The Dastardly Duke (2 page)

By this time, Julian was thoroughly weary of Reverend McGougal. Nor was the hospital a particularly pleasant place. Its dingy gray walls imparted an oppressive air of gloom and decay. The knowledge that most of the inmates were suffering from incurable illnesses contributed to the atmosphere of hopelessness. Julian had seen one tight-lipped nurse and a slovenly orderly, but otherwise, the Lock Hospital appeared to have little in the way of staff.

Vulgar propositions came from some of the patients who watched them through cells off the corridor to McGougal’s office. Women with pockmarked faces, toothless grins, and wild eyes reached through the iron bars, their blistered hands extended in a plea for freedom that acknowledged the futility of their plight. Julian had no doubt that McGougal spoke the truth when he insisted that few of the women could pass muster outside of these walls. He only hoped that the woman McGougal had in mind bore no resemblance to these tormented souls.

As the sound of creaking hinges indicated the opening of the door to McGouga
l’
s office, Julian turned warily.

A young woman in tattered clothing stood at the threshold. She nodded briefly as the minister introduced them, but said nothing. Her eyes searched the faces of each person in the room.

Julian did not bother to hide his distaste for the ragged scarf that covered her hair and the formless dress that looked to be some larger woman’s castoff. But while her skin bore an unnatural pallor, it appeared otherwise healthy. And her light gray eyes were clear and earnest, as if a lucid intelligence resided behind them. She clutched her hands tightly, without the frantic wringing and constant nervous movement he had seen in the other women.

It was difficult to take her measure, but with a little cleaning up and a new wardrobe, she might do for his purposes. Reverend McGougal began to explain matters to her, and relief swept her features as the minister told her she was to leave the hospital. It was quickly replaced by doubt when the minister informed her that she was to be turned over to these two gentlemen.

Julian eyed her speculatively. Most women in her position could not care less about the minister’s fervent assurances that she was going to a respectable household, but she seemed to hang on McGougal’s every word.

Finally, she nodded her understanding. Her gaze flew to Julian and did not waver as she spoke in a clear, soft voice. “What would be my position in your home, Your Grace?”

Her gray eyes sought his with unusual intensity. Turning away from her oddly unsettling scrutiny, Julian spoke more to the wall than to her. “If all goes well, Miss...” He tried to remember her name, but could not. “If all goes well,” he repeated, “you will be employed as my sister’s”—he searched for an appropriate word—“assistant.”

Reverend McGougal cleared his throat. “It is important to look at Hannah when you speak, Your Grace.”

Surprised, Julian turned. The girl was staring at him without comprehension. He frowned at McGougal. “What are you talking about?”

“Hannah is excellent at reading lips, but you must afford her the opportunity to do so,” the minister replied uneasily.

“Reading lips?” Julian stared at the woman as comprehension began to dawn. “Do you mean to say the girl is
deaf
!”

No doubt envisioning the evaporation of Julian’s donation, Reverend McGougal nodded in resignation. The woman seemed not at all discomfited, however. She shot him a self
-
possessed smile.

“Yes, Your Grace,” she confirmed with more than a shade of defiance. “As deaf as a post.”

Chapter
Two

“
Y
o
u must take me for a fool!” Julian impaled his friend with a murderous gaze.

Charles shifted uneasily.

“I did not know about this young woman’s... deficiency. I swear it.” He paused. “But you did say I could choose the candidate. Despite her infirmity, she is young and passably pretty, the only conditions you laid down. I believe you must accept her.”

“What!” Julian’s incredulous bark was almost a roar. “You said nothing about handing me a deaf mute to work with!”

“Obviously, Miss Gregory is not mute,” the Reverend McGougal interjected. “She is in fact exceedingly well-spoken. You see, she was not
born
deaf—”

Julian rounded
mi
the man. “What the devil difference does that make?” he demanded.

“A great deal,” Reverend McGougal quickly assured him, taking a hasty step backward. “The doctors say language develops from birth, so that if hearing is lost later in life, the person usually retains normal speaking skills..
.”

Julian ignored the minister and returned his attention to Charles. “Our bet made no mention of a deaf whore,” he growled.

Reverend McGougal gasped. Even Charles winced at Julian’s pithy choice of words. Nevertheless, the baronet stood his ground. “It is Providence, not I, who has presented you with this lump of clay,” he insisted. “For these stakes, the bet must be something of a challenge—do you not agree?”

