Dangerous Dukes 02 - Darian Hunter - Duke of Desire

by Carole Mortimer

  Whether or not Lord Edgewood knew of the disappearance of his co-conspirator, Mariah certainly knew that a cornered animal was more likely to come out fighting, rather than cowering in the corner. And William Edgewood, once he became aware of Benson’s defection, was obviously intelligent enough to realise he no longer had anything else to lose.

  A single glance at the grimness of Darian’s expression, before he left to go in search of the older man, had told her that the dangerous Duke of Wolfingham fully intended to confront the older man as being the traitor he so obviously was.

  As Mariah was also aware that Darian had barely survived André Rousseau’s bullet just weeks ago.

  *

  ‘A little caution, if you please, Wolfingham!’

  Darian came to an abrupt halt to turn sharply in the middle of the ballroom, having easily recognised the softly spoken warning as coming from one of his closest friends, Christian Seaton, the Duke of Sutherland. And obviously also one of those uninvited guests Clara Nichols had referred to just minutes ago!

  ‘These masks hide a multitude of sins.’ Sutherland confirmed drily, dressed similarly to Darian, in dark clothing and a black mask, his eyes glinting violet through the eye-slits. ‘Your groom arrived at Winterton Manor with your note and we arrived here just in time to stop and question the Nicholses’ butler as he was attempting to leave,’ he supplied economically. ‘Rotherham and Maystone are here somewhere, too.’

  ‘You know of Edgewood’s involvement?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Benson squeaked like a stuck pig once he knew the game was up. No doubt hoping to shift some of the blame!’ The other man gave a grim smile. ‘Griff and Maystone are watching him even as we speak.’

  Darian nodded abruptly. ‘Do we have a plan of extraction?’

  ‘Maystone suggests— Good heavens, what is she doing?’ Sutherland growled with a sudden start of surprise.

  Darian tensed, very much afraid he knew exactly which ‘she’ his friend was referring to. ‘Where?’

  ‘The little fool!’ Sutherland had now turned fully in order to look across the heads of the other guests in the direction of the musicians. ‘Can you not keep your woman under control, Darian?’ he demanded disgustedly as the two of them began to push their way towards where Mariah now stood in conversation with Lord William Edgewood.

  ‘She is not my woman—’ Darian broke off with a start as he realised that, yes, that was exactly what Mariah now was.

  His woman.

  The woman he wished to protect, with his own life if necessary.

  The woman he admired and respected more than any other.

  The woman he now realised meant more to him than any other woman ever had. Or ever would?

  And at this moment his woman was deliberately endangering herself by engaging in conversation with the very man they both knew to have been one of the conspirators in the intended assassination of their beloved Regent.

  His mouth thinned as he prompted again, ‘Do we have a plan, Christian?’

  ‘We did, yes,’ the other man confirmed just as grimly. ‘That may be a little more difficult now that— Where is she going now?’ Sutherland demanded incredulously, both men coming to a halt and watching helplessly as Mariah, her hand companionably in the crook of Lord Edgewood’s arm, now crossed to the French doors and strolled outside on to the terrace with him.

  ‘Damn it to hell!’ Darian had never felt so helpless in his life before as he did at that moment. Or so much like putting Mariah across his knee and administering a sound thrashing, for having endangered herself so deliberately. A thrashing, because of his earlier promise to himself never to cause Mariah any physical harm, that would have to take a verbal form. A verbal tongue-lashing he fully intended to carry out the moment the two of them were alone together again.

  If they were ever alone together again.

  *

  ‘There is such an uncomfortable crush in there already,’ Mariah remarked lightly as she stepped outside into the briskness of the March evening air beside William Edgewood.

  He released his arm from her hold. ‘You may drop the pretence now, Countess,’ he dismissed scornfully.

  ‘Pretence?’ She gazed up at him guilelessly.

  Edgewood gave a scathing snort. ‘I am sure that we both know, with Wolfingham so obviously your lover, that you have absolutely no real interest in stepping outside into the moonlight with an old man like me.’

