The Wickedest Lord Alive (29 page)

The duke smiled unpleasantly. “I think you will find there is not a great deal I cannot do if I put my mind to it. You are a sniveling coward, Bernard, and a treacherous one. You are getting off lightly, believe me. If you were not a Westruther, I would send you to the hangman myself.”

Xavier strode to the door to call the duke’s men. Before he did, he turned back. “Did you ever think through what would happen if you did make an end of me? That woman would bleed you dry, Bernard. You would never have been free of her.” He smiled sardonically. “Life in the Americas will be paradise compared to that.”

“You don’t understand,” said Bernard desperately as the men came to take him away. “I love her! I’ve always loved her.”

Pathetic fool. He meant it, too. He could never marry his dead brother’s wife, but no doubt Nerissa had promised him many things if he did this for her.

“I trust you will find the society in New York congenial,” murmured Montford. “My man of business will furnish you with the details of your new situation.”

Bernard’s shouts echoed as the duke’s men took him away.

*   *   *

No one mentioned Bernard in the drawing room later, not even Nerissa. It was as if he had never been at Harcourt at all. Typical of her, he thought, to cut her losses and move on. Poor bastard. Bernard had never stood a chance against her.

The evening dragged on, with awkward silences and bouts of forced conversation. Even Mr. Huntley seemed to feel the constraint, for he excused himself early.

When at last Nerissa declared her intention to retire, Xavier rose also. “A word with you, my lady?”

He felt the intensity of Lizzie’s focus upon him and willed her not to interfere.

Nerissa smiled. “But of course.” She looked around with a great sigh of contentment. “How wonderful it is to be back in the bosom of my family,” she purred. “Good night.”

She drifted over to Lizzie and put the tips of her polished fingers beneath Lizzie’s chin. “I shall look forward to furthering my acquaintance with you, my pet.”

Lizzie seemed to freeze like a rabbit encountering a snake. Yet when she spoke, her voice seemed calm enough. “I should be delighted, my lady.”

Xavier said sharply, “Nerissa.”

The beading of her bodice glittered as she turned to give him a mock look of innocence. Then she shrugged. “If you insist.”

He bowed and allowed her to precede him out the door.

“In here.” He showed her into a small parlor nearby. She swept past him with a swish of skirts. He closed the door and leaned against it.

Before he could question her, she demanded, “Just what is that girl doing here, Xavier? I should have thought you’d have more sense.”

“More sense?” he repeated. “She’s my wife, or have you forgotten that charming little episode?”

“Your wife?” She gave a crack of mirthless laughter. “That girl is no more your wife than I am.”

He grew very still. This was the very last thing he’d expected. “Explain yourself.”

She shrugged, but the careless gesture was belied by the feverishly bright light in her blue eyes. “The entire marriage ceremony was a sham, my dear. Don’t tell me you didn’t guess.”

His body turned to stone.

She observed his shock with patent satisfaction. “What? Did you think I’d let you—
my son
—wed the spawn of such a man? Did you think I’d let myself be bested by that boor?”

Ice snaked through his veins as his mind switched back to that innocent young girl, to the bedchamber where he’d so callously taken her maidenhead.… Good God,
last night
 … Today, in the potting shed … Lizzie could be with child.

His voice rasped. “Devil take you, woman, what have you done? What have you made me do?”

Xavier didn’t touch her, though part of him wanted to take Nerissa by the shoulders and shake her till her teeth rattled.

The greater part of him was too cold for violence.

She flicked a careless hand. “Why, I duped Bute, of course. Hired an actor to play parson and bribed the witnesses to leave England once the deed was done. Bute handed over the vowels like the veriest lamb. I burned them before I told him the truth.”

“What?”
Even he could not believe his mother could be so base.

“It worked out extraordinarily well that the girl fled,” she continued, “for you were not obliged to make settlements on a girl who had vanished into thin air.” She laughed. “And the cream of it is, you made a whore of Bute’s daughter into the bargain! He could not pursue either of us for the debt, for he knew very well I should take great delight in telling
that
story far and wide.”

Speechless, Xavier stared at her. Could this woman be human? Even he could not have conceived of so merciless a plan.

