The Duke's Stolen Heart (London Scandals Book 4) Read online

  “Where were we?” she asked, finding the page where they had left off the night before. “Ah, yes. The Frog Prince.”

  Poor Margaret, finding solace in a collection of fairy tales like a child, not a grown woman. She hadn’t yet learned that princes always turned into frogs once you kissed them—never the other way around. Her lesson was coming, though. Antonia might go so far as to deliver it herself, just to repay Margaret’s kindness.

  Chapter 2

  Havencrest did not believe the butler’s accommodating nod for one second. He was going to have to hunt Miss Lowry through every parlor and ballroom in London if he wanted her help. Women. As if making men chase them down made men crazed with desire—

  If only their tactics didn’t work, at least upon lesser men. His father had seen fit to arm him against the seductions of women from an early age. Havencrest shook the thought away. Even now, after everything he had learned about his father’s lies, the previous Duke’s bitterly amusing voice echoed in his thoughts at odd times. Even after he had discovered the selfish lies at the core of his father’s scathing mistrust of all things female, outrunning the effects of his parents’ spectacularly terrible marriage proved impossible. Years ago, when he had been a young man in his father’s shadow and desperate to make his way, he had nearly taken a bride. The young woman had been brave enough to turn down his proposal. Malcolm owed her much gratitude for setting him on a new course—even though it had driven a wedge between him and his only surviving parent.

  For the second time Malcolm stomped up the steps of the Evendaw’s townhouse and pounded the door with the unseemly huge knocker. An iron ring held in the mouth of a lion’s bared roar. Pompous people, the Evendaw clan. Havencrest had the luxury of avoiding London’s Four Hundred, but he couldn’t escape an intimate knowledge of each family’s faults. As a child, his grandmother had freely shared her opinions of aristocratic families with him. Although decades had passed since they last spoke a civil word to one another, he could recall with perfect clarity the sharp side of her tongue as she recounted her forays into London’s finest drawing rooms and parlors.

  “This way, your lordship.”

  Havencrest started. “Of course,” he muttered, pulling himself up to his full height to offset his surprise with physical intimidation.

  “Lady Margaret. Miss Lowry,” intoned the butler, who bowed and departed with silent footfalls. The former sat encased in a cloud of blankets, a book draped over her lap, appeared miserable with a red-tipped nose and watery eyes. The latter took his breath.

  Miss Antonia Lowry’s elegant form was posed silhouetted against the windowsill. A streak of winter placed a glowing crown atop her glossy brown hair. Lust bolted through him hard enough to steal his breath. Loose tendrils dangled against the creamy nape of her neck. Miss Lowry possessed the bearing of a queen. An empress.

  Her bearing commanded him to skim the outline of her compact and powerful figure. Narrow waist. Straight, strong shoulders. Strong hips accentuated by the fullness of fine wool skirts suitable to a blustery January afternoon. The pink luster of the fabric whispered wealth. Yet, a wealthy woman had no need to stoop to petty jewel theft.

  The dress was a lie. She was a lie—but he needed her services.

  “Your lordship,” Lady Margaret bobbed her chin. “Forgive me if I do not rise. I have been taken by the most awful grippe this past week. I am well enough to sit up, but I do not feel well enough to welcome guests. While I am most appreciative of the honor you bestow upon us with your visit I respectfully ask you to—”

  “I am here for Miss Lowry.”

  Margaret’s blue eyes widened. “Oh. Shall I leave you to—”

  “Stay. Please.” This time, it was Miss Lowry who cut the girl off mid-sentence. The hairs on the back of Havencrest’s neck lifted as the woman near the window turned to them. Large eyes the color of burnt umber, framed by eyelashes as long as a calf’s, beguiled a man to drown in their dark depths. But it was her voice that turned Havencrest’s palms damp and made his cock twitch in his trousers.

  The cool, firm lilt of her command riveted him to the carpet even though it had not directed at him. Her accent melted her vowels and stretched her consonants into unfamiliar shapes.

  Stay. Please.

