London's Perfect Scoundrel (9 page)

“After you, my brave Evelyn,” he said, motioning her to precede him up the stairs.

She remembered Dare’s warning about not turning her back on him, but face-to-face was obviously just as dangerous. And if he was ever going to learn how to behave properly, someone was going to have to set an example.

With each step Evelyn took up the stairs, her shoes and her ankles appeared for just a moment beneath the hem of her gown. Saint hung back a little, fascinated by the glimpses of her legs.

He was utterly mad. That was the only explanation. For God’s sake, he’d seen more women’s bare legs in his lifetime than he could count. Dainty virginal ankles were new, but they were attached to parts of which he well knew the workings.

In near desperation he raised his gaze, but the sight of her swaying hips and bottom didn’t make his trousers feel any looser. It made no sense. Even lovers who knew exactly how to pleasure a man didn’t leave him feeling
this way. No one had aroused him like this in a very long time.

“We opened the windows!” one of the boys yelled from the top of the stairs. “They ain’t here for us, are they?”

Evelyn glanced over her shoulder at Saint, a frown furrowing her brows. “Who is here, and for whom?”

“You’ll see.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” she muttered, and he grinned. Anything that kept her thinking of him and distracted her from teaching could only help his own cause.

They topped the stairs, and he drew even with her as she reached the wide double doors of the old ballroom. Paint and wallpaper peeled from the walls, and two of the now-open windows were cracked, but the hardwood floor remained in fair shape. Evelyn wouldn’t be looking at any of that, though. Her attention would be on the seated figures at one end of the room, noisy children milling around them.

She faced him. “An orchestra?”

“I thought it might be a nice treat,” he said in his most innocent tone. At least he hoped it sounded innocent; he hadn’t attempted that adjective in a long while.

“Well, it’s a surprise,” she conceded. “But how am I supposed to talk to any of the children with an orchestra playing? You shouldn’t have—”

“Make ’em play, Lord St. Aubyn!”

Saint stifled his smile. The more frustrated Evelyn became, the better for him. “You heard the boy,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the gaggle of orphans. “Play us a waltz.”

“A waltz? You can’t—”

The music began with a loud flourish. The children
squealed and began leaping and twirling about the room. It looked like a scene from purgatory.
Perfect
.

“Music soothes the savage breast, does it not?” he asked, watching the frustration and disappointment play across Evelyn’s expressive face.

“These aren’t savages,” she snapped. “They’re children.”

“I was talking about myself, actually.” Saint gazed toward the gyrations going on across the room. “But are you certain about that?”

“Yes. Now make them stop playing, or I will.”

He shrugged. “As you wish. I think I should warn you that you may find yourself rather unpopular, however.”

To his surprise, tears welled in her light gray eyes. “Fine,” she said with a dainty sniffle. “You’re right; they deserve some fun. Heaven knows, clomping about is more interesting than arithmetic.”

Damn
. Women used tears on him all the time, and he considered it selfish and manipulative. Evelyn was fighting hers, though, and she turned away so he—and the orphans—wouldn’t see them.

“Perhaps we might teach them to count to three,” he suggested, taking her shoulder and turning her to face him again. “Dance with me.”

“What? No! You—”

“Come, Evelyn Marie. Show them what fun arithmetic can be.”

Before she could conjure another protest, he slid his hand about her slender waist, captured her hand, and swung her into the waltz. She would have pulled away, so he began counting the time aloud, sweeping them among the children.

She danced well, and when her concerns were for something besides the potential scandal of being seen in
his company, she relaxed, sinking into the waltz with a spirited enjoyment that he couldn’t help appreciating.

“One, two, three,” she chanted with him. “One, two, three. Come on, everyone! Join us!” Evelyn smiled up at him, and his heart gave an odd, unpleasant skip. “Dance with one of the girls,” she said, spinning out of his grasp. “We’ll teach them all.”

Before he could protest that he intended on dancing only with her, she caught up one of the younger boys. As Saint watched, the lad stepped on her toe. Evelyn only laughed.

