Edith Layton (9 page)

“Oh,” Drum said, and sat down again. He laughed. “Is that what it was all about? Damme, Eric, you’ve only to ask the girl and she’d be happy to stand by you for all eternity! Everyone knows how she feels about you.” He cocked his head to the side. “Could it be that you don’t?”

Eric shook his head. “No. I’m not that dull. But I
have a care for her, and so I’ve been very careful not to claim any more than that.” He met his friend’s gaze, and Drum’s smile faded away.

“Drum,” Eric went on seriously, “you have a child now. A son. But you may well have a daughter someday, as dear to you as young Duncan is now. Think about how pleased you’d be if in the prime of her youth, when she first came to Town, before she’d even one Season, she declared her fascination with a man ten years her senior, one who suffered from a recurrent illness no doctor could predict, who moreover was an ex-army man who wasn’t rich but merely comfortable. Brave, bold, and wise as he might be, how thrilled would you be if she immediately decided to stand by such a man for the rest of her life?

“Mmm,” Eric hummed, watching his friend closely when Drum didn’t answer right away. “You’re right. Things look different to us when we have responsibility for them, don’t they? Whether that thing is a party or a young life.”

“But your illness may be passing, and you’re much more than comfortable. I know that. I invest along with you. And I know you longer than a season, as does her brother, and we know who you are.”

Eric ran a hand over his eyes. “But she doesn’t, and she’s never had a Season. And though I am well off, I don’t have a title or an estate. And most of all, my disease is such that no man can predict its course.”

“But in spite of that, you seemed taken with Nell, that’s evident.”

“Is it? And when I worked with you in Rome, I seemed taken with Signora Colletti, didn’t I?”

Drum’s heavy-lidded eyes opened wide.

“Yes, I was valuable to you in exposing her as the double agent she was, wasn’t I? Gads, Drum, I may look like an ox, but I don’t think like one. That was what made me useful to you then. You and Rafe seriously underestimate me if you think I’m always what I appear to be. It was good that my enemies did, but I’m a little annoyed that you do now.”

The earl made a gesture of surrender, but Eric waved it off and went on, “I’m not saying Nell Baynes isn’t a tempting dish. And when I met her, even I, with all my deficits, would have been a better partner for her than what awaited her in the streets. But I don’t know the truth about her either, and how else can I find it but by winning her confidence? And if I win more?” He lowered his gaze to the spoon again and finally slipped it into his mouth.

“Well, yes,” he went on as best he could through a mouthful of trifle, “life’s been lonely since all my friends waltzed up church aisles with the beauties of their choice. I’m looking forward to being an uncle, but I admit I’d like to be a father one day. I have no hankering to grow old alone—if I’m lucky enough to grow old, that is. But I won’t know that soon either,” he said bluntly. “So for now I wait
and watch and try to deal with life as best I can. You don’t trust Nell? I certainly don’t trust her cousin. I think we should both wait on things, even simple things, like trying to warn men away from women we believe are evil temptresses.”

“Agreed. But as for warning young women away from handsome young gentlemen?” Drum asked, one eyebrow raised. “Do you think that applies to Camille as well?”

“Handsome young
men
,” Eric corrected him. “As for whether Mr. Bartlett is a gentleman in deed, if not in name, we don’t know that either. But I mean to find out,” he promised.

His friends were gone; the trifle was a memory, as was the party. His man was in bed, doubtless sleeping the dreamless sleep of the just. But Eric still paced his bedchamber.

He couldn’t get her out of his mind. What he’d told Drum was true, he just hadn’t told him everything.

Every time he saw her, it grew worse for him. Now he couldn’t stop imagining how good it would have been if she could have stayed when everyone else had left. It was another bitter night. A sharp wind whined around the corners of his house. The only place that was truly warm was here, an inch from the hearth—or in a bed with a warm woman in his arms. Failing that, a fellow could find warmth just sitting beside a woman he cared for. They could sit by the hearth and gossip
about the guests who had just left. Or he’d take her in his arms and tell her how much he…No.

