Heartless (4 page)

“Of all the…” the duke muttered. First, he had to marry to get a fortune that rightfully belonged to him and now that certain someone who was trying to kill him had struck yet again. “The devil!”

“Are you quite well?” his wife asked suddenly, ripping him back to the present.

He glowered at her bespectacled face. “Yes,” he growled as he swung himself up onto the seat next to her.

The girl nodded in apparent satisfaction. “Why have you no valet, your grace?” she asked, eyebrows raised in avid curiosity.

“What the devil do I need one of those whiny, sniveling creatures for? Bleeding milksops, all,” he muttered as he urged his perfectly matched blacks into motion. Personal servants knew a man’s every secret, he reminded himself.

“Perhaps you should try for a little calm, Lord Derringer,” she suggested, her mild tone having the opposite effect.

He pulled back on the reins, bringing the horses to a standstill. They had yet to leave the innyard and he saw they were drawing a crowd of curious onlookers. He didn’t care.

“And what good,
wife
, will calm do me, hmm?” he inquired silkily. “I have not the least reason to restrain my temper and no Friday-faced shrew of a wife is going to convince me otherwise!”

Leandra stared at her husband with rising indignation and dismay. He really was as devilish as his black garb suggested. This was not a very promising start for their married life.

“You are behaving like a child, your grace,” she retorted with the same unruffled calm she’d endeavored to display every moment since she had met him.

The duke’s mouth dropped open. He made as if to say something, snapped his mouth shut, and gave the horses the office to start moving. The first ten minutes of their journey was accomplished in silence. Leandra used the time to study her husband with unabashed curiosity.

His facial features were really too harsh for actual handsomeness but she was sure that he was very popular with the ladies despite his looks. The thought of her husband in the arms of some other lady caused a strange stirring of disquiet in her stomach. She didn’t want to imagine any such thing but she was nearly positive that he had a mistress tucked away somewhere.

“Do you have a mistress, your grace?” she asked with a benign look. She met his gaze, one brow tilted slightly.

“Pardon me?” His wife’s candor was going to be a constant trial, he suspected. “That is not a topic for gently bred females,” he snapped. Perhaps he should have married a woman who had at least heard of him. She’d not have the courage to talk back.

“You are a one to talk about propriety,” his wife scoffed. “Besides, illegitimacy is not a topic suitable for drawing room conversation and yet that’s precisely what I am.”

“That has nothing to do with my mistress,” he snapped. Really, why did the chit want to know something like that?

“Very well, your grace,” she returned equably. “I will desist from questioning you about her. Perhaps I will meet her one day,” she mused.

“Over my dead body,” Derringer muttered.

“Oh, never say such a thing, your grace!” Leandra exclaimed with feigned horror. “I would hate to see you die just so I could meet your light-o’-love.”

Derringer’s eyes narrowed. His bride of only a few hours gazed back with wide-eyed concern, but he thought a twinkle of mirth lurked behind her thick spectacles.

“Why do you wear those ugly things?” he grumbled.

“What ugly things?”

He pointed his whip at her face and nodded.

“My spectacles, sir?” She laughed delightedly, a dimple peeking out of her left cheek. “I can’t see without them, your grace.”

“But they’re ugly,” the duke insisted stubbornly.

“What is that to the point?” she asked with a twinkle. “It is not as if my own looks will be improved overmuch with their swift removal. And I find I much prefer to be able to see where we are going and where we’ve been.”

Derringer looked around at the boring pastureland through which they were currently passing and wondered if perhaps she needed stronger lenses in her spectacles. He glanced at her again and was a trifle disconcerted to realize she watched him very closely. He frowned at her. She smiled back.

He went on the attack as he always did when he felt cornered. He let his dark eyes slide over her insolently until her smile disappeared and she flushed. How he managed this and kept his team on the road had everything to do his exceptional skill as a first rate whip.

With just the right amount of contempt in his deep voice, Derringer inquired, “And the ugly bonnet and cloak? I noticed your dress is about as becoming as a flour sack. If you were raised as Harwood’s daughter I would have thought he would dress you as such.”

Leandra experienced more hurt by his slur on her father than his assessment of her appearance. She knew she was a drab goose compared to the beautiful swans her new husband was probably used to in Society, but he implied that her father didn’t love her enough to outfit her properly. It brought tears to her eyes.

Damming the torrents that threatened to destroy her carefully maintained composure, Leandra replied, “I was told to leave my pretty frocks behind, your grace. The countess would not allow me to take anything given to me by my papa.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Not even the locket with his picture and my mama’s. It is the only thing I had that showed how he loved my mama.” Her voice broke pitifully and she turned away from the duke lest he think she was trying to win sympathy from him.

