Ten Kisses to Scandal (Misadventures in Matchmaking)

by Vivienne Lorret

  He glanced down, then quickly looked away. “We’ll face it if or when we must.”

  So he would marry her, but under duress. “Like an unpleasant chore. How lovely. Essentially, marriage to me would be like emptying a chamber pot every day for the rest of your life.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Briar. You deserve more than what we can have together, more than these elicit tuppings. You should be wooed with tender care, not thrust up against a door.”

  “But this was exactly what I asked for, if you’ll recall. Sometimes I feel wild inside, and I like that I can become unleashed with you. No one else understands that part of me. I’ve been sheltered, and protected, and treated like a porcelain doll for most of my life . . .”

  “Which is precisely what I should have done.”

  She huffed, her hands on her hips. “Then why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” Tension radiated from him. He stared at her intently as if he were about to spill out every secret he’d ever had. Then something akin to fear glanced over his expression. His pupils turned to tiny dots, a splatter of ink. He looked away and shrugged. “Because I’m selfish.”

  She felt that something still lingering in the air between them, raw and close to unfurling. She moved closer and took his hand, a slight tremor rushing from him into her. “Or, perhaps, because you love me, too.”

  “Briar,” he warned.

  “Nicholas, this is love. I’m sure of it.” She lifted his hand and placed it over her heart. “Do you feel that? My heart lurches every time you are near. My skin aches when we are not touching. And you may be right that these are only symptoms brought on by pleasure. But that does not explain why I long for your happiness, and to hear your wicked laugh, to see your dark eyes turn soft and velvety whenever you look at me, to watch your hair change to gray over time.”

  “This is the reason I made that rule in the first place.” He pulled his hand away and stalked to the window.

  She followed, and leaned against the other side. “I know you’ve been hurt, but you can trust me with your heart. I’ll take special care of it . . . if you’d let me.”

  “And who would take care of yours, London’s most irredeemable rake?” He laughed without humor and shook his head. “No. I won’t allow it.”

  She rolled her eyes. Honestly. Did the man know nothing about love? She couldn’t simply stop because he decreed it. “Oh, very well. Then you’ll have to give it back. But first put it in a box, stuffed with rose petals and wrapped in silk ribbons. The return of a heart should be done with a bit of fanfare, don’t you think?”

  The corner of his mouth quirked. Reaching out, he tugged her into his embrace with a resigned sigh. “Whatever am I going to do with you?”

  She burrowed closer, fitting perfectly. “I can think of five scenarios off the top of my head—three are rather scandalous. Would you like to hear them?”

  Chapter 30

  “You look as if you would not do such a thing again.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  Before Nicholas could be tempted by any more of Briar’s scenarios, he sent for a carriage.

  “A curricle, really?” She slid him a wry glance as they stepped out into the sunlight beaming down from the pools of brilliant blue, breaking through the clouds. “Could you have chosen a more open or snug vehicle?”

  He gave her little waist a playful squeeze as he lifted her onto the seat. “Strange, but I thought you were rather fond of jaunts through the countryside. Or is my company not as good as Mr. Woodlyn’s?”

  “I think you know the answer. But if you are trying to ensure that my reputation is secure, I think you’re forgetting one small thing.”

  He cleared his throat and raised his brows. “Small?”

  Her cheeks colored bright pink. “Not that, of course. I meant the fact that we left Temperance and Daniel in a closed landau.”

  “Which currently has a broken wheel after our mad dash, and I did not want to wait for it to be repaired.” He swung up into the seat beside her and released the break. Before they set off for Holliford Park, he curled her arm in the crook of his.

  “But where is Daniel going to sit? Surely not on the boot.” She glanced over her shoulder to the small platform, no larger than a satchel.

  “He’ll learn to hold on, I imagine.”

  “You seem surer of him now. When you first spoke of finding him a bride, I did not have the impression that you had faith in his abilities.”