“Bet? Stakes? Lump of clay?” Confusion swept Reverend McGougal’s face.

“A low blow, Tremaine,” Julian snarled. “Not sporting in the least.”

Charles nodded in mournful acknowledgment. “A man in love is desperate, Julian. Perhaps one day you will find that out.”

Trickery he might abide, but a lecture on love was too much. “The woman is unacceptable!” Julian thundered. “I call upon your good faith as a gentleman to release me from our agreement.”

“As your friend, I would dearly love to oblige,” Charles assured him calmly. “As a man who hopes to be your future relative, however, I can only applaud what Providence has seen fit to drop into my lap.”

“The devil take it!” Julian advanced on him like an avenging angel.

“Gentlemen!” cried the Reverend McGougal, quickly juxtaposing himself between the two men. “There is no need to come to blows.”

“No, indeed,” Charles agreed gravely, stepping adroitly out of Julian’s reach.

Because everyone was speaking, and not to her, Hannah could not make sense of the rapidly moving lips that must have filled Reverend McGougal’s tiny office with a cacophony of voices. No special brilliance was needed to discern the Duke of Claridge’s displeasure, however. If his words were lost to her, the angry glint in those coal-black eyes was not.

A deaf woman was clearly not what he had in mind. Hannah could scarcely blame him. Someone in a duke’s employ must be
above reproach. It would not do to be ...
different, a laughingstock.

Anger fed by a familiar sense of isolation swept through her. Why must everyone assume her to be an imbecile simply because she could not hear?

“You cannot require my presence any longer, gentlemen,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster, hoping she had made herself heard above the clamor.

Instantly, the men stilled. Indeed, they looked momentarily stunned, as if she were a puppet who had startled them by possessing a voice of her own.

Pride stiffened her spine. Despite her tattered clothing, despite the dreadful state of her life, she would not linger to be discarded like so much useless garbage. With her head held high, Hannah whirled toward the door, dismayed to find an unaccustomed wetness in her eyes.

“Wait.”

At least that is what she imagined he said, for the vibrations that shot through her as the duke grasped her arm bore the force of a sharply uttered command.

Slowly, she turned to meet a gaze that could have sliced a man to ribbons. Dark eyes, hinting at some grim torment amid the anger, held hers. For the first time Hannah allowed herself to study him at length.

Above that cruel slash of a mouth, harsh lines of dissipation had carved stark cynicism and weary age into a face that probably had not more than thirty years. His sharp granite features betrayed no trace of softness. A scar on one cheek looked to be of recent vintage, and she wondered how he had come by it.
Doing the devil’s work,
an inner voice answered.

And indeed, the Duke of Claridge resembled nothing so much as that infamous dark angel. His carelessly tousled hair formed a halo of midnight around that uncompromising visage, and his eyes were seas of unrelenting black. His broad shoulders and solidly muscled frame easily dominated the room, and he radiated physical strength. He had a soldier’s bearing—proud and tall—but there was a tension about him, an aura of unpredictability suggesting that a soldier’s discipline had eluded him. Having witnessed that brief display of his temper, she had no desire to see more of it. The duke was a dangerous man.

Hannah felt rather than saw the sudden awkwardness that came over him as he responded to her scrutiny.

“Look,” he began, speaking slowly and with forced patience, as one might address a dim-witted child. “Your infirmity is regrettable and obviously not of your own making,
but...”

“On the contrary,” Hannah interrupted, rejecting his misguided pity. “I was completely to blame. I fell out of a tree when I was seventeen and have been unable to hear ever since.”

The duke frowned. “A tree? At
seventeen
?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, eyeing him defiantly. “I was a veritable hoyden. A subsequent life of deafness is a fitting punishment for engaging in such unladylike activities, do you not agree?”

He did not immediately reply. Doubt clouded his gaze, as if he was uncertain whether or not she was making sport of him. His silence fueled her reckless anger.

“Being a tiresome burden, I was tossed out of the house—on my ear, you might say,” she continued, wildly pleased at her little pun. “I found myself walking the streets of London, where some interesting women were kind enough to introduce me to their way of life and provide a roof over my head.”

She reached for the doorknob. “As for how I managed to find myself in this place, that is another story that would doubtless bore you. Anyway, women like me do not give of their time without recompense, so I do believe I shall not waste any more of it.”

