She moved sharply away from Corwen, although the length of the Thames would be insufficient distance from so repellent a man.
Corwen’s face suffused with colour. “I offer your stepdaughter marriage, madam. You should be grateful for that. And if you think her relatives will object, then I rely on you to persuade them.”
“You want to wed a girl who is still in the schoolroom,” Tess said coldly. “Do not dress it up as something respectable when it is not.” She looked at him. “Let us be quite clear, my lord,” she said carefully, her fingers tightening on the lawyer’s letter until her grip threatened to crumple it. “I am in receipt of your request for Lady Sybil’s hand in marriage. I refuse it. I also refuse to sell any part of the Darent estate on behalf of my stepson, in order to meet this debt. I have offered to pay the full amount myself. You have refused. So you will have to take this matter up with my lawyers. I shall tell them to expect to hear from you.”
Corwen did not move. For a moment Tess thought he had not understood her. Then he took a step closer again.
“I believe you have not heard what I am saying, madam,” he said. “I will wed Lady Sybil.” His lips curled. “In a couple of years her aunt will be launching her in society. It would be a great pity for Lady Sybil’s debut to be marred by the sort of rumours and scandal that cling to your character.” He paused. “You had the upbringing of her for five years before her father died. A word here and a whisper there—” he shrugged “—and Lady Sybil is tarred with your brush. Her moral character is questioned, her reputation placed in doubt. Suddenly …” he said, smiling with evident relish, “no respectable man will have her, and Lady Sybil’s future is ruined.” He inclined his head, eyes bright now. “Do you take my meaning, Lady Darent?”
The blood chilled to ice in Tess’s veins. Corwen stood, legs splayed, chest thrust out as though he commanded the room. Commanded her to give him her stepdaughter in marriage or he would besmirch Sybil’s reputation out of revenge.
And she had given him the means by which he could do it—she, with her tarnished character and her name for scandal. She should have realised how that might be used against her, but then she had never anticipated the cold calculation of a lecher like Lord Corwen.
Despair slid along Tess’s veins. It was her marriage to Brokeby that had done the damage. It had been ten years before but the shadow of it had never lifted. Brokeby had tainted her with his vile reputation for perversion. Then, a year ago, an exhibition of nude paintings of her had dealt her reputation its final blow. Brokeby’s wretched paintings … A tremor shook Tess deep inside. She could never reveal the truth about those. Her throat closed with revulsion and she swallowed hard. It was best not to remember that night. It was best to lock those hideous memories away. Except that she had found over the years that she could not forget them. She carried them everywhere with her. They were imprinted on her mind just as she felt they were indelibly written on her body in all their lurid detail. Hateful images she would scrub away if only she could. But they never faded. She was haunted.
The breath hitched in her throat and she blinked to dispel the sting of tears in her eyes. Brokeby was dead and gone to the hell he deserved. She was free. Only, she never quite felt free. Somehow the shame and the horror were etched too deep on her soul to be forgotten.
And now here was Corwen, a man of a similar stamp, waiting for her to succumb to his blackmail. Very slowly Tess raised her gaze to his face. There was a gleam of amusement in his small eyes, the pleasure of a man who enjoyed enforcing his will and making others squirm. So very like Brokeby … But she was not a frightened girl anymore.
“Lord Corwen,” Tess said, “if you ever go near Lady Sybil or threaten her reputation, I will personally ensure that you are maimed sufficiently never to approach a woman again with your vile proposals.” She gave him a smile that dripped ice. “Now—at last—are we clear?”
Corwen made a sudden involuntary movement full of violence, and Tess’s mind splintered into terrifying images of Brokeby, brutal, vicious, utterly merciless. She closed her eyes for a second to banish the vile, vivid memories and when she opened them, Corwen was gone, slamming out of the room with a force that shook the mantelpiece and sent the invitation cards fluttering down to the floor.
Tess heaved a sigh and sank down rather heavily onto Joanna’s gold brocade sofa. The port decanter beckoned to her but she had had a bad night and her head was already aching, and she knew from bitter experience that trying to lose her memory in drink was a fool’s game. She had tried it after Brokeby’s death, tried to drown the past. These days she could not look a gin bottle in the eye without feeling sick. She had tried everything, including laudanum, from which she had sometimes thought she would never wake. Nothing helped, not sweetmeats, not even spending excessive amounts of money on clothes, shoes and accessories. In the end she had dragged herself out of the despair through sheer force of will, but by then it had been too late. The ton had seen the drinking and the gambling and the spending to excess, and now there were those hideous paintings. It was no wonder that her reputation was so damaged.
Tess drove her fist so hard into one of Joanna’s gold brocade cushions that the seams split. She hastily shoved the stuffing back inside and turned the cushion over so that the rent would not show. Her headache stabbed her temples. She had not been able to sleep after she had got back from the brothel the previous night. Lying in her bed, staring up at the canopy, she had come to the inevitable conclusion that the Jupiter Club was finished. It was too dangerous for them to meet again when government saboteurs had surely infiltrated the membership and were fomenting violence. Whoever was stirring up the rioters would be acting as an informer as well. It would only be a matter of time before the spy would unmask them all, not just her but her young political protégé Justin Brooke and his sister, Emma, too.
And now there was this, Corwen’s revolting attempt to blackmail her into serving up her stepdaughter, Sybil, like some virginal sacrifice to his jaded palate. The thought made the bile rise in Tess’s throat. She adored Sybil and her twin brother, Julius, and had done so from the moment she had first met them. It was intolerable to see both of them at the mercy of Lord Corwen.
Tess reached absent-mindedly for the chocolate-flavoured bonbons that Joanna kept in a silver box on the table nearby. The box was empty. With a sigh Tess replaced it. She had dismissed Corwen for the time being but she knew that he would be back, in one shape or form or another, with his greedy eyes and his repellent demands. He wanted Sybil and he would be determined to have her. And Tess understood all about the driving need a man like Corwen felt to take something so fresh and sweet as Sybil Darent and despoil it.
She could keep Sybil physically safe but she could not protect her reputation. Tess had no doubt that if Corwen could not have Sybil, then he would ruin her another way. And the hateful truth was that Corwen was right—a whisper of scandal could kill any debutante’s good name and future prospects regardless of whether or not it was based on truth. Sybil’s aunt was the most irreproachably respectable chaperone in the whole of London, but Tess was still the girl’s stepmother, and her own blemished reputation could do her stepdaughter nothing but damage. She wondered that she had not thought of it before. Corwen would drop a subtle word here and there, poisoning the ton against Sybil for no better reason than that he lusted after her and could not have her.
Tess shivered, her fingers digging into the richly embroidered arm of the sofa. Damn Corwen to hell and back for his callous determination to indulge his most base vices on the body of her stepdaughter. It was unbearable. And damn him to the next level of hell for threatening to foreclose on the loan as well, thereby forcing her to decimate Julius’s inheritance in order to pay him off.
She could stall him, but it