by Merry Farmer
Blake’s astounded look and the way he sat heavily in his chair was all the answer Niall needed.
“Oh, Blake.” Niall walked around the desk and sat against it, close to Blake. “Don’t tell me you’ve been isolating yourself all the way up here out of some sense that you’re an anomaly.”
Blake didn’t answer. He merely glanced sheepishly up at Niall. “I know I’m not an anomaly as such, but I thought….”
Niall waited for him to finish his thought, but he didn’t. He stood and stepped back around the desk. “You need to spend more time in London. People are more open about things down there, and with a population of greater than five million, there is more than enough room to blend into the woodwork. But that’s not what we need to focus on. We’ll make a trip into town to send a telegram to David. He can help with both the estate and finding an investigator.”
“Perhaps someone at the party tonight knows who Annamarie’s lover is.”
Niall froze at Blake’s words, as though someone had poured ice water down his back. “Party?”
“Yes.” Blake rose, the look of false cheer back on his face. “Lady Inglewood has invited me to supper tonight. You’ll accompany me, of course.”
Niall turned slowly to face Blake, clenching his jaw. He felt as though he’d stepped into a trap. “I have no interest in attending supper at the house of a Lady Inglewood, or anyone else.”
“You have to go with me.” Blake leapt forward, edging around the desk to grab Niall’s arm. “I haven’t been out in company since Annamarie left. All of my friends and neighbors know what happened. They’re hungry for information, hungry for me, and I don’t think I could face it all without you by my side.”
Niall swallowed, his throat going dry. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to comport himself around the wealthy and titled. He’d had to woo more than a few investors for his plays over the years. He knew how to speak the language and play the game. And with the fame he’d garnered in the last few years, he knew how to hold his own. But if he showed up anywhere by Blake’s side, considering what was happening in Blake’s life, people would talk. And for the likes of them, talk was dangerous, even for a duke and a famous playwright.
At the same time, he knew he couldn’t get out of it.
“All right,” he said with a weary sigh, rubbing his eyes. “We’ll go to Leeds first and send the telegrams, then we’ll clean up and go to this supper.”
The trip into Leeds was simple enough. Blake seemed to have worn himself out with talking the evening before and said surprisingly little as they ran their errands. He drove Niall to distraction by asking that they take a side trip to a few mundane businesses so that he could purchase shoe polish, hair tonic, and other sundries that his valet could have or should have fetched. Niall wondered if the errands were an excuse to spend more time with him, but that seemed ridiculous, considering they were staying under the same roof. When they returned to the house, Blake took him on a tour of the estate, pointing out all of the improvements his father had made. At no point did he mention any work he specifically had done. The tour only confirmed to Niall that Blake wasn’t truly invested in his birthright.
After the tour, they parted ways in order to clean up and dress for supper. Niall dreaded the event more and more as the minutes ticked by. His dread proved well-founded almost immediately as soon as they set foot in Lady Inglewood’s parlor. The esteemed noblewoman had invited two dozen people or more, many of them young ladies with their mothers. Every eye in the room shot straight to Blake as soon as they entered. Worse still, Blake smiled at everyone and greeted his hostess and her friends as though they were chums.
“I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you invited me this evening, Lady Inglewood,” he said, bowing over the hostess’s hand like a cavalier. “Allow me to introduce you to a dear old friend from university, Mr. Niall Cristofori.” He turned to Niall, all smiles and dead eyes.
“Niall Cristofori?” Lady Inglewood’s expression lit with recognition. “The playwright?”
“At your service, my lady.” Niall took the woman’s hand and bent over it. If Blake could play the role of jovial party guest, he could as well. Though he would never play it half as well as Blake did.
“I saw your Persephone in the West End four years ago,” Lady Inglewood went on. “I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself so much at the theater.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
“Lord Selby, why didn’t you tell me you were friends with the Niall Cristofori?” Lady Inglewood scolded Blake lightly.
