Chapter 13

13

The buildingsin the mews in the back of Sumhall were dark shapes with glistening, sparkling outlines in the rain when Joanna followed the lamp that Spencer’s butler, Teanby, held in one hand, an umbrella with water dripping onto the cobblestones in the other. Joanna could practically smell the disapproval coming from the butler, who had simply hemmed when he opened the door inside the gates for her.

She was to be his master’s mistress, brazen enough to visit him at home. A woman so fallen, she wore men’s attire, rode astride and not sidesaddle, and had even attempted to sabotage his master’s carriage.

Maybe in Teanby’s eyes she was a rebel, but Joanna failed to recognize herself in any of these actions. She wasn’t bold or brave or confident. She was not someone who initiated dangerous bets.

What she was, however, was in trouble.

Spencer was right. It was easier for men…it was easier for him to win against her, that was for certain.

In these times, women found themselves in an unjust predicament, their lives governed by the whims of men. Compelled to shield her sister from the influence of a powerful man, she felt an even stronger drive to champion the cause of women. But in attempting to do just that, she had fallen into a trap set by yet another powerful male.

The storm kept raging, throwing the edges of her hood into her face together with splashes of cold water. It felt as if a baby rabbit thumped against her chest instead of her heart. The Seaton carriage glistened in the dim light of the lamp above the servants’ door, raindrops sparkling as they bounced off the polished black wood.

As she walked through the servants’ hallway, several maids raised their heads to look at her. It was, perhaps, better to be invisible than to be notorious…

Climbing the stairs to the floor that held the bedrooms, she cursed herself. What was she thinking, willingly giving herself to be ruined?

She should have just stayed home and dealt with Spencer coming for her. Gideon wouldn’t let Spencer take her.

But Gideon would have challenged Spencer to a duel…and then one of them could be dead!

She could still say no. What would he do then?

Was he the kind of man who would force himself on her? The thought made a shiver run through her. Evidence indicated that could be the case. He’d told her he was a scoundrel, not a hero. He had thrown her over his shoulder and carried her against her will—twice! He had kissed her, touched her…and tied her to a chair!

And, finally, he was completely set on taking her virginity.

She was a naive, silly young lady to be coming willingly into the den of the lion…who would devour her, no doubt!

Was she so starved for attention that she was going to put herself at risk? But it felt so good to be the object of this man’s focus, to be desired by him, to desire him in return… The truth was, she’d never felt so vibrant, like she really mattered, like she was doing something important in trying to save her sister. And in being at the center of his attention.

That little bet of theirs, the race against each other, it made her breathe faster and deeper than she’d ever breathed before. Rack her brain about the ways she could win. Every hair on her skin stood up with the feeling of being alive when she thought about competing with Spencer.

He had called her Persephone, and she was now descending into the underworld and into Hades’s claws.

But she wouldn’t go down easily. Certainly not without a fight. She hadn’t come to lose her virginity to Spencer. She had come to find out what the man in Whitechapel had told him. Perhaps their bet had made her breathe faster, but it also had made her stand stronger, and he could blame only himself for that.

The butler opened the door for her, and she saw Spencer’s tall silhouette as he stood in the glowing candlelight with his back to her, his massive shoulders stretching the material of his coat, staring into the storming darkness beyond the window. He looked so lonely…lonely and lost. Despite herself, part of her ached to go to him and tell him he wasn’t alone.

“Your guest is here, my lord,” said Teanby, and Spencer turned, his gaze locking with Joanna’s.

For a moment, that was exactly what she saw in his expression…a gaping loneliness, a desperate darkness, and an irretrievable loss.

The urge to wrap her arms around him, to give him her strength and optimism, was so strong, she felt herself sway towards him. Something was most definitely wrong with her.

How could she feel sorry for the man who put obstacle after obstacle in front of her? He was already taking so much from her. She was not going to give him her sympathy, too.

The forlorn expression was erased from his face as the cold expression she’d known him to wear in social circumstances replaced it.

“Thank you, Teanby,” he said, his dark gaze never leaving Joanna’s. “Please, come in, Miss Digby. I’ve been waiting for you.”

She entered the bedroom she’d already become quite familiar with, and when the door closed behind her, she jumped a little. His scent enveloped her. It was everywhere, the sensual, manly musk she wanted to bathe in. Slowly, like a lion circling his prey, he walked to her, his limp still apparent, and stood behind her. Her skin prickled with the awareness of his presence.

“Allow me to take your cape,” he said, and she felt his hands at her collarbone as he smoothly undid her fastening.

