Kathryn Smith (6 page)

So did Rachel. Why would he be asking about her?

“What’s he been asking?” She tried to keep from sounding too eager.

“Why you’ve never married, for one.”

Any hopes Rachel might have had fell like stone. “That’s not a good thing, Mama. Everyone will tell him that I’ve got no prospects, no connections, nothing to make me worth marrying.”

“You get over ten thousand pounds when you turn five-and-twenty.”

The thought of Brave wanting her for her money hurt more than the thought that he might not want her at all, and Rachel wished she would just stop thinking altogether.

“The Earl of Braven does not need ten thousand pounds.”

“But it would make his interest in you a mercenary one rather than one of affection, and that’s easier for you to accept, isn’t it?”

How had the conversation gone from dresses to this?

“He’s not interested in me, Mama.” Rachel’s jaw was beginning to ache, she was clenching it so hard.

“No?” her mother asked in that tone only mothers could
use. That singsong voice that meant that she knew everything and her poor little girl still had so much to learn.

“No offense, Mama, but you’re hardly an expert on men.”

If she’d expected her mother to flinch, she’d thought wrong. Marion’s expression lost much of its humor, but the smile still remained.

“I know more about them than you do, my dear. I had the good sense to marry your father and the practicality to marry Sir Henry. I’ve never once mistook the character of either for anything other than what it was. Perhaps if you thought a little more of yourself and stopped being so distrustful of anything male, you’d be able to see things more clearly.”

Stunned, Rachel could only stare as her mother rose to her feet.

“Now,” Marion said, tossing her the scraps of fabric on the bed, “do be a good girl and pick out what fabric you’d like to have your dresses made from.”

Brave returned from his morning ride with his cheeks flushed with cold and his head full of thoughts of Rachel Ashton. He’d been talking to some of the townspeople about her—people who had grown up and played with them both as children, back when social class meant nothing to any of them.

Gravel crunched beneath his feet as he walked from the stables to the house, the only sound on this clear, cold morning. Twirling his riding crop in one hand, he allowed his gaze to drag lazily across the serene beauty of his estate as he pondered what he’d learned over the last few days.

Everyone he spoke to said the same things. Very few men had found Rachel’s charms ample enough to risk aligning themselves with Sir Henry Westhaver. The man was a leech. There had been one young man who had paid particular attention to her but nothing came of it. And of the few who had tried to court Rachel since, they’d been dismissed by her
stepfather as not rich enough—or by Rachel herself for being too forward in their attentions.

Brave had to wonder just how forward the gentlemen had tried to get, because she certainly hadn’t told
him
to sod off.

He almost smiled at how she’d demanded he not apologize for kissing her the other night at Lady Westwood’s party. He had no business kissing her, no business at all, but it had felt so good, so
right
to press his body against hers.

He was right. Rachel Ashton was dangerous—a danger to herself. He was as drawn to her as a moth to a flame, but it wasn’t the possibility of his getting burned that worried him. It was the thought of how easy it would be for him to extinguish the fire within her. He had to stay away from her, and if she was as smart as he believed her to be, she’d stay clear of him as well. Nothing good could come of this strange attraction he felt toward her. Nothing at all.

Yanking open the door, Brave stepped inside the house. He knew some men who would have made the servants open the door for them, but it seemed so pretentious, especially when he was capable of opening it himself.

“Dr. Phelps is awaiting you in the green drawing room, my lord,” Reynolds told him as he took his coat and gloves.

Brave groaned inwardly. Not again. “Thank you, Reynolds. Be so good as to have a bottle of brandy brought to me after the doctor leaves, will you? I’ve a feeling I’m going to need it.”

The butler bowed, no reaction whatsoever to the request. After all, Brave had only asked for one bottle, and that was a pittance compared to what he’d drunk after Miranda’s death. “Yes, my lord.”

Straightening his cuffs, Brave strode down the corridor toward the green drawing room. Busts and statues of legendary gods and heroes lined the walls. Hades stood just outside the drawing room door. Now that was irony. The god of the Underworld standing at the portal to hell—or at least fifteen minutes’ worth.

He paused in the doorway.

