“I? Goad you into a temper? I am far too busy to waste my time in such an impossible pursuit. After all, I’m a grown man with a reputation for being a complete swordsman, not some youth barely out from beneath his schoolmaster’s willow switch. I could fling this glass of wine in your face and you would not cross swords with me. Now Dubbonet here had best be careful not to give some grave offense to you, like stepping on your cloak, or he will find himself facing pistols for two, breakfast for one in the morning.”
“I—I didn’t really mean it,” Lucy stammered. “About wanting to duel.”
She could have told the two men that their hair was on fire and it would have had no effect. Tension sizzled between them as if no one else were in the room.
“Are you insinuating that I am a coward, sir?” Jasper hissed.
“Insinuating? No.” Valcour sipped from the crystal goblet of wine, then stared contemplatively into its rosy depths. “I am stating it quite plainly.” He raised his eyes to Lord Jasper’s fury-reddened face. “You are a coward, d’Autrecourt.”
Veins bulged in Lord Jasper’s temples, his lips twisting. “You’d like nothing more than for me to fight you in an effort to save your brother from his death. But honor demands I not schedule another altercation until I’ve met him on the dueling field.”
Lucy was stunned as Valcour flung back his head and laughed. “A fine speech, d’Autrecourt, but I know exactly how cowards like you behave. You’ll cut down Aubrey, a seventeen-year-old boy. And while there you’ll get some trifling injury that will make you unable to meet me. Then you’ll take an unavoidable trip to the continent, quite out of my reach. Business, of course. And that will be the end to it.”
Valcour sighed. “Ah, well. I suppose we are both to be disappointed. But you are a great deal more used to disappointment than I am. You’ve had plenty of practice at it in women’s bedchambers.”
Valcour stood as if oblivious to the murderous rage exploding in those evil eyes. Then with bored indifference he tossed the contents of his glass into Jasper d’Autrecourt’s face.
Chapter Three
Valcour might as well have slung boiling oil into d’Autrecourt’s face. Lord Jasper exploded from his chair as if he intended to kill the earl with his bare hands.
Lucy bounded to her feet, and the rest of the room erupted in shouts of excitement and shrieks of dismay. Only Valcour looked unperturbed. His eyes flicked to the playing cards, red wine pooling about them like blood.
“I believe Lord Jasper shall have need of another deck,” Valcour told a gaping servant, then started to stride from the room.
“Valcour!” d’Autrecourt bellowed. “You cursed bastard, turn and fight!”
Slowly the nobleman turned, and Lucy was terrified to see that for the first time Lord Valcour’s mouth was curved in a smile. Saturnine, chilling. “As you wish.”
At that instant Lucy knew it would be a fight to the death. And death to Lord Jasper, no matter how loathsome he was, might mean that she would never find out why the parcel had been sent to her, might mean that Alexander d’Autrecourt—if he were indeed alive—would be lost to her forever. While death to Valcour… Lucy couldn’t imagine why the thought should distress her so.
She flung herself between the two men, unnerved as Valcour began stripping off his frock coat in preparation for the duel. “My lord, you mustn’t do this!”
Valcour’s fingers made quick work of the buttons of his silver waistcoat. “Why Dubbonet, I’m touched. I didn’t realize you had developed such a deep affection for me in so short a time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Lucy snapped, the sound of the other clients scattering grating on her nerves. “It’s just that—that it’s a mistake to allow yourself to be carried away on a wave of anger.” Lucy couldn’t help remembering her reaction to such warnings.
“I am not angry in the least,” Valcour said with arctic civility. Lucy was stunned to sense that he spoke the truth.
The realization that bets were being laid on the outcome of the duel made her stomach churn. She glanced over at Lord Jasper. His cohorts were clustered eagerly around him, while Jasper himself was practically frothing at the mouth in his eagerness to warm his steel in Valcour’s blood. He was already stripped to his shirtsleeves, his face twisted with a violence that portended ill.
Lucy turned back to Valcour and tried another approach. “There are certain rules in dueling,” Lucy objected, positioning herself between the earl and his enemy. “Someone has to serve as your second.”
