“Just an endearment, brought on, no doubt, by your desperate wailing.” He sounded censorious. “I’m off to get into dry clothing and treat myself to the hot rum punch you so thoughtfully ordered. Richards is bringing my evening togs. Shall we leave at eight o’clock for our descent upon the Harrisons’? Don’t take a chill now.”
He was gone. And though the rescue could have been singularly romantic, the duke’s concern for her now seemed merely perfunctory. Even though he had called her Sunshine. And Elise.
Kitty knocked on the opposite door, “Is everything all right, Miss?”
“Perfectly fine, Kitty,” Elise said. It was time to look forward. She would spend a long session at her dressing table getting ready for the dinner and ball that evening. She would wear her red Chinese silk ball gown with the cunningly stitched frog buttons down the front. It was a bit daring and meant to display cleavage between the fastenings, but she wore a special nude colored silk chemise under the bodice. The neckline extended to the very outermost part of her shoulders where the gown was capped with the tiniest tulip petal of a sleeve. It was the most beautiful gown she owned. She felt like a woman of the world in it as it displayed her shape to wonderful advantage.
Elise decided she would wear her hair half up and half down tonight, instructing Kitty to use the iron to curl ringlets along the sides of her face and maybe a few in the back to rest on her bared shoulder. She quite hated fashion’s restrictions on the dressing of hair. How dramatic she would look with hers wild and curling down her back! That would probably induce Gregory to some inappropriate behavior, however.
Grinning, she pictured the duke’s face like thunder if Gregory tried to tempt her to a private room this evening during the ball. For some reason, she longed to get a rise out of his grace. Why was she playing the coquette? With such a man it was dangerous, and she would be wise to remember that.
Elise could not help but know that the dinner at Lady Harrison’s house was considerably enlivened by her escort, who rarely attended such gatherings. And never as companion to a woman as unpretentious as Elise. When Viscount Chessingden arrived, she heard whispers in the drawing room where they were drinking Madeira prior to the dinner gong. “The duke’s attention must be the explanation for her broken engagement!”
“But does poor Elise know what a dangerous man Ruisdell is?”
My lady had close on fifty guests. In the corners of her vast red and mahogany drawing room, many bets were made concerning a possible engagement before they sat down to dinner. Those who knew the duke laughed and called it an impossibility. He would never bind himself up in matrimony. Elise could barely contain her amusement.
As the duke handed her a glass of Madeira, he said with a bark of laughter, “I just heard Westfield say, ‘Every pot has its lid.”‘
Elise giggled. “Do you suspect you will go through life ‘lidless,’ Your Grace?”
“I think the question is rather ‘will the charming Miss Edward’s ever settle on a pot?’”
The duke had a gleam in his eye, and whispered in her ear as he led her to the dining room on his arm. “What the devil possessed you to choose that dress? How am I supposed to resist that delectable neck?”
At his raised eyebrow, some devil prompted her. “I think a discreet kiss on my nape might lend verisimilitude to our charade.”
“Minx! Would you have me treat you as my mistress?”
“I suppose not. Only I’ve never had the nape of my neck kissed. I would only count it as research.”
“And us not even properly engaged yet. Contain those desires, my dear. You know not with whom you are trifling. It is a pity, however. I may never see you in this dress again.”
When the repast was nearly over and the guests were helping themselves to a savory Stilton, before the women left the men to their brandy and cigars, the duke tapped his glass with a spoon and rose, holding his wineglass before him. Talk stopped instantly. Elise noticed his knuckles white on his wine glass and hoped it wouldn’t snap. Was the cool duke actually nervous? Whatever for?
“Ladies and gentlemen. Prepare yourselves for some grave news. I, the Duke of Ruisdell, a rake of great renown, would like to propose a toast to this magnificent lady, Miss Elise Edwards, who, after many importunings has agreed to be my wife.”
The uproar that ensued was almost beyond the limits of what was acceptable among the ton. A ravishing redhead walked from her place at the long mahogany table, splashed her claret into Ruisdell’s face, and walked away. Calmly patting his face and clothing dry, he said with a chuckle, “Come along, Sunshine. I think that if we are to go to the ball this evening, I must obtain a change of clothing.”
