Stroke of Genius

by Marlowe Mia

  Crispin followed him to the pair of burgundy leather wing chairs flanking a massive fireplace. He sank into the seat gratefully and massaged his thigh.

  “Your jaw is bruising. Expect you’ll want a beefsteak for it,” Crispin pointed out with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Beyond the closure of finally knowing my true parentage, I can’t see what there is to discuss. To be honest, I’ve done well for myself. I have no need of your help.”

  “Let us say that I am in need of yours.” Lord Dorset pulled a key from his pocket. Then he opened a cleverly hidden deep drawer in the table beside his chair. He drew out a decanter of liquor and two small glasses. “Sherry. A rather pleasant vice I’ve recently acquired. Join me.”

  It was not a question. Hawke accepted the jigger and knocked back its contents.

  “After we met at Almack’s, I made some inquiries,” Dorset said. “You are indeed wealthier than most of the earls I know, so money will not entice you to help me. Other than your peccadilloes with married women, you have no vices I could use to convince you—no gambling debts, no opium addiction.” Dorset sipped his sherry, savoring the flavor. “That surprised me, by the way, given the level of pain you obviously live with.”

  “What is it you need me to do for you?”

  “I’m going to give you an opportunity to spit in the old devil’s eye, Hawke.” Dorset refilled Hawke’s glass and raised his in mock toast to the portrait of their mutual sire. “The man made a bastard of you. How would you like to put a bastard of your own in line for his title?”

  Hawke suspected it wasn’t only Lord Dorset’s mother who was a little mad. “What are you suggesting?”

  Dorset drew a deep breath. “Ten years ago, I suffered an accident. I bought a green-broke Arabian stallion and the damn thing kicked me in the groin. I’ll skip the gory details but suffice it to say the incident rendered me . . . incapable of continuing the Dorset line.” The marquess downed the rest of his sherry. “Spare me any sympathy you may feel. I am Dorset. And I need none of your pity. I do however need you.”

  Crispin looked back up at the picture of his father. It was damned inconsiderate of him to die before Crispin could give him the beating he deserved. Was there a way to pay his father back for the years of privation and neglect? Did he even need to deliver retribution for his mother any more? His memories of her were hazy, but he suspected she wouldn’t want him to spread around any misery on her account.

  “I intend to marry Miss Makepeace,” Dorset said, as if merely speaking the words would make it so. “After the ceremony, I will explain to her the nature of my ailment and the arrangement you and I have reached.”

  “What arrangement is that?”

  “And you’re supposed to be a genius,” Dorset muttered with irritation. “There’s no disputing your Dorset blood and that’s what is important. You will father children on my future wife, with the utmost discretion of course, and I will claim them as mine. The Dorset line will thus continue to the benefit of all.”

  Crispin wondered if there was something stronger than alcohol in that decanter. “I understand why you think you need me, but why Grace?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but Miss Makepeace’s family seems willing to go to any length to secure a title for her. An Englishwoman of noble family could hardly be expected to agree to this plan.”

  Anger burned in Crispin’s veins at the insult to Grace. “So you intend to marry her and then make a whore of her?”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “No, I think you’re missing the point.” Crispin stood and began to pace. He needed to move lest he pop Dorset in the face again. “You evidently don’t know Grace. She won’t marry one man and bed another.”

  “Once she realizes it’s the only way for her to conceive—”

  “It won’t matter. She’s a woman of principle. Damn it, she’s the sort who will pity you when she learns about your accident and might even convince herself to love you because of it.”

  “Then you’ll have to convince her otherwise,” Dorset said. “You can do that, I think. I mean, haven’t you already convinced this principled young woman out of her maidenhead?”

  There was no point in denying it. Dorset evidently did know everything that happened on his estate.

  “I don’t ask this for myself. Do you think I wanted to tell you that I—” The marquess’s lip clamped tight for a moment while he composed himself. Then he continued in a reasonable, even tone. “There is no other heir, no ancillary line. If I die without a son, the marquessate devolves to the Crown and my people here would be scattered. It is my duty to care for this land and the lives attached to it. Yours, too, as a bearer of Dorset blood. Dare I say it?” He grimaced but still forced the words from his throat. “As my brother.”

