They always invited Kingston. He had once reveled in their attention, feeling even—dare he say it?—loved when they included him in their lives.
Except now he did not feel like being included. Their sordid lifestyle no longer suited him. A year ago it had, but now . . .
Now, suddenly, it did not. None of it suited him.
Perhaps the most significant change of all was that Kingston had not been with a woman in thirteen months. Over a year. A record, for certain. Not since he’d visited his mother’s bedside. He’d known she was ailing before he called upon her, but being presented with the reality was an altogether different thing.
There was knowing and knowing.
Now he knew.
Now he had seen his mother ravaged by disease—a disease too ugly to name—and it had changed him. Soured him to his usual pursuits.
He did not like it.
He did not want this change in himself, but he could not shake this pall that hung over him.
His father did not understand this change in him. Nor did his friends. Not that he had explained it to any of them. He did not talk about things of a deeper nature with his friends or father. He was not about to start doing that now.
He could scarcely explain it to himself.
Avoidance was far simpler.
He had taken lodgings the last fortnight in the Cotswalds. Scenic, but there were far too many nosy guests about. The proprietor’s daughter was perhaps the nosiest of all. She was always cornering him and pelting him with questions and prying into his affairs in a poor attempt at flirtation. His monosyllabic responses did little to dissuade her.
He’d cut his stay short on the last night after arriving in his rooms to find the bothersome chit naked in his bed. He’d been abstinent for over a year. She was hardly the woman to entice him from his self-imposed ban on shagging. He didn’t know what woman could entice him, if any at all, but it was not the garrulous innkeeper’s daughter.
He’d tossed the lass from his rooms and departed the next day for the one place he knew no one would find him. Not his father or stepmother. Not any of his licentious friends.
He took himself off to see his bore of a stepbrother. If he could even call Warrington stepbrother. There was no love lost between them. Warrington couldn’t abide him. He’d merely tolerated him during all their forced encounters.
However, his father’s stepson seemed the perfect solution. Warrington lived like a hermit, eschewing Society. Never once had he attended any of Norfolk’s parties. Kingston assumed he’d find all the peace and isolation he craved at Haverston Hall where Warrington resided. Assuming the duke didn’t toss him out. It was quite possible that Warrington would slam the door in his face.
When he arrived at Haverston Hall, he was braced for a dubious welcome.
The last thing Kingston expected to find was his brother married and saddled with a gaggle of females in his house. Respectable females. A wife and her sisters.
Even more shocking, Warrington was entertaining guests—dinner guests—on the very eve of his arrival.
Indeed, he had not slammed the door in his face. Warrington had grudgingly welcomed him inside. Not warmly, certainly, but Warrington’s young wife had made up for that with her genial manner.
The young Duchess of Warrington was exceedingly comely and undaunted by her husband’s scowls. She invited Kingston to stay as long as he liked.
Although Kingston doubted that would be very long. Warrington wasn’t leading a hermit-like existence anymore. Unfortunately. And that changed all his plans.
He would, of course, stay the night, but tomorrow he could take his leave. He didn’t know his destination. Perhaps it was time to acquire his own residence. Then he would no longer be dependent on others for anything.
He had never bothered to obtain his own dwelling because there was no need. He’d never felt inclined to set roots down before.
He had never craved solitude—never a bedchamber or home of his own.
He’d enjoyed a nomadic lifestyle, moving from house party to house party or to any one of his father’s properties. There were too many invitations for him to even accept. He had his pick of places to go, and people who wanted him as their guest.
No more.
He’d had enough of his hedonistic ways. He might not be as rich as his stepbrother, but he was a man of comfortable means. It was time he put down roots. He could afford to do so. Then he could be alone whenever and as often as he wanted.
For tonight, however, he would suffer Warrington and his new family and his guests. He’d made the mistake of coming here. He would bear it for one night.
Standing in the well-appointed drawing room, Kingston peered out the window overlooking the front landscape. Leaning one shoulder against the frame, he watched as dusk gathered outside, streaking the sky in deep grays and purples with a hint of orange.
He listened to the others around him conversing with only half an ear, planning his escape the next day and contemplating where he might like to go next.
He’d never been to Shetland. The islands sounded appealingly remote to him. There had to be a nice little fishing village with a cozy cottage available for him there.
It wasn’t as though Warrington would miss him if he ducked out tomorrow. His expression had twisted into a grimace the moment he clapped eyes on Kingston today. There had never been warmth or affection between them.
Kingston was well aware the duke held him in contempt. He’d never cared what Warrington thought about him as he could scarcely tolerate the man either, kinsman or no. In fact, it amused Kingston that his presence so irked the bloody nob.
“Kingston, something so fascinating out on the lawn? Why don’t you join the conversation, my good man?”
He turned at the question. It came from an older gentleman in a bright plum-colored jacket. Kingston forced his gaze from the jacket. Much like the sun, he could only glance at it briefly.
He had already forgotten the gentleman’s name. The man’s wife sat nearby on the sofa, her considerable frame rigid as a slat of wood. She wore an elaborate turban adorned in peacock feathers. She fanned herself impatiently with a colorful fan, fluttering the feathers.
