The Heart of a Scoundrel

by Christi Caldwell

  “May I be so bold, my lord?”

  He stiffened at the unexpected interruption, slowly returning his gaze to Wallace, who, with his dedication through the years, was the closest Edmund had ever come to friendship. “Would it matter if I said no?”

  “It would not, my lord,” Wallace said, inclining his head.

  His lips pulled at the corner. You smile and then it is as though you remind yourself that you do not want to smile and this muscle twitches… He gritted his teeth so hard a pain shot up his jaw.

  “But you’ve smiled, my lord.” He waggled bushy, white brows.

  “I don’t…”

  The old servant looked at him.

  Edmund swiped a hand over his face.

  “I took the liberty of having your carriage readied.”

  Because Wallace often knew everything and anything Edmund intended before he himself did. He glanced down at the wrinkled note and gave a curt nod of thanks. The old servant turned on his heel and shuffled through the entranceway, leaving Edmund alone. With a curse, he stalked over and tossed the note from Lord Waters upon his desk, staring down at the page.

  Four days had passed since he’d last seen Phoebe and in that time this pressing desire to see her had not lifted. Instead it had, if possible, grown into a gripping desperation. As a man who’d taken what he wanted and expected everything as his due, he now knew he wanted her.

  With that resolve and a short carriage ride down Blackfriar Bridge later, his driver stopped before the entrance of the Leverian. Edmund didn’t wait for the servant. He tossed the carriage door open and stepped down, looking up the impressive façade of Museum Leverianum, as it was called. The most complete collection of curiosities, it boasted the efforts of Sir Ashton Lever. What manner of lady was so intrigued by such oddities? Despite a physical effort to tamp down this weakening, a dammed lightness filled his chest and he started forward, his skin prickling with the sensation of being studied by passing lords and ladies.

  The gossips had already noted his interest in Miss Phoebe Barrett and likely even now tried to sort through what business the most black-hearted scoundrel had at a museum. Edmund entered through the front doors, his eyes struggling to adjust to the dark. He scanned the long rows of display cases filled with exotic creatures, and shells, and other artifacts. The irony was not lost on him—he’d now pursue a young lady and be afforded a dark museum with hidden nooks and crannies made for sinning.

  Edmund strolled forward, making his way methodically down aisle after long aisle. He spared barely a glance for the shells encased in crystal for the viewing pleasure of polite Society and pressed on. Frustration grew and spread, fanning out. What if he’d missed the lady? What if her harebrained father had the wrong of it? Edmund came to the end of the row and continued on….and then froze. All the breath left his body.

  Of its own volition, his hand came up to rest against the cool, solid display case, borrowing stability from the inanimate object when all his strength carefully constructed these years crashed down about him. Phoebe stood, head cocked at the side, as she studied a small, blue bird, forever trapped behind its crystal cage. An emotion pulled at him, undefinable and gripping, all at once. In their gilded world, she was not very different than the creature she now admired.

  As though feeling his stare, she stiffened, and then glanced about. Their gazes collided.

  Even with the length of the aisle between them, he detected the flash of shock and joy melded together in the crystalline depths of her eyes. Emotion stuck in his throat. But for fear, loathing, and disgust, no one had ever felt anything for him. Not even his own parents. Heat burned his neck and he was ashamed and humiliated by such weakness. Just then, she spoke, “Hullo.” Only confirming she was far braver and more courageous than he’d ever been or ever would be.

  Silently, he slipped down the row, never removing his gaze from her person; trailing it over her from the top of her thick, auburn tresses, most of those locks sadly concealed by her bonnet, down to the tips of her ridiculous, innocent, white satin slippers. He stopped beside her.

  Phoebe tipped her head back to stare at him, knocking the silly, white ruffled bonnet, better suited to a shepherdess, askew. He’d long preferred the women he’d take to his bed in satin-dampened garments with plunging, wicked décolletages. How very wrong he’d been. The innocent allure of Phoebe’s modest skirts was more potent than the strongest aphrodisiac. She coughed into her hand. “It was a pleasure seeing you,” she said quietly. “I’ll leave you to your outing.” With hurried movements, she made to step around him.

