What a Duke Dares

Chapter Eleven

Leath House, London, late March 1828

By God, Leath’s butler was a superior bugger. Harry fought the urge to stick a finger in his neckcloth to loosen it. He stalked through the door that the haughty fellow held and into an extravagant library.

The tall man who rose from behind a vast mahogany desk bore an expression even more forbidding than the butler’s. By the hard set of his jaw and the shuttered eyes, he looked ready to boot young Mr. Thorne back into Berkeley Square. Harry gulped to moisten a dry mouth, then told himself to buck up.

“Thorne.” Leath’s voice was particularly deep and resonant.

Only with difficulty did Harry stop himself from jumping like a nervous cat. He’d heard innumerable stories of the marquess’s lethal tongue and razor-sharp brain shredding any members of the House of Lords rash enough to set themselves against him. “My lord.”

No invitation to sit. Instead Leath prowled around the desk to prop his hips against the edge. Harry supposed Sophie was upstairs. He hadn’t informed her of this afternoon’s call.

Harry swallowed again and struggled to keep his voice steady. He felt colder inside Leath House than outside in the squall slapping rain against the windows. “I’m sure you’ve guessed why I requested this appointment.”

The marquess’s expression remained discouraging. “Perhaps you should tell me.”

Harry had devoted the last week to planning his campaign. He’d arrived dressed in his best and armed with an array of arguments to melt a bronze statue’s heart. Now he stared at the man he hoped would become his brother-in-law and couldn’t recollect a word.

Impatience drew the marquess’s fierce black brows together. “I’m a busy man.”

The world accounted James Fairbrother a handsome fellow in the brawny, saturnine fashion. Right now, Harry just thought he was terrifying.

Harry drew himself up and spoke from the heart. Which was the last thing he’d intended. He’d long ago realized that no appeal to sentiment would win over the marquess. “I’m here to ask permission to court Lady Sophie. I love her and I’m sure I’ll make her happy.”

To Harry’s mortification, the marquess laughed. He folded his arms across his dauntingly wide chest and bent his head and snickered fit to send a man mad.

“My lord, I see nothing amusing in my request.” Harry cursed himself for sounding like a pompous blockhead.

Abruptly Leath stopped laughing. This time Harry couldn’t mistake the animosity in his eyes. “When I got your note, I wondered if you were moronic enough to declare yourself. Surely even the stupidest member of England’s most imprudent family couldn’t be that foolhardy.” Another snide laugh. “I overestimated you. Although nothing I’ve seen since you started sniffing around my sister indicates that I should have.”

“You’re offensive, sir,” Harry said coldly, before remembering that umbrage wouldn’t forward his cause.

“I’m offensive?” Leath didn’t raise his voice, which made his contempt all the more powerful. “I’m not a useless fribble of a spendthrift who imagines he’ll win a great heiress just for the asking. An heiress who happens to be the sister I love. On his deathbed, I promised my father that I’d look after Sophie. Entrusting her future to a wastrel would make me a vile liar.”

Harry struggled not to retreat under this tirade, all expressed in a basso profundo that set his teeth vibrating. “You need to give me a chance to present my case, my lord.”

Leath’s fist banged hard upon the desk behind him, setting the inkwells rattling. “The devil. I do not need to give you anything, except an order to leave my house and stop bothering my sister.”

Every rule of politeness insisted that when a man requested a guest’s departure, the guest was duty-bound to depart. But Harry was angry enough and desperate enough to defy the marquess’s decree.

“There is some justice in your accusations, my lord,” he said through lips so stiff that they felt made of wood. Nobody had spoken to him like this since he was an unpromising schoolboy at Eton. He squared his shoulders and stared directly at Leath. “I won’t make excuses for my behavior or my family.”

“There are no excuses,” Leath snapped.

Harry told himself that he couldn’t close this interview by punching the overweening coxcomb in the nose. “I am a young man who until now has had no call on his talents. I’ve done no harm to anyone. My vices are those of any sprig about Town. If you inquire, you’ll discover I’m addicted to neither the bottle nor the gambling tables. I’m not in debt.” Barely. “I love your sister sincerely. I believe I can make her happy.”

Leath regarded him like a cockroach that had crawled from beneath the rich Turkey carpet. “And I believe that you’re a rake without income or prospects who intrigues to set himself up in luxury, courtesy of my sister’s fortune.”

Harry flinched before he recalled that any display of vulnerability placed him at the marquess’s mercy. Not that mercy seemed part of the man’s repertoire. “I’d take your sister in her shift, sir.”

“Gallant words, Mr. Thorne. Ones you’ll never need to prove.”

“She ought to marry a man who adores her.” Harry retained enough grip on strategy to know that mentioning Desborough would only infuriate Leath.

“She ought to marry a man who offers steadfastness and care.”

“I am that man, sir.” Harry straightened his spine, although he knew nothing would help him. Damn it, Sophie had been right. He should have listened. She’d be furious when she discovered that he hadn’t. “We should ask Lady Sophie’s opinion.”

At least Leath didn’t laugh, although his smile was derisive. “You’ve turned her head. You have a charming manner, Mr. Thorne. Not charming enough to gain this heiress.”

