He lay there for a moment longer, watching her get up and cross the room. She’d managed to restore some semblance of order to her chemise, but her hair, a mass of dark and unruly waves, was beyond all hope. She looked like a woman well and thoroughly ravished and he was more than happy with his handiwork. And as soon as they’d gotten some food into the both of them, he fully intended to have an encore.
Lilly opened the armoire where the servants had indicated that items had been placed for her. As their own bags still sat unpacked by the door, he didn’t know what was in there. But he heard her gasp as she opened the doors.
“Oh, I really do like your friend, Highcliff,” she said.
A spurt of jealousy hit him squarely, prodding his temper to life, but he quickly squashed it. “What sort of silk or velvet has he lured your affections with?”
She laughed delightedly and pulled out a lovely confection of silk that would simply skim over her figure and reveal far more than it concealed. There was a wrapper of the same shade lined with velvet. It was an extravagant purchase. The only thing preventing Val from calling him out was the knowledge that Highcliff had likely sent around a note to the very same dressmaker he himself had obtained for Lilly and instructed her to send something “suitable for romance”.
“If I thought for a moment he picked that out himself, I’d blacken both of his eyes,” Val said without rancor.
“Well, I’m sure he didn’t. That would be scandalous, indeed. Actually, it’s still scandalous, isn’t it? But it’s so pretty,” she cooed. “I don’t even care.”
Val watched her stroke the velvet in a way that made him reconsider the notion of letting her out of the bed, much less out of the room. “Stop that. If you want food… if you want anything other than to be back in this bed, you’ll put that wrapper on and find yourself some slippers.”
“Slippers? Even my feet need to be covered?”
“The floors are cold,” he said, and reached for his own breeches. He pulled them on quickly, then his shirt. “Food. And then back to bed.”
“Fine,” she said and reached back into the wardrobe for a pair of slippers.
When they were both at least somewhat decent, they went downstairs and found the house all but empty. Even the live-in servants were out. Only a note had been left for them, along with a hamper of food. It stated that per Lord Highcliff’s instructions, the two of them were to be granted run of the house and complete privacy for the duration of their stay.
“What were you saying about blackening both of his eyes?” Lilly challenged.
“I stand corrected. He is a god amongst men. If there’s a bit of ham and some fresh bread in that basket, along with some good wine, I may very well kiss him myself the next time I see him.”
“No doubt, that would go over well at your club,” she said.
“Hardly that. The members of Brooks’ will not turn a hair if you gamble away your fortune, place bets on a lady’s honor or even duel over it, but there are some things even they will not turn a blind eye to,” Val said.
“And is that your club? With your remarkable skill at gambling? Brooks’?” she asked, dishing things up from the hamper.
“I’m a member at Brooks’. I’m also conditionally permitted in White’s and Boodle’s, so long as I’m accompanied by a member. Generally, the play I was involved in happened in less reputable establishments,” he admitted ruefully.
“Brothels,” she surmised.
“Is that ham? It smells divine,” he said.
She laughed at his blatant attempt to change the subject. “Don’t think I don’t know. The Darrow School is in a very fashionable section of Mayfair… and there are quite a few houses on our block that are… well, not simply residential. I’ve seen you and your carriage coming and going from Number Thirty-seven Cavendish Place. I shall simply knock on their door and inquire as to what sort of establishment it is.”
Val choked on the grape he’d just eaten. Coughing, sputtering, eyes watering as he wheezed for breath, he had a moment of truly wondering if he might die before the object was finally dislodged. “Do… not… ever… knock… on… that… door,” he said gasping.
“Good lord, you act like they’d haul me in and put me to work!”
“They might. I gamble there, because that’s where the sharps congregate and where they fleece the unsuspecting. But it’s run by very unscrupulous people, Lilly. Do not ever go there. Dear God, do not even walk on that side of the street if you can avoid it.”
“Surely it cannot be so terrible if you’ve frequented the place without incident?”
“I never said it was without incident. In fact, your association with me could potentially make it a greater danger to your… have you ever heard of the Hound of Whitehall?” he demanded.
“No. What a strange name! Should I have?”
No, he supposed, she should not have. A sheltered young woman living in a school of other young women and none of them associating with foolish men who played foolish games, why would she have? “Well, you do not wish to know more about him. That I can promise you. Just stay away from there!”
She eyed him while considering the order for a moment. “I will agree on one condition. You must stay away, as well.”
He had no wish to go there again unless absolutely necessarily. The Hound was ruthless and his people were quick and sometimes too eager with their dirtiest work. Not to mention that he was already in deep with him for the favor he’d asked earlier. “I will not go there unless I absolutely must… and if I do, I will not do so without telling you. That is the best I can offer.”
“Then I will avoid it on the same terms,” she said. “And we will not argue about it.”
Then he would simply break his word and never tell her, because the thought of what might happen to her in such a place terrified him. The very idea of her facing off against a man as ruthless as the Hound left him feeling weak in the knees and in the gut. “Fine. Let us eat and then let us return to our newly-wedded bliss upstairs. After all, tomorrow we go back to the dragon.”
