Montford had not been a party to that kidnapping the other evening, though. Of that Davenport was almost certain. The episode lacked a certain finesse that characterized the duke’s dealings. Besides, Xavier, Marquis of Steyne, would boil himself in oil before he’d do the duke’s bidding.
His Grace smiled his thin smile. “Davenport, you have outdone yourself tonight, I think.”
The suave comment was not meant as a compliment and Davenport didn’t take it as such. “This time, it was not my doing. Ask Steyne if you don’t believe me.”
The duke’s brows drew together. “It seems we must talk, you and I,” said His Grace.
Ah. So Davenport’s surmise had been correct. Montford didn’t know of the kidnapping scheme. It occurred to Davenport that in the duke he might have a powerful ally in engineering Honey’s successful debut, so he murmured assent and moved on.
“Lady Arden, a pleasure,” murmured Davenport, bowing over her extended hand.
“I wish I could say the same,” said Lady Arden, her brilliant gaze inspecting him from head to toe.
The lady was a beauty, but in the vein of Athena, rather than Aphrodite. Chiseled cheekbones and chestnut hair, a generous bosom and a queenly stature. She was generally thought to be the duke’s mistress, though if that was the case, they were both preternaturally discreet.
The two of them were renowned for making brilliant matches, strategic alliances between their respective families and other highborn young ladies and gentlemen. In her way, Lady Arden was every bit as ruthless as the duke. A woman not to be underestimated. A woman who might also be useful to Honey, should the need arise.
Davenport was not ordinarily one for the proprieties, but he knew better than to introduce the subject of Honey with either the duke or Lady Arden in the midst of a receiving line at a ball. Besides, he needed to get Rosamund on side first.
Lady Arden tapped him with her fan. “Yarmouth is here tonight with his rapacious daughter in tow. Watch yourself, Davenport, or you will end in the briars. I hear he has plans for you.”
“If he does, they are destined to remain unfulfilled,” said Davenport. He’d almost forgotten about Lady Maria and her ambitious papa. He’d been hot for the girl, hot enough to overlook certain deficiencies in her character. Now he wondered at himself.
Lady Arden waved her fan languidly to and fro. “If you’ll take my advice, you’d best make yourself scarce for a month or so, until she gets her greedy little talons stuck in some other poor man. But then,” she said, almost to herself, “when have you ever taken good advice?”
He didn’t believe in discussing any lady he’d been intimate with, so he managed to extricate himself from that conversation without comment. Still, how was it that Lady Arden had seen through the girl’s ploy when he himself had only twigged to it the night before his kidnap? A shrewd judge of character, Lady Arden.
A wise one, too. But he couldn’t take her well-meaning advice. He had to see Honey succeed with the ton.
With the aim of keeping in his cousin’s good books, he dutifully went upstairs to get Tregarth’s magician of a valet to see what he might do with his evening raiment.
He did pause to wonder what had become of Honey below stairs but decided to leave her to fend for herself for a while. If she insisted on shrinking into the background, there was no way she’d survive a London season. That was a lesson she needed to learn on her own.
Presumably, Honey wished to marry. Consigning oneself to wallflower status from the beginning was not the way to attract an eligible husband.
The notion of her finding a husband made him a trifle … something; he didn’t know what.
Hardly surprising, he supposed, that the idea of Honey courting another man should displease him. He might not be the most devoted fellow on the planet, but once he fixed his interest on one woman, he didn’t cheat. The idea of the reverse happening to him was not a palatable one.
Ah, well. Best not to jump that fence until he came to it.
He paused outside the dressing-room belonging to Griffin deVere, now Lord Tregarth. A yell of pure rage burst from within.
Wincing, Davenport knocked.
Tregarth’s voice growled, “I’m coming, damn it.”
The door opened, and a neat gentleman’s gentleman peered out. “Lord Davenport.”
The valet’s black eyes traveled quickly over Davenport’s person. He pursed his lips.
“Dearlove, I need you,” said Davenport, spreading his arms wide. “As you can see. But it seems you are otherwise occupied.”