  A shiver worked its way under his cravat to touched the nape of his neck. “Lady Evendaw may go,” he croaked. He cleared his throat. He hadn’t been tongue-tied around a woman since the age of sixteen. Cutting, sarcastic, perhaps even cruel at times—but never at a loss for words. It made him despise this American interloper.

  “Margaret stays. I understand that in England, unmarried women are required to be accompanied when receiving visitors,” Miss Lowry declared, undulating hypnotically toward them. “I do not wish to bring scandal upon my hosts.”

  Margaret smiled wanly. Miss Lowry settled herself onto the end of the settee beside her friend. “Go on,” she said after she had smoothed her ruffled pink skirts over her thighs. Thighs he could imagine parting, readily envision finding her naked sex at their apex dripping with desire as he—

  Focus.

  Miss Lowry’s delectable loins were part of a woman with abundant wiles to deploy and no apparent sense of honor. Or guilt.

  “My conversation with Miss Lowry is not for other ears, Lady Margaret. I assure you, your brother will understand entirely.”

  Margaret’s smile faded. “I assure you he would not understand in the least why a stranger requests a private conversation with an unmarried woman.”

  Malcolm briefly contemplated defenestrating himself to avoid explaining his visit to Evendaw, a now-inevitable fate which Malcolm had failed to account for in his single-minded pursuit of Miss Lowry. The woman idly bounced her foot beneath the hem of her skirt. A tiny smile played at the corners of her lips. She knew damn well she held the upper hand. Humiliation washed over him. He was a duke, for fuck’s sake. Command her to obey.

  Yes, that approach had always worked so well for his father.

  “I wish to take Miss Lowry for a ride,” Havencrest blurted out like some sort of foolish young buck embarrassing himself before a prospective wife. Malcolm cursed himself for having spent the last fifteen hours imagining the solace of cradling the Heart’s Cry in his palms, instead of paying proper attention to more immediate matters. Antonia Lowry could and would get it for him. That damn necklace was the key to putting his parents’ memory to rest, at long last.

  “Now?” she asked in that half-mocking drawl of hers. “Isn’t it rather dreary outside for a jaunt in Hyde Park?”

  Indeed, as impromptu invitations went his offer was singularly inadvisable. Outside, snowflakes had turned into an icy drizzle that made a fireside chat a far more amenable prospect. Even the weather conspired against him.

  “Now,” he replied through gritted teeth.

  “I am afraid, your lordship, that I cannot consent to accompany you on such a sadly damp excursion. I must have a chaperone, and Lady Margaret is indisposed.”

  Feeling his defeat to the very roots of his hair, Havencrest backed up until his too-broad shoulder hit the wall. “Perhaps another time. I bid you good evening.”

  “Your lordship.” Miss Lowry rose from the settee and executed a curtsey fit for the King’s court. When she rose, her dark eyes laughed at him. A deep fury boiled in his chest. There was nothing more wounding to a man’s pride than a woman’s mockery.

  Unless it was two women sharing a laugh at his expense.

  Margaret’s bow lips pulled up into a smile at the corners. It faded the instant he glared in her supine direction. The girl blinked nervously.

  “My lady,” he bowed, stiff with indignation. “Miss Lowry.”

  What a disaster. He had run his quarry to ground only to discover that Miss Lowry retained complete control. Even here, where his rank ought to open every door, Miss Lowry remained beyond his influence. Havencrest jammed his hat over his ears and clambered into his coach without waiting for the footman’s assistance.<
br />
  He would have Miss Lowry’s help, one way or another. Next time, he’d catch her alone.

  * * *

  “What on earth was that about?” Margaret asked the instant their guest had departed. She giggled breathlessly.

  “Apparently, his lordship wished to take me for a carriage ride. In the dark, during a sleet storm. In January.” Antonia let herself enjoy a chuckle. The Duke of Havencrest had been no true threat after all. “The poor man, so overcome with love for me that my reasonable refusal of his generous offer” —Margaret hooted with laughter at this— “sent him packing with his tail between his legs.”

  “Like a stray dog kicked in the street. I almost felt sorry for him!” exclaimed Margaret.