Her huff of an exit from Reverend McGougal’s office halted abruptly, however, as one large hand came down upon her shoulder. Bracing herself for another display of the duke’s temper, she turned toward him.

To her surprise, a strange smile played at the
corner
s of that cruel mouth. An unsettling glimmer that might have been amusement flickered in those bottomless black eyes, but his brows furrowed forbiddingly. It was an odd quality, this ste
rn
mirth, as if laughter were so utterly foreign to him that he must restrain it like an enemy within.

Hannah frowned. A man with unlimited food, clothing, wealth, and consequence should know how to laugh. But that was the least of her concerns at the moment.

“I beg your pardon,” she said coolly and made to push by him. He only tightened his grip on her shoulders. Then he put one hand under her chin to tilt it upward, forcing her to look directly into his face.

The force of that relentless black gaze immobilized her more than any physical restraint. But although he eyed her intently, his words seemed to be for his friend.

“I have changed my mind.” Unsettling seas churned in that midnight gaze. “She will do.”

“I do not understand, Julian. Who is this young woman and why do I need her company?”

Lady Lucille Pembroke, daughter of the late Duke of Claridge and
half-sister
to the present duke, regarded her brother from clear blue eyes whose acute perceptiveness was not diminished by the radiant feminine charms that had ignited the ardor of dozens of eager suitors this season.

Julian had known that getting around Lucy would be a challenge. It
w
as not that she lacked a kind nature and willingness to help others. Far from it; Lucy was gifted with an altruism utterly foreign to him. But she was also an independent sort who had inherited their father’s mulish streak, and her wit was as sharp as steel. Lucy would not be mollified by some lame story about his
protégée
’s origins. Moreover, despite the fact that they had not grown up together, Lucy had come to know him rather well.

“I shall not be bamboozled into taking one of your women into the house,” she added with mock sternness.

Rather
too
well, Julian reflected wryly. “Have I ever done such a thing?” he asked with studied innocence.

Lucy cocked her head. “As I recall, it was only last summer that I returned to town unexpectedly and found the house occupied by a rather odd assortment
of ...
creatures.”

The memory of her unexpected invasion of one of his lost weeks of debauchery brought a scowl to his face. “If you had been considerate enough to send word ahead”—he spoke sternly to cover his discomfort—“you would have been spared a scene entirely inappropriate for a young lady of your youth and breeding.”

“And miss the opportunity of seeing my brother surrounded by a bevy of wondrously colorful beauties?” Lucy shot him a teasing smile. “No, indeed. Thanks to you, Julian, I realize how woefully inadequate was the information about the world that my poor, embarrassed governess tried to impart.”

Julian grimaced. “I suppose your precociousness must be laid at my door. But for all that, you are only eighteen. You need guidance. And a better example of proper behavior than I can offer.”

“No one exemplifies propriety better than Aunt Eleanor.” His sister sighed heavily. “Have I thanked you recently for sending her to me?”

Julian shrugged. “There was no one else. Someone must see to your season.”

“And you know very little about escorting well-bred young ladies,” Lucy put in mischievously. “But Aunt Eleanor has the disposition of a persimmon, Julian. You cannot pretend that you enjoy having her ensconced in the house like a queen.”

It was true. His father’s elder sister had made herself about as pleasant as the plague. Yet it was time Lucy made her come-out, and the only appropriate relative for the task was the dowager Countess of Huffington.

A high-stickier of the worst sort, Aunt Eleanor had rubbed Lucy the wrong way from the start. She was fond of quoting from her own sermons or some other moral authority, making her presence most tedious. The first month of the season the two women had battled over almost every aspect of Lucy’s appearance. With her wispy blond hair and delicate features,
hi
s sister had an angelic countenance but no fondness for the demure pastels his aunt insisted were proper for a young lady. Despite the disputes, Lucy had taken to the relentless parties like a fish to water, probably because her own exuberant and outgoing nature thrived on being around people of all sorts.

That part of her had undoubtedly come from Lucy’s mother, whom he had not known, as she had died birthing a stillborn son just before the duke reluctantly brought Julian into the family bosom. Julian himself had inherited no social skills that he knew of—only his father’s disdain for the elaborate rituals that guarded society’s portals from any hint of impropriety. But that was another matter. Turning his attention to Lucy’s complaint, he saw a way to use her dissatisfaction for his own ends.