by Edith Layton
He would have noted her even if she had not been his patron’s younger daughter. She had the sort of dark good looks that especially appealed to him. Of course, he had to admit now that at that time, those five years ago, the blond, brunette, red-haired, and possibly even bald-pated good looks of any young female would have appealed to him equally as well. He had not been half so immune to the scandalmongers as he had pretended to be. And a young man, for he’d been only four and twenty at the time, who had just obtained a shocking divorce on the grounds of his own inability in the marital bed, would be likely, no matter how he kept up the pretext of not caring, to seek to prove his masculinity incessantly for all the whispering world to see and hear about.
So, as much as he might have admired her fashion, he had done no more than to speak a few polite words over Lady Leonora’s little white hand at that time. For he couldn’t offer her what a proper young lady was obviously looking for in her presentation year, and she could scarcely offer him what an improper young man was seeking in the year of his absolute disgrace. But there was no denying that he always noted her presence, and not just for her father’s sake, whenever their paths happened to cross. And that happened far more frequently than might have been expected of two persons traversing such absolutely diverse paths of society.
But then, London was much like a small town for all its size, and since people always tend to travel in the same tight congenial groups, just as some species of fish do even in the widest seas, those paths are well marked. So even as all the goldsmiths in Town knew of or about each other, as did all the poets and printers and pickpockets, so then all the members of the ton could be said to be constantly tripping over each other.
Even so, although the marquess had been born to the same world that Leonora had been, he had been cast out from it by his actions, and might have absented himself from it forever had it not been for the lady’s father. The viscount had heard of the young gentleman’s disgrace, and had seen him in a house of ill and wide repute as he attempted to ruin what little reputation he had left to himself. As he was upon the premises for his own purposes anyway, the Viscount Talwin had waited until the following morning, when the young marquess was attempting to restore whatever health he had remaining after his roisterous evening. Then the older gentleman had served up a proposition to the younger, along with his fifth cup of strong and steaming coffee. That proposition, the marquess was fond of remembering, had been his salvation and the making of him as a man.
What he had so urgently needed, he had been given. And that was not just a constant supply of sweet young womanflesh, as he had thought. It was, that first time, just one dangerous, responsible, and important task to perform for his country. And when he’d returned from the Continent, having executed that mission creditably, there had been another for him to essay. It was not until fairly recently, when the French authorities had begun to take note of that lean wolfish face and form to the point where he earned the chilling and deserved nickname of “le loup Anglais,” that he had been forced to return to England for good. But there was still employment for him, his patron had insisted, and he had passed his time these last weeks in Town learning what he could from English sources. Not all of his countrymen were patriots, as the viscount told him, and so until Nappy had given up every last dream of world conquest, he would be needed. And to be needed had been just what the Marquess of Severne most desired.
But now he needed to know just why his mentor’s daughter had vented her spleen upon him. He had only encountered her a few times during that Season five years previously, for he had gone off to the Continent almost at the same time that she had blotted her copy book so indelibly that her father had ordered her home immediately. Their lives seemed to run parallel courses, for now she was back in Town again, just as he was, with a reputation to live down, just as he had. This commonality should have counted for some sympathy or fellow feeling upon her part. He thought he had that, from the frequency with which he’d been running into her of late. He was no cockscomb, but he’d thought that he had seen that in her face last night too, as well as something more. Some other yearning thing that at the worst would have been sensation seeking, and at best, would have been far more flattering, if equally impossible for him to satisfy for her.
Even if he’d been imagining things, at the very least he’d have thought she might have been grateful to him. He thought he had done her a service once. Though he was not the sort of man to call upon those he’d aided so that they could even up accounts, still he would have thought she might have considered herself in his debt for that past incident, if not for his abortive attempt at glossing over what he had guessed to be her inadvertent remark this morning.
Perhaps she’d made a slip of the tongue about his past history last night at her party, but then he’d been sure that the incident disturbed her far more than it had affected him. But this morning, to have so thoroughly rejected the way he’d tried to mend matters when he thought she’d just committed another missaying, forced him to conclude that she was deliberately setting out to insult or enrage him. Why this should be so was a mystery to him. And he could not resist a mystery.
So the viscount’s dark daughter was very much on the marquess’s mind as he entered his club for his luncheon engagement, and his own storm-dark eyes were shadowed by thought even as he absently greeted his luncheon companion.
“Good heavens, Joss,” the Duke of Torquay exclaimed in mock terror, pushing away from his setting as the marquess took his seat at their table, “I should have hidden the cutlery if I had seen that look upon your face before this. At the very least, I shall be sure to examine the dregs of the teapot before I allow you to pour. How have I offended you? Is it that I didn’t immediately compliment you on your vest, dear friend? Or was it my failure to note your new boots?” he inquired in very humble tones.
“What? Oh, Jason,” the marquess said, grinning, “forgive me. I’ve just come from one of the roundest set-downs I’ve ever been privileged to receive, so I suppose I’m still sulking.”
