Chapter Two

J essamyn St Claire sat in the slant of morning sunlight falling across her small desk in the drawing room and scanned her To Do list.

She let out a long sigh. Goodness, she had a lot of work ahead of her.

“You won’t succeed,” Aunt Matilda called out from her chair in front of the fireplace where she was knitting a…a…

Jess glanced up at the mess of green and purple yarn spilling out of her aunt’s lap and frowned, puzzled. Well, she had no idea what exactly Auntie was knitting, but whatever it was, Matilda was working on it with dedication.

She could certainly understand that. How many hours in the past week had she spent with her watercolors and pastels by the window in the garden room she’d converted into a studio because that spot offered the best light? How many times had she taken solace in her art over the years? She would be lost without it, both emotionally and financially. It wasn’t merely a hobby. It was her salvation.

“But I will succeed,” Jess answered and returned her attention to her list. “Amanda is counting on me.”

She wouldn’t let her younger sister down, especially when she was in trouble. So Jess took up her quill and crossed out the first item on her list.

1. Send Opera Donation to the Foundling Hospital.

“I simply cannot believe your sister Amanda wants you interfering in her personal affairs like this,” Matilda muttered between the click-clack-clicks of her knitting needles.

Jess guiltily kept her gaze glued to her list. “We all must do things we don’t like in life in order to make our way.” She mumbled, “Ask any of the royal princesses.”

The click-clack-clicking stopped. Jess glanced up at the silence.

A grim expression darkened Auntie’s face. It was the same expression she’d been using against the two sisters since their mother died when they were just ten and eight, when Auntie moved in with them and their father to raise them as best she could.

Unfortunately for Auntie, her disapproving expression hadn’t worked on them then, and it didn’t work on Jess now as a grown woman.

“Amanda doesn’t know what you’re doing, does she?” Matilda asked, although her tone was more of an accusation than a question.

“She’s all the way over in Ireland.” Her eyes darted back to her list. “It’s not practical to keep her involved in every aspect of my plan.”

“In any aspect, you mean.”

“Yes,” she mumbled, feeling a twinge of guilt, “that, too.”

But her plan to force Lucien Grenier, Duke of Crewe, to marry her sister by attacking his black reputation was working. It was only a matter of time until Jess presented terms of surrender and saved Amanda. A slow smile curled her lips, and she struck out the second item.

2. Give Coins to the Poor.

At that very moment, her footman John was handing out pennies to beggars and the elderly in front of the steps of St Paul’s. Then, he would make his way to Chelsea and complete the third item for the day—

3. Send Donation to the Pensioners.

When John presented the banknotes to the hospital’s director, he would also hand over a note that Jess had scrawled out in heavy masculine handwriting which gushed admiration for the Pensioners and gratitude for their years of service. Oh, Jess wouldn’t go so far as to ever sign a name to the note. Blackmailing Crewe into marrying Amanda was one thing; she wasn’t mad enough to commit forgery. But it was clear in the carefully worded message who was behind the anonymous donation, the same man who was behind all the other good deeds she’d committed on his behalf during the past week…

Lucien Grenier, Duke of Crewe.

The same blackguard who had ruined her sister.

“She wouldn’t like it if she knew what you were doing,” Auntie scolded gently as she finally set down her knitting and reached for the cup of tea cooling on the little table at her elbow. “She’d be absolutely mortified.”

Which was why Jess hadn’t told her. She loved Amanda. She would do anything to protect her younger sister and give her the respectable, secure life she deserved. Even if she had to do it behind her back.

She frowned down at her list to gauge her progress. Her plan to destroy the Duke of Crewe’s black reputation by turning him good wasn’t a cheap one by any means, and even these few days of instituting it had depleted most of the savings she had earned from her artwork. But she had no choice. She had to hit Crewe where it hurt most—his blackguard’s pride. Crewe’s dark reputation meant the world to him, and she was certain he would do anything to defend it, including leg-shackling himself to a wife.