Eric put a hand on the mantel and stared down into the fire. On such a night, when loneliness and desire goaded him, he knew he wouldn’t be saying anything. The moment they were at last alone, he’d take her into his arms and then into his bed and let his lips and his body say it all. He could imagine that, but the pleasure he would find with her would be beyond his imagining. But perhaps, he thought, the greatest pleasure would be after, as they held each other close, warm and sated, heart and body, through the rest of the long cold night.

Eric stared into the dying fire, but it was she that he saw. God, but she tempted him! He couldn’t forget the look of her, her face, her breasts, her smooth skin, that mouth. And her scent. Lord! He thought he must be deranged. Some women reeked of gardenia or tuberose. The scent of her was so slight, delicate and floral, as soft and sweet as she was; yet it haunted him. What would it be like to take her into his arms, bury his nose in her neck and breathe in deeply? He could imagine what her naked breasts would feel like against his bare skin as they peaked and pebbled, as he cupped her pretty little rounded bottom and pressed her close and…

He picked up a poker and savagely poked at a ruddy log, shattering it, exposing its rosy heart and making it crumble to fiery pieces. He turned all his attention to the fire in the hearth to keep his mind
off the one in his body. It might not just be the nearness of her this evening that was driving him mad. It could merely be that he needed a woman. After all, it had been a while. But he knew he needed a lover even more.

Men of his class and condition took mistresses for as long as the women pleased them. For too long a time now, none had pleased him. As he grew older, he realized he didn’t like the thought of sex as commerce, however it was done. He’d never enjoyed the idea of buying a female for an hour or a night. He’d tried it in his youth and not since. It was an empty transaction, making what should be pleasure into pound dealing, like buying a sausage…or paying someone to accept one, he thought wryly. Paying a woman to receive his body for weeks rather than hours wasn’t so different. Sex, at least for him, was about more than his member.

That didn’t mean he’d been celibate. Finding sex was easier than finding love. His lovers had always been women who couldn’t or wouldn’t marry for one reason or another, and so their lovemaking had been something shared, not negotiated. Now he wanted to share more. No, he realized, as he stepped from the hearth and prepared to go to his lonely bed, he needed more.

He stripped off his robe. After years in the army, never knowing when he had to leap from his bed and into danger, sleeping naked was a luxury. He went to turn down the lamp and paused, gazing at
the reflection of his body in the long glass over his bureau.
Not bad,
he thought, automatically sucking in his stomach. He looked at the scars on his leg and flexed it. He’d been lucky. He crooked an arm and stared. He still had muscles, the sickness he suffered from hadn’t depleted them. He didn’t look half as old or worn as he felt tonight. But the crux of the problem was that he wasn’t at all sure he would live to get much older. Doctors guessed, he prayed, yet nothing but time would tell him.

He turned away from himself. No sense in posturing before a mirror like a damned dandy before a ball. Who better than he to know how deceptive appearances were?

So he couldn’t yet offer for his little heroine, even though every part of his heart and body ached for her. But he could watch over her, he vowed, as he swept back his coverlets and got into bed, as long as he kept even stricter watch on himself.

“S
o what do you think of your newfound cousin?” Camille asked Nell early the next morning.

They were sitting in the salon, waiting for Belle to join them so they could go for their usual early walk through the park. But time was marching on, and Camille wasn’t, so she was fidgeting. Her dogs had to stay in the stables until she came to get them, which was the only bad thing she’d found about staying here in London with her brother and sister-in-law. At home, the dogs would have shared Camille’s bed, not just her bedchamber, but they weren’t allowed into Lady Annabelle’s town house.

Camille couldn’t really blame Belle for that. Rags and Muffin were her favorite dogs, but though they
were her best behaved, that only meant that they didn’t bite people or bark all night.

