Heartless (3 page)

“The countess is alive and well. My mother, however, died nearly one-and-twenty years ago.”

She was a bastard. Perfect, Derringer thought with a certain amount of glee. That should set Grimsby on his ear. The wealthy, powerful, and handsome Duke of Derringer throwing his life away on a penniless bastard would give that milksop something to fret about. Marvelous!

“You sound like a gentlewoman,” he remarked lazily.

“I was raised in my father’s house. I was sent to Miss Forester’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies when the time came and given every benefit of a daughter of the house. Then Papa died and his wife threw me out after the will was not found. Everything of Papa’s went to his son, the new earl.” All this was said in the most prosaic, matter-of-fact tone Derringer had ever heard.

Her voice changed subtly as she continued. It might have gone unnoticed by anyone but him. “I was told he left nothing for me but I refuse to believe my father would not take care of me. We were very close and he assured me I would always be taken care of, that I need never fear poverty. Well,” she shrugged fatalistically.

“And you had no one else to turn to when you found yourself in straitened circumstances?”

She hesitated. “I first went into the village to see my beau, Mr. Hubbard,” she confessed, a shade of reluctance coloring her tone while an embarrassed pink colored her round cheeks. “He had heard about the lack of will and let me know that he was no longer interested in marrying me. But he was more than willing to give me a much different position.” She shook her head and shrugged. “So now I am alone and apparently at your mercy, sir.”

“So you are,” he agreed with an assessing look, uncomfortably surprised at his sudden desire to tear Mr. Hubbard limb from limb. “Marry me.”

Leandra dropped her fork. It clattered onto her plate and her eyes flew up to stare at the crazy man sitting across from her. “Are you daft, sir?” she asked with her normal candor. “I mean, are you an escaped Bedlamite?”

She didn’t give him a chance to reply. “You are kind, sir. I thank you for the meal and the sympathetic ear, but you needn’t feel that such desperate means are called for in helping me. I’m certain you like to help people, but marriage? Is that not going much too far, my lord? I assume you are a lord of some sort based on the landlord’s attitude but perhaps you are escaped from your keeper? I mean, even lords can lose their minds. The newspapers overflow with such stories...” Her voice drifted to silence.

He didn’t smile, but she didn’t expect him too, either. He just gave her that same blank look that he had been giving her since the first time she had seen him. It was a probing look that made her uneasy. As if he was trying to read her mind.

“I assure you, I am not mad nor do I jest,” he said in a tone that supported his avowal. Then, with a look that was almost amused, he admitted, “And helping people is not something I am known to do.”

“I don’t even know who you are. Everything about you suggests that you are a peer. Yet, you know I am baseborn and you still ask me to marry you. Why?”

He shrugged one broad shoulder and then unashamedly contradicted what he had told her no more than a few seconds earlier. “You need help; I need a wife. It sounds like a fair exchange to me.”

Leandra’s eyes widened. The gentleman was very handsome in a non-fashionable way, very elegant…and very dark. Everything about him was dark. He wore a black cloak over a black jacket, a black shirt, and black buckskins with black topboots. Even his cravat was black. His gloves, tossed on the table beside his plate, were black leather. His black hair was worn long and tied back with a black velvet ribbon. His eyes were black and his skin was tanned dark. She wondered a trifle breathlessly if his handkerchief and smallclothes were black as well. He quirked a black brow at her even as she assessed his appearance.

“Do I pass muster on a purely physical level?” he asked, voice tinged with sarcasm.

“Do you have a black horse?” Leandra heard herself asking before she could stop herself.

A sharp bark of laughter escaped him. “As a matter of fact, I have several black horses as well as a black cat and a black dog.”

“Oh, my,” she murmured.

Silence.

“Are you going to marry me or not? I have no time to persuade you to change your mind,” he said as he tired of the novelty of baiting someone new. He was sick of the inn, sick of being stranded, and sick of her odd silence.

She thought quickly. He could be one of those depraved lunatics that preyed on young defenseless women. Or he could be sincere in his need for a wife. Leandra wondered how many more times an opportunity like this would come her way. She stared into the gentleman’s eyes, looking for…something.

And then she saw it. It flashed through his dark eyes and she actually saw it. He was human after all, she thought with satisfaction. She saw a glimmer of uncertainty in his gaze.

“I have one question, sir,” she said determinedly. “You have not mentioned whether you need an heir.”

