Chapter Fifteen

L ucien flicked the ash off the end of his cigar and glanced down the crowded avenue in front of Lord Wrexham’s supper box, looking for any kind of entertainment to snag his interest.

Vauxhall was alive tonight. It seemed everyone who hadn’t yet left London for their country estates was crowded into the gardens. Gentlemen and ladies paraded in front of packed supper boxes from where friends and acquaintances called out to invite them to join in glasses of arrack punch and champagne. Musicians played from several bandstands scattered throughout the gardens, and acrobats and jugglers performed for the crowd, while overhead, a daring man walked a tight rope strung between two of the buildings. Couples had already wandered down the close walks into the darker reaches of the forested park where the lights had been extinguished—if they had ever been lit in the first place—to take pleasure in husbands and wives who were not their own.

God knew Lucien had partaken himself several times in those same shadow-filled recesses of the garden, with willing wives and widows who wanted nothing more than an evening’s fleeting pleasure. Oh, those encounters were physically pleasurable, certainly, yet they’d always left him feeling oddly hollow.

Maybe that’s what he needed tonight—an encounter that would drive thoughts of Jessamyn St Claire from his mind, with a woman who was everything she wasn’t…experienced, cool, and wanting nothing more from him than the use of his body. Someone not at all interested in saving his soul.

Instead, he was trapped here in Lord Wrexham’s box. How much would it take to bribe the attendant to bring him a bottle of good port to drink instead of that watered down punch the gardens served in all the supper boxes?

“Crewe!” Lord Wrexham came up behind him. “Haven’t had the chance to speak you yet about the latest round of corn laws. You’ve been away from the clubs.”

More than just the clubs. He’d been away from London for the past three days, dealing with problems in Ealing. He’d finally been able to return to his townhouse last evening, with assurances from Mr. and Mrs. Porter, the caretakers who ran the Ealing farm, that they would be just fine without him. Of course, they would be. They always were.

Until another incident there required his attention.

Sometimes, when things went wrong on the farm, he could easily set it back to rights and return to London by the end of the same afternoon; at other times, it took days. This was one of those times. Even then, he wasn’t sure if he should have stayed one more day to be certain all was well again. Phillip’s problems in Ealing bothered him. But so did his own in London, especially a particularly frustrating gel who refused to leave him alone. Maybe what he’d said to her at the garden party would finally put an end to all her attempts to reform him. After all, his cruel words should have irreparably broken her heart.

God knew it had broken his to utter them.

“Aristocrats should never mix politics and pleasure,” Lucien told Wrexham. “The last time that happened in Europe, Bonaparte came to power, and look how that turned out for France. I wouldn’t want you and me to be responsible for creating a British republic. We’d never be allowed in White’s again.”

Wrexham blinked, for a moment not knowing how to take that. Then he laughed and slapped Lucien on the back, deciding he was bamming him but clearly not understanding the joke.

“You have significant interests in the corn markets,” Wrexham tried again.

“Trust me.” Lucien tapped his glass of punch against Wrexham’s in a mocking toast. “I have no interest whatsoever in the corn markets.”

From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the box attendant slipping in through the rear door. He would have given all his Yorkshire properties at that moment if the young man promised to fetch him a bottle of quality port.

“If you’ll excuse me, Wrexham,” he said with a nod toward the attendant, “I need to sell an estate.”

Leaving the bewildered earl to stare after him, he walked away toward the rear of the box and hopefully toward a stiff drink.

When he’d returned yesterday evening from Ealing, he had planned to throw himself into his supposedly rakehell ways to take his mind off his troubles. Gambling, drinking, flirtations, perhaps more—but he’d had no heart for any of it, although why not, exactly, he couldn’t have said. He needed a new distraction.

Which was why he’d been thrilled when that distraction had presented itself in the form of an invitation to Vauxhall from Lord Wrexham. The earl had wrongly assumed Lucien could be won to his side in the corn laws debates. Lucien realized the man’s ulterior motives for inviting him. But he came anyway, seeking anything to take his thoughts away from Jessamyn St Claire, even boring political talk and bland food.

