Regency High Society Vol 7: A Reputable Rake / The Heart's Wager / The Venetian's Mistress / The Gambler's Heart

Your nephew, D.S.

Morgana. By God, what irony. It would not be her courtesan school that would ruin her, but the incredible bad luck of having him move next door to her. Did his father know she had spent the night in his bed? Did he stoop to sending spies to watch the house?

Elliot gazed at him intently. ‘Is there anything I might do to assist?’

Sloane glanced up at him. ‘No—yes. Have my horse saddled immediately. I must get dressed.’

Elliot nodded and hurried off without once questioning what news the letter contained. An estimable young man. A man to count upon.

Sloane hurried back in the bedchamber and began rummaging around for clothes. The difficulty with having a valet was that he did not have any notion where things were put. He gave up on clothes and decided to shave instead. If he showed up at the Earl’s residence unshaven, it would merely make an unnecessary distraction. He intended to go looking like a gentleman.

There was a pitcher of water, some soap and his razor on the chest with the mirror, and he made quick work of the job. As he returned to rummaging for clothes, he closed the door of the wardrobe with a bang. The rustle of bed linens made him twist around.

Morgana sat up, holding the blanket across her lovely naked breasts. ‘Sloane?’

‘I am here, Morgana.’

She smiled when she located him in the room, a smile soft with sleep and gratification. ‘Good morning.’

He took three long steps to reach her side, put one knee on the bed and took her face in his hands, giving her a kiss with the sort of promise he had no time to fulfil. She flung her arms around his neck and tried to pull him down on top of her. His arousal came swiftly, hard and insistent. What would a few minutes hurt?

He obliged her, covering her with kisses, rubbing his hands over her smooth creamy skin. He felt like laughing out loud, an odd impulse in the midst of this crisis, but he did not care. She made him feel joyous. As if he deserved all the passion she had so innocently and wholeheartedly bestowed upon him.

He took her quickly, entering her with a force that made her gasp, but not with pain this time. His Morgana never did anything by halves. She joined his fierce pace, making intoxicating mewing sounds as her need escalated. When coupled with her like this, Sloane felt nothing like a gentleman, but everything like a man. So fast they reached the pinnacle. Together they plunged into an ecstasy of pleasure. Sloane’s landing brought him collapsing on her now damp skin.

‘Ah, Morgana, I was too rough. I am sorry.’ Surely he must have hurt her.

She reached up and caressed his cheek. ‘Not too rough,’ she murmured, making him want to take her again, right here, right now.

But he remembered his nephew’s letter. ‘I must go.’ He climbed off the bed and started to dress. ‘Do you wish me to see you home? Or you may stay in my bed as long as you like.’

She glanced towards the daylight streaming through the window. ‘I suppose I ought to go home. I cannot imagine what they will think.’

He came back to her and swiped his hand through the disarray of her hair. ‘They will think you spent the night in my bed.’

She gave a wan smile. ‘Yes, I suppose that is so.’

He stared at her, wanting her all over again, wanting to hold her spirit, so untamed and unafraid, inside him. She was the woman created for him. He had no doubt of that now.

As he pulled on a pair of trousers, he watched her climb off the bed and search the floor for her clothes. She donned her shift and positioned her corset. He walked over to tie it. When he finished he put his hands on her shoulders and leaned her against him.

He wanted more mornings like this, with lovemaking and easy talk between them, casual touching, ordinary life. She turned and smiled at him, picking up the neckcloth that he’d found folded in a drawer. She put it around his neck and tied it.

‘Morgana, I have been summoned to my father’s house.’

She looked up into his eyes. ‘He sent for you?’

‘No,’ he admitted, the despicable plan of his father filling him with anger and pain. ‘My nephew warned me.’

Her expression turned questioning.

He slid his hands down her arms, clasping her fingers. ‘Morgana, my father intends to ruin me by sending out a tale that you and I are lovers.’

Her fingers flexed tightly in his. ‘They have seen me come here?’

‘I do not know. It would not be beneath my father’s scruples to hire someone to do such a thing.’ He looked directly into her eyes. ‘I will convince him to remain quiet, but he is bent on seeing me disgraced. It will all come to naught, however, if you marry me.’

