Reforming a Rake (23 page)

“I would have told her how much Mama and I like her, and how much fun she made everything.”

Lucien paused. “Stop, cousin. You’re practically moving me to tears.”

An actual tear ran down Rose’s cheek. “
You
should stop. I’m sure Lex left because you were so mean to her.”

That was interesting. His cousin truly seemed to have no idea what her mother was up to. Though he didn’t particularly want to debate who happened to be at fault for Alexandra’s departure and despite her apparent ignorance of certain underhanded events, Rose was very much involved in the mess. Having her on his side might be beneficial.

Realizing he’d been staring at her and that her expression had become even more dubious, Lucien shook himself. He’d told Alexandra he would make things right. Rose was part of that—and very possibly an innocent party in the entire disaster. “Might I have a word with you?” he asked.

She paled. “Y-yes. I suppose so.”

He gestured her into the morning room. When she entered, looking like a rabbit about to be roasted for supper, he followed her in and closed the door. “Take a seat, if you please.”

“Am I in trouble?” she asked timidly, sitting in the overstuffed chair beneath the window. “I thought everything went very well last night, and I do want to thank you again for allowing me to have my party.”

Lucien dropped into the seat opposite her. “You’re welcome. And no, you’re not in trouble. I am.”

Immediately she reached out to touch his knee, then pulled back as though she’d been scalded. “Oh, my. What’s wrong?”

Conversing with Alexandra was much easier—both because he could speak his mind and because he didn’t have to ferret out the simplest turns of phrase before he uttered a sentence. “First, I think we need to set some rules.”

“Rules?” Her brow furrowed.

“Yes. In this room, and with the door closed, you and I will be absolutely honest with one another. Do you agree?”

Rose hesitated, then nodded. “What else?”

“Whatever we say in this room goes no further than the two of us—unless we discuss it first.”

“Yes. I agree.”

So far, so good. In fact, he hadn’t expected her to be able to make a decision at all. Perhaps Alexandra was right, and that given the right support, Rose could function as more than a pretty peacock. He was about to find out.

“Rose, did you come to London with the idea of marrying a specific titled noble?”

She flushed. “A specific—”

“Did you come to London with the idea of marrying me?”

“Did Mama tell you?”

“She mentioned it. Whose idea was it?”

“Mama and Papa both said I should be married to you. Ever since I can remember, I was going to marry you. When you visited us last, Mama even said I couldn’t ride Daisy, my pony, because my dress might get soiled and you would think I wasn’t proper lady.”

“I seem to remember something about that,” he said dryly. “Do you want to marry me?”

She folded her hands neatly in her lap, a delicate gesture she’d obviously gotten from her governess. “You said we should be perfectly honest.”

“I did.”

“Well, I know you’ve been very nice to me the last few weeks, and that you might very well be falling in love with me, but I will tell you the truth, Lucien. Please don’t be angry, but I really don’t wish to be married to you.”

Thank God
. “Why not?”

“Um, well, you’re very…fierce.”

He smiled. “Am I?”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” she said hurriedly, sitting forward. “If you and Mama wish it to happen, I will marry you.” Rose slumped a little. “In fact, I really don’t see a way around it. Mama is very determined.”

“How do you feel about Robert Ellis, Lord Belton?”

“Oh, I like him very much. But he’s only a viscount. You’re an earl, and much more wealthy.”

“That’s true. What if I were to tell you, though, that I—”

Someone scratched at the door.

He hoped his prisoner hadn’t escaped again. “What is it?” he barked.

Thompkinson stuck his head in the door. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but…might I have a pen and ink and some paper for…for Wimbole, my lord?”

“Yes, of course. In my office.” At least she wasn’t asking for gunpowder—yet.

“Very good, my lord.”

When the door closed again, Lucien returned his attention to Rose. “What if I were to tell you that I’m in love with someone else?”

Her blue eyes widened. “You are? With who?”

“Whom. Alexandra Gallant.”

She stared at him, disbelief, horror, shock, and—to her credit—amusement, in turn, expressing themselves on her pretty face. “You’re in love with my governess?” she finally gasped.

“Yes, I am.”

Rose started giggling. “And I thought
I
was in trouble.”

He scowled. “That’s not why I’m in trouble.” In his mind he could clearly hear Alexandra reminding him that he’d promised to be honest with Rose. Good God, now Miss Gallant was his conscience. Lucien paused and considered that for a moment. Perhaps she was. Perhaps that was why he needed her so much. “It’s not entirely why I’m in trouble,” he amended.

“Then what is it?”

“I…want to marry her, but she won’t agree. She—”

“She turned you down?” Rose’s chortling lengthened into full-out laughter. “Oh, my goodness.”

This was not any damned fun. “She turned me down because she knew that you were supposed to marry me.”

