Chapter Twenty-Three

After the countess’s tea, Dulcie wandered down to her father’s study. Simon was with her. She left the door open, knowing the dog would alert her if anyone passed by. She browsed the bookshelves, hearing Simon thump his tail against the carpet. She turned and smiled when Griff walked through the doorway. He smiled, too. Then he shut the door and leaned against it.

“Finding anything of interest to read, Dulcie?” he asked, speaking to her from where he stood, arms folded across his chest.

“Only a book on Greece that belonged to my father. I understand he toured the Continent when he was young.” She had chosen a volume that illustrated Greek architecture. It also depicted nude statues. She was definitely interested in the statues. She had never seen a naked man in the flesh, not even Denny when they went swimming as children.

“May I see it?” Griff asked, approaching her and reaching out for the book.

She whipped it behind her back. “Er, I don’t think you would be interested,” she bumbled.

“Oh? I managed to learn a bit Greek when in school, but I’ve forgotten much of it. I’d be interested in seeing what you have there.”

Oh, Lord. How disconcerting!

There was no way she could not pass it to him without being terribly rude. She handed it over.

He flipped open the book. Slowly, he went through several pages, pausing as his eyes traveled over the finely drawn sketches. “Were these the ones in which you were interested?” There was heavy amusement in the question twitching his lips.

There was a definite pause until she replied. “Er, I…hadn’t gotten that far,” she replied, denying it emphatically. “I don’t suppose they will be of interest to me, after all. I never studied Greek.”

“Liar,” he said, low and under his breath, his grin widening. “Look here.” He took a step closer and proffered the book in front of her.

She stepped back, pushing the book away with a rush of fingers. She felt her cheeks burn with a fiery blush.

He pursued her with the open book while she still back-pedaled. “See? This shows something quite interesting. It’s a drawing of…well…”

She clapped her hands over her eyes.

“’Tis a fallen down building, Dulcie.” He chortled inaudibly. “It’s in ruins, but still beautiful. The Greeks call it the Parthenon.”

“Oh!” She gulped, inhaled deeply, and opened her eyes.

“What did you think I was showing you?” He laughed out loud this time. He pulled the book back and flipped to a few pages farther back. “Now, this is something quite different.”

This time she gasped. It was a sketch of a nude male with outspread wings.

“Have you never seen drawings of nude male statues?”

“No! Of course, not!”

He closed the book. “Dulcie…”

“What?” she asked, her head bent, her discomfort quite apparent.

He chuckled again. She seemed unable to look him in the eye. “It’s not so bad, really, what we did together. I’m sure you will forget all about it in no time.”

She shook her head. Her lashes had clamped tight against her rosy cheeks in naive mortification.

“Anyway, the reason I came to find you was something else. I came to tell you that I’ve found a way to stop the wedding.”

Slowly, she looked up. She still didn’t quite meet his eyes but stared at his carelessly tied cravat. “How?” She asked, perplexed. “How did you manage it?”

“I joined the King’s army again, Dulcie. I’ll be leaving for Portugal in less than a week.”

“But…” She did look at him now. “But you just recently left the army…”

“I did. But I decided that Boney needed a lesson as well. I’ll be fighting the French with Wellington.”

“When…when did you decide to…”

“Last night,” he interrupted. “I took care of it after breakfast this morning. That’s why I came late for tea.”

Realizing he still held the book in his fingers, he slipped the slim leather bound volume into an empty slot on a nearby shelf.

“There’s no reason for worry, Dulcie. There will be no special license, no reason to rush into marriage. I won’t alert the countess until I’m headed to Dover to take ship.”

Dulcie’s gaze roved his face, delving deep into his eyes, crisscrossing his expression with hers for long moments. She saw he wasn’t happy about going back to war, but he found a solution to their problem.

“I wish you hadn’t. War is a terrible thing. And I shall worry awfully, Griff, if what you’ve told me is true.”

“What do you mean? Are you worried about me?”

“Well, that, too, of course.” She took a step back, fumbling with her answer. “Griff, you said my stepmother would find a replacement suitor for me if she sent you away. Since she is still my legal guardian with the power to force me into marriage before my next birthday, how can this help?”

