The Scoundrel's Lover (5 page)

To Marcus’s surprise, Rafe turned his head, his cheeks darkening not with anger, but with shame and pain.

“You don’t understand,” he said softly.

Annabelle glared at him. “No,
you
don’t understand because you didn’t go there. I did, Raphael. I saw him there, and he is not well.”

Rafe scrubbed a hand through his hair. There was no denying the struggle he seemed to be having when it came to Crispin. And although Marcus generally stayed far, far away from these kinds of domestic issues, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the duke. He had seen the brothers together, many times. He knew how much they cared for each other.

“Annabelle, I have spoken to him numerous times over the past six months. He has refused my help and my counsel over and over again,” Rafe explained. “Until he is ready to take it, chasing him all over London and extracting him from his consequences will not urge him to change.”

Annabelle’s face twisted with pain so powerful that Marcus felt it in his gut. Her brown eyes sparkled with tears, but she all but vibrated with anger.

“You cannot abandon him. Mr. Rivers might be kind enough to offer him sanctuary, but others will take advantage of him. He could be killed, Rafe.”

Rafe shot Marcus a look, but then refocused on his sister. “You think I don’t know that? You think it doesn’t turn my stomach and keep me up at night during what should be the happiest year of my life?”

His raised voice and pained expression stopped Annabelle. She stared at him, their faces mirroring images of worry and fear.

“Please don’t abandon him,” she whispered.

“I’m not abandoning him,” Rafe said, his voice rising again. “Goddamn it, Annabelle!”

She fisted a hand at her side and opened her mouth to speak again, but Rafe lifted a finger to silence her. “We are not having this conversation in the middle of the night. Go to your chamber and we’ll discuss it in the morning when you are less overwrought.”

“I’m not overwrought,” she protested.

“Annabelle,” he said, his tone low now, but perhaps more laced with emotion.

Her lips thinned, pressing together until they were nearly white with the pressure. She spun around, putting her back to her brother, and marched over to Marcus.

He straightened up as she reached him, uncertain as to what she would do after this emotional night. But she merely looked up at him, her face beautiful even though she was pale.

“Thank you again, Mr. Rivers, for your kindness tonight. I shall not soon forget it. Good night.”

She didn’t look at Rafe as she exited the room, slamming the door behind herself as a final statement on her brother’s refusal to hear her. Rafe shook his head.

“God save me from intelligent women. I am swimming in them and they are as frustrating as they are fascinating.”

Marcus smothered a smile, because he knew the duke was angry at him and wouldn’t appreciate it, and waited for Rafe to turn his attention to him. His friend did so almost immediately.

“Would
you
care to explain this?”

Marcus shrugged. “What your sister said is essentially the truth. She overheard your refusal to come fetch Crispin and hurtled herself into my carriage with Abbot. After some threats, I haven’t gotten the whole story from him—”

Rafe sighed. “I’m certain she threatened him, though.”

“As am I,” Marcus laughed. “Your sister is a singular lady.”

Rafe’s eyebrows lifted. “Yes, she is that.”

Marcus erased the smile from his face. The way Rafe was looking at him, he could see the duke didn’t approve of Marcus and his sister being alone. And why would he?

“Well, I thank you for sending Abbot to me about Crispin,” Rafe said as he sank into the settee. “I hope you do not judge me as harshly as Annabelle does about my response.”

Slowly, Marcus joined Rafe in taking a seat. It was an odd thing, to be having this little chat in the middle of the night. Oh, he’d been to Rafe’s townhouse before, of course, but not since his friend had become duke. He hadn’t expected to be invited after that.

Not that he had been.

“I understand, as perhaps Annabelle does not, that life is infinitely complicated,” Marcus said. “Crispin has no interest in being saved at the moment.”

“Do you think he will at some point?” Rafe asked, his tone hollow and empty.

Marcus thought of Crispin, spoiling for a fight, drunk to oblivion. “I hope so.”

“As do I.” He shook his head. “But I fear if Annabelle inserts herself into the situation as she did tonight that she will only be dragged down by Crispin’s riptide.”

“She mentioned she is utilizing your new connections to find a suitable husband,” Marcus said, he hoped mildly. “I admit, I have a hard time picturing her being interested in some titled fop.”