Slowly she sobered, and spent a long moment studying him while he chafed under her scrutiny. “You need me,” she said finally.

Rose was definitely brighter than he’d given her credit for being. “Yes, I do.”

“You need me to say it’s all right for you to marry Lex.”

Keeping a tight hold on his impatience, Lucien nodded.

“Well, it’s not all right. Not if it leaves me with no one to marry.”

“I see.”

“You’re not angry, are you?”

“Yes. But not at you.” Lucien gazed at his hands. He knew what the next step was, but if she refused, it left him with nowhere to go. Nowhere that Alexandra would approve of, anyway. And that was the most important element of the damned plan. Alexandra had to be satisfied with the results. “What if you had someone else to marry?”

“He would have to be a nobleman. You mean Robert, I suppose?”

With a slight smile, Lucien let her take control of the conversation. “You said you liked him.”

“I like him very much. He’s…gentle, and he laughs when I say something silly, instead of just scowling at me.”

“All right, Robert it is.”

“But, Lucien, he left my party early last night. Mama said he looked upset at something.”

He could guess why Fiona had been the one to notice Robert’s departure. Blast it, the witch was still meddling. He’d have to put a stop to that. “Leave that to me. But I want your word, Rose: If Robert wants to marry you,
you’ll agree to it. Even if Aunt Fiona would prefer that you marry me.”

“Will you give me a good dowry?”

“A very good dowry. An exceptionally generous one.”

“All right, then. I agree.”

Lucien released a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. “So do I. But remember, this is just between us for right now.”

“Of course. I’d be an idiot to tell Mama.”

“Thank you, Rose.”

She stood and smoothed her skirt. “Don’t thank me yet, cousin Lucien. First you have to get Robert to ask me to marry him.”

“Oh, I will.” Even if it killed all of them.

“O
h, and a clock. I would like to know what time it is,” Alexandra added.

His expression a little haggard, Thompkinson nodded and inched her prison door closed a bit farther. “Right away, Miss Gallant.”

She had no sympathy for him at all, even if Lucien had bullied him into being her guard. The earl had apparently vanished somewhere, but she could still torture his servants. “Thank you. My correspondence should be ready by the time you return.”

“Yes, Miss Gallant.”

He pulled the door closed and slid the bolt. Alexandra leaned back against the empty wine rack and smiled. Much as she hated to admit it, this was becoming amusing. Heaven knew she’d never had her every whim catered to before.

“What shall we ask for next, Shakes?”

The terrier lifted his head, then went back to sleep in his fortress beneath her dressing table. He seemed perfectly content to remain in the wine cellar, now that
Thompkinson had supplied him with a nice, juicy mutton bone so big he could barely drag it about. Wherever the bone was, he would stay.

Alexandra signed her letter, folded it, and addressed the outside. As she finished, the door rattled and opened again. Thompkinson warily peered inside, no doubt fearing an ambush. When he spied her standing at the dressing table, he pushed the door open wider to allow Bingham to enter with the dining room mantel clock.

“Will this do, Miss Gallant?”

“Yes, thank you.” She crossed the room and handed him the letter. “Please see that this is sent out at once.”

The tic he’d apparently acquired over the last few hours made his cheek twitch. “Lord Kilcairn said nothing was to leave the house without him seeing it first.”

She folded her arms, not the least bit surprised. The letter was more for him than for Emma Grenville, anyway. “I see. Please inform him, then, that Shakespeare has left him something to inspect in the corner.” Alexandra pointed.

He bowed and dragged the awestruck Bingham out of the room. “I’ll do that, Miss Gallant.”

After the footmen left, she wandered the edges of the cellar, searching for another errand on which to send her guards. Eventually they were bound to leave the door unlocked by accident. Her bored gaze settled on her prison’s single window. It was at the top of one wall, very small and obscured on the outside by garden vines, so that little light made it through to illuminate the cellar.

With another glance at the door, Alexandra dragged her dressing table’s chair to stand beneath the dim opening. By climbing up on the delicate filigree seat and balancing on her tiptoes, she could just reach the bottom of the casing. The builders hadn’t made it to open, blast
it, but the wood frame gave a little when she jabbed it with her finger.

Climbing down again, she went looking for something with which to dig out the old wood. A table knife would have been perfect, but they’d already removed her luncheon tray. Lucien had been thorough in his search to collect and remove all possible weapons and escape implements.

With a grimace, she finished her circuit and sat in the chair. She could give in and let him do whatever he wished with her life, as he already did with everyone else around him. The years she’d worked to be independent and to be able to make her own way would be for nothing, though, if she allowed him to manage her life according to his own whims.

Alexandra stood and went to root in her trunk. Beneath the clothes and the shoes, she found what she was looking for—a decorative pin that had once been her mother’s. Flower petals rounded the top, but the bottom consisted of several nicely pointed stems. Lucien Balfour needed to learn one more lesson: surprising her and locking her in a cellar was one thing—keeping her there was another.

