Not to mention what the gossip would do to Mama if she heard it.
More on point and of equal concern was Simon. What if he got wind of her imprudence? He’d be in a right high dudgeon.
“Forgive my boldness, but I’m sure one of the downstairs maids wouldn’t mind sharing your chamber and acting the part of a chaperone,” Wynby offered. “The rose bedchamber has a divan the maid can sleep on, and the room locks from within.”
“Is that satisfactory?” His lordship searched her face, worry tautening his already angular features. “I fear your health will suffer if you remain in those wet clothes.”
As did she.
Eden was a woman full grown after all—on the shelf, truth be told—and quite capable of making rational decisions. It wasn’t as if she was spending the night in a house of ill-repute. She hurt all over, and a merciless cadence ticked between her temples.
Pulling Lord Sterling’s greatcoat more securely about her shoulders, she tried to ignore the rivulets running down her neck and under the collar.
“That is more than satisfactory. All I require is something to sleep in. I’ll lay my clothes out to dry, so no one needs to trouble with them on my behalf.”
From the cart, Mr. Wiggles gave a worried woof.
Poor dear. He was just as wet and miserable.
“My lord, what about my dog? He’s never been away from me.”
His lordship whistled, and at once, Mr. Wiggles jumped from the wagon and bounded to his side.
“He’ll come with us and dry himself before the fire in your room. I’m sure Cook can muster tasty scraps for the handsome fellow too.”
What a load of blather. Mr. Wiggles was ugly. Plain and simple. But he had the most loyal, beautiful heart, and that’s what she saw when she looked at him. Not his mangy, scruffy outward trappings.
Reluctant, and quivering from cold, she permitted Lord Sterling to lead her into the house. A tomb held more warmth and was more welcoming. No wonder he’d avoided the place for a decade.
“I shan’t dine with you and intrude upon your reunion with your father. I’d prefer to be shown a room at once, and I’ll eat there,” she said, with unwavering firmness.
Besides, she’d rather be at her best if and when she met his grace, not grass-and mud-caked with her hair hanging in straggly tendrils.
The prudent thing to do would be to leave at once, but the truth of it was she felt rather awful. Better to stay here, tucked into a warm bed, then risk becoming stranded on the way home, or worse yet, finding she was too weak after all to make it home.
She might not know Lord Sterling well, but he wasn’t the sort to let her traipse home by herself, she’d be bound. Which meant he’d have to miss his birthday dinner.
Perhaps it wasn’t quite de rigueur, but surely with a maid in attendance and the door securely locked, no one could suggest anything improper had occurred. Even with a note delivered to explain what had waylaid Eden, Mama would fuss. Naught could be done about that unfortunateness.
His lordship opened his mouth, likely to object, but she stalled him with a short shake of her head and uplifted hand.
Lovely. Dirt smeared her fingers and caked her nails.
“I must insist, my lord. I’m honestly not feeling myself just yet.”
With a gracious inclination of his wet head, the candlelight giving his hair the aura of burnished copper, Lord Sterling conceded.
“Yes, perhaps straight to bed is the best plan. I would hate for you to fall ill.” He lifted her hand and kissed the dirty knuckles, and her dratted insides went all melty.
More butterflies flitted from her knees to her chest, then circled round and round in her middle. How could she be so taken with a man she’d only just met?
“I’ll see you in the morning then,” he said. “Should you need anything, don’t hesitate to ring. Wynby and the other staff are at your service. Isn’t that so, Wynby?”
“Indeed, we are available for your every need, Miss.” Perhaps a tinge less enthusiasm weighted the butler’s words as he looked over his shoulder to the hallway beyond.
“Is that my wayward son at last?” a feeble male voice called.
Oh, no.
The opportunity to escape without meeting his grace had vanished.
“Neville, you feeble-minded bacon brain, take me to him at once,” the same crackly elderly voice demanded. “Where’s Dockery? He is never about when I need him. I told him to await my son’s homecoming. Stop dawdling and shuffling along like a pregnant cow, Neville, for God sake. Cannot you push this blasted chair any faster? Move, you ham-fisted puff guts.”
