Duke of Sin

by Adele Ashworth

  “I waited as I’d planned,” he went on, his jaw so taut from outrage he could hardly move it. “But I quickly discovered she never had any intention of leaving for a rendezvous at the pub at seven. No sooner had I wedged my rain-soaked body between a stone well and a hedge across the street, than she and one of the great actors in this despicable play walked from her nursery, his arm around her waist, his coat protectively covering her shoulders.” He swallowed. “That’s when I finally understood. They’d worked out a scheme to acquire the manuscript, and when that didn’t work, when they discovered I’d be giving them nothing more than a forged copy, they changed the plan.”

  “Changed the plan to what?” Colin asked, utterly confounded.

  Will suddenly felt like smashing something. With clenched teeth, he replied, “To kidnapping.”

  “What?”

  Gruffly, Sam argued, “This is getting far too complicated for my understanding.”

  Irritably, Will exhaled a fast breath through his nostrils, then reached into his breast pocket to remove a small, lavender invitation card. Handwritten on one side, he read it aloud.

  “We have Lady Vivian. In three days you will be contacted with instruction on payment for her safe return. Tell nobody or I will slice her throat and do it with pleasure.”

  Sam reached up and grabbed it out of his hands.

  Colin’s mouth dropped open an inch. “What is that all about?”

  Will slapped his palm on the piano top so hard the strings inside rattled. “It’s about a well-planned attempt to extort money from me!”

  The fierceness in his voice was unmistakable, the tension within coiled and ready to explode. Colin and Sam stared at him, astounded. He had never before exhibited such raw fury in front of them. In front of anyone.

  A minute or two ticked by in strained silence. Then Sam murmured, “When did you get this?”

  His friend’s concern flowed through his words unmistakably, and Will felt a brief second of regret for his uncalled-for outburst. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize, for Christ’s sake. Just answer the damn question,” Colin interrupted, exasperated.

  He rubbed his eyebrows roughly with his palm. “It was here, waiting for me, when I returned from town.”

  “Who delivered it?”

  “It came by post.”

  “So somebody knew you’d see the two of them,” Colin speculated, “and knew with enough time to send this.”

  “Not necessarily,” he countered, though he could think of nothing more deductive to add. He hadn’t thought of it rationally like that, not with his feelings so tangled.

  Sam tapped the invitation against his fingertips, staring at it. “Did they see you?”

  He couldn’t stand still any longer, and so began to pace again, rounding the rocker, gazing up to the enormous portrait of his grandmother—tight-lipped, determined, and dressed in yellow silk—hanging on the far north wall.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “I sincerely doubt it. It was raining steadily by then and I never gave her any indication beforehand that I’d be waiting close by.”

  “But when you noticed the two of them leaving her home,” Colin maintained, “she didn’t look in your direction, or signal to you in any way?”

  Will snickered bitterly. “No. She looked around briefly, then straight up to his face.”

  “Ah. She glanced around… searching?”

  “Or perhaps just to see if I was watching,” he rebutted.

  “But you said you didn’t think she could see you, and she had no idea you’d be there,” Colin repeated as if trying to stress a point.

  Will frowned, pivoting to face the men again.

  Colin’s cool and cautious surmising surprised him. Always the one to joke, to lift the moment between the three of them by interjecting some bit of dry humor, they expected nothing less from him. He was ever the reprieve from the gravest of situations; Sam the thinker; Will the one with the problems—or so it had seemed in recent years. Colin, though, had been Will’s greatest strength when he’d been on trial for murder, simply because his friend’s keen wit had kept him from sinking into a depression to rival Elizabeth’s before her death.

  But now, in a manner unlike him, Colin grew pensive, sitting forward once more on the edge of the sofa and staring at the tea table, tapping the top of it softly with his two index fingers.

  “What are you thinking?” Will asked him very slowly.

