Love With the Perfect Scoundrel

by Sophia Nash

  Within the hour, runners might be sent in search of him. Hardening himself to the bitter possibilities, Michael knew what he had to do, what he would do until he saw her tonight at Helston House, the last place the runners would ever search for him.

  He would hide all day today, damn it all. If there was one thing he knew how to do well, it was hide.

  Time had run out and there would be no waiting until the first of January. He forced the bile of dread back down his throat.

  “Grace, dearest, do come in. Gracious! Where have you been? We were beginning to worry,” Ata clucked as Grace entered Helston House’s grand entranceway. A bevy of footmen ushered the last of the guests to the supper chamber or card room beyond as Ata gathered all the widows in a corner of the great hall.

  “I’m so sorry,” Grace replied. “It took longer than I thought to take Lara to the circulating library and then to feed the ducks at the Serpentine.”

  “Goodness, you’ve spent a lot of time with that little girl,” Ata said with a smile.

  “You are to be commended, Grace,” Georgiana continued. “Your notice of her no doubt means the world to her.”

  “No, it’s nothing, really. I assure you I receive more pleasure watching her eyes light up with joy than she does,” Grace murmured.

  “Brrrr…” Ata interjected. “It’s so very cold tonight. I wonder if it will snow. It would play havoc on driving tonight. Remind me to have Phipps lay down straw if it does. Well”—she sighed—“I suppose winter will have its day after all, and of course it would happen on Bad Luck Day, would it not? Now Rosa, come, you promised to be my partner, yes? I’ll need you on my side if I hope to finally win a few shillings from the Countess of Home.”

  “You obviously enjoy a challenge.” Rosamunde smiled and smoothed the folds of her deep crimson gown. She was so lovely with her vivid aquamarine eyes and shiny raven hair that Grace could not help but feel like a pale doll in comparison.

  “I shall stay in the supper chamber to make sure your guests are in comfort if that is all right with you, Ata.” Sarah, dressed in a simple dove-gray gown, looked expectantly toward Georgiana and Ata.

  “I know better than to try and cajole you otherwise, Sarah. But where is Eliza? She should be here already.” Ata turned toward Grace. “You will want to know that Mr. Ranier arrived two hours ago and disappeared with Luc, Quinn, Mr. Brown, and the Duke of Beaufort. Luc has been breathing fire for two days. If Ranier wins more than Luc at faro, I rather think my grandson will scorch a path all the way to Yorkshire to help him on his way home.”

  “Oh, I do wish they hadn’t dreamed up this nonsense,” Grace uttered in vain.

  Ata patted her arm. “Come, come…boys will be boys.”

  Rosamunde twisted her lips in mirth. “Well I only think it fair to admit that girls will be girls, too, Ata. Did you not just tell me you were going to fleece the Countess of Home tonight like a sheep in summer?”

  “No. I said earlier I wanted Grace to fleece that gossiping magpie, the Duchess of Kendale. I simply plan to gull our neighbor until she coughs up some vowels.”

  Georgiana pursed her lips to keep from laughing. “Ata, your language has certainly taken on bold, new colors.”

  “And I’d stake my future winnings tonight that we have the Duke of Beaufort to thank for that,” Rosamunde murmured with a smile.

  “Ata, I already told you I won’t play,” Grace inserted. “I’ll stay with Sarah and Georgiana.”

  Ata and Rosamunde exchanged knowing looks and then moved in the direction of the card room. Grace sighed heavily and glanced at Georgiana and Sarah. “Well, I know I can depend on you both not to plague me. Now, shall we?”

  In deference to the Devil of Helston’s birthday, not a trace of holiday greenery dripped from the opulent sconces, chandeliers, or balconies of Number Twelve in Portman Square. Instead the bold black-and-white checkered parquet floor gleamed opposite the glorious yet brutal battle scenes of heaven and hell painted on the ceiling by a master.

  Grace, Georgiana, and Sarah linked arms and entered the milling crowd in the wood-paneled dining chamber flanked by enormous yawning fireplaces, which were often likened to the infamous entrances to hell. The door to the card room lay on the opposite side of the room from Grace and she could discern the green baize card tables. A coldness raced in her veins. She wasn’t sure she had the nerve to go to him. She just couldn’t bear to see him gaming.

