Midnight's Wild Passion Page 2

  “Toni?”

  Cassandra Demarest’s uncertain question exploded into the tension bristling between him and the chaperone like a grenade tossed into an enemy line. With a reluctance he resented, Ranelaw wrenched his gaze from the outwardly uninteresting woman who so inexplicably aroused the strongest interest he’d felt in a donkey’s age. He found himself and Miss Smith the cynosure of all eyes, and most of those eyes glinted with speculation and curiosity.

  Hell, this was the last thing he wanted. His sudden decision to pursue the chaperone was purely a private matter, whereas he wanted his interest in the Demarest girl to become the talk of the ton.

  Miss Smith’s fine, pale skin reddened with humiliation. Her gloved hands strangled her plain black reticule. Ranelaw’s lips twitched—he knew whom she really wanted to strangle.

  A companion’s employment relied on pristine reputation. An extended conversation with the notorious Marquess of Ranelaw would do Miss Smith no good. No wonder she looked furious enough to release a blast of dragon fire upon her tormenter.

  Not that she glanced at him.

  “Cassie, did you require something?” Ranelaw heard how hard she worked to steady her low voice.

  Cassandra, to her credit, looked troubled rather than annoyed at her chaperone’s lapse. “I was wondering if we received cards for the Bradhams’ musicale.”

  Miss Smith’s color heightened. In that moment as a blush warmed her creamy skin, Ranelaw’s suspicion cemented into certainty. This was no aging spinster. The woman behind those tinted spectacles was young. Young and ripe for a man’s picking.

  His picking.

  Chapter Two

  During the carriage ride home, Antonia Smith née Hilliard was still berating herself for her dangerous lapse. She knew better than to draw such attention to herself. Years of self-discipline, yet she’d made an utter fool of herself in public.

  All for a blasted rake.

  She was the biggest numbskull in Christendom.

  Yes, Lord Ranelaw was handsome. Breathtakingly so, with a seductive manner that set her traitorous heart racing. She’d discovered in her disastrous acquaintance with the breed that rakes were almost invariably handsome. But good looks meant nothing when selfishness and debauchery blackened the spirit.

  She knew that.

  So why had she forgotten the carefully constructed fiction of Antonia Smith? Why had she responded with the élan she’d relinquished ten years ago, along with her virtue, her privileged place in the world, and her girlish hopes? She’d devoted a decade’s service to creating a façade of irreproachable rectitude, of dull respectability. One glance from Lord Ranelaw’s heavy-lidded eyes and she’d flung all that hard-won self-control aside. She must have lost her mind. Her security rested on her character remaining unsullied.

  And it wasn’t just Ranelaw’s decorative shell that flustered her, may he roast in the hell designated for beautiful men with fetid souls.

  No, he’d ambushed her as much with what he’d said as with his easy sexual confidence. She reminded herself that he used his sparking intelligence for sin. The knowledge couldn’t quite snuff out the excitement of trading word for word with a man equal to the debate.

  Foreboding oozed an icy path down her backbone. She didn’t fool herself tonight would be her only encounter with the spectacular marquess. He was sniffing around Cassie.

  With difficulty, Antonia had made it through the remainder of the ball. She’d resumed her role as perfect companion, invisible but watchful. Careful of her young cousin’s reputation. Not that Cassie needed watching.

  Or she never had before.

  Right now Cassie sat in uncharacteristic silence on the bench opposite Antonia. When she did speak, the topic came as no surprise.

  “I believe Lord Ranelaw is the handsomest man I’ve ever seen.”

  Oh, no. No, no, no.

  Antonia’s stomach cramped in denial. Surely Cassie hadn’t succumbed so swiftly to the libertine’s spell. She’d handled her dance with the marquess with equanimity and had seemed flattered but not unduly discomposed by his attentions. Through the rest of the evening, he’d studiously minded his manners. He’d cast Antonia only one mocking look from those fathomless dark eyes. A look she’d pretended not to notice.

  “He’s too old for you,” Antonia said sharply, then was sorry when she watched Cassie’s curiosity build.

