Page 4 of Duke of the Underworld (Regency Gods #2)

CHAPTER 4

H ugh Blackwood .

At least she knew his name now, not just his title. He’d told her that much before she’d left after…

Well, the less said about that little bit of madness, the better.

It was really an even call over which one of them was more insane, her or the duke.

She should have stayed home. She should have just…taken her father’s news, returned quietly to the country, and tried to do absolutely nothing .

This was a material lesson about doing things. She would, henceforth, endeavor to do nothing. Ever. At all.

And, while she was doing all of that nothing, she would absolutely, positively not answer questions impulsively .

She stabbed irritably at the frock she was trying to mend with some clever embroidery, though the activity was unlikely to improve her mood. She was quite good at embroidery and normally enjoyed it quite a bit. But this dress felt as though it was rather beyond repair, at least as far as remaining a fashionable garment went. And trying to trick the ton into believing that her family’s situation was not nearly as desperate as it was… That would be a difficult hurdle to overcome. But her other option was wearing a woefully out-of-date dress when she went to her next Society event.

You don’t have to go back into Society anymore , a tiny, treacherous voice whispered in the back of her mind. Things have changed …

A rapping knock on the front door made her stab herself in the index finger hard enough to draw blood.

Drat it all!

“Persephone!” her mother’s thin, warbling voice called from deeper inside the house. Baroness Fielton had not reacted well upon learning of their family’s dire straits; she’d gone from being a relatively passive but seemingly content woman to a passively distraught one. “Can you please see who is at the door?”

Normally, Persephone might have taken the reminder that they no longer had any staff at their London townhouse as an unfortunate reminder of their present circumstances, but today, she was pleased for the distraction from her own thoughts. She stuck her bleeding finger in her mouth and tossed her embroidery carelessly aside. She’d no doubt curse the action later when she had to unknot the silks, which she could not afford to discard and replace, no matter how snarled and tangled they got.

And then she opened the door.

On the doorstep stood the Duke of Nighthall.

And there she was, sucking on her finger like a child.

She snatched her hand away from her mouth and tucked it behind her back, as if this would make him forget that he’d seen her looking like an absolute ninny.

“Oh, um, good day,” she said.

Like an absolute ninny .

Whatever deportment lessons they offered dukes, they were top-notch, as the Duke of Nighthall didn’t so much as bat an eye.

“Good morning, Miss Lovell,” he said as if it was perfectly ordinary for a baron’s daughter to be answering her own front door. Persephone would bet all her life’s worth—which was admittedly not much these days—that he noticed, however. He had the manner of a man who noticed everything.

“Might I come in?” he asked when she hesitated.

“Oh, um, yes, of course,” she stammered, no matter that she very, very much wanted to deny him. “Do come in, Your Grace.”

She stepped aside as she’d seen butlers do all her life, feeling extraordinarily awkward. Being a butler was harder than it looked…and it didn’t look easy.

“Persephone?” Again, her mother’s voice echoed. “Who’s here?”

Persephone cast the duke a wild-eyed glance and prepared to lie. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately, since this would no doubt result in further humiliation—her mother floated into view before she could think up a suitable falsehood.

“Good morning, Lady Fielton,” the duke said with a courteous bow. “I am Hugh Blackwood, the Duke of Nighthall.”

He said this as if he expected recognition—which well he might, given the circumstances. Not only was he a duke, but Persephone…

Dorothy Lovell’s eyes, as green as Persephone’s own, went wide, but innocently so. Persephone assumed it was too much to hope that the duke didn’t notice—or that he didn’t realize the significance of what he was seeing.

And then, of course, her mother made his ignorance impossible.

“Oh, my! Your Grace, welcome…though I’m sure I don’t know what we have done to deserve an honor such as this!”

With deliberate slowness, the duke turned his head to look at Persephone. She tried to think extremely innocent thoughts.

“What indeed,” the duke said dryly as Persephone examined the floor with unprecedented interest. She stopped when she noticed a chip in the marble that they’d never be able to repair.

When she dared a glance back up at the duke’s face, he was watching her with keen eyes. In the light of day, she could see that her suspicions from the night prior were true—they were truly black and apparently fathomless. These eyes, along with the dark hair, forbidding aspect, and of course his name, had led the gossip rags to—somewhat unimaginatively, in Persephone’s opinion—dub him “the Dark Duke.”

