To Tempt An Angel (Book 1 Douglas series) Page 6

  “I had no idea I was in such exalted company,” Robert answered.

  “The higher one flies, the further one falls,” she replied.

  “I am sorry for your loss, angel.”

  “I don’t mind not becoming a duchess,” Angelica said with a sad smile, her blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I only miss my father and . . . and feeling safe.”

  Robert lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. His kiss was long, slow, and healing. Loss and the need to feel loved made Angelica yield to his advances. She entwined her arms around his neck and returned his kiss in kind. Only the exquisite feeling of his touch on her breasts brought her back to reality.

  Angelica drew back “I told you this would never happen again,” she said, and there was no mistaking the anger in her voice and her gaze.

  “Listen to your body, angel,” he said in a husky whisper.

  “I want you to leave now,” Angelica said, though her heart ached for him to stay.

  “I was married briefly,” Robert said, ignoring her words. “Louisa was carrying my child when she—” He hesitated. “—when she died.”

  His revelation surprised Angelica, her heart wrenching at his obvious pain. No wonder the man was reluctant to marry.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” she said.

  “Thank you, angel.” Robert gave her a sad smile. “Shall I leave now, or would you like to sit at the table and teach me how to cheat?”

  “Let’s sit at the table,” Angelica answered, trying to cheer him.

  Together, Robert and Angelica returned to the table. When he helped her into her chair, Angelica felt like a Park Lane lady.

  Again, Robert sat in the chair opposite hers. He lifted the cards and started to shuffle them.

  “Cheating at dice is easier,” Angelica said, reaching out to stay his hands. “Besides, hazard is played for high stakes at Crockford and White’s.”

  Angelica stood and disappeared into her chamber. When she returned a moment later, she carried a small wooden box and set it down on the table between them.

  With a mischievous smile, Angelica lifted the top off the box to reveal two-dozen pairs of dice. “Loaded dice have heavy metal inserted into the dots, while crooked dice land on certain faces more often.”

  Angelica knew from his expression that she had surprised him. “I prefer loaded dice,” she said, and lifted several pairs out of the box. “Dice can be made from ivory, wood, stone, glass, amber, or metal. I always carry several different kinds so I’ll be prepared, no matter what.”

  Robert grinned at her. “Angel, you amaze me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How do you introduce these into the game?” he asked.

  “Sleight of hand.”

  “How does one cheat at cards?”

  “Ah, that is a bit more difficult,” Angelica told him. “You must remember what cards have been played and always keep extra cards on your person. Sleight of hand is also useful.”

  “How unfortunate that you were born female,” Robert said, laughing. “If you’d been born male, you’d be the richest man in London.”

  “Or England,” she added.

  The door crashed open. Her father staggered into the cottage, muttering, “Great grunting shit, I need a drink.”

  Angelica bolted out of her chair. “Papa, where have you been?” she asked, hurrying to his side.

  “Looking for peace,” Graham Douglas answered.

  “Let me help you to your room,” Angelica said, taking hold of his arm.

  Her father paused at the table and looked at Robert, who’d stood when the older man had entered. “You haven’t aged a day, Magnus,” the earl said.

  “My lord, you mistake me for another,” Robert replied.

  “Ah, Magnus, you can’t fool me,” Graham said, and then turned to Angelica. “I’m tired, little girl.”

  “I’ll help you to bed.” She put her arm around him and guided him to the bedroom.

  “I’ve a mighty thirst,” he told her. “Is there anything to drink?”

  “Later.”

  “Great grunting shit.” Her father lay on his bed and then called out to her, “Child, leave the door open. Magnus has an eye for the ladies, and I don’t want him dishonoring you.”

  Angelica left the door open. When she looked at Robert, she was startled by his forbidding expression. Was he angry with her? She couldn’t help the fact that her father had returned. He did live here.

  “What is wrong?” she asked.

