Say You Love Me (23 page)

She looked merely thoughtful as she said, “I thought it was rather awful myself, but it’s one of Mrs. Westerbury’s selections that were made per your instructions.”

He flushed with color immediately. He
had
told the dressmaker that Kelsey was his mistress and to dress her accordingly. But the woman must imagine all mistresses were culled from the theater district, where many of the actresses deliberately dressed flamboyantly to call attention to themselves.

“The neckline is quite risqué as well,” she added, and when his eyes went immediately to her breasts, which she had already completely covered with her jacket, she shook her head. “No, I will
not
show you.”

“Quite risqué?” He grinned.

“Yes, quite.”

She sighed and scowled at him as his fingers came to her jacket to undo the buttons, but she didn’t try to stop him. And spreading the jacket wide a moment later, he changed his mind completely about the dress’s being the only thing noticeable. No one was going to
miss
those
despite the eye-catching material just barely covering them.

With some throat clearing, he closed the jacket again and buttoned her back up. She had a brow raised, waiting for his comment. He merely grinned sheepishly at her and led her out to the waiting coach.

But he added one stop to his list of errands, and when he came out of the dressmaker’s a while later, having left her in the coach, he told her, “Just arranged for a few changes on the rest of your order.”

She didn’t need to ask what. He hadn’t liked the color selection any more than she had, but he had very obviously liked the low bodice. She supposed she could live with that. Lace fichus could be added when she wasn’t with him, and she could easily sew those herself. She made a mental note to go out and buy some materials tomorrow.

They were halfway to his solicitor, where his signature was required on some document, when he suddenly pounded on the roof for the driver to stop. The coach had barely done so before he was jumping out of it. Kelsey stayed behind again, but was able to watch from the window, since Derek didn’t go far. He had hailed a middle-aged couple he apparently wished to speak to.

Frances stopped at Derek’s shout. Her companion stepped back, as if he didn’t want to be associated with her, but Derek barely noticed him anyway, he was so nondescript.

“I didn’t know you were in town,” Derek said, giving her a hug.

“I had some—ah, business to attend to, so I stayed in London after Amy’s wedding,” Frances said.

That surprised a frown from him. “Where? I haven’t seen you at the town house.”

“Perhaps because you’re rarely there?”

He grinned. “That’s true. But surely Hanly would have mentioned it to me.”

“Actually, Derek, I’m staying at a hotel this trip,” she admitted.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to be in residence if Jason showed up.”

He nodded in understanding. “M’father told us about the divorce this morning.”

Her eyes lit up with excitement. “Then he’s agreed to it?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, he never sees fit to tell me anything,” she replied with a sigh. “Though to be truthful, I haven’t been in contact with him since I told him I wanted it. I sent him word where I could be reached, but—well, I suppose he will get around to telling me.”

She was fond of Derek, but she’d never felt motherly toward him. It wasn’t in her nature to be motherly, she supposed. And had she known that was all Jason had wanted from her, she probably could have prevented their disastrous marriage before it began.

Actually, no, even she hadn’t known at that young age that she had no motherly instincts,
didn’t even particularly care for children being underfoot. But regardless, she hadn’t wanted the lad to be upset over the termination of her so-called marriage to his father.

“I hope you weren’t too distressed?” she asked uneasily.

“It was—surprising, to say the least, but understandable, considering the circumstances. Only Uncle Edward had any complaints, because of the expected scandal.”

“The scandal shouldn’t affect your family very much, since I’ve given Jason grounds to divorce me, the kind that will have his acquaintances in sympathy with him. I fully expect to take the brunt of it, but then I’ve never been socially active, so it won’t even affect me that much.”

She was talking about her having admitted to having a lover, he knew, and the very mention of it brought his attention straight to her companion. He was a scrawny beanpole of a man who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds or so. And he was no more than a few inches taller than Frances, which meant he barely reached Derek’s shoulder. But Derek knew instantly, just by the fellow’s wary expression, that he was the culprit.

