Lady Windermere's Lover Read online

  Dedication

  To Cynthia, who shares a name with my heroine, if little else

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  An Excerpt from The Duke of Dark Desires

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Also by Miranda Neville

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  London, 1793

  It wasn’t every day a man turned twenty-one. Come to think of it, this would be the only day of his entire life when Damian, Viscount Kendal, achieved that milestone. His friends had promised him a night to remember, and Robert was paying the bill for the best fare the St. James’s Tavern had to offer. They drank several bottles of wine at dinner, and brandy afterward. The occasion merited a celebration as wild, as debauched, as drunken as any they’d ever enjoyed. Robert had marked the occasion of his majority with an elopement to Gretna Green and a new bride, but Damian had quite the opposite in mind.

  Freedom. Freedom from the expectations for the heir to an earldom. Freedom from his father.

  Liberty. As the citizens of France had tossed off the yoke of the nobility, Damian no longer had to obey the fourth Earl of Windermere. Not that he wanted to string his father up from a lamppost or send him to the guillotine. The French had gone too far. They’d been right about liberty, however. It was heady stuff. He felt nothing was beyond his powers now. Even flight. For a moment he had the sensation that he floated above the table, watching the three of them munch on nuts and sweetmeats and empty glass after glass.

  “Let’s have another bottle,” he said. “This one’s mine.” He could buy it with his own money, not just his allowance. He was independent, his own man. “I’ll pay for the whole damn dinner. After another bottle.”

  “There’ll be plenty of bottles at Cruikshank’s,” Robert said.

  Damian wasn’t particularly fond of Robert’s favorite Pall Mall gaming hell. He’d rather look for clean, comely girls. He glanced at Julian, who shrugged. The latter had been in an odd mood since he returned from France.

  “Cruikshank’s it is,” Damian said, remembering that the newly wed Robert eschewed muslin company, at least for the present.

  The bottles at Cruikshank’s contained gin. They were well into a game when nausea nibbled at the edge of Damian’s pleasant glow. He muttered something about moving on, finding fresh air and different company. But luck was favoring Robert and there was no way to stop him when he was on a winning streak. Or a losing one, for that matter.

  A couple of players dropped out. Julian too. “That’s my limit for tonight.”

  “Coward,” Robert said without rancor.

  Julian shook his head. “Sensible.”

  Even drunk and winning, Robert knew better than to argue with Julian Fortescue, who always did exactly what he wanted. “It’s you and I, Damian. Let’s bet something worth winning. A hundred on this one.”

  Guineas passed back and forth. As the bets increased, they exchanged scribbled vowels. Damian lost track of whether he was ahead or behind.

  “Tame stuff,” Robert said. “What about this? Everything in front of us and in our pockets too, on one roll.” Suiting actions to words, he pushed the pile of gold and paper forward and tossed in some copper coins, a silk handkerchief, his watch, and the key to his house. Damian followed suit, producing a similar assortment, and a document.

  He’d picked up the deed from the family solicitor that afternoon, enjoyed carrying it around, the symbol of his financial independence. And the memory of his dead mother. “Beaulieu,” he said, and snatched it back. “I can’t wager my estate. I won’t.”

  To Robert the words can’t and won’t were like a burr under the saddle. “Do it!” he cried. “I’ll bet Longford against it. Devilish fine property. Good income. Just as good as yours. Maybe better.”

  Damian’s hand clutched the heavy parchment. An angel or devil perched on his shoulder told him this was an important day, one that deserved a grand gesture. He goggled at the dice, then blinked away the smoke of cheap candles. What were the odds? Numbers danced meaninglessly in his brain. Marcus Lithgow would know. But the friend who had taught them all how to calculate the chances was abroad again. In Germany, or maybe Holland. Damian glanced up at Julian, who leaned against the wall with his arms folded, regarding them with a twisted smile.

  “Shall I?” he asked. Julian was his best friend, had been for years. He wouldn’t steer Damian wrong.

  “You’re a man of means now. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” All true. Except Damian didn’t want to gain, because he had what he wanted. So did he need to venture? “What’s the harm? Lose it tonight, you’ll get it back tomorrow.” That was true. If Damian won, he’d give Robert the chance to win it back. Robert would do the same for him. None of their coterie, boon companions for almost five years, ever lost serious amounts to each other. It was a grand gesture with no real risk.

  His grip loosened and he let the deed join the flotsam on the shabby baize of the gaming table. His eyes watered. One hand seized the greasy glass and raised it to his lips, the cheap liquor stinging his throat and burning his gut. With the other hand he picked up the battered leather dice box.

  “Done,” he said, rattled the dice hard, and let them fly.

  The last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness was Robert’s cry of triumph.

