The Wayward One

by Danelle Harmon

  “Well, it’s not like I have any great parties or other events to attend,” she said wryly. “The Season hasn’t yet started and life is pretty boring up in the country, especially with Lucien and Eva wrapped up in each other and nothing with which to amuse myself.”

  The truth, though, was significantly more concerning. Yes, her brother Lucien, the Duke of Blackheath, was wrapped up with his beautiful duchess, but not so wrapped up that he wasn’t starting to cast about for a husband for the one unmarried sibling who had yet to find marital bliss.

  Herself.

  Best to get away from him so her presence wasn’t a constant reminder of the fact that she was unmarried—and fair game for Lucien to manipulate into an unwanted union.

  But by the look of his pale face, Andrew wasn’t thinking about Lucien and his devious matchmaking, though he himself had also “benefited” from it. Instead, he was looking more and more nervous as several naval officers, resplendent in blue and white and gold, came in, many glancing at him with curious speculation before taking seats nearby. The low buzz of conversation was getting louder as the room began to fill. Laughter…snippets of conversation…chairs creaking…someone coughing.

  She forgot about Lucien, for the moment.

  “Are you quite well, Andrew?” she asked, eyeing him with concern.

  “I just want to say my piece, give my demonstration, and get the devil out of here.”

  “Oh, do stop. This is your moment! You’ve worked hard to gain recognition and respect as a scientist and an inventor. This new explosive of yours might well be your legacy. It could change the outcome of this war. Of course the Royal Navy is going to be interested in it, and you should care enough to want to go up there, talk about your invention, and be proud of it.”

  “What if I have an attack?”

  “You won’t. You haven’t had one in ages.”

  “What if something goes wrong?”

  “Don’t think that way. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Beside her Andrew tightened his lips, impatient as ever. This explosive, which was supposed to have more thrust and energy than mere gunpowder, had been the only reason their host, Captain Christian Lord, had been able to get his warship safely away from a French fort and warships in time to save not only their brothers Charles, Gareth and Lucien and his duchess Eva, but also Nerissa’s betrothed, Perry, Lord Brookhampton.

  Though in the months that had ensued since that rescue, Nerissa wondered bitterly if Perry had, indeed, been saved.

  A shadow darkened her pale blue eyes and she looked down, fingering the elegant painted fan that lay in her lap.

  “I’m sorry, Nerissa,” Andrew said. “I know you’re only trying to help.”

  She nodded, suddenly unable to speak. Let him think that. Let him think that her sadness was because she was impatient with his inability to embrace his own genius, the brilliant mind with which God had blessed him. Let him think that and maybe if she tried hard enough, she could think it too.

  It hurt far less than thinking about Perry.

  But Andrew was more perceptive than she gave him credit for being.

  “You need to put him behind you,” he said gently, so that people filing loudly into the chairs behind them would not hear. “It’s time to move on, Nerissa.”

  She stared down at the fan, trying to anchor herself against the emotion that the very mention of Perry’s name evoked. “I can’t.”

  “You have to. It’s over, Nerissa.”

  “It’s not over as long as I still love him.”

  Andrew’s face softened, and he reached out to cover her hand with his own. “He does not love you. Not anymore.” His eyes darkened with sympathy. “And I’m not convinced, dear sister, that he ever really did.”

  Nerissa looked away, blinking back the sudden tears. This was Andrew’s night, and she would not spoil it for him with her own troubles. “Well, at least we all know his true colors now. Or maybe I knew them all along and just didn’t want to see it.”

  “Well, you see them now. We all do. And Nerissa, there are other men out there.” He smiled. “Plenty of them here tonight, in fact. I must say, though nobody will ever be good enough for my little sister, it pains me to see you so unhappy.”

  She forced a smile and looked directly into his worried eyes. “I am not unhappy. See?”

  He shook his head, sighed, and nodded in acknowledgement as another group of naval officers filed in. One of them came over, his hand extended in greeting.

  “Good evening, Lord Andrew.”

