The Wickedest Lord Alive

by Christina Brooke

  Lizzie delighted in indulging her talent for drama by reading these aloud to Her ladyship. Today, she’d brought Sense and Sensibility, but her favorite of Miss Austen’s works was Pride and Prejudice. In fact, upon coming to Little Thurston, she’d named herself after its heroine.

  No one else would have guessed that beneath Lady Chard’s snappish demeanor beat the heart of a true romantic. That was the thing about people. There were layers to them you simply didn’t see on the surface. Sometimes you had to excavate a little.

  Lately, the good lady had taken to matchmaking, which was a little tiresome of her.

  Lizzie had not been devoid of suitors over the years she’d been at Little Thurston, but she never treated any of them with more than the friendly courtesy she showed every other gentleman in the district. None had been so smitten nor so egotistical as to believe she’d welcome their addresses.

  Only Mr. Huntley persisted. Not because he was in love with her, although he often gave her ponderous compliments on her propriety of taste or her modest demeanor. Rather, Mr. Huntley wanted to wed her because he thought her upbringing in the vicar’s household stood her in good stead for life as an MP’s wife.

  If only she could bring herself to leap the twin hurdles of her own previous marriage (a high hurdle, that!) and Mr. Huntley’s deadly respectability, marriage to him would have advantages. She could remain in Little Thurston, no longer a spinster but a married woman with her own household. Leaving aside Mr. Huntley’s mother and her gentle tyranny, a young woman in Lizzie’s position couldn’t do better.

  And babies … How she longed for children of her own! That longing was so powerful that she did sometimes imagine how different her life would be if she were free to marry and set up her own household.

  But she wasn’t free, so thinking along those lines was as futile as it was fanciful. She would remain Lizzie Allbright, spinster, until her twenty-fifth birthday. Then she would declare herself to her trustees and claim the fortune that would come to her on that date as an ostensibly unmarried woman. As far as she could discover, her marriage to Steyne remained a secret from the world. Once she’d attained full majority and financial independence, her father could no longer command her in any way.

  And then she would pay a well-overdue call on the Marquis of Steyne.

  She knocked on Lady Chard’s front door and tried to compose herself. She’d raced there directly after calling on the Minchin family, so her plain dimity gown bore a few smuts of dirt. Having intended only to deliver a basket of provisions, she’d discovered the Minchins in chaos after one of their father’s bouts of drunkenness the night before.

  The children’s pale, scared faces tugged at her heart. She stayed longer than she’d intended, helping Mrs. Minchin clean and mend and generally restore order to the cottage.

  Afterwards, there’d been no opportunity to change if she wished to keep her appointment with Lady Chard. The older lady was a stickler for punctuality.

  Lizzie was hardly in a fit state for company, which made it rather provoking of her ladyship to be entertaining guests.

  Lizzie heard the deep rumble of masculine speech from inside the drawing room as she followed the butler down the corridor. Surely Lady Chard had run through all the eligible gentlemen in the county by now with her matchmaking schemes.

  The butler announced Lizzie. With an inward grimace at the appearance she presented, knowing Lady Chard would rake her over the coals for it, she moved to the threshold.

  And very nearly dropped her basket and her book.

  There were two gentlemen in the room. One with an expressive, handsome countenance and a head of thick hair the deep, lustrous gold of Lady Chard’s ormolu clock.

  The other …

  The other man’s black head turned. Eyes the color of sapphires regarded Lizzie from beneath those unforgettable slashing brows. His face was impassive as he studied her.

  This man was no potential suitor.

  He was her husband, the Marquis of Steyne.

  Chapter Two

  The shock held Lizzie suspended for several seconds, as if under a deep, quiet sea. She couldn’t hear a sound, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.…

  Lord Steyne had married, bedded, and abandoned her without a qualm—or at least, without hesitation. The sight of him, tall, arrogant, with that intense look in his eyes, brought their night together rushing back. A wash of heat flowed through her at the memory of his touch. Fierce longings swirled in her chest.

  Was he here to claim her, after all this time?

