Boudreaux’s Lady Read online

  Beau sensed his old friend was battling with painful demons of the past and had no idea how to help.

  “He didn’t keep you from seeing your grandson, did he?”

  St. Albans shook his head. “He lets me see the boy, but I thought even after all these years, I would see some small bit of her in him, but I don’t. I’m getting old, Beau, and at this time in a man’s life, he wants to see some part of himself live on. I fear I won’t have that.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace. Why don’t we go back to the ball?”

  “You go on, my boy. It’s time you danced with a few young ladies, is it not?”

  Beau didn’t want to tell him that he had no desire to dance with any of the young debutantes tonight. To see the dewy hope in their eyes and their proud mothers looking on, hoping to snare him in a Parson’s mousetrap. No, he certainly didn’t want that. It was nothing more than a painfully artificial and insincere charade which would wound innocent girls when they came to the rude awakening that he would never wed them. But he couldn’t tell St. Alban’s that. He knew full well that the duke wished for him to settle down and marry.

  “If you are to retire for the night, I shall as well.”

  St. Albans seemed to shrug off his bad spirits somewhat and turned to Beau. “Off to see your mistress?”

  “Perhaps,” Beau hedged.

  “What’s this one’s name?” St. Albans asked, slight disapproval in his tone.

  “Daniela.”

  “Daniela? Is she an opera singer? A dancer?”

  “This one is an opera singer. She was the toast of Italy last year.”

  St. Albans straightened his shoulders. “Very well. I will come back down to the ball, but you will dance. You understand? Five dances.”

  “Two,” Beau countered.

  “Three, or I’ll find you a bride tonight.” The duke warned. Beau knew that particular threat was actually well within St. Albans’s power.

  “Three then, Your Grace,” he conceded.

  St. Albans clapped a hand on Beau’s shoulder. “Come now. You know it amuses me to see all those ladies fall at your feet. You’re far too handsome not to make at least a few little women swoon tonight.”

  With a beleaguered sigh, Beau followed St. Albans back to the ballroom, but he couldn’t seem to forget the woman from the portrait. Her amused smile was as though the painter had caught her in a moment of secret delight at some joke. She looked like a woman who lived to love.

  But love was a fool’s game, one for young men with bouquets of flowers and young ladies who knew not what life held in store for them. Beau decided long ago he would not lose a woman to death. So, he lived in a bachelor’s residence and kept a mistress content in a little suite of rooms. He would do that for as long as any man could, but he would never fall in love. He never wanted to endure the pain that so clearly haunted St. Albans, nor did he ever wish to inflict that pain on a wife if he were to die as his father had and leave her alone.

  Beau spotted a friend, Ashton Lennox, and his Scottish wife, Rosalind, in the ballroom. Perhaps he could steal Rosalind for one of his required dances.

  Ashton nodded to him in greeting. Beau took a step in their direction, but nearly trampled upon a plump woman who’d materialized in front of them. She wore colorful turban festooned with a tall ostrich feather and waved an even more feathered fan in front of her face. St. Albans stood at Beau’s elbow, effectively cornering him so he could not get around the woman.

  St. Albans cleared his throat. “Beauregard, may I present Mrs. Hamlin? Mrs. Hamlin, this is Beauregard Boudreaux. His father was a French Marquis.”

  “French aristocracy? Oh bonjour, Mr. Boudreaux.” She curtsied, her head lowered, allowing the long ostrich feather on top to caress the front of Beau’s bottle green waistcoat.

  “Bonsoir, madame,” he corrected gently. The woman blushed and waved over her shoulder at a timid little creature.

  “Priscilla, come here and meet Mr. Boudreaux.” She waved frantically for the young woman to join them.

  Beau kept his patience even though he wanted nothing more than to run for his life. He had been through many such introductions and they always reminded him why he hated such affairs.

  “This is Mr. Boudreaux.” Mrs. Hamlin presented her daughter to Beau. She had to be barely eighteen, fresh faced, attractive, and a little shy. The pale pink muslin gown she wore was fetching and enhanced the blush in the girl’s cheeks.

