A Woman of Virtue Read online

  But it seemed that he was, in fact, going. Oh, it occurred to him that he could stride right back to Brook Street and cry foul. But inwardly, David convinced himself that he was too much the gentleman. Besides, what the devil did he care that he was suddenly the laughingstock of his club? He’d never given a ha’penny what anyone thought of him—and anyone certainly included Edmund Rowland.

  Moreover, it was highly unlikely that he would actually see Cecilia Markham-Sands at the Daughters of Nazareth Society. Certainly, he had no wish to speak another word to her again for as long as he lived. And indeed, as long as he continued to avoid her discreetly within the narrow circles of society, he probably wouldn’t have to. He rather doubted she ever darkened the door of such a mean, miserable place.

  A patroness indeed! David knew the type. Prim and upright, they went swishing about at garden parties, cattily remarking on one another’s wardrobes and boasting of their charitable do-goodings. And all the while, they were busy exchanging spiteful gossip and meddling in other people’s business.

  No, women of that ilk did not sully their lily-white hands with the likes of the lower orders. Indeed, the fine Lady Walrafen had not deigned to sully her hands with even the likes of him.

  Feeling unexpectedly weary—perhaps even a little old—David studied his reflection in the long mirror, realizing as he did so that the knot of neck cloth number eight looked as limp and shapeless as its predecessors. With a low, violent curse, he stripped the damn thing loose and let it slither to the floor.

  ———

  In Park Crescent, Friday morning dawned cold but unusually sunny for February. It did little to warm Lady Walrafen, for today was to be the day of Mary O’Gavin’s funeral. Cecilia departed for Pennington Street an hour early in hope of catching up the ledgers. Lady Kirton, a well-intentioned but flighty sort, always preferred to content herself with lectures on cleanliness, godliness, deadly sins, and such. All very worthwhile efforts, to be sure. But Cecilia preferred a more hands-on effort.

  And so the household accounts would want posting. Otherwise Mr. Amherst would have no idea how much money had been cleared in the stores, no clue as to how much mangling had been taken in by the laundresses, and therefore no assurance of the mission’s ability to house and feed fifty homeless women for another month.

  Nonetheless, Cecilia was determined to attend the funeral, and propriety be damned. Poor Mary had been possessed of few friends in London, but she’d been a cheerful soul, and so it seemed a grave injustice to have her final words said to a church filled with nothing but two mourners and an empty echo.

  Cecilia alit from her carriage and pushed through the front doors to find that a quiet despondency had settled over the mission. As she strode beyond the shop and up the narrow stairs, everyone she passed looked subdued. Along the row of sewing rooms, she heard no singing, no jesting, not even a good cat fight in the corridor—something she normally would not have welcomed. But today, a little cursing and clawing would not have gone a miss.

  There was no question that Mary’s death had disturbed the fragile well-being of the women who had come to depend upon the shelter for safety. The fact that the murder had occurred elsewhere was of small comfort. With a sigh, Cecilia sent Etta belowstairs to help out in the shop and, in preparation for the morn-morning’s work, carefully laid out the account books.

  But she had just finished sharpening her half-dozen new pencils when Etta pounded perfunctorily on the door and came flying back in, her face flushed with color, her bony arms flailing with excitement. “You’ll never guess, mum!” she squeaked. “No, no, not in a month o’ Sundays, you’ll not!”

  Carefully, Cecilia laid her penknife to one side. “I daresay you’re right,” she agreed. “What am I to guess, pray tell?”

  Etta seemed almost to bounce on her toes, her lips tightly pursed. “Oh, mum! ‘E’s right here! Right ‘ere at the Daughters of Nazareth Society! Ain’t that a joke? And listen ‘ere—he says that nice Mr. Amherst sent him. Reckon I ought’er show ‘im up? ‘E’s arstin’ for the person in charge.”

  Cecilia stood, frowning in confusion as she leaned over the desk. “Upon my word, Etta, you make no sense at all! Who is asking? And for what?”

  “That ‘andsome Lord Delacourt!” Etta cast her eyes heavenward. “ ‘E’s right downstairs, or my name ain’t Henrietta Healy! Him and ‘is tight little rump, all togged out in a high silk crumpler and blue coat what looks to be spun of angel’s hair!”

