“Pity.” His one word reply was loaded with innuendo. His intense gaze fixed on Dulcie’s face, and he was bold enough to add, “I was hoping we could do it again.”
Her eyes snapped to meet his, and she felt herself blush. His reminder of what passed between them last evening flustered her and, at a loss of words, she said, “Er…I think I had better go back inside now.”
“You know, you’re very pretty when you color up,” Griff said, adding another masculine smile that curled her toes in her heavy boots. “I like it.”
Bending and clicking the leash to Simon’s collar, she clucked to the dog sitting on his haunches next to them on the walkway.
Griff reached to take the leash from her. “I’ll take him in for you.”
“If you wish,” she said and handed him the leash.
They walked side-by-side toward the mansion.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” he asked.
“No.”
“Hungry?”
“A little,” she replied.
“Good. Why don’t we breakfast together? I hate to eat alone.”
Simon accompanied them to the morning room, and made himself comfortable underneath the table. The sideboard was filled with covered dishes containing eggs, kippers, sliced ham, broiled kidneys. Warm scones soaked up freshly churned butter. A pot of tea wrapped in a cozy and a silver coffeepot waited. Small jars of jellies and jams, plus a pot of honey and a covered sugar bowl sat on the table.
Griff waved the footman off. “Sit down, Dulcie,” he invited, pulling out a chair for her. “I’ll serve you.” He took a china plate and turned to the heavily carved, mahogany sideboard. “What would you like?”
When she told him, he filled her plate and put it down in front of her. He brought the teapot to the table. She poured one cup and glanced up at him.
“I prefer coffee in the morning,” he explained, and reached for the silver coffeepot and brought it to the table. He eased himself down at the head of the table with his loaded plate. Dulcie occupied the seat to his right, around the side of the table.
Dulcie pushed her spectacles up her nose, glancing at Griff from where she sat. The delicious aromas assailed her nostrils as she picked at the items on her dish. Her stomach was suddenly unruly. Queasiness rolled through her. The wine, she thought again, reminded by the overwhelming bout of overindulgence she suffered through last night. Dulcie took a few mouthfuls, chewed, and swallowed slowly, hoping she wouldn’t disgrace herself and toss up her accounts. She pushed away the unfinished food and bit off a piece of dry toast. She stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into her hot tea and managed to ingest two cups.
Meanwhile, Griff filled his plate a second time.
Dulcie noticed the ironed copy of the London Times lying next to his place. He hadn’t picked it up or started to read it. Her father always read the morning paper at the breakfast table. Griff Spencer obviously was made differently. Either that, or he had no interest in what was in the news. Since she was now in London, Dulcie wanted to read about the goings on in the Metropolis and its haut ton. Perhaps she could grab the Times for herself when he left.
Griff seemed to down a prodigious amount of food. Feeling a little better with the toast finally lying quietly in her stomach, Dulcie regaled him with a few stories about her home in Surrey. None of their conversation, however, gave insight into details close to the heart. Dulcie was quite aware that she and Griff were polite strangers. His innuendoes earlier about a meeting between them last night embarrassed as well as confused her. She remembered very little clearly, believing that she left him soon after her stepmother went out, and she had retired to her room.
“You don’t remember me kissing you, Dulcie?” Griff asked suddenly.
“Kissing me? Oh my! Of course not. Why, that’s absurd. I believe you must have been in your cups, Mr. Spencer,” she said, arching an eyebrow. She pursed her lips slightly, thinking over his impertinent remark. “I allow, though, I may have been a bit tipsy. Perhaps that is the reason I woke up with this infernal headache.”
“You were foxed, Lady Dulcina,” he stated, unequivocally. “Nevertheless, you liked it when I kissed you.”
She continued adamantly that nothing of the sort took place. “You must have envisioned a fantasy,” she told him, her attention focusing on the china teapot. “We scarce know each other, Mr. Spencer. My stepmother would indeed ring a peal over my head should she learn I behaved in such a ragged manner.” Dulcie couldn’t meet his eyes, but she continued to dismiss his blatant bouncers.