  “A pleasure.” He bowed respectably over Priscilla’s trembling hand. “I trust your card is open for the next dance?”

  The girl somehow managed a frightened nod.

  “Good. Shall we?” He led her away to the dance floor but gave a parting look at St. Albans which promised retribution. The duke merely smiled.

  Once Beau was out in the center of the dance floor, he began speaking to his nervous partner.

  “Miss Hamlin, now is the time where couples engage in conversation. Would you care to converse?”

  “I… Yes,” she replied.

  “Excellent, shall we discuss the weather? Or perhaps something more interesting?” Beau winked at the girl as they passed by one another in the dance.

  Priscilla blushed, but when she came back around to him, she was smiling and engaged in the moment.

  “Something interesting?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, how about this. Tell me which of these young bucks would you like to notice you? We can manage to catch their eye if you’re game, my dear.” He would do the girl a favor. She was sweet after all and clearly quite frightened of a seasoned rake like him.

  “Which buck that I…? Oh heavens.” She bit her lip and then shot a glance at the young golden haired viscount, Rodrick Selkirk, St. Albans’s amiable grandson. The young man was dancing a few couples away. It was only a matter of time in the dance before he and Selkirk would switch partners briefly.

  “Very well. Watch and learn, Miss Hamlin.”

  “Cilla, please.” The girl said shyly.

  “Not Prissy?” he teased.

  Her brown eyes flashed. “Certainly not. I already despise my name and that nickname is no better.”

  “Well then, Cilla. We shall begin. Tell me what things you enjoy when not dancing with rakehells that would make your mother reach for her smelling salts?”

  Cilla laughed in delight at his teasing. “Riding, certainly. I enjoy steeple chase and my gelding is one of the best jumpers in London.”

  “Indeed? I would most enjoy watching you put gentleman to shame in that regard. Far too many men think they know how to clear a hedge.” He twirled with her and their hands intertwined as they spun next to the other partners of the dance.

  “I assume you read, embroider cushions, sing, all of that as well?”

  At this Cilla shook her head. “I do enjoy reading but haven’t the time or patience for the others.”

  Her honesty delighted Beau. Most women wouldn’t dare admit not being a master of those feminine talents.

  “My father lets me go shooting when we have small house parties.”

  “Are you a crack shot?” Beau teased but the girl nodded in excitement.

  “I am indeed!”

  “My dear Miss Hamlin, you’ve certainly intrigued me. Watch this, child.” He switched places with Selkirk, dancing a moment with the other young lady before he and Selkirk circled one another.

  “Damned if I’m not a lucky man. Miss Hamlin is a most delightful partner.” The other man shot a glance to Priscilla who looked boldly but briefly at Selkirk, then glanced away, her face still in full bloom of a blush.

  “She is pretty,” Selkirk mused, somewhat distracted by Miss Hamlin now.

  “Not just pretty, the girl is quite unique, not some frivolous bit of muslin you see. She’s an excellent rider, a steeple chase expert if you can believe it, and her father takes her hunting. A crack shot, he says. Wouldn’t it be rather the thing to have a wife who could actually entertain a man and join him in his
pursuits?”

  Selkirk’s eyes were bright. “Indeed, it would! I hadn’t thought a woman might enjoy vigorous riding or hunting parties. What a novel thing.” The young man was staring now at Cilla with an intensity that made Beau chuckle inside.

  “A smart man would snap her up before someone else does,” Beau confided before he rejoined Miss Hamlin to finish the dance.

  “There. He’s watching,” Beau informed his partner. “Now, smile at me as though you’ve just conquered my heart.”

  Miss Hamlin raised her chin and flashed a surprisingly bright smile at him. When the dance ended, Selkirk bowed to his partner respectfully before coming straight to Miss Hamlin.

  “May I beg an introduction?” he asked.

  Beau nodded. “Of course. Lord Selkirk, this is Miss Priscilla Hamlin.”

  “Charmed.” Selkirk’s open, honest face hid nothing as he looked at Priscilla eagerly. “Do you have any dances free?”

  “I do, Lord Selkirk.”