“Ah, you’ve been proposing naughtiness to the minister’s daughter again, then,” the duke commented sagely in his low, hoarse accents.
“No, to Talwin’s daughter, or so you would think from her response,” the marquess replied as he took up his knife, but only to deal with his luncheon.
“Talwin’s filly? Isn’t she the lady whose interest you were complaining of the other night? Why Joss, my dear, first you grumble that she likes you overmuch, and now you become savage at her dislike. Are you quite sure we’re discussing the same female?” the duke asked innocently.
His companion sighed. “Aye, well, it is a coil. First she seeks me, then repels me. If it’s difficult to fathom, it’s harder still to live with, believe me.”
As the gentlemen made their way through prawns and soup to beef and burgundy, the marquess told of his morning’s incident in a frowning, halting manner. This had nothing to do with the texture of his roast, as his waiter feared, but rather with the fact that he was attempting to interpret his tale even as he related it.
“Come, Joss,” the duke said simply when the younger man had done with both his story and his luncheon plate, “you are like a declaration of love in a letter, you’ve left the best part out.”
“How does the duchess bear you?” Joscelin commented, leaning back in his chair.
“With fortitude,” the duke answered briefly, for with all his constant banter, his intimates knew that he never involved his beloved Regina in any of his wicked innuendo. Then he added, more seriously, “Come, Joss, you ought to know that you can always talk with me and that I will keep your secrets close as my next breath. I’m old enough to be your father, dear boy, and since that estimable gentleman is rusticating nicely in the West country, I should be happy to stand in his stead.”
“It’s not my secret precisely,” the marquess said slowly, and then smiled widely and added, “And you must have been a prodigiously precocious child, J
ason, to have taken on fatherhood so young.”
“So I was, but I shan’t make you jealous by documenting it,” the fair-haired gentleman remarked airily before he said softly, “But I might be able to help if only because discussing a problem makes it simpler. You cannot always be the lone wolf our foes term you, you know. And believe me, I respect and admire Talwin fully as much as you do. Why, no one else would have been able to lure me from my countrified fastness but he, although my lady is grateful to him, since she’s spent all of our visit buying out every shop in Town. I do believe she has secret plans to erect a complete replica of London on the grounds of Grace Hall so she can charge one pence a peek at it, judging from the amount of objects she’s sending home from here. Why do you think the girl should hold you in such dislike, Joss?” he asked, becoming serious all at once.
“The only thing I can possibly imagine,” the marquess said quietly, although his table was as he always specified, far from any human ear, “is that she resents my having been witness to a foolish moment she had in her youth. Although I can scarcely credit that, for she’s no paragon to be so top-lofty. I interfered with her plans once, years ago when she was first out, for her father’s sake as well as her own. I intercepted her at Mother Carey’s place of business, you see, and detached her from her escort and took her home before any in the admittedly castaway company had time to recognize her face.”
The duke’s china-blue eyes widened and he gave a low whistle. “Salvation indeed, Joss. Tell me, do you think she knew the time of day?”
The marquess laughed and shook his head. “No, Jason, I do not. Most definitely not. Because she turned the colors of an autumn leaf before she commenced shaking like one as I led her to my carriage. She’d just come in, and all the company was occupied elsewhere, grouped around a couple in the center of the room. She only got one peek at what they were ogling before I intervened. Before she could think to swoon I braced her with some hard words and hurried her away. Still, she had a glimpse of some of the carry-on, and for all I know that may be why such a stunner is still unwed. Mother had one of her famous exhibitions on display that night,” he explained as his companion winced.
“Young James Rowers, Wardley’s heir, took her there, and you know what he came to in the end,” the marquess added.
“Indeed. I had an evil reputation once upon a time, but that fellow’s was foul. There is a difference,” the duke mused thoughtfully.
“Well I know it,” his friend agreed. “But Jason, the girl’s attitude troubles me. I work with Talwin because I want to and feel I ought to, and I shouldn’t like to have his daughter at daggers drawn with me. I’ve avoided her because I believed her to be just as wild as she was when she was sent home years ago. I thought her interest in me was caused only by her more lurid fantasies. Well, you can’t blame me for not wanting to be the instrument by which she’s ordered home again.” As his friend began to protest, the marquess raised one thin, well-cared-for hand and said, “No, Jason, hear me out, it would be no strange thing if my presence in a lady’s parlor enraged a dutiful papa. I am a divorced man and I’m not welcomed in the best circles.”
“Thank you,” said the duke sweetly. As the marquess attempted to make a recover, his friend brushed his protestations aside and went on, “I know, and you are right, Joss, but for whatever it’s worth, I also don’t know a decent fellow in the land who wouldn’t want you for his son-in-law, even so. In fact, if my eldest girl were a month more than thirteen years of age as we speak, I’d be marching down the aisle with her to meet you at this moment.”
“So if I won’t have you as a father, you’re set on becoming my father-in-law?” The marquess smiled, before he went on earnestly, “But I did avoid the girl, Jason, and then, when I couldn’t ignore her for civility’s sake, I tried to be discreet for kindness’s sake, and she skewered me. I cannot imagine why. Then again, there’s a great deal about her that puzzles me, for she wasn’t a madcap at first, you know. I remarked her when she first came to Town and she was docile as a dove then. The wildness was a thing which grew upon her.”
