by Brenda Joyce
“Are you smitten?” Lindley had asked.
Am I? he asked himself.
The question was disturbing. The earl had to shove it from his mind. His responsibility was to find Jane a husband. Every passing day made him more aware of this, and how urgent it was. He knew he could not leave her here while he went to London alone, as he had thought to do. No, he must get her married, the sooner the better. And this meant he must take her to London.
The earl hated London. Truthfully, he wasn’t fond of cities in general, for he was a man of the outdoors, a man who preferred physical labor to sitting behind a desk. But he was a strong man, a man of honor and duty. He had never shirked his duty before, he would not now. Most of the nobility had left London for their country estates, but in a month, in September, London would be a whirlwind of parties, balls, masks, and fetes as the Season began. They would have to arrive before then. In order to launch Jane, the earl would have to costume her properly. He would also have to figure out a way to reinstate himself in Society.
And he would not feel dread.
Nick had never been comfortable among the realm’s peers. Not even as a boy, when he had come to visit his grandfather three times and become acquainted with Dragmore and the life he would one day assume. Even then, at twelve, fourteen, and sixteen, he had felt dreadfully out of place, as awkward as a gangling Great Dane puppy in a china shop. The old earl had gently corrected his manners and deportment, but Nick had not been interested in learning. Even as a boy, he had no use for such airs—they seemed silly and a waste of time. He had been enthralled with Dragmore, however. It was a ranch just as his parents’ home was a ranch, only here the cattle were tame, not wild Texas longhorns.
Outdoors, riding across the 25,000-acre estate, inspecting the fields under cultivation, the herds of cattle, the dairy barns, the lambing pens, the blooded Thoroughbreds, here the earl was at home.
In a drawing room he was as likely to crush a china teacup merely by lifting it in his large hand or, worse, stumble when he tried to make a proper bow. Nick had long since foregone bows. He merely nodded his head.
As a boy he had suffered the usual teasing and taunting from the sons of the peers whom his grandfather introduced to him. They called him a barbarian to his face. When Nick efficiently dispatched one such name-caller by wielding a nine-inch knife, apparently from nowhere, to the youth’s throat, his grandfather confiscated the weapon and told him he must never carry one again. Nick had never gone without a blade before. He had purchased another, but learned its usage must be discreet. To this day, the earl carried a blade in his boot, strapped to his calf.
And so the boys had only called him names when his back was turned.
Patricia had had no such compunctions.
It was an arranged marriage. Nick had stayed with the Union army until the winter of ′65. He made one brief, last stop home, which was completely unsatisfying. There was a wall between him and his father now, due to his knowledge of his own tainted origins and his anger that Derek had lied. Yet Derek, always so open, had not mentioned the change in Nick’s attitude. Nick knew both his parents thought that the long war had changed him.
He arrived in England the following spring, and one year later married the Clarendon heiress. Nick had been smitten at first sight. Patricia had rich, dark-gold hair, almond-shaped green eyes, and a voluptuous figure a man would kill to possess. She was a stunning beauty—and she knew it.
They spent very little time together before their marriage. He was disappointed with her coolness toward him, but assumed she was merely acting “proper,” as the English were wont to do. He was afraid to kiss her—he who had been kissing women since he’d been fourteen. Yet he did, upon two occasions before their marriage. The first time she had let him, giving nothing back, her lips as cool and smooth as marble. The second time she had expressed her displeasure, reminding him that she was a lady and they were not married yet. She had said it so imperiously that Nick’s ears had burned from the set-down. He didn’t touch her again until after the wedding.
There were no fires to tap, at least, not for him.
Patricia submitted to him passively. It was a stunning disappointment.
Nick was not just virile, he liked sex. It was probably partly due to how he was raised. His parents were very open about their love for one another, and his father was very open about his love for his wife—and how much he liked having sex with her. Derek’s hands were constantly on Miranda, sometimes teasing, sometimes not. If he could, he’d drag her off to their bedroom or behind a haystack in broad daylight. The children, Nick, Rathe, and Storm, had heard Miranda cry on more than one occasion: “Derek! The children!”