Warrington’s wife had left her moments ago to see what was keeping the other ladies. The ladies being her sisters. Young, unattached females. The precise variety of female he avoided. Marriage-minded and inexperienced chits were vastly dull.
The turban-bedecked matron’s pinched lips proclaimed her unhappiness at being abandoned so early in the dinner party. She had clearly come here ready to socialize.
Kingston gave a slight shake of his head.
Not only had Warrington saddled himself with a wife, but he now found himself with two sisters-in-law and a brother-in-law away at school somewhere. All this he had gleaned upon his arrival. The newly minted Duchess of Warrington was quite forwarding with information.
It was difficult to imagine the once-hermit duke in such a domesticated situation. In addition to Warrington being burdened with a sudden family, he was now entertaining the local gentry—mind-numbingly tedious as they were.
It was hard to conceive. And yet Kingston’s eyes did not lie.
Warrington was here . . . sitting just across from him.
Kingston had been to his fair share of dinner parties—not all wonderful, of course, but his usual dinner parties did not consist of proper and decent and perfectly boring people such as those in attendance tonight.
He looked around the elegantly fashioned room with a suffering sigh.
There was indeed one thing worse than a dinner party of depraved and debauched individuals, and it was a dinner party full of good and proper members of Society. Quality people. Ugh. People like these. God save him.
Somehow his stepbrother had joined their ranks, as incredible and unlikely as that seemed. Somehow Warrington had become good and decent and . . . and boring.
He downed his drink, relishing the spicy, warm slide of bourbon,
and then poured himself another.
He was in a bad place. He didn’t enjoy the company of his usual consorts and he didn’t enjoy the company of those fit for good society. Confusing, to say the least.
So where did that leave him?
The answer was glaring. Alone. It left him alone.
The idea had merit. Anything was better than this.
Clearly he needed to sequester himself away until he emerged from whatever tedium had seized him and he could return to his usual friends and his usual haunts and the usual him.
Him—Kingston, connoisseur of vices.
He fought back his internal cringe. This strange ennui that had taken over him was only temporary. He’d embrace his old ways in good time.
Except here he was, stuck now at this dinner party. Bored to the point of pain with no relief in sight. Bad decision on his part, to be certain. He would simply have to stomach it though.
The excessively purple gentleman stood in front of him drinking his fourth glass of whisky. He was listing sideways and looked as though he might topple over as he extolled his many connections in the Cotswalds. After having learned that Kingston had just come from there, the man was convinced that they must have mutual acquaintances.
“The Pringleys?” He stabbed a finger toward Kingston insistently. “Are you familiar with them? You must be for Mrs. Pringley is a cousin to Viscount Loughton.”
Kingston shook his head, eyeing the drawing room and all its occupants and wondering when they would finally go in to dinner. They had not even started supper and he was already desperate to escape—a fact that did not bode well for the remainder of the evening that stretched so very interminably.
“Now, Mrs. Pringley was quite taken with my wife.” He nodded across the drawing room, where his stern-faced wife sat. “Understandably so. Bettina has a way with people.”
Kingston glanced at her again. It was difficult to imagine that to be true. The woman wore a perpetual scowl quite at odds with her frivolous turban. She did not seem capable of smiling as she sat on the sofa, her mother, an elderly woman with nearly translucent skin who sat ensconced in a wooden wheelchair, parked beside her.
“People are drawn to Bettina,” Pembroke continued to boast. “They’ve great respect for her opinion on matters of housekeeping and gardening. She has impeccable taste and style, too. She gave Mrs. Pringley much sound advice on millinery, another subject she knows a great deal about . . . whilst we were on holiday there several years ago. They still correspond to this day.” He lifted his glass in the air and shook it for emphasis, whisky sloshing over the sides and dribbling down his fingers. “To. This. Day.”
Mrs. Pembroke was fussing with the cap upon her mother’s white hair as her husband extolled her virtues. The old woman stared vacantly ahead and Kingston couldn’t help but wonder if that was because her faculties were impaired or because she, like him, had gone mind dead.
“I can’t imagine what is keeping your betrothed,” Mr. Pembroke proclaimed loudly, looking at his son reproachfully, as though he were to blame for his betrothed’s tardiness.
Kingston had almost failed to notice the couple’s son.
Unlike his father, the young man was quiet, a wraithlike shadow where he sat in a corner, his slight hands gripping the arms of his chair.
“Where are the other ladies?” Mrs. Pembroke sniped as she finished fluffing her mother’s cap. “It’s quite, quite . . .” Her lips pressed tightly as though biting back an ugly descriptor. One of those ladies was the Duchess of Warrington, after all. It wouldn’t do to insult her hostess. She finally arrived at a suitable word. “It’s quite unusual of them to keep us waiting this long.”
Kingston’s lips twitched. It was almost amusing. The woman clearly wanted to call the duchess and her future daughter-in-law any number of less than flattering things for keeping her waiting, but she restrained herself.
“I’m certain they will be down soon,” Warrington replied, looking pained. Apparently he did not enjoy these people either. However, as one of his sisters-in-law was engaged to the Pembroke lad sitting mutely in the chair, the duke was stuck with their company.
