Heartless (15 page)

She approached the man and his pets. “Why do you name them so?” she asked with a gesture toward the horses. She had been wondering since she had first come to live at the Crescent.

Derringer smiled. “An affinity with the Dark Prince?” he quipped. “It was an act of rebellion. It helped that they are so black, too.” He pointed at the dog that now lay at his feet and the black cat that had just joined them. “Have you met Cerberus and Beelzebub?”

“Not properly,” she replied with a twinkle. She stooped down to pet the dog and cat who were more than happy to let her. After a few moments of this, she looked up to find the duke’s black eyes trained on her. She couldn’t read the emotion there but it set her heart to beating erratically.

“They don’t like anyone,” he commented. “That’s why I like them. Do you ride?”

“I have enjoyed a few good gallops on Lady. I hope you don’t mind.”

“She didn’t throw you?”

Leandra gave her husband a puzzled frown. “No, why should she? I do know how to ride.”

“She—”

“Doesn’t like anyone,” finished Leandra dryly. “Are all your animals like their master, your grace?”

“No,” he said harshly. “They all seem to like you.”

Leandra didn’t give him the hurt look he had expected. The look she gave him was blank, completely and totally devoid of any expression or emotion. He even searched her eyes but they were equally blank behind her spectacles. She gave him this steady look for a full ten seconds before turning on her heel and walking away with her head held high.

She was twenty feet away before he realized that her eyes had been brown and the gold flecks had disappeared. What that meant, he was unsure. But he was sure that he didn’t want to see it again.

“Tell his grace that I am indisposed and will be unable to join him for dinner,” Leandra instructed Stark as she entered the house and headed in the direction of her room. “If my family goes in to dinner, apologize to them as well.”

The butler bowed and watched her walk away with a concerned frown marring his normally expressionless face.

Leandra dismissed Liza as soon as she entered her dressing room. She slowly unbuttoned her pelisse and carefully removed it, laying it across a chair back for Liza to take care of later. Then she removed her gloves and shoes, laying them neatly by the chair as well. She unwound the ribbon from her hair and shook her head slightly causing the dark brown tresses to bounce around her head and over her shoulders. Her head hurt and she needed no extra stress upon it.

The duchess sat down before the mirror at her dressing table and stared at her reflection. She refused to think. She couldn’t think. If she thought about it now, she would cry and that she refused to do. She would not shed any tears over a man who was so… so…

She tried to understand. He was a very disturbed man. He had been a duke since he was seven years old. He was placed in a position of responsibility at a very young age and further imposed upon by his family who sought to rule through him. He was unsure how to act around someone who showed that they cared. He was untrained in proper behavior. He felt unloved and unimportant. He had no reason to be polite. He was a duke.

He was rude and unfeeling and without a shred of sensibility!

Of all the things he had ever said to her, his words of moments ago had been the most hurtful. Leandra had been able to brush off all his other disparaging comments about her appearance, her actions, and her serenity, but he actually admitted that he did not like her.

Choking back the tears stinging her eyes, she tried to swallow around the growing lump in her throat. But even the strongest woman will cry at some point in her life. And Leandra was not the strongest woman. She was just as sensitive as any other member of her sex even if she was sometimes better able to hide it.

The girl in the mirror stared back at her with an expression of such sadness in her golden brown eyes that Leandra clapped a hand over her mouth to hold back a sob that refused to be stifled. Tears bubbled up in her eyes and spilled over, under the wire rims of her spectacles, down her cheeks, across her hand to land with a quiet plop on the dressing table. Several more followed the first and soon she was sobbing with her eyes tightly closed and her fists pressed against her lips.

She didn’t realize Michaella had entered the room until that young lady knelt beside her chair and wrapped her arms around her murmuring nonsense in her ear. Leandra hugged her sister tightly and cried her heart out into her shoulder.

When the sobs finally ceased, Michaella stood and after patting Leandra gently on the shoulder, said, “I will ring for Liza, dearest, and have her bring a pot of tea.”

Leandra silently nodded, wiping her face with the lavender dampened square of muslin that her sister had handed her. She realized her hair was a mess and patted at it ineffectually for a moment before giving it up as a lost cause. Liza would have to brush it and re-style it. The door opened and she heard Michaella say something to Liza. The door closed again and Leandra sat still waiting for her sister to return to her.

