A Dangerous Love (23 page)

He grinned. Griff looked a sight—half-dressed, rumpled, and as angry as a charger with a wasp under its saddle. Daniel could hardly keep from laughing in his face. Served the selfish bastard right to have his plans torn asunder. He hoped that fire-eating spinster dragged Griff into an early grave, her and her
accommodating
nature.

“I am
not
jealous!” Griff hissed. “I’m only appalled that—Damn it, how dare you accept that proposal of hers when you know you’re lying about your identity!”

“Me? I’m just carrying on
your
lies. I gave you the chance to tell her everything, but you didn’t take it.”

“I couldn’t do that!”

“No, I s’pose not. If you told the truth, the Swanlea Spinsters would discover they’ve been clutching an asp to their bosoms all this time.” Daniel raised an eyebrow. “Though from the way you and Lady Rosalind look, my guess is that m’lady clutched
your
asp to
her
bosom all afternoon. Or p’raps you even got your asp inside her. Mustn’t have been too satisfying for the wench, if it sent her running to me.”

Stripping off his coat, Griff stalked grimly toward him. “You goddamned son of a bitch whoreson, I’ll break your damned jaw for talking about her like that—”

“You can try.” Daniel removed his own coat and waistcoat and stood his ground with fists drawn. There’d be no talking sense to the bloody fool until Griff vented his spleen. Besides, Daniel was spoiling for a fight himself. He’d had enough of Griff’s sly tactics. “Go on, hit me. It’ll be worth it to see which one of us Lady Rosalind fusses over when we show up at dinner with our faces bashed in. Not to mention what her da will think when I ask for her hand this evening.”

Griff halted but adopted a fighting stance, clearly so furious the idiot needed all his control to keep from tearing out Daniel’s heart with his bare hands.

“But I’m sure you’ll think of some clanker to tell them,” Daniel taunted, “since you’re so bloody good at lying. You wouldn’t want to reveal the real reason you fought me—that you’re so jealous you can’t stand to think of Lady Rosalind touching me, much less offering to marry me.” He lowered his voice. “And that you’re such a cork-brained arse you won’t marry her yourself.”

Griff’s fist shot out so quick that, even watching for it, Daniel narrowly missed ducking. With a bel
low, Griff launched himself at Daniel, knocking them both to the floor. Then they were rolling across the expensive rug, pummeling each other with fists. Griff landed a cracking facer to Daniel’s unguarded jaw that Daniel answered with a hard punch to Griff’s belly.

Griff’s grunt of pain was music to his ears. Christ, but he hadn’t enjoyed anything so much since the old days, when they used to siphon off the hot blood of youth with a good tavern brawl. Nothing like a fistfight to knock sense into a man, and if anybody needed sense knocked into him, it was Griff.

They were well matched: Daniel had size while Griff had speed and got in more blows. But Daniel’s scrapping had been bred deep and honed early, so he took punishment well, like the great lumbering lout that he was.

Several punches later, however, Daniel realized Griff had something in his favor that overtook Daniel’s talents by a furlong: his jealousy. The older man’s rage kept him pounding away at Daniel like a bloody blacksmith at his anvil long after Daniel’s enthusiasm for the fight had waned and he’d fallen back on defensive moves only.

By the time Griff wore out his fury enough so Daniel could shove free, Daniel was cursing himself for ten kinds of a fool. He was getting too old for this, he thought as he staggered away from the reeling Griff. Next time he needed to knock sense into the blackguard, he’d hit him in the head with a brick, for Christ’s sake, and finish it quickly.

They stumbled to opposite ends of the room, clawing breath into their lungs as they faced each other. With satisfaction, Daniel noted the blood trickling from Griff’s split lip and the great bruise rising up on his thick noggin. Daniel straightened, then groaned as his own bruised muscles protested the motion.

Rubbing his aching shoulder, he glanced about the room. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Books scattered hither and yon, the rug streaked with blood and sweat, chairs shoved aside and the plaque with the Swanlea crest tilted sideways. He scowled at Griff, then winced when even that hurt. “Looks like you got more expenses to lay to your account with the old earl. Between this and the wedding expenses, the affair may cost you an entire day’s profits at Knighton Trading.”

“Very funny,” Griff grumbled as he wiped blood off his face with the cuff of his grimy shirt. “There won’t be any damned wedding expenses, and you know it, you fool Irishman.”

