Pulling free, Bram collapsed onto the bed beside her and drew her down across his chest. “Now you are ruined,” he said quietly, and kissed her again.
Bram lay on his back, Rosamund curled against his side, and tried to recover both his breath and his senses. He felt sated, unusual for him considering that he’d done most of the work this time. And his contentment wasn’t the only unusual thing about the evening.
Candlelight flickered across Rosamund’s smooth skin and turned her ginger hair to bronze and flame. Jaded as he considered himself, she’d aroused him from the moment he’d opened her door to find her sitting at her neat dressing table, waiting for him. Listening to her voice, to her questions as she’d tried to be logical and sensible about her choices and her situation, had actually shaken him a little.
She must have been desperate to not only welcome him into her bed, but to invite him to join her there. He could call it a good deed, he supposed, but good deeds weren’t supposed to be so…pleasant. And even finished, he wanted to kiss her again. He wanted her to fall asleep in his arms, and to see her wake up in the morning.
“Bram?”
He blinked, shaking himself out of his terrifying domestic reverie. “Hm?”
“Thank you.”
With a scowl he turned on his side to face her. “It wasn’t any imposition for me, Rosamund. I do this sort of thing all the time, if you’ll recall.” She started to reply, but he shook his head. “You’re now ruined, and you may be with child, which I shouldn’t have risked whatever you said about it. So for God’s sake, don’t thank me.”
“If I’m to be with child, I would rather it be conceived in kindness and gentleness than in spite and cruelty.”
So she hadn’t lost sight of her reasons for having him visit her. And she somehow still managed to maintain her practicality. He searched for something suitably cynical with which to respond. “You are an unusual chit, Rosamund.” It didn’t seem adequate, but it was the best he could manage.
She tilted her head, green eyes regarding him. “Is that a compliment?”
“I don’t know. Tell me; is this what you wanted?”
She sat up, and he had to stifle the strong urge to take her arm and pull her back down beside him. What the devil had gotten into him? He was the one to leave the bed first, to announce that he had somewhere else to be and needed to leave before anyone could begin sighing or making moon eyes.
“Yes, it’s what I wanted.” With another glance at him, she slid to the edge of the bed and stood up. He sat up to watch as she bent down and picked up her shift, shaking it out and then pulling it on over her head.
It seemed a damned shame to cover up those lovely curves. When she retrieved his trousers and tossed them onto the bed, he scowled. “Excuse me, but are you trying to get me to leave?”
“I don’t want anyone to find you here, Bram.”
“I’ve adequately performed my services for you, then, and we’re finished with one another?” He wasn’t even entirely certain why he was asking the question. Once he’d bedded a woman she generally ceased to interest him unless he had nothing better to do. But previously he’d only been shoved out of bed or the house when a husband was expected home.
Rosamund grimaced. “I’ll know what it should be like now,” she finally said. “Gentle, and very, very nice. And he will know that I’m not the virginal flower he expected me to be. But having you found here wouldn’t help me any. Being involved with you would do me no good.”
“And why, pray tell, have you suddenly come to this decision?”
“Because you’re his friend. You drink, you gamble, you…bed women you shouldn’t. If it wasn’t for this stupidity with Cosgrove, I would have wanted nothing to do with you.”
Bram stayed where he was, fascinated by the recitation of his sins. When she paused, he motioned at her. “Go on.”
Her frown deepened. “I will admit that you have on several occasions surprised me. But the fact remains, when I marry Cosgrove he will forgive a ten-thousand-pound debt, and I may have the opportunity to dissuade him from leading James into further trouble.”
“Your brother’s game has improved, thanks to me. Pray keep that in mind.”
“Oh, yes. You’re encouraging him to think he knows what he’s doing. I’m better at cards than he is. He needs to stop playing. I can’t force him to do that, but Cosgrove could.”
“So you consider King a better candidate for a husband than I.” Not that he wanted to marry her or anyone else, but he’d never heard himself so disparaged by anyone but his own father.
“Please get dressed and go, Bram.”
With a sigh, covering a deep, growing annoyance, Bram stood up. Though he noted that her gaze lowered to his cock, for once he made no comment about it. Damnation, he’d thought to take her at least once more before he had to go meet Cosgrove and excuse himself from this mess. Insulting as she’d been, he still wanted her again.
“Bram, go,” she repeated, turning her back to gather up the remainder of his clothes.
“But I find your insight into my character fascinating,” he returned, shrugging into his trousers. “I had no idea you knew so much about human nature—that after a sennight of acquaintance you’ve been able to stick a pin through me and put me in your glass display box above the label marked ‘Bram Johns, wrecked and wretched.’”
She threw his shirt at him, and he caught it against his chest. “You made yourself what you are. And why do you always wear black? You hardly need to advertise your character.”
Bram pulled on his shirt and waistcoat without bothering with any of the buttons. He yanked on his coat, stuffing his cravat into his pocket, and picking up his boots, strode for the door. “Good night, Rosamund.”
With her door halfway open, though, he paused. He knew people who cared for nothing but logic or profit or their own comfort. Rosamund Davies was not one of those people. Taking a breath, he turned around, walked up to her, and put a hand around the nape of her neck. And then he kissed her.
