by Anna Bradley
“I should never have let you talk me into coming to London in the first place, Vale,” Markham grumbled. “You persuaded me it would be good fun, but it’s been a misery from start to finish.”
“I thought it would be good fun, but that was before I realized we’d have to spend every minute in a ballroom keeping track of the blasted women.” Vale shook his head with a grimace. “Damned if I know how it became such a mess. I blame you, Ramsey.”
“Me? Christ, Vale. Have you forgotten it was you who talked me into coming here? If it weren’t for you I’d be in Scotland right now, doing what I…”
Doing what? Ciaran broke off, because for the life of him he couldn’t think of a single thing of any value he’d be doing in Scotland. His childhood home, his old friends, Isobel…they all seemed further away now than they ever had. Except now, he no longer regretted it. Perhaps it was just as well to put the past away, and turn his attention to the future.
“Scotland,” Vale scoffed. “For God’s sake, Ramsey, if you truly wanted to go, you’d have done it by now. No, I think your interests lie here, in London.” He jabbed Ciaran in the ribs with the head of his walking stick. “Not but what you’ll have a hard time bringing Lady Lucinda to heel. She’s stubborn, that one, just like her cousin.”
Ciaran snorted. “Bring her to heel? She’s not a hunting dog, Vale.”
“No. None of them are, and a damn pity, too, because the three of them would be a good deal easier to manage if they were.” Vale was gripping the head of his walking stick so tightly the silver lion threatened to snap off. “Do you know she actually had the gall to say she was refusing me for my own good? My own good, indeed.”
She? Ah, it was all starting to make sense now. No wonder Vale was in such a temper. He must have made Eloisa Jarvis an offer, and she’d refused him. Ciaran couldn’t imagine why she would, but he predicted her refusal would be short-lived. He’d seen the way Miss Jarvis looked at his friend. “Give it a few days, Vale. She’ll come ’round.”
“You wouldn’t think so if you’d heard her, Ramsey.” Vale had been waving his walking stick around wildly, but all at once the fight seemed to go out of him and he subsided with a desolate sigh. “I think a man can decide for himself what’s good for him. Don’t you think so, Markham?”
Markham gave a loud snort. “Certainly, unless that man happens to be Lord Nash. If he knew what was good for him he’d keep a respectful distance between himself and another man’s lady.”
Another man’s lady? Ciaran jerked his attention toward Markham. Good Lord, how long had he and Lucy been gone? A great deal seemed to have happened since they’d left the ballroom. “Does Lady Felicia even realize she’s your lady? You might want to tell her, Markham.”
Markham’s face reddened, but he didn’t have a chance to reply before Vale interrupted. “Pathetic fools, all three of us. No, no, don’t bother coming down, Nibbs,” Vale called to his coachman as his carriage drew up to the curb. “Just get us the devil away from here. You can drop Ramsey in Grosvenor Square.”
Vale heaved himself into the carriage with an irritable grunt, and Markham and Ciaran climbed up behind him.
“What do you mean, all three of us?” Ciaran asked, once the carriage started moving. “Don’t put me in the same category as you two pathetic, lovesick fools. Lucy and I are friends, nothing more. I’m in perfect control of myself.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, then both Vale and Markham burst into uproarious laughter.
“What?” Ciaran looked from one to the other of them. “What the devil’s so bloody amusing?”
“Friends!” Vale exclaimed. “Very well then, Ramsey. You’re a friend who hasn’t spared another woman so much as a glance since you arrived in London.”
“A friend who keeps insisting he’s off to Scotland at any moment, but can’t tear himself away from Lady Lucinda long enough to mount his horse,” Markham added with a smirk.
“A friend who gazes at Lady Lucinda as if he’s scheming to snatch her away and enjoy her somewhere in private.” Vale went off into another peal of laughter.
A friend who’d kissed her. A friend who dreams about her…
But a few kisses, a few vivid dreams—those things didn’t mean he loved her. He desired her, yes, but that had been true from the start. What man could know Lucy and not desire her? But desire wasn’t any closer to being love than dreams were to being reality.
Markham was shaking his head, a faint smile on his lips. “You’re the worst of the three of us, Ramsey, and God knows Vale and I are hopeless enough.”
