Chapter 2
Dace knelt on the gravel. His shoulder ached like the devil, as though it were in shards. Pain scraped the weariness from his brain.
“Bad luck she got you on the shoulder.” Rax eyed him with sympathy. “Thought I was going to have to send for smelling salts. Do you think it will work? Miss Tempest didn’t really kick you in the ballocks, did she?”
Dace laughed under his breath for it was that or show his weakness and his despair. “Lizzie is my only hope. Damn all bankers! They have me netted, gaffed and gutted. They have only to salt me and watch the death throes.” He eased into a crouch.
Dace heard Rax tutting over him with mock sympathy. His partner in the plots and pranks of their youth had an endless repertoire of sighs, moans, groans, tsks and tuts. “You are making those odd noises again, Rax. Learned ’em from your grandmother?” It suddenly felt as if all his years away with his regiment were but an inconvenient interruption to their friendship.
They had dined yesterday at White’s on his way through London. He’d been furious at the news of his impending nuptials. Half the members, the determined bachelors, had insisted on attending the wedding. Even the wild ride, which had almost killed him, had not deterred them.
“Your bride is delightful. Wonder if I can’t cut you out and marry her myself.” His friend leaned down to offer him aid to stand. “Why didn’t you explain it to her properly? Gracious! If that’s how Viscount Felmont pays court to his bride, it’s no wonder she wants nothing to do with you.”
Dace grabbed Rax’s hand and staggered to his feet. “I am the villain of the piece. It is the only role I have ever played for her. At least now Lizzie thinks she has a chance against me. If it came to a fair fight, she probably believes she could trounce me. I acknowledged every verbal hit and winced at every blow. Damn near fainted at her feet when she hit my shoulder.”
He rubbed it and moved cautiously. “Not lain awake languishing for me. I didn’t think she had it in her. Good for little Lizzie Tempest.”
“If only the lady could be persuaded to languish for me. I think I’m in love.” Rax sighed and scuffed his shoes in the gravel.
“You have to stop falling in love so easily. It only encourages women to think men are romantic.” Dace wondered if he had enough strength to get up all those stairs to the doors. Scuttling into Felmont’s Folly through the servants’ entrance was hardly in keeping with his new status.
“You’ll have to marry her, there is no other way. Why don’t you throw yourself at her feet to beg for mercy?”
Rax was such an innocent, and decent to the core.
Dace made for the stairs with as much strength as he could muster. “Dearest Lizzie has no mercy to spare for a Felmont.”
“What if her uncles force her to marry you and she jumps from the roof?” Rax walked with him. “You terrified her. Almost smacked you on the shoulder myself to get you to stop.”
“Not if you value your life.” The smile he gave showed enough menace to convey his threat.
“After seeing her, I can understand your revulsion,” his friend said in bantering tones. “Fair of fortune and of face, pretty hair streaked with blonde, delicate features, elegant figure and worth twenty thousand a year, if she is worth a penny. Must admit, I can’t see how you could bring yourself to marry her. She is a positive antidote!”
As all of Rax’s five sisters were beauties and he should know better, Dace answered with a dismissive drawl. “Lizzie has not one iota of the playful spirit I want in a wife. Her blood turns to ice when she sees me. I doubt she will ever understand passion after what she has been through. Not after witnessing the wages of sin for love and desire, and burying the corpses.” He glanced up at the main floor windows.
They were waiting for him. “Lizzie will never trust a Felmont. Who can blame her?”
Rax saw the faces staring down at them. “Gracious, that nose does run in the Felmont family. It doesn’t look so bad on you. No rush to introduce me to your relatives. Why don’t we go and see where the others have gone?”
Dace limped towards the stairs as if fatally injured, dragging his friend along in his wake.
Rax peered over the side of the ornate balustrade. “They’ve got her! Poor Miss Tempest! Dished before she got through the gates. That must be one of her uncles blocking the way.”
“How did they get here so fast?” Dace watched the scene with dismay.
“How on earth are you going to ... to ... I mean....” Rax searched for the right word, “The nuptials, the wedding night—after frightening your bride half to death over a kiss?”
“Rax, there you go thinking inflaming thoughts again. Don’t worry, there will be no wedding and no bedding. I am for the Americas if Lizzie fails me.” His stomach knotted at the thought. Home from the hell of war to be greeted with threats of bankruptcy and social ruin. Home to the Priory to find he owned nothing but his soul.
He inched further up the steps. He couldn’t bear to watch Lizzie’s return. Rax gave a mournful sigh and joined him on the terrace.
