Gibb struck off at a tangent through the shrubbery along a narrow grass track. If his memory served him right from the few times he’d been in the grounds over the years, it ended in a soil-covered clearing.
Just before he reached the area, the moon came out from behind a cloud and he was able to take in the scene in front of him.
It was Evangeline, now dressed in a neat, conventional walking dress and jacket, her bonnet on her back, held in place by ribbons around her neck, and a large carpet bag on the ground beside her. However, it was not she who needed rescuing. As he slowed and without a sound stood behind a convenient bush, the man grabbed her and pulled her hair so her head tilted backward.
“Who the hell are you to show me up in front of my peers?” The words shot out of him in staccato bursts. “A French whore. Ha. You should beg for my attention.” The man put one hand on her breast and laughed. “Can’t stop me now, eh?”
“Let go of me, you couchon.” She spat out the insult with enough venom to make any sane man take note and back off. Not so her assailant. He attacked once more and she lifted her leg and kicked him and caught him—fair and square—between the thighs in his most vulnerable area.
“Ooft wha…” The man swore as he bent his legs, straightened and wheezed. “You little bi—”
Gibb now saw her attacker was indeed Lord Crowe. Crowe wheezed and got no further. One minute he stood upright and menacing, the next he seemed to fly through the air to end up on his back in the dirt several yards away.
Gibb blinked as Evangeline moved swift and sure to put one boot-clad foot on Crowe’s chest and point a knife at his gonads. She was fast.
“You know, m’sieur?” she said almost conversationally. “In my country sweetbreads are a delicacy much appreciated. I would enjoy trying them.” She licked her lips in such a suggestive way Gibb’s body became taut with tension. “After…” Her voice trailed off and the knife moved an inch or so closer to Crowe’s skin.
Gibb winced and his hands moved involuntarily to cover himself. His stomach lurched. She seemed a mite too knowing of just what made a male cringe.
“That part of an alleged English aristocrat would fetch an excellent price and set me up for life,” Evangeline said in the calm and precise way she had spoken in before. “I almost wish you would do something else so I have an excuse to go ahead and cut your bollocks off before I attack your sweetbreads.”
Crowe blanched and covered his groin with both hands, in much the same way Gibb himself had.
“You?” Crowe sneered. “You wouldn’t, you’d never get away with it. My word against a French whore’s? No contest.”
Gibb decided it was time to make his presence known, and strolled into the clearing. “Oh I think there would be, Crowe,” he drawled, every inch a duke. “After all, whose word would they take? Yours or mine? Think about it, a lord or a duke? I assure you I’d tell the truth. All of it.”
“What?” Both Crowe’s and Evangeline’s heads whipped round at the sound of his voice. Crowe looked discomforted, Evangeline amused.
“You’d back her? A…” Crowe’s voice faltered as the knife shone while Evangeline twisted it between her hands. Crowe swallowed convulsively. “A woman,” he croaked at last.
“Oh, yes.” Gibb smiled and was amused to see it made Crowe appear even more worried. He didn’t think his smile so alarming. “I am a gentleman. Now, if the lady is willing to let you get up unscathed, I suggest you run away as fast as your spindly little legs will let you and forget everything about this encounter. Every little thing,” he said with deliberate menace in his voice. “Banish it from your mind as if it never happened. For I warn you, if I hear anything detrimental about the lady, I will be the one to offer your sweetbreads to the French, not her. And remember, even though I may not be in London very often, I still hear things.”
He stood back and nodded to Evangeline. “It is up to you. If you prefer to extract revenge, be my guest. I’ll turn my back. Or hold him down, whichever you prefer.”
She gave Gibb a swift, gamine grin before she looked down at Crowe. “Such a difficult decision,” she mused in a flat voice, devoid of any emotion. It was enough to send shivers up Gibb’s spine and he was the innocent party. No wonder Crowe lost what little color he had left and swallowed several times.
