by Maya Rodale
Lady Claire Cavendish, of the brilliant mind, wanted him purely for his body. She cared nothing for the contents of his brain or his heart. Not even the contents of his bank account or the prestige of his title.
Women had often gone mad before for his muscles, his touch. His wealth and title were a boon. This business with Lady Claire, then, was nothing new. It was the way things had always gone with him and women. Fox ought to be glad that everything was back to normal after Arabella.
The truth was, he was not glad. Or relieved. He was troubled because this should have been everything and it wasn’t enough. He wanted more, more than she was willing to give and perhaps more than they could ever be.
This realization struck him suddenly. His heart stopped beating, blood stopped pulsing through his veins, air ceased moving in and out of his lungs.
In this space, the truth revealed itself: they were madly attracted to each other and yet wildly incompatible. They could never be together, especially once she discovered the real reason he had originally pursued her. Fox now understood what she had been trying to convey.
There was no point in any of this, then—other than for him to try to change her so he could win a bet. But he no longer wanted to change her. He didn’t want to lose the wager, because he didn’t want to lose his dog. But he also didn’t want to lose her—it wasn’t possessive so much as not wishing to wreck something unique, beautiful, and true.
There was no point in any of this.
No matter what, he could not win.
He had played a dangerous game and was about to lose everything that mattered.
He stopped the kiss. His organs resumed their vital functions.
He stepped aside. Space between them was necessary if he wished to form and articulate a sentence.
“You have made things very clear. Thank you. I bid you a good evening.”
Mowbray ought to have been looking for a bride of his own—that was why eligible gentlemen endured Almack’s—but instead he spent the evening socializing with the pretense of observing Fox and Lady Claire.
He’d heard the rumors of their time spent together. He’d seen the beginnings of her transformation. He watched, transfixed, as he finally caught them together.
Mowbray watched Fox approach Lady Claire, standing off to the side of the ballroom.
He watched them converse. Was it tense or passionate? He could not tell. There was blushing. Eyes flashing. And then he watched them, hand in hand, quickly slip off to a secluded corner.
“Excuse me,” he murmured to the group of people he was pretending to converse with. Then he followed.
And then, around a darkened corner, he witnessed the inconceivable sight of Fox kissing Lady Claire. Not any kiss, no. The kind with heat, passion, and real feelings. The kind that had Mowbray backing away slowly, feeling like the worst sort of creep for seeing it. The kind of kiss that plainly revealed that Fox wasn’t just about a wager, that Arabella was about to lose him again, and that Mowbray was about to part with his prize racehorse and the winning streak he’d been on.
That is, unless he could chuck a wrench in the machine.
Chapter 14
Later that night, at White’s
Fox quit Almack’s and proceeded to his club, where he discovered that there was still no escaping the Cavendishes. Somehow those vexing, confounding, upstart American women had managed to infiltrate White’s, haven of the aristocratic British male.
“Ah, so this is where the party is,” Fox said dryly as he strolled in and pulled up a chair and collapsed into it. His friends Darcy, Rupert, and Alistair Finlay-Jones, recently returned from the Continent, were seated around a table, starting a game of cards. They had smartly avoided the marriage mart that evening. “I was at Almack’s earlier, dying of boredom. And sobriety.”
Actually, he was tortured with lust, possibly lovesick, confounded by the mind of an otherwise logical female. But he wasn’t such a fool as to say anything about that to his friends, who would never let him hear the end of it.
“Were you expecting otherwise?” Darcy inquired in that dry Darcy-way of his.
“I had promised Francesca I would escort her.” He turned to Darcy, whom Francesca had been keen on seeing that evening. “In fact, I noticed you weren’t there.”
“I had an urgent matter to attend to,” he murmured. Fox eyed his friend, wondering if he was keeping a secret.
“Still drying off from your spill in the lake?” Fox asked, thinking that the more they talked about Darcy and his American girl, the less they would discuss Fox and his American girl, he reasoned.
Not that he had an American girl. She had made that very clear. She was too busy having imaginary affairs and dances with the Duke of Pythagoras and Lord Rhombus.
Alistair perked up at the prospect of Darcy doing something as uncivilized as fall into a lake.
“What did I miss?” Alistair asked.
A lot. And that was just last week. But Alistair had spent the past six years traveling and had only just returned. Fox took a long swallow of whiskey and wondered where to begin.
“You won’t believe it,” Rupert began with obvious delight, and he proceeded to explain. There was little detail given to the rowboats, the race, and the collision and far too much information regarding the aftermath.
Fox was, unfortunately, forced to remember how he spent those moments: in a little rowboat, with Lady Claire, all to himself. Speaking of dragging her off to his lair where he might have his way with her.
Which he did, in a manner of speaking, just the other day.
She’d probably just been ogling the strength of his muscles, the masterfully athletic way he handled the oars. He was probably just some handsome, ignorant brute to her. Then again, he had been admiring the way her breasts swelled over her bodice, promising a wicked, wonderful handful for a man.
Which he confirmed. Which he wanted to experience again.
