Their Wicked Ways (2 page)

“Just out of curiosity, the
lady’s name?”

“Lady Dunmore.”

“Dunmore?” Boyd exclaimed,
aghast.  “She must be five and sixty if she’s a day!”

William gave him a quelling
look.  “I mean
young
Lady Dunmore, the widow of her son.”

“Bronte?” Darcy asked,
startled.

Chapter Two

“Isaac’s widow?” Nicholas
demanded coldly at almost the same moment.  “I must say, that’s very bad form
even for you, Moreland.”

“In any case,” Darcy drawled,
“we’ve known her since she was a child.  You must know her father’s estate
marches with my father’s.”

“And my brother’s,” Nicholas
said, frowning.

“Even if we didn’t consider
her off limits, being Isaac’s widow, it wouldn’t be a fair bet for the simple
reason that she had a mad crush on me for years when she was a little girl,”
Darcy added.  “Don’t get me wrong, for I was always rather fond of her in a
brotherly way, but as I recall, she was a bit of an awkward filly--freckled as
bedamned and boyish to boot, always trying to follow me and Nicholas and Isaac
about and do whatever we did.  Chances are that if the marriage hadn’t been
arranged between Isaac’s parents and hers, she would’ve ended up an old maid,
despite her portion.

“Women like that are far too
desperate for the attention of a male to be any challenge at all.”

“Well, that settles that,”
William said, rising from his chair and trying not to look as outdone as he
felt. “I will beg your pardon for my poor taste in suggesting her.  For my
part, my money’s still on Nick, however.  If you two do decide to take up the
challenge, you will let me know?”

Nick watched him go.  When
they’d finished their hand, he rose, as well.  “I’m for bed.”

Without a word, Darcy got up,
stretched in a leisurely manner and followed him out.

“I’d a bit too much to
drink,” Darcy confessed while they waited for their horses to be brought
around.

Nick eyed him coolly.
“Moreland’s discreet enough.  I only hope the same can be said for young Boyd.”

Darcy looked at Nick
uncomfortably.  “It’s not as if it’s something that could not be observed by
anyone who spent five minutes in her company.  It’s a shame she inherited the
look of her father rather than her mother, but an inescapable fact … poor,
homely mite.”

“But she is the widow of a
dear friend, and a neighbor.  I don’t like to think word might get back her,
particularly since your comments are as often attributed to me as to you,” Nick
responded pensively.  “I’ve a notion to rusticate for bit.”

Darcy’s eyes widened.  “In
the middle of the season?  You’re not thinking of taking Moreland up on his
bet?”

Nick sent him a look.

Darcy nodded.

The silent communication
between the two of them had the tendency to disconcert their peers, but, having
been developed over a number of years, it was finely tuned by now and, as often
as not, completely unnecessary for either of them to verbalize their thoughts.

“I haven’t seen Bronte since
the services for Isaac,” Darcy said thoughtfully, then frowned.  “Actually, now
that I think of it, not even then.  She was indisposed when I went to pay my
respects.”

“Precisely.”

“I’m not certain I get your
point.”

“Does it not strike you as
odd that Moreland suggested Bronte?”

“Absurd, indiscreet, and
completely unsporting.  I’m not sure about the ‘odd’.”

“As you so rudely pointed
out, she was inclined to follow us about like a puppy desperate to please when
she was a child.  Moreland would have no way of knowing that, but he could hardly
fail to know that we knew her well.  Why, I wonder, would he consider it a
challenge for either of us to seduce her?”

Darcy thought it over,
frowning.  “You think, maybe, she considers us somehow responsible for Isaac’s
death?” he demanded, outraged at the injustice of it.

Nick shrugged, taking the
reins of his horse as the groom brought it up to him and hoisting himself into
the saddle.  “On the surface, it would not seem likely.  On the other hand, she
was not there at the time, and I can think of no other reason why Bronte might
avoid us--she was indisposed when I went to pay my respects, as well--and yet
Moreland must have some reason to suppose she would not welcome us, don’t you
think?” he said when Darcy had mounted his own horse.

The two fell silent as they
negotiated their way through London’s streets.  Once they’d arrived at Nick’s
lodgings, however, Darcy dismounted and followed him inside.  “You are not
seriously contemplating taking that bet?”

Nick gave him a look. 
“Sleeping over?”

Darcy looked around in
momentary confusion.  “I might as well borrow your couch for a few hours.”

“Take the guest room, by all
means.  The bed will accommodate that frame of yours far better, and it will
spare the springs of my couch.  I’ll send my man round to you in a bit.”

“I couldn’t help but notice
you didn’t answer my question,” Darcy said wryly, following him down the
hallway.

Nick paused at his door and
glanced back at his long-time friend.  “As you pointed out, it would hardly be
sporting of me, would it?”

Darcy frowned, remembering
the dirty faced child of their youth, and the skinny, freckled bride she’d
become.  “No,” he said slowly.

Nick turned the door knob and
opened his door.  “In any case, what would be the point?”

Darcy shrugged.

“We both know I’m the
greatest,” Nick said, throwing his friend a laughing look as he entered his
room and closed the door soundly behind him.

