Three Times the Scandal (24 page)

Gabriel’s blond hair shone in the hazy light. His skin was beyond pale, his blue eyes wide and lamp like. They were alike, he and Fortuna, Darleston thought.

The smaller man crumpled. The brute swung around leasing a bellow of outrage.

Seizing the moment, Gabriel kicked the third man in the cobs.

“
That’s it,” Darleston snarled as he side-stepped to avoid an incoming fist. Damnit the man wasn’t about to give in easily.

“
Stupid nob,” mumbled the giant, around his mouthful of broken, discoloured teeth. Up close he smelled like a fish market. “Didn’t have no fight with you. Ain’t wise to interfere in other folks’ business.”

“
Another step and I’ll send you to hell.” Darleston held his stick before him as a barrier.

“
Noakes!” The man whom Darleston had felled, groaned and eased himself unsteadily onto all fours. “That’s enough. No more trouble, mister. We’ve delivered the message.”

“
Indeed.”

Noakes didn’t seem quiet so convinced, while the ruffian Gabriel had unmanned gave the far end of the alleyway a longing look.

“
Run,” snapped Darleston, and rather surprisingly, they did. The smaller man tucked against Noakes’s considerably larger side. Only once he was certain their footsteps had faded into the distance, did Darleston lower his cane. “Are you all right?” he asked Gabriel.

Still pinned to the wall as if held by invisible captors, Gabriel nodded, then promptly vomited.

Darleston passed him a kerchief. “Let’s see you home. It’s not far, is it?”

“
Just the other end of this wretched alley.”

They made it to the doorstep without further incident. The thugs had clearly taken off to pickle their hurts with gin. It was slow progress to the Allenthorpes’s front door. Gabriel wheezed the whole distance and kept his arm wrapped tight across his stomach.

Hellish insanity seemed to envelope them once they reached the family home. Thankfully all of it focused upon Gabriel. Darleston extracted himself from the flurry of skirts and after relating the details of the attack to the nearest footman, hurried away down the steps.

“
Lord Darleston, wait!” One of the ladies came scampering down the steps onto the street after him. Miss Alicia, if he wasn’t mistaken, the hoyden who’d torn the covers from his brother’s bed. She was disarrayed herself on this occasion, dressed in a delicate pale gold evening gown, which was still partially unfastened. Her hair hung in disarray around her pretty oval face, the tresses still bound with rags.

“
Miss Allenthorpe.”

She offered him a grateful and rather disarming smile. “Can we not offer you something? You have just saved my brother’s life.”

“
Truly, there’s no need. I have business to attend.”

She smiled again, more nervously, this time, and glanced hesitantly back at the open doorway. “You know where my sister is, don’t you?” She raised her hand towards his lips when he went to respond. “No, please don’t reply. Don’t tell me. I should rather not know.” She licked her pink lips. “Just promise to keep her safe and away from here. Sir Hector ordered this, I know it, but none of us can help it if she can’t be found. Father’s made such a mess of everything.”

He doubted an eavesdropper would have made sense of her words. She was babbling. Emotions were clearly running high in her household. Sadly, he could make perfect sense of it, for it confirmed everything he and Giles had suspected.

“
I’ll do my best,” he replied, hoping that was an ambiguous enough a reply to reassure her without implying too much knowledge. “Are you in danger, Miss Allenthorpe?”

Startled, she stared at him, then shook her head. “Not yet. Not while my sister is free. He wants what she has. I don’t care if he ruins us. I hope he never gets it.”

Darleston kept his lips together and his face as expressionless as he could manage. So, the part about the Star of Fortune was true also. Perhaps it was time Fortuna learned the whole truth.

* * * * *

“
Good evening, milord. The master is in the drawing room,” Leach said as he helped Darleston shed his great coat in the hallway of Giles’s house. Formality usually meant one thing around here—Giles was engaged in something of which his manservant disapproved. Leach was a good man and turned a blind eye to all sorts, but had rather unshakable beliefs on decorum and how things ought to be.

