The Deception (31 page)

He took a step toward her. “Don’t anger me, Madame. I believe you dangerous to us, no matter what Edgerton says. He’s told me he’s got a hold over you that will never be broken, no matter your pathetic attempts to escape us, no matter your tender virtue. Now, let’s get this over with. The Lynx asked me to come here. He was unable to come, though I know he wanted to see you very much. This is his message to you.” He handed an envelope to her. Evangeline quickly stuffed it in her reticule. “My letter from my father?” “It’s in the envelope.”

He looked at her more closely. “I still doubt you
no matter what Edgerton has over you. He killed that foolish old woman whom nobody cared about, and yet you allowed your delicate woman’s conscience to collapse.”

“I cared about her, Mr. DeWitt. Tell Edgerton to release me from this.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No, you won’t be released from anything as yet. Our emperor is in Paris. Soon, Madame, he will destroy the allied armies and will rule once again. This time his name and dynasty will stretch far into the future. When that happens, then you will be free, but not before.”

“Napoleon will never hold power again as he did before. All he has is one country filled with madmen, and if it comes to another battle, he will lose.”

She saw that his hand was trembling when he withdrew an enamel snuffbox from his waistcoat pocket and flicked it open. As he inhaled a pinch of snuff, he said, his voice low and controlled, “I don’t like you, Eagle. I do consider woman occasionally useful, but my uses for them are somewhat different than Houchard’s. I believe that Edgerton has allowed his lust for you to blind him. You’re dangerous. Edgerton told me that if you balked at all, I was to remind you of two deaths, not just one. I see from your face that the warning makes sense.”

Without warning he grabbed her arms and jerked her to him. She felt the fury in him, and was so afraid she nearly bit her tongue. “Let me go.”

“Oh, no, not just yet. I’d like to fling you up against the railing and take you right here. I’d like to find out what keeps Edgerton enthralled with you, for you’ve surely let him bed you, haven’t you? What do you say? The duke’s probably had you as well, why not I?”

“You fool. It’s very cold out here.” And then she spat in his face.

He held her left wrist and released her right. He pulled a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and wiped his face. He said very softly, “You’ll pay for that. I’m accounted a handsome man, a good lover. Is it that damned duke? Yes, it is, isn’t it? He’s rich and titled, and that’s what little whores like you want. That would make me more acceptable, wouldn’t it? No, don’t try to kick me or I’ll throw you over this railing. I care not that you won’t see to your next mission. They’ll find that letter in your reticule, and all will know you’re a traitor.”

“The only thing that would make you acceptable to me is if you were flailing at the end of a hangman’s noose.” “You little bitch, I’ll—” “Evangeline.”

Conan DeWitt dropped his hands and took a lazy step back. Evangeline looked up to see the duke stepping onto the balcony. She clasped her reticule tightly against her and quickly stepped around DeWitt. “Your grace,” she said.

The duke looked at Conan DeWitt, at Evangeline, whose face was pale as the white moon shining overhead, and wanted to commit murder. He said, his voice calm and dry, “DeWitt, may I ask what you’re doing here with my cousin? It’s very cold.”

He knew DeWitt, she thought, and took another step toward the duke.

“Yes, we were just discussing how very changeable the weather is in England. I was just telling Madame that she would catch a chill if she remained out here. I saw her coming out and wanted to meet her. She’s kindly been giving me her opinions of England and
Englishmen. But now even I feel the cold to my bones. Your grace. Madame.” He nodded to both of them and walked away. The duke wanted to grab him, but he held himself back. Evangeline looked ready to collapse, she was so pale.

The duke had seen her leave the dance floor and go onto the balcony. He’d seen a man in a gray domino and mask follow her. He’d been on her heels as soon as he’d been able to get away from Lady Winthrop, who had wanted him in her bed since her best friend had wagered that she wouldn’t win him.

That damned pallor of hers. She looked as if she’d just been destroyed, flattened. He pulled her against him, just as Conan DeWitt had done. He said, his voice warm against her forehead, “Did he insult you? What did he say to you?”

She felt his anger pulsing over her. His large body was shaking. He was angry? She shook her head against his shoulder. “He said nothing. He just wanted to seduce me. I dealt with him, your grace,” she added, terrified that he’d go after DeWitt.