It was the only way Jess knew to force him to marry Amanda.

“A little embarrassment now saves her from a lifetime of scandal later,” Jess reminded Matilda. “Which is why she went to stay with cousin Maeve in Ireland for her confinement.”

Jess chewed her bottom lip. If Jess’s plan didn’t work, then Amanda might never be able to come home to London. Even then, she would have to leave her baby behind and pretend she’d never been a mother. It was what too many women had to do when they found themselves the victims of love—or just plain lust.

What Jess couldn’t understand was how Amanda could have fallen in love with a scoundrel like Lucien Grenier in the first place. Enough to let him take her innocence anyway, because her sister would never have given herself to a man she didn’t love.

Apparently, love was blind. And utterly unfathomable.

With a hard breath, she pushed herself away from the desk and crossed to the window to stare out at the street. The irony wasn’t lost on her that she’d stood in the exact same spot last month when Amanda left London.

“Are you certain about this man?” Matilda asked against the brim of her tea cup.

Jess darted a glance in her aunt’s direction. “Are you suggesting that Amanda lied to me about what happened?”

“Of course not! Amanda is a dear, sweet, and wonderful girl who would never intentionally lie.” Matilda paused thoughtfully to consider her words. “But not telling the complete truth isn’t exactly lying. After all, if you’re keeping from her what you’re doing to Crewe, then perhaps—just perhaps —she didn’t tell you the full truth of what happened to her either.”

Amanda didn’t have to tell her. Jess had witnessed the incident with her own eyes. Well, the end of the incident anyway. Jess had gone looking for her sister in Lady Hawthorne’s garden the night of the ball, ducked beneath the bower, and found herself in the darkness with Amanda and the most despicable, rotten, selfish beast Lucifer had ever created—who had her sister’s skirts hiked up around her waist.

How Amanda had kept from crying, Jess would never know. Just as she would never know how she herself had kept from murdering the blackguard right there in the rose bower.

But Amanda had insisted Jess not make a scene, that they both return immediately to the party and ignore Crewe, who simply leaned back against the bower post. He had casually crossed his arms, amused by the whole thing, as if being caught compromising an unmarried miss was an everyday occurrence. Knowing him, it probably was.

She did as Amanda asked, and they returned to the ball, where they pretended that absolutely nothing had happened. There were no other witnesses to the event, and Jess was certain they’d managed to escape scandal and ruin.

Until the following month, when Amanda missed her courses.

Jess had wanted to confront Crewe right then and force him to marry her sister by special license—at gunpoint, if necessary—but Amanda refused. She was too embarrassed by what had happened and didn’t want to scandalize herself further by approaching Crewe directly. She’d begged Jess not to force her to speak to Crewe, finally agreeing after all kinds of arguments with Jess to send him a letter instead. Jess wanted her to demand that the disgraceful devil take full responsibility for his actions and marry her immediately, but Amanda—perhaps wisely—decided to take a more nuanced approach to the situation. Or at least, she said she did. Jess never saw the letter her sister posted.

But the next day, Amanda showed her his reply, comprised of a single word—

No.

“That rakehell ruined her and doesn’t care that he did,” Jess reminded her aunt as she stared at the exact spot on the street where Amanda had climbed into the rented carriage that took her to the George Inn in Southwark. There, she met up with Mr. and Mrs. Thomason, who graciously agreed to let her travel with them to Dublin. They thought she was going to Ireland to help their cousin Maeve with her confinement, not having any idea of the true situation or who was actually helping whom. “He doesn’t care that he’s destroyed her life, or that he left her devastated and humiliated. He doesn’t care at all about her feelings.”

Worse—by not marrying her, he’d forced her to give up her child to Maeve and her husband. Oh, the baby would be loved, certainly, and brought up with the same care as their other two children. But, dear heavens, the loss to Amanda… How would her sister ever be able to bear it?

