TemptedByHisKiss (10 page)

“Thank you,” Meg replied. “That would be most welcome.”

“Cade,” his mother said, turning to him. “You will have your old room, of course.”

“Of course,” he said.

Old room? Does that mean he will be living here?
She had assumed he would have his own establishment in Town. A quiver went through her at the thought of Cade being only just down the corridor.
How far away will he be staying?

“If everything is settled for now,” the duke said, finally reentering the conversation, “I should like a word with Cade.”

As Meg watched, Cade glanced at his brother, the two locking gazes to exchange a silent message of some sort. What that message might be sent a frisson of worry through her. Then Cade’s brother turned and strode toward her.

“Miss Amberley…” he said, stopping before her. “…Meg, if I might. Allow me to extend my felicitations on your impending nuptials. Welcome to the family.”

For a moment she thought she detected a faintly mocking gleam in his deep blue gaze. But then he blinked and it was gone. “Thank you, Your Grace,” she said. “You are most kind.”

He smiled, his lips moving into a handsome upturn that once again reminded her of Cade. He said nothing more.

Mallory claimed her arm a moment later and steered her toward the door, launching into a description of the court dress for which she had just been fitted. The dowager gave them both an indulgent look, then led the way from the room.

Ten minutes later Cade sank into one of the comfortable brown leather wing chairs positioned before the fireplace in Edward’s study. With a grateful sigh, he stretched out his legs, enjoying the relaxed, masculine nature of the room. On the air drifted the scents of leather, ink, and foolscap, the sweet-sharp tang of alcohol joining the mix as his brother poured draughts of brandy into a pair of fine, mouth-blown Italian snifters.

Crossing, Edward handed him one of the glasses. Cade accepted with an appreciative nod and took a drink, noting the excellent taste and quality of the beverage. “French?” he inquired.

“Of course,” Edward said as he took his own seat.

Cade’s lips curved in a wry grin, deciding it best not to inquire where his brother had come by the contraband liquor. Edward might be a firm supporter of the war effort, but he was also a gentleman with a certain set of standards to maintain. War or not, he drew the line at drinking bad spirits.

“So,” Edward began in a casual tone. “Now that
you’re comfortably settled, perhaps you’d care to tell me just what it is you think you’re about?”

Cade’s fingers tightened on the stem of his glass.
Damnation. I should have known I couldn’t slip anything past Ned.
Still, he reminded himself, Edward didn’t have more than his suspicions—not yet anyway. He owed it to himself and Meg to try and brazen it out, even if the odds of success were slimmer than the chance of finding hair on a goose.

“What do you mean?” He yawned, raising a supposedly negligent hand to cover his mouth. “I’m afraid I do not follow.”

“Of course you ‘follow,’” Edward retorted, giving him a hard-eyed stare. “Don’t try to cozen me, brother. That faerie story you spun for us all upstairs may fool Mama and Mallory, but it won’t wash with me. Miss Amberley is a beautiful young woman, but I do not for an instant believe you have tumbled headlong in love with her. In lust, perhaps, but love…”

Cade set his snifter onto a side table. “And why could I not have fallen in love? Meg is a wonderful girl, sweet and charming and amusing. Smart, too. She plays a damned fine game of chess, I’ll tell you. She’s bested me more than once already, and looks like an angel while she’s doing it.”

His brother regarded him over his brandy glass. “Has she indeed? I can see you like her a great deal. But what of Calida?”

A muscle ticked in Cade’s jaw. Glancing away, he gazed at the blaze burning in the grate. “What of her? She is dead.”

“Yes. And although the rest of the family never realized that you loved her and planned to make her your
bride, I did. I also know how much you’ve mourned her loss. Now, you expect me to believe you are besotted with this new young woman after a mere three weeks acquaintance?”

Taking up his glass, Cade drained the liquor inside. “That’s right.”

“Why are you marrying her, Cade? And I want the truth this time.”

“I have given it to you.”

Edward bit out a blistering curse. “Like hell you have. Stop lying. You never used to keep things from me, not even as boys.”

Looking up, Cade met his gaze. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not boys any longer.”

