One Wicked Night (25 page)

“She shouldn’t,” Niles answered. “I stopped one of the thugs, and for a little coin he was willing to tell me that a ‘fancy gent’ paid to have this incident staged.”

Lucien’s eyes widened. Was this the break he needed to put Alastair away? “Really? Do they know his name? Have a description?”

“Unfortunately, no one saw his benefactor personally. But it has to be Marsden.”

“Of course,” Lucien answered. “But how can we prove it? The word of East End riffraff pointing the finger at an unnamed ‘fancy gent’ won’t do.”

Niles nodded. “The man also confessed they were instructed to stone your wife. To death.”

Shock rippled through Lucien’s already tumultuous emotions. “Christ, that’s crazy!”

“It’s bizarre but ingenious. And I would say that well describes the earl, my friend,” Niles answered. “Mob violence is a common, blameless crime. They cannot hang an entire crowd—and you can never prove he ordered it.”

Lucien voiced his agreement with an angry oath and decided to step up his efforts to lock Alastair in Newgate forever.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Lady Harcourt is here to see you and Lady Daneridge, my lord,” Holford announced.

Lucien glanced up from his glass of brandy and cast his gaze to the mantle clock. Eight p.m. Two hours above the time for an intimate to call. He found the observation less than reassuring.

“You may tell her my wife is sleeping, and we will call tomorrow.”

“He will tell me no such thing,” a slender, silver-haired woman asserted from the portal, dressed in a bright slash of blue. “Seeing a gentleman alone was scandalous in my day, too, but in light of the fact I am twice your age, I hardly think anyone will be appalled if we converse alone.”

Lucien bit back a reminder that ladies did not drink strong spirits and rose to fetch her a glassful. Clearly, she was much less inhibited than her granddaughter. Moments later, he set the snifter before her and sat. “As I said, Serena is asleep.”

“That’s just as well, young man. I spoke with her two days since, just after you were married. I should like to speak with you now.”

The smile slid off his face as he settled back against his chair, bracing himself for confrontation. “About our marriage, I presume?”

She nodded crisply. “If you’ll allow an old woman to meddle, could you not have waited three or four months, at least, before shoving the poor girl to the altar? A few weeks is hardly discreet.”

Direct and to the point. Lucien tossed back his own swallow of brandy. “Even one day alone in her house could have been too long since Marsden is trying to kill her.”

“He is tiresome, I agree. However, Serena could have hired someone to protect her until a more sufficient mourning period had passed.”

Since the lady preferred direct discussion, Lucien decided to respond in kind. He set his snifter aside and leaned forward. “Not to be indelicate, but your granddaughter is carrying my child. I was not willing to take any risks with her life or the babe’s. I should think you wouldn’t be, either.”

Serena’s grandmother sighed. “Serena
is
special to me, and I have long waited to hold her child close. But you have made Serena the talk of society, and that does not set well with her. Too reminiscent of her mother’s scandalous days.”

A reference to her mother again. What the hell did it mean? Not that her mother’s doings would have made any difference in his decision to marry. Still, the knowledge might provide insight. “Serena mentioned the woman, but I’m afraid I cannot recall her.”

Lady Harcourt brushed an imaginary speck of dust from her dress with a white-gloved hand. “My daughter, quite frankly, was spoiled. I granted Abigail too much freedom, I suppose. She demanded to be the center of attention, and would do anything to attract notice.” She sighed, grimace tight. “When Abby was a child, the penchant was merely annoying. As she grew and married, it became an embarrassment.”

Lucien frowned. “Forgive me, but how did flirting earn such a scandalous place in everyone’s eye?”

Serena’s grandmother cleared her throat. “She did much more than flirt, and she did so with every man who turned his head in her direction.”

He could see how Abigail’s cuckolded husband might be shocked, but the
ton
? “My lady, the behavior you have described hardly makes your daughter different than many of London’s ‘well-bred’ ladies.”

She fingered the lace at her sleeve. “But most of London’s well-bred ladies make a pretense of keeping their indiscretions a secret.”

A clearer picture developed for Lucien. A woman who loved a man’s attention. A woman who would stop at nothing to catch the notice of the gentleman she desired, and everyone around her.

A woman much like Ravenna.

He drummed his fingers against the arm of the sofa. “And based on her mother’s doings, Serena would prefer to keep her sins to herself?”

The older woman shook her silver head. “You misunderstand. Serena spent her most of her life in Sussex with her aunt, living in religious study. Quite contrary to her mother, she has no sins to hide. She never wanted any.”

He absorbed the information with a skeptical ear. “I hate to be crass, but it isn’t as if Serena accomplished the second immaculate conception.”

“Exactly! She horrified herself with her own behavior and has spent every moment since trying to repent and praying to avoid ugly gossip. Your untimely marriage has made her the very subject of scandalbroth. And the ugly whispers suggest that she must certainly be her mother’s daughter, in all respects.”