  And just like that, Beau slipped away, smiling smugly to himself. He had only to endure two more to appease his friend, but he intended to be so clever about it that no woman would walk away tonight with any designs upon him involving marriage. No hearts would be broken if he could help it.

  A liaison was another matter, however. He grinned at a couple of lusty young widows watching him from the edge of the dance floor. Perhaps tonight held more promise than he thought.

  * * *

  Thomas Winthrop, seventh Duke of St. Albans, watched his young protégé, Beauregard Boudreaux drift effortlessly across the dance floor. The lad’s whiskey colored eyes and dark hair along with his handsome features had made him the highlight of many a young lady’s night, yet it was clear none were winning his heart.

  “My dear boy…” St. Albans breathed out as an aside. “Marriage is what you need, marriage to a good woman.” But that was easier said than done. He knew only too well that Beau intended to never marry. The lad had grown quite terrified of the idea. That was not altogether unsurprising given how he’d lost his father and his mother had to abandon their home and life in France to come to England. The poor woman had never remarried, and the boy had grown up with few friends. Yet, somehow, the boy had found himself at Thomas’s door.

  Thomas had been bound up in his own grief at the time, having so recently lost his only daughter. He’d wanted the boy to leave him alone, but Beau wouldn’t. He kept hopping over the wall between their two estates, finding Thomas and pestering him with questions, or sometimes simply sitting beside him near the lake. Despite Thomas’s desire to be left alone, an unlikely friendship had formed, and Beau had become like a son to Thomas. Now all Thomas wished for was to see the boy happily married, settled down and creating a house full of surrogate grandchildren who could come and visit Thomas every day.

  Mrs. Hamlin sidled up beside Thomas. “I’ve been speaking to some of your guests, Your Grace. Is it true what they say about Mr. Boudreaux?”

  “Is what true, Madame?”

  “That he’s a master seducer. A rake of the worst kind who has bedded half of the most talented singers in Europe?”

  Thomas thought about his answer a long moment and then smiled. “Yes, it’s quite true.”

  Mrs. Hamlin gasped in terror. “Good heavens! And he’s dancing with my child!”

  “Be at ease, Mrs. Hamlin. Look, I believe he has, in fact, rendered aid to your darling child.”

  “Aid?” Mrs. Hamlin’s feather on her turban quivered as she studied the ballroom with a critical eye.

  “Is that your grandson speaking to my Prissy?”

  “Quite so… Quite so.”

  Clever boy, Thomas thought. Somehow during the dance, Beau had transferred young Roddy’s attention from his own partner to that of Miss Hamlin. Consequently, it gave Beau the chance to escape the moment the dance ended. Beau gave Thomas a self-satisfied look, but Thomas held up a pair of fingers and mouthed, “Two more.”

  Beau rolled his eyes and captured the hand of the nearest wallflower. Of course. Wallflowers and rakes never mixed well. She would be terrified of someone like Beau: a tall, confident man in his prime, not some silly young boy still learning how to dance.

  When the two remaining dances were done, Beau caught Thomas’s eye across the room and gave a little bow.

  “Cheeky devil.” Thomas muttered, but couldn’t resist chuckling. “I’ll find a way to see you good and settled this year, mark my words. It’s well past time you took a wife.”

  The question was, how would he find the lucky woman that would be Beau Boudreaux’s perfect match?

  Chapter 2

  Philippa Wilson smoothed out the fresh linens of the large four poster bed and sighed. There was nothing more dreadful than tedious work. And given that Philippa, at only twenty years old, was trapped in the dull, monotonous position of an upstairs maid, life at that moment seemed quite unbearable.

  “Hurry up, Pippa,” Ruth, her friend and fellow maid, whispered as she ran a duster over the fireplace mantle.

  Philippa stared at a stack of books on the bedside table. If she could just get a peek at them…surely her master and lady wouldn’t mind.

  “Just want one look, Ruth. Hold on a moment.” She reached for the nearest tome, but Ruth rushed over and blocked her way, holding out her arms to prevent Philippa from touching the table.

  “You mustn’t. We aren’t to put on airs.”

