“Oh?” Cedric hooked his ankle across the opposite knee. Having known the other man since they’d been boys at Eton, he well knew Montfort was not beyond coming here to influence the wagering he no doubt had steep funds in. The earl was also desperate. He’d inherited a mountainous debt from the previous earl. His circumstances had not been improved by Montfort’s own excessive wagering and, even more, excessive losing.
“Your clubs or the duke’s ball.” The earl took a long swallow of his drink. “I, of course, wagered on the former.”
They’d be wrong on both scores. Cedric didn’t have a bloody intention of attending either this evening. “I haven’t decided,” he said noncommittally.
The other man choked on his drink. “Yes, no doubt,” he said with droll humor after he’d finished his sip. “I am certain the first place you’ll care to be is at that miserable bastard’s polite affair.” He spoke as one who knew Cedric; who knew the lifelong loathing he’d carried for his sire. He knew the only places Cedric had ever truly been comfortable were those dens of sin, where he felt less alone in the evil in his blood.
Finishing off his first whiskey, Montfort promptly consumed the other in a long, slow swallow. He grimaced and then set his empty glass aside. “Shall we?” he asked, climbing to his feet.
Neither was the earl above trying to influence the wager, it would seem. Then, Cedric had long ago ceased being shocked by a person’s depravity and weakness. “Perhaps, I will join you later,” he said.
Despite the low he’d sunk to in life, he’d not enter the living looking like he’d been roused from the streets of London.
A grin formed on the other man’s lips, which Cedric wagered had not a jot to do with his actual promise of company. “Splendid,” Montfort said and thumped him on the back as he passed.
After he’d gone and Cedric was, at last, alone, he gathered his black jacket and shrugged into it. When had joining his clubs bore the same appeal as spending an evening amidst polite Society? Forbidden Pleasures and the other hells he’d frequented over the years had been the few places he’d felt he belonged, with other like people—equally emotionless and jaded. He’d studiously avoided those polite balls and soirees. Somewhere along the way, there’d become a tedium to both.
Attending tonight would serve to, no doubt, silence his father’s pressuring—even if temporarily. However, he’d never lived to placate the Duke of Ravenscourt. Nor would he ever live for that man. His father could go to the devil and someday when Cedric drew his last breath, he’d, no doubt, join his miserable sire in those fiery depths.
With a hard grin, he started from the room.
Chapter 3
She hated gray.
It was a horrid color that conjured overcast skies and dreary rain. It was miserable and depressing. And it was the color her parents would insist she don. She stared at her reflection in the bevel mirror. Her pale skin, devoid of even the hint of rouges her mother had once insisted on. The painfully tight chignon at the base of her skull accentuated her cheeks in an unflatteringly gaunt way. The high-necked, modest, gray gown concealed all hint of feminine curve.
Odd, she’d spent so many years missing this place and now what she wouldn’t give to return to her grandfather’s property in Kent.
From within the glass panel, her maid’s sad visage reflected back. “You look lovely, miss.”
“You are a dreadful liar, Delores.” She gentled that with a wan smile. “But thank you.”
Perhaps had they been any other maid and lady, there would have been further protestations. The close relationship formed by them through the years, however, kept Delores silent and Genevieve appreciated that. She did. For she didn’t need lies and platitudes to tell her anything different than what she felt in her heart and saw in this very mirror. She was bloody miserable.
It had been a fortnight since she’d returned and, in that time, she’d gone through the motions of proper daughter. She’d gone to dreadful fitting after fitting for equally dreadful gowns. She’d been schooled on the lords she might speak to during dinner parties.
The Earl of Primly. Polite, proper, and safe.
The Marquess of Guilford. Respectable, loyal brother and son, and also safe.
The Earl of Montfort. Rake, nearly impoverished, and dangerous.
And she’d been instructed to not dance.
Her toes curled reflexively within the soles of her too-tight slippers. Of everything she’d missed of London, the strains of the orchestra and exuberantly moving through the intricate steps of the waltz and quadrille had been some of them. But then, that thrill had come from a long ago time when she’d carried a foolish girl’s dream of a love that conquered all.
The door opened and she looked to the front of the room.
