Sweetest Scoundrel

by Elizabeth Hoyt

  She’d also omitted to explain that she hadn’t hired a replacement butler. Why bring in another male servant who might challenge her authority?

  Now Bridget had complete charge of Hermes House—the duke’s London town house—which was quite convenient considering her other reasons for agreeing to come into the duke’s employment.

  However, the lack of a butler did mean that she often answered the front door herself when there was a caller.

  Today when the knock came, Bridget glided across the ostentatious gray-veined pink marble floor—polished just this morning at exactly six of the clock. She paused at an ornately gilded mirror to check that her mobcap was straight, and the strings tied under her chin neatly. She was only six and twenty—a nearly unheard-of age at which to have already acquired the position she held—and she’d found it helped to bolster her authority to always be completely ordered.

  Bridget opened the door to find the duke’s sister on the doorstep, along with the woman’s footman. Unlike the duke, Miss Dinwoody was a plain woman, though she and her brother shared the same guinea-gold hair. “Good morning, miss.”

  She stood aside to let them both in.

  Miss Dinwoody looked a trifle flustered, which was unusual. “Good morning, Mrs. Crumb. I’ve come to look at my brother’s account books.”

  “Of course,” Bridget murmured. Miss Dinwoody had visited Hermes House once or twice a week since the duke had left the country, always to attend to the duke’s investments in Harte’s Folly. “Shall I send some tea and refreshments to the library, miss?”

  “No need.” Miss Dinwoody doffed a rain-soaked cloak and handed it to her. “I shan’t be long.”

  “Very well, miss,” Bridget replied. She gestured to one of the footmen stationed in the entry hall and handed over the cloak. “A letter for you from your brother arrived not an hour ago. I apologize for not sending it on to you at once.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Miss Dinwoody said. “I suppose it was delivered by that odd boy again?”

  “Yes, miss. Alf brought it round to the kitchens.”

  Miss Dinwoody shook her head, absently muttering under her breath, “I don’t see why my brother doesn’t just use the mail coaches. Lord only knows how his letters travel across the Channel in the first place.”

  Bridget had an idea about that, but it wasn’t her place to comment on the duke’s unusual means of communication. Instead she led the way up the grand staircase and down a wide hallway to the library. The Hermes House staff was reduced, since the duke wasn’t in residence, but Bridget ran a tight ship. The rooms on this floor were thoroughly aired and dusted every other week—that day falling today. She paused at an open door, catching the eye of one of the maids running a cloth over the woodwork in the room. “Stir the fire in the library, if you will, Alice.”

  Alice hesitated, still on her knees. She was a pretty girl of nineteen or so, a bit slow, but a hard worker nonetheless. Unfortunately she was also superstitious. “The library, ma’am?”

  “Yes, Alice.” Bridget let her voice sharpen. “At once, if you please.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Crumb.” The girl bobbed and scurried out of the room and ahead of them.

  When they got to the library Bridget held open the door for Miss Dinwoody and nodded toward the rosewood desk in the corner where the letter lay. “Is there anything else I might do for you, miss?” She noted that Alice was kneeling by the hearth, a lit candle in one hand, her face pale as she darted nervous glances around the room.

  “No, nothing,” Miss Dinwoody murmured as she pried open the seal on the letter. Her thin mouth crimped at the corners as she began to read, and Bridget reflected that it must be rather tiring being the Duke of Montgomery’s bastard sister.

  But then that wasn’t any of her concern, was it?

  She jerked her chin at Alice, who had the fire blazing, and the girl leaped to her feet, nearly running to the door.

  Bridget sighed as she closed the door behind them. She’d already lectured the girl several times on the impossibility of ghosts in Hermes House, and there was simply no point in doing so again.

  Especially since she wasn’t entirely convinced herself.

  IT WAS AFTER noon by the time Eve made her way back to her town house with Jean-Marie.