Valcour tossed his coat into her arms. “I suppose you’ll do well enough.”
Lucy clutched the garment still warm from his body, smelling of sandalwood and leather and very real danger, a danger building heartbeat by heartbeat in this suddenly stifling room.
“If you kill d’Autrecourt you will have to flee to the continent. There must be someone who would grieve for your loss. A wife?” Lucy offered hopefully. “A mistress? What about your mama? You would break her heart.”
Valcour’s long fingers froze on the hilt of his sword. Lucy retreated a step from the black fire in his eyes—a conflagration of something raw and dark burning through that icy facade.
Steel hissed as Valcour drew his sword, light shimmering in a deadly river of blue down its length.
A space had been cleared, and the patrons of the gaming hell pressed up against tables, their eyes expectant, as Lord Valcour strode to the center of the room where Jasper was waiting.
Black breeches clung to the earl’s powerful thighs and impossibly narrow hips, his ice-white shirt a startling contrast to his hair. His neckcloth had been loosened just enough to expose the tanned hollow of his throat.
His right cuff had been turned back to reveal a wrist that was sinewy and supple, the sword a mere extension of his arm.
“En garde.” Valcour began to make the traditional salute with his sword, but without so much as that courtesy Jasper d’Autrecourt charged him, lashing out with his blade.
Valcour leapt back, light as a cat, his steel flashing out to intercept the lethal blow. Jasper grunted in frustration and fury and slashed out again.
He outweighed Valcour by forty pounds of pure animal rage, but while d’Autrecourt battled as if consumed by a hundred demons, Valcour parried and thrust with the grace of a dancer, the lethal expertise of a coldblooded assassin. Lucy had seen masterful swordplay before, had even amused herself by fencing with her father. But even Ian Blackheath could not have withstood the calculated onslaught of Lord Valcour’s sword.
The tip danced, a will-o’-the-wisp, tormenting d’Autrecourt with his own death, like a cat toying with its prey. Valcour’s blade flashed past his opponent’s guard, biting with sinister delicacy into the flesh of Lord Jasper’s shoulder. Red stained his shirt, and he gave a guttural cry of pain, but Valcour seemed not to notice.
Sweat dripped down Lord Jasper’s face and darkened his dull gold hair until it was the hue of tarnished brass. Lucy could see his sword hand quiver just a little, heard his breath rasp. Valcour gave him no quarter, driving him harder, faster. Another wound bloomed on Lord Jasper’s thigh, then Valcour’s sword point ripped the front of his opponent’s shirt, leaving a shallow gash.
Ruthless. Almost inhumanly cold, Valcour battled, his lips curled in a feral smile. Time after time Lucy saw openings where he could have driven his blade home. He chose not to, and Lucy was certain he was just extending the pleasure of this battle before he finished Jasper. After all, the only other reason Valcour could be leashing himself would be to keep from killing Lord Jasper, and that was the most preposterous possibility of all.
Valcour had come looking for this duel, and he had gotten it. Everyone in the room, including the winded d’Autrecourt, had to know that. Four times Valcour had dampened his sword with Sir Jasper’s blood. It was only a matter of time before he would strike the final blow.
“Please, milord!” the proprietor of the gaming hell begged. “ ’Twill be the ruin of me if you
murder him here!”
At that instant Jasper channeled all his waning strength and flung himself one last time at Valcour.
As if suddenly tiring of the game, Valcour flicked his supple wrist, driving the blade through Sir Jasper’s shoulder.
The nobleman bellowed in pain and crumpled to his knees as Valcour pulled his weapon free.
Desperate to stop the deathblow, Lucy flung herself between them, clutching at Valcour’s sword arm. “You’ve got what you wanted! He can’t fight your brother tomorrow! There’s no need to kill him!”
Valcour’s eyes darkened for a heartbeat, his other hand coming up to shove her aside. His hard palm flattened against the front of Lucy’s frock coat.
Lucy cried out as Valcour’s powerful hand closed upon the unmistakable swell of her bound breasts.
Stunned disbelief flashed like quicksilver across that arrogant countenance, but in a heartbeat the emotion vanished.
