Interesting that she’d chosen nearly the same path that Hennessy had selected for his daughter. Eustace had obviously had that response prepared. But he’d been considering a few things, as well—not the least of which was that all Sophia had truly wanted of this holiday was a handful of fond memories. She would have that, even if it killed him. Or everyone else.
“Now that we know what you would do in her place, this is what you will do in yours. You will inform those venomous harpies of yours that if they make one more disparaging remark about any of my guests, I will hear about it and I will make it my business to disgrace, embarrass, or ruin them in the most public manner possible. And you know I’ll do it, because I’ve done it before. Do you understand?”
Her face had paled, though whether that was from anger or well-suppressed righteous indignation, he had no idea. “Yes,” she ground out.
“Good. You will also lead your hyenas in friendly, polite conversation and greetings to everyone your paths cross. You will all smile and nod and be the gentlemen and ladies you were supposedly born to be. One sideways glance or turned back or behind-hand whisper, and I will—”
“Disgrace them. I heard you before. You don’t need to repeat it.”
She did seem to understand that she wasn’t the only one who meant every word of their conversation, because she’d tensed all her muscles so tightly that she would likely break if he pushed her over. The warning would suffice, then, but only until she realized that he hadn’t mentioned her, specifically. He couldn’t disgrace her, after all, without doing the same to himself. Or so she likely thought. “One more thing,” he continued.
“What, then? More threats? I told you; I understand.”
Adam took a step closer. “One more thing,” he repeated, his voice even lower. “You. You will show the same kindness and consideration to everyone under this roof. If you don’t, I will cut you off. And I will marry the least respectable chit possible just to be able to do so.”
Eustace gasped, color leaving her face completely. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Perhaps you haven’t realized it yet, sister, but I have had enough of you and your vitriol over every damned thing. Yes, you were born first, and yes, you are female. I have control over neither of those things. What I do have control over—and what I will keep control over—is this title and everything that goes with it.” He drew a hard breath. “I’m finished with you now. You may go.”
She turned as crisply as any soldier, and walked two steps. Then she faced him again. “One question.”
“I suggest you word it very carefully, then.”
His sister lifted her chin and walked those two steps back up to him. “I can guarantee that … woman’s reception here. But I have no say in how the rest of London views her, or in what anyone will say when the Season begins. Do you mean to show her at the theater? At soirees?”
“Enough,” he interrupted.
“No. I will speak. What am I to say when I hear the gossip? When Lady Jersey giggles and says ‘like father, like son,’ and everyone snickers? At you, or at our name? You may have kept people from sneering at her in your sight and on your property, but you’re ruining what little is left of your own name and reputation by dragging that trouser-wearing woman about and making as much of a spectacle of yourself as she does. I certainly hope your interest in bedding her lasts long enough to justify your own destruction.”
He should never have let her speak. Molten fury tore at his insides until he was surprised that his ears weren’t bleeding. “I know you like to have the last word,” he snarled, and she backed away a step. “But this time I will. Shut up.”
With that he turned and left the room. If no one else had been there to see, he would have gone directly to the nearest liquor tantalus, but guests littered his house like yapping, tail-wagging dogs. He couldn’t make a scene, couldn’t yell until his throat bled, couldn’t go stalking out into the snow until his fury cooled. All he could do was walk the house and hope no one stopped him for conversation.
It didn’t matter that Eustace was wrong both about Sophia and about her future, because even if he would have been perfectly content to take her about London to everywhere she wanted to go, she wouldn’t be in London. She wouldn’t be anywhere near him, and she certainly wouldn’t be happy about any of it. And neither would he.
A voice slid in through the cracks of his boiling mind, and he slowed outside the billiards room. His hand shaking so hard he could barely grasp the handle, he opened the door an inch.