“Careful, I’m one of those now,” Rafe said, but his bright grin told Marcus he had not offended.

“No, you are not,” he laughed.

Rafe shook his head. “My sister is…she may not fully realize what she wants. Or perhaps she simply hopes to deny it. Either way, I would not put her off from her plans. She will either find a man who strikes her fancy or she’ll realize a good many of those with titles aren’t fit to shine her riding boot.”

“You don’t want her to marry a man of rank?” Marcus asked, surprised.

Rafe shrugged. “I want her to be happy.”

Marcus pushed to his feet. This topic suddenly felt far too personal. He didn’t want to know about Annabelle’s plans or Rafe’s concerns about them. It brought him too close and he didn’t want to be close. Especially since he would likely never see Annabelle Flynn again, unless it was in one of those desperate passing moments.

He really had to stop going to her mother’s gate. It was pathetic.

“Once again, I apologize for my man allowing Annabelle access to the club. I will speak to him about it.”

Rafe shook his head as he joined Marcus on his feet. “Don’t be too harsh on Abbot, he’s a good man. And Annabelle can be an unstoppable force.”

Marcus just barely kept himself from the laughing agreement that inappropriately leapt to his lips. He didn’t know Annabelle. At least, he shouldn’t know. He couldn’t know.

“And thank you, for your kindness to her and to my brother,” Rafe continued, “Crispin is safe?”

“For the night,” Marcus said with a nod. “Would you like me to keep you apprised as to when your brother is at the masquerade?”

Rafe hesitated, and then he sighed. “Yes. I do not know if I will come and I certainly don’t expect you to watch over him or keep him from harm, but I want to know if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Marcus shrugged. “We both know I owe you and your brother quite a bit. It is no trouble to me to keep Crispin out of harm’s way when I can. Or to let you know of his movements in the walls of my club.”

Marcus set his drink down and held out a hand. Rafe shook it without hesitation and followed Marcus as he left the study and reentered the foyer.

“Good night, Your Grace,” Marcus said with a slight bow.

Rafe shook his head. “God, man—Rafe or Flynn as usual. ‘His Grace’ is for the fops and in public. Good night and thank you, once more.”

Rafe clapped him on the shoulder, and Marcus smiled before he walked down the steps to the still-waiting carriage. But as the driver maneuvered them back toward the club, he couldn’t help thinking of Annabelle and the shocking desires the lady stoked in him.

Ones he could never, ever let her or anyone else see.

It turned out that the balls of the Upper Ten Thousand were just as boring as the fetes put on by those without title. Annabelle stood in the corner of the huge ballroom, watered down drink in hand, watching as couples spun by in each other’s arms.

In each other’s arms, but decidedly unconnected. She had never seen so many stiff, formal, dreary faces. Some of the couples did not even look at each other and seemed gloriously happy when the music ended.

She couldn’t help but think of Marcus’s Donville Masquerade. There the opposite was true. Couples in that wicked hall couldn’t even wait for privacy to touch each other and did such passionate things together without a care for propriety or who watched.

“Annabelle?”

She jolted as Georgina Hickson joined her, completely oblivious to Annabelle’s wicked thoughts. Georgina was the daughter of a younger son, so she had no title, but she had been raised to catch a titled gentleman. Although Georgina was younger than Annabelle, they had become friends of a sort and the other woman was trying to help Annabelle figure out how to land her own marquis or earl.

“That very odd look on your face will not attract the bees to honey, my dear,” Georgina said with the falsely bright expression that seemed to always grace her cheeks. “Smile now and try to look enamored with it all.”

Not for the first time, Annabelle wished desperately that Serafina could have come out for the ball. Although she too had been raised as a lady in every sense, there was nothing false or put on about her. They certainly would have had more fun.

But Annabelle
did
appreciate Georgina’s attention and help, so she did as her friend demanded and plastered a fake smile on her face.

“You have had some success tonight,” Annabelle said, through her grinning teeth. “Didn’t Lord Poppington dance with you?”

Georgina nodded. “The earl was very attentive, yes.”

“But, er, isn’t he a bit
old
for you?” Annabelle asked as she caught a glimpse of the ancient man in the crowd.

Georgina blinked. “Whatever does that matter? He’s an
earl
, Annabelle!”