His harsh demands plucked at Eden’s already frayed nerves, and she raised her appalled gaze to his lordship. No wonder his grace had such a wretched reputation.
Did he always speak thusly to his staff?
A disgusted smirk arching his mouth, his eyes gone slate, Lord Sterling elevated a mocking brow.
“My father always has had an eloquent way with words and knows no shortage of colorful insults.”
The wheels of an invalid-chair whirred in the corridor, and then the notorious Duke of DeCourcy, the Demon Duke, appeared. A shriveled, wasted shell of a man with sparse white hair, red-rimmed, puffy bagged eyes beneath a scowl fierce enough to send the devil himself into hiding. Yet in the architecture of his face and his unusual colored eyes, there was no mistaking his kinship to Lord Sterling.
“Father.”
Expression unreadable, his lordship dipped his head respectfully, but Eden didn’t miss his taut mouth or stiff shoulders.
Not a loving homecoming, by any means.
The duke’s watery gaze, scornful and contemptuous, swerved to Eden. He thrust his bony jaw forward and pounded his gnarled hands upon the chair’s arms.
“By God, you have bloody-damn nerve, Manchester.”
She cringed at the rancor radiating from his grace. This was a huge mistake. She turned to tell Lord Sterling as much again, but he halted her with a commanding look. Much more went on here than an uninvited guest’s imposition.
This was a battle between two stags, the old sickly animal not willing to relinquish his position, and the new determined that it be so.
Though his features remained impassive, she didn’t miss the spark of anger flashing in his lordship’s eyes.
“I’ll thank you to refrain from cursing with a lady present, Father.”
“Phsaw. Lady my arse.” His grace made a curt, sweeping gesture and leaned forward, his lips curled into a snarl. “You’ve so little respect for me and the duchy that you’ve brought your strumpet to this noble house?”
Something dangerous, almost sinister flexed across Lord Sterling’s face.
“Sir, you cross the mark. Miss Eden is my guest, and I insist she be treated with the respect due her.”
“I’ll just go.” Eden said as she removed his coat from her shoulders. “Home is not so very far.”
It only seemed so. In the dark. During a downpour. When she was already saturated and quaking with cold.
Nonetheless, she was determined to leave. A vile, palatable thing, the duke’s animosity stretched the distance across the entry, its tentacles coiling around her and squeezing the air from her lungs.
She turned to depart, but Lord Sterling’s firm hand on her elbow halted her.
“No. You shan’t. You will stay.”
A command. Not a request.
Unrelenting steeliness made each syllable clipped, but it was the flint-like resolve in his eyes, almost pewter gray with controlled ire, that he speared his sire that shushed her protest.
A test of wills.
If staying meant Lord Sterling won this round against his devilish father, then by Jupiter, Eden would stay.
“Wait.” The duke clawed at his rumpled neckcloth, his face an unhealthy pallor. “Demme. Is she . . .? No, by all that’s holy. You would not dare.”
The old man’s mouth worked, and for a moment, she thought he might be in the throes o
f an apoplectic fit.
She swallowed as every eye focused on her, and for the first time in a great while, humiliation and mortification sluiced through her, heating her cheeks. Head tilted at a proud angle, she didn’t flinch from his grace’s caustic scrutiny.
“That’s . . . That’s Andrew’s bastard.” Face contorted in disbelief and bony fingers clutching the chair arms, he trembled with rage. “You have the gall to bring Satan’s spawn here? Into my house? When you know how I feel about those . . . those maggots?”
“Father . . .” Holding himself rigid, his lordship strode to the duke. Towering over the shrunken man, he visibly fought to control his ire. “Make no mistake. Insult Miss Eden again, and I’ll leave Perygrim this very night. And I shall never return whilst you yet breathe.”
That took the wind out of the old man’s sails.