Daniel chuckled. He always knew Griff’s hot temper had spent itself when the swears grew milder.

Stumbling to a chair, Griff dropped heavily into it. “Why the hell did you tell her you’d marry her? What were you thinking, for the love of God?”

Daniel stood swaying, preferring not to stretch his aching muscles by sitting down just yet. “I was thinking I didn’t have much choice. What was I s’posed to do? Refuse her? That would get back to her da, and he’d demand I choose one of the others. You haven’t found your bloody document yet, have you?”

Griff grunted in answer.

“Besides, I only did what you told me to do. ‘Court them,’ you said. ‘Entertain them and distract them,’ you said. I remember it clear as day. ‘Do whatever you must to keep them out of my way.’ Well, offering to marry her damned well covers all of those.”

“Yes, but she’ll think you meant it.” Casting Daniel a foul look, Griff threw his head back against the chair. Then he groaned and leaned forward again, rubbing at the back of his skull where Daniel had knocked him hard earlier. “Haven’t you ever
heard of breach of promise, Daniel? Mr. Knighton offered to marry her, but you’re not Mr. Knighton. We’ll be skinned alive in court.”

“You’re such an arse, y’know that? The last thing Swanlea will worry about after we leave is some bloody breach of promise. He’ll be too busy fighting your assault on his title and his property, not to mention trying to stay alive long enough to get his daughters settled in a cheap cottage in Stratford.”

The quick flash of guilt over Griff’s features gave Daniel great satisfaction. Maybe the idiot had a conscience after all, buried somewhere beneath all his ambition. Gingerly, Daniel made his way to an overturned chair and righted it, then lowered himself onto the hard seat.

“Besides,” he went on, “I can’t see Lady Rosalind going after a man for breach of promise, can you? And certainly not one she dislikes so much she’s happy to send him off nightly to his mistress and his whores. No, she only wants the marriage to keep Swan Park in the family, and since she can’t even do that once you find those papers, she’ll most likely be relieved not to have to marry me
or
you.” He settled back against the chair. “Especially since the real Mr. Knighton called her a harlot to her face.”

Wincing, Griff sank low into his chair. “That was a stupid thing to do.”

“I’ll say so. You’re lucky she didn’t have a knife in her hand, or you might be missing your ‘asp’ now.”

Griff shook his head. “I could have handled a physical attack; what she did was worse. I hate seeing a woman cry as it is, but with
that
damnable female…” He wearily scrubbed his hands over his face. “She never does it softly—oh, no. None of those discreet tears and delicate sniffs for the Amazon. When she decides to cry, she damned well puts everything into it.”

“Then you’ve seen her cry before,” Daniel commented slyly.

Griff stiffened. “What makes you say that? You think I go around making women cry?”

“You said, ‘she never does it softly.’ Which means you must have seen her do it more than the one time.”

Staring past him, Griff shrugged. “So what if I did? Apparently I have a certain…talent for making Rosalind cry.”

“That’s not likely to help you win the girl.”

“Win the girl?” Griff snorted. “Surely you don’t think that I—”

“I do indeed. It’s plain as day you want her, and not just in your bed, either.”

“That’s absurd,” Griff muttered.

Daniel raised an eyebrow. “Is it? A man doesn’t insult a woman so bitterly unless something powerful is driving him. You don’t hate her, that’s for sure. And the way you were letting jealousy ride you—”

“Stop saying it was jealousy, for the love of God! I merely wanted to prevent her from putting you in a difficult position.”

“Yes, your concern for me was evident at every moment,” Daniel quipped.

Griff scowled at him. “How could I be jealous of myself? It was me she set out to marry, you know. You just happened to be wearing my name at the moment.”

“P’raps. Or p’raps she disliked you making advances to her and decided to protect herself by throwing in her lot with a bigger, handsomer chap.” When Griff shot up in the chair looking wild-eyed again, Daniel broke into loud laughter. “Look at yourself, you fool. That wench has you twisted into knots.”

Griff slumped back into the chair. “If she does, it’s with unrelieved lust. I haven’t had a woman in
a while, she’s available, and she’s…interesting. That’s all it is.”

“You’re a bloody liar, you are.”