Annabelle shivered. That attitude was so mercenary and yet it was exactly how she was meant to feel if she wanted this exercise to be a success. A title at any cost.

“And what of you?” her friend asked.

“I’ve received a plethora of side glances,” Annabelle sighed, putting her misgivings aside. “But not many brave enough to approach a Notorious Flynn to dance. So my dance card is still only occupied by my brother’s name.”

She looked across the room and found him there, talking with one of his new, titled friends, Lord Aldridge. Rafe was very handsome in his evening clothes and looked every inch the duke. And yet those around him still occasionally scrunched their noses up and whispered behind their fans.

And why wouldn’t they? After all, this was the man who had, not three years ago, won the old family home of Lord Sternbridge in a scandalous game of cards, and then gleefully had every single room inside painted purple before he returned it—not to Sternbridge, but to his wife. The man who had raced horses through Hyde Park with their brother and damn near killed the future king.

It seemed this would be more difficult than she had hoped.

Gossip had destroyed the future of far loftier girls than her. And she hadn’t even begun to consider Crispin. In fact, she’d been trying not to consider him at all since two days before and her journey out to the Donville Masquerade. All she knew was that Crispin had not communicated with her since that night. Rafe had taken Marcus’s opinion that her brother would likely not even remember she had been there with him.

“You are not smiling,” Georgina hissed.

Annabelle jolted. Her tangled thoughts betrayed her again. She shrugged. “I’m only considering my circumstances, I fear. And I am worried about my brother.”

Georgina’s glance circled the room until it settled on Rafe. “He seems fine.”

“No, my other brother, Crispin.”

Georgina’s lips thinned and she swung her look back on Annabelle. “Oh yes.
Him
. Annabelle, may I ask you a question?”

Annabelle slowly nodded, uncertain if she truly wanted to be asked her friend’s question.

“Do you want respectability?”

Annabelle drew back. “How can you ask me that? Of course I do! That is why I’m here in this stuffy hall, standing in the corner like a ninny, waiting for some titled gentleman to decide I’m worthy.”

When she said the words out loud, they made her flinch. Certainly they didn’t sound like the foundation to a long and happy relationship. But they didn’t seem to faze Georgina at all. She nodded, approval bright on her round face.

“I didn’t mean to offend, my dear,” she reassured Annabelle. “I only ask because of course everyone knows of your family’s reputation and you must know you are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to acceptance.”

Annabelle wrinkled her nose. “Thank you?”

Georgina laughed. “An uphill battle, but one you can win, I think. You are very pretty and very rich, both of which will certainly catch a man’s eye, especially if you act with nothing but decorum.”

Something deep inside Annabelle, that same something that had been titillated at the masquerade and intrigued by Marcus Rivers, began to scream. She somehow continued to smile and nod at her friend’s words.

“May I offer a small bit of advice, though?”

Annabelle drew in a long breath. “Of course. I am happy to hear any advice you may have for me on this subject. I truly appreciate your greater experience in this matter.”

Georgina initially blushed at the compliment, but immediately she was back to a very businesslike demeanor. “Annabelle, you must not think of your brother. Either brother, really. You must worry only about yourself.”

Annabelle shifted. Clearly Georgina didn’t have the kind of family connections she did. The idea that she could forget Crispin or Rafe was ludicrous. She adored them both, no matter how wild or humiliating their actions. No matter how damaging.

She might have said that, defended them, but suddenly Georgina’s attention shifted to something behind her.

“Oh my,” Georgina whispered, her eyes lighting up. “I see Lord Claybrook coming this way, and he is looking right at you.”

“Lord Claybrook?” Annabelle repeated, panic gripping her as she tried to remember to whom her friend referred.

“He’s an earl,” Georgina whispered swiftly. “His annual income is above ten thousand. Forty years of age, but he looks thirty.”

Annabelle nodded with a look of gratitude just as Lord Claybrook reached them, with their hostess Lady Warren in tow.

“Good evening,” Annabelle murmured, casting her eyes downward as she had been told was proper, at least by Georgina.

“Good evening,” Lady Warren responded. “Miss Hickson, Miss Flynn, I would like to introduce you to the Earl of Claybrook.”

Both Georgina and Annabelle curtseyed low at the same time, but while Georgina kept her eyes downcast, Annabelle couldn’t help but steal a glance at Claybrook.