Derringer gave her a benign look. “I will eventually. I see no reason to force you to do anything you find distasteful,” he added dryly.

She blushed. “I did not mean to imply that I find you distasteful, sir,” she replied, thinking quite the opposite. “I merely wondered if you wanted a true marriage or one in name only. You do not know me after all and I would be very much surprised should you find me in the least attractive.”

She met his gaze squarely and had not the least bit of self-pity on her round face. She appeared…accepting.

“Truly?” was all Derringer drawled in reply to her self-deprecating comment. He could have told her that there was something about her that attracted him like a fly to honey. He remained silent on that score and allowed her to think what she would. “Are you accepting my proposal, then?”

Leandra took a deep breath. “Yes.”

Springs tapped on the door, not allowing the duke any time to actually be surprised at her relatively easy capitulation. He snapped distractedly at the landlord to enter.

The slimy little man bowed low and said obsequiously, “The blacksmith is ‘ere, yer grace. Shall I send ‘im in?”

“No, I will take him to my curricle myself in a moment. Leave.” The man was gone before the command had fully left Derringer’s mouth.

“Your grace?” Leandra whispered. “Oh, dear God.”

“Did I not mention I hold a dukedom?” he asked far too innocently.

“No,” Leandra breathed, feeling just a trifle put out and more than a little unsure of herself. “I’m sure the fact just slipped your mind,
your grace
.”

“Do not be a shrew,” Derringer remarked, his own nerves frayed to the breaking point from his hectic day. He stood to take his leave.

She inhaled, the movement swelling her chest and drawing his grace’s eye to her not insignificant bosom. Ignoring his ungentlemanly reaction, she asked, “Which dukedom do you hold?”

“Derringer.”

He stared at her as if expecting some sort of reaction but all she could do was stare back. She’d never heard of the Duke of Derringer.

He straightened, his fingers tightening around his black gloves. “My mother’s cousin is a bishop. I’ll see him tonight about a special license. We’ll marry tomorrow.”

He was a wee bit irked that she didn’t seem to know who he was. Everyone knew of the Duke of Derringer. He was infamous and feared throughout the kingdom. Where had she been that she’d not even made the connection that he was Lord Heartless?

“Tonight? Tomorrow?” she sputtered. “How is that possible?”

“I have to marry by the twenty-ninth, my dear. We will marry tomorrow just to make sure everything is legal and legitimate. And cousin Horace has been after me to marry this age so getting the license will not be difficult to obtain. I am a duke with connections, after all.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. She stiffened her spine. “Very well, your grace. We shall marry tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll arrange a room for you tonight. We’ll marry from here and I will escort you to the Crescent after the wedding.” He walked to the door and turned the knob. Then he paused and turned back to the young woman at the table.

“By the way, what is your name?”

2

Leandra Merrily Harcourt married the third Duke of Derringer one early morning in late October. Shivers threatened to send her to the floor, the enormity of what she’d just done closing in on her. She knew so little about this man she now called husband.

The local vicar ended the ceremony. Leandra barely managed a full breath when the duke suddenly pulled her against his tall form and pressed his lips to hers. Shocked gasps came from the vicar and his curate.

For Leandra, time slowed. The embrace shocked her as much as their audience but for a very different reason. This man she’d known for mere hours manhandled her and she felt...excitement. She gasped and he released her with a mocking grin.

“Thank you, vicar,” the duke said as he escorted Leandra from the room. He tossed a few gold coins at the man as payment for services rendered and then handed the curate several pound notes as a donation to the church. “I have money to spare now,” he said carelessly to Leandra’s questioning look. “Thanks to you, wife.”

His voice held a note of something that made Leandra shiver uneasily. Oh, Lord, what had she done?

She knew exactly what she’d intended.  She had leapt at the chance to become somebody’s—anybody’s—wife. Seduced by his manner, all ease and power, she’d craved the same feeling. She wanted to be able to act in any way she pleased without fear or threat. The penniless bastard daughter of a deceased earl had very little actual freedom.

Derringer settled his wife into his repaired curricle. He pondered the conversation he’d had with the blacksmith just moments ago.

“Been cut, yer grace,” the large man said confidently.

“What the devil do you mean it’s ‘been cut?’”

The blacksmith didn’t even blink at the duke’s anger. “That there wheel’s been cut, yer grace, sawed near through. I would say as ‘ow someone ain’t wishful of yer safe return.”