Chapter 10 - MARK—OUT OF THE PAN AND RUNNING

Chapter 10

MARK—OUT OF THE PAN AND RUNNING

In the Duke of Torrance’s garnet-red study, I stood silently, trying to figure how I would explain my new wife—the courtesan, not-a-courtesan—to my father. I’d kissed or been kissed by an innocent-not-so-innocent goddess in front of His Grace and the angry sister who I now knew as the fiery Dowager Viscountess Hampton.

“I can’t believe this,” she said, pacing back and forth. “Georgina, did you not consider the consequences? Your reputation—”

“It’s intact, unless more gossip has been spread, like about me and the duke.”

The viscountess’s eyes grew big.

Neither woman said another word.

The goddess sat in a chair near the big windows behind the desk that overlooked that enchanted maze. She seemed angrier at the sister than me.

The dowager continued to pace.

Funny thing.

I’d had an image in my head of widows being old. They were stately or persnickety, but decidedly ancient.

Though persnickety, Lady Hampton, like the goddess, was young. She couldn’t be more than a few years older than Georgina Wilcox. Their expressive eyes were similar, dark and bold.

She turned to me like she finally remembered I’d followed the two into the study. “Sir, how do you intend to fix things with my sister?”

Fix?

Fixing would be an apology or a wedding or a duel. I wanted none of those options. I’d love to celebrate no longer being tongue-tied. The oft utter-less organ found another use. Instead of struggling for words, it savored Georgina’s kiss.

“Well, sir? What—”

“Katherine,” Georgina interrupted. “No one saw us, just you and His Grace. Unless you intend to tell everyone and accuse us of something worse than a simple offering of affection, I think we should all forget what happened.”

Practical and heartbreaking, how could this lovely greenfinch in the emerald coat sing that we should forget hope or magic?

I didn’t want to be forgettable.

I didn’t want the Dido I imagined or the actual Georgina to say that I was.

The duke entered and leaned at the threshold with his dented cane. “Great. Everyone is still alive and no more kissing has occurred?”

Was it wrong to long for more affection and wish to live? I shook my head. “Torrance, can we get on with this inquisition?” I made my voice deep and even annoyed. “I wish to make amends and not draw additional thrashing.”

The duke didn’t move. He seemed tired, even pained. “This wasn’t something I expected. A scandal here, never. Anya House is to be pristine. A place for welcoming knowledge.”

“You still hate to be surprised?” Lady Hampton’s scowl left me and found the duke. “You like gambling upon expected behaviors.”

“I don’t like to misjudge people, Lady Hampton. Taking chances upon a soul that can wound me or those I care for are mistakes I don’t make easily.” He lifted the staff again. “I struck you, Sebastian, to get your attention, not to kill you.”

Could have fooled me.

Fingering my brow for a bump or bruise, I found none. “I suppose I should be grateful for your benevolence.”

“Sir, please take a seat. The inquisition, as you put it, will begin after I get confirmation from my butler that no one saw the commotion. I’m a bit under the weather and gathered my strength to make a brief appearance to conclude today’s meeting when I encountered the viscountess and the fleeing Miss Wilcox. You do like to run?”

“I do, Your Grace. And I told you, Katherine, that the duke was ill. I’m glad you’ve not abandoned us.” The young woman shot an angry countenance at her sister, but Georgina hadn’t looked at me much.

I wished she had.

“Abandon the Wilcoxes?” His Grace straightened, glaring at Lady Hampton. “How could you think such? There are no others I’d like to show my Anya House and the beloved music room this interloper has designed.”

“How can you jest, Your Grace?” Lady Hampton started toward the duke, then stopped. “My sister’s life is held in the balance awaiting confirmation from this mad Russian court, and you are concerned about music.”

“Music.” I adjusted my jaw and continued, fighting my anxieties every moment. “Music is important.”

“Did she say ‘mad Russian,’ Sebastian?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“How quickly you forget, Lady Hampton. Mad British too. I’m both. My home is both. My future, including the future Duchess of Torrance, will accept both. Now settle in and wait. You do know what waiting means?”

