A small boy with a black cap darted out into the streets, his cheeks gaunt and smudged with dirt and soot. Not much older than Edmund had been when the carefully constructed lies of his life had been kicked out from under him, and he’d been forced to confront reality—his parents’ faithlessness to one another, the scandalous parties thrown for all the most lecherous reprobates of London Society, and their usage of their own son as an instrument of revenge. He gave his head a shake, dispelling reminders of the naïve boy he’d once been. Edmund eyed another child in the streets who effortlessly raced past a foppish dandy in gold satin breeches, easily divesting the man of his purse. A hard, cynical grin formed on his lips. The man likely wouldn’t know of his carefully removed possessions until he was comfortably ensconced in his clubs. How much stronger that child was and ever had been than Edmund’s younger, foolish self who’d been born innocent and then been corrupted. He almost envied the lad who’d never had grand illusions of what life is or should be.
The carriage jerked to a halt before the stucco façade of Forbidden Pleasures. Without waiting for his aging driver, he tossed open the carriage door and jumped from the carriage, his boots noiseless on the grimy pavement. He didn’t require his loyal, aging servants to cater to him any more than they’d made it a habit of doing so through the years. Nothing he’d done had merited such devotion, but, at the very least, if they were too foolish to accept their pensions, he’d see to his own blasted responsibilities of opening doors without assistance. He strode to the front of the establishment and the black double-doors were thrown open.
Edmund left the light of day and sailed through the threshold into the dark of the devil’s den. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the thick cheroot smoke that hung in a heavy cloud over the establishment. The raucous laughter of drunken gentlemen blended with the tinkling of coins being tossed upon the gaming tables. He scanned the hall of dissolute lords, waving off the lush, golden beauty who sidled up to him. She turned away on a flounce and went in search of some interested, bored nobleman who’d tup her for a handful of coins. He’d little doubt the loathsome lord he sought was here. He was always here. It was how Edmund had managed to fleece him of a small fortune, including the man’s eldest daughter’s dowry.
He curled his fingers into a reflexive ball, his fingers digging crescent marks into the flesh of his hands. One of those daughters meant nothing to Edmund in the scheme of his revenge. The other was no longer a shiftless, shapeless lady in white skirts. The now dowerless young woman was Phoebe Barrett with cautious eyes belied by a trusting smile and her damned dreams of exploration. Edmund abhorred himself for the guilt that snaked through him for being the man who’d stripped her of her dowry. A growl worked its way up his throat. Just then, he located Phoebe’s father, seated at a faro table; a buxom, brown-haired, young woman who might as well have been his own daughter’s age upon his lap.
Why should he note such a detail? And why should that detail matter so very much? What in hell madness was this? He thrust back the peculiar thoughts. The wistful woman’s loathsome father was to blame. If it hadn’t been Edmund, it would have been some other who’d bested the viscount in faro, and he was all the richer for that defeat. Except, there was no sense of triumph in that rationale. Bloody hell, he didn’t want to feel guilt or regret or any emotion—feelings weakened a man.
Fueling the icy fury coursing through him and the tumult of emotions he couldn’t put to sorts, Edmund stalked through the club. Young gentlemen gulped and ducked out of his way, cutting a wide path for him. He drew to a stop beside the viscount’s chair. The old man fondled the dark beauty’s breast, cupping the pale mound of flesh that spilled over her lacy top. “Waters,” he said on a slow, lethal whisper.
Viscount Waters scrambled to his feet so quickly he upended the woman on his lap. “R-Rutland.” The woman caught herself against the table and then with her lips pursed in displeasure at her partner’s careless handling, turned and sought companionship with another. “D-Did you want to s-see me?” Those bulging, bug-like eyes darted about, unable to meet Edmund’s gaze. How very different this shiftless, spineless coward was from his daughter who met Edmund’s gaze unapologetically. Then, would she if she knew who he was—truly knew who he was?
“Walk with me.” Not waiting to see if Waters followed, Edmund turned on his heel and stalked through the crowd, toward his empty tables at the far back corner of the club.