“You never asked,” Blake joked. There was something brittle and false about the joke, and Niall cringed inwardly.
“Let me introduce you to my guests, sir.” Lady Inglewood took Niall by the arm and pulled him into the room. “You have to help me,” she whispered as soon as she’d pulled Niall far enough away from Blake. “We are all deeply disappointed by the way that horrid American has absconded with Lord Selby’s children and heir. Of course, a divorce must be forthcoming, but we’re all trying to temper the blow by finding a far more suitable duchess for your friend.”
Niall bristled with rage at the bald admission, but kept his smile in place. “Are you certain that isn’t a bit premature?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Lady Inglewood dismissed the idea as they neared the far end of the room. “I’m sure you must see that your friend is desperate for love and affection. In fact, we’ve all thought so for years. It is no secret that the duchess has been stingy with her affections and that it was in no way a love match. But Lord Selby is so lovable, don’t you think?” She turned to glance across the room to where they’d left Blake, forcing Niall to do the same.
Acid churned in Niall’s gut at the sight of Blake surrounded by three young ladies with stars in their eyes as they chatted with him. The sharks had moved in before he’d even made it across the room. He found himself livid on Blake’s behalf.
And if he were honest with himself, he was green with jealousy.
“You must help me convince his grace to play while the young ladies I’ve invited to dine with us sing after supper,” Lady Inglewood went on in a whisper. “You are a man of the theater. Consider it an audition for the duchess’s understudy.”
Niall was offended on behalf of the entire theatrical profession for the comparison. “Wouldn’t it be wiser to let Lord Selby determine his own fate in his own time?” he asked.
“Nonsense.” Lady Inglewood laughed and cuffed his arm too familiarly. “Men should never be left to their own devices in matters of love.”
A sick, twisted feeling hit the pit of Niall’s stomach. No wonder Blake had been maneuvered into a marriage he didn’t want with a woman he barely knew all those years ago. If the entire mindset of the upper class was that men were incapable of knowing their own mind in matters of love, then Blake hadn’t stood a chance from day one.
Something he’d tried to explain to Niall ten years ago.
Guilt and a warm, pulsing compassion took over from anger in Niall’s heart. Blake had tried to tell him. John had tried to tell him too, for that matter. Back then and mere days ago. He hadn’t listened. Youth and love had blinded him to reality. Not that he had ever cared much for reality. His world was one of invention and storytelling. He created his own reality and gave it life on the stage. But now he was beginning to see that not everyone had that luxury. Blake might have grossly underestimated how many men like them existed in the world, but Niall had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d overestimated his ability to shape the world in the way he wanted it.
“Supper is served, my lady,” Lady Inglewood’s butler announced from the doorway.
“You must accompany me in, Mr. Cristofori.” Lady Inglewood gripped Niall’s arm tighter. “You might not rightfully belong at the head of the line in terms of title and precedent—your friend Lord Selby deserves that honor—but you are a celebrity, and how often can a humble countess like me say she has a celebrity at her table?”
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“I am at your service, my lady.” Niall nodded graciously, but inwardly he seethed. By what right were people shunted to the front or back of the line simply because of the honorific attached to their name? A title did not make someone a decent man or woman.
All the same, the rush and jumble that followed as men lined up and ladies scrambled to accompany them, all so that the group could claim the right seats at the long, gilded, dining room table, made Niall want to roll his eyes and scream. The only consolation he had as they were seated for supper was that he ended up directly across the table from Blake and that the food was exquisitely good.
“I don’t care much for the theater myself,” the dowager countess seated on one side of Niall said halfway through the meal. “There’s always something profane about it. And theatrical sorts—” She shuddered.
Niall clenched his jaw and prayed for patience. “It is a colorful world,” he said. He sent a glance across the table to Blake, who was ostensibly listening to something one of the candidates for future duchess was saying. Their eyes met, and by the flash of amusement Blake’s look contained, Niall could tell exactly where his attention truly was.