But it wasn’t Michaella who came to stand beside her chair. She looked down at glossy black boots connected to black pantaloons connected to a black waistcoat and an equally black jacket. She knew the shirt and cravat would be black along with the eyes and hair.

“What do you want?” she whispered. “I would have thought you would be happy enough to avoid the company of one you so dislike.” Her voice sounded petulant, childish, and she bitterly cursed herself for revealing how his words had hurt her.

Dragging another chair forward, the duke sat down and gave her a steady look. “Don’t whine, Merri, it ill becomes you.”

“Get out.”

“I will not. This is my house. I admit I should not have said what I did. But that does not mean I will tolerate being ordered around in my own house by my wife.”

“Get out,” she repeated stubbornly.

Derringer leaned forward and placed one finger beneath her chin, forcing her to look at him. She glared through her spectacles like an avenging fury.

“We have gotten off to a bad start, I think,” sighed the duke. He released her chin and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what I have to tell you will not help matters, I am afraid.”

Leandra stared at him. She blinked once, twice, and a third time before a tear appeared on her lashes and another slipped down her cheek. She dashed it away furiously and continued to glare at him.

Her tears had a strange affect on the duke. He stared at her helplessly and hoped that she would stop before he gave in to his desire to hold her.

“Merri, please don’t cry,” he finally begged when two more tears fell from her glorious eyes. He reached out to her but she backed away as if he had the plague. The hurt he felt at her reaction knifed through him, stunning him. Why should he care what this plain little girl thought of him?

Derringer stood and took two steps away from his wife. “I only came here to ask you something. Well, a few things, in all honesty.”

He paused and rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he looked at his silently weeping wife. He couldn’t talk to her when she was in this state. A sudden idea lit in his brain and he only cringed slightly at the ruthlessness of it. That feeling alone alarmed him enough to make his words sound sincere.

“If you would kindly stop blubbering like an infant, I will reveal what I came here to tell you and then leave you be,” he snapped.

11

His cruelty had the desired effect. Her head snapped up, tears drying and eyes blazing. She pursed her lips and crossed her arms, and waited for him to continue.

Derringer grimaced. “That’s better, I think.” He resumed his seat. “First, how well are you acquainted with your brother’s activities?”

Leandra started, her anger dissolving into confusion. “Harwood? Why?”

“I wondered if you could tell me what he might be doing in France. Has he business interests, or personal interests there? Perhaps a family member resides there? A mistress? Something equally innocuous?”

He watched the changing expressions on her face. He knew by the confusion and unease that she knew something but not everything. So he waited.

Leandra stared at him in some consternation. She knew Harwood had the habit of jaunting off to France at odd times, usually in the company of his friend Mr. D’Arcy. She had never cared for the Frenchman and so had avoided him whenever he came to visit. Her father had distrusted him as well but believed that his son would not get involved in anything untoward and so allowed them to come and go as they pleased.

And now Derringer wanted to know about Harwood’s activities in France?

When she gave him a suspicious look, he told her sharply, “It is important that I know, Leandra. His association with a certain Frenchman is not in any way innocent and I have to know why the devil they were on the continent the same time I was.”

“Fraser D’Arcy,” she said.

“You do know something about it, then,” he said with a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment.

“I know my brother and Mr. D’Arcy were often in each other’s company but I am unsure where they chose to go. It could have been any number of places but I suppose France is a logical assumption.”

Derringer stood and paced about the small chamber. “But how did D’Arcy get into England in the first place?” he wondered aloud. “That frog should not have been able to get anywhere near these shores. Did you ever have words with D’Arcy?”

“Only once or twice,” she replied. “I never cared for the man and so avoided him.”

“Good girl,” the duke murmured almost to himself. Leandra wondered at his sudden preoccupation.

“Were you in France, your grace?”

Derringer stopped pacing and looked down at Leandra. “Are you still vexed with me then?” he asked with more curiosity than anything.

“I can’t answer that with a simple yes or no,” she remarked.

Her serenity has been restored at least,
he thought. “Must you insist on ‘your gracing’ me?”