  Her brother had found the town house for her, of course. Found it and paid for it. Paid for Jean-Marie and Tess and Ruth as well, come to that. Val saw to it that Eve lived very comfortably, but that wasn’t the reason she’d agreed to manage his investment in Harte’s Folly when he’d been forced to leave the country so suddenly.

  She sometimes wondered if he had any idea at all why she’d done it. Val dealt so much in debt and money and silken threats that he might not recognize when a person did something purely for love.

  The thought saddened her somehow.

  Eve doffed her bonnet inside her hallway. “Ask Tess to bring me a luncheon tray, please, Jean-Marie. And some tea.”

  Jean-Marie shot her a look of concern but nodded before disappearing into the back of the house.

  Eve wondered what he’d say to Tess about their morning’s outing. About her fleeing the garden. About her trip to her brother’s big, empty house and the letter she’d read there.

  The letter in which Val expressly forbade her to cut off Mr. Harte or sell the stake.

  Blast Val anyway. He’d put her in a very awkward position—managing a great deal of money, but having no real power over it if he wouldn’t let her follow her instincts about how to deal with the garden and Mr. Harte. If he’d only let her sell the stake in Harte’s Folly to Mr. Sherwood and his mysterious backer, she could invest the money. She knew she could make a profit for her brother. Over the last five years Eve had invested her own pin money in a shipping company and had seen a small but tidy increase in the capital.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t at all sure that it was entirely the money Val was most concerned about when it came to Harte’s Folly.

  She sighed and climbed the stairs. Her sitting room was at the top, and she crossed the room to her worktable. On it was her bronze magnifying glass. It was attached to an arm that swung from an upright stand so that she could comfortably look through it and keep both hands free. Beside the glass were several clean pieces of ivory and her paint box, all set out. Under the magnifying glass was the miniature she was working on now—a study of Hercules. She bent and peered through the glass. Hercules stood, one hip cocked, wearing his lion skin and sandals, a bit of cloth modestly covering his hips. It should’ve been a heroic pose, but somehow poor Hercules looked almost effeminate. His lips too pursed, his cheeks too pink, his face entirely too soft. It was the style, of course, to paint men as soft and gentle, and she excelled in that style, but somehow today she was suddenly dissatisfied.

  She kept remembering Mr. Harte’s face. His brows drawn together, his mouth in a grim line, his wet hair plastered to his cheeks and forehead as he’d borne down on Mr. Sherwood with his muscled arm raised. She hated—and feared—his violence, but she couldn’t deny that there was something alive about Mr. Harte. Alive and vibrant and larger than life. Something exciting that made her heart beat faster, made her feel alive as well.

  Eve sat at her desk, staring down blindly at poor, sweet Hercules.

  Mr. Harte was a brute, anyone could see that. He wouldn’t listen to reason, wouldn’t abide by common decency or her very polite requests for information. He had actually attacked Mr. Sherwood right in front of her. How could Val expect her to work with a man such as he?

  If she was entirely truthful with herself, she’d have to face the fact that she’d failed Val. She’d promised to look after his investment, but if the theater never opened again, and she wasn’t allowed to sell the stake, he’d not see a return of his money.

  He’d lose thousands of pounds.

  Eve frowned, picking up one of the blank pieces of ivory and running her finger over the smooth surface. The sum already invested in Harte’s Folly was probably
a drop in the ocean of Val’s wealth, but she’d promised.

  She didn’t like to forswear herself.

  And then there was his letter, full of Val’s usual flippancy and with that unusually to-the-point postscript, telling her to keep funding the awful man and his garden. She’d have to send a letter to Mr. Harte, apologizing and taking back everything she’d said this morning. The very thought was depressing.

  Ruth came in the room, walking slowly as she carried the luncheon tray. The maid set the tray down next to Eve’s elbow and stood back, beaming. “There, miss! Tess ’as fried a lovely ’erring with some stewed green beans beside it, and there’s bread fresh-baked this morning as well.”

  “Thank you, Ruth,” Eve replied, and the maid bobbed a curtsy and nearly skipped from the room.

