The Heart of a Scoundrel (20 page)

“Do focus.” She swatted his arm. “What do you see?”

Edmund took in the sharp beak and jagged claws. No one could ever possibly look at the foul creature and see anything redeeming in it. “I see a fierce, ugly, vicious beast.” And he didn’t see much more than that.

“Ah, yes. Of course, you do.” Phoebe captured his hands, interlocking their fingers. “Do you know the vulture will never attack the living? On the outside, you are correct, they appear quite fearsome.” She raised their entwined hands up. “But they’re not really. When you know them, when you learn all those pieces about them that you’d not ordinarily know.”

His throat worked with the force of his swallow and he trained his attention on their fingers. Ah God, she would make him into what he was not. He was not harmless and he’d spent the better part of his adult life striving to teach members of the
ton
just how fierce and ugly he was. He hastened his gaze back to hers. “If you knew the things I’ve done, you’d leave and never look back once.” And it would destroy him. A panicky pressure closed on his chest, making it difficult to breath, to think, to move.

Instead of being warned into leaving, she squeezed his hands. “I’m stronger than you’d believe, Edmund.”

Yes, she was stronger than anyone he’d ever known before. This delicate, bold, and whimsical miss had shattered his defenses and laid siege to him. In a desperate bid to reclaim order, he cleared his throat. “We might also add informed lady of bird facts to your rather impressive talents.”

“Yes.” A twinkle lit the blue depths of her eyes and she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And proficient reader.” She nodded to the information card posted upon the bottom edge of the vulture’s case. “I read it a short while ago.”

A sudden bark of sharp, unexpected laughter burst from his chest, unfamiliar and rusty from ill-use, and it blended with her carefree, unjaded laugh. Standing there, in the crystal rows of the Leverian, Edmund thought perhaps she might be right—perhaps he was more—or, at the very least, could be more—for her. And she
deserved
more.

She deserved a proper courtship.

I
t may have been mere moments, or perhaps even hours, that Edmund remained fixed to the marble floor, staring at the foyer door. He dusted his palms together and made another attempt to move both his legs and then promptly stopped. Though it was not his crippled limb that halted forward movement this time. With a curse, he rocked back on his heels. And continued to stare. At the door. A door that represented far more—or rather him stepping past that dark wood panel that signified far more.

Bloody hell he was not that
gentleman
. Nor was he any manner of gentleman, for that matter. He wasn’t a man who collected a lady during fashionable hours and escorted her for a ride in his open carriage, declaring boldly for the world that she was his—staking his claim of possession. He closed his eyes a moment. To do this thing, ordinary to any other nobleman, would reveal to polite Society the lady had a hold upon him. And there was no greater danger than that.

Yet, he took another step toward the door and then stopped—again.

The shuffle of footsteps echoed throughout the towering foyer. “Lord—”

“Not yet,” he bit out and then swiped a hand over his brow. “Not yet,” he repeated in a gruff tone.

“Very well, my lord.”

He drummed his fingertips alongside his leg. This madness, this spell Phoebe had cast about him, was far greater than any hold Margaret had once held over him and all the more terrifying for it. The moment he stepped through that door, he’d cease to exist as the fearless, undaunted, merciless Marquess of Rutland and instead become a man with fears, and those fears would have him at the mercy of others who’d prey upon this inherent weakness for Phoebe Barrett. “What is even the point of it?” he muttered.

“What is the point of what, my lord?”

He ignored Wallace’s kindly inquiry, instead focusing on that question that begged exploring. Edmund would present himself before fashionable Society, court the lady, with no plans of revenge binding him and Phoebe as one, but for what purpose? He couldn’t offer her his name.
Why can’t I?
The question whispered about his consciousness, tempting and seductive and, at the same time, terrifying. As soon as the thought developed legs of possibility, he severed it at the knees. He’d spent his life insulating himself from hurts. The one time he’d faltered had proven almost fatal. Literally and, very nearly, figuratively. As though to remind him of that important detail, his leg throbbed. Edmund massaged the tense muscles of his right thigh through his breeches.

