by Eva Devon
“Where in god’s name were you in a harem?” Jack asked, an unwelcome feeling conquering the barely tolerable sensation the scotch had invoked.
“Africa.”
Jack stilled. “Africa?”
“Yes. Lived there most of my life if you must know, except for one failed attempt at groom and polish. They took one look at me when I arrived at Eton and sent me back.”
Jack snuck a glance at Charles, who was also sneaking a glance back.
“What?” the young man asked, swinging his attention from one Eversleigh to the next. “It really wasn’t anything. The harem business—”
“Never mind the harem.” Jack ignored the growing feeling of dread pooling in his stomach. “What did you say your name was?”
The young chap’s gaze widened, sensing something was afoot. “Basingstoke. Anthony Basingstoke. We’re guests of the Duke of Darkwell.” He started to point over his shoulder. “My brothers are—”
“Why?” Jack groaned.
“Jack,” Charles said sotto voce. “Keep your damn mouth shut.”
But Jack couldn’t. The dam had been opened. Not by the woman herself, but by the gods who clearly enjoyed watching mortals act like idiotic ants without a jot of control as they scurried over this moron infested earth. “She follows me everywhere and now her damn brothers—”
Anthony Basingstoke straightened, his joviality diminishing with the same sort of speed of a gambler who had just lost his last sou. “I beg your pardon, sir?”
“That woman. She is the devil. A conjurer or just mad.”
The color drained out of Anthony Basingstokes’s face and he vaulted to his feet. “Its you.”
“How original,” Jack drawled.
“Bloody hell,” sighed Charles.
“Get up, you bastard,” Anthony hissed.
Jack lifted his glass in a mock salute. “I’d rather not, young pup.”
“Get up,” Anthony gritted.
Jack defiantly lifted his glass and drank.
“You sodding—”
Jack held up his hand, finishing off the brandy before he smacked his lips as rudely as he could. “You were saying?”
Color flushed Anthony’s cheeks showing his age. “I said, you are a sodding—”
“Bastard, blah blah blah.” Jack dropped his head back to rest against the chair, propped one leg over his knee and grinned. “You clearly haven’t been at this very long.”
Anthony drew in a righteous breath. “You sir, are a cad.”
“And proud of it,” Jack replied, lifting up the decanter scowling at its emptiness then bellowing, “Where the hell has the brandy gone?”
“Are you not listening?” Anthony demanded.
“Indeed, I am. But,” he let out a burp, pounded his chest, then continued “because you are related to her, you have managed to miss the essential.”
Young Anthony paused. “Which is?”
“The liquor is gone. Where is it? We might have well gone to France ourselves.”
Charles groaned and covered his eyes with his palm. “Jack why can’t you simply shut your pie hole.”
He glared at his twin. “This from you? Master of Say What I Want When I want.”
“Yes,” Charles acceded. “But I do so in such a way as too—”
“Excuse me, but you both seem to be missing the point entirely.”
Jack and Charles glanced at the whippersnapper.
“Which is?” Jack asked, more out of sympathy for the pipsqueak than curiosity.
Anthony’s grey eyes narrowed. “Your arse is about to be handed to you upon a platter.”
Jack looked back to Charles. Simultaneously, they threw back their heads and bellowed with laughter. The boy did of course have a right to his indignation, but he was no match for the Eversleigh twins. Jack slouched further down his chair. “And I thought I’d had a spot too much to drink. Clearly, you’re a bottle on me, pup.”
“I am not a pup and neither are my brothers.”
Brothers? That gave Jack pause. He knew Cordy had brothers. Now, how many had there been? Surely no more than two?
“What brothers?” Charles asked.
Anthony gave a jerk of his chin toward the back corner of the room at a rather large group of brawny looking men, clearly not from London.
Jack’s laughter subsided and a good dose of sobriety grabbed his guts as he spotted two black haired pates turn, seemingly as one, his way. Jack smoothed a hand down his front. They were male pictures of Cordelia at different ages. “Those brothers, eh?”
