Page 39 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)

AT SEVEN O’CLOCK that evening, the fourteenth Duke of Ashington alighted from his carriage outside the Earl of Horton’s sprawling townhouse. Gritting his teeth, he straightened his evening coat and stared up at the myriad of lights sparkling from the tall windows.

The afternoon had been nothing but a dress rehearsal, albeit a faultless one. This evening, the curtain would rise on the grand finale.

“Feeling rakish?” an amused voice enquired.

“Hardly.”

His beloved Tommy slouched against Rossingley’s carriage. “You certainly played the part well this afternoon,” Tommy continued. “It was a heart-stopping performance. Literally.” Though the gentlest of teasing smiles played at his lips, anxiety flitted across his gaze. Mirroring Benedict’s own soul.

“Thank you,” Benedict acknowledged. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I thoroughly enjoyed myself. But now?” He glanced back to the Earl of Horton’s solid red door. “Bloody terrified.”

Benedict’s joy from his spectacular romp to victory had long fled.

Disquiet for the evening ahead manifested as a throbbing in his temples, twinned with a hard, cramping knot in his belly.

However, the sight of Tommy, elegant in full evening dress and fondly smiling at him, lessened his afflictions somewhat.

Benedict would give anything to hold him. Alas, his gaze alone would have to be enough, if only for these few minutes. To gain strength from him. To declare his love. Because who knew how tonight would end?

“Do you know what terrifies me the most?” Glancing around, checking they were alone, Benedict took a step closer.

“It’s about more than simply walking into that ballroom.

” He lowered his voice. “It’s…it’s never feeling the rest of my whole life how I felt as I made love to you in my bed at the lodge.

” Safe. Cherished . “I’m scared of my heart.

How it stops and starts, simply at the very sight of you. And losing that sight forever.”

A thousand emotions slid across Tommy’s dear face. How Benedict wanted to hold it between his hands and kiss every part of it.

“Benedict.”

That single word was answer enough. The rawness of it. The crack in Tommy’s voice. The way he dropped his head, shielding his eyes. How, with that single word, Benedict knew his love was returned without measure.

Tommy levelled his gaze. “Tonight, Benedict, you must know this,” he continued softly. “All night, it will beat in perfect rhythm with mine.”

*

“RARING TO GO , chaps?” Adjusting his top hat the minutest of angles, Rossingley waggled a gloved finger.

“Be prepared, Ashington, for every eventuality.” He raised a beautifully manicured eyebrow.

“I hear the ladies have been plotting. And I sense that Lady Isabella has an exceptional talent for taking simple plans and contriving to complicate them.”

Benedict’s neckcloth inched a little snugger. “Your senses do you credit. Have you been furnished with any clues?”

“More a list of instructions.” Lightly, Rossingley cleared his throat.

“If my memory serves me well, at this very moment, my dear Kit will—according to a rigid timetable—be spinning Lady Isabella like a top around the dance floor. Meanwhile, Lord Francis should be looking on in abject misery, whilst standing beside Lord Ludham, also in abject misery and, hopefully, not fighting an incipient crise cardiaque .”

He indicated to Tommy. “You, my darling, are to raise the stakes—and Lord Ludham’s blood pressure—by cruelly cutting in and demanding Lady Isabella take your arm.

During the waltz, Kit will rudely cut in on you, and so on and so forth, until Lord Ludham either spontaneously combusts or hurls his wayward daughter into Lord Francis’s waiting and open arms.”

Rossingley smiled his most criminal smile, displaying his two neat rows of small pointy teeth. “You must glower at Kit frequently and with menace, Tommy. Is your acting ability up to glaring at a rival whilst also wooing a lady?”

“It will be my most vexing role to date,” responded Tommy sourly. “The wooing part, at any rate. I’ve been wanting to throw daggers at your annoying lover for some time.”

“I do believe the feeling is mutual, darling.”

Relieved nothing was required of him, Benedict breathed an inaudible sigh. For all of three seconds.

“Ashington?” Rossingley waggled an elegant, gloved finger.

“My spies tell me Lord Lyndon and his chums are currently showing off their hollow legs over at Bootle’s but will be heading to the party any time in the next hour.

