Gareth: Lord of Rakes (4 page)

“Glad to be of service, my lord, as always.”

In the ensuing solitude, Gareth’s mind wandered back to his interview with Felicity Worthington. Nobody, not the King, not the Prince of Wales, not the Archbishop of Canterbury, coerced Gareth Alexander into any task he didn’t choose for himself. So why was he taking on the sordid business of ruining Miss Felicity Oh-So-Proper Worthington, and why for such plebeian motivation as simple coin in the lady’s pockets?

He’d find a way under, over, around, or through the business, and for once in his life, he’d manage the task without allowing himself the pleasure of bedding a pretty and willing lady.

Maybe.

***

At precisely two of the clock on Monday afternoon, Gareth’s footman opened the door to his unmarked town coach to reveal Felicity Worthington peering curiously at his equipage. Gareth kept his seat and let the groom assist the lady up, rather than risk the neighbors seeing him in her mews.

“Good day, madam. I am cheered to see you value promptness.” He had taken the forward-facing seat, while Miss Worthington arranged herself opposite him and smoothed her skirts so they did not touch his boots.

She was behaving like a chaperone rather than a potential conquest, leaving Gareth equal parts amused and annoyed.

“Good afternoon, my lord. Does one surmise from your tone you’ve had second thoughts? You sound anything but cheered.” When she stopped fussing, she met his gaze, and he again felt that inconvenient frisson of arousal that had afflicted him when they’d first met.

“I have had many thoughts regarding this venture since last we met, but none of them what you would call second thoughts. I have agreed to serve as the estate trustee, and I do not break my word. Ever.”

“How reassuring,” she parried dryly. She held his stare unflinchingly, then startled when he surprised her with a bark of laughter.

“Well done, Miss Worthington. You are capable of bravado, which will serve you well as you assume management of the Pleasure House.” He thumped on the roof with his walking stick, and the coach moved off.

“Is that what she called it? The Pleasure House?”

“Yes, though most men would simply refer to it as Callista’s. We’re headed there for an inspection of the premises, if that meets with my lady’s approval.”

The shades were drawn, giving the coach an intimate feel, though it was broad daylight. Miss Worthington wore the same hideous bonnet, also the same light, lavender scent.

“You refer to me as my lady, but I’m not a lady in the titled sense. When Father was alive, of course I was the Honorable Felicity Worthington and so forth, but the honorific means nothing without a viscount to inherit the title. It seems instead a reminder of… ill fortune.”

Gareth loathed small talk, and what she’d offered instead was something indicative of bravery—she’d offered him a place to start.

“I grew up as plain Mr. Alexander myself,” he said. “I preferred to die in that happy state, but ill fortune, as you call it, had other plans.”

That piqued her interest, as he’d known it would. One could fornicate enthusiastically with a complete stranger, but Gareth was fairly certain one could not seduce a proper lady without allowing her at least a passing acquaintance.

“What happened?”

He would tell her his tale of woe, mostly because she was bound to hear a version of it sooner or later.

“My family owns a prosperous distillery on an estate up in Scotland. The lot of us, along with a few guests, had assembled there at my grandfather’s request. The estate is on the coast, and my grandfather fancied himself an expert yachtsman. I don’t know if he was or not, but he invited us all out on his boat. My entire family went. I was the only one who declined the outing. My mother, father, older brother, and younger brother joined Grandfather, my uncle, and my cousin, as well as… a guest or two. A bad squall blew up. The boat capsized, and most perished with it. My younger brother Andrew managed to rescue my mother, who at some point in her girlhood learned the rudiments of swimming.”

Gareth could manage this recitation in bland tones now, the signal accomplishment of nine years of effort.

“That’s tragic!” she expostulated. “What a great blessing you did not drown as well, my lord. Surely you do not regard that as ill fortune?” Her great golden eyes shone at him with a world of concern, and she’d leaned forward to touch his sleeve.

He took her hand and absently raised it to his lips. The scent of lavender was stronger near her wrist, more bracing. He wished she’d been sitting beside him, so he might maintain possession of that scent.

