My Wicked Marquess Read online

  She frowned in sudden concern. “It’s not bad news, I hope?”

  “No, no, it’s excellent news, but the sort I must attend to at once. An arrival, actually, that I have long awaited.”

  “Arrival?” A sudden horrible thought flashed across her mind out of nowhere. “Is your wife having a baby?” she cried as he began to turn away. In the next second, she was even more aghast at what she had just blurted out; she clapped a hand over her mouth and stared at him.

  “My wife?” He stopped and turned back to her, frowning in surprise. “What do you know of my wife?”

  She lowered her hand slightly from her mouth, longing to hide under the nearest rock. “Nothing! Oh, God—I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean, that is, I’m sure it’s none of my—”

  His soft, tickled laughter put a halt to her mortified stammering. His pale eyes danced. “My dear Miss Starling,” he teased, laughing warmly at her flustered attempt to find out if he was a married man. “If I had a wife about to give birth, I would hardly be here, letting a charming young beauty enchant me. Though, I must admit, I can’t help but feel a little flattered that your thoughts turn so easily to breeding in my presence.”

  She gasped, rendered speechless. Still chuckling as she turned rosy, he captured her hand and bowed over it, pressing the briefest of kisses to her knuckles. “Au revoir, cherie. Until we meet again.”

  “Oh, will we?” she retorted, yanking back her hand as he released it, barely recovered from her embarrassment at his ribald teasing.

  “Count on it,” he whispered, and took leave of her with a wink.

  Oh, that man!

  For the longest moment, she stood just where he’d left her, watching him stride away, and then staring dazedly at the empty hallway even after he’d slipped out the door.

  Vaguely, she lifted the hand he had kissed to her heart. She could feel her whole chest pounding with the crazed reaction he inspired, a potent mix of thrill and joy, uncertainty and complete exasperation.

  Well! she thought in belated, still rather mortified humor. At least now she knew he wasn’t married.

  She was so caught up in her thoughts of him that Daphne did not even notice her friend Carissa rushing up the hallway toward her until a feminine hand gripped her arm, turning her around, and a familiar whisper exclaimed by her ear, “Are you mad?”

  “Oh—Carissa.” Blinking like a woman waking from a dream, she smiled dazedly at her friend. “I’ve hardly seen you all night.”

  “Well, luckily, I saw you! Better me than anyone else, to be sure! What do you think you are doing, talking to him—unchaperoned, no less? Have you lost your mind?”

  With auburn hair and emerald eyes, the fey-featured Carissa Portland waited for her explanation like an angry fairy queen.

  Daphne shook her head, still feeling the aftereffects of his spell. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Daphne! He is a scoundrel!”

  “Nooo!” she protested in lavish denial, waving away this objection. “He is perfectly amiable, believe me.”

  Well, except for that whole brothel business, came a niggling thought.

  “Do you even know who that is?” Carissa demanded.

  “Of course I do! The Marquess of Rotherstone.”

  Carissa dropped her voice to an emphatic whisper: “The Demon Marquess!”

  “Oh, that’s just silly—”

  “No, it’s not!”

  “Pish-posh. Let’s go get some sweets!”

  “Daphne, listen to me.” Carissa gripped her arm. “I don’t know what’s got into you, but you must not go near that wicked fellow again. Haven’t you heard?”

  “What?”

  “He is one of the leading members of the Inferno Club!”

  “The what?”

  “The Inferno Club!” The redhead beckoned her a little closer and glanced around with a conspiratorial air, then endeavored to explain. “They meet in Dante House, not far from the other gentlemen’s clubs in St. James’s. But they are altogether wicked, so I’ve heard.”

  “Why? What do they do?” she asked eagerly.

  “Things decent girls like us ought never contemplate!”

  Daphne furrowed her brow. Carissa was not normally a prude. “What else do you know?”

  “Only that they are a scandalous society of decadent, highborn libertines, infamous for pursuing all manner of debauchery. That is why you must not speak to him. If you thought stupid Albert Carew and his jealous rumors could harm your reputation, that’s nothing compared to the damage you could suffer if you’re seen overmuch in the company of Lord Hellfire there.” Carissa nodded toward the door by which Lord Rotherstone had left.