She went very still, the pupils of her eyes growing large. ‘What about Hannah?’

‘I have not offered for Hannah—’ he began.

She interrupted him. ‘She was to be your means of gaining respectability.’

‘Hang respectability. You and I will do very well together.’

Morgana slowly pulled her fingers from his grasp and took a step back. She looked at him long and hard, loving him enough to give him whatever he desired.

What he desired was respectability. He’d worked diligently to earn it, and now his father was about to snatch it away again. Through her. If the Earl was so bent on ruining Sloane he would have the house watched, how long before her secrets were known to the man? Even marriage could not erase the scandal of a wife who trained women to be courtesans.

She took a deep breath, like a dying person gasping for one last breath. ‘But I do not wish to marry you, Sloane.’

He flinched. It was almost imperceptible, but she caught it. ‘You… do not wish to marry me?’

Morgana made herself smile, trying to remember how Harriette Wilson looked when she turned on her charm. ‘Oh, no. I thought I told you I did not.’

His brows dropped and his voice became very low. ‘After last night, do you expect me to believe you would not desire the marriage bed?’

It was Morgana’s turn to flinch. She only hoped she hid it as effectively as he. To belong to Sloane, to make love to him, until death parted them was everything she desired. It was why she’d begged him for this past night. He must not pay by giving up everything he desired, merely because he had obliged her.

Morgana’s mind whirled with ways to convince him that she did not want him, though her soul ached for him even now. ‘Oh, I desire the lovemaking.’ She aped the light flirtatious voice of Miss Wilson. ‘Thank you so much for showing me that I would enjoy it. It quite informs me that I should like that part of a courtesan’s life.’

‘Morgana,’ he cried in a fierce groan.

She fluttered her eyelashes and went about collecting her dress. ‘Now do not lecture me, please do not.’ She put the dress on over her head and placed her back to him so he could fasten the buttons. ‘My mind is quite made up.’

‘You will not marry me?’ Another man might make this sound like a plea, but in Sloane’s voice it sounded like a pirate about to attack. He fastened her buttons with lightning speed.

She made her voice light. ‘Do not be absurd. You’ve no wish to marry me! Goodness! To think you would propose out of some obligation. You need not play the gentleman with me, Sloane.’

Her words wounded him. She saw it in his eyes. For a moment she wished he would strike her. The pain might distract from the wrenching ache inside her. But she knew he was too much a true gentleman to do so.

She picked up her stockings and balled them in her hands, putting her bare feet into her dancing slippers. He shrugged into his coat and ran a brush through his hair. Morgana put hers in a quick plait.

‘I will see you to the back entrance of your house. If we are careful, no one outside will notice you.’

It was a gentlemanly thing to do. He could have just opened the door and pushed her out.

‘Thank you,’ she said, failing to maintain her bright-sounding speech.

He did not appear to notice. He opened the bedchamber door and walked her down the stairs. She managed to put one foot in front of the other, although all she truly wanted to do was sink into a puddle of despair. On a table in the hall was her gold domino, folded neatly. He put it around her shoulders and pulled the hood up over her head. His touch was like a smithy’s tongs hot from the forge.

When they walked out of the door and through the gap in the garden wall, they did not speak. The silence spread through her like some wasting disease.

She had given him the means of retaining his hard-won respectability. She had given him a clear path to offer for a respectable wife—her cousin. But she’d hurt him. Not with her refusal of marriage. A man soon got over such a blow to pride. No, she’d treated him as if he were not a gentleman. That made her no better than his father. And it made her feel sick inside.

The door to her house was unlocked. He opened it for her and she stepped inside. She turned quickly to bid him goodbye, but he had already withdrawn. He did not look back.

The man wore a vendor’s apparel and carried a sack of brushes on his shoulder. He’d wandered around Culross Street since dawn, finally discovering a way to slip through the mews to a shrouded place where he could spy on Cyprian Sloane’s townhouse. Instinct told him to watch the back of the house. Instinct, and lack of success witnessing anything of consequence from the front.

It was too bad he could not watch the house next to Sloane’s where he’d briefly spied the pretty girls through the window. Sloane’s place was as quiet as a church cemetery.

Just as he was about to leave, Sloane’s door opened. There was the man himself, a woman with him. He walked her over to the other house and she entered it.