  “Airs? It’s a book. I’m not dressing in their clothes or using their silverware!” Philippa argued.

  “That’s not how they’d see it.” Ruth’s exasperated groan embarrassed Philippa. All of her life she’d yearned for something more. More knowledge, more experiences, more passion for life. The life of a servant was suffocating. Yet it was the position she’d been born and raised into. Her parents owned a small textile shop on Bond Street; it had its good and bad years, but never quite good enough. So, at eighteen, she’d taken a position as a maid at Lord Lennox’s house. The handsome baron and his wife were a wonderful family to work for. But still, after just two years, Philippa felt strangled by living a life in service.

  “Come on, Pippa. We have other rooms to finish before dinner.”

  Philippa’s shoulders dropped as she followed Ruth out of the bedchamber. This was not at all how she wanted to spend her day. Ruth walked briskly down the hall, carrying a bundle of used linens. Philippa lingered in the upstairs corridor as she often did, pretending for a brief moment she was a fine lady, waiting for adventure to knock upon her door. She closed her eyes, smiling as she imagined a dashing stranger coming to the door to whisk her away.

  The sound of a knocker rapping on the door jerked her out of her daydream and made her duck halfway out of sight.

  The butler, Mr. Beaton, answered the door. “May I help you, sir?”

  “Lord Monmouth to see Lord Lennox,” the man said. “I have an appointment.” There was something about his gravelly voice that sent a shiver of revulsion through her. Her heart began to race with a primal fear she couldn’t explain.

  “Please, step inside, my lord. I will speak to his lordship.”

  “Thank you.” The man who introduced himself as Lord Monmouth entered and the door was shut behind him. He was tall, perhaps in his early fifties, and might have been attractive once, but his face was so harsh that his good looks had withered over time. For some odd reason, Philippa couldn’t stop staring at him. She’d never seen him before, of that she was certain, yet something about him drew her out from the corner of the upstairs wall and into the open corridor at the top of the staircase. The man removed his hat and looked around, his grim expression darkening his countenance further. He wore a superfine black coat and a silver waistcoat of expensive silk.

  Lord Monmouth. She knew the title. He was an Earl. She wasn’t surprised to see him here. Lord Lennox gave the best business advice in London, and even dukes came to the baron for help. No doubt this man had come for the same reason.

  Philippa crep
t closer, pausing at the top of the stairs and rested one hand on the bannister. As if suddenly aware he was being watched, the man’s gaze turned up the stairs and fixed on her. Her breath caught as his eyes widened to the size of Lady Lennox’s fine blue and white patterned China saucers.

  The man gasped, his face pale. “No, you can’t be… Not here. It’s not possible.”

  Suddenly he was rushing up the stairs. Philippa froze, her feet rooted in place as he bore down on her. Fear spiked inside her, making breathing impossible.

  Lord Monmouth grasped her by the neck. Philippa tried to scream, but the sound was strangled into a gasp. He shoved her against the nearest wall, his large hand squeezing painfully.

  “You can’t be here!” He hissed, his eyes wild and lips curled in a vicious snarl.

  Philippa clawed at his wrist, digging her nails into him as she sucked at air like a fish out of water. But it was no use… Shadows gathered at the edge of her vision, like grim reapers waiting to claim her soul in some terrible nightmare. A long few seconds passed before her hands were too heavy to lift. They dropped to her sides as everything faded into nothing.

  A distant shout, heard as though from beneath a deep lake, reached her ears before she was dropped to the ground.

  When her vision returned, she saw Lord Lennox dragging a raging Monmouth to his feet. They were arguing, but she couldn’t make out the words over a persistent and painful ringing in her ears. Then Monmouth shoved Lennox hard and fled down the stairs out of sight. Philippa closed her eyes again, and only opened them when she heard someone calling her name. Lord Lennox rushed back to her.

  He shouted for his wife and the butler before he knelt in front of her. “Pippa, are you all right?” He brushed her hair aside and when she still couldn’t move or speak, he picked her up and carried her to the drawing room at the other end of the corridor, setting her down on the settee.