The Dissolute Duke. Sophia James

Lucy.’

      ‘What exactly was it that the Earl of Halsey said of me?’

      ‘He has been spreading the rumour that you may have been intimate with Alderworth at his home. He says he saw you in the corridors on the first floor of the place, searching for the host’s bedchamber.’

      Her brother’s tone had that streak of exasperation she so often heard when speaking of her escapades, though in this case Lucinda could well understand it.

      ‘Intimate?’ The shock of such a blatant falsehood was horrifying. ‘Why would he tell such a lie? Surely people could not believe him?’ Wriggling her foot against the metal bar of the wheelchair, she checked for any further movement. Over the past few days the tingling had gone from her knees to her feet as the numbness receded.

      ‘Unfortunately they are beginning to.’ Asher’s voice no longer held any measure of care.

      ‘What does Alderworth say?’

      ‘Nothing and that is the great problem. If he denied everything categorically and strode into society the same way he strode into Wellingham House, people might cease to believe Richard Allenby. But instead the man has disappeared to the country, leaving chaos behind him.’

      ‘Alderworth came here? To the town house?’ Lucinda frowned. There was something about him that was familiar, some part of him that she remembered from…before. ‘What did he want?’

      ‘Put bluntly, he wanted to be rid of any blame as far as your reputation was concerned. He made that point very plain.’ Asher put his paper down and watched her closely. ‘The man is a charlatan, but he is also clever. The slight whiff of an alliance with us might be profitable to him.’

      ‘Alliance?’ Lucinda’s mouth felt suddenly dry.

      ‘A ruined reputation requires measures that may be stringent and far from temporary.’

      ‘You mean a betrothal?’ Horror had Lucinda’s words whispered. Low. She had heard all the stories of the wicked Duke. Everybody had. He was a man who lived by his own rules and threw the caution most others followed to the wind.

      As her heartbeat quickened, memory fought against haze and won. Dropping the teacup she was holding, she stood, liquid spilling across the pristine whiteness of an antique damask tablecloth, the brown stain widening through the embossed stitching even as she watched.

      The naked form of Taylen Ellesmere came through the fog, unfolding from a rumpled bed, each long and graceful line etched in candlelight, the red wine in a decanter beside him almost gone. She knew the feel of his skin, undeniably, for they had been joined together pressed in lust, his velvet-green eyes close as he had leaned down and kissed her. No simple chaste kiss, either, but one with a smouldering and virtue-taking force.

      Shock kept her still, as she looked directly at her oldest brother.

      ‘What is wrong? You look … ill.’ Real concern crossed his face.

      ‘I am remembering things and I th-th-think everything Richard Halsey is saying of m-me might indeed be tr-true.’

      Her weakened legs folded beneath her just as Asher caught her, the hard arm of the chair slamming into her side.

      ‘You are saying you lay with Alderworth. Unmarried.’

      ‘He was naked in his bedchamber. He touched me everywhere. The door was locked and I could not leave. I tried to, but I could not. He took the key. He was not safe.’ A torrent of small truths, each one worse than the last.

      ‘My God.’ She had never heard the note in her brother’s voice that she did now, not once in all her many escapades and follies. His fractured tone brought tears to her eyes as she felt Emerald’s hand slip into her own and squeeze.

      ‘You will marry my sister as soon as I can procure a special licence and then you will disappear from England altogether, you swine.’

      Asher Wellingham had already laid a good few punches across Tay’s face and Cristo Wellingham was still holding him down. Not the refined manners he had imagined them to have, after all, each blow given with a deliberate and clinical precision. His nose streamed with blood and he could barely see out of his left eye. The two front teeth at the bottom of his mouth were loosened.

      ‘If you kill me…a betrothal might be…difficult.’

      Another blow caught him in the kidneys and, despite meaning not to, he winced.

      ‘You will tell Lucinda that it was completely your fault she was at Alderworth in the first place and that your heinous, iniquitous and pernicious sense of social virtue was lost years before you met her. In effect, you will say that she never had the chance of escaping such corruption.’

      ‘C-comprehensive.’

      ‘Very. But as long as you understand us we will allow you to at least take breath into another day whilst we try to mitigate all the wrong you have heaped upon our sister. She is distraught, as you can well imagine, and names you as the most loathsome of all men. A reprobate who took advantage of her when she was drunk.’

      ‘She told you that?’

      ‘And worse. But although she might hate you, she also knows that you are the only man who can restore her shattered name in society when you marry her. In that she is most adamant.’

      ‘A sterling quality in a bride.’ Even to his own ears his voice lacked the sting of irony he usually made an art form of.

      ‘Well, you can laugh, Alderworth, but if you believe we will let you anywhere near Lucinda after the ceremony is performed then you have another think coming. You have already done your damage. Now you will pay for it.’

      Tay coughed once and then again, his breath difficult to catch. When the younger brother allowed him to drop heavily to the floor he felt the arm that had been hurt in the carriage accident crack against hard parquet, pain radiating up into the shoulder socket.

      Ignominiously he began to shake and he swore. It had been a long time since he remembered doing that, his uncle’s face screwed up above him in the wrath of some perceived and tiny insult, the summer winds of Alderworth hot against the wounds that lashed his back. Bleeding, everywhere. No mercy in the beating.

      Standing uncertainly and holding on to the edge of a chair, he raised himself before them. ‘Your sister’s memory is faulty. I did not touch her.’

      ‘She says exactly the opposite, and anybody who knows Lucinda knows, too, that straightforward honesty is one of her greatest strengths.’ The embossed ducal ring on Carisbrook’s finger caught the light as he moved forwards. ‘Frankly, given the number of your dubious guests who have not ceased gossiping since the accident about what went on at Alderworth, I find your whining and feeble excuses insulting. A man worth his salt would simply own up to his mistakes and take the punishment he deserves.’

      From experience Tay knew when to stop baiting a man who would hit him until life was leached from truth. He nodded an end to the dispute and saw the answering relief on Asher Wellingham’s face.

      ‘We will pay you to leave a week after the wedding. A considerable sum that should see you well on your way to your next destination. After that, you will never again set foot anywhere near London or our family.’

      ‘Alderworth is almost bankrupt. Your father’s debts were numerous and you will not have enough equity to continue the repayments after the year’s end.’ Taris had taken up the reins now, from a sofa near the fireplace, his voice steady and quiet. ‘You have been trying to trade your way out of the conundrum, but your bills are becoming onerous and a lifestyle of indolence is hardly a profitable one. Accept our offer and you might keep your family inheritance for a few years yet. Decline and you will be in the debtors’ prison by Christmas.’

      ‘Will your sister know?’

      ‘Indeed. Lucinda wants it.’ Cristo stepped forwards, disdain in his eyes. ‘She wants you out of her life for ever.’

      Marriage