Diane Gaston - Regency High Society Vol 7 - A Reputable Rake / The Heart's Wager / The Venetian's Mistress / The Gambler's Heart

Sloane’s horse was waiting for him when he tore back into the house. Elliot stood in the hall and the butler hovered in a doorway.

It was Elliot who handed him his hat and gloves. The look of compassion on the young man’s face nearly jolted him out of the towering rage that consumed him.

Morgana.

He grabbed his hat and gloves and thundered out the door, snatching the reins of his horse from the groom, and mounting in one easy motion. He fleetingly considered detouring into Hyde Park to ride off the storm inside him, but even a hell-for-leather gallop down Rotten Row would not suffice. He must simply wrest control back, push down the pain that kept shooting up through the anger.

Morgana.

He could not think straight. He felt as if she’d pushed him off a very high cliff. Hitting the ground, he had met with pain too intense to bear. She had refused him. Said she’d toyed with him. Accused him of being no gentleman.

His head told him not to believe a word of it. Morgana, a courtesan? Nonsense.

Did she concoct that story as an excuse to refuse his offer of marriage? She had wanted their lovemaking as much as he, but only when he’d mentioned marriage did she repeat her outrageous story. Sloane’s insides felt as if a dozen sabres had slashed him to ribbons and his head whirled with the suspicion that she wanted him to be the rake, not the gentleman. She craved the excitement, not the man. Sloane had gone through plenty of women like that, who’d made love to him so they could say they’d been seduced by the dark and dangerous Cyprian Sloane.

Sloane thought Morgana different. He could not have so thoroughly misjudged her when his skill at judging character had always been razor-sharp.

He turned a corner and, nearly colliding with a slow-moving coal wagon, reined in his steed and tried to pull himself together.

He had one thing clear is his head. If she carried his child, she would marry him, even if he had to drag her to the altar to do it. No child of his would ever be burdened by questions of paternity.

Sloane kept his horse apace with the curricles, carriages and wagons in the streets while he tried to push Morgana out of his mind. The immediate task was to confront his father. Ironic that the job at hand was defending the good name of the woman who merely craved his bad one.

He finally turned down the Mayfair street where his father resided, not precisely calm but at least resolved. Sloane pulled his horse to a halt in front of his father’s townhouse. Calling for a footman to see to the horse, he waited in the hall while another servant fetched David. His nephew did not keep him waiting and quickly drew him aside.

‘I am glad you are here.’ David wrung his hands. ‘They have not yet sent the message to the papers. There is still time to change their minds, though I am not sure what you can do to convince them.’

Sloane frowned. ‘Do you know when the Earl and your father conceived this plan?’

‘I do not know when the idea first occurred to them.’ David gave him an earnest glance. ‘I think it was right after Lady Cowdlin’s dinner party—’

Where Rawley had seen them both, Sloane thought.

‘—but they discussed it last night after our evening meal. I looked for you at the musicale , but you were not there. So I sent the message first thing this morning.’

Last night? Before the masquerade. No spy saw Morgana enter his house. Sloane expelled a relieved breath.

David’s expression suddenly changed into one of ill-disguised pain. ‘My father heard your offer for Lady Hannah’s hand would be imminent. Grandfather had words with Lord Cowdlin yesterday. You must know the Cowdlin family and our own have been close for many years—years you were absent. Grandfather does not wish you to marry into the family—’

A muscle contracted in Sloane’s cheek. Sloane had been ready to ruin Hannah’s life, just as his father now aspired to ruin Morgana’s. The similarity between himself and the Earl of Dorton sickened him.

David paced back and forth. ‘Grandfather ought not stand in the way of your happiness. I… I cannot fathom it.’

Sloane gazed at his nephew, who suddenly looked as young as the much-beloved toddler he’d envied so many years ago. He had nearly forgotten David and Hannah’s tragic love affair.

‘David, I am not making Lady Hannah an offer. I will not marry her.’

Instead of looking joyous, David’s face flashed with panic. ‘You cannot mean.’ His face turned white. ‘But what will happen to her? I confess, I could at least rest easy knowing she would be under your protection. Who will Cowdlin try to sell her to next?’

Sloane put a firm hand on his nephew’s shoulder to still these dramatics. ‘To you, nephew.’

David’s mouth dropped open.

Sloane almost smiled. ‘But you and I must play a careful game, if we are to win this hand. We have little time to plan…’

A few minutes later Sloane and David were admitted to his father’s library, where both the Earl and Rawley gloated.

‘What brings you to this house, Cyprian?’ the Earl asked with a smirk.

Sloane advanced upon him as if a man possessed. ‘I will brook no interference from you in my plans, sir. You have no control over me or who I marry.’

The Earl tossed Rawley, the real son, a smug expression. ‘You, Cyprian, are nothing to me; therefore, you have no say in what I do.’

The barb, so predictable, did not even sting. Sloane shot back at him. ‘Come now. You have some lunatic plan to send lies to the newspapers, to spread gossip about me throughout the ton. I will stop you. I will not be deterred from marrying Lady Hannah. You have met your match in me, sir. I have money enough to destroy you, and the skill to succeed. Think what a public suit for defamation would cost you, both in reputation and in fortune.’

‘But I would ruin you first,’ cried his father, rising to his feet. ‘A clandestine affair will do the trick, I think. Rawley’s brilliant idea! Cowdlin would refuse you his daughter in a minute, if he thought you were rooting with his wife’s niece.’

Sloane’s fingers curled into fists at this coarse reference to Morgana.

David interceded. ‘Grandfather, you must think of Miss Hart. This would ruin her, too. And I think it unlikely that Cowdlin can refuse Uncle Cyprian, no matter what gossip prevails. He needs the money. He needs a rich husband for his daughter.’

The Earl swung around to his grandson. ‘Are you speaking to me, boy? Do you dare?’ He pointed his cane at David. ‘You brought this—this person here? You informed him of my plans? You betray your own flesh and blood. Do not think I will forget it.’

Rawley jumped to his feet. ‘Father, I beg you. David is my son—’

But David, Sloane noticed with pride, did not waver. He remained steadfast in the face of his grandfather’s anger. He addressed his grandfather in a low, calm tone. ‘Did you expect me to stand by and watch a lady’s reputation ruined? Honour prevents me from allowing you to use her so shabbily. It is very poorly done, Grandfather. You make me ashamed.’

‘Oh, bravo, nephew.’ Sloane made his voice drip with sarcasm, but in his heart he meant every word. ‘Gentlemanly sentiments, I am sure. Too bad you have no fortune or you might wed the Lady Hannah yourself. What chivalry that would be.’

David, still making Sloane proud, twisted around to him in admirable fury. ‘I would marry her, too, sir, if I could save her from being sold to you. Do not mistake me, I sent for you only to preserve Miss Hart’s reputation, to convince my father and grandfather that there is no affair between you and the lady.’