Darcy chuckled.  “Says you?”
he growled to the vibrating panel.  He waited a moment, but he hadn’t really
expected Nick to rise to the bait.  After a moment, he strode down the hall to
the ‘guest’ room he generally used when he was too tired, or too drunk, to find
his way back to his own apartments.

He was not nearly as amused
when he rose late that afternoon to discover that Nick had risen several hours
earlier and, according to his notably astonished butler, departed for his
brother’s estate.

Chagrined to realize Nick had
at least an hour’s head start on him, he departed for his own quarters only
long enough to clean up and order his manservant to pack his bags for an
indeterminate stay in the country and follow him as quickly as possible in the
traveling coach.

Nick was traveling by coach,
and although it was not the sort of clumsy conveyance that could be counted on
to bog down somewhere along the road, and Darcy’s horses were of the finest
blood, he figured riding horseback would give him an advantage and that he
could catch up to Nick long before he reached his destination.

In any case, Nick was bound
to stop at the inn in Haversham for the night.

He was almost put out when he
discovered Nick waiting for him in the common room.

“Trouble on the road?” Nick
inquired with interest.

“Nothing more than slogging
through the damnable mire of the road,” Darcy retorted irritably.

Amusement flared briefly in
Nick’s eyes.  “I thought as much. You seem to be wearing a great deal of it.”

Nick, of course, was
immaculate as usual and not one hair out of place.  Darcy surveyed him with
some dudgeon, envisioning his own untamed locks.  Wavy at the best of times, it
took no more than a little damp to twist it into unmanageable ringlets.  “I was
not traveling by coach.”

“I would not have guessed,”
Nick retorted wryly.

Darcy sprawled on the bench
opposite him, looking around for a barmaid.

“I had expected you an hour
since,” Nick said pensively.  “I have had dinner set back.  I expect it will be
inedible.”

Somewhat appeased by that
glad intelligence, Darcy caught the eye of one of the barmaids and favored her
with a wink and a taste of the smile that made female hearts everywhere
flutter.  “I’m in no mood to be particular tonight.  My horse was beginning to
look good to me.”

Nick’s dark, arched brows
rose a notch.  “You refer, I presume, to your stomach?”

Darcy reddened.  “I’m not in
the mood for your peculiar brand of humor, Nick.  I’ve not had a bite to eat
since I first woke, and that hardly sustained me through the first league.  I
wish you would explain to me why we must go haring off to the countryside if you’ve
no intention of taking Moreland’s challenge seriously.”

Nick settled back in his seat
causally as the barmaid set two brimming mugs in front of them, dividing a
smile and a view of her ample bosom between them.  Looking more than a little
disappointed when neither man gave her more than an absent glance, she left the
table and hurried off to the kitchen to bring the meals Nick had ordered. 
“I’ll admit my memory is lamentable, but I don’t recall suggesting that ‘we’ do
anything,” Nick responded coolly when the barmaid had departed.

Darcy’s eyes narrowed.  “Now
that you mention it, you didn’t.  And I’m damned curious to know why you didn’t
if you were planning on making the trip down.”

“It occurred to me that
Moreland might have designs upon Bronte’s fortune.”

“And?”

Nick shrugged.  “I felt an
obligation to see to it that Isaac’s widow did not fall into the hands of a man
who could be counted upon to run through it in the least amount of time
possible.  You will admit the Bronte we knew would be fair game for any man
with the least touch of sophistication.  It seems more than likely her stint in
the colonies would not have improved upon her gauche, trusting nature.”

Darcy studied his friend
thoughtfully for several moments, but as the maid arrived with their food at
that moment, he was effectively distracted.  It wasn’t until he’d polished off
a goodly portion of his mutton that he looked up once more.

Nick was eyeing him, he saw,
with more than a touch of disapproval.

“One would think that watching
someone consume their food with such relish would increase one’s own appetite,
when, if fact, the opposite is true.”

Darcy grinned, not put out in
the least.  “You don’t carry around the bulk that I do.  And, I might add,
you’ve been lazing in a coach the past several hours, not slogging through the
weather on the back of a horse.  If you’ve no interest in your dinner, I’ll
take it.”

Nick lifted a hand.  “I’ll
send the barmaid for another plate for you.”

Darcy grinned. After a
moment, he frowned thoughtfully, however.  “Why do you suppose she decided to
come back … after all this time, I mean?”

“The barmaid?”

“Bronte.”

“If I were to hazard a guess,
I would suppose her mother finally convinced her she was on her deathbed.”

Darcy thought that over.  “I
suppose, but since she’s been on her deathbed for the past ten years that I
know of, I’m thinking Bronte probably wouldn’t fall for it.”

“She
is
naïve,” Nick
pointed out coolly. “As I recall, her mother had her in a terror at least half
the time, convinced each time she took to her bed that
this
time the
threat was real.”

Darcy studied him a moment. 
“I’ll admit it’s hard to think of her as anything but the skinny, freckle faced
child we knew, but she must be....”  He stopped, trying to figure it up.  “What? 
Five and twenty by now?”

Nick shrugged dismissively.
“A leopard never changes its spots.”

“Maybe she’s shopping for a
husband?  I can hardly credit it, but it’s been every bit of five years since
Isaac was killed.”

“Possibly.  If she is, she
will certainly be in need of guidance.”