Devil in Spring Read online

  As he made the last shot, Gabriel became aware of a presence in the doorway. Still leaning over the table, he glanced up and met his father’s light, vibrant gaze. A smile touched his lips. “I wondered how long it would take for you to find out.”

  Deceptively nonchalant, Sebastian, the Duke of Kingston, entered the room. He always seemed to know everything that occurred in London, even though he lived in Sussex for months at a time. “So far I’ve heard three different versions of the story.”

  “Pick the worst, and I’ll vouch for that one,” Gabriel said dryly, setting aside his cue stick. It was a relief to see his father, who’d always been an unfailing source of reassurance and comfort. They clasped hands in a firm shake, and used their free arms to pull close for a moment. Such demonstrations of affection weren’t common among fathers and sons of their rank, but then, they’d never been a conventional family.

  After a few hearty thumps on the back, Sebastian drew back and glanced over him with the attentive concern that hearkened to Gabriel’s earliest memories. Not missing the traces of weariness on his face, his father lightly tousled his hair the way he had when he was a boy. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

  “I went carousing with friends for most of last night,” Gabriel admitted. “It ended when we were all too drunk to see a hole through a ladder.”

  Sebastian grinned and removed his coat, tossing the exquisitely tailored garment to a nearby chair. “Reveling in the waning days of bachelorhood, are we?”

  “It would be more accurate to say I’m thrashing like a drowning rat.”

  “Same thing.” Sebastian unfastened his cuffs and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. An active life at Heron’s Point, the family estate in Sussex, had kept him as fit and limber as a man half his age. Frequent exposure to the sunlight had gilded his hair and darkened his complexion, making his pale blue eyes startling in their brightness.

  While other men of his generation had become staid and settled, the duke was more vigorous than ever, in part because his youngest son was still only eleven. The duchess, Evie, had conceived unexpectedly long after she had assumed her childbearing years were past. As a result there were eight years between the baby’s birth and that of the next oldest sibling, Seraphina. Evie had been more than a little embarrassed to find herself with child at her age, especially in the face of her husband’s teasing claims that she was a walking advertisement of his potency. And indeed, there had been a hint of extra swagger in Sebastian’s step all through his wife’s last pregnancy.

  Their fifth child was a handsome boy with hair the deep auburn red of an Irish setter. He’d been christened Michael Ivo, but somehow the pugnacious middle name suited him more than his given name. Now a lively, cheerful lad, Ivo accompanied his father nearly everywhere.

  “You go first,” Sebastian said, browsing among the rack of cue sticks and selecting his favorite. “I need the advantage.”

  “The devil you do,” Gabriel replied equably, setting up the game. “The only reason you lost to me the last time was because you let Ivo make so many of your shots.”

  “Since losing was a foregone conclusion, I decided to use the boy as an excuse.”

  “Where is Ivo? I can’t believe he let you leave him at Heron’s Point with the girls.”

  “He nearly worked himself into a tantrum,” Sebastian said regretfully. “But I explained to him that your situation requires my undivided attention. As usual, I’m full of helpful advice.”

  “Oh, God.” Gabriel leaned over the table to make the opening break. Staying down on the shot, he struck the cue ball, which struck the yellow ball and knocked it into the net. Two points. With the next shot, he potted the red ball.

  “Well done,” his father said. “What a sharper you are.”

  Gabriel snorted. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me two nights ago at the Chaworth ball. You’d have called me a prize idiot—rightly so—for being trapped into marriage by a naïve girl.”

  “Ah, well, no bull can avoid the yoke forever.” Sebastian moved around the table, set up his shot, and executed a perfect in-off. “What is her name?”

  “Lady Pandora Ravenel.” As they continued to play, Gabriel explained in disgust, “I didn’t want to attend the damned ball in the first place. I was pressed into it by some friends who said that Chaworth had spent a fortune for a crew of self-styled ‘fireworks artisans.’ There was supposed to be a ripping exhibition at the end of the evening. Since I had no interest in the ball itself, I walked down to the river to watch the workmen set up rockets. As I returned”—he paused to execute a carom, a three-point shot that hit two balls simultaneously—“I happened to hear a girl cursing in the summer house. She had trapped herself arse-upwards on a settee, with her dress caught in the carved scrollwork.”