His tone sounded angered but the look he offered her—part hurt, part misunderstood, part duel at dawn, a touch of desire— was pure confusion. But I understood it. I lived with such angst in regard to the fairer sex.

Lady Hampton rolled her eyes and fled, quickening her pace away from the duke, crossing the wide golden-yellow tapestry to peer out the windows.

The exposed glass showed men leaving Anya House. The maze and all routes to the stables overflowed.

Someone had to have seen me and Georgina.

“I can’t believe this,” Lady Hampton said. The long sleeves of her plain gray gown billowed with each of her steps. Like the goddess, she was trim, just slightly less voluptuous than the woman who compromised me—and I had compromised right back—in the garden.

“We’ve been so careful.” Lady Hampton’s voice was low. “Our mother, on her dying bed, told us to guard our virtue. I thought we all understood. Ruin can happen so quickly. How could you, Georgina?”

Georgina the goddess—I liked the sound of that and the way she glowed; sitting on the yellow sofa made her brown skin look more tanned like Dido’s. The oversized cushions made her tall height seem dainty, someone to protect.

Then I realized I wanted to protect her.

“The kiss meant nothing, Katherine. I was impulsive. Your Grace, I am to blame, not the gentleman.”

Didn’t like thinking my kiss was nothing.

Deep breath, fool. I needed out of my troubles, not to add to them. Nonetheless, it was good that she’d admitted her part. A lesser woman might’ve lied.

Still, this honesty stung. The kiss still stirred my blood and it was thirty minutes ago.

Yet, I forgave her and became immobile, watching the goddess flick a falling lock of tightly coiled curls from her face. Tears shimmered on her cheek.

The strain made her cry. The notion of marrying me might’ve too.

Her sister came to her and swooped the thick jet lock of her curly hair back into the tight chignon. Did it feel as silky as it looked? The goddess’s skin was.

Shaking my head, clearing my thoughts of her . . . sort of. How did one forget a perfect dream? “I . . . ah . . . I want to say I’ll do whatever is necessary to protect . . . the young lady.”

The duke rolled his eyes.

Lady Hampton’s grimace deepened.

But the goddess smiled, and I felt lighter.

Mr. Steele knocked, then entered the study. The Scottish man was someone Torrance had met in his extensive travels. The duke bragged about him all the time.

The blank face—his ash-blond hair neatly parted, the crisply pressed, orderly mantle he wore—gave nothing away.

My heart pounded.

He whispered something to his employer, then left.

Torrance’s expression didn’t change.

My pulse raced. Blood and those humors Carew lectured upon sloshed in my veins.

Wasn’t sure if I was found to be guiltier, but I had a feeling the risk-taking duke would use it to his advantage.

“Well?” Lady Hampton asked. “Does Georgina escape with her reputation? A woman can’t live things down as easily as a man. She’ll be damaged, while the gentleman just moves on . . . to a peerage.”

The duke started a slow walk to his desk. “Let me sit. I want to be comfortable when I say what must be said.”

My stomach crumbled, then folded. I gulped my last morsel of free single air.

Someone saw.

I’d ruined a lady.

The duke moved along his wall of books and stopped at a sideboard full of bottles. He mixed something from two or three vials, and then added a yellowish distilled liqueur.

Georgina bolted to him. “You’re in pain. Have you eaten anything?”

“I’m fine, my dear, but do stand away, lest your sister again accuse me of making you fall in love with me.”

What? Had there been a first time?

Who was this girl . . . the one I was to make Lady Sebastian?

I rubbed my temples. I was losing my mind, succumbing to the Russian-English madness. “End my . . . our misery, Torrance. Tell us what the butler said.”

The goddess frowned. It was too late to rephrase my complaint. . . our fate.

With his last steps, the duke looked more discomfited. Was it sickness or an injury he suffered?

Lady Hampton came near and he straightened. She poked him in his chest. “You caused this. You need to fix it.”

He grabbed her hand and kissed it, making a big sensual show, even sniffing her wrist.

Lady Hampton pulled away, wiping wet lip prints from her hand. “No more joking.”

“Then no poking.” Torrance sat on his desk, moved the marble chessboard and ivory carved soldiers out of his way, and turned toward her. “And how is this my fault?”

“Your house. Your friend.”