His grace collapsed into his chair, and mouth pressed into a pout, arranged his drooping blanket across his spindly thighs. The smile he formed as he raked Eden with his hostile gaze was nothing short of evil. Full of malicious satisfaction as well.
“Fornicate all you want with the drab then, but in a month Viscountess Bickford and her charming daughter arrive for a week-long house party at Perygrim. Lady Bickford assures me Gabriella will make an exceptional duchess. I expect you to honor my pledge that you’ll take her to wife. Do your duty to the dukedom by proposing before the party is over.”
A Rose for a Rogue
Collette Cameron
Sitting at the breakfast table the next morning, Chester glanced at his watch for the third time as he drank his coffee. Would Eden come down, or had his father succeeded in thoroughly terrifying her?
Five more minutes, then he’d go find her himself.
He’d wanted to bid her good night but couldn’t conceive of any rational excuse to knock upon her door at half past ten. As it was, it had taken a full hour to calm his sire into any semblance of reason. Chester had finally resorted to threatening to leave at once if she and Mr. Wiggles weren’t permitted to stay and shown the respect he required.
Much to his father’s consternation, he’d refused to even discuss the ridiculousness of a credible match with Miss Gabriella Bickford. She might be a beauty and an heir to a vulgarly large banking fortune as well as the sizable estate one county over, and the few times Chester had been in her company, she seemed to have a sensible head upon her dainty white shoulders. But hounds’ teeth, the duke wasn’t going to dictate who he married.
He’d made Mother a promise and, if possible, he intended to keep it. But then again, surely his mother must have realized how difficult love—real, sacrificial love—was to find, and even more so how a man in his position was expected to wed for profit and gain, not sentimental claptrap as Father called the emotion.
Naturally, she had.
Because she’d done just that.
Married the ruthless, titled, significantly older peer her parents had selected, bringing her own fortune to the union and regrettably, her naive hopes and girlish dreams as well.
For a moment, he let his eyelids drift shut, remembering his shy, sweet-tempered mother. She’d been no match for the fierce duke’s darkling temper, his unrepentant whoring and drinking, or his barbed cruelty. Two years after removing herself to The Lake Cottage, she’d died. Broken and disillusioned, but not before exacting a promise from Chester.
“Marry for love, Chester darling. Naught else matters or endures. Promise me, son.”
Adoring her, he had, of course.
Too bad he couldn’t abdicate his responsibilities and engage in another pursuit during the house party. Father had invited forty of le beau monde’s most influential and prestigious denizens for the gathering. Probably half that number included cow-eyed ingénues eager to snare a duke.
Damn my eyes.
He brushed a hand across those suddenly very weary orbs.
If he was to rejuvenate the duchy’s tainted reputation, he couldn’t snub the guests by removing himself to London for the farce’s duration.
Stretching his legs, he yawned and surveyed the comfortable room before pouring more coffee.
Mother’s touch yet remained from the cheerful jonquil and indigo silk wall coverings—now faded with age—to the floral damask covered chairs and the Blue Fluted china, used for serving breakfast. Unlike when his mother was alive, a fine coating of dust covered the sideboard and windowsills. The knick-knacks too.
Last evening, he’d noticed other signs of neglect. The great house and her grounds had seen better days. While some of the negligence might be blamed on Father’s ill health and lack of oversight, Chester suspected something more disturbing might be afoot. Not all the servants possessed a work ethic such as Wynby’s.
Sighing, Chester steered his thoughts to a more optimistic vein.
He and Eden would have the charming breakfast room to themselves this morning. Neville had confided that Father slept poorly most nights and relied upon laudanum to find any degree of rest. He seldom awoke before noon. Dockery, Father’s man—thug better described the cur—had claimed when he met Chester in the corridor this morning that he had important business to attend in Newbury.
Fearful his father might set Dockery on some mischievous task, Chester had stationed himself outside Eden’s chamber for the night. His back ached from the crick caused by slumping in the high back chair for hours.
Just what were Dockery’s duties anyway?
