Leslie Lafoy (6 page)

Whatever? Oh, that would be
—

“Within reason, of course,” Haywood intoned darkly.

“I wouldn’t dream of accepting your money for anything,” Tristan countered smoothly.

“But I can’t accept gifts,” Simone protested. “Especially from men I barely know. It would be viewed as unseemly. I’ve been lectured unconscious about that.”

“Then,” he posed, thinking fast, “we’ll consider it a repayment for having saved my sister’s life this evening.”

She rolled her eyes and waved her hand in a tiny dismissive gesture. “I saved my own life and simply took her along. It was hardly a great act of bravery or self-sacrifice on my part.”

Meet me halfway, Simone!
“Whatever your perspective on it, I very much appreciate that you didn’t let her run headlong into the crowd trying to get out onto the balcony.”

She sighed and shook her head. “We would have been toward the back of it, and given how quickly the fire was catching in the ballroom, I didn’t think much good would come of being anywhere in the melee.”

“Ah, but you thought when so many others didn’t.”

“Where were you,” Haywood asked dryly, “when the fire began, Lord Lockwood?”

Haywood, you’re a pest.
“On my way across the ballroom for a cup of punch,” he supplied, deliberately omitting the other pertinent details. “Where were you when the fire began, Mr. Haywood?”

“I was strolling in the gardens, alone, smoking a cheroot.”

“Oh, please, Haywood,” Simone countered with the most adorable and unladylike snort. She leaned forward, giving Tristan a lovely view of her décolletage as she went on, saying, “You were with Lady Denton, and if anything was smoking at all, it was Lady Denton’s pantaloons.”

Tristan laughed outright while Haywood cried, “Simone!”

“Don’t even try to pretend to be an innocent with me, Haywood. I know you.”

“Be that as it may, I—”

“He’s a notorious womanizer,” Simone announced, settling back in the seat and meeting his gaze. “It’s hardly a public secret.”

Tristan did his best to rein in his amusement. “So I gathered.”

“Is there a Lady Lockwood somewhere?”

Simone looked at his seatmate and shook her head. “That didn’t even flirt with subtle, Haywood.”

“It would appear to me,” he countered testily, “that we’ve passed the point where subtlety and finesse are necessary, much less expected.”

Tristan cleared his throat and answered, “At the present time, the only Lady Lockwood is my late father’s third wife. My stepmother, Lucinda.”

“She’s Emmaline’s mother?” Simone asked.

“Yes.” Deciding that things would go better if he supplied the details rather than let Simone hear them from others, he added, “She’s announced that she intends to follow Victoria’s example and spend the rest of her life in mourning.”

She nodded and looked a little sad. “She must have cared deeply for your father.”

“Actually, it was one of those marriages made in haste to be regretted at once and resented at long leisure. They lived separately from the very beginning. Her public display of grief at his passing is largely for the purpose of garnering public sympathy. I give her another month, at the outside, to grow bored with it.”

As Simone seemed to ponder the information, he turned his attention to Haywood and said, “If you are unattached, Mr. Haywood, consider yourself fairly warned of the impending hunt.”

Haywood’s smile was thin. “Your mother’s—”

“My mother,” he corrected firmly, “has been dead for nineteen years.”

Haywood had the grace to wince; a point in his favor. “My sincerest apologies. And while the thought is appreciated, no warning is necessary, Lord Lockwood. Your
step
mother’s reputation precedes her.”

As the entire family’s reputation preceded
him
. Tristan braced himself for the inevitable, knowing that Haywood was the sort to consider it his duty to inform Simone—and him, too—of just how terribly unsuitable he was.

Ever so predictably, Haywood cleared his throat and droned, “As—”

“Really? She’s that improper?” Simone said, cutting Haywood off and looking back and forth between them. “Then how is it that Emmaline is so … well, shy?”

“We can be honest about it,” Tristan said as the carriage began to slow. “My sister’s not only shy; she’s painfully awkward. Lucinda wanted a title and producing a child was her most certain means of attaining one. However, being a good mother, much less a doting one, was never one of her aspirations. Em has grown up in the care of nurses and tutors. Had Lucinda been willing to pay sufficient wages to attract higher-caliber, more refined individuals to employment, my sister would have had better instruction in the social graces. But Lucinda wasn’t and so Emmaline didn’t.”

