Willa returned to her seat across the carriage and frowned. “I’m not quite certain that qualifies as charity. After all, it is for those less fortunate than ourselves.”
Honore strained to see out the back window again. “I daresay she was less fortunate. Debtor’s prison might have killed her. Gaol fever, you know.”
“Oh. I see.” Willa frowned, trying to harmonize her former ideas of charity with her aunt’s more liberal application. When at last she decided it was a useless exercise, she noticed Honore twisting in her seat again. “Why do you keep peering out the rear window? Is something amiss? Are we being followed by brigands?”
“Brigands? Ha! Don’t be absurd. Willa, really, you mustn’t pinch up your face. You wouldn’t want frown wrinkles at your age.”
* * *
Alex wondered for the hundredth time that evening what he was doing here. He reminded himself he’d come because Harry had escaped from Tournsby’s sickbed and dragged him out for the evening. At least, these stakes were not high as the moon, and Harry was not losing as much as he would’ve at faro.
He ought to be content. Alex sat at a table playing vingt-et-un with his friends, a brandy at his elbow, a beautiful woman leaning enticingly over his shoulder, her perfume coiling around his nostrils like a hypnotic snake. All night, the cards kept turning up in his favor. Davies was spilling over with amusing jibes which ought to be enormously entertaining. Harry certainly found everything Davies said hilarious.
The dealer handed Alex a ten of spades. Coupled with the ten he already held, it meant, in all likelihood, he need only stand pat in order to win once again. He ought to be happy. A gambler enjoyed winning, did he not? Then why was he not jubilant?
It was as if in another game, an invisible game, he’d laid down a winning hand and lost something of infinitely greater value than the shekels riding on the table tonight. He deserved to lose here as well. If he lost a large sum at vingt-et-un, he would be justified in the doldrums he felt.
Funny how fate loves an irony. He chuckled, not at Davies witty joke, but at fate’s mockery.
“Devil take it,” he muttered. If he felt like losing, he would. He asked for another card. It turned up the ace of hearts.
Davies whistled softly. “Devil take it, indeed. What did you do? Sell him your soul? I declare you cannot loose this evening.”
Harry answered for him. “Yes. Yes. Devilishly lucky chap! Bargained away his soul long ago, I should think.”
Was that it? Was he soulless? Had he trifled with life so long that happiness would forever elude him? Would he be trapped in this river of emptiness for the rest of his days?
He’d chosen this life, hadn’t he? Or had it just swept him up and carried him along like the Thames had done with Harry?
The lady at his shoulder leaned close and whispered beside his ear—a piquant taunt, designed to arouse the devil in him. He scarcely heard her. Instead, Alex dribbled a stack of coins into her hand and asked her to go find him another brandy, as this one had been breathing for far too long.
What was he doing here?
Infernal plagued question.
He would do better to ask himself where he would rather be. Home, he decided, sleeping in his bed, or... In a stable? Watching Darley suckle her new foal? Yes, with Willa wrapped tightly in his arms.
That way madness lies. The bard was right. Alex plowed his fingers into his hair above his ear and pulled at it.
Davies arched one eyebrow. “Come. It cannot be as disconcerting as all that to win.”
Harry nodded. “Ruining your hair, old chum. Look like a madman. Supposed to be the windswept, not the hand swept.” Harry fell into gales of laughter at his own feeble joke. Fortunately, he was too far into his cups to notice that Alex was not in the least amused.
Alex was busy trying to decipher the spectre standing in the doorway. Perhaps he truly had gone mad. The vision before him looked exactly like Willa, stunningly so.
Lady Vessmere replaced Alex’s brandy and kissed his cheek proprietarily. He moved not a muscle for fear the apparition in the entrance would evaporate.
If Willa expected to see a roomful of gentlemen with crepe tied about their arms and ladies clad in somber black dresses playing sedate games of penny lou and whist, she was sorely mistaken.
“A house of cards,” she said under her breath.
Honore prodded the doorframe with one finger. “I don’t think it will fall down tonight. Stop standing with your mouth agape like a country bumpkin. Oh, look. There is Lord Monmouth.” She waved and left Willa standing in the doorway.