“Davenport, is that you?” barked Tregarth. “Let him in.”
That order was succeeded by another series of oaths.
“Your ball is going on without you,” remarked Davenport, strolling in to observe his cousin Rosamund’s husband standing at the looking glass, wrestling with his cravat.
“I … will … get this … right.” Tregarth spoke between his teeth, lips drawn back in a feral grimace.
He was a huge man, no taller than Davenport but bulkier. Hairier, too. Tregarth’s big hands fumbled with the recalcitrant neck cloth until he gave a disgusted snort and threw it down on the knee-high pile of crumpled linen beside his feet.
“Well, be quick about it, there, Tregarth,” said Davenport. “I need Dearlove and I don’t want to loll about here all evening watching you fume over your neckwear.”
“You may take him and all his works to Hell with you,” said Tregarth, snatching another neck cloth from the pile at his elbow. “I’ll get this bloody noose around my neck if it kills me,” he muttered, as he tied the first knot.
“If I may be of assistance, my lord,” murmured the little valet to Davenport.
“Seems you have your work cut out,” said Davenport, cocking an eyebrow in Tregarth’s direction.
A gleam in the man’s eye was all the answer he made to that comment.
“A new suit of clothes.” Dearlove tapped his lips, surveying Davenport with close attention. “Evening pumps, linen, stockings. Obviously I have nothing in your size, my lord, or the task should be of the moment. However, if you care to take some brandy and remain at your ease a quarter of an hour or so, I shall endeavor.”
He grinned. “That, Dearlove, is music to my ears.”
“Very good, my lord.”
An oath, louder than the rest, punctuated Dearlove’s departure. Another cravat went by the way of its fellows.
“I can see why you keep brandy in your dressing room,” commented Davenport as he poured himself a glass. “Having you as master would drive any valet to drink.”
Tregarth growled. “He won’t leave me. Says I’m an interesting challenge, if you please.”
“I must say, he does an excellent job of keeping you in trim. Why won’t you let him tie your cravat for you?”
“Because this time, I decided to do for myself. I’ve watched him wrangle the thing on countless occasions. But his damned finicky fingers are so quick. And mine…” Tregarth held up hands the size of hams with big, thick digits. “Ah, what’s the use?”
“Pretend it’s a woman,” suggested Davenport. “Be gentle with it. Caress it into beautiful compliance.”
Then he realized Tregarth only touched one woman like this: Cousin Rosamund, and fell silent.
There was an awkward pause.
Reddening slightly, Tregarth said, “Now you’ve done it.” He sighed. “Suppose I’ll have to wait for Dearlove.”
He stomped over and poured himself a drink. “What are you doing back so soon?”
Davenport quirked an eyebrow. “So you heard about Steyne’s plot, did you?”
He ought to have guessed. Tregarth and Davenport’s cousin Lydgate were as thick as thieves. Obviously Lydgate had not known about the drugging part. That was all Steyne’s doing. But Lydgate had gone along with it once the deed was done.
Davenport grimaced. He’d punished Lydgate with his fists, and Beckenham, too. But Steyne required more subtle handling.
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nbsp; There would be a reckoning between them, however, and soon.
Tregarth nodded. “Told Lydgate to mind his own business. That’s the trouble with the Westruthers. So damned toplofty, they can’t stand to see their name besmirched.”
His eyes met Davenport’s over the rim of his glass. “What brings you here tonight, looking like that?”
“Just got back from my rustication,” said Davenport.
Tregarth grunted. “Shortest rustication in history.”
Davenport tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Brief though it was, my stay was thoroughly delightful. I did not get as far as Davenport, however. The journey took an interesting turn.”
“You mean you beat the living daylights out of Beckenham and Lydgate, and they dumped you in a barn to fend for yourself.”
“As you see, I bore the brunt of their ire, too,” said Davenport, passing a hand over his jaw.
He felt stubble. “I’ll get your man to shave me while I’m here.”
