by Gaelen Foley
THE EIGHTH DUKE OF HAWKSCLIFFE, the gold nameplate beneath it read.
“Poor bleeder,” he continued, as though he were talking about someone else’s family. He stared at the duke’s portrait for a long moment. “Never said a word to me, but at least he had the decency to acknowledge us all as his own. Couldn’t have borne with the scandal, don’t you know.”
She cleared her throat, half choking on her tea. “So, you’re saying h-he wasn’t your real father?” she asked ever so cautiously.
“No, poppet,” he drawled. “My real father caught Mum’s eye one night treading the boards at Drury Lane in the role of Hamlet.”
Becky was not a fainting female, but if she were, this would have been a perfect moment to ask for smelling salts. “An—actor?”
“Yes.” Alec’s smile was sugared treachery. “Sir Phillip Preston Lawrence was his name. All the ladies were quite smitten with him while he was in his glory. I’m told I look just like him.” He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I wouldn’t know. Never met the chap.”
“I see.” She dropped her stunned stare to her plate.
He laughed. “Now I’ve shocked you.”
She looked at him uncertainly. “Are you bamming me with all of this?” She knew he loved to make jokes—
“Afraid not, Becky-love. It’s all true,” he said with a world-weary smile. “The whole ton knows about it. At least mine’s better than Jack’s. Jack’s the second-born, you see—Mother’s first indiscretion, and, Lord, it was a big one. She chose well when she decided to pay His Grace back after finding out about his mistress.”
She sent him a questioning look, bracing herself with a wince.
“Jack’s real father was an Irish prizefighter called the Killarney Crusher.”
“Good God!” She quickly covered her mouth.
“At least Jackie inherited his father’s fighting spirit. And a pair of fists like cannonballs—which was fortunate, because he needed them, you see, to constantly fight off all the lads at school who went around calling our dear mama the ‘Hawkscliffe Harlot.’ ”
Becky let out a small sound of distress and closed her eyes for a second. Maybe Alec’s life had not been as perfect as it looked at first glance.
He lounged in his chair, studying her with an expression of jaded amusement, but resentment shot like daggers from his eyes when he slanted another careless glance toward his mother’s portrait. “You must admit it’s charming how the lady got around. Quite picaresque. I can remember being nine or ten years old . . . I used to sit with her, you know, while she would get ready for her evenings out on the Town. Watch her putting on her makeup and her jewels, and telling me who would be at the party.”
“You . . . were close to her.”
“Close?” He paused, his stare far away. He shook his head, his long lashes veiling his eyes. “She was the sun and moon to me,” he said softly after a moment. “I was her favorite.” He sent her a whimsical half smile. “From the time I was knee-high, she used to call me her sunshine-boy. ‘My little hero.’ ” He let out a low laugh and skimmed his fingertips restlessly across the white damask tablecloth. “I was her jester. Her confidante. If the duchess fancied herself an Aphrodite, I suppose I was just the little Cupid flying around to attend her whenever she was bored.”
Becky just watched him, waiting. At length, her calm, open silence urged more detailed revelations from him.
“Jack used to kick me around and say I was attached to her apron strings,” he admitted after a cautious moment, “but of course, Jack hated her.” He shrugged. “Jack hated everyone. Still does. Not me. I felt important because of her. She would tell me things she couldn’t tell anyone else. I was the only one who could cheer her up when Society gossip had made her cry, or when some man or other had disappointed her, or when she fought with her husband, or when her eldest son shouted at her to stop disgracing the family. She counted on me—and of course, she gave me everything I wanted. Bribes, I suppose, to ensure that at least one person in the family stayed on her side.” He sent Becky a cynical smile.
She ached, gazing at him. The hidden anger in the depths of his dark blue eyes had emerged, and his smooth tone was edged with razor sharpness. So, he was angry at his dead mother, she realized. It was easy to understand why. From the way he described it, the duchess had treated him like a coddled pet while it amused her, heaped her adult problems on his tender child’s heart, and then walked away from him without much difficulty when some new pleasure beckoned.
