sickroom confinement was that man, that awful man the duke of Cynssyr, courting Emily. The Divine Sinclair he dubbed her and, drat the man, the sobriquet stuck.

  The only other subject of conversation that even came close to Emily and the duke was how yet another woman had been snatched right from Piccadilly Street. Whispers of the incident abounded, some ridiculous beyond belief. Violence underlay all the speculations, from the probable through to the fantastic. True, ransom had been paid, but no one, it seemed, believed the story stopped there.

  “Yes, he will,” said Lucy. “Emily refuses to encourage him, but he is determined, is the duke.”

  Anne turned. She had long ago accepted the unspoken expectation that she would care for their father for as many years as were left him. A pretty woman born to a family of beauties, Anne considered her looks little more than tolerable. With three beautiful sisters, few people, if any, noticed she was not at all unattractive.