Sophia leaned over the billiards table explaining her shooting technique to Francis Henning. Across from them, Keating leaned on a cue stick while his wife sat chatting with Ivy Flanagan. James Flanagan stood on the far side of Henning and offered his own pointers. To his surprise Lady Caroline was also present, seated by the window with a book in her lap and chuckling at the conversation.
A potential bride, a renowned muddlehead, a killer, a banker’s brother and his wife, and two Tantalus girls. He could almost touch the humor and peace in the room. He wanted to join them. At the same time, he was fairly certain that if he stepped inside there with the roiling, putrid center of him clawing to get out, the windows would shatter and he would simply obliterate every ounce of … easy affection in the room. If he shut the door on it, though, he knew he would never find that moment again.
At that second Sophia looked up and saw him. Her grin deepened, lighting her green eyes. “Your Grace. Thank heavens. Do come and explain ball spin to Francis. We’re going to turn him into a crack billiards player.”
Adam pulled in a breath, and then a second one. And then, keeping his gaze on Sophia, he pushed the door wide open and stepped inside. The room didn’t explode, the table didn’t burst into flame, and the walls didn’t crack.
Her expression altering a little, Sophia handed the cue to Henning and walked up to him. For a long moment she searched his gaze, then put her hand on his arm. “I heard you saying you had a sour stomach earlier,” she announced, half pulling him toward a window. “For heaven’s sake. Take a breath of fresh air. Why is it that men have to act so manly all the time?”
“Because we are manly,” Keating put in, stepping past her to shove open the window. “And if you’re going to cast up your accounts, do it out there. In a manly way, of course.”
Cold air rushed against his face, and Adam took another breath. Behind him he heard someone jiggle the bellpull, and then Camille’s voice requested a pot of peppermint tea, followed by Udgell’s lower-toned response. The discussion of the part mathematics played in billiards resumed. And his insides slowly began to cool.
Sophia had taken a seat directly beside him to join in the chat about hats with Camille and Caroline and Mrs. Flanagan, but after a moment he felt her hand brush the edge of his jacket. “Are you well?” she breathed almost soundlessly.
He nodded, taking a last cool breath and shutting the window before everyone else in the room froze. What did he mean to do with Sophia? He had no idea, other than knowing that he needed her to be in his life. Somehow, somewhere in the past weeks, Sophia White had become his one, very unlikely, saving grace. He couldn’t lose her. And certainly not to a man who would only disdain the very things about her that he loved.
* * *
“Oliver, there’s a letter for you,” Diane Warren, Lady Haybury, said, as her husband walked past the sitting room.
He backtracked, leaning into the doorway. “Since when do you announce my mail?” he asked, walking up beside her. Gently he pulled back a lock of her hair and kissed her on the cheek. “Unless it was a ruse to get me alone with you.”
She chuckled. “I rarely resort to ruses. Not any longer, anyway.” She handed the letter to him. “Kiss me before you open it, because you’ll be in a foul mood afterward.”
Without looking at the missive in his fingers, he settled his hands on her shoulders, leaned down, and took her mouth in a slow, deep kiss. “You taste like strawberries,” he murmured, kissin
g her again.
“And you taste like sin,” she returned in the same tone, smiling against his mouth. “My favorite flavor.”
With a short laugh he backed away from her and flipped the missive so he could read the address. Immediately his smile vanished. “It’s from Greaves,” he said flatly, and glanced up at her. “But you knew that.”
“I recognized the address.”
Swiftly he unfolded the paper and glanced through the single page. Then he sank down into a chair.
“Is something wrong with Sophia?” she asked, taking the seat beside his. “I knew we should have stopped her from going.”
“We might have stopped that, but she seems fairly assured that we won’t be able to stop Hennessy.” He spoke absently, his gaze following the lines of the letter as he read it again.
“Oliver?”
Finally he glanced up at her. “Listen to this: ‘You owe me nothing, but I find myself in need of assistance. Go to Cornwall, and meet with the vicar of Gulval. If you find Mr. Loines to be acceptable, or at least malleable, leave him be. If you find him to be otherwise, inform me at once. I ask this not for myself, but for someone of our mutual acquaintance. As you know, time is of the essence. I know your stake in this, and I do not ask you lightly. Greaves.’”