But he’d made a mistake. There weren’t enough dinners, drinks—a pair of men went rolling past the box, both grasping the other’s ankles and spinning head over heels along the avenue—or acrobats to do that.

He gestured the attendant over to his side and lowered his voice in confidentiality. “Bring me a bottle of good port, and I’ll make certain the king grants you a knighthood.”

The attendant blinked. “Isn’t the king mad?”

Lucien’s lips twisted wryly. “Why do you think he’d give you a knighthood? Do try to keep up, will you?” He slipped the young man a coin. “Port. Now. And lots of it.”

“Aye, sir.” The lad reached inside his jacket and withdraw a folded note. “Can you tell me which gentleman here is the Duke of Crewe? I was asked to deliver this to him.”

“That would be me.” Lucien frowned as he took it, fearing it was yet another summons to Ealing. “From whom?”

“A woman.” He grinned. “A really pretty one, too.”

Well, this certainly made the evening far more interesting. He unfolded the note. Elegant feminine handwriting greeted him. It was an invitation. Come find me. I’ll be waiting for you outside Wrexham’s box… No name, nothing to identify her. Just a deliciously tempting offer.

Yet his foolish heart still yearned for what it couldn’t have. “A blonde?”

“No, sir. Dark hair.”

Disappointment panged in his chest, although God only knew why he’d thought an innocent like Jess might ever send him a note like this. She had probably never even been to Vauxhall, let alone known about the kinds of assignations that occurred in its dark corners, or possessed the daring to send a man a note like that.

Still, he’d wanted to blacken his reputation, and no rake worth his salt would pass up meeting a mysterious woman at Vauxhall.

He left the box without bothering to give his excuses to Lord Wrexham.

He paused in the rear walkway running behind the supper boxes. Filled with attendants and assorted guests coming and going, the way was lit by a handful of dim lamps positioned at the entry to each ground-level box and strung up the wooden steps that led to those on the first and second floors above. Here, the noise from the main avenue was as muted as the shadows, until the din was little more than a distant hum. He cast his gaze languidly down the walk, then paused.

A woman waited alone at the end of the walkway where it joined the main avenue, and his heart skipped when he saw her staring boldly back at him. Even with a demi-mask that covered the upper half of her face and a voluminous cape whose large hood was pulled down low over her head, she couldn’t hide the beauty of her form. Not in that low-cut gown of midnight blue satin with its tight, sleeveless bodice and flowing skirts that swished around her legs as she turned to walk away.

Only a parting glance over her shoulder told him that she was the woman who had sent the note.

“Lead away, my beauty,” he murmured as he trailed after her, keeping his distance as she guided him through the crowds of the main avenue and toward the darker parts of the garden beyond the central bandstand.

She didn’t look back again, as if knowing he was following. But of course he was. How could he not? The invitation was too delicious to refuse, the woman herself far too intriguing not to meet.

They passed into the close walks winding their way through the back of the gardens, where the music from the bandstands was little more than a faint rumble on the evening air and where the only light came from the slant of moonlight falling through the tree branches overhead. There were far fewer guests in this part of the gardens, and those who were there certainly thought nothing unusual about a man doggedly following a woman into the shadows.

When the narrow path plunged into complete darkness, she stepped off the trail and into the trees. He followed after into a dark grotto where lichen covered the cool stone, and the earthy scents of wood and soil filled his nostrils.

But it was the woman herself who captivated his attention, how she turned to face him when he entered the little folly with her, how she reached delicate hands to untie her mask and push down her hood to reveal herself.

His heart skipped. She wasn’t the dark-haired woman he’d been expecting. The young attendant had gotten the color of her hair wrong in the lamplight. Not the woman he had expected at all—

But the one he very much wanted.

Jessamyn .

Her green eyes seemed to glow in the moonlit shadows, with her fair skin almost silver and her blond hair cascading freely down her back. His hands itched to shove themselves into its silky softness and spill it through his fingers.

He crossed his arms to keep himself from doing exactly that. “What are you playing at?”