“Yes. So, I think you will be on a platter and very soon.” Anthony smiled a wicked grin. “A nice, rare bit of meat.”
Jack blew out a frustrated breath. He loved a good brawl as much as anyone, but not with his wife’s brothers. “Now look here, this just isn’t done. Is it Charles?”
“A terrible cliché, and all that.” Charles added. “Fisticuffs with the in-laws.”
“Get up,” Anthony ordered.
Jack held up his hands, well one hand, since the other sill firmly gripped the decanter. “Now, can’t we be civilized, old boy? Cordelia will have a fit if we break heads.”
One of the Basingstoke men, a barrel chested devil with red streaks in his black hair and a slightly crooked nose, suggesting an intimate acquaintance with boxing, crossed the room in slow even strides. “Have a fit?” he echoed. “You’ve got it wrong, old boy.”
“Have I?” Jack’s vision swam ever so slightly as his sense of bravado did a quick exit. Things were about to get interesting.
“She won’t have a fit.” The boxer gritted. “She’s already bloody had one.”
“Has she indeed?” Jack asked, forcing a lightness to his tone that belied his sudden curiosity. It was all he could do to stop his drunken tongue from asking if she was alright. If she was well. And if she. . . Jack swallowed, hating himself for a fool. Because what he really wanted to know was beyond all her mad, determined pursuit business, was if she truly missed him. As he missed her.
“She has. And now we’re going to beat the lights out of you.”
“I don’t think you will,” Charles said calmly.
“And why not?” The bigger, older brother demanded.
“This is my premises and I will personally see you evicted if you don’t behave in a calm rational—”
A fist flew. A Basingstoke fist and before Jack knew what was happening, he was up on his feet, knuckles raised. Charles took his back and they squared off against the invaders, ready to go down swinging if necessary. “Five to two. Hardly sporting,” Jack drawled.
The biggest one shrugged. “She’s our sister. We don’t give a rat’s arse about sporting.”
Jack gave a tight nod, ready for a good and welcome beating. Anything to drive that damned woman out of his head. “Understood.”
Chapter 26
The club was a mess.
Bottles lay strewn on the Oriental rug, the mahogany tabletops, and there was even one, lying upon its empty side atop a lamp.
The Eversleighs and the Baskingstokes on the other hand were on the floor. All of them. Flat on their arses, each with a bottle in hand. . . Laughing.
“She’s quite a handful,” James Basingstoke said, the one whose punch had rang like a hammer and whose nose clearly indicated he’d been in a ring before.
Jack lifted a bottle of champagne to his lips.
“Orders us all about,” Anthony drawled, a half empty bottle in his hand. “Like we were sheep.”
“Not sheep,” Edward, the middle brother, with a serious streak which matched the white trace running through his black hair. He sprawled back onto an elbow. “Goats. She’s got us all bleating like goats.”
“Goats,” intoned James. “Sheep. Bullocks—”
“Castrated bullocks,” added Anthony.
“Speak for yourself,” countered Edward.
Charles leaned over to Jack and whispered. “A touch of inbreeding in the family, do you suppose?”
/> “No.” Jack sighed. “Just my wife.”
“I thought your wife was she who would not be named.”
James perked up, propped a leg up and braced his arm on his knee. “Your str—st—
“Strategy,” put in Edward.
“Yes. Sragery,” slurred James who had somehow managed to drink two bottles of brandy as if he were a camel and not a man. “Your sragery, Eversleigh—”
“Hunt”
James blinked. “Paron?”
Jack lifted his brows up and down, mocking his own importance. “I’m the Duke of Hunt, so you don’t say Eversleigh you say—.”
“Oho.” Anthony laughed, a guffaw. “Gents our brother-in-law is a duke.”
“Bunch of ponces,” Edward said.
“Yes, a bunch of ponces those dukes,” said Charles, his lips twitching.
Jack shot him a warning stare. “Whose side are you on?”
“Side?” echoed James? “No sides. Family. We’re all,” a hiccup worthy of a Highland cow emanated from his person. “Family.”
