The Study of Seduction: Sinful Suitors 2 (35 page)

“Offering information isn’t my friend’s strong suit, I’m afraid,” Warren said dryly.

“Do you know what the duel was about?” Edwin asked.

“No. Do you?”

Edwin let out a breath. “Yes. Unfortunately, I can’t say. But it doesn’t matter anyway. The important thing is that Durand wants revenge on my brother-in-law for killing his cousin, so he’s been trying to find Niall by cozying up to my wife. When she and I put an end to that with our betrothal, Durand threatened to reveal secrets about my father if I didn’t break it off.”

That arrested Fulkham’s attention. “What sort of secrets?”

Edwin swallowed. Now came the difficult part. “That apparently Father was a spy for the French.”

A cold anger suffused Fulkham’s features with color. “That damned bastard.”

“My father?” Edwin snapped.

The baron started. “No, no, not him. Durand. He’s
mucking about in matters he should leave alone. I’ll have to speak to his superiors and put an end to this before he creates more trouble. Relations between England and France are rocky enough as it is right now.”

Edwin eyed him closely. “So you knew about my father’s spying.”

“Of course I knew. He was spying for us.”

“That’s not what Durand says. And he showed me—”

“Reports? Documents your father gave to the French? Damn them; they’d assured him that those records had been destroyed.” As Edwin and Warren continued to gape at him, he sighed. “I need your word as gentlemen that what I’m about to tell you never leaves this room.”

“Of course,” Edwin said, with Warren nodding his assent.

“Because of your father’s ties to France through his grandmother, and because of his occasional visits to that private opium club, the French approached your father in the final years of the war with a request to spy for them. They promised to pay him quite handsomely for such treachery.”

Fulkham settled back in his chair. “As you can imagine, money wasn’t much of an incentive for him, but he did see an opportunity to help England beat the French—so after agreeing to their proposal, he came to us. We engaged him to leak incorrect information about our troops to the French from time to time.”

A wave of relief swamped Edwin, followed swiftly by a wave of shame. He should have realized his father
could never commit treason. “How do you know all this? You’re no older than I. You couldn’t possibly have been in the War Office at the time.”

“I wasn’t. But your father continued to go to the opium dens, so when our focus shifted to India, he was able to give us information about that occasionally. I joined the War Office a couple of years before he died. I was the one who took over managing his information.”

Edwin was still reeling. His father had spied for his country all that time. Without a word to his son. “You’re telling me he was
not
a traitor.”

“Never. He was a hero, as a matter of fact. Of course, he could never speak of his activities, and the French never knew him as anything but a spy for them. But they assured him that his reputation would never be impugned, because the documents connecting him to the activities were burned.”

“Clearly, that was a lie.”

“Yes,” Fulkham said tersely. “Which is another reason to go to Durand’s superiors. I don’t need to reveal that your father helped us—just that Durand is trying to use what he did to blackmail you for his own purposes.”

Warren leaned forward. “Going to his superiors won’t solve the problem that he’s dueling with Edwin in Green Park in a little over an hour.”

Fulkham rose. “Then I’ll have to go there with you, and tell him precisely what sort of trouble he’ll be in if he persists in his madness. We won’t allow an English citizen, no matter what his crime, to be assassinated by a Frenchman, even a diplomat.”

The baron headed for the door to get dressed, then paused. “It’s curious, though. What does Durand think to accomplish with a duel?”

“By eliminating me,” Edwin said, “he thinks to gain control over my wife and force her into telling him where Niall is.”

“Then why hasn’t he done that before? Why not abduct her off the street? Use brute force to convince her to do so?”

“He tried courting her, no doubt so he wouldn’t tip his hand and give her a chance to warn Niall. When she persisted in refusing his advances, he started shadowing her, which is when I stepped in and married her.”

“So she’s been with you since then.”

“At my estate, where it would have been hard for him to roam without comment. We only returned to town last evening for a celebration of our marriage. He tried to get her alone, and I stepped in. That was when he challenged me.”

“Hmm.” Fulkham stared at Edwin. “So where is your wife now?”

The question made him uneasy. “At home asleep, I hope.”