You are under strict orders to do whatever Beatrice and Mrs de Villiers command. ”

Almost as an afterthought, he added, “And watch out for Lady Wardholme. Your reputation as a rakehell has most certainly gathered wings and taken flight, darling. Allegedly, she is hankering after a piece of it and has a very strong arm.” His pale eyes glittered.

“My advice is to, under no circumstances, enter a discussion regarding home furnishings. It will not be what it seems.”

*

STREAMS OF DANCERS flowed in dizzying numbers around and around the dance floor like a swollen river, threatening to burst its banks.

The room smelled brackish, too, brimful of hot bodies and competing fragrances.

Wisps of steam spiralled above, condensing into drops of water on the too-low ceiling, then damply plopping back down onto unsuspecting heads.

Benedict felt as if he was suffocating. It seemed as if every single member of the ton was crammed inside the too-small ballroom.

A balcony leading to the outside ran the length of the room, with both sets of tall windows shut tight on account of the poor foxed chap who plummeted to his death a couple of years earlier.

As the first uncomfortable trickle of moisture snaked down Benedict’s spine and settled in an unmentionable area, he cursed his high collar, his evening coat, well insulated ballrooms, and the ton in general.

A footman thrust a welcome glass of wet something-or-other into his clammy palm, and he gulped it down before snatching a second. And only just in the nick of time. Not too dissimilar in size, like the prow of an ocean-going liner, Lady Wardholme’s ample bosom advanced on him.

“The minuet, Your Grace,” she boomed in a voice striking the room like a thunderclap. “I insist. Miss Gresham and Miss Caldicot vow that a girl floats in your strong embrace like no other.”

Benedict suspected sturdy Lady Wardholme would float about as elegantly as a brick. Sharply, he reminded himself he was a rake, at least for this final evening. His two snifters of something had begun working their magic and, with a brave smile, he took to the dance floor.

“There is mischief afoot tonight, Your Grace,” his stately partner declared. Her powerful fingers clamped around his upper arm.

“Is there?” he asked weakly, unsure whether he wanted to hear it. He had a feeling she’d inform him, nonetheless.

“Oh, yes.” She leaned in closer, affording Benedict an eyewatering whiff of lavender.

More bothersome, he found himself in the invidious position of either staring into her eyes, at the portion of her face below her eyes (where one unfortunate feature inexorably drew his eye), or down her cleavage.

As they sailed past the string quartet, he plumped for the latter, as any rake worthy of the name should.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, Your Grace, but on the other side of this room, it is blindingly obvious to everyone watching that Lady Isabella Knightley is in over her head with those two cryptic rogues and doesn’t know which way to turn.

The quill yearns for ink as the ink, alas, kisses the foolscap , as they say. ”

“Um…do they?”

Flummoxed, Benedict missed his footing, stubbing his toe.

As far as he was concerned, the other side of the room only contained more dancers, squashed together like flower stems wrapped in a tight bouquet.

One couldn’t have slid a sheet of foolscap between them, let alone a quill.

“I…um…and if you were to put a finer point on it?”

His dance partner was either suffering from an acute attack of ague bouts or quivering with excitement.

“A triangle amoureux has developed ,” she exclaimed, “between that flibbertigibbet Lady Isabella Knightley, the dashing Mr Angel, and mysterious Mr L’Esquire!

I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr Angel doesn’t challenge Mr L’Esquire to a duel before the night is out! ”

In a vain attempt to quell her obvious glee in the whole thing, she tutted. “Your poor, poor brother has the face of a raincloud, the dear chap. Not once did he imagine his childhood sweetheart would have her head turned so.” She threw him a cheerful smile. “And yet here we are!”

Lady Wardholme’s strong arm was not to be underestimated, and the claws around his bicep imperilled the blood supply to Benedict’s hand. Moreover, though happier skirting the edges of the dance floor, Benedict suddenly found himself thrust into the melee.

“It’s Lord Ludham and his darling wife I feel sorry for,” Lady Wardholme continued, her tone highly suggestive of the opposite. “If one of her suitors doesn’t offer his hand tonight, Lady Isabella might find herself at the centre of quite the disgrace.”

For the briefest of moments, she paused, but only to suck in a waspish breath before launching into the next chapter. “Although, I do believe another scandal might trump her this evening.”

