Page 1 of His Wicked Secret
1
League Rule 17: Never let your title, or a lack of one, define who you are.
Excerpt from theQuizzing Glass Gazette, September 9, 1821, the Lady Society column:
Lady Society is quite frustrated with gentlemen as of late, especially those of a roguish nature. In particular, she is casting her disapproving eye on Mr. St. Laurent, the younger brother to the Duke of Essex. This gentleman has attempted a callous seduction of a young lady of thetonand then rebuffed her when she conveyed her interest. Mr. St. Laurent, you cannot play the cat to a mouse with a woman who is no longer in the game. It is over. Leave the lady be since you have no desire to marry her. Consider yourself warned.
“Consider myselfwarned?”Jonathan St. Laurent stared at the paper he had stolen from Lucien, the Marquess of Rochester. The two were settled comfortably in a room at Berkley’s club, awaiting the arrival of their friends for their weekly drinks and cigars.
The red-haired marquess chuckled. “You have brought the wrath of Lady Society herself down upon you. May God pity your soul.”
“Indeed.” Jonathan read over the society column again, choking on every word. He hadn’t been playing any games. There was only one lady in all of London he could have claimed to have seduced, or made an attempt to: Miss Audrey Sheridan, the youngest sister of his friend Cedric, Viscount Sheridan.
Jonathan had spent his entire life believing he was a servant, not knowing until last year that he was, in fact, the Duke of Essex’s half brother. He was learning his place in the beau monde, learning the ways of a gentleman, and doing his best to leave his life as a servant behind him. But trouble had found him. Trouble bearing the name of Audrey.
She was a true hellion. A dark-haired beauty with a sharp tongue and a penchant for trouble. The last thing he needed was trouble. Nevertheless, from the moment he’d met her she’d been a constant presence in his mind.
“Well, what do you plan to do?” Lucien inquired. His lips twisted up in an amused, sardonic smile as he sipped his brandy.
“What can I do?” Jonathan crushed the paper in his hands. “I didn’t seduce her, not in any way that truly counts.”
“By whose standards? Those of a gentleman, or those of the life you led before?”
The words wounded Jonathan. “I have been nothing but a gentleman to her.”
Lucien seemed to realize his words had hurt Jonathan and corrected himself. “I simply mean that a misunderstanding may have taken place. Ladies often have a very different view of seduction than we do, you know.”
“There was not. At least none that I can see. And besides, I was ready to marry her. I was about to ask her this afternoon when I last saw her.”
Earlier that afternoon he’d sought to propose to her, but she’d run from him before he could even ask his question. He’d been worried she was going to get into trouble, so he had followed her to a brothel, the Midnight Garden, which catered to high-society clientele. He’d found Audrey alone in a room with a handsome young man, and he’d lost control, tossing the man out of the room. He and Audrey had argued, and whenever they argued it always led to brief yet intense moments of passion.
He’d never met a woman who set his blood on fire with just a smile or a laugh. Everything about her made the world glow in a way he’d never thought possible.
But he hadn’t seduced her, not in the way the society column suggested. He’d given her a taste of what pleasure could be between a man and a woman who cared for each other, and when he held her in his arms, her body trembling with the aftershocks of release, he’d gotten lost in her soft brown eyes. The words of his proposal had lingered upon his lips, and just when he had summoned the courage to speak, she rallied her defiant spirit and pulled away from him. She’d abandoned him, and his heart had constricted with unimaginable pain, hurt and confused by her opposing reactions to him. One minute she was purring in his arms like a kitten, and the next she was spitting mad and leaving him feeling the deep gashes of her verbal claws.
“Why didn’t you ask her?” Lucien asked. “You shouldn’t be afraid. I was nervous when I proposed to Horatia, and I ought not to have been.”
Jonathan sighed. “But Horatia is so much more reasonable than her sister. Audrey is…” Words escaped him.
“Wild? Untamable? A scamp of the highest order?” Lucien supplied with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Exactly,” Jonathan agreed. She was all those things and more. So much more.
“Cedric will approve, you know. You need not worry about that. He trusts you more than he ever did me.” There was a soft, melancholy tone to his voice that caught Jonathan’s attention. The two men had come to blows over Horatia and eventually had ended up dueling on Christmas day. It was a miracle no one had died that day.
While it comforted Jonathan to think Cedric wouldn’t object to his marrying Audrey, it was the lady herself who was causing him concern. He’d been warned by a footman in the Sheridan house that Audrey had her heart set on learning the art of espionage so that she might become a spy. Ridiculous. Could it be that which had driven a wedge between them? She had once shown interest in him, but now she seemed determined not to marry any man, and she was getting herself involved in more and more dangerous situations.
The strong sting of Audrey’s rejection brought him back to Lucien’s words.
“It isn’t Cedric I’m concerned about. I was so convinced last year that Audrey wished for me to court her, but now…something has changed.” He cast his eyes about the room, seeking answers and knowing he would find none.
Lucien lit a cigar and puffed on it slowly, thinking. “Sometimes women are convinced they want something, but once it’s within reach they grow frightened of actually obtaining it.”
“But why?”
“Lord, man, if I knew I would be sure to tell you.”
Jonathan exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “If Lady Society is telling the truth, that Audrey doesn’t want me, then wouldn’t it be the gentlemanly thing to do to let her go?”