“Men and women have kissed upon slighter acquaintance, Dulcie,” he replied. “I would like to spend more time with you.” His smile brightened. “Will you allow me to do so?”
Lord, he is quite the charmer and quite handsome, Dulcie thought.
A flutter she couldn’t deny rippled through her. “Since we are semi-related because of my stepmother’s marriage to my father, I suppose it would be proper. I would like to get to know you better, too.”
When she smiled, he nodded in agreement. He hoped to captivate both her and her pocketbook. He didn’t think of himself a cad, without a gentleman’s honor, because he meant to do the right thing by her. So what if he were slightly self-serving? Wasn’t it the right of all males? He would woo her wariness away with charm and persistence. Even at an early age, he cozened any female he wanted if he put his mind to it.
It seemed odd to him, however, that she didn’t remember what went on between them. Her denial certainly dented his damaged ego. Two glasses of wine at supper shouldn’t obliterate her maidenly inhibitions. Had she drunk something more potent beforehand?
While they debated, Griff kept two things foremost in his mind: his meeting with the Westminster Bank holding the mortgage on his father’s estate, and his upcoming ravishment of Lady Dulcina.
Chapter Twelve
Dulcie excused herself along with Simon. Griff rose politely, then sat back down. He picked up the London Times, and scanned the headlines. Dulcie turned back over her shoulder, hoping to scoop up the newspaper for later, but he had it firmly in his grasp.
She and Simon arrived in her room while Marnie was making up the bed. Dulcie asked the maid to order hot water for a hip-bath. She sat quietly and waited, musing about her latest conversation with Griffith Spencer.
Agina’s nephew was very different from his aunt. Agina exuded a coarseness, a commonness. To Dulcie, her stepmother was unlike a lady, not at all like her real mother. Agina didn’t have the personal aura she should as a member of the peerage. She was extremely lovely to look at as compared to Dulcie’s mother who had been no beauty. Eloise Trayhern had been a true lady, with a generous nature. She displayed a calmness of gentility and warmth of soul. Everyone who knew Eloise loved her. Until she died, she had been happy and content to remain at Bonne Vista and tend her roses.
Agina was sharp of tongue, selfish, conceited, and lacking in charm or tenderness, unless it was to get her way. Dulcie had wondered at the time why her father married the razor-mouthed, cold-hearted woman. While Dulcie’s father and Agina lived at Bonne Vista, she often overheard sharp words and fierce arguments between the couple. Mostly they were about Agina’s desire to leave Surrey. Her stepmother loved the bustle of London and Brighton, hated rusticating amidst the countryside’s rolling hills. The bickering hadn’t stopped until the earl and countess removed permanently to London. Agina had gotten her way.
Dulcie thought afterward that their violent arguments might have precipitated her father’s sudden demise. It was the London physician’s conclusion that it was apoplexy. Was that possible? Her father had never complained about heart pain or palpitations. He had been a robust man who seemed to enjoy life to the fullest until he married his second wife.
Dulcie remembered that just before her father and his new wife arrived at Bonne Vista, that she had suddenly succumbed to a vicious, unexpected malady. She was rarely ill, but she took to her bed. Her old nurse treated her with warming pans and piled o
n the bedclothes when Dulcie shivered with chills. When the fever spiked in the other direction and Dulcie tossed off the blankets, complaining they irritated her sensitized skin, the nurse sponged her with cool water. For two days, Dulcie lay as quiet and limp as a wet rag, but she forced herself to get out of bed and greet the newlyweds. When she swooned in the drawing room, her father, anxious and distraught, begged Agina’s help. She told Maxwell that her lady’s maid, Emma Trent, was an astute healer who used unusual herbal remedies to treat anyone with pains and fevers. Whatever tisanes the two of them concocted, Dulcie was cured within a day’s time. Either that, or her strong constitution fought it, because she recuperated rapidly. Dulcie herself was never sure what did the trick.