  His outing? He didn’t go on outings. Edmund placed himself before her, deliberately blocking her path. “This meeting is no chance one. No hands of fate have been involved.” Instead, the lady’s own father had turned her whereabouts over, again.

  “I-it isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Then h—?”

  “I’ve my ways,” he cut in, wanting to kill the words which roused the truth that had brought them together this day. He loosened the strings of her bonnet and shoved it back, appreciating the luxuriant, silken locks, then ran his knuckles down her cheek. “I’ve missed you.” They were the three truest words he’d ever spoken to her.

  “Did you?” A bitter regret tinged her question. Yet, they should also be the only words of his she’d called into question.

  He lowered his head, so that the gentle puffs of her rapid breaths fanned his lips. “I have.” The memory of her had been more potent than any spirit he’d consumed and for all his resolve to set her free, he’d proven himself to be the selfish bastard he’d always been—wanting and taking. “I’ve tried to stay away from you.” But he wanted her in a way that defied the sexual emptiness he’d known with past lovers. Edmund wanted to take her again, he wanted to lose himself in her, and meld his soul to hers until she cleansed the black vileness from him, replacing it with the shine of her goodness.

  “Why?”

  Their breath blended together. “You’ve weakened me.” His chest tightened at that admission which made him vulnerable to this slip of a lady who’d occupied the better part of his thoughts, both sleeping and waking.

  She caressed his cheek and he leaned into her touch, craving her naked fingers upon his skin, damning her kidskin gloves for robbing him of that simple pleasure. “Oh, Edmund. You’ve gone through life fearing all and trusting none, I suspect.” Her words jerked him ramrod straight.

  “Is that what you believe? That I live my life afraid?” he snarled, drawing back, even as that parting cost him far more. He looped an arm about her waist, applying such pressure, a startled squeak escaped her. “I assure you, Madam, I do not fear anyone. Men and women quake in my presence. I’m a vicious, dangerous, black-hearted monster and that is what has kept me away from you.”

  She winced; at his words? His touch? And he lightened his hold upon her. But with her reply, she proved herself the same bold, fearless creature he’d first stumbled upon at Lady Delenworth’s balustrade. “There is a difference between fearing anything and fearing oneself.” Phoebe ran the pad of her thumb over the bridge of his nose, broken too many times in too many fights when he’d been an equally angry boy away at Eton, fighting everyone, over everything. “And a man who warns a lady to avoid him and professes himself to be a danger isn’t really that dangerous, though. Not when it hints so very loudly at caring and concern for the person you’d warn me away from.”

  “Why are you so determined to see more in me than I truly am?” That ragged whisper wrenched from some part deep inside.

  Phoebe leaned up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his in a fleeting, barely-there meeting of their mouths so that he wondered if he’d merely imagined the faint caress. “I think perhaps I’m the one to see the truths you hide from even yourself. Come.” She took him by the hand and guided him down the aisle.

  “What—?”

  “Here,” she said, drawing them to a stop beside the end of the crystal case. With a
flick of her wrist, she motioned to a fierce vulture, trapped and frozen in time for polite Society’s viewing pleasure.

  Edmund furrowed his brow and looked from her to the creature and then back again.

  “What do you see?”

  “A revolting bird,” he said flatly.

  A laugh, clear as tinkling bells, bubbled past her lips. She pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “Look closer.”

  In a bid to see just what it was she saw in the brown creature with its red head and orangish beak, he peered and then gave a shake of his head. “If anyone sees me studying birds, I’ll be ruined,” he muttered.

  “Do focus.” She swatted his arm. “What do you see?”

  Edmund took in the sharp beak and jagged claws. No one could ever possibly look at the foul creature and see anything redeeming in it. “I see a fierce, ugly, vicious beast.” And he didn’t see much more than that.