Her protest died in her throat as his fingers scalded her skin even through the layers of clothing. Then the wet cape fell on the floor around her in a quiet thump. He picked it up and hung it over the chair—the very same he’d tied her to earlier today.

“May I offer you a drink?” he murmured, his breath caressing her neck. “Or something to eat?”

Joanna’s gaze dropped to the small round table and two chairs standing by the fireplace. There was a plate covered with a cloche and a crystal decanter of red wine with two glasses. A third glass held an amber liquid.

“I won’t be staying long,” she said.

“That remains to be seen.” He chuckled. “I’m having Scottish whisky, won’t you have any?”

She would need to be braver for tonight than she felt at the moment. “All right, just a little. I have never tried it.”

“I daresay you will try many new things tonight,” he promised as he walked to the fireplace and picked up the decanter of amber liquid.

While he poured, Joanna’s eyes landed on the huge bed and her cheeks flared. With his dark gaze still on her, Spencer came and offered her the crystal glass of whisky. When she accepted it, their fingers brushed and a bolt of energy shot through her hand.

“To a night of firsts,” he said, his dark eyes devouring her.

“We’ll see about that,” she replied.

They touched their glasses with a slight clink, and Joanna took a sip of the liquid. The intense drink burned her throat and she coughed, not expecting it to taste so strongly.

“Oh heavens!” she said through her scalding throat. “I do not drink much at all.”

He chuckled and downed his own drink. “I can’t say that about myself. Keep sipping, Miss Digby. You’ll find a taste for it, I promise.”

Her stomach burned pleasantly, and she could already feel her senses tightening, a warm, spinning feeling in her head. She took a large sip, and the fiery liquid went down more smoothly this time. The tones were rich and smoky, and she closed her eyes as the palate kept opening in her throat, tingling on her tongue.

“Little Miss Digby,” Spencer murmured, and when she opened her eyes and looked at him, there was a pure hunger in his expression. “Keep making faces like that and I’ll tie you to the chair again. You robbed me of the pleasure of bringing you to bliss while you had nowhere to run from me.”

Joanna’s breath was stolen from her chest, and she felt like fire was licking her body from head to toe. She cleared her throat, looking for a way to distract herself from this heat, this weakness in her legs, this aching need to experience exactly what he’d just described.

“I’m here now, Lord Seaton,” she managed to say coldly despite the heat his words caused. “Honoring our bet and your victory. Would you at least tell me what that man in Whitechapel told you?”

Spencer chuckled. “I am under no obligation to tell you, love. You lost.”

Perhaps it was the alcohol, but anger slapped her senses. She marched to the table and put her glass of whisky down with a knock, some of the liquid pouring onto her hand and the sharp scent of alcohol burning her nostrils.

“Do you realize what you’re doing to my family? In nine days, my sister’s going to be ruined. And now you’re ruining me. No one will marry either of us after this.”

He frowned, all cockiness suddenly gone.

“Your sister?” he asked. “What is going on with your sister?”

“She’s the star in our family,” said Joanna bitterly. She’d had enough of this game. “My older sister. She’s always been the pretty one, the most charming one, the one that every man or boy felt compelled to pursue.”

“I saw her at the opera,” he said. “She did not catch my eye. You did.”

She hated how part of her felt like the floor shifted at those words. No man had ever said that to her, and oh, how she had craved to hear this all her life. Ever since the first boy she’d ever liked at the age of fourteen—and who, she’d thought, had a liking for her, as well—had completely lost interest once Charlotte appeared. And how her heart had broken.

From that day on, she knew she was insignificant to the opposite sex. That wherever Charlotte was, she’d always be the one shining. Every time there was a boy or a young man nearby in the months and years to come, Joanna had ceased to exist for them when her sister was around.

“I searched for you through the entire theater,” he said. “Followed every blond head. But when I finally saw you, with your gorgeous curves, my heart jumped.”

She couldn’t breathe. He’d looked for her?

“Oh,” she said, speechless.

It was harder and harder to stay angry at him when he said things like that, and looked like he meant them.

“Well, you’re not helping me to save her virginity.”

He blinked and frowned. “What are you talking about?”

She sighed. “My uncle is close with the prince regent. His Highness took a liking to my sister and he made an indecent offer to her…through my uncle. He wants Charlotte to be his lover.”

“Ashton is offering his niece to the prince as a paramour?” he demanded in a roar.

He was truly scary now, and Joanna was glad she was not on the receiving end of that fury.

