Taste of the Devil Read online

  “Well, it’s really quite simple. You, of all people know how tired I am of not being able to go freely about and amuse myself among the ton. I need to be able to observe them close at hand to continue my writings. So, I have decided to put an end to a state which is not of my choosing. I have decided to enter society anew as Reggie Moore, nephew to Jediah Moore. To wit: I shall become an uproarious fop.”

  “What a lark!” Henley clapped his hands. “’Tis marvelous.”

  “Don’t ye go encouraging her, yer lordship. She’s bound to get into a fix wit’ this scheme o’ hers.” Mabel crossed her arms over her stout chest. “Wot if they find her out? I won’t have it. ‘Tis too dangerous.”

  “Egads, Mabel,” Henley and Ginny wailed in unison.

  “I means it this time. Last time y’ nearly turned me hair grey with that scheme ye both had to fleece Lord Sprocket at yer uncle’s card table.”

  Ginny and Henley looked at each other and grinned.

  Henley had taught Ginny everything he knew about gaming. With Ginny’s natural quickness of mind, she had taken to gamboling like a fish to water.

  Between the two of them, they had concocted a way to relieve the pompous Lord Sprocket of a hefty sum.

  The scheme had worked like a dream.

  Lord Sprocket had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, never once suspecting that the innocent Ginny–

  standing over his left shoulder– was busily giving signals to Lord Henry. It would never have dawned on the inflated earl that a mere woman could not only play cards but could also figure out numerical odds in the blink of an eye.

  With Mabel protesting so firmly, Henley decided to take matters into his own hands. He stood up, placing a satin and laced arm around the maid’s stalwart shoulders. “Now, Mabel, my dearest heart, you are not going to stop all our fun, are you?”

  Mabel remained adamant. “If the nob ever found out ‘bout it, me head would roll. I’d be outta here on me arse before you could say jack rabbit. Then who’d take care of me little pearl?” She glanced lovingly over at Ginny, her droopy eyes moist. “Like me own daughter, she is! I’ll not leave her to fend for herself wit the likes o' Jediah Moore.”

  Ginny hugged the older woman. “Oh, Mabel, it wouldn’t come to that; you’ll see. I... I just want a chance to enjoy my life. Besides, I would never let the Toad toss you out.”

  “And how would ye stop him, I ask ye?”

  Ginny looked beseechingly at Henley who cleared his throat.

  “Mabel, I would never let anything happen to you, either.”

  “Hmph! Well and good I say, milord, but wot about me little girl? She could get into a lot o’ trouble iffen she’s found out. Ruined in polite society. Wot then?”

  “But I won’t be found out!” Ginny beseeched Mabel.

  “You’ll see I won’t. You, yourself, have always said I could make my living on stage.”

  “I said that when ye was misbehaving and not comin’ clean about it. I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

  Ginny, sensing Mabel weakening, pressed her advantage.

  “But you still meant it. Besides, I won’t be alone.

  Lord Henry will look after me.”

  “That’s supposed to comfort me? I’ll be begging ye pardon m’lord; ye knows I likes ye fondly but everyone knows ye weren’t born with a lick o’ sense.”

  One could not deny truth when it slapped you in the face. “But I love Ginny, too.” Henley said, earnestly. “I won’t let any harm come to her.”

  “I don’t know... “

  Ginny and Henley’s eyes met. Mabel was hesitating:

  she was already theirs.

  Ginny rushed over to the portmanteau and began pulling clothes out.

  Charles, the cat, padded into the room.

  His enormous bulk swayed to and fro with each of his guarded steps. Like all cats, he had an innate sense when something interesting might be happening.

  Leaping onto the wing chair, the enormous white, orange, and black patch cat settled in for the show.

  Ginny held up a purple brocade coat along with dark rose satin breeches. “Henley, this is perfect!”

  “Of course it’s perfect; after all, it is my wardrobe.”

  “I’ve got to try these on!” She dashed behind her dressing screen.

  “Here, you’ll need these as well.” Henry slung a silk shirt, gold waistcoat, and white stockings over the top of the panels.