“Or, if she’s anything like my indomitable sister-in-law, preparing to go to Green Park and plead with you not to fight.”

Edwin’s blood chilled. “Damn it all to hell.” He jumped to his feet. “She
would
do that, too. She doesn’t know we’re here. And if we don’t return—”

“Go, go,” Fulkham said. “I’ll dress and head to the dueling field, while you two return home. You can
probably catch her if you hurry.”

Edwin rushed from the study, with Warren cursing behind him. They leapt into Warren’s carriage, ordering his coachman to drive at top speed to Edwin’s town house.

As the rig pulled away, Warren said, “Perhaps she won’t go. She said she was washing her hands of the whole thing.”

“She also said she loved me.” Edwin’s throat felt raw with fear. “And Clarissa is precisely the sort of woman who gives a man her whole self once she falls in love. She will fight for me with her last breath.”

“The way you’re fighting for her,” Warren remarked. “You swallowed your pride for her, you gave up your plans for a peaceful life for her, and you clearly will do anything for her. I think she’s not the only one in love, old chap.”

As the truth hit him, Edwin sucked in a ragged breath. No, she wasn’t the only one.

All these years, he’d avoided the tumult that love could bring, but it had slipped under his guard while he wasn’t looking. The idea of something happening to her, of living without her, stole the breath from his soul. He couldn’t stand to think of her suffering one second of Durand’s cruelty. What was that but love?

Now that he knew what it felt like to crave her company and her teasing, to seek her touch in the middle of the night when the world seemed darkest, he couldn’t imagine his father feeling any of that and still taking his friend’s side over his wife’s. Mother might have been in love, but Father couldn’t have known the meaning of the word.

“She’ll be all right,” Warren said. “I’m sure she will.”

“If she isn’t, I swear I’ll cut out Durand’s heart and crush it under my heel. I’ll draw and quarter him myself. I’ll—”

“I get the gist,” Warren said grimly. “But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, my friend. Because I don’t fancy watching you hang for the murder of a worthless arse like Durand.”

It was no surprise that Clarissa hadn’t been able to sleep after she saw Edwin and Warren leave the house. She tried, she really did, but she couldn’t stop worrying. She kept waiting for them to return, not sure where they’d even gone, but by 4:00
A.M.
, she knew it was growing too late for them to get back before the duel began.

Which meant they were probably already on their way to Green Park. Curse them both.

She rose and got dressed, muttering at her cousin the whole time. Hadn’t he been able to stop her husband,
his
friend? She’d blurted out that she loved Edwin in the vain hope that it would give him pause, but clearly even that couldn’t have an impact on the dratted idiot.

After fretting a while longer, she decided enough was enough. She was
not
going to let her husband do this insane thing. If she had to, she’d stand between him and Count Durand. Because she didn’t want to lose Edwin. She’d lost enough in her life.

No more.

She went downstairs and roused a servant, then called for her carriage. It came surprisingly quickly. It was only after she’d gone out the door that she realized it wasn’t
her
carriage waiting for her at the bottom of the steps. She paused, but before she could react, someone stepped behind her and she felt a hard object shoved into her side.

“There you are, my dear,” said the voice she’d grown to loathe. “I knew you couldn’t resist going to the duel.”

Count Durand. Oh, Lord. Her heart jumped into her throat. Damn him, damn him,
damn him
. “And I knew you would cheat,” she said, fighting for calm. “So we apparently know each other well.”

“Better than you can imagine.” When she caught her breath, he added, “And I wouldn’t scream, if I were you. I’ll shoot you where you stand.” He nudged her with the hard object to make his point.

“You always were a bully.” As she fumbled to release her knife pendant from the chain, her mind raced. She needed to throw him off guard, buy some time until she could get the pistol away from her side long enough to stab him. “You’re like your cousin—always running roughshod over women.”

A long silence followed before he rasped, “Do not speak ill of a man you know nothing about.”

“I know he raped me.” She palmed her pendant. “He held me down and forced himself on me.”

“That’s a lie!” he hissed. “He was my closest friend in the world once. Then you incited your brother with your lies, and like that, he was murdered. I’ve seen you flirt, seen you entice men. I know what kind
of woman you are. Why should he bother to rape a whore like you?”