This was wrong. The orchestra was there to disrupt whatever plans she’d made for the day, and to give him another opportunity to have her in his arms. And now, because her tears had bothered him, he’d apparently inspired her to teach the waltz to half a hundred orphans who’d never even seen a sheet of music, much less danced to the tune.

She whirled by him again, a boy on each arm now. “Come, now, my lord, don’t be shy,” she taunted, laughing. “Choose a partner!”

“I did,” he muttered under his breath. Outwitted by a proper chit. It was embarrassing. With a sigh, he collected one of the female infants and taught her the waltz.

“No, the point, Donald, is that proposing any sort of legislation is useless if we don’t have the votes to carry it.”

Victor Ruddick sat back in the crowded coach, keeping on his face the placid, interested look that he’d been practicing for weeks. He’d wanted an audience with Prince George since he’d returned from India, but accompanying the Regent along with five other hopeful representatives of the House of Commons while Prinny
went to an appointment at Hoby’s wasn’t what he’d envisioned. At least no one seemed to be throwing rotten vegetables at the vehicle today.

“But if we propose the legislation, Victor,” Donald Tremaine returned, sweat glistening from his domed forehead, “then at least we’ll be giving notice of our determination to see it succeed.”

He resisted wiping his own brow; the day was warm enough without being crammed into the closed vehicle with an overweight prince and his nervous entourage. “And our weakness in seeing it fail.”

“Such spirit,” the Regent applauded. “If only damned Pitt would succumb, we would be a sight to see.”

If only support from Prince George could assure a vote, we might succeed
, Victor amended silently. More likely it would sink his career to be seen in the old fool’s company, but if a prospect didn’t court the Prince, he had very little likelihood of serving in the House.

Screams and music flooded through the coach’s tiny open window. “Driver, stop!” Prinny demanded, banging on the ceiling with his cane. “What is that ruckus?”

“Don’t know, Your Majesty,” came the muffled reply.

At the Prince’s command, Tremaine opened the door, hanging out in an attempt to locate the source of the sound. “Do you think it’s a riot?” Prince George asked, worry crossing his round face.

“I doubt it, Your Majesty,” Victor soothed. “I haven’t heard of any unrest at all this Season.” Not in London, anyway, though he refrained from adding that part. Giving the prince an apoplexy would be akin to political suicide.

“It’s coming from there,” Tremaine said, pointing. “The…Heart of Hope Orphanage. All the upstairs windows are open, and it looks as though they’re having
a soiree of some kind. I can see children leaping about in the room.”

The Prince visibly relaxed. “Ah, no worries, then. That’ll be St. Aubyn, no doubt auctioning off some furniture before he tears the place down.”

Victor scowled. That damned marquis again. “If I might ask, Your Majesty, why would St. Aubyn be destroying an orphanage?”

“He’s the chairman of the board of trustees there. Offered me the land for free, if I’d agree to let him knock the place down. Don’t know what’s in it for him yet, but I’ll figure it out. Can’t outfox me, St. Aubyn.” The Prince chuckled again. “Let’s carry on, eh?”

Victor sat back as the coach lurched into motion again. The information wasn’t at all surprising, but he was happy to have it, nevertheless. Whatever little game Evie thought she was playing, trying to get back at him for something by encouraging St. Aubyn’s presence, once his soft-hearted sister found out her marquis was throwing orphans out of their home, she’d have nothing more to do with him. And that was fine with him. Better than fine. It was perfect.

D
espite the interruption of the impromptu ball, Evelyn decided that she had made definite progress. In some ways, St. Aubyn’s surprise soiree had even helped her cause: A dozen of the girls had afterward asked her to teach them the waltz.

She’d hesitated for a bare moment, since, as much as she might wish them to have the experience, the odds of these girls ever being invited to an actual soiree were abysmally remote. Almost immediately, though, and despite Saint offering her a cynical look from across the room, she’d realized that the dance lessons were secondary. The girls wanted her attention, which, thanks to her project, she could provide in abundance.

