A Private Gentleman (2 page)
Read A Private Gentleman Online
Authors: Heidi Cullinan
failed so utterly with his hostess.
This was why he should have stayed home tonight as well.
“Whatever fish it is you’re trying to catch here tonight, glaring less will
almost certainly help.”
Wes blinked and turned toward the voice. Good Lord. “Penny” stood beside
him again. Her eyes were fixed out at the crush of people. They seemed to amuse
her.
“It’s not a bad ball, for the Gordons. Though I think Griselda is trying too
hard. That is the way of it here in England, though, as far as I can tell. The middle class crushes itself in its desperate attempts to become part of the upper class.”
She sighed. “I wish they’d stop long enough to realize most of the gentry is
miserable too, perhaps more so because they have no one to ape, only their
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wealth and status to maintain.” She paused and glanced at Wes with a wry
smile. “This is where you tell me I am mad, or too forward, or say, ‘Why, I
never!’”
By God, Wes nearly laughed. “Y-You are.”
Her eyebrow lifted. “Mad? Forward?”
“B-B-Both.” But he was still smiling, which made her return the gesture
before she turned her gaze back to the crowd.
“I’m proud to claim both. Though what I need just now is a bleeding heart,
and one with money at that, as I’m running out of the latter and wearing down
my former. That’s why I’ve come here, you see. I need a patron. Someone with
money who wants to do good things with it. My uncle was high enough in
stature that a connection to him can get me in almost anywhere but the
haut ton
, but his money dried up long ago. So I’m here to find some for my ‘little project’,
as most people call it. I’ve found I do better at the parties of the Mrs. Gordons
than the Lady Somesuches. More people hoping their charity will elevate them.”
She glanced at him again. “That, my lord, is why
I
am here. May I press my
forwardness enough to ask why it is
you
are?”
Wes rubbed his thumb against the side of his punch cup as he considered his
response. Uncouth as she was, he found himself charmed by Miss Barrington—
she
must
be Miss, not Mrs.—and wanted to answer her. She had heard who he
was and had sought him out on purpose. He wasn’t certain this had ever
happened before.
“To s-s-see a f-f-flower.” He flushed, embarrassed by his stammer, but the
opium made everything soft, and he pushed on. “R-R-Rare orch-ch-chid. M-M-
Mrs. G-G-Gordon h-has one.”
She stayed silent, and he dared another glance, worried she was appalled at
his speech, but it turned out she appeared only to be considering something
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A Private Gentleman
carefully. At last she favored him with a wicked smile. “Judging by the fact that
you stand here looking frustrated and Mrs. Gordon seems to have no interest in
giving you a tour, might I assume you plan to find this rare flower on your
own?”
Wes hesitated before nodding.
Miss Barrington smiled at him. “I wish you success. If you need a distraction
at a doorway, let me know and I will do my best.” She inclined her head at the
crush. “Would you care, my lord, to return the favor, and tell me in which pool
of guests I might best find
my
fish?”
Warmed by her lack of convention and her easy acceptance of his
impediment, Wes decided to indulge her. He turned to give the crowd a proper
study.
It truly was a gauche attendance. Merchants and bankers, West Indies
plantation owners returned—a few Army and Royal Navy gentlemen, though of
course none of any quality. But Mrs. Gordon had scored a coup, for a few men of
fashion had deigned to attend. They were the lower sort, but they were here. It
would lend credence to the Gordons’s social aspirations. “I saw the most
charming statue at the Gordons’s party last week. Yes, darling, the Gordons.”
And the fops would jockey carefully, riding the line between demeaning
themselves by the association and elevating slightly the reputation of someone
who didn’t deserve the elevation at all.
In short, London society as usual.
Wes knew none of the attendees personally, though he could guess a few by
reputation. He didn’t circulate in society, no, but when one did most of one’s
dining at clubs, the most amazing tidbits could be overheard. The short man in
the striped trousers had to be Benjamin Bennett, of the Devonshire Bennetts. Yes,
it would make sense that he would be here, balanced on the edge of decency, as
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Heidi Cullinan
the rumors were that he’d been left practically at the altar. Given what Wes had
heard of Bennett’s gaming debts, the bride-to-be had made a narrow escape. And
there was the broad-shouldered gentleman with a bright blue waistcoat and an
Osbaldiston knot: that had to be Fredrick Grainville. He’d married Lord Gatley’s
daughter and, according to rumor, left her to languish in Scotland while he
chased actresses and dancers. But his father had left him a fortune from his time
in India, and his brother was an admiral in the Royal Navy, fighting away in
China. Plus, he was a notorious charmer. Certainly half the women in the room
were swooning over him.
Indeed, Wes could scarcely blame them.
He wasn’t finding anyone for Miss Brannigan, he realized.
Wes was scanning faces in a crowd he thought might be her likeliest bet
when he saw the man. He was as much a darling of the crowd as Grainville, but
Wes didn’t know a single thing about him. He might have dismissed him, except
the man was
very
charming and exceptionally pretty. Dressed in a long cream coat with tails, he looked like he belonged at a masquerade ball, or perhaps the
court of George III. He drifted through the guests with such ease and grace he
was almost dancing. His dark blond hair was long, unfashionably so, but on him
it was so winsome as to reset the fashion itself. Blond tendrils curled artfully
against his forehead and cheek, and even his hair, pulled back in a queue, had
been set to the iron so that it caressed the lip of his gold-embroidered collar
whenever he turned his head. He wore a cravat even more old-fashioned than
Wes’s own, tied loosely to offer a tantalizing view of a long smooth white neck.