  “When it comes to his choosing a wife, I don’t. I still need you.”

  She turned her head and cupped a hand over her ear. “I’m sorry, but could you repeat that last part?”

  “I still need—” He stopped the instant he saw her cheeky grin. “Minx.”

  Clearly, she was determined to bring him to his knees. He feared that she could accomplish that with the barest nudge of her finger, then down he would go. Straight off a cliff.

  He was fairly certain he wouldn’t survive the fall. Not with Briar.

  At least with Marceline, he’d had bitterness and dark, seething hatred to see him through. But every part of Briar was light and laughter. Uninhibited joy and hope. All that was sweet and good in the world. She was everything.

  When he gazed down at her head resting on his shoulder, he was overcome by a fierce need to keep her here beside him, right where she belonged. He could not imagine a happier place to stay for all the days of his life. He felt a pleasant tremor roll through him, marveling at how appealing the notion was.

  “Briar,” he said, weighing his words carefully, “why did you first decide to accept that challenge to find me a bride, knowing that I was a rake?”

  She stared off in the distance, thoughtful. “Because of something the woman had said, about how much you loved your family and you were loyal to a fault. I knew that a man like that, even a rakish one, could never be wholly irredeemable.”

  Then she grinned up at him and he was caught by a sensation of falling—stomach lifting, suspended, heart in his throat as if the horses had got away from him and they were tumbling over a precipice and into an abyss.

  All at once, he knew what the thing was that had been choking him, lodged in his throat, wanting to get out. And he also realized it was already too late to guard himself against it.

  He’d flouted his own rules, heeded none of his own warnings, and found himself terrifyingly, exhilaratingly in love with her.

  Soft cornflower blue peered up at him fondly, unblinking, and without the smallest degree of surprise. You’re a bit slow, my love, her gaze seemed to say just before she settled against him once more.

  He was in love. There was something else in him as well, something fragile and new and trembling. Hope.

  He’d never been particularly content with his life, and yet he’d never yearned for more either. Actually, he’d never thought it was possible. But then Briar swept in—with her romantic scenarios, her cup of chocolate kisses, her bubbly laugh and dark humor—and showed him what it might be like to be happy. Truly happy.

  Briar Bourne had managed the impossible, it seemed. She’d made the idea of marriage . . . well . . . enticing.

  On a deep breath, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

  “Besides,” she continued, unaware of the earth-shattering transformation that had come over him, “I have it under good authority that rakes can reform if they choose to. In fact, the only thing I would deem completely unforgivable is an act of betrayal against one’s own family. But I’m sure you and I share that belief.”

  He murmured in agreement, a sudden chill stealing through to the marrow of his bones, robbing him of that warm, new contentment. Completely unforgivable.

  “Though, the instant the woman said your name, I knew that Temperance’s most beloved cousin would never be capable of doing something like that. You love them far too much to hurt them.”

  Nicholas didn’t deserve her good opinion, not with the mistakes he’d made. And now they festered li
ke a boil beneath the skin.

  At first, he’d wanted to ignore the pain his betrayal had caused, spending months in the country with Daniel, digging trenches and pretending that everything was as it should be. Then, as the melancholy lingered, Nicholas had tried to cover up his guilt by hiring a matchmaker to find a replacement bride.

  But he should have known that such a wound would only grow larger, spreading beneath the skin until everything near it was left raw and infected.

  He could lose Briar over this. He could lose everyone he cared about. And yet, he knew there was no way to move forward without owning up to the pain he’d caused. There could be no secrets between them, nothing dark and festering.

  The only way to treat an injury of this magnitude—he reasoned—was to lance it cleanly, drain the poison, and pray that it healed.

  He needed to tell Daniel the truth, without further delay. Then he would tell Briar, and hope that, by some miracle, she could forgive him.

  * * *

  Briar did not ask Nicholas to linger at Holliford Park. For most of the drive back, he’d seemed restless and preoccupied.