The viscount lengthened his shorter stride in a bid to keep pace. “H-Have I done something w-wrong? Was my daughter not where she said she’d be?” He wheezed from the exertion of his efforts.
Oh, the lady had been where the viscount had promised. Staring wide-eyed at that damned map and dreaming of travels to Wales, when other ladies would have been lusting after the latest French fabrics and baubles. He wanted nothing to do with those damned too-trusting eyes. Edmund jerked out a chair and claimed a seat with his back pressed against the wall. The position allowed him the advantage of surveying the crowd, without being vulnerable with his back exposed.
Having been unable to match Edmund’s long, quick stride, Waters hurried over belatedly and made to pull out the seat opposite him. He hesitated and eyed Edmund with a nervous glimmer in his blue eyes.
Edmund started.
“May I?”
But for the bug-like bulge—the color was Phoebe’s and it roused reminders of the woman he’d taken his leave of a short while ago. Instead of the greed and fear in her sire’s eyes, however, Phoebe’s had sparked with intelligence, hinting at a keen wit that threw into question how she could possibly share the blood of one such as Waters. “Sit,” he snapped.
The viscount immediately hefted his bulky frame into the chair opposite Edmund. The wood groaned in protest.
He’d learned long ago the other man’s weakness; his almost rabid fear of Edmund and so he toyed with Waters the way a cat did its prey. He deliberately motioned forward a scantily clad, ethereal beauty with a silver tray. She moved with slow, languid steps; a deliberate sway of her generous hips meant to entice. He eyed her dispassionately, from the interest in her green eyes to the manner in which she darted the pink tip of her tongue out, trailing it along the seam of her lips.
The man smacked his lips. Waters’ second vice. Women.
The woman stopped beside the table. “My lord,” she purred and set down her tray with a bottle of fine, French brandy and two glasses. She fingered the crevice between the enormous mounds of her abundant breasts, an invitation in her eyes.
“That will be all,” he said coolly.
He waved her off. With a pout, she sauntered away.
The viscount groaned, alternating his gaze between the departing beauty and the full bottle of spirits. “What have I done now?” he asked, sounding more like a petulant child than an aging viscount.
Edmund yanked off his gloves then tossed them aside while studying Waters through narrowed eyes; this man whose daughter dreamed of escaping. Was it a wonder when she’d been forced into a miserable existence with this fiend as her father? To keep from dragging the other man across the table and choking the air from his lungs, Edmund gripped the edges of the table so hard his fingernails marred the smooth, mahogany wood. Relishing the viscount’s discomfiture, he forced himself to lighten his grip. He reached with deliberate slowness for the bottle. He splashed several fingerfuls of brandy into his glass and then, knowing it would drive the other man to near madness, filled it to the remainder of the brim.
Tired of the man’s presence, Edmund brought them ’round to the reason for this meeting. “I’m here to discuss your daughter.”
“Eh?” Waters scratched his furrowed brow. “I thought you wanted the ugly one, the Fairfax girl.” At the further narrowing of Edmund’s eyes, he continued on a rush. “Of course you’re welcome to my daughter, either of my daughters,” he amended. He wrinkled his nose, giving him the look of a small rodent. “Though, if you take my youngest daughter, Justina, then I can let Allswood
have Phoebe and my debts to that man…”
Edmund set his glass down and reached across the table. Lip pulled back in a snarl, he clasped Phoebe’s father about the neck, effectively cutting off air flow and silencing the man. The viscount’s words roused images of Allswood laying claim to Phoebe. “Shut your goddamn mouth, Waters,” he hissed. All the while an icy rage seared through him. No one dared tread upon that which he had already claimed. Even in the spirit of pretend courtships.
He released the man with such alacrity, Waters collapsed back in his seat, taking great, heaving gasps of air. It was a testament to the evil that went on in this place that only mildly curious glances were tossed their way. “I’d charged you the task of finding out her interests.”
What if I were to say I’m not escaping but searching…
Waters rubbed his neck where Edmund had so roughly handled him. “The gel likes her travel books, I told you,” he whined.