Now, however, Dulcie’s musing lingered on Griffith Spencer. She convinced herself she was simply attracted by his masculine beauty, nothing more. Subconsciously, she knew it wasn’t true. Flashes of girlish twitterings excited her whenever she saw him, and her heart rate sped faster. She finally realized she had more than a casual interest, and possibly stronger, feelings: There was still that urge to dig deep into the cleft in his chin and yes, to know what it felt to press her lips to his. Was it possible she had kissed him, half awake in a dream, the way he proposed?
“Milady, yer hip-bath is ready,” Marnie said, startling Dulcie out of her meandering thoughts after the maid had several burly footmen carry in pails of hot water. “And two new gowns were delivered for ye, too, milady. Do you wish to wear one of them today?”
“Oh! They’re here? Wonderful. I’ll try on the blue one,” she answered, watching her maid deposit the packages on her bed. “Perhaps a new dress will lift my mood. And mayhap later you’ll be good enough to do something with my hair.”
* * * *
After browsing through the Times, Griff rose and went to his room to change and get ready for his appointment at the bank. He stopped by the countess’s bedchamber and knocked on the hall door. It was cracked open by Trent, Agina’s lady’s maid. “Can I help you, Mr. Spencer?” she asked.
“I believe the countess has something for me. I am on my way out, but I will wait for it below in the parlor.”
“As you say,” she said and turned to shut the door again.
Griff paced the small parlor for quarter of an hour. Dammit! She had better not trick me, he thought, or I will be totally hobbled.
Five minutes later, Robert, the upstairs footman, arrived with a sealed letter resting on a small silver tray. “Lady Trayhern asked me to bring this to you,” he said.
Griff nodded in thanks, and swiftly grasped the missive. “Would you be good enough to ask one of the grooms to make a hack ready for my use?”
“Of course, Mr. Spencer. Would you like to ride the late earl’s mount?”
“That would be fine.”
While Robert left on his errand, Griff tore open the wax seal. The countess had sent the draft as he asked.
Griff was soon on his way to the heart of London’s business district. The bustle of carriages, horses, pedestrians, and other traffic glutted the area and spread into the side streets around Piccadilly. London was a noisy city, the rumble of ironclad wagon and carriage wheels and clopping horses’ hooves mingled with the shouts of vendors hawking their wares.
It was up to him to complete his part of the bargain, he thought, patting the countess’s draft where it lay flat in his jacket pocket. He dismounted in front of Westminster Bank with its staid-looking, gray stone façade and multitude of tall windows. Griff swallowed hard. His nervousness wasn’t evident on his face or his comportment as he threw open the entrance door and entered the bank. When he announced himself, he was led into the presence of a portly man of short stature with bristling sideburns and a heavy moustache. Gray hair ringed his shiny pate. He half rose from behind a huge polished mahogany desk which was devoid of files or correspondence. A trimmed quill, a full ink bottle, and a slab of wax were the only objects lying on it. Gold-framed spectacles hung on the end of the banker’s long nose. Griff thought if the banker dared to bend over, the lenses would slide off and land on the carpet.
“Mr. Spencer, I presume?” The banker did not extend his hand, instead sat back down, and folded his hands together in front of him on the desk. “Thank you for being prompt. I do hate latecomers. Now, how may I help you?” The older man’s sonorous voice echoed off the walls of the starkly decorated room.
Griff took the chair facing the man. His throat felt parched, so he coughed once to clear it. “Ahem! Mr. Darby, I’m here about my late father’s estate. I was advised your bank holds the mortgages on it. I’d like to purchase them back.” He forced himself to relax against the slippery, leather upholstery.
“Oh? Is that so? And how do you plan to do that…Mr. Spencer? Have you recently come upon some profitable windfall?”
Upon first meeting, Spencer thought the man looked charitable. Smooth, ruddy skin and bright blue eyes sparkled behind those lenses. But Griff soon learned he was sadly mistaken. After their introduction, the banker was all business, not one to give a man an inch.
Damn. Perhaps, I should have worn my uniform and garnered sympathy as a returned soldier.
“What are you asking to satisfy the mortgages?” Griff knew he must negotiate as best he could with the only draft he had.