  His conversation had turned laconic, as if he were weighing every word carefully, which wasn’t like him. His usual manner was to say whatever he was thinking, no matter how shocking. Needless to say, this alteration caused a ripple of unease to skate through her.

  Yet she managed to shrug it off, preferring to assume that this shift was due to nothing too dire, but likely stemmed from the rutted state of the roads and an eagerness to fetch his cousins. So she urged him to depart and promised to explain his absence to the duchess.

  She squeezed his arm one last time and through a great feat of self-restraint—which she would reward herself for later with a ginger comfit—she resisted the urge to kiss his cheek.

  Inside, she briefly explained the morning and early afternoon hours to the duchess. As Nicholas had said to Daniel, Briar kept to the claim that she’d felt unwell, and drove on to Blacklowe Manor in the rain, where they waited for it to stop.

  In turn, the duchess eyed her shrewdly, taking in her wrinkled dress. “You know how fond I am of you and your sisters, my dear. But you are in my charge. To have you return, unchaperoned, when you were alone with a gentleman—whose own reputation has been called into question on more than one occasion—does not look well upon me, or you. Pray, where are his cousins?”

  “They are at my father’s cottage,” Briar said and went on to explain Temperance’s surprise for the day.

  Before she even finished, the duchess was at her side, patting her fondly. “No wonder you were ill, my dear. Had I known that your friend shared an acquaintance with that young man, I could have forewarned you. I’d heard Mr. Cartwright had taken up residence there a few months ago—as well as keeping a house in Cheapside—but I did not want to mention it. Truth be told, I never thought you would be acquainted. Oh, and to think I had the most distressing few moments when I saw you drive up, alone, with my godson. I thought for certain you were ruined and nothing would ever be right again.”

  Briar felt herself grow pale, warmth leeching from her cheeks. “I was under the impression that you were rather fond of him.”

  “I am, my dear, but so are you.” Her lips curved in a knowing smile, her penciled brows arching. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who has seen your heart in your eyes these past few days. And he is only a man, after all. If he were alone with you for any length of time, how could he resist such a temptation? But now that I know he has behaved with such honor toward you, I have great hope that I was right all along.”

  “Right?”

  “About him being ready to marry again, of course. A rakish gentleman, bent on gadding about town without care for his own reputation, let alone another’s, is only thinking about satisfying his own pleasures,” she said, dropping her voice to a scandalized whisper and glancing over her shoulder to be sure they were still alone in the parlor. “And a woman does not catch a husband by giving her favors too early.”

  Briar shivered, chilled to the marrow. This was another lesson she’d never considered. She’d only been following the demands of her heart, certain of the return of her affections. Now she was filled with sudden doubt.

  Nicholas had told her not to fall in love and that he had no intention of marrying again. He’d made himself quite clear on numerous occasions. But Briar hadn’t listened.

  Suddenly, she wondered if she’d started to believe in one of her far-fetched scenarios.

  “I never set out to catch a husband,” Briar said dimly, now questioning if Nicholas truly felt anything for her at all.

  “Only time will tell,” the duchess said with another fond pat as she bustled out of the room. “Oh, and I believe a letter arrived for you, my dear.”

  Thoughts adrift, Briar moved to the table in the foyer, dimly searching through the small stack. Two for Mrs. Fitzherbert, and two for Briar—one from Uncle Ernest, and the other Genevieve Price.

  The challenge. Briar knew she’d be hearing from her at some point, but she never would have expected it to be so soon.

  Dear Miss Bourne,

  I learned you were visiting Holliford Park. Since I am passing through the nearby village on the morrow, I should like to meet and discuss our matter of business. Twelve o’clock at the Red Fawn Inn.

  Looking forward to the best of news.