  “It’s a little late for the earl to think about protecting your virtue,” Robert answered, his cold gaze fixed on the doorway to his room. “Your father had an obligation to protect you. His neglect of his duty has left you and your sisters vulnerable.”

  “That’s unfair,” Angelica protested, coming to her father’s defense. “My father has troubles.”

  “Everyone has troubles,” Robert replied. “I didn’t drown myself in alcohol when my wife died.”

  “Perhaps you possess more inner strength.”

  “Perhaps you are correct,” Robert said, his gaze on her softening. “I’m leaving now.”

  Angelica nodded but was unable to hide her disappointment.

  “I promise to return tomorrow,” Robert told her. He produced a leather pouch and emptied its contents, twenty pounds, on the table.

  “I don’t want your money,” she said.

  “Take it,” he ordered. “I want you to promise me you won’t gamble today.”

  “I promise.”

  Robert leaned close and planted a chaste kiss on her lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Angelica nodded and walked outside with him. She smiled when he whistled for his horse.

  “Remember, angel,” Robert said after mounting his horse, “no grave robbing tonight”

  Angelica watched him ride down the dirt road toward Primrose Hill. She knew she shouldn’t have let him kiss her again. Her duty to her family was more important than her desire for love. What power did this Robert Roy possess that his mere touch made her forget both her duty and her revenge?

  Too bad they hadn’t met under different circumstances. Angelica sighed. As long as she was wishing, she might as well wish her father had never lost his fortune, her mother was still alive, and the duke’s son had come courting and fallen in love with her.

  With a heavy heart, Angelica walked back inside the cottage. Playing her harp would make her feel better.

  “What are you doing?” Angelica cried when she spied her father lifting the twenty pounds off the table.

  “I need a drink,” her father answered.

  Blocking the door, Angelica stood her ground. She refused to let him steal their money and kill himself with drink

  “Papa, put the money back.”

  “I need a drink,” he repeated. “It dulls the pain.”

  “You do not need a drink” Angelica insisted. “That won’t bring Mother back from the dead.”

  “Stand aside,” he ordered.

  “No.”

  In one swift motion, Graham Douglas reached out and shoved her so hard she fell to the floor. Instinctively, Angelica drew the dagger she kept strapped to her leg.

  “Would you murder your own father?” the earl demanded, standing over her. “You have the look of your mother but none of her gentleness.” And then he disappeared out the door.

  Angelica lay on the floor where she had fallen. Suddenly, the burden of her life seemed too heavy to endure a moment longer. She rolled onto her stomach and wept . . . for her father, for her family, for the fairy-tale life with a duke’s son that would never be.

  Her aunt and her sisters arrived home a few minutes later and found her there. “Angelica darling,” her aunt cried. “Are you ill?”

  Angelica rolled over and looked at them through tear-swollen eyes. She shook her head and tried to explain. “R-Robert—”

  “Did Robert dishonor you?” Aunt Roxie asked.

  “Yes, but that was
this morning,” Angelica answered, rising from the floor with the aid of her sisters.

  “Why, that’s wonderful news,” Aunt Roxie gushed with excitement.

  “What did it feel like?” Victoria asked.

  “Don’t be a twit,” Samantha scolded her younger sister. “Lovemaking with a man like Robert Roy would be paradise on earth.”

  “This subject is unseemly for girls your age,” Aunt Roxie told them. She smiled at Angelica, saying, “You’ll marry, of course. Events are progressing as I saw in my vision.”

  “You had a vision?” Samantha echoed.

  “What did you see for me?” asked Victoria.

  Aunt Roxie gave them a quelling look.

  “The man does not want to marry me,” Angelica told her aunt. “He asked me to be his mistress.”

  Aunt Roxie dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “Darling, watch what a man does, not what he says.”

  Angelica gave her aunt a skeptical look. Robert had certainly seemed emphatic about his desire not to marry her.

  “I can see that you don’t believe me,” Aunt Roxie said, and then she laughed. “Think, darling. Haven’t I already buried three husbands? I needed them to marry me before I could bury them.”