“My nephew, Albert, was involved with an actress once,” the dowager went on. “Vile creature.”
Niall only just managed to keep a straight face as Blake’s eyes sparkled with mirth. “Perhaps I know her,” he said, deadpan.
Blake coughed and reached for his wine.
Niall’s mouth twitched into a grin before he could school it to neutrality. What the devil was wrong with him? He was miserable in the current company, offended by everything around him, and in the midst of being insulted by a stodgy dowager. On top of that, he was wary about being around Blake again and unsettled by everything he’d felt and thought since arriving the day before. He should not be sparked into silliness by a single glance thrown across the table by a man who had shattered him.
“Cristofori,” the dowager went on with a sniff. “What sort of name is that? Are you Italian, sir?”
“His great-great grandfather was Bartolomeo Cristofori,” Blake interrupted, turning away from whatever silly thing the woman next to him was saying. “The inventor of the piano.”
“Is that so?” The dowager glanced suspiciously to Niall.
“It is,” Niall answered as something bumped his foot under the table.
The woman seated on Niall’s other side—a woman who wasn’t old, but who had the feel of having put herself firmly on the shelf—made a sound of interest.
“You play the piano beautifully, Lord Selby,” the marriage bait on Blake’s left said. “You must play for us later.”
“You must accompany me singing,” the young lady on his right said, attempting to snag back his attention.
“I do enjoy playing,” Blake said with a smile for each lady that Niall found far too docile.
The thing that had bumped him tapped his ankle. Niall choked on the last bite of his dessert tart as he realized it was Blake’s stockinged foot. He reached for his wine to wash the bite and the surprise down, noting that the table was perhaps the narrowest dining table he’d ever sat at. In fact, he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the thing had been purposefully designed for exactly what Blake was doing. Though how Blake had managed to remove his shoe without anyone noticing was a mystery.
“I never did trust the Italians,” the dowager went on as Niall glared at Blake. Now was neither the time nor the place to play games, and Blake should have known it. Particularly given how strained things were between the two of them.
Blake shifted from smiling indulgently at the woman on his right to look at the one on his left. As he did, he glanced across Niall’s scolding glare. The only sign that he noted Niall’s disapproval was a slight reddening of his cheeks and the way he jerked his foot aggressively up Niall’s calf inside of the leg of his trousers. Niall nearly sputtered, mostly because the sudden show of mischief from Blake instantly had him aroused to an alarming degree. He could have strangled Blake then and there. He should have known better than to try something in public when he knew there was still a wall of unresolved tension between them.
“It was probably an Italian that Lady Selby ran off with.”
The comment from the dowager snapped Niall to full attention. Judging by the way Blake’s foot went slack against his ankle, Blake had heard her too, though his silly smile for the lady on his right was still in place.
“And do you know who Lady Selby ran off with?” Niall asked the dowager bluntly, in no mood for games—hers or Blake’s.
“Heavens, no,” the woman balked, reaching for her wine. “Whatever makes you think I would know the first thing about such a fast crowd?”
Niall scowled. He had the dowager pegged as the sort who had been as wicked as the devil in her younger years, but who pretended innocence in her dotage.
“Perhaps it is time to adjourn to the parlor for some light entertainment,” Lady Inglewood announced from the end of the table. “I’m certain we will all enjoy Lord Selby’s playing. And perhaps, if we’re lucky, his esteemed friend from London, Mr. Cristofori, will join him.”
Blake’s foot pulled away from Niall’s leg as Niall protested, “I’m not one to perform in public.”
“Nonsense,” Blake scoffed. “You’re as entertaining a performer as anyone else to grace the stage.”
Niall sent him a wary look. At the rate he was going, Blake would get them into more trouble than either of them needed. The chairs were scraped back and the company began to chatter as they dispersed to the parlor. Niall was in no state to stand up from the table as things were. He glared at Blake as he stood, either oblivious to the less than perfect state of his trousers or pretending for all he was worth that he wasn’t half aroused. Niall reached for one last gulp of wine before daring to attempt to stand.