“Oh, poor Emmy.”

“I appreciate your willingness to befriend her,” he offered sincerely. The carriage stopped and he reached for the door handle, adding, “I don’t think she’s ever had a true confidante. And certainly never one her own age.”

“I think she’s a very nice girl,” Simone said softly as he stepped out. “Would it be all right to call on her?”

It would be my fondest hope.
“She would be utterly delighted and I would be incredibly grateful for your kindness.” He gave her a short bow, said, “Good night, Lady Simone. It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” and then gave her unhappy escort a brief nod. “Mr. Haywood, thank you for the ride and I hope your shoulder improves quickly.”

“Lord Lockwood.”

“Good night, Tristan,” Simone called as he closed the door and waved to the driver.

His hands stuffed in his trouser pockets, he watched the vehicle roll away and weighed the possibilities. On the one hand was the certainty that Haywood wouldn’t waste a single moment in telling her all the salacious details of the Lockwood family history. On the other hand was the equal certainty that the man only knew about the public scandals. And unless Tristan had badly misjudged Simone’s temperament, she wouldn’t let any of it deter her for so much as a heartbeat.

Yes, he allowed, smiling as he made his way up the front walk of his town house, the odds were very good that she’d be with Emmaline, waiting for him, when he went to call in the morning.

*   *   *

“That’s a very dangerous man, you know, Simone.”

Well, of course she did. If Tristan weren’t dangerous she wouldn’t have given him a passing glance. But since it wouldn’t do to say that outright, she breezily replied instead, “Dangerous? Oh really, Haywood. Don’t you think you’re taking the Lord Protector role just a bit too seriously? For heaven sakes, the man is a peer.”

“He wasn’t expecting to be a marquis and he hasn’t lived a soft life breathing rarefied English air. He’s a man of considerable worldly experience.”

So she’d concluded—quite ably—on her own.

“I’d wager a dozen horses,” Haywood went on, “that he’s seen more than his fair share of dark haunts and illegal business.”

She’d concluded that as well. And been fascinated. “You worry too much. I can manage him just fine.”

He leaned forward to say slowly and succinctly, “No, Simone, you can’t. What you see on the surface isn’t at all what he’s like beneath. He’s a seducer of the first order.”

Says another seducer of the first order.

“And he’s chosen you for a conquest.”

It really was amazing that people considered her so naive; how, in the span of the last six years, everyone seemed to have forgotten where and how she’d lived the previous fourteen. “I’m terribly flattered that he might consider me worth the effort, but he’s going to be disappointed.”

“You need to stay away from him.”

Knowing that all of her assurances were falling on deaf ears, she stifled a sigh of frustration and chose another course. “I’ll do my best, Haywood. I promise.”

Haywood smiled thinly. “I would have preferred to say nothing on the matter, but since I know full good and well that you haven’t been the least dissuaded by my appeal to your common sense … Your Prince Charming is the last surviving male in the Lockwood family. They’ve been known for three generations as the Lunatic Lockwoods. Such a reference is hardly kind, I know, but it’s been quite appropriate.”

Lunatic? Oh, Haywood had stooped low. “Tristan seems perfectly sane to me. Did you notice any peculiarities in his behavior? Any twitching? Did I somehow miss his eyes pinwheeling?”

“His paternal grandfather,” Haywood went on sternly, “was a devoutly religious man who, during the full moon, displayed a penchant for frolicking in public parks and fountains without a stitch of clothing and in the company of … strange women.”

God save her from those seeking to spare her. “Whores,” she clarified.

“Well, yes.” He cleared his throat. “Three or four at a time, actually.”

“I’ll allow that it was odd, but calling it lunatic is going too far, Haywood. The only difference between Grandfather Lockwood and most peers is that the latter confine their naked group frolicking to the inside of a brothel or their town houses.”

“He died of … diseases.”

“Lots of men do,” she pointed out. “And since we’ve never had an opportunity to discuss the matter, let me take this one—since it is so perfect—to express my sincerest hope that you’re taking precautions in
your
frolicking to avoid that horrible fate.”

His eyes widened and he sputtered, “Ladies don’t—” He swallowed the rest of the decree, his lower lip caught between his teeth.