“You harp upon her fortune, my lord, as if that is all Lady Sophie has to offer. You do her a grave injustice.”

Was Harry optimistic to notice a softening in Leath’s contempt? “You’ve got more backbone than I expected, Thorne. Perhaps you do fancy yourself in love.”

Harry didn’t bother gracing that comment with a reply. “So I have permission to court your sister?”

Leath’s eyebrows arched. “Be damned to you, you do not. She’ll marry a man who can give her the life she deserves. That, sir, is not you.”

“You are mistaken, my lord.”

“I doubt it.” He stalked around his desk to sit in the imposing leather chair. “I’m no longer at leisure.” Briefly Leath’s tone had thawed to slightly above glacial. It was back to icy now.

Knowing he’d made a fool of himself, knowing he might have made an irredeemable mistake in declaring his hand too early, Harry stared helplessly at the marquess. “Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?”

“Nothing.” Piercing dark eyes blasted him with antipathy. “Now I suggest—again—that you leave.”

He’d failed. Dear God, he’d failed.

Now Leath would be more watchful than ever. Why the hell hadn’t he listened to Sophie and ignored his masculine impulses to stake a claim? He’d said he cared about honor, but he now realized that self-importance had driven him to this ill-considered meeting.

“Thank you for your time.” He prayed that he concealed his turmoil. He dearly wanted to retain a scrap of dignity.

“I can’t say it was a pleasure.”

“Good day, my lord.” Harry bowed, defeat settling sour and heavy in his belly. He’d made a complete mull of everything. He hoped like hell that Sophie forgave him. He hoped like hell that he had a chance to see her so that she could forgive him. Leath might exile her to Timbuctoo to keep her from unwelcome suitors.

Leath didn’t do him the courtesy of standing for his departure. Instead, he drew a folder of papers closer and began to read.

He dismissed Harry like a tradesman. Keeping a rein on his temper, Harry turned on his heel and marched out, back straight as a ruler even as despair battered him.

Kent Coast, late March 1828

The small boat tossed like a cork in a whirlpool. Pen hunched in the stern, soaked and clinging to the gunwales with frozen hands. Cam and Captain MacGregor rowed like demons to steer the dory toward the dimly visible coast, a mere line on the horizon.

The wind whistled past, ripped at her hair and the cloak she’d grabbed to save her modesty before Cam had rushed her on deck. It provided little defense against the thrashing waves and the horizontal rain. Her teeth chattered and after half an hour of this hell, she could no longer feel hands or feet.

She couldn’t bear to look behind at the empty space where Cam’s magnificent Windhover had once commanded the sea. The ship had gone down with astonishing rapidity moments after Cam had flung Pen into the tiny craft they now shared. The fall had left her bruised, but grateful to be above the waves, not below. The sick chill that she’d felt watching the graceful yacht sink like a stone still thickened her blood.

Two crewmen hadn’t made it. Pen had hardly known one, but the other had been a cheerful presence. If she survived this ordeal, she’d mourn his death. Of the two remaining sailors, one had been hit by the falling mast. Moaning and barely conscious, he huddled beside Pen. The other crewman Williams bailed madly in the bow. The strange dim light of the stormy afternoon revealed his losing battle. With every second, they wallowed deeper.

Bile flooded her mouth. Not sea sickness. Sheer terror.

Except that the Thornes were famous for courage, if not good sense. Stiffly Pen uncurled her cramped limbs and crouched at Cam’s feet. She began to bail with her hands.

“Pen!” Cam’s voice was thin in the wind, although he sat so close. She’d thought the noise in the cabin was deafening. Here, she could hardly summon thought, it was so loud.

She met his eyes. Not long ago, they’d fired cruel words at one another. Through the driving rain, his expression defied their destruction. He reached down and produced a tin dish. For the first time since they’d met again, no shadows darkened his smile. Ridiculous as it was in the middle of a tempest and with drowning likely, she smiled back.

“Good for you,” he said.

Such simple praise. He’d said it so often when they’d been children and she’d bowled a straight ball or taught one of her mongrel dogs a trick. The accolade warmed her heart, on a day cold enough to freeze lava. She stared into his eyes and realized that if fate decreed her death, she couldn’t ask for a better companion.

Then she started to bail furiously. The boat climbed each wave, then descended with a nauseating thud. Thunder cracked again and again. She was soaked to the skin. Her hair clung to her face like sticky icicles. The air she inhaled was jagged ice. Her hands didn’t seem to belong to her. Still they went on. Dip and throw, dip and throw, dip and throw.

She reached a point where anything more than rote movement was beyond her. Somewhere in her soul, she knew that Cam was here. With death breathing wet and cold down her neck, his nearness meant the world.

She didn’t look up. There was little point. Visibility had worsened until it was like heading into a cloud. Still she kept going. Dip and throw. Dip and throw. Dip and—

The boat crashed into something and the world turned topsy-turvy again. For an instant, Pen stared up at the lightning-riddled sky. Then choking darkness engulfed her as she sank beneath the waves.