Night of the Scoundrel Page 14

  “The old baron converted his fortune to diamonds?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Joshua shrugged. “I can’t give you a good answer. And I can’t tell you what was going on in his head when he buried the entire cache under the headstone he had once laid for his child who had not died. Perhaps he believed that I was still alive and that I would one day find them? Perhaps he simply did not want his brother to inherit the fortune? Guilt and remorse are powerful sentiments.” He touched the ruby at Adeline’s neck. “Of course, it might have simply been delusion. Or just plain insanity.”

  Adeline covered his fingers with hers, pressing them against her skin.

  “I don’t need the money,” he told her. “But I’d like to see it used for something good. Use it to build your school. Use it to help those around you however you wish.”

  “However we wish,” she corrected. “We’re partners in this.”

  “We,” he agreed with a smile. “And speaking of partners, I don’t suppose you’d know a vintner who might like to engage in a business venture? My ships coming back across the Channel through Dover are often a little lighter than I’d like. Good French wine is always in demand.”

  “I might. If the terms were agreeable.”

  “And what would those terms be?”

  “Well, to start, you could kiss me.”

  Joshua bent his head and did exactly that. Thoroughly, without hesitation, until Adeline was breathless.

  “And then?” he asked.

  “And then,” she said slowly, pressing her lips to the hollow at his throat, “I think it would not be remiss if you were to spend some time discovering exactly where vintners keep their weapons hidden under their clothes.”

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  Did you miss the start of the Devils of Dover series?

  August Faulkner is a man of many talents, not the least of which is enticing women into his bedchamber. He’s known—and reviled—for buying and selling companies, accumulating scads of money, and breaking hearts.

  Even though Clara Hayward, the headmistress of the Haverhall School for Young Ladies, knows that he is back in her life only to take over her family’s business, her heart can’t help but open to the very duke who could destroy it for good.

  Please turn the page to read an excerpt from A Duke in the Night.

  Chapter 3

  Two days later, August sat at the desk in his study, staring into space, still wondering if he had lost his mind. He’d certainly lost his touch.

  He’d seen Clara Hayward the instant he’d stepped into that damn museum, and every thought of the baron, expensive ships, invaluable networks, and sound plans had dissolved like mist in the wind. He had kept his distance at first, trying to collect his thoughts and his wits because it was clear that Miss Hayward was no longer the same girl he had danced with.

  Then, dressed in a pale, shimmering ball gown and expensive jewels, she had been exceedingly pretty. Now, clad in a simple day dress the color of claret and devoid of accessories, she was stunning. She still possessed the same lustrous hair, though it had been pulled back into a rather pedestrian knot at the back of her head. Her skin was still flawless, free of any cosmetics, and her dark eyes still brimmed with the intelligence he remembered so well. But where she had once displayed tutored poise, she now radiated a rare confidence that was characteristic of those who had truly embraced their individuality and found pleasure and happiness within it. In a man it was admirable. In a woman he found it indecently seductive.

  August had followed her discreetly through the museum, not an easy feat considering that the building was almost empty as it approached closing time. She had been accompanied then only by her sister, a petite, fairer version of herself, who showed very little enthusiasm for conversation. Rose Hayward had, however, looked immensely pleased when she was left alone with her sketchbook and a room full of silent sculpture. August knew he should have been disappointed that the baron was nowhere in sight, but instead he had been similarly pleased. Because it had left Clara free to wander into a room stuffed full of Elgin Marbles, gifting him with a sliver of stolen time to spend with her. Precious moments in which he thought he’d charm her.

  Instead he’d blundered into a conversation that he’d not adequately prepared himself for. Miss Hayward had been gracious and pleasant and had not given any indication that she found anything odd about his unexpected and unsolicited reappearance. Until, that was, he found himself apologizing to her. Badly. Or badly enough that Miss Hayward had looked at him with concern.

  And then asked if he was dying.

