A Duke For All Seasons

by Mia Marlowe

  He slipped a finger under her chin and tipped her face up. “This from a woman who wouldn’t even agree to a three month contract?” he said with a chuckle.

  Fool, she named herself. She sounded needy and pathetic even to her own ears. Their relationship only retained what little balance it had because she held back her heart. If she admitted to the desperate sweetness in her chest, how would she be different from any of his past amours?

  “What I meant was I can’t bear to be the instrument of your destruction,” she said.

  “I greatly fear it is too late to worry over that.”

  He bent and kissed her. Need sizzled between them, a frisson of desire tangled up with danger and deceit. Sebastian was right. She’d doomed him from their first meeting, from the moment she’d mistaken him for the one to whom she was supposed to deliver the cursed envelope.

  Mr. Harris’s shadow darkened the doorframe and he coughed discreetly. Sebastian pulled away from Arabella and tucked the pages of Fernand’s dossier into his pocket for future study.

  “Tell Mr. Fletcher to saddle my mount,” he said. The runner murmured his obedience and left. Sebastian turned back to Bella. “Convey my regrets to the others. They’ll understand my departure if you say urgent business recalls me to London.”

  “Take me with you.” The sooner she met with Fernand, the sooner they’d find Lisette, she told herself. Besides, an irrational part of her heart clamored that if she were with Sebastian, surely nothing bad would happen to him. “I can be ready to go in no time. There’s no need for a carriage. I’ll ride. My things can be sent on later. I won’t slow you down, I promise.”

  “Bella, no,” he said with gentleness. “You must be seen to return to London alone. In fact, after I leave, a histrionic fit denouncing me as a cad would not come amiss.”

  “But—”

  He pressed his fingertips to her lips this time. “Wait until tomorrow to return to London. The world must see that we have parted ways lest de Lisle become suspicious. It’s the only reason he’ll believe you’re willing to betray me.”

  She hated to admit it, but he was right. “I’ll curse you for a perfidious wretch to anyone who’ll listen.”

  “That’s my girl.” He smiled, brushed a kiss across her forehead and strode for the door. He stopped at the threshold. “Bella, when this is over . . .”

  He’d want to take up where they left off. Even without benefit of the contract, she’d be his mistress for the season. Lady Moorcroft’s encouragement aside, there could be nothing more for them. Bella only hoped their liaison would last longer than the turning of the autumn leaves.

  “When this is over,” she said with false brightness, “we’ll dine again at the Peacock’s Tail. And this time we won’t pass up dessert.”

  His mouth lifted in a half smile and then he was gone. Bella sank into the Tudor chair again, balling a fist against her lips to keep from sobbing aloud. As if a giant cat batted her mouse’s heart back and forth, she alternated between fear for Lisette and fear for Sebastian.

  Compose yourself, she ordered with sternness. She’d be of no use to anyone if she allowed herself to go to pieces. She had to think. She had to stay sharp.

  The lives of the ones she loved might depend upon it.

  Love. Yes, she admitted to herself. She loved her daughter. What she felt for Sebastian was hot and desperate, but it was more than simply sexual. It was the mostly deeply troubling emotion she’d ever experienced. It must be love.

  She drew a deep breath, swiped her eyes dry and stood, ready to return to the breakfast room to deliver a convincing tale to Sebastian’s aunt about the way her nephew had abandoned his latest lover. Lady Moorcroft could be counted upon to shake her head over the duke’s inconstancy. She’d spread the story to all who would listen once she returned to London, provided she tippled a few glasses of sherry first.

  It would be good practice for trying to convince Fernand that she was more than willing to betray Sebastian. It would require all her stagecraft to pull off. Privately, she gave herself one chance in three of Fernand believing her.

  She took a step toward the door when she remembered one of the folders Mr. Harris had brought to Sebastian still rested on his desk. He’d been investigating someone else in addition to Fernand. It would behoove her to be aware of anyone Sebastian mistrusted and steer clear of them as well.

  The name at the top of the page forced all the breath from her lungs.

  Arabella St. George.

  There on the foolscap, all the foibles and missteps of her life were set down baldly—her obscure birth, the discovery of her unique vocal talent as a child, the death of her parents and the maestro who took her under his lecherous wing. She owed her unshakable singing technique to him, but when her body blossomed into the first flush of maturity, he also taught her other things. Things someone who still had a child’s heart ought not to have learned until much later.

  Then there were the other men who had figured in her life, listed neatly and in order. Men of title and importance were set down next to penniless baritones from the chorus. Their only point of commonality was the brevity of their sojourns at her side.

  When she reached the section of the report dealing with her affair with Fernand de Lisle, her hand shook so badly she had difficulty reading the tidy script. Mr. Harris considered Arabella a willing accomplice to de Lisle’s activities and recommended she be closely watched or better yet, turned over to the authorities.

  How could Sebastian have ordered this witch hunt into her privacy?

  She’d told him everything except the sorry bit about the maestro. When her singing master died, she’d come to terms with what had happened and decided it had not been her fault. She’d been more than a child, but not quite a woman. She was not responsible. It was something she reckoned long buried and of no import to anyone but herself.