“But your sister and your antics that made her run and act tempestuously. It seems, even with the high walls of my maze, privacy was breached. Mr. Steele said a few intended to cut through the garden to get to the mews—reporters included. Chatter about the kiss stirred.”

Georgina stood up again. “I knew there was a way out somewhere in the garden. Where’s the mews? To the left of the maze? I still want to leave.”

“No, sister. No one can go until the duke fixes this. He’ll conjure something up from his dark heart. It will be a trick or joke or lousy wager, but it will work. Jahleel gets what he wants.”

She’d used his given name. And it sounded more than a casual reference. It was heated and torrid, sounding toxic like poison.

The way his thick brows fluttered as his gaze and half smile settled upon her seemed to indicate the duke caught the slight or endearment too.

Torrance drummed the smooth desk surface, causing a few of my papers to flutter. “Lady Hampton, you almost impress me. Surely, it was your idea for your sister to compromise the son of a marquess. Anything to gain a title. That’s so disappointing.”

“I did no such thing, Your Grace.”

He eased into the leather chair. “But, dorogaya, my lady, choosing an impoverished noble is very much your handiwork.”

Lady Hampton’s eyes softened at whatever the Russian word Torrance said, but the rest of the sentence about me being poor made her gasp. She rose and pointed her finger in his face. “Your year of redemption isn’t enough. Your entitled attitude—”

“Ah, pointing again, dorogaya.” This time he nipped her index finger with his teeth.

She drew away. Panting, looking wild-eyed and crazed. “Are you trying to compromise me too?”

“If you’re not going to play by the rules, I feel no need to have restraint.”

After taking several large breaths, I decided to try to say . . . something. “This arguing . . . solves nothing.”

Everyone looked at me as if these were the only words I’d ever spoken. My face heated, but I had to continue. “You’re not well, Torrance, and you’re not acting like yourself. You wouldn’t deliberately vex Lady Hampton when I am in the wrong. I am.”

Almost smirking, proud of having uttered a complete sensical sentence, I stood up straighter. “I’m wrong.”

Nodding, the duke went around his grand desk, pushed at a chess piece, and sank into his chair. “You’re right about being wrong. And I don’t believe anyone is rational right now. Nonetheless, I do have a plan to fix everything.”

Lady Hampton, who now had her hands locked behind her back, gaped at him. “Tell us. Please let it be anything other than Georgina being forced into a marriage of strangers.”

“Poor strangers on both sides. With the way my departed friend, Lord Hampton, worked the Wilcox fortunes, you can’t afford anyone else draining your finances.”

“Now wait a minute, Torrance.” I was ready to poke him in his pointy wide nose. “I’ll be no burden to my wife. I need more time to finish my sonata. I’ll earn my way as a composer.”

He waved me away. “I’ve seen your work. It’s good. Your skills on the pianoforte are superb. I’ve no doubts of you succeeding, but your compromise is now. The problem is now. She must marry now.”

The goddess gasped. “No. Marriage wasn’t my intent. Your Grace, I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. Scandal is better. I don’t want an unhappy marriage.”

Those expressive eyes said everything she hadn’t, that she’d seen the suffering of a battling couple. I had too, and I also wanted none of those memories to become mine.

Thoughts of my mother and the sacrifices she’d made to be a proper marchioness and maintain dignity for her sons weighed on me, smothering my lungs as though one of the duke’s heavy bookcases had fallen on me.

I gazed at Georgina and again became wordless. There was no way out of this but marriage. “As a gentleman, I must insist—”

“Noble. Noble.” Torrance threaded his hands together. “Here’s my plan. You and Miss Wilcox will pretend to be engaged. You will spend a proper amount of time together to keep up the pretense. Teach her a song to sing.”

“A pretend engagement,” Lady Hampton said. “And a song? She never exhibits in public. She gets too frightened. How does anything you said help?”

“Katherine. Stop speaking about my faults like they are a disease. And I’m right here. I can open my mouth.”

“That’s what got you in trouble. You kissed a stranger.”

“Is it better to do so with someone you love?” The duke hummed something that chased Lady Hampton to the grand window behind his desk.

