Chapter 3
Three
My dearest Lady Drake,
I have found myself unable to fulfill the promise I made to you seven years ago. Unfortunately, our plan to bring young Iseabail together with the Duke of Ross has been thwarted by my failing heart. In this endeavor, I have enlisted my solicitor, Mr. Forrester, to bring an alternate plan to fruition. I will, however, require your assistance to see to Iseabail and Nashford’s future happiness—if not together, then irrevocably bound by my heir. Here’s what I require …
Yours sincerely,
Nithesdale
—A letter from Edward Charles Hancock, 6th Duke of Nithesdale, to Lady Phoebe Drake, December 1810
N ashford Harding, Duke of Ross, was bored beyond measure. The tedium was expected. The constant parade of matchmaking mamas and title-seeking widows was enough to make a man never leave his home. Except they’d probably start seeking him out there if he avoided such events as his cousin’s engagement ball.
“Did you hear, Your Grace?” A familiar feminine voice whispered in his ear.
“You know I avoid gossip, Lady Drake.” He wanted to avoid her. She was becoming downright irritating with her pursuit this evening.
“But this tidbit will interest you.”
Nash seriously doubted it. Lady Drake had been attempting to corner him since his arrival, and the last thing he wanted was to entangle himself in an affair. He wasn’t in the mood. He wanted to offer his felicitations and be gone.
The day had ended with another failure. The thirteenth Bow Street runner he’d hired in the past eight years had delivered a devastating blow, and now he had to figure out what he was going to do next. Should he give up the hunt and accept that he had committed a heinous wrong against six innocent girls? Or should he continue this losing quest which had consumed his life for far too long?
Lady Drake moved closer and he glanced down from his perusal of the ballroom to eye the woman rubbing her breasts against his arm. He had never engaged in a dalliance with the enchanting widow before, if she weren’t Nithesdale’s mistress … he would find the coy curve of her lips intoxicating. The tip of her tongue wetting her full pink lips mesmerizing. He would definitely see the amount of flesh she exposed at her neckline as more than a soft place to rest his weary head.
But she was Nithesdale’s mistress, the man who had mentored him into manhood and the dukedom the way a father should have. Their bond was more special than any other in Nash’s life. No, Lady Drake’s twin pillows did nothing but make him want to take a nap. He needed sleep, not a fickle widow in his bed. According to his mother, he also needed to find himself a wife—God help him. He shouldn’t be here. He should go to his club, toss back a few drinks, and find his bed.
Alone.
His search for the Blair girls had run its course. His latest runner had given him so much hope to finally right the wrong of his past, not to mention his father’s evil deeds. The lead to their locations had blossomed into hope, then certainty and then poof. Nothing. The leads had proven as false as his congratulatory remarks to his cousin on his upcoming nuptials.
Damnation. The runner had been reporting for months that he was close, only to report this evening that he had been following the wrong family. How many bloody Scottish families had six girls with no boys?
Nash ignored Lady Drake’s flirtation as she continued to run her gloved hand down his bicep. “Nithesdale married his whore.”
Despite his lack of interest, Nash found himself the slightest bit intrigued. Nithesdale was married? After all these years of bachelorhood, Nithesdale had married without a word of warning? A duke shocking society with such a blatant lack of concern for propriety was unheard of, but then it was Nithesdale’s actual mistress telling him Nithesdale married a whore. Scandal meet scandal.
The Duke of Nithesdale made a habit of raising eyebrows throughout society. For years the Ton had gossiped about his two unidentified bastards whom they claimed Nithesdale planned to introduce to the Ton one at a time. Even Nash didn’t know their identities, but now to marry some ladybird and not Lady Drake, it was as if Nithesdale was telling society he was opening the gates of hell for all the single bachelors to follow him into the den of iniquity. What Lady Drake suggested wasn’t done by anyone—not even Nithesdale.
He shouldn’t encourage her gossip, yet he had to ask. “Why would Nithesdale marry a whore?”