  “He can’t be past his early thirties. A man in his prime. He made every other gentleman in that ballroom look callow or superannuated.” Over the carriage’s creak, Antonia heard the breathless admiration in the girl’s voice.

  “Cassie, your father would have a fit if he knew you encouraged scoundrels like Ranelaw.”

  “My father is in Paris and likely to stay there.”

  With his usual lack of forethought, her second cousin and employer, Godfrey Demarest, had decamped to France a month ago, set on immersing himself once again in the fleshpots. An occupation he took much more seriously than he ever took running his estate or raising his child.

  He’d left Antonia responsible for his daughter, no matter how inadequate she felt to that task outside the bounds of his estate. In spite of the enormous gratitude she owed him, they’d verged on their first quarrel when he’d insisted that supervising Cassie’s debut season presented few risks to Antonia.

  Antonia had pointed out that someone from Northumberland might recognize her. Mr. Demarest retorted that her brother was the only likely candidate and he’d become a hermit since inheriting. Demarest also remarked—correctly so far, with the exception of that wily fox Ranelaw—that nobody looked closely at a companion. Even if they did, who would suspect dowdy Miss Smith was the renegade daughter of Lord Aveson? With his usual unbounded optimism, Mr. Demarest promised that if Antonia was safe from exposure in Somerset, she’d be safe in London.

  After tonight, she didn’t feel safe. One misstep and her identity would remain a secret no longer. With that revelation, scandal would rise to drown not just her, but her cousins, in a tide of disgrace. And she still had to convince Cassie that Ranelaw wasn’t for her.

  “There are regular mail deliveries, even to the wilds of Paris,” she said dryly. “Don’t imagine you’re beyond reach of nasty gossip, my girl.”

  “Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

  Knowing she fought a losing battle, Antonia tried to distract her. “Your father? Yes, he’s a fine figure of a man.”

  Cassie smothered a belly laugh that would surprise the many admirers who praised her delicacy. “Not Papa. Lord Ranelaw. Toni, don’t pretend you didn’t notice. I saw you talking to him.”

  “I was warning him away from you,” she said with perfect truth, if not with perfect completeness. Plenty else had gone on during that intense conversation in full view of the ton. Again she chided herself. How could she have been so reckless?

  “I’ll wager he’s a wonderful kisser,” Cassie said in a dreamy voice.

  “That thought is unbecoming in a lady,” Antonia said, even as she couldn’t help picturing that long, lean body. She was a tall woman but he’d towered over her. Cassie was right. He’d turned every other man there tonight into a nonentity. That’s what rakes did. She ought to know.

  After her experiences, she’d imagined herself immune. She hadn’t found a man attractive in ten years. Once bitten, forever shy.

  So why did the old, insidious heat stir at the sight of the depraved Marquess of Ranelaw? A man who made the other rakes she’d met seem complete scarecrows. She should be repulsed by his self-confidence and blatant sexual games.

  She hadn’t been repulsed, curse her.

  Now Cassie was starry eyed over the rogue. The headache that had threatened all night pounded in earnest at Antonia’s temples.

  “You haven’t answered me.” Cassie was a good, sensible girl, but stubborn. Something else that would surprise th
e numerous swains she’d gathered since her advent into society.

  Antonia was firmly of the belief that a little stubbornness stood a girl in good stead. But sometimes she wished Cassie was the gorgeous, empty-headed doll the world considered her.

  “His swarthy skin contrasts unattractively with his light hair.”

  You’re such a liar, Antonia.

  Ranelaw’s unusual coloring was striking, drew the eye like his impressive height and lazy sensuality.

  Damn him to hell.

  Cassie gave another dismissive laugh. “Toni, what a fib. He’s as handsome as Adonis and you know it.”

  “Forget what he looks like. He’s a sewer rat.” Her voice became urgent. “Cassie, for my sake, for your father’s sake, for your own sake, don’t set your cap at him. Men like that are heartbreakers.”

  She waited for the girl to object. Or perhaps worse, continue praising the marquess. To her surprise, Cassie took her hand. “I’m sorry, Toni. I’m not silly. I know what’s at stake.”

