Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
“ Y es, he was handsome, but he was a Baron and a merchandiser with a small fleet,” Eliza sniffed scornfully over her tea. “As admirable as that is, I had hoped for the company of another marquess last night. Alice, could you be a dear and please tell your suitor that someone of better rank would be more favorable to me.”
Appalled—and decisively sickened—Alice glared at her cousin. “Beg your pardon?”
“The friend Lord Brampton sent to be my partner last night,” Eliza wrinkled her nose, oblivious to the state Alice was in. “He is a decent fellow, do not misunderstand me, but he is not the sort of lord I imagine to marry me. Surely someone as I am, so extraordinarily accomplished in the realms of art, music, and languages, would find a better suitor.”
Penelope’s derisive snort was covered with a timely cough, “You can barely remember a French phrase, rather, any French at all, and you have a very tenuous grasp on Spanish.”
“Matters not,” Eliza waved her hand. “I deserve better than a Baron.”
Staring at her plate, Penelope said, “I would have liked to have someone glance at me last night the way he did for you. You danced the night away, Elizabeth, with a man who looked at you as if you hung the moon. Why can’t you accept that? I had no one.”
The broken tone her sister spoke in had Alice’s heart twisting with sympathy and compassion, but such a nuance flew right over Eliza’s head. “You might do well with a Baron, I suppose. He is just not the right fit for me.”
Alice had enough, “Oh, for God’s sake, how selfish and entitled can you be? Lord Brampton went through all the trouble of securing you a possible suitor and you throw his efforts back in his face with nary a thank you,” she snapped. “How can you not see outside of yourself for one minute?”
Eliza looked as if she’d been slapped. “Why are you angry at me?”
“Because you are blind to the fortune in front of you.”
“What fortune? Can you be specific?”
Alice pinned her cousin with a blunt cool gaze. “How many suitors have you had in the past three or four years, and you have turned them down simply because they were not a rich, titled lord who could give you all the material possessions you require?
“Some of them were even willing to turn a blind eye to how nauseatingly spoiled you are in hopes you would look at them with an ounce of care or an emotion that surpasses greed or vanity.” The words Alice had penned behind her heart suddenly came streaming out.
“You’ve been blessed to have both your parents with you, you have never found yourself without a roof over your head, or without a shilling to your name. Not like us, not like Penelope and me, so for god's sake, stop your whining .”
Eliza looked struck through with a thunderbolt, her eyes wide and trembling, her face white with shock. Soon enough, her eyes narrowed. “Is that it then? You have found yourself a marquess and you want to keep him to yourself .”
“…Is that all you took from it?” Alice asked, stumped by her cousin’s self-absorbed delusion. When had she mentioned Benedict? “Nothing else ?”
“I see how it is,” Eliza fixed her bonnet. She sniffed. “You feel you are better than me.”
As Alice made to answer, Penelope lurched from her seat and rushed away, forcing Alice to run after her. She found her sister in the commode, hurling the contents of her stomach into a chamber pot. Worried, she held her sister’s hair up and rubbed her back while whispering soothing words in her ear.
“What happened?” Alice whispered.
“I—” she paused to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand while perspiration breaded on her brow. “I don’t know. My stomach has not been feeling well lately.”
“How far would you describe as lately?” Alice’s worry began to ramp up. “Days… weeks perhaps?”
“Six days now,” Penelope replied.
The incident with Rutledge is thirty-one days now.
Heart clenching, she whispered, “When was the last time you had your courses?”
Resting her cheek on the cold wall, Penelope breathed, “I should have seen them four days ago.”
Fear tunneled through Alice—a horse bolting away from a carriage. She could never utter the words, but they reverberated through her head anyway. Penelope was not married. She was unwed. And she was possibly pregnant.
Now, it was more imperative than anything that she made Rutledge marry her. Otherwise, Penelope would be shamed and ostracized from society and would fade away into obscurity. The happy, positive girl she had known from birth would never be the same again.
“It's all right,” Alice found a glass on the counter, filled it with water, and handed it to her sister. “You will be all right. I’ll make sure of it.”