Spencer began pacing the room. “Is there an end to the depths of corruption in that man? Why is he doing it?”

“I don’t know. I think he’d do anything to please the prince.”

“And you’re trying to protect Charlotte?” He stopped and glared at her. “Why can’t she just refuse?”

“My uncle holds the deeds to my brother Gideon’s inheritance. When my parents died, Ashton was appointed our guardian because Gideon was not of age. He held Gideon’s estates and fortune until Gideon would be old enough to manage everything by himself. However, my uncle never returned the deeds. And now he says if Charlotte won’t become the prince’s mistress, not only will he keep Gideon’s rightful inheritance, but he’ll also make sure Gideon never inherits the Ashton title even though he’s the next heir by all laws.”

Spencer breathed out a long, exasperated breath and ran his hands through his hair. “What exactly are you after with spying and looking through Ashton’s things, Miss Digby?”

“I am ashamed to say, but I have to blackmail him. Use his own weapon against him. I know he’s entangled in some bad business, though I don’t know what it is exactly. If he’s a true criminal, I can’t have him go to trial and be found guilty. He might lose his title and all his holdings—along with my brother’s inheritance. So my brother won’t get anything he deserves, everything my uncle has stolen from him…”

Spencer nodded. “I see.”

“I mean, the situation is so dire I must earn some wages, too, to support us.”

He frowned. “You, Miss Digby?”

She suddenly didn’t want to hide behind her pseudonym. She wanted him to know. He would be the first person in her life who would know.

“Yes, Lord Seaton. Me. I write under the pen name of Mr. Joaquim Digory in The London Gazetteer. My story—”

“Is it Whispers in the Dark?” Spencer asked.

Joanna licked her lips. “It is.”

“I know it and enjoy your writing greatly. Never did I think it was…” He trailed off and looked sheepish.

She scoffed. “A woman writing it,” she finished for him.

“Yes. I am sorry for assuming it, Miss Digby. I did not mean to offend you.”

She sighed. “You didn’t. I have been hiding behind a male name for two years now. I should not be surprised you assumed it was a man writing when you saw the male name of the author.”

He nodded. “Quite. Male or female, you’re very talented. I wish everyone knew it was you. Not Mr. Joaquim Digory.”

She smiled. His compliment, his support was exactly what she was thinking, too, but had never dared to say out loud. “You’re the first person to know,” she said. “It’s a secret. Please, do not tell anyone.”

“I won’t, Miss Digby. Thank you for your trust.”

As Joanna’s eyes met Spencer’s, she could almost hear the clattering of her defenses as they came crashing down, not under the strain of confrontation, but something else. She felt a softening within herself. His eyes, usually so guarded and impenetrable, now seemed to melt to bottomless pools, revealing the echo of her own turmoil and things she had buried deep.

“It’s your turn now, Lord Seaton. You said my uncle was the reason you were forced to war…”

Spencer drew a quick breath in and out, his jaw muscles working. He looked forlorn again, if not defeated, an angry man who was helpless and grieving his losses. He sat on the edge of his bed, and his eyes were haunted. He leaned with his elbows over his knees, staring into the flickering candlelight. The storm hitting the windows sounded a constant rat-a-tat-tat of the heavy raindrops hitting glass.

“What happened exactly?” Joanna asked carefully as she sat on the bed, too, her hands folded, her eyes on him. She wanted to know more about him. Uncover him, unwrap and unravel him like a puzzle…a mystery that was for no one but her.

“It happened in September of last year,” he said. “I fought in a bout at Portside, and afterward I was accosted by several men in navy uniforms who beat me unconscious and stripped me to my smallclothes. Next thing I knew I was awakening in the dark, foul hold of a ship, sent off to war against my will with so many other poor sods. Another man was found in my clothing, and my family buried him and believed I was dead.” The haunted look in his eyes pulled at her heart as she imagined the torment all of them must have faced at that time. Then Spencer shook his head once. “If you had known me back then, I doubt you’d have recognized me. I was the duke. I fought in prizefights. I won. I liked winning. I liked pursuing ladies and seducing them. I liked drinking. I liked my home, though it was dark and old and inconvenient.” He chuckled self-deprecatingly.

“As you know, the nobility is exempt from press-ganging. And yet, I wasn’t. But truly it started a week earlier, in August. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m a member of Tyche, do you know it?”

Joanna nodded. “I heard it’s a gentlemen’s club, on St. James’s, is it not?”

