Gentleman Wolf

by Joanna Chambers

  A slight frown marred Nicol’s handsome face, and Lindsay wondered if it was because he wanted to refuse the invitation—or maybe because he wanted to accept.

  “We could dine at Dalkeiths,” Lindsay added.

  “The club?” Nicol asked. “It’s only for members, I think you’ll find.”

  “A friend of mine has arranged a temporary membership for me for the duration of my stay,” Lindsay said. “I could take you as my guest. My friend tells me that Dalkeiths has the best table in town.”

  Nicol didn’t disagree with that, but neither did he appear impressed, or even much interested. “I daresay,” he murmured.

  “Will you come then?” Lindsay persisted.

  Nicol’s frown deepened. “I’m not sure why you—”

  “Oh, just say yes.” Lindsay interrupted impatiently, then, worried that he sounded a little too desperate, added more calmly, “It’s only dinner and some conversation.”

  Nicol stared at him for a long minute. Then something seemed to give in him, and with a sigh he relented. “All right,” he said. “What time?”

  “Seven o’clock?” Lindsay only just managed to keep the note of triumph out of his voice.

  “Very well, Mr. Somerville. Seven o’clock at Dalkeiths.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Do you suppose anyone will wear rouge at Dalkeiths?” Lindsay asked, peering inside the small pot of ruddy paste he held.

  “I doubt it,” Wynne replied. He was working Lindsay’s dark hair into a neat queue. “I’ve barely seen any gentlemen wearing cosmetics.”

  “But surely!” Lindsay protested, turning his head to squint up over his shoulder at Wynne. “In the evening? For dinner?”

  Wynne just shrugged. “Do you really care if there’s no one else wearing rouge?”

  Lindsay considered that. “Not really,” he admitted, turning back to face the mirror. “Besides, I can’t resist shocking Mr. Nicol again. When we first met, I was made up like a Covent Garden whore and on the second occasion, I was au naturel. Which is rather dull, isn’t it? I think this time, I’ll go for something in between.” Dipping his pinky into the paste to pick up a dab of vermillion, Lindsay touched his fingertip delicately to the apple of his cheek, circling lightly to blend the paste in.

  Wynne chuckled. He was tying Lindsay’s queue with black satin ribbon now. Lindsay admired the perfect curls of dark hair Wynne had styled above his ears and the smooth, glossy sweep from hairline to nape, where his queue began. He was eschewing hair powder tonight. As much as he liked a dazzlingly bright coiffure, he was unwilling to wear sticky powder in his hair in case matters proceeded as he hoped.

  Hair powder made such a mess of the bed linens.

  He watched Wynne in the glass, fussing with the black ribbon, gaze narrowed in concentration on his task.

  Wynne Wildsmith.

  They’d met four years ago, when Wynne was a threadbare youth, scraping by on the streets of Rouen. A runaway, Lindsay had later realised, from England. Lindsay wasn’t usually one for picking up waifs and strays, as Francis and Marguerite so often did, but Wynne was different. When Lindsay had stepped in to save the young man from a certain beating and likely worse, he’d found himself first taking the boy home, then offering him temporary employment despite his lack of skills. He’d never intended it to last for more than the fortnight he’d planned to be in Rouen, but when Wynne had discovered Lindsay’s true nature, then proven himself to be as loyal and brave as a man could wish, Lindsay had realised he had found a rare gem.

  Their relationship was unusual. Master and servant. Friends. Comrades. For a brief while, Lindsay had wondered if the boy was tender on him, until he’d realised Wynne’s feelings ran rather more along the lines of hero worship. And Wynne had pretty soon been cured of that.

  Wynne was certainly capable of romantic feelings though. That much had been obvious, last year in Paris, whenever he looked at Marguerite and thought no one was watching. Poor Wynne. Marguerite was so very dazzling, and he so very ordinary. She had barely noticed him at all.

  Of all the forms of love, unrequited love was probably the cruellest.

  Lindsay dipped his finger into the rouge pot and tackled his other cheek, then his lips. Wynne had finished his hair now and was crossing the room to fetch the jewel case.