  “Ah, yes. Of course, you do.” Phoebe captured his hands, interlocking their fingers. “Do you know the vulture will never attack the living? On the outside, you are correct, they appear quite fearsome.” She raised their entwined hands up. “But they’re not really. When you know them, when you learn all those pieces about them that you’d not ordinarily know.”

  His throat worked with the force of his swallow and he trained his attention on their fingers. Ah God, she would make him into what he was not. He was not harmless and he’d spent the better part of his adult life striving to teach members of the ton just how fierce and ugly he was. He hastened his gaze back to hers. “If you knew the things I’ve done, you’d leave and never look back once.” And it would destroy him. A panicky pressure closed on his chest, making it difficult to breath, to think, to move.

  Instead of being warned into leaving, she squeezed his hands. “I’m stronger than you’d believe, Edmund.”

  Yes, she was stronger than anyone he’d ever known before. This delicate, bold, and whimsical miss had shattered his defenses and laid siege to him. In a desperate bid to reclaim order, he cleared his throat. “We might also add informed lady of bird facts to your rather impressive talents.”

  “Yes.” A twinkle lit the blue depths of her eyes and she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And proficient reader.” She nodded to the information card posted upon the bottom edge of the vulture’s case. “I read it a short while ago.”

  A sudden bark of sharp, unexpected laughter burst from his chest, unfamiliar and rusty from ill-use, and it blended with her carefree, unjaded laugh. Standing there, in the crystal rows of the Leverian, Edmund thought perhaps she might be right—perhaps he was more—or, at the very least, could be more—for her. And she deserved more.

  She deserved a proper courtship.

  Chapter 12

  It may have been mere moments, or perhaps even hours, that Edmund remained fixed to the marble floor, staring at the foyer door. He dusted his palms together and made another attempt to move both his legs and then promptly stopped. Though it was not his crippled limb that halted forward movement this time. With a curse, he rocked back on his heels. And continued to stare. At the door. A door that represented far more—or rather him stepping past that dark wood panel that signified far more.

  Bloody hell he was not that gentleman. Nor was he any manner of gentleman, for that matter. He wasn’t a man who collected a lady during fashionable hours and escorted her for a ride in his open carriage, declaring boldly for the world that she was his—staking his claim of possession. He closed his eyes a moment. To do this thing, ordinary to any other nobleman, would reveal to polite Society the lady had a hold upon him. And there was no greater danger than that.

  Yet, he took another step toward the door and then stopped—again.

  The shuffle of footsteps echoed throughout the towering foyer. “Lord—”

  “Not yet,” he bit out and then swiped a hand over his brow. “Not yet,” he repeated in a gruff tone.

  “Very well, my lord.”

  He drummed his fingertips alongside his leg. This madness, this spell Phoebe had cast about him, was far greater than any hold Margaret had once held over him and all the more terrifying for it. The moment he stepped through that door, he’d cease to exist as the fearless, undaunted, merciless Marquess of Rutland and instead become a man with fears, and those fears would have him at the mercy of others who’d prey upon this inherent weakness for Phoebe Barrett. “What is even the point of it?” he muttered.

  “What is the point of what, my lord?”

  He ignored Wallace’s kindly inquiry, instead focusing on that question that begged exploring. Edmund would present himself before fashionable Society, court the lady, with no plans of revenge binding him and Phoebe as one, but for what purpose? He couldn’t offer her his name. Why can’t I? The question whispered about his consciousness, tempting and seductive and, at the same time, terrifying. As soon as the thought developed legs of possibility, he severed it at the knees. He’d spent his life insulating himself from hurts. The one time he’d faltered had proven almost fatal. Literally and, very nearly, figuratively. As though to remind him of that important detail, his leg throbbed. Edmund massaged the tense muscles of his right thigh through his breeches.

  His now dead parents’ union had served as lifelong testimony to the mockery of that revered state of marriage. Nor had he placed much consideration into the Rutland line after his father perished, as he frankly didn’t give a jot for the reprehensible Rutlands to come before him, nor did he care for the ones who came after.