  She feared he’d be wearing the expression of an inveterate gambler. It was always the same; agitated visages, some absurdly jubilant, others in despair, and all feverish with the addiction to play…like her father’s face.

  She wished Michael hadn’t taken the bait to play the game. It irked her that with so little time left in London, he had chosen to spend it in that room, even if it was with the very gentlemen whom Grace had secretly nurtured a hope—it seemed a very long time ago now—he would form lasting friendships. Now it was all such wasted effort.

  She stiffened her spine to mingle with the crème de la crème of the beau monde who had been lucky enough to receive the coveted invitations to Helston’s Bad Luck Birthday. And as Grace perused the room, she noticed, not for the first time, that many of the bejeweled guests appeared somewhat absurd. Their heads held all in the same condescending manner, their chins high, their shoulders low, and their cheeks sucked in as if tasting lemon ice. And most noticeable, the darted glances and whispers punctuating every banal conversation were all conducted with practiced looks of boredom in their eyes. Truth be told, they mostly appeared like some sort of royal school of lemmings. Why had she ever coveted spending days on end among them?

  Grace skirted the edge of the room, conscious of several pairs of eyes watching her progress. Unable to stop herself, Grace tilted her head to try and catch a glimpse of Michael.

  Her gaze flickered over a dozen of the new arrivals forming the last few tables before she found Michael, whose hand was working the knot of his cravat as he glanced at the flood of people arriving. “I thought you said this was to be an informal family gathering, Helston,” he said loudly enough for her to hear.

  “One can always hope,” Luc said, annoyed as he counted the meager amount of markers in front of him. “But when you’ve spent more time around my grandmother you’ll learn that she considers any social occasion a rare chance to trot forth the eligible ladies in her Widows Club.”

  “Actually, I’ve always called them the Barely Bereaving Beauties,” Quinn Fortesque added to Michael beside him.

  Grace could see Michael’s lips move but could not hear his words.

  “Eh, what’s that you said, Ranier?” the Duke of Beaufort asked while parceling out a heavy enameled marker on the faro table.

  Michael appeared very tense as he repeated, darkly, “I said ‘Masquerading Mares at Market’ would be better. Is that not how cosseted ladies are presented by their relatives in the Assembly Rooms all over England? Damned primitive ritual if you were to ask me. Yes”—Michael nodded to the banker—“parlee my bet.”

  “That’s the running limit, sir,” replied the mustached dealer.

  Michael nodded absently.

  “Really, Ranier?” Luc said, stiffly. “And how do the revolutionaries in the colonies approach foisting ladies into the arms of unsuspecting gentlemen?”

  “In a more rational fashion, I assure you. Women are chosen for their ability to maintain a home and raise children in often harsh conditions, and not for their ability to waltz and gossip. But above all else, there must be similar stations in life, mutual respect and, of course, affection.”

  Quinn coughed and all the gentlemen looked up to find Grace observing them.

  Michael raised his large frame partway out of his chair and Grace stepped back from the doorway. He cared for her, didn’t he? He had said so, had said he wanted to marry her if not for his wretched circumstances. But perhaps he thought her nothing more than a pampered aristocrat, incapable of being a good wife to a man such as he. She h
ad never felt so unsure in her life.

  She looked up from her frozen stance a few steps from the doorway only to find him coming toward her, his shoulders rolling in time to his long, heavy strides that ate up the distance between them. His face was grim, ill ease in every line of his furrowed brow as he came toward her.

  The crowd in the dining chamber halted its every movement at the sound of a single sentence.

  “Good God above, is that…why, it’s Wallace.”

  Michael halted and turned to a silver-haired gentleman whom Grace recognized as the very rich Scottish laird of the Palmer clan.

  “By God, ’tis you. But, how is it possible? Oh, my dear friend…”

  “You are mistaken, sir,” Michael replied swiftly as he tried to turn away from the elderly Scot. “My name is Ranier.”

  A woman, probably the gentleman’s wife, gasped, and moved forward to clutch Michael’s arm, forcing him to stop. “Glory be, it canna be. ’Tis”—her voice lowered to a whisper—“nay, it canna be.”