“What shall it be today, Phelps? Would you like to feel the bumps on my head again or would you prefer to check the color of my urine?”

The physician, standing at one of the east-facing windows, whirled toward him. “Lord Braven! Forgive me, I didn’t hear you approach.”

Douglas Phelps had been Brave’s physician for the past year and a half—ever since the breakdown that followed Miranda’s death. Brave had entered into his care at the urging of his mother and his friends. Not so much because he wanted help, but because he wanted them just to leave him the hell alone.

Phelps had helped him stop the pattern of self-destruction he’d started, and he’d convinced Brave to stop drowning his grief in a bottle, but Brave had a suspicion that had more to do with common sense and waking up too many mornings with a head that felt as though it had been kicked by a mule than any “treatment” the doctor had tried.

He’d removed himself from the doctor’s care months ago, when he’d become convinced that these treatments, while for the most part harmless, were not doing anything to ease his guilt or make him feel better about Miranda’s death. Still, Phelps showed up every fortnight or so, wanting to check up on him.

Brave gestured to another chair as he seated himself. “So what sort of treatment have you prepared for me today then?”

Phelps smiled, the corners of his pale eyes crinkling like the pleats of a lady’s fan. “Oh, no treatment today, my lord. I’ve simply come to talk.”

“Pity. I’d rather hoped to persuade you to rub my head again.”

“It’s called ‘phrenology,’ my lord. Many in the field swear by it.”

Brave wanted to ask just what field that was exactly—medical, or the one out back dotted with sheep manure—but he kept his opinions to himself. Dr. Phelps was a good man and he had no wish to insult him when he so obviously wanted to be of help.

“What exactly did you want to talk about, Doctor?”

Phelps’s weathered cheeks reddened. “I’ve heard some rumors, my lord, and I wanted to come to you directly to ascertain whether or not there’s any truth to them.”

Brave raised a brow. “You hardly seem the type to put much stock in gossip, Phelps.”

“I’m not, my lord, unless that is, it involves one of my patients.” The older man’s chin rose a notch, as if defying Brave to deny the nature of their relationship.

Lord but he could use that brandy. “What’s gotten you so riled up, Phelps?”

Again the doctor flushed. “They say, my lord, that you plan to marry.”

Oh do they? Brave shrugged. “I suppose I’ll have to someday.”

Phelps seemed pleased by this. “But not in the near future?”

Brave shook his head. “No, not in the near future. Marriage is not a step I’m prepared to take right now.”

Rising to his feet, the doctor smiled. “I agree. Such decisions are best made at a leisurely pace—especially when one is…apprehensive.”

“I beg your pardon?” Brave’s head snapped up so fast pain shot up the side of his neck. “Apprehensive of what?” And where the devil was the man going? Normally, Phelps’s visits lasted longer than this.

Phelps started for the door. His smile was one of patient amusement.

“Of many things, I should think. Of failure for a start. Maybe that you’ve changed somehow, been permanently
damaged. Perhaps of being hurt by life again, of somehow disappointing those you care about.” He turned. “Shall I continue?”

“No,” Brave decided, also rising from his chair. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. “You’ve said enough, thank you.”

Phelps shrugged. “You ask me to talk, then tell me not to. By Jove, you sound like a normal aristocrat to me.”

Realization tickled the back of Brave’s mind. “You said you hadn’t come here to play with my head anymore.”

“What can I say?” Phelps asked as they both walked into the corridor. “I lied.”

Brave couldn’t help but chuckle. The doctor was smarter than he gave him credit for. And Brave honestly didn’t mind his visits. It was nice to have someone to talk to—even if that person was trying to climb inside his head.

“Does the widow Hershel appreciate your wiliness?” he asked as they stepped out into the foyer.

“She seems to. Now if I could just get her to marry me, I’d be all set.” He took his hat and gloves from Reynolds and nodded his thanks.

“I can’t believe she’s still saying no.”

“Nor can I.” Phelps plunked his hat on his head. “Can’t say that I like it either, but I’d rather have her than not, so I’ll go along with whatever she wants.”

“Spoken like a man in love,” Brave replied, walking the doctor to the door.

“Aye, that I am. And you needn’t make fun of me, young man. It’ll happen to you soon enough.”