  “And you wasted all your inheritances keeping us alive,” Angelica added.

  “Oh, pish, the money was well spent,” Aunt Roxie replied. “Once all of you are married, then you’ll take care of me.” She gave Angelica a puzzled look, asking, “If Robert seduced you this morning, why did you wait until tonight to fall on the floor and weep?”

  “I wasn’t weeping for Robert,” Angelica told them. “Papa pushed me out of his way and I landed on the floor. He stole the money Robert left for us.”

  “Oh, the man adores you,” Aunt Roxie exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

  “What about Papa?” Angelica asked.

  “I can do nothing for Graham,” Aunt Roxie said, losing her smile. “His fate was written before he was born.”

  “What do you mean?” Angelica asked.

  “I don’t know absolutely everything,” Aunt Roxie answered. “The good news is our visit with Mr. Lewis last night has gone undetected.” She smiled brightly at her three nieces, saying, “Let’s make supper, my darlings.”

  Two hours later, Angelica sat in front of the hearth and played her harp. Accompanying her were Samantha on the violin and Victoria on the flute.

  With her eyes closed in relaxation, Aunt Roxie sat on the settee and enjoyed the soothing bath of sound they created. Their serenade evoked a morning breeze, dancing wildflowers, rustling leaves.

  Angelica stopped playing when she heard the knock on the door. Aunt Roxie and her sisters looked at the door in surprise. No one ever visited them. Robert had left only a few hours earlier; he wouldn’t be returning this soon.

  “Don’t open the door,” Angelica ordered when her aunt rose from her chair.

  Aunt Roxie gave her a confused look “Why not, darling?”

  “I have a bad feeling,” Angelica answered. “Let’s pretend we aren’t home.”

  “We cannot change what will be.” Aunt Roxie opened the door and said, “Parson Butterfield, what a surprise.”

  Bull’s pizzle, Angelica thought flicking a glance at Samantha and Victoria. Her sisters’ indiscretion of the previous night had been discovered.

  “What is this?” Angelica heard her aunt saying.

  Parson Butterfield stepped inside the cottage and gestured to someone behind him. A moment later four men appeared, carrying an unconscious Graham Douglas.

  “Papa,” Angelica cried, hurrying across the room. “Bring him this way.”

  The four men placed her father on his bed and immediately left the room.

  While her sisters watched, Angelica lightly tapped her father’s face, saying, “Wake up, Papa. Wake up.” She looked up in confusion at the parson and asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Angelica cried.

  She glanced at her sisters. Their complexions had paled to a ghostly white. Her aunt, more experienced with loved ones dying, shook her head sadly.

  “Now my poor brother has what he’s wanted since the day your mother died,” Aunt Roxie said.

  Angelica felt torn. Though saddened by his unexpected passing, relief at being freed from the terrible burden of her father’s affliction shot through her. In the next instant, guilt replaced her relief.

  Angelica leaned close and kissed her father’s forehead. “One day soon, you and Mother will be buried on your own land,” she whispered. “I promise you that.”

  Turning to the parson, Angelica asked, “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Parson Butterfield told her, shaking his head. “He just dropped dead at my feet.”

  “How horrifying for you,” Aunt Roxie sympathized. “You will do the funeral in the morning?”

  Parson Butterfield nodded. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “As a matter of fact, I need a favor,” Aunt Roxie said, casting the parson an ambiguous smile. She looped her arm through his and steered him toward the door. “An old friend of mine, a man of some importance, lives in London. Could you possibly deliver a message for me?”

  Parson Butterfield hedged. “Well, I—”

  “I’m certain the Duke of Inverary will be grateful to you for delivering my letter,” Aunt Roxie said.

  “The Duke of Inverary?” Parson Butterfield echoed in surprise.

  Aunt Roxie nodded.

  “You will not write to that man,” Angelica ordered.

