Karla Darcy - [Sweet Deception Regency 04] Read Free Page A

swear by God's holy teeth, the Duke of Ruhaven will be proud of his new ward." Her voice was a deep contented purr as she slid into the warm security of the bathwater. "Welcome home, Sir Leslie Lathrup."
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    April, 1816
     
     
    "Devil take it, but it's good to be home again." Paxton Rutherford, sixth Duke of Ruhaven, spoke aloud as he stared out the window across the peaceful parkland to the wilder woods beyond. Five long years fighting the French. He flexed his arm, grateful as always that his battle injuries had been light compared to those of others. He had lost two good friends at Waterloo, and a legion of comrades before that.
    Dispiritedly, Pax sat down at his desk and clasped his hands behind his head as he contemplated the frescoed ceiling in the quiet of the library. He had threatened dire consequences if Winters permitted anyone to disturb him. The much put-upon butler had sworn he would die before divulging the Duke's whereabouts.
    Pax had so looked forward to his return to Windhaven. After Waterloo, he had plunged into all the social pleasures of London, trying to erase the scenes of war that still ravaged his sleep. It had been a month of mindless, hedonistic pleasure seeking. He drank and gambled with his friends, spending long evenings at his club in one of Sweet’s private parlors. He visited, discreetly of course, a house of accommodation and had been surfeited with eroticism by a lavishly endowed redhead of quite astounding talents. He did the pretty for the benefit of starry-eyed debutantes and their hungry-eyed mothers. And he had met Cecily.
    Pax remembered distinctly the first time that he had seen her. He had been home from the war only a week and thirsted for the purity shining like a cloud around the figure in silver-blue tissue as she floated into Almack's on silver slippers. His nostrils, still scorched with the scent of cordite, were washed by the musky smell of her perfume. His arm, throbbing from a saber cut, was soothed by her mittened hand as she touched his sleeve. The evening had been balm, a soporific to erase his nightmares, filling his dreams with gossamer angels.
    It was a magical week in which Pax wallowed in the giddy throes of love. It was another week before he surfaced and discovered he was bored.
    Lady Cecily Cleavon, for all her acknowledged beauty, was a crashing bore. Aside from a discussion of the latest fashions, crim. cons. and party descriptions, the woman had absolutely no conversation. He had taken her to the opera, a concert and a play. At each event she ignored the performances, swiveling in her seat to stare through tiny diamond-studded binoculars at the audience. When Pax asked Cecily for an opinion of the players, she looked genuinely surprised that he should expect her to have noticed.
    Then why on earth had he ever invited Lady Cecily and her mother for a visit? He really couldn't recall how it had happened. One minute they were talking about how lovely it was in the country at this time of year; the next minute, the women were packing trunks and commandeering his carriage to descend en masse on an unsuspecting Windhaven. Since then he had spent a week idling about, attempting to entertain them and finally in desperation had agreed to a masked ball on Friday. What a craven. Was this the backbone of the English army that defeated Napoleon?
    All Pax had wanted was to return to the quiet of Windhaven and the inventive antics of his ramshackle ward. He pictured Leslie with rod and creel in hand, waiting to catch the elusive trout the lad so enthusiastically described in his letters.
    Pax thought he might have gone mad if not for his ward's constant stream of letters that, despite the chaos of war, miraculously found him. They 'd been a Godsend, one of the few bright spots in the grim carnage that surrounded him. The hastily scrawled pages brought to life Windhaven's rolling hills and riotous woods in all seasons. Leslie's word-pictures reminded Pax