“No, but we
are
still brothers, and that should count for something, perhaps everything. Did you compromise her? And I don’t mean by letting her take up temporary residence in your house because of inclement weather.”

Cade sighed in his head, suddenly weary of the game of trying to deceive his brother. Edward was right. They
had
always told each other everything, no matter how foolish or base it might make them appear. To protect Meg, he’d been willing to attempt the deception, but continuing now would risk angering Edward——perhaps even alienating him—and that he would not do.

“All right, yes,” he admitted, rubbing his knuckles over his temple. “I compromised her—well, at least I sort of compromised her.”

Edward scowled. “How do you ‘sort of compromise’ a woman?”

“By taking advantage of her when you’re half delirious from drink and laudanum, then not quite complet
ing the act. She’s still a virgin…so in my book that counts as ‘sort of.’”

The duke quirked a brow. “And so, to do the honorable thing, you have agreed to marry her.”

“Well…that falls under the ‘sort of’ category, too.” He shifted in his chair. “You see, we’re not actually engaged.”

“You’re not?”

He shook his head. “No. That is to say, we are engaged as far as Society is concerned, or will appear to be anyway. In reality, though, Meg and I have agreed that our arrangement is of a temporary nature. I’ve promised to give her a Season here in London, thus providing her with a chance to meet an array of eligible gentlemen. Once she finds a fellow she can love, she’ll toss me over and marry him.”

“Marry…Are the pair of you insane?”

“Not at all. It is a thoroughly sound plan.”

Edward huffed out a breath. “It is a thoroughly idiotic plan. What if she doesn’t find this fellow with whom she is supposed to fall in love? Worse, what if she changes her mind and decides to hold you to your pledge? You will have no choice but to marry her, secret agreement or no.”

“Ironic, Meg said those very things to me, when she was trying to talk me out of proceeding with the idea. But just as I told her, she will have no difficulty finding a man to wed. You’ve seen her. They’ll be prowling around her skirts like cats after a plump mouse, our engagement notwithstanding.”

“I suppose they will at that. Her apparent unavailability might even make her more attractive.”

“Exactly! As for the other, Meg is an honorable,
trustworthy young woman, despite this current ruse of ours. I know she would never deceive me.”

“You’re sure?”

“I would stake my life on it.”

“Nevertheless—”

Cade cut him off with a hand. “No. Look, Ned, I put her in this situation, and it’s my responsibility to help her out of it, especially after Ludgate found us together at the house.”

“Ludgate? Who is that?”

“A nosy pudding of a man, who I have the misfortune to call neighbor. Quite likely, he’s tattled to half the country about us by now. I couldn’t very well stand by and let Meg be ruined, so I told him we were engaged. By rights, I ought to be the one to marry her after what happened between us. But…well, that seems a deuced poor reason to wed, not when other arrangements can be made that suit us better. I figure with you and Mama here in Town to look after her, she’ll do fine. I shall stay for a few days and get her settled, then take myself off back north.”

His brother arched a brow. “Leave? But you can’t leave.”

“Why can I not?”

“First of all, because you and Miss Amberley are supposed to be wildly in love, remember? I don’t think even the veriest simpleton would believe your tale of devotion if you desert her after less than a week.”

“Desert her? Now, that’s rather harsh—”

“Society won’t think it is, especially if word gets ’round that the two of you were alone together in Northumberland. They will see your departure as a tacit repudiation of your promise to her, and she’ll be as good
as ruined. Matters will be dodgy enough at first, even with you at her side. Dance attendance on her and even the highest sticklers will unbend and call the pair of you romantic. Run off back to your estate and you might as well toss her to the wolves.”

Cade felt lines crease his forehead.

“No,” Edward declared in lowering tones. “If you intend to put this cockeyed plan in motion, you will have to stay for the duration of the Season. Or at least until she finds her future husband and jilts your sorry hide.”

Bloody hell!
Ned was right. For some idiotic reason, he’d been telling himself that once Meg was settled with his family in London, he would be free to return home and pursue his own plans and desires—alone. But his much coveted solitude would have to wait once again while he saw to her. He’d made Meg a promise and could not abandon her now.