“
I’ll show myself in,” Darleston announced. He saw no point in further rattling the man. He looked wrung out already.

Darleston paused before the drawing room door. Just being here recalled to him that first evening of Fortuna’s stay and how curious she’d been. It also reminded him that he hadn’t seen his wife since he’d jumped down from their carriage after the Mortons’ charity event.

With only a cursory knock, he swept into the room.

The heat hit him first, and left him sweating around the collar. The fire was banked up, the flames leaping half way up the chimney. He couldn’t see anybody at first. Then a figure darted before him—Fortuna, blindfolded and serenely naked.

Darleston simply stared at her. Impossibly long legs, garters clasped just above her knees, high small breasts with large softly erect nipples, and light-kissed golden curls covering her quim, all of which glowed in the candlelight. She’d make a perfect wood nymph.

It took him a moment longer to realize that both Giles and Neddy were also present, stood a little behind her. Though thankfully neither was in quite such dishabille. They froze on seeing him, though neither made any remark.

Fortuna walked straight into him. She gave a surprised squeak, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I have you,” she said, her smile broad enough to show her teeth.

* * * * *

Fortuna wasn’t entirely sure which of the two men she had. He smelled of musk and raindrops, and a faint trace of alcohol lingered upon his breath. Neddy, perhaps, but it didn’t really matter. Having spent several minutes swirling around blindfold, being touched and teased, tapped and caressed and disrobed, she was desperate for some firm physical contact. Her nipples were puckered tight and desperate for a touch, or better still, a mouth closed around them, and her puss felt deliciously ripe.

Yes, she thought gleefully, rubbing up against her captive. She dug her fingers into his firm rear, then danced back a step and trailed her fingers around his waist to the button fastening of his breeches. All his stomach muscles pulled tight as she slipped the ornately carved buttons open, then something else stiffened too. “I claim these,” she giggled, as she gave the breeches a tug.

The only response she earned was a very low groan.

He had drawers on beneath his breeches. She was fairly sure it was Neddy by now. Giles was thicker set around the hips. She found the cord that tied his drawers and tugged it coquettishly. “You owe me a kiss too, remember.”

His cock jumped as her hand made contact with the fiery column, and the faintest hiss escaped his lips.

Fortuna leaned closer, expectantly. She raised her hand to touch his face, her lips tingling in anticipation of the kiss, and a long strand of hair brushed the back of her hand.

“
Oh!” she gasped and tore off the blindfold. Too late! Darleston’s mouth sealed hard over hers, seizing, possessing. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, then a multitude of sensations swamped her at once. The heat of his body, the subtle musk of his scent, and while the kiss was aggressive, it was also curiously soft. She sank against his chest and let his actions consume her will. But he did not possess her. Instead he drew back, his pale grey eyes fixed intently upon her.

Too easily she knew she could lean in and demand more.

There was madness in this house of deceit and decadence, but it was a comforting sort of madness, this abandonment of sexual morals. She initiated their second kiss, demanded it of him, a deep, crazy, tangling of tongues and limbs.

Only with the dimmest outreaches of her brain was she aware of Neddy kicking the door shut and Giles closing in upon them. His loins pressed tight to her bottom. “Fortuna,” he whispered against her ear.

She felt his possessiveness like a wave of heat. He wouldn’t tear her away from Darleston, but clearly Lord Darleston’s possession of her provoked him in a way that Neddy’s didn’t. Possibly, he was simply mindful of Lucy’s threat, but she sensed it was more than that. Indeed when he whispered her name again, there was a hint of pain in his voice that made her turn away from Darleston and throw herself against Giles’s pure warmth instead.

Neddy joined their little huddle. “What are you doing here, brother? I thought you were keeping an eye on things.”

Lord Darleston fastened his breeches. “I was. However, it seems Macleane grows impatient for his bride. His hired thugs have just given Fortuna’s brother a good milling.”

Fortuna spun to face him. “They hurt Gabriel?”