“Who was that woman?” Elise asked as they waited for their wraps in the front hall.
“A person whom I refused to marry . . . let me recall, was it two or three days ago?”
A suspicion that should have occurred to her before now finally surfaced. “I suppose rakes are dreadful cads, aren’t they?”
“I can only speak for myself, but when a woman tries to heckle me to the altar, I become a bit uncooperative, to put it nicely.”
“Then I feel dreadfully sorry for the poor woman,” Elise pronounced.
“You needn’t. She knew what I was from the beginning, just as you do.”
“But I’m not hopelessly in love with you, even if I did ask you to kiss my neck.”
Before he put her cape over her bare shoulders, Ruisdell placed a row of warm, smooth kisses, light as butterfly wings, down one side of her neck all the way out to her shoulder. Corresponding wings fluttered in her breast, and for a moment she suspended breathing. Oh, good heavens!
Composing herself with difficulty, she turned and rapped his knuckles with her fan. “How dare you! You forget yourself. I am not your mistress, Your Grace!”
“Was that sufficiently thrilling for your research?” he inquired close to her ear.
“Most satisfying, thank you.” As she felt tender stirrings within, Elise berated herself. How could I fall so low that I should welcome and even be moved by the tiniest of kisses from the worst rogue in England? Conversions of his type into suitable husbands only worked in romances written by silly spinsters like herself. In real life, didn’t rogues continue to be rogues? If there was to be no duel in the morning, she must set her wits to discover how to be rid of Waterford, so her temporary fiancé could remove himself from her home and life.
Elise could see herself scorning society and dowsing the Duke of Ruisdell with a full bottle of wine, not only a glass, if ever he treated her as he had the redhead. The image cheered her immeasurably.
CHAPTER NINE
IN WHICH THE DUKE APPEARS AT HIS FIRST BALL IN TEN YEARS
Lady Sumner might be forgiven for raising her eyebrows and dropping her mouth open, the duke thought. She probably felt the devil himself had entered her palatial townhouse. When she saw Elise on his arm, she actually ignored the guest she was greeting and raised her quizzing glass, looking down the stairs where he and his fiancée patiently awaited their turn to be greeted. Ruisdell hadn’t enjoyed himself this much in years.
Living up to his role, he gently moved one of her blue-black curls over Elise’s ear and whispered, “Let’s be the adoring couple, dearest. What fun to hoax the ton.”
“You realize, of course, that it will take a tremendous cad-ism to make me part with such a conquest,” Elise said.
“Cad-ism? Have you invented a new word, my dear?”
“I think I have. Gregory has been annoying me so much with his advances when he is supposed to be courting Violet that cad-ism has been much on my mind.”
“Ah, but I am engaged to you, so none of my advances will be caddish.”
His fiancée looked at him, trying to repress a grin. “Remember I am a gently reared, virtuous young lady, and you won’t transgress. I think the kiss on the neck, which I realize was my rash suggestion, is quite enough for this evening.”
Truly disappointed, he managed
to keep a straight face. They had reached Lord and Lady Sumner after their long climb up the stairs.
“My darling Elise,” Lady Sumner said, taking both her hands in hers. “I had no idea you knew this reprobate! Where did you meet?”
“At Ascot,” she lied.
“How peculiar! And what does Lady . . . uh, your mother think of your attachment?”
“’Tis more than an attachment,” Elise said. “We have just become engaged this evening. You will see it in the Morning Post tomorrow. As for Lady Hatchet, she dare not reject a duke. You realize his noble rank stands at the pinnacle of her ambitions for me.”
“There is that, of course. Which brings me to the man himself. How have you been keeping all these years, Peter?” Since he had been at school with her son and a frequent guest in her house, it was not surprising that she addressed him by his first name. Many sins and misdeeds passed before him in a flash.
He indicated his cane. “I took a ball in the leg for merry old England.”
She looked from his cane to his face, where she apparently read something that changed her attitude. “Oh, I am sorry! How long were you on the Peninsula?”