Lucien shed his coat and dropped it onto the bench beside Francis Henning. “Do you mind?” he asked, confiscating Henning’s rapier.

“No, of…of course not, Kilcairn. Have my mask, too.”

“No need.” Lucien flexed the blade, watching Robert Ellis’s bout with Monsieur Fancheau, the establishment’s owner and most-favored trainer.

“It’s the rules, Kilcairn,” Henning insisted. “Don’t want an eye gouged out, you know.”

“I am the goug
er
,” he said absently, waiting for Robert to notice him. “Not the goug
ee
.”

“Ah. Is that French?”

“I doubt it.”

Lord Belton won the match and, breathing hard, removed his face mask. As his gaze met Lucien’s, he stiffened. “Kilcairn.”

“Care for a match?” Lucien asked.

“No.”

“I’ll let you win.”

The viscount whipped his rapier up and down, the air humming with the speed of the motion. “No more of your damned games.”

Murmurs began around the edges of the room. The more gossip he started, the more things he’d have to set right later. Lucien determinedly kept the smile on his face. “No games. I just need a word with you.”

Robert dropped his mask to the floor. “I don’t want to talk to you right now. I thought I was being fairly clear about that.”

So much for being proper and polite. Lucien swung his rapier across Robert’s path, stopping him. “Talk to me, anyway. And if you argue about it, I’ll beat you senseless and then talk to you. Is that fairly clear?”

For a moment he wasn’t certain which course the viscount would take, but with another hard glare Robert tossed down his weapon. “Outside.”

Lucien recovered his coat and waited while Robert shed his padded chest guard and collected his own coat and waistcoat. He then followed the younger man out to the front steps. He wasn’t certain exactly what had transpired last night, but obviously it truly troubled his friend. Though Robert’s anger didn’t affect him nearly as strongly as Alexandra’s, it bothered him, anyway. He
scowled as he started down the steps. Apparently once one began developing a conscience, the damned thing could arise at any time, no matter how inconvenient.

“All right, I’m listening. What’s so bloody important, Kilcairn?”

“Rose was concerned that you left her soiree early last night, and that you appeared to be upset. Did she trounce on your toes during the waltz?”

Robert’s face paled. “I warned you. No games. I am not in the mood.”

“Don’t threaten me, Robert. I already have enough rope coiled over my head to hang a regiment.” He grimaced when the viscount’s dour expression didn’t change. “Look. I am not used to honey-coated sentimentality, so I’ll ask you directly. What happened?”

“Ha! As if you didn’t know!”

“If I did know, obviously I wouldn’t be asking.” Lucien paused, studying Robert’s set features, and the circles beneath his eyes. He hadn’t been the only one awake all night, apparently. Perhaps it was even for a similar reason. “You truly care for Rose, don’t you?”

“That doesn’t signify. And I won’t provide you with any amusement by expressing my feelings in your presence. You did fool me; I’ll admit that. But I won’t sit at your knee waiting to be humiliated like your other toadeating friends.”

Now things were beginning to make sense. “You spoke with my aunt last night, didn’t you?”

“I will not betray a confidence.”

Lucien lifted an eyebrow. “She lied, you know.”

Robert stopped his retort and stared at him. “What? Who lied?”

“My aunt. She’s turning into a little Iago, spreading venomous tales in every direction.”

“Tales—like what?”

“That, I don’t know. You’ll have to volunteer some information first.”

The viscount hesitated. “How do you know she lied, if you don’t know what she said?”

“The odds are in my favor,” Lucien said dryly.

“I feel as though you’re setting me up for a good laugh.”

“I’m not.”

Robert sighed. “All right. She told me you were marrying Rose—that you had meant to all along and were only pretending otherwise in an attempt to make a fool of me.”

“Hm. I would already have succeeded in making a fool of you, if any of that were true.” He glanced away from his companion’s suddenly hopeful expression. He wished Alexandra were so easy to please, but she had a much more suspicious nature than the viscount.

“You’re not going to marry Rose,” Robert said slowly.

Lucien frowned. “For God’s sake, no! Why would I want to do that?”

“Because she’s a delight.”

“Well, I grant you that she’s not as horrid as I originally thought,” he conceded reluctantly, surprised that seeing Robert out of the doldrums actually made him feel…good. Sweet Lucifer—next he’d be drinking tea and gumming biscuits with the old wags at Almack’s.

“So you’ve…you have no objection to my asking for her hand.”

“You may have the rest of her, as well.” Lucien couldn’t help grinning at Robert’s obvious elation. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t make me skewer you earlier?”