“Is he worthy of my knife or my leniency, I wonder?” She tilted her head to one side and put her index finger on her lips in a parody of someone in deep thought. “After all, I have other ways of making him suffer.”
Her foot danced lower until Gibb decided it was mere inches away from Crowe’s staff. It appeared evident that Crowe decided her question might not be mere rhetoric and stayed still and silent.
They all remained like that in a frozen tableau for several seconds, then Evangeline laughed in a harsh tone, so unlike the pleasant notes Gibb had enjoyed before.
“I must learn to curb those impulses,” she said, her voice once more that attractive husky voice Gibb had noted earlier. “So sad, but I have been told on more than one occasion to control my violent tendencies.” With a regretful sigh, she lifted her knife to point it away from her victim, before she stood upright. “I have decided he is not worthy of my attention. He may go.” She sounded as imperious as a queen issuing the edict of ‘off with his head’.
Gibb nudged Crowe with his toe. “You heard the lady. I’d make a run for it if I were you, before she or I change our minds.” He took a step backward, put his hands around Evangeline’s waist and held her fast. She glared at him over her shoulder but didn’t speak. The heat from her body seared his fingers, even through her plain, ordinary dress, and a tantalizing caress of something arousing swept over him once more. He did his best to ignore it. Unwanted and unfounded, he told his traitorous body. Not the companion, the place or the time. Plus it never would be, unless this was a lady who would agree to a no-strings, no-emotions coupling. Somehow, having seen her fiery temper, he didn’t think that was a likely scenario. She stiffened then relaxed in his grip before she gave a curt nod.
“As he says.”
Without expression, Gibb watched as Crowe scrambled to his feet and staggered away back toward the house. He wondered idly what excuse Crowe would give for his dishevelled appearance and shuffling gait.
It was neither his problem nor his priority, Gibb decided. The stunning woman in front of him was.
“At the risk of attracting your ire, which in all sincerity I hope I will not, may I escort you away from this den of idiots?” He held out his arm and waited.
To his amazement and delight, she giggled. “Better idiots than iniquity I think, but here it is difficult to separate the two. Even so, I do believe you may.”
Evangeline wondered if all her wits had deserted her. Was this a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire? Her instinct told her no, her common sense told her to be careful because it could be. She took a swift sideways glance at the tall, dark-haired, smoky-eyed male next to her, noticed the play of muscles under his tight-fitting exquisite gray evening jacket and shivered. He was not someone to be toyed with. She made sure her stiletto was reachable with ease.
Now she saw him more clearly, Evangeline was certain she remembered seeing this man watch her demonstration. He had stood out of her immediate eye line and looked somewhat uninterested. As if he had been there under protest. The sort of person she liked to pick on, even if the best outcome she achieved was to shake them up a little. If he had been closer to the front she would have beckoned him forward, not the idiot she’d ended up being saddled with. Now she was thankful she hadn’t been able to give in to that whim, because he would have turned her into forcemeat. Evangeline decided she needed her wits about her. He was a powerful stranger, albeit one who had come to her aid, and she still had no idea who he was. Her mind made up, she would ensure her knife remained in her hand, ready to use if required.
The man next to her glanced down at her weapon and chuckled.
“I promise not to make
any sudden moves. I also swear I am not interested in your body. I desire to see you safely away from here and imbeciles such as Crowe. Some people think the courage they gain when alcohol-fueled is enough to deem irresponsible acts acceptable.”
“Thank you.” Evangeline looked him up and down. He seemed sane, rational and normal, but then who didn’t? “I appreciate your restraint.” She took a deep breath. She had to ask. “May I be so bold as to inquire who you are?”
He hit his forehead with one palm. “Grief, yes, I forget we haven’t been introduced.” He bowed very formally. By someone else it could have been a mockery. From him it was not so. Her toes curled into her sandals. “Gibb Alford, at your service. Otherwise known as the Duke of Menteith. I prefer to be called Gibb by my friends.”