“Three years, for my sins.”
“Well, I imagine Field Marshall Wellesley saw to it that you perpetrated your damage on a bona fide enemy for a change. Something drastic had to happen to drive you to matrimony. Lud!” To his surprise, she suddenly reached up to his shoulders and clasped him to her bosom. “See that you behave yourself in the card room. No fisticuffs.”
“I intend to shun the card room, Lady Sumner. My fiancée is by far the loveliest lady in the room, aside from yourself, of course, so I dare not leave her side or someone will tell naughty tales and cut me out completely.”
“Well, your manners seem to have mended nicely, and I’m terribly sorry about your leg, but aren’t you being the tiniest bit selfish? It does seem a shame that the lovely Elise shouldn’t dance. She does enjoy it so.”
“Somerset will be along in a bit if he’s not already here. He’s the only one I will trust her with.” Their hostess laughed. “George barely speaks. You have chosen wisely. Try the card room. I’m quite certain you will find him at whist or loo.”
Elise made a delightful moue. “I don’t want to come between a man and his cards, dearest. It’s quite warm in here, don’t you think? Perhaps a stroll on the terrace? Lady Sumner has the most divine peacocks.”
“Not to mention a maze,” he raised an eyebrow.
Whacking him on the wrist with her fan, she said, “You’ve had your kiss already today, darling.”
Lady Sumner watched this exchange, her eyes sparkling with the intelligence she could quite probably not wait to impart to the dowager set. “Looks like you’ve traded one commanding officer for another,” she teased him.
Clasping the back of Elise’s milk-white neck with one hand, he assured his hostess as he guided his fiancée away, “I haven’t given up all my tricks, My Lady.”
Once they had entered the ballroom, Elise said, “You seem to be very fond of Lady Sumner, and she of you. Confess! You are not nearly as depraved as they say.”
He compressed his lips into a thin, hard line. “It’s been ten years since she’s set eyes on me,” he said.
For some reason, this grim pronouncement caused her to stroke his weathered face with the back of her glove. “Your leg must be paining you. Come, there’s a seat in that alcove. There is something I must discuss with you.”
His leg was paining him, beside which he was curious, so he led his affianced to the alcove she indicated. Lady Sumner’s ballroom was one of the largest in London. It boasted chandeliers made by the same glazier as those in Versailles. The windows were so tall, they nearly reached the ceiling, which rose three floors and was domed, sporting the requisite cupid frescos. The room was hung with silver silk. Their alcove was fitted with a cozy love seat, upholstered in anthracite velvet.
Ruisdell feared he was in for a scold, so he preempted it by asking, “How are you adjusting to your role as a future duchess of this isle?”
“That would be nothing were you not the duke in question! I tend to be less practical than the ordinary woman and temperamental with it. I also like to go my own way. I’m afraid we wouldn’t suit at all.”
Throwing his head back, he laughed his first genuine from-the-diaphragm laugh since crossing the channel for Portugal. He was thinking of all the pranks, masquerades, and mischief Sunshine and his adjutant had played at during their growing-up years. Oh, he had enough blackmail ammunition to keep her tamed well into the twentieth century! But, of course, he wouldn’t tell her that. The disembodied voice added, Yet. Ignoring it, he looked at her with amusement.
“Now what is it you wish to discuss?”
Rapping him again with her closed fan, she said, “I absolutely forbid you to meet Robert tomorrow. I know you said you wouldn’t; however, that’s what duelists always tell their ladies before sneaking out at dawn.”
He took one of the curls that lay on her shoulder and used it to tickle her ear. Batting him away with her fan (he must find a way to divest her of that article), she went on. “He might not kill you, but he could shoot your other knee. Then where would you be? I can’t imagine how impossible your temper would become were you confined to a sofa for the rest of your life!”
“I could still ride a horse. And how is it that you think I’m such a poor shot? I just returned from a war, where sadly, I shot many unfortunate men. I don’t like to dwell on it, but there it is.”
“Robert, being obviously touched in his upper works, as they say, has no concept of fair play. He’s perfectly capable of shooting you in the back while you are walking away from him to measure your ten paces.”