  Daphne thought again of his charming smile and gave her friend a crestfallen look. “There must be some mistake. He’s new to Town. He told me he’s been traveling abroad.”

  “Well, yes, but when he does stop in London, those Inferno Club hellions are the sort of company he prefers. Half of Society doesn’t receive him,” Carissa added. “I warrant the only reason he was invited tonight is because he is related to Lord Edgecombe.”

  Daphne’s heart began to sink.

  An image of him stumbling out of the brothel yesterday came easily to mind, but even so, she did not want to believe what Carissa was reporting.

  “You know the gossip is always exaggerated.”

  Carissa shook her head stubbornly. “I was just talking to some of my officer friends, and you would not believe what they said. According to them, Lord Rotherstone showed up at Waterloo. Not to fight Napoleon. Just to watch the battle, as if it was the latest circus spectacle at Astley’s!”

  “Really? Not to fight? You’re sure?”

  Carissa nodded. “They referred to him as the Grand Tourist, for he lives only for pleasure. They said he did nothing useful for the cause, but spent the hours before the battle getting drunk, chasing the tavern wenches around, and making a spectacle of himself laying wagers against Boney. He even made himself comfortable right inside General Wellington’s headquarters. Can you imagine? A complete libertine—but he is so rich and powerful that none of the officers could naysay him.”

  “Why didn’t Wellington throw him out if he was such a nuisance?”

  She shrugged. “Probably Lord Wellington was too much of a gentleman—or was simply too busy to care, on the eve before battle.”

  “Hm.” Daphne wrinkled her brow in complete befuddlement and glanced toward the door by which Lord Rother-stone had gone.

  Obviously, Carissa believed what she had heard from the officers, but having met the man in question, Daphne felt that this did not add up. She remembered all too vividly the look of gusto on his face when he had broken that bottle in Bucket Lane and invited half the rookery to try him.

  Of course, she admitted skeptically, he had been foxed then—or at least still feeling the effects of the previous night’s indulgence.

  “Whatever you do, just be careful with him,” Carissa warned. “Such a man’s intentions are not likely to be honorable, and I saw how he was looking at you,” she added with mixed humor and disapproval. “I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I do hope you’ll heed my advice, as one who adores you and will be forever in your debt.”

  “Stuff and nonsense, Miss Portland, you are not in my debt,” Daphne said with a smile. “You are my friend.”

  “And you were the only person who was kind to me when I first arrived in London. Not even my dreadful cousins treated me humanely. You championed me, and now I must protect you. And for your sake, my dear Daphne, I should be like a-a mother bear minding her cub!”

  “You? A bear?” she asked in amusement, glancing at her friend’s slim, petite frame. She started laughing. “A good breeze could blow you away.”

  “I am a bear in spirit!” Carissa hooked her arm through Daphne’s elbow and smiled fondly at her. “Don’t let your generous nature lead you into a snare with this man, promise? I fear it would be a great mistake for you to try taking up Lord
Rotherstone’s cause as you did mine, however tempted you may be. Lost souls are hopeless cases, even for you.”

  Lost soul? Demon Marquess? Daphne didn’t know what to think. “Honestly, he seemed all right to me,” she defended him as they strolled back toward the ballroom, arm in arm.

  Carissa shrugged still dubious. “To be sure, he is beautiful to look at. Not to mention rich and powerful. And probably a brilliant catch—if he could ever be brought to heel. But that is extremely unlikely. His ancestors were all bad, too, I hear. Don’t make me worry for you,” she complained, nudging her with her shoulder. “We both know you’re already on shaky ground with this whole Albert debacle. Promise me you’ll stay away from him, for your own good.”

  She glanced abashedly at her friend. “I can’t.”

  “Daphne!”

  “I can’t help it!” she exclaimed, shrugging and blushing again like some foolish cake head. “I owe him a dance, I already promised!”