She felt him stiffen taut as a bow string pulled tight. “No, please, you were right about such an occasion as this. At least half a dozen gentlemen have tried to seduce me. There’s really nothing to it after the first three. DeWitt is a horrible man, but I would have shoved him over the railing if he’d tried anything. Who is he? How do you know him?”

“He hasn’t been in London very long. I met him through Drew. He’s Lord Hampton’s secretary, from the Lake District, I believe. He’s involved in all his lordship’s political maneuvering. Now tell me, why did you come out here alone?”

He tried to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let him go. She stayed close, holding his lapels with
her fists. “I wanted to be alone for a moment. There was nothing else. I saw that you were dancing. You were dancing with every lady here. You only danced with me once. Please, may we leave now?”

What the devil was going on here? He wanted to yell at her, but knew it wouldn’t gain anything. He said, “Very well. But you will have to release me.”

“I don’t want to, but I will.” She did release him but left her hands flattened against his chest. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at him. “Thank you for coming after me.”

She’d disarmed him. He had to shake his head. “Damn you, I came after you to beat you for being such a fool as to come out here alone. When I saw DeWitt follow you, I nearly threw my dancing partner into the punch bowl.” He gave her a smile that held still a bit of anger, and she saw it plainly since she knew him so well. But he hadn’t yelled or ranted or run after DeWitt and pounded him, thank God.

“Thank you,” she said again. She stepped away from him, her reticule held tightly to her chest.

He said from behind her, “DeWitt has a reputation that isn’t at all nice. I’ve heard it said that he likes to hurt women. He likes them at his mercy, both in bed and out of it. He was certainly wrong to follow you, wasn’t he?”

“I did spit on him,” she said, still so frightened and guilty that she wanted to fold up and let the cold freeze her to her soul.

“What would you have done if that hadn’t worked?”

“I would have kicked him in the groin. My father told me to do that, as an extreme measure to stop a man.”

“That would be the result, certainly. Now, if you
would excuse me, I want to speak to DeWitt, teach him a very small lesson that would perhaps better his manners and his judgment.”

She grabbed his arm with strength she didn’t know she had. “No!” A black eyebrow arched upward. “No,” she said again. “Please don’t go near that man. He isn’t honorable like you are. I know it. He’s the kind of man who would laugh and smile to your face and slip a stiletto in your back the moment you turned away. No, don’t go after him. Please, forget him. Please.”

She looked distraught, even terrified. Because she was afraid for him? Evidently so. He was again disarmed, and annoyed.

“Please,” she said again. “I want to go home. Please don’t go after him. He’s not honest and good like you are. He’s an animal.”

The duke flung back his domino and took her arm. “Let’s fetch my mother, then, and we’ll leave.”

She laughed. “If you had a cutlass right now, the image would be perfect. Oh, dear, I’m actually laughing instead of shaking in my slippers.” “What damned image?”

“You looked like a pirate when you flung back the domino, the moonlight behind you.”

He groaned. “Listen to me. If I were a pirate, I’d be wise to have you flogged. No other woman has ever made me see myself as you have. Let’s go.”

An hour later, when he stopped at her bedchamber door, she said, “Do you remember your promise to me?”

“Which one would that be?”

“I could return to Chesleigh whenever I wished to.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I want to return to Chesleigh tomorrow.” He was silent overlong. Finally he said, “Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” “I want to go back to Chesleigh.” “Why?” he said, his voice very low, very gentle. “Tell me why you want to leave.”

He blinked in surprise when she said suddenly, “Now that Napoleon is back in power, what will happen?”

He shook his head. “Napoleon is a man who must rule, not just one city or one country. He must have everything. He will never stop, never. There will be war, nothing else will stop him. Didn’t you know? Wellington is now with the Prince of Orange in Brussels. Perhaps a month from now? Two months? It will be bloody, but you know, I’m not a doomsayer like many of our countrymen. The fact is that Napoleon decimated his army on his ill-advised invasion of Russia some two years ago. He has inexperienced boys now swelling his ranks. Wellington will win, he must.” “I know he will as well. Thank you,” she said, not looking at him. “I will leave in the morning, Edmund with me, if that pleases you. There is no need for you to escort us back to Chesleigh.”