“Hmm.” The duke considered this. “I will have to contrive something to level the playing field.” He still could not bring himself to be wholly serious. “Do you think this would serve? Somerset can go to Hammersmith Common tonight and dig a trench just big enough to conceal his body behind some brush. He’ll be armed and ready to shoot to kill if the earl attempts any foul play. It’s not really playing according to the rules . . .”
“You’re not playing by the rules in any case,” she told him hotly. “I can’t believe there isn’t something in your code of honor that prevents you from meeting a man who is mentally unhinged!”
“Do you think he won’t make an appearance if he’s in his right mind?”
“I’m sure his right mind knows nothing about it. You must decide this for the both of you.”
By some design of the devil, Waterford chose that moment to appear in their alcove. Elise waited, holding her breath until she could determine which earl was paying them a visit.
Bowing to Elise and then to the duke, Robert said, “I have learned from Somerset that I owe you an apology, Your Grace.”
Ruisdell raised an eyebrow. It seemed, however, as though the man had his wits about him. “He was telling me that you are actually a hero. That you are a general and had an excellent war.”
“I’m no hero,” he said. “Somerset knows nothing about it. It’s my men who were the heroes. ‘Were’ being the operative word. Most of them died horrible deaths.”
Ruisdell closed his eyes. No! Not now! He brought a hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Hard. However, it did no good. The hated memories rose, and he saw his loyal men splayed on the battlefield, dead. Thoughts of Beynon had been near all day as he attempted to protect Elise. He saw him once again, only this time the vision was unspeakably horrible. He began to tremble in that hideous way that would not stop. Suddenly ill, he knew only that he had to leave wherever he was and find a suitable place to cast up his accounts.
Forgetting Waterford, and worse, forgetting Elise, he rose quickly and made for the doors to the garden.
CHAPTER TEN
IN WHICH OUR HEROINE’S LIFE IS OVERTURNED ONCE MORE
Whatever is wrong with the duke? Where is he going? How could he leave me? E
ven as the panic rose in Elise’s breast, she knew she had to stay calm. Somerset! I must find George! “My lord Waterford, do you enjoy cards?”
“Do you not realize that I have been most rudely treated? The duke’s behavior to me was worse than the cut direct!”
“I’m afraid he owes you an apology,” she agreed. Robert was angry, but at least it was the anger of a sane man. “That was dreadfully rude.”
“He is jealous of me, isn’t he?”
Grasping at any reason for Ruisdell’s conduct, she said, “I’m afraid that must be it, Robert, for I can think of no other reason he would behave so.”
“And you are going to marry such a man? When you could have married me?”
Growing more afraid that his anger might turn him into his other, more violent self, she said, “You know what my mother is. And Papa is sadly dipped, I’m afraid. Nothing will do but that I restore the family fortunes.
“Now, besides the rudeness, the worst thing is that with the duke’s wounded leg, I cannot dance. You remember how I love to dance.”
Robert’s eyes lit. “You will dance with me? I dared not hope. Ruisdell was guarding you like the proverbial hawk.”
“Yes, let’s dance, Robert. We might not have another chance.” Elise knew she had thrown herself into one of her fictional melodramas. She must get hold of herself. She would have Robert thinking he needed to rescue her. Standing up, she put a hand on his sleeve, and went out on the floor. Fortunately, it was not a waltz, but the more staid minuet.
During the dance, she was silent. Her thoughts were flying in every direction from fear to anger to bewilderment. All while she tried to remain outwardly cheerful. Keep calm. After this dance, we will find the marquis.
Once the dance was ended, however, the still rational Robert was obliged to take her into supper, for without realizing it, she had asked him to dance the supper dance with her. The sight of Elise’s discarded fiancé taking her into supper together with news of the duke’s engagement and subsequent disappearance had tongues wagging loud enough for Elise to hear. How dare Ruisdell do this to her! She had begun to warm to him but now wanted nothing more than to douse him with a whole magnum of fizzy champagne. Hopefully, he would choke. Protect her, indeed! She should have realized that he would do no more than subject her to more gossip than ever before.
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