  “You don’t owe anything to any man!” the elfin lady thundered in righteous indignation.

  Daphne bit her lip as her blush deepened.

  “Oh…wait one moment! I see what is going on here!” Carissa propped a hand on her hip and looked at Daphne matter-of-factly. “You like him.”

  Daphne winced at the accusation. She pursed her lips, refusing to admit it aloud.

  “Daphne! Oh, leave it to the perfect lady to take an interest in a bad, wicked scoundrel!”

  “It’s not like I’m going to marry the man!” she retorted in a whisper. “What harm can there be in one dance?”

  “Famous last words,” Carissa said archly. “Come, you little henwit, I will save you from yourself!”

  Taking Daphne’s wrist with sudden laughter, Carissa dragged her back to the ballroom and cheerfully shoved her off to dance with someone safe and boring.

  But all throughout the dance, Daphne kept glancing at the door, hoping against her better sense that Lord Hellfire might return.

  Fortunately for her reputation, he did not.

  Chapter 5

  Pish-posh? Inside his lightless carriage, Max shook his head, the lingering trace of a smile on his lips. It was not easy to leave her. Delightful creature. She was even more alluring up close. The light scent of her floral perfume still clung to him as his coach traveled through the midnight streets of London.

  The earlier storm had tapered off into a thick cloak of mist; the moon shimmered in the watery sky like a silver coin at the bottom of a garden fountain.

  Though his first encounter with the enchanting Miss Starling had left him hungry for more, Virgil had summoned Max to the club with the news that Warrington and Falconridge had just arrived in Town.

  It was turning into a very good night.

  The Inferno Club lay only half a mile from the brilliance of the Edgecombe ball, but in the darkness, it seemed a world away.

  As his carriage rolled into the shadow of Dante House, a place of mystery, he glanced out the window at the sinister-looking building, dubbed by locals “the Town residence of Satan.”

  Between its black, twisty spires, a glass-domed observatory bulged atop the roof. At the street level, a high spiked fence and misshapen mounds of overgrown thorns warded off the uninvited.

  Warped shutters and roof shingles creaked when the wind blew off the river like a tribe of moaning ghosts, but the diabolical aspect of Dante House was only a façade. What appeared a haunted mansion to the outside world was in fact a compact, efficient fortress in disguise.

  The paradox of it pleased him.

  While the evil members of the Promethean Council contrived to present themselves as upstanding pillars of European society, it seemed only fitting, in turn, for good to hide behind a mask of wickedness, the better to wage their shadow war.

  Max got out of his carriage and told his coachman to drive home without him. There was no point in making the man wait around till dawn. With his friends back at last, Max had no idea how late he might stay out. This night called for celebration. They had not seen one another in about two years, and there had been moments during the war when he’d wondered if they would ever get through it alive.

  He walked through the front gates of Dante House and closed them behind him. Ahead, the entrance portico loomed.

  In a wry tribute to the poet for whom the house was named, the front door had a brass knocker in the shape of a medieval scholar’s head, his expression inscrutable under his flat-topped cap.

  Above the door hung a placard with a word of advice to visitors, echoing the famed inscription over the poet Dante’s gateway to Hell: Abandon hope all ye, etc.

  With the worldly, irreverent ennui for which most Inferno Club members were famous, the placard did not even bother finishing the quote. Which was just as well, for few would enter here. Entrée was strictly guarded, by invitation only, possibly on pain of death.

  Occasional wild revelries were held here for the sake of keeping up the appearance of dissipation, but these were actually highly choreographed events overseen by Virgil himself.

  Security was intensive, all possible measures taken to assure that none of the painted ladies who were brought in for the fun had any idea what was really going on.

  The door swung open ahead with a mournful creak, and there stood Mr. Gray, who had been the butler at Dante House for time immemorial.

  The tall, gaunt butler—who looked like something the resurrection men had dug up—had always possessed uncanny timing. Standing aside, he bowed gravely as Max strode in.

  “Good evening, Marquess.”