“Very well, then, I shall stay and see to it that Meg finds a husband,” Cade declared. Picking up his glass, he held it out. “Now, I believe I could do with a refill.”

“Why does your brother keep looking at me that way?” Meg whispered to Cade that evening as they took seats on the sofa in the music room after dinner.

“What way? And which one, since there are three of them now present?”

“The duke,” she replied. “He has this…I don’t know…glint in his eye that gives me the distinct impression he knows about us.”

Cade paused a long moment. “Perhaps that’s because he does.”

“What!” she exclaimed, forgetting to keep her voice low.

All other conversation stopped, a cluster of dark heads and brilliantly colored eyes turning her way. Even young Esme, who had been permitted the special treat of coming down from the schoolroom to join the family for dinner, glanced up from where she sat in her youthful yellow gown, quietly sketching with a pencil and paper.

As for the duke, he stood with a negligent elbow propped against the large, ornately carved white marble fireplace mantel. He was sipping a brandy with a casual air—unaware, from all appearances, of the trouble he had just caused.

“Is something amiss, dear?” the dowager questioned, her teaspoon poised motionless over her cup.

Meg’s gaze moved around the room, her heart beating so rapidly it was a wonder all of them couldn’t hear it, too. “N-No…I…of course not, Your Grace.”

Cade leaned closer and took Meg’s hand in his own. “I am afraid the fault is mine, Mama,” he said. “I was murmuring things in Meg’s ears that are best said in private.”

“From her reaction,” his mother observed in a gentle tone, “I have the feeling they are things best not said at all—at least not until after the two of you are wed.”

Across the room the duke quirked a brow, but said nothing as he drank his brandy.

Smooth as a skipping stone, Cade gave an unrepentant smile and raised Meg’s hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss against its back before releasing her. Her skin burned where his lips had been, the sensation only adding to her difficulties as she fought to regain her composure. After his revelation about his brother’s knowledge of the situation between them, she desperately wanted
to question him further, but realized she would be forced to wait.

“Still can’t quite fathom it,” remarked Lord John, more familiarly known as Jack—the third son, and younger than Cade by nearly two years. “Our Cade engaged to be married. Somehow, I always figured Ned would be the first to tie the knot, leaving the rest of us a few more years of freedom.”

“Don’t let me stop you, Jack,” the duke commented. “You may take a bride any time you like, with no regard to my matrimonial state.”

“You know deuced well I have no interest in being caught inside the parson’s mousetrap.” Jack remarked. “Pray take no offense, Miss Amberley. I have nothing against marriage in the general sense, only in regard to myself. Obviously, Cade has managed to find himself a true gem of a girl. He is a lucky man.”

“Thank you, your lordship,” she replied. “And I take no offense, especially given the fact that you are merely expressing an opinion that seems to be almost universally held by the male sex. At least the officers of my acquaintance certainly did. I always noticed that they liked to dance attendance on the ladies well enough, but suggest marriage, and they turned white and wobbly as a blancmange.”

Jack laughed, showing straight teeth and dimples that she knew must set women’s hearts afluttering wherever he went. Like all the Byron men, he was devastatingly handsome, with dark hair, jewel-toned eyes, a strong jaw, and lips that must surely have been designed by the angels themselves.

Yet as unmistakably attractive as he might be, his looks and flirtatious manners didn’t have the power to
sway her. Odd as some might surely find the idea, she preferred Cade’s more reserved manners and taciturn demeanor. She even liked his caustic remarks—especially when she wasn’t on the receiving end of them.

As for his other brother, Drake, she’d been trying to take his measure all evening; the man was cheerful and attentive one moment, then silent and distant the next.

Casting a brief glance across to where he sat in a chair near the fireplace, she watched as he drew out a small writing pad, his tawny brows furrowed as he scribbled furiously upon it. He didn’t pause, the pencil moving over the page as if he were afraid he might forget a thought before he managed to transfer it into writing.

“He’s solving equations,” Cade murmured, having apparently noticed her curiosity. “Drake is a mathematician. Theoretical stuff that I’ll never be able to understand. He’s always consulting with some set of great minds or other.”