What an arrangement, thought the man with envy. Some men have all the luck.

Morgana paused when reaching the door to the library. It was open a crack, and she could hear the girls’ voices and the reedy laughter of her grandmother, who undoubtedly found everything to be very lovely. Oh, to have her grandmother’s forgetfulness, to live in a present that was perpetually lovely. How much easier life would be. How much less painful.

The voices were not sounding happy, however. Katy’s shrill tones rose above the others. ‘We need Miss Hart! She will know what to do.’

Morgana glanced down at her hand, still holding her stockings. She stuffed them into a pocket inside her domino and stuffed her numbing despair along with them.

She opened the door. ‘I am here.’

Katy leapt up from her chair. ‘Gracious, Miss Hart!’ She looked her up and down. ‘Did you have a nice night?’

Lucy and Rose stared at her, and Miss Moore, seated near her grandmother, gave her a kind, knowing smile.

It felt as if someone had ripped off all her clothes in a public square, but she realised it was not making love to Sloane that made her feel exposed. It was the ache in her heart.

She tried for a vague smile. ‘A lady does not speak of such matters, Katy.’

Katy laughed. ‘Harriette Wilson had no trouble speaking about it.’

Morgana gave her a candid look. ‘But Miss Wilson is not a lady.’

Was it too late to convince them that they could be ladies? Oh, not ladies of the ton, perhaps, but respectable women who deserved men who loved them and who would never walk away?

Lucy stood up. Her face looked drawn. ‘Miss Hart, we must tell you about Mary.’

If something had happened to Mary while she was making love to Sloane. ‘What of Mary?’

‘It is nothing bad,’ assured Rose.

Lucy gave an imploring glance to Miss Moore.

Miss Moore beamed at Morgana. ‘It seems our Mary has run off to Gretna Green with Mr Duprey.’

‘That cowhanded sapskull…’ Katy shook her head ‘… how could she?’

Tears sprang to Morgana’s eyes. She walked over to Miss Moore. ‘Is it really so?’

Miss Moore handed her a letter. Mary wrote that she was sorry to disappoint Morgana, but Mr Duprey had proposed to her at the masquerade, promising to save her from such unpleasantness and give her a good home. He did not have a big fortune, she added, but Mary looked forward to making little economies to make his life pleasant. The letter then went on for a whole page, heaping praises upon Mr Duprey.

When Morgana finished she clasped the letter to her chest.

‘That slow-top could have purchased a special license here in London.’ Katy shook her head in disgust.

‘Gretna Green is romantic, is it not, Miss Hart?’ Rose directed her beautiful green eyes on Morgana. ‘It is good that she marries, is it not?’

Morgana smiled through her tears. ‘It is wonderful for her!’ She would miss the shy, gentle girl. Her loss was Mr Duprey’s gain—and Mary’s salvation.

Morgana thought of Sloane. ‘It is wonderful for her,’ she repeated. ‘Well done, Mary.’

Chapter Seventeen

Sloane’s horse was waiting for him when he tore back into the house. Elliot stood in the hall and the butler hovered in a doorway.

It was Elliot who handed him his hat and gloves. The look of compassion on the young man’s face nearly jolted him out of the towering rage that consumed him.

Morgana.

He grabbed his hat and gloves and thundered out the door, snatching the reins of his horse from the groom, and mounting in one easy motion. He fleetingly considered detouring into Hyde Park to ride off the storm inside him, but even a hell-for-leather gallop down Rotten Row would not suffice. He must simply wrest control back, push down the pain that kept shooting up through the anger.

Morgana.

He could not think straight. He felt as if she’d pushed him off a very high cliff. Hitting the ground, he had met with pain too intense to bear. She had refused him. Said she’d toyed with him. Accused him of being no gentleman.

His head told him not to believe a word of it. Morgana, a courtesan? Nonsense.

Did she concoct that story as an excuse to refuse his offer of marriage? She had wanted their lovemaking as much as he, but only when he’d mentioned marriage did she repeat her outrageous story. Sloane’s insides felt as if a dozen sabres had slashed him to ribbons and his head whirled with the suspicion that she wanted him to be the rake, not the gentleman. She craved the excitement, not the man. Sloane had gone through plenty of women like that, who’d made love to him so they could say they’d been seduced by the dark and dangerous Cyprian Sloane.