“So we are,” said Charles a little too jovially. “Now what were you saying about my brother’s strategy?”
James looked from Charles to Jack. “Shocking. Is shocking.”
“Yes, very,” said Jack, not really caring what was shocking because he suddenly very much wanted to know what was so faulty about his strategy with his wife. He’d done everything he could to get her to go back to Africa. Perhaps her brothers, drunk as they were, would have some insights.
“Don’t you think is shocking,” Another hiccup, which shook the chandelier, slipped out of the drunk James, before he continued, “Donchu think?”
Anthony nodded. “Indeed.” He took a swig of champagne squinted at Jack and James. “Remarkable.”
Jack pushed himself up. He really didn’t give a bloody fig for what was so shocking or remarkable. Instead, he was beginning to realize there was nothing amiss in his strategy, rather it had to do with the Basingstokes. He’d thought it had just been his wife and then perhaps her effect on any man in her vicinity but now, he was fairly certain that all members of her clan were cracked. “What are you on about?”
Edward pointed at them. “You’re like a walking mirror.”
“That?” Jack strained, his patience growing as thin as the remainder of drink in his hand. “That is what’s so shocking? We’re twins, for god sake. Twins. It does occur.”
“Indupitably,” James said with stunning clarity.
Charles coughed into his drink, a most definite dose of amusement being hidden as he took a swallow.
Jack cocked a brow and gestured with his bottle at the three blackguards sprawled on the floor. “Now, tell me. How do I get rid of her?”
“Rid of me?”
A female voice echoed through the hall. A most definite female voice. A distinct voice. Soft, yet voluptuous. And he knew it all to well. That voice had been in his every waking thought for the last month. In fact, for a moment he was sure he’d finally cracked from too much drink. “Did everyone else hear that?”
From the frozen stares of the Basingstokes, it was clear that they most certainly had. Each one of them had the sheepish and slightly petrified expression of boys who’d been caught putting frogs in nanny’s bed.
Anthony tried to climb to his feet, but his legs buckled. “Cordy, we were just—”
“Not now, Tony,” she said.
Jack’s stomach clenched. Oh God. He didn’t want to look. He desperately wished to sink in the floor because she was about to see him the way he really was. A man who’d rather avoid reality than be in it. But there was no escaping and the only thing to do was brazen it out and ensure she stayed far, far away.
She strode forward, her verdant skirts kicking out, like waves of deep water. The bodice clung to her full breasts, breasts that seemed fuller than last he saw them, and her soft blonde hair was curled softly atop her head in a fashion he’d never seen. In fact, she almost looked like a stranger. She looked like one of them. A ton woman.
And he didn’t know what to make of it.
Jack forced himself to his feet with a surprising amount of grace given he was three sheets to the wind. And as soon as he was standing, his heart thundered in his ribs, shouting its own mantra as if to say, she’s yours, she’s yours, she’s yours. But he would be ruled by his head instead. “You do realize this is a gentleman’s club.”
“Curious,” she drawled. “Since, I don’t see any gentlemen.”
“Steady on, old girl,” James said, slipping on his bum as he tried to scoot into a more respectable sitting position.
“Shut it, James.” She lifted that beautifully determined chin of hers. “This is between my husband and myself.”
“I think you should go,” Charles said softly.
She lifted her brows. “Because I am not a gentleman?”
“You do lack the necessary tackle,” Jack said, feeling his soul sink through his feet, and plummet through the floor.
“I thank the gods,” she declared.
“You mean the rocks,” he said softly.
She flinched. “What?”
“The rocks,” he whispered. “That’s what you pray to.”
For one brief moment, her stormy gaze softened. “Yes, then. The rocks. I thank the rocks that I am not a man.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to reply, as do I, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t open that door. It was barely closed.
She cleared her throat. “In any case, I discovered you were here. I must confess I didn’t expect to find my brothers.”
“How in the devil—”
“Does it matter? Suffice it to say, I have my ways.”