“Don’t be a twit. You’re under my protection. Naturally, I’ll take you and my son back to Chesleigh.”

She looked as though she’d argue, then shook her head. “Thank you,” she said again, turned on her heel, and went into her bedchamber. She closed the door quietly behind her.

He stood there, staring at that damned door. She was on the other side. All he had to do was open that door and go to her. He knew if he did, he would make love to her, probably make love with her until they
were both unconscious. His hand was on the doorknob. Then he drew it back.

He would see her in the morning. He planned to see her every day for the rest of their lives. But first, he knew, he had to find out what was holding her back from him. What was wrong? He shrugged. He would find out everything he wanted to know about her. The problem was probably something niggling and insignificant, and he would fix it. Even if it was something more than insignificant, he would fix it. Wasn’t his son always telling him that he was the strongest papa in the world, and the smartest?

He was whistling at he walked to his bedchamber.

“You don’t have to return with us, your grace. Surely there are so many more interesting things for you to do here.”

He gave her a lazy grin. “No, not this time. I’ve decided you need my guilding hand, Evangeline. I’ve decided that whenever I let you out of my sight, you flounder, nearly get yourself seduced, and then when I come to save you, you don’t want to let me go.”

She hadn’t slept well, had dreamed of Edgerton slipping into Edmund’s bedchamber, a length of rope in his hands, or a stiletto, or just his hands, his fingers, that could squeeze the life out of a child. She wanted only to leave London.

“I won’t rise to your bait,” she said. He let her be. She didn’t look at all well.

Marianne Clothilde said as she held Edmund against her side, “My son will take care of you two, Evangeline. Leave everything to him. You look tired, my dear. Just beg Edmund to let you sleep. Perhaps he’ll be good enough to allow it.”

“If she promises to make the weather warm again, Grandmama, then I’ll let her nap with me.”

“You are a sainted child,” Marianne Clothilde said, kissing her grandson. “I imagine Evangeline will be able to deal with something as easy as England’s weather.”

“That’s what I thought,” Edmund said. Marianne Clothilde kissed him again. “Thank you for your kindness, your grace,” Evangeline said. “I hope I will see you again.”

“Oh, you shall. I fancy you and I will be seeing quite a lot of each other in the future. Now, dearest, may I speak to you for a few moments?”

When Evangeline had taken Edmund from the drawing room, Marianne Clothilde said, “I wish you luck. There is something wrong here. Leaving with no warning, it makes no sense. I haven’t a clue to what it may be. Do you?”

“Not as yet. If there is something bothering her, I shall wring it out of her.”

“I’m glad that Edmund is so very fond of her. I don’t suppose you’d ever use your son as a lever, would you?”

Her handsome, very confident, sometimes arrogant son raised an eyebrow and said, “Damnation, Mother, do you think I will have to stoop to such a level as that?”

“It’s possible. Evangeline is a strong-willed young woman.”

He started to say that she would do what he told her to when he realized that if he said those words, his fond mother would likely laugh at him. Actually, he’d probably laugh at himself. “I’d even use Bunyon if it would gain me,” he said. Marianne Clothilde said as she turned to look up
at the portrait of the late duke, “It’s a shame that she was just a child when your father wanted you to marry. I fancy that things would have turned quite differently had she been Marissa’s age.”

“Father liked to tell me that if I always looked to the future and didn’t whine about the past, only corrected my past mistakes, then all would work out and I would be a better man.” The duke swept up his mother in his arms and hugged her tightly. “I miss Father as do you. Do you know that he was right? Do you know I fancy that a widower and a widow are well matched?”

“I believe,” Marianne Clothilde said, “that you and your father are two of the best men who have ever graced the earth. I loved him with all my heart. I don’t expect Evangeline to feel any less about you.”

T
he duke’s face was perfectly straight, his voice perfectly even as he said, “… And then Bunyon swore to my father that the bully did indeed fall off the bridge. He also swore that I’d been standing at least ten feet away, that I couldn’t have been responsible. To which my father said, ‘I already know that my son’s a devil, Bunyon. That he’s also a magician comes as no surprise.’”