“That’s ridiculous. No one could be more hopeless than you two.” Ciaran opened his mouth to argue further, to deny he had any wicked designs on Lucy, but the words refused to leave his mouth. No, what came out instead was, “Do you suppose she’s…that is, do you imagine she feels—”
“The same way? Sorry, Ramsey. Can’t help you there.” Vale settled back against the seat with a forlorn sigh. “Love is a wretched business. Can’t make head nor tails of it, myself.”
Ciaran glanced at Markham, but Markham only gave him a helpless shrug.
Ciaran turned his gaze to the window. London was rushing by, but he didn’t see it. Instead, he saw Lucy right before he’d left her tonight, her dark eyes soft, her lips red and swollen from his kisses. His mouth went dry, and his stomach tight.
He never should have kissed her. It was this damned courtship—it was confusing him, making him feel things he shouldn’t feel for her. He cared for Lucy, but what they had was a friendship, not a love affair.
Wasn’t it?
He turned back to face his friends, dragging his hands through his hair with rough fingers. “I’m courting her.”
Vale and Markham turned to him in surprise. “Who?” Vale asked.
“Lucy, of course.” A frustrated groan left Ciaran’s lips.
“You’re in love with Lady Lucinda, and you’re courting her?” Markham gave him an impatient look. “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Beg pardon, Ramsey, but I can’t see what you’re moaning about.”
“Damn it, Markham. I’m not in love with Lucy, and even if I were, she’s not in love with me. I made her an offer tonight. I offered her my hand, and she…refused me. She told me she wasn’t going to marry at all, and sent me on my way.”
Vale stared at him for a moment before throwing his hands up in the air, thoroughly disgusted. “Well, of course she did. Do you know why? Because they delight in tormenting us. Damn it, a man has every right to expect a courtship will end with a betrothal. I told you, Ramsey. Women are a bloody nuisance!”
Ciaran shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. The courtship isn’t real. I’ve only been pretending to court her to discourage Godfrey’s suit.”
“Wait.” Markham sat up, shaking off his moody silence. “You mean to say Lady Lucinda doesn’t even know you’re in love with her?”
“I’m not—” Ciaran broke off with a heavy sigh. What was the use in arguing about it? “Christ. I think I’ve made a mess of this.”
“I’ve no doubt of that. You know, Ramsey, you might want to tell Lady Lucinda you’re in love with her,” Markham said, throwing Ciaran’s own words back at him. “She likely thinks you’re only offering for her to protect her from Godfrey.”
Ciaran was silent. That was why he’d offered for her.
Wasn’t it?
“For God’s sake, what’s all this bloody nonsense about Godfrey and a pretend courtship, anyway?” Vale demanded. “It doesn’t make any sense. Start from the beginning, Ramsey.”
Ciaran blew out a breath. “I promised to court Lucy to protect her from Jarvis and Godfrey. I was meant to jilt her in a few weeks, after she turns twenty-one and is free of Jarvis’s guardianship. But the only way to keep her safe is to take her out of London, and I can’t do that without marrying her.”
&
nbsp; It wasn’t just that, though. He didn’t want to jilt Lucy. He wanted to marry her. They cared very much for each other, and the spark of passion between them burned bright—much brighter than he’d realized until he’d kissed her tonight. He adored her, and he wanted her, badly. Wasn’t that enough?
People might go on and on about love, but Ciaran had learned his lesson. Love had shattered his hopes, stolen his happiness, crushed his will. Love had taken everything from him, and left only pain and betrayal in its wake. He’d never be foolish enough to trust it again.
But what he had with Lucy was nothing like that. It was simple, natural, achingly sweet. Not anything at all like he knew love to be.
“I knew Godfrey had been sniffing about Lady Lucinda, but I didn’t think he was any sort of serious threat to her.” Vale was shaking his head, a worried frown on his face.
“Serious enough. Didn’t you see Godfrey dancing with her tonight? He kept her on the floor for three dances, Vale. Three.” Just thinking about it made Ciaran’s fists clench. “He made her do it—grabbed her hard enough to leave a handprint on her arm.”
Markham gaped at Ciaran, horrified. “Jesus. What a scoundrel.”