Poor bastard. If Kingston actually liked his stepbrother he would feel sorry for him.
“Ah!” Warrington clapped his hands together in a gesture of resounding relief. “They’ve arrived.”
Everyone turned their attention to the doors to greet the ladies. Kingston fought down a heavy sigh, feeling none of Warrington’s relief as he prepared for the niceties of introductions.
He had no fondness for proper country misses, but he’d wear a smile and suffer through the evening. He might be a bastard, but he still found himself the target of matchmaking mamas. Hopefully the duchess’s sisters did not see him as a matrimonial candidate . . . and then he remembered.
At least one of them would not fawn over him.
She was already betrothed.
Chapter 3
Kingston had already met Warrington’s pretty wife upon his arrival, but this evening she truly looked the role of a noble duchess. With her golden tresses piled upon her head and attired in an evening gown of resplendent green, the duchess swept into the room even lovelier than when he had first clapped eyes on her.
He supposed if one had to marry, she was a fine choice—although Warrington was not a man who had to marry. It still made no sense to Kingston why he should have done so.
Her sisters trailed behind her. Both were clearly younger. Their golden locks mirrored their older sister, but there the similarity ended.
One was fuller of figure and shorter, her eyes lively and cheeks pink as though she had just stepped in from the sunshine.
The other one was taller, slender as a willow reed, her features pensive and her skin pale as fresh cream. Nothing about her was lively as she strolled into the room to very correctly and somberly accept the proffered arm of young Pembroke.
Obviously she was the betrothed. A fitting match for the Pembroke lad. Kingston would have guessed her the one even before she joined her betrothed. The other sister was too vibrant to be bound to such a dullard.
Warrington’s duchess performed quick introductions. The younger sister, the lively one, looked him over with interest. It felt familiar. He knew his assets. His parents were both handsome people and had passed on such attributes to him. He winced at the thought of his mother. His mother’s claim to beauty might not be a point agreed by all anymore. It was one of many things lost to her.
“A stepbrother?” the younger sister exclaimed. “How remiss of you not to mention you had a stepbrother, Nathaniel.”
The duke shrugged unapologetically at the reprimand. “It must have slipped my mind.”
Kingston snorted. More than likely it never crossed Warrington’s mind because Kingston was nothing to him. Not family. Not a friend. Not anyone who mattered.
Not anyone to talk about to those who did matter to him.
It should not have stung. He tossed the remainder of the bourbon in his glass down his throat, welcoming the warming slide.
It should not sting. And yet it did.
It only asserted how very few people he had in his life. He considered that a moment. Perhaps he had no one really.
Kingston looked away from the youngest Miss Langley and her bright-eyed gaze to the other Miss Langley. The quiet one affianced to the dullard with the bombastic parents. She spared him only the most cursory of glances before settling her lackluster gaze on her betrothed.
No matter their status, most ladies gave him more than a cursory look. He knew what the gentlemen of the ton offered. Most of them were balding with rotting teeth and faces bloated from too much drink. By and large, they also had a penchant for dousing cologne over their bodies to disguise their less than pleasant odors.
Kingston was blessed with all of his own teeth and hair and did not stink. He could carry on an intelligent conversation. That put him considerably ahead of other men, even without his handsome mien. He might be illeg
itimate and without roots, but that had never impeded the ladies from admiring him. It was simple self-awareness and not arrogance. A bastard without title or inheritance had to know his strengths.
The drab middle Miss Langley was immune apparently. Or perhaps she was simply so very enamored of her young man.
Soon they all filed into the dining room. At least he was one step closer to being able to retire to his chamber for the night.
The duchess seated him beside Warrington, who sat at the head of the table. Unfortunate, that, as it put him between the duke and the Pembrokes.
The good country gentleman and his wife wanted nothing more than the duke’s attention and they spent the majority of the meal talking over Kingston in an attempt to gain it.
The lively Miss Langley eyed him speculatively as she tore bits off her bread. “I am most interested to learn all about you, Mr. Kingston . . . Nathaniel’s mystery brother.”
“Ah, actually I am his stepbrother,” Warrington corrected in the midst of Mr. Pembroke’s dialogue about his recent purchase—a curricle he was eager to race.
“Do you have any other relations hidden away?” the youngest Miss Langley pressed, eyeing him intently even as she directed the question to her brother-in-law.
“Nora, you pry,” the middle Langley sister murmured, reaching for her glass. She took a long silent sip, the perfect representation of modest and respectable womanhood.
It had been the first words he had heard from her since they sat down to dine.
Nora rolled her eyes, clearly unaffected by her sister’s rebuke as she reached for her glass. “Asking after my brother-in-law’s family? I hardly consider that prying, Charlotte.”
Charlotte. That was her name. A very proper English name for a proper English miss. He could throw a rock and hit a Charlotte in this country. They abounded like tea and biscuits throughout the kingdom.
“It’s not prying,” he agreed. His gaze locked on the very commonly named Charlotte where she sat, surmising she was every bit as common as her name, unfortunately.
The Virgin and the Rogue Page 2
