by Darcy Burke
Her bosom heaved. Her arms slanted outward for balance. Her expression was wild, as if she’d finally realized he would never be a victim of his own fantasies. He wanted a real woman, a flesh and blood woman, and he wanted her on fire for him.
He would never bed a succubus. When he had Elizabeth—and he would—she would want him. She would be there.
Chapter Thirteen
HE DIDN’T RETURN HOME STRAIGHTAWAY. He couldn’t. Not with his emotions raging out of control. But he wasn’t sure where to go. Montborne had White’s to retreat to, because he was the marquis. As a prominent Whig, Antony had Brooks’s, and Bart had his friends at the Crown Court to fall back on. Darius disappeared into London’s gaming hells—and look where that had brought him. But Con largely kept to himself. Unless he wanted the mindless chatter of passing acquaintances and total strangers—yes, that was it. Today he did. Anything to keep his mind from the dissolution and frustration roiling his thoughts.
He changed direction and loped to Will’s. His favorite coffeehouse was arguably London’s best coffeehouse, and he would be sure to meet a few interesting characters there who could take his mind off of Elizabeth and the maddening way she pretended to succumb to him.
There he was, thinking about her again.
His repetitive cadence as he tramped through the evening streets improved his mood. Oddly, he saw babies. Everywhere. Even at this late time of day. Most carried by their mothers or nurses, but a few being coddled by men.
Pride surged as he consciously—though not intentionally—ranked the handsomeness and sturdiness of each child against his own son, and found Oliver to be a superior baby by every measure.
By the time he reached Will’s, he had passed two stores with toys in their windows, and was making a mental list of the novelties Oliver would need. A rocking horse, a little ball, a cricket bat—did they make them small enough for striplings just learning to sit up?
As he came upon the coffeehouse, the clatter of cutlery and scattered bursts of laughter escaped through its open windows. Wafting aromas of fresh coffee and hot biscuits made his mouth water, so much so that he barely noticed the cloying, rich tobacco smoke wafting into the street.
He was already halfway to relaxation by the time he stepped through the open door…and came face-to-face with his oldest brother.
He froze, but it was too late to turn back. Blast it.
Montborne had drawn a chair fifteen or so feet from the doorway, directly in line with the entrance. Not that he would have been easy to overlook in any part of the tavern, even if he hadn’t waved Con down from ten paces. For while Con’s and Darius’ blond locks were washed with brown, the marquis had been blessed with a thick corona of bright golden curls. These he wore longer than was fashionable, so that they bounced about his face with a rakish flare that drove the young Pinks about Town to comical imitation, even to the point of buying outrageous, curly wigs to mask their own inferior heads of hair.
There were a few of those silly boys here, but none would pass for the marquis. The real Montborne had a presence that could never be overlooked.
As if he’d read Con’s thoughts, Montborne smiled knowingly and raised his dish of coffee in salute. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said, loud enough to attract attention in a drawing room, but just loud enough to be heard in the raucous coffeehouse.
“As if you’d grace Will’s with your presence for any other reason.” Could he wish himself back through the doorway if he just stood there long enough?
“This fine establishment? It pulls a person in, why, with all of its enlightenment and high conversation. A great mind like myself would hardly want to be seen anywhere else. You there,” Montborne flagged a passing serving boy, “a dish of coffee for my brother, and a scone.”
Con’s stomach rumbled. Confounding hunger. There was no getting out of this, and now he had the deliciousness of a hot scone to look forward to.
He closed the few feet separating him from his brother and pulled out a chair. He seated himself to Montborne’s right so that he looked into the tavern instead of at the door. He’d come for a distraction, after all.
“That’s better.” Montborne kicked his heels out and crossed his long legs at his ankles. “Now try to look the least bit happy to see me. Your frown is scaring these fine gentlemen.”
“No one is looking at me.”
Montborne rolled his eyes. “Fine, then. Your frown is scaring me. You know I don’t like it when one of you is put out with me.”