  Abruptly, Cecilia sat back down. “Lord Delacourt?” she squeaked. “What in heaven’s name?” With a strange sense of doom, she lifted her eyes to look at Etta. Her mind whirled with possibilities, and she thought of the trick she’d played on Edmund Rowland. “Do you think—could it possibly be—that perhaps he’s been persuaded to make some sort of donation?”

  Etta screwed up her face. “P’raps.”

  Cecilia let out her breath sharply. Yes, that was the only notion which made any sense. Mr. Amherst would not have sent him otherwise. Delacourt was known to be a dear friend of Mr. Amherst’s wife—and had once been a great deal more, some whispered. But Amherst had befriended him, which meant that, given her role here, Cecilia had little choice but to see him. And to be as polite as was humanly possible. She merely hoped she wouldn’t choke on her own civility.

  Anxiously, Cecilia bounced from her chair and ran her palms down her skirts, uncomfortably aware that they were damp with perspiration.

  Suddenly, Etta leaned across the desk. “Look ‘ere, m’lady—are you all right? You’ve gone pale as new-bleached linen!”

  Cecilia hardened her gaze. “I’m perfectly fine. Please show him up.”

  Etta eyed her suspiciously. “Now, why do I wonder if you know ‘is ‘andsome lordship a little better than you’ve said, mum?” the maid asked. “D’you ‘ave some reason to expect trouble out’er the bounder? ‘Cause I’ll ‘ave ‘im out on ‘is ear, viscount or no.”

  Cecilia jerked her chin up and fisted her hands at her sides. “Don’t be ridiculous, Etta. I can more than handle someone as vain and transparent as Delacourt. Now, go and fetch him if you please! I have serious work to attend to, and he certainly does not fall into that category.”

  But the thought of seeing him again did make her uncomfortable. Cecilia inwardly admitted it as she watched Etta go flying back out the door. With her nerves too unsteady to permit her to sit down again, Cecilia began to pace back and forth along the carpet runner which stretched beneath the windows. Delacourt. Delacourt. What on earth?

  Cecilia remembered with perfect clarity the moment when last she’d seen him. It had been but two months past, at a country house party, the first invitation she’d accepted since her mourning had ended. She had not really wanted to go. Certainly, she would not have done so had she expected to see him there. However, the affair had been littered with the crème de la crème of society, the only people Delacourt knew. In hindsight, she realized she should have expected it.

  He had arrived late on the second night, during an evening of dancing. Cecilia had gone reluctantly downstairs unaccompanied, attired in her favorite green silk evening dress. Even swathed in the now-ruined sarcenet shawl, she had been left feeling horribly naked after two years of marriage and a third spent in black.

  The awful shock had come just as she had waded innocently into the crowd in search of her hostess. Suddenly, almost as if it had been timed thus, a formation of dancers had rolled back like the Red Sea. And across the room, she had seen him, framed beneath a pair of scarlet window hangings as he bent low over the hand of Lady Snelling, the ton’s raciest widow.

  For the briefest of moments, Cecilia had found herself unable to look away. As always, he had been dressed with opulent but flawless elegance; rich black evening attire with an ivory silk waistcoat embroidered in gold and an impossibly high neckcloth embellished with a glittering emerald stickpin.

  His hair, she remembered, had always been his glory. It was a heavy dark chestnut, with just
a hint of a deep red sheen. “Claret brown,” she’d once heard it called by some admiring ladies of the ton—ladies who looked as if they knew about such things. But on that night, beneath the hundreds of blazing candles, Delacourt’s hair had looked as rich and as black as a starless night.

  Abruptly, Cecilia had managed to grab hold of herself. She had remembered that she did not give one whit what he wore. That it did not matter to her what one called the color of the scoundrel’s hair. But it was already too late.

  Something in the crowd—a gasp, a titter—must have alerted him to her presence. With Lady Snelling’s hand still held lightly in his, and with the other positioned gracefully at the small of his back, Lord Delacourt had turned his head ever so slightly and stared at Cecilia, allowing his eyes to slide languidly down her length.

  Cecilia’s sensation of nakedness had heightened, flushing her cheeks with warmth.

