Lady Ruthless (Notorious Ladies of London Book 1) Read online

  “I was rather hoping you could help me to disbelieve it,” Lady Calliope said. “Lord Sinclair assures me that when my brother and the former Lady Sinclair died, he was with an acquaintance of his. An acquaintance who cannot be named but who would be willing to vouch for his presence with her.”

  Tilly’s full lips tightened in obvious displeasure. “Sin was with me, all night long.”

  Relief joined the gratitude. He had not been certain Tilly would be willing to make such an admission to anyone. He knew how tenuous her marriage with Longleigh was.

  “Thank you,” he told her. “I have no wish to cause trouble with you and Longleigh.”

  “Longleigh is happy for the moment, as he has gotten what he always wanted.” Her hand rested on her swollen belly, which not even the clever drapery of her French gown could hide.

  Sin swallowed against a rush of bile. He hoped to God Longleigh had not forced himself upon Tilly. “If there is anything I can do for you, please, do not hesitate to contact me.”

  She gave him a sad smile. “You and I both know there is nothing you can do for me at all. But I made my choice, and I alone can live with it.” She looked to Lady Calliope then. “Sin was with me when the former Lady Sinclair chose to poison herself and end her life. She chose her fate, and after the horrors to which that wretched woman subjected him, it was the least she could do to give him his freedom at last.”

  The vitriol in Tilly’s ordinarily calm, tender voice took him by surprise. He had known she had no love for Celeste, but he had not realized the depth of her emotion. Still, it was not public knowledge that his wife had ended her life by her own hand.

  Lady Calliope’s shocked gasp echoed through the small salon. “She drank poison?”

  “She was an unwell woman, Lady Calliope,” Tilly said. “I do hope you will be a better wife to Sin. Lord knows he deserves it. He has been through more than most men can even fathom.”

  “As have you, Tilly,” he could not resist pointing out.

  Though their contact had been sparse, he cared for her as much as he ever had. He knew how much she had longed to be a mother, and when she had written him with the news, he had been happy for her. He had also hoped she had not made too great a sacrifice to achieve what she wanted.

  “I shall do my utmost, Your Grace,” Lady Calliope said, stealing his attention away from Tilly. “Thank you for your confidence. I promise you nothing but my greatest discretion.”

  Sin had to squelch a bitter laugh at her pronouncement. In his experience, the bloody woman had no discretion. But he dared not admit it before Tilly. She had enough worries ahead.

  “We should take our leave now,” he said then. “Thank you for seeing us. And please remember what I said. If you should need anything at all—”

  “Thank you, Sin,” Tilly interrupted. “I do appreciate the offer. It was wonderful seeing you again. You look well. Lady Calliope, it was a pleasure making your acquaintance.”

  His betrothed rose from her seat and dipped into an elegant curtsy, her countenance unreadable. “The pleasure was mine, Your Grace.”

  Sin and Lady Calliope took their leave from Tilly in grim silence.

  It was not until they had returned to the barouche and were once more on their way to Westmorland House that she finally spoke. “Is the child yours?”

  His grip tensed on the reins. “No.”

  There was no point in prevarication to make her squirm; he would only add further injury to Tilly’s reputation, and he had no wish for that.

  “Are you in love with her?” she asked next.

  He was not in love with Tilly. He never had been. But he did care for her, and deeply.

  “Of course not,” he bit out. “Love is a chimera.”

  “Hmm,” was all she said in response.

  He cast her a glance. “Are you still holding a candle for your dead betrothed?”

  She looked away, breaking the connection of their gazes. “That is none of your concern, my lord.”

  “Just as the Duchess of Longleigh is none of yours,” he countered. “You have had your call with her and you have heard what she said. I will hold you to your promise to never utter an ill word about her.”

  “Contrary to what you think of me, Lord Sinclair, it is not my pleasure in life to go on spreading lies about others.”

  Her voice was quiet, with a sharp, accusatory edge.

  As if he had been the one who had wronged her.