“That’s the trouble with you Irishmen. You’re too sentimental about women. You confuse simple lust with a deeper emotion.”

Daniel bit back a smile. If Griff couldn’t see what he felt for the woman, Daniel sure as hell wouldn’t convince him of it. Though he’d enjoy watching the man squirm over it. “So you haven’t bedded her yet.”

There was a slight hesitation. Then Griff said, “No.” He added gruffly, “Though not for lack of wanting to. But I draw the line at seducing virgins.”

“Good to know you draw the line somewhere,” Daniel said dryly.

With a black scowl, Griff levered himself out of his chair. “At least I’m not deceiving the woman, leading her to think I intend to marry her. I’m not making any false promises. That was your idea.”

Daniel wondered if he should tell Griff his suspicion—that Lady Rosalind didn’t plan to marry anybody. The woman’s eagerness to send him back to London had been too bloody obvious.

“It’s curious how Lady Rosalind changed her mind about all this,” Daniel remarked. “I thought she told you she didn’t want to marry to save Swan Park.”

“Yes, but that was before.”

“Before what?”

He raked his hand through his already disheveled hair. “Damn it, I don’t know. Today she said something about…realizing how serious Juliet was. She’s marrying you to save Juliet from doing so. Apparently, she’s convinced that Mr. Knighton will marry one of them for certain, so she’d rather it was her than her sister.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea. That woman doesn’t think like anyone else on God’s green earth. She says she won’t let Juliet marry you…me…Knighton. Perhaps she really does want to save the estate, and all her other claims were just a lie. I certainly would never have expected her to offer you what she did today.”

“Me, neither.” No, Lady Rosalind didn’t intend to save the estate or even save her sister, despite what Griff thought. She was the fighting sort, not the sacrificing sort, and he suspected this was her new weapon.

Griff didn’t seem to realize it, however. As Daniel watched, Griff limped to where his coat lay half-trampled, then picked it up and shook it out. No, the fool didn’t know the first thing about women. His experiences were limited to ordering his quiet mother about and bedding the occasional whore or merchant’s wife. These days his ambitions gave him little enough time even for that.

Daniel, on the other hand, had come to his ambitions late, having started his fund only a few years ago after a lifetime of reckless living. Daniel had been only seventeen when he’d met the twenty-one-year-old Griff. Even then, Griff had possessed the good breeding, sharp mind, and will necessary to reach his grand dreams. Daniel, however, had simply thanked his good fortune he’d found a generous employer who appreciated his peculiar talents. As fast as he’d gotten his pay, he’d spent it, mostly on whoring in the East End.

After many a night with the light-skirts, however, he’d learned a bit about how the fair sex thought. That was the secret behind his appeal to women. Oh, Griff could give them compliments and quote Shakespeare, but Daniel knew what they wanted. Well, what
most
women wanted, at any rate. A
woman like cool Lady Helena—whose beauty excited him even while her manner annoyed him—was still a holy mystery.

But a straightforward woman like Lady Rosalind was easy to read. She was plotting mutiny—he could tell. Just like he could tell she wanted Griff. The air fairly crackled between the two.

Should he tell Griff his suspicions? He folded his hands over his belly and considered the fool, who was righting chairs and restoring books to shelves while cursing under his breath.

No, Daniel didn’t think he would. Things had come too easy to Griff in the past few years—success, money, even respect. He wasn’t accepted in the highest levels of society, but who cared? Griff had come further in ten years than some men came in a lifetime, but did he realize his good fortune? No. All he could think about was gaining everything he saw as his due, no matter who it hurt or what he had to do to get it.

But Lady Rosalind’s proposal had thrown a large rock in the man’s mill works, and Daniel would make the arse take it seriously. Daniel had a few rocks of his own to throw, besides.

“In any case,” Daniel remarked, “we can turn this situation with Lady Rosalind to your advantage.”

“How do you figure that?” Before Daniel could answer, Griff added, “If you’re thinking of using this engagement to get the certificate from her father, you can forget it. His letter was clear on that point. I receive my proof on the wedding day and not before.”

“I wasn’t thinking about your bloody proof,” he snapped, then caught himself when Griff glanced curiously at him. “Not about getting it from Swanlea anyway. But now that Lady Rosalind is my fiancée, I’ve got every reason to keep her busy while you’re searching.”