“I don’t regret surviving”—he didn’t regret surviving now—“but suspicion turned on me, because I’d had no stated reason for declining to join my relations on that boat. Some suspected I was guilty of foul play, and that rumor colored my first impressions of Polite Society, and—to be honest—theirs of me.” Foul play, a euphemism for fratricide, patricide, and several other forms of craven murder.

“But surely your mother and brother would have exonerated you?”

Her outrage was both comforting and disconcerting. She assumed he was blameless and thought others should have as well, affirming his sense that Felicity Worthington was not simply proper, she was also, in the most sincere sense, decent.

“My mother eventually recovered, though at the time she developed a serious inflammation of the lungs. By the time she healed from that, and from her grief, the worst of the gossip had died down. Andrew was fifteen, and I did not feel it fair to burden him with my problems in addition to his own difficulties.”

The compassion in her amber gaze could have melted any heart. This warmth in her was unexpected and not particularly welcome. Gareth’s first impression of her had been one of starch and sensibility, and for her to turn up…
sweet
was not in his plans.

“Your brother blamed himself for not being able to rescue more of them,” she said, drawing the conclusion on her own.

“He did, honorable little whelp that he was—at the time. I’m afraid since the accident, he’s grown into a bit of a rascal.” Though would Gareth have been grateful to Andrew if Julia had been rescued, or resentful? Probably both.

“And what of you, my lord? Are you a bit of a rascal?”

“The terms applied to me are not quite so charming, Miss Worthington, as you are no doubt aware.”

She sat back, finely arched brows knit. “I’m
not
aware, your lordship. I was not out when details of your family tragedy would have been common knowledge. Because my mother died before my come-out, I never really moved much in Society, even when I was old enough to do so. My father made a few attempts to introduce me around, but they never came to anything. I did not take, you see.”

She smiled as she announced this. Smiled the same shy, proud smile another woman would have evidenced when referring to making a bow before the Queen.

“I don’t believe that bothered you much.”

“It did not. I wondered if blond hair and petite stature might have served me better, but I did not wish for it. I had been running my father’s household for some time before I came of age. I was happier to do something that made a difference to the family’s well-being than to be out until dawn, fluttering my eyelashes at callow swains.”

He laughed again, a short explosion of sardonic mirth. “God help the swains if you’d determined they were useful for something more to your liking.”

“Oh, I like to dance, and I love music. But I am too tall for most young men to partner well, and they have not the patience for truly enjoying the music.”

She was right, of course. The average exponent of well-bred English young manhood was at best politely decorative in Gareth’s opinion—also randy as hell and completely inept at dealing with it.
He
certainly had been.

“I, for one, am glad not to be burdened any longer with excessive youth.” Though at nearly thirty, he still had a little youth left, didn’t he?

“I would say the same, my lord, except that as Callista’s successor, youth would be an asset, would it not?” The coach drew to a halt as Gareth considered her comment.

“Now that is a paradox, Miss Worthington, and a complicated one.” He helped her from the coach as he continued speaking. “Most men frequenting establishments such as Callista’s desire a woman who appears to be in the first blush of youth, but they do not want a partner who is inexperienced, inept, or immature. They want a woman, not a girl. The only men who persist in finding young girls attractive are some old men, and they are likely intimidated by the idea a mature woman could find their performance clumsy.”

From her guarded expression, Gareth concluded his companion did not entirely comprehend his comment. He started a mental list, a syllabus of corruptions he must perpetrate on her ignorance and innocence.

“Come. Your property awaits.”

Miss Worthington looked around her—gawked, more like. Gareth had directed his coachman to let them off in the porte cochere, which shielded them from public view.

“This is private,” she murmured.

“You must assure discretion for the patrons who wish it, of course. Very likely, Callista chose this property with such considerations in mind.” He ushered her through a side entrance to the large town house.

“Should I have worn a veil?” she asked, still peering about.