Derringer felt like the beastly cad he was. He’d not intended to make her cry. And she was trying to hide it from him. He
was
an unfeeling cad, though, and it was best she learn that early on in the marriage lest her expectations be raised. He ignored her until she regained her poise and sat like a statue beside him. Guilt pricked his conscience. He’d had no business dragging an innocent girl into his bumblebroth.

But what did he care? He really was the heartless knave Society had dubbed him. Lord Heartless, he thought with mocking contempt. How apt. And he was about to prove to himself once and for all that he had no conscience, that he didn’t care, and that he was the worthless creature that his father had told him he was.

Leandra’s first view of her new home was misleading. She beheld the outer wall of Derringer Crescent, a medieval-inspired castle complete with crenelated towers, rat-infested dungeons, and Gothic arches. The wall that surrounded the keep and the living areas of the estate was actually in good repair. The edifice sat on a high cliff complete with crashing waves below and phenomenal views above, like something from an Ann Radcliffe novel. Or
Northanger Abbey
, Leandra’s personal favorite by Jane Austen.

Her mouth formed an O of amazement as the portcullis was raised at a shout from the duke. It creaked and shook as it went up and the carriage went under the great spikes that lined the bottom of the contraption. She gazed around her eagerly and her rapt expression faded as if it had never been.

The front gardens were a disgrace. Tangled vines and weeds ran riot. The statues that were meant to be various sprites and goddesses of Greek and Roman mythology were so decayed as to be unrecognizable. It was late autumn but it appeared that the garden wouldn’t look much better in the warmer parts of the year either.

She glanced at her husband from the corner of her eye and noticed his rather pained expression. How much time did he actually spend at the Crescent? He looked as if he was as disappointed as she.

A groom scurried out from behind the castle and took charge of the horses. Leandra looked up at the high walls and released a dismayed sigh. He expected her to live here? The walls were covered with ivy and lichen to the point that the gray of the stone was nearly invisible and many of the windows were blocked, allowing no light to enter.

Derringer looked down at the diminutive female at his side. She looked up at him in that moment, hazel eyes filled with sympathy. He tried to smile but found it impossible to do so. He had to leave her here, too. He couldn’t accomplish the many things he had set in motion with a wife riding his coattails.

“Come,” he ordered, holding out his hand. Her fingers wrapped around his. Her lack of hesitation sent a strange, warm sensation up his arm, a sensation he couldn’t name. She smiled up at him with what he assumed was encouragement. Did she realize he’d been from home for some time? She was proving to be a very observant young miss.

That could be a problem.

And she was his wife. The thought seemed to slam him in the stomach, robbing him of breath. Good God, he was married!

The Starks met them in the Great Hall. He gazed around, sharp eyes missing little. At least the interior of the castle was presentable. But why should he care when he was just going to abandon his new bride anyway?

“What do you think?” he asked in low tones that were unnecessary since his voice echoed around the vast area regardless.

“It’s…interesting,” Leandra offered with a grimace. Suits of armor lined the walls of the Great Hall, above which hung various weapons and instruments of torture and destruction. She shuddered at the barbarity of the décor, but at the same time, she thought it suited her husband’s volatile temperament.

“I can tell you hate it,” the duke mocked. “But get used to it, my dear, for this is where you stay.”

Stark cleared his throat and bowed. “Welcome home, your grace,” he solemnly intoned.

Mrs. Stark, the housekeeper, smiled uncertainly at Leandra and curtsied to her employer. “Your room is in readiness, your grace.” She sent an inquiring look to Mr. Stark.

Derringer knew what they were thinking. He had brought home mistresses before although it hadn’t been for a few years now, having spent most of the last two years in France and on another of his estates. He almost laughed to think that they would believe he would be interested in such a little colorless wren like his wife. A mocking little voice in his head informed him that he was indeed interested in his colorless little wren of a wife. He ignored it.

“Is there anything else?” he demanded, just to make them squirm. He’d known the Starks since he was in leading strings and he knew they were the only people in his employ who had no fear of dismissal. They knew the real Hartley St. Clair, third Duke of Derringer, but they still squirmed when he was upset or used the tone of voice he used in that moment.

“Will you be requiring anything in particular, your grace?” the butler asked with a pointed look at Leandra.

“Such as...?” Derringer asked, brow knitting with feigned incomprehension.

“Master Hart,” Mrs. Stark said reprovingly. Derringer fancied she would stamp her foot if she were not old enough to be his grandmother.

He favored the old woman with a sweet smile. Leandra sucked in a breath, startled beyond belief that her harsh husband could appear so... so... normal, charming even.

“Oh,” the duke said, dark brows raising in what could only be surprise—real or feigned, Leandra couldn’t tell, “you mean her? She’s my wife.” Then he walked away and left Leandra to deal with the dumbfounded servants.