Ciaran’s blood was burning through his veins. “Lucy despises him, but it hasn’t stopped either Godfrey or Jarvis from plotting to force her into the marriage. I don’t trust either of them.”
“Nor should you. That is, I don’t know much about Jarvis aside from his being a troublesome, tyrannical sort of fellow, but Godfrey’s an outright villain. You can’t let him anywhere near Lady Lucinda, Ramsey.”
“I don’t want to, but I can’t get Lucy to listen to me.” Damn it, he never should have let her go back to Portman Square tonight.
“I didn’t see Godfrey force Lady Lucinda to dance. I was, er…rather caught up with Eloisa. But I heard Lord Henley talking to Lord Weatherby about it, though I didn’t realize they were referring to Lady Lucinda at the time.”
Something about the tone of Vale’s voice made gooseflesh rise on Ciaran’s neck. “What did you hear?”
“Henley must have noticed Lady Lucinda dancing with Godfrey. He said something about what a pity it would be to see another lovely young lady fall into Godfrey’s clutches.”
“His clutches?” Bile rose in Ciaran’s throat.
Vale’s face was grim. “It’s not widely known in London, but Henley’s country estate in Wiltshire borders Godfrey’s, and there was plenty of gossip about it in their neighborhood.”
An apprehensive shudder tripped up Ciaran’s spine. “Gossip about what?” He was ready to shake the story out of Vale.
“Two years ago, Godfrey married a lady by the name of Alice Trentham. She was much younger than him, very pretty, and possessed of a rather impressive fortune. No title—her father made his money in some trade or other, and he wanted to marry his daughter to an aristocrat. It was a shameful thing, Henley said. The father forced the girl to marry Godfrey in order to turn her into a countess.”
“Godfrey bought her with his title,” Ciaran spat.
“He bought her, yes, and a year later she was dead.”
Ciaran and Markham stared at Vale, both of them struck dumb with shock.
“She took too much laudanum one night, and didn’t wake up the next morning. There were rumors afterward. A couple of housemaids swore they saw Godfrey dose the girl that night, but nothing was ever proved, and the matter was dropped.”
“So, the marriage ended with her fortune in Godfrey’s pocket,” Markham hissed. “A wealthy man with no wife to burden him.”
Vale gave a tight nod. “Just so. Now here he is again, chasing after Lady Lucinda, another young, beautiful heiress.”
Chasing her, and if Jarvis had anything to say about it, catching her. Ciaran thought of Lucy huddled in the corner of the carriage tonight, so small and vulnerable, and his stomach twisted. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Markham and Vale stiffened. “What mistake? Where is Lady Lucinda, Ramsey?”
“On her way back to Jarvis’s in Portman Square.” Ciaran was already slamming his fist against the carriage roof. “With only Mrs. and Miss Jarvis to protect her.”
Vale paled at the mention of Eloisa Jarvis. “Nibbs!”
He began struggling with the window, but Markham already had it open and was shouting to the coachman. “Portman Square, Nibbs, and hurry, man!”
Chapter Nineteen
“Men are vile, loathsome creatures.”
Lucy would have sworn nothing in the world could jolt her from her thoughts. She’d been manhandled by Lord Godfrey tonight. All of London now thought her betrothed to him—a man three times her age whom she despised—and Lord Godfrey likely thought so, as well. Meanwhile the man she was madly in love with had kissed her with a passion that took her breath away, and then proposed marriage to her.
And she’d refused him.
In short, she had quite a few of her own problems to worry about.
But as soon as Lady Felicia made her announcement, both Lucy and Eloisa jerked their heads toward her, their mouths dropping open in shock. The three of them were in the Jarvises’ hired carriage, waiting at the curb outside the Weatherbys’ townhouse for Aunt Jarvis, who’d gone in search of her husband in the card room to inform him they were leaving the ball.
“My goodness, Felicia. What’s gotten into you?” Lucy asked, surprised to hear such bitter words from sweet-tempered Lady Felicia.
“Do you mean to tell me, Lucy, you don’t think men are vile, loathsome creatures?” Lady Felicia turned on Lucy, her blue eyes flashing.