He was handsome in his own way, tall and lean with a pronounced nose and angular features. His hands looked very soft and he was perfectly manicured and primped. Yet he didn’t seem to be a dandy.

Not that she had much room to be choosy, considering her lack of partners throughout the evening.

“Ladies,” he said, his voice deep and low.

“My lord,” they responded in kind.

Lady Warren’s eyebrows knitted together as she searched across the ballroom. “Excuse me, I must attend to an issue.”

Once she had gone, Claybrook smiled. It was a nice smile, after all, and Annabelle found herself returning it with ease.

“I hope you will forgive my forwardness, ladies,” he said. “I had been waiting for an opportunity to be introduced to you by the Duke of Hartholm, but I have never quite caught him to make the inquiry. I hope my use of Lady Warren is acceptable.”

Georgina elbowed Annabelle lightly when she didn’t answer for a moment, and she was forced to do so.

“Of course, my lord,” she said. “That is most agreeable. I’m very pleased you approached us, though I’m certain my brother would have been more than happy to make the introduction.”

She shot a side glance toward Georgina, who smiled with encouragement, right before she leaned in and said, “It was a very great pleasure to meet you, my lord. However, I see my mother motioning to me and I’m afraid I must go to her. I’m sure you will find Miss Flynn a very happy companion.”

Claybrook nodded. “I’m certain I will. Good evening, Miss Hickson.”

Georgina gave a very proper incline of her head, but the moment she was behind Claybrook’s back, out of his line of sight, she shot Annabelle a look filled with meaning that only served to ratchet Annabelle’s nervousness all the higher.

She took a deep breath. “How do you find the party, my lord?” she asked, although she certainly couldn’t say she cared greatly about the answer. But it was small talk—and the
ton
adored their small talk.

“It is very lovely,” he answered. “A bit crowded, though.”

She looked around. Every corner did seem packed with people. “It is that,” she agreed.

“Perhaps you would like to take a turn with me around the room?” he suggested.

Annabelle glanced down at her hands, clenched before her. She had rather hoped Claybrook would ask her to dance, but it seemed that was not to be. Still, a walk around the room couldn’t be sneezed at. At least they would be seen together.

“Certainly.”

He held out an elbow and she slipped her hand into the crook of it. She was surprised at the wiry strength of his arm and the certain way he led her out to walk the large room.

“I have not seen you in Society before, I don’t think.”

Annabelle pursed her lips. He was touching on a very delicate subject. One she had been training herself to deal with.

“My family is a bit unconventional,” she said, the words tasting as false as they likely sounded.

But Claybrook gifted her with a very kind smile. “Indeed, they are. And yet, is that the worst thing in the world?”

Annabelle swallowed hard. The earl seemed sincere in that comment that all but dismissed the Flynn reputation. Was this possibly a man who could overlook her name and actually see
her
? It was hard to tell at this early stage. But his answer gave her a slender reed of hope.

One that continued as they strolled around the room. She knew eyes were on her, but she managed to talk with Claybrook about everything from the weather to the current state of the newspapers. And though she had to fight not to talk too much or be too bright or show her true self, when they found themselves near the punch bowl a half an hour later, she had to admit it had been a very good conversation, at least in terms of husband-catching.

Claybrook gave her a nod. “Thank you again for this time, Miss Flynn. I certainly hope I shall see you again soon.”

She smiled at his compliment and nodded. “I would very much like that, Lord Claybrook.”

He bowed and said his good nights before he walked away, leaving her to watch him. And she did watch, unable to keep herself from judging his form as he walked away.

When her gaze settled on his slim, flat backside, she turned her face and her cheeks flamed. Great God, what was she doing? Looking at him like that? So intimately and improperly?

Except she had, and her stomach churned a little. Claybrook was very nice thus far, yes. And he was titled and completely respectable. But there was no spark there. When she examined him, even inappropriately, she couldn’t say that there was a desire that grew in her.

Unlike when she looked at Marcus Rivers.

Spinning around to face the refreshment table, Annabelle gritted her teeth. What was she doing thinking about
that man
? Hadn’t she spent two whole days purging all thoughts of the club owner from her mind? How dare he intrude upon this place?

This place, where she belonged.