  Tonight, Lindsay had chosen to wear lilac and silver, a quite unexceptionable choice were he in Paris or London. But here in Edinburgh he’d likely be viewed with muted horror, like a gaudy parrot let loose to mingle with the pigeons in St. Giles Square.

  He grinned at the thought.

  “Something amusing you, sir?” Wynne asked as he set down the jewel case and opened it up.

  “Just thinking of what the solid burghers of Edinburgh will make of my coat,” he said.

  Wynne grinned. “It’s a very fine coat.”

  Lindsay peered into the jewel case and extracted an amethyst ring, the stone a near exact match to his coat and big as wren’s egg. He pushed it onto his index finger and regarded his hand. Moon-pale skin, long, slender fingers, carefully buffed nails.

  He glanced in the mirror.

  He looked like a louche, debauched aristocrat. Affected and bored and yes—he smiled at himself—as handsome as the devil.

  He would do very well, he decided.

  Hopefully Drew Nicol would agree.

  THE DINING ROOM AT Dalkeiths was a gloomy, hushed cocoon of a place.

  The walls were panelled in dark, burnished wood, and blood-red Turkish carpets muffled the floors. The windows were obscured by heavy curtains of maroon velvet. Beeswax candles of the best quality glowed in wall sconces and on tables, but their light was somehow robbed by all those rich, dark furnishings, and by the equally dark clothes of the soberly attired patrons.

  When Lindsay entered the room, brilliant in silver and lilac, the diners’ murmured conversations petered out and a few heads turned his way, showing shadowy, disapproving expressions. Lindsay wished then that he’d worn his hair powdered after all, to look all the more dramatically bright. Instead, he satisfied himself with giving the company a dazzling smile, making an elaborate leg and drawling, “Good evening, gentlemen.”

  There were one or two murmurs and someone gave a hrrumph before the diners returned to their meals, pointedly ignoring him. Amused, Lindsay turned his attention back to the footman who’d been instructed to take him to his table.

  “If you’d follow me, sir,” the man said quietly.

  The table he led Lindsay to was in the gloomiest corner of the room.

  “Fetch another candle, would you?” Lindsay said as he settled himself down in the chair facing the door through which he’d entered. “I won’t be able to see my own dinner at this rate.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  The footman was back quickly. “I’ll bring your guest directly he arrives, sir,” he said, setting the candlestick on the table. “May I fetch you some wine in the meantime?”

  “Indeed you may,” Lindsay smiled at him. “What do you recommend?”

  “We’ve just had a delivery of an excellent new Bordeaux, if that is to your taste?”

  Lindsay nodded. “That will do very well. Thank you.”

  The servant bowed and moved away, leaving Lindsay with nothing to do but look about the room till Drew Nicol deigned to appear.

  The other diners were doing their best to ignore him, though he caught one or two of them glancing at him surreptitiously and whispering to their neighbours about who he might be. Of course, his mere appearance would be stoking their curiosity. Dalkeiths had a small and exclusive membership of politicians, judges, wealthy landowners and the like—of course they would be wondering who the flamboyantly dressed stranger amongst them was, and how he had gained entry.

  At length the footman returned with a decanter of wine and two glasses.

  “I took the liberty of bringing an extra glass for your guest, sir,” he said as he set them down on the table, one in front of each place setting.


  “Thank you.” Lindsay watched him pour the ruby liquid into one glass, leaving the second glass empty. He listened idly as the man ran through the various dishes being served by the kitchen that evening, remarking that it all sounded delicious but that he planned to wait till his guest arrived before ordering anything.

  It was a full quarter hour before the same footman appeared again, this time—finally—with Drew Nicol in tow. Lindsay spied them as soon as they appeared in the doorway. His gut twisted at the sight of Nicol, though he made sure to give no sign, merely leaning back in his chair and letting one side of his mouth hitch slowly upwards.

  Nicol was dressed much like the other patrons, in a severely cut dark suit. Unlike the other patrons, though, he did not merge into the gloom. His masculine beauty was far too striking to miss, and with his fair hair gleaming bright in the candlelight, he drew every eye in the room.