“Your father was a libertine, Mr. Spencer, a drunkard, and flagrant gambler. And, it seems, a poor loser, I’m afraid. He visited me at the bank more than once for loans against the estate. He would have languished in the Fleet and probably died there had he not…er…covered his debts in some other way.” The man’s bushy eyebrows crinkled, meeting above his nose. “When you asked to see me, I investigated you. As a member of the banking community, it was my duty to do so. And I learned…er…several detrimental rumors about Boswell Spencer’s son. It seems you lived…harrumph!…the same sporting life your father led. You are the only Spencer heir, are you not?”
“Of course, but…”
“Then I shall have to turn you down, Mr. Spencer.”
“Turn me down? But I haven’t made an offer yet. You can’t just…”
“I’m afraid I can,” the bank official said and straightened up behind the big desk.
Griff realized he had been summarily dismissed, haughtily, with only a blink of a jaundiced eye. He unfolded his long legs and rose to his full height. “Before I go, I wish to know the amount owing on my father’s mortgages.”
The banker squinted at Griff from behind his lenses. His brow furrowed before giving in and finally stated the amount. “I count it in the vicinity of a thousand pounds.” His smile was thin-lipped. “If that is all, Mr. Spencer, I wish you good day.”
“And I wish you to hell and gone, sir,” Griff said, spitting out his reply. He spun on his boot heels and stalked out of the office, plunking his top hat on his head, and yanking his leather riding gloves back on.
Griff was fuming when the bank’s door closed behind him. He needed a drink…badly…to calm down, and put the banker’s refusal to do business with him behind him. He threw a few coppers to the lad who had held his mount for the quarter hour, mounted, and turned the earl’s sturdy gelding, Bravo, back toward the streets of Mayfair.
At this point, he was unsure what to do next. Should he attempt to locate his father’s solicitor? Griff discarded that idea, deciding it would be a fool’s errand. He wasn’t certain his father even sought legal advice. If so, Boswell probably owed the man, and the fellow would then come after Griff for payment. Besides, what good would it do to ferret out the man’s help after his father’s scandalous demise almost four years ago? No, that wouldn’t do.
I’ve got to do better than that, Griff thought. Maybe I should make a friendly call on Rand Titus.
Chapter Thirteen
“What ho, Griff! This is a surprise. I was heading out to White’s,” Rand said as he met the ex-soldier at his front door. “How are you?”
“Not too bad. I dropped by to see if we were still friends.”
Why not? Griff thought. This is as fine a time as any to ask the viscount for help.
“Thanks. It’s good to see you again, Rand.”
Rand ordered a groom to lead Griff’s mount to the mews and care for it until he returned. The two well-dressed gentlemen stepped inside the crested vehicle waiting on the curved carriage drive in front of the mansion. Rand tapped on the roof of the closed carriage with his walking stick. The driver flicked the reins and a pair of matched grays lurched into motion
“How is it going with the Dragon Lady?” Rand asked, his blonde brows hooking over his curious eyes.
“Is that what she’s called in Town?” Griff guffawed, his laughter biting and harsh sounding. “I can see why. She’s a dominating bitch, Rand, but she’s leaving me alone for the time being. I’m to court her stepdaughter instead.”
“Eh? Didn’t know the countess had one.” The viscount paused and tapped an index finger against his lips. “So you really mean to get leg shackled, after all, hmm? Do to tell, since I’m close to doing that m’self. What’s the stepdaughter like?”
“Plain,” Griff replied without comment.
“Sorry, to hear that. I hope she has pockets’ full. You did say you wanted a rich wife, and you didn’t care what she looked like, am I correct? She doesn’t have crossed eyes or a wart on the end of her nose, does she?”
“No, she’s not that hard on the eyes,” Griff chuckled. “Being fresh from the country, she has a certain milkmaid’s charm. So I haven’t cast up my accounts simply because she lacks stunning beauty. She’s not disfigured, either, just not…umm…exciting to look at. I’m used to women with more flair, those with…er, more interesting attributes…and with some…additional training. If you know what I mean.” He winked slyly at his friend.
Rand laughed. “That so? Well, I can jolly well believe that. You always were a fast goer.”
Carnal Pleasures Page 10