  How had Sebastian’s agent even unearthed the sordid mess?

  The rest of her life she took full responsibility for. She went into each affair with her eyes wide open and conducted the liaison on her own terms.

  Except with Fernand. He definitely had the upper hand now since he had possession of their daughter.

  And with Sebastian. Against her better judgment, she’d allowed him to take possession of her heart, even though he obviously didn’t trust her.

  She closed the folder and put the incriminating dossier in Sebastian’s top desk drawer. He’d no doubt paid handsomely for it. He deserved to keep this record of all the squalid little details of her life before he burst into her dressing room wearing his blasted top hat, white carnation and damned red roses.

  It occurred to her suddenly that Sebastian hadn’t agreed when she suggested they take supper together at the Peacock’s Tail once this was over. Her belly lurched uncertainly.

  What if this wasn’t a sham estrangement? What if, even without benefit of a contract formalizing their affair, Sebastian had just given her his conge in truth? The downward spiral in her gut confirmed this was more than a ruse to fool Fernand. Sebastian didn’t want his name linked publicly with hers. The fact that his actions dovetailed with his duty to king and country was probably the only reason he agreed to help her recover Lisette.

  This was a real dismissal. A rejection. She felt it in every fiber of her body.

  She hadn’t even lasted a fortnight with the Ice Duke, let alone a season.

  Arabella felt a hard shell forming over her heart once more. She supposed she ought to thank Sebastian. His mistrust would make it far easier for her to convince Fernand she was ready to betray the Duke of Winterhaven.

  “Once a gentleman has ended matters with his light-o-love, it is a grave disservice to both parties to continue any sort of congress. It smacks of sentimentality, confuses a man’s past paramour and hinders the timely acquisition of a new mistress to replace her.”

  ~ A Gentleman’s Guide to Keeping a Mistress

  Chapter 13

  As Sebastian had requested,
Arabella waited until the next day to bid the rest of His Grace’s guests goodbye and return to London. A violent summer storm and impassably muddy roads would have better suited her mood, but instead the weather was despicably fine.

  She’d left Sebastian’s elegant equipage at the post station nearest to London, electing to return to town in a common coach to prove her affair with the Duke of Winterhaven was over. Besides, the ducal landau was almost too broad for the narrow lane where she lived.

  Bella kept a suite of rooms on the upper story of a respectable townhouse in the shadow of a more fashionable neighborhood. In addition to her boudoir, she had a lovely salon that housed her piano where she occasionally entertained small groups of friends—visiting artists and theatre types mostly. Her position with the opera company provided sufficient funds for her live more lavishly, but she’d been supporting Lisette by sending regular amounts to her sister. She also put money by for her daughter to serve as a dowry when she came of age. Arabella wanted Lisette to have choices she’d been denied.

  She didn’t mind the spartan quarters. She was home so rarely. In another month, the opera company would go on tour. It made no sense to have a fulsome home sitting empty most of the time when a simple utilitarian one would do.

  But there was no denying the house looked shabbier than usual after Sebastian’s grand country manor. Arabella glanced up and down the block, but saw no one out of the ordinary. If Sebastian’s men were watching, there was no sign of them.

  Well, he said I wouldn’t catch them at it, didn’t he? she thought as she entered the green door that needed a fresh coat of paint.

  “Oh, Miss St. George.” Her landlady called to her as she started up the stairs with her valise in hand. “There’s a gentleman caller waiting for you in your salon. He didn’t give me his name, but he said it would be quite agreeable with you if I let him in. He was such a forceful, lordly sort of fellow, I couldn’t say no. Did I do right?”

  Her traitorous heart did a little jig. Forceful and lordly. Sebastian was there. Who else would know she was coming home today? Maybe he couldn’t live with the idea that they were finished and had come to amend their plans.

  “Yes, Mrs. Burnham,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “You acted correctly.”

  Arabella fought the urge to lift her skirt and run the rest of the way to her upper floor. When she pushed open her door, she found all the drawers in her bureau pulled out and the contents upended in the middle of the room. Sheet music was scattered across the floor. The bust of Mozart that had lived on her piano was lying on its side with its marble nose broken clean off.

  Fernand de Lisle was lounging before her small, cold fireplace, one booted leg draped over the arm of her chintz-covered wing chair. He leisurely ripped pages from a libretto of the Marriage of Figaro.

  “Bon jour, chérie,” he said without a glance in her direction. “Do you like what I have done with the place?”

  Arabella set down her valise and advanced to the center of the room. The door to her bed chamber was ajar. Fernand had pulled her mattress from the frame for a thorough search. White feathers piled at the end of the bed like a downy snow bank. The Aubusson carpet was rolled to one side.

  “At least you haven’t ripped up the floors,” she said, trying to project a calm exterior despite the fact that her insides were leaping about like tree frogs.

  “Not yet.” He punctuated his words by quickly tearing out another page.

  “There’s no need to destroy my things.”

  He bared his teeth in a feral smile. “My poor Arabella. No chance of replacing them with new ones, eh? I saw from the window that His Grace did not return you to London in style. You kept that man for even less time than usual. Or perhaps, he was the one who would not do the keeping.”