  His pride had certainly been suffering a slow death, and the fact that his palms had gone damp, his mouth was dry, and his heart pounded did not help. Miss Hayward, in a clear attempt to put him at ease, had accepted his apology with a smooth, lighthearted decorum that was no doubt the cornerstone of the Haverhall School for Young Ladies.

  He should have stopped there, retreated even, but instead he had plowed on and succeeded in making everything worse. The chivalrous kiss and the not-so-chivalrous look he had bestowed upon Miss Hayward were things he had taken great pains to perfect over the years. They were things that promised indecent wickedness without his actually having to do anything more. Once he had mastered the combination, he found he was rewarded with fluttering fans, fluttering lashes, and fluttering giggles. The innocent threatened to swoon. The experienced threatened far more carnal consequences.

  Miss Hayward had simply gazed at him, her face set in an expression of mild puzzlement, in a way he might expect her to look while reading a treatise on the Isoptera of England. And then that expression had faded into what looked almost like one of…awkward disappointment, as though she were now faced with a doddering dowager who had fallen asleep in her tea.

  August groaned and rested his forehead in his hands. Again he had felt as if he were that youth of his past. Goaded into something he knew wasn’t going to end well but unable to resist. What had he thought would happen? The pretty girl who had once matched him step for step, who had stared down his boorish companions and made him grin like a fool, wasn’t a girl anymore. That girl was gone, replaced with a beautiful, intelligent woman in possession of a flawless grace and poise. Her sterling reputation had been earned, not fabricated, and he should have known better.

  And before August could assure Miss Hayward that he was no longer that gauche youth, seeking to recapture the advantage that he had so spectacularly lost on a dance floor long ago, Mathias Stilton had appeared. August felt his lip curl. The man was a peacock. An egotistical, foolish peacock who had managed to run the profitable lace factory his father had established into the ground within a year and a half of inheriting it.

  August had swiftly and unapologetically bought it and the vast tract of land upon which it sat, and it had been one of his first large acquisitions. The purchase price should have been enough to send Stilton away and keep him in moderate comfort, but for almost a year afterward, August had been forced to endure and reject Stilton’s constant requests and demands for either a loan or partnership to give back to him what he insisted was his birthright. Another reason August now used benign company names for his investments.

  Though what Clara Hayward was doing with a man like that was perplexing. Stilton wasn’t intelligent or intrepid. He certainly wasn’t the sort of man August had envisioned her with, and a startling animosity had risen fast and fierce. Stilton simply wasn’t…good enough for her.

  And you are?

  The voice in his head came with the reminder that he’d already had his chance and squandered it. Frustration, disappointment, and something far more unsettling rose in his gut. As if he’d once held something valuable in his hand and discarded it, recognizing its worth far too late. Perhaps that was what chafed, because he prided himself on r
ecognizing worth where others did not. It was what he had built his fortune on.

  August straightened, pushing himself out of his chair and to his feet. Brooding was pointless. Regret was pointless. He needed to keep his eye on the prize here, and that prize was not Clara Hayward, no matter how beautiful and intelligent and gracious she might be. If he wanted a chance to acquire Strathmore Shipping, he needed a new plan.

  Starting, it would seem, in Dover.

  “Your Grace?” Duncan stuck his head around the door.

  “Perfect timing,” August grumbled. “I’d appreciate your assistance.”

  Duncan sidled in. “Your Grace—”

  “We’re going to need to make some sort of arrangements to—”

  “Your Grace.” It was said with greater volume.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Down?” For the first time, August took a good look at his man of business and noted the deep crease in his forehead and the worried expression behind his spectacles. He also realized that Down wasn’t alone, and that he was, in fact, accompanied by a young maid. Anne’s lady’s maid, specifically.

  And the woman looked as if she was going to cast up her accounts.

  “Mr. Down?” August left that hanging ominously. He didn’t have time to deal with domestic problems at the moment.