“Why bother? You look like a pirate. Ladies love that sort of thing. Or so I’m told,” added Tregarth hastily, reddening again.
Hmm. Another place his mind refused to dwell, given Tregarth’s marriage to Rosamund.
“Be that as it may,” Davenport said, “I met a young lady in my travels.”
“Pretty?”
Davenport frowned. “What has that to say to anything?”
“A great deal, I imagine.”
“All right, very pretty. Exceedingly so. She’s a relative of yours. A Miss Hilary deVere.”
He’d discovered her name by questioning Trixie. He wouldn’t tell Honey that, however, and spoil the fun of annoying her with his pet name.
Tregarth looked blank.
“Sister to Benedict and Tom deVere. They have a run-down property in Lincolnshire, near Stamford. You must know them.”
The big man’s brow lowered. “Pair of wastrels, and I daresay their sister is no better.”
“But she is,” insisted Davenport. “And she’s here. I’ve brought her to stay with you.”
“You’ve what? Are you out of your mind? I don’t want any blasted deVere female in my house—”
Davenport held up a hand to stop him. “If you say anything that might lead me to plant you a facer, I shall break my hand, and I’ve got too great a sense of self-preservation to start a fight with you, in any case. Forget about the stable she comes from. This girl is as virtuous and pure as the driven snow. Which is why I had to take her away from that place.”
Seriously, he said, “She is your kin, deVere. She needs your help.”
“I won’t have her,” blustered Tregarth. “Rosamund is in a delicate situation. I won’t have anyone upsetting her.”
“So delicate, in fact, that she is downstairs as we speak, playing hostess to four hundred guests and in the pink of health, too. Look,” said Davenport. “I’m as fond of Rosamund as I could be. Do you think I’d bring trouble on her head?”
“You’re besotted,” ranted Tregarth. “Deceived. All the deVere women are the same. Trouble, with a capital T.”
“Just as all deVere men are the same, I suppose,” Davenport said smoothly, keeping a rein on his temper, but only just. “Uncouth brutes full of low cunning but without any of the finer feelings. Including compassion for a defenseless female, it seems.”
Tregarth sent him a blazing glare. “If she is virtuous and defenseless and all you claim, what are you doing with her?”
Trying his best to free Miss deVere from that very same virtue, was the answer.
An answer Davenport could not give. The need to possess Honey in the physical sense operated on a different level from the need to make sure she received her due: a London season. Right now, he focused on winning Tregarth’s approval of his scheme to the exclusion of all else.
Without a blink, he said, “I saved her from intolerable circumstances in her brother’s house. She had nowhere to go, so I brought her here. If you turn her away, she will be obliged to try to earn her keep. I daresay you know what that would mean.”
“Take her as your mistress,” recommended Tregarth. “That’s the best you can do to help her.”
“Ruin her, you mean.” Fury surged through Davenport at such callousness. The very idea of turning his Honey into a woman who had no choice but to move from one protector to the next was unthinkable.
A discreet and altogether delightful affair was one thing. Openly taking Honey as mistress was quite another.
He felt a twinge of dissatisfaction with that reasoning, but he didn’t pause to examine it too closely.
“Please,” he said to Tregarth. “Just meet her. As soon as you lay eyes on the girl, you’ll see what I mean.”
Tregarth threw up his hands. “Aye, I’ll meet her. But I can tell you right now, my answer will be no. And if you upset my wife over this, I will cut out your liver and feed it to the dogs.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
When Davenport went downstairs again, he was freshly washed, shaven, groomed, and dressed to the hilt in his own evening clothes, which Dearlove had procured with lightning speed from his town house a short distance away.
Davenport went in search of Honey, confident that she would have found somewhere below stairs to remain until he could fetch her again. He hoped she’d be a mite chastened by the time she’d spent there. He was still irritated with her for scuttling off in that craven fashion.