  In no time Ginny emerged from behind the screen–

  only to confront two faces with identical, horrified expressions.

  “They’re a bit roomy, aren’t they?” Although Henley was by no means a large man, his clothes were still way too big for her smaller frame.

  “Well, let’s not give up the battle yet. Mabel, how are you with needle and thread?” Henley slowly strolled around her, examining her with his lorgnette like the sternest Parisian modiste.

  “I’m no seamstress, but I can manage. Let me see...”

  She walked over to Ginny. Mabel was now completely caught up in the scheme. “Hmm... A tuck here, a pull there. Won’t be permanent like, but t’would hold...

  Aye, I think I could do it. But yer boobies are stickin’ out ta kingdom come.”

  Ginny bit her lower lip. “Perhaps I could bind them with some linen?”

  Henley looked skeptical.

  Mabel rolled her eyes. “I don’t know iffen we got enuf linen in all Tareton Court to hide them jugs.”

  Lord Henry raised an eyebrow, staring pointedly at the well-endowed chest. “Darling, ‘tis bountiful enough to make me consider a new proclivity.”

  Ginny threw up her hands. “Will you be serious!

  Help me? Think of something!”

  Henley tapped his chin. “Perhaps you might be able to bind them, adding some bulk to your waist as well so that when you reach the... there... it would all even out. Yes. It might even give you a broader chest and what man wouldn’t want that? I know I shouldn’t thumb my nose at one, were one offered.”

  Ginny threw a pillow at him.

  He neatly sidestepped it, gazing at her stocking feet.

  “I’ll have to purchase you a pair of shoes, though.

  Mine will never fit. But, now we need the finishing touch.” He reached into the bag, producing one of his powdered wigs. The floppy, silvery fat coils bounced in the air, raining a small snow storm of dust onto the Aubusson rug.

  Charles’ eyes narrowed with an avaricious gleam as he followed the movement of the fake hair in Lord Henry’s hands.

  “Let’s turn you into a dandy!” Henley tried to put the wig on Ginny’s head but it wouldn’t go over her thick hair. He then tried to stuff the waist length strands up underneath the edge.

  The only trouble was the strands wouldn’t stay inside the silly thing.

  After several aborted attempts with no cooperation at all from her hair, Henley was totally exasperated. He placed his hands on his skinny hips. “Somewhere a wigmaker is weeping.”

  “Never mind that now,” Mabel interrupted. “I’ll pin t’up underneath there– it won’t show t’ all.”

  Henley suddenly frowned.

  “What is it? Is something else showing that shouldn’t?” Ginny twisted around, futilely trying to see her own backside.

  “No, dear one.” Henley sighed deeply. “But we’ve all forgotten the most pressing problem of all.”

  Ginny’s eyes opened wide. “What?”

  “Your uncle.”

  “Coo, he’s right ‘bout that.” Mabel sank into the wing chair narrowly missing poor Charles, who proved that a fat cat could still move fast when circumstances demanded it.

  “Oh that.” Ginny waved her hand, dismissing their concerns. “Uncle Jediah will be no trouble at all.”

  “How can you say that, Ginny? How are you ever going to get your skinflint uncle to recognize you as his nephew?”

  Ginny walked over to the commode by the chair and picked out a nice red apple from the fruit bowl
.

  “T’will be easy. I’ll simply say I’m his deceased brother’s son, and that you and I are very good friends.

  Indeed, as far as anyone is concerned, Reggie shall be your houseguest. Uncle Jediah’s brother left his home when he was quite young, as I understand it. Jediah never had much contact with him.”

  “Then what makes you think he’ll welcome you?”

  Ginny threw the apple in the air, neatly catching it.

  “Easier, still. I shall tell him I have just come into an enormous inheritance and desperately need the guidance of my dear uncle.”

  Ginny smiled like a cat. “The Toad will never resist the temptation.”

  With those words, she took a big bite of the juicy apple.

  The significance of the scene was not lost on Henley. “Ah, but do you lead him out of the garden, my dear Eve, or not?”