Oh my. Evangeline had heard of him of course. No one who spent any time around the upper echelons of society, even on the very fringes, could fail to do so. The mad duke, the misogynist duke, the tortured duke and, from those of a romantic bent, the duke with no heart. The one thing she hadn’t heard about was why he was so named. “I haven’t seen you around,” she said as he unlatched a door in the wall and stood back to let her precede him through the gap. “Are you new to town?”
Evangeline picked up her carpetbag, stepped into the mews beyond the garden and wondered how he would respond. Open and with nothing to hide, or with the bare minimum of information? After all, what was she to him? An entertainer he’d chosen to help out of a situation she could have handled, did handle, but on a whim, chose to let him intervene in? It was so unlike her that for one brief moment she wondered why she had behaved in that manner. To enable the young idiot who’d thought she was easy game to save face? Perhaps, but also, if she were honest, it had been to safeguard her livelihood. Knife-throwing might not be her lifelong goal or ambition but at that moment it was what kept her fed, clothed and with a roof over her head.
Until… She shied away from trying to answer that.
“New?” the duke mused and regained her attention. “I wouldn’t say so. However, it’s rare that I come to the capital unless ducal duty calls. This visit is because I wanted to speak on the Poor Laws. They need updating.” He frowned. “Otherwise I shun it—London—and the machinations of the ton wherever and whenever possible.”
She could understand that. More and more Evangeline wished there was some other alternative to her present lifestyle. But she would be no man’s mistress, or worse, and unless it promised her a better life than she had now, no man’s wife. So far that hadn’t materialized. Plus she had an agenda, and until she completed her self-imposed task nothing else mattered. Knife-throwing gave her a living. The success of her itinerary would give her a life.
Or so she hoped.
“And you?” the duke—Gibb—asked her. “What about you? Why are you here?”
“As the entertainment, my lord,” she said in a lighthearted manner. “What else? La Belle Evangeline, knife-thrower extraordinaire. No more, no less. Although some of your peers tend to interpret that as their entertainment and have to be disabused of the idea.”
“Hence the knife?” He sounded amused rather than worried. “Do you carry many about your body?”
Was his attitude a good or a bad thing? The last thing she needed was a duke getting too close to her and asking questions she could not—or would not—answer.
“Enough, my lord. You have it correct. And I know how to use them in more ways than throwing them around a body, toward a screen, without hitting anyone.” She spoke in a tone that most would accept as ‘ask no more’. Not him, though.
“By hitting someone intentionally, in the place you decide befits the crime?” he asked drily. “Remind me never to annoy you.” He grinned and her heart missed a beat. He was charm personified.
In this mood, if she hadn’t seen him otherwise, she would have said all those reports of his brusque and antisocial attitude were exaggerated.
“Oh, I will. So, that, plus filleting a fish and how do you say, gralloching a deer. I am,” she paused, wondered if it was too much of a potential innuendo and said it anyway, “versatile, my lord.”
“Gibb,” he said firmly. “Nothing else. And I’m impressed. Where did you learn such skills, and such English?”
“In France, my lord. Where else?” That was ambiguous enough, was it not? “My maman was insistent I spoke your tongue well enough to understand and be understood. No one knew what might have to be done to safeguard a life.”
He nodded. “Your maman was a wise woman. The revolution plus the long-lasting problems with Napoleon were bad times, and my name is ‘Gibb’.” He waited and she firmed her lips. He essayed a faint smile. “She did a good job—your maman. And Gibb.”
Evangeline shook her head. Why was he so insistent? “That is not seemly.”
He stopped walking and turned her to stand in front of him before he took hold of her chin and tipped her face upward to look at him. This close, the dark amber flecks in his eyes showed in the moonlight. Tiny strands of gray glittered in his hair as a gentle breeze ruffled it.
He was, Evangeline thought, the epitome of a gentleman.
“Call it a ducal decree. Can we not be friends?” The intensity of his gaze was at odds with his body language, which showed indifference. A strange conundrum.
