What a Reckless Rogue Needs (2 page)

“We’re not nearly as tall as Penny,” Bianca said. “Here she comes now.”

Penelope was here? He looked up at the landing where a thin, tall girl with reddish blond hair stood. She lowered her eyes and turned toward the corridor.

“Come with us,” Bianca said, taking his arm. When they gained the landing, he saw the back of a tall brunette in a brilliant green gown. His appreciative gaze slid down to the woman’s rounded bottom. When the brunette turned, she looked somewhat familiar, but the candlelight in the corridor was dim.

As he drew nearer, recognition dawned. The candlelight burnished her brunette hair and shed a mellow glow over her stunning creamy complexion. He felt as if she’d knocked the breath out of him. Hell, she’d literally done it when he’d tried to give her a chaste kiss beneath the Christmas mistletoe a few years ago. She’d always had a sharp tongue, and he’d remained wary of her with good reason.

Angeline curtsied and regarded him with a shrewd smile.
“Bonsoir, mon ami.”

Their relationship had always been closer to adversary than friend, but he’d not seen her in a long time. There was no question that she’d grown even more beautiful.

Angeline offered her gloved hand, and he bowed over it. He flicked his eyes quickly over her generous bosom. Colin mentally reminded himself to keep his gaze a very safe distance above her low neckline. “I suspect you’ve had more than a few Parisian admirers.”

Her one-shoulder shrug was all Gallic. “The French have a proverb: ‘Beautiful grapes often make poor wine.’” A sly expression flitted through her green eyes. “So I avoid the grapes and drink the wine.”

“Clever,” he said.

Angeline clapped her hands twice. “Girls, repair to the drawing room. The marchioness is expecting us.”

He offered his arm to her. “Shall we?”

“I don’t know. You look as if you’re facing a prison cell rather than a drawing room.”

He said nothing, but he’d always dreaded visits to his father’s home. He’d been at Eton when his father remarried, and on his infrequent stays at Deerfield, he’d never felt he belonged. It wasn’t as if they were estranged; it was just circumstances. He’d always felt a bit awkward here, and as a result, he didn’t visit often.

They entered the drawing room to the delighted exclamations of Angeline’s mother—the Duchess of Wycoff—and his stepmother, Margaret, the marchioness. He noted the proliferation of gray in the duchess’s hair, and the fine hair on his neck stiffened. The scandal must have created a great deal of vexation.

“I daresay they make a handsome pair,” the duchess said.

Colin winced. When they were children, their deluded families had concocted the idea of a match between them, all because they were born only a week apart. But that had happened when they were mere babes, before his mother’s death and his father’s second marriage.

“Unfortunately, Colin and Angeline are about as compatible as two spitting cats,” the marquess said.

“Chadwick, please mind your words,” Margaret said. “Oh, look what you’ve started. The girls are hissing at each other. Bianca, Bernadette, you will cease.”

His father had spoken the truth. Beyond the annual house party and the spring season, Colin and Angeline had done their best to avoid each other over the years, though they had not been entirely successful. Despite her outward civility this evening, he knew her capacity for causing trouble, and he could not afford to be distracted. The fate of Sommerall hung in the balance.

He escorted Angeline to a chair and headed for the sideboard. Five minutes in her presence had been enough to send him to the brandy decanter. Admittedly, a goodly portion had to do with her womanly figure. A shrew she might be, but she was also the sort of woman men mentally undressed. At that thought, he poured himself two fingers, and then his gaze veered to his father.
Show him you’re confident and unconcerned.

The Marquess of Chadwick returned his look with an inscrutable expression.

“Welcome, Colin,” the Marchioness of Chadwick said.

He bowed. “You look well, Margaret.”

“I’m very glad you came.” For a moment, she looked as if she would say more and then seemed to reconsider. Her abrupt silence didn’t surprise him. They had always been ill at ease with each other, although unfailingly polite. Her late father had been in trade, but she’d been educated as a lady. Colin assumed his father had married her for her wealth, but he did not know for certain, and he most certainly would never ask.

Margaret faced Angeline. “Thank you for bringing the girls to the drawing room. Left to their own devices, I fear they would spend all of their time in their room engaged in idle gossip.”

