“I have a question for you,” Haybury asked, then paused as a servant hurried in with a pile of blankets. As the man left again, the marquis stood and walked around behind her to wrap one of the blankets around her shoulders. “Greaves.” He took his seat again.
She closed her eyes for just a moment, but that only made the images in her mind more vivid. “What about him?”
“He’s a cracking bad sort, a meddler, a game player, and a heartless fiend. But that’s merely my opinion of his character. What’s yours?”
Sophia huddled into the blanket, wishing she could disappear into it. “I don’t know what those letters said, but it doesn’t matter. I went to York for a … a new experience, a different sort of holiday. And it was lovely. Now I’m marrying Mr. Loines. In ten days, evidently.” She stood. “Where is my room? I’d like to change out of my wet clothes.”
“Up the stairs, first door on the right,” he returned, not moving. “I’m surprised you’re surrendering; it’s not like you, Sophia.”
“It’s very like me. You simply don’t know me as well as you thought you did.”
Oliver watched her up the stairs and through the door into her small, rented room. Then he downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass and refilled it. If he didn’t know her as well as he thought he did, and more importantly, if Greaves didn’t know her as well as he thought he did, they were all about to be in for a great deal of trouble. Well, they were in for a great deal of trouble, anyway. The only question was whether it would be worth it or not.
Regardless, at the moment he was a damned nanny. One who found himself in the dullest village in Cornwall, on the rainiest day of the year, and with the chore for the next ten days of keeping a duke’s illegitimate daughter from somehow finding a way to marry a man who would drain the life from her like a bloody leech. Greaves had owed him a great deal before. Now, well, he’d always admired the duke’s Thoroughbred. Zeus would do well—as a start.
* * *
If Adam hadn’t already been aware that the Duke of Hennessy wasn’t entertaining, the butler’s startled expression when a coach and four arrived at the front door of Hennessy House in Hampshire would have led him to the same conclusion. Aside from the fact that he couldn’t recall more than two or three soirees ever being held at Reynolds House, Hennessy’s London home, he doubted many people would voluntarily spend their holiday being constantly frowned at.
In this instance “House” was something of a misnomer; the estate wasn’t as large as Greaves Park—few homes were—but it was impressive. And cold and stifling, but then he’d thought the same thing about his own estate until Sophia had arrived there bringing sunshine where none had ever shone before.
“May I help you?” the butler asked, resuming a more disdainful expression.
“Is Hennessy in residence?” Adam returned, pushing back at his brimming frustration. The events of the past few days had sharpened his temper to a degree that even he found troubling, but the anger and frustration were also the only things that kept his mind focused on the task at hand rather than on the impossible one that still lay before him in Cornwall.
“And who may I say is calling? The household is presently abed and cannot be disturbed.”
Abed—what the devil time was it? He’d been measuring by days rather than hours, because all that mattered was that he hadn’t seen Sophia in six days. It felt longer, and shorter; he could conjure their last kiss—though at the time he hadn’t known it was the last—with no effort at all.
“The Duke of Greaves,” he said aloud, though he would have thought the large coat of arms painted on the large black coach would have supplied his pedigree just as well.
The butler blinked. “Please come inside and make yourself comfortable, Your Grace,” he said crisply, backing out of the doorway and leading the way to a rather formal-looking sitting room. Adam didn’t sit, however. Nothing about him had been able to relax for days.
He would have left Greaves Park sooner, but that would have meant shirking duties as both a duke and a landowner. The gifts of food to the poor the day after Christmas, the gifts and obligations to his servants, and a hundred other tasks that he traditionally saw to at this time of year. If he’d left without seeing to his people, he wouldn’t have felt … worthy of pursuing Sophia. Not after she’d reminded him that he was human.
Nearly forty minutes of silent, building annoyance passed before the sitting room door opened again. “Greaves,” a low voice rumbled. “What in the world brings you to Hampshire at this time of year? And at this hour?”
