Chapter 3
He had come here to torture her. Now he saw he was not the first to do so.
Would it change things? It might. He had not yet decided.
The other guests had arrived. Everyone was gathered in the saloon. It was a grand room with lavish furnishings, vaulted ceilings, and boasting two large fireplaces. Windermere Manor had been built for luxury. It was not to his taste, but it was a fine English house. Cameron would admit that. He assumed it was the luxury of that house, at least in part, which had appealed to June. She had not wanted to give all of that up and become a penniless man”s wife. No matter what she may have sworn when he was Cameron Fraser.
He glanced away from the man he was speaking with, a baronet who reminded him of a gray-haired preening rooster, and permitted himself a swift glance across the room.
There.
June stood by one of the unlit fireplaces. Her head was down. She clasped her gloved hands in front of her. She wore a dress of very pale blue. It suited her complexion. A few ringlets of golden hair fell around her face.
She looked very soft, very small, very demure. Very miserable. She was biting her lip. She stood all alone.
She lifted her head suddenly and their eyes met.
Cameron looked quickly away… only to see the baronet had ceased his rambling on the finer points of whist and was looking at him with a knowing expression in his eyes.
Sir Edward Montague was a wealthy man with a rakish air to him despite his sixty-odd years. He had aged well and some might still call him handsome. Perhaps it was the silver goatee he wore, which gave him a distinguished and, yes, a rather French look. He was known for his prowess at the gaming table… and his eye for the ladies.
“She’s a proper peach, isn’t she?” The baronet now said, having followed Cameron’s gaze where it led straight to June. “But is she ripe for the plucking, do you think?”
“I have no idea,” Cameron replied coldly.
Montague eyed him. “Don’t you? Then you didn’t see the column, I take it?”
“Column?”
The baronet slipped a hand into his tailcoat pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
With an undisguised smirk, he passed it over to Cameron who unfolded it and read.
A moment later, Cameron crumpled the sheet into a ball. No fires had been lit, or else he’d have tossed it into the nearest one. Flames were too good for the damned piece of parchment.
“Who wrote the bloody thing?”
Montague shook his head. “No one knows. The pieces have been making their circuit for months now. All much the same in style. Most of the time a lady’s name is never mentioned. It appears the countess was an exception.” There was a gleam in his eye. “Truly, I envy you, Your Grace. Were I a younger man, perhaps I would stand a chance of making an appearance in this scandalous page. The Rake Review has become the sensation of the year. You really have never heard of it before now?”
Cameron shook his head and scowled. “I dinna understand. Ye wish to be mentioned in such a tawdry piece of trash?”
The baronet gave an elegant shrug. “I might. Some might consider it a rare compliment. But in your case, your reputation truly precedes you.” He cast his eyes around the room. “Why, I’m sure all of the ladies here have read the column by now. And all believe Your Grace to be the most virile man in the room.”
Cameron let out a derisive snort. “I’m sure ye have naught to worry about on that count, Sir Montague. In my experience, ladies can generally make up their own minds.”
He suddenly recalled the second part of the column. The crude suggestion that June had been unfaithful to her husband. Could this have been why the earl had struck his wife? White hot anger curled in Cameron’s belly. A sniveling coward of a man.
The baronet lowered his voice. “The lady’s reputation has taken a definite blow. Everyone will have seen the piece. She’ll be vulnerable now. Look at where she stands there, all alone–despite being our hostess.” He tsked. “The poor woman.”
Cameron eyed the baronet coldly. Despite Cameron’s own misgivings, it disturbed him to hear a woman spoken of as a wounded animal, ripe for the hunt. “Do ye usually believe all that ye read in gossip columns, mon?”
The baronet smiled slightly. “Only when it is in my advantage to do so. And it is certainly to at least one of our advantages to know the lady is so, shall we say, potentially acquiescent to a gentleman’s advances.”
“I doubt that she is. Ye’d best leave well enough alone,” Cameron said directly. “The lady has a husband.We are their guests.”
“Ah, yes. The earl.” The baronet touched a finger to his chin. “An odd sort of fellow, is he not?”
“I dinna know the mon well,” Cameron admitted. “Ye’re nay friends with him?”
The baronet shrugged. “I was invited here through a friend of a friend. A friend who is sadly now absent due to illness. So no, I’d never met Windermere before this. But from what I hear, he is not a particularly friendly type of man. Not even, from what I’ve been given to understand, towards his own wife.”
“Ye seem to ken a great deal,” Cameron said sardonically.
The baronet studied his perfectly manicured nails. “I make it my business to know when there are… opportunities.”