  Her brother rose, exchanging pleasantries with their host; it was Captain Lord, fair-haired and handsome, his gray eyes crinkling in a smile and his beautiful wife, Deirdre, on his arm. Nerissa had taken an instant liking to them both when she and Andrew had arrived earlier this evening: the taciturn Royal Navy officer who had saved her brothers’ lives and his Irish wife, who wore her dark, curly hair unpowdered and whose genuine warmth and country charm had helped to put the increasingly nervous Andrew at ease. Captain Lord seated her beside Nerissa, leaned down to kiss her cheek and then moved on toward the stage at the front of the room where an easel had been set up along with a podium; there, he was joined by his older brother, Rear Admiral Sir Elliott Lord.

  “I suppose this infernal affair is about to commence,” Andrew muttered darkly.

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “And if the explosive doesn’t work?”

  “It will.”

  “I wish I could get out of here, and fast. I’m having second thoughts about this whole thing as it is.”

  “Relax. Just get up there, talk about how you created the explosive, give your demonstration outside when it’s all done and after a bit of mingling we go back to our own townhouse. Tomorrow you can head home to Celsie and baby Laura, and all this will be behind you. It’s as simple as that.”

  “You make it sound easy, Nerissa.”

  “It is easy. And I’m here to help you in case you feel ill or indisposed.”

  Andrew watched glumly as Captain Lord called for silence. Nerissa noticed that her brother’s hands had tightened around the arms of his chair, the knuckles whitening. He looked ready to bolt. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the captain said in a voice that Nerissa imagined had been honed on a quarterdeck and which had no trouble carrying the length of the room. “Tonight is a very special evening in that we have an esteemed guest as our monthly speaker. It was his timely intervention and genius application of a new explosive that saved his family, not to mention my own ship and crew, from certain disaster off the coast of France earlier this year. It is my highest honor and deepest pleasure to welcome and introduce to you, the scientist and inventor, Lord Andrew De Montforte….”

  Applause swelled the room.

  Andrew hesitated, paling.

  “Go on,” Nerissa whispered.

  He pushed his chair back, tall and resplendent in olive velvet that set off his auburn hair, and joined Captain Lord and his brother, Sir Elliott, at the podium. Only Nerissa could see the signs of his discomfort—the stiffness in his stance, a smile that was too quick to come and go as he formally greeted his host and the admiral. Only his breeding and upbringing enabled him to maintain an air of casual authority and confidence as he thanked his hosts and assembled guests, and began to describe how he had created the explosive that had, as Nerissa understood it, far more “blowing-up power” than ordinary gunpowder could ever have.

  But Andrew, for all his genius, was not at ease in front of a group, and he soon retreated into the arena where he was most comfortable: talk of formulas, alchemy and mathematics, and Nerissa, who did not consider herself to be much of a genius at all, found her mind drifting to other things as she nevertheless kept a protective eye on her brother in case he needed her support.

  Perry. She wondered what he was doing right now. If he was back in the country, or here in London. If he ever thought of her, as she did him. If he missed her, as she did him. If he had ever loved her…. />
  As she had him.

  He could never be hers and probably, in the truest sense of the word, never had been. But there were no others for her. Even in this room full of smartly dressed officers and the highest ranking men in the Navy there was nobody to catch her eye and she realized, with a bitter, sinking truth, that she was probably going to die an old maid.

  “…So therefore, I took the best properties of sulfur and saltpeter, added a chemical that would boost the accelerant, and began testing the mixture on the grounds of Rosebriar Park, my residence….”

  Yes, Andrew was doing just fine, as she knew he would be.

  But Nerissa was not.

  She cast a surreptitious glance over at Mrs. Lord, who was listening with fascination to her brother’s words. How lucky the woman was to have found someone with whom she could share her life, who worshipped the ground she walked on, who had given her a strong and handsome child with more, surely, to come. Wasn’t it what every woman wanted? Someone who loved them without end?

  “…. The first attempts were unstable and to be frank, quite dangerous. But then, that is the natural course for any experiment of this nature….”