  Then, with a few whispered words and a devastatingly handsome smile, Lord Delacourt had released Lady Snelling’s hand and strolled right out of the room, never to be seen at the house party again.

  “Good God!” The voice from the door sliced through her memories.

  Abruptly, Cecilia jerked to a halt and whirled about.

  And there he stood, nose in the air, his glossy black top boots seemingly fixed to the threshold.

  Cecilia swallowed hard, then somehow managed to step forward without tripping. “My lord?” she managed to say, her voice almost steady.

  But Delacourt was having none of it. “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded. “I asked to see the—the—”

  “The person in charge?” Cecilia finished, lifting her chin. “Regrettably, that would be me, since this is Friday.”

  Lord Delacourt’s harsh black brows snapped together. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he insisted irritably. “I wish to see the person in charge. What has Friday to do with anything?”

  Cecilia crossed the room to stand behind her desk. The position made her feel only slightly less vulnerable. “I am a patroness of the Daughters of Nazareth Society,” she answered stiffly. “I am one of two ladies who sit on the board of governors, and I serve here for a few hours three days a week.”

  A skeptical, almost snide expression passed over his face. “And just what is it, Lady Walrafen, that you do here, pray tell?”

  Cecilia felt her ire leap into flame. “Why, you will no doubt say I exploit the value of my husband’s good name, I suppose,” she snapped.

  “Will I—?” Lord Delacourt lifted his brows elegantly. “I can certainly think of no higher use for it.”

  “You are very impertinent, sir.”

  “And you are very unwelcoming,” he returned.

  “My presence here lends countenance to the Society’s moral objectives,” she insisted, forgetting her vow to be civil. “I shudder to think what yours might do.”

  “I see,” he responded, his voice almost seductive in its sweetness. Cecilia had the strangest sense that he was deliberately goading her.

  “Well, I do not see,” she hotly returned. “Why on earth have you come?”

  Lord Delacourt’s boots, as it turned out, were not nailed to the threshold. Almost effortlessly, he stirred himself and crossed the room with a lazy masculine grace. His expression was one of bitter amusement. “Might I sit?”

  Cecilia realized her extraordinarily bad manners. “By all means.” She tossed a hand toward the chair opposite hers and then sat down behind the desk.

  He was tall, long-legged, and lean, more elegant than large. And yet, Delacourt somehow managed to dwarf the cavernous room, even as his fashionable clothing made a joke of its shabby furnishings. He relaxed into the chair, lightly steepled his fingers together, then spoke without preamble. “As it happens, I am here to assume directorship of the Society.”

  Cecilia’s mouth fell open. She had the manners to snap it quickly shut again. “I do not perfectly understand.”

  “Then let me try again,” said Delacourt with unerring civility. “For the next three months, I am to ad-minister this godly and charitable institution on behalf of the Reverend Mr. Amherst. He has asked it of me, and I have agreed.”

  “Asked you?”

  “Hoodwinked me, perhaps, is more accurate.”

  “Then he must be very desperate indeed.”

  “Yes, if one takes a charitable view of his actions,” agreed Delacourt dryly. But despite his studied grace and languid motions, the viscount was clearly not in a charitable frame of mind. “Amherst’s wife is unwell. It seems he wishes her to rest at home in Cambridgeshire until the late spring. And I am to remain here until then.”

  “Remain here?” Cecilia leapt up from the desk. “I cannot believe you mean it!”

  Lord Delacourt looked faintly amused as he stretched across her desk to take up the first in her stack of ledgers. “You may believe me or not as you wish, my lady,” he replied, flipping it open in a most proprietary manner. “But assuredly, I mean it.”

  Cecilia set one hand at her hip as she paced behind the desk. “What in heaven’s name can Amherst have been thinking?”

  “It wants answering, does it not?” he mused, his eyes scanning a column of numbers. “Now, this debit entry for soap last month—is that a seven? Or a two?”

  “But—but this is wholly inappropriate, sir! Indeed, you are inappropriate!”

  Abruptly, Delacourt’s hand stilled, hovering over the ledger like a serpent. “Now it is I,” he said very quietly, “who does not perfectly understand you, madam.”

