Page 123 of Dukes for Dessert

Veronica didn’t have to look at him to recognize the wrath burning down at her from his dark eyes. Her attention remained firmly affixed to her food, not only because she didn’t want to give Weller the satisfaction, but because she disliked the sight of him. He wasn’t unsightly, per se. A wealth of silvering hair and an impressive mustache bracketed by muttonchops were affixed to rather mild features, weathered by his early years as a seaman. He’d kept that lean, rangy figure into his fifties, and stood taller than most men. Though he’d a volatile intensity about him that she’d noticed cowed people beneath him and his peers, alike. But he hadn’t a build she would describe as intimidating.

Not when she’d stood in the presence of leviathans such as The Black Heart of Ben More and the Rook.

Of the tremendous titan that was Sebastian Moncrieff.

“How extraordinary you are, Countess,” he replied in an indulgent tone. “Most women so devoted to fashion take care not to eat so much or so often. Though I suppose you are lucky to be possessed of the skills to let out your own gowns as the need, no doubt, arises.”

Veronica offered him a smile she hoped did not bare as many teeth as she desired. “Dowager Countess,” she corrected. “I know you were not educated with nobility, so I don’t mind reminding you that it is commensurate to address me as ‘my lady.’”

His eyes narrowed as his smile widened into something that would be accompanied by a snarl in the wild. “Ah yes, how very sad. You are often so jolly, I forget the man who lifted you out of the mire of mediocrity was murdered.”

And so shall you be.

The savage thought astonished her.

Veronica was feeling less and less conflicted about his impending demise, and she’d only spent a matter of minutes in his company.

This man sold women and children, or so Moncrieff had mentioned. Just when she didn’t think he could be any more evil…

Weller snapped his fingers at the staff and demanded his breakfast, cutting off any need for a reply. The Weller women didn’t touch their food again until he’d received and dug into his own, and even then, they chewed as if the delicacies tasted of ash.

“I learned something from a…loquacious companion this morning,” Weller said around a bite. He obviously referred to the mistress with which he’d spent the night, intending to embarrass or hurt his wife.

Men like him rarely realized that their absence was, in fact, a relief.

“You don’t say, darling,” Adrienne replied dutifully, batting her pale eyes at her husband in a most disarming way. She’d been a scandalously young bride, thereby possessed of an eligible daughter before her fortieth year. However, marriage to a man like Weller, and eight subsequent failed pregnancies, had pinched deep grooves into her forehead and bracketed her tight frown. Shadows haunted the skin beneath her eyes which sagged from exhaustion, and even her honey-colored coiffure seemed to droop in his presence.

Veronica remembered that self-same expression in the mirror.

Lord, but she wished she could take Adrienne with them, but like so many women she insisted on staying with her husband.

“What did you hear, Papa?” Penelope asked over-brightly, a white pinch encircling her smile and the skin on her knuckles as she stirred her tea.

He puffed out his chest. “Not only are the Duchess of Lowood and her daughter aboard, but also is the Erstwhile Earl. I met him in the observation car last night. Capital fellow, not at all like one hears in the papers.”

Veronica froze.

The Erstwhile Earl. She’d heard that moniker before. When the Countess of Northwalk had mentioned it in regard to Sebastian Moncrieff.

Earl of Crosthwaite, she’d called him.

As tempted as Veronica had been to investigate the matter over the months since she’d encountered the man, she’d never allowed herself to do it.

To look into his past would be to admit that Moncrieff had a powerful effect on her, enough at least to arouse curiosity.

“Why do they call him the Erstwhile Earl?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Oh, you don’t know?” A victorious chuckle washed her in revulsion. Men like Weller delighted in schooling the uninitiated. “Crosthwaite’s father died when he was a lad away at boarding school. The title is old, granted back when a York held the throne, but old Henry Moncrieff lost the last of the fortune and began to parcel off the land to pay debts. Most everything else was taken in taxes upon his death. So, the boy never returned to the drafty ruin that even the Crown didn’t want to bother with taking from him.”

“He became a pirate, instead.” Moncrieff’s voice was as smooth, cold, and lethal as his blade from the night before.

Veronica nearly dropped her cup and was unable to avoid a slosh into the saucer as it landed with uncontrolled clatter.

Awareness poured down her spine, and every hair on her body vibrated at an alarming frequency. The electric sensations skittering through her threatened to set her aglow.

It was what his nearness always did to her.

She didn’t turn to look, choosing instead to be completely absorbed by her breakfast plate. Yet, she knew exactly where he stood behind them, as if every nerve in her body recognized the proximity.

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