Friendly as they were, Camille’s pets hadn’t much idea of how to behave in polite company. Rags would steal a biscuit out from under a person’s nose. Muffin would not only steal one from a person’s mouth if he could, but if he didn’t like the taste of the biscuit, he’d bury it under a rug or try to dig up the floor if there was no rug. Though they had charming names, even Camille had to admit they were a boisterous pair of lighthearted setters, more suitable to the fields of home than the manicured parks and sedate town houses of London. That was one of the reasons she insisted on walking them herself if she could. She also liked the exercise. And she would have hated for her brother’s footmen to quit his service, as they sometimes threatened to do when they had to deal with the dogs too often.

Now Nell smiled at Camille’s question about her newfound cousin. “Dana? I like him very well.” Then, casting a sly look at Camille, she added, “How do you like him?”

“He seemed very nice.”

“More than that, I’d say,” Nell said.

“Oh,” Camille said in surprise. “You like him that much? My word! Your future may be settled in more ways than one, then.”

“What?” Nell asked, frowning.

“Well, I mean, if you’re that taken with him, you might become more than just his ward.” Seeing
Nell’s confusion, Camille added, “He could be more than your guardian. Bother!” she said when Nell continued to frown in puzzlement. “Nell, you could end up marrying him, and that would solve all your problems, wouldn’t it?

Nell laughed. “Oh, no! I like him, but I wouldn’t want to marry him. He’s handsome and smart, but he’s only a solicitor. That is,” she said hastily, remembering whom she was talking to, “I’ve heard marrying your cousin isn’t good for your babies. It makes them weak-minded.”

“Oh, bosh,” Camille said, “half the
ton
and most of the royal family are married to their cousins.” She giggled. “Well, you may be right about that!”

Nell didn’t see the humor in Camille’s joke. Camille didn’t mind; she’d realized that her guest was literal-minded and often didn’t get a joke.

“No, he’s not for me,” Nell went on. “Actually, I was wondering if he might be for you.” Seeing Camille’s eyes widen, she added, “He was very taken with you, anyone could see that. And he is very handsome and smart as can be. You should think about it. After all, you are past the age for your come-out, and yet here you are, out in London, and I don’t see that many offers coming your way…. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings!” she cried when she saw the shock on Camille’s face, her own eyes suddenly filling with tears. “Please don’t be angry with me. Sometimes I just say what I’m thinking before I can think better of it. Oh, please don’t be mad!”

“I’m not,” Camille said, because she wasn’t. She was just hurt. “I have had offers,” she added, raising her head. “I imagine the reason you don’t know that is because I don’t make a fuss about them and manage to stay friends with a fellow even if I don’t want to marry him.”

But her spirits did sink. Although she’d had offers and masculine attention, it was true that they weren’t like what other girls got. Her sitting room had never been filled with flowers after a night of dancing, and no one had ever written poetry to her. Her disappointment was her secret, because though she knew it was all nonsense, she did love flowers and poetry.

“My cousin admires you very much,” Nell said in a little voice. “He told me so last night.”

“Well, that was quick,” Camille said. She forced a smile. “Don’t look so woebegone. I don’t think less of him for saying it anymore than I do of you for wondering if I’m going to wind up on the shelf. Anyway, I think Dana only meant that he liked me for helping you. How could it be anything else? We hardly know each other. And, as you pointed out, gentlemen don’t swoon when they first see me. I grow on them,” she added glumly, in spite of herself. “Like moss.” She gave a little chuckle at her own sad joke. “Which isn’t so bad,” she said before Nell could look sorry for her again. “After all, that’s what marriage is all about, isn’t it? Two people growing on each other over the long term?”

She was glad that she heard Belle finally coming
down the stairs. She was dressed in blue, which usually suited her perfectly, but she looked washed out this morning. No wonder she looked tired, Camille thought, they were up late last night, and she was a lady who usually slept until noon, like the other Fashionables in London. She was rising earlier because of Camille, even though Camille often told her she didn’t mind walking through the park with only a maid or a footman in tow or, as now, with Nell. Still, Belle didn’t want to change the habit they’d grown into at home, claiming the early exercise was good for her. Miles sometimes went too, but he’d stopped since Nell came to stay.