He turned away from the groaning d’Autrecourt and withdrew a black silk handkerchief to wipe the blood from his sword.
“I suppose it would be the height of vulgarity to kill a man in front of a group of ladies, however questionable their virtue.” Valcour sheathed his sword. “But remember this, d’Autrecourt. My deathblow is just one indiscretion away from your cowardly throat. My brother may be a fool. But at the moment I prefer him to be a living fool instead of a dead one. And I am well used to getting what I want. Now if you’ll excuse us.” He dug a wad of currency from his pocket and dropped it onto the floor. “This should cover damages.”
Lucy shrank back, grateful that Valcour would be leaving. Grateful that d’Autrecourt was alive. If only she could question him a little before he was carted away to the surgeon’s, perhaps this night’s excursion would not have been in vain.
She started toward Sir Jasper when a hard hand knotted at the scruff of her neck.
“Did you not hear me, Dubbonet?” Valcour said through gritted teeth. “I said it is time for us to leave.”
“You leave!” Lucy struggled against his grasp. He dragged her along as if she were no more trouble than a recalcitrant kitten. “I have business to conduct—”
“You have business to conduct, all right,” Valcour muttered, retrieving their cloaks. His voice dropped to a level that could reach her ears alone. “You can begin this business by explaining exactly what you are hiding beneath your frock coat.”
“They’re called breasts,” Lucy snapped, yanking against his grasp. The only thing it earned her was a bruise on her wrist. “I assume you know what they are.”
“I know what breasts are, madam,” Valcour said. “I just don’t expect to find them beneath a frock coat on a hotheaded boy in a gaming hell.”
“You make a habit of checking beneath boys’ frock coats, do you?” she countered. She was about to further insult her tormentor, but at that moment her gaze snagged on the lone figure of a man standing at the top of the stairs on the far side of the room.
He was slender, with an ethereal grace. His hair was the soft hue of candlelight. Lucy’s heart leapt to her throat. His features were obscured by shadow, only the sickly pallor of his skin visible across the smoke-filled room. As if the scene had pained him, he turned away, disappearing down the hall.
In pure desperation, Lucy did the only thing she could think of to get Valcour to release her. She turned and sank her teeth into his hand.
Valcour let fly a hoarse oath of surprise, his fingers loosening just a whisper. It was enough. Lucy ripped free of him and ran across the crowded room, dashing up the stairs two at a time with Valcour in hot pursuit. She plunged into the relative dimness of the upstairs corridor, her heart pounding.
Nothing. No one. Frustration, desperation balled in her chest. “Wait! Wait, please!” The man had to be here somewhere.
She was aware of the sound of Valcour’s boot soles behind her, gaining on her, was aware of the gasps of harlots opening their boudoir doors.
At the third door, Lucy shoved the panel wide with such force it crashed against the inner wall.
She froze on the threshold, staring into the room.
A meager fire flickered on the grate. A single candle on a desk drove back the darkness. A quill was soaking in an open inkwell, while the pounce full of sand sat ready beside it. Almost as if in a trance, Lucy slipped inside the room. Blank sheaves of parchment were spread across the desk, while scattered on the floor were three pages, crumpled up as if in frustration. Lucy knelt and picked one up, her fingers unsteady as she smoothed it open. Her fingers came away stained with the ink still wet upon the page.
“It’s music,” she whispered. She swayed, her head reeling, her knees weak. “It wasn’t Sir Jasper. It was someone else.”
“What the blazes?” She barely felt Valcour’s hand curve beneath her arm. That harsh face swam before her eyes, his brows a slash of confusion over hawk-like eyes.
“Damme girl, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I have. She wanted to shriek, her heart racing.
A gust of wind made the candle flame flicker, filling the room with writhing shadows. Lucy wheeled to see the shutters of a narrow window open to the night.
She tore away from Valcour and dashed to the opening, peering out. Fury, helplessness surged inside her as she caught a glimpse of pale hair disappearing into the maze of streets.