The Duke of Hennessy was a large man, stout and barrel-chested, with a gut that had expanded at approximately the same rate that his straight gray hair had receded toward the top of his head. He looked nothing at all like Sophia, thankfully, except perhaps for the slightly curved eyebrows and something he couldn’t quite name about the eyes.
“I need to speak to you about your daughter,” Adam replied, not in the mood for idle chitchat.
Hennessy frowned. “Katherine? She’s here with Marshall and the children. What about her?”
“I’m here about Sophia White.”
The duke’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Then we have nothing to discuss. I’m sorry you came all this way for no reason.”
“You threatened her, bullied her into agreeing to a marriage for which she is utterly unsuited. I don’t like that.”
“I’m pleased to have you stay for breakfast,” Hennessy stated levelly, “but I am finished discussing this topic.”
Adam frowned, the days of frustration and tension edging into fine, sharp-tipped fury. “You made her. Why the devil won’t you take responsibility for her well-being?”
“I continue to be baffled by this conversation. In theory, however, I have seen her into a proper circumstance.”
“You’ve seen her to Cornwall, where you can attempt to forget that she exists.”
A mottled red began seeping into Hennessy’s jowls. “Given your own lineage, I find you unqualified to preach morality to me.”
The Adam of several weeks ago would have felt that comment cut. This Adam had another, greater concern. “When the devil faults your reasoning, you should pay attention,” he snapped.
“I have done nothing wrong. And this conversation is over.”
Christ. At least he admitted to the mistakes he made, Adam thought. Or most of them, anyway. Did denial make Hennessy the sober, religious, propriety-minded man he so loudly proclaimed himself to be? The duke would likely think so, but Adam had already decided he liked Hennessy even less than he had previously. And he needed to win this argument. Sophia’s future—and his own—rested on it, because now that he’d realized what he could have, settling for anything else would be impossible, whatever the consequences.
“You paid for her schooling,” he pushed again, beginning to lose the badly fraying reins of his temper.
“I don’t believe in charity. It only gives false hope to those who haven’t earned their way.”
“You’re a damned dog,” Adam finally snapped. “If you’re man enough to fuck someone, be man enough to take responsibility for the results.”
The duke drew himself up to his full height, still nearly a head shorter than Adam. “I have seen to her future, when I was under no obligation to do so. It’s none of your affair, Greaves. I’ve done right by this person. Now leave.”
“I’m not finished with you yet. You threatened The Tantalus Club if she refused the future you shoved at her. I have a different future in mind.”
“Oh, really?” Hennessy asked skeptically.
“Yes. You will leave Sophia White alone, and you will leave that club alone. I have taken a particular interest in the woman and in the place, and I will fiercely—and tirelessly—defend their right to exist in the manner of their own choosing.”
“That den of iniquity is a blight on all of London,” Hennessy retorted, the red blotching his skin deepening. “It needs to go away.”
Adam took a slow step closer. “I am not some crusader for women’s rights. Neither am I a shiny-eyed youth with large ideas and small means. I have no use for propriety or manners or your good graces, and I have no use for you. I will not be fair, and I will be brutal. Are you prepared to cross me in this?”
For a moment he thought the duke might drop dead in his own stuffy morning room. “That is a great deal of bluster over what, a mistress?”
And that would be the last time anyone called her that. “I mean to marry Sophia White. In order to do so, I will insure the safety of The Tant—”
“Marry her?” Hennessy repeated, his brows drawing together. “You’re a duke, boy. You can’t marry some commoner. Less than a commoner, even. It’s absurd! Not even your father would marry a whore, for God’s sake.”
“I’m not my father,” Adam bit out, for one of the few times in his life knowing that he spoke the truth. Because his father would never have fallen in love, much less risked his reputation for anyone other than himself. Sophia had evidently made him a better man, even against his own will. “And if you had bothered to become acquainted with your daughter, you would have found the time spent to be worthwhile. She is … remarkable.”