  “I find it difficult to pity a man who owns half of Hertfordshire,” Antonia remarked darkly. “A rich duke can purchase all the sympathy he wants.”

  “Toni. Are you implying a…a mistress?” Margaret chided with genuine surprise. The ignorance expected of well-bred young women always took Antonia off-guard. They were not supposed to know about men who hired ladies’ services for pleasure, though clearly her friend had heard whispers of such matters. Antonia had had a rude introduction to the concept not long after her mother had moved them to New Jersey. By age twelve, she knew what sex was, how it was done, and that men usually enjoyed it while women frequently did not. Innocent Margaret picked at a lint on her blanket. “I thought us Englishmen were the only ones who paid attention to a man’s property. Not that we are supposed to discuss it.”

  In moments like this one, Antonia felt a strange softening within her breast as if an ice floe had cleaved from her heart. Margaret might be silly and far too trusting, but she had also been unexpectedly loyal. Margaret would give anything to escape the shadow of her brother’s guardianship. Likely, within a few months she would be engaged. Marriage and babies couldn’t be far distant in Margaret’s future. It made Antonia a little sad to think Margaret would never have the chance to experience life lived under one’s own direction. No choices made for you, no one to stop you from reaching for your dreams. Antonia didn’t know what to do with that much goodwill, freely given, without expectation of reciprocity. The Duke of Havencrest wasn’t the only kicked puppy cringing his way through the world.

  Hardly, Antonia checked herself. Havencrest was rich and powerful, and he could crush her with what he knew about her light-fingered tendencies. If she didn’t find a way to get rid of him, undoubtedly, he would. Antonia had decided, long ago and several names before she had settled upon her current moniker, never to cede her wishes to another’s will. She would die free before she’s permit herself to be imprisoned or hanged. Both were consequences the law said in plain black and white that she deserved. On two continents, no less.

  “It behooves every unmarried woman to acknowledge the size of a man’s—” Antonia winked, “—property.”

  Margaret’s blue eyes widened. She shifted on the little couch and laughed. “You are so naughty, Antonia. If you weren’t so proper around my brother and my sister-in-law, they would turn you out of the house in a trice.”

  “I aim to delight you, Maggie dear.”

  It was dangerous to give Margaret a nickname. Antonia’s mother had never let her keep pets in the few short years they had lived together. If you gave a pet a moniker, you had to keep the beast. She had never been permitted to keep a favorite amongst the cats that swarmed the scrap dish Antonia left out each night back in New York. Not that it had stopped her from falling for a sassy orange tabby, or later, a shy gray kitten. But she knew better than to name creatures that crossed her path. Despite Margaret’s attachment, Havencrest’s visit today had been proof that Antonia needed to move on.

  After supper they retreated to Margaret’s bedroom. While her maid bathed her in a copper hip bath behind a modesty screen, Antonia sat at her friend’s dressing table trying on baubles.

  “Do you suppose he intends to offer for you?” asked Margaret from behind the painted barrier.

  “Who? The Duke of Havencrest?” Antonia lifted a paste necklace to her throat. Glass and colored foil interspersed with clusters of seed pearls, cheap and plentiful, made for a charming display. Pretty as it was, the value was nothing. The jeweler where she fenced her ill-gotten valuables would give her nothing for imitation jewels. She had learned the hard way to identify paste from real gems.

  “No, the Prince of Wales,” joked Margaret. Water splashed in the background. “Of course, the Duke of Havencrest. I have never seen a man so anxious in the presence of a woman before. I swear I saw sweat bead on his brow.”

  “I am shocked you can see so far up,” remarked Antonia. “His head is so far up from the ground, I wonder he can breathe in such thin air.”

  Margaret snorted. “He is a remarkably tall one.” A long pause. “I didn’t remember him being so handsome, either.”

  Antonia froze. Her fingertips lingered over the clasp of an enamel and diamond bracelet. She had practiced flicking the catch with one hand in a quick, deft movement. Now, she went still as stone as an unfamiliar heat streaked through her body.

  “I thought him rather terrifying.” Antonia spoke after the wave of strange feeling had passed. “His height is excessive to the point of intimidation. His lordship relies upon it, and his title, to get what he wants.”