She braced one foot on the sill, ready to vault out after him, but before she could do it, Valcour’s arm shot around her waist, all but crushing her ribs as he hauled her back against the granite-hard wall of his chest. She fought like a tigress, slamming her elbow into him, kicking back at him with the heels of her boots. Valcour gave a grunt of pain, his arm tightening until she couldn’t draw breath.
“Stop this, you little hellcat! Don’t make me hurt you!”
“You’re the one who’s going to be hurt, you interfering bastard!” Lucy fought as if her life depended on it. And maybe it did. The life she had known since she was eight years old—the world Emily and Ian’s love had created for her.
He dragged her to the desk chair and slammed her down on it so hard her buttocks stung.
“You have some questions to answer, girl. Now,” he snarled, ripping off her ornate wig. A wealth of guinea-gold curls tumbled about Lucy’s defiant face.
“This is all your fault!” Lucy raged, slapping the hair back over her shoulders. “Damn you and your accursed duel! You could’ve just waylaid Sir Jasper in the streets. Wounded him in his own bed. But no! You English have to be so civilized! You have to follow five pages of instructions before you can skewer an enemy with your sword! And as if that wasn’t bad enough, you have to drag me into the affair!”
“I have no interest in your opinion of English custom,” Valcour said. “What I will know, at once, is what your real name is and who the devil you belong to!”
“Belong to? I’m no man’s lapdog!”
Valcour gave an ugly laugh. “I’d pity the man who got himself saddled with you. Your temper is so vicious you’d probably unman him the first chance you got!”
The words were flame to tinder. Before she’d even fully comprehended the idea, Lucy’s boot flashed out, the hard leather toe connecting solidly with Valcour’s groin.
“I appreciate the suggestion, my lord,” Lucy taunted as the earl doubled over with a bellow of pain and fury. She bolted out of the chair, pausing just a heartbeat in her flight to snatch up her wig and one of the crumpled sheets of parchment that had been left behind. She plopped the wig on her head, stuffed the music down her shirtfront, and ran even faster as she heard Valcour struggling to come after her.
She took the one route she knew he could not follow.
She vaulted onto the window ledge and jumped.
Her booted feet slammed upon the ground with bone-jarring force, Valcour’s curses ringing in her ears.
Within moments she was astride her mare. Natty—obviously knowing a quick escape when he saw one—flung the reins into her hands. S
he glanced over her shoulder for just an instant to see Valcour silhouetted in the narrow window, his imposing frame still bent in pain, his dark hair tangled about a face like that of some pagan god of vengeance.
Heaven only knew what he would do if he ever caught her.
Lucy spurred her mare down into the maze of dark London streets, thanking God that she would never have to see the earl of Valcour again.
*
At nearly three o’clock in the morning, Dominic St. Cyr, the sixth earl of Valcour, strode down the corridor of Valcour House. The servants bolted for cover the moment the earl strode through the door, goaded by some instinct for self-preservation.
Hellfire, Valcour thought grimly, he’d gotten no more than he’d deserved when that Satan-spawned female had exacted her revenge. At thirty-five, a man should have more sense than to go thrusting his nose into other people’s business—even if the person in question was barely more than a child, with huge blue eyes and a face that had seemed far too sweet even before Dominic had realized she was a girl.
A girl! Sashaying into one of the worst gaming hells in London, totally unprotected. A girl who had made fools of them all, from Jasper d’Autrecourt to the gaming hell’s servants to the earl himself.
Valcour should have known better than to interfere. After these past two years with his seventeen-year-old brother, Aubrey, he’d begun to think he could sit without raising so much as an eyebrow and watch someone light his own hair afire. Unfortunately, Valcour’s conscience balked at standing back and letting the boy fight a duel he could never win.
And of course, there were even more pleasures to come, Valcour thought with an ironic twist to his lips. Aubrey would be spitting fury when he discovered that the earl had saved his neck. However, another person would be more than grateful. Their mother.
Valcour approached the library, knowing he would find her there. She laid, a fragile figure, curled up in his favorite chair. Silver threads wove through hair that had once been soft, glossy gold. Dominic could remember her face when it was fresh with youth, a rosy bloom in her cheeks. Now it was pallid with sorrow and exhaustion.
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