He found her, not cowering in a corner waiting for him as he’d expected but in the kitchens, of all places. Holding a rolling pin in one hand and gesturing emphatically toward the hearth with the other, she was at the hub of activity like a queen bee in her hive. Indeed, she had several drones running to do her bidding. Even the temperamental French chef seemed to treat her with flattering deference.
There was a smut of flour on her nose, and wasn’t that just adorable?
How had she managed it? He stood there, watching her, until he realized the room had fallen silent, and that everyone in it was watching him.
“Ah. There you are, Miss deVere,” he said.
Her gaze snapped to him. She dropped the rolling pin with a noisy clatter.
Someone opened the lid of a mighty cauldron and steam billowed around him. But he didn’t need the steam to feel a sudden, unmistakable heat. All she had to do was meet his gaze to make his insides sizzle.
Damn it, not now. He needed to set aside his lust for ten minutes and have a sensible conversation with the girl.
As her gaze took him in, a series of expressions flitted across her face. They resolved into a fierce glare.
“Excuse me,” she said to him, her lips thinning dangerously. “The staff are shorthanded, and I must—”
“Certainly, you must not,” said Davenport. He pointed at the chef. “You. Send to Davenport House for more staff if you need them. I cannot imagine what you are about not to have solved the problem earlier.”
The butler arrived on the scene then and spoke up. “Indeed, my lord, it will be attended to, I assure you. An accident to one of the cook maids had only just occurred when Miss deVere walked in or we’d never have accepted her assistance.”
“Do not blame them,” said Honey. “I gave them no choice but to allow me to help.”
“I am not blaming them,” said Davenport. He knew precisely who was responsible for this state of affairs. He knew also that servants weren’t likely to respect Honey for her generosity.
Honey’s chin jutted in mulish determination, but even she would not argue with him in front of the staff in a strange house.
“If you please, Miss deVere,” said Davenport, bowing. He did not wait to see whether she followed him but turned to lead her from the kitchens.
At the foot of the stairs, he took her elbow and hustled her into a deserted corner. “Just what did you think you were doing, mucking in with the servants like that?” he demanded.
“Take your hands off me,” she hissed. “You’ll soil your beautiful white gloves.”
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nbsp; * * *
Hilary stared doggedly up at Davenport, unable to keep the shrewish note from her voice.
“What?” The big, stupid oaf had the gall to knit his brows in a puzzled and slightly hurt expression.
Oh, she could have snatched up the nearest carving knife and stabbed him through his oh-so-elegant coat! How dare he leave her to fend for herself in this place while he went and dressed and groomed himself with an elegance that would rival Beau Brummell in his prime?
When she’d first laid eyes on him, lounging in the doorway to the kitchen, she’d thought him a dream come to life.
Then steam had billowed around him, like the clouds in heaven—or rather, the heat from another place entirely. He looked like a dark angel from the underworld, come to steal her away to his torrid lair.
Then, it hit her. He’d left her to grub about in the kitchens while he had turned himself into a confounded fashion plate.
“No doubt you are to attend the ball, my lord,” she said with a slight curtsy. “Do not let me detain you.”
She’d simply curl up in a corner with the spiders and die.
“Don’t be such a little fool.” He grimaced. “Do you think I want to go to the deuced ball? Rosamund won’t talk to me unless I do. I have to get her approval to the scheme, because I can tell you Tregarth is adamant he won’t have you.”
Though she’d half-expected to be turned away, the blow was severe.
“Oh.” She swallowed. “Well, then, I…”
Utterly at a loss, she passed a floury hand over her eyes. It wasn’t as if she’d placed her faith in Davenport, for goodness’ sake. Was it? Surely she’d not been fool enough to trust him to carry this off.
And yet she had.
The horrid sensation of being cast adrift in a huge city where she knew absolutely no one threatened to engulf her.
“I ought to look for somewhere else to sleep tonight, but…”
Good God, she’d not thought beyond her arrival, had she? What sort of idiot would not have foreseen this possibility, planned for it?
No, she’d been too desperate to escape from her brothers’ house. And far too trusting of this most untrustworthy scoundrel.
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