  In truth, Mariah had not thought any further beyond the need she felt to prevent Darian from challenging the older man, as she had known he fully intended doing when he left her side so precipitously.

  Outside, and alone on the terrace with William Edgewood—who appeared to have dropped all pretence of being that amiable fool everyone believed him to be and now looked at her with shrewdly calculating eyes—she now had time and opportunity to realise her mistake.

  To realise that cornered animal had now turned its rabid attentions on to her.

  She faced Edgewood unflinchingly as she decided to do exactly as he had suggested and cease all pretence. ‘Your cohort has already fled.’

  ‘So Clara unwittingly informed me a few minutes ago.’ He nodded tersely.

  Mariah nodded briskly. ‘There is no way of escaping, nowhere you might go now where you will not be caught and held for trial as a traitor and attempted assassin.’

  ‘Would not France be the practical choice?’ he derided.

  Mariah gave a pained frown. ‘Why? Why would you turn traitor on your own country? On your Regent?’ She had once asked Martin the same question.

  ‘You can ask me that here, in the midst of this debauchery that has become England?’ Edgewood scoffed. ‘And with a Regent more licentious than the rest?’

  And Martin’s answer had been just the same.

  ‘You are just as guilty of that licentiousness—’

  ‘Necessarily so…’ he nodded ‘…if I was to fool others into not suspecting my real feelings on the matter. My mother was French, you know. I am half-French, and my loyalties lie there rather than— Ah, Wolfingham, I wondered how long it would take for you to follow your mistress!’ Edgewood murmured derisively as he glanced over Mariah’s shoulder. ‘And I see you have brought several of your friends with you, too!’

  Mariah turned sharply to look at where Darian—and several of his friends?—had now joined them outside on the terrace.

  At least, she had fully intended to turn and look at them.

  Instead, she found herself suddenly held as Lord Edgewood’s prisoner, as he pulled her roughly in front of him and anchored her there, by placing an arm about her throat and pressing a pistol painfully against her temple.

  A single glance at Darian showed his eyes to be glittering intently behind his mask in the moonlight, his displeasure, at the vulnerable position in which Mariah now found herself, clear for all to see as he glared at her furiously.

  She quickly moved her gaze to the three masked gentlemen standing behind him, believing she recognised one of them as being the grey-haired Aubrey Maystone, but the identity of the other two were hidden behind their masks. ‘It would seem you are outnumbered, Lord Edgewood,’ she remarked slightly huskily, the tightness of his arm about her throat preventing her from breathing properly.

  ‘But I have the pistol,’ he pointed out conversationally.

  ‘We all have pistols, Edgewood,’ Aubrey Maystone assured drily as those pistols now appeared in all the other gentlemen’s hands.

  Including Darian’s, Mariah realised, wondering where on his person he could have kept it hidden until now.

  Was she becoming slightly hysterical, in questioning something so trivial, when Lord Edgewood had a pistol pressed so painfully against her temple? Lord, she hoped not!

  ‘But I also have the Countess of Carlisle,’ Edgewood came back confidently. ‘Eh, Wolfingham?’ he added challengingly.

  Darian was well aware of the fact that Edgewood now held a pistol against Mariah’s temple. Could see all too
clearly how the end of the barrel of that pistol was digging into her tender flesh. Hurting her.

  ‘You are only making your situation worse, Edgewood.’ Aubrey Maystone drew the other man’s attention back to him.

  ‘Could it possibly be any worse, when I am obviously already known as a conspirator and traitor against the Crown?’ The other man eyed Maystone coldly.

  Darian took advantage of Edgewood’s distraction to inch his way slowly to the side and then forward, aided in his stealth of movement by Sutherland and Rotherham, as they both moved to flank Aubrey Maystone.

  If Darian could just move a little further forward he might be able to— ‘Stay exactly where you are, Wolfingham,’ Edgewood warned harshly as he now pointed the pistol in Darian’s direction.

  It needed only that brief moment of Edgewood’s distraction from Mariah for there to be a blur of movement at Darian’s side as Sutherland dived downwards towards Edgewood’s legs, at the same time as Rotherham leapt forward, with the obvious intention of wrestling the raised pistol from Edgewood’s hand.