“And ye see the countess as one?” Cameron could feel his blood beginning to boil. “‘Twas my understanding there were other ladies at the party. Unmarried ones. Were ye looking for a bride…”
“A wife? Courting?” The baronet shuddered. “Good God, no, thank you. My wife, God rest her soul, has been dead these ten years. I am fortunate to have heirs. Two sons and a daughter. I have no plans to be tied down again. No, that is not the sort of opportunity I had in mind.” He tilted his head. “I would have thought a man written up in the Rake Review would quite easily catch my meaning.”
Cameron shifted uncomfortably.
The truth was, if what the column had written about June was false, he could sympathize. For he had also known his fair share of false rumors and baseless speculations.
The difference was that in his case, he had cultivated them. Allowed them to proliferate and grow.
If the world believed the Duke of Tulloch to be a shameless rake, so much the better. It suited his purposes.
Oh, he’d had a reasonable number of encounters with women. Fleeting and never truly enjoyable. None lasting. None which touched his heart.
And certainly not in so great a number as might have entitled him to deserving any titles. From what he could already discern, Sir Montague was more entitled to the name “rake” than he.
Yet he had no intention of saying this. Let the world believe what it wished…and if the words eventually reached June’s ear and gave her even a moment’s cause for sorrow, Cameron would rejoice, for he had always hoped they would.
A hand touched June’s arm and she looked up to see Horatia.
The dark-haired woman was looking especially beautiful this evening. Diamond pins gleamed against her black hair. Her silk skirt, a brilliant shade of red, rustled as she brushed up against June’s own faded blue one, standing, as always, a little too close for comfort.
“You look delightful as always, my dear,” Horatia murmured. “What a splendid party.”
“Thank you. I’m surprised to see you here,” June said, unthinkingly speaking her mind. She bit her lip. She should not have said that, even if it was true.
Fortunately, Horatia did not seem offended. “John invited me,” she said breezily. “He seems to think I shall find it amusing.”
“Of course.” June stood very still, hoping Horatia would simply go away.
But she didn’t. The dark-haired woman remained.
Horatia Fairchild was the earl’s first cousin. She lived in the Dowager House on the Windermere estate, along with her four children.
“You saw the column, of course?” Horatia said, leaning in closer.
“John showed it to me earlier, yes.”
“Ah.” Horatia clucked her tongue. “A pity he saw it. I’m sure it provoked him.”
June felt Horatia’s eyes on her, examining her closely, and was glad she had applied the Venetian talc before coming down to the saloon. She did not think the bruise showed through. She hoped it didn’t. Not for John’s sake. Oh, Horatia knew what he did to her. But for June’s. A bruise would be a triumph for Horatia.
“I saw the children playing on the lawn earlier,” June said, trying to change the subject. “They looked so happy.”
“Yes, they’re sweet little things, aren’t they?” Horatia said absently. “Ah, there’s the gong for dinner. I wonder who I’m paired with. I suppose you will have ignored John’s request and seated me with the dullest man in the room.”
June blanched.
In her panicked flight from the lawn back up to her room and in the haste of greeting guests and dressing for dinner, she had forgotten the most important thing of all.
The gong calling them into dinner had just sounded.
Cameron took a step away from the baronet. In truth, he was eager to get away from the man.
A dark-haired woman had taken up a place next to June, he saw. He wondered who she was.
“A beauty, isn’t she?” the baronet’s voice said from down by his shoulder. “Look at the two of them. One golden, the other dark. Simply breathtaking side by side. Who do you prefer?”
“The dark,” Cameron said swiftly, determined not to admit the truth.
“Ah, that’s what I thought you might say.” The baronet chuckled.
“Who is she?” Cameron asked, curious now. Obviously the baronet knew something that amused him about the woman.
“Horatia Fairchild. The earl’s first cousin. They grew up together.”
“And her husband? Is he present?”
“Oh, the lady has no husband,” the baronet said serenely. “But she does have four children.”
“I believe it is quite common for married women to have children,” observed the duke, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
“Ah, yes, but such women usually bear their children while their husbands are still alive, do they not?”
Cameron narrowed his eyes. “What are ye saying, Montague?” This was the second time the man had all but besmirched a woman’s reputation in their conversation. He was not eager to stand for it a second time.
“Fear not, fear not, my Scottish friend,” Montague said, putting up his hands in false surrender. “I assure you, I speak only the truth.”
“Yer Grace, ye mean,” Cameron corrected coldly.
“Certainly. Your Grace.” The baronet winked. “Nevertheless, you take my meaning.”
“Nay. I’m still not sure I do.”