  “Well, don’t just stand there like a looby, gel,” said Lady Chard, yanking her out of her trance. Lady Chard flapped her hand in a beckoning gesture that made the drapes of flesh beneath her arm wobble. “Come in and let me make you known to my guests.”

  Years of dissimulation came to Lizzie’s rescue. She filled her lungs with a calming flood of air, and sank into a curtsy as Lady Chard made the introductions.

  “Miss Allbright.” Steyne’s tone was dryly ironic, his bow a mere inclination of the head that clearly expressed skepticism.

  Lizzie made a small production of relinquishing her basket and book to the butler—so much for Sense and Sensibility—then propelled herself by sheer force of will toward the grouping of chairs around a handsome Adam fireplace, where the small party stood. She sat opposite the two gentlemen, while Lady Chard disposed herself in the armchair in a cloud of black bombazine.

  Would he expose her imposture, here and now, in Lady Chard’s drawing room? She’d lied to the people of Little Thurston since she arrived here at seventeen. Now, thanks to the Marquis of Steyne, her house of cards would come tumbling down about her.

  There seemed no way to prevent the marquis’s revealing the truth right then and there. She’d intended to break it to the vicar and all their friends upon her twenty-fifth birthday, but she didn’t want it to be like this.

  Rather than denounce her on the instant, the marquis simply scrutinized her with insolent thoroughness. He remained silent as a stone while Lord Lydgate—a distant cousin of his, she gathered—made elegant conversation.

  “I was just saying to Lady Chard what pleasant countryside you have here, Miss Allbright,” said Lydgate.

  Lizzie warmed to him, for this slice of Sussex was in no way remarkable. In fact, for her, its lack of attractions of any sort was the region’s greatest charm.

  She managed to reply, “I like it, certainly, but I fear there is little of interest here for the fashionable set. We live very quietly in Little Thurston.”

  “Aye, that we do,” said Lady Chard. “So if you young rapscallions have a notion of kicking up a dust here, you won’t be received kindly, mark my words.”

  Lydgate did his best to look wounded, but his blue eyes danced. “Lady Chard, you will give Miss Allbright an entirely false impression of us.”

  Steyne did not even bother to acknowledge their sallies. His cold, bright gaze fixed on Lizzie.

  Her cheeks heated, but she worked hard to appear oblivious of his piercing stare. Steyne made no attempt to demolish her assumed identity, so she tried to relax and respond while Lord Lydgate gently steered the conversation.

  “Is that a smut on your nose, gel?” demanded Lady Chard, breaking in rudely upon Lord Lydgate’s discourse. She leaned toward Lizzie for a better look.

  Oh, plague it! Lizzie’s hand flew to her face. She rubbed at her nose with her fingertips, flushing with the fire of humiliation. Trust her to meet her husband again after all this time when she looked like a slattern.

  “Hmph.” Lady Chard’s shrewd old eyes continued to survey her. “And your hair’s all anyhow. You’ve been sweeping and scrubbing over at the Minchins’, I dare swear. In my day, we gave them alms and that was the end of it.”

  Any money that came the Minchins’ way would be spent in the taproom at the local inn, as well Lady Chard knew.

  “Is that so?” said Lizzie. “Then I suppose it was not you, ma’am, who sent little Janey Minc
hin a doll for her birthday only last week.”

  Lady Chard hunched a shoulder. “I don’t go cooking their dinner for them, at all events.”

  “No more do I,” said Lizzie briskly, uncomfortable with this talk. Mr. Minchin might be a drunkard, but his wife was a proud woman who would not appreciate the family’s circumstances being bandied about in my lady’s drawing room.

  She sought a means of changing the subject, but for the first time since he’d said her name, Steyne spoke. “Perhaps Miss Allbright would like to go upstairs to freshen her appearance.”

  That made her flush more hotly than before. With what dignity she could muster, Lizzie stood. “No, I thank you. Indeed, I must be going now.”

  The gentlemen had risen when she did. Lydgate looked over at Steyne as if he expected something, but the marquis merely dealt her another of his ironic bows.

  The viscount started forward to take her hand. “Miss Allbright, I hear there is to be an assembly tonight. Would you honor me with the quadrille?”