  Leaving Darian to stand and watch as the scene played out before him.

  Mariah was deafened as Lord Edgewood’s pistol suddenly went off beside her ear, quickly followed by the report of another shot being fired, before she then felt herself toppling over as Lord Edgewood’s legs were knocked from beneath him, pulling her down heavily on top of him. Her last vision was of a horrified Darian before she hit her head hard on the floor of the terrace and she knew no more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘I trust you know that I am still very angry with you for behaving so recklessly, madam?’

  Mariah was nestled comfortably against Darian’s shoulder, held securely in his arms as they travelled back to London in his ducal coach several hours later. Despite the lateness of the hour neither one of them had wished to remain at Eton Park a moment longer than they had to, once the worst of the furore had died down.

  Clara Nichols had been hysterical, of course, as had many of her female guests, at learning that her friend and lover Wedgy now lay dead upon the terrace at Eton Park, a bullet through his heart.

  The gentlemen present had been more prosaic regarding the situation, readily accepting Aubrey Maystone’s explanation of Lord Wedgewood having been caught in the act, by the Duke of Wolfingham, of forcing his attentions upon the Countess of Carlisle, before then being accidentally killed by his own pistol in the tussle that had followed. An act witnessed and confirmed by the Dukes of Sutherland and Rotherham.

  It was far from an accurate account of the truth, of course, the fatal bullet having been fired by Aubrey Maystone himself. But none present had wished to challenge the word of men as powerful as Lord Maystone, and the Dukes of Wolfingham, Rotherham and Sutherland. And Clara Nichols had been too hysterical to question the fact that Lord Maystone, and the Dukes of Rotherham and Sutherland, had not even been invited to her masked ball.

  No doubt the other woman would remember that fact once she had calmed down, but she had been far too busy enjoying being at the centre of the scandal, and the scandalous success of her masked ball, when Darian and Mariah had quietly taken their leave earlier.

  The two of them had gone up the stairs to their rooms so that Mariah might change her bloodied clothes before departing, leaving Mariah’s maid and Darian’s valet to pack up their things before following tomorrow.

  ‘Mariah, you are not to fall asleep until you have listened to what I have to say!’ Darian gave her shoulders a shake to prevent that from happening. ‘Do you have any idea how I felt when I looked down and saw you unconscious upon the floor and covered in blood?’ he demanded harshly, his impatience barely contained. ‘Do you even realise that my own heart stopped beating, when I thought Maystone had missed Edgewood and had shot you instead?’

  Mariah was too tired, felt too safe in Darian’s arms, to care about much of anything else at the moment. ‘As you see, by my presence here, he did not and I was not.’

  ‘Mariah!’

  ‘Darian.’ She moved slightly in his arms so that she might look up at him in the lamplight, noting the dark shadows in his magnificent green eyes, the grey tinge to his tightly etched face and clenched jaw. She reached up now to gently touch that clenched jaw. ‘I am safe. We are both safe.’ Darian was safe. Which, after all, had been Mariah’s only intent earlier, when she hurried across the ballroom in order to reach William Edgewood’s side ahead of Darian.

  Her only interest had been to prevent Darian from challenging the other man and perhaps being hurt or killed in the process.

  Because, she had realised, she was in love with him.

  She loved, and was in love with, Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham.

  And strangely that realisation no longer terrified her. The emotion was no longer something for her to fear. Nor did it make her less, as she had believed loving someone would, but somehow more.

  Darian now repressed a shudder. ‘He might have killed you.’

  She smiled. ‘But he did not.’

  Darian looked down at Mariah searchingly, noting the calmness of her expression and the tranquillity in those beautiful turquoise-coloured eyes.

  While he was still a churning mass of emotions. Fear, for Mariah’s life. Devastation, when he had believed her dead. Relief, when he had realised the blood on her gown was from Edgewood rather than her own. Elation, when she had opened her eyes minutes later and smiled at him.

  Unfortunately, all those emotions had been followed by anger. That Mariah could have been so reckless as to have put herself in danger in the first place.