None of the family came out to greet him, not even one of his young cousins. Keeping the doors closed in his face while he waited outside on the terrace heaped insult upon injury. He’d be damned if he’d knock to enter his own house. He looked up as if inspecting his property.
Whatever Lizzie had done to the façade, she had not changed the frieze over the pediment.
His friend stared upwards before walking backwards to get a better view.
Dace grabbed Rax by the arm. “Watch out for the stairs. They are winged victories. The first viscount loved ’em. The one in the middle is supposed to bear a close resemblance to his wife.” Dace pulled Rax under the portico.
“Do you suppose she posed like that with her breasts exposed?” said Rax. “I wonder how many men have fallen down the stairs trying to get a better look. Very angelic. Modesty does not run in your family, obviously. Heavens!”
“Leave heaven out of it. Winged victories, all of ’em.” Dace decided to give the inmates of the damned house a few more moments to open the doors. “There are no angels here in Felmont’s Folly.”
The doors swung wide. Two mismatched footmen stepped out and bowed before taking their positions on either side of the portico.
Footsteps echoed from the hall.
Dace peered into the interior to see the disapproving countenance of the house steward advancing towards him. Gordon had always been small and fierce. All the young Felmonts had felt the back of his hand for sins real or imagined. The years had shrunken the old Scot, but from the look of him they had not helped his temper.
Not even a welcome from Gordon! Dace stepped over the threshold to put his good arm around the old man’s shoulders. “Don’t stand there staring at me,” he said in full Felmont drawl. “Damn it, Gordon, get everybody out of the house. I’m going to burn it down.”
“I rather think you have to own it first, Lord Felmont.” Only the old man’s cascading white eyebrows were larger than before.
“Go to hell!” Dace patted Gordon on the back then bent to kiss him affectionately, in the French style on both cheeks.
Shock at his gesture showed on the house steward’s lean wrinkled face. “Welcome home, my lord. Will the wedding be this morning?”
“Not unless Miss Tempest begs on bended knee, stark naked, swearing eternal love and all manner of earthly delights to entice me. I think she has deprived me of the ability to father children.” Dace limped into the circular hall beneath the cupola.
Gordon gave a muffled chortle.
Dace gave Rax time to look around with the curiosity every visitor showed. His friend eyed the circular staircase that dominated the hall. It jutted out in a rising sweep to the upper floors without any visible means of support.
“Is the staircase safe? It will frighten the life out of me, if your relatives don’t do it first.” Rax stared at the family portraits on the walls with the expression of one noticing the nose for the first time.
Gordon asked, “Would you care to greet the family, my lord?”
“No. Lead me to the brandy.” Dace stared up at the ceiling.
What in hell’s name had Lizzie Tempest done? A scene of judgment day had been painted on the inside of the dome. Heaven at the top with a few amused angels, one of whom looked very much like the lady herself. All the sinners consigned to realistic torments were Felmonts. Dace craned his neck. Damnation!
All those miserable years he had devoted to ingratiating himself with his betrothed, and she had him painted as the devil in his own house!
“Lizzie has made a liar out of me,” he drawled. If he looked like a devilish Felmont, he may as well sound like one. “Look, Rax, she gave me angels.”
Good for clever Lizzie! A carefully planned insult designed to be discovered when it was too late for him to thank her for it. He owed her one.
Gordon led the way across the marble floor to open a gilded door with a flourish. “I’ll tell them to ready the chapel for the ceremony. There is brandy in the library, my lord.”
Escape was not to be so easy. His family appeared like wraiths in a graveyard. They drifted into the hall with expressions of great disdain on their long faces, angry with him for refusing to marry Lizzie and her fortune. Even his cousins gave him the Felmont stare, though Harry winked over the top of his mother’s head.
Rax shied like a nervous horse.
Bertram Felmont limped forward, garbed in one of his old-fashioned frock coats, his hand rested lightly on his bejeweled cane. He gave a slight bow.
“Dearest Felmont.” Sarcasm, permeated with vitriol, dripped from the thin mouth almost hidden by a long hooked nose—nothing had changed there. “What a shame you survived the great Bonaparte. We were doing so well without you.”
Dace returned the bow with the slightest movement, a mere half shrug of disdain to save his shoulder unnecessary movement. “Cousin Bertram, you are still alive?”
A rustle of interest swept through the family at the veiled threat. One never had to spell it out for a Felmont.
The cane tapped on the floor. “Sweet boy.” An unpleasant grimace accompanied the words. “If you cannot tempt Miss Tempest to your bed, with your so-charming personality, we are here to help you court her.”