Page 14 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

U NTIL LADY OPHELIA SPOKE , Daintry had been doing her best to conceal her unexpected delight in seeing him again, delight that had surged into being the moment the young footman announced him.

She was certain—though she was likewise quite well aware that many members of her family would scoff at that certainty—that she had never before felt such an interest in a gentleman.

Not only was he handsome and well formed, but his warm, low-pitched, melodic voice was the sort that sent tremors radiating through a maiden’s breast (and other portions of her anatomy), if she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it.

She had spent hours the previous night attempting to keep her own thoughts from doing so, or from considering his extremely attractive smile.

Her ride along the seashore with the two little girls had seemed rather flat after he had left them; and she had wasted a good deal of her time later, when she might better have been sleeping; trying to imagine what it would have been like had he ridden with them, sharing the pleasures of the crisp sea breeze, the haunting echoes when they had ridden right inside the largest cave, the splashing of horses’ hooves as they chased retreating waves, and the thrill of fear when Charley had ridden too far in pursuit of one wave and had nearly been claimed by its successor.

Lady Ophelia’s words acted upon her now like a bucket of ice water, for the chill sweeping over her was the same.

It brought her to her feet, which had the effect of shifting his gaze from Lady Ophelia to her, and had she been asked to describe her feelings just then, she would have found the task impossible, for it was as if she were falling with no one to catch her and yet had become suspended in time between the moment of his entry and the moment her aunt’s words had turned him into a stranger again.

The moment passed. Looking directly at her, he said, “It is true. I am Gideon Deverill.”

Her numbness disappeared in a blaze of anger, and closing the distance between them in a few short steps, she slapped him hard across the face before she had realized what she meant to do. From a great distance, she heard Lady Ophelia’s exclamation of dismay, but she paid it no heed.

“How dare you even cross the threshold of this house!”

“I came because—”

“Don’t speak to me,” she snapped. “You are an unprincipled, deceitful scoundrel, and you have no business to set foot on Tarrant land. The Deverills represent all that is reprehensible, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself even to belong to such a felonious family, but to try to pass yourself off as Penthorpe in order to insinuate yourself into my—”

“That’s enough,” Deverill said grimly.

“It is by no means enough! I have much more to say to you, and though you may suppose that because you are a marquess’s son I will not dare to say it, you will, by heaven, hear every word!”

“Do not raise your voice to me.”

“Don’t give me orders! This is my house, and you have no business to be in it, and therefore I will say what I please.”

“If you will just listen to me for a moment,” Deverill said, reaching a hand out to her, “I can explain—”

Whirling away from him, she cried, “I do not want to hear glib explanations. You are a liar and a deceiver, and I will not believe anything you say to me, so—Don’t touch me!”

But he had caught her by the shoulders, and he turned her back to face him, giving her a sharp shake as he said roughly, “Be silent, I tell you, or I will not be responsible for my actions. I allowed you to slap me because I deserve your anger, but if you do not wish to be treated in a like fashion, I’d advise you not to shriek at me like a fishwife or call me names. ”

Daintry stared at him, caught off her guard as much by the look of fury in his eyes as by his words.

Nearly everyone of her acquaintance tried to placate her when she lost her temper, but he had done nothing of the sort, and she began to think he might make good his threat if she pushed him to it.

Refusing to be daunted, however, she narrowed her eyes, tightened her lips, and said with what even he ought to recognize as truly dangerous calm, “You would never dare to strike me in my father’s house with my aunt to bear witness to your violence. ”

“You’d do better to believe what I tell you,” he said curtly.

“You did not hesitate to define my entire family as reprehensible, though I defy you to tell me anything anyone in it has done—until now, at all events—to deserve such a description from you. To the best of my knowledge, you do not know me or my father, and I doubt very much that you ever had the pleasure of meeting my brother, so what can you know of Deverills, my lady?”

Daintry stared at him, put off her stride by his questions for the simple reason that she had no answers to give him. Never in her life had she encountered anyone like him.

