Company Of Rogues: An Unwilling Bride Part 2

The disciplinary part of the interview was apparently over. The marquess felt the tension seep out of him. Whatever had brought the duke to London so unexpectedly was obviously not to be laid at his door.

"Sit down, Arden. I have something to discuss with you."

As the marquess took the opposing wing chair he detected something in his father's voice which led him to another concern. "I hope Maman is well," he said.

"Completely."

Despite the rea.s.suring reply, the duke's untypical uneasiness worried the marquess considerably. He felt an alarming need to fiddle with his cravat or cross and uncross his legs. This elegant room, with its rich gold brocade curtains and Chinese carpet, held no particularly unpleasant memories, but the duke carried the atmosphere with him. Wherever their meetings took place Lucien de Vaux felt as if he were back in his father's formidable study at Belcraven Park quivering under a caustic tongue-lashing or stoically listening as his tutor was instructed as to the number of strokes his latest escapade warranted.

He had always preferred the latter. The system had been quite clear to him from an early age. Beatings were rarely harsh and were reserved for the kind of mischief common to boys. The sting carried the message that he had done something of which his father disapproved but which did not seriously distress him.

A dressing down by his father was an indication that he had fallen below the standards of the de Vaux, that his father was ashamed of his son and heir. Arden had frequently wept.

Why did this occasion recall those painful times when it was clear the duke was not angry?

Eventually the duke broke the silence. "There is no way to dress this up with ribbons and bows, Arden, but I'm not sure in which order the news will be easiest." He fixed his heir with a direct look. "I have to tell you that you are not my son."

The shock was total. "You are disinheriting me? For G.o.d's sake, why?"

"No!" said the duke. "The very opposite. I have known since your birth that you are not my son."

Icy shock was replaced by hot fury, and the marquess shot to his feet. "You slander my mother!"

"Don't be ridiculous," said the duke wearily. "I am as tender of the d.u.c.h.ess's reputation as you. Ask her if you wish. It is the truth. The briefest indiscretion with a childhood sweetheart...."

The marquess saw the old pain in his father-no, not his father....

The world shifted around him, and he grasped the back of the chair by which he stood. His heart was thundering in his chest. It seemed an effort to breath. Surely grown men did not faint....

He heard the duke as if over a vast chasm. "It happened when I was in Scotland after grouse. I broke my leg. There was no question of my having fathered you."

"His father would not lie. His father... this man sitting rigidly before him, had always been truthful, if cold. So much, so much was explained. The marquess felt as if his heart had been ripped out of his body. It was a draining effort, but he focused on essentials. "Why did you acknowledge me?"

The duke shrugged, not looking at him at all. "There were two sons already. It happens in every family now and then, and I loved your mother deeply. She would never willingly have parted with a child." He flicked a glance at his heir and then looked away quickly, paler still. "Then there was the accident and she was near her time. We could have pretended the child had died, I suppose. I have wondered... but it would have destroyed her." He sighed heavily. "She clung to you as to none of her other babes. It was not a time of rational thinking."

The marquess felt things begin to settle, to settle into a new and darker world. He looked down and saw his hands were bone white where they gripped the chair. He was quite unable to relax them. "What you are saying," he said, seeking in coldness a mask for the fury of hurt burning within him, "is that you have since wished me out of existence."

He looked up. The duke met his eyes firmly, but there was a whiteness about his mouth. "I have wished, and still wish, the de Vaux bloodline to continue unbroken."

It seemed the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life, but the marquess drew himself up and a.s.sumed the grand manner to which he had been so carefully raised. "I understand you, I think, sir. Do you wish me to shoot myself perhaps? Or shall I just flee to the New World under an a.s.sumed name? I fail to see how that will gain you a de Vaux heir, though. Or is Maman...?" He broke off in incredulity.

"Of course she's too old, Arden," said the duke sharply. "Stop emoting. I do not wish to disinherit you or dispose of you. I just wish to G.o.d you were my son." The duke stopped on that admission. After a moment he said, "Now, however, I wish you to marry my daughter."