“I was tempted to try my luck.” The viscount shook Lucien’s hand vigorously, then sobered. “Why the elaborate deception, then?”

If Robert thought Fiona’s deceptions were elaborate, he hadn’t seen anything yet. “Join me at White’s for luncheon. It’s a long story, and will ultimately involve me owing you another favor.”

“By all means, tell me, then.”

This time Lucien hesitated. “It also requires your discretion.”

The viscount put out his arm, stopping both of them. “Wait a moment. The Earl of Kilcairn Abbey is asking for my
discretion
?”

“And your patience.”

Robert smiled, disgustingly happy at having his own problems vanish. “You have them both. But by God, they’re going to cost you one hell of a favor.”

With a last heave, Alexandra pushed the window out of the casing. It stuck for a moment in the tangle of vines outside, then thudded the few inches down to the flower bed.

She took a few seconds to admire her talent for larceny, then chipped away at the splinters remaining across the bottom of the opening. Her hands and arms were tired, but she’d already had to stop twice when Thompkinson entered her dungeon to check on her. He could reappear at any moment, and he was bound to notice that the window was missing.

When the wood was as smooth as she could make it with her flower pin, she climbed down from the chair and returned to her trunk. Unfortunately she’d never be able to get the blasted thing out the small opening. How
ever, her main goal was to reach Vixen’s home and then assess her situation from there.

Dropping the pin back inside, she pulled out her oldest shift and hurried over to drape it across the open casement. Shakespeare sat up on the bed and wagged at her, and for a moment she debated whether to take him along. She couldn’t very well let him loose in the garden while she pulled herself through the window, because he was a notorious explorer and would instantly get lost. And she certainly couldn’t pull him up after her without strangling him.

“Shakespeare, stay,” she said as loudly as she dared.

Although the terrier continued to watch her curiously, he settled back down on her pillow. Lucien liked him, as did Wimbole, and one of them would look after him until she could rescue him.

With a last glance toward the door, she climbed up on the chair again. Grabbing on to the shift-covered casement with her fingers, she carefully stood on the chair’s arms and pulled herself higher.

Thanking her father’s side of the family for her height, Alexandra readjusted her grip and craned her head through the opening. She had to tilt her head sideways to accommodate her badly fraying bun, but at the moment her hair was the least of her worries.

She shifted her feet and stepped up onto the rounded back of the chair. It wobbled and skidded a little, then steadied again. Taking a deep breath and holding it, she pushed off with her feet and pulled upward with all her strength.

The chair went out from under her. With a gasp, she kicked upward and heaved herself into the opening. Her left elbow stuck in the corner of the casement. Flailing her legs sideways, she gave herself enough room to
reach out into the garden. Now, though, she’d lost all forward momentum and hung there, half in and half out of the window, and completely out of breath.

“Damnation,” she rasped, stretching for one of the firmly rooted vines. She wriggled and kicked, trying to scoot forward, but nothing happened. The shift beneath her slid just enough to prevent her from gaining any purchase on the windowsill.

Then a pair of black-clothed legs entered her line of vision. She froze, hoping the vines would keep her hidden. Blast it, she should have waited until evening, but the idea of running through any part of London alone in the dark made her nervous.

The legs stopped. “Ah, Miss Gallant?”

“Wimbole?” she gasped, the windowsill across her stomach beginning to cut off her air.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Wimbole, thank goodness. Pull me out of here, will you? Hurry, before someone sees.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to get back inside the cellar, Miss Gallant.”

She craned her head to look up at him, but couldn’t view anything higher than his torso. “You mean you know about this, too?”

He squatted down. “I’m afraid so.”

“A butler of your impeccable reputation? Surely you couldn’t be party to keeping a woman captive against her will.”

“Ordinarily, no. Of course not.”

“But—”

“Please get back inside, Miss Gallant.”

Even if she hadn’t been stuck, she had no intention of retreating. “I will not! Now, assist me at once.”

He shook his head. “If I let you escape, Lord Kilcairn will be quite unhappy.”

“What about me? I’m the one hanging in the window!”

“Hush if you please, Miss Gallant. Mrs. Delacroix might hear you, and then we would all be in a frightful tangle.”

That settled it. Absolutely everyone in the household had lost his mind. “You’re in a frightful tangle now, Wimbole.”

He frowned. “Perhaps I should explain myself.”

“Oh, please do. I have nothing better to do.” Her legs were beginning to grow numb, and she wriggled them again.

“I have been in Lord Kilcairn’s employ for nine years. In that time I have witnessed various scandalous incidents, and I have kept my silence about them. During the same period, I have also watched the earl grow steadily more cynical and set in his ways.” He leaned closer, glancing over his shoulder, and lowered his voice still further. “Whether you realize it or not, Miss Gallant, your presence here has had a profound influence on him—an influence that has been quite beneficial to his staff.”