Diane studied her husband’s expression for a moment. “I would suggest you tell him to bugger off, but I believe this Mr. Loines is the man Sophia wouldn’t tell us about.” She frowned. “I can’t believe Hennessy actually thought a vicar would be appropriate for her.” Standing, she took the letter from Oliver’s hand and read it again herself. “What are the odds that Hennessy would choose someone of acceptable character for Sophia?”
“Very slim. He’s a self-important toad.”
Slowly she handed the missive back. “Greaves says we have a stake in this. In your opinion, could Hennessy shut the club down? We’ve had people speaking against us before, but he has his fingers in a great many pies.”
Silently Oliver rose to join her by the window that overlooked the club’s garden. Even with the roses cut back and the trees bare, it still looked inviting. And she was beginning to feel in need of a breath of fresh air.
“In a pitched fight,” Oliver said in a low voice, “and taking into account his friendship with the prime minister and his influence over the House of Lords, yes. I think he could have our doors closed.”
“Then the wisest course of action would be to let him have his way,” Diane commented. “All he wants is Sophia gone from here, after all.”
“And he’s found her a husband. It isn’t as if he’s ordering us to do anything, nor is he turning her out onto the street,” Lord Haybury agreed. “And as Greaves said, I certainly owe him nothing—other than a bloody nose, that is.”
She had begun this club to provide for her own future. To make wagering pay her back a little for the trouble it had caused her life. The Tantalus girls, as the club’s members had begun calling them, were employees, pretty things to entice the high and mighty to come calling and lose their money. This was not a home for lost women or a refuge for the scandalous and ruined.
Or it hadn’t begun as one, anyway. Diane nodded, her gaze still on the garden. “I won’t see Sophia given away to someone unworthy simply to save us some trouble.”
Oliver drew his arms around her waist, pulling her back against his chest. “I’m not giving you your Christmas gift until I return, I’ll have you know.”
Twisting, she faced him. Sliding her arms around his shoulders, she lifted onto her toes and kissed him again. “If you find yourself face-to-face with the Duke of Greaves, make an effort not to kill him. I have no desire to be widowed a second time when they hang you for it. I’ve become accustomed to having you about.”
She felt him smile against her mouth. “I love you, too, Diane.”
* * *
The Hanlith church had clearly been built with the idea that it would on occasion house more than just the village’s residents. The entire wing, set at a right angle to the main part of the church and out of the line of sight of all but the first pew of villagers, boasted more comfortable benches, the Duke of Greaves, and his entire retinue.
Sophia sat at the end of one pew at the back of the nobleman’s wing, Camille beside her. At the front, the Reverend Gibbs droned on and on. When they’d all filed into the church, the rector’s wife, introduced only as Mrs. Gibbs, had been standing beside him. Presumably she currently sat somewhere in the main wing, listening to her husband discuss the wages of sin and the sacrifices of the worthy. What had Mrs. Gibbs sacrificed? she wondered. Was she happy being married to a man who spent his time preaching to and advising others about how to live their lives? Was he a good husband to her? As a young woman, had she envisioned a life of romance and adventure for herself?
At least she could sit in the back of the church here, Sophia thought. Adam in the front pew had to pay attention and sit straight. Christmas Day. As much as she’d looked forward to the celebration at a grand country estate, she also dreaded it. In less than a fortnight, guests would begin leaving, going home to spend at least a short time before the lords, at least, had to journey to London for the winter session of Parliament.