The man moved in and out of conversations with the same grace he
employed to drift across the ballroom floor. He was a practiced flirt, making his
dancing and conversation partners blush while never managing to encourage
anyone too much. He flirted, too, Wes noticed, with the men. Older men,
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A Private Gentleman
especially those well-married and firmly off the mart. Though in truth any man
who had set himself aside but smelled of money was approached with wide
smiles and shining dark eyes. Laughter too—soft, beguiling laughter that was
almost feminine. In fact, everything about the man was a tantalizing mix of male
and female. The boldness of a male, the obsequiousness of a female. The frame of
a man but the softness of a woman. And pretty. Handsome and pretty at once.
In short, he was the very sort of man Wes preferred.
“No one, my lord?” Miss Brannigan prompted, sounding wistful.
Wes startled and hastily jerked his gaze away from the blond man. He made
one last sweep of the room before nodding as casually as he could at a sad-
looking gentleman in a worn brown topcoat near the punch table. “Elton,” he
managed, after coaxing his open mouth around the “El” for three seconds of
preparation. “Welsh b-b-businessman. L-Looks sh-shabby, but h-he’s h-heavy p-
pockets. M-M-Misses his w-w-wife. T-Talks c-c-constantly of the n-n-need for f-f-
founding h-h-hospitals for w-w-women.”
Miss Brannigan looked pleased. “Thank you very much, my lord. I am quite
in your debt.”
Wes inclined his head in her direction. “H-H-Happy to ob-b-blige.”
The expression on her face went briefly enigmatic, and then she lifted her
reticule and fished inside it. “I suspect you won’t like my mentioning it, but I
cannot help but notice you possess a rather pronounced stutter, and I would feel
remiss if I did not offer this.” She handed him a card. “It bears my name and
address, and should you ever wish to look me up, I would be more than happy
to share with you the techniques I know to overcome the affliction.”
Wes did not take the card. “I h-h-have s-s-seen d-d-doctors—”
“Oh, I promise you,” Miss Brannigan remarked dryly, “I’m as removed from
a doctor as one can be. But as the former owner of a prominent stutter myself, I
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Heidi Cullinan
believe I might be able to help.” When Wes’s mouth fell open in shock, she
laughed. “Yes, I know, it’s difficult to believe. But from ages five to eight I said
not a single word, and from eight to thirteen every one of them was better
butchered than anything you could serve up.” Still smiling, she tucked the card
into Wes’s pocket. “Ignore it for now, of course, because I know I am horribly
shocking, but please don’t toss the card straightaway. You might change your
mind later, and in any event, I won’t be moving from that address.” She made a
pretty curtsey and nodded at him. “And now, if you will excuse me, I believe I
will take my forward self over to Mr. Elton, the lonely businessman. Good day,
my lord. May your quest be profitable.”
Wes watched her go, touching his hand to the pocket where she had tucked
her card.
She
had been a stammerer? As he watched her go, fiery hair and
straight spine and forest-green velvet dress with no hoops of any kind swinging
freely as she moved—well, he acknowledged, were he a different man, he’d be in
love.
Or, he supposed, if
she
were a man.
The thought made Wes’s eyes slide back to the pretty young gentleman. He
didn’t look Wes’s way, but Wes wished he would. Even just a glance. A glance
and a small, secretive smile.
Flirt with me too.
He thought of the way Miss Brannigan had approached him, and for a
moment he let himself indulge in the fantasy of meeting the pretty blond fop. He
imagined himself striding across the room, catching the blond man’s attention
with a wry quip and holding it with a seductive smile. He pretended his tongue
was light and cunning as air, and he imagined how the man’s flirtations would
falter under the assault of his own. As the man blushed, Wes would lean close
and ask if he would like to step outside. Though it was cool and had begun to
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A Private Gentleman
rain, they would go. They would find a dark corner where the young man’s
desire would no longer be able to be held back, and he would confess, trembling,
how much he wanted Wes.
Smiling, Wes would run a finger down his cheek. “It’s all right. Let me take
care of you, my lovely. Let me take you back to my rooms. We can sample wine
together, and then…”
God help him, and
then.
But this, of course, was only a fantasy. The one time the pretty young man
glanced Wes’s way, his gaze passed through him as if he were invisible. A pause
just long enough to register—and reject.
Wes made himself turn away, forcing his mind back to his true reason for
attending the ball.
The room had become full as he stood against the wall. The way to the door
was thick with people, and even thinking of pressing through them made him
sweat. Even the indomitable Miss Brannigan had been swallowed up.
He began to feel dizzy. Though he’d been warmed by the heat of the room
since his arrival, perspiration now ran down the back of his neck in a steady
stream. Pressing himself to the wall, Wes fought his uneasy stomach, regretting
the punch he’d sipped. He would be sick. He would be sick, and then he would
pass out, and once his father found out what a disgrace he’d made of himself,
and where, and
why
, he’d give Wes that long, sober look that made it quite clear that never in the history of the world had a son been more disappointing than he.
Just one more pill.
Wes shut his eyes, trying to push the thought away. He couldn’t take another
pill. He’d taken too many already. But the panic was too great, and the thought
kept coming back. It was true, he’d taken this many once before. He’d passed out
that time, but with as much tolerance as he had now, surely he’d be fine?
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At this point it was practically an emergency. Because he wasn’t Penelope
Brannigan. He was Lord George Albert Westin, stammerer and all-around
disappointment. He needed this much opiate just to haul himself to a plant.
The white pill slipped between his lips and slid into his stomach with a large
gulp of punch.
Ten minutes later he made his way through the press of people toward the
door, mindful of the crowd but uncaring of any of it. Uncaring, in fact, of