She refrained from pressing any further on the matter, smiled graciously, and snuggled deeper into Tristan’s jacket. How convenient that she’d forgotten to offer it back to him as he’d left the carriage. As excuses went, the need to return it would serve as the perfect one for going to see Emmy in the morning. And if he happened to come by the house to check on Emmy in the aftermath of this evening’s stresses … Well, she couldn’t very well get up and run away at the sight of him. That would be unconscionably rude. Not to mention silly and embarrassing.

“The old man’s son—Tristan’s father—was a raging drunk.”

Simone swallowed a groan and Haywood continued on, saying, “I don’t think I ever saw the man anywhere near the edge of sober. And he was not a jovial tippler, either. He was mean and crude and given to public brawls. In the later years, most often with
his
eldest son, who had followed in his alcohol-drenched footsteps.”

“A good many men drink to excess,” she countered wearily. “On a regular basis.”

“Yes, but very few drunkard peers of the realm are found dead with their eldest son, bullets through both their hearts.”

“Unless they were the victims of a robbery gone terribly wrong.”

“They were found in the study of their country house,” Haywood persisted, the definite notes of triumph edging his voice, “and it was concluded at the inquest to be a murder and suicide. The title went to the next son, James, an artistic sort who threw himself in the Thames shortly thereafter.”

“It’s all very tragic,” she allowed. “But to my mind, it doesn’t so much suggest madness as it does a family who has always had more money than good sense.”

“And the present Lord Lockwood is one of them.”

Her patience near the end, Simone managed a smile and tiny laugh. “Well, Emmaline certainly isn’t a lunatic and I’ve seen nothing in Tristan’s conduct to suggest that he is, either.”

“Still, I think—”

“That the mistakes and poor judgments of the parents,” she suggested coolly, “are always carried on by their children?”

He cleared his throat and pulled at his starched collar before protesting, “That’s not what I was saying at all.”

“Yes,” she insisted sadly, “that is exactly what you’re saying, Haywood. However indirectly and obliquely.”

“Simone,” he began, looking acutely distressed.

“Lovely night, isn’t it?” she said lightly, cutting him off as the carriage turned and began to roll up the drive. “The horrible fire aside, of course. Do you suppose I might be really lucky and they’ll cancel the Season for a mourning period?”

“I don’t know, but I sincerely hope not.”

“Why’s that? Have you been filling in dance cards in advance?”

Haywood sighed. “Lord Lockwood is not an acceptable suitor, Simone. You need to keep looking and settle on someone safer. The Season continuing on would serve that end.”

Tristan wasn’t a suitor; he was a seducer. They’d already established the distinction. Unwilling to discuss the matter any further, she smiled prettily and said, “I doubt that the doyens will consult either one of us on the matter, so there’s nothing we can do but accept their decree with as much grace as we can.”

Haywood opened his mouth to reply, but the carriage stopped and the footman opened the door to save her. Clutching Tristan’s coat around her shoulders, she vaulted out onto the portico pavers and then turned back to await Haywood.

“I hope your shoulder lets you sleep at least fairly well tonight,” she said as he joined her in walking up the stone stairs and through the open doorway. “And I’m glad that you weren’t any more seriously hurt than that.”

“It’s not altogether a bad thing,” he assured her with his usual smile. “Especially if I put it in a sling. The ladies will be obliged to offer their sympathies and express their concerns.”

Of course. And little wonder that he recognized Tristan Townsend’s underlying motives. Wolves did tend to know when another was about. She paused in the foyer and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Haywood. Sweet dreams.”

“Don’t you dream at all!” he called as she started up the stairs. “And certainly not about scurrilous men!”

“I won’t,” she promised, simply because she knew she was supposed to. That was the thing about her life, she mused while making her way down the hall toward her room. Every waking moment of it was wrapped up in the expectation to meet expectations, large and small. Do this, do that. And for godsakes
don’t
do that. The list of don’ts was endless and everyone seemed to think that the fate of the British Empire depended on her ability to memorize and live by it.

Not that there weren’t just as many rules for those who hadn’t been elevated to the status of the daughter of a dead duke, she allowed as she closed her bedroom door behind her. It was just that the rules for them were considerably more practical. If you ignored them, you could well end up dead by any number of grisly means. Which, all in all, made the restrictions not only understandable but also considerably less chafing.