They were lightskirts. Members of the demimonde. Willa wasn’t sure how she knew it, but she did. They didn’t have kohl darkening their eyes as she had always imagined, nor brightly painted lips. Their gowns were beautiful and hardly more daring than the one she wore.
She could be wrong. To her left, a pianist and violinist played a tasteful sonata. To her right, an enormous Indian servant stood like a statue guarding the occupants. He looked precisely like one of the eunuchs drawn in her storybooks, an open black vest over a white lawn shirt with blousy sleeves and pantaloons with oriental stitching, red pointed shoes, and a massive scimitar sheathed from his belt.
They had to be lightskirts.
Willa squinted and formulated a theory. The men in the room outnumbered the ladies by a mere handful. A telling detail. Most social gatherings offered a plethora of females, debutantes along with their mothers or chaperones. This room held very few matrons. Aside from her aunt, there was only one other lady Willa recognized.
Another fact tipped the balance sheet. These women moved differently, subtle suggestive movements that took the observer a moment or two to comprehend. There were no demure glances to the floorboards. These women allowed their elegantly tapered fingers to rest intimately on gentlemen’s arms and shoulders. Hips swayed. Fans fluttered and snapped in a variety of codes Willa knew better than to translate. The laughter was flirtatious, belying the restrained decorum of the music.
Charity? Ha! This was no better than a gaming hell. One brazen woman leaned forward to hand a man a brandy snifter, her bosom lowered for his view a long indecent moment. When he failed to take proper notice, she wantonly kissed him on the cheek. In public!
Alex!
Willa inhaled sharply and hid her mouth behind her hand. It was Alex, as astonished to see Willa as she was to see him. Alex. With that trollop purring in his ear.
Willa had to think. Except he was staring at her with equal alarm. Thoughts whooshed through her head like hysterical bats in an attic.
She had an urge to grab the eunuch’s fearsome sword and demand that promiscuous hussy get away from Alex. She envisioned herself standing on a table waving the mighty blade like Joan of Arc and ordering them to all go home and behave themselves like proper gentlemen and ladies.
A sermon! She would dearly love to deliver a scorching sermon.
They would laugh.
Willa seized a shallow breath. She should flee, run out of the room, down the stairway, and out into the night, where blackness would enfold her in a blind fog. That was her only real option. Run away.
She turned to go and collided with Lord Alberney’s stickpin for the second time that evening.
He gave her a friendly pat on the shoulders. “Here now. What’s this? Going so soon? What’s your hurry, my beauty? Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” He bowed.
She wanted, nay, she needed to scold someone. Lord Alberney had crossed paths with the wrong woman. “Oh, we’ve met, my lord. Don’t tell me you don’t remember dragging me upstairs at Lady Haversburg’s.”
He laughed raucously. “Dragged you upstairs, did I?” He squinted at her, trying to recall. “Deuced pretty if it weren’t for those thick lenses. Would think I’d remember. Must’ve been completely foxed to forget a night like that. Nevermind. Come. Sit with me.” He put an arm around her waist and whispered loudly, his breath laced with the biting tang of whiskey. “P’rhaps we can have a remat
ch, eh?”
Fire rushed up her neck and burst into her cheeks as she realized how he’d misconstrued her meaning. She pushed at his voluminous chest and tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “No, my lord. I fear you’ve completely misunderstood—”
Another hand grasped her firmly around the middle and pulled her free of Lord Alberney’s arm.
She knew that hand, the size, the feel of it around her, heard the growl rumbling in his chest and knew without question who it was.
Alex’s voice was low, carefully punctuated to sound genial, but nonetheless threatening. “There must be some mistake, my lord. The young lady is with me.”
Lord Alberney snorted derisively and muttered to himself before answering. “Don’t see how. Practically threw herself into m’arms.”
Alex tightened his grip on her. “Lost your way, did you, my dear?”
Willa, sandwiched in the close space between the two large men, looked up at him and frowned. “Not as badly as you have.”