Sloane thought Morgana different. He could not have so thoroughly misjudged her when his skill at judging character had always been razor-sharp.

He turned a corner and, nearly colliding with a slow-moving coal wagon, reined in his steed and tried to pull himself together.

He had one thing clear is his head. If she carried his child, she would marry him, even if he had to drag her to the altar to do it. No child of his would ever be burdened by questions of paternity.

Sloane kept his horse apace with the curricles, carriages and wagons in the streets while he tried to push Morgana out of his mind. The immediate task was to confront his father. Ironic that the job at hand was defending the good name of the woman who merely craved his bad one.

He finally turned down the Mayfair street where his father resided, not precisely calm but at least resolved. Sloane pulled his horse to a halt in front of his father’s townhouse. Calling for a footman to see to the horse, he waited in the hall while another servant fetched David. His nephew did not keep him waiting and quickly drew him aside.

‘I am glad you are here.’ David wrung his hands. ‘They have not yet sent the message to the papers. There is still time to change their minds, though I am not sure what you can do to convince them.’

Sloane frowned. ‘Do you know when the Earl and your father conceived this plan?’

‘I do not know when the idea first occurred to them.’ David gave him an earnest glance. ‘I think it was right after Lady Cowdlin’s dinner party—’

Where Rawley had seen them both, Sloane thought.

‘—but they discussed it last night after our evening meal. I looked for you at the musicale, but you were not there. So I sent the message first thing this morning.’

Last night? Before the masquerade. No spy saw Morgana enter his house. Sloane expelled a relieved breath.

David’s expression suddenly changed into one of ill-disguised pain. ‘My father heard your offer for Lady Hannah’s hand would be imminent. Grandfather had words with Lord Cowdlin yesterday. You must know the Cowdlin family and our own have been close for many years—years you were absent. Grandfather does not wish you to marry into the family—’

A muscle contracted in Sloane’s cheek. Sloane had been ready to ruin Hannah’s life, just as his father now aspired to ruin Morgana’s. The similarity between himself and the Earl of Dorton sickened him.

David paced back and forth. ‘Grandfather ought not stand in the way of your happiness. I… I cannot fathom it.’

Sloane gazed at his nephew, who suddenly looked as young as the much-beloved toddler he’d envied so many years ago. He had nearly forgotten David and Hannah’s tragic love affair.

‘David, I am not making Lady Hannah an offer. I will not marry her.’

Instead of looking joyous, David’s face flashed with panic. ‘You cannot mean.’ His face turned white. ‘But what will happen to her? I confess, I could at least rest easy knowing she would be under your protection. Who will Cowdlin try to sell her to next?’

Sloane put a firm hand on his nephew’s shoulder to still these dramatics. ‘To you, nephew.’

David’s mouth dropped open.

Sloane almost smiled. ‘But you and I must play a careful game, if we are to win this hand. We have little time to plan…’

A few minutes later Sloane and David were admitted to his father’s library, where both the Earl and Rawley gloated.

‘What brings you to this house, Cyprian?’ the Earl asked with a smirk.

Sloane advanced upon him as if a man possessed. ‘I will brook no interference from you in my plans, sir. You have no control over me or who I marry.’

The Earl tossed Rawley, the real son, a smug expression. ‘You, Cyprian, are nothing to me; therefore, you have no say in what I do.’

The barb, so predictable, did not even sting. Sloane shot back at him. ‘Come now. You have some lunatic plan to send lies to the newspapers, to spread gossip about me throughout the ton. I will stop you. I will not be deterred from marrying Lady Hannah. You have met your match in me, sir. I have money enough to destroy you, and the skill to succeed. Think what a public suit for defamation would cost you, both in reputation and in fortune.’

‘But I would ruin you first,’ cried his father, rising to his feet. ‘A clandestine affair will do the trick, I think. Rawley’s brilliant idea! Cowdlin would refuse you his daughter in a minute, if he thought you were rooting with his wife’s niece.’

Sloane’s fingers curled into fists at this coarse reference to Morgana.