“I’m not put out with you.”
“Oh?” Montborne’s lips formed a disbelieving O. He raised his eyebrow and made a show of widening his eyes with incredulity. While fashionable gentlemen and high sticklers prided themselves on their ennui, Montborne preferred to be expressive. “Then why did you sit in the library like it was the Inquisition?”
“Because Antony wants my head.”
“That?” Montborne brushed away the intense, half-hour interview as if it meant nothing.
“Yes, that.” Easy for Montborne to wave it off, wasn’t it? It wasn’t his life being picked apart. “Tony wants me to marry her. But you should know that. You were there.”
Montborne shrugged. His long fingers drummed slowly against the tabletop. “Yes, I suppose I was. But to be truthful, his droning takes me right to sleep. I’ve no idea how he holds the attention of the House.”
A serving man arrived with the scone and coffee, and for a moment Con was allowed a reprieve. A limited one, for the fact was, given what lies Con had told, it wasn’t Tony’s fault if he thought Con ought to marry the rich woman he’d impregnated.
The thought of having all of Society assume he’d married her for her money gave him hives. They might even think he’d impregnated her just to force her hand, for why would a woman of her means and independence ever settle for a penniless fourth son like himself, otherwise?
He was cursed if he did and cursed if he didn’t. He preferred the cursed that didn’t make him look like a parasite.
“This tête-à-tête is costing me a small fortune,” Montborne drawled. “The least you could do is hold up your end of the conversation.”
Con rolled his eyes. “I thought the least I could do is smile.”
“That was before. Now I’ve waited so long for you to arrive and tell me something of interest, I require another dish of coffee. These coins don’t come easily, you know.”
Montborne’s gaze was knowing. Uncomfortably so.
Con’s back stiffened. “You think I’m her cicisbeo, too?”
“I don’t. I don’t believe it of her and I don’t believe it of you. What I do believe,” he took his time before finishing his thought, “is that she has you wrapped around her little finger.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve known Elizabeth for many years. Not all of them good.”
“You’re friends?” Con asked stupidly. He should have known it. His brother ran in a fast set. Montborne’s friendship with Celeste Gray, a particularly popular courtesan, was notorious. They’d lived in each other’s pockets, or close to, right up until her marriage several months earlier. Now she was a viscountess, married to Montborne’s best friend. Con supposed that was an awkward arrangement for his brother. But he hadn’t considered that Montborne might also have more than a passing knowledge of Elizabeth Spencer. He hadn’t realized how narrow the upper echelons of the demimonde were.
Montborne lifted his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “Elizabeth manages to be everywhere. It’s a talent. No, it’s more than that. She’s adept at having her way. I worry what sort of nefarious scheme she’s entangled you in.” Contrasting his ominous words, his expression remained bland and his tone light.
Con might have discounted Montborne’s unflattering remarks if he didn’t know his brother so well. Montborne never troubled himself to dole out advice. That he’d roused himself to take an interest in Con’s life spoke volumes…even if Montborne did pretend that he didn’t care one way or the other what Con
decided to do about Elizabeth.
His assessment of her was particularly bothersome given her mechanized attempts at seduction. Con didn’t need Montborne to tell him what he could feel with his own heart.
“It’s nothing,” he said, particularly troubled by Montborne’s spot-on suspicion that there was a scheme afoot. “Nothing more than the usual arrangement, that is.”
Montborne let the lie hang in the air until Con was sure he was going to squirm. A second dish of coffee was brought and placed between them; even the serving man scurried away.
At length, Montborne spoke in a voice difficult to hear over the din of the boisterous room. “I was in Devon when she went into confinement. There was no sign of you.”
“I was busy.”
Montborne’s brow rose. “Doing what?”
“Investments.” Con knew he had to squeeze out a few more details, but his tongue couldn’t quite trip the fabrications off fast enough.
“Investments such as the ones that have suddenly enabled you to pay off your creditors?” Montborne watched him hard. “And Darius’ debts?”
