Dartmouth, England, 1794
It ought to be a difficult thing to hate a woman one had never met before, but Rupert Delacorte, Viscount Darling, looked across the expansive ballroom at the beautiful woman descending the stairs, and reckoned he’d manage just fine.
Because hate her he did. With a cold, implacable fury that seethed deep within him, burning unabated throughout his long year of mourning, slowly melting the ice he had tried to freeze around his heart. And no matter the consequences or social carnage, Del was going to make her pay for her misdeeds—his deep-seated sense of justice demanded it.
He was going to ruin her elegant, effortless life just as surely and as ruthlessly as she had ruined Emily’s.
“Delacorte? You’re looking remarkably bloody-minded for a ball.” Commander Hugh McAlden, friend, naval officer and resident cynic, came to stand next to Del. “Are you planning to dance with someone or thrash ‘em?”
“Haven’t decided.” Del tossed back a small measure of brandy to swallow the stinging taste of bitterness that always rose in his gullet at the thought of Emily, his adored younger sister.
She had been his anchor, his compass. Without her, he had come unmoored, adrift and without purpose. For a year, he had rashly and stupidly tried to dull the pain of Emily’s loss with liquor, fornication and a recklessness that might have seen a lesser man into his grave. But nothing had helped.
Emily was dead. And it was the fault of the woman across the room. Celia Burke.
The bolt of brandy sent small licking tongues of fire through his chest, feeding the flames of his ire. He would permit himself only the one, small drink—he couldn’t afford the continued self-indulgence of blissful, drunken oblivion. Not now. Not since he had received the bloody blackmail letter and found out about Celia Burke.
No wonder he looked blood-minded—he felt murderous. Because that carelessly scrawled demand for his money and his silence had overthrown all his beliefs, all his love and all his hopes. That one letter had obliterated all the letters that had gone before, and left both his past and his future in tatters.
Del had not known who she was when he first laid eyes upon her, but he instinctively disliked her—he distrusted beauty. Because beauty walked hand in hand with privilege. And devil take her, she was certainly beautiful—tall, elegant, with unblemished white skin, a riot of sable dark curls and deep dark eyes—a symphony of black and white. But beauty had a way of diverting unpleasantness and masking grievous flaws of character. No, beauty was not to be trusted.
That the woman he watched was indeed Celia Burke, was confirmed by others attending the select ball at the Marquess and Marchioness of Widcombe’s. Her name wafted to him on champagne-fueled murmurs from the hot, crowded room—“Dear Celia,” “Our Miss Burke,” and “The Ravishing Miss Burke,” as if it were her rank, and she the only one to wear that crown.
The ravishing Miss Celia Burke, well-known, and even more well-liked local beauty. She surveyed the ballroom like a swan—serene, remote and exquisitely pretty—as she made her graceful way down the short set of stairs into the ballroom as effortlessly as clear water flowed over rocks in a hillside stream. She nodded and smiled in a benign but uninvolved way at all who approached her, but she never stopped to converse, never became more human. She pressed on, following her mother through the parting sea of mere mortals, those lesser beings who were nothing more to her than playthings.
Aloof, perfect Celia Burke. Fuck you.
By God, he would take his revenge, and Emily would have justice. Maybe then he could sleep at night. Maybe then he could learn to live with himself.
But he couldn’t exact the kind of revenge one takes on another man—straightforward, violent and bloody. He couldn’t call Miss Burke out on the middle of the dance floor and put a bullet between her eyes, or a sword blade between her ribs at dawn.
No. His justice would have to be more subtle, but no less thorough. And no less ruthless.
“You were the one who insisted we attend this august gathering. So what’s it to be? Delacorte?” McAlden prompted.
McAlden was one of the few people who never addressed Del by his courtesy title, Viscount Darling, as they’d known each other long before he’d come into the bloody title, and far too long for Del to give himself airs in front of such an old friend. And with such familiarity came ease. With McAlden, Del could afford the luxury of being blunt.
“Dancing or thrashing? The latter, I think.”
McAlden’s usually grim mouth crooked up in half a smile. “A thrashing, right here in the Marchioness’ ballroom? I’d pay good money to see that.”
“Would you? Shall we have a private bet, then?”
“Del, I always like it when you’ve got that look in your eye. I’d like nothing more than a good wager.”
“A bet, Colonel Delacorte?” Another naval officer, Second Lieutenant Owen Kent, known from their time together when Del had been an officer of His Majesty’s Marine Forces aboard the frigate Resolute, broke into the conversation. “What’s the wager? I’ve money to burn these days, thanks to you two.”
“Not a wager, Kent.” Del needed to be circumspect. Kent was a bit of a puppy, happy and eager, but untried in the more manipulative ways of society. There was no telling what he might let slip. Del had no intention of getting caught in the net he was about to cast. “More of a…challenge, only. Save your fortune in prize money for another time.”
“A gentleman’s bet then, Colonel?”
A gentleman’s bet. Del felt his mouth curve up in a scornful smile. What he was about to do violated every code of gentlemanly behavior.