“Y—”
“I’m taking care of your so-called problem, Hennessy. I’m removing her from the Tantalus. The Tantalus will remain. The gossip that will accompany her will be solely your fault, for fathering her and then failing to acknowledge her even when she becomes the Duchess of Greaves.” For a long moment he gazed directly at the duke. “Are we perfectly clear?” he finally murmured.
“If I discover that Haybury or his wife put you up to this, I will—”
“Say it. The Tantalus remains.”
Hennessy actually growled. “The Tantalus remains,” he repeated stiffly. “Now y—”
“I’m finished with you now,” Adam said, cutting into Hennessy’s bluster once more. “The Tantalus, Sophia, left alone. If I hear any differently, I’ll see you destroyed. If you think I’m lying about that, you’re free to test me.” With a stiff nod, he turned his back and made for the door.
“You’re making a mistake, Greaves. Marrying a whore will bring you down; not raise her up. You’re the one who’ll pay for your foolishness.”
“And I’ll be happy to have the opportunity to do so.” In fact, he prayed he would have the opportunity to make amends to her.
Out in the hallway, a petite form blocked his path. “Greaves,” the gray-haired Duchess of Hennessy said, regarding him.
“Your Grace,” he returned, inclining his head. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m late to stop one wedding and arrange for a second one.” And if Haybury hadn’t done his part, it might already be too late. Ice gripped his heart. It couldn’t be too late. Losing her now … He couldn’t contemplate it.
“Carlton did not pay for Miss White’s education,” the duchess said in a low voice, taking his arm as he made his way to the foyer. “I did.”
That surprised him to his bones. “Your husband took a lover, and you paid for the resulting child’s education?” he commented. “I’m thankful, but why?”
“Because I don’t believe in leaving messes lying about. My husband is a weak man who clings to religion in the vain hope that others will see him as better than he is. I wanted her to have the opportunity to be more than a blight upon humanity.”
Adam slowed. “I need to begin speaking with more women,” he said. “I’m finding you’re all full of surprises.”
“Not all of us. Just the good ones.” She took a breath. “Carlton is correct about one thing; if you pursue this path you seem to have chosen, you will encounter ridicule and censure. I know this, because I faced something similar when the gossip began about my maid being with child. You won’t like it, Greaves. You’re not accustomed to it.”
“I love her, Your Grace.” There was more to it than that, of course, but that was between Sophia and him.
“Well, then. I’ve given you my counsel. Do with it what you will.”
He extracted his arm as the butler opened the front door for him. This side trip had cost him a day, but it had been utterly necessary. Unless he could guarantee the well-being of the Tantalus, Sophia would never alter from the path her father had forced her on. And that would never do.
SEVENTEEN
The weather had improved in Gulval, but Sophia’s mood hadn’t. For a week she’d puttered about the village, spending money to purchase two new dresses in addition to a high-necked gray one she’d deemed more suitable for a wedding to a member of the church.
Generous spending had gained her if not friendship, then a certain warm tolerance from London’s shopkeepers. In Gulval, though, men seemed to run away at the sight of her, and women turned their backs to avoid talking with her. Whatever the vicar had told his congregation, she seemed to be the closest thing to Delilah or Jezebel this part of Cornwall had ever encountered.
For the first two or three days, she’d told herself that it would all change once she became Mrs. Loines. But how could it? How could someone detest her, and then like her the next day simply because she’d put a ring on her finger? Particularly when she’d done so under duress? She was to be the ugly thing everyone wanted to point at to make themselves feel superior.
And then there were the luncheons. She lifted the cloth napkin from her lap and wiped at the corner of her mouth. The roast chicken before her was edible enough, if she’d had any appetite. Mostly she attempted to avoid vomiting on the woman seated across from her at the small table at Mrs. Jones’s Meat Pies shop.