“Not today. I’ve given the staff and the ladies the afternoon off, with instructions to vacate the premises for the next two hours. We will tour the building, so you will have a more definite sense of what Callista left you.”

And
doubtless
be
shocked
silly.

“I didn’t expect it to be this decent,” Miss Worthington said when they’d finished with the lowest floor and the public rooms.

“Many brothels are not so finely decorated, but Callista had, or developed, taste. She sought a clientele that wanted the same sort of surroundings they’d find at home. Comfortable, but refined. You should be grateful for that.”

“Will you tell me why?” She turned to face him as she posed her question. The openness of her expression took him off guard, because clearly, she didn’t know how perverted and even evil the oldest profession could become.

She would have to learn, and from him—drat her, Callista, the oldest profession, and human nature.

“Some people, Miss Worthington, make their living off the most indecent forms of the natural urges. They can do so because men—and women—who seek to indulge those perversions will pay handsomely for the opportunity. Callista chose not to offer such entertainments in her establishment.”

“Such as?”

He turned a glacial stare on her—a stare that reduced Brenner to babbling—but she did not withdraw the question.

“Such as sexual arousal gratified by inflicting pain on someone helpless to protect themselves. Such as sexual congress with children. Such as those who enjoy being degraded as they pursue their pleasures. Those who cannot find pleasure unless they are surreptitiously observing others having intimate relations. I do not begrudge two or four or ten adults what they choose to do in private, but many young girls and boys are inveigled into working in brothels because their alternative is starvation or repeated, uncompensated rape.”

She looked shaken by the time he’d finished, which was all to the good, even if it left Gareth feeling like he’d kicked a puppy. Thus Miss Purity Chastity Felicity Worthington could begin to see the reality of her cousin’s gift.

He took her elbow and guided her to the higher reaches of the house, where she went quiet at the variety of rooms—a few bedrooms decorated in garish velvets, as well as the predictable sultan’s tent, mock stable, and schoolroom. She went quieter still at the ordinary, tidily pretty bedrooms the women used for themselves on the next floor up, and abruptly, Gareth had shown her enough.

Though he’d become familiar with most of the house years ago, even he felt like a voyeur among the samplers, cutwork, dried flowers, and embroidered cushions on the third floor.

When he’d handed his charge into the coach, he took a place beside her on the forward-facing seat, as was his habit in his own coach. Miss Worthington bounced over to the chaperone’s bench, making him feel like he’d kicked a puppy
and
a kitten while several small children looked on.

“Miss Worthington, if we have agreed to be physically intimate with each other, don’t you think you could bring yourself to sit beside me?”

She made a face, but answered him by resuming the seat beside him. “This is more than passing strange,” she reflected, and it was not a sanguine observation. He took her hand, and in her preoccupation, she did not seem to notice his presumption.

“I ask myself,” she continued, “is this what those women routinely do? They kiss men who don’t even know their names? They stick their tongues into the mouths of strangers? It is decidedly odd.”

He laced their fingers, wondering if he’d ever, ever, in his distant and prosaic, not-much-missed or misspent youth felt the same consternation.

“The ladies’ trade operates within a ritual that makes it less bizarre. There is flirtation, sexual innuendo, mutual assent, and stages through which things proceed. One becomes used to it.”

She looked at their joined hands while Gareth braced himself for one of her difficult, fearless questions. “Does it ever become so commonplace it’s boring?”

“Invariably.” And again he felt a gnawing sense of irritation. It was one thing to swive a woman, and an entirely different and less appealing challenge to explain swiving to her. “Boredom is why men seek variety in their partners, and fantasies to enliven their interest. They use drugs, spirits, toys, and games for the same end. It’s simply adult entertainment.”

“It doesn’t feel boring when you kiss me,” she mused darkly. “I think you are accomplished at it.”

“Your flattery, Miss Worthington, will surely turn my head.”

They were quiet then, each rolling along in their own thoughts, hands joined in what had been a casual touch. She had graceful hands, and soft, soft skin. Had she been so rattled she’d forgotten to don her gloves?