Derek’s protective instincts rose, as did his anger. This fellow had caused his family grief, was going to be responsible for his father’s embarrassment during the divorce. Bloody hell, not without paying for it, he wasn’t.

Derek’s long-armed reach caught the man’s lapels and lifted him clear off the ground. He
squeaked, gripping Derek’s forearm, his eyes bulging with fright that did nothing to ease Derek’s fury.

“Did you know the Lady Frances was a married woman when you put your hands on her?” Derek demanded. “One blow and I could smash your face in, you little twit. Give me a single reason why I shouldn’t do just that.”

“Put him down, Derek, this instant!” Frances shouted, revealing some anger of her own. “Have you lost your reason? Would I have been unfaithful to your father if he had made me happy? Well, he never did! And furthermore, he has been unfaithful to me since the day we married, a marriage that was never even consummated, I might add.”

Derek’s head swung around to look at her incredulously. “Never?”

“Never,” she said stiffly. “Yet
he
certainly hasn’t slept alone since.”

“That is an absurd accusation, madam,” Derek said just as stiffly. “When m’father rarely leaves Haverston.”

“He doesn’t have to leave Haverston when his mistress lives under his very roof!”

Derek was so surprised he dropped the fellow he was still holding to the ground and demanded, “Who?”

Frances had already flushed with heated embarrassment. She shook her head. She looked quite wary now, and quite upset, as she helped her companion back to his feet.

“Who?” Derek was shouting now.

“I don’t know who,” she lied.

“You’re lying, madam.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter who,” she insisted. “The point is, I certainly wasn’t the first to be unfaithful. The amazing thing is that I wasn’t unfaithful from the very beginning, when Jason Malory certainly gave me every reason to be. But enough is enough. And you have no call to harm Oscar. He has only helped along what should have been done years ago, the ending of an intolerable relationship.”

Having said that, she huffed away, dragging her Oscar with her. Derek stared after them, trying to digest what had just been said.

After a moment, a hand slipped into his and he looked down, startled, to see Kelsey standing beside him. “Gad, I forgot you were waiting.

She smiled. “That’s quite all right. What was that all about?”

He nodded toward the departing couple. “My stepmum—and her lover.”

“Ah, so that’s why it looked like you were going to kill the little fellow.”

“I bloody well felt like it,” he mumbled as he led her back to the coach.

“Amazing,” she said, looking thoughtful.

“What is?”

“Well, if your father looks anything like you, I just can’t imagine your stepmother preferring anyone else, and
certainly
not that little chap.”

He smiled at that roundabout compliment and gave her a hug before he hefted her into
the coach, then pulled her next to him on the seat. “What
is
amazing is that she claims my father never once touched her in all these years, that he’s had a mistress instead who’s been living right under his roof.”

“Imagine that,” she said. “Actually, that’s rather—shocking.”

“Well, it’s a very big roof,” he said, as if that made it a little more palatable.

“I take it you didn’t know?” When he shook his head, she added, “And you still don’t know who it is? No guesses?”

“Not a clue.” He sighed.

“Well, with his marriage ending, it hardly matters now who she is, does it?”

“No—except it’s going to drive me crazy until I find out.”

“Should you?”

“What?”

“Find out?”

“Absolutely.”

“But the fact that you didn’t know, Derek, means your father has kept this woman a secret intentionally. That makes it a pretty safe guess that he’d like to keep it that way, don’t you think?”

“Probably,” he agreed.

“So you’ll leave it alone?”

He grinned. “Not a chance.”

32

For what should have been some simple errands
that required no social discourse, Derek was running into too many people he knew. First Frances. Then, at his tailor’s, his cousin Marshall showed up.

That wasn’t so bad, though, with Kelsey out in the coach and Marshall being left behind in the tailor’s shop—or so he’d thought. But Marshall was apparently full of gossip, and he hailed Derek once more just as he reached his coach to impart some additional tidbit. And there he spotted Kelsey, even though she was doing her best to squeeze into the corner so she wouldn’t be noticed—impossible, of course, with that bloody orange dress.