  Her aunt glanced over her shoulder and gave her a frigid glare. “Don’t listen to my niece,” Aunt Roxie told the parson. “Grief for her father’s passing steals her common sense.”

  “That is to be expected,” Parson Butterfield replied.

  Aunt Roxie gave him a dimpled smile. “Until tomorrow morning, then.”

  “I’ve a mind to murder those men who murdered Papa,” Angelica said after the door closed behind the parson.

  “I’ll help,” Samantha said.

  “So will I,” added Victoria.

  “Swallow your tongues,” Aunt Roxie said.

  “Whatever we send out returns to us tenfold.”

  Chapter 5

  “Bull’s pizzle,” Angelica grumbled, recalling her aunt’s words of wisdom. If what we sent out to others returned to us tenfold, those men who had ruined her father would surely be burning in hell. Especially Charles Emerson, who had swindled an honest man, and Magnus Campbell, who had failed to help a friend in trouble.

  Angelica glanced at Aunt Roxie, who sat beside her in the garden the following afternoon. Her sisters had disappeared into the woodland, probably intending to wade in the stream’s cooling waters.

  Her father was dead and buried, Angelica thought, yet the world kept spinning as if nothing momentous had happened. The sky was a blanket of blue, the sun shone brightly, the old oak offered shade from the day’s warmth.

  Angelica closed her eyes and tried to block out the beauty of the day. The Duke of Inverary still sat in his mansion on Park Lane. Charles Emerson still owned the lands he’d stolen from her father. Trimble and Drinkwater still enjoyed the fruits of their dishonesty. Only Mayhew had gone to meet his Maker.

  Where was justice for the Douglas family? She had no faith in the law; she would make her own justice, and woe come to anyone who stood in her way.

  Angelica lifted her harp onto her lap and begun plucking its strings idly. The plucking became a haunting melody that conjured a solitary bird flying overhead, the sins of old age, tears on the heather.

  “You are a very beautiful bird,” Aunt Roxie crooned to Jasper. “The ladies of the ton would love to wear those blue and gold feathers in their hair. And your owner is now the Countess of Melrose. That makes you a special macaw.”

  “What did you say?” Angelica asked. “I was speaking to Jasper,” her aunt told her.

  “Yes, but what
did you say?”

  “I said that you are the Countess of Melrose.”

  That surprised Angelica. “I am?”

  “Darling, our family’s ancient charter stipulates that if there are no males in direct descent, then the eldest daughter assumes the Melrose title,” Aunt Roxie informed her.

  “A penniless countess?” Angelica said. “That’s laughable.”

  Angelica closed her eyes again, leaned back against the oak, and pretended to relax. Her mind raced faster than a highwayman chased by soldiers. If she could raise enough money to purchase decent clothing, the Countess of Melrose would have more gambling options open to her.

  She could pretend to be newly arrived from Europe. With a letter of introduction from her aunt, she would present herself . . . where?

  Angelica decided she would present herself to the Duke of Inverary and pretend he’d done nothing wrong. She would use his influence to get the first four villains, and then she would turn on the duke. After that she would get even with Robert Roy. If he hadn’t left that money on the table, her father might still be alive.

  With her mind set on justice, Angelica relaxed against the oak’s trunk. A smile touched her lips when she thought of putting her scheme into action.

  “Darling, I do not like that smile,” Aunt Roxie said. “What are you planning?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Angelica said, fixing an innocent look on her face.

  Aunt Roxie narrowed her gaze. “I mean—”

  “Hello? Is anyone home?” called a voice.

  “Hello, hello, hello,” Jasper called.

  Robert Roy appeared around the side of the cottage. “I thought I heard an angel playing her harp,” he said, crossing the garden toward them.

  Reaching into his pocket, Robert produced a green apple. He held out the apple to the macaw, and Jasper lifted it out of his hand and shifted it to his claws.

  “Say thank you,” Robert told the bird.

  “Thank you,” Jasper said, making him smile.