David interceded. ‘Grandfather, you must think of Miss Hart. This would ruin her, too. And I think it unlikely that Cowdlin can refuse Uncle Cyprian, no matter what gossip prevails. He needs the money. He needs a rich husband for his daughter.’

The Earl swung around to his grandson. ‘Are you speaking to me, boy? Do you dare?’ He pointed his cane at David. ‘You brought this—this person here? You informed him of my plans? You betray your own flesh and blood. Do not think I will forget it.’

Rawley jumped to his feet. ‘Father, I beg you. David is my son—’

But David, Sloane noticed with pride, did not waver. He remained steadfast in the face of his grandfather’s anger. He addressed his grandfather in a low, calm tone. ‘Did you expect me to stand by and watch a lady’s reputation ruined? Honour prevents me from allowing you to use her so shabbily. It is very poorly done, Grandfather. You make me ashamed.’

‘Oh, bravo, nephew.’ Sloane made his voice drip with sarcasm, but in his heart he meant every word. ‘Gentlemanly sentiments, I am sure. Too bad you have no fortune or you might wed the Lady Hannah yourself. What chivalry that would be.’

David, still making Sloane proud, twisted around to him in admirable fury. ‘I would marry her, too, sir, if I could save her from being sold to you. Do not mistake me, I sent for you only to preserve Miss Hart’s reputation, to convince my father and grandfather that there is no affair between you and the lady.’

‘Ha!’ Sloane laughed. ‘The only sin she is guilty of is living in the house next to mine, but that is none of my concern. Oh, I could have her if I wanted, I am sure. Remember, I have enough wealth to get whatever I want.’ He turned back to his father. ‘What I most desire is to rub your nose in my success, dear Father. At every ton event, I will be there. When you stand in the House of Lords, I will be in the Commons. When you meet your cronies at White’s, I will be in the midst of them. You cannot ignore me, sir. I intend to be wherever you turn.’

The Earl’s face flushed with rage. The hand clutching the knob of his cane turned white and the man trembled all over.

‘Father?’ Rawley said worriedly.

David stood his ground bravely, still looking defiantly righteous.

Sloane took it all in and suddenly realised how little what his father did mattered to him.

At the gaming table, Sloane often threw in his cards when there was no other way to come out ahead. Now he mentally tossed in his cards. The wager he made with himself, to gain back respectability and throw it in his father’s face, no longer mattered. Nothing mattered but Morgana.

He dealt himself a new hand, one he would win at all costs. He would see Morgana safe—safe as his wife.

He turned his gaze on David, so young and valiant. David also wagered his future on a chance to win the woman he loved.

In a moment they both would win.

The Earl slowly eased his grip on his cane. His complexion returned to its normal sallow colour. A malevolent grin creased his wrinkled cheeks. He used his cane to point to Sloane.

‘You will not win this one, Cyprian. No respectable wife for you.’ He leaned on his stick again and turned to his grandson. ‘I will release your fortune, boy. I can do with it as I choose. Do you want your money?’

David inclined his head, as if reluctant to admit it.

The Earl grinned. ‘You may have it on one condition. Marry the Cowdlin chit and your fortune is yours.’

David levelled his grandfather a steely look. ‘No, sir. Another condition must prevail. Agree not to defame Miss Hart’s name, and I will do as you request.’

Well done, David. Sloane applauded inside.

The Earl gave a trifling wave of the hand. ‘As you wish. There is no need as long as Cyprian is cut out.’

Rawley finally caught up. ‘You’ll give David his fortune?’ He broke into a happy grin. ‘I cannot complain of that.’

Sloane could barely keep from laughing, but, instead, he pretended to protest. ‘See here, you cannot do this,’

His father bared his teeth. ‘I can and I will!’

Sloane swore at his father and made other protests and threats just to convince his father he’d been severely injured. For his exit, he picked up a decanter of brandy from one of the tables and sent it crashing into the cold fireplace, then he stalked out of the room.

When he reached the outside and was about to remount his horse, David caught up to him.

‘How can I thank you, Uncle?’ The young man extended his hand.

Fearing his father or brother might be watching from a window, Sloane did not accept the handshake. ‘It is I who must thank you, David. You prevented the dishonour of a lady I admire very much. I am proud to know you.’