  “I was wondering the same thing,” Sam remarked, shifting his body so that he no longer straddled the piano bench, but sat facing the two of them, leaning back to rest his elbows on the wooden keyboard cover.

  Colin remained quiet for a moment, then said, “I was thinking that all of this seems too clever, too… contrived. Too well-acted.”

  “I don’t follow,” Sam admitted, crossing one leg over the other.

  Colin glanced to the French doors, then stood abruptly, scratching his temple before clasping his hands behind his back and striding to the sideboard. He didn’t fix another drink, just stared down at it.

  “First, she didn’t know you’d be there. She couldn’t have, not for certain,” he began, laying out his thoughts as if piecing together a puzzle.

  “She had to know I’d be nearby. I told her as much,” Will maintained, resting his hip on the back of the sofa, arms crossed over his chest.

  “But not when and in what manner—dashing nobleman to her rescue, or clandestinely, to observe from the shadows.” Colin jerked his head around and looked at him directly. “And she couldn’t have known what you’d do when you saw the two of them together.”

  That, Will had to admit, was a fact he hadn’t thought of logically until now.

  “But they looked like lovers,” he said almost defensively.

  Sam cocked his head to one side to assert wryly, “You just said you took her virginity. In all her years of marriage and separation, you’re her first lover, and suddenly, in a matter of what—weeks? days?— you think she’s taken a second? That’s not even plausible.”

  For the first time in hours, Will felt a quick thrust of uncertainty course through him. “So maybe they aren’t lovers, but… co-conspirators. You just said you thought her actions, their actions, were too contrived.”

  “His actions, Will, not hers,” Colin charged, brows furrowed. “She sells flowers and has lived in Penzance for years, your words. He’s the one who’s suddenly entered her life.”

  For half the night, after seeing her and until his friends arrived less than thirty minutes earlier, he’d stood in this dark music room, feeling rejected beyond belief, consumed by a form of jealousy unlike anything he’d ever experienced in his life. He could think of nothing but the two of them together, his arm wrapped around her, his grin and her… what? He’d thought it looked like cheerful intimacy at the time, but now that they were analyzing it, he just couldn’t be that positive.

  “She certainly didn’t appear very frightened,” he said cautiously.

  “Well then, let’s define exactly what you did and did not see.” Sam cleared his throat. “It sounds to me as if you saw Vivian snuggled up to the man under the partial cover of his overcoat. Correct?”

  Will’s stomach gnawed at him; he couldn’t move, focused so intently as he was on his friend. “Yes.”

  Sam rubbed his jaw with his palm, staring at the floor as he continued with his line of thought. “He held her closely against him, and then the two of them got into his carriage. You didn’t find them in bed together, you didn’t see them embracing, or kissing, or hear them sharing words of love. You saw them, from a distance, walk from the rear of her house and get into a carriage. That’s it.” He glanced up. “And let’s not forget it was raining and you were across the street. How clearly could you see them anyway?”

  How clearly could you see…

  A dark, foreboding coldness began to descend upon him, blanketing him, pressing into his chest as each second ticked by. The uneasiness that h
ad engulfed him only moments ago now began to feel like panic—deep and terrifying and making his legs weak. With a tremor of unsteadiness, Will slowly grabbed on to the back of the rocker, gripping the wood tightly with both hands.

  “Just tell me this,” Colin said a minute later, his baritone voice slicing the stillness. “Why would a well-bred lady, who takes a romantic and sexual interest in you, a duke of your wealth and means, be even remotely interested in an actor? What would she have to gain from such a relationship? Where would they have met to plan a blackmail? And why, above all else, would she wait all these years to give you her virginity if she didn’t truly care about you?” Colin shook his head and faced him with a candid gaze. “I’m not in any way dismissing what you witnessed, but frankly, these questions alone make nefarious involvement on her part seem preposterous.”

  Without pause or argument, Sam interjected, “I agree.”