  “And you expect me to pay for my Dorset blood by rutting your marchioness on command?”

  Dorset’s eyes narrowed. “There is no need to be crude.”

  “Sorry. Being raised in a whorehouse doesn’t lend itself to fine manners.”

  “And being raised in a manor house doesn’t prepare one to accept ‘no’ for an answer.”

  If Lord Dorset had suggested this unholy arrangement to him a few weeks ago, Crispin would have leapt at the chance. Grace would merely be the latest member of his Unhappy Wives of Inattentive Husbands Club, with said husband’s blessing! He’d have the delicious duty of consoling her on a regular basis and keep his precious freedom.

  Now, freedom didn’t have the same allure. He wanted more than Grace’s body, he was surprised to discover. He wanted to wake up beside her. To watch her busy about her day. To discover why she had a perpetual ink stain on her finger. It would take his whole life to learn Grace by heart, but he was prepared to devote the time.

  “You’d better prepare yourself for disappointment, brother, because it won’t work. I won’t be a party to this. I won’t diminish Grace this way.” Crispin raked a hand through his hair. “Good God, man, she’s not just a convenient womb for your heir. Perhaps she’d be happy not to face childbed. It’s no light matter, you know.”

  Dorset frowned at him for a moment, clearly puzzled by Crispin’s response, then his sandy brows lifted. “You love her,” the marquess said in wonderment.

  “Yes, and I intend to marry her.” The words, like the punch he threw earlier, flew out of his mouth before he thought them. But they sounded right when he said them.

  Dorset stood, his face furious. “If you try, I will ruin you. The ton will learn of your sordid whore of a mother. No one will buy your art. It will be tainted by your past. You’ll be reduced to making chalk drawings on the pavers and begging for tuppence, I promise you.”

  “I give you leave to try, my lord,” Crispin said, rising to sketch a sardonic bow. “Rumors of my past have been tittered over for years, each story more outlandish than the last. If anything, it only drives more interest in my work and raises the fees I’m able to command. Perhaps I should start circulating the tale about who sired me myself. If you’ll pardon me, my lord, I have work to do.”

  Crispin turned to go.

  “Then I’ll ruin her.”

  That stopped him.

  “What will the ton say when they hear of the way Miss Makepeace couldn’t keep her knees together in my cottage? Hmm?” Dorset raised a brow at him.

  “If I marry her—”

  “It will only serve to substantiate the tale.” The marquess laughed unpleasantly. “But I daresay it would please a number of folk to see you brought to heel.”

  “Do what you will with me, but the Makepeaces don’t need the ton. Grace’s father is a wealthy man,” Crispin shot back. “They can always go home and escape your malicious rumor mongering.”

  “Yes, I’ll see to it her family runs back to Boston with their heads hanging low and their tails tucked. And I have agents in Philadelphia who will be happy to make a trip to Boston to put word of Miss Makepeace’s indiscretions in a few of the right ears there
as well.”

  Crispin shook his head. He grew up in the gutter with much less seething bitterness than emanated from the marquess now. Losing one’s manhood was a blow, no doubt, and Crispin pitied him, but turning vicious wouldn’t restore it.

  “It seems that horse took more than your balls, Dorset. It took your honor as well.”

  Crispin glanced up at the cruel, handsome face in the portrait. If growing up under their father’s thumb is what warped his half-brother’s soul, Crispin decided he’d been better off at Peel’s Abbey.

  “Do as you will, my lord,” Crispin said as he turned to stalk out. “And I will do as I must.”

  * * *

  Lord Dorset poured himself another sherry, but thought better of it. With a low growl, he tossed the jigger into the fireplace with a tinkling crash before he stomped out the same way Hawke left.

  At the window to the right of the fireplace, the heavy velvet draperies fluttered, then parted slightly and Lady Sheppleton peered cautiously around the long gallery. The room was finally empty. She drew a relieved breath and crept out of her hiding place.