  Her head jerked up at that. Oh, but this was worse than anything! They were coming to the ball? And if she agreed to dance with Lydgate, would she not be obliged to take the floor with the marquis, too?

  Recalling all too vividly the last physical contact she’d had with Lord Steyne, she felt the hot wash of a blush flood her face.

  “I am engaged for the quadrille, my lord.” It was perfectly true. Mr. Pomfrey had been obliged to ask Lizzie to dance, for she’d been there when he asked Clare to save him a set.

  “The cotillion, then,” Lydgate said promptly. He really did have an enchanting smile. It was a pity his relation hadn’t an ounce of Lydgate’s warmth.

  “Thank you. I’d be delighted,” she murmured.

  Without looking at Steyne, she turned to go.

  “Miss Allbright.” His cut glass accents sliced the air.

  Again, she halted and looked back, and for the first time she met his eyes squarely.

  There is a plummeting sensation one feels as one wakes abruptly from a deep sleep. Lizzie experienced that now, as if she plunged headlong into something dark and dangerous.

  With difficulty, she found her voice. “Yes, my lord?”

  “Save me the supper waltz.”

  The command was so peremptory, it set her teeth on edge. Anger settled over her like a cloak. Did he actually think he could abandon her immediately after wedding her, after making love to her so … so … like that … and then go about demanding waltzes as if he had the right?

  Striving for her most affable tone, she said, “I fear I am now engaged for every dance, my lord.”

  “Ha!” said Lady Chard, clapping her hands. “There’s one in the eye for you, sir. You ought to have been quicker off the mark.”

  Steyne tilted his head, as if to view her from a new angle. He had not expected her to react with spirit to his command.

  She couldn’t resist adding sweetly, “But do not fear that you will be without a partner, Lord Steyne. I am sure I can find someone for you to dance with.”

  A twitch of those sensual lips showed her he was, perhaps, not entirely without a sense of humor. “Until tonight, Miss Allbright.”

  The words were invested with so much meaning, it was all she could do not to pick up her skirts and sprint from the room.

  * * *

  “I think she likes me,” said Lord Lydgate as they left Lady Chard’s and mounted their horses.

  “Who, Lady Chard?” said Xavier, deliberately misunderstanding him.

  “No, the divine Miss Allbright, of course,” said Lydgate. “You never told me how pretty she is.”

  Xavier threw him a scornful glance. Truth to tell, he’d spent the entire visit quelling the urge to lean in to Miss Allbright and wipe the smudge from her elegant little nose with the pad of his thumb. Even when she’d rubbed at her face, she missed the spot. His suggestion that she refresh herself had sprung from a desire to remove temptation from reach rather than any wish to improve upon her appearance.

  Of course, being female, she’d taken his suggestion as a criticism, and that was just as well.

  “You think her pretty?” said Xavier, investing his tone with indifference he only wished he could feel. “I would not have said so.”

  In fact, he did not consider the lady who called herself Miss Allbright to be pretty, nor even beautiful. Those banal epithets did not begin to do her justice. She was everything he remembered from their one, fleeting encounter, and more.

  “You are trying to provoke me,” said Lydgate.

  “No, I am refusing to allow you to provoke me,” Xavier calmly replied. “You will not flirt with my wife, Lydgate.”

  “Until you claim her as such, I say she’s fair game for flirting,” said his irrepressible cousin with a grin. “I still don’t know why you left her to kick her heels in this backwater for eight years.”

  Xavier made no immediate answer. After his first, fruitless search, he’d had little trouble locating his new bride. She’d been clever in her attempts to cover her tracks, surprisingly imaginative for a girl of her age. But he’d had resources at his disposal of which she could never dream.

  Yes, he’d found her, but he’d left her quite alone.

  Now, he said, “There appeared to be no urgency. She was very young.”

  “You mean you wanted to go on raising hell without a wife to plague you,” said Lydgate.

  “Now, there, Lydgate, you are lamentably wide of the mark,” said Xavier. “But do go on. Enlighten me as to my motives. You are nothing if not entertaining.”