Nick had foolishly thought that he and Patricia would have such a marriage.
When Patricia became pregnant, the truth came out. She denied Nick access to her bed, bluntly telling him she hated his touch. She even shuddered as she spoke. Nick was deeply hurt— but he refused to feel it. Without betraying his feelings, his face a mask, he had turned on his heel and left her, vowing never to touch her again.
But after Chad’s birth he had broken his vows. He loved her. He wanted her. She was his wife and it was her duty to obey him. He came to her, she submitted. He tried to break down the wall between them afterward, by talking to her. She only wanted him to leave her bed and her room so she could sleep.
He had been stupid in revealing the truth to her. One day, half drunk and aching for just a touch, or even a kind word, missing Texas, his parents, God damn it, missing his father—who wasn’t his father—missing their closeness, he’d gone to Patricia. She didn’t deny him, but as always, making love to her was as exciting as fucking a board. After, looking at the ceiling, eyes closed, feeling about to burst with despair, he started to tell her the story of Chavez. He only got as far as explaining he was one-quarter Indian. Patricia was repulsed.
She began weeping hysterically, accusing him of being a liar and a cheat. She wept over Chad, whom she had shown little interest in, moaning that she had given birth to a “breed.” She had tried to attack Nick with her hands clawed like talons, hatred in her eyes. Nick had restrained her physically, then left. Because of her horror and shame, she told no one of his heritage.
Eight months later she ran away with her lover, the Earl of Boltham.
If Nick had any feelings left for her, they died when she abandoned him and his son.
But she was his wife. She was, more important, Chad’s mother. He went after them. He found them easily enough, at a tavern in Dover, about to flee to France. Boltham he challenged to a duel. Although handsome, the man was so inept Nick could not kill him. He only shot off his kneecap and crippled him for life. “A reminder,” he told Boltham, “never touch what belongs to me.”
Patricia he dragged back to Dragmore, ignoring her hate-filled glances and her sullen refusal even to speak with him. She would not appear with him in Society, fine. He hated Society. They would stay at Dragmore. He would never touch her again, he promised. All he demanded from her was that she be a good mother to Chad. Patricia refused.
She hated their son as she hated him.
If Nick hadn’t hated her before, he hated her now.
But he did not kill her. Nor was he sorry she was dead.
She refused to leave her rooms. Nick did not care. Six months later there was the fire in the south wing. It was completely destroyed, except for the walls and the tower. Patricia’s body was found, charred beyond recognition. All the staff had been asleep in their own quarters near the stables, alerted to the inferno only when it was too late. Her screams would haunt them a lifetime. Nick had not been home that night.
The earl’s relationship with his wife was no secret. That she had left him, that he had crippled Boltham, that he had forced her to return to Dragmore, their savage fights, were all common gossip. Yet Nick never expected the local sheriff to arrest him for murder.
The trial rocked England to its very bones.
The sma
ll county courthouse was packed every day, like a circus. All of London’s finest came to see the most shocking trial of the century of one of their own peers. There were witnesses every day for the prosecution. All of the Earl’s “strange” habits were brought forth—and it soon became clear he was no Englishman, and never had been.
He drank immoderately. He smoked. He gambled. He cursed openly. He was an avowed, unrepentant atheist. He was a profligate rake—and had not been faithful to his wife.
Most of these charges were true, but in the face of this character assassination, Nick did not try to defend himself, not even on the question of his fidelity—for he had been faithful to Patricia before she had left him. He sensed uncannily that any defense would not matter. Society wanted to believe what they were hearing; they wanted his nonconforming blood.
His relations with his wife were aired publicly. Servants testified that she had hated him from the day of their wedding. That it had not been a marriage like any other. That he hated her, threatened her. That recently the countess had been confined, or locked up, in her rooms. Witnesses even said they’d heard he’d beaten her up. Of course these leading statements were overruled, but the damage was done.
