“I suppose. Wouldn’t be quite the thing for a Templar to be discovered entwined in a torrid affair.”
“No, seems rather dangerous.”
“It is real, not a clever fake?” Sheldon asked, his voice sounding excited.
“Oh, no,” she said, “not a forgery, but a very real, au-thentic diary.”
“I would love to see it. If you would permit me, of course.”
“Well, that is…” Why, why, why had she brought up the diary? Lizzy mentally blasted herself. What a mess she was digging. She’d meant only to distract the earl, and yes, perhaps she was thinking of her own selfish desires —to discover the identity of Sinjin’s lover. Out of any of her acquaintances, Sheldon was the most likely to aid her. And yet she had just invited him to possibly discover more about her and her family than she had ever wanted.
“Elizabeth?”
Biting her lip, she murmured “Oh, yes. Yes, perhaps you can see it one day.”
“Maybe I can aid you in discovering the woman’s identity?”
“Well, that is to say…” What was there to say? She’d opened Pandora’s box! Her loose tongue had done this.
But maybe he would be put off. Or maybe having him help her with the diary was a means to keep him close, a way to make certain he didn’t discover anything about Sinjin, or his connection to her and Adrian.
“Lady Elizabeth,” he drawled, reaching out to squeeze her gloved hand. “I would assist you in anything. Anything at all. And I do insist. I must have a peek at this mysterious diary. How about tomorrow, hmm?”
“REALLY, LUCY, I think it’s just wonderful that you’re finally marrying His Grace. It’s a brilliant match.” Lizzy took a careful sip of her tea, while listening to Lady Black attempt to soothe Lucy’s ruffled feathers for at least the tenth time since they’d sat down.
“You wouldn’t say that if you were the one forced to marry him, Isabella.”
“Lucy!”
“It’s perfectly all right, Isabella,” Elizabeth interjected.
“There is no need to protect me. I might be Adrian’s sister, but I’m a woman first. No woman wishes to be seduced into marriage. You were seduced, were you not?” she teased.
“Oh, now you are just fishing for gossip!” Lucy hissed, but Elizabeth could sense a change in her voice. The anger was abating, giving way to teasing. Always a good sign.
“Well, I for one would adore discovering those on dits, ” Isabella murmured, while reaching for a biscuit.
Lizzy could hear them sliding on the plate next to her.
“Do share, Lucy.”
“No, I don’t think I will.”
“So cruel, especially when you took such delight in the scandal that Black and I created. And now to be so mean as to not allow me to share in yours.” Lizzy could almost see Lady Black pouting dramatically.
“Oh, all right.”
Lizzy recoiled at the thought. “No, really, Lucy dear.
I do love Sussex, but not enough to hear about his seduction of you.”
Lucy had the generosity to laugh. “I would have spared you the most gruesome details, Lizzy.”
“Thank you for small graces. Now, then, perhaps you might share with us how in the world you found yourself in the House of Orpheus last evening.”
“Much too droll, I’m afraid, and besides, speaking of it reminds me of my impending nuptials. I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“All right, then what shall we discuss? The new penny dreadfuls?”
“Well, since we’re talking of seduction, tell us, how goes it with the mysterious Lord Sheldon?” Lucy suggested. “Very neutral territory, isn’t he, Isabella? Neither one of us will be at all offended, Lizzy, by the sordid details.”
“No seduction going on at all,” she said with a small smile. “But he does share a lot of my interests, and he’s a very amiable man whose conversation is most fascinating and enjoyable.”
“And of course the fact that he’s titled, rich, handsome — and tanned, ” Lucy announced loudly, “is all second to his eloquent…tongue.” Lizzy shook her head in mirth. “You are too bad. You will give Sussex fits, I think. He needs that, to share a good laugh. But, no, to answer your question, Lucy, none of the above have really factored into my opinion of the earl.”
“Oh, that’s disappointing,” Isabella murmured. “When Lucy told me of the earl squiring you about I had such high hopes.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Oh, pish,” Lucy snapped. “That’s claptrap, Lizzy, and you know it. Where are the stories of breathless kisses, heaving bosoms…dark, dangerous secrets…”
“No heaving bosoms here, I’m afraid. And no secrets.” The air in the room fairly crackled, setting Elizabeth’s nerves on edge. Were Lucy and Isabella sharing knowing looks? She had to know.