“She used to hug me tight and say, ‘You’re the only one who’s ever really loved me, sunshine.’ ” His words trailed off and he was silent for a moment, then he added sardonically, “You were right. I guess I was spoiled. She bought me my first phaeton when I was twelve.” He laughed again, and the sound was hollow.
“You must have been crushed when she died.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t crushed, I was infuriated. I had told her not to go. It was too dangerous. But, as usual, Her Grace did whatever—and whomever—she fancied. To you, Georgiana: You were no coward. I’ll say that for you.” He toasted his mother’s portrait with his coffee, but the edge of irony underlying his tone was as sharp as a duelist’s sword.
Noting the pain in his blue eyes, so carefully hidden behind his rakish indifference—after all, he was an actor’s son—Becky realized that even if Alec’s adult mind had grasped the valor of his mother’s tragic end, the child in him had never comprehended the betrayal. Here was a man who might never trust womankind as a species again.
Becky turned away for a moment from his bitter, unreachable smile and closed her eyes. If they were indeed undertaking this quest together, she realized she was going to have to treat him much more gently than she had previously thought. Behind that unflappable rogue facade, he was a more acutely sensitive creature than she had first assumed.
Indeed, it was that very sensitivity that made him such an attentive and incredible lover. From an obscenely early age, it seemed, he had been mastering the art of detecting the needs of a woman’s heart and fulfilling them, just as he had done for her last night.
But how sad it was that his only notion of love was to consume or be consumed by the emptiness of another. There was no safety in that. If she thought of love in those terms, she, too, would have shunned it at all costs.
“Despite what you may think, Alec,” she offered, gazing into her tea, “not all women are entirely out for themselves.”
“Aren’t they?” he asked pleasantly as he perused the morning paper, vulnerability and fierce mistrust behind his casual glance.
“No.” She felt herself getting angry at the scars the duchess had left behind, heroic end or no. She set her fork down abruptly and turned to him. “I am sorry,” she forced out, “but I can assure you that in Buckley-on-the-Heath, if a mother of six young children had run off with her paramour, she would not be welcomed back.”
“Really?” he murmured. He looked intrigued.
“Yes, Alec. Really.”
He set the newspaper down and gave her a hard, probing look, shrewdness glinting in his gaze. Her anger seemed to please him. Some of the bitterness receded from his eyes, then he tossed the portrait a final cutting smile. “Hear that, Mother? Becky Ward does not approve.”
A short while later, Alec left Becky to rest in one of the mansion’s many extra bedchambers while he went off to make preparations for their departure from London.
They would leave by dawn tomorrow for the seaside town of Brighton.
This was not merely a matter of better guarding Becky, what with the Cossacks still combing the streets of London for her; but also, Alec’s primary objective was to win at cards the needed funds to buy back her house for her, and for that he would need to get into some high-stakes games with the upper echelon of wealthy gamblers. With the Season over, the ton’s richest players, along with the rest of the beau monde, were migrating to Brighton for the summer, just as they did every year.
In all likel
ihood, it would only be a matter of time before Kurkov showed up there as well, Alec mused, but if he played like he knew he could when he was in top form, if he used his bloody head instead of hurling himself recklessly into the arms of the goddess of Fortune, then, with a little luck, he’d be ready by the time the prince arrived.
For now, he was mainly relieved that Becky had agreed to the plan he had outlined. She seemed to have reconciled herself to his leadership. Her show of trust was deeply gratifying to Alec; it gave him back a small piece, somehow, of what he’d lost to Lady Campion.
Walking down the street, he felt invigorated at having joined her quest. His forward stare was firm. There was force and purpose in his stride. He needed to get his hands on some money before they left Town, but the first order of business was a scouting mission to the clubs for a bit of reconnaissance.
Know thy enemy.
He intended to put an ear to the ground at White’s and Brooke’s to listen for any interesting tidbits that might be floating about from the London gossip mill regarding the famous Russian war hero.