  “It’s Lady Anne, Your Grace,” the woman wobbled.

  Apprehension streaked through him. “What about my sister? Is she ill? Has something happened?” All manner of catastrophes flitted through his mind, each worse than the one before.

  The maid now looked as if she was on the verge of tears. “She’s not…not…not here, Your Grace.”

  “I beg your pardon?” It came out far harsher than he’d intended, but he couldn’t stand vacillation.

  Duncan cleared his throat. “It seems, Your Grace, that Lady Anne has left.”

  “Left?” August’s patience was hanging by a thread. “When did she leave?” he demanded. “Perhaps she’s gone visiting or shopping or to—”

  “Yesterday, Your Grace.”

  August blinked in incomprehension. “Yesterday?”

  “She told me that she didn’t need me yesterday or last night,” the maid explained tremulously. “Told me to take the time to visit my ma. So I did.” She was wringing her hands. “But then, this morning when I came back and went up to her rooms, I realized that she hadn’t slept in her bed.”

  “Perhaps the chambermaids made it before you got there.” It sounded more like an order than a question. As if he could will it so.

  She shook her head. “I asked, and they didn’t. Tidy the room, that is. And some of her things are missing. Clothes and—”

  “Goddammit.”

  The maid flinched, and Duncan frowned. August forced himself to take a breath. He recalled his last tense encounter with his sister and clenched his hands. Though he was having a very difficult time believing that Anne would run away because she was angry with him. Anne did not run away from conflict. “Did she leave a note? A message? Anything?”

  “She did.” It was Duncan who spoke. He held out a folded paper.

  “What does it say?” August snapped.

  “I thought you might wish to read it—”

  “What. Does. It. Say?” August growled.

  Duncan cleared his throat again. “She has left to attend and take part in the Haverhall School for Young Ladies’ summer term. You are not to worry, nor are you to follow her or, ah, interfere in any way. She will return in six weeks.”

  August stared at Duncan. Duncan stared back. Very slowly, August turned to the maid. “Go. And speak of this to no one, if you value your job.”

  His man of business frowned again at his rudeness, but August was past the point of caring. The young maid almost fell over herself in her haste to leave, and the door banged shut behind her.

  August swung back to the man standing in front of his desk. “Did you know anything about this?”

  Duncan bristled. “Of course not.”

  “Get the carriage,” August snarled. “We’re going to Haverhall.”

  Please give my regards to Lady Anne. That was what Clara Hayward had said yesterday, and August had thought her statement just a continuation of her seamless politesse. Instead, it seemed, Clara Hayward and his sister had been in collusion from the very beginning. August wasn’t sure whom his anger was best aimed at. Anne, for her duplicity? Miss Hayward, for her silence? Himself, for his utter and complete obliviousness to the entire affair?

  “Lady Anne is not at Haverhall, Your Grace.”

  It took a moment for Duncan’s words to sink past the dark cloud that had wrapped itself around him.

  May I be so bold as to ask where you are spending the summer?

  “She’s in Dover.”

  “Yes.” Duncan sounded surprised. “How did you know?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” August became aware that his teeth were grinding, and he tried to relax his jaw before they shattered. “Where in Dover?”

  Duncan set the note on the desk. “Avondale. Just north of the town.”

  “The Earl of Rivers’s estate?”

  “The very same. It would seem that Haverhall has let it for years. For their summer students. Of which your sister is now one.”

  August braced his hands on the edge of his desk, the wood biting into his fingers. “Can you explain, Mr. Down, just what the hell my sister needs a finishing school for? A finishing school that extorts a criminal tuition from its students and then drags them seventy miles from London, at that? When I have made sure she has had the best instruction, the best governesses, the best, period? Anne speaks three languages fluently. She can dance, paint, play the pianoforte, make intelligent conversation with impeccable manners. She’s smart and capable and accomplished.” And August wanted to give her the world, even if she didn’t seem to believe it. He pushed himself away from his desk. “What more does she damn well need?”