It had happened. Once. Brave smiled indulgently as the older man drew on his gloves. “I doubt that, Phelps.” But even as he said the words, an image of Rachel drifted through his mind. Brave pushed it aside. She was the first woman he’d found attractive since Miranda’s death. It was no wonder he was a little infatuated with her. It was normal.

That in itself was frightening. How long had it been since
he’d behaved in a normal fashion? He didn’t even know what normal was anymore.

After bidding good day to the doctor, Brave retired to his study, where Reynolds had left the bottle of brandy he requested. Sitting on his desk in a crystal decanter, it looked as harmless as water. But Brave knew differently. He knew all too well how addictive it could be. That sweet euphoria had been the only thing that kept him from sinking deep into depression, and yes, madness. He never thought he’d prefer feeling guilt over that blissful peace.

Other than the champagne at Lady Westwood’s soiree, he hadn’t had a drop of liquor since he’d become so utterly dependent on it to relieve his guilt and despair after Miranda’s death. The champagne hadn’t sent him over the edge, but would brandy?

Phelps had told him that an addiction to spirits was a dangerous thing, but that Brave didn’t show any symptoms of having such an addiction. True, he’d spent a good many months drunk, but he hadn’t
needed
to drink; he’d chosen to.

Praying his decision was the right one, Brave opened the decanter. He poured a conservative amount into the snifter and put the bottle away in the nearby cabinet. Leaving it out might prove too much temptation.

Warming the glass in his hands out of habit, he strode over to his favorite chair—an old armchair his father used to sit in when Brave would crawl up on his knee as a child. He settled into the worn blue velvet, propped his feet up close to the fire, picked up the book he had been reading the night before, and took a drink.

The brandy hit his tongue in an explosion of flavor, and Brave swirled it around in his mouth before swallowing.

Nothing.

Other than appreciation for the taste of fine brandy, Brave felt nothing. Not the urge to drain the glass, not the urge to drain the bottle. He took another sip.

When Reynolds knocked sometime later, there was still brandy in the glass and Brave was thirty pages into his novel.

“I beg your pardon, m’lord, but there are two gentlemen here to see you.”

Brave set the book aside. “Gentlemen? I—”

“He doesn’t know any gentlemen!” boomed a familiar voice, and Gabriel Warren, Earl of Angelwood and school friend of Brave’s, sauntered into the room, a huge grin on his face and his black hair mussed by riding through the wind.

Behind him was Julian Rexley, Earl of Wolfram, and the man who should have been Brave’s brother-in-law. It didn’t hurt to see Julian now, but it was still hard. His chestnut hair and golden complexion were much like his sister’s, only Miranda had been frivolous and fun while Julian was quiet and serious. Brave knew his friend didn’t blame him for Miranda’s death, but that was hard to accept when Brave still blamed himself.

Still, he was pleased to see them and didn’t bother to hide it. He went to them, clapping them both on the back and being embraced in return. It wasn’t until they were all seated with a drink that Brave asked what they were doing there.

“We’re on our way to Jules’s property up north,” Gabriel replied, his gray eyes bright. “We couldn’t go on without imposing upon you for a few days.”

“We’re going to be doing some hunting,” Julian added in his softer tone. “You’re welcome to join us, Brave.”

Brave shook his head. “Thank you for the invitation, Jules, but I’m afraid business here will prevent me from taking you up on it.” That was a lie. There was nothing going on at Wyck’s End that couldn’t wait a few days, but Brave had no intention of ever visiting that particular property of Julian’s again, and his friend knew it. That was where Miranda had died. In fact, he was surprised that Julian still used it.

“I go every year,” his friend reminded him. “The whole
family would pack up and come up here ’til after Christmas. Do you remember that?”

Brave did indeed. When he and Julian had discovered they lived in such close proximity for part of the year, the young men wasted no time in spending much of their time home from school at one property or the other during the colder months. Gabriel, who hadn’t much of a happy home life, would often join them.

“I’m the only one to go now.” Julian’s voice was low. “Letitia would rather stay in London or the Lakes. She’s never felt for Yorkshire the way Miranda and I did.” He drifted into silence, staring into his glass.