His now dead parents’ union had served as lifelong testimony to the mockery of that revered state of marriage. Nor had he placed much consideration into the Rutland line after his father perished, as he frankly didn’t give a jot for the reprehensible Rutlands to come before him, nor did he care for the ones who came after.

An image flitted to his mind. A small girl with thick auburn curls and Phoebe’s smile, holding up a book—“Good God.” Edmund dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing. There was nothing else for it.

Wallace cleared his throat.

“I’m fine,” he bit out when he managed his breath. And as his whole world had been sent into a reel because of Miss Phoebe Barrett and there wasn’t a soul in the world he trusted or called friend, he looked tiredly over at the faithful servant, hoping he had an answer.

A protest sprung to Edmund’s lips as Wallace pulled the door open. Sunlight splashed through the entranceway and he held a hand to his eyes, shielding them from the glaring rays. “Sometimes it is easier when there is no barrier between you,” Wallace said quietly.

Presented with standing there a coward, humbled before Wallace and the liveried footman waiting beside his phaeton, Edmund gritted his teeth and walked with stiff, jerky movements outside, down the steps. Not taking his gaze from the perch of his conveyance, he climbed atop and then set the carriage into motion.

Through the years, he’d studiously avoided being seen at fashionable hours, doing anything that was…fashionable. He’d devoted himself to a life of debauchery; carefully fulfilling the legacy laid out by his faithless parents and maintaining the expectations the
ton
had for one of his ilk. Now, his skin pricked with the rabid curiosity trained on him by passing lords and ladies. The rumors would circulate and just as the gossips had been right in every vile piece printed about him, now they would be correct in the seeming innocuousness of a carriage ride with Miss Phoebe Barrett. It signified his courtship. Marked her as his in a respectable way and not the way he truly longed to mark her as his.

He concentrated on maneuvering his team through the streets, onward to the Viscount Waters’, for to focus on the panic swelling in his chest, threatening to choke him, would result in him guiding the blasted phaeton in the opposite direction, on to the less fashionable end of London to his familiar clubs—dens of sin where he was at ease, because that was where he truly belonged.

Only…

Edmund brought his conveyance to a stop at the pink stucco façade of the Viscount Waters’ townhouse—the townhouse, that could be his if he called in his markers. At one point, revenge and greed had driven all. Yet, where was the victory in laying claim to the fat, foul nobleman’s property? Because ultimately that would result in Waters wedding Phoebe off to whichever nobleman presented him with the fattest purse. He made to step down from the carriage, but the thought stirred inside, real and venomous. She’d wed. Another. A man who would lay her down in her silly skirts, yank them up her frame and take what had once been Edmund’s. With a growl, he thrust back the insidious thoughts, leapt down from the carriage and handed the reins off to one of the viscount’s servants who came forward. Edmund stomped up the steps and rapped once.

And waited.

And continued to wait.

Here for all fashionable passersby. He spun on his heel and passed his gaze out at the boldly gawking lords and ladies who had the good sense to yank their bloody stares elsewhere. Edmund turned swiftly back and rapped again. Bloody hell, he’d rather face his foe Stanhope in another blasted duel with his now crippled leg than be on this threshold for the
ton’s
viewing pleasure.

Where the—?

The door opened.

“At last,” he gritted out, before the old, wizened butler allowed him entry.

“My lord,” the servant greeted, executing a respectful but painfully stiff bow. Edmund eyed the man a moment, for all his previous visits never having truly paid the servant any attention until now. Why, with his heavily wrinkled cheeks and bald pate, this one was of an age to keep retirement with Wallace. He frowned. He’d not expect the Viscount Waters, the manner of master, to inspire loyalty and devotion in his servants, particularly after the tales he’d heard of the letch diddling the younger women on his staff. Then, what had he ever done to earn Wallace’s allegiance? He cast a glance about in search of Phoebe—

And found the sister. Rooted to the place the foyer met the corridor, she hovered uncertainly, a wide, overly trusting smile on her face. “Hullo,” she greeted. “You are here for my sister.”

As there was no question, he opted to bow and, instead, issue a cool greeting. “My lady, it is a pleasure seeing you again.” He glanced up the stairs in search of the woman it would be a true pleasure to see.