“The canal is going very well,” Con said with as much sureness as he could muster. “Splendidly, some might say. There are even new lime kilns being constructed at the site. I think the whole endeavor will be completed this year.”
For the first time, Montborne looked flummoxed. “The canal through Exeter?”
Con nodded. On the one hand, he felt relief for having remembered anything useful, and on the other, the queer look his brother was giving him left him feeling like he was standing on one leg. “What?” he finally asked, because the comical disbelief on Montborne’s face was becoming too much.
“Why am I the only one of us who ever goes to Devon? I don’t even like the country.”
Con shifted in his chair. The scone hardened into a nice little rock in his belly. “I am going, as a matter of fact. I’m planning a trip out next week.” With Elizabeth, but he didn’t want to return to that subject.
“Good.” Montborne reached for his steaming coffee and took a sip. Then he flashed the rakish grin he was so famous for. “Because I hear it’s all but a lake at the new lock.”
***
A lake? Con shot up from his chair. Oh, this was very, very bad.
Er, well, he thought it was bad. Actually, what he knew about building canals could fit on the end of his little finger. Without a backward glance for his brother—he really didn’t feel the need to catch Montborne’s arching eyebrow one last time—he made a hasty exit. Only when he’d walked two blocks in the direction of Elizabeth’s townhouse did he remember that he ought to have left a coin on the table. Montborne had joked about it costing him a pretty penny, but Con knew it was true.
He hated, hated that her money was the only thing keeping him from living the same hand-to-mouth existence as Montborne. It was too late to wish he’d followed in Antony’s footsteps, or even Bart’s. He had to hope the canal delivered the returns he required, or at least enough for him to recoup his investment and place it elsewhere.
Or he could marry well. Without his meaning to, his footsteps quickened. His neckcloth tightened. God, no. He couldn’t marry. This game he and Elizabeth played was far too expensive as it was. Look at him. About to make a mad dash to Devon, and he was bringing her. Presumably, Mrs. Dalton and Oliver would join them. There would be two carriages and piles of clothes and servants. He’d have to stop to feed the lot and offer the ladies a chance to stretch their legs. They’d sip cool lemonades while he changed horses—egad, horses.
He’d have to accept her help, at least for now. He was no provider. He was a failure, or worse yet, an impostor. A shoddy one, at that. All of London knew the truth. He was her cicisbeo, of a sort. The realization didn’t improve his mood.
He rapped Elizabeth’s knocker and shifted impatiently from foot to foot. By the time the door opened, Con was perspiring as if he’d already walked down the aisle. “Lord Constantine for Lady Elizabeth,” he said. Only when the footman’s eyes widened did Con realize what he’d said.
When had he started calling her Lady Elizabeth?
He was shown into the drawing room he’d vacated not an hour before. The combination of feeling tethered down, his brother’s suspicion that he was ignorant of the tangle he’d got himself into, and the possibility that his canal, too, would fail, was enough to have him at sixes and sevens by the time Elizabeth entered the room.
“My lord?” She’d changed into a simple gown. The turban was once again wrapped about her hair. Far from the woman who ate berries while reclining on a chaise longue, she’d likely been on her feet since he’d left her last.
A glance in the mirror at his own reflection showed a man who appeared a little unhinged. “My brother has informed me that there is a situation at the canal. I want to leave tonight.”
“Tonight? But that’s impossible.” She pressed her hands together. Bit her lip. Her gaze flicked to her left, then rose to meet his eyes. The discomfited surprise he saw in those orbs caused him to lose the last vestiges of his tenuous control.
“You know about the lock.” Each word was an accusation.
“I… Yes.” She dropped her hands. Her chin notched up. He would have believed a pretense of innocence, but this. She’d known and not told him and she wasn’t the least bit sorry to have done it, just sorry to have been caught.
But he couldn’t believe even that. Because…
He couldn’t forget the way she’d kissed him. Like she needed him. It had been an act. Was this an act?