“Then I think, my lad, you’ll just have to study her more closely, as you would any other wild thing, and so get to know her a deal better. I don’t believe her attitude will influence Talwin one way or another, if that’s what’s troubling you,” the duke said slowly, “but I don’t think that it is. She’s very beautiful,” he said off-handedly.
“And it’s decidedly not that,” Joscelin said, laughing, “for the world is full of beautiful women who do not have fathers I go in awe of. It preoccupies me so because,” he said, as though thinking aloud, his hard, handsome face growing very still, “I have always hated enigmas.”
“How very odd!”, the duke exclaimed, his low voice filled with amazement, “for I thought I knew you very well, Joss, and I believed you always loved a mystery.”
The two gentlemen said a lengthy good-bye on the street in front of the club. They were much remarked upon as they stood and joked and reminded each other of when they next should meet. It was not odd that this should be so, on either count. Even though the duke was all impatience to join his duchess again, since he seldom could like being gone from her for too long, and even though the marquess had a delightful afternoon arranged for himself, since he had no present obligations and felt he deserved a treat, the two gentlemen liked each other very well and were often loath to break from such congenial companionship. And since their appearances were almost as sensational as their reputations, it was only natural that bystanders should often ogle them and whisper “birds of a feather” when they were seen together.
But then, the duke mused as his companion at last took his leave, his young friend hadn’t needed to expend so much effort as he had in his past in order to earn his bad repute. He had not needed to bed half so many shocking creatures, he had only to wed the one, and then leave her, by decree of divorce. For that simply was not done. Not by a gentleman.
It was a pity it was so, the duke thought as he finally strolled off to his townhouse. Though he was not in actuality of an age to have been Severne’s father, he felt that same sort of protective concern for him. Not because the lad was incapable of looking after himself, but because it seemed so wrong that he was deemed an outcast by correct society. There was a legion of gentlemen who practiced far more despicable acts who were welcomed into the highest reaches of the ton because they indulged themselves in secret, thus socially acceptable fashion. The fact that young Joss could not woo or wed where a gentleman who, say, habitually sought the reluctant embraces of underage servants might, was damnable.
But then, thought the duke, his face brightening, even as his pace quickened as he hurried homeward, it was never necessary to wed some social lioness in order to be blissfully happy. Then too, he thought, so amused at himself that he chuckled low in his throat, only an old hopelessly married fellow like himself would even think that a dashing young gentleman like the marquess needed to be wed at all. Joss could accommodate half a dozen lovers this very afternoon and be happy as a man could expect to be, the duke concluded as he reached his own door, although from his own experience, he didn’t really believe that at all.
The duke, for all his urbanity, would have been surprised to know that his friend Joss completely agreed with him. For even as the marquess walked to his next afternoon appointment, he regretted having made it, even though it was planned to be an interlude of pleasure with an exquisite young woman. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy such a pastime as he had planned, it was only that in some little corner of his consciousness he wished it were more than merely a pastime. But he quelled that traitorous thought as he entered the carpeted hall of a quiet hotel on Park Lane.
He glanced at his pocket watch once as he took the stairs to the rooms he had previously arranged to let, and when he came to the door to the rooms, he sighed only once, knowing he was fifteen minutes late and she would be very angry with him. He could not blame her overmuch, for there were few me
n in London who would keep her waiting a fraction of that time.
But when he let himself in the door with his passkey and strode to the bedchamber, she sat upon the bed awaiting him and looked at him longingly, and never breathed a word of censure but only opened her arms to welcome him. As he came into her embrace, even as he took the kiss she offered, he wondered what strange mood she was in today to account for her gentle acquiescence.
“Joss,” she breathed at last, playfully, placing a finger upon his lips where her own had so lately been, “you utter beast. To let me wait and wonder at your tardiness, and worry that perhaps you had decided to abandon me forever. It was too cruel, but very like you. But I forgive you, as I always must do.”
This was so unlike the lady that the marquess sat back and ceased undoing his cravat.
“I’m sorry I’m late, but come, why not just screech at me for a while and be done with it? These gentle lamentations, sweet, are never like you. You make me quite uneasy, and that will never do, will it?” he breathed into her ear, while his long fingers stroked away the little golden curls that clustered over it.
“Ah Joss,” she said, exhaling and treating him to a gust of candied violet scent, “it pleases you to jest, I see. But here I have waited for you, alone and afraid in a strange room in a strange hotel, with never even my maid nearby to help me should I need her attentions.”
Aha, that tune again, the marquess thought wearily, the last traces of real desire deserting him, though all he said softly was, “But my dear, we have been through that too often. It is, I feel, enough that I entertain myself with Lord Lambert’s beloved wife. It would be too much, I believe, to avail myself of his bed, linens, and liquor as well as I do so, don’t you think?”