If her father lost his temper, he shouted and carried on, and he had occasionally been known to snatch up a switch or a strap to wreak vengeance for impudence, but he did not confront one or demand answers to unanswerable questions.

Lady Ophelia did not lose her temper. Nor did Lady St. Merryn.

Daintry took some pains not to provoke either of them simply because the former had a needle-sharp tongue and the latter a distressing habit of employing tears, reproaches, vapors, and other such iniquitous resources when her fragile sensibilities were even the least bit agitated.

Susan had never tried to set her will against Daintry’s.

Nor had their brother, Charles. She had been a match for any governess, and had never been sent to school.

Added to all this was the fact that she had been influenced by her aunt to have little opinion of worldly rank.

Thus her experience of persons with wills stronger than her own was severely limited, but she recognized in Gideon Deverill a man whose temper at least matched hers, and she rather envied him his air of rigid control.

His grip on her shoulders was tight. She could feel his fingers digging into her flesh, and he continued to look down at her, waiting for her to reply.

She wondered what Lady Ophelia thought of it all, but much as she would have liked to glance at that lady, she could not seem to drag her gaze away from his.

Glaring back at him, determined to appear as controlled as he was, she said between her teeth, “You’re hurting me. Let go.”

“I am not hurting you,” he retorted. “I just want you to listen to me.”

His grip slackened nonetheless, and she ripped herself free, crying triumphantly, “I will not listen to you! You lied to me before, and you will no doubt he again. It is all of a piece and just what a Tarrant expects from a Deverill. And do not dare to tell me I can know nothing of Deverills. They are enemies of my family, which is all I need to know. And as for you, sir, I just hope that when Penthorpe does get here, he thrashes you to within an inch of your life for what you have dared to do!”

“He will have to rise from the grave to do it,” Deverill said bluntly. “He was killed at Waterloo.”

“He is dead?” Daintry’s hand flew to her mouth, and she stared at him in shock.

“Damn,” Deverill said, moving toward her again, but this time his expression showed only regret. “Forgive me.”

“Not the best way to break such news, young man,” Lady Ophelia said dryly, speaking for the first time since greeting him. “Distressingly tactless, in fact. No, no, I pray you, do not lay hands upon her again. My niece’s reaction to such treatment is entirely unpredictable, as you have seen.”

“I am sorry to have spoken so abruptly, ma’am,” he said, shooting a glance at Lady Ophelia. “I came here today to make a clean breast of things, and to tell you of Penthorpe’s death, which I ought of course to have done yesterday. When his lordship mistook me for Penthorpe, I … that is, I—”

“Your curiosity about our family is no doubt as great as that of some members of ours about the Deverills,” Lady Ophelia said helpfully. “One cannot help but understand your impulse to take advantage of the opportunity to learn more when it was no doubt thrust upon you by St. Merryn himself.”

“That… that was it,” he said, looking at Daintry.

Though she had been aware of their exchange, she had paid no heed to it.

The news of Penthorpe’s death was a shock, but though she was certain she ought to feel grief at this appalling turn of events, she could not feel more than she felt for the thousands of other young soldiers who had given their lives at Waterloo.

Her strongest emotion was still anger with Deverill, underscored by a powerful sense of having been betrayed by him.

“You are despicable,” she said at last, “to take advantage in the basest manner of a man’s death, to try to take his place merely to satisfy vulgar curiosity.

Such contemptible behavior must be thought offensive by any right-thinking person.

To take the place of a man who died valiantly, fighting for his country against the most dreadful odds—”

“I would remind you that I also fought at Waterloo.”

“Oh, to be sure,” she retorted, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “but you survived, did you not, no doubt because braver men, men like poor, unfortunate Penthorpe—”

“This has gone far enough,” Deverill said grimly, his voice carrying easily over hers. “You have not the least notion what you are talking about, so just sit down and be silent while I explain a few facts of life to you.”

“Don’t give me orders! Do you hear me? I told you bef—”

“If you do not sit down, I will sit you down.”