Anger roiled up in her. “Would a whore keep you at arm’s length the entire time you were courting me? No. He was evil and you are just as evil, and I don’t deserve this.”

“Shut up!” he growled. “You have a choice. Get in the carriage. Or die.”

Her blood faltered. “You’ll just kill me anyway.”

“Not if you tell me where your brother is. We’ll go see him together.”

“And you’ll kill us both. No, thank you.” If he would move the pistol long enough for her to jab at him . . . “You know my husband won’t stop until he destroys you.”

Count Durand snorted. “There’s little chance of that.”

Another voice came from the shadows behind the carriage. “There’s more chance than you realize.”

Edwin. Thank heaven!

Catching her about the waist, Count Durand jerked her up close to him. “I’ll kill her, Blakeborough. I swear I will.”

“And then what? You’ll lose your chance at her brother.”

Edwin stepped out of the shadows, and she nearly had heart failure. “He has a gun, my love! Don’t come any nearer!”

Ignoring her, Edwin moved more into the light. “You’re not fool enough to murder a peer’s wife in cold blood, Durand. You’d hang for it.”

“You don’t know a damned thing,” Count Durand hissed. “I don’t care if she dies. I’ll find Margrave
somehow. Even if I only wait for him to come after me to revenge his sister.”

“You won’t have to wait for him.” Edwin lifted a hand and she saw a pistol in it. “Kill her and you die. It’s as simple as that.”

That seemed to give Count Durand pause, for she could feel his gun waver against her side. “Or you could let us both leave,” he snarled, “and I’ll allow her to live.”

Clarissa suppressed her snort of disbelief even as she opened the leaf knife. Durand wouldn’t get away with his perfidy if she had anything to say about it. She just needed the right moment.

Edwin’s gaze swung to her and dropped ever so briefly to her hand. He knew what she meant to do. And was ready.

All of a sudden, Count Durand’s coach started driving away.

“What are you doing?” the count shouted at the driver. “Damn you, man, come back!”

In that moment, while his attention was distracted and the gun had left her side, she jabbed up at his pistol arm and fell to the ground without even waiting to see his reaction.

Then Edwin shot him through the heart.

A short while later, Clarissa sat in her drawing room as the household erupted around her. Edwin and Warren, who’d been the one to unseat the driver of Count Durand’s carriage and drive it off, were deep in discussion with Lord Fulkham, who’d just shown
up. Footmen and servants were running about following orders occasionally barked at them by Edwin.

There
was
a dead body on the steps, after all. It had to be dealt with.

All she could do was sit there frozen as she listened to the discussion.

“I’ll take care of this, Blakeborough,” Lord Fulkham was saying. “The man was trying to abduct your wife. By the time I get through with the French ambassador for allowing Durand free rein to torment English citizens, they will be happy to keep the matter quiet. It may not even go to a trial.”

“Even if it does,” Warren said, “your servants are witnesses and we have Durand’s coachman, who will testify to the truth of it if he knows what’s good for him. Or Fulkham can have him charged as an accessory.”

At that moment, Edwin glanced over and saw that she’d begun to tremble. His face paled. With a few words to the others, who instantly left the room, he came to sit beside her. He poured some brandy from the carafe on the table next to the settee and pressed the glass into her hand. “Drink it, sweetheart. It will stop the shaking.”

“You—you’re plying me with s-spirits again,” she feebly tried to joke.

“We’re married now. It’s allowed.”

She lifted the glass to drink and caught sight of her glove. Her red-stained glove. After setting down the glass, she tore her gloves off. “I have Count Durand’s blood on me,” she said, her stomach churning. “It’s probably on my gown and in my hair and—”

“Yes,” he said raggedly.

She looked over to see him crumbling before her
eyes, his shoulders shaking, his face contorted as if he fought tears.

“Edwin!”

“If I had lost you . . .” His breath came in fractured gasps as he lifted his tortured face to her. “I couldn’t have borne it.”

“You weren’t going to let that happen.” With her heart in her throat, she cupped his cheek. “As usual, you’re my Saint George slaying the dragon.”