  His father’s eyes twinkled with enjoyment. “A fiendishly clever lure. What man could resist?”

  “Like a clodpate, I went to help. Before I could pull her free, Lord Chaworth and Westcliff happened upon us. Westcliff offered to keep his mouth shut, of course, but Chaworth was determined to bring about my comeuppance.” Gabriel sent his father a pointed glance. “Almost as if he had an old score to settle.”

  Sebastian looked vaguely apologetic. “There may have been a brief dalliance with his wife,” he admitted, “a few years before I married your mother.”

  Gabriel took a heedless shot that sent the cue ball rolling aimlessly around the table. “Now the girl’s reputation is ruined, and I have to marry her. The very suggestion of which, I might add, caused her to howl in protest.”

  “Why?”

  “Probably because she doesn’t like me. As you can imagine, my behavior was somewhat less than charming, given the circumstances.”

  “No, I’m asking why you have to marry her.”

  “Because it’s the honorable thing to do.” Gabriel paused. “Isn’t that what you’d expect?”

  “By no means. Your mother is the one who expects you to do the honorable thing. I, however, am perfectly happy for you to do the dishonorable thing if you can get away with it.” Leaning down, Sebastian assessed a shot with narrowed eyes, lined it up, and potted the red ball expertly. “Someone has to marry the girl,” he said casually, “but it doesn’t have to be you.” Retrieving the red ball, he returned it to the head spot for another strike. “We’ll buy a husband for her. Nowadays most noble families are in debt up to their ears. For the right sum, they’ll gladly offer up one of their pedigreed progeny.”

  Regarding his father with an arrested stare, Gabriel considered the idea. He could foist Pandora onto another man and make her someone else’s problem. She wouldn’t have to live as an outcast, and he would be free to go on with his life as before.

  Except . . .

  Except he couldn’t seem to stop brooding over Pandora, who was like annoying music he couldn’t get out of his head. He’d become so obsessed with her that he hadn’t even visited his mistress, knowing that even Nola’s extensive repertoire wouldn’t serve to distract him.

  “Well?” his father prompted.

  Preoccupied, Gabriel was slow to reply. “The idea has merit.”

  Sebastian glanced at him quizzically. “I rather expected something more along the lines of, ‘Yes, dear God, I’ll do anything to avoid spending a lifetime shackled to a girl I can’t abide.’”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t abide her,” Gabriel said testily.

  Sebastian regarded him with a faint smile. After a moment, he prodded, “Is she pleasing to the eye?”

  Gabriel went to an inset sideboard to pour himself a brandy. “She’s bloody ravishing,” he muttered.

  Looking more and more interested, his father asked, “What is the problem with her, then?”

  “She’s a perfect little savage. Constitutionally incapable of guarding her tongue. Not to mention peculiar: She goes to balls but never dances, only sits in the corner. Two of the fellows I went drinking with last night said they’d asked her to waltz on previous o
ccasions. She told one of them that a carriage horse had recently stepped on her foot, and she told the other that the butler had accidently slammed her leg in the door.” Gabriel took a swallow of brandy before finishing grimly, “No wonder she’s a wallflower.”

  Sebastian, who had begun to laugh, seemed struck by that last comment. “Ahhh,” he said softly. “That explains it.” He was silent for a moment, lost in some distant, pleasurable memory. “Dangerous creatures, wallflowers. Approach them with the utmost caution. They sit quietly in corners, appearing abandoned and forlorn, when in truth they’re sirens who lure men to their downfall. You won’t even notice the moment she steals the heart right out of your body—and then it’s hers for good. A wallflower never gives your heart back.”

  “Are you finished amusing yourself?” Gabriel asked, impatient with his father’s flight of fancy. “Because I have actual problems to deal with.”