She could not believe she’d had the audacity to approach a man called the Dark Duke .

He regarded her for an interminable minute, then turned that night-dark gaze back to her mother.

“I was hoping I might speak to Baron Fielton,” he said levelly. “Is your husband in residence, my lady?”

Persephone saw it happen—the moment her mother’s eyes lit up with flights of fancy. Dorothy Lovell wasn’t the kind of woman who could make a mountain out of a molehill—she was the kind of woman who could, and would make a mountain out of a single grain of sand. And a duke coming by to ask to speak to her husband? While she had an of-age, unmarried daughter?

Well, that was quite a few grains of sand.

And, worst of all, this time, her mother was right .

“Oh, yes, indeed,” she said, delight in every inch of her expression. She was not a subtle woman, was Persephone’s mother. If the whole situation wasn’t already so horrifyingly upsetting, Persephone would have melted into a puddle of misery over her mother’s obvious social aspirations. “My husband is in residence. Please, Your Grace, let me take you to his study. I’m sure he will be more than happy to see you at once.”

“Splendid,” said the duke, not sparing Persephone so much as a glance.

It was a single word, levelly spoken. Yet, Persephone’s mother giggled .

Whatever miserable power dukes possessed, Persephone wanted no part of it.

And yet, the duke walking away meant that escape was something she was unlikely to reach anytime soon.

Hugh was a bad man for several reasons. He operated a bloody den of iniquity, for Heaven’s sake. There were no doubt other personal sins to his name.

But damn him if he enjoyed any of them as much as he enjoyed watching Miss Persephone Lovell fidget as she tried to hide her anxiety.

It was the fidgeting that had given him the mad idea that had gotten them to their present situation.

Hugh was, generally speaking, not prone to mad ideas, particularly if one disregarded Underworld, something he regularly considered to be a key piece of madness in his history. He blamed the previous evening’s wild hair on the fact that he’d scarcely slept in days. Between the club and the current…unrestful state of things at home, peace had been hard to come by.

And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, there had appeared this girl—this lady. She’d come to his club without her father’s knowledge in a bid to save him, though Lord only knew the man didn’t deserve it. She’d been sweet, and hadn’t asked for a handout, merely for time, for renegotiation.

And when he’d pushed back, she hadn’t taken it lying down. She had no leverage, no position to fight back.

But she’d done it anyway.

That kindness and that toughness…it was a rare combination.

And so Hugh had started to think a lot of thoughts that he absolutely ought not be thinking.

And then he’d asked her.

Maybe it was the duke in him. More likely, it was his grandfather’s Lightholder blood; the family had always been rife with conquerors. But her stubborn courage, her nervous determination…it drew him in. It had made his very bad idea begin to feel very, very good.

And the little minx had agreed to marry him. The trap set, then snicked shut. He couldn’t help but be pleased.

He wasn’t even properly bothered to discover that she hadn’t said a single thing to her parents.

Oh, the mother was hopeful—she was as bad at hiding her optimism as Miss Lovell was at hiding her nerves. Hugh’s extended family had several daughters that were unmarried, and each possessed a mother who was in some way interfering, hopeful, or otherwise emotionally involved in their daughter’s matrimonial prospects. He also knew, from his own perspective, that there was no good sense in showing up at an unmarried young lady’s house without expressly stating that he, though an unmarried duke, was not there to hunt for a wife.

He'd not made such promises today, which had set Baroness Fielton to dreaming.

Well. She was about to be right pleased, then.

But first, he had to speak to the baron himself.

“Here we are, Your Grace,” Lady Fielton tittered. She knocked quietly on the door. “My lord?” She stuck her head inside. “Dear, the Duke of Nighthall is here to speak with you.”

Hugh shifted behind the baroness so he could see inside the dim study. At the sound of the Nighthall name, Baron Fielton, who had apparently been sleeping atop his desk, jerked upright in alarm.

A flicker of dismay crossed his wife’s face. Hugh stepped around her deftly. He already knew that Fielton was not the kind of man to protect the women in his life from his foibles—the arrival of Miss Lovell in Hugh’s club had been proof enough of that.