Camille hoped Belle’s exercise really did help her, because she looked so wan this morning. But when she put on a cherry-red cape trimmed with fox, her face took on delicate color and she looked wonderful again.

Nell looked lovely, as usual, in a white gown and fresh as springtime when she put on the long green cloak Camille had lent her.

Camille was the one who actually handled the dogs, so she dressed accordingly. She wore a warm woolen gown, a dark, heavy cloak, and a pair of her most comfortable half boots, broken in nicely after dozens of such expeditions in the fields at home.

Belle looked at her and frowned.

“My gown’s clean,” Camille said defensively. “There was sleet last night and it’s thawing. The ground will be spongy, so I wore old boots. The
cloak’s short, I know, but it won’t trail in the mud if I have to go off the path chasing after one of the lads. And it doesn’t matter if my hems get muddy, because my clothes are so old I don’t care.”

Belle rolled her eyes. “But the gown is saffron and the cloak is olive—or was when it was new, which might have been when you were fifteen, and neither color does you a bit of good. And the boots look like the gardeners’.”

“But who’s going to see me?”

Belle hesitated and then sighed. “True. Most sane people are sleeping. And the gentlemen reeling home after a night on the town are probably not seeing too clearly anyhow. But we have to get you some attractive ensembles to walk in. Sturdy can be pretty, you know.”

“Like you yourself, Camille,” Nell said softly.

Both Belle and Camille looked at her, but Nell seemed oblivious to her implied insult. She’d intended a compliment, Camille realized. It couldn’t be helped that it could also be taken another way.

Dana Bartlett thought Camille looked just fine. At least, his dark expressive eyes said so when he met her in the park a half-hour later.

“Miss Croft!” he said, sweeping off his high beaver hat, his eyes taking her in as though he beheld the sun rising though the gray morning’s mists. “Cousin,” he added with a nod to Nell, and “My lady,” he said, making his bow to Belle. “How good to see you!”

“How odd, too,” Belle said, raising her brows. “I’d no idea you lived nearby or fancied such early excursions.”

“I don’t,” he said with a disarming smile. “Not usually. But last night, when Nell mentioned her habit of going for an early walk, I remembered how the air used to smell at dawn at home. I’m from Sussex originally and have memories of fine country mornings. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I came out in the hope of meeting up with you.”

He took a long, deep breath, closed his eyes, and smiled. “Yes, exactly. This is delicious, isn’t it? The way the air smells before sun heats the smoke from all the city’s coal fires.” He opened his eyes. “May I join you? I’ve some questions to ask Nell. Last night it occurred to me that since I’m going to be looking for new lodgings, it would only be fair to get her opinion about what she would like in her new home. Your opinions would be welcome too. Well, what do I know about what a young woman needs or wants in respect to number of rooms, their sizes and colors and that sort of thing?”

Belle inclined her head, considering. It was kind and generous of him to take Nell’s feelings into account. Too many men wouldn’t even think about asking a woman what she wanted. Still, she’d noticed that the fellow kept his eyes on her sister-in-law the whole time. Camille could do better for herself than a mere solicitor. But a walk in the park wasn’t a proposal of marriage, and anyway, there
was no way she could politely say no. “We’d be pleased with your company,” she said.

Camille let out her breath, surprised to discover that she’d been holding it, waiting for Belle’s answer.

They walked on in pairs. There was one awkward moment before Dana took up position beside Belle, because she was the senior lady. Camille had to go ahead of them, because Rags and Muffin didn’t like to follow. Nell came with her. Camille thought she would have a permanent crick in her neck from trying to hear everything said behind her back.