  Still smiling, Sebastian reached for some chalk and applied it to the tip of his cue stick. “Forgive me. The word makes me a bit sentimental. Go on.”

  “For all practical purposes, Pandora would be of no use to me other than in bed. She’s a novelty. After the newness wore off, I’d be bored within a week. More to the point, she’s temperamentally unsuited to be my wife. Anyone’s wife.” He had to finish his brandy before he could bring himself to admit huskily, “Despite all that . . . I don’t want anyone else to have her.” Bracing his hands on the edge of the table, he stared blindly at the green baize cloth.

  His father’s reaction was unexpectedly sanguine. “To play devil’s advocate—has it occurred to you that Lady Pandora will mature?”

  “I’d be surprised,” Gabriel muttered, thinking of those heathen blue eyes.

  “But my dear boy, of course you would. A woman will always surprise you with what she’s capable of. You can spend a lifetime trying to discover what excites and interests her, but you’ll never know it all. There’s always more. Every woman is a mystery, not to be understood but enjoyed.” Picking up a billiards ball, Sebastian tossed it into the air and caught it deftly. “Your Lady Pandora is young—time will remedy that. She’s a virgin—well, there’s a problem easily solved. You anticipate marital ennui, which, forgive me, is a pinnacle of arrogance unmatched by anyone except myself when I was your age. The girl sounds anything but boring. Given half a chance, she may please you even more than Mrs. Black.”

  Gabriel sent him a warning glance.

  His father had made no secret of his disapproval of Gabriel’s mistress, whose husband was the American ambassador. As the young, beautiful wife of a former Union Army officer whose war injuries prevented him from satisfying her in the bedroom, Mrs. Nola Black took her pleasures where she found them.

  For the past two years, Nola had fully indulged Gabriel’s every desire, their encounters unhindered by morals or inhibitions. She always knew when to push the limits farther, coming up with new tricks to spark his interest and satisfy his complex desires. Gabriel didn’t like it that she was married, he resented her temper and her possessiveness, and lately he had begun to realize that the affair was turning him into the worst possible version of himself.

  But he kept going back for more.

  “No one pleases me more than Mrs. Black,” Gabriel said with difficulty. “That’s the problem.”

  Slowly his father set the cue stick onto the table, his face impassive. “You fancy yourself in love with her?”

  “No. God, no. It’s just that . . . I . . .” Lowering his head, Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck, which had begun to crawl with discomfort. Although he and his father had always spoken freely on a great variety of subjects, they rarely discussed personal sexual matters. Sebastian, thank God, was not one to meddle in his sons’ private lives.

  There was no easy way for Gabriel to describe the dark side of his nature, nor was he particularly eager to face it. As the Challon family’s oldest son, he had always strived to meet high expectations—his own and other people’s. Since a young age, he’d been aware that because of his family name, wealth, and influence, many people actively wanted him to fail. Determined to prove himself, he’d earned high marks at Eton and Oxford. When other boys had wanted to test themselves against him by picking fights or trying to best him in athletics, he’d had to prove himself repeatedly. Whenever he’d identified a weakness in himself, he worked to overcome it. After graduating, he had managed his family’s financial affairs competently, and he’d made his own investments in fledgling businesses that had paid off in spades. In most areas of his life, he was self-disciplined and hardworking, a man who took his responsibilities seriously.

  But then there was the other side. Sexual, intemperate, and bloody tired of trying to be perfect. The side that made him feel guilty as hell.

  Gabriel hadn’t yet found a way to reconcile the opposing halves of his nature, the angel and the devil. He doubted he ever would. All he knew for certain was that Nola Black was willing to do anything he wanted, as often as he wanted, and he’d never found that kind of relief with anyone else.

  Flushing, Gabriel struggled to explain without making himself sound like a depraved freak of nature. “The problem is that I require particular . . . that is . . . she lets me . . .” He broke off with a guttural curse.

  “Every man has his tastes,” Sebastian said sensibly. “I doubt yours are all that shocking.”

  “What your generation considered shocking is probably different from mine.”