Her sister, Gillian, hovered in the entrance. With her pale lavender satin and artfully arranged whitish blonde curls, she could rival the angels in one of da Vinci’s murals. Then Gillian gave her a hesitant smile that transformed her from magnificent to otherworldly in her beauty. “May I come in?” she asked tentatively. But that was just Gillian’s beauty; it transcended mere physical looks and delved deep to a purity and goodness that Genevieve had forgotten existed.
“Of course.” Genevieve motioned her forward and, with a curtsy, Delores ducked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Her sister glided over and her satin skirts swirled about her satin slipper-clad feet. She stopped before Genevieve and shifted on her feet.
Strangers. That was what time had turned them into. Two girls who’d once giggled under the covers after Genevieve had returned from balls and put on pretend performances where they’d taken on the role of their proper marquess and marchioness.
Gillian cleared her throat. “You look…” Her expression grew strained. The youngest Farendale sibling had always been incapable of artifice.
“Horrid?” Genevieve supplied, in a bid to break the stilted awkwardness that had existed since she’d returned.
“Never.” Her sister gave her head an emphatic shake. “It does not matter what color skirts you wear or your hairstyle, it is who you are,” she said with the most meaningful of words to pass between them in two weeks. Gillian captured her hands and gave them a slight squeeze. “And I’ve missed you so, so much.”
Her throat worked. This had been the one person who had missed her. Just as Genevieve, tending the gardens in Kent with the sun as her daytime companion and her gruff grandfather in the evening, had missed the friendship of her sister. A sister who now, for Genevieve’s shameless flirting and subsequent scandal, found herself uncourted and unwanted. “I am sorry,” she managed on a soft whisper.
Her sister made a sound of protest. “Oh, do not do that.” She squeezed Genevieve’s hands again. “Do not. I would never, ever want a gentleman who’d so judge you and, through you, me.” Gillian gave her a wider smile. “I will find a gentleman who loves me regardless of anything and everything. And you will, too.”
Find love? The best she could hope for in this old world she’d been dragged back into was a quiet existence devoid of whispers and gossip. There would be no champions or heroes because…they didn’t exist. She shook her head sadly. “Oh, Gillian.” Had she ever been so hopelessly optimistic in love and the belief in a good, honorable gentleman?
Her sister’s smile dipped. “You don’t believe,” she observed.
Not anymore and not because she’d been in love with the Duke of Aumere. She hadn’t. She’d been charmed, and in love with their forbidden flirtation and, even just a little bit, the promise of pleasing her parents and securing that coveted title. She was saved from replying and offering any darkly realistic truths to her still-innocent sister by a soft rapping at the door.
They looked as one.
“The Marquess and Marchioness have asked you join them in the foyer.”
It was time. The inevitable reentry. Withdrawing her hand from Gillian’s, Genevieve smoothed her damp palms over her muslin skirts.
As they walked, her loquacious sister filled the tense silence. “The Duke of Ravenscourt will be our host. Mama believes that means he is trying to arrange a match for his son, the Marquess of St. Albans.”
Ahh, the wicked, dangerous one to avoid. Neither was the irony lost on her; another future duke, those gentlemen who believed the world was their due and were forgiven for jilting their betrotheds at the altar.
Her sister dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, stealing a peek about as they walked. “I heard Mother and Lady Erroll say he is something of a rake.”
Of course he was.
“But even rakes can be reformed,” Gillian said with a girlish innocence that caused Genevieve to miss a step. She stumbled, and quickly righted herself.
With her beauty, and because of Genevieve’s scandalous roots, a naïve miss like Gillian would be easy prey for those treacherous gentlemen. “No,” she said, the denial ripped harshly from her lungs. “I don’t believe they can.”
A flash of pity danced in her sister’s green eyes.
Tension knotted Genevieve’s belly. God, how she despised those sympathetic stares. They were even worse than the sneering, disgusted ones.
Her sister proved the tenacious spirit she’d always possessed as a small child. “My friend, Phoebe is recently married to Lord Rutland. He was rumored to be the darkest of all the scoundrels and, yet, they are hopelessly in love.”
They arrived at the foyer and Genevieve promptly closed her mouth. The last debates she cared to have in the presence of their parents were matters pertaining to the heart and rakes.
The marquess consulted his timepiece.
In an unspoken cue that came from years of devoted service, footmen rushed forward with the ladies’ cloaks. Meanwhile, Dunwithy pulled the door open. Genevieve followed silently behind her parents with her usually talkative sister, quieted.