  The minutes crept by, and Andrew made some notations on the easel behind him, turned it so that the audience could see, and began to take questions. Nerissa realized she’d had little idea what he’d even said, but that didn’t matter—he had not had an attack, he looked confident and secure, and he was well on his way to selling his innovative explosive to a very interested and eager Royal Navy.

  Suddenly, applause shook Nerissa from her reverie, and she realized Captain Lord was back at the podium and Andrew had stepped aside.

  “And now, let us all file outside into the garden for a demonstration of this new explosive,” announced Captain Lord and around them, chairs began to scrape, the buzz of conversation grew loud, and a sea of starched and powdered naval officers moved eagerly towards the back door of the room.

  “Well, tha’ ’twas most interesting!” said Deirdre Lord, rising from her chair as her husband rejoined them. “I can’t wait t’ see it in action!”

  “London will never know what hit it,” Nerissa returned, smiling as she watched Andrew, happy and finally at ease, delaying his own departure as he took questions from two admirals who had trapped him back on the stage.

  “’Tis what I’m afraid of. We have neighbors who retire early… I hope this doesn’t startle them out of a sound sleep! I’d better go get my little Colin so the sound of the explosion doesn’t frighten him.”

  She hurried off. Captain Lord gallantly offered Nerissa his arm. They all moved toward the door and suddenly Nerissa’s gaze, as though drawn by an invisible magnet, went to a man who was leaning negligently, arms crossed, against a spinet near the exit. Tall and lean, he was a good inch or so over six feet and while the simple lace at his throat was clean and presentable, his bottle-green velvet coat was a bit worn at the elbows and straining at the seams to contain his broad, powerful shoulders. Glossy black hair, thick and heavy with curl, was drawn back from a face of hard angles and planes and caught in an unruly queue at his nape; he had a bold nose, black and arching brows, a gleam in his eye and a mouth that was both ruthless and smiling. Not classically handsome, but there was something intensely attractive about him, something that demanded one’s attention and kept the eyes on him. She stood frozen, unable to move, unable to look away.

  He was the most virile man Nerissa had ever seen. And he was staring insolently, brazenly, straight at her.

  She felt Captain Lord’s arm stiffen beneath her fingers.

  “I thought you were going out for the evening,” the captain said tightly.

  The man lifted a brow. “New explosive, eh?” His voice was deep and melodic. Irish. And, judging by the fumes issuing from him, he was quite soused. “’Twill make Guy Fawkes Day all the more interestin’, I wager. Boom!” He hiccupped and laughed and looked pointedly at Nerissa through absurdly long, jet-black lashes, until she felt roses blooming on her cheeks and her heart did a funny little skip somewhere beneath her breastbone. “And who’s this lovely lass on yer arm, eh, Christian?”

  “This is a private military gathering. You need to leave. Now.”

  “I’d really rather not. Besides, as yer houseguest and brother-in-law ’tis rude to deny me curiosity, it is.” He was not looking at Captain Lord, but at Nerissa in a way that made her want to blush—or slap him soundly on the cheek for daring to stare so at her, a lady. And staring, he was. He cocked his head, one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile as he studied her face, the pale column of her neck, the gentle swell of her bosom before Deirdre, just returning with a tow-headed toddler in her arms, intervened.

  “Roddy, ye heard Christian—ye can’t be here. This is a—”

  “I don’t go by ‘Roddy’ anymore, mo deirfiúr daor. ’Tis a boy’s name and I’ve left boyhood far behind me, I have. My real name, please. Ruaidri.”

  “Whatever ye’re calling y’rself these days, ye’ve got to leave. Now.”

  “Come now, Sis.” He pushed back from the spinet, swayed drunkenly, and grabbed desperately at the door to hold himself upright. “What harm am I to whatever big secret was unveiled here tonight? I’m just a lonely landlubber now.” Hic. “I’ve got the old cottage back home. I raise sheep and eke out a meager livin’ from a cheap and stingy land owned by a cheap and stingy English landlord, I do. I’ve no mind t’ leave. Not yet. Besides—” he was still looking down at Nerissa and swaying a bit, his eyes twinkling roguishly as he noted her discomfort and saw that he was the reason for it. “I’m still waitin’ for an introduction.”