  “You promise you will not speak of this again?” he demanded, needing her concession. Tilly had appeared the most contented he had ever seen her today, and he would not have that ruined for all the world.

  “Of course not,” Lady Calliope said. “I have no quarrel with the duchess. She seems like a kind woman.”

  “She is infallible,” Sin agreed. “We have known each other since our youths. She has never wavered.”

  “Is it true, what she said, that the previous Lady Sinclair died by her own hand?” she prodded.

  Her question took him back to that long-ago day. Although he had been desperate to gain his freedom from Celeste, nothing could have prepared him for the discovery that she had killed herself. Too much laudanum. She had left him a letter, and it had been convoluted and twisted as her mind had been. Even in death, she had been beautiful.

  Deceptively innocent.

  “It is,” he bit out, trying to shake himself from the painful ghosts of his past.

  “There was no mysterious illness, then?” Lady Calliope prodded.

  “Her mind itself was ill,” he admitted tersely. He did not like to speak of Celeste. Not to anyone. But he supposed this acknowledgment was necessary if he meant to follow through with making Lady Calliope his bride.

  And everything depended upon making her his wife.

  Everything depended upon her, the woman at his side.

  The one who wanted vengeance against him.

  Silence reigned between them once more, until the vast, imposing façade of Westmorland House loomed within sight.

  “Why did you not tell me?” she asked.

  “Would you have believed me?” Sin countered, already knowing the answer.

  “No.”

  He glanced at her once more, taking in her beauty. “And do you believe me now?”

  “I am not certain.” Her dulcet voice betrayed her confusion.

  At least she was being honest.

  He believed her answer. But it was not the answer he needed.

  “You have five more days to persuade yourself to see common sense and reason, princess,” he hissed, frustration rising, along with the same old rage. “Because like it or not, you are going to become the next Lady Sinclair.”

  She said nothing, merely turned her gaze to the street ahead.

  Damn her.

  Chapter Ten

  The Duke of W. deserved to die, dear reader. I knew it the moment I pushed him on those stairs. I watched him fall. I felt nothing.

  ~from Confessions of a Sinful Earl

  “You met Lord Sinclair’s mistress?” Jo asked, sotto voce, as she and Callie made their way through the Westmorland House orangery the next afternoon, under the guise of Callie showing off their newest pineapples.

  Aunt Fanchette was blessedly easy to avoid, especially since she was drinking champagne and plotting Callie’s hasty wedding with inebriated glee.

  “His former mistress,” Callie corrected grimly as they reached a row of strawberry plants bursting with ripe, red fruits, which needed to be collected soon.

  She did not know why she bothered to make the distinction. Perhaps because she had seen how beautiful the duchess was. Perhaps because she had taken note of the glances the earl and the duchess had exchanged. They cared for each other, and that much was certain, in spite of his vehement declaration that love was naught but a chimera. Callie could not help but to wonder, with a bitterness that did her no credit, whether or not every woman in the Earl of Sinclair’s life had been a golden-haired goddess. She had
never been more aware of her dark hair and eyes.

  “Former mistress, then,” Jo corrected, waving a hand as if it were neither here nor there.

  Perhaps it was. Certainly, it ought not to matter to Callie. Even if the Earl of Sinclair had not killed his wife or Alfred, she still had no reason to feel anything for him other than resentment and hatred. He had abducted her, and he was forcing her into a marriage that was unacceptable and unwanted.

  “I met her, yes,” Callie agreed, biting her lip as she moved toward the lemon trees. Fat, yellow fruits hung in abundance.

  The late-spring day was warm, the sun piercing the thick London fog overhead to beat through the leaden panes of the glass-domed roof. Everything in the orangery was green and lush, so very alive. Blossoming, the air perfumed with the sweet scents of blooms and exotic fruits. Filled with promise. Of all the rooms in Westmorland House, the orangery would always be one of her favorites.

