CHAPTER I
Trouble in London
Alix knew she was in trouble. She dared another peek through the curtain, but the crowded street and towering buildings remained. Defeated, she stared into the shadowed corners of the carriage, searching for a key to the chaos surrounding her.
Her sister's ermine muff rolled to the floor. Alix retrieved it, mourning the beautiful animal. She pushed it to the far corner of the red, diamond-tucked leather seat so she would not have to hold it. Did her dear sister Lily customarily forget things in the carriage? How could Alix guess, when she knew nothing about Lily? It was another hallmark of how this shocking scheme was doomed to fail, since it was impossible to impersonate someone completely unknown.
The continued clatter of carriage over cobblestone frayed her unsteady nerves. Though her uncle Quenton was driving, he showed no sign of stopping. Certainly he had recognized that it had been she getting in to take Lily's place when they had left the farm. Even though they were twins, Quenton would have noticed the difference at once. No matter how much he needed his job as Lily's driver, he was sufficiently immune to any threats to have contacted Alix first. He must have a counter plan in place if he brought Lily to the farm. Along the road to London, Alix had expected him to pull over and share it, but her heart sank when they turned onto smooth pavement. Another chance peek through the curtain made her cringe. Greensward and tall houses rolled past the coach, signaling arrival in Westminster.
If Quenton planned to shed a little light on his intentions, he was fast running short of time. Alix lost all hope of any last-minute chat when her uncle called to his horses.
"Look lively now, lads!" The carriage lurched in response and suddenly clattered to a halt at the curb.
Resolutely, she straightened her position, for there would be no last-minute reprieve. Alix smoothed her sister's skirt and adjusted her sister's bonnet strings, waiting for the door to open. As her uncle jumped down from the box, she drew a deep breath and assumed Lily's vacant expression.
Quenton opened the door without regard for her. He did not know she had been riding inside Lily's coach, dressed in Lily's clothes, and knew nothing about Lily's plan to exchange places. It was too late to tell him, because now the cost of his outrage at the detestable scheme would be his employment. Determinedly, Alix mustered the will to step down from the carriage.
NICHOLAS MEASURED SILENT PACES against the pendulum of the Bavarian floor clock. Only the snap of the fire, the pelting rain, and the redundant tick marked his trek down the length of the library. Upon reaching his desk, he turned to start his journey again.
"I beg your pardon, milord."
It was the butler, Percival Winston. Nicholas avoided the man's sympathetic gaze, but he hovered in the doorway, awaiting permission to enter. Finally discarding the need, the butler came in regardless. His presence made no difference to Nicholas, as long as his visit was brief.
"I thought you might like a lamp or two."
"If you must," Nicholas responded, unwilling to concede a reminder of the waning day.
"Thank you, milord; I'll just be a minute."
The strike of the tinderbox invaded his seclusion and sparked thought. The clock chimed, igniting the parody of his most recent afternoon. When he had rolled out of bed that morning, he had scarcely imagined this finish to his day. His schedule had started as routinely as usual, save he had been fortunate enough to have missed Lily going up to bed as he went down to breakfast. He made no pretense of avoiding his wife; he could scarcely stand the sight of her, let alone stomach the caliber of people she entertained.
Once Lily Radcliffe had set her sights on the Griffon fortune, there had been no chance for a reprieve from his reckless marriage. He loathed acknowledging he was a fool for the fortnight that had ended his delusion on their wedding night. Now, while Lily lived the high life as his entitled wife, Nicholas was left with the price of folly. It did not matter what she did, so long as she did it outside his knowledge. Until recently, she had seemed so clever, coming off scot-free from every escapade, that he had mistakenly come to rely on it. He should have anticipated the proverbial hens coming home to roost. Her error might have granted him a hearty laugh, except he was the unwitting cuckold.
Not that it mattered what others thought, beyond the mockery she made of his name. He had no desire to see the Griffon reputation sullied or to gain notoriety as a laughing- stock. To date, the worst he had managed was his marriage to Lily Radcliffe. Little had he thought it would lead to scandal, but it had not taken her long; barely had the ring been on her finger when he had discovered his blunder. It had taken the better part of a year to emerge from a bout of self-loathing, and now this.
He would have been wiser petitioning for immediate annulment, but he was too busy drowning in one hell of a bender. To be precise, it was not a bender inasmuch as it was a drunken row night after bloody night in the saloons along the river. When he could not drink anymore and his legs gave out, some passerby would take sufficient pity to pour him into a bunk on one of his frigates lining the docks. If not, he would remain where he fell until morning patrol, when a bobby woke him sufficiently to stagger to a berth on his own.
It was a shameful pastime for a man of his position, but he would do anything to keep from returning home to the disgrace of his marriage. By the time he scraped himself together sufficiently to look in the mirror, his wife constructed a new pratfall.
"Would you care for a scotch, milord?" Winston suggested, smoothly pouring without regard for a reply. "In my opinion, a drink goes down nicely on a day like this."
Nicholas did not like living with the intimation that he was fast becoming a wastrel. "Are you suggesting there's a reason I should be drinking?"
"Not at all, milord."
"In that case, I might like one." "Will you dine in tonight?"
"God, no." He grimaced at the unwarranted suggestion and tasted his whiskey. "I'll be at the club, as usual."
"Very well, milord. May I be of further assistance?" "No, man. Go along."
"Thank you, milord." Winston capped his performance with a bow and disappeared through the door.
Nicholas waited until the butler was gone to take a decent drink of scotch. Winston was right: It cut the bitterness of learning about the D'Arcys' European tour, right after he had received the message that Lily had spent the night at their country estate.
It was the reason he had stormed home to meet her when she surfaced. If Lily's cohort, Beth D'Arcy, was out of the country, then how in the devil could Lily have been visiting her? The short answer was the obvious lie, but it did not furnish anything about where she had actually been.
After watching her having a go with his brother, Phillip, all winter, he was sick to death of her flagrancy. He was not so much worried about her as he was concerned her rendezvous would become public fodder. He wished not to see her but to hear the lie straight from her lips. Then he would take his complaint to a judge and end the sham of their marriage in divorce, without exposing her disgraceful affair with his brother.
Divorce was ugly and would cast aspersion on his reputation, but with unassailable proof and without involving Phillip, it would not be as painful as it could be otherwise. Someday his worthless brother might even thank him, but for now, Phillip would learn of the dissolution in a letter. By the time Phillip's ship returned from Calcutta, the public disgrace would be forgotten. Nicholas would prefer for his brother's indiscretion never to emerge in court; the disgrace of marital incest would be sufficient to oust his seat in Parliament. To save the tattered remnants of a once-reputable name, they might need to sell their London properties and move Lion Shipping Company up the coast to continue the family business in relative obscurity.
Lily. She could not be content with the ruin of one Griffon male; she had to have both. Nicholas's gaffe in marrying her jeopardized both brothers' reputations. She was worse than a siren, simply devouring any man foolish enough to look at her. How many others had she enticed to their downfall? There was no need to count any of them, when by marrying her he was the king of them all.
Now it would end. He was finished living in a self– destructive prison. He might be guilty of falling for her angelic image of soft blue eyes and lustrous hair. Her sweet facade hid one of hell's most heartless demons, and he had paid full price for his blunder. Tonight, he would w