  A moment passed before Nicol spotted Lindsay in his shadowy corner, and if Lindsay had hoped to elicit a smile, he was disappointed. The sight of him did not appear to please Nicol much at all. If anything, his faint frown deepened fractionally before he waved the footman away and began to move towards Lindsay.

  Did the man ever smile?

  When Nicol reached the table, Lindsay said, without rising from his chair, “I was beginning to wonder if you were coming.” He hoped Nicol could not detect how much his delicious scent affected Lindsay.

  “I very nearly didn’t come,” Nicol replied bluntly. “And to be frank, I’m not yet convinced it’s a good thing that I’m here.”

  Lindsay grinned at his frankness. “Of course it’s a good thing,” he said, “Now, sit down, won’t you? You’re giving me the most dreadful crick in my neck.”

  Nicol raised a brow, but he sat as he was bid and allowed Lindsay to pour him a glass of wine without further protest.

  “We’ll have an excellent dinner,” Lindsay said, “with some excellent wine and—I hope—some excellent conversation. What more could a gentleman want?”

  Nicol sipped the Bordeaux. “Well, the wine is excellent, at least,” he said dryly. “We’ll see about the rest.”

  Lindsay laughed. “You really do have a shocking lack of charm, Mr. Nicol. I have no idea why I like you so well.”

  Nicol looked briefly, almost endearingly, startled by those words. “Neither do I,” he said. “People generally don’t, you know.”

  Before Lindsay could respond to that, the footman was back. He recited the dishes available and they made their selections. Nicol, Lindsay noticed, seemed uninterested in the offerings, only asking for one dish, while Lindsay, whose appetite was always sharp, ordered several, though he planned to force some of the food on Nicol. The man was too thin, he decided. That big body was meant to be thickly muscled, not angular and rangy as it was now.

  When the servant left them, Lindsay said, “Why do you say people don’t like you?”

  Nicol thought for a moment. “I’m a bit of misanthrope,” he said at last, then after a pause, “At least that’s what my wife used to say.”

  “Do you agree?”

  Nicol shrugged. “I don’t disagree. I have little patience for most people.”

  “You make an exception for some, though?”

  “Not many,” Nicol said.

  “Who then? Your wife?”

  It was an impertinent question, and a tactless one. The poor woman was dead, after all, but Lindsay was curious. What sort of marriage had Nicol had with his wife? Had they loved one another? Had it been a marriage of convenience? Had she called him a misanthrope affectionately or bitterly?

  Nicol didn’t strike Lindsay as the sort of man who showed his feelings easily, but as Lindsay watched him, that grim expression he wore so steadfastly subtly softened with something that looked like sorrow, or perhaps regret. His scent changed too, in that impossible-to-read way that Lindsay struggled to translate to exact human emotions.

  For a few moments after Lindsay’s question, Nicol was quiet and seemed to be looking inwardly. At last he said huskily, “I should have been more patient with her than I was. I can’t pretend I was a good husband. She deserved better.”

  The quiet grief in Nicol’s tone shamed Lindsay for his prying. He opened his mouth to apologise but was forestalled by the return of the footman with some of the dishes they had ordered. Awkwardly, Lindsay watched the footman set the dishes down: baked oysters, a pair of roasted pigeons and a plate of tiny meat pastries.

  When the footman had finally departed, Nicol said, in the tone of someone who very much wanted to change the subject, “This looks excellent.”

  Lindsay took the hint. “Yes, it does,” he agreed, reaching for one of the dishes. “May I serve you some oysters?

  “No, thank you,” Nicol said. “I will wait for the turbot, but please, go ahead.”

  Lindsay tried to rein himself in a little, but it had been far too long since he’d eaten luncheon. He ended up consuming both pigeons quickly, one after the other, then polishing off most of the meat pastries.

  More dishes were brought: Nicol’s turbot, a plate of braised celery and asparagus, a pot of mutton stew, a roast capon. Lindsay made an effort to eat politely, but he was honestly famished and consequently found it difficult to rein in his appetite.

  He was, after all, a beast at heart.

  “Hungry?” Nicol asked faintly, as Lindsay served himself a large portion of the mutton.