The whole situation was agonizing! If they had male relatives, Crewe would have been called out: marry Amanda, or face pistols at ten paces. But Amanda and Jess had no one to defend them. No brothers, no uncles, no male cousins…no father. Leopold St Claire had abandoned them when they were just teenage girls, only a few years after they’d lost their mother. They’d been barely out of the schoolroom yet still old enough to realize the drunken wastrel their father had become, that he caused more problems in their lives than he solved, that he was dragging them down with him—and for Jess to tell him all that, too. If he couldn’t be a good father, she’d told him, then it was better not to have him in their lives at all.

So he left and never returned home.

Jess never forgave herself for her outburst. She had prayed every night that he would come back to them, but he never returned, only to die two years later of fever in the Caribbean. Or so they were told. Knowing Leopold, he’d probably died of the pox in some London slum, too drunk on gin to crawl out of the filth to find a doctor to save him. Not that he would have possessed any money to pay for treatment anyway. All his money had gone to the stills and brothels. Always had.

The two sisters had no one except each other and Matilda, their late mother’s aunt, and so Jess had no choice but to protect Amanda herself.

She knew exactly how to do it, too. The rake had destroyed her sister, so Jess would destroy the rake.

It was that simple.

“Some aristocrats cherish their estates and grand townhouses, others their wine cellars and stables,” she explained as she crossed the room and stopped in front of the low tea table. She lifted the lid off the teapot and peered inside, then wrinkled her nose at how cold the tea had become without her realizing it, so caught up had she been with her list. “The Duke of Crewe, however, relishes being the most despicable, immoral peer in the realm, and he most likely does it so he never has to answer to anyone about anything. Those who fear darkening their own reputations stay far away, and he gets to enjoy the most debauched pleasures London has to offer, without caring one whit what anyone thinks of him. Just think of it, Auntie…all the debauched pleasures his fortune can buy, yet none of the guilt.”

“So he’s a typical young aristocrat, then.”

“He makes those men look like toddlers in leading strings in comparison.” With a shake of her head, Jess gave up on the idea of tea and returned the lid with a soft clink. “Never has another man so carefully constructed such a dark reputation as Crewe. He wears his blackness like a badge of honor.” She selected a cinnamon biscuit from the plate and jabbed it at Matilda as she made her point. “So that is exactly where I am aiming my arrows.”

“Hmm.” Auntie set down her tea and once more picked up her knitting needles. “Sometimes arrows go astray and wound innocent people.”

“Not if the archer is careful.” She smiled as she nibbled at the biscuit. “And I plan on being very, very careful.”

Auntie shook her head. Click-click-click. “You’re not William Tell, my dear.” Click-click-clickety-click. “You like apples too much.”

Hiding a bewildered frown at that concerned—if utterly confusing—chastisement, Jess walked over to the door and tugged at the bell pull to call for the butler to collect the tea things. “I plan on taking him from rakehell to respectable in society’s eyes.” She smiled at the quiet genius of her plan. “I’ll take away all the bite from the vicious dog until he’s viewed as nothing more than an ordinary mongrel. The only thing that will stop me is his agreement to marry Amanda and give her child a father.”

“An irredeemably black-hearted, scandalous, licentious, libertine for a father?”

Jess let out a patient breath. “The child will have a father , regardless of his reputation. That’s what matters most.”

Amanda wouldn’t have to give up her baby, and her baby wouldn’t be a bastard. It was that simple.

She sank down onto the settee across from Auntie and once more failed to figure out what on earth the dear woman was attempting to knit. Bunches of yarn went off in all directions until it resembled a fuzzy octopus.

“And that’s why I’ve made my lists,” Jess continued. “I’m stirring his reputation’s pot by spreading rumors that his debauched behavior is nothing but lies and exaggerations, that he hasn’t been ravishing prostitutes but saving them, and that, although he truly does love to gamble—after all, what proper gentleman doesn’t?—all his winnings go anonymously to charities.”