Chapter 17
Pick A Peck Of Pickled Paupers
ALEX PULLED WILLA past Lord Alberney and out into the vestibule. He held her by both shoulders and spoke in a whisper that managed to sound like a shout. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”
She clamped her lips shut. He didn’t deserve a response, not unless she gave him the scathing set down brewing in her head, the one unfit to be delivered in public. “Who was that woman?”
He held her shoulders, staring into her face. “What woman?”
She glared at him. “I’m not completely blind. You know perfectly well which woman. That woman.”
He turned his head to the side, following the direction in which she frowned.
The woman in question stood in the doorway watching them. She was an annoyingly well-formed creature who managed to wear violet to advantage, though why she bothered with the black-lace trim, Willa could not imagine. Hardly a suitable mourning gown.
Alex turned back to Willa. “Lady Vessmere?”
Willa exhaled loudly and muttered, “I ought to have known.”
At the sound of her name, the woman drew near. “What is it, Alex? You left the table so abruptly.”
He straightened and turned, blocking Willa from Lady Vessmere’s view. “Nothing. A family matter. My cousin. In need of assistance.”
Willa peeked around him, fixing the widow with the most imperious stare she could manage.
Lady Vessmere smiled cunningly. “Your cousin?” She gracefully floated to the right, peering at Willa with undisguised interest. “I was under the impression this young lady arrived with Lady Alameda.”
Alex continued to try to shield Willa from his hostess’s prying eyes. “If you would be so kind as to make my excuses to Harry. I must escort my young cousin home.”
Willa and Lady Vessmere edged out from behind his inadequate screen to evaluate one another.
Alex deepened his timbre into one that brooked no argument. “It is a matter of some importance.”
The lady cocked her head slightly, appearing to acquiesce. “As you wish. Shall I also inform Lady Alameda that her niece will be leaving with you? She is the lady’s niece, is she not?”
Alex stepped back, his jaw muscles flexing. He glared at them both. “No. I shall tell her myself.” He gruffly abandoned them in the foyer and went to her aunt’s table.
Willa crossed her arms, waiting impatiently.
“Intriguing.” The merry widow inspected Willa as if she was a prize pig at the fair. “You’re not the sort I thought he would succumb to.”
Willa held her chin aloft and tried, in vain, to arch one eyebrow as her aunt did with such finesse. Instead, both eyebrows shot up. “I have no idea what you are talking about. However, I do know this is no charity gathering you are hosting. You make a mockery of real charities that might benefit orphans or the wounded from our battlefields.”
“A charity? Gad! Is that what she told you?” Lady Vessmere put her fingers to her mouth and giggled with undisguised glee. “How very diverting.”
Willa suddenly felt like a cake. A gigantic, green, crumbling cake.
She averted her eyes, glancing into the card room. Her aunt conducted an animated argument without looking up from her cards and then shooed Alex away as if he were an annoyance.
When he returned to the foyer, Lady Vessmere was still chuckling. “She’s charming, Alex. Most amusing.” The wretched woman grinned wickedly, trailing her fingers across his shoulder and twittering one last time before returning to her guests. “I bid you a pleasant evening.”
Willa rushed away, practically running down the staircase.
They were all laughing at her.
Alex followed loudly on the stairs behind her, but she reached the entry ahead of him. Another Indian servant bowed before her and opened the front door.
She hurried out into the darkness, wanting nothing more than to hide in its dark cloak. Lanterns hissed and flickered on the carriages along the street. Even here she could not hide from her humiliation. She quickened her step.
The tattoo of his shoes on the walk closed in on her. He grabbed her arm, clasping it firmly. She knew there was no hope of escape.
“Where do you think you are going?” He sounded harsh. Foreign. He was not her Alex. Not the one that spoke so soothingly to Darley. Not the Alex she knew, easy and relaxed, ready with a tease. Hard Alex. “Do you even know where you are? This is not Mayfair. A block or two in that direction would put you in the midst of some very interesting company.” He gave her arm a tug. “Well?”
Where was she going?