“It is. It’s a place where gentlemen can bet anything for anything. I enjoyed the diversion, though it no longer holds any appeal. One night, I decided to walk to a soirée my lover at the time was throwing. It was a warm night. I took the wrong corner and came to a narrow alley. At the end of it, I saw Ashton, whom I knew from the club. He slapped a street urchin, a child of no more than ten years, then shoved a paper into his hands. Then he threw a coin into the boy’s face. It hit the child in the eye, I think, and bounced against cobblestones. Then he was gone before I could do anything. The boy picked up the coin and swiftly walked towards me, probably without seeing me. When he reached me, I asked him if he was all right. The boy got so startled, he dropped the piece of paper and ran. I picked it up from the muddy puddle and ran after him to give it back, but he was too fast.

“When I opened the paper, half of the writing was smudged with water and I couldn’t read it. The rest didn’t make much sense. There was a date and a Greek word, and a number. The rest was illegible.”

Joanna’s hands shook. That sounded like the beginning of the letter she’d opened in Ashton’s study. The date, the word “Valiant” wasn’t Greek, but there was also the number…260. Her breath caught. Should she tell him, share this information with him? No, she had to be strong and try to win for Charlotte’s and Gideon’s sakes, and that meant keeping any information she discovered to herself.

“My uncle didn’t see you, did he?”

“He didn’t. But when I looked up, the street urchin was peering from around the corner, looking at me. Then he was gone.”

“But how would a street urchin know who you were?”

“Perhaps he followed me that night. I can only assume. He could have shadowed me back to my home and reported back to Ashton. I did notice someone watching me the week after, though it was a man and not a boy.”

“But how do you actually know it’s my uncle who had you press-ganged?” she asked.

“I found out much later, on the ship,” he said. “After the incident with the street urchin, I went about my life as normal, not giving much thought to the mysterious words in the letter. I still don’t know what they meant, but now I wish I had dug deeper and begun some sort of investigation. Had I done it then, perhaps none of this would have happened. However, I was too preoccupied with the row I was having with my brother Preston, and I was in love… I was getting ready to propose.”

Joanna had to stop herself from flinching as a stab of jealousy made her hold her breath. He’d loved someone…was getting ready to propose… This man who seemed so self-assured and so unreachable. Someone had managed to catch his heart so completely he was going to make her his wife.

He’d said he would never marry Joanna. All he wanted from her was just her body…for only one night. Because of the bet.

And she was still sitting here, listening. And if she was honest, she burned with curiosity and the desire to feel his rough hands on her bare skin again.

How low could she fall?

“Who was she?” she asked, her voice shaking.

He looked at her, his eyes so bleak, it seemed he had nothing left inside. “Penelope.”

“Your sister-in-law?”

He nodded.

Joanna couldn’t feel her own body. “You loved your brother’s wife?”

“I did. I thought I did. She was the only woman I ever considered marrying.”

Joanna suppressed the urge to stand and to shake him out of this sadness. Every word cut her like knives. She was nothing to him but a victory, the means to an end. A little entertainment to tickle his sad soul.

“Do you still love her?” she asked, her voice so distant it could belong to someone else.

He didn’t reply for a long time, staring into the rainy darkness outside. “She was the reason I made it home from the war alive. The thought of her brought me back from the dead.”

A cold shiver ran through Joanna. He still loved her—he must. What else would bring one back from the dead? What else would keep hope alive for months, keep one looking for a way back home from war, across the ocean, but love?

Love he’d never have for Joanna. No matter how much he made her feel seen, alive, and the center of attention…

He’d always love his sister-in-law.

“And by throwing you into a war,” said Joanna slowly, “my uncle took away your title, your old life, and the only woman you ever loved?”

He nodded, his gaze dark and glistening on her.

Joanna suppressed a shiver. She wished she didn’t know that now. But she understood why he was so driven to have the duke arrested and tried.

“That’s why I want him charged with whatever crimes he has committed. I can’t help but think it must be something ghastly if he would go to such lengths to get rid of me after I saw that note. Would you not like him to be punished for your sister’s sake? For your brother’s? For your own? He took so much from you, his family, holding your lives hostage.”

Joanna exhaled a long sigh. “He did take much from the both of us.”

Spencer nodded, his eyes locking with hers. “It seems we’re not so different after all, Miss Digby.”

“But you’re driven by revenge. And I must protect my family.”

“That is true. We’re competitors. But ever since I met you, it seems my dark thoughts do not have as strong a hold on me as they used to.”

He shifted closer to her on the bed, the mattress dipping. “Just for tonight, let’s be what I’ve wanted us to be since the moment I laid eyes on my Persephone.”