  The distinguished laird closed his faded blue eyes for but a moment before they opened again. “I’ll eat my sporran if you aren’t Wallace’s boy. You’ve got that look about you—the identical physiognomy of your sire.”

  “And pray, Lord Palmer, what would that be?” Luc asked. He and Quinn and a host of gentlemen from the card room had seeped into the room.

  “Why he’s got those odd yellow eyes, and that shock of hair, and that mouth with that voice. Why I would bet he can sing like an—”

  “Pardon me, Palmer, but I hadn’t thought brown eyes, brown hair, and the ability to carry a tune was all that rare a bird.” Luc plucked an invisible bit of lint from his sleeve.

  Ata tugged on her grandson’s arm. “What have I been telling you all along? It is him. I knew it the moment I saw him. He is one of us. He’s the Earl of Wallace. I recognized him the moment I first saw him.” Her eyes were moving in an alarming “play along with me if you treasure your hide” manner.

  Lord Palmer continued, “And every man in creation is the size of two lumberjacks and a mountain, Your Grace? But, yes, I know how to prove he’s James de Peyster’s lad.” He turned to address Michael, whose expression was as white as the snow on a lumberjack’s mountain. “Your father always said that you both had a pinprick mark on your left ear. Joked that it was made by Satan’s pitchfork.”

  Michael’s hand crept up to his ear as Luc blinked.

  “Is it true then, son? Were you stolen by the gypsies the night of the fire? Do you know who you are? Do you remember?”

  The Scottish lord’s wife interrupted, “Give the poor lad a moment to collect himself, Thomas.” She turned again to Mr. Ranier, a look of motherly concern over-spreading her wrinkled face. “Why, you’re the lost heir of the moors, Michael. That is your given name, isn’t it? I remember you as a little boy, when we’d come to visit in the summer. You were forever galloping across the green dales of Derbyshire, always—”

  “I am not who you say,” Michael said flatly. “My name is Ranier, and I’m certain you can tell by my accent that I’m not from Derbyshire. I am a commoner.”

  “I believe him,” Luc said with force, and a seriousness Grace had never seen before. “You are mistaken, Palmer. Forgive me, Lady Palmer.”

  Ata sputtered in protest, until she dared to glance at her grandson’s expression.

  Quinn sidled up beside Michael, casually. “I can vouch he speaks the truth too, Palmer.”

  Lord Palmer shook his head. “Well, I must respectfully disagree with all three of you. You’ll never convince me and I plan to look into this further. Good God, this is an occasion for rejoicing. I lift my glass to you, Michael. Everyone, to the Earl of Wallace, may we all warmly welcome him back to the ranks of the upper ten thousand tonight!”

  A few glasses rose in the air while whispers dodged about from all corners of the room. Grace moved slowly backward, toward the doors to the main hall, all the while taking care to avoid notice.

  How he had lied to her.

  He was a living, breathing earl.

  The Earl of Wallace, for God’s sake. She knew it with each ounce of her being. With every quiet word, every expression, every movement, he had given away the fact that he knew it too. And so did Luc and Quinn. The only one who wasn’t certain was Ata. Her insistence proved just the opposite.

  Grace had to get out of Helston House. She was suffocating. Her feet itched and she wanted to run into the teeth of the icy wind outside. She wanted to be anywhere but here. Anywhere else than under the gaze of his mendacious eyes.

  Grace edged beyond the doorway, her heart in her throat and her breathing labored. Only a dozen more steps at most to the main doors. Her wrap forgotten, she numbly took the icy steps to the street slowly, to avoid notice. It had started to snow, and as she wended her way past the drifts of blanketed horses and carriage drivers awaiting their masters’ pleasures, Grace’s emotions swirled in a fashion as dizzying as the snowflakes spiraling ever downward.

  And then she was free of the choked mass of animals and humanity, free of the confining crowd of her past, and she was running toward the locked gate of the garden of Portman Square. She fumbled with the key in her pocket, and then she was inside, the gate clanging shut.

  The cold eased her. It instantly cleared her mind and ordered her thoughts as she walked quickly along the path toward the other side of the square, to her beautiful, pampered world in Sheffield House, where she could lock out any and all. She would have given anything at that moment to have been able to block out all memories of that man—Michael Ranier, Michael de Peyster, Michael whoever-he-was.