“What silent signals are you sending to one another, hmm? I can feel them, you and Isabella shooting each other telling glances.”
“Oh, nothing,” Lucy said, sounding very sly. “I was just wondering if there might be heaving bosoms, but not necessarily heaving for Sheldon.” The air crackled again, through the heavy silence.
Lucy would not give an inch, but Isabella took pity on Elizabeth and broke the stillness.
“Ahem!” She coughed, clearing her throat. “I’m not quite sure if you know this…. Well, of course you don’t know….” She giggled, and it was so strange a sound coming from her friend that Lizzy arched her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, dear, I’m really awful at this sort of thing.”
“Go on, Isabella,” Lucy encouraged. “Tell her.”
“Well, Lizzy, I feel obligated to tell you something that my husband strictly forbade me to, and which I expressly promised not to repeat.” “Then you probably shouldn’t,” Elizabeth said a little uneasily. What the devil was going on?
“It involves you, and in fact… Well, in fact, I’ve already repeated it to Lucy, terrible wife that I am. But I only did it because, well, because it involves you and a certain someone, and as your very good friend, I feel obligated to share it.”
Lizzy was sweating now. What could it be?
“The night of Alynwick’s duel, Black stood up with him as his second. Unfortunately, things went awry and Alynwick was shot.”
Relieved, Elizabeth waved away her comment. “Oh, I already know that.”
“But did you know that Alynwick’s dying request, as my husband put it, was for Black to take him to you?” Lizzy promptly coughed on a mouthful of tea. Wheez-ing, she covered her lips with the back of her hand. “He said what?” she gasped.
“Black said he was rather insistent upon it.”
“So, what is going on with you and the mad marquis, Lizzy?” Lucy asked as she gently swatted Elizabeth between her shoulders, helping to stop her coughing. “You cannot fob us off now, you know. For I saw you with him, that night at the musicale, and there were definite smoul-dering looks and heaving bosoms.”
“You can’t be serious!”
Lucy pressed forward and reached for Lizzy’s cup, taking it from her. Together, both she and Isabella reached for her hands, holding them tightly in a friendly grip.
“You told us you had an affair, years ago, with the marquis.”
“And I’m repenting my loose tongue,” she snapped, feeling horribly embarrassed.
“Oh, don’t be. Ours is a sisterhood. Secrets are shared and kept. There’s no worries, Lizzy. But what Isabella and I are getting at is, well, with your blindness, you don’t see what we do.”
“And what is that? My abundance of cleavage spilling from my bodice, which you attribute to the presence of Alynwick, of all people?”
“No, Lizzy, we see the way he looks at you.”
“Oh, yes, with a capricious amusement, and disdain.” Lucy—at least Lizzy believed it was her hand—stroked her fingers soothingly. “Lizzy, the Marquis of Alynwick is a man very much in love—with you.”
“Nonsense.” Oh, how that one word cam
e out trembling in fear. And, Lord help her, an absolutely absurd sense of hope.
“We want to tell you what he looks like when he’s around you. His eyes never leave you. When he talks to others, his eyes are so dark and cold, but when he sees you they light up, and they linger. They roam over your body, and there’s nothing but the most passionate—
loving —expression in them.”
“Even Black has noticed and commented upon it, Lizzy.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, he’s such a good liar.
If you could only have been there, seen his eyes, and the lies he hid so well. No, it cannot be true. I won’t believe it.”
Hands squeezed hers. “I have seen the same implacable expression in Black’s eyes when he pursued me, Lizzy. I have seen the same in Sussex’s gaze when he looks upon Lucy. Alynwick has the same look. He will not be deterred. He wants you back. He looks as though he’d die to have you back.”
“No!” Lizzy jumped up and accidentally upset the tea tray. “Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry.” She started fum- bling about, but Lucy and Isabella stopped her, hugged her as tears began to scald her eyes.