Far past time he was dismissed without reference, which Chester fully intended to do once he’d made a thorough inspection of the accounts, correspondences, and ledgers.
Just as well Eden had declined to eat dinner with him last night. Not only would his sire have treated her abominably, the old tosspot had done nothing but complain, harangue Neville, and pretty much attempt to make everyone as miserable as he.
After a decade, Chester had anticipated that perhaps Father had mellowed, had stopped being so corrosive and toxic—had stopped loathing the Andrews.
Not a bit of it.
If anything, the passage of time had intensified Father’s malice. That was what happened when men grew old and had nothing else to occupy themselves with. They ruminated, their ugly musings becoming as rotten as a festering wound, distorting their reason. Bitterness warped a person’s mind if they wallowed in it day in and day out.
That hadn’t stopped Chester from telling his sire, in the bluntest of terms, that he was never to cause any sort of harm to Eden, nor disrespect her in any fashion again, unless he wanted Chester to leave at once. He’d stalked from the dining room, his father hurling raspy curses at his retreating back.
Happy birthday, and welcome home.
This afternoon, Father had an appointment with a new physician, hired by Chester in London, and he anticipated a full accounting of his father’s health issues. He’d already sent word to the bailiff that he wanted a meeting at his earliest convenience to go over the estate’s operations and accounts as well. From what he’d seen of the books last night, Dockery wasn’t the only employee taking advantage of Father’s ill health.
A small sigh escaped him before he took a sip of the strong coffee sweetened with two sugar lumps.
Why had he expected anything to have changed?
Father blamed him for Byron’s death. He’d made that abundantly clear last night. It did rather scrape nastily to know Chester’s sire wished him dead so his brother might be alive.
If it weren’t for his confounded duty to the duchy, he’d be away today. Nothing else held him here.
Captivating blue eyes danced across his mind.
Well, there was that intriguing female upstairs he’d like to become further acquainted with.
Once he’d determined everything was in order and consulted with the physician, he’d make a decision about whether to stay on. Residing in the same house as his sire after all these years he couldn’t do.
Not yet.
Mayhap not ever.
He’d already asked to
have his possessions moved to The Lake Cottage. Which, luckily for him and his fascination with a certain azure-eyed nymph, was directly across Lake Blackton from Briar Cottage. If he stood on the dock a short distance from the house, he could see the windows of Eden’s home.
His attention gravitated to the doorway again.
She still hadn’t come down.
Was she unwell?
Unease swept him, and he straightened as he set his cup down.
Why hadn’t he considered that before?
Fool.
He should’ve insisted she be examined by a physician last night. She might be feverish, fighting lung fever, unable to call for help. Or afraid to after her hostile reception last night.
Tossing his serviette on his plate, Chester shoved his chair back. A movement beyond the window caught his attention, and he whirled to face the drive.
Her long hair skimming her behind, Eden rattled along in her dogcart. A serene Mr. Wiggles sat beside her as they rolled down the driveway.
Without a farewell.
How could he blame her when his father had called her a whore upon their first meeting?
Chester had almost said, “For shame, Father, she’s not any such thing. She’s the future Duchess of DeCourcy.”
Where such an obscure notion had risen from, he couldn’t fathom. He wasn’t given to rash impulses. He’d refrained mostly because Father might’ve expired on the spot, and even with as much discord as there was between them, Chester didn’t want the albatross of causing the duke’s death on his conscience. Besides, unlike his sire, he didn’t stoop to deliberate cruelty, and he’d never put Eden in such an awkward position.
His concern for her health had been genuine. In retrospect, insisting she stay last night mightn’t have been the wisest of choices.
Nevertheless . . .
Chester wrenched open the French windows leading to what was once his mother’s immaculately attended rose gardens. Pelting across the weed-choked stepping-stones, all the while waving his arms in a manner befitting a rambunctious child, he called her name.
“Miss Eden, please wait.”
Rogues to Lovers: Legend of the Blue Rose Page 46