“Friends? Perhaps. Who knows? They are not something I have a lot to do with at the moment.” Although if it were possible she would welcome it.
He smiled so briefly she wondered if she imagined it.
“Nor me,” he said as a strange shadow flickered over his expression, so fleeting that if she hadn’t been watching as close as she was she would have missed it.
“So tell me,” he asked, “are you truly French?”
“What?” The abrupt change of direction flummoxed her for a second. “French? Of course I am.”
“But you speak my language as if it were your own, albeit with a charming accent, and know words such as gralloch? Most would say disembowel, if they said anything at all,” Gibb said easily, in a tone that belied the piercing look in his eyes. “Unusual.”
“I am not most people,” Evangeline pointed out, her heart thumping and her pulse much too fast for comfort. She prayed he didn’t push and ask more. It was impossible to explain why her maman had insisted she learned to speak English, and mentioned that the Scots were different. Not unless Evangeline also shared the secret she had recently uncovered. It would be even harder to explain how she had discovered the reason for her maman’s reticence, and thus undertaken to come to Britain. “If you truly wish to escort me home we need to head in that direction.” She pointed across the square they had reached. It would no doubt be easier than trying to dissuade him.
“Bruton Street?” he said, surprised, as they crossed the square and skirted the gardens, which were locked at dusk every night. “You are also a modiste?”
Did it have to follow that because she lived in a street famed for the designers of exquisite clothes for ladies to wear, she had to be of that ilk? “Not at all, I live above Madame Coeur.”
“Who?” He now sounded more interested than paying lip service to their conversation.
Damn.
“Eloise,” Evangeline said briefly. “She is the modiste.”
“Ah. I do believe I have heard of her,” his lordship said in a wry tone. “Many of my peers have, ah, ladies who would like to be dressed by her.”
That she understood. Eloise was very exclusive and dressed those she wished, not those she did not. “You should know the name, for she is the one person by whom people cannot demand to be dressed, however much money they have,” Evangeline said matter-of-factly. “Exclusivity is her byword, and she chooses her clientele with great care.”
“And is she French also?”
What was it with him and her nationality? “As French as I am.” Actually, she thought as they turned the corner into Bruton Street and saw her front door a few yards ahead, Eloise was, she had long decided, more
French than she.
Evangeline made her farewells thankfully. He had been kind enough to intervene on her behalf. Now she hoped he would be kind enough to leave her alone.
Chapter Two
Gibb let himself into his London home—Alford House, an elegant four-story stone mansion set in its own not inconsiderable gardens, on one side of a leafy square—and shut the door behind him with a quiet click. He threw his keys and hat onto a console table placed handily not two feet from the door and propped his cane in a nearby umbrella stand. His cape he draped over the newel post, and made a mental apology to his major-domo for his untidiness and his housekeeper for the drips now collecting on the shining tiles. The rainstorm had been short, sharp and unexpected. He had been halfway home when it had begun and been soaked within minutes. It hadn’t seemed worth trying to get a hackney cab and he’d splashed on, for the rain to stop as suddenly as it had started.
At least the capital looked clean after the storm.
As usual, his staff had done as he’d requested and retired rather than wait up for his return. The shutters were closed and a lamp left on low to illuminate the room. Nevertheless, Gibb was sure that if he rang the bell in his study, his major-domo would appear within seconds, perfectly dressed and ready to satisfy Gibb’s every whim. Likewise his valet in the bedroom, the chef in the dining room and the housekeeper anywhere and everywhere. Probably even the scullery maid and the boot boy were primed and waiting, all ready to do his bidding. Anything to make him happy.
For too long he had been aware of how they cared about him.
The looks they gave him—worry, sorrow, compassion, even at times impatience—were sometimes overwhelming. At least from them he didn’t get the well-meaning but unwanted advice any dowager who got close to him seemed to think it was their duty to offer.
The Duke's Temptation Page 2