In short, the man didn’t know a jot about his daughter beyond that. Edmund layered his elbows upon the table and leaned across the smooth, mahogany surface, shrinking the gap between them. “I intend to find out for myself, Waters.”
The viscount’s cheeks turned ruddy and then in a shocking display of courage and boldness, he said, “You aren’t going to ruin the chit, now are you?” Ah, so there was a bit of fatherly loyalty to the woman. Waters’ beady eyes darted about the club and then returned to Edmund once more. “Can’t have you ruining her. Not when I can use her to make a match.” Of course, that would account for any father’s sense of concern for his daughter’s virtue.
Edmund downed the contents of his brandy in a long, slow swallow and set the glass down hard. With a last, disdainful glance at the corpulent lord, he shoved back his chair and stood.
“Rutland?” the viscount’s pleading voice called after him.
He ignored the other man and continued his path through the clubs with renewed purpose for Phoebe Barrett. The viscount asked him not to ruin his daughter, failing to know she’d been ruined the moment she’d made friends with Miss Honoria Fairfax.
Silently he catalogued the viscount’s newest revealed weakness—using his own daughter as a pawn.
Chapter 7
The following morning, Phoebe, inside the Viscount Waters’ carriage, rolled slowly through crowded London streets. She fiddled with her reticule. At any other moment, and any other time before, an eager excitement would have consumed her every thought so all she might think about was this trip she now made.
You’d go to Wales to be closer to your Vikings, instead of spreading your wings and daring to dream…you deserve more in your dreams and for them…
Edmund, a mere stranger to her just three days ago, had somehow reached inside her and seen both the hopes she carried and, more, the secrets she kept, even from herself. “Oh, it is ever so exciting.” Her sister’s lyrical sing-song voice called her to the moment. Justina fairly bounced on the edge of her seat. At seventeen, there was still an honest innocence to her younger sister’s happiness. “New shops, new books.” A wistful expression stole over her face. “Oh, I cannot wait until I make my Come Out.”
There was a romantic, faraway glimmer in her sister’s lovely blue eyes that gave her pause. This whimsical dreamer remained somehow untouched by their father’s darkness. Unease stirred in Phoebe. With her golden blonde curls and trusting spirit, Justina would be easy prey to any manner of roguish gentlemen with dishonorable intentions who’d take advantage of that trusting spirit.
Feeling her stare, Justina’s smile dipped. “What is it?”
Phoebe shoved aside concerns for the future. There would be time enough for worrying when Justina made her Come Out. “I’m merely thinking of the books I’ll find,” she lied.
Justina dropped her chin into her hand and sighed. “You are so clever and bookish.”
Her lips twitched at the compliment given that would have not been construed as such by most any other lady. “You too are clever,” she said.
Her sister wrinkled her mouth. “Not like you. I’ve tried to read your books of exploration and I find my mind drifts to romance and dashing knights and scandalous loves and…” She prattled on and on, raising the warning bells once again of the perils of sending Justina out into London Society. She would need to be carefully guarded.
Phoebe stared out at the passing London streets, the crowds thinning as they disappeared deeper down to the less traveled parts of North Bond Street, while thinking of another—a gentleman whom her friends vigorously attacked with their words and urged caution of.
Edmund, the Marquess of Rutland—a gentleman whom Society saw in one light, while in truth he, too, possessed a traveler’s soul, longing to break free from the strict confines of their gilded world and know life beyond the cage they’d been trapped within. Only, as a gentleman, he could travel and explore and go…and yet he did not. Just like her. What was it that held him here?
“Oh, dear, you have the look again.”
She released the curtain and it fluttered back into place. “What is that, dear?” she asked, returning her attention to Justina.
A twinkle lit her sister’s pretty eyes. “The look,” she whispered as though fearing the driver and the footman perched atop the box might hear her over the loud churning of the carriage wheels. “It is a gentleman, as Mother said.” Phoebe widened her eyes and made a choking sound. Her sister’s smile widened. “The look of longing…” She choked again. The look of longing? “And you wearing the expression a person has the moment they try their first ice at Gunter’s.”