  Will stood absolutely still, barely able to breathe. His heart thumped rapidly in his chest as the only sound to disrupt the quiet of the night. For a long moment he closed his eyes and tried to envision Vivian as he knew her. Really knew her. Either she was honest with him from the beginning, contacted him initially solely because she needed his help to keep the secrets of her past hidden and intact, and then nestled inside the coat of an attractive man as she got into his carriage because she was frightened, or even threatened, into doing as he wanted, or for weeks now she had lied and schemed so well that he did not detect one shred of pretense on her part. His mind immediately filled with the vivid vision of her sitting so beautifully on the grassy coastline, alone with him, letting him make love to her, hearing her whisper, “I like touching you… I like the way you look at me…” And that first perfect night they were together. “This will only end if you want it to…”

  That was not an act. Suddenly it all became very clear and Will started to shake.

  “You don’t understand the whole situation,” he said at once through a ragged exhale, opening his eyes again and rubbing his face with one of his palms to try and keep himself calm. “My investigator informed me this evening that Gilbert Montague, whose real name is Gilbert Herman, was a childhood friend of Elizabeth’s.”

  “Jesus,” Sam blurted. “Why didn’t you tell us that before now?”

  Will felt like jumping out of his skin. “Because I didn’t see the connection before now!”

  His outburst didn’t faze them this time.

  Colin leaned on the sideboard, both palms flat on the top surface. “Well what is the bloody connection?”

  “Oh, God,” Will breathed as he became grossly aware of the incredible danger he had ignored.

  “Will,” Sam repeated intently, slowly walking toward him, “what’s the connection?”

  His blood turned to ice; his shaking became pronounced as he gazed from one friend to the other. In a tone a shade above a whisper, he replied, “Vivian got into that carriage with Steven Chester.”

  The shock inside the music room grew to a tangible thing. For ages, it seemed, nobody moved a muscle, nobody uttered a sound.

  Then at last, Sam stammered a simple, “What?”

  Colin said nothing, transfixed.

  Will’s legs gave out at last and he slid down into the rocker again. “I saw them together and I couldn’t believe it,” he gruffly explained, staring at the floor in a daze, clutching his hands in front of him as the fog in his mind gradually began to clear.

  “The second I laid eyes on the two of them I just assumed I’d been manipulated for money. Aside from Elizabeth’s manuscript, that’s all Steven and Elinor have ever wanted from me. So as I stood in the rain and watched Vivian step from the back of her house and into her front garden, held so protectively in the arms of Elizabeth’s handsome, titled brother, I just assumed they were lovers because then everything seemed to fall into place and make perfect sense, all arranged from the very beginning.”

  Freezing inside, Will brushed beads of sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand. “But Steven, Elinor, and Gilbert Herman used Vivian to get to me, which now seems much more logical. She was always just an innocent pawn.” He paused and looked back at his friends. “They set her up to coerce me but when we became lovers and she told me everything, it spoiled their plan to get the manuscript returned to them. That’s when they realized how very much she’s worth to me and decided to alter their well-thought-out conspiracy. And I’ve been sitting here doing nothing for nearly six hours—” Suddenly he was so choked with fear for her he could not continue.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sam said almost inaudibly.

  Colin started walking toward him, his tone grave as he stated with conviction, “You cannot wait for them to contact you.”

  “No,” he whispered in a sweeping, fierce determination, abruptly standing again and turning to face them both, rage replacing his fear in an instant of decision. “I don’t think Elinor is dangerous, but Steven will kill Vivian if he thinks he needs to. I’ve never been more certain of anything.”

  “Which means—”

  “Alone, she has no options. I must take her back.”

  Deafening silence reigned once more. Standing in a semicircle, they stared at each other. Then Sam said, “We will take her back. You can’t do this alone.”

  Colin groaned and stretched his neck to the ceiling. “I knew you were going to say that.”

  Will’s nostrils flared, his lips thinned. Fisting his hands at his sides, he tried not to think about how desperately she needed him, how he had nearly betrayed her trust in him. How scared she had to be right now. He swallowed hard to keep from breaking down.