The marquess gave up and collapsed into his chair. "That idiot last night must have hit me harder than I thought," he muttered. Or perhaps it was just shock which made his head float apart from his body, his thoughts seem like wisps of mist. One thought could be grasped, however. He had been reprieved, after a fashion. Like a man sentenced to hang who finds he is merely to be flogged.

The duke rose and poured two gla.s.ses of brandy. He thrust one into the marquess's hand and sat once more. "Drink that and pay attention, Arden."

The fiery liquid flowed down and drove the mist from his brain. The pain of reality returned, but the marquess forced his body to come to order, and prepared to try to make sense of things.

"After your birth I was under considerable strain. I myself formed a liaison and, unbeknownst to me, a child resulted. I received news of the girl's existence this morning. She has the de Vaux blood, though no one, now her mother is dead, knows of it except us. If you marry her, the line continues."

Stupidly, the marquess could only think that his father had betrayed his exquisite mother. "I have a better idea," he said bitterly. "Make her your heir."

The duke's voice was as chilly as a dash of cold water. "You are being nonsensical again. Are you refusing to do this?"

In his pain, with his devastated pride, the marquess longed to do just that, to throw the whole business in the duke's face and tell him to go to h.e.l.l and take his b.a.s.t.a.r.d with him. But the pride of the de Vaux was in him, no matter how little it seemed he deserved it, and he struggled for an icy control to match the duke's.

"Do we know anything at all of this girl?" he drawled.

"Her age. She is just turned twenty-four, nearly a year younger than you."

"Firmly on the shelf, in other words," observed the marquess coolly. "She's doubtless an antidote."

"Is that your primary consideration?"

"It seems natural enough to wish to share one's life with a woman one finds congenial," remarked the marquess flippantly. "Where does my bride live?"

"In Cheltenham. She is a teacher at a ladies seminary run by a Miss Mallory, who is an old friend of the girl's mother."

"A blue stocking antidote. Oh well," said the marquess with an a.s.sumption of callous indifference, "we must hope that, unlike Prinny, I can do my duty."

"Even the prince begot a daughter," the duke pointed out.

"But that, as we know, is of no use to us." The marquess could endure this discussion no longer. He did not know whether he was likely to strike his father-the duke-or fall weeping at his feet, but neither was desirable. He rose to his feet with control but did not meet the other man's eyes. "Is there more to be discussed? I have engagements."

"I am having enquiries made about the girl. I only traveled down with urgency because your mother said you might offer for the Swinnamer girl."

A pretty china doll whom he had begun to think would do as well as any other for marriage. "I a.s.sure you I have given up the notion entirely," said the marquess carelessly, then realized he was shredding a ta.s.sel on the chair by which he stood.

"Are you claiming a broken heart?" asked the duke. "What then of Mistress Blanche?"

The marquess crushed the ta.s.sel in his fist. "Men have these arrangements," he said bitterly and looked up to meet the duke's eyes. "Surely you are aware of it, My Lord Duke."

With that he turned on his heel and escaped.

The duke sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He had never expected the interview to be pleasant. He was sorry, though, for the pain he had caused the boy. He had spoken the truth when he said he wished the marquess was his own son. He would have been proud.

He was wild, yes, a touch of St. Briac the duke did not appreciate, but nothing had ever besmirched his honor, and he had a keen brain. The duke had no qualms about pa.s.sing the tremendous burdens of the Duchy of Belcraven over to Lucien one day.

If only, he thought-and not for the first time-he had never known. How happy they could all have been.

The dull ache of the long separation from Yolande was a chronic pain, but what else could he have done? He could not risk getting another son, for then the temptation to do just as Lucien had suggested-get rid of him in some way-would have been overwhelming. Yolande would never have stood for that, but he could never have let his rightful heir take second place to a usurper.

He sighed and hoped for the first time that Elizabeth Armitage turned out to be of a quality to compensate Arden in some way for all of this.

The marquess walked down the wide, curving staircase of his house-to which he apparently had no right-took his cane, his beaver, and his gloves from a footman, and pa.s.sed through the doors into the spring sunshine. His long-limbed strides took him along the streets, but he really had no idea where to go.

To stay in the house would be unbearable. To go to a club insupportable-he did not wish to meet any of his friends.