“Damnation! You’re correct, of course. I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought only to…well, never mind what I was thinking. I’ll come up with another reason.”

“No. You won’t. What you are doing is very brave…and very foolish. But I think I may have the solution.” She turned away from him only slightly. “I want us to stay betrothed, Griff, even though you’re leaving and going back to war. I will not allow my stepmother to end our engagement. I shall still be protected by our betrothal. I shall make sure she honors your proposal. Our betrothal was announced in the London papers already. I read it there myself. It’s almost a done thing as far as the ton is concerned. The wedding will simply be delayed until you return.” She fixed her gaze on him. “Of course, Griff, you will renege on it later. That is, if you are still willing to go so far as agree to this now.”

“Yes, of course, I agree, Dulcie.”

There was a tap on the earl’s study door. “Come in,” Griff said.

It was Bender. “Lady Dulcina, Mr. Spencer, will you be dining in tonight? The countess has accepted another invitation.”

“I’ve an appointment with an old friend, Dulcie,” Griff said, “but perhaps, we can take a carriage drive along the Serpentine tomorrow afternoon if the weather holds. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes, Griff! It will be wonderful to get out of this house, and away from the countess. I shall enjoy it immensely. Thank you so much for asking.”

She looked toward butler and replied, “I’ll take my supper on a tray, Bender, as usual.”

He bowed out and left.

“I daresay we should keep up the subterfuge before the eyes of the ton no matter what. Do you agree?”

She nodded in agreement.

“Everything will be fine, Dulcie, take my word for it.”

Again, those same words echoed through her mind.

Oh, I do hope so this time.

Later, when Griff and the countess left for the evening and Dulcie was alone in the house, she scurried back to her father’s book-room. Yanking the slender volume off the shelf, she ran up to her bedchamber with it under her arm. Feeling very wicked, she plopped onto her bed next to lighted candles on the side table, cracked open the book, and examined the illustrations of nude male statues in great detail.

* * * *

Griff spent a few hours at White’s with Rand before returning to Eberley House. A footman met him in the foyer. The house was quiet. The countess must still be out, otherwise, the doors and windows on the first level would be bolted shut for the night. He wondered if Dulcie were awake. For some odd reason, he wanted to see her, talk to her, make certain they were still in perfect agreement.

But of course, she must be asleep. It was after midnight.

His nerves were taut, edgy. He was quite awake. Talk at White’s about the war and Napoleon had his mind reviving grizzly memories. From what he heard, the war effort was falling short of victory, not going as well as was hoped. But Griff could have told Londoners that, weeks ago—when he was still slogging through the mud of Spain.

In White’s club room he heard the names of places mentioned during the past few years, and he ticked them off in his brain: Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, all of them were bloody battles in which he had managed to survive without a scratch.

In his bedchamber Griff stripped down to his shirt, breeches, and boots, poured himself a large dollop of brandy, and fell into a chair in front of the low burning fire in the grate. No, he didn’t want to go back to the Peninsula. But he was determined to equate himself well, find what he was truly made of, and reclaim and dignify his character in the eyes of his immediate family.

Griff mused, staring into the flames. The members of White’s must have known Griff was Boswell’s son because he overhead snippets of gossip about his father’s demise while he and Rand ate supper. His father had been called a “bloody coward” to put a pistol to his head and commit suicide.

‘Read it in The Times a few years back,’ one graybeard said. ‘Wagered his bloody estate on the turn of a card, and lost it. Damn fool must have been befogged with Blue Ruin!’

‘Heard he had the French disease,’ another diner detailed his own suspicions. ‘Does devastating things to a man’s cock and balls as well as to his wishful thinking.’

‘Mayhap he was brought to Point Non Plus. You’d put a bullet in your head, too, if you rogered too many infected whores,’ his companion added.

‘He was on the bloody rocks, pockets to let. I was told he blew his brains out in the alley next to a Cheapside brothel after his favorite courtesan closed the door in his face.’

Griff ran a shaking palm over his rumpled hair, his long fingers raking tracks through the crisp, blond curls. After his meeting with the banker, he had accepted the fact that he wasn’t able to buy back his inheritance. Well, so be it. He vowed he would never again prostitute himself for money again, either. If he made it back from the Peninsula, somehow, he determined to live a life that had new meaning.