After a second her lips softened, opening to his. He molded his mouth against hers, enjoying the taste of her, of her excitement and passion. Then he backed away. “I thought so,” he murmured, and slipped out the door.
Chapter 9
By the time Bramwell put his clothes back in order, recovered his horse, and made his way across Cheapside to Jezebel’s, it was several minutes past three o’clock. In his present state of mind he would have preferred to avoid a chat with Kingston Gore, but he’d spent better than a decade balancing a half-dozen schemes and women all at the same time, all without missing a step. This situation wasn’t much different.
King sat at his usual table at the back of the dim, candlelit room. Dingy floors, bare wood, and cheaply painted walls, most of the tables still occupied even at this hour of the morning—he’d always been rather fond of Jezebel’s. Until tonight.
Bram noted the faces of the patrons sitting nearest King’s table, relegating them to memory and then otherwise ignoring them. He had enemies, and they would be as happy to stab him in the back as in the chest. At least with him and the marquis at the same table, no sane man was likely to approach them.
He motioned for a bottle of whiskey and a glass. “Cosgrove,” he drawled, taking the seat opposite. “I expected you to be involved with something else by this hour. Or someone else.”
“Who was she?”
Omniscient as Cosgrove could seem at times, Bram knew it to be an illusion, created by a combination of astute guesses and his well-compensated network of spies and informers. And given the way Bram generally spent his evenings, the marquis’s guess was a fair one.
Accepting the whiskey, he poured himself a glass and downed it. “Good God,” he said aloud, “that was an hour ago. I’ve forgotten her name.”
Cosgrove glanced up at him, then returned to pouring water over the lump of sugar and slotted spoon that lay balanced over his cloudy green glass of absinthe. “Doubtful. Mine wanted to kn
ow whether I would continue to call on her after her husband returned from the Peninsula next month.”
“Will you?”
“I see no reason why not, considering she began entertaining me six weeks before he left.”
“You will be married by the end of the month, if you’ll recall. Won’t you find your plate rather full?” He would have been wiser to stay well away from the topic of Rosamund, especially after she’d just booted him out of her bedchamber, but the damned chit—or something—had set him off kilter.
“Hm.”
“Hm, what?”
“I merely find it interesting that you would think marriage would make anyone—much less me—faithful. How many other men’s wives have you bedded?”
“I’m not talking about them; I’m discussing you. You’ve never seen fit to marry before now.”
Setting the spoon aside, the marquis took a slow swallow of his potent drink. “I am six-and-thirty. I need a legitimate heir. For that, I require a wife. But I don’t need her for anything beyond that. May as well have a bit of fun with the proper chit, then, as long as I’m purchasing her.”
“Or you could leave her be, and find a female who shares your tastes.”
“The amusement comes from the fact that she doesn’t share my tastes.” Cosgrove lit a cheroot off the table’s candle. “And this is a unique opportunity. Her family owes me such a substantial sum that the dutiful chit’s been left with absolutely no means of escape. She detests me, and she fears me. It’s…delicious. Intoxicating, actually. I recommend it, if you should chance upon a pretty, proper chit with limited prospects and an impressionable fool for a brother.” His mouth curved in a slow smile. “And however desperate she becomes, her family will never be able to purchase her freedom, because our relationship will ensure that I will always have the largest share of influence over young Lord Lester.”
Bram had fairly well figured out all of that, but hearing it laid end to end, especially after the night he’d spent, he felt…sickened. And Rosamund considered King and him to be cut from the same cloth.
“What do you think of that?”
With a frown he didn’t have to fake, Bram shrugged. “It might be amusing at the beginning, I suppose,” he said in the most nonchalant tone he could manage, “but the end result is that you’ll be married with a child and a wife. Neither of those seems like anything you’d enjoy.”
“One I’ll need, and the other is for me to do with as I please.” Cosgrove took another drink, closing his eyes for a moment as he swallowed. “And as you know, I’m very particular about my pleasures.”
“So you felt the need to terrorize someone, and because Lady Rosamund isn’t a celebrated beauty, doesn’t have a great fortune, and does have bastards for parents and an idiot for a brother, you’ve chosen her.”
“Yes.” Cosgrove lifted a golden eyebrow. “You sound angry, Bramwell. Have another drink and calm yourself.”
Bram finished off his second glass of whiskey. He was angry. The muscles across his shoulders felt so tight they practically creaked, and above the queasiness that Cosgrove’s plan inspired in him was the distinct urge to punch his mentor in the face. What he needed to figure out, immediately, was whether his sensibilities were finally being affected, or if his…growing fondness for Rosamund had sparked this mental mutiny.
If it was Rosamund in particular, she’d made it clear that she thought little better of him than she did of Kingston Gore. She hadn’t wanted, asked for, or expected his assistance or protection. All she’d requested was that the deed be done, and as brilliantly as he’d performed, she’d kicked him out. And she might not like the idea of marrying King, but she still planned to go through with it.
Damnation. He detested this bloody morass of conflict and emotion. There was absolutely nothing in it for him, and stepping into the middle of it would likely gain him an enemy in Cosgrove, no appreciation at all from Rosamund, and a cartload of trouble for no damned good reason at all.
