Before he could ask any questions, she changed the course of the conversation. “But as many outings as my mother and I went on when I was a girl, she never taught me to fish.”
He shook his head and sighed. “Your education is sadly lacking. Fishing is the greatest sport there is.”
“I cannot fathom what is so exciting about standing by a stream, waiting to hook some poor helpless animal who’s only swimming about his home, minding his own business.”
He grinned at that. “Allow me to enlighten you on the subject, then. Before the day is over, I will have taught you to appreciate the art of pulling in a nice fat trout. That, my dear Miss Bosworth, is the true stuff of poetry.”
“Hmm,” she said with skepticism, and drank her last swallow of wine. “We’ll have to see about that.”
Rhys knew he had done some very stupid things in his life. Dosing himself with absinthe during those months he’d spent in Paris, for example, had been very stupid. Becoming utterly besotted with his third mistress the year he was twenty-one also ranked high on his list of idiotic moments. And of course there was the fact that he’d spent his entire inheritance, a particularly stupid endeavor since a considerable portion of that money had gone to the absinthe and the mistress.
But by the time he had assembled a fishing rod and threaded the line, Rhys decided blurting out to the heiress he intended to marry what a sod he truly was had to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done. What the hell had he been thinking? This was romantic seduction, and therefore not the time for honesty. Rhys wanted to give himself a kick in the head.
He shot a swift glance at her as he tied the fishing hook to the line, watching as she put the remainder of their lunch back in the picnic hamper. The sight of those big brown eyes looking up at him with utter disbelief in his idiotic confessional was a picture still quite vivid in his mind. Being one of those naive innocents who abounded in this world just waiting to be taken advantage of, she hadn’t believed him. Thank God. He vowed that from now on he was keeping mum about his flaws.
By the time he’d baited the hook with some pickled corn kernels from their picnic hamper, she had finished packing up lunch. “So how does one do this?” she asked, moving to stand beside him.
“The first thing I’m going to teach you is how to cast.” He handed her the rod and showed her how to grip the handle, then moved into position behind her, all sorts of wicked possibilities running through his mind. He reached around her to place his hands over hers on the rod so they could cast the line together, but the moment he did so, he realized this was not going to work. The brim of her hat kept him much too far away. If she kept it on, he wouldn’t be able to pull her back against him and hold her and smell the wonderful lavender fragrance of her hair. And he wanted those things a lot more than he wanted to fish.
“As much as I adore your hat,” he said, “I think you need to remove it.”
“I do? Why?”
Because I want your body as close to mine as possible.
“Because I can’t teach you to cast if you’re wearing it. The brim’s so wide, I fear it will hamper our efforts.”
Prudence accepted his reason without question, bless her trusting heart. She pulled out her hat pin, removed the confection of red straw, ribbons, and bows, and wove the hat pin through one side of the crown before tossing the hat onto the grassy bank near their feet.
“I’ll cast it,” he told her, once again bringing his arms up around her shoulders and placing his hands over hers on the rod. “All you have to do is follow my move.”
“I see.” She nodded. “A bit like dancing, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.” Hooking the line with one finger, he opened the bail and pulled her arm back along with his, then flipped the rod forward. She moved with him, and together they sent the baited hook and its accompanying weights flying out over the lake. The weights landed with a tiny splash and sank, taking the bait down. When he sensed the weights had hit bottom, he closed the bail.
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Now what do we do?”
“We wait,” he answered, and as they stood there, he wondered how long he could get by with embracing her this way in the cause of catching trout. He breathed in the scent of lavender and decided he’d get by with it for as long as she let him.
Slowly, trying to be subtle about it, he let go of the fishing rod to ease his arms beneath hers and slide them around her waist. Despite the generous curves of her figure, she was so much smaller than he, and so soft, that he decided heaven wasn’t up on high somewhere, it was right here.
After a moment she stirred, as if to remind him this wasn’t a proper position for them to be in. Rhys, however, had no intention of letting propriety get in the way of something that felt this good, and he tightened his arms around her.
She capitulated at once, relaxing in his hold. Her token resistance gone, she leaned against him, her back against his chest and her shapely bum nestled against his thighs. The pleasure of it was so sweet, he actually had to bite his lip to keep from groaning aloud, and he hoped like hell the trout weren’t particularly hungry.
“Do you fish often?” she asked.
“Yes, actually, I do,” he answered, valiantly forcing himself to make mundane conversation even as the thick, aching heaviness of lust flowed through his body. “I have…” He paused and swallowed hard. “I have quite a passion for it.”
“Indeed? I wouldn’t have thought a man such as you would enjoy a sport such as this.”
“No?” He closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her breasts against his forearms and the softness of her hair against the side of his neck. “Why not?”
“Well, Your Grace, by your own admission, you have had rather a wild past, and this sport seems a bit sedate for your taste.”
There was nothing sedate about what he felt right now. “The pleasure of it is indescribable,” he murmured as he began to imagine taking off her clothes. “The tension, the waiting, and then, at last, the victory. It’s exquisite.”
“Really?”
The image of her naked was becoming quite vivid in his mind. “Really,” he said with reverent appreciation.