She laughed. “You shouldn’t call her that. She loves you very much, you know. Even if she does try to manage you.”
“She didn’t try. She succeeded. You do realize that the two of us being here is entirely at her hand, don’t you? She put us together and somehow knew exactly what I would do!”
Lilly smiled again. “Then perhaps you know where your uncanny ability with cards came from, after all.”
Chapter Eighteen
They returned to the family’s townhouse the following day and were met with disapproving glares and stony silence. Stepping into the drawing room, wearing a sprigged muslin morning dress that had mysteriously appeared by courier just before breakfast, another gift from Lord Highcliff who seemed to have thought of everything, Lilly prepared to face her former employer. She had the feeling it would require a dramatic mea culpa and profuse apologies to even begin to set things right.
“Your grace, I understand you must be so very disappointed,” Lilly began.
“I am not disappointed,” the older woman snapped. “I am heartbroken and deeply affronted. My own grandson and I am not even permitted to attend his wedding!” Her complaints were accompanied by a theatrical sniff as she touched a handkerchief to her curiously dry eyes. “A wedding, I might add, that would never have occurred if not for my beneficence.”
“It wasn’t that we didn’t desire your presence, but that, in light of events that had occurred and Val’s concern for my safety, he felt we should proceed cautiously,” Lilly explained, looking to Val for help. He simply shrugged and crossed to one of the chairs that flanked the fireplace where he promptly sat and waited for her to sort out the issue.
“Because he thinks his cousin is a murderer,” the dowager duchess snapped. “I know what he thinks. It’s utter foolishness. Elsworth isn’t capable of such a thing!”
Lilly had her doubts. More so than ever before after seeing a man that could easily h
ave been Elsworth fleeing from Mr. Littleton’s office. Not to mention his threats toward her, both overt and subtle. “I know you want to believe the best of him—”
The dowager duchess cut her off with a laugh. In fact the old woman laughed so long and hard she collapsed into a coughing fit. Finally, wheezing a bit, she managed, “Believe the best of him? My dear girl, it isn’t that I think him too good to commit such atrocities! I simply question his intelligence in carrying out such a plan… as well as his nerve! He is weak. He always has been weak. I love him because he is my grandson but I am not blind to his faults. Nor am I blind to Valentine’s!”
Lilly sat back, stunned by the admission. “Oh, well… we didn’t really think he was doing it on his own,” she explained. “At least not the planning portion of it.”
The dowager duchess’ eyes narrowed. “And who do you think is planning it, then? Me?”
“Of course not!” Val finally interjected. “We both know if you wanted to do us harm, you’d simply skewer us with your vicious wit. But as to who may be planning it all and having poor, dupable Elsworth carry out their dastardly deeds, I’d rather not say until we have more information.”
The deceptively frail-appearing woman made a harrumphing sound. Then, in a tone dripping with bitterness, she added, “Fine. You will do as you wish regardless. I’m just your poor, old grandmother… too old, too weak, too feeble-minded to be of any use to anyone. I might as well go ahead and rattle off to my grave.”
“Please! If you died tomorrow, you’d only haunt us until we did your bidding,” Val replied sarcastically. “Not even death could prevent you from getting your way.”
Called on her bluff, the dowager duchess sat up a bit straighter. “I will haunt you. Every day of your wretched life, you rotten boy! And there will be a wedding… an actual one. With all the trimmings and all the fuss. You’ll not deny me that. I’ll see you married in St. Paul’s under the mournful gaze of every marriage-minded mama whose efforts were foiled by my own excellent matchmaking. It will serve them right for salivating and chasing after you the way they have. No dignity whatsoever!”
“But we did get mar—” Lilly began and was abruptly cut off by Val making a panicked gesture.
“Whatever you say, Grandmother. Your wish is our command.”
Apparently telling the dowager duchess that they’d already been married in St. Paul’s would not be in their best interests.
“We wouldn’t have it any other way, your grace,” Lilly added, before glaring at Val. The last thing she wanted was a society wedding. They would be the subject of so much gossip anyway it only seemed to be adding fuel to the fire to her mind. “And we’ll have to wait until my half-sister returns from the country, of course.”
The dowager duchess nodded. “Yes, having your half-sister there, along with her husband, that reprobate Lord Deveril, will help to combat any whispers regarding your suitability. Your father is a gentleman, after all. Your half-sister is married to a lord, no less. And with Valentine’s expectations of a sizable inheritance and a dukedom… well, who would dare gainsay his choice, regardless?”
Everyone would. But Lilly didn’t say that, instead she just smiled and tried to will away the sick feeling that had settled like a brick in the pit of her stomach. “Naturally you are correct, as always, your grace.”
“You should call me Grandmother, dear. We are family now, after all.”
“Grandmother,” Lilly said, the word feeling positively unnatural on her tongue.
“Now, you must go upstairs and have your maid get rid of every terrible thing I made you wear for the last few months. It was all part of the plan, you know?”
“I’m beginning to see that,” Lilly said.
“Good girl. Get rid of all of it and then we will go shopping. I know my dear grandson provided some things for you, but aside from marrying you, my girl, his taste is rather questionable, as well. He knows how to dress women, but not how to dress ladies. And we need for all of society to look at you with envy!”