“
Is he bad?” asked Giles.

“
Sir Hector has hurt him. Dear God! No! I have to go to him,” Fortuna blurted.

Darleston stroked his agile fingers down her cheek. “Gabriel is hurt, but not so badly that he won’t recover fairly quickly. Nor can you go, that’s exactly what Macleane wants. He hopes to draw you out.” He jerked his head so that his auburn ringlets flicked across his shoulders. “It’s time to tell her the truth, Giles. It’s unfair not to.”

“
What truth?” She hugged her arms to her chest, but even that couldn’t control the tremble that had taken hold of her body.

Giles grew ever more rigid against her back. “We’ve already discussed it. The Star of Fortune is real. Macleane knows that too.”

“
That’s only half the truth, Giles. Give her the rest of it,” Darleston said. Fortuna could barely keep her gaze off his angular face.

Giles’s breath whispered against the top of her head, but it was Neddy who spoke.

“
Your father is massively in debt to Macleane, Fortuna. He gambled the Star and wedding you to Macleane is the only way for him to deliver it.”

“
My father gambled the Star of Fortune,” she said tremulously.

“
I do not believe he knew its worth,” said Giles, his hands firmly reassuring against her upper arms.

“
And like all gamblers he likely didn’t envisage losing,” Lord Darleston added.

Fortuna shook her head. How could this be? But she didn’t doubt they were telling her the truth. All their faces were drawn. Giles’s jade-green eyes burned.

“
How can he gamble something that is not his? Surely that is illegal.”

“
In a sense, perhaps,” said Darleston. “But your father is a gentleman and gentlemen honour their debts. And while he may not technically own the Star of Fortune, he does own you, and can do with you as he sees fit.”

Fortuna spun, her hand raised to slap him, to bat away his hurtful words, but he spoke only the truth.

Darleston caught her wrist. “Striking me won’t change anything.” He released her and she turned to Giles, who opened his arms so that she could press herself to his chest.

The Star of Fortune had always been a curse. Hadn’t her mother always told her that it brought nothing but pain? Her godfather’s obsession for it had consumed and ruined him. Now it would cost her everything.

“
What will happen if my father does not give Sir Hector the Star of Fortune?” she asked.

All three men shook their heads. Darleston spoke: “Macleane won’t let this go. If he can’t have you, he’ll resort to other means to get his money, and he won’t stop until he sees your family ruined.”

“
Robert,” Giles pleaded.

“
She has to know, Giles.”

“
Why didn’t he tell me from the start?” she asked of her father. If she’d known, she’d have hated it, but she’d have married Macleane.

“
Embarrassment, probably.”

“
I’m damn sure I would be if I’d been that stupid,” said Neddy.

Head bowed, Fortuna starred at their feet and realized that she was having this conversation nude. Everything was wrong and she was naked. Even as embarrassment and remorse coloured her cheeks, she cast both aside. One more night… She’d allow herself that before she faced the inevitable. Tomorrow she’d return home and do her duty, save her family. Tonight, she’d forget propriety and restraint and shamelessly, selfishly indulge her need for love.

Visions of Sir Hector’s meaty hands pawing her swam before her eyes. She blinked them away, and grabbed Neddy by the hand. At the same time, she clove to Giles, rubbed her naked skin up against the soft pile of his evening clothes. She sought his lips, and kissed him hard.

“
Love me,” she whispered into his mouth. “Love me,” she repeated, against his ear. Her hands crept downwards and massaged the tightness of his flanks. Giles’s fingers dug into her arms when she dropped onto her knees before him and took his cock in her mouth.

The taste of him burned through her senses. Only the giving and receiving of pleasure mattered anymore. Everything was wrong except for this. She would remember this, one precious final memory, a final night of freedom and bliss.

Giles held her to him with a curious mixture of resistance and desperation. She tasted her own salty tears even as she tasted him, but she wouldn’t be stopped. Nothing would make her waste this precious last evening they had together. Tomorrow, she had to go home.