“I could ask the same of you.” She cast a slow look over him. “I was wrong about you. You’re not the Duke of Disgrace.” She let the mask slip through her fingers and fall to the ground at her feet. “You’re the Duke of Deceit.”

Her soft words pulsed a low warning through him; so did the way she stood before him. She was different. Nothing about her showed any hint of even the smallest uncertainty, and damnation, this new confidence made her even more alluring.

“Is that why you invited me to follow you,” he drawled, “to level insults?”

“I needed to speak with you, somewhere completely private,” she explained, her voice soft in the shadows. “When I found out you’d returned to London and planned to attend Vauxhall tonight, it seemed the perfect way to meet with you. I asked Lady Bromley for a favor, and she invited Auntie and I to join her for dinner in her nephew’s box.”

He cast a disbelieving glance over her. “And you dressed like that for dinner with the matrons?”

“I arrived in a coat jacket over the dress, buttoned up to the neck. I removed it after I left the box and stashed it out of sight before I gave the attendant the message for you.” She paused. “I daresay, you were awfully willing to go off into the gardens with an unknown woman.”

“Well, I am a rake. It’s what we do.” Unable to help himself, he took a step toward her. “And you shouldn’t be alone with me in the darkness like this. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

“Actually,” she whispered, then stopped his breath when she rose up on tiptoes and caressed her lips across his cheek to his ear, “I very much do.”

Her soft lips stunned him. “Because you still believe I ruined your sister that night you found us together?” It took all his strength not to wrap his arms around her and pull her fully against him so he could kiss her senseless.

“Because you’re not at all the heartless devil you want the world to believe you are,” she corrected with a whisper into his ear. “You see, I’ve uncovered the truth about you.” She stepped back just far enough to stare up into his eyes. Her gaze was piercing. “Underneath that black facade…you’re good.”

He stared at her, his mind reeling. How the hell had she discovered that? “Nonsense. As you said, I care for no one and nothing but myself.”

“Perhaps.” She leaned back against the stone ledge behind her, and her bright eyes sized him up with a long look from his hat to his boots. “But you also donate thousands of pounds each year to charities for women and children, defend the helpless, save prostitutes…” She shrugged her slender shoulders, and the billowing cape slid behind her to reveal a long, tantalizing stretch of bare shoulder interrupted only by a thin shoulder strap of lace. “Imagine my surprise to discover that the man I had dedicated so many hours and so much blunt to rehabilitating in the eyes of society had been goodhearted all along.”

His lips twisted, doing everything to appear as if her discovery of the truth didn’t chill him through to the bone. “And now you want your blunt back?”

“No. I want answers.”

He arched a brow. “You’ll have better luck with the blunt.”

She ignored that with a slight tilt of her head as she studied him. “You’re living a secret life. You want society to think you’re rotten to the bone, that their unmarried misses could be sullied simply by being in the same room with you and their sons led astray into wastrel lives of debauchery by being your chums. Why?”

Lucien had no intention of answering that. But perhaps he could work it to his advantage. “If I’m as good as you claim, then why do you still believe I ruined your sister?”

“The two are not mutually exclusive.”

Yet even as she said that, he saw the doubt flicker in her eyes. She wasn’t certain, not anymore. He should have been overjoyed about that because it meant she would stop her war against him. But if she knew he’d been living a lie, what else did she know?

At his silence, she clarified, “Lots of good men fall prey to temptation.”

He took a step forward to close the distance between them. “Lots of good women, too.”

“Exactly. Which is why I came looking for answers tonight about you and my sister. One of you is lying. I need to find out which one.”

“It isn’t me.”

“Says the man who secretly outfitted an entire charity school in Limehouse, then lied to all of London about not liking children.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive,” he repeated back to her. “Maybe I did it for duplicitous ends. Maybe I enjoy being involved with the Church.”

Her mouth hardened. What a damnable shame that, too…although now her disapproving frown had him wanting to place his mouth on hers until it softened beneath his kisses. “Attracted to nuns, are you?”

“Some men prefer being tied up and others being whipped.” He shrugged. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

Her impatience was growing, but he had no intention of revealing any more of his secrets to her than the ones she’d already uncovered. Those he could still plausibly deny if anyone else learned of them.