Were they not in this together?
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her lips quirked. “You were trying to get under my skirts. I was distracted.”
“When did you hear of it? Was it in the papers?” He prayed not. Because if it had been right there in The Times for him to read, and he hadn’t bothered to look, he’d feel like even more of an idiot.
Even Montborne knew about the troubles at the site.
She continued to regard him with her chin lifted and her shoulders set. “Contrition” didn’t seem to be a line in her playbook. “My solicitor told me.”
That caused him to feel a bit better about himself, though it didn’t help his opinion of her. “When?”
She shrugged. “Today.”
Today? She’d known today? Hadn’t she gone to Bond? Even he knew there were no solicitors on Bond. Or had that been part of her misleading him, too?
His sense of betrayal doubled. When he’d been kissing her, showing her how much he desired her, she’d been harboring information he desperately needed. Why hadn’t she told him? And no, he didn’t accept that tale about her being distracted. She’d been aware of herself the entire time.
He was the one who’d been distracted. “Did you mean to tell me, at least?”
Listen to him. How many second chances was he willing to give her?
Her lips softened. Her eyes closed halfway, relaxing into a heady invitation. Even her voice took on a seductive note. “As I said, my lord, I did mean to tell you, but it slipped my mind.”
He went cold.
Her eyes went bright and bold again. Her shoulders twitched, as if she’d shaken herself from a trance. Because his revulsion at her game was so obvious?
She turned away. So that he couldn’t witness her regroup?
The feeling that he was being played multiplied. “In the future, so there is no mistake, I want to know when you learn of information that pertains to me.”
As the words passed his lips, he realized her motive. It came instantly, as obvious as the nose on his face. So long as he remained destitute, he was at her beck. She had no incentive to help him out of the poorhouse permanently. None at all.
When she spun to face him, her lips were parted. Her eyes looked stricken. But he didn’t buy her act. “Pack your things,” he said. “We leave as soon as I can collect my baggage from Merritt House.”
She glanced at the window. “But it’
s dark, my lord.”
Blast. He wasn’t at all used to traveling with two women and a baby. “At dawn, then.” He took three strides to come up beside her. He leaned to murmur in her ear. “You’re going to tell me what your solicitor told you. I want to hear it all.”
She nodded. Her eyes were downcast. He could smell the clean, floral scent of her hair. Even her skin gave off an intoxicating waft of honeysuckle. He wanted to hug her, not rant at her. Yet he forced him to hold back, because he didn’t trust her. Not a whit.
She raised her eyes. “My lord? Where will we stay?”
There it was again, the expectation that he provide for her. He felt his lack like a glove across his cheek. Succubus or not, he’d promised to safeguard her. He wanted to. He wanted to be the best protector she’d ever had. But he had no ability to do so—he didn’t know how, nor could he afford it.
This business of being with a woman was far and away the most difficult thing he’d ever attempted. With a last look at the woman he’d somehow become completely entangled with, the not-quite-lady who required his protection and, at the same time, refused to let her guard down even the tiniest inch, he shook his head. “I’ll see to it.”
Chapter Fourteen
THE CARRIAGE RIDE TO DEVON wasn’t the romantic retreat she’d had in mind when she’d implied to Nicholas that Lord Constantine liked having her by his side. If anything, Con had gone out of his way to ensure there was nothing amorous about the two of them locked in a carriage together. He’d insisted on Oliver riding with them, rather than in a second carriage, and he’d demanded that Mrs. Dalton come, too. Elizabeth’s instincts told her it was because he feared being alone with her.
Rather than be pleased with herself for bringing him to that point, she worried. Had she lost his trust so completely? He seemed to think she’d withheld news of the Grand Canal’s misfortune deliberately. She would have told him, eventually. Between his odd behavior upon her return to Merritt House, their torrid kiss in her drawing room and his subsequent denial of her favors, she’d forgotten it completely.