The baronet leaned in closer. “The lovely lady is not only the earl’s beloved cousin. She’s also said to warm his bed.”
Cameron’s heart pounded. “Ye’re saying the earl is the true father of her children?”
The baronet shrugged. “I’m not saying any such thing–officially. It’s not my place to do so and I wouldn’t dare. Men still duel these days, do they not? I believe Horatia was briefly married to the earl’s elder brother when she bore the eldest boy. William, I believe his name is. By a rare stipulation in the family entail, the title bypassed the infant and passed directly to the younger brother. But the youngest three? Oh, there is no doubt in my mind. Little bastards one and all.”
The Duke of Tulloch flinched at the sound of the ugly word. He looked around the room. “If what ye say is true, the lady would not dare to be here. Not in such an esteemed company. Why, there are unwed ladies here.”
“Yes, with their mamas,” the baronet agreed. His eyes lit up. “Why, Miss Amelia Pembroke is going into the dining room on the earl’s arm right now, with her mother right behind them.”
The baronet moved forward as if to follow them and the duke caught his arm.
Sir Montague laughed. “Why, Your Grace, fear not. They have absolutely no idea who she really is. Do you think they would still be here if they did? The Fairchild woman resides in the country. She seldom leaves this estate. She’ll have been introduced to them as the earl’s cousin, and that is all they’ll know.”
“But why risk it at all? Why bring her here?”
“I really have no idea. It’s bold. Very bold. And blatant. Why, one might think the earl believes he’s Prinny himself and she Maria.” He gestured ahead of them to where June was following her husband into the dining room, on the arm of an older gentleman who the duke had not yet met. “Rather cruel to the wife though to flaunt one’s inamorata, wouldn’t you say?”
Cameron said nothing.
Cruel, yes. And debasing. Not to mention humiliating.
He could not imagine such a thing. Bringing one’s mistress into the house where one’s wife lived. Forcing your wife to play hostess for a party while her husband’s mistress sat down at the very same table.
Cameron had only met the earl once, in passing, while at Brook’s in London.
The earl had been very ingratiating. Something Cameron had become used to since receiving his title–though usually it was from lesser nobles and not dukes and earls. In the span of a single conversation, the earl had invited the duke out to his country house party.
At first the duke had been inclined to refuse. After all, he hardly knew the man and it was clear the earl wanted something from him, most likely a great deal of money.
But when it dawned on him just who the earl was–more importantly, who his wife was–he had accepted. With just the right amount of polite disinterest.
“He’s going to approach you, you know,” the baronet said, as the two men followed the procession slowly into the dining room. “With one of his schemes.”
“Who is?” The duke was watching June. Her slender neck. The shine of her hair. He forced his attention back to the baronet.
“The earl, of course. That’s why he invited you here, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you had no idea.”
The duke had suspected something of the sort. “I receive a great many propositions for ventures. I rarely accept any.”
“Well, the earl is more desperate than most men so I assume he’ll be more persistent. His wife was old Robert Spencer’s daughter, you know. His only child. She inherited everything. But even that hasn’t been enough to keep this place running. Generations of poor management. Windermere needs an infusion of cash or he’ll be ruined soon.”
“I’m not inclined to give my support to a man who treats his wife in such a way,” Cameron said bluntly. Then he looked at the baronet. “But then, that’s precisely why ye told me what ye did. Isn’t it?”
The baronet smiled. “I have my own ventures, you see, Your Grace. I keep my fingers in many pies. And while I may be a rogue and a rascal, I’m at least an honest one. I have no wife to be unfaithful to. My children are all legitimate and well-cared for and well-loved.”
“High standards,” Cameron said, a little sarcastically. “Very honorable.”
The baronet shrugged. “I do what I can. I make no claim to be a saint.”
“And I make no promise to invest in any venture.”
Sir Montague looked at him consideringly. “You say that, and yet you came to Windermere Manor. Without knowing the earl or wishing to invest in his scheme. How curious.”
Cameron felt his face color slightly.
“Ah, there’s my name,” the baronet exclaimed abruptly. “Placed beside the lovely Miss Pembroke. What a lucky man I am!”
The baronet took his seat beside a blushing young debutante with sparkling brown eyes as the duke moved down the table.
The Countess of Windermere was already seated. Her head was down as Cameron approached. There was an empty seat beside her. He glanced at the name card there, assuming it would not be his.
But to his surprise, his own name was indeed written there: His Grace, the Duke of Tulloch.
The brazen woman had seated him right beside her.
His blood began to boil. Slowly he pulled out his chair.
How dare the woman? How bloody dare she?