  Well, Ruth was very young—only fifteen and fresh from somewhere in the country. Everything was new to her. She had an appealing naïveté that Eve found both charming and alarming. The maid hadn’t yet learned to be cautious of the world. No one had ever hurt her.

  The dove, sitting in her square little cage on the table, cooed inquiringly. Eve took a few kernels of grain from a dish nearby and pushed them through the bars of the cage. Immediately the dove began pecking at her luncheon.

  Eve picked up her fork and knife and then paused, staring at the herring. How quiet it was in her sitting room! Just the soft scrabbling of the dove and the clink of her silverware. She couldn’t even hear the voices from the kitchen downstairs.

  If she closed her eyes, she might imagine herself all alone in the world.

  She shook herself, cutting into the herring, and a dreadful pounding suddenly started at the front door, belying her imagined solitude.

  Eve set her knife and fork down again, sitting back, a feeling almost of joy overtaking her.

  She could hear Jean-Marie’s quick footsteps, the door opening, and then male voices raised in anger.

  A smile flitted across her face. He really was the most obstinate man, wasn’t he?

  She wondered if she should go to the head of the stairs, but no. Footsteps were pounding up her stairwell. He must’ve gotten around Jean-Marie somehow.

  Eve carefully composed her face and picked up her fork and knife again. Her appetite had suddenly revived.

  When the door to her sitting room burst open, she was just taking a bite of the excellent fish.

  “You have to listen to me!” Mr. Harte bellowed just as Jean-Marie got an arm around his neck.

  Mr. Harte ducked out of the hold and whirled to face her bodyguard, his great fists ready.

  “Mr. Harte!” Eve didn’t like to raise her voice, but she wouldn’t stand by and let Jean-Marie be hurt. “If you want me to listen to you, I suggest you not begin by staging a boxing match in my sitting room.”

  Mr. Harte’s face took on a darker hue, but his arms fell to his sides.

  Jean-Marie, however, hadn’t dropped his protective stance. “Shall I escort ’im out?”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Mr. Harte growled.

  Eve refrained with great effort from rolling her eyes. “Thank you, no, Jean-Marie. I’ll speak with Mr. Harte if he’ll take a seat.”

  The theater manager immediately dropped rather heavily onto the settee.

  Eve cleared her throat. “Perhaps you can bring another teacup, Jean-Marie?”

  The footman’s brows drew together. “Best I stay ’ere, I think.”

  Normally he would, of course. Normally Jean-Marie never let her be alone with a man. But she couldn’t bear the thought of seeming weak before Mr. Harte. Of needing a nursemaid—even if the truth was that sometimes she did need Jean-Marie.

  She wanted to at least appear to be strong in the theater manager’s presence.

  Eve lifted her chin. “No doubt, but I think I’ll manage on my own with Mr. Harte.”

  “Thank you for seeing me,” Mr. Harte said quickly, before Jean-Marie could express any more disapproval.

  She nodded. “Have you partaken of luncheon yet?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then please have Ruth bring up another tray as well,” Eve told Jean-Marie.

  The footman shot a dark look at the other man, but left the room without comment.

  “Now then,” Eve said, folding her hands in her lap. “What is it you wished to say to me, Mr. Harte?”

  She expected him to immediately begin pleading his case again. Instead he propped one ankle over the knee of the other leg and leaned back in her blue-gray settee, as comfortable as a lion lazing in the sun. “You left my garden very quickly.”

  She pursed her lips. “I dislike violence, and frankly, with the loss of Mr. Scaramella—and your composure—I didn’t see any point in remaining.”

  “I can hire another castrato.” He’d donned a coat and waistcoat since she’d seen him this morning, both a deep shade of scarlet, but his tawny hair remained unbound about his shoulders, giving him an uncivilized appearance. Wild. As if he might do anything—anything at all—in her proper sitting room. “As for the loss of my composure”—he curled his upper lip—“you have to admit Sherwood had it coming to him.”