During the remainder of the afternoon, it took everything he had to keep his desire in check, but it was a torture for which he had only himself to blame. Knowing full well how his desire seemed to flare up every time he so much as looked at her, knowing he couldn’t give in to that desire this early in the game, he’d still brought her here, where they could be alone, where he could put his arms around her and pretend it was for perfectly innocent reasons, where he could taunt himself with the shape of her body and the scent of her hair and no possibility of relief in sight.
After two hours of holding her without being able to kiss her or touch her soft skin or slide his hands beneath her skirts, Rhys was in such agony that he decided teaching Prudence to fish now took pride of place as the stupidest thing he’d ever done. But he relished every agonizing second of it.
Chapter 8
London’s Newest Heiress has confirmed she will attend Lady Amberly’s charity ball tonight. This bodes well for the event’s success, for balls often fail from the presence of more ladies than gentlemen to partner them, and the presence of wealthy heiresses always prevents that particular calamity.
—The Social Gazette, 1894
Instead of remaining in Richmond another night as he had originally arranged with his host, Rhys decided to accompany Prudence on the train back to London. During the journey, they were no longer alone, for the train was full, and because of that, he was forced to behave with absolute propriety. Propriety, however, did little to stop the naughty thoughts going through his mind, thoughts that lingered even after he parted company with her at Victoria Station.
He hailed a hansom, and as the cab crawled through the heavy London traffic, Rhys tortured himself with thoughts of her all the way to Mayfair, letting his imagination once again explore all the curves and valleys of her bou
ntiful figure—the undulating dip of her waist and the plump roundness of her breasts and buttocks. He relived the afternoon again and again, even managing to laugh at his own frustration on the rare occasions when an actual fish had dared to interrupt the delicious pleasure of holding her.
When he arrived home, however, his good mood was snuffed out at once by Hollister, who met him at the front door.
“Mr. Roth and Mr. Silverstein are here, Your Grace,” the butler informed him. “Since I assume the matter is business, I put the two gentlemen in the study.”
When bankers called in person, in the evening, the news could not be good. Rhys mounted the stairs, passed the drawing room, and entered the study at the end of the corridor, bracing himself for the worst. The grave faces of the two bankers, who stood up when he entered, told him he was about to receive it.
First, the proper condolences were expressed over the demise of the previous duke.
“Thank you,” Rhys answered, trying to look appropriately grief-stricken for old Evelyn. “My uncle’s death has taken a great toll on my entire family.” He gestured to the pair of chairs facing the desk where they had been sitting. “Please, gentlemen, resume your seats.”
They complied, and Rhys circled around Milbray’s ornately carved mahogany desk to take the chair behind it.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked with an easy smile.
“We have come in response to your letter of yesterday,” Mr. Roth explained, “in which you applied for additional funds.”
“Yes. What of it?” He paused, seeming suddenly perplexed. “Is there a problem, gentlemen? Surely not.”
The two men exchanged glances, and there was a long, painful silence before Mr. Silverstein gave him the bad, not at all surprising news. “With regret, Your Grace, we must decline your application.”
Rhys looked down his ducal nose. “My family has been banking with your firm since the time of Queen Anne.”
“Quite so,” Mr. Roth put in. “Quite so, yes. And because of that history, it pains us to refuse any loan to the Duke of St. Cyres, but in this case, alas, we must. Begging Your Grace’s pardon, we must speak frankly. Your family’s financial situation is…precarious. Your uncle was liberal in his spending, a fact that has concerned us for quite some time.”
Rhys locked gazes with Mr. Roth, who was the senior partner. “These are new times, and I am not my uncle.”
“Of course. But what guarantee do we have that you will improve your family’s financial situation?”
Rhys did not answer that question directly. Instead, he opened the right-hand drawer of his desk and pulled out a recent copy of Talk of the Town. He tossed it down so its headline faced the two men opposite.
Is Love in Bloom in Covent Garden?
Mr. Roth and Mr. Silverstein did not seem as impressed as he’d hoped. The two men exchanged glances, but again it was Mr. Roth who spoke. “With all due respect, Your Grace, you are asking for additional credit of three hundred thousand pounds. That is an enormous sum.”
“It’s not as if the money is for me, gentlemen,” Rhys said, flattening his hand against his chest. “It’s for Her Majesty’s government.” He heaved a sigh. “Beastly thing, death duties.”
“We do appreciate your reasons for needing such a large amount of ready money,” Mr. Silverstein hastened to say. “It is not uncommon for families of esteemed rank to be in such circumstances.”
“I’m so glad you understand.”
“But,” Mr. Roth put in, making Rhys grimace, “we cannot possibly loan such a sum simply because your name has been linked with Miss Abernathy in a newspaper.” He smiled in a deprecating fashion. “Banking decisions of this magnitude cannot be made based upon society gossip.”
“I see.” Rhys leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, deceptively relaxed. He waited a good thirty seconds before he replied. When he did speak, his voice was reflective, thoughtful. “Were a duke to marry one of the world’s wealthiest heiresses, thereby claiming an income in the millions and ownership of an enormous mercantile empire in America, he would become one of the most powerful and influential men in the world, wouldn’t you say? There would be so many bankers such a man could choose among to manage his assets.” He let that sink in, then added, “I have such a long memory, gentlemen, and, I fear, a very unforgiving nature.”