“Generally when you or I play one of our games, King,” he said anyway, treading more carefully than he could ever recall doing before, “I’ve always thought that the fool we selected deserved some misery. This seems well beyond that.”
“It is,” Cosgrove agreed readily. “Leading a sinner to further sin isn’t much in the way of a challenge. Corrupting someone who believes herself incorruptible, though—that is a true measure of skill.”
Bram downed another glass. “Leave her be, King,” he finally muttered. “Console yourself with the idea that I will owe you a favor.”
“Well,” the marquis said, sitting back, “this is interesting. Might I ask why you think I should spare Rose Davies?”
“I suppose it’s because I rather like the idea that there are a few people of good character about to balance damned souls like ours.”
Cosgrove sat silently for a long moment as he sipped at his absinthe. “And do you think that your climbing beneath the bedsheets with her would leave her less sullied than would a marriage to me?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“You’ve been escorting the Davies siblings to dinner with your beloved family and friends because you want to bugger the boy, then.”
King’s damned spies. “She’s…refreshing. I find her innocence amusing.”
“Then what’s the difference between us?”
“I’m not attempting to drive her to madness or ruin or suicide.”
“You chisel away at her every time you say a word in her presence.” Light blue eyes met his gaze squarely. “And I won’t have it.”
“Beg pardon?”
“This isn’t something I decided on a whim. Well, it is, actually, but since then it’s taken me weeks to learn the ethics of Abernathy, lure in Lester, and bring him to the point of falling ten thousand quid into my debt. I have no intention of altering my plans because you see a way to salvation or some other horseshit when you look at her.”
“I’ve said nothing of the kind,” Bram protested, fighting against his growing desire to leap across the table and throttle his so-called friend. “I only asked you to leave her be.”
“And I’m telling you to leave her be. Step back from my affairs, or I shall make you the target of my next game. I would prefer that we remain friends.” He took a puff of his cheroot. “So consider, is this truly where you wish to take a stand against me, Bramwell?”
Sweet Lucifer, what was he doing, sticking out his neck for a chit who insulted him? Finishing off his fourth overfull glass of whiskey, Bram pushed to his feet. “I suppose we’ll both find out,” he said, and left the club.
He needed to talk to someone he could trust, and though surprisingly the first face that came to his mind was Rosamund, she clearly didn’t wish him back in her bedchamber tonight. That narrowed it down quite a bit, as a matter of fact.
Phineas Bromley awoke to what sounded like a full-scale battle directly outside his bedchamber door. Alyse sat up beside him a heartbeat later, her hair a disheveled autumn-colored waterfall, and her brown eyes wide with alarm.
“Phin, wh—”
“Get behind the wardrobe,” he barked, his old soldier’s instincts taking over as he rolled to his feet and collected the pistol from his nightstand in the same motion.
The door burst open. Phin leveled his pistol as a dark streak slammed into the room, two lighter-colored globs attached to it and trying unsuccessfully to slow it down.
“Yes, that’s it,” Bram Johns’s low, oddly pitched voice came, “blow my damned brains out. Save me the trouble.”
With a breath, Phin lowered the weapon. At the same moment, candlelight flared from the hallway as another servant stumbled into the room to join the chaos. “Let him go,” he ordered the nightshirt-wearing butler and footman.
Bram shrugged his coat back onto his shoulders. “You’re naked, you know,” he announced, his words slurring just a little.
“And you’re drunk.” For Bramwell Johns to be showing the eff
ects of alcohol, he must have consumed a tremendous quantity of it, indeed. “Thank you, Graves. Please make certain William and Beth are well, and then return to bed. All of you.” All he needed was for his crippled older brother to attempt to drag himself to the rescue, or for his younger sister to begin screaming and awaken the entire street.
The butler gave an annoyed nod. Lighting another candle and sending the two footmen out before him, he exited the bedchamber and pulled the door closed. As Phin eyed his friend, Alyse handed him a pair of trousers. With a grateful glance at her, he tossed the pistol onto the bed and shrugged into them. Evidently she’d grabbed the sheet as she fled the bed, because her slender figure was securely swathed in gold. A very good thing for all of them, considering the way Bram was eyeing her.
“It’s past three o’clock in the morning, Bram,” he said finally. “What’s happened that couldn’t wait another three or four hours?”
“I need to speak with you,” his friend replied, still brushing the overzealous servants’ fingerprints from his sleeves. “In private. Without any chits about.”
Alyse motioned at the two of them. “I am going back to bed. You,” and she motioned at Phin, “keep him out of here.”
“The morning room, I think,” he said, turning Bram toward the door. He agreed with Alyse. Bram sober could be relied on to honor a very few things, among them keeping his hands off a friend’s wife. Drunk, he became much less predictable and much more dangerous.
“Good night, sweet Alyse.”
“Good night, Bram.”
Taking the candle with him, Phineas followed Bram downstairs to the morning room. His friend was still in the same clothes he’d worn to dinner, though his cravat looked as though it had been retied, and there was a certain…carelessness about his appearance that was highly unusual.
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