  She was tactful enough not to say, I know what a rake cost you. But she might as well have. Once a future just as bright as Cassie’s had extended before Antonia Hilliard. No longer.

  Antonia returned Cassie’s clasp and glanced out the window. They were nearly home. “He’s not good husband material.” She meant it to her toes.

  “Perhaps not.” Before Antonia could breathe a sigh of relief, she went on. “Although I’m sure he’s an unforgettable lover. One look from under his eyelids and I get all shivery. When he took my hand for the dance, I vow I almost swooned.”

  “Cassie . . .”

  “I know. He’s dangerous. But I’ve never met anyone like him. He makes me think of stallions and lightning and the ocean and long gallops across the moors.”

  To her chagrin, Antonia knew exactly what Cassie meant. As a girl not much younger than Cassie, she’d experienced all those exciting urges and she’d let them ruin her life. The glittering life she’d been born to live was forever denied her because of her fatal weakness. No way would she permit that insanity to destroy this innocent girl she loved like a sister or the daughter she’d never have.

  However handsome the wicked Lord Ranelaw was.

  However powerfully her own recollections of stallions and storms and headlong gallops stirred when she met his knowing dark eyes.

  Ranelaw returned to his London house poorer by five hundred guineas. As Thorpe gloatingly pointed out, Miss Smith had saved her charge from a scandalous waltz with a rake and therefore he’d won the bet. Ranelaw’s encounter with the dragon had been so entertaining, it was almost worth losing a monkey to his friend.

  Almost.

  Smiling wryly at the surprising enjoyment he’d derived from the acid-tongued chaperone, he poured a generous measure of brandy from the decanter on the library sideboard. He downed the brandy, refilled his glass, and turned to the correspondence on his desk. He wasn’t usually sober at this hour. Hell, he wasn’t usually home at this hour. It was barely two. He should be carousing in some dive or losing himself in a woman’s arms.

  After Lady Wreston’s ball, he could have continued the night’s entertainment. A new opera dancer had caught his eye, and he’d intended to fix his interest with her. She was a luscious pigeon, small and titian-haired. Last night she’d exactly fitted his current tastes.

  Somehow tonight, after the ball, she . . . didn’t.

  He swallowed a deep draft of brandy, the heat burning his throat. Setting the glass on the desk, he lifted the top packet from the pile.

  He glanced through the reports from his land agents, decided nothing required immediate action, and turned his attention to the rest. Requests for parliamentary support, which he consigned to the fire. A perfumed plea from a discarded mistress who hadn’t accepted her congé. That too fed the flames.

  He held to few principles, but one was that he never lied to his lovers. When an affair began, he informed the lady that the liaison would last precisely as long as his interest did—generally not an extended period. He wasn’t a good bet for faithful devotion. His family had schooled him early in the damage unrestrained passion caused. He hadn’t seen anything since to change his mind. He was essentially solitary and glad to be so. Only his frequent sexual encounters reminded him, should he need such a reminder, of his continuing link to the rest of humanity.

  Grim thoughts for the early hours. Perhaps he should have stayed out after all. A self-mocking smile twisted his lips and he selected another packet from the stack.

  Finally one letter remained. His gut twisted into its accustomed mixture of sick guilt and regret when he recognized the neat, feminine hand on the seawater-stained missive. She wrote every week from Ireland, and every week he forced himself to read her letter and answer it.

  He resisted the urge to top up his brandy before opening his half sister’s letter. Instead he carried it across to the fire. He sank into an armchair, emptied his glass, and placed it with precision on the side table. Then with a violent gesture, he broke the seal and read Eloise’s loving greeting.

  For a long time, Ranelaw stared unseeingly at the flowing lines of words. Instead his vision filled with the heartbreaking events of twenty years ago. Helpless rage and regret pierced him as he relived those hellish days of Eloise’s disgrace.