  Sweat trickled from her brow and the armpits of her morning gown were ringed with damp. The concealed window seat had been deucedly hot, but she couldn’t have allowed herself to be caught poking around in the little used rooms of the grand house. Her instinct to skitter behind the drawn curtains when she first heard Lord Dorset and the artist coming proved the correct course of action.

  The things one heard when no one was aware of one’s presence! Excitement bubbled inside her like a pot near to boiling.

  “Wait till Lord Washburn hears about this,” she mumbled. A bastard’s true parentage, an illicit liaison between Hawke and Miss Makepeace and an impotent marquess’s indecent proposal. It was too delicious. She could wait to share the juicy morsels with her confederate.

  He’d know best how to use them.

  Chapter 35

  The gods are never content that mankind should find joy with ease. Pygmalion wasn’t the least surprised when they hurled new obstacles in his path.

  “Hold still, mam’selle,” Claudette ordered while she worked on Grace’s hair. “You must look your best for the dancing this evening.”

  Grace had been forced through several changes of clothing and hairstyles throughout the day as new members of the house party arrived. She was wearing a pale green gown with a blue spencer when she met Lord and Lady Sumter and their three exceedingly unmarried daughters. They presented themselves for the noon meal, at which their host was conspicuously absent.

  Then in late afternoon, Grace changed into a delicate cream silk to keep her appointment for tea with the dowager marchioness.

  “All day long it is busy, busy, busy with the servants coming with the new guests. Where they shall put us all, I am not knowing. When you were taking the tea, did you meet any of the party?” Claudette wanted to know as she gathered Grace’s hair into a fist.

  “Yes, there was quite a press in the marchioness’s suite of rooms. Mother was most upset to discover we were not the only ones invited for soggy cucumber sandwiches and weak tea with Lady Dorset.”

  Grace had been presented to three earls, a viscount, and one exceedingly pompous fellow who proclaimed himself Sir Anthony Longbotham. There was also an assortment of ladies, all borrowing their status from their husbands or fathers. All very proper and sedate.

  And all deadly dull.

  No one had read any interesting books, seen any thought-provoking plays or taken note of anything done outside the limited circle of their well-born acquaintances. If being a titled lady meant one had to confine one’s interests to the weather and the proper way to tat doilies, Grace would pass on the honor.

  She was ready to pass on it in any case. She knew in her heart that she could not marry Lord Dorset. Not after giving herself to Crispin. There was nothing left of her heart to offer anyone else.

  He claimed it all.

  She hadn’t seen him since Claudette spirited her away from him that morning. She ought to have refused to leave like that, even if it meant being caught together. Much had passed between them during the long night of loving, but there remained much to settle.

  Grace resolved not to seek her bed that night until she’d done just that.

  Clairmont boasted a splendid ballroom on the third floor, complete with a little balcony where the musicians tuned their instruments while overlooking the dancers below. The swelled ranks of the house party milled about the room, gathering in tight little knots that broke apart and reassembled in new configurations as everyone made it their business to either greet or cut each other before the festivities began in earnest.

  If Almack’s was the soul of propriety and decorum, this crowd pushed fashion to its limits. The necklines of the ladies gowns were perilously low and the gentlemen seemed to be trying to “out-Brummell” each other in sartorial splendor.

  When the first rows of dancers began forming up for the opening cotillion, Grace searched the room for Crispin. This was typically a slow dance and one he might try. But he was nowhere to be seen.

  When Sir Anthony appeared before her begging the honor of the first dance, she couldn’t in good conscience refuse.

  * * *

  “Good evening, my lord.” Crispin gave his well-born half-brother a bow when he accidently encountered in him the corridor on the way to the ballroom.

  After working all afternoon on his Diana without a break, he’d bathed and donned his finest suit of clothing, the one he’d worn when he first presented himself to the Makepeaces. If he and Lord Dorset stood side-by-side, folk would be hard pressed to pick which of them was the bastard and which the peer of the realm based on dress alone.