  Ginny grinned. “The age-old debate.”

  Henley laughed uproariously.

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  And then, yet another coincidence occurred from our table talk at Gingridge's. Another meeting took place that would soon result in altering my life forever. You see, I was quite right to be suspicious of Jediah's behavior that night; this rendezvous involved the ever-popular topic of prurient conversation amongst the ton: that unprincipled rake, Lord Devon...

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  Chapter Four

  Islemoor Hall

  Lord Devon faced the man he hated most in this world.

  The Duke of Islemoor, Jonathan Trent, sat behind his walnut Chippendale desk, gazing out of the floor to ceiling windows to the manicured lawns below.

  It was unlike the old duke to let his mind wander during a meeting. Usually, he mastered every moment, using the time to berate, yell at, and hopefully shame his grandson into a change of behavior. None of this had ever worked on Tyler, but that never stopped the Duke from going through the ritual.

  Today the Duke seemed somewhat preoccupied.

  Tyler was confident he knew the reason. Lord knew, he had done everything in his power to put that expression on the old bastard’s face.

  Brushing at nonexistent lint on his royal blue velveteen breeches, he rested back in his seat, masking his true emotions with a droll expression. Lord Devon was always cultured, mannered, in control, and faintly bored with his surroundings.

  “Something bothering you, Grandfather?” Tyler’s low, fluid voice naturally took on the insouciant, lazy tone he had mastered so well over the years.

  The Duke turned sharply at the sound of his grandson’s voice, as if he had momentarily forgotten that he had sent for him. Then his piercing brown eyes fell to the mound of bills on his desk.

  He had lost another ship!

  Is there no end to this dark plague of misfortune? And now this wastrel of a grandson was sitting before him like a preening peacock!

  “Yes, there is something bothering me.” The old man’s focus shifted back to his grandson. “Have you seen this new batch of debts you have accrued?” The Duke’s hand slashed across his desk. “’Tis beyond the pall! What can you be thinking, Tyler?”

  Lord Devon yawned while he carefully retied the ribbon that held his black hair in a perfect queue. “You can afford it, Grandfather.”

  The Duke slammed his palms down on the desk. “No one can afford to pay these kind of debts indefinitely!

  Look at these receipts from your tailor– who requires forty-five silk shirts in the same cut? Have you gone mad?”

  Tyler shrugged his shoulders, unconcerned. “One must stay in fashion.”

  “And this from that gamboling establishment you’re so found of– a marker for five thousand pounds! ‘Tis unthinkable!”

  Tyler stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I had a run of bad luck.”

  His grandfather pierced him with a furious glare.

  “You are a run of bad luck.”

  The Duke took a deep breath, then leaned back in his own chair, puzzled at the constant shiftless behavior of his only living blood relation. He wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to the promising youth the lad had been. All the rakehell thought of was gamboling, frivolity, and women.

  And definitely not in that order.

  The old man closed his eyes as he remembered the latest scandal his grandson had created. One out of a long line of many.

  The Duke exhaled noisily. “And what of Lady Heathrow and her sister?”

  “What about them?”

  “Were they, too, a run of bad luck?”

  “Not hardly.” Tyler’s slow grin infuriated the older man.

  “Enough!” The Duke slammed his palms on the desktop once more. “You squander yourself and your future inheritance, yet you mock me? Well, by God, no more!”

  Tyler did not respond; he simply lifted his left eyebrow. He was used to these little tête-à-têtes with his grandfather. Indeed, he did everything he could to angle their outcome. It appeared that after twenty years the strategy was working.

  He was finally getting to the son of a bitch.

  “What are you going to do, Grandfather, put me out on the street?” This was said more as a jest than anything else.

  So he was surprised when the Duke responded, “I might just do that.”

  Tyler’s face turned to stone and for the briefest of moments his iron guard slipped. His light-colored eyes riveted on to the Duke. “I am a lord of England.”

  At his grandfather’s stunned look, Tyler quickly recovered himself, throwing a negligent hand over the arm of his chair. “It wouldn’t do for me to be standing outside the gates begging. Would it, old fellow?”