  When he was eleven and his beloved half sister was eighteen, Godfrey Demarest had visited Keddon Hall. The late marquess and Demarest had linked up at some gaming hell or other. In his usual careless way, the marquess had invited the fellow to spend summer by the sea with the Challoner family. Any sensible man would pause before bringing a youth already hardened in vice into a house overflowing with pretty girls. Pretty girls who, thanks to parental neglect, roamed largely unsupervised. But then, nobody had ever accused the previous Marquess of Ranelaw of being a sensible man.

  Throughout a sweltering June, Demarest doggedly pursued the most beautiful of the Challoner bastards. Naïve and lonely, Eloise swiftly fell victim to a rake’s practiced wiles, sweetened with pretty compliments and false vows of devotion. Demarest plucked her as easily as he’d pluck a honeysuckle blossom.

  Nicholas had been jealous of the attention his favorite sister paid the handsome visitor from Somerset. He should have foreseen disaster and pushed Demarest off a cliff before he ruined Eloise’s life. After all, no child brought up in the harum-scarum Challoner household remained unaware of doings between men and women. But he’d stayed oblivious to the developing calamity.

  By the time he knew, it was too late. Demarest swanned back to London, abandoning a bereft and pregnant Eloise. Clearly he’d considered the marquess’s by-blow fair game and believed he owed her nothing in return for her virginity. For all his blustering, Ranelaw’s father was too spineless to do more than beat Eloise and lock her in her room. The false lover never faced ultimatums from a furious papa. Instead Demarest blazed ahead to a carefree life and a rich marriage as if Eloise didn’t exist.

  Eloise had her share of pride and fire. She’d been stubborn and unwilling to accept rejection at face value. She’d broken out of her room and begged Ranelaw to take her to Demarest. The bitter memory of that journey still made Ranelaw cringe. Twenty years later. His hand clenched on her latest letter, crushing it.

  They’d careered through the stormy night in a gig stolen from their father’s stables, reaching Demarest’s London lodgings before dawn. Eloise had leaped eagerly from the carriage, clutching her small bag. Nicholas waited in the gig as she dashed toward the imposing town house. He’d waited when a superior footman answered and left her standing while he went inside. Nicholas still waited when the footman returned, informed Eloise Mr. Demarest wasn’t at home, and shut the door in her face.

  His sister stood her ground, insisted her lover would see her. The footman left again.

  She waited longer in the rain, her gay, new gown turning wet and heavy. Even from a di
stance, Nicholas could see her shivering by the time the servant reappeared.

  The footman passed her a note and closed the door.

  Ranelaw never learned what was in that note. But his sister was pale as snow when she returned to the gig. The only words she spoke were a request to return to Hampshire. She looked as though she wanted to die. All the bright, vivid life—the bright, vivid life that had attracted that louse Demarest’s interest, he realized now—was snuffed out. She was only eighteen but she looked older than the ages.

  It was then Ranelaw swore one day he’d see that Demarest’s life wasn’t worth living. One day he’d destroy the weasel just as the weasel had destroyed Eloise.

  The tragedy was that when Ranelaw made that furious vow, the most agonizing consequences of Eloise’s folly still awaited.

  He closed his eyes and tried to block the corrosive memories. Anger, pain, betrayal surged up from his belly, threatened to strangle him. He drew a shuddering breath and pinched his nose hard as he closed his eyes, praying to a God he didn’t believe in for—

  For what?

  For a chance to change the past? For a chance to save Eloise? He wasn’t stupid enough to believe either possible.

  What was possible was this miraculous chance to repay the man who had ruined his sister. In the same currency Demarest had used to destroy a woman whose only fault was her open heart.

  Over the years, Ranelaw had only occasionally encountered the cur. However disreputable Ranelaw might be, his rank gave him entrée to society’s highest level. Demarest was almost equally disreputable, but his fortune stank of trade for all that he was distantly connected to the powerful Hilliard family.

  Ranelaw had spent years waiting for the bastard to make the mistake that would bring him down. But Demarest, in spite of all his wild carousing, never did.

  Then Demarest’s only child, untouched by scandal, lovely and vulnerable as Eloise had been lovely and vulnerable, made her debut.