She’d anticipated misery, but in a sense knowing that Adam was embarking on married life himself would be even worse. If her father had only bothered to acknowledge her, things could have been so different. Perhaps marrying a duke would still be beyond her reach, but it would at least have been worth a daydream or two. People wouldn’t have turned their backs on her from the moment of her earliest memories. She would have been able to attend the occasional Society soiree and evenings at the theater. But as she still wouldn’t have had Adam, perhaps a more acceptable life didn’t matter all that much, after all.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. She’d learned long ago that the world didn’t alter just because she wished for it. And if her heart felt broken at the mere thought of leaving Greaves Park, that was only because she’d wished for something she knew perfectly well she couldn’t have. Even so, these few weeks marked the first time she could recall wishing she’d been born someone else, wishing her circumstances had been different.
Finally the sermon ended, and the Greaves Park group began filing out of the church and back to the plethora of vehicles waiting for them. As she moved to one side, Lady Scoffield stepped on her toe.
The woman glanced at her, then looked away—and then stopped. “I beg your pardon, Miss White,” she said, turning around and smiling. “Please forgive me.”
Sophia blinked. “Of course. No harm done.”
“Thank you, my dear. And Happy Christmas.”
“Happy Christmas to you, my lady.”
“What was that?” Cammy asked from directly behind her.
She shrugged. “I have no idea.”
That wasn’t even the first time one of the members of Lady Wallace’s frowny band had surprised her. Over the past two or three days, several of them had said hello to her. Phillip Jennering had even stood when she’d walked into the breakfast room yesterday. It all seemed suspiciously like something Adam would have arranged. She would have confronted him about it, except that whatever his last encounter with Eustace had been, it didn’t seem to be anything he’d won.
She rode back to Greaves Park in the Blackwoods’ coach, accompanied by the Blackwoods and Lady Caroline Emery. At first Lady Caroline’s presence in their little group of misfits had made her suspicious. Then Francis Henning had told her about a rumored familial connection to an opera singer, and the good ton’s reticence around her made more sense—especially once it became clear that Adam preferred her over the rest of the bridal parade. And she’d seemed genuinely pleased to be welcomed into their band.
Once back at the manor she hurried upstairs to collect her paper-wrapped gifts and carry them down to the drawing room. As Milly had explained it, gift giving at Greaves Park was a very informal affair, everyone sitting where they pleased and handing presents to t
heir recipients with no rhyme or order.
When she arrived in the drawing room, it was filled with guests and gift-carrying servants and boxes and ribbons and white paper. Sophia stopped in the doorway just to look. So this was what Christmas looked like in high Society. It was very colorful, and loud, and full of the smell of peppermint tea and warm, liquid chocolate.
“Sophia!” Camille waved at her from a grouping of chairs brought in from another room and set beneath the large windows in the east wall.
Grinning, she made her way through the crowd, accepting and returning at least a dozen more greetings than she’d expected. Selecting the correct package for each of her friends, she handed them over before she plunked herself down in a facing chair. “I originally had other gifts for you, but I suppose now some fisherman downriver will make someone in his family very happy with an onyx cravat pin and blue ear bobs.”
Camille chuckled. “You didn’t need to get us anything, Sophia. And certainly not a replacement gift.”
“I wanted to. And forgive the workmanship.”
Camille untied the ribbon and opened the paper. “Oh, it’s lovely!” she exclaimed, holding up the blue and white knitted scarf. “You did this?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. Knitting is a grand way to spend the evenings at boarding school.”
Keating opened his, revealing the darker blue and green of his own wrap. “Well done, Sophia,” he said, sitting forward to kiss her on the cheek. “And very useful.”
“Yes, one season a year at least,” she returned with a smile.
“For you, Miss White.”
Startled, she looked up to see Lady Stanley holding out a small box tied with a pretty red ribbon. “I … Thank you.”
Sophia sent a quizzical frown to Cammy. Her friend shrugged, which wasn’t helpful at all. With a tight smile at Lady Stanley, Sophia pulled off the ribbon. Inside the box lay a very pretty blue fan ribbed with ivory and featuring a delicate painting of a white dove.
Rules to Catch a Devilish Duke Page 25