“How?” Penelope croaked, tears now brimming at the corner of her eyes. “How can you fix my mistake?”
While doing her best to comfort her sister, Alice could only reply, “I will get him to honor you and not run away from his responsibilities. I have help too.”
“From whom?” Penelope asked.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Alice redirected her. “I will make it right.”
With one hand holding fast on the rail of his yacht, William brushed a fresh spray of briny seawater from his face as he stared out at the endless sea; if he squinted, he could see the Isle of Wight. It was there where he would find Rutledge in a private boating club owned by Duke Renford.
When he had purchased the yacht, while simply ninety feet, the man from the HMS Navy told him the ship, once a Royal Yacht twenty years ago, had been used in the French Revolution. Pirates had commanded it for three years after the Dardanelles operation, and then the HMS army had recovered it and decommissioned it.
His turquoise waistcoat mirrored the depths of the Solent as the ship cut through the waves with the speed of a schooner. His trimmed hair curled at the ends in the dampness, and he tucked a lock behind his ear.
Will this move, by enforcing his debt, push Rutledge to do the right thing?
He shifted back and forth on his feet, unsure if his tactic this time was going to work. The journey would take a half-hour at least, so he left the deck to his personal chambers below.
“Other than putting a flintlock to his head, the blackmail is the only chance I have to get him to honor that girl,” Edward muttered while flicking a look to the wide four-poster nailed into a corner of the room.
Rich red velvet drapes were tied back with black tassels on either side, while the plain sheets and the mountain of pillows pulled an errant imagination from him.
What I would give to have her here…
He could see Alice’s flaxen hair strewn across the dark cotton, the light from the window across the bed falling gently on her beautiful face and sparkling eyes.
He’d flatten his palm against her throat, run it in a straight path down between her heaving breasts, over her delicate rib cage and her silken belly. He’d cup her quim— just hold her there, relishing her lushness, the way she arched to his touch.
“Mine,” he’d whisper. “All of this. All of you.”
Shaking his head vigorously, as if he could physically shake the inappropriate thoughts out of his mind, Edward moved to the dark desk dominating much of the cabin and slid the papers to the edge.
A note from the man who held all Rutledge’s vowels was not much of a threat, was it? But then again, Hamlet Grimes was the king of the rookeries and stews, with eyes on every corner and fingers in every pocket, not to mention knives at every throat.
It could help—or it could send Rutledge on the run. He did not know which way the cards would fall, but he had to try.
“Your Grace,” Jones, a trusted footman he’d carried with him, knocked on the half-open door. “We are about to make port.”
His brow cocked up, “That was quicker than I had imagined.”
“The wind was on our side, Sir,” Jones replied with a bow.
Reaching for his jacket, great coat, and hat, Edward grasped a lions-head walking stick as well. After tucking the documents inside his jacket, he headed up to the deck. The port was approaching and his eyes lifted to the rocky crags to the east. Up above the cliff, he saw the terra-cotta roof of the house where he was heading.
Finally, the docks came into view, and he felt a certain amount of tension tightening his chest. With the boat moored, he stepped onto the jetty and made his way up the ramp and to the railed gangway, then headed west of the docks where his hired carriage should be waiting.
The sounds of chattering seagulls echoed through the air and the salt-tinged air made him want to sneeze. He made his way along the narrow walkway of the railed dock with boats bobbing on the water, absorbing the wild energy of the sea.
Just beyond the dockmaster’s house, and behind it, was his carriage. Jones went to speak with the driver first, then opened the door as he entered.
Here to the second salvo.
The boating club was an early Georgian mansion, from 1715 he believed, now turned into a clubhouse; its grey-colored brick and ash wood walls stood out against the line of trees surrounding the two-story building. Tall columns of cream-colored marble rose up to Corinthian capitals where they met the painted ceiling.
Doffing his hat and cloak to the footman at the door, he asked, “Where are the lords this afternoon?”
“In King Henry the Eighth's parlor, Your Grace,” the footman bowed.
Nodding, he strode through the extensive foyer and up to the levels above, bypassing a corridor of seascape paintings, padded down the Aubusson runner, and entered the parlor to the left. The parlor was as gaudy and overdone as what he’d imagined the inside of Windsor Castle would look like.
Everything inside it was shimmering with gold or brass gilt; there were gold thread tapestries and wall hangings, chairs covered with velvet and sarsenet with animal furs, sable and mink thrown over the backs of them.
“Good god, my eyes are already starting to hurt,” he grunted.
His gaze swept over the lords milling around, drinking in groups of three or four, when he spotted Felton casually talking to Rutledge. The man could have easily merged with the wallpaper behind him as his jacket and waistcoat were so richly embroidered, but if one looked closely, it was faded, and the threads were pulling.
“Duke Valhaven,” Rutledge flashed a tight smile. “How nice to see you. I am surprised to see you twice this month. Please tell, what is causing you to be so visible lately?”
“ You .” Edward did not have the patience—nor the time—to beat around the bush. “We need to talk, now.”
The smile did not slip off Rutledge’s face, but it turned brittle. “A moment ago, you looked amenable, now your tone sounded, well, murderous. Are you going to finish what you started with the pistol at the hunting party, Your Grace?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Edward’s tone was icy. “Now, follow me.”
“And if I do not?” Rutledge’s voice grew edgy.
Felton warned, “I do not think it is in your best interest to disobey his order, Rutledge.”
Seeing that he was outnumbered, Rutledge fixed his jaw and nodded; Edward turned on his heel and strode out to an empty room down the corridor.
Closing the door with his heel, Edward said, “I have spoken to you about the young woman you ruined, Miss Penelope, and clearly you have decided to just leave her as a notch on your bedpost. I will not have that.”
A muscle jumped in Rutledge’s jaw. “What matter is it of yours what I do in the bedchamber?”
“Usually? Nothing. But not when it involves an innocent woman who fell for your lies,” Edward snapped. “Have you no conscience man? Is there any scrap of morality left in that foul cesspool of depravity?”
Face mottling, Rutledge jammed a finger into Edward’s chest, “How rich is it for you to chastise me about my tastes when rumors about your predilection are still immortalized in the ton’s memory?”
“That might be true, but tell me one recount of me using an innocent girl?” Edward baited him. When no answer came forward, he lifted his top lip in disgust. “That is what I thought. Now, you have two options, marry that girl for a year, or every scrap of possessions you have will belong to me, including that club.”
The Viscount paled. “What do you mean?”
Plucking the papers from his jacket, he handed them over. “I know your creditor, Rutledge, the man who keeps bailing your boat while it keeps sinking.
“Grimes was exceptionally welcome to accept my proposal to buy your properties at a mark above value or even better, to gut you like a fish when you default on his payments. If , however, you do marry the girl, you shall have a year's stay before you pay him back; enough time to make some smart investments, I’d say,” Edward said calmly. “You choose.”
“You spoke with Grimes,” Rutledge went ashy.
“I have.”
Taking the letters, the indolent rake read them over, his face going bloodless by every breath and his fingers trembling to the point he almost ripped the paper in half.
“I know you are half a million pounds in debt, Rutledge,” Edward pressed. “Just do the right thing and save your life.”
Intense consideration crossed Rutledge’s face, and the very moment Edward thought he had found the upper hand, Rutledge sneered. “I see what this is. A pathetic attempt to curry favor with the chit’s sister that your brother is courting. I will not fall for it, nor will I be marrying her just to divorce.”
Forcing himself not to grind his back molars to the root, Edward calmly said, “No morality then.”
Rutledge let the papers flutter to the ground before he ground his heel into one of them and stalked out, leaving Edward to suck in a long, low breath before sagging on the wall behind him.
The checkmate he’d been sure was in his grasp now crumbled before his face. What was there more to do?
A hand rested on his arm and Edward met Felton’s sympathetic gaze, “If it is any consolation, I thought you had him there.”
“So did I,” he said. “But now, I have no idea where to pivot.”
“You could get him drunk and take him to an altar,” Felton offered humoredly. “I know a priest you can use.”
Despite the gravity of the moment, Edward laughed, albeit bitterly. “I’ll consider that as the last resort.”