“You’re our friend and we want your happiness. Trust us to help you, Lizzy.”
“You don’t understand,” she gasped, “He broke me!
I…can’t allow it again.”
“All right,” Lucy whispered, hugging her tightly. “I can see you’re not ready. But we will be here, Lizzy, when you are. And for now, say you’ll trust us enough to believe what we see. The marquis… Well, whatever he was once is not the man he is now.”
“You don’t know the whole story,” Elizabeth whispered, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. “No one does.
Only me. And all I can say is… Well, he took every dream I ever held in life and tore them from me. I’ll never forgive him for that. Never. What I suffered was unbearable.”
“I’ve seen much suffering,” Isabella said as she hugged Lizzy close. “I’ve despaired. Have wanted to give up.
But God doesn’t give us anything we cannot handle, Lizzy. And oftentimes, when it all seems too much, He sends someone to help us through it. Just remember that, hmm?”
“I’ll try, but it’s much easier to hate than to live on false hope. And that’s all Alynwick has ever been able to offer.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“GOOD GOD, abducted and brought to the House of Orpheus?”
Nodding, Sussex didn’t take his gaze off the letter opener he was busy twirling in his hands. “Yes. My future wife did not return home yesterday morning after I sent her with a footman, and after I had made it all very clear as to why I demanded she obey me in this matter.
Apparently, the dead body she witnessed dropped at my doorstep was not enough to induce her to obey her future lord and husband. The infuriating woman decided to disobey me and visit a psychic instead.” Iain couldn’t help but grin at the perturbed duke. No one disobeyed the express edicts of His Grace. But it seemed one waiflike redhead found great pleasure in doing so. “As I said before, Sussex, a curse and a pox on headstrong women who won’t be led by a man.”
“Indeed.” The lines around Sussex’s mouth were grim.
“It seems that she has been to this psychic before, and felt quite safe alone with the woman. She ordered the footman to wait in the carriage for her. When she entered the conveyance after conducting her business, she was grabbed from behind and rendered unconscious by a cloth over her mouth that had been doused with ether.
When she awoke, it was to find herself on a bed in the House of Orpheus.”
Iain was speechless. He could well comprehend the rage that must have ruled Sussex, not only because Lucy had expressly disobeyed him. The terror he must have experienced upon discovering her missing would have been all-consuming. “How did you learn of her whereabouts?” he asked.
“The footman I assigned to her, God bless his determined Cockney soul, traipsed from the scene, where he had been dragged from the carriage and beaten, to Sussex House. He was the one to inform me that he had awakened just in time to witness Lucy being carried inside the Adelphi.”
“He couldn’t identify the kidnapper?” Sussex shook his head.
“Well, at any rate, I hope you rewarded the man for walking a few miles in that state.”
“He’s making his recovery in a guest chamber as we speak. The moment he remains conscious for more than a minute, I shall grant him whatever he wishes. I shudder to think of what might have come out of it if he hadn’t been able to get back and tell me.”
“And how was it, exactly, that you became leg shack-led to the girl?”
Sussex smiled faintly, obviously indulging in a very private memory. “Suffice it to say the matter is a private one.”
The priggish Duke of Sussex, caught in a compromis-ing position? Iain could hardly credit it. He had always thought the duke a passionless man, more concerned with propriety and honour than the baser elements of a gentleman’s makeup.
Knowing he would not get much more out of Sussex in regards to his hasty engagement, he enquired, “Did she see him? This Orpheus?”
“No, she did not. I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on the matter. Did you see Orpheus yourself? You did say you were meeting Lady Larabie last evening at the club.”
Feeling guilty, he glanced away, out the study window to the sun-filled garden. “I sent around a missive with my regrets,” he answered. “My shoulder didn’t seem up to it.” There was no reason for Sussex to learn Iain had decided to forgo a nauseating evening with Georgiana discovering all he could about Orpheus, for one spent trailing the Earl of Sheldon. His Grace had made it perfectly clear that he liked Sheldon, and worst of all, that his sister liked the man, as well.