Willa had been quizzed all of her life. Answers came readily to her. This time she had no quick answer. She stared at his fingers gripping her arm too hard. He eased his hold slightly.
She was running away. That was the plain truth. Simple. Irrational. Fraught with complicating factors, nevertheless, that was it.
“Away!” She glared up at him, defying him to challenge her conclusion.
He stared back at her, obviously unmoved by her wrath.
Away, where? He might ask, and she would have to say I don’t know. Away from you. But saying so would tell him too much, far more than she was willing to admit to him.
He seemed to be doing some lengthy calculations of his own. She grew uneasy under his scrutiny.
“Very well. Then I will take you there.”
He kept hold of her arm while signaling for a hack, grumbling under his breath until one obliged him and stopped. He jerked open the door, saving the coachman the bother, and maneuvered Willa up the steps into the sultry confines of the conveyance.
Chapter 18
Duck, Duck, Noose!
“I SUPPOSE YOU think I am grateful.”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“Good.” Willa crossed her arms and settled back against the worn leather squibs. The coach windows were smudged, and a smattering of soot and dirt made it nearly impossible for her to distinguish anything out in the darkness. She sat in deliberate sulky silence. She had no reason to speak to him. No reason at all. Save one small matter. “Where are we going?”
Alex sat across from her, studying her with the haughty disdain of a perturbed parent. The push and pull of the old coach made his broad shoulders sway from side to side. He took his time before answering. “I gave him your aunt’s direction.”
“I don’t want to go there either.” She cocked her head to the left, chin held high.
He answered more quickly this time and with a modicum of compassion in his tone. “I can’t blame you. The woman is a lunatic. Where, then?” His forbearance was short-lived. He didn’t let the moment pass without adding a mocking bite. “Away?”
She clamped her lips together. “She’s not a lunatic.”
Alex exhaled loudly. “No? What would you say then? Your aunt is the very image of propriety, a perfectly sane individual who sees nothing wrong in dragging her naïve niece into a gaming hell.”
“I am not naïve.�
��
He leaned back and glanced at the ceiling of the hack, shaking his head at the bent-board, ribs, and peeling black paint. “Of course not. Begging your pardon. I nearly forgot. You’re a sophisticated young lady. A woman well acquainted with all facets of life, able to extricate herself from the stickiest of situations.” One side of his mouth curled up.
“I can see you grinning.”
“I can remedy that.” He pulled the black curtains, blocking out all but a trickle of outside light. “You shouldn’t be observed in a hack anyway.”
Willa harrumphed. “I don’t see what difference it makes. I just attended Lady Vessmere’s dubious charitable card party. I doubt there’s anything left of my reputation to ruin.”
“Which brings us back to your demented aunt. I cannot fathom what possessed her to take you into a gathering of that sort.”
It was a sensible question. And yet, it irked her sense of fair play. “If it is such a disreputable place why were you there?” She stared. Waiting for him to feel her jibe, hoping to see an ounce of shame.
“And what if I hadn’t been?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Oh, but it is. What would have happened?”
She shrugged, as if it was of no consequence. “Then I suppose, Lord Alberney might be dragging me upstairs.”
“Precisely!” He jabbed his finger in the air, aiming it at her.
“Aha!” She leaned forward shaking her finger at him. “Then you admit there is an upstairs!” She’d trumped him. Although he didn’t seem to realize it.
He stared at her like she’d just sprouted rabbit ears. “Of course there is. You saw the staircase.”
She warmed to their convoluted debate. “Have you been there? Up those stairs?”
“Willa, what are you talking about?” He didn’t appear confused. A narrow line of lamplight snuck in around the edges of the curtain, beaming across his features. He looked pleased. Pleased she was jealous.
She’d lost the debate. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”
He arched one stultifying eyebrow. (How she wished she could do that.) He used the superior lilt of someone who knows he’s won the game. “I’m afraid you will have to clarify it for me. However, you might want to moderate your voice. The coachman can hear quite readily through these cloth walls without you shouting.”
Mistaken Kiss: A Humorous Traditional Regency Romance (My Notorious Aunt Book 2) Page 14