His mother seemed oblivious of his reaction. She raised her face to him, zealous cruelty blazing from her eyes. Impulsively, she laid a hand on his wrist. “Ah, Xavier, it was
worth
taking that beating just to see the look on Bute’s face when I told him what I’d done.”

Xavier couldn’t see for the fury that erupted inside him. He threw off her clutching hand. “By God, ma’am. A beating was too good for you.”

She pouted. “Ungrateful boy! You do not want the girl, do you? I cannot imagine she would be very entertaining in the bedchamber. Or
is
she?” Nerissa’s eyes narrowed with interest. “Do I scent a teeny tiny smidgen of a tender feeling in you, Xavier dearest?” A slow smile spread over her face. “How extraordinary.”

“No tender feeling at all, ma’am,” said Xavier, his fists clenching in spite of his utter determination not to let her provoke his temper. “Simple common decency. But then, I believe you are wholly unacquainted with the concept.”

Damn it to Hell, the woman was diabolical. She’d had him fooled completely, hadn’t she?

And the beating. She hadn’t been a willing participant in the whipping Bute had given her, even if part of her had reveled in it.

Damn Nerissa! And damn his own gullibility. Even at that age, he ought to have known any tender emotion was wasted on his mother. But for the space of a few moments in Bute’s bedchamber he’d felt … What? Compassion? Something that wasn’t the usual mixture of vigilance, disgust and plain old-fashioned loathing, anyway. He’d acted with single-minded determination to avenge her, never realizing she’d already exacted her own vengeance.

His mistake.

Yet again, Nerissa had proven herself the villainess his head had told him she was, rather than the kind mother his heart had always yearned for her to be.

But now it was time to fight fire with fire.

“I meant to tell you I met an acquaintance of yours last night,” he said. “Big fellow. Probably about Griffin’s build. With the face of a Botticelli angel.”

Her eyelids flickered. She licked her lips and turned away. “Oh, yes?” Her voice was light, unconcerned, but he saw by the rise and fall of her chest that her breathing quickened.

Steyne let moments pass before he spoke again. “It was a heroic effort on his part. Really.”

“What have you done with him?” She swung to face him, fear tensing her features.

But he was merciless. “Do I detect tender emotion in you, Nerissa? Is it
motherly
affection you have for him? He is young enough to be your son, after all.”

“
Tell
me what you have done with him!” she snarled.

“Not a very refined sort of brute,” Steyne mused. “But I have heard that some ladies prefer a ‘bit of rough.’”

She flew at him then, fingers curled like talons, as if she’d claw at his face. He caught her wrists and held her off, a little surprised at the strength in those slender arms.

“Understand this, ma’am,” he said between his teeth. “Up until this moment, you have not even glimpsed what I am capable of. Pack your things and leave here tomorrow. Never come near me or my sister again. From this night on, you are dead to me.”

He shoved her away, releasing her wrists, and dealt the final blow. “Dead as that poor bloody fool of a boy you sent to kill me.”

Her eyes searched his face, as if to find the truth. Then with a great, low-pitched wail, she crumpled to the floor.

He stood watching her, weeping in a cloud of gleaming black silk, racked with sobs for a young man who had died trying to murder her son.

Now he felt nothing. No pity or shame. Certainly no compassion. She’d finally obliterated any capacity he had to forgive her.

The knowledge ought to have lifted a burden from his shoulders.

All he felt was a dull, throbbing pain.

*   *   *

Xavier paused outside Lizzie’s door, still battling the need to go to her.

They were not husband and wife. He had no right to be with her tonight, no right to touch her. Not when he’d taken her virginity, nor when he’d visited her bedchamber, and certainly not when he’d ravished her in the potting shed.

His body tightened at the memory. She’d been unwillingly excited by the prospect of being discovered like that with him.

He’d been so busy pursuing his need for an heir, he hadn’t realized how much he cared for Lizzie. How essential she was to him, even after such a short acquaintance. The darkness in him receded whenever she was near.

He clenched his fist, kneaded his brow with his knuckle. God, he’d been so bloody sure of her, hadn’t he? His mother’s disclosure had turned everything upside down.