  She would miss it here, she realized with a sudden, stricken pang. In less than a week’s time, Westmorland House would no longer be her home. Instead, she would find herself inhabiting the threadbare townhome of the Earl of Sinclair.

  “And what happened when you met her, Callie?” Jo asked, dragging her from her desolate ruminations.

  “She supported what Sinclair claimed,” Callie conceded grudgingly.

  If she were honest with herself, she would admit that her call upon the Duchess of Longleigh had left her more conflicted and confused than she had been prior to their brief interlude. She had wanted, so desperately, to be right about Sinclair. Because if she was wrong about him, then she had been so blinded by her grief over Alfred’s death that she had ruined an innocent man. But the duchess, who had been gracious and welcoming despite the unprecedented awkwardness of the situation, had seemed ingenuous.

  “Do you believe her?” Jo asked, eyes wide, concern evident in her expression.

  There was sympathy, also.

  They both knew Callie was facing a lifetime of misery in a loveless marriage.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head to banish the image of the duchess, so serene and beautiful, a veritable Madonna, in her green gown with her growing belly on display. The earl had denied the child was his. But depending upon the timing of the dissolution of their arrangement, there was every possibility he was the father. The knowledge lent another layer of sorrow to her predicament.

  Her eyes fluttered open again to the stark brightness of the sun and her friend’s worried visage. “I think I do believe her, Jo. She seemed honest. She certainly has no reason to lie, particularly if their association is truly at an end, as he claims.”

  Jo raised a brow. “Who is she?”

  Callie shook her head. For although she trusted Jo implicitly, she had promised secrecy to the Duchess of Longleigh. Or Tilly, as the earl had called her. The reminder of the intimate manner in which he had addressed his mistress—former mistress—still nettled. However, she intended to hold true to her promise.

  “I am not at liberty to divulge her name,” Callie explained. “I promised her I would not tell a soul. All I can say is she was not any of the names on the list we compiled. He was discreet with her.”

  Speaking that observation aloud sent another unsettling emotion through her. She refused to believe it was jealousy. It was nothing of the kind. Most assuredly not. All she could say for certain was that Sinclair was very protective of the Duchess of Longleigh.

  There was that stab of something decidedly unwanted once more.

  She tamped it down. Forced it to go away. Ignored it.

  “I understand,” Jo said easily. “Think nothing of it. What I care most about is that you are not about to tie yourself to a murderer.”

  Not long ago, she had been absolutely certain. Convinced of the suspicious timing of the deaths. Of Sinclair’s motive—the man who had been cuckolding him, the wife who had. One by one.

  And yet, she was increasingly conflicted.

  Increasingly unsure.

  She wet her suddenly dry lips. “God help me, Jo, I do not know. Part of me wants to go on believing what I always have. The facts have not changed. Alfred died in the midst of the night in a fall down the stairs. The earl was one of the last people to see him alive, and they argued. Lady Sinclair died suddenly afterward. It makes sense that he was responsible for both deaths, and yet…”

  She allowed her words to trail off.

  “And yet,” Jo prompted softly.

  “And yet, the d—his former mistress, told me that Lady Sinclair intentionally drank poison, that she was unwell,” Callie said, correcting herself before she revealed more than she intended. “Her death was not sudden in the sense I had supposed, nor inexplicable. If she died by her own hand, the earl could not have been responsible.”

  Because of her brother, Benny’s, close ties to Scotland Yard, she had been able to discuss her suspicions with a detective. However, as far as she knew, the case had never been pursued. She had been told repeatedly that the fall had been an accident. She had assumed it had been because Sinclair was a peer of the realm. However, now, she was no longer so sure.

  What if he had never been investigated because his wife had truly ended her life at her own hand? What if the previous Lady Sinclair had indeed been mad? And what if Alfred’s death had really been an accident? He could have been walking in his sleep. Or perhaps inebriated, though it was rare that he imbibed…

  “But even if Lady Sinclair took her own life, the earl still could have pushed your brother down the stairs that night,” Jo pointed out, frowning.