“That shall be one of our classes, then,” she announced, “beginning tomorrow and for anyone, boy or girl, who wishes to learn.”

“But what about today?” little Rose asked, looking crestfallen.

Evelyn had the feeling she’d lingered too long already. She genuinely liked her Aunt Houton, but not even the marchioness would wish Victor or Lord Houton’s wrath aimed at her, any more than Evie wanted to face it. “Tomorrow is only a few hours away.”

“Miss Ruddick has important things to attend to,” the marquis added in his low drawl.

“And we ain’t important,” one of the older boys—Matthew, she thought—said, echoing Saint’s cynicism and tone to near perfection.

She desperately needed to improve Saint’s demeanor, if he was to be the boys’ role model. “Of course you’re important,” she stated. “I made a prior promise to attend to something this afternoon. I keep my promises. Rose, you will be my first partner tomorrow, and Matthew, you shall be my second.”

From the jostling and whistles, she’d made an impact, anyway. Little Rose pranced up and hugged her around the legs. “Thank you, Miss Evie.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling. Today had been a good day. She glanced at Saint’s dark expression. Whatever he’d intended with his orchestral distraction, he hadn’t achieved it—which in all likelihood was for the best. “We should thank Lord St. Aubyn as well, for arranging all this.”

He accepted the thanks with a nod, which the children seemed to understand was their signal to clomp back downstairs to the dormitories or out to the old courtyard to play. Well, she’d managed to squeeze in a lesson for him, as well, that a lady appreciated a kind deed—whatever his motivations for performing it.

“That was very nice of you,” she said, picking up the books and papers she’d set aside.

“One of them stole your brooch, you know,” he said, drawing even with her at the doorway.

She reached up to feel her collar. “I didn’t notice! Are you certain?”

“The tall boy with the red scarf.”

“Don’t you even know his name?”

“Don’t you?”

“Randall Baker. Why didn’t you stop him?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “This is your game, not mine. I’ll get it back for you.”

“If he stole it, then he needs it more than I do.”

Saint lifted an eyebrow. “Aren’t you the martyr?”

“No, I’m not. I don’t need it.”

“You wanted your necklace back.”

“
You
didn’t need that. And this is not a game to me. Can’t you see that by now?” No one could be that jaded. Not even St. Aubyn.

“I’m sure you love having them look at you as their savior in green muslin, Evelyn,” he returned, “but you’re nothing new.”

“Beg pardon?”

He glanced over his shoulder at her as he started down the stairs. “Whenever you get tired of being worshiped, you’ll go, too.”

“I am not here to be worshiped.”

He ignored her retort. “My mother used to visit here, on the first Tuesday of every month.”

“She did? The marchioness was quite civil-minded, then. You should be proud that she made an effort to think of someone in need. What—”

Saint snorted. “She and her sewing circle provided table doilies for holiday dinners.”

“She still contributed something,” Evie offered to his
back as she followed him down the stairs. If he was implying that she behaved in the same way, she didn’t like it.

“Yes, she did. Rumor has it that two or three of the former inmates here belonged to her husband, which might have had something to do with her interest. I suppose that means my father contributed something of himself to this bloody place as well.”

Heat rose in Evie’s cheeks. Men weren’t supposed to have such conversations with ladies of good breeding. “Are any of them yours?” she asked anyway, surprised at her boldness.

Apparently he was, as well, because he turned around and looked up at her. “Not that I know of,” he answered after a moment. “I’m not likely to contribute to my own misery.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Today? Because I want you.”

Oh, dear
. “I mean, why are you on the board of trustees?”

“Ah. I told you. My mother’s will stipulated that two thousand pounds a year and a Halboro family member go to the Heart of Hope Orphanage.”

“But—”

“I was tired of seeing the other trustees buying carriages and keeping mistresses with the family proceeds.”

“Surely not.”