He owed her the protection of his name, that much was clear to him. Whatever Nerissa might say, Xavier must marry Lizzie in truth.

But what of Lizzie? Would she choose to wed him now? Or would she view this latest development as a boon, an unexpected release?

Lizzie enjoyed his lovemaking, that was certain, but he’d offered her nothing more than that. He’d made it clear he could not offer her the love she sought.

She’d said she loved him but he knew her sentiments were a product of sexual afterglow. If she were more experienced in such matters, she’d know it, too. He’d be a blackguard to take advantage of such a delusion.

What if the practical, pragmatic Lizzie decided she preferred to live a humdrum but safe existence with Huntley or one of his ilk, rather than marry Xavier in truth?

Without his conscious direction, his hand turned the doorknob. He slipped into Lizzie’s room.

The chamber lay in darkness. He closed the door and leaned against it, listening. Judging by her even breathing, Lizzie was asleep.

And why wouldn’t she be? He’d spent hours tearing himself to pieces over the scene he’d enacted with his mother. Unable to wait for the morning, he’d sent Nerissa to the nearest hostelry, along with her servants, uncaring about the late hour or the gossip her ejection would cause. He just wanted her gone.

Now he did not want to wake Lizzie, but he didn’t want to be without her, either.

He watched her sleeping and felt a rush of something that wasn’t quite desire. He reached out and eased back the covers. Swiftly, he discarded his clothes, then slid carefully into bed beside her.

She did not stir, so he took the chance and drew her into his embrace.

Sleepily, she murmured, “Xavier? I waited … but you did not come.”

“Go to sleep,” he said. “I won’t stay long.”

She turned in his arms and tilted her face to his. He found her lips in the darkness, meaning only to kiss her and send her back into slumber. But she was so very sweet. It was wrong, but he’d never tasted such rare contentment and he couldn’t help but go back for more.

Gently, he caressed her body until Lizzie was writhing and pleading for him to take her. Smothering the protests of his conscience, he eased inside her and made slow, steady love to her until she trembled and gasped out his name. With a harsh cry, he sank into her, his body as shaken as his resolve.

Tell her. Confess, you craven fool!

But she laid her silky head on his shoulder, her fingertips tracing a pattern on his chest. The gesture spoke of trust. He didn’t want to shatter this strange illusion she seemed to have about him. That he was a man worthy of her love.

Chapter Eighteen

“Well, my dear, the game is up,” said Xavier from behind her.

Lizzie had been sitting on the lip of the fountain beyond the south lawn, dreamily trailing her fingertips through the water. At the sound of Xavier’s voice, she turned her head, but her smile faltered when she saw the hard expression on his face.

Frowning, she said, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He shrugged. “My esteemed mother will spill the beans if I don’t tell you. You have been the victim of a rather cruel trick, my dear.”

Her hand stilled. “What can you mean, Xavier? What trick?”

Harshly, he said, “How can you be so innocent? After the upbringing you had.”

Her brows drew together in annoyance and she stood up. “I have yet to hear that innocence is such a despised commodity in females. Now, tell me what this is about before I … before I push you into the fountain!”

Her threat was an empty one, of course. He was six-foot-two of solid male, and she could not move him an inch if he didn’t wish it.

A twitch of his lips made her give a spurt of laughter. “Well, all right, I won’t push you. I’ll splash you, instead.”

He stared at her, and for the first time, she saw a rather helpless look in his eyes, as if he just didn’t know what to do with her.

For a few moments, he remained silent. Then he said, “I never intended to hurt you, Lizzie. Please believe that.”

She swallowed hard. Whatever this statement prefaced, it could not be good. “I believe you. Go on.”

He sat down beside her, but he didn’t touch her. Another bad sign.

“My mother told me some distressing news last night,” he said.

Observing how tightly wound he’d been while his mother was present, Lizzie had grieved for him. She’d waited for him to come to her bedchamber last night, gladly given him the comfort of her body because she knew his interview with his mother had been excruciating.

“What did she say?” said Lizzie.

He took her hand in his. “Lizzie, we were never married, you and I.”