  In a shaky voice, he said, “We’re wasting time. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where to?” Colin asked as they all began to move toward the door.

  Over his shoulder, Will replied, “We’re riding to Truro tonight.”

  Chapter 20

  He banged on the tall front door at the main house on the Chester estate well before the dawn. Colin and Sam stood behind him and to his left, beneath a broken, hanging trellis and atop overgrown weeds that snaked their way onto the stone steps leading up to the landing. He had known the Chesters were in need of money, but upon riding onto the property, it became very apparent why they were so desperate for his manuscript, and when they couldn’t acquire it, why such a once decent family had sunk to the depths of kidnapping for ransom.

  Impatiently, Will glanced out to the still-dark eastern sky. They’d ridden northwest from Penzance at full pace, but the dense fog had slowed them down in spots where they should have been able to make better time. The roads had been relatively empty, though, and they didn’t speak to anyone on the journey.

  But the time in silence did afford Will the opportunity to reflect on the last few passionate weeks, to worry about the future, and the closer he got to Elinor and the haunting of his past, the more infuriated he became at the indignity she and her family had caused him and those he cared about for so many years. Now they had sweet, beautiful Vivian, the one innocent person in all of this, stolen as they might steal a diamond necklace, held for a price somewhere in the south of England, desperately needing him as she’d never needed anyone in her life.

  Will banged the door again, this time using the pad of his fist instead of the knocker. If he could, he’d break it down, but two things held him back: The door was heavy and thick, and, as he rationally considered it, with so much at stake during the day and night to come, he couldn’t afford to break an ankle right now.

  Fortunately, he didn’t need to try. Seconds later the latch clicked and almost instantaneously he shoved his body on the door and forced his way inside to stand in the dimly lit foyer, staring into the sleepy eyes of the Chesters’ night-dressed butler, Stockard.

  “Wake the Lady Elinor,” he demanded, his tone low and cool and utterly menacing.

  The older man took a step back and blinked in surprise. “Your grace—”

  “Now,” he insisted, “or I will
walk upstairs and yank her out of bed myself.”

  Colin and Sam had followed him inside and now stood behind him, Sam closing the door softly, making it clear that this was no social call, and they would not be slighted into leaving anytime soon.

  The butler eyed each of them quickly, tight-lipped with annoyance, then nodded once. “I will see if she is at home.”

  Will almost laughed. Even in the middle of the wretched night, protocol reigned. “I would do so at once,” he pressed with obvious restlessness.

  They didn’t have to wait. As soon as Stockard turned toward the bottom landing of the formal staircase that descended from the private quarters above, Elinor appeared at the top step, dressed in a frilly pink robe, buttoned from neck to ankles. She gazed down at the three of them, a tiny, snide smile curling her upper lip.

  “My goodness, you’re here so early, your grace,” she purred with false sweetness. “You’re looking… as well as could be expected.”

  Just the sound of her shrill, little voice after all these years made his flesh crawl and his heart start to hammer away in his chest from unresolved anger and intense animosity. He hadn’t seen or spoken with Elinor since the end of his trial, and yet the disgust he’d felt all those years ago suddenly flooded back through him in tumultuous waves.

  “Where is she?” he asked in deadly softness, his stance forward and intimidating, hands fisted at his sides.

  Elinor slowly glided down the steps, one hand on the railing, her expression lit with a disdain one might associate with a corrupt and regal queen regarding her worthless subjects.

  “I see you also brought your friends,” she remarked casually, ignoring his question and mood altogether. “How quaint. But you are a bit early for breakfast, don’t you think?”

  Will remained unmoved by her sarcastic facade. “Where is Mrs. Rael-Lamont?” he asked again, his voice chilling the musty air surrounding them. “Tell me now or I will force your filthy secrets from your lying lips.”

  The butler gasped, indignant, glancing from one to the other, unsure what to do.