  Duncan merely looked at him. “I can see the appeal.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Miss Hayward’s appeal. An individual who seems to have chosen her own path. Defied society to chase her own ambitions.” Duncan raised a brow. “Sounds a little like a man I know, now that I think about it.”

  “I didn’t choose a path; I was forced upon it,” August growled. “And I didn’t defy anything except death to become a duke. Further, I have no intentions of letting my sister defy society. Ever. Society can be horrifically cruel, and I’m sure Miss Hayward will be the first to attest to that.”

  Duncan sighed. “With all due respect, Your Grace, Lady Anne comes from a very different place than the young ladies of the ton. Her past—her experiences—have shaped her view, and given her an outlook on life that will not be found among her contemporaries. Her ambitions and desires will not be what others may want—”

  “Anne is not old enough to know what she wants.”

  Duncan frowned. “If I may be so bold, I should point out that she is the same age you were when—”

  “You may not be so bold, Mr. Down. This discussion is at an end.” Duncan might have good intentions, but the welfare of Anne was not his business. Nor would it ever be.

  “Right.” Duncan looked as if he wanted to argue.

  August glared at him, and he seemed to reconsider. Wise man.

  “May we get back to the matter at hand?” August asked testily.

  Duncan gave him a long look. “In that case, Your Grace, if you want answers, I expect that your questions are best put to Lady Anne.”

  Or Clara Hayward.

  August’s mind was slowly starting to work again. He forced himself to take a deep, steadying breath. Forced himself to think past the betrayal and the fury and the shock because emotion muddled reason and made smart men make stupid choices. His immediate impulse to haul Anne back to London was not in his best interests. She hadn’t run away with a band of traveling gypsies. She hadn’t run off with a man or, God forbid, eloped to Gretna Green. She had fle
d London to attend a bloody finishing school. Something could be salvaged out of his sister’s impetuous, absurd actions.

  Because those actions had sent her to Dover. Even if he hadn’t been planning on going to Dover before, he certainly was now. He had all the justification he would ever need to go to Avondale.

  First and foremost, August had every right to ascertain that his sister was safe—he needed to see with his own eyes that she was all right. Second, he had every right to demand that Anne explain herself—though he didn’t delude himself into thinking that she would be very forthcoming, given that she had chosen to slink away like a damn thief in the night.

  But he recognized that he would need to proceed with caution if he was to stay. Upon his arrival at Avondale, August would need to be firm but not belligerent. Insistent but not boorish. Assertive but not arrogant. Once he’d established his presence, then he’d need to be charming and clever and convincing. No different from many times before.

  He just needed a reason to stay.

  “Mr. Down, please invite the Earl of Rivers to attend me at his earliest convenience,” August instructed in a tone that was downright civilized.

  Duncan eyed him circumspectly. “The earl is in reduced health, Your Grace. Has been since the death of his son at Waterloo.”

  “I thought Eli Dawes was missing.”

  “And presumed dead, given how much time has passed since Waterloo.” Duncan shrugged. “Regardless, the earl rarely attends any—”

  “Never mind. I’ll go to his Lordship.” August was already striding toward the door.

  “Now, Your Grace? At this hour?”

  “Now,” August confirmed. He was of no mind to wait. “And while I am there, please see to the travel arrangements. I’ll be departing to Dover first thing on the morrow.”

  About the Author

  RITA Award–winning author Kelly Bowen grew up in Manitoba, Canada. She attended the University of Manitoba and earned a master of science degree in veterinary physiology and endocrinology. But it was Kelly’s infatuation with history and a weakness for a good love story that led her down the path of historical romance. When she is not writing, she seizes every opportunity to explore ruins and battlefields. Currently Kelly lives in Winnipeg with her husband and two boys, all of whom are wonderfully patient with the writing process. Except, that is, when they need a goalie for street hockey.