He had not been lusting over her way with an equation.
Shit, was that . . . empathy he felt? Was he, good god, obtaining greater understanding about something deep and meaningful? He was irate that she thought of him only as a prime physical specimen and not a person with feelings, and yet all he did was lust after her and plot ways to change her. He hadn’t thought of her as a person in possession of feelings.
Fox took another swallow of his drink, shoved such thoughts from his mind, and focused on the conversation at hand.
“Fancied a swim, did you?” Alistair quipped, good-naturedly teasing Darcy, who was not often—or ever—teased.
“If that’s what we’re calling it these days,” Rupert replied.
“I overheard Fran and her friends gossiping about it,” Fox said, coming back to the conversation. He was the only one who could get away with calling Lady Francesca “Fran.” “They were going on and on about Darcy here, in his wet shirt. Giggling like schoolgirls. It was horrifying.”
Nothing terrified him. Except for giggling girls.
It occurred to him that he’d never once heard Lady Claire do something as missish as giggle. She was probably physically incapable of it. This prompted a pang in the region of his heart lungs.
“It has been said by some that Lady Bridget swooned right into Darcy’s waiting arms,” Rupert said, laughing. Darcy merely lifted one brow.
“She wasn’t swooning. She was thrashing about in the water, attempting to swim,” Darcy said, sounding painfully bored.
“And then you clutched her to your chest . . .” Fox said dramatically, mockingly.
“And she gazed into your eyes . . .” Rupert added.
“I couldn’t very well let her drown,” Darcy said.
Alistair was laughing heartily. “Let me guess. She swooned in your arms once you rescued her from an untimely demise.”
“I daresay she swooned,” Rupert said. “I was there.”
“And they say ladies aren’t much troubled by sexual feeling of any kind,” Fox remarked dryly.
&nbs
p; “My regards to the women in your life if you believe that,” Darcy replied.
He certainly didn’t believe it tonight. Not after being nearly ravished by Lady Claire Cavendish in an alcove. At Almack’s. She had pressed her mouth to his, licked the seam of his lips, teased him into opening up to her.
She wasn’t drunk, either, for he tasted her and he knew that her desire was real, and not just champagne induced.
Women were definitely troubled by sexual feelings. Fox had known, and confirmed it.
And now he was, too. Bloody hell.
“Sod off,” he retorted. A long sip of alcohol was needed.
“My, how the mighty have fallen,” Alistair murmured, glancing at his friends. “I go away for a mere six years . . . and come back to find Fox here in a snit over a woman and Darcy gallantly rescuing young ladies at garden parties.”
“I don’t know about you gents, but I came here to win all your money at cards and drink obscene amounts of brandy. I have no intention of gossiping like schoolgirls,” Darcy said.
Fox raised a glass to that.
And with that they began to play in earnest.
But even this did not provide the escape he sought. Fox was reminded of the night he explained the rules of vingt-et-un to Claire, moments before she sat down and proceeded to win nearly every hand, and not by beginner’s luck, either. It was by the sheer intellectual force of her “lady brainbox.”
He lost that hand. Then the next. He didn’t have her brilliant brain. Or, tonight, even an ability to focus. Everything reminded him of her, starting with the cards in his hand and the probabilities he couldn’t calculate.
He could never compete. He could never compare.
He was in a deplorable state of angst when Mowbray sauntered by, drink in hand, cravat askew, nose red with drink.
Fox glanced up at him and swore under his breath.
“More wagering, Fox?” Mowbray said cuttingly.
Fox gave him a look reserved for insects that were crushed under his boot and said, “I’m not in the mood, Mowbray.”
Mowbray did saunter off, but not without a knowing look that Fox’s fists itched to erase.
“What is that about?” Darcy asked.
“Nothing,” Fox said sharply.
“It’s obviously something,” Alistair said.
“Allow me to clarify: it is about nothing that I’m going to discuss with you lot.”
“It has to do with a woman,” Rupert said.
This was greeted by low whistles and raised brows and murmurs.
Fox did his best to ignore them and instead focused on the cards in his hand. Sense was not made. He did his best to try to recall what cards had been played, and how to calculate odds, like she did, but that made his head ache and took all the fun out of the stupid game.
Drink. Scowl. Think. Repeat.
The numbers on the cards swam before his eyes—brandy at work. He could not make sense of them. He was supposed to be playing a game. Winning a wager. He was supposed to be feeling the thrill of the chase and the excitement of competition, yet he felt only bewildered. She had flummoxed him, so completely that he knew neither heads nor tails, hearts nor diamonds. Not how to win, nor even how to play the games.
His friends could have his blunt in the pot. Mowbray would take his dog. All he wanted was an end to this madness. He wanted life to return to normal. Fox wanted before and if he couldn’t have that he wanted an end to this torture.
Finally, he set down his cards.
“I’m out.”
Chapter 15
Lucien Kemble returned to the stage at Covent Garden last night, to the sighs of his adoring female fans. But many in the audience were also hoping to catch a glimpse of fallen society darling Miss Arabella Vaughn. She did not attend.