  An image flitted to his mind. A small girl with thick auburn curls and Phoebe’s smile, holding up a book—“Good God.” Edmund dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing. There was nothing else for it.

  Wallace cleared his throat.

  “I’m fine,” he bit out when he managed his breath. And as his whole world had been sent into a reel because of Miss Phoebe Barrett and there wasn’t a soul in the world he trusted or called friend, he looked tiredly over at the faithful servant, hoping he had an answer.

  A protest sprung to Edmund’s lips as Wallace pulled the door open. Sunlight splashed through the entranceway and he held a hand to his eyes, shielding them from the glaring rays. “Sometimes it is easier when there is no barrier between you,” Wallace said quietly.

  Presented with standing there a coward, humbled before Wallace and the liveried footman waiting beside his phaeton, Edmund gritted his teeth and walked with stiff, jerky movements outside, down the steps. Not taking his gaze from the perch of his conveyance, he climbed atop and then set the carriage into motion.

  Through the years, he’d studiously avoided being seen at fashionable hours, doing anything that was…fashionable. He’d devoted himself to a life of debauchery; carefully fulfilling the legacy laid out by his faithless parents and maintaining the expectations the ton had for one of his ilk. Now, his skin pricked with the rabid curiosity trained on him by passing lords and ladies. The rumors would circulate and just as the gossips had been right in every vile piece printed about him, now they would be correct in the seeming innocuousness of a carriage ride with Miss Phoebe Barrett. It signified his courtship. Marked her as his in a respectable way and not the way he truly longed to mark her as his.

  He concentrated on maneuvering his team through the streets, onward to the Viscount Waters’, for to focus on the panic swelling in his chest, threatening to choke him, would result in him guiding the blasted phaeton in the opposite direction, on to the less fashionable end of London to his familiar clubs—dens of sin where he was at ease, because that was where he truly belonged.

  Only…

  Edmund brought his conveyance to a stop at the pink stucco façade of the Viscount Waters’ townhouse—the townhouse, that could be his if he called in his markers. At one point, revenge and greed had driven all. Yet, where was the victory in laying claim to the fat, foul nobleman’s property? Because ultimately that would result in Waters wedding Phoebe off to whichever nobleman presented him with the fattest purse
. He made to step down from the carriage, but the thought stirred inside, real and venomous. She’d wed. Another. A man who would lay her down in her silly skirts, yank them up her frame and take what had once been Edmund’s. With a growl, he thrust back the insidious thoughts, leapt down from the carriage and handed the reins off to one of the viscount’s servants who came forward. Edmund stomped up the steps and rapped once.

  And waited.

  And continued to wait.

  Here for all fashionable passersby. He spun on his heel and passed his gaze out at the boldly gawking lords and ladies who had the good sense to yank their bloody stares elsewhere. Edmund turned swiftly back and rapped again. Bloody hell, he’d rather face his foe Stanhope in another blasted duel with his now crippled leg than be on this threshold for the ton’s viewing pleasure.

  Where the—?

  The door opened.

  “At last,” he gritted out, before the old, wizened butler allowed him entry.

  “My lord,” the servant greeted, executing a respectful but painfully stiff bow. Edmund eyed the man a moment, for all his previous visits never having truly paid the servant any attention until now. Why, with his heavily wrinkled cheeks and bald pate, this one was of an age to keep retirement with Wallace. He frowned. He’d not expect the Viscount Waters, the manner of master, to inspire loyalty and devotion in his servants, particularly after the tales he’d heard of the letch diddling the younger women on his staff. Then, what had he ever done to earn Wallace’s allegiance? He cast a glance about in search of Phoebe—

  And found the sister. Rooted to the place the foyer met the corridor, she hovered uncertainly, a wide, overly trusting smile on her face. “Hullo,” she greeted. “You are here for my sister.”

  As there was no question, he opted to bow and, instead, issue a cool greeting. “My lady, it is a pleasure seeing you again.” He glanced up the stairs in search of the woman it would be a true pleasure to see.