  Your friend,

  GP

  * * *

  “I have something to confess,” Nicholas said when Daniel joined him in the study, shortly after their return. There was no point in waiting a moment more, after all. It had already been too long. He crossed the room to hand his cousin a glass of whisky. “But here, you’re going to need this.”

  Daniel took it and saluted him, a wry grin on his lips. “I have a sense of what you’re going to tell me, and I think it has to do with Miss Bourne. But if you’re worried that I’ve formed an attachment to her, let me put your mind at ease. I’ve known for a while that she’s in love with you and, I believe, you hold a certain regard for her as well.”

  An icy wave of dread washed over him again, like clockwork that operated solely on the mention of Briar.

  . . . the only thing completely unforgivable is an act of betrayal against one’s own family.

  Nicholas trudged back to the escritoire where his own glass waited and he downed the contents, hissing a breath between his teeth. Then he poured another. Pot-valiance, and he was never more in need of it than now.

  “This isn’t about Miss Bourne. It is about Miss Smithson.”

  “My Miss Smithson—Genevieve?”

  Nicholas took another drink and turned to see that Daniel had gone deathly pale. Instinctively, he hesitated out of a need to shield him. But what good had that done so far? None. This terrible truth had to be spoken.

  The best course of action was to proceed without delay, like removing a splinter from a finger. Or, in this case, a knife from his cousin’s back.

  A shudder of self-revulsion rolled through him. “I am sorry to tell you, but I am the one who forced her out of your company. I am the one responsible for ending your betrothal.”

  Daniel shook his head, generously choosing to believe his own cousin wouldn’t be capable of such a betrayal. Which made this all the more difficult. “But in the letter, she stated that it was her family. They would not permit the match. I know, for I’ve read it a thousand times.”

  “That was part of the agreement I made with her father. I paid off all his debts in exchange for his willingness to find her another husband, without delay.”

  At the time, Nicholas assumed he was protecting Daniel, for his own good. Since then, however, he’d come to a different understanding. By acting behind Daniel’s back, he’d treated him as if he were incapable of dealing with the facts and making his own decisions. This was a realization he may not have learned if it wasn’t for Briar. She’d taught him that when you truly loved someone, you did not keep them from experiencing life. N
ot even the hard lessons and bitter truths.

  Nicholas only hoped that there would be forgiveness in love as well.

  Suddenly, Daniel collapsed onto the leather hassock, his glass crashing to the floor. “But you knew how much I loved her, how much I needed her. She was the very air I breathed.”

  “Yes, I knew.” Nicholas felt cold with regret and the fear of what was to come. “I never once questioned your feelings, only hers. You see, that day we encountered Miss Smithson on the lane was not actually the first time I met her. I had been acquainted with her in London. Intimately acquainted.”

  He watched as that sank in, color gradually suffusing Daniel’s cheeks even as he shook his head again in firm denial.

  “We met at a masquerade and did not even exchange names,” Nicholas said, the words tasting of bile on the back of his tongue.

  “Not Genevieve. She was too pure. She was . . .” Daniel swallowed, his gaze a hardened amber that was suddenly full of stark clarity. “Were you going to marry her, then? And I got in your way?”

  He swallowed and said simply, “No.”

  “Is that who you truly are—a scoundrel who takes his pleasure by whatever means he chooses?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Nicholas said, bristling with denial. And yet, he couldn’t defend his actions, not after what he’d done.

  Daniel stood, glass crunching beneath his boot, hands fisted. Anger and betrayal marked his usually soft countenance in harsh, slanting lines. “Until now, I thought those were only exaggerated rumors. I thought the man I knew, the man I’d once looked up to, could never be so despicable. But I see that I was deceived in this as well and I am ashamed that we share blood.”

  Panicked by the finality of the statement, Nicholas stepped forward and grasped Daniel’s arm as he turned to leave. “We are like brothers. Our bond is stronger than mere blood.”

  “Not anymore.” Daniel shrugged free and said exactly what Nicholas had feared all along. “You and I are no longer family.”