“It will be lovely, I must say, to have someone to assist me,” Mother Loines said, taking a sip of Madeira. “There are days when I simply don’t have time to call on all of the parish’s unfortunates.”
While aiding “the unfortunates”—the only way she’d heard the vicar’s mother refer to the poor and destitute of Gulval—actually sounded like something worthy, Sophia had already realized that her idea of helping and Mother Loines’s idea were two very different things. And her way, of course, was wrong.
Calling on someone didn’t entail bringing food or clothing. Rather, Mother Loines called early in the morning on her first unfortunate and read aloud for an hour or so from the Bible several appropriate passages regarding the wretched or the unworthy. Having dispensed her daily doom and gloom, she continued on to her next unfortunate—and so on, for at least ten hours every day. Except for Sunday, of course, when she spent the entire day in the church.
“I still don’t see the harm in providing bread or blankets to those in need,” Sophia finally said, interrupting the detailed description of Wednesdays, the day the congregation met to jointly pray over the past week’s greatest sinner.
“Because once an unfortunate is provided with goods, they lose the will to see to themselves,” Mother Loines returned, annoyance touching her honeyed voice. “Why should they find employment when they are simply given food to eat or clothes to wear? You would only make matters worse, Miss White. You have a great deal to learn.” The woman offered Sophia a brief smile. “I shall call on you in the morning, at seven o’clock, and I will provide you with some appropriate Scriptures that suit your present circumstance and will prepare you for being a vicar’s wife.”
“Once I am married to your son, how will you spend your days?” Sophia asked, though she had a very good idea already of the answer to that. Mother Loines did not seem like someone who would willingly relinquish her place or her status in the community. “Because as the vicar’s wife, I will be the one making the rounds, will I not?”
“Oh, dear, I couldn’t possibly leave the reputation of the vicar and the church in your hands. Not for years.”
Another pound of metaphorical bricks settled onto Sophia’s shoulders. By the time of the marriage, she wouldn’t even be able to stand upright. She could tell herself that these were the cruelest kind people she’d ever encountered, but knowing that didn’t do her any good at all. It didn’t alter
the fact that she had to—had to—marry the Reverend Loines. That she had to live in a house dominated by Mother Loines, that she would never be able to do right because neither of them considered a sinner such as she capable of such a thing.
Mentally cursing the Duke of Hennessy, she settled for nodding and then drank down the remainder of the Madeira in her own glass. Until she’d met the vicar and his mother, she’d loved people, loved learning new things and experiencing new things, even when those same people didn’t know how to address her or were leery of being in her company.
Even dreams of Adam Baswich, while they improved her nights, only made her days worse by comparison. She already hated this new life, and she wanted to flee. Only two things kept her in Cornwall; she would render the Tantalus safely available for the other young ladies who so desperately needed its haven, and she wouldn’t become so pitiful as to be Adam’s mistress, to sit in a little house on the edge of London and waste her life waiting for those moments when he had time to spare for her. As that was the only way she could have him, she would do without. Even if it killed her. And if it was going to kill her, she’d begun to hope that that would happen sooner rather than later.
* * *
Adam rode into an empty village. Shops stood closed, and no one lingered about the public stable yard. The entire place consisted of fifty or so buildings at most, the majority of them tiny, ramshackle cottages edged by tiny gardens of vegetables and overrun by chickens and ducks.
Where the devil was everyone? At approximately the same moment he caught sight of the Oyster Shell inn, where Haybury was staying, he heard a church bell peal. Alarm threaded ice-cold through his veins. He’d told Haybury to get him ten days. Eight had passed. Had the marquis been unable to prevent the marriage? Had he lost Sophia, after all?
His hands shaking, he dismounted. Think, damn it all. It was Sunday morning. Everyone would of course be in church. That was the explanation. It had to be. Firmly hanging on to that thought, he pushed open the inn’s front door and walked inside. Empty.
Rules to Catch a Devilish Duke Page 30