“He’s Viscount Darling now, Mr. Kent.” McAlden was giving Del a mocking smile. “We have to address him with all the deference he’s due.”
Unholy glee lit the young man’s face. “I had no idea. Congratulations, Colonel. What a bloody fine name. I can hear the ladies now—my dearest, darling Darling. How will they resist you?”
Del merely smiled and took another drink. It was true—none of them resisted. High-born ladies, low-living trollops, barmaids, island girls or senoritas, bless their lascivious hearts.
And neither would she, despite her remote facade. Celia Burke was nothing but a hothouse flower just waiting to be plucked.
“Go on, then—what’s your challenge?” McAlden’s face housed a dubious smirk as several more naval men joined them.
“I propose I can openly court, seduce and ruin an ostensibly virtuous woman,” he began.
McAlden gave a huff of bluff laughter. “Too easy, in one sense—too hard, in another,” he stated flatly.
“Without ever once touching her.”
The men gaped at him.
“But how can you possibly ruin someone without touching them?” young Kent protested.
Del felt his mouth twist—he had forgotten what it was like to be that young. While he was only six and twenty, he’d grown older since Emily’s death. Vengeance was singularly aging.
“Find us a drink would you, Kent? A real drink, and none of this lukewarm swill they’re passing out on trays.” Del pushed the youth off in the direction of a footman.
“It’s no challenge to ruin a reputation with only a rumor,” McAlden repeated in his stoic, determined way. “Far too easy. You’ll have to do better than that.”
Trust McAlden to get right to the heart of the matter. Like Del, McAlden had never been young. And he was older in years as well.
“With your reputation—well deserved, I might add,” McAlden continued, “you’ll not get within a sea mile of a virtuous woman.”
“That, old man, shows how little you know of women.”
“That, my darling viscount, shows how little you know of their mamas.”
“And I’d like to keep it that way. Hence the prohibition against touching. I plan on keeping a very safe distance.” While he was about this business of revenging himself on Celia Burke, he needed to keep himself safe—safe from being forced into doing the right thing should his planned dish of tea and retribution be discovered or go awry.
And he didn’t want to touch her. He didn’t want to be tainted by so much as the merest brush of her hand.
“Can’t seduce, really seduce, even a widow from a distance. Not even you.” McAlden was shaking his head. “Twenty guineas says it can’t be done.”
“Twenty? An extravagant wager for a flinty, tight-pursed Scotsman like you. Done.” Del accepted the challenge with a firm handshake. It sweetened the pot, so to speak.
McAlden perused the crowd. “Shall we pick now since you’re feeling bloody-minded enough to seduce and ruin a virtuous widow without being named, or caught? I warn you, Del, this isn’t London. There’s plenty of virtue to be had in Dartmouth.”
“I didn’t say a widow—I said ostensibly virtuous. In this case, there is a particular difference.” Del looked across the room at Celia Burke again. At the virtuous, innocent face she presented to the world. He would strip away that mask, until everyone could see the ugly truth behind her immaculately polished, social veneer.
McAlden followed the line of his gaze. “You can’t mean— That’s Celia Burke!” All trace of joviality disappeared from McAlden’s voice. “Jesus, Del, have you completely lost your mind as well as all moral scruple?”
“Gone squeamish?” Del tossed back the last of his drink. “That’s not like you.”
“I know her. Everyone in Dartmouth knows her. She is Captain Marlowe’s wife’s most particular friend. You can’t go about ruining—ruining for God’s sake—innocent young women, like her. Even I know that.”
“I said she’s not innocent.”
“Then you must have misjudged her. She’s not fair game, Del. Pick someone else. Someone I don’t know.” McAlden voice was growing hard.
“No.” Del kept his own voice flat, without any emotion.
McAlden’s astonished countenance focused on Miss Burke, half a room away, now smiling sweetly in conversation with another young woman. He swore colorfully under his breath. “That’s not just bloody-minded, Del, that’s suicidal. She’s got parents—attentive parents. Take a good hard look at her mama, Lady Caroline Burke. She’s nothing less than the daughter of a duke, and is to all accounts a complete gorgon in her own right. They say she eats fortune hunters, not to mention an assortment of libertines like you, for breakfast. And what’s more, Miss Burke is a relation of the Marquess of Widcombe, in whose ballroom you are currently not dancing. This isn’t London, you are a guest here—my guest, and therefore Marlowe’s guest. One misstep like that and they’ll have your head. Or, more likely, your bollocks. And quite rightly. Pick someone else for your challenge.”
“No.”
“Delacorte.”
“Bugger off, Hugh.”
McAlden knew him well enough to hear the implacable finality in his tone, but he didn’t give up that easily. “God’s balls, Del. I didn’t think I’d regret having you to stay so quickly.” He ran his hand through his short, cropped hair and looked at Del with a dawning of realization. “Damn my eyes. You’d already made up your mind before you came here, hadn’t you? You came for her.”
Under such scrutiny, Del could only admit the truth. “I did.”
“Damn your eyes, Delacorte. This can only end badly.”
Del shrugged with supreme indifference. “That will suit me well enough.”