  And then, unbidden, came some hard-to-grasp memory, a few remarks here and there over the years about a lost heir…Why, even Mr. Brown had mentioned the wind howling between Derbyshire and Yorkshire was the sound of the lost boy of the moors.

  Why, oh, why had he hidden something so vitally important from her?

  He had said he trusted her, had said he’d told her everything. And yet he hadn’t.

  God, she didn’t know this man at all. He was a wholly nonsensical equation and had proved his duplicitous nature down to the bone. And she had been about to give up her home and all her friends to create a new life for them both far away from here.

  Her thin slippers were no match for the wet snow, and were soaked through in moments. She dashed down the path in the black shadows of the trees, whose bare branches reached blindly toward the clouded dark heavens. And a thousand more doubts trickled through her.

  Why had he lived in an orphanage? Had gypsies, indeed, taken him? If he had killed someone, why hadn’t he used the power and the immunity of his title to protect himself? But then again, perhaps he hadn’t killed anyone…Oh, perhaps he had lied to her so she would let him go.

  A little piece of Grace withered at the wretchedness of the idea. It couldn’t be so. None of it made a drop of sense. But no matter how hard she tried to stop the thought, it weaved its way into her conscious like an unwanted vine in a garden.

  She heard the distant rattle of gates behind her and she turned to see an enormous figure trying to bend the iron hinge to his will. Grace dodged into the shadows and quickened her pace. She was nearly halfway to the other side.

  A thud sounded, and then loud steps closed the space between them. Her heart nearly bursting, she pulled up her skirts to run faster. And yet, she knew she would fail to evade him. Had she not failed at nearly everything she had set out to do? And she was particularly incompetent at running away.

  She reached the marble statue in the center of the garden, when his hand caught her waist and pulled her to face him.

  Chapter 16

  “Don’t you dare touch me, you—you, my lord! This is a private garden.”

  “Nothing…no guard, no key, and no bloody gate will keep me from you, Grace,” he said, breathing hard. “…not even myself.”

  The snow was falling on her blonde tresses, leaving her head dark and her face deat
hly pale.

  “You are without morals, your character is as black as…” she sputtered to a stop before she whispered, “I never believed it before, but now. Well, I…Oh, just let me go.”

  “No. You already know I don’t possess any bloody pride. I don’t care if you think me the devil himself, but I will talk to you whether you like it or not. So you choose, sweetheart, will it be here in the freezing open air, or will it be in your warm apartments?”

  “Say what you have to say, right here, Mr. Ranier. Oh, pardon me, I mean Lord Wallace. As you know, I love the cold…all that Viking blood, don’t you remember? So unlike the lying, conniving, dishonest, black-hearted hot blood of, of…a blacksmith.”

  He laughed, the sound awful and hollow to his own ears. “Aye, you’ll need Norse strength to bear this.” And the heart of a saint to believe it.

  He stopped and tried to steady his thoughts and his words as he kept a firm grip on her arms. He had not a doubt she would run away if he let go. He possessed not an ounce of gentlemanly behavior at his core and he would not release her until he had finished.

  “Grace…I,” he hesitated but for a moment, “I’m, indeed, the Earl of Wallace—Michael de Peyster. My mother was Lavinia Ranier de Peyster.” He tried to encounter her expression through the thick flakes floating in the air. Her gaze was trained on the freezing ground. “She died when I was born and I was raised at Wallace Abbey until I was seven. But then there was a great fire, and everything was lost, as I told you.”

  “Is this when you suggest you killed someone or, no, I remember, you were spirited away by gypsies?” she asked, her voice heavily laced with disbelief.

  “No,” he whispered, his hands loosening without thought. “I was never taken by gypsies. I went away voluntarily…gratefully.”

  “And why would you do that, Michael?”

  “Because I started the fire,” he shouted, his hot, guilt-laden breath swirled in the freezing air. “I was spoilt and headstrong and oftentimes slept in the stable and sometimes forgot to extinguish the lantern. And everyone at the abbey knew it. My father died in the inferno. The stable master, Howard Manning, told me I was to blame.” He stopped, the horrible scene—the sight, smell, shouts engulfed his psyche.