“What gossip could they possibly know?” the marquess said in a gruff voice. “They aren’t even out in society yet.”

The twins immediately adopted cherubic expressions. Colin bit his lip to keep from laughing.

Margaret regarded her husband with lifted brows. “You seem to have forgotten the letter they wrote to the king six months ago.”

Colin regarded his sisters with mock gravity. “Why did you write to the king?”

The marquess released a loud sigh. “Your sisters advised him to adopt a slimming regimen.”

Colin’s shoulders shook with laughter. The poor king’s girth was the subject of many caricatures.

“Thank goodness Ames intercepted the letter before it went out with the post,” Margaret said.

Colin leaned against the sideboard. So his sisters were still scamps. He found himself glad, perhaps because soon they would be entering the adult world, before he’d even gotten a chance to catch up on their burgeoning adolescence. The fault was his, and he’d meant to do better, but somehow intention led to procrastination. In London, it was all too easy to get caught up in the clubs, the races, the fencing matches, and the loose women who pursued him.

The Duke of Wycoff approached and clapped Colin on the shoulder. “I wasn’t certain you would attend.”

He wouldn’t have done so if not for his father’s letter. From the corner of his eye, Colin saw his father watching and retrieved the decanter. “Brandy?” he asked the duke.

“Don’t mind if I do,” the duke said. “It’s been an age since we last met.”

“White’s last spring, if memory serves me right.” Colin handed him a brandy and sipped his own drink. His father always stocked the finest brandy and port. “I take it Landale could not attend?” Colin said.

“My son did not wish to travel, given that his wife is in a delicate condition.”

Colin smiled a little at Wycoff’s old-fashioned reference to his daughter-in-law’s impending childbirth.

Wycoff inhaled the brandy’s fragrance. “It has been two years since the last house party. I confess I missed the shooting with Chadwick.”

There was a reserved air about Wycoff that had never been there before. He didn’t mention Angeline’s broken engagement and subsequent journey to Paris with her mother. It wasn’t the sort of topic one spoke of openly, but Colin felt it simmering beneath the surface. One thing he noticed was that Wycoff avoided looking at his eldest daughter. Colin found it odd and told himself he was imagining undercurrents. Deep down, he suspected there was something brewing beneath the surface, but he’d no idea what it was. Perhaps that was for the best.

Wycoff drew in a breath. “Still chasing the lightskirts?”

“Am I supposed to answer that?”

The duke laughed. “Sounds like an affirmative to me.”

He cleared his throat. “I try to be discreet.”

The duke raised his brows. “It’s not working.”

In an effort to change the topic, Colin said, “May I freshen your drink?”

“No, thank you,” Wycoff said. “I’ll join your father on a comfortable chair and try not to doze as I’m wont to do.”

Colin bowed and watched the duke walk away. Angeline attempted to intercept him, but he ignored her. Colin frowned. It seemed odd to him, but he shrugged it off.

He meant to remain at the sideboard, but Margaret sought him out. “Angeline has agreed to play the pianoforte,” she said. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to turn the pages for her.”

Short of claiming a sudden case of the ague, he could hardly refuse. “Yes, of course,” he said, and strode over to the instrument where Angeline removed one of her gloves. He’d forgotten her long slender fingers. Then again, why should he remember them? He shook off the odd thought and stood there waiting for her to begin playing.

“Will you set up the sheet music?” she said, fumbling with the other glove.

“Yes, I will.” He frowned. “Are you vexed?”

“Of course not,” she said.

He suspected she was lying. “What will you play?”

“Grimstock,” she said, handing the sheets to him.

He leaned over her shoulder and placed the pages side by side. “How appropriate considering you are looking rather grim,” he said under his breath.

“I haven’t played in ages. I fear this will be excruciating for me and everyone listening.”

“It’s a bit late to decline now.”

“I will play when I am ready,” she said in a testy voice.

“As you please, but there’s no need to snap at me. I might add that the sooner you play, the quicker the misery will be over.”

“I do not play that badly,” she said.

He clasped his hands behind his back and said nothing.