  The Duke rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger.

  “For an instant I thought I saw a glimmer of honor in you. I see I was mistaken.”

  “No doubt. One would have to know honor to see it.”

  The thinly veiled insult did not pass by the Duke.

  “You don’t fool me, Tyler.”

  Lord Devon’s head snapped up. Was the old devil on to him? His concern instantly turned to relief with the Duke’s next words.

  “I know, you have no filial affection for me. I can live without it.”

  Tyler relaxed back into his languorous pose. His relief was soon shattered, though.

  “What I do need,” his grandfather continued, ‘is the next Duke of Islemoor.”

  Tyler was confused for several seconds– until the old man’s meaning became horribly clear. He caught his breath, feeling as though he had just been shot in the gut. “You want my son?”

  “What else are you good for? To that end, I’ve just arranged your marriage. You are, shall we say, my boy, signed, sealed and soon to be delivered.”

  Tyler snorted, dismissing it entirely. “You’re mad.”

  “Not mad enough to entrust this estate to your wastrel hands. I intend to will my entire estate and titles directly to the son you will soon beget for me.

  You will never be master of Islemoor.”

  Tyler flushed, enraged at his grandsire. Standing over the desk, he clenched his fists in his fury. “You vicious old bastard! You have hated me from the day I was born. You’ve taken everything else, but you’ll not take my birthright from me.”

  For a moment, the Duke was stunned by Tyler’s vehement diatribe. He recovered quickly, though.

  “You insolent peacock! I have already done it.”

  The Duke lowered his voice, speaking through clenched teeth. “Sit down and listen carefully to my words. For once you will do exactly as I say. You will wed yourself to Lady Thomlinson. The banns have already been read.”

  A cold day in Hell is when that will happen. “And who is this paragon you have picked out for me in your delusional state? I have never heard of her and I do make it my business to acquaint myself with the ladies of the ton.”

  “So I have heard,” the Duke sneered in disgust.

  “She is the niece of Jediah Moore.”

  “That toad?” Tyler let ou
t a bark of laughter.

  “She is not what you imagine. She is a gently reared girl, quite lovely, I am told. Her uncle has kept her away from most of the damaging influences of society.”

  Tyler scoffed. “Really? So, why hasn’t some other swain already snatched up this model of decorum?”

  He could well imagine the answer.

  Not that it mattered.

  He had no intention of marrying her or anyone else. Nor would he ever give a child of his over to anyone. Especially his grandfather.

  The Duke cleared his throat. “Her uncle and I have already come to an arrangement. You will marry his niece, in return, he will retain control of her inheritance.”

  Tyler raised an eyebrow. “I see.”

  Yes, he saw it all. It had the familiar stench of his grandfather’s usual machinations. He looked away for a moment, the enormity of the terrible thing the bastard was proposing hitting him with a revolting force.

  “You realize this is preposterous?”

  The Duke said nothing.

  “I could marry my own heiress– if I choose to–

  which I do not. And, you do realize a husband normally gains control of all of his wife’s holdings?”

  “Fool! No decent family will have you! It was fortuitous of me to make this match for you.”

  The corner of Tyler’s mouth lifted in a sardonic grin. “But not so fortuitous for the young lady, hmm?”

  The Duke had the grace to look away. “I knew her father... I met her when she was a young girl. She was so lov–”

  Tyler put up a hand. “Spare me the fable. Do you really expect me to marry this woman and beget a son with her just so you can take him from me?”

  Again the Duke said nothing.

  Tyler’s stare flicked to his grandfather’s cane. “So you can teach him as you attempted to teach me?”

  “For all the good it did. You were untamable since you came into this earth, and I suspect will be ‘til you draw your last breath. Taking into account your current dissolute ways, it shouldn’t be too much longer. I will have an heir off of you before your vices carry you into the infernal regions, where you will undoubtedly be greeted with open arms.”

  Tyler eyes narrowed. “If I go to Hell, Grandfather, I shan’t be lonely for I am sure you will be there to greet me first.”