“We all get something out of it,” he went on with a cynical smile. “Father got sex, Mother got to tell her friends how charitable and tragic her life was, and the rest of the board gets to pocket whatever funds they can siphon off and be thanked annually by the lord mayor of London for it.”

“And what do you get?”

“I get to pay penance. I’m helping orphans, after all. Doesn’t that keep me out of hell? What are you getting out of this, Miss Ruddick?”

If she told him, he would only laugh in her face. “Don’t you get some sense of…satisfaction,” she asked slowly, “from seeing that these children are fed and clothed? They might very well be on the streets if not for you seeing that their funding is spent where it should be.”

“What I get satisfaction from,” he returned, “is seeing Timothy Rutledge and the other vultures trying week after week to put some moneymaking scheme or other by me, and my slapping them down.” He climbed the steps separating them. “Perhaps you should look more kindly on me after all, Evelyn. At least I don’t steal from the brats.”

“I don’t believe anything you’ve said,” she declared with all the conviction she had remaining. “You’re only trying to shock me, and to convince me to leave.”

“No. I’m only trying to convince you that if it’s satisfaction you want to feel, there are other, more pleasant ways to go about it. Whatever you do here won’t make any difference. It never does. If nothing else, there’ll always be another peer contributing to the unwashed populace.”

“That is not true!”

Saint reached out to touch her cheek in a careless, intimate gesture. “Why don’t you try to save me instead?” he murmured.

If he only knew
. “It seems to me,” she said, so angry and frustrated by his jaded interpretation of everything that her voice shook, “that the way to rescue you would be not to indulge your base urges. So please feel free to
think that I
am
trying to save you.” She brushed past him. “And now good day, my lord.”

His low, confident chuckle made her spine stiffen. “I kissed you, Evelyn Marie. And you kissed me. You’re not as proper as you think you are.”

She paused at the bottom of the stairs. “And despite your dislike of this place, you still feed these children, Michael. So perhaps you’re not as awful as you think you are.”

Saint watched her down the hallway. “You’re right,” he muttered. “I’m worse.”

Evelyn barely made it inside the front door of Ruddick House in time to hear the clock strike one. With a hurried breath, she traded Langley her morning bonnet for her afternoon bonnet and parasol, and faced the stairs.

“Good afternoon, Mama,” she greeted Genevieve Ruddick as her mother began her descent down the squared staircase. “Are you ready for our political tea?”

“You spend far too much time with Lucinda Barrett, you know,” Genevieve complained, licking her finger to spiral a last fashionable blond curl against her forehead.

“I know, Mama. I lost track of the time. I do apologize,” Evie said with a bright smile.

“Yes, well, be thankful Victor’s not home. I shudder to think how he might react if you missed another tea.”

“Don’t worry. I have no intention of missing another tea. Shall we go?”

Her mother stopped in the doorway to peer suspiciously at Evelyn’s face. “Your color is very high, Evie,” she said. “Are you certain you’re well?”

“I’m only a little out of breath from hurrying.”
And a little unsettled after her last conversation with Saint
.

“I hope that’s all it is. I couldn’t tolerate it if you made a scene by fainting or something.”

Evie took her mother’s arm to guide her to the waiting coach. “No fainting. I promise.”

“Good. Because we must make the best of impressions today, for your brother’s sake. Your Aunt Houton’s political teas have become quite famous, you know. Many a career has been made or destroyed over tea and biscuits. And you must not speak about your own theories on educating the poor. This is not the time, nor the place.”

“Yes, Mama.” That particular demand was actually a little easier to agree to today. She didn’t need to talk about it, because she was doing it. “No discussions about anything progressive, unless it directly benefits Victor.”

“Precisely.”

Even with her newfound confidence, the afternoon was nearly intolerable. Most of the ladies reminded Evelyn of Saint’s description of his mother—compassionate and caring, so long as it took no effort and meant no inconvenience on their part. That raised another question: If the attitude was so common, why did it seem to bother Saint so much, especially when he claimed that nothing bothered him?