~
They called it blackmail, though the letter secreted in Celia Burke’s pocket was not in actuality black. It had looked innocuous enough—written on the same ivory-colored paper as all the other mail, brought to her on a little silver tray borne by the butler, Loring.
It would have been much better if the letter had actually been black, because then Celia would have known not to open it—she would have flung it into the fire before it could so irrevocably poison her life. The clenching grip of anxiety deep in her belly was proof enough the poison had already begun its insidious work.
“Celia, darling? Smile, my dear. Smile.” Lady Caroline Burke whispered her instructions for her daughter’s ears only as she smiled and nodded to her many acquaintances in the ballroom as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Celia shoved her unsteady hand into her pocket to reassure—to convince—herself the letter was still there. Still real. She had not dreamt up this particular walking nightmare.
The letter, dated only one day ago, was clear and precise, straight to the point:
Celia Burke, we know what you did in Bath with Emily Delacorte. What we know, if we were to share it, would ruin you. We will tell all if you do not deliver the sum of three hundred pounds within a fortnight. We will contact you then. We will be watching you, Celia Burke.
They could be watching her now.
Her heart lurched and tumbled within her chest like a miss-timed clockwork. So many faces. So many strangers. The fear was like hot acid etching its way through her chest, closing in her breath and choking the air from her lungs.
It was as if she were in the grips of a mania. That’s what her friend Lizzie Marlowe would have called the pounding in her veins—a false judgment based on current, unsettling events. Lizzie knew all sorts of big, impressive words, though she had never been sent away to school like Celia. Lizzie had felt the same sense of persecution when she first moved to Glass Cottage with all it’s strange goings on. But now Lizzie, the one person in whom Celia could have confided, the one person Celia would have trusted to help, was gone off with her new husband, taking along with her all her forthright advice and decisive thinking.
“Celia, dear, you must smile—young men need to be encouraged!” Her mama’s voice was growing insistent but not yet impatient. “And we cannot disappoint your Aunt and Uncle Widcombe by appearing unhappy with the company. You look lovely. Let me see you smile.”
Celia could not agree—she caught sight of her ashen reflection in a mirror, and pressed her palms to her cheeks to warm her pallor.
Which did no good—her hands had gone cold.
How on earth had this happened to her, of all people? She was innocuous Celia Burke, not some exciting, wild creature who invited censure. She had always lived a life of such quiet, orderly compliance and good sense that even her own mother despaired of marrying her off, despite her supposed beauty.
Poor Mama. Celia had tried her very best not to disappoint and upset her mother’s plans for a grand match, but they were quite untenable. Despite her supposed beauty, and despite Lizzie having given her the nickname by which she was now known throughout all of Dartmouth, Celia was never going to be a diamond of the first water. Or even the second. Not at all. Because her own beauty held no appeal for her.
She valued other characteristics, both in herself and in others—loyalty, companionship and intelligence. Nothing she had found in great abundance amongst Dartmouth society’s young lordlings. The sort of young men her mother and aunts invariably favored seemed to care only for pretty appearances, or for horses with pretty appearances. Such men would make her terrible husbands, and she would make any and all of them a terrible wife.
Celia’s dream of perfect marital happiness was a different sort of man. A man of thought, deliberation and determination, a man who earned his place in the world through his own brilliance and resourcefulness. But such men did not attend balls in Dartmouth, and even if they did, they were far beyond her awkward abilities.
Celia drew a long wistful breath at the thought.
“Celia!” Mama’s voice was growing sharper now.
“Yes, Mama.” She could see her mother was halfway to working herself into a fine glower over her lack of enthusiasm. Lady Caroline Burke did not like to have her plans thwarted by anyone, least of all her scatter-brained eldest daughter.
But Celia was not really scatter-brained. She was, as her father so kindly put it, everything sensible but often pre-occupied, and tonight she was entirely occupied with her imminent, total and complete ruination.
Ruination was a word that encompassed rather a lot, but Celia knew exactly what it would mean to her. She would be repulsed by her family, rejected by society, and unable to make a marriage—any marriage. It would be the end of everything she wanted her life to be. She had to keep from being ruined—there was simply no alternative.
Celia turned away from the mirror and pinched her cheeks to flood color back into her face. But there was little hope for it. The evening was going to be awful. Mama was a veritable terrier when it came to ferreting out a single untruth, let alone a whole letter of them.
Celia would be ruined one way or another.
The Ravishing Miss Burke, they called her—what else would they call her when it all came out?
Despite the fact that her appearance—dressed in a white silk gown, in the up-to-date style of a simple chemise dress, but with lovely floral embroidery on the flounced neckline and sleeves in deep, vibrant silver, blues and pinks, that complimented the turkish blue satin sash at her waist, and managed to make the most of Celia’s fair complexion and dark hair—could not be faulted, she looked tense and guarded.
And no wonder. She felt tense and guarded, hollow and brittle from the effort of holding herself together. Because there was no one with whom she could share the letter. No one she could ask for help. No one who cared about the truth.
She was completely and utterly on her own.