  Cecilia was incensed by his arrogance. She whirled fully toward him, narrowing her gaze. “Then let me be blunt. You, sir, are a devil-may-care fribble,” she announced, undaunted when his steely gaze locked onto hers. “You have the morals of an alley cat. If your reputation were a rag, it would be too foul to wipe the floors. And with what you spend in a month on waistcoats alone, we could house a dozen women.”

  “Dear me!” he spat. “I hope you won’t hold back.”

  “I shan’t!” Cecilia returned, burning with righteous indignation. “Our director must be a responsible man—accountable not only for the ethical leadership of this organization but for our fiscal well-being, too. He cannot run willy-nilly from one gaming hell to the next, flinging money like cattle fodder.”

  At last, she saw his body stiffen with anger. Strangely, it satisfied her.

  “That, madam,” he snapped, “is an unspeakable insult. I have never in the whole of my life been careless with money.”

  “Oh? But you offer no argument on behalf of your careless morals?”

  Delacourt jerked from his chair and hurled the ledger back onto the desk. It went skidding across the waxed surface, taking Cecilia’s new pencils to the floor with it. “By the grace of God, Cecilia, I am not accountable to you!” he growled, pencils clattering all about them. “Not for my morals. Not for my finances. And not for one infinitesimal element of my character. You had an opportunity to make my life a living hell, and you gave it up. Do not you dare presume to lecture me now.”

  Cecilia began to shudder uncontrollably. “You bastard!” she hissed.

  At that, Lord Delacourt’s face went white. Cecilia knew she’d gone too far. His hand tightened into an implacable fist and crashed down upon the desk. “I do not have to stand for this,” he thundered. “Indeed, I have grown quite weary of your incessant insults these past many years. Damn you, Cecilia, I once tried to be civil—more than civil—yet you rebuked me at every turn.”

  Abruptly, Cecilia paced toward him, ignoring the pencils which were scattered across the hard, planked floor. “Why, I never!” she whispered.

  Delacourt gave a bitter laugh. “That, madam, I do not doubt, given the old goat you married!”

  Cecilia felt her face go blood-red. “You insufferable pig! How dare you speak to me in such a manner! Particularly when it was you who—who—” Suddenly choked by rage and embarrassment, Cecilia was unable to finish.

  Dela
court’s arms went rigid at his sides. “Who what—?” he bellowed. “I was the one who did what? What eternally unforgivable sin did I commit? Yes, I found you attractive! Yes, I made an unutterable error in judgment! And in so doing, I distressed you most appallingly. But, by God, you cannot say I did not try to make it right! And you cannot say that we both have not suffered.”

  The depth of his anger was compelling. But determined to hold her moral high ground, Cecilia shut it out. “You, my Lord Delacourt, have never suffered a day in your life. You have no notion of what the word means.”

  “And you, madam, are unendurable in your highhanded arrogance,” he gritted out. “You know nothing whatsoever about me.”

  Cecilia started toward the door. “I know rather more than I should wish,” she snapped, with every intention of jerking it open and shoving him through it. “And I tell you plainly, sir, that one of us is about to leave this very inst—”

  Cecilia never completed her sentence.

  Instead, Delacourt watched in horror as her head snapped back and her arms began to flail wildly. Too late, just as the pencil shot from beneath her feet, comprehension dawned. But before he could reach her, Cecilia toppled backward, striking her head on the hard oak planking with a reverberating crack.

  Delacourt had no memory of flying toward her, nor of falling to his knees on the floor. Anger instantly evaporated on a rush of blind terror. “Cecilia—!” he cried. With one arm beneath her narrow shoulders, he was already pulling her to him when Henrietta Healy burst into the room.

  Ignoring her, he bent over Cecilia’s limp body, cradling her in one arm as his opposite hand lightly patted her cheek. “Cecilia!” he whispered. “Oh, my God! What have I done to you this time?”

  Just then, Cecilia’s eyes began to flutter. “Ooow,” she whispered.

  Suddenly, Cecilia’s maidservant was on the floor beside him. “Lawks-a-mercy!” said Etta, fingering Cecilia’s scalp with rough, capable hands. “Lorst yer balance, mum? No ‘arm done, but that’ll be one devil of a goose-egg!”