He gave them a look of apology for these flaws in his character.
There was a delicate pause, then Mr. Roth cleared his throat. “If said duke were officially engaged to this wealthy heiress, we might see our way clear to issue credit for the sum His Grace desired, and more, if it were needed. Such loans would be perfectly acceptable on note of hand alone, I think. What do you say, Mr. Silverstein?”
“I quite agree,” the other man said with a nod. “An official engagement would not be gossip. It would be borrowing against one’s expectations, and that is a different matter entirely.”
“Excellent.” Rhys rose to his feet, smiling. “I think we understand each other, gentlemen. And might I be so bold as to recommend that you make a practice of reading the society pages from now on? Gossip, you see, is so often the prelude to fact. Good evening.”
He rang for Milbray’s butler to show the bankers out, also asking Hollister to send for his valet. As he waited for Fane, he considered this new development and how it affected his plans. Because of Miss Abernathy’s romantic nature, he had assumed a somewhat lengthy courtship would be required, but this visit by Mr. Roth and Mr. Silverstein made such a plan untenable. His circumstances demanded haste.
That suited him down to the ground. As delicious as this afternoon had been, it had been a deuced hard thing to arrange. When a couple was engaged, privacy was easier to obtain, giving a man far more opportunity to take liberties. And he intended to take as many liberties with Prudence Abernathy as he could, for she was the softest, sweetest thing he’d come across in a long, long time.
He liked things that were soft and sweet, perhaps because life was so full of things that were neither, including him. And she was such an innocent. He’d never understood the appeal of a virgin before, and yet he was beginning to find this particular virgin seductive as hell. The hero worship he saw in her eyes and her insistence on believing the best of him and everyone else were hopelessly naive qualities, of course. And yet, her sweet, placid nature was like a balm to all that was corrupt and cynical within him.
Romantic, she’d called him. So absurd. If she’d known what thoughts were going through his mind all afternoon, his virginal little heiress would probably have been shocked. And if she became aware of even a fraction of the things he’d experienced in his life, of all the self-destructive excesses in which he’d engaged, of all the ugliness of his youth and the corrupt skeletons in his family closet, she’d have been disgusted by just how unromantic and empty he truly was.
Rhys opened his eyes and once again pulled out the top drawer of the desk. Pushing aside some letters, he removed a small book with a gray-fabric cover, a book tattered and stained from its many years in his keeping. When he opened it, the pages came apart at once to an oft-read page.
Oh, to be in England, now that April’s there.
As always when he read that line, a wave of longing swept over him, a longing for the England of Browning’s brushwood sheaf and singing chaffinch, a longing for the ideals of his country, for the ideals of his position, for any ideals at all. A longing for home.
Perhaps you were just homesick.
No perhaps about it. He’d been homesick for as long as he could remember.
“You sent for me, sir?”
He looked up to find his valet standing in the doorway, and he shut the book with a snap. “I did, yes,” he answered as he dropped the volume of Browning’s poetry into the drawer. “What are Miss Abernathy’s plans for tomorrow?” he asked, shoving the drawer closed.
“I believe she is attending Lady Amberly’s Charity Ball for the Benefit of Widows and Orphans tomorrow night.�
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“Ah, a public ball. Did I receive a voucher?”
“Of course, sir, but you had declined the invitation.”
“Inform Lady Amberly at once that I’ve changed my mind. I will attend after all.”
“Very good, sir.” The valet started to turn away, but Rhys’s voice stopped him.
“And Fane?”
“Sir?”
Rhys paused for a moment, considering ramifications before he spoke. “Make certain Lady Alberta Denville learns of my plans.”
“That should make for some interesting developments, sir.”
“I hope so, Fane. In fact, I’m counting on it.”
Prudence grabbed one post of the immense four-poster bed in her room at the Savoy and sucked in as deep a breath as she could manage. She grimaced as Woddell gave her corset stays a hard pull and vowed she wasn’t eating any more of the Savoy’s cream tarts at tea.
The maid tied off her stays and slid a tape measure around her waist. “Twenty-eight and one-half inches, miss,” she announced a moment later.
Prudence groaned. “That’s not enough. I want to wear the pink damask ball gown, and for it to fit just right, I need you to bring me in another half inch.”
“The pink does look ever so nice on you, miss, but you’ll want to be able to dance, remember.”
Prudence wasn’t worried about that. The duke was attending Lady Amberly’s ball, and that fact meant she’d be floating on air all evening. “I’ll be quite capable of dancing,” she assured her maid with a laugh. “Try again.”
Woddell finally managed to whittle Prudence’s waist size down to the required measurement, and the moment the maid had fitted her into the confection of pink silk before the mirror, she knew their combined efforts had been worthwhile. She might not possess a fashionable hourglass figure, but this gown’s low neckline, puffed sleeves, and gored skirt made her look as if she did. Prudence inhaled as deep a breath as she could manage and let it out on a satisfied sigh.
The Wicked Ways of a Duke Page 12