  “Hawke,” the marquess said shortly. “Have you reconsidered?”

  “You know I have not.”

  “Then you leave me no choice but to—”

  “My lord, Mr. Hawke,” Lord Washburn called as he half-trotted toward them. “Just the two gentlemen I hoped to meet.”

  Lord Dorset glared at Washburn.

  “Oh! Am I interrupting something?” he asked all innocence. “It wouldn’t happen to be about my American cousin, would it?”

  “Why would you think that?” Hawke asked.

  “Because I heard some rather distressing news about . . . ” Washburn’s gaze flitted back and forth between them with a raised brow. “Well, in the interests of discretion, might I suggest we adjourn to a more private venue?”

  Lord Dorset narrowed his eyes at his neighbor. “Come, both of you. We’ll use my study.”

  Crispin bit back a groan. He’d just climbed the interminable stairs up to the ballroom and now he was expected to return to the ground floor level. He suspected Dorset chose his study specifically because it would be difficult for him.

  But at least the marquess set a slow and decorous pace which didn’t belabor Crispin’s leg too badly.

  Once they reached Lord Dorset’s study and the door latched behind them, the marquess took his seat behind an ornate cherry wood desk without suggesting they do the same. Crispin and the baron stood before him like errant schoolboys about to receive a dressing down.

  “Well, Washburn, what’s this about?”

  “It’s about Miss Makepeace,” the baron said. “I merely wanted to serve notice on both of you that you must cease to court her.”

  Crispin clapped his hands slowly. “Bravo, Washtub! That’s the best imitation of a pompous toad I’ve ever seen.”

  Which only made Grace’s cousin the baron puff his inconsiderable chest out further in indignation.

  “Surely such a request would be more appropriate coming from her father instead of her distant relation,” Lord Dorset said. “I don’t believe you have a dog in this hunt.”

  The baron snickered. “No, my lord, that honor belongs to you. Or more appropriately, I believe you have a dog that won’t hunt at all.”

  Dorset paled, but didn’t twitch an eyelash.

  “I
t has come to my attention, never mind how, that you, my lord, are impotent,” Washburn said with barely contained glee. “Through a profane arrangement with Hawke here, you intend to use my cousin Grace to place an ill-gotten whelp in line to succeed you. Let me assure you, sir, it will never happen.”

  Evidently Lord Dorset wasn’t the only one who knew everything that happened at Clairmont.

  Hawke decided blood—even wrong-side-of-the blanket blood—was thicker than water. He forced out a laugh and slapped Washburn on the back as if he’d told a ripe joke. “That’s rich! Someone’s been pulling your leg. Where did you hear such a load of codswallop?”

  “I assure you, my source is impeccable.” Washburn folded his arms across his chest.

  “No doubt some lady who’s been scheming to get her hooks into his lordship herself,” Hawk said. “Leaving aside the fact that I’m certain Miss Makepeace would never be party to such a plan, your information about his lordship is wrong. Ordinarily, I’d never betray a confidence, but my dear friend Olympia Sharp let slip that she’d been visited by the marquess on numerous occasions when he was last in London.”

  At the mention of the notorious courtesan’s name both men’s ears pricked.

  “A gentleman doesn’t speak of such things, Hawke,” the marquess reproved gently, but Crispin saw gratitude in his eyes.

  “Forgive me, my lord. If I may say so, Olympia was frankly agog at your lordship’s considerable carnal prowess—her words, mind you.” Crispin knew Olympia wouldn’t care if he put a few well-chosen words into her generous mouth. The marquis’s shoulders relaxed slightly. Crispin turned back to Washburn. “I greatly fear your ‘source’ is mistaken.”

  “She’s not mistaken about you though, Hawke,” Washburn said, revealing his source’s gender, probably without intending to. “You’ve been so careful to cultivate an air of mystery surrounding your background, but the truth is you are the son of a trollop. A common Cheapside whore.”

  “If it were true, and I’m not saying it isn’t, wouldn’t that just render my genius all the more brilliant?” Hawke bared his teeth at Washburn in a fierce parody of a smile.