“You’re quiet this afternoon.” Lydia Barnesby, Lady Houton, sat on the couch beside Evelyn, her skirt settling around her in a gentle, graceful wave. “You always are, at these things, but you’re not even stammering with indignation today.”

“Or stammering, period,” Evie returned with a slight smile. “It always makes me nervous, that my slightest
faux pas
could sink all of Victor’s political ambitions.”

“You shouldn’t think that, my dear. I doubt you could
single-handedly bring about Victor’s ruination. I wouldn’t allow it to happen at one of my teas, for one thing.”

“That’s reassuring,” Evelyn admitted. “Since the only use he has for me is being charming to his political gentlemen friends, I feel a bit…secondary here, anyway.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t think anyone here even notices me.”

Her aunt leaned closer. “That isn’t entirely true. I, for instance, wanted to mention that you have a smudge on your skirt. A handprint, it looks like. A small one.”

Evelyn blanched. “Oh! Well, Luce and I went walking this morning, and we came across three adorable children and their gov—”

“You visited that orphanage again,” Aunt Houton interrupted in a low voice. “I warned you how dangerous that could be. They have all sorts of diseases, and according to your brother, most of them are criminals.”

“It’s not…dangerous, for heaven’s sake.”
Well, not unless one took St. Aubyn into account
.

“If you were married, your husband might allow you to make some sort of monetary contribution to the institution. For a young single lady of your standing, and at a facility for complete commoners and outside of Mayfair—it’s just not done, Evie.”

Evelyn tried to look chagrined and ashamed, rather than annoyed. “I know.”

“Promise me that you won’t do it again.”

Drat
. “I promise.” But she crossed her fingers beneath her teacup, just in case someone was paying attention.

As Saint strolled into the main chamber of the House of Lords, the resulting murmur of comment sounded like a wave, growing louder as it approached and crashed
over him. True, it had been nearly a month since his last appearance, but they all knew he came by from time to time—if he didn’t, without fail someone tried to have him declared dead or unfit and confiscate his considerable properties for the Crown.

For a moment he considered taking his usual seat with Dare and Wycliffe, the least offensive of his peers. Both of them knew Evelyn, however, and Dare at least seemed to have been needled into helping the paragon of propriety. He paused. On the other hand, both of them
knew
Evelyn.

“What did I miss?” he asked in a low voice, sitting beside Dare.

“Today, or in the last month?”

“Be quiet, you young good-for-nothing,” old Earl Haskell hissed, turning to glare up at them.

“You have spittle on your chin, Haskell,” Saint drawled back at him. “Do you have any teeth left at all?”

The earl’s face turned beet-red. “You young bastard,” he growled, lurching to his feet. The peers on either side grabbed his shoulders and yanked him back down again.

“We’re discussing Prinny’s debts again,” Wycliffe rumbled.

Damn
. He probably should have stayed away, then. If Prinny or one of his advisors had been gossiping, things could get nasty. “The usual nonsense, eh?” he returned, borrowing a billet from Dare to doodle on the back of it.

“Seems so. If not for the occasional spray of spittle, I’d be asleep in my chair.” With a faint grin, the viscount sat forward. “I’m glad you’re here, actually. Saves me the trouble of hunting you down.”

“I thought you didn’t associate with me any longer.” Saint realized the face he was sketching had begun to look familiar, and he quickly added a mustache and beaver hat. Evelyn Ruddick gave him no peace even when she wasn’t present. “That whole marriage claptrap and all.”

The viscount’s smile only deepened. “Domestication has its good points.” He dropped his voice still further. “That’s why I was looking for you, actually. I’m to ask you to stop teasing after Evie Ruddick.”

It was far from the first time he’d been warned away from a female, but usually it was after things had become more complicated than amusing, anyway. This time, though, he was hungry for the chit and extremely frustrated by his lack of success. “Did this warning come from the same lady discovered last year with her dainty hand down your trousers?”