  “It’ll be a donkey’s age before you get one,” Captain Lord bit out through gritted teeth. “You are drunk and embarrassing yourself, Roddy—”

  “Ruaidri.”

  “—and this is your last warning.”

  The Irishman was still perusing Nerissa, his lips twitching with merriment as he gazed pointedly at her lips. “With that mouth I’m bettin’ ye’re a good kisser, aren’t ye, lass?”

  Nerissa gasped and this time Captain Lord, his gray eyes going frosty, relinquished both women into the care of Andrew who, flushed with success over the reception his explosive had received, was just joining them.

  “Outside,” Captain Lord snapped.

  “What, fisticuffs in the garden?” the Irishman asked, raising one brow and flashing an amused grin at Nerissa. “Saints above, Christian, ’tis beneath ye, don’t ye think?”

  Sir Elliott, who’d lingered at the stage looking at Andrew’s notes, was frowning as he joined them. “What is this?”

  “My brother was just leaving,” Deirdre said hurriedly, seizing the tall stranger’s arm. “Aren’t you, Ro— I mean, Ruaidri?”

  “Actually, I was rather lookin’ forward to watchin’ things go boom in the night.”

  “What?” the admiral demanded.

  “Fireworks.” He cocked his head and again, Nerissa felt the heat of his bold gaze as it moved over her lips, her throat, the swell of her breasts, and a strange and not unpleasant sensation centered itself between her legs and spread upwards into her belly, outwards into her blood. “With the pretty lass here, of course.”

  Andrew came alive. “Now see here! How dare you speak to my sister like—”

  “Enough! All of you!” Deirdre was losing her patience. “Ruaidri, you told us ye were goin’ out for the evenin’ and ’tis time ye left. Christian and Elliott, ye’re drawin’ the attention of our guests and I won’t let this evenin’ be spoiled by such nonsense. Lord Andrew, I have this situation well under control. Go on out to the garden with our guests and we’ll join ye shortly.” She transferred the sleepy toddler to her other hip. “Lady Nerissa, I apologize for me brother—he’s a rogue and at the moment, a drunken fool. Don’t take him seriously.”

  The man straightened up, adding another inch or two to his already commanding height, and letting his gaze rake over Nerissa’s bosom in a blatantly carn
al way, reeled drunkenly towards the door and yanked it open. He staggered off into the night, his form melting into the darkness.

  It was all she could do not to flick open her fan and drive cool air into her suddenly hot face. Dear Lord, he might’ve been foxed, but there’d been a gleam in his eye, something compelling and sharp that didn’t look at all drunk, and the paradox left her unnerved. Thrown off balance.

  Confused.

  And that hot, raking gaze….

  Roo-ah-ree? Roor-rie? Rurr-ee? Nerissa’s tongue struggled to make the sound of the strange name.

  It wasn’t until after he had gone that she realized he never did get his introduction.

  Chapter 2

  “What an odious man!” Nerissa whispered to Andrew as she slid her gloved fingers into the crook of his elbow and allowed him to escort her out of the room. Her hand was trembling, and she was glad of her brother’s anchoring strength because her knees had gone suddenly quite weak. He had rattled her, that brash and ill-bred drunk, and her heart was still banging a bit too hard in her chest for comfort. “For a moment there, I thought Captain Lord was going to challenge him to a duel at dawn.”

  “If he didn’t, I was about to. Maybe I still will.”

  The evening was warm, with a light breeze blowing through the chestnut trees overhead. A string of lanterns had been set up in the back garden, and gentle light glowed against the faces of the two dozen or so naval officers who had gathered to watch what was sure to be an entertaining, if not exciting spectacle.

  “Lord Andrew?” It was Sir Elliott, resplendent in his blue and white gold-laced uniform. “If you’re ready, I think we’re all eager to see the demonstration.”

  Andrew frowned as he looked at the people all gathered around in a circle. “They will have to stand back. Much farther back than that.”