“A-another?” Benedict’s insides twisted painfully. “Is…ah…?”

“Oh, yes.” Evidently about to betray a confidence, Lady Wardholme leaned even closer, serving as a reminder to Benedict that full-breasted ladies, or indeed, ladies, weren’t quite his thing.

“Apparently, something even more disreputable.

She pursed her lips in a futile attempt at disgust. “A distinguished male member of the ton is about to be exposed .”

At least on such a packed dance floor, Benedict couldn’t keel over. There was nowhere to keel. “Exposed?” he repeated unsteadily.

“Exposed,” she clarified. “Your Grace, are you quite well? I do believe you have segued into a cotillion step whilst we are still in the midst of a minuet.”

Benedict shook his head in a valiant effort to clear it.

There was a plan, he reminded himself. A great plan.

Falling in a panicky dead heap would be of no use to Francis and Isabella whatsoever.

And he was a duke. And a rake. With dear friends who cared for him.

And he had a lover worth more than life itself.

Bracing his shoulders, Benedict issued a firm, ducal stare.

“Forgive me, but I do not dwell on idle gossip, my lady.” And then, because, first and foremost, he was a rakehell, he mustered something he hoped approximated a debonair smile.

“How could I? When all your exquisite loveliness floats in my arms?”

“Oh, Your Grace, how right Miss Gresham was!” Lady Wardholme fluttered her lashes.

Benedict’s hand had turned numb and tingly in her strong grip.

“You make a girl feel quite giddy. Like an innocent debutante. Forgive my prattling. Let us talk instead of other things. Have you any preferences for wallpaper patterns? I am of a mind to refurnish my breakfast room.”

*

“HOT UNDER THE collar, Your Grace?”

“You have no idea.” Benedict sagged against a cool wall. “The sight of you, my dear Beatrice, is truly a balm for sore eyes.”

If Benedict weighed less, he would have enjoyed floating off in Beatrice’s sensible arms for a while.

Off and down the street, if at all possible.

Instead, he had to make do with allowing her to demurely curl her hand around one of his and lead him to the fresh air of the blessed balcony, wondrously open and miraculously empty.

“I have a key,” his companion explained as if being in possession of a key to someone else’s balcony doors, and seemingly the sole owner, was perfectly normal. Frankly, he lacked the strength to query it.

“From your flustered demeanour, I’ll wager Lady Wardholme began discussing wallpaper.” Beatrice nodded to herself as Benedict drooped against the wrought iron balcony rail. “You’re not the first.”

In sharp contrast to the dazzling chandeliers of the ballroom, inky blackness swathed the garden and the balcony.

Benedict blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted.

Then, realising the guests inside couldn’t see out, not unless they squished their aristocratic noses to the glass, he loosened his cravat and the top two buttons of his waistcoat.

“Apologies, Beatrice. But consider this lapse in decorum preferable to me dissolving in a puddle and then streaming out over the side. Those flower beds are a considerable distance beneath us.”

Beatrice waved him away. “Unbutton a couple more, Your Grace.” She wasn’t paying attention to him anyway, too busy studying the gallivanting on the other side of the glass.

“Decorum and I parted company years ago. As did a fascination with the male of the species. And anyhow, a dishevelled cravat is a marvellous touch of improvisation; I should have thought of it.”

Tearing herself away from the goings-on inside, Beatrice cast her gaze over him. “You don’t look quite the thing, Your Grace. Lady W didn’t take undesired liberties, did she? She has the most dreadful wandering fingers, according to Francis.”

“Lord, no.” Benedict shook his head. “Nothing like that. Just stiflingly hot, that’s all. And…and Lady Wardholme also hinted regarding Lyndon. Not by name, thank God. But it’s clear the ladies have caught the scent of something brewing in the air. In amongst the stale sweat.”

“Ah.” Beatrice nodded calmly and resumed watching the ballroom. “Yes. I see him. Lyndon’s just arrived with some chums. From the sway of his shoulders, he’s utterly spangled.”

“Oh joy.”

“He’s on his toes, craning his neck. Searching for you, I’ll be bound.” She stepped a pace back from the window, unperturbed. “Good. Now we simply wait here until the bell rings for dinner. I say, what lovely rhododendrons these are, growing up this back wall.”