“I trust you will consider pursuing the matter of Orpheus while I am away on my honeymoon,” Sussex mumbled, drawing Iain from his thoughts. “I know it’s poor timing to leave London with everything going on, and his deuced ability to befuddle us, but I cannot help it. I must leave with Lucy, and hopefully then our hasty marriage and the inevitable scandal that will arise out of it will quiet down, so that when I return in a few weeks the furor will be over and I may take up my place alongside you and Black. I’m afraid by staying in London I risk the chance of being seen by others. We don’t need questions right now. Plus, I would like to ensure Lucy’s safety, and I think that’s best served at my estate in Yorkshire.”
“Rest assured that I will. And if Black would tear himself away from his wife, and their bed, he might be of assistance, as well.”
Sussex grinned for the first time since they’d sat down to discuss things. “You underestimate the lure of one’s bride, I think.”
Iain groaned. “Et tu, Brute?” Shaking his head, he studied the duke, all lovelorn and distracted. “You’re not going the way of Black, are you? Besotted fool that he is.” “I’ve already gone. You know that. I’ve made no secret of desiring a match with Lucy. And now I have it. I won’t let anything stop it. You’ll understand one day, Sinclair, when you allow someone into your heart.” Iain shrugged, knowing that someone already resided deep within the damnable organ. “Perhaps.”
“I do have a favour to ask, Alynwick.” The seriousness of the duke’s voice caused him to look up sharply. “Yes?”
“Elizabeth. She has flatly refused to accompany Lucy and me to Yorkshire. She claims she would be nothing but a burden, and a nuisance to a newlywed couple. She won’t listen to reason, I’m afraid.” Iain had been feeling decidedly melancholy—even angry—since learning of Sussex’s impending nuptials.
Not because he disliked Lady Lucy or the married state, but because he had known that Sussex would take Elizabeth with him, and the thought of her being gone so far away was more than he could bear. Now, discovering that Elizabeth refused to go, Iain found his mood much, much lighter.
“You want me to watch over her.”
“Would you? I know you don’t get on well, but I don’t trust anyone else w
ith her safety. Black is too busy being besotted by his wife, as you say. I need someone with a clear head. Someone who won’t be distracted.” How little Sussex knew of him. One glance at Elizabeth, and he would be completely, thoroughly distracted.
He was distracted from the topic at hand now, just thinking of how he would have every affordable chance to wear her down… To make her see him as he now was.
A man wanting forgiveness, desiring a life with her. A man who would do his damnedest to be worthy of a woman such as her.
“You may be assured, Sussex, that I will keep Elizabeth safe.”
“I know you will. I worry, however, especially after the murder of Anastasia. I am forced to take Rosie with me. Her whelping time will be soon, and I need the ex-pertise of the breeder at my estate. Elizabeth relies on Rosie, and I rely on the dog’s acute hearing to alert us to any trouble. I can’t help but think how vulnerable Elizabeth will be here alone, with only the servants to keep her safe. They have no real understanding of how dangerous our lives have become.”
“I will keep her safe.” It was a solemn vow.
Sussex must have heard it, too, and glanced up, a mili-tant gleam in his eye. “Keep an eye on Sheldon, as well.
He’s been around two days in a row. I think it rather obvious, his infatuation with her. I don’t know the extent of Elizabeth’s interest, but I would take no risk there. I don’t know him well enough, and despite the fact I rather like him, there is something I cannot quite put my finger on.” Senses alert, Iain straightened in his chair, noting the stiffness in the duke. “What has you questioning the earl?”
Sussex had always possessed a remarkable instinct in regards to duplicity. It amazed Iain that the duke had never guessed at Iain’s, in regards to his sister. That Sussex had never discovered he’d seduced and deflowered the virginal Elizabeth, when he had always believed the sin all but tattooed across his face, left Iain oddly nervous, and guilty.
Sussex waved away Iain’s question and placed the jewelled letter opener on a leather blotter. “As I said, I cannot quite pinpoint it. He seems on the up and up, but there is something there. Intangible as it may be, it is still present. I don’t think I’m wrong here, although I wish to hell I was, if for nothing but Elizabeth’s sake.” Not looking up from his polished boots, Iain mumbled,
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