  “What if that means you, Toni?” There was more splashing. “Wouldn’t you like to be a duchess? I think I would. Especially since the Havencrest line isn’t royal.”

  “I don’t know the first thing about it.” Antonia rolled a string of pearls between her fingertips. Real. Large and graded, this collar held value without bearing any distinctive elements. It was an ideal choice for theft. Ought she to take it?

  Her hand bunched the necklace into her palm.

  Antonia wouldn’t have made it this far without a quick wit and observance of small details that most found beneath their notice. But becoming a duchess was far beyond her wildest ambitions, even if such a role had been offered. No. Havencrest wanted her for another purpose than a wife to dangle off his arm. Antonia didn’t need to know what it was to know she wanted no part in it.

  He knew what she was. She had been exposed, and that meant she had to go before it cost her her life. She was rather fond of being alive. Even with all the warts and imperfections of the world, Antonia wanted to remain in it for as long as possible.

  The mirror before her reflected a flicker of movement. Antonia’s fingers relaxed. The necklace coiled back into the velvet tray where she had found it.

  “Royal dukes are related by blood to the King. As for becoming a duchess, once you’ve married a duke, you are one. That’s all there is to it,” Margaret assured her as she emerged from behind the modesty screen in a wrapper that covered her small body from neck to ankle. “No training necessary, even for an American.”

  Margaret sat at the chair next to her dressing table. Her maid stroked a comb through her long hair turned dark gold with dampness. Antonia tried to catch the woman’s eye, but she was focused on her task and didn’t acknowledge her. Antonia had been this maid. She had been the girls who cleared the chamber pots and scrubbed the floors and wrung the linens before hanging them to dry on washing day. She had resented the hard work after her mother had pulled her away from the comparatively gentle task of keeping Mrs. Beckwith company. Her hands had grown soft as she learned to insert herself among the upper-class, always climbing upward and away from servitude. She never forgot her origins, though.

  “Even if I were disposed to covet the position of duchess, Maggie,” Antonia mused. “I do not agree that an offer of marriage is forthcoming. Given what little I know of the man, I suspect his interest is puerile and not honorable in the least.”

  Chapter 3

  Either Miss Lowry had taken leave of her senses, or Havencrest had.

  For a woman who scoffed at a ride in a warm carriage in a bit of drizzle, Miss Lowry had a lot of nerve pushing a wheelbarrow out a dock into the Thames
, well after midnight. The wharf was no place for a fine lady. In fact, no aristocrat would be caught dead anywhere near the place. Certainly not alone, and definitely not dressed as a man, as the man Havencrest had hired to watch the Evendaw house informed Malcolm. This bit of information had prompted hours of unwelcome images to parade through his imagination as they searched London’s streets for any sign of Miss Lowry. Powerful legs encased in buff breeches, snug around the sweet curves of her derriere…Malcolm’s eyes narrowed as he watched the figure struggle with the heavy load. A gust of wind lifted the brim of her hat to expose the sharp line of her cheek and the soft plump curve of her lips. No Adam’s apple in sight.

  The man he had hired to trail Miss Lowry had spotted her leaving the Evendaw household via a window at around eleven at night. After that, it had been pure luck that one of the footmen had suggested they check the wharves. At this time of night, the docks were deserted but for whores and the drunks who bought their services.

  “Stay back,” Havencrest commanded as though he were Wellington at Waterloo, and not crouched behind a stack of barrels with two footmen at his back. Five yards away, Antonia maneuvered the wheeled cart between a pair of bobbing dinghies. She groaned as she tipped it up to dump the bundle off the edge of the pier. It looked like a rug tied with string. The roll sagged and stayed stubbornly in the well of her wheelbarrow.

  “Miss Lowry,” he said triumphantly. The lady dropped the handles and the cart fell to the rotting wood dock with a loud thud. She didn’t scream, but her limbs twitched with the effort to suppress her reaction.

  Good.

  He had her now. Satisfaction curled through him.

  “Lord Havencrest, I presume.” The river wind snatched her voice away. She was a mermaid. A midnight siren.