  Eve forbore to retort that she didn’t have to admit any such thing. Instead she looked at him curiously. “And do you always react so… physically to such situations?”

  “I’m in the theater,” he said, as if that explained his churlish actions. “We’re a bit rougher perhaps than you’re used to. A bit earthier, too.”

  Was that his way of delicately touching upon the subject of the woman in his bed this morning?

  “I see.” Eve pursed her lips, examining the backs of her hands. “You may be able to find another castrato, but can you find one with a voice like Giovanni Scaramella on such short notice? Mr. Scaramella’s fame draws eager crowds. I can understand why Mr. Sherwood was determined to have him. Who else is so well known in London?”

  “Perhaps no one,” Mr. Harte conceded. “But I can send for a castrato on the Continent.”

  She glanced up. “And even if you do? Can you be ready to open in a month?”

  He looked at her and she met his green gaze. They both knew that to open in less than a month would be nearly impossible.

  “Look.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, his big hands clasped together. “You’ve been to a night at the opera; you know what’s involved. I have the musicians and the dancers. I have Vogel’s opera—a new one and I think one of his best. I have La Veneziana—Violetta, who you met this morning. She’s the most famous soprano in London. All I need is the lead castrato.”

  She nodded. “You need a castrato, and without one you have nothing. It’s the fame of the singers that will draw the attendees to your garden, and the castrato is key. He’s the one with the most entrancing voice, the one people want to hear and see.”

  His mouth tightened. “I’ve already sent letters to the Continent and to the people I know here. I’ll have a new castrato within a sennight.”

  “Which will give you barely over a fortnight to rehearse.”

  He set his jaw. “It can be done. I’ll make it happen. All I need is your brother’s money.”

  She smiled then, gently shaking her head. “I told you no, again and again, and yet you continued onward. Tell me, Mr. Harte, do you ever give up?”

  “Never.” His green eyes narrowed as his mouth firmed. He looked very much as he had when he’d struck Mr. Sherwood: savage, uncompromising, a force to be reckoned with.

  She should be afraid of this man. Perhaps she was. Perhaps the hammering of her heart, the quickening of her breath were fear.

  But if they were, she chose to disregard it. “Very well.”

  He sat back, a wide, lopsided grin spreading over his face, just as Ruth entered with another tray.

  Eve indicated the low table before the settee where Mr. Harte sat, and Ruth hurried to place the tray there. She straightened, staring at the theater manager. Eve didn’t often have visitors.

  “Thank you, Ruth.�
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  The maid started, shot her a guilty glance, and left the room.

  “This looks delicious.” Mr. Harte reached for the loaf of bread on the tray. Tess must’ve bought several herring from the fish market, for she’d sent up another luncheon identical to Eve’s.

  She eyed his fingers as he broke apart the bread. “I have one condition, however, to letting you have access to my brother’s funds once more.” She considered the matter a moment and then nodded, adding, “Actually two conditions.”

  He froze, those long, strong fingers still holding the torn bread. “And what are they?”

  She inhaled silently, feeling her nerves spark. Feeling excitement.

  Feeling alive.

  “I’ll be taking over the bookkeeping for Harte’s Folly until it opens again.”

  His brows snapped together. “Now wait a—”

  “And,” she said firmly over his aborted objection, “I want you to sit for me—as a model for my painting.”

  FOR A MOMENT Asa Makepeace stared at the maddening woman.

  Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. It was that or weep. From the moment she’d woken him from a dreamless sleep next to a warm, naked Violetta, his day had gone from bad to worse. Miss Eve Dinwoody was like one of those harbingers of doom that were always lurking about some hapless hero in classical myths. A harpy or some such thing. Her nose was even a bit like a beak. Since he’d met Miss Dinwoody, he’d had a crashing headache, lost his castrato, gotten into a fight with bloody Sherwood—which he’d won, thank you very much—and now, now she wanted not only to worm her way into his business as the price of giving him back his letters of credit, but she also wanted him to model for her, as if he had the time to spend lounging about away from his garden.