How had her spirits not been completely crushed living in this place? As miserable as Genevieve’s banishment had been for what it represented, she’d spent her days in the gardens with the sun on her face; a crime her mother had lambasted her for since her return with tanned cheeks. The family filed into the carriage.
Moments later, a servant closed the door, shutting the Farendale family away in the large, opulent carriage.
Clasping her hands on her lap, Genevieve stared out the window at the passing darkened London streets. “I do not expect one misstep from you this night,” her father’s rumbling voice filled the confines of the black barouche.
She stiffened.
“You’re to—”
“Sit with the matrons and wallflowers,” she delivered emotionlessly. “I know.” And there was no dancing or smiling or conversing with gentleman.
He grunted.
Her sister shot her another look—the pitying kind.
And while her father launched into another lecture before the evening’s festivities, she stared out the window and dreamed of being any place but where she was.
Genevieve’s feet ached.
She had stood alongside the proper matrons and mamas for the past three hours, nodding at the proper moments and primly holding her hands clasped at her waist. That had wrought havoc on her miserable feet.
To be specific, her biggest toe and the one next to it throbbed with a pounding intensity to match the steady pressure building at the back of her head. A pounding that was a product of the noisy whispers and laughter filling the Duke of Ravenscourt’s ballroom. Though at this moment, she was particularly grateful for the distraction as it afforded the opportunity to rub those miserable digits. She discreetly drew her foot up and—
“Genevieve, do put your foot down,” her mother, the Marchioness of Ellsworth, said from the corner of her mouth, not taking her eyes off the crowded ballroom.
With a sigh, Genevieve lowered her heel to the floor and winced. Blasted slippers.
Did her mother truly think anyone was giving Genevieve any attention—a young lady long in the tooth in dull gray skirts, deemed unmarriageable because of a scandal from long ago? If she did, well, then she’d a good deal less sense than Genevieve had credited over the years. She trailed her bored gaze over the ballroom and she’d not given her much.
The perverse fascination upon the first event Genevieve attended had dimmed when it became rather clear that the whore from long ago wouldn’t don crimson skirts. Nor would she flutter her lashes at wed and unwed gentleman—something she’d never been guilty of, but the myth had been created all those years ago.
Absently, she did a search for him. Surely, it was inevitable their paths would cross and when they did, how could she bury the long-burning hatred she carried for the lying cad? She’d been so very enamored of the Duke of Aumere and his effusive charm, she’d failed to note the lies in his eyes and heart. Her gaze collided with a garish fop in yellow satin pants.
The gentleman studied her under hot lids and, cheeks burning, she quickly looked away. Perhaps they’d not forgotten, after all. Her father was a bloody, witless fool. The only stares that would ever be fixed on her were by gentlemen with dishonorable intentions. Something deep inside, something that felt very much like…regret, pulled at her. Regret for the dream that had never been, nor would ever be.
Restless, she leaned up on tiptoes and ignoring the pain presented by her too-tight slippers, she searched for her sister. Gillian remained ensconced in conversation with her friend, a Miss Honoria Fairfax. From the sidelines, Genevieve felt very much the younger sister; uncertain, while the cheerful Gillian spoke easily to her friend. Another pang of sadness struck as she looked about her own bright-eyed excitement of years ago. There had once been a magical thrill at these lavish, glittering affairs. How odd to return to these ballrooms years later, at such a very different place in life, while her sister evinced that long-ago excitement.
Her mother shoved her elbow into Genevieve’s side and brought her back down hard on her heels. “Do stop frowning,” her mother hissed. “Pretty faces…”
Catch pretty titles.
Yes, that had long been mother’s silly words for her daughters. And yet, there’d been no more beautiful face than that of Gillian, and what had that gotten her? Not even a single offer or suitor because of a sin committed in her elder sister’s past.
Did her mother truly believe she would find a husband? Nor would Genevieve bother to correct her mother of the erroneous assumption that she would one, do something as foolish as to wed a rake who studiously avoided polite affairs, or two, that she’d wed a gentleman who saw nothing more than a pretty face in her. The only gentleman worth wedding was the good and honorable and hopelessly in love one. In short, a man who did not exist.
A tall figure appeared at the front of the room, momentarily distracting the guests, but alas, the sought-after host