“So,” Dana finally summed it up, as they strolled on toward the lake, “I see what we need. A town house would be perfect. I’m not a Midas, but renting one for the rest of this Season would be possible. I don’t doubt Nell will have found her own place by next season—at the side of a man she can call her own, of course. Now, my lady, please tell me which district I should be looking in.”

He bent his dark head to hear Belle’s opinion. Camille didn’t. It had been hard enough trying to hear everything said about rooms. A discussion of neighborhoods wasn’t worth the effort. She was free to look around again.

There was a lot to look at this morning. The wait for Belle had delayed them, and so they were in the park later than usual. London was waking up now, and the park was filling up with more than maidservants and nannies walking their charges—lapdogs
and babies. Since their little party was walking along the side of a broad avenue that went through the park, they could see the traffic increasing. Dashing high phaetons with ruddy-cheeked gentlemen guiding them went by, as well as heavy carriages, knots of horsemen, and strollers on either side of the road. All seemed to be enjoying a little respite from the busy London streets on this clear, bright, not too cold winter’s day.

Belle nodded to some people as she kept talking with Dana Bartlett. Nell gawked at everyone. Camille told her who they were seeing, hoping that it was still too early for any courtesans to be on display. Belle would not appreciate Nell’s awe of them, and heaven knew what Dana would think of his cousin’s odd opinion of the demimonde. Camille would hate for Nell to lose her one good chance at a fine new life. It wasn’t all charity on her part. Charming as Nell’s cousin Dana was, Camille still wanted Nell herself to move out of her life as soon as possible.

“And that’s Lord and Lady North,” Camille told Nell as she gave a bright smile to a handsome couple on the opposite side of the roadway. “Top of the trees, the pair of them, and as nice as they are good-looking. She’s lovely, but did you ever see such a handsome man? And faithful to her as the sea is to the shore,” she added quickly. “Oh, and there, with the infant in the pram? Lady Kidd, a really decent sort. She didn’t mind when Muffin licked her baby’s nose last week, and you know
how some ladies would have carried on.” Camille paused to try to tug Muffin back into line, because it looked as if he wanted another taste of the baby.

“And that’s the man Lady Annabelle said we shouldn’t speak to, isn’t it?” Nell whispered, pointing toward a dark gentleman on a showy black horse who was riding down the middle of the road toward them.

Camille frowned. “Yes,” she said, hastily dropping her gaze lest the dark-eyed lord should catch her staring at him. “Don’t point! Dearborne’s worse than a rake. He’s debauched through and through, the worst kind of sneaking coward too. Many of our friends have had run-ins with him. His father disowned him, but here he is again and on a fine mount too. I suppose he got back into his family’s good graces. Good heavens!” Camille said, looking up to see Nell staring at Dearborne, who was staring back at her with interest. “I said don’t look at him! Now you’ve done it,” she grumbled, peeping up from under her lashes, “he’s looking at us.”

Camille stared at her dogs’ tails and so couldn’t see if Lord Dearborne was still studying Nell with the bold, insolent look of appraisal that he’d been surveying her with a second before. But she peeked at Nell and saw her still looking back at him, a strange smile growing on her lips.

“Nell!” she hissed. “I meant it. Stop. Belle will murder you, and rightly so.” She couldn’t see if Nell obeyed, because she kept staring at her dogs as
Lord Dearborne came near and didn’t move her head until she heard the approaching hoofbeats go on by, as the dark horse and rider rode on. Then she looked up again. Dearborne was gone, and Nell was simply looking into the distance ahead.

Belle spoke up. “Why was that wretched fellow looking at you?” she demanded of Camille.

“Who was that? Was he distressing you?” Dana immediately asked.

Belle cast a blank look at Dana. Nothing could have sunk him more in her eyes, though he couldn’t know that. Camille did and felt embarrassed for him and a little wistful too. Because Dana had just reminded them how distant he was from their world. Anyone in Society, or familiar with it, would have known who Dearborne was.

“Who knows why he was staring?” Camille said and then, looking at Dana, added, “He’s just a bad man, one we want nothing to do with.”