“But you do not base your ‘knowledge’ on my granddaughter at all,” she argued. “You, Lord Daneridge, are reflecting on your ex-wife’s ways, are you not?”

Lucien felt his stomach clench. “Ravenna has no bearing on this discussion.”

“Except to cloud your opinion,” she contradicted. “In truth, Serena spent three years in marriage to Warrington before she encountered you. That hardly makes her a light-skirt.”

“Nor does it make her pure. But as long as we are discussing Warrington, why did the man never bed Serena? Had he no interest?”

Shock flared across the older woman’s face, displayed by wide eyes and paling skin. She rose hastily. “If Serena has not told you herself, I should hardly be the one to impart such information.”

Dismayed by the woman’s retreat, Lucien stood. “Wait. Perhaps if I understood—”

“I have meddled far too much already, I suspect. I merely came today to ask that you keep her from the
ton’s
notice as much as possible until the scandal of your marriage has dwindled. Such would set her mind greatly at ease.”

With that, the diminutive woman was gone. Lucien sank down to the sofa once more, frowning. Everyone, it seemed, knew the truth behind Serena’s marriage to Warrington but him. Bloody hell.

And this bit about judging his current wife by the previous one’s behavior . . . perhaps so. But no matter how nicely Lady Harcourt phrased it, her granddaughter
had
committed adultery. It was possible that Serena had inherited more of her mother’s blood than Lady Harcourt wanted to admit.

True, Serena seemed to dislike the gossip swirling about her, but the woman also possessed the capacity for explosive passion beneath that proper surface. He vowed to experience her sensuality again, the erotic curl of her fingers against his skin, the aphrodisiac of her moans, before someone else did.

He took another swallow of brandy, admitting that he was not willing to share his wife with another man. Not this time. If Serena needed fulfillment, then by damned, he would be the man to give it to her. Today, if possible.

And if he had to seduce her again, so be it.

****

An hour later, Serena closed the study door softly behind her and crossed the room. She felt rested, but no more refreshed. Silently, she seated herself on a settee to await a dinner she did not really want, but resolved to eat for the baby’s sake. Her mind wandered back to her violent humiliation of the other morning, caused by her three-day marriage.

Her social stigma was Lucien’s fault. If he had not forced this marriage, she would still be at Grosvenor Square in proper mourning. As her pregnancy progressed, people would have commented how sad it was that Cyrus had died before the birth of his child. She would have been an object of sympathy, not vicious gossip. Now, thanks to Lucien, the
ton
would only wonder at her child’s parentage once they discovered she had conceived.

So why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? About his smile, the power of his presence, his touch . . .

Chastising herself, Serena dropped her gaze to a Chinese marble-topped table before her. On it sat a chessboard, its pieces also made of marble in majestic black and white. She fingered the rook, remembering fondly her matches with Cyrus.

She missed his logical mind and his understanding. No doubt if he were here, she could explain all her troubles to him. He would present her with some perfectly rational course of action.

She grasped the rook in her palm and clutched it to her chest. But then if he were here, she would not be married to Lucien and suffering the
ton’s
wagging tongues—and her own irrational desire to touch the man who had ruined her reputation.

“Do you play?”

Serena gasped at the unexpected voice and turned to find Lucien standing in the open doorway, resplendent in a dark green coat. Why did the man always have to look as handsome as a fallen angel? “I did not hear you come in.”

Hearing the smile in his voice, Serena once again brought her gaze to her husband’s face. The upturned corners of his mouth matched his tone. She felt herself smile just a bit in return. “Cyrus always won. The man was a genius. I never stood a chance.”

“You never won? Not even once?” he baited.

“Once,” she answered, feeling her smile widen. “But Cyrus was unusually foxed, for which I scolded him, but I do not suppose it truly counts as a victory on my part.”

“Nonsense. A victory is a victory. If he inflicted such a liability upon himself, it was no fault of yours.” He crossed the room and sat in the chair opposite her sofa. “How do you match up with others?”

Lucien pursed his lips together in thought. She found her gaze drawn to his mouth. Full and firm, his lips brought back a score of memories of their night of passion. His kiss and the rasp of his tongue against her breasts; she remembered each in vivid detail, despite the fact she had tried repeatedly to exorcize them. Now, as before, the mere sight of him, coupled with those powerful memories, started a coil of heat and need in the pit of her stomach.

Flushed with both guilt and desire, Serena looked away while Lucien spent several minutes debating his next move. But her gaze wandered back to him, this time to his long fingers stroking the square firmness of his clean-shaven chin in thought. He’d focused intently on her, too. His concentration brought forth another flood of memories centered on his caresses, of his hands pleasuring her body, both outside and deep within.