“She will be down momentarily.” Miss Justina Barrett dropped her voice to a whisper that carried so loudly off the foyer ceiling, her sister would have likely cringed. “She’s been awaiting you all morning.”

Despite his vow to never smile, a rusty grin formed on his lips, and an odd lightness filled his chest. “Has she?” Why should that matter so much to him? Perhaps because he’d gone the past thirty-two years with no one truly desiring his company.

“She has,” she repeated with a nod.

The butler eyed their exchange with a wariness better suited a properly attending mama than an aged servant before stepping into the shadows, carefully watching and silent.

Wise man.

The young lady skipped forward and skidded to a stop before Edmund. “You are the gentleman I was hoping you would be.”

Unwise lady. In her innocence she failed to realize her sister deserved far more than him, the monster Marquess of Rutland. “Were you?” he asked, glancing up for Phoebe, wanting this exchange over.

“Oh, yes.”

Alas, the lady appeared to be demonstrating the same degree of reluctance Edmund had prior to taking his leave. Good, perhaps by now the lady had developed a suitable unease and sensed his evil. Why did that possibility leave this aching hole inside?

“Better than Lord Atwood or Allswoodson—”

“Allswood,” he supplied, snapping his focus back to the young girl, now attending her quite clearly.

“Oh, yes. He—”

Would never hear the remainder of just what Allswood was or had done.

“Rutland, my friend.”

Edmund stiffened and turned to greet the grinning, scent-wearing, silken garment-clad dandy. He swallowed back a sigh. So, it was to be a reunion of sorts with every one of Waters’ family. Why, they only required the Barrett children’s lax mama and the drunken sire to complete the happy meeting. “Barrett,” he greeted, sketching a bow. He tugged out his watch fob and consulted the timepiece attached. Surely, the lady would arrive any moment?

“Here to escort my sister for a ride?” Barrett asked, rocking back on his heels. His sister shot an elbow out and nudged him in the side. “Oomph.”

“Be polite,” she said from the side of her mouth, while still managing a smile. All the while she maintained Edmund’s stare. Did the lady suspect he could not hear her? Another grin pulled at his lips before he remembered himself.

“I am being polite. Rutland and I are good friends. Isn’t that true?”

That yanked him back to the moment. Good friends? Edmund didn’t have any good friends. Hell, he didn’t have any friends. He had enemies aplenty. Friends? No. “Indeed,” he forced out tightly. He’d spent the better part of his life shielded and guarded. This family, who’d expose themselves and their thoughts so unabashedly, filled him with unease and a desire to flee their happy fold. What right did they have to be happy? He didn’t begrudge them for having found happiness, but rather genuinely wondered how they’d managed that feat with their own foul sire.

“Perhaps we might share a drink at our club later this evening?”

Their club? The only clubs Edmund visited were not the manner of polite ones that should even be hinted at before innocent young ladies and one’s young sister, no less. “Indeed,” he bit out once more. Anything to be done with this blasted exchange. He glanced up…

And his breath hitched in his chest. Phoebe stood at the top. A twinkle lit the blues of her eyes. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

The vise squeezed all the harder. He’d forgive her anything. Edmund followed her slow descent. Then one such as she would never be needing forgiveness. No, she was the light to his dark. The innocence to his evil. And he was nothing more than that serpent tempting naïve Eve with that apple, and she was as drawn to that succulent red object as those two weak-willed sinners in the garden had been.

“Hello, my lord,” she said as she came to a stop before him. She didn’t wait for his greeting, instead turned a motherly frown upon her younger siblings. She’d perfected a look most governesses would have given half their wages for. Barrett and Miss Justina Barrett shifted back and forth on their feet.

“We were just making arrangements to meet at our clubs later,” the pup boldly intoned with far more braveness than Edmund would have credited.

Phoebe’s frown deepened and he knew; knew because he knew the darkest parts of a person’s thoughts, even when they themselves believed themselves incapable of such darkness. Though she’d done a masterful job of convincing both him and more, herself, that she didn’t heed the gossips, he’d wager the use of both his legs that she now wondered about the clubs he visited, her mind lingering upon the disreputable hells.