“I am competent,” she said.

“Of course you are,” he said, trying very hard not to laugh.

“You are perfectly horrid and so is my playing,” she said.

“At long last, something we agree upon.” He’d forgotten the ease with which they sparred with one another. It was like verbal chess.

“Do not torment me,” she said. “I might avenge myself by playing more than one piece.”

“In that case, I am overwhelmed by your talent—at least for the duration of this one exhibition.”

She pressed the ivory keys lightly. “I must concentrate.”

When he turned the page, she leaned forward a bit and pressed a discordant note, but she managed to recover.

After a few moments, he said, “I saw you speaking to my stepmother.”

Angeline kept her eyes on the sheet music. “The marchioness enumerated your many positive qualities.”

He smiled. “Did she now? What did she say?”

“Hmmm. She said you drink like a fish and have a string of previous lovers who are permanently heartbroken over losing your affections.”

“Margaret would never disparage me.”

“So you deny you’re a rake?” Angeline said, her tone challenging.

“My reputation is somewhat embellished.”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “I rather doubt it.”

“Why should you doubt me? You’ve no proof.”

“I’m well acquainted with the type,” she said. “I imagine you’ve heard.”

He leaned over her again and straightened the sheet music. “I’m not Brentmoor.”

She played a wrong note and grimaced.

“Sorry.” He shouldn’t have said that. It had probably been a painful experience for her. “You’re fine, keep playing.”

“That’s rich. Encouragement from a rake.”

He was tempted to defend himself, but it wouldn’t change the truth. Good God, he’d gotten so foxed in his rooms he’d passed out with his boots on and forgotten the actress he’d taken home. But in the world of London, there were rakes and there were disgusting scoundrels. He’d never sunk so low as the latter.

The duchess raised her voice. “Angeline, you must focus.”

Angeline’s mouth thinned as if she were struggling with her reaction. The duchess was a formidable woman, with a very strict interpretation of the proprieties. That brought to mind Brentmoor.

Colin could not fathom how Angeline had gotten involved with that roué. He wondered why Wycoff hadn’t put his foot down with his daughter. Why hadn’t he forbidden her to have anything to do with a known libertine? It made no sense.

Granted, he was a rake, but he kept his distance from virtuous ladies, mostly because he prized his bachelorhood.

Angeline faltered again.

Colin marked the way she winced and figured her mother’s reproof had rattled her. But he found it odd. Angeline had never been a wilting flower. When she played another wrong note, he leaned closer and said, “Relax, my stepmother is distracting the duchess as we speak.”

Angeline was more than a little flustered, and Colin’s presence did not help. “I do not need your reassurance.”

“I’m merely practicing being a dull, respectable fellow.”

She continued playing. “Is that like putting on an old coat to see if it still fits?”

“I’m simply wanting for temporary amusement.”

“Then I must be boring you,” she said. “There is a dearth of real amusement tonight.”

“One thing about you hasn’t changed,” he said.

“What is that?”

“You never want for a clever retort.”

Or a strategic defense.
She regarded him with a cynical smile. Truthfully, she had dreaded encountering Colin, but it was foolish of her. He’d likely heard plenty of rumors about her misbegotten and short-lived engagement, but she had a low opinion of dissipated rakes like him and cared nothing for his opinion, good or bad.

Liar. You hate that he knows you were brought down low.

She had hoped to avoid attending the annual house party, but her mother had insisted that she begin entering English society again in order to “repair” her reputation, though this gathering hardly counted as such. The notion of repair was laughable. The only way she could redeem her reputation would be to make a respectable marriage, and that was highly unlikely.

Even though she yearned to start over, to change what had happened, there was no going back. She couldn’t retrieve her youth. Time had marched on like an obedient soldier, until one day she’d awakened to discover she was thirty years old and on the proverbial shelf. That had played a large part in her foolhardy courtship with Brentmoor.

Angeline played the last notes and reached for the sheet music, but Colin gathered the pages in a neat stack. When he turned to her, she was struck anew by his dark curly hair and brown eyes with amber hues that could melt butter in freezing temperatures—or more likely, a lady’s objections.