No, that wasn't quite true. He wished Nicholas Delaney and his wife Eleanor were here in Town. He could talk to them. But they were in Somerset enjoying each other and their new baby. He was tempted to flee to their house as he had fled once before... but that had merely been in flight from Phoebe Swinnamer's matchmaking mama, not from the total destruction of his life, of his very self.

Poor Phoebe. She believed her beauty ent.i.tled her to the prize of the Marriage Mart. Would she ever realize how close she had come to achieving her ambition?

He had dodged Phoebe, but he couldn't dodge this new trap. As he apparently had no right at all to his rank and privilege, the least he could do was pay for it through sacrifice.

Eventually he found his aimless strides had brought him to a quiet street of small houses. He sighed with relief.

Blanche.

She wouldn't expect him at this hour and so he used the knocker. He didn't believe Blanche would play him false by taking another lover, but if she had, he didn't want to know-he didn't need any more shocks today. He was admitted by her startled maid and in a moment the White Dove was with him.

"Lucien, love," she said, her carefully trained voice still having a slight northern burr. "What brings you here so early?" Despite the question she was already in his arms and studying him. "Are you in trouble, my dear?"

The marquess looked down at her perfect heart-shaped face and her amazing silvery hair, for she was prematurely gray and had turned it to her trademark, and sighed. "I just need a friend, Blanche."

Smiling, she led him to a sofa. "You have one. How can I help?" She brushed golden curls off his forehead with gentle fingers. "Is it your father? Is he very cross? I told you you shouldn't have taken me there."

"You were right." He captured her hand and kissed it. "Will you mind?"

"Don't be daft," she said with a cheeky smile and the accent of her native Manchester. "I've no silly expectations, Lucien. You treat me with respect and that's all I ask. Is that the problem then?"

He lay back and sighed. "No. No, it isn't, sweetheart. But I can't tell you what is. I just need peace and quiet to think something through."

"And you're a bit tight for empty rooms at home," she said understanding, gaining the laugh she sought, even if it was strained.

He drew her into a friendly hug. "I should have married you," he said, and she chuckled at the joke.

"Lummox. Is that it?" she asked. "Has the Swinnamer girl turned you down?"

"No. Stop asking questions."

She obediently lapsed into silence and rested in his comfortable embrace. She knew there were times when just to have someone nearby was a comfort, and she would give him any comfort she could. In a very real way she loved Lucien de Vaux, but she was three years older than him in age and a century older in experience. She knew better than to let her heart rule her head. The marquess paid her well and she gave what he paid for and more. One day it would end and that was how it should be.

With Blanche soft and perfumed in his arms, Lucien pa.s.sed the brief interview with his father-no, the duke-through his mind again and again. Could he not have softened it in some way? It was not news amenable to softening.

So much now clicked into place, such as the formality of his parents' lives despite suggestions of deep feeling. Had his father never forgiven his mother? His words had been gentle this morning and yet the evidence was that they had been estranged for over twenty years. Lucien had always hoped it was just an appearance of formality and that in private they behaved otherwise.

He did not know how he was to face either of them again.

He understood at last the duke's att.i.tude toward himself, why he had never been able to gain the warmth, the approval he sought. His father had chastised or commended him as appropriate but always in the impersonal manner of a guardian. He supposed, given the situation, the duke had been very good to him.

And now he must repay that goodness. It was his duty to make this marriage-though it would feel incestuous and be a mismatched union of the highest order-and produce the male heirs to ensure the line. Then perhaps, he thought bleakly, he could shoot himself.

Blanche was beginning to feel stiff. She stirred a little. "Would you like some wine, Lucien? Or tea?"

He sat up with her and kissed her lightly. "Wine, please. And perhaps some food? I skipped breakfast."

His manner was much like his normal high spirits and yet she could see the strain behind it and ached for him.

"Of course, love," she twinkled. "After all, you pay the grocer."

He grinned. "So I do. And also the jeweler. When I've fortified myself, I'm going to go and buy you more diamonds. Unless I can tempt you to sapphires?"