“Oh, it’s not any whore. It’s his ward. Imagine …” She fluttered her eyelashes in invitation. “A former ward—now a duchess. He’s kept her hidden at one of his country estates for the past eight years.”
The hairs at the back of his neck stood on end at the depravity of the statement, yet he still found himself defending the old scoundrel. “I’ve never known Nithesdale to care for anything but the most experienced bed partners.” Nash had, after all, lost his virginity at one of Nithesdale’s infamous house parties. Nithesdale’s parties were not for the faint of heart, nor were the ladies of the Ton who attended them. That had all been before Lady Drake. Since then, Nithesdale had been a veritable saint.
Lady Drake chuckled and swatted him with her fan. “This one comes from good stock,” she purred, as her hand glided down his hip and progressed to his thigh.
Good Lord, the woman was becoming more brazen by the moment. Nash took a step to his left to put some distance between them, and let his gaze return to the room at hand. He should probably call it a night and head for his townhome. Alone.
But Lady Drake wasn’t finished. “I’m sure her mother is rolling over in her grave. Her father,” she shrugged. “Well, if he were alive, he would probably cheer his darling daughter on for her expertise at climbing. She’s a chip off the old block, with a bit of blue blood to entice any lord.”
It wasn’t just the hairs on his neck that stood on end with that declaration. His entire body stiffened with apprehension. The story sounded all too familiar, and his gut lurched as if he’d consumed an entire bottle of whisky.
“Nithesdale wouldn’t.” Would he? Especially not after Nash had asked for the older man’s assistance in locating the girls who had disappeared from Urquhart Castle without a trace. He’d tried and failed to put these particular sins of his father’s, and his, to rights. It’d been eight years since he’d returned to London determined to find a way out of the mess with Urquhart Castle. The last thing he’d wanted to be involved with was the eviction of six orphaned girls. Their father’s passing had exposed them to the harsh realities of life, thanks to his former solicitor stepping in and taking absolutely everything they owned, on top of their good names.
And Nash knew what it was like to be bastard-born. He may have enjoyed the riches his own father had bestowed upon him, but he’d never felt the loving touch of a doting parent. His mother blamed him for her banishment to the country. His father wanted nothing to do with the child that reminded him of the way his duchess had cuckolded him.
Yet his father’s best friend, Edward Hancock, Duke of Nithesdale, knew the truth, and had always treated him as if he was his father’s true heir. Stepping in with advice when a father should have, but hadn’t. It had been Nithesdale to whom he’d turned in his formative years—the same man he’d sought out to assist in the Urquhart debacle. From puberty to Parliament, he had always turned to Nithesdale for advice. Unlike his father, Nithesdale cared about people. He was a man of his word. A man Nash could trust.
Yet Nithesdale had been best friends with his father, who had been an odious human being. Could the two men have had more in common than Nash had realized?
“Who is the chit?”
Nithesdale’s former lover nearly cooed as she grabbed Nash’s arm and pulled him down to whisper in his ear, her warm breath chilling his blood. “His country home has been his playground with Iseabail Blair, or would it be Isabel Sinclair? I’m not certain, since her parents’ marriage may as well have been a performance in Covent Garden. Would she have her mother’s surname, or her father’s?”
Now he knew it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He had been to Nithesdale’s country home at the end of last season for a hunting party. There had been a few women present, but none had been in residence upon his arrival, and Nithesdale had not engaged in any relations. Nor had Nash.
Before calling out the lie for what it was, he decided to bait Lady Drake a bit further to irrefutably disprove her unseemly gossip and put it to bed—where most lies of the Ton started. He took a sip of his drink not tasting a bit of the expensive champagne being served. “His country home in Wales?” he asked.
Phoebe’s hands began to roam on his person. “Oh, no. Nithesdale’s kept this one to himself in Scotland.”
He frowned. This rumor would be a bit harder to dispel. “Caerlaverock?”
“Yes, have you been there?”
He gave a noncommittal, “Mmmm,” as he downed the remainder of his drink.