“I do not,” she said, drawing her shoulders back in indignation. She was practical and logical and didn’t have dreamy eyes and faraway expressions.
Justina nodded as though the matter were settled on fact. “Oh, yes.” Then as the ultimate insult, she leaned over and patted Phoebe’s knee. “Nor did you deny there is a gentleman.”
“There is no gentleman,” she replied automatically…and belatedly. Warmth burned her cheeks.
Her sister gave her an entirely too mature of a sudden, sympathetic smile. “I am sure he is splendid.”
He was splendid; a magnificence that defied the hard, chiseled planes of his cheeks and a noble, square jaw with a slight cleft, the only hint of softness in a face that may as well have been chiseled of stone. Even with but their two meetings, Edmund asked questions of her interests as though seeing someone more than any other lady who’d made her Come Out and sought a respectable match.
“You’ve the look of longing again.”
Blessedly, the carriage rocked to a halt alongside their destination. “I do not have a look of longing,” she muttered, grateful when the footman tugged open the carriage doors and effectively interrupted her sister’s response.
Phoebe allowed him to hand her down with a murmur of thanks and paused to look at the corner establishment. She shielded her eyes against the sun’s glaring brightness. Her sister came to a stop beside her and followed her gaze. From the corner of her eye, she detected the skepticism stamped on her face. “This is the shop?”
“This is the shop.” She remained rooted to the spot while eying the sign that hung haphazardly, swaying in the spring breeze.
“It hardly seems er…” Justina scratched her brow. “The fashionable shop to contain those travel items you so love.” The shop in question was, in fact, one she’d never before visited. After Edmund’s inadvertent challenge of her dreams and love of exploration, she’d resolved to look beyond the safe, expected books offered at the more fashionable shops.
She eyed the building with the same skepticism in her sister’s suddenly wary eyes. “I have it on good authority it is a reputable establishment with original artifacts and books.”
“On whose good authority?”
Phoebe pretended not to hear Justina’s question. She could hardly say her loyal maid had put inquiries to some other nobleman’s hopefully loyal servants and had been given this particular shop. “Come along, th
en,” she said with forced cheer and started toward the Unique Treasures and Artifacts Shop.
“Not at all a clever name for a shop,” her sister mumbled as she followed Phoebe into the dark and cluttered shop.
Phoebe skimmed the expansive space, with floor-length shelving of books and tables scattered about the room and brimming with unfamiliar objects; some of them shining and lethal in appearance. Her heart kicked up a beat with excitement.
“Perhaps it isn’t a gentleman, after all,” her sister said at her side. She glanced at Phoebe questioningly. “You have the same look of longing.” She groaned. “Never tell me you’ve gone and fallen in love with your tiresome artifacts.”
Phoebe laughed and took her by the shoulders, then steered her off. “Go. Shop.”
“You’re trying to be rid of me.” Her sister slapped a hand to her chest in feigned hurt.
Phoebe winked. “Indeed, I am.”
“Very well,” Justina said on a prolonged sigh and then skipped off with the exuberance better reserved for a younger child.
Free of her oddly knowing younger sister, Phoebe returned her attention to the shop, and scanned her gaze over the collection of exotic creatures petrified. A black panther with a lethal gleam in his frozen, yellow eyes pulled at her. “Hullo?” she called out softly. She looked about for a shopkeeper and, at finding none, ventured deeper into the shop, drawn to the massive panther in the corner. Phoebe touched a tentative hand out and stroked his satiny smooth head. Regret tugged at her. This is not the adventure and exploration she craved. She didn’t long for a world where creatures were captured, killed, and forever memorialized as a token of one person’s dominance in a world different than the natural world they belonged to.
“Oh, hullo, there.”
Phoebe started and dropped her hand. She spun around. “Hello.” A bespectacled, tall, lean man with a shock of red hair stared back at her as though she were as rare as one of those exotic creatures on display in his establishment.
The Heart of a Scoundrel Page 8