Thus, Hugh did the baron’s job for him, and protected the baroness from the sight before her.

“Thank you for the escort, Lady Fielton,” he said, polite but firm, as he closed the study door. As soon as the door clicked shut, Fielton began stammering.

“I—Your Grace—I don’t—I’m going to pay my debts—the thing is, if you’d just let me back in the club—one good win and I’ll?—”

“Oh, shut up,” Hugh said wearily.

Hugh knew he likely should be a bit more circumspect about his disdain for gamblers; they were, after all, the people who buttered his bread, so to speak. But he struggled not to sneer at people who threw away their money and called it fun when he had spent so many hours, weeks, months, years fighting to get his family’s finances back after a series of his father’s failed investments, not to mention death duties after his father and brother’s deaths, had led the duchy grasping for solvency.

He'd been raised—by his father, certainly, but even more strongly by his grandfather—to believe that possessing a title meant obligation, duty. It meant fighting to stand between the brutal world and those under one’s care.

He disdained men—let alone barons—who let their personal foibles stand in the way of that duty. He despised men who then tried to pass off those failures onto others—their tenants, their servants, their daughters .

Fielton, in a rare display of wisdom, did so.

Suddenly exhausted, Hugh sank into the chair across the from the baron’s desk. Normally, he would have used his height and stature to gain control over a situation like this one, but that wasn’t needed here.

Fielton was, in short, a disgrace.

Hugh, frankly, couldn’t tell if the man was in his cups or merely having a miserable reaction to last night’s drink, and he suspected that it was often hard to say. Fielton had the haggard look of a habitual drinker; the very air in the study carried the scent of stale spirits. The curtains were all drawn, and the faint layer of dust upon them suggested they’d been closed for a while. Although, Hugh supposed that could be due to the apparent lack of staff in the house.

Miss Lovell’s arrival at his club last night had spoken of dire straits, but this was worse than Hugh had realized.

“I’m not here to let you back in the club,” he said and watched the man’s look of eager hope die. Hugh knew men like this, too—ones who became so enamored of their next win that they let it take over their lives. He tried to cull such members from the roll books of Underworld, as such men rarely paid their accounts, though he knew that cutting them off from his club was unlikely to force them to give up their habits.

No, it likely just sent them to worse places, to crueler lenders. If things were bad like this now, they were likely to only get worse for the Lovells.

The idea reaffirmed Hugh’s commitment to his course of action.

“I am here because you have failed, Fielton,” he said. “You have failed as a man, and you have failed as a father.”

“As a?—”

“I told you to shut your mouth,” Hugh snapped. “I am here because your daughter came to me because she, too, knows you are a failure. Those were not her words,” he allowed, because he didn’t think it was a good start to a marriage to drive a wedge between Miss Lovell and her father, no matter what a waste of a father he was.

“She came asking to make a deal on your behalf. She sought to barter with me for your freedom—no matter the personal costs.”

Fielton’s face paled. “If you hurt?—”

“Shut up ,” Hugh said, fighting to keep from shouting. If Fielton finished that accusation, Hugh was going to have no choice but to strike the man, future kinsman or not. “I didn’t lay a finger on her, you wastrel. I’m going to marry her.”

Fielton’s mouth dropped open.

“You’re asking for my daughter’s hand in marriage?” he squawked.

“I’m not asking for anything,” Hugh retorted. “Or rather, I’m not asking you . I asked Miss Lovell and she agreed. We’re going to be married.”

“But I’m her father!” Fielton sputtered. “I have the right?—”

“Was I not clear that your failures as a father have disqualified you from claiming any rights thereof?”

Fielton sank into his seat, crumpling miserably. This was likely for the best, insofar as Hugh’s resistance to punching him went, but was nevertheless eminently pathetic.

Miss Lovell had been a dreadful little fool for coming to Underworld, that much was still true. But after laying eyes on Fielton, a man Hugh had previously only known as a line of red ink on his ledger sheets, he found he was more sympathetic toward her decision.

It wasn’t as though she’d had much in the way of choices, given that this was her supposed protector.

When Fielton didn’t argue, Hugh could only assume this was due to laziness rather than intelligence. Even so, he pressed the advantage.