  As their horses walked, Lydgate pursed his lips. That shrewd look was one his family had learned to mistrust. “You profess to be the Devil himself when it comes to sin. You throw orgies to rival the Hellfire Club—”

  “Now, there, I must protest,” said Xavier, holding up one gloved hand. “My orgies never involve vulgarity, and I find Black Masses and the like utterly ridiculous.”

  “—and yet you rarely take part in those orgies yourself,” continued Lydgate as if he had not spoken. “In you, my dear cousin, I detect strong ambivalence. When obliged to marry this Miss Allbright, you did not wish to mend your ways, but you wanted to protect her from your world. Perhaps, even, from yourself.”

  Xavier found that his jaw was rather too tightly clenched. He ought never to forget that Lydgate possessed a keen mind beneath all that hair.

  “How is that so far?” asked Lydgate.

  Deliberately, Xavier relaxed his facial muscles. “Like a bad play. But pray continue.”

  Lydgate’s voice gentled. “Now you find yourself in sudden need of a son, a necessity that never seemed likely before.”

  He had braced himself for some allusion to Ned and Charlie, but he felt the anger rise up all the same. Not at Lydgate, but at cruel, perverse Fate, which had seen fit to take two blameless little boys while allowing corroded souls like his own to live on.

  He would have died to spare his cousins from the fever that took their young lives, but he’d long ago learned the futility of such bargaining. He might as well hold Black Masses, for all the good that would do.

  In a more forceful tone, Lydgate added, “You cannot allow Bernard to step into your shoes, nor that ineffectual whelp of his. You need a son.”

  Coldly, Xavier said, “Either that, or I can simply ensure that my uncle and his ineffectual spawn predecease me.”

  Lydgate tilted his head, no doubt considering ways and means. “Something could be contrived.”

  Xavier snorted. “Do not trouble yourself. I don’t want blood on your hands on my account.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t think we’d need to murder ’em,” said Lydgate cheerfully. “Perhaps we might produce an entirely new heir. A long-lost brother?”

  “Dear God, wasn’t Davenport’s resurrection enough?” said Xavier.

  Another Westruther, Jonathon, Earl of Davenport, had staged his own death for reasons that Xavier privately thought nonsensical. If the fool had thought
to come to Xavier for help, he would not have needed to take such drastic measures. It was Xavier’s practice never to interfere with his relations if he could avoid it, but sometimes one was obliged to make an exception.

  He waved a hand. “Forget finding a new heir. Even I balk at perpetrating such a fraud. My ancestors would spin in their graves.”

  “Very well, then,” said Lydgate. “So. Unbeknownst to everyone, from your nearest and dearest to the Ton’s wiliest matchmaking mamas, you already have a wife. Ergo—”

  Xavier cut him off. “I think we shall leave the rest unsaid.”

  He never spoke of his affaires, not even with Lydgate. He found himself particularly reluctant to discuss his admittedly obvious intentions toward Lizzie Allbright.

  He began to wish he’d never allowed Lydgate to accompany him to Little Thurston. But his cousin knew Lady Chard well enough to make visiting her their excuse for coming. Xavier had no legitimate reason to be here.

  No reason but to bed his wife.

  His naïve, deceitful, pert, and damnably alluring wife.

  Perhaps he’d hesitated too long already to claim her and beget that heir, but he’d deemed it obscene not to wait a decent period after Ned and Charlie were gone. Now there were no more excuses to delay. He might be a marquis with more money than Croesus, but he was still mortal, subject to the same ills and accidents as any man. He had enemies, too. It wasn’t safe to leave the question of the succession hanging for too long.

  “I was surprised Miss Allbright received you so coolly,” said Lydgate. “If I hadn’t known the truth, I’d never have suspected there was anything between you.”

  She was a good actress; he’d give her that. But he’d never believed in her memory loss. The small, telltale signs of consciousness she showed during their brief interaction had justified his skepticism.

  “Don’t let that innocent air of hers deceive you,” said Xavier. “She had the wit to escape her father’s house and get herself here. And she’s been fooling the good people of Little Thurston for eight years.”