Marshall was Edward’s oldest boy, though still three years younger than Derek. And he wouldn’t be put off from meeting Kelsey. But that went well enough. Marshall didn’t ask who she was or what she was doing alone with him, and Derek didn’t volunteer the information. But then two of Marshall’s cronies came along, and Sir William, the more outspo
ken of the two, after ogling Kelsey for a good five minutes, brought up a subject that seemed to come up all too frequently.

“Related to Lord Langton, the earl whose wife shot him?” he asked baldly.

A simple “No” just didn’t suffice.

“Who is she, then?” William persisted.

“I’m a witch, Sir William,” Kelsey answered before Derek could. “Lord Malory has hired me to put a curse on someone. Is this the person, Derek?”

Derek blinked in surprise, but William paled and looked so comical in his horror that Derek couldn’t help but burst out laughing. And Kelsey merely looked on innocently.

“Oh, I say, that ain’t funny, Derek,” Marshall declared.

“Well, obviously, it ain’t William here that he wants to have cursed,” William’s companion pointed out logically, given Derek’s present amusement. But then, “So who is the unlucky chap?”

Derek’s cousin rolled his eyes, having caught on by then. But Derek went into yet another round of laughing over that question. And obviously, he wasn’t going to be answering it any time soon.

So Kelsey said quite calmly, “Surely you realize I was jesting, gentlemen? I’m not a witch—at least, not that I’m aware of.”

“Just bewitching,” Derek finally got out with a tender smile for Kelsey, and in response he got the expected blush that compliments always caused her.

But he managed to extricate them soon after and he left before the question of Kelsey’s identity came up again. He remarked on that on the way to their next stop.

“That was rather brilliantly done, damn me if it wasn’t,” he said, giving her a squeeze. “A jest instead of a lie. Glad you thought of it, m’dear.”

“And which lie would you have used this time, widow or cousin?”

He winced. “That
really
was not supposed to happen, Kelsey. Marshall was in the tailor’s, yes, hadn’t expected that, but I’d bid farewell to him three times. He kept recalling something else he wanted to tell me, and caught up with me each time, until as you saw, he stopped me once again just as I reached the coach.”

She smiled at him, allowing that it wasn’t his fault. This time. And she had been enjoying keeping him company, even if she was spending half the time alone in the coach.

So her rebuke was a mere “We will endeavor to keep it from happening again, won’t we?”

“Absolutely,” he assured her.

And yet at their last stop, at the crystal shop, where he hoped to find a birthday present for his cousin Clare, he asked Kelsey to come in with him to help him choose. And here they did run into yet another acquaintance. Only this time there was no need for introductions to be made. This time it was someone they
both
knew—and both wished they didn’t know.

It was the worst luck that David Ashford would be in that particular store at that exact time of day, and that they would run into him, literally. He had turned about to leave without noticing that anyone had come up the narrow aisle behind him and plowed right into Derek, who had to release Kelsey’s arm to shove the man back.

Ashford was startled by the collision, but then his blue eyes narrowed as he recognized who stood before him. “If it isn’t the do-gooder,” he sneered. “The rescuer of damsels in distress. Did it ever occur to you, Malory, that some damsels might enjoy distress?”

A bald remark like that made Derek’s hackles rise. “Did it ever occur to you, Lord Ashford, that you are sick?”

“There is nothing wrong with my health.”

“I was referring to your mind.”

“Ha!” Ashford scoffed. “So you’d like to think, but I am quite sane. And I also have a long memory. You will regret stealing this pretty from me.”

“Oh, I doubt that, indeed I do,” Derek replied with seeming indifference. Then he pointed out coldly, “But nothing was stolen from you. It was an auction. You could have continued to bid.”

“When everyone knows how rich the Malorys are? Don’t be absurd. But the day will come when you will regret crossing me.”

Derek shrugged with little concern. “If I have any regrets, Ashford, it’s knowing you’re
alive, when scum like you should have been tossed in the rubbish at birth.”

The man stiffened, his face suffusing with color. Derek wished he would have challenged the man, but he’d pegged him correctly: a coward who only felt powerful when dealing with the weak and helpless.