He was violent. He had coldly, calculatingly crippled the Earl of Boltham in the duel. He carried a knife, and used it with the dispatch of an assassin. Even as a boy he had plied the knife in violence against another young boy, who, now grown, enthusiastically testified to that long-ago day when they had been fourteen. That his wife had been so appalled by him she had run away from him was noted. The prosecution’s observation that Patricia had run away in terror for her life was objected to by the defense and overruled.
In a society where morality, fidelity, temperance, and respectability were cherished, valued, and idealized, Nick was painted as a dark, drunken, womanizing, violent American brute. Yet in the end, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove he had actually set the fire that had burned Patricia to death. More important, in the end, he paid a famous London madam whom he frequented quite regularly to testify that he had been with her all night. And he was acquitted of all charges.
He was acquitted of the charges, but not of his new title, for now they called him the Lord of Darkness.
It was an epithet that would haunt him the rest of his life.
17
He was tense and angry.
The earl was so tense and angry that he’d ridden his gelding back across the lawns at a gallop. Now he left the blowing bay drop-reined in front of the manor beside a bed of roses. He bounded up the stone steps. Where in hell were they?
The earl had traversed Dragmore from the south end to the north in the course of his day, and there had not been a sign of Lindley and Jane. He told himself his mood was not foul because of this, but, rather, because he was hot and sweaty and distinctly malodorous. Just where the hell had they been all morning?
In the corridor he bellowed, “Thomas!”
The butler was behind him, unruffled. “Yes, my lord?”
“Where is Lindley?”
“He is in the morning room with Miss Jane.”
Nick felt something like daggers within him. He strode aggressively down the hall, then paused to regain calm. He heard her bell-like laughter, accompanied by Lindley’s rich baritone. He stepped in. “How cozy,” he commented. It was as close to a snarl as a human being could get.
They both froze, like two guilty culprits, which, clearly, they were. They were sitting on the same settee, very close together—Jane’s skirts touched Lindley’s leg. A book was spread across their communal lap, Lindley holding one end, Jane the other. Both heads had been bent close together. They had popped up at Nick’s comment like a double-headed Jack-in-the-box.
Lindley grinned. “Hullo, Shelton. About time. We’ve worked up quite the appetite.”
“Oh? Am I keeping you?” The earl’s tone was cool. His gaze left Lindley. Jane was a pink-and-cream vision in a rose dress. Her cheeks were tinged with a healthy, outdoors blush, and her thick, pale hair was pulled back with one big velvet bow. Half of the tail spilled over her shoulder and down her right breast.
“Rough morning?” Lindley was sympathetic.
Nick didn’t answer. He cut them with a look and strode to a silver butler’s table, pouring himself—what the hell was it anyway? Lemonade? “What the hell is this?”
“Lemonade,” Jane responded.
He shot her an ugly look.
“Look at this one,” Lindley said, pointing. His hand moved to Jane’s side of the book; his shoulder pressed hers.
“It’s beautiful,” Jane said.
They were looking at pictures, of what he didn’t know or care. Could they possibly sit any closer? With disgust, he slammed his glass of untried lemonade down. Both heads popped up and swiveled toward him. Nick stepped closer and saw that they were admiring pressed butterflies, for God’s sake. He turned and left.
He splashed his face with water and changed his shirt quickly, fuming. He did not bother with his breeches. Why should he? Lindley was impeccable—if she wanted a peacock to admire, she had him. If she wanted to smell spices and musk, she had him. He pounded back downstairs. He almost fell on his face in the hall, skidding to a stop and catching himself on the door jamb just in time—the floors were wet! “What is going on!” he exclaimed through gritted teeth.
Then he spotted the maid mopping the corridor. He righted himself to find Jane standing in the doorway, hands on her slender hips. “You are tracking mud and manure everywhere,” she scolded.