  The following evening Damian boarded the coach for the north of England. He had only enough money for a cheap seat. Traveling outside on the stage in wet, cold weather seemed a just punishment. The rhythm of the horses’ gait drummed out the words stupid stupid stupid; as the roads grew worse, each jolt of the coach sharpened his misery with the reminder that the painful reckoning grew ever nearer.

  He couldn’t bring himself to return the servant’s surprised greeting with a smile when he stepped in through the massive oak door of Amblethorpe Hall. “Where is His Lordship?” he asked, handing over his sodden greatcoat to the shivering butler. “In the book room?”

  “Aye, my lord. Do you wish for any refreshment after your journey?”

  “Thank you, no.” Facing his father drunk might be easier, but he’d seek no relief from the scourging he faced.

  Even in summer, heat never penetrated the granite walls or lofty arched passages of the ancient fortress. The passage to the rear of the house, gloomy in the November afternoon, seemed both endless and all too short. A blazing fire in his father’s habitual lair offered physical comfort, but nothing else.

  “Kendal! What a surprise.” Lord Windermere rose from behind his desk without a smile, but a glint in his eye told Damian that the old man was glad to see him. He took a deep breath and accepted his father’s solemn handshake. “I didn’t expect to see you for some time. I don’t know if you received my letter congratulating you on your majority. Either way, let me repeat my good wishes.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  They’d parted on cool terms at the end of the summer, after the usual row about Damian’s friends, habits, and am
bitions. God, how he wished he’d heeded his father’s request that he remain at Amblethorpe. He wished he’d never left and gone to Eton. He wished he’d never gone to Oxford and met Robert Townsend and Julian Fortescue. He wished his mother was alive.

  If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. At the moment he felt lowlier than any beggar. He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw.

  “So what brings you here? Have the joys of London palled so soon? How was your journey?”

  No point making small talk. “I lost Beaulieu.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “On the night of my birthday. I gambled away the estate.”

  “I see. We had better sit down.” Lord Windermere took his accustomed seat behind the desk and indicated the opposite chair. They always sat like that in this room, and usually Damian was the recipient of a lecture. A new prick of regret afflicted him that he’d never conversed with his father as an adult. Just when he had theoretically reached that milestone, he’d proven beyond doubt that he was unworthy of being treated as an equal.

  His father’s dry tones pierced his despair. “You had better tell me about it.”

  It would have been easier if he’d ranted and roared, but overt expressions of emotion had never been his father’s habit. He listened, his features impassive, to Damian’s halting confession.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Damian concluded, “although there’s not much use saying it. I’ve let you down. And the memory of Mama.”

  “She loved Beaulieu. It’s all we had left of her.”

  Damian nodded, his eyes gritty with sorrow. For days he’d avoided thinking of the family’s happy times at Beaulieu, lest he break down and weep. Now, above all, he must control himself, as his father always did.

  Lord Windermere rearranged the perfectly aligned pens on his desk. He picked up his ivory-handled paper knife, a gift from his late wife, and stared at it for a moment. “We must buy it back,” he said.

  “It will cost a pretty penny and I don’t even know whom Robert Townsend lost it to.” As he’d learned the next day, Robert’s winning streak hadn’t lasted long.

  “Once I discover the new owner I will go to the bankers. I shall start putting money aside at once. There are improvements at Amblethorpe that can be postponed and we shall retrench.”

  Worse and worse. Lord Windermere had a most unaristocratic aversion to debt, as Damian heard each time he overspent his allowance. Neither was he given to extravagance or overindulgence.

  “How do things stand here?” Damian asked. “I realize I have no right to ask, but I should know what hardships my folly will cause.”

  “Our ancient holdings are relatively modest considering the family’s rank. As you are aware, your mother was a considerable heiress. With her estate added to mine you would have been very well-to-do. Regaining the ground lost is not impossible, but neither will it come without sacrifice.”

  “What can I do, sir? It goes without saying that I shall live frugally.” His heart sank at a future spent at Amblethorpe without the possibility of escape. “I should look for a profession.”

  Considering how well he had taken the news, Damian forgave his father’s derisive curl of the lip. “Do you intend to recoup our fortunes through your skill with a brush?”

  Damian gulped. “No, sir. I shall give up painting. I shall endeavor to do just as you wish from now on.”

  “As you are my heir, the church is not suitable. There can be no question of the army, I assume. It won’t help matters if you are killed.”

  Damian bit back his instinctive reaction; exclaiming that the family might be better off if he died and let Cousin George have the title was the kind of dramatic flourish his father abhorred. “I have a facility for languages,” he said with all the calm he could muster. “You believe I wasted my time traveling abroad the past four years, and I won’t deny that you have reason. Maybe I can turn them to good use after all. Does anyone of your acquaintance have influence in the Foreign Office?”

  “I’m not sure that is wise,” his father said with a frown. “Would you not be better off here, safe from temptation?”

  “I can promise, sir, that I shall never touch a card or roll the dice again as long as I live.”