“She does indeed,” Edward said dryly. “She no doubt has an entire network here in London now. Give her a week and a—”
“Yes. Thank you, Edward.” Cordy folded her hands before her and stared at Jack. “I’ve come because we are getting no where in our behavior.”
“No. You are going nowhere. As you should.”
“You mean because you don’t wish me as your wife?”
He gritted his teeth and gave a bare nod. He daren’t speak. He couldn’t trust his heart, and his tongue was definitely tempted to betray him as well.
“Well, I do hate to disappoint you, but I’m not leaving. After the annulment, I will be taking up residence in London.”
“But the dig,” Tony said indignantly.
“It’s been there over two thousand years, Tony. I do think it can wait and a woman of my charms will be quite adept at raising fund for our enterprises.”
“Splendid,” James said, clapping his hands. “We can always use more money.”
“We can hire more workers,” mused Edward.
A sudden flash of horror swept through Jack. Use her charms? Which meant she was going to be entertaining. “I forbid it.”
She smiled. A very, very dangerous smile. “Do you indeed?”
There was something alarming about the confident note in her tone.
“I do. You’re not from London. You don’t understand what will befall you if—”
“Oh, Jack. You are a naive soul. Do you think I care for a perfect reputation? All I care about is raising money for our work in Africa and there are many people, not quite so concerned with Almacks’ that would be most happy to receive me. Reputation be damned. Your mother amongst them.”
Charles whistled. “Good god, Jack, she does fight dirty.”
Jack’s gaze narrowed. “Yes. She does.”
“I use what tools I must. I’ve never been proper. I see no reasons for me to make a pretense of it now.”
“You apparently need saving not just from me, but yourself,” Jack breathed, marveling at the words coming from his wife. He’d always loved that she wasn’t like the others, but the last thing he wanted was her holding court over the debauched asses of London.
“Saving?” James guffawed. “Cordelia?”
“Do shut it,” Charles wa
rned.
“No. No. I quite agree,” added Tony. “She could lead an army. Anyone who thinks she needs saving is an idiot.”
“Thank you Tony,” Cordy said. “That’s very kind.”
Tony grinned, a lopsided drunken sort of reply. “It’s true, old girl.”
Cordy took a step forward, her gaze glittering with determination. “The annulment will go through fairly soon, my lord. And you shall be free.” A cocky glint sparked in her eyes. “And so shall I. Now, I shall take my leave.”
And so shall I? What exactly did that mean? “Cordelia, I won’t have it. You can’t—”
She leveled him with a dagger stare. “You can’t have it both ways, Your Grace. Either I’m yours or I’m not. And I’m done waiting for you to make up your mind. So, you haven’t a bloody say in whom I see or what I do.” She drew in a deep breath. “Good. Now that we’ve cleared the air, good night.”
In a quick and rather dramatic sweep, she turned and made her way through the strewn bottles and cushions, head high, shoulders back, and seemingly the gods on her side.
Her brothers gaped at her wake. Then looked at each other. Wordlessly, they helped each other up, a process which took surprisingly little time. They followed her out, wordlessly.
There was nothing left to do but blink at the empty doorway. Jack didn’t know what he felt, but it wasn’t good.
Charles leaned in. “I do think the games have only just begun.”
And despite himself, admiration quaked inside him.
His wife, for she still was, was a woman not to be trifled with. However, if she truly thought she could waltz in, throw down such an ultimatum and think he’d take it without retaliation, she was very, very mistaken. “Indeed, they have Charles. Indeed they have.”
Chapter 27
“I don’t think this was a good idea,” Cordelia said frankly, wishing that Kathryn was at this particular ball. But Kathryn was resting. Resting because she was going to be a mother. Cordelia couldn’t have been happier for her friend and she refused to believe that the slight ache in her heart might be a touch of jealousy. No. She was made of much better stuff than that. Besides, if she was to take London by storm, a baby would have to wait. Perhaps for some time. Cordelia shook the sudden heart breaking thought away.