  “He could have, yes.” Callie paused for a moment while she gathered her thoughts. “His former mistress vouched for his presence there with her for the entire night, however. She does not strike me as the sort of woman who would lie about such a thing. Indeed, lying to me would serve her no purpose now.”

  That was what bothered Callie the most. The duchess had no reason to protect Sinclair. Indeed, it hardly seemed that admitting what she had to Callie yesterday had been worth the risk for her. The other woman’s reluctance had been almost palpable. It was that hesitation, more than anything else, which suggested she told the truth.

  “Do you believe he is innocent, Callie?”

  Jo’s question was the very same one which had been churning endlessly in her own mind since the day before.

  “I do not want to,” she admitted. “Because if he is, it means I ruined him for no reason. It means I was wrong, and that I must beg his forgiveness. That I must somehow make amends for what I have done.”

  “Marrying him would certainly make amends,” Jo observed grimly. “Do not forget the man abducted you, spirited you away from London, and refused to return you to your home until you agreed to become his wife. To say nothing of his reputation. There is a reason why he is known as Sin.”

  Jo shuddered.

  A frisson went down Callie’s spine. Again, she thought of his kiss. His touch.

  She swallowed hard. “What would you do, Jo, if you were me? No matter what I choose, I am doomed. I cannot bear for this to become Benny’s problem. He and Isabella have been through so much. And it is possible that I owe Lord Sinclair.”

  “You have to do whatever you feel is right, deep in your heart.” Jo sighed. “Oh, Callie. I do wish you were not in such a dreadful position. I beg of you, contact your brother. Ask for his help.”

  Callie was not going to make her problem Benny’s problem. She loved him far too much for that.

  “I have already promised myself to the earl,” she said, resolute. “I must be a woman of my word.”

  And hope for the best.

  Young intruded upon their tête-à-tête suddenly then, his expression pained as he appeared at the threshold of the orangery, visible at the end of the row of persimmon and lemon trees. “I beg your pardon for the intrusion, Lady Calliope. However, the Earl of Sinclair has arrived. I did tell him you were not at home, but he refuses to leave.”

  He was
here.

  The air fled her lungs.

  “Shall I speak to him for you?” Jo whispered. “I would be more than happy to box his ears. Or punch him in the nose.”

  Her friend’s staunch support won a reluctant smile from Callie. “No, dearest. But I do thank you for always championing me. I am afraid this particular monster is one I must slay on my own.” To the butler, she added in a louder voice, “See him to the private library, if you please, Young, and ask him to await me there.”

  Sin was not a patient man.

  Which was why being told his betrothed was not at home left him infuriated. When the supercilious butler finally returned, wearing a pained expression of dislike, and escorted him to a small library to await Lady Calliope, he had gritted his teeth with so much force his jaw ached. Now, having paced the length of the chamber at least two dozen times, his strides eating up the luxurious carpets, he was more than annoyed.

  He was irritated.

  Infuriated.

  Angrier than a hive of bees which had just been prodded with an unforgiving stick.

  He reached into his waistcoat and extracted his pocket watch to consult the time yet again. She had kept him waiting for half a bloody hour already. How much longer would she force him to stand here like a vassal awaiting his queen?

  Devil take Lady Calliope Manning. She was an asp dressed in silken skirts. And occasionally silken divided skirts, as she had informed him.

  “Trousers,” he muttered to himself, nettled that his own mind even seemed to be kowtowing to the vexing creature.

  The reason for his call was simple. He was not convinced he had allayed Lady Calliope’s fears with their visit to Tilly the previous day. And whilst he hardly desired to play the role of dutiful swain and see her once more, it was necessary.

  But the cursed woman had yet to materialize.

  Biting off a curse, he stalked toward the closed library door, incensed and determined to find her hiding place and haul her from it. By God, she would cease playing games with him. Yesterday, she had made him cool his heels for half an hour. Today, she was up to more of the same nonsense.