The walk was not long. Knight House lay a mere block away from the stretch of St. James’s Street where England’s most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs were situated. It was a well-worn path that Alec and his brothers had trod innumerable times before, both sober and otherwise.
Phaetons and curricles passed; friends shouted out to him and waved as they went dashing by. Alec returned their hails and soon went marching into White’s, where he was one of the acknowledged heirs to Brummel’s famous bow window.
He sauntered from room to room like he owned the place, greeting his acquaintances here and there with his usual air of bored superiority and restless indifference. He asked a few questions, made a bit of idle conversation, and then checked the infamous betting book. There were two pages on Kurkov: one accepting wagers on whether the prince would take an English bride or import a Russian one, the other dedicated to bets on which party he would join, Tories or Whigs.
Interesting.
Alec was on his way out to try his luck at Brooke’s when he spotted the portly Russian ambassador settling into one of the large leather club chairs. Count Lieven had a document box in one hand and a demitasse of coffee in the other.
Alec smiled slowly and then approached the shrewd and amiable man. They were somewhat acquainted, mainly through Countess Lieven, who had become one of the grande dames of Society during her husband’s tenure as the Czar’s ambassador to the Court of St. James.
Alec had always admired Lieven for his mild-mannered tolerance of his dragonlike wife. Only a diplomat of his finesse could have borne her haughtiness. Of course, to say so would have been social suicide. Countess Lieven was, after all, a patroness of Almack’s.
Tall, elegant, and exceedingly blue-blooded, the countess came from a premiere Russian family and seemed to think she could have done a better job running both England and Russia herself than either the bumbling Regent or the wavering, nervous Czar. Wellington himself was said to fear the woman.
Alec avoided her when he could, treated her with the softest of kid gloves when he could not, and privately offered his sympathies to the lady’s short, stout, long-suffering husband—especially since Prince Kurkov had come to Town. Lady Lieven had made the Russian prince’s social success her cause célèbre from the moment Kurkov set foot in England. Alec feared she was a trifle infatuated with her countryman.
Her beloved brother was a military hero, and if she had one soft spot in her heart, it was for men in uniform. Count Lieven himself held the rank of general, though Alec found it a little hard to picture the portly ambassador leading troops in his present dimensions. The count had cropped, thinning hair and a waddling gait, thanks to the rotundity of his person.
He had to exert a little effort at wedging himself into the club chair, but, this accomplished, Lieven dabbed at his sweating pate with a handkerchief. Meanwhile, his plum-colored waistcoat seemed to groan at the girth of the belly over which it was asked to stretch, the buttons holding on with all their might. But for all his size, the Russian had a jovial temperament, his affability matched only by the keenness of his wits.
“Zdra’zhs-vu-tyay, my lord ambassador,” Alec greeted him with a bow.
“Ah, Lord Alec,” he said brightly. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
Alec flashed a roguish grin, grateful for the few Russian phrases he had learned from his diplomat-cum-spy brother Lucien a few years ago for the purpose of charming a Guest Voucher to Almack’s out of Countess Lieven for one of his less wealthy friends. “I see you are busy, sir, but I wondered if I might pick your brain for a moment for the sake of a wager.”
“Ah, a wager. I hear you are very fond of them.”
“Too fond, I fear.”
They laughed.
“You are more expert than I at such things, Lord Alec,” Lieven confessed. “Please, have a seat. How can I help you?”
He accepted the invitation, gracefully moving his coattails aside as he lowered himself into the chair beside the ambassador’s. “Were you aware that at the present time there are two wagers in the betting book involving a certain countryman of yours?” he asked with a sly glint in his eyes.
“Ah, yes. Kurkov.” Lieven’s smile turned bland, the twinkle in his eyes cooling considerably. “All the world is certainly abuzz with his exploits, aren’t they?”
Alec nodded, hoping that Countess Lieven’s devotion to the tall, good-looking prince might inspire her husband to give out a few private, unflattering details about the man. “I am trying to figure out how to lay my bets. You see, I always do my research.”