—Fashionable Intelligence, The London Weekly
The next day, Durham House
If Claire hadn’t been kissing Lord Fox, if she hadn’t been so distracted by her wanton and wanting thoughts for him, if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with a man, if she’d just had her priorities in order (family first, men last), if she hadn’t disregarded the rules of proper behavior and common sense to passionately kiss him in the middle of Almack’s . . .
Well, then, maybe what happened next wouldn’t have happened . . .
Perhaps disaster could have been avoided . . .
If only Claire had been more sensible and attentive . . .
But first, the facts.
Whilst Claire was ravishing Lord Fox in an alcove, she was not paying attention to her youngest, most troubling sister, Amelia, who had managed to evade the duchess and find an opportunity to disregard propriety and cause a terrific scene. First, she feigned a faint to avoid dancing with a gentleman. In the process, she was discovered to be without shoes. At a ball. Like some backward, heathen, savage American.
What happened next only made the situation worse.
It stood to reason that if Claire had been paying attention to Amelia, instead of writhing against Lord Fox and claiming his mouth for a wicked kiss, none of this would have happened.
Lesson to Claire: pay more attention to her family, less attention to her own wild passions.
That lesson was reinforced the next morning when it was discovered that Amelia was missing. Gone. At large. Presumably alone. Possibly lost.
Her bed had not been slept in.
Claire abandoned all and any thoughts of Lord Fox and what she had done to him in an alcove.
Once the family realized Amelia was missing—when she did not come down to breakfast, as she was never known to miss a meal—they searched the house from top to bottom. This took some time, as Durham House was on the large side of massive. She was not anywhere to be found and she hadn’t left even the slightest clue as to where she might have gone or—shudder—with whom.
Afterward the family gathered in the drawing room to determine their course of action. Expressions were grim and the mood was tense. James wanted to hire Bow Street Runners to fan out over London in search of Amelia, while the duchess urged discretion. It wouldn’t do for Amelia to be publicly disgraced; the whole family would certainly be ruined then.
They had such precious little social capital as it was.
But Claire didn’t care about that right now; she only wanted her little sister back, safe and sound, so she could hug her fiercely and yell at her tremendously about what a fright she’d caused them. She would apologize, too, for being so distracted and putting herself first.
Eventually a plan was determined—who was searching when and where and with whom and when the Runners would be called. Bridget had gone off with Lord Darcy for a ride in Hyde Park and to hopefully spot Amelia.
James had stormed out to alert the Bow Street Runners and to walk every street in London himself, if necessary, in search of Amelia. Claire could almost imagine him calling out her name, like she was some lost puppy. But he couldn’t, because discretion was essential. If the ton discovered her absence, there might be no recovering from the scandal.
Claire found herself alone in the drawing room with the duchess.
Alone in this massive room—in which their house in Maryland could fit, comfortably—with a fearsome woman determined to marry them all off.
This required extensive social machinations—which were just equations that Claire did not understand. There were introductions and dancing and calling hours and finer points of etiquette to learn. There were also factors to consider that Claire couldn’t be bothered with—things like lineage, social connections, titles, wealth. Little thought was given to compatibility, whether it was a meeting of minds. Or hearts. Or other parts.
The thought of which made Claire turn red.
The duchess only wanted what was best for Durham, the dukedom.
But Claire wondered if that pressure to wed had sent Amelia running. Amelia had been under so much pressure to tame her wild spirit, to mind her manners, to smile more—but not too much. She wanted to explore
the city, but the duchess had insisted on paying social calls instead.
Claire had found her own way to avoid the duchess’s machinations for marriage; perhaps this was Amelia’s way of doing so. Still, if only she’d done so without causing a scandal.
She should have guided Amelia more.
And given her a respite from the marriage machinations. Claire should have taken her little sister with her to the boxing match. Or skipped a session with Ashbrooke to take her to Vauxhall. She ought to have stayed by her side at Almack’s instead of ravishing Fox in an alcove. She knew better; she had just been selfish.
“I am sorry,” Claire said, when everyone had left and she was alone with the duchess.
“What do you have to feel sorry for?” the duchess asked after a sip of what had to be her eighty-ninth cup of tea that morning. “There is no need for you to apologize.”
But there was. She thought of the hours she spent performing calculations, debating what an analytical machine could accomplish beyond simple functions, and not minding her family. There were those stolen moments with Fox, one after another—and the embarrassing number of minutes she spent lusting after him in her thoughts. She long ago stopped counting the minutes.
“I have not been as attentive to my sisters as I usually have been,” Claire confessed. “As I ought to have been.”
“You are not their mother,” the duchess said softly.
This was true. But it was also not true.
“But I have been, in a way,” Claire said. “I have spent so long taking care of them and acting as if I was. And I promised our mother that I would ensure they are happy above all else. I feel responsible for the lot of them. And I have to see that they are settled, and safe, and secure before . . .”
“Before?”
“Before I focus on myself. I have been all wrapped up in my work with Ashbrooke and Mr. Williams lately. This business with Amelia has made me realize it.”