“You want me to stop rehabilitating your reputation, and I want you to stop the rumor that we’re engaged,” she explained. “So it seems to me we can both get what we want if you simply answer my question.” She put her hands on her hips. “Why are you hiding your good heart from the world? What are you gaining by doing that?”

“Why do I have to gain anything?”

She folded her arms and threw his words back at him. “Because you care for no one and nothing but yourself.”

Good Lord. The stubborn chit could win a boxing match sparring like this.

“Which means that even your goodness comes pre-tarnished.”

Ouch.

“So why do it?”

He reached up and slowly pulled loose the cape’s tie at her neck. He heard her hard swallow of instant nervousness. “What does it matter to you if I hide my goodness?”

He could no longer resist touching her and combed his fingers through her hair. Dear God, it was just as silky smooth as he’d imagined.

She briefly closed her eyes against his caress, and in that moment’s surrender, he knew she wanted him to kiss her.

“Because I need to know what kind of man you truly are.” Her voice was little more than a breathless murmur. “And if it’s because of something you’ve done.”

“I’ve done a lot of dark things in my life, Jessamyn.” He brushed the cape off her shoulder and let it slip to the ground to puddle at her feet. Her shoulders, bare except for thin straps of lace, were too tantalizing to resist, and he traced his fingertips over her warm skin. “If I decided to be good in order to earn absolution for all I’ve done, I’d have to become a monk.” With the way his body was reacting to hers, that would never happen. “Why not just accept that I don’t want society in my private business?”

“Because you wouldn’t—” She caught her breath when he tugged gently at her shoulder strap, but she didn’t stop him. “You wouldn’t go to all that trouble to hide it if that were all. Not you. You’d simply tell all of them to go to the devil and leave you alone.”

He grinned at her. She knew him better than she realized. That thought should have terrified him. Oddly enough, it didn’t. “I tried that with you, and it didn’t do me much good.”

“Because I’m not part of society. I won’t be intimidated by dukes or devils.”

He lowered his head and placed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “And if the duke is also the devil?”

She trembled beneath his lips, and the delicious sensation cascaded through him. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. Until—

“Then best to exorcise them both.”

He lifted his head and gazed down at her. He was so close that he could feel the warmth of her body radiating against his front. “What does anything from my past matter for the man I am now?”

“I have to protect my sister.”

He murmured, “You’re not the only one who wants to protect family.”

She frowned. “What do you—”

“I want to kiss you.” He lowered his head until his lips were so close to hers, he could feel them tickle against his when they parted in surprise at his quiet admission. “Let me, Jessamyn.”

He heard her nervous swallow, but her hands lifted to his arms and clasped his biceps, as if she couldn’t decide whether to shove him away or pull him down to her. “You can’t confuse me. I won’t let you.”

Oh, he was pretty certain he’d already done exactly that. God knew she confused the hell out of him.

“I would never want to confuse you.” He caressed his thumb across her bottom lip. “Not about that. I want you very certain that it’s perfectly fine for you to enjoy the pleasures I want to give you, even if nothing more than a kiss.”

“Nothing more?” she challenged in a husky whisper.

He nearly groaned with frustration. Sweet Lucifer, he wanted so much more! “Not if you don’t want it.” Yet he knew how temptation worked, how the most tantalizing kinds were stumbled into exactly when a person thought he could avoid them. No one lost control more than the person who clung so desperately to it. “I want to kiss you, Jessamyn,” he repeated and tempted her with a slow caress of his thumb along her jaw. “Let me. Please.”

She hesitated, then nodded. He wasn’t prepared for the wave of relief that rained over him.

But before he could lower his head to kiss her, she rose up on tiptoes and brought her lips to his. His breath hitched, and for a moment, he was too surprised to do anything more than let her. Her lips were soft and gentle against his, moving tenderly as she tried to cajole him into kissing her back.

Gladly. He slipped his arms around her and pulled her against him to kiss her the way he’d been yearning to do since she stepped into the grotto and lowered her hood.

“Lucien…yes,” she sighed against his lips.

And with that, he was lost.