  “My personal life is none of your affair,” she said tight-lipped, irritated that Fernand read the situation as accurately as she could sight-read a cadenza. “I have what you want.”

  “Ah, and I think I have what you want as well, non?”

  “Yes.” Arabella forced herself to sit in the chair opposite him. “It has come to my attention that you have taken a closer interest in your daughter.”

  “You give me too much credit. My feelings toward the child are far less patriarchal than you suppose.” He dropped the tattered remains of the libretto and leaned toward her. “However if you give me the envelope, she will be returned unharmed.”

  “I have only your word that she is unharmed now,” Arabella said, her spine like steel. When she was onstage, she sometimes erected a barrier in her mind between herself and the character she portrayed. It was for her own protection. The mind could not tell the difference between real and pretend and if she must die nightly, a little distance between her real self and her character was essential. She erected the same barrier now. If she let herself actually experience the fact that her daughter was in danger, she didn’t think she could do what she must in order to free her. “I demand to see Lisette before I give you the envelope.”

  “Do you have it with you?” Fernand asked in the same beguiling tone the Serpent must have used when he told Eve she would not surely die. “Bear in mind I would not find searching you distasteful in the least. I can be most thorough.”

  “Give me credit for knowing that much about you, Fernand. You may believe me when I tell you I do not have it in my possession, but I know where it is. Now, where is Lisette?”

  Fernand narrowed his eyes at her, clearly weighing her for veracity. “Tres bien, we shall grant your request. For sake of the old times, non?” He offered her his arm. “Come, chérie.”

  She swallowed back her rising bile and laid a hand on his forearm.

  Fernand escorted her out of the house and down the block to a busier street where he hailed a hansom. Bella resisted the urge to look for Sebastian’s men. If they were actually shadowing her, their task would be complicated by the cab ride. Her only consolation was that the London streets were clogged with market traffic and the going was slow.

  She was surprised when Fernand signaled a halt before an old church and led her to the heavy oak door.

  “Careful,” she said as they entered the cool, silent nave. “The Prince of Darkness ought to feel wary when treading alongside the angels.”

  Fernand chuckled. “Have you not read that when the sons of God gathered in heaven, Lucifer was not shut out? He was allowed before the throne itself to accuse Job and no lightning bolts descended upon him. But you are right. I have no use for the church. However, today it will allow you to see that your Lisette, she is fine.” He led her to the winding stairs leading up to the bell tower. “For now.”

  As they climbed, the stairs narrowed till Fernand’s shoulders brushed both sides of the ancient stone. Bella strained her ears, hoping to hear Lisette’s small voice above her, but only the whispered sibilance of air currents whooshing through the tower brushed by her.

  When they emerged beneath the broad single bell in the tower, Bella discovered no one else there. “You promised to take me to see Lisette.”

  “And so I shall,” Fernand said. “Never let it be said a Frenchman’s word is not honored.”

  He pulled a small spyglass from his pocket and positioned himself to view through the wooden slats that protected the verdigris-covered bell from the worst predations of weather. “And there is your little cherub now. Come. See.”

  Arabella took the spyglass from him and trained it in the same direction. “I don’t . . . oh.”

  Lisette was in a small garden behind a rickety tenement, chasing a puppy around the clumps of plantings as fast as her childish legs would carry her. An elderly woman watched from the back stoop and a lean, much younger man stood sentinel at the garden gate.

  “I don’t understand. You said you would take me to her.”

  “Non, I said you would see her. I did not promise she would see you. As you can tell, she is unharmed.” Fernand leaned on the large bell and forced the clapper to stri
ke the side with a long ringing tone. “Whether that happy state continues, it is entirely in your lovely hands.”

  While Arabella watched, the old woman’s gaze jerked toward the bell tower. She scooped up Lisette and took her inside. The young man followed them back into the house.

  “They will remove to a different location now,” Fernand said. “On the off chance that you are foolish enough to believe someone might be able to snatch her from me.”

  Bella balled her fingers into fists at her side. If Sebastian’s people were watching, they’d have no way to see where Lisette was and no hope of retrieving her. In this chess game of wits, Fernand was at least two moves ahead.

  “Now, before my patience is exhausted, where is the envelope?”

  Their opening gambit had failed. She had no choice but to make the next move. “It’s hidden at the Olympic.” She hoped to heaven Sebastian had found time to stash its replacement there.

  “This I will not believe. Your dressing room I have already searched.”

  “It’s not in my dressing room, but trust me, it’s in a very safe place.”

  “If the envelope is in the theatre, why did you not give it to me the night I first demanded it?”

  It was time to brazen out the play. Bella leaned toward him and patted his cheek. “Because, Fernand, you are only a French viscount of no fortune. I had a duke’s coach and pair waiting for me at the stage door. There was simply no time for you and your dodgy games. Besides, I knew the envelope would still be where I left it once I returned to town.”

  He clamped her wrist in a painful grip. “You had better be telling me the truth.”

  She lifted her chin, unwilling to let him see he was hurting her. “You have my daughter. I have no reason to lie. There is a way for both of us to get what we want here. Give Lisette back to me and we’ll go to the theatre to retrieve your envelope.”