The Devil's Delilah (Regency Noblemen 2)

Delilah’s face began to burn. “So now you conelude I was going passively to my ruin—is that what you think?”

“Not passively,” came the meaningful reply.

“I see,” she said, turning away so her face would not betray her. “You thought I was ready to throw my cap over the windmill. Indeed, why shouldn’t you assume what everyone else does? Licentiousness is in my blood, of course. I could not possibly be running away to be married.”

“If that’s what he told you and you were naive enough to believe him—”

“I did not believe him, Mr. Langdon. I believed a piece of paper signed by a bishop.” She rubbed away the traitorous wetness on her cheeks, though she still would not look at him. “It’s in my reticule,” she added with cold dignity, “if you care to read it.”

The carriage stopped.

“He showed you a license?” Jack asked, his voice uneasy.

“Not only showed it, but gave it to me for safekeeping. In my reticule—somewhere in that heap with all his things. He’ll probably take a terrible chill and die, and he has his friend to thank for it,” Miss Desmond continued while her companion bent to search.

He found the reticule and offered it to her, but she shook her head.

“You can’t be so careless as to trust me with that,” she said. “As you must have guessed earlier, my pistol is in there, too.”

He opened the purse and drew out the folded document.

“It’s too dark to read it,” he said.

“How thoughtless of me not to bring a tinder-box and candles.”

Mr. Langdon considered briefly, then drew a sigh.

“I’d better take you back to him,” he said wearily. “I won’t even attempt to apologise.” He paused to gaze at her unmoving profile, then blurted out, “Damn, Delilah, but I’m sorry. Only I thought-well, you know what I thought—but I was so—I was half out of my mind with worry,” he went on hurriedly. “I was sure he’d hurt you. He wasn’t himself—I mean, he knocked me on the head with Caesar Augustus and ran off with the manuscript and I was sure he’d gone mad—”

Miss Desmond’s head whipped towards him. “He what?”

Mr. Langdon must have recollected himself, because he turned away from her horrified gaze. “Nothing,” he said quickly. “He was beside himself, and I suppose I can understand. His father was perfectly beastly, and Tony must have felt desperate. I mean, he’d promised you, hadn’t he? He wanted to help you, to be your hero, I expect—only I was in the way.”

“You had the manuscript?” Delilah asked shakily. “He stole it from you—not Mr. Atkins?”

“Evidently, I got there first.”

“Are you excusing him? He attacked you—stole the memoirs from you—and you make excuses?” Delilah blinked, but it didn’t help. The world was still hopelessly askew.

“I cannot decide,” she said slowly, “which one of you is more insane. But one thing is certain. I am not going back to him this evening. You will take me home, Mr. Langdon. I am not in a humour at present to be married—and certainly not to a lunatic.”

Nonetheless, the lunatic was not altogether abandoned to his fate. Jack insisted upon leaving messages at the tollgates for Lord Streetham, describing where he might collect his son. Luckily, they were able to pass the earl’s carriage unnoticed half an hour later. He had stopped at an inn and was inside, probably making enquiries, when Jack and Delilah drove by.

To neither Delilah’s nor Jack’s very great surprise, they were received by her parents with complete composure. Lady Potterby, succumbing to the welcome enticements of laudanum, had gone to bed. Thus, there were no shrieks, tears, upbraidings, nor any other sort of carryings-on. Even after Mr. Langdon had departed, the parents only gazed upon their daughter as though she were an exceedingly intricate and difficult puzzle.

“You and Mr. Langdon were rather cool to each other, I think,” said Mrs. Desmond at last, as her husband refilled her wine glass. “Did you quarrel the whole way back?”

“Not the whole way, Mama. For the last two hours we did not speak at all.”

“Oh, Delilah,” her mother said reproachfully.

“Well, what would you have me do, Mama? He made me feel a perfect fool. I thought—well, I could not believe he’d go to so much trouble—disguising himself as a highwayman, no less. I thought—” Delilah’s eyes went to her father then, and she flushed. “I thought he cared for me—but all he did was scold. And then the provoking man must commence to defending his friend. He even offered to take me back to Lord Berne. Can you believe it?” She sighed. “I can do nothing with him at all. It’s perfectly hopeless, which I knew it was all along. It’s all hopeless,” she went on drearily. “I wish he’d never come. I wish I’d gone back and married Lord Berne after all. He at least I can manage.”

“Good heavens,” said Mr. Desmond. “Why did you not tell me you wanted someone manageable? I might have ordered Lord Berne at swordpoint to marry you at the outset, and spared us all a great deal of aggravation.”

Delilah blinked back a tear. “I am not in a humour to be teased, Papa,” she said. “I am very tired.”

Her father gazed blankly at his wife. “My dear, I am certain she has told me a dozen times at least that she could only be happy with some sort of deceitful, unpredictable scoundrel like her poor papa.”

“Indeed, she has said as much to me countless times,” the mama agreed.

“Am I manageable, Angelica?”

“Not in the least. There is nothing to be done with you.” Mrs. Desmond sounded resigned.

Their daughter, who had been trudging dispiritedly about the room in pale imitation of her usual energetic pacing, now flung herself into a chair. “I had rather be punished, you know. You might as well scold me and be done with it. Or lock me in my room for the rest of my life. I really don’t care. I’d prefer it, actually. Obviously there’s no other way to make me behave properly.” She stared glumly at the carpet.

Her father paid her no mind, but went on addressing himself to his wife.

“I do not understand,” he said. “I thought he was exactly what she wanted. He has a perfect genius for skullduggery. Who was it finally unearthed Streetham’s connexion with Atkins? Who learned the precise hour Atkins would deliver the manuscript to the printer? Who suggeste

d exchanging one package for another, so that Atkins would not know what had happened until it was too late?”

Delilah looked up. “Are you telling me, Papa, this was all Mr. Langdon’s doing, not yours?”

“Not all,” the father corrected. “Let me see. It was he who asked Lady Rand to take you about— but you were aware of that, I think. He also asked the Demowerys to help us by denying all existence of the memoirs and persuading the gossips the newspaper article was a hoax. Then there was his idea of spreading rumours better suited to our purposes—such as the legal case I was preparing against Atkins and the sad state of the man’s finances.” Mr. Desmond reflected a moment as he sipped his wine. “Oh, yes, and the matter of luring away employees, so that certain businesses could not function with their usual efficiency. Well, there’s more, I suppose, but Mr. Langdon prefers to keep some matters to himself. Very close he is, and sly. Not at all to be trusted, now I think on it.”

“Certainly he was not open and aboveboard in disguising himself as a highwayman,” Mrs. Desmond concurred. “I’m afraid he was not altogether frank with Lord Streetham, either. Mr. Langdon must have tricked him into betraying his son’s direction. Moreover, though Delilah is too delicate to mention it, I feel certain Mr. Langdon’s behaviour this evening offended her modesty.”

The delicate daughter flushed.

“She is quite right,” said Mr. Desmond. “The fellow is altogether incorrigible.”

“We should have paid more attention, Darryl. Poor Delilah is obviously no match for such a scoundrel. He would only run roughshod over her,” said Mrs. Desmond.

Mr. Desmond shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry I did not see it sooner. Of course she will do far better with Berne. She will do, in fact, anything she likes with him.”

The pair turned apologetic gazes upon their daughter. “We do beg your pardon, dear,” said her mama. “We have sadly misjudged the situation.”