“Mr. Cristofori, might I have a word with you?” the spinster on Niall’s left asked.
Niall had never been so glad to be given an excuse to stay right where he was. “Yes, of course.”
The spinster glanced around anxiously before leaning closer to him. “It’s just that you mentioned Lady Selby’s lover.”
A burst of excitement filled Niall’s gut, but before he could do more than open his mouth to ask the woman to go on, Blake was by his side, forcing him out of his chair.
“Come on,” Blake said, eyes shining with excitement. “We’ve been called on to perform.”
“I’m not interested,” Niall growled, rising with an apologetic smile for the spinster, then shuffling Blake over to the side of the room so he could reiterate with more meaning, “I’m not interested.”
“Of course, you are,” Blake whispered back, pushing him toward the door. “You haven’t changed that much. Stop fighting it.”
Jaw clenched, Niall let Blake hurry him out of the dining room. He had a feeling nothing good could possibly come out of the rest of the evening.
Chapter 14
Ten years dropped away in the blink of an eye, and all because Niall was there. Blake hadn’t felt so light or so young in a decade as he played his heart out, not caring who sang as he accompanied or what requests they made. It made no logical sense, but it was as though he were alive again, as though his blood had resumed flowing and his heart beating. He didn’t even have to be speaking directly with Niall for the comfort and joy of his presence to buoy him. He just had to look at Niall’s pinched, frustrated, vexed, beautiful face and the reluctant fire in his eyes to feel as though the door to his cage had been thrown open.
“Surely you will sing this one with me as a duet, Lord Selby,” Miss Lloyd asked, batting her eyelashes as she took her place by the piano, where all of the young ladies attempting to catch his attention had stood while singing.
“I’d be delighted,” Blake smiled back at her, heart light. Any chance he had to sing his heart out, quite literally, was a welcome one, the way he was feeling that evening.
He played the opening strains of th
e love song Miss Lloyd had requested, then started into his part. He glanced carefully at Niall as he sang. His heart leapt in his chest and he had to sing through a broad smile at the sight of Niall sitting with his arms crossed and a flat look on his face. Having Niall cross with him for flirting in public was as luxurious as fine chocolate.
And why shouldn’t he be happy? For the first time in a decade, his world felt right. Niall had finally come, swooping in with command. He’d come up with solid ideas to sell Montague’s estate. He’d had the presence of mind to think of hiring an investigator to find Annamarie and the children. And he’d not only allowed Blake to purge the bitterness of the last ten years of his life by listening to his story, he’d casually informed him that, in fact, he wasn’t a lone, perverted oddity in a world of upper class propriety and decorum.
He wasn’t alone anymore. Niall was back in his life, and he would be damned if he would make the same mistake he’d made ten years ago and let him leave this time. The fact that Niall appeared to be furious with him was the very best sign he could have hoped for. There was a very fine line between anger and passion, and even with the chasm of time between them, Blake could feel how close Niall was to crossing that line, just as he had always been able to feel a shift in Niall’s body just before he came.
“Bravo! Encore!” Lady Inglewood’s guests applauded when the song was over. Blake grinned modestly at the approval, gesturing to Miss Lloyd, who curtsied and simpered at him as though she were the focus of attention.
“Just one more song,” Blake said as the young women vying for his attention began arguing with each other about which of them would stand up with him next. “And this one is a solo. Written by my friend, Mr. Cristofori, as it happens.”
“How very exciting,” Lady Inglewood clasped her hands to her chest and glanced to Niall with an adoring look.
Blake shared that adoration, and a growing part of him wasn’t willing to hide it anymore. He’d suffered enough, and Niall had come when he’d called. “This is a song from a musical that Mr. Cristofori wrote and that we performed in together at university,” Blake explained as his fingers flew across the keys, remembering the opening notes. “It’s always been one of my favorites.”