  “I believe you have learned that particular lesson, but there are other lures. I’m afraid you need to be weaned from the evil companions of your youth.”

  “I will break with them, sir. All I wish to do is serve my family and my nation as a staunch and virtuous Tory. You’ll see what a paragon of good sense I shall be.”

  Lord Windermere thought for a while. “I don’t know him well, but we have mutual friends. I will send you to see Sir Richard Radcliffe at the Foreign Office.”

  “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”

  “See that you don’t.”

  Chapter 2

  Seven years later

  London, December 1800

  Attending the theater with the Duke of Denford was not the wisest way for Cynthia to spend her first evening back in London. He’d escorted her before, to plays, the opera, and less decorous events like masked balls at the Pantheon. But this was the first time she’d been out with him when she, Denford, and her husband were in the same country.

  Receiving word from the Foreign Office of Windermere’s imminent arrival from Persia, she’d pressed the horses over winter roads from Wiltshire, thinking she’d find him already at home in Hanover Square.

  Her stomach fluttering, she had climbed down from her chaise and up the steps into the marble hall. She found all serene: no excitement at the presence of the master of the house, no evidence of luggage from abroad. The Earl of Windermere wasn’t at Windermere House. The servants hadn’t seen him or even heard of their master’s return. The surge of optimism that she’d maintained for two days on the road dissipated like heat through a leaking roof. There and then, Cynthia determined to deny that foolish hope had ever existed.

  There was no reason to be disappointed, she told herself firmly. Disappointment suggested the existence of expectations. Cynthia would be a fool to expect anything from Windermere. He hadn’t disappointed her, merely let her down. During just over a year of marriage, most of it spent apart, Damian Lewis, Earl of Windermere, had been consistent in that regard.

  Lord Windermere might not have been present to greet his faithful wife, but the devil next door was. Not half an hour after her arrival from the country, the Duke of Denford stepped along the pavement from his house and welcomed her home as Windermere had failed to do. Despite at least two very good reasons why she should refuse, Cynthia was now dressed in her favorite evening gown, sitting in a box at Drury Lane with temptation incarnate.

  “I didn’t expect to see so many people in town just before Christmas.” She leaned over the rail, peering at the sweep of seats opposite, five tiers of them, thronged with increasingly well-dressed patrons, ranging from clerks and servants in the highest gallery under the roof, down to the expensive and fashionable boxes nearest the pit. She and Denford occupied one of the latter, the sidewalls of which offered an illusion of privacy, despite being open to the gaze of the world.

  “What an excellent box, Julian. You know I like being near the stage.”

  “You also like being invisible to most of the gossiping tabbies.” He knew as well as she that her flouting of convention was largely bravado. Fewer than half the occupants of the vast horseshoe-shaped theater could see the inhabitants of the front boxes.

  “I don’t even know why I worry about being discreet. I’m not well-known in town.” She waved her hand to indicate the opposite seats. “It’s quite possible that not a soul in the place knows who I am.”

  “They know me.”

  “That’s because you are notorious and therefore interesting to everyone.”

  “The world is filled with fools.”

  She turned to look at her companion, whose low voice dropped to an impossibly deep bass when he was particularly amused or especially cynical. Hi
s appearance alone was enough to make him stand out. His tall, lean figure was habitually clad in unrelieved black—this evening in satin breeches and an evening coat and waistcoat of velvet embroidered in black silk. Even his neckcloth was black. The gloom of his costume enhanced the satanic effect of dead-straight black hair, which he wore long and tied back in a queue with a silk bow. He sat upright beside her with arms extended, hands resting on the silver-chased knob of the ebony walking stick he rarely left at home. His dependence on the elegant staff was an affectation for a man under thirty in perfect health. Some people, including Cynthia, found it amusing. Others found it just one more reason to detest him. The Duke of Denford had plenty of enemies.

  “I believe you enjoy shocking people, Julian.”

  Denford’s mouth curled unpleasantly, then the thin face with the hawkish nose made one of the mercurial transformations that fascinated Cynthia, and had sent her scuttling out of town a few weeks earlier, terrified she would succumb to the heady seduction of the duke’s brilliant blue eyes.

  “I enjoy shocking you,” he said. A man shouldn’t be allowed such devastating features, especially when he had the ability to change them from ice to fire beneath her gaze.

  “I’m not as easy to shock as I was when we first met.”

  “No,” he said. “Thank God for that. You have become a fascinating challenge.”

  It didn’t seem possible for pure sky blue to exude heat, but Denford’s eyes made every inch of her skin flush warm. How did he manage it? Without moving a muscle, he examined her face with concentrated intensity for some seconds, then his gaze dropped to the white expanse of her bosom, the bodice cut so low that the blue silk and lace barely concealed her nipples. She felt them hardening, and a curl of fire kindled in her belly. A familiar sick panic gripped her chest at the clash of attraction and repulsion, longing and fear.