He pulled a folded piece of heavy parchment from the inside pocket of his jacket.

“This is a marriage contract,” he said. “My solicitors drew it up this morning. In it, it states that, upon my marriage to your daughter, I will forgive your debts—” Fielton’s eyes lit up with avaricious glee. “—and you will receive a lifetime ban from my club.”

Fielton’s expression dropped just as quickly as it had brightened, as Hugh had suspected it might. Men like this couldn’t control themselves at the tables.

“But…” Fielton had, at least, enough presence of mind to stop himself. This was likely because he was scheming to join another club, but Hugh could only control so much.

“Very well,” the baron said after a moment. “Give me the document. I’ll sign.” He hesitated. “You’re aware she hasn’t a dowry?”

Hugh bit back a swear. Of course the man had bartered away his daughter’s dowry.

“That’s not my concern,” Hugh said icily. It wasn’t, though it might once have been. He’d considered marriage to an heiress before his club had taken off, though he’d ultimately determined that a one-time acquisition of funds would not be as useful to his name and his tenants as would a going concern.

“Excellent. I’ll sign.” The baron reached for his pen, but Hugh snatched the document back.

“Your daughter will sign,” Hugh retorted. “She’s of age, as I understand it, and I won’t have it said that this was done any way but correctly. More to the point, this is between me and her—because she is the courageous one, not you. And she is the one who will save your family from the problem you created—not you.”

Hugh knew he was pushing at the limits of Fielton’s pride, but he needed the man to know what he’d done. There was nobody else who would hold the man accountable.

“Fine,” the baron said tersely, showing his ire at a man half his age telling him how to behave, no matter the difference in rank between them.

Hugh couldn’t resist pushing just a bit further.

“You may wish to retrieve her, then,” he said acerbically.

When Fielton pushed to his feet, there was a wobble to his gait. Drunk then, not just hungover. That was fine fettle, given that it was only half eleven in the morning.

All the more reason to have Miss Lovell sign. At least he could trust the young lady to be sober.

Sober—and spitting mad if her expression was any indication when she came back to the study with her father.

“You told him?” she demanded. Ah, so she was back to being a firebrand. Hugh bit back a smirk.

Despite this strange and likely inopportune situation, Hugh felt his lips twitch at the furious way with which she stated the obvious. It helped, most likely, that she was rather pretty in an unconventional sort of way. She had more than a few freckles spattered across her nose and cheeks, a few of the marks even traveling down to her chin or up to her brow. The oddly charming little splotches lent, he found, a certain degree of charm to her face—not that the soft, cherubic cheeks and gently pointed chin weren’t charming on their own.

But the most arresting feature was her big, round eyes, bright green and glaring. Oh, yes. He liked the fire in those eyes. He liked it a great deal.

She was just what he needed—just what his family needed.

“Marriages are, as a matter of course, public record, Miss Lovell,” he said. “He was bound to find out.”

“I was going to tell them myself,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth. Under different circumstances, Hugh would have considered this a comical effort to hide her words form her father, but given Fielton’s apparent mental state…

“Be faster next time,” he offered mildly, then made a show of pausing. “Not that there will be a next time, I suppose.”

“What’s the rush?” she demanded. “You cannot truly be worried that I will jilt you or some such nonsense!”

He hadn’t been, not really. She needed him as much as he needed her—perhaps even more. Though a pretty thing like Miss Lovell might have luck finding another wealthy husband than he would finding a woman with her particular combination of grit, heart, and determination.

“Can a man not be pleased to have found himself a bride?” he asked airily.

“He cannot,” she said, brows lowered.

Again, he had to fight a smile. When was the last time he’d been so entertained? It must have been an age.

“Well, Miss Lovell,” he said pleasantly, “I am not exactly known for my agreeable nature. But neither am I known for being indecisive. Nor are you, if your action yesterday is any indication. So, I present to you your options: either sign—” He held up a pen between them. “—and legitimize the deal you made with me, or recant.” He tipped a head toward her father. “And let things return to the way they were.”

Put like that, she scarcely had a choice. She knew it, and so did he.

And maybe that was another thing that made him wretched, made him unforgivable. But he found that he could not regret it when Miss Lovell took the pen from his hand.

And signed the contract that bound them together forevermore.