He stared.
Behind Jane, Lindley muffled a laugh.
“So?” Nick challenged, bringing his gaze back to hers. She was, for some reason, angry.
“We are not in Texas. Maybe there is no mud in Texas. But you do have horses and cattle there, do you not?”
The earl felt himself start to blush.
“We have a guest,” Jane said pointedly. “If he wanted to stroll in filth, he would go to the stables. This”—she gestured grandly, blue eyes flashing—“is not a stable.”
He knew his face was burning.
Amazingly, she took his arm. Nick felt the contact to his very soul—hot and electric, he was jolted as if by lightning. But he did not have time to judge his own physical reaction. She led him into the parlor and to the window. “Look.”
He looked at the lawn, specifically, he looked at the muddy runnel he had made with his horse. He looked at Jane intently, searchingly. He did not look at Lindley. He was embarrassed. “Just what the hell do you care?” he asked, low, his gaze trained upon hers.
She did not flinch. “I care.”
He flinched. Then, icily, he said, “It’s my goddamn lawn and it’s my goddamn house and if I want to track mud I will.”
“Very well,” Jane said. “That was spoken like a five-year-old.”
His color heightened. Her gaze was blue fire. He jammed his hands in the pockets of his breeches and turned his back to her. He felt about five years old.
Lindley stood, clearing his throat. “How about some dinner? I think I smell roast beef.”
Jane hadn’t meant to berate the earl in front of Lindley. She had almost lost her temper when she had seen her sparkling floors tracked up, and then, when she had seen the lawn, well, that had been the final straw. The earl certainly knew better! Instinctively now she knew it was better to let the incident pass than to apologize. And, perhaps, the earl would start to think about what he was doing.
Jane dressed for supper with excitement. She wished desperately that she had an evening gown and jewelry, but she did not. (She would not dare wear another of her mother’s gowns!) She wore her best dress, a dark rose, and let her hair fall free with a pearl-studded comb pulling back one side behind her ear. She pinched her cheeks and lips and studied herself in the mirror, eyes dancing.
Jane was discovering her power over men.
Last night she hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. But she had. Lindley thought she was beautiful—and
so did the earl.
The Earl of Dragmore had admitted she was beautiful.
Yet it now became clear that even though he thought so, he still did not see her as a woman equal of him. However, Lindley did.
Lindley had defended her to the earl. Lindley thought her à woman. Jane knew it from her eavesdropping, and more important, she knew it from the way he looked at her and the way he flirted with her.
She was learning that a soft, intent look, lowered lashes, a sweet smile, could bring a warm glowing light to a man’s eyes. Lindley’s admiration was obvious and direct. Jane was used to admiration. She had been adored her entire life until she had left London to go to the parsonage. Finding this kind of love again was food for a starving soul. She felt that she could walk upon clouds!
And …
If the earl did not quite see her a woman equal to him, she would show him that she was—by flirting back with Lindley.
Jane glided down stairs, flushed with anticipation. Both men were waiting for her in the library, Lindley clad in evening wear, the earl in black trousers, shirt, and waistcoat. Yet it was the earl who stole her breath, who made her body tighten and pulsate with sexual awareness. However, Jane merely smiled at him. She beamed at Lindley.
“You are breathtaking.” Lindley gasped, clearly meaning it.
Jane murmured something appropriate as he kissed her hand warmly. Behind her, she heard the earl coughing as he choked on his drink.
“May I escort you?” Lindley asked warmly.
“You can always escort me,” Jane said daringly, her voice throaty. She did not look behind her, but was aware of the earl’s burning regard. “Anytime, anywhere.”
Lindley laughed, thrilled.
The earl came up behind them, his presence looming and hot. “He will escort you,” he said, “only when I allow it.”
Lindley chuckled. “Relax, old man. What—got a case of jealousy, have you? Can’t help it if she knows which of us is the handsome one.” Lindley winked at Jane.