"And ruin my act?" she protested. "The day the White Dove wears any color I'll be over and done with. I saw some pretty hair pins in the Burlington Arcade."

"Consider them yours," he said. "You are a treasure, Blanche. You would make a man a wonderful wife."

His mind seemed to be fixed on wives. Blanche gave him a saucy look. "Isn't it nice of me then to spread it around a bit?"

He broke out laughing and it was as close to the carefree marquess as she could hope to get.

Chapter 3.

The other party to all this, Miss Beth Armitage, had her mind firmly fixed on international problems by the time the de Vaux family came to her notice. March of 1815 had been made notable by the dreadful news that the Corsican Monster, Napoleon Bonaparte, had left his exile on Elba and returned to France. Now, in April, the news was no better.

Miss Mallory's School for Ladies followed, in a modified form, the educational precepts of Emma Mallory's idol, Mary Wollstonecraft. The girls were taught a wide range of subjects, including Latin and science; they were encouraged to take vigorous daily exercise; and they were obliged to keep informed as to the affairs of the day.

No trouble these days holding the girls' attention with the daily reading of the newspaper. Napoleon Bonaparte had been the scourge of Europe all their lives and now, when they had thought him a matter only for the history books, he was back. Many of the girls had fathers or brothers in the army, or recently sold out. The older girls, at least, understood the implications. The events were discussed with all the enthusiasm a teacher could desire.

At first they had thought Napoleon's return to France the act of an utter madman, but the news worsened day by day. Haughty, extravagant King Louis VIII had made himself unpopular and the ex-emperor was being greeted with enthusiasm by the French people. The armies sent to oppose him were instead pledging allegiance at such a rate that Napoleon was reputed to have sent the Bourbon king a note saying, "My Good Brother, there is no need to send any more troops. I already have enough."

King Louis had fled the country and Napoleon was once more in power.

When, one Tuesday morning, Beth was summoned away from her cla.s.s of little ones to Miss Mallory's yellow parlor, she could only think of international disasters. Invasion, even.

A good schoolmistress never shows alarm before her pupils. She took time to rearrange the embroidery in Susan Digby's hands for the twentieth time and to rea.s.sure sweet little Deborah Crawley-Foster that her papa would not mind a few bloodstains on the first handkerchief she had monogrammed for him. She remembered with a pang that Deborah's father was Colonel Crawley-Foster; Bonaparte's return might mean more than a few spots of blood.

Consumed with impatience she left Clarissa Greystone, the senior girl who had brought the message, to cope with further problems and walked briskly through the school.

It was almost unheard of for Aunt Emma to call her from a cla.s.s, but Beth began to think she was foolish to imagine political emergencies. Even if Bonaparte were marching on London there was nothing Beth Armitage could do to prevent it. It was more likely some problem with a pupil, perhaps an anxious parent. The only pupil she thought might have a problem, however, was Clarissa Greystone, who had been unusually subdued of late.

Of course the girl had hoped to leave school this year and go to London for the Season. Clarissa had been very unhappy when it became clear that the family fortunes were straitened and her debut would have to be postponed. The tears occasioned by that news had been months ago, however, and it was only in the past fortnight that the girl had seemed withdrawn, ever since a parental visit.

Beth was puzzling over this matter when she arrived at the front hall. This was elegantly appointed with a rich carpet runner on the polished oak floor and gleaming modern furnishings. It was, after all, the first impression given to the parent of a prospective pupil.

Beth stopped before the large mirror hanging over a mahogany half-table and straightened her formal cap, tucking a stray brown curl back under it. To hold her position in the school in which she had recently been a pupil she found it useful to adopt severity.

She stepped back to make sure her gray wool round gown hung smoothly from the high waistband and that no grubby or b.l.o.o.d.y fingers had marred it. Satisfied that Aunt Emma would have no cause to blush for her, she stepped over to scratch at the parlor door.

When she entered she decided it was a parental matter, though she did not know the man who had risen upon her entrance. He was, she supposed, middle-aged, but had none of the vagueness of that description. He was tall, slim, and elegant, with thinning, well-cut hair touched with silver at the sides, and very regular features. He was, however, studying her with more attention than was polite. Beth raised her chin slightly.