  Lindsay grinned. “My last meal was at breakfast time,” he said by way of an explanation, then held up the ladle in his hand. “Would you like some of this?”

  Nicol shook his head. “I’m not terribly peckish,” he said. “The turbot is very good though.”

  Lindsay eyed Nicol’s plate which still held most of the portion of turbot he’d been picking at for a while now. Judging by how much he’d eaten, Lindsay had to wonder if he really did think the dish was any good. He opened his mouth to ask but thought better of it when he noticed the rigidity in Nicol’s jaw. Instead, he said lightly, “Tell me what it’s like, being an architect. Do you just draw pretty pictures all day, or do you get your hands dirty too?”

  His teasing prompted a slight lessening of Nicol’s tension, and a faint chuckle which made Lindsay smile too. Even such a meagre sign of mirth from Drew Nicol felt like a rare honour.

  “I don’t lay bricks, if that’s what you mean,” Nicol said, “but I do keep an eye on the construction. My involvement doesn’t end once the pretty pictures are produced.”

  “Tell me about it,” Lindsay invited, and to his surprise, Nicol did. He leaned back in his chair, wineglass in hand, and began to talk, while Lindsay continued eating.

  He told Lindsay about his work, his thoughts on the buildings he designed, the practical difficulties he faced when he tried to translate those designs into bricks and mortar. He told Lindsay about the politicians he had to deal with, and the tradesmen and the artisans. And of course, the wealthy patrons who bought his houses.

  “Do they make insufferable demands?” Lindsay asked.

  “Insufferable demands?”

  “Do they want to put their own stamp on their houses, change your plans?”

  Nicol gave a short laugh. “From time to time, but usually they just let me get on with it.”

  “What about Cruikshank?” Lindsay asked, curious.

  Nicol looked thoughtful. “Well, yes, Mr. Cruikshank has been one of the more demanding clients. He’s had some quite... specific requests.”

  “Such as?”

  Nicol gave him a level look. “You can’t expect me to reveal all my clients’ secrets.”

  Lindsay chuckled.

  Nicol seemed more relaxed now, so Lindsay decided to change the subject back to their meal. He pointed with his knife at Nicol’s plate, which was still half full.

  “You should really eat more, you know.” he said. “You’re a bit thin for a man of your height and build.”

  He wondered if Nicol would be offended by the blunt comment,
but the man only shrugged, uninterested. “I believe I could still make two of you.”

  “You’ve a bigger frame than me, I’ll give you that,” Lindsay said. “But you could use a good feed.”

  “I don’t think your standards are typical,” Nicol replied, raising a brow. “I’ve never seen anyone consume quite so much food in one sitting before. Where do you put it all?”

  Admittedly, while Nicol had been talking, Lindsay had dispatched almost everything on the table, working his way through the mounds of food with steady concentration. Now he patted his stomach complacently. “My mother used to say I must have hollow legs,” he said, and that was true, though these days it was Lindsay’s wolf nature that fuelled his appetite, rather than being a growing lad. “You, on the other hand, ate almost nothing.”

  “I wasn’t very hungry,” Nicol said distantly, and once again, Lindsay had the impression it was a subject that bored him.

  “Why so?” Lindsay studied Nicol curiously. “Are you unwell?” He could smell no sickness on the man, but that wasn’t conclusive in itself.

  Nicol’s mouth was a wry twist, a not-quite smile. “No, I’m not unwell. In fact, I’m disgustingly healthy.”

  That struck Lindsay as a distinctly odd way to put the point. As though Nicol somehow minded being in good health.

  Pushing away his plate, Nicol reached for his wineglass, leaning back in his chair as he sipped idly. He seemed content to wait for Lindsay to speak, unfazed by the silence.

  “Can I ask you something?” Lindsay said at last.

  “You can ask—I may not answer.”

  “Why did you agree to come tonight? It obviously wasn’t for the food.”

  “Why did you invite me?” Nicol countered.

  “I told you—I wanted to talk to you about taking a plot and—”

  “Did you?” Nicol interrupted. “Was that the real reason?”

  Lindsay stared at him. He couldn’t read Nicol’s expression, which was as flat as his voice, though his scent was sharp again between them.