  ‘What possessed you?’ he demanded now. ‘What on earth went through your mind when you deliberately placed yourself in a position of vulnerability by going outside alone on to the terrace with Edgewood?’

  Her smile became rueful. ‘I do not believe I was thinking much of anything at the time. It just seemed— It was the right thing for me to do, Darian.’

  ‘It was the worst thing you could have done!’ he contradicted explosively.

  Her fingers rested lightly against the tautness of his cheek. ‘Let us not discuss this any further just now, Darian. It is over. The Prince Regent is safe. The would-be assassins are all dead or in custody. Napoleon himself has been thwarted in his plan to devastate the alliance. It is all finally over, Darian.’

  He tensed beneath those caressing fingers. ‘We are not over, Mariah!’ His arms tightened about her. ‘We will never be over!’

  She looked up at him quizzically. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly as I say.’ A nerve pulsed strongly in his clenched jaw. ‘We have begun something this weekend, Mariah. Something good. Something wonderful. And I will not allow you to just calmly walk away from that. To walk away from me!’

  Leaving Darian was the last thing that Mariah wanted to do. Indeed, she never wished to be apart from him ever again. Wished to spend her every waking moment with him, and her sleeping ones, too, for the rest of her life.

  That was how much she had realised she loved Darian. More than life itself. More than any of the fears of love and intimacy that had plagued her for over half of her lifetime.

  She looked up at him shyly beneath the sweep of her lashes. ‘Did I say that I wished to walk away from you?’

  ‘Well. No. But—’ He looked nonplussed. ‘It will not do, Mariah. I will not have you running all over London and putting yourself in danger as you have been doing these past few years. I will not countenance—’ He broke off as she began to chuckle softly at his bluster, a dark scowl on his brow. ‘I fail to see what is so funny, Mariah.’

  ‘We are. The two of us.’ She sobered as she saw that Darian was still bursting with anger. ‘We are both so afraid to admit that we might care for or need anyone. In any way. Darian, I will not walk away from you once we are returned to London,’ she assured him seriously. ‘I will be yours for as long as you wish me to be,’ she assured him huskily.

  ‘You will?’

 
‘I will,’ she confirmed huskily. ‘Of course there are still many things that need to be discussed between the two of us.’ Her supposed affairs with other men being one of them. Her lack of experience in physical matters being another. ‘But I am sure, once we have done so, that we will be able to come to some sort of arrangement, whereby the two of us—’

  ‘Arrangement?’ Darian repeated softly, dangerously. ‘I am talking of the two of us marrying, Mariah, not forming an arrangement!’

  The shock on Mariah’s face at his pronouncement might have been amusing, if Darian were not so much in earnest. If he did not love this woman more than life itself. If he did not love, admire and respect Mariah more than he had realised it was possible to love, admire and respect any woman.

  Except he did. Knew that he felt all of those things for Mariah. So much so that he really had thought his heart had stopped when he looked down at her earlier, covered in blood, and had thought her dead. His own life had ended, too, in those few brief moments. He had ceased to exist. Darian had ceased to live or breathe, in the belief that Mariah Beecham, Countess of Carlisle, and the woman he loved, no longer lived or breathed. All that had remained was a shell, a body, without emotions or feeling.

  Until Mariah’s eyes had fluttered open and she had looked up at him and smiled.

  It was at that moment that Darian had decided that he was never going to let Mariah out of his sight ever again. Whatever he had to do, however long it took, he intended that Mariah would be his wife, his duchess, and at his side for the rest of their lives.

  ‘I love you, Mariah,’ he told her now, fiercely, his arms tightening about her. ‘I love you and want to marry you. To spend the rest of my days and nights with you. I love you, Mariah,’ he repeated determinedly. ‘And however long it takes to convince you, I intend having you for my—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘—wife,’ he concluded purposefully before his gaze sharpened as he realised what Mariah had said, if not why. ‘Yes what?’ he questioned guardedly.

  ‘Yes, I will marry you, Darian!’ She smiled up at him glowingly, tears now glistening in her eyes. ‘I love you, too, my darling Darian. I love you!’