“Well, er…some of them certainly can be.” Lucy didn’t necessarily disagree with her friend. Some men were vile, loathsome creatures. One needn’t look any further than Lord Godfrey for proof of that. “Are you condemning a specific gentleman in particular?”
Silly question, and one to which Lucy already knew the answer. It was rare enough for Lady Felicia to fall into a temper. When she did, Lord Markham was generally the reason for it.
“I’m in no humor to defend any man,” Lady Felicia declared. “The entire sex is dreadful, but Lord Markham is the worst of the lot.”
Lucy bit her lip to hide a smile. It was her considered opinion when a lady and a gentleman who were dear friends started flinging insults at each other, love wasn’t far behind.
“Dear me.” Eloisa’s eyes were wide. “What’s he done?”
Eloisa gave Lady Felicia’s arm a soothing pat, but it didn’t do a thing to calm Felicia’s temper. Her brow lowered, and her frown turned into a dark scowl. “Do you know what he said to me tonight?”
Lucy opened her mouth to reply, but Lady Felicia cut her off before she got a word out. “He demanded to know my feelings regarding Lord Nash. Then he had the gall to suggest—subtly, mind you, because Edmund is nothing if not restrained—I was trifling with his lordship when my affections truly lay elsewhere!”
The corners of Lucy’s lips threatened to curve. “Why, how strange. It’s not at all like Lord Markham to say something so ungentlemanly. What could have been the reason for it?”
“You may believe me, Lucy, when I say Edmund isn’t always the flawless gentleman he pretends to be. He was in a terrible temper, and behaved like a perfect savage.” Lady Felicia fell back against the seat with an outraged sniff.
“Why should Lord Markham suppose you don’t care for Lord Nash?” Eloisa’s brows drew together. “Why shouldn’t you care for such a handsome, charming gentleman? All the young ladies admire him.”
Lady Felicia tossed her head. “Well, I suppose he thinks he knows my feelings better than I do myself!”
Lucy glimpsed a flash of consciousness cross Lady Felicia’s face, and wondered if perhaps in this one instance, Lord Markham was correct. “Hmmm. What threw Lord Markham into such a terrible temper?”
“Why, nothing at
all remarkable, but he’s been in a temper since yesterday. He called, you see, and while he was there a servant brought in a bouquet of hothouse flowers from Lord Nash—lovely pink peonies and white lilac. I was exclaiming over them, and Edmund’s face kept getting darker and darker, and the next thing I knew he’d fallen into a temper and was saying all manner of unpleasant things.”
“My goodness,” Lucy murmured. “What did he say?”
“He went on and on, and…well, I couldn’t make much sense of it, but something about ladies dancing with the same gentleman twice, then allowing him to take her into supper, and a lot of other incoherent nonsense. He was pacing from one end of the drawing room to the other like a caged animal, and it was all quite awful, and then Sebastian had to have his say, and he only made it worse, and—”
“Why? What did Lord Vale say?” Eloisa’s head snapped toward Lady Felicia.
“He agreed with Edmund! He said young ladies are calculating, cold-hearted things who tease and flirt until they gain a man’s attention, then they dangle him on a string and rejoice in his misery.”
Eloisa sucked in a furious breath. “That’s utter nonsense! If anyone’s a tease and a flirt, it’s Lord Vale!”
“I couldn’t agree more, Eloisa. Sebastian’s a dreadful tease, and so I’ve told him dozens of times, but do you suppose he listens to me?”
“Of course, he doesn’t! He doesn’t listen to anyone!” Eloisa huffed. “Certainly not to any lady who tries to reason him out of making a foolish choice he’ll regret for the rest of his life. Never mind she’s only trying to help him, and doing it for his own good!”
Lucy stared at Eloisa, her eyes wide. Foolish choice? One that would affect Lord Vale for the rest of his life? Surely her cousin could only mean one thing by that.
“Vile, loathsome creatures,” Eloisa muttered under her breath.
My, it was a season for proposals, wasn’t it? Weren’t betrothals meant to be happy occasions? “I daresay everything will work out as it’s meant to in the end.” It would, too—for Eloisa and Felicia, that is. Lucy was far less optimistic about her own situation.