“That is commendable.”
“Well? Whig or Tory? What’s it going to be?”
“Whig,” Lieven said firmly.
“Really? You seem very sure.”
“Because I am.”
“The Talbot earls have always been Tories.”
Lieven shook his head serenely. “That may be, but Kurkov will vote Whig, mark my words. To please the Czar,” he added in a lower tone.
“I see. Very well, then,” Alec said with a guarded smile. “What of his choice in brides? Russian or English?”
“English. That’s where I’d put my money.”
“Why?”
Lieven stared at him with a mild, worldly trace of resentment in the depths of his eyes. He leaned nearer. “Let me tell you a little something about the great Prince Kurkov, Lord Alec. He is much more popular in London right now than he is in St. Petersburg.”
“Oh? I thought he was a great favorite of the court. Boyhood friend of the Czar and all that.”
“Was, Lord Alec. Was,” Lieven corrected him in a low tone.
“Aha,” he murmured, regarding the ambassador intently. “Do tell.”
“Well, it’s just a bit of court gossip, but . . .” Lieven smiled and nodded graciously to some other club members who passed, then he continued speaking to Alec with his cunning eyes on the others, watching all. “It seems Kurkov overstepped his bounds with the emperor a few months ago. I was not there, but what I’ve heard is that in front of an entire banquet hall full of guests, not in anger, but quite coolly and matter-of-factly, mind you, Kurkov rebuked the Czar for mismanaging the war.”
“What?”
“Oh, yes, particularly citing his youthful folly in allowing Bonaparte to dupe him during that brief period after Tilsit. Kurkov laid the blame directly on His Imperial Majesty for the French invasion and the burning of Moscow.”
Alec let out a low whistle. “Damn me.”
“One does not tell the Autocrat of all the Russians ‘I told you so.’ ”
“But—if you will forgive me, my lord, I have no head for politics—didn’t Kurkov rather have a point? If the Czar had not trusted Napoleon, the war might have been won with hundreds of thousands of lives spared on both sides.”
Lieven shook his head discreetly, but his look led Alec to surmise he saw some truth in it himself. “That is not for
me to answer. All I can tell you is that the emperor banished Kurkov to his country estate for six months after these spectacular remarks. Indeed, if not for their boyhood friendship, I daresay he would have been shipped off to work in the quarries of Siberia for his insolence.”
“They say your Czar is magnanimous; it must be true,” Alec murmured. “And so Prince Kurkov will take an English bride because he has disgraced himself in Russia. None of the great families would wish to make an alliance with an outcast?”
“Precisely.”
“And he will turn Whig in the hopes of making amends with his master.”
Lieven bowed his head.
“Most enlightening, my lord. I thank you.” Alec paused. “Why do I get the feeling you are keeping a watchful eye on him?”
“Lord Alec, dear lad, I keep a watchful eye on everyone. Especially on a man who has my wife singing his praises.”
Alec smiled in rueful sympathy. “The incident in question does not bother Lady Lieven?”
“Oh, heavens, no. On the contrary, she agrees with Kurkov’s viewpoint and admires him all the more for his ‘courage’ in daring to say it aloud.”
“Well.” Alec lifted his eyebrows. “Her Ladyship is certainly admirable in knowing her own mind. You must be proud that your lady is so firm in the strength of her convictions.”
Lieven laughed slowly, quietly, at his polite offering, and wagged a chubby finger at him. “Ah, Lord Alec, diplomacy lost an able man when you chose a career as a gambler. I mean it! I am a trained and worthy judge of men, and my instincts tell me you possess in spades that delicate understanding of human nature our field requires.”
“Why, sir, I am greatly complimented,” he responded in pleasant surprise.
“Did you never consider working for the Foreign Office, my boy?”
He shrugged. “We’ve already got one diplomat in the family.”
“Ah, yes, how is Lord Lucien?”
“Quite well, as far as I know. I haven’t seen him in a few weeks. . . .”