Not too anonymously, though, of course, and not too obviously, either. It wouldn’t do for her to completely wring his reputation inside-out too soon because all his denials would only add fuel to the fire, not quash it. No, a slow brush fire was best so he could see exactly the damage she was capable of committing against his reputation and how determined she was to cast him into the flames if he didn’t do the responsible thing.

“The only way to make things right is for Crewe to marry Amanda,” Jess insisted. Then she added in a low mumble, “Even if I have to force him.”

“Your plan to turn him good does sound intriguing, I’ll admit.” Matilda kicked her yarn ball away with her foot, unspooling it across the rug. “Perhaps just as diabolical as Crewe’s determination to paint himself with pitch.”

“Thank you…I think.” Her confused frown transformed into a pleased smile. “And any perceived goodness that manages to stick to him by the end will only make life easier for Amanda as his wife.”

“You mean as his duchess .” Auntie looked up at Jess over the wire rims of her spectacles, and her needles stilled. “And that’s why your plan won’t work in the end. Because he isn’t a man.”

“Pardon?” Jess blinked at that. She’d seen the man with her own eyes. Lucien Grenier was very much a man.

“He is a duke.”

Her mouth softened into an amused smile. “The two are not mutually exclusive, Auntie.”

“Hmph.” Matilda kicked the yarn ball again. “They’ve always seemed so to me.”

Jess knew better than to chase that argument. “I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“He’s a duke, and a duke would never marry a woman like Amanda, even if he’s gotten her with child.” She set down her knitting with a frustrated sigh. “We’re on the fringes of society at best, no matter how beautiful, well-educated, interesting, or talented you and your sister are. And you are very talented.”

To make her point, she gestured a knitting needle at the large painting over the fireplace. It rendered the English countryside in a mix of watercolors and oils, complete with red poppies peeking out from tufts of green grass, sweeping hills, and honeycomb-yellow cottages scattered across the dale. Jess had painted it that past spring. It was one of her best, even if no one wanted to purchase it, which was why it now hung over their own fireplace instead of someone else’s.

“No matter how much of a scoundrel he is, Crewe is still a duke, and eventually he will still marry the daughter of another duke or an earl—perhaps even a foreign princess. At the very least, the only child of a wealthy industrialist.” She pointed her knitting needle at Jess. “Not someone like your sister, who is none of those things. In your heart, you know it, too.”

For the first time in their conversation, words failed her, and Jess could only return Auntie’s brutally honest gaze.

“In my experience, men like Crewe have no scruples whatsoever when it comes to women. They’re perfectly willing to dally with misses like your sister, even compromise them, just for their own amusements. But dallying is a very long way from marriage, even if that dalliance results in a child. A man like Crewe would never make your sister his duchess.”

Jess blinked hard, otherwise remaining perfectly still.

“Please understand.” Auntie’s voice softened to a motherly purr. “I’m certain he found her attractive, her company very pleasing. I’m certain he liked her a great deal. How could he not? But women like us simply do not marry peers. And that, my dearest, is the way of the world. It’s cruel and utterly unfair, and there’s not one thing we can do to change it.”

Not if Jess had her way.

She pushed herself off the settee and returned to her desk so Matilda wouldn’t see the quick swipe of her hand across her eyes.

“He will marry her, dukedom or not.” Jess wouldn’t fail her sister again. She and her temper might have been the reason that Leopold St Claire abandoned them, but since then, she had served as mother, father, sister, and best friend to Amanda. She’d been her protector and her champion in all things. She would not fail, not in this. “You’ll see. By month’s end, Crewe will be making vows to Amanda in St George’s.”

With newfound determination, Jess picked up her quill and struck out the third item on her list.

“You’re playing with fire,” Auntie warned, her words emerging in time to the click-clacking of her needles.

“Perhaps,” Jess grudgingly agreed.

But she had no intention of getting burned.