  “Evening, Gray.” He stepped into the foyer. “I understand we have cause tonight for celebration.”

  “Indubitably, sir.” Gray closed the door behind Max just as a few of the Order’s hellhounds came bounding forth to greet him.

  Great black-and-tan dogs of German origin, tamed demons, all gleaming fangs, sleek speed, and rangy motion, they danced around Max, tails wagging, their big canine grins at odds with their fierce looks and spiked collars. “Sit!” Max held up his hand to silence their raucous greeting.

  The guard dogs immediately dropped to their haunches. One large pup-in-training licked its nose nervously and stared at him with a small whine. “Good boy.” Max gave the dog a pat on the head just as Virgil joined them.

  To this day, Max was not sure if that was really his handler’s name.

  The gruff, giant Highlander had always filled Max with a certain degree of awe, ever since that day so long ago when Virgil had arrived at the Rotherstones’ dilapidated country house in his role as Seeker.

  The first time Max had met him, himself only a boy, Virgil had been wearing the kilt of his clan. Though he wore ordinary clothes in Town, he still had the air of a mighty laird. In his fifties now, he had a good deal of gray mixed in with the reddish-gold of his wild hair. His impressive orange mustache, which Max had so envied as a lad, was shot through with salt-and-pepper grays. But he was still formidable, a grizzled warrior of a man, with all the scars to prove his lifelong loyalty to the Order.

  Rather than mellowing him, the years had only seemed to harden the Scot. After thirty-five years spent in the Order’s struggle against their Promethean enemies—slightly more time than Max had even been alive—Virgil was now the head of the Order in London. Who Virgil’s superiors in the government were, that was information Max was not privy to.

  As the Link for his team, however, he knew of other cells in great cities throughout the Continent, wherever the Promethean Council had been gaining too much sway.

  To be sure, the Promethean Council had had tentacles in every court in Europe. They planned not in years, but in decades, in centuries, driven by their endless lust for power over mankind. From time to time, they rose to threaten humanity, but never before in all their history had the Prometheans come so close to their aims as they had in the past twenty years, by infiltrating the structure of empire Napoleon had built.

  Parasites that they were, it was their way was
to creep in unobtrusively, gaining the trust of the powerful by degrees, extending their own dark influence ever deeper in the guise of trusted advisors, seasoned generals, longtime friends; patiently, quietly, always deniably, they spread their corruption, taking over slowly from the inside like a cancerous disease.

  This time, they might have succeeded. But when Napoleon was finally vanquished at Waterloo about three months ago, the Promethean overlords’ fondest dreams of destiny had also come crashing down.

  If Napoleon had won that battle, Max mused, the future of the world would have looked very different. But Bonaparte had been defeated, and now the nations of the earth might know another fifty years of rest before the Promethean enemy rose again in some new, ruthless incarnation.

  Of course, the Council had succeeded in delivering one last, cruel parting blow before going down in defeat.

  A Promethean spy had delivered false news to London about the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo. In the early morning hours, someone had spread the word that Wellington had lost—that Napoleon had crushed the British army in Belgium, and the long-dreaded nightmare of “the Monster” landing on England’s shores was imminent.

  The terrible rumors had ignited London, causing a panic that day in the financial markets. The London stock exchange had crashed violently, but the soulless Prometheans had been ready, buying up solid British companies for pennies on the pound.

  Every stockholder in London had wanted out of their investments immediately, believing they’d need their money in hand to survive, perhaps to flee, if necessary, to save their families from the soon-to-be-invading Grande Armée. Panic had run wild. In their desperation, people had been willing to take whatever pittance they could get for their stock, but the only ones buying were the shell companies the Promethean overlords had set up in anticipation of this deception.

  Great companies had changed hands overnight. Countless reputable merchants had been ruined, the life savings of countless innocent people wiped out, and no one, not even the Order, had seen the thing coming.

  Max’s own holdings had taken a thrashing, but fortunately, most of his investments were in land. The market panic had been halted when the truth of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo had arrived, but by then, much of the damage was already done.