That was the last thing in the world she wanted. Looking at Val with pleading eyes, she silently begged for his assistance.
“Grandmother, I understand that Lilly’s wardrobe will certainly need to be updated beyond the few things we’ve purchased, but it is our honeymoon. The shopping expedition can wait a day or two, can it not?” he asked.
“Very well. We’ll need those scratches on her cheek to be fully healed before we are seen too much by those who would gossip about it, at any rate,” the dowager duchess agreed. “And do try to not let anyone else shoot at her, Valentine. It’s most disconcerting!”
It was obvious that he was fighting back a grin as he replied, “Certainly, Grandmother. That is precisely what my dear bride said about nearly having her head blown off… it was quite disconcerting. If you’ll excuse us now?”
“Go on then. Rotten, irascible boy,” the dowager duchess groused.
As they rose and left the drawing room, Lilly was fuming at him. “Your grandmother is right. You are rotten and irascible. And incorrigible!”
“But I’m not a boy,” he replied. “I’m very much a man… or do I need to prove that to you again?”
She blushed to the very roots of her hair. “We will not indulge in such activities in the middle of the day in a residence we are sharing with your grandmother,” she hissed.
“Oh, but we shall,” he said. “She wanted us married, she can live with the scandalous consequences of it.”
That sobered Lilly quickly. Any hint of amusement and teasing fled. “I don’t want to be in society, Val. I don’t. They are vicious and terrible and they’ll eat me alive. It’ll be whispers and the cut direct and all manner of terrible, humiliating things!”
He stopped then and faced her squarely. “You know that will not happen? That woman in there—that tiny, fragile-looking and yet made of forged steel woman—she chose you. She decided from the moment she laid eyes on you that you and I should be together and then she engineered us both right to the altar. And I personally couldn’t be more grateful to her for it. But if she wants society to bow and kiss your slippers, they will bloody well bow and kiss them. Because she never fails to get what she wants.”
“But my whole life—”
He kissed her then. Just a quick press of his lips to hers, a gesture of affection and quite possibly even exasperation. “Trust me, Lilly… and trust her. I promise that you can.”
She so desperately wanted to believe that. In her whole life, there had only ever been two people she could trust—Effie and Willa. Not even the other girls at school had been confidantes for her. She’d always been cautious, aware that anything she said might later be used against her. It was a hard lesson learned at her father’s hand. “I do trust you both, but only so far. I can’t help that. But I’m trying.”
“Even after all we’ve shared?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she replied. “I can trust you with my body. It’s easy enough to see you are not the sort of man who would ever hurt a woman physically. But that doesn’t mean you won’t break my heart… and your grandmother—well, she’ll be kind to me so long as it serves her purposes to do so.”
“You are wrong about her. She admires you, Lilly. She sees something in you that made her draw you into the fold of our family,” he said.
“Wrong about her, but not about you.” His election not to address her statement about him being the potential cause of her heartbreak had not gone unnoticed. “You can’t even say that you won’t break my heart, can you?”
“I can say that I do not wish to… and that I will do everything in my power to prevent it. Is that enough?”
It would have to be. “I don’t want to think anymore. Can you make the incessant whir of thoughts simply stop?”
His eyes darkened with sensual promise. “I can. And I intend to, as soon as you climb those stairs… or should we scandalize everyone and I can carry you up?”
Part of her wanted that, but she
decided that discretion was not without its merits. “Wait five minutes and follow me,” she instructed.
“Only if you promise to be naked when I arrive,” he bargained.
“Then we have a bargain, Husband.”
Chapter Nineteen
It was late afternoon, inching toward dusk, when Val managed to rouse himself from their bed. All of Lilly’s things had been moved into his chambers at his request. He didn’t much care if it sent shockwaves through the entire house. Being apart from her was not something he was willing to do. For her safety and his own peace of mind, he wanted her close. But that wasn’t his only reason. Living in a house full of servants, as well as his impossibly nosy grandmother, he was reluctant to let everyone know if and when he was visiting his wife’s chamber. The only way to avoid that was to avoid traipsing down the corridor every time he wished to have a word with her, or anything else for that matter.
She slumbered on, clearly exhausted. But then he’d noted even the morning before as they’d walked into the church how tired she looked. She’d had far too much to deal with of late. Threats and attempts on her life, Elsworth lurking in the shadows at every turn. Relatives turning up out of the blue to leave her a fortune assuming she’d dance to their tune. He couldn’t eliminate the threats and he couldn’t change the nature of her relationship with her relatives, but he could put a halt to Elsworth’s skulking.
Thinking of the way all of his interactions with Elsworth went, Val steeled himself and his temper. He intended to have a conversation with Elsworth and nothing would stop him. No sniping at one another, no veiled insults, or they’d never get anywhere. He would tell his cousin what he knew and he would find out just how deeply he was into the mess. With that in mind, Val began to dress, pulling on his discarded breeches and shirt. He donned his waistcoat but left off with his cravat and coat. It was hardly a formal occasion, after all, accusing one’s cousin of treason.
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