  There was a short, offended silence. When Sebastian replied, his voice was as dry as tinder. “Ancient and decrepit fossil that I am, I believe the ruins of my senile brain can somehow manage to grasp what you’re trying to convey. You’ve indulged in wanton carnal excess for so long that you’re disillusioned. The trifles that excite other men leave you indifferent. No virgin’s pallid charms could ever hope to compete with the subversive talents of your mistress.”

  Gabriel glanced up in surprise.

  His father looked sardonic. “I assure you, my lad, sexual debauchery was invented long before your generation. The libertines of my grandfather’s time committed acts that would make a satyr blush. Men of our lineage are born craving more pleasure than is good for us. Obviously I was no saint before I married, and God knows I never expected to find fulfillment in the arms of one woman for a lifetime. But I have. Which means there’s no reason you can’t.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so.” After a contemplative silence, Sebastian spoke again. “Why don’t you invite the Ravenels to Heron’s Point for a week? Give the girl a sporting chance, and become acquainted with her before you make a decision.”

  “There’s no need to invite her entire family to Sussex for that. It’s more convenient for me to visit her here in London.”

  His father shook his head. “You need to spend a few days away from your mistress,” he said frankly. “A man with your developed palate will enjoy the next course far more if you eliminate competing flavors.”

  Frowning, Gabriel braced his hands on the edge of the table as he considered the suggestion. With each passing day, more people were hounding him about the incipient scandal. Especially Nola, who had already sent a half-dozen notes demanding to know if the rumors were true. The Ravenels must be fending off the same questions, and would probably welcome the opportunity to escape London. The estate at Heron’s Point, with its eleven thousand acres of woodland, farmland, and pristine shoreline, offered complete privacy.

  His eyes narrowed as he saw his father’s bland expression. “Why are you encouraging this? Shouldn’t you be a bit more discriminating when it comes to the potential mother of your grandchildren?”

  “You’re a man of eight-and-twenty who hasn’t yet sired an heir. At this point, I’m not inclined to be overparticular about whom you marry. All I ask is that you produce some grandchildren before your mother and I are too decrepit to pick them up.”

  Gabriel gave his father a wry glance. “Don’t pin your hopes on Lady Pandor
a. In her opinion, marrying me would be the worst thing ever to happen to her.”

  Sebastian smiled. “Marriage is usually the worst thing to happen to a woman. Fortunately, that never stops them.”

  Chapter 4

  Pandora knew she was about to receive bad news when Devon sent for her to come to his study without having requested Cassandra to come down as well. To make matters worse, Kathleen, who usually served as a buffer between Pandora and Devon, wasn’t there. She had gone for the afternoon to visit Helen, who was still in childbed after having given birth to a healthy son a week and a half ago. The robust dark-haired infant, named Taron, closely resembled his father—“Except prettier, thank God,” Mr. Winterborne had said with a grin. The boy’s name had derived from the Welsh word for thunder, and so far he had justified it in full measure every time he was hungry.

  During the delivery, Helen had been attended by Dr. Garrett Gibson, a staff physician at Mr. Winterborne’s department store. As one of the first few women to have been certified as a physician and surgeon in England, Dr. Gibson was skilled and trained in modern techniques. She had taken excellent care of Helen, who’d had a difficult time during the delivery and had developed a mild case of anemia from loss of blood. The doctor had prescribed iron pills and prolonged bed rest, and Helen was improving every day.

  However, Mr. Winterborne, who was overprotective by nature, had so far insisted on hovering over his wife every possible minute, neglecting the mountain of responsibilities accumulating at the store. No matter how Helen reassured him that she was in no danger of falling ill from childbed fever or some other dread condition, he remained at the bedside in a near-constant vigil. Helen spent most of her time reading, nursing the baby, and playing quiet games with Carys, her little half-sister.

  This morning Helen had sent a note, begging Kathleen to visit so that Mr. Winterborne would go to his office and attend to some urgent business matters. According to Helen, Winterborne’s employees were all going mad without him, and she was going mad with him.