He turned to Miss Wilcox. “Seems like you don’t have a problem exhibiting in public with Sebastian. That will come in handy at an event I will throw.”

“Can’t we just go away quietly and pretend this day didn’t happen? Your Grace, I don’t want to marry Lord Mark Sebastian.”

“Let’s hope no reporter writes about what they saw. They always make things sound so much worse. But the odds are great that they did. Juicy gossip will make better headlines than any progress in my science meeting.”

“I can withstand gossip,” Georgina said, but her gaze lowered from everyone to the fretwork carvings of the desk.

“It’s one thing to be rash, but to be vilified by gossip in print is abominable,” the duke said in grim tones. “It can become unbearable being written about in the paper, day after day. This type of disgrace can last a lifetime. My mother still refuses to come to London because of what she’s seen.”

This was the first time he’d said anything of the princess in a long time. Livingston mentioned something of her and the difficult battle Torrance had claiming his peerage.

“A pretend engagement,” he continued, “keeps Miss Wilcox as a respectable young lady who let her overjoyed fiancé have a first kiss. The public nature of the ball I will throw will find a new suitor, one so taken with you, he’ll convince you to end your engagement. There’s nothing like a woman’s commitment to one young man to attract others. Right, Lady Hampton? It’s not uncommon for a heart to be swayed. When love is new or unequally shared, theft is easy. That gossip is bearable—a change of heart, as opposed to the gossip of loose morals or a calculated attempt to entrap a man with a title.”

The viscountess’s countenance turned a deeper shade of rust. The duke’s words seared like a fatty beefsteak over an open flame. We all could be tied to a pit with fire licking and hissing at us as we burned. “Scandal . . . hurt more than pretend.”

Georgina looked to the door as if she wanted to flee. “Your Grace, are you saying that a public pretense will let people see his lordship and I as a couple?”

“And as not well-matched. Miss Wilcox, they’ll think that you momentarily fancied your music teacher and will believe you when you beg off. Sebastian is known for music and bird-watching. You will have to exhibit at least once or twice to attract positive attention. And suitors will need a chance to see you. Singing will do that.”

“Exhibiting in public?” She shook her head. “For once my sister is right. I’d be terrible singing for suitors.”

“Yes. No.” I cleared my throat. “Your voice is lovely. I’ve taught friends of my mother’s. Music is always on my mind. Everyone will expect my partner to follow suit.”

I moved closer to Georgina and pointed to my temple. “Music gets stuck in here. Often, I’m desperate for it to come out. But I’m also desperate to fix this. Torrance’s crazy plan will work. I heard you sing. You will dazzle people. The rightness of our pairing will be apparent. Then you will break with me because of a new suitor or an exasperation at my wanting you to perform. Brilliant, Torrance.”

“No.” Lady Hampton frowned. “This is too risky. Why not beg off now? There’s no need for such an elaborate ruse. If they must marry, they should do so now and quietly.”

Georgina looked at me like I’d match wits with the angry Lady Hampton.

What could I say? As a gentleman, I couldn’t agree to not marry. “You have the power, Miss Wilcox. It’s in your hands as I was before. I’ll do what you wish.”

She bit her lip, then said, “I don’t think—”

“Quiet.” Her sister covered the goddess’s mouth with a shaking palm. Then she lowered it. “Our mother went to great lengths to keep us respectable. You know that. I’ve done . . . you have too. This must work or everything is ruined.”

“No, Katherine. The past has nothing to do with now.”

The duke stood and sat at the front of his desk. “Miss Wilcox, what Lady Hampton isn’t saying well, is that begging off now will let the ton believe the worst, that Sebastian never had any intention of marrying you. The reporters will ruin your name, damaging you and your younger sisters’ prospects. What the paper-men love is to stain Blackamoor women for wanting too much or gaining advantageous marriages or possessing things the ton doesn’t think they deserve.”

“No,” Georgina said. “I don’t—”

Lady Hampton groaned. “The papers will think you’re a doxy.”

“Or a courtesan.” The word flowed from my lips before I could stop it. “I made the same error in the garden.”

The viscountess looked as if she would vomit. The duke closed his eyes and mumbled in Russian.

The goddess in question ran from the room.