Eight years? A young girl on the cusp of adulthood. It couldn’t be true, could it? Had he incorrectly read the character of the only man he’d viewed as a father figure? And if he had, that meant he’d committed a more grievous act against Iseabail Blair than what he’d previously believed. This error had led a depraved Nithesdale right to her doorstep.
He remembered the young girl like it was yesterday. Her flaming hair curled around her face, while hatred burned in her eyes. In his nightmares, he imagined her as she walked the streets of Edinburgh in filthy, tattered clothing hanging on her scrawny, starved body as she promised to do every manner of disgusting act in order to feed her sisters. Though he had no idea where the Blair sisters were, the reoccurring dream shredded his slumber night after night.
Lady Drake had to be wrong. Nithesdale wasn’t virtuous, but he wasn’t a cad, either. Granted he never married, and although Nash had thought it odd for a Duke not to desire an heir, he’d never questioned Nithesdale’s reasons.
He should have questioned it, dammit, but it had been Nithesdale who’d taught him to ride, hunt, box, and drink. Nithesdale who’d introduced him to his club. Nithesdale who’d assisted Nash in righting too many wrongs his father had meted out onto others. Countless heirs, who had gambled and lost to his father, had been given back their hope for a future, all thanks to Nithesdale’s philanthropic endeavors to get them back on their feet financially. Nithesdale’s actions hadn’t been for personal profit, but rather for the betterment of England and the people who depended on those estates for their livelihoods. Together, he and Nithesdale had taught countless men of the Ton how to manage their estates wisely. In turn, those men had helped their families, their servants, and the tradesmen who worked for them.
Lady Drake continued her attempts to shock him. Her re-telling of the story of the ward’s training nearly gutted him . “On her twentieth birthday, he introduced her to a life of sin.” She looked around the room and then pulled him into an alcove for more privacy. He knew how it would look, but at this point, he didn’t care.
“I actually took part in her downfall.” She waited for this bit of news to sink in.
“You did what?” He couldn’t stop the incredulity from seeping into his voice.
Lady Drake rolled her eyes. “As you well know, we widows have needs.” Her hand reached for his cock, but he side-stepped the maneuver. Her smile returned as if she thought she could persuade him to change his mind. Not a chance in hell after that last confession.
“Nithesdale asked me to touch her in a manner no woman should touch another.”
He scowled and put distance between them when Lady Drake ran her hand across his chest and brushed the tip of his nipple, but she was not to be put off. “I pleasured her and taught her how to pleasure another. We became lovers, and then I allowed the Duke to watch us together in the bath, on the bed, even on the lawn of his estate.”
Her voice became breathy as if she were there at this moment. It was unseemly, yet he couldn’t walk away.
“She was seduced into our den of pleasure, but it didn’t end there, because the Duke is a man who not only enjoys watching, but wanted more, as all men do. I became the tutor once more and showed young Iseabail the ways of seducing a man.” She moved in closer. Leaning forward to whisper a juicy bit of gossip in his ear. “The Duke found her to be a very good pupil, and the innocent became the whore … for no one but the Duke … and me, of course.”
God, the way Lady Drake related the tale made the whisky in his gut ignite in a fierce firestorm ready to explode . It couldn’t be. Guilt and anger amassed and he wasn’t sure he could suppress it. I’ll kill the bastard.
Lady Drake laughed. “Kill who, darling?”
He had no idea he had spoken aloud.
“Nithesdale? Now wouldn’t that be the biggest scandal to hit the Ton in a decade. A duke dueling a duke over a whore. Come, I will ease your jealousy with something special. Perhaps you would like one of my maids to join us tonight? Will that make you feel better? To train your own little whore?”
The disgust he felt for himself and Nithesdale compounded with Lady Drake’s suggestion. Only a wicked woman would subject another in her service to such treatment in the name of her own pleasure. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d ever thought this woman appealing.
“You are mistaken, Lady Drake. I don’t wish any unwilling miss, compelled or otherwise, in my bed. If you’ll excuse me.” He attempted to pull away, but Lady Drake would have none of it.
“Darling,” she simpered. “You should have said you’d like a ruined duchess in your bed. Why don’t we visit the newlyweds together. It will make for a very entertaining and cozy house party.”
Nash froze. His gaze returning to the woman attached to his arm. “What did you say?”
“You and I could take my carriage to Caerlaverock. I’m certain Nithesdale would share his young bride with you .”
Despite his efforts to find and protect her, Iseabail Blair was now the Duchess of Nithesdale … he scrubbed his hand up and down his face trying to erase the images Lady Drake described. Iseabail Blair should have been protected—saved from the likes of men of Nithesdale’s ilk, but Nash had been a blind fool and his stupidity had been her downfall.
“Nithesdale’s cousin is quite furious,” Lady Drake imparted with a smirk.
“Is Nithesdale’s hatred of his cousin the reason he abused a child?” He asked, uncertain if he should trust anything coming out of her mouth.
Lady Drake pulled back as if he’d said something vile, and he had. Yet she had been involved in a heinous act. She laughed and swatted his arm as if she thought he was teasing her. He wasn’t.
“She is three years older than I was when I married my late husband. I was a widow at her age. She is hardly a child now at two-and-twenty.”
Nash pulled his arm loose. “What about her sisters?”
“What about them?” Lady Drake’s hand rose to her décolletage.
“What type of unsavory men do you think will pursue them?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. They both knew exactly who would pursue the Blair sisters. Nash made his way through the throng of people on the dance floor without a backward glance at the glares being hurled in his direction. Iseabail may not have been a child when her ‘ training ’ started, but she had been an innocent, and Nithesdale was going to pay for his actions.
Two couples collided as they dodged his path. Nash didn’t care if he caused the revelers to miss their turn, lose their place or fall on their blasted faces. If anything had mattered to him but his determination not to let another minute go by without getting to the bottom of this nightmare, he may have witnessed Lady Drake’s collapse into a nearby settee and her seductive mask drop as an embarrassed flush crept up her neck.
Instead, his gaze blazed forward as he walked out of the ballroom. He only had his youth and fatuity to blame for his mistakes which led to the girls being evicted from their home. He’d fired the weasel Bremble, but it had been too late. The Blair girls were gone without a trace. No one had been able to locate them. The servants had been as unhelpful as the idiot solicitor his father had hired and Nash had fired.
The years stacked up in his head like a pile of bodies in war. Eight. Eight years, and to now finally hear that the only man he’d ever admired was the one man who’d betrayed his trust … it was inconceivable.
Nash was going to kill him.
He walked out of Tempest Manor without a word to his hosts. He wasn’t sure he would be able to speak without cursing, and the newly betrothed Viscount Weldon and his viscountess-to-be deserved better than his foul mood.
A footman hailed his coach and Nash was inside muttering to all that was holy before he even realized they were on the road. He would have the answers he sought. He’d spent too many years searching, agonizing, seeking redemption for his own sins of complicity in the Blair sisters’ fate. He would demand answers from Nithesdale—that damned, despicable bastard.
Nash glared out at dark night sky. The sound of the wheels groaning, hoofbeats pounding, and the horses snorting would normally lull him to sleep. Tonight, they broke the peace, all because of his na?veté toward a depraved duke. Nithesdale had turned that young girl into his whore, thanks to Nash pointing him in her direction. Her title would open doors, but many would see her as a climbing bastard whore, who would undoubtedly be the gossip rags’ favorite caricature for debauchery. Even if Iseabail Blair had become a duchess, what type of woman would she be now? What type of mother would she make to the next Duke of Nithesdale?
Could Nithesdale have such little care for his own child? His own flesh and blood?
Nash closed his eyes and sighed as he rubbed the stress from the bridge of his nose. He needed to sleep. He would finish the contracts he had to sign in the morning and then head to Caerlaverock.
And damn all the dukes of the Ton to hell—including himself.