CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Moonlight filtered through the branches outside the bedchamber window, reflecting off the paving stones and lighting the carriages that returned their occupants to their town houses on Berkeley Square. Jason paced the floor in front of the mullioned panes, stopping to peer into the darkness, but no horse-drawn conveyance rolled up in front of the door.

Velvet had not yet returned from her evening with Litchfield and Lord and Lady Briarwood. It was damned near three in the morning—where the devil was she?

He turned and retraced his steps, listening for sounds in the entry, worried about her, though he knew she was safe with his friend. At least the man who had been watching the house the night he had come to Velvet’s room had apparently ended his surveillance—for the present—which put his mind a bit more at rest.

Another twenty minutes passed before he spotted Litchfield’s carriage, then he heard Velvet climbing the stairs. Relief trickled through him, followed by an unreasoning anger. Jerking open the door between their two rooms—a door he’d been careful to keep closed until now—he stormed in.

A surprised gasp arose from a candlelit corner. “S-sorry, milord,” said Tabby. “I ’eard her ladyship arrive downstairs. I figured she’d be needin’ me to help her undress before retirin’.”

The stirring of footsteps brought his attention to the door. Velvet stood framed in the opening.

“It’s all right, Tabby. My husband can help me undress, since it appears he has been awaiting my return.” She tossed him a saucy look tempered with a hint of challenge. He had come into her domain, it said. Now that he had, he could damn well play the role of husband.

Tabby eyed his tall frame from top to bottom, then flashed him a lusty, knowing smile and left the room. If the look on the woman’s face was any indication of what she was thinking, the coachman’s bachelor days were about to end.

Jason waited till she closed the door. At first he had been worried that she or the coachman might recognize him as the man who had ridden as the outlaw, Jack Kincaid, but the night of his appearance had been cloudy and dark, and it never occurred to them that her ladyship would marry such a man.

Sometimes he wondered at it himself. Velvet was too damned trusting. At the very least she should harbor some hint of suspicion that he might have indeed killed his father. He knew without doubt she believed in his innocence completely. The knowledge did strange things to the area around his heart.

“Was there something you wished to discuss, my lord?” The soft cadence of her voice drew his attention to the woman across the room.

“You bloody well know there is. I want to know what you’ve been doing that kept you out until three in the morning?”

“Late evenings are the vogue, my lord. Surely you haven’t been gone from London so long that you have forgotten.”

He tried not to notice the way her lush breasts rose above her sea green gown, the way the cleft formed a dark intriguing shadow, but his body had noticed and the blood began to thicken and pulse through his veins.

“You’re supposed to be married. Did no one ask after your husband?”

“Oh, indeed they did, my lord.” She sat down on the tapestry stool in front of her dresser and began to pull the pins from her hair. In the light slanting in, it gleamed like burnished copper, and the heat in his blood pooled low in his belly.

“As we agreed,” she continued, “I told them you were a bookish sort, far more at home in the country. I told them I had, however, convinced you to host a ball at the end of the month, in celebration of our marriage, and that they could meet you then. That should appease their curiosity for a while.”

He watched her face in the mirror, noticed the tiny, heart-shaped patch she had placed beside the corner of her mouth, and knew an irresistible urge to kiss the spot beneath it. Her hands looked small and delicate as they pulled the silver brush through the long curling strands of her glossy dark hair. His fingers itched to touch it, to feel the fine, soft texture against his skin.

He dragged his gaze back to her face, his blood pumping faster, collecting in his groin, making him hard inside his breeches. When he spoke, his voice came out husky.

“Aye, the promise of a ball will soothe them for a while. Perhaps by then I’ll have enough evidence to confront Lady Brookhurst. If I do, she’ll be forced to admit Avery’s guilt—and my innocence.”

Velvet pulled her long curling hair forward over one shoulder, then pulled the bristles through it, past the tip of a breast. His gaze fastened there and his mouth went dry. He jerked his gaze away.

“Once my name is cleared,” he said thickly, “I’ll be able to leave. You can invent some tale of my abandonment and start the annulment proceedings. Lucien can guide you, grease whatever palms he feels is necessary.”

Velvet said nothing for the longest time, then she simply rose from her dressing stool, crossed the room, and turned her back, wordlessly asking for his assistance to unfasten the row of tiny buttons.

“I see no reason to hurry,” she finally said, waiting patiently for his fingers to do their work. Beneath his hand, he could feel the smoothness of her skin. The faint scent of lilac drifted into his awareness. Inside his breeches he was hard as a stone.

“Perhaps,” she said, “I shall grow accustomed to the notion of being married.” His head snapped up. The last button popped free and his fingers went still. “Once you have left the country and I am alone, I shall be allowed all manner of freedoms. A married woman who behaves with discretion may do nearly anything she pleases.”

Jason clamped his jaw. “Parading around as a husbandless wife wasn’t part of the bargain. You agreed to an annulment, Velvet.”

“True.” She sighed dramatically, turning to face him. Though she held up the bodice of her unfastened gown, her breasts nearly spilled over the top. “But if you truly have no wish to marry someone else, why would it matter? As your wife, I could move freely about without fear of scandal. I could—”

“You could what? Sleep with whomever you wish? Take any number of lovers?”

Velvet shrugged. “I enjoyed our lovemaking, Jason. It taught me that a woman has needs the same as a man. A woman desires to be kissed and caressed—”

“Stop it.”

“She needs to feel the pleasure a man can give her. A woman wants to taste—”

“I said stop it, damn you!” He gripped her arms and dragged her against him. “I don’t believe this! Are you telling me that after I am gone you intend to take a lover?”

“Of course, what did you think?”

“What did I think!” he nearly shouted. “I thought that you would have our marriage annulled, that you would live with your grandfather until you found a good and proper husband who would treat you with care and respect.”

“I have a good husband, Jason. I’m perfectly satisfied with the man I have married. The fact that he doesn’t want me—”

“That’s not bloody true and you know it. I’m hard as a thundering stone right now! Christ, if I had my way, I’d rip the clothes from your luscious little body. I’d drag you over to that bed, spread your lovely legs, and bury myself inside you. I’d take you hard for the rest of the night and every night until I had my fill. I’d make damned sure I satisfied those needs you were so freely discussing. You wouldn’t have to worry about another man in your bed, and if you took a lover, I vow I’d shoot you both!”

For several long moments, she stared at him with astonished, uptilted eyes, her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink. If she had thought to shock him, he had neatly turned the tables. He wasn’t a proper gentleman anymore and he wanted her to know it. He had done so with a vengeance, or at least he thought so, until she looked him straight in the face.

She wet those soft pink lips. “Kiss me, Jason. I want you to do those things you said.”

Jason groaned. God’s blood—the woman was killing him! “Can’t you understand—I’m doing you a favor. If we make love, you might wind up with a child. I don’t know how to be a husband, a father. Once I could have done it. As my father’s heir I was expected to do it. But things have changed since then. I’m not the man I was—I never will be again.”

She only shook her head. Her next words came out softly. “You just don’t see yourself the way I do. You would make a wonderful husband, Jason.”

Frustration tore through him. How could he make her see? “If I told you the things I’ve done, if I had the courage to let you see the man I really am … then you would understand.”

Small, soft fingers came up to cradle his cheek. “Tell me. Tell me what has happened to you to make you feel this way.”

Jason swallowed. Dark images began to appear, screams of agony, sobs of pain, cries for help. He fought against them, tried to block them out. He felt dizzy, sick to his stomach. “I can’t.” He turned his head away, missing the gentle touch as soon as it was gone. “Don’t ask it of me, Velvet. Not now. Not ever.”

Velvet looked at him and her eyes grew moist with tears. They were for him, he realized, not for herself, and something tightened inside him. She was standing there holding up her gown, looking at him with a mixture of desire and pity, and it was tearing him in two.

“Make love to me, Jason. Let me help you forget.”

Ignoring the pressure in his chest and Velvet’s look of compassion, he stepped away, desperate to put some distance between them. “Get dressed,” he commanded. “In case it has slipped your mind, you are standing there half-naked. You’re behaving like a doxy and it doesn’t become you.” God’s blood, it wasn’t the truth, not a shred of it. She was beautiful and desirable and he ached just to hold her. He wanted to make love to her, wanted her in his bed and not just for tonight.

Velvet’s bottom lip trembled. Fresh tears welled and a soft sob escaped as she turned and walked away. He told himself to leave her, not to torture himself by listening to the whispery rustle of fabric from behind her dressing screen, not to allow the image of her smooth bare skin to invade the corners of his mind. But his feet remained fixed on the floor, as solidly immobile as if they were nailed to the polished wood.

She finally emerged dressed in a simple white night rail that was every bit as enticing as her disheveled gown. She looked small and fragile, embarrassed and uncertain as he had never seen her. He had done that to her, he knew, with his half truths and his accusations.

He told himself to leave, that it didn’t really matter, that it was better if he put an end to the fierce attraction between them. Instead his legs began to move, to stride across the floor in her direction. He knelt beside the canopied bed, reached for her small pale hand, and pressed the back against his lips.

“If we had a marriage in truth,” he said, “there is nothing between us you could not say, nothing that would be forbidden. I would cherish your passion, your desire. It is a rare and beautiful quality in a woman, one any wise husband would treasure.”

She turned her head so that she could see him, her dark hair spilling across the pillow. Some of the color returned to her cheeks. “I’m your wife. You are my husband.”

He only shook his head. “I’m not your husband, Velvet, I never will be. Once I was your lover. I was also a fool.”

Turning before she could say something more, something that might convince him to stay, Jason crossed the floor and yanked open the door to his bedchamber. Christ’s blood he’d be glad when this whole affair was ended. God knew—if he didn’t hang first—he’d be bloody well glad to get home.

*   *   *

Christian Sutherland paused in descending the wide marble stairs. His West End mansion sat across from Hyde Park, his grandfather’s lavish gift to the woman he had married. It was Christian’s home now, his place of refuge, though at the moment, it sounded as though it were being invaded.

“Please … I must see the earl.” A small cloaked figure stood just inside the doorway. “I know I haven’t an appointment, please, will you tell him I am here.”

“I’m sorry, madam. Lord Balfour is extremely determined when it comes to his privacy. But perhaps if you will give me your name—”

The visitor made a noise of despair that sounded close to a sob. “Say … say it is Mary. I believe the earl will come if you tell him Mary is here.”

Christian’s heartbeat quickened. He rapidly descended the last of the stairs and stepped into the marble-floored foyer. “It’s all right, George. Mary is a friend. She is welcome here. I’ll speak to her in the White Drawing Room.”

She stared in his direction, her face well-hidden by the dark recesses of her hood. “Christian,” she whispered, hysteria in her voice, “please, you must help me. I’m so frightened. I don’t know what to do.” It was the first time she had ever used his first name and it told him how near to panic she was.

A knot of worry balled in his stomach. “It’s all right, love.” Resting a hand at her waist, he guided her into the drawing room. As its name implied, it was done entirely in white and gold, from the lavish ivory silk draperies to the gilt framed pictures lining the walls. “Once you tell me what has overset you so badly I’m certain we’ll be able to straighten things out.”

He took her mist-dampened cloak and tossed it over a chair, then seated her on a gold fringed sofa.

Mary gripped her hands in her lap. They looked slender and pale, and he noticed that they trembled. “I-I know this is a terrible imposition, but I had to come. I didn’t know where else to go, whom I could turn to.”

“Where is your father?” he asked gently, knowing they had always been close.

Her blue eyes clouded with tears. They were lackluster as he had never seen them, the life in them completely gone. “My father is dead.”

Christian’s jaw went tense. “I’m sorry, Mary.” He squeezed her hand. “Sit here a moment, love. I’ll be right back.” Moving to the sideboard, he poured her a small glass of sherry, then returned to the sofa. “Drink this.” Kneeling, he pressed the stemmed crystal into her trembling hand. “Just a sip or two will make you feel better.” When she accepted the glass, he sat down on the sofa beside her.

The glass shook in her slender fingers. She took a sip and set it on the table. “I miss him,” Mary said brokenly. “Already I miss him so much.”

“Mary, I’m so sorry. How did it happen?”

“There was an accident … the carriage veered off the road and went into a pond. My father drowned.” Tear-filled eyes lifted to his face. “He did it. I know he did. Somehow Avery killed my father.”

Stunned silence enveloped him. An icy shiver ran down his spine. “Mary, surely you are mistaken. The news of your father’s death has come as a terrible shock. It is understandable that you are upset. Surely the duke would not—”

Her fingers bit into his arm. “You don’t know him as I do. You don’t know how ruthless, how cruel he can be. I think my father had begun to see. I think he had started to worry he had made a mistake in choosing Avery.”

Christian’s head came up, the words gripping him even more fiercely than her unexpected accusations. “Your father was the one? You did not wish to marry the duke?”

Pain washed over her features. Her eyes slid closed and a flood of tears washed down her cheeks. “I wanted to please him. He was an old man and I wanted to make him happy.” She leaned toward Christian, her anguished gaze fixed on his face. “I would have married you, my lord. I was in love with you.”

Christian’s chest went tight. “Mary…” He took her gently in his arms, whispered soft words of comfort, and let her weep against his shoulder. He held her and his heart squeezed with pain. For Mary. And for himself.

“The night of the Briarwoods’ party,” she started raggedly, “he tricked me into leaving. He took me to an inn. I thought my father was there, but it wasn’t the truth.” A heart wrenching sob slipped out. “Avery tore off my clothes. He did things … terrible things. Dear God, it was so awful, so horribly vile.” She shook her head and a fresh cascade of wetness rolled down her cheeks. “I always imagined that it would be beautiful.”

Anger knifed through him, and a fierce jolt of regret. It would have been, Christian thought bitterly, if he had been the man making love to gentle Mary.

She drew away from him then, pulled back to look him in the face. “I can’t stay there a moment more, my lord. I can’t face him, knowing what he’s done.”

“You can’t be certain the duke is responsible, Mary.”

“I know it—in here.” She rested a hand over her heart. “He wanted my father’s money. As my husband, with my father gone and his fortune left to me, Avery controls every schilling. Can’t you see? It was Avery. Somehow he found a way to get what he has wanted all along.”

Christian wasn’t sure he believed the duke would go so far as to kill the old man, but it didn’t really matter. The duke of Carlyle had already done more than enough to earn the earl of Balfour’s loathing.

“He beat me,” she whispered, and his whole body went rigid. “He was careful to be sure the marks did not show. I try not to anger him. I try, but I cannot seem to please him.” She looked up at him with teary pale blue eyes. “Please, my lord, will you help me? I have nowhere else to go.”

Christian worked to stay calm. He wanted to kill Avery Sinclair with his two bare hands. “Mary … love, of course, I will help.” His mind worked frantically, sorting through the possibilities. “But even if you weren’t married, you couldn’t stay here. I’m a bachelor. The gossip would soon leak out that there is a woman staying in my house.”

“Wh-what am I going to do?”

What indeed? He needed the help of someone he could trust. Someone who would understand. “There is a woman who may be able to help us. I believe the lady may have discovered the truth of Avery’s cruelty. Perhaps that is the reason she ended their betrothal.”

“You are speaking of Velvet Moran.”

“She is Lady Hawkins now, but yes that is the woman I speak of. Do you know her?”

“We have met on several occasions. She was always kind to me.”

Christian urged Mary to her feet. Picking up her cloak, he enveloped her in its deep, disguising folds. “Avery won’t like being thwarted. As soon as he discovers you have left him, he’ll be looking for you. With the money he now has at his disposal, he can hire an army if that is his wish.”

“I left him a note. I told him I was too grief-stricken to stay in London. I told him I was returning to my father’s house in the country, that I would await him there. The funeral is set for the end of the week.”

“Avery will make a point of being there. If you go, he will know that you suspect him. He will see it in your eyes. There is no telling what he might do.”

“I know. That is the reason I came here.”

Christian nodded. “We’ve some time yet. You’ll have to stay out of sight until we can figure out what to do.”

Mary rested a slight, shaking hand on his arm. “Thank you, my lord.”

A tender smile rose to his lips. “I liked it better when you called me Christian.”

Mary’s cheeks grew flushed, soft spots of color in a face that was otherwise pale. She gave him a tremulous smile, the first he had seen. “I shall be forever in your debt … Christian.”

He ran a finger along her jaw, admiring the fine delicate bones. “I shall remember you said so, Mary.” He made no further comment, just guided her toward the door and ordered the butler to have his carriage brought round. All the while his mind was turning, wondering how he could possibly right the awful wrongs the duke had done to his Mary.

*   *   *

In a modest India calico house dress, Velvet sat in the drawing room across from a pale-faced Mary Sinclair. The notion struck her that by an odd twist of fate, Mary was her sister-in-law, though of course she did not know it. Christian Sutherland stood at her side, protective in his stance as she had never seen him.

The earl had come to her less than an hour ago. He had asked if they could be private, uncertain how he should proceed in front of her new husband. But Jason wasn’t at home.

Velvet had ushered Balfour into the drawing room, along with the small cloaked figure he had helped down from his carriage. Halfway through the incredible discussion that painted Avery Sinclair even more a villain than she had believed, Jason had returned from his meeting with Litchfield and the Runner, Mr. Barnstable.

At Jason’s appearance, Lord Balfour had stiffened protectively over Mary, but Velvet had assured them her husband would be most sympathetic to their cause—and that they could totally trust him.

She wasn’t afraid either of them would guess whom Jason was. He had told her that he had met Christian Sutherland only once in passing more than ten years ago, and he had never met Mary Stanton. Mary glanced across at Jason, who listened to the tale of her forced marriage, his jaw clamped hard, a muscle bunched in his cheek.

If the situation hadn’t been so awful for poor dear Mary, Velvet might have smiled at his bookish disguise—tiny wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his straight, well-formed nose, his dark hair hidden by a plain gray bagwig that made him look years older than he was. He was dressed more like a tutor than the wealthy Northumberland noble he was supposed to be, in a plain brown velvet coat, white jabot, and beige breeches, his muscled calves encased in white clocked stockings.

“There is more to the story than I have told you,” Mary suddenly said, and Velvet’s gaze swung sharply in the slender blond woman’s direction. “Lord Balfour does not wish me to say this, since as yet I have no proof, but if you are willing to help me, you should know the extent of what you risk.”

“Go on,” Jason prodded. “Whatever you say will go no farther than this room.”

Balfour seemed to relax, but Mary looked even more tense. “I told you my father is dead. I did not say that I believe my husband was somehow responsible for the deed.”

Jason’s face turned grim and Velvet’s stomach knotted. Mary went on to explain about the inheritance Avery would control and that she thought her father had begun to grow suspicious of Avery’s ill treatment of her.

“I never told my father the truth about him. I didn’t want him to blame himself and I knew that he would.” She began to cry softly, and Balfour rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I should have gone to him, told him the truth about Avery. My father would have found a way to protect me. He would have used his influence to ruin the duke, if that was what it took. Instead, now he is dead.”

Balfour handed her a handkerchief, then turned the full measure of his regard on Jason and Velvet. “My mother and brother are in residence at my country estate in Kent. Mary can’t stay here in the city. I am at a loss as to what I should do.”

“Windmere,” Velvet said with a glint of determination. “It shan’t be luxurious, certainly nothing of what she is used to as the wife of a duke.” Balfour’s shoulders went stiff, as if the words were a painful reminder that Mary did not belong to him.

“Velvet is right,” Jason put in. “Windmere will serve well enough. There are only a handful of servants in residence, but that should work in your favor.”

“And those who are there are extremely discrete,” Velvet added. If Balfour thought it odd that the wealthy Haversham heiress lived a frugal existence in what was thought to be a lavish country estate, he did not say so.

“Mary will be safe at Windmere,” Velvet finished. “’Tis a place the duke will never think to look.”

Balfour came to his feet and so did Mary. “Then Windmere it shall be. You will never know how much your help has meant to Mary and to me. If there is ever a favor you need, anything at all that I can do, do not hesitate to ask.”

Jason nodded. “The time may well come, and not in the far distant future. If it does, it is good to know Velvet and I may count you among our friends.”

The time may well come. Balfour did not ask what the cryptic words meant, just nodded and shook Jason’s hand, then bundled Mary up inside her cloak. “If you’ll send word ahead, I’ll see Mary arrives there safely.” He glanced down at the top of her head, invisible beneath her hood. “It’s been a difficult time for her. Perhaps I shall stay until she is settled in, if that is all right with you.”

“Of course,” Jason said. They watched the two of them leave, and the moment they were gone, Velvet went into Jason’s arms. He did not turn her away.

“He has killed someone else,” she said, her cheek pressed against his solid chest.

“We do not know that for certain.”

“You know it—I can see it in your face. And again there is no way to prove it.”

A muscle tightened in his jaw. “Sooner or later, his greed will make him careless. When it does, we’ll be ready.”

Velvet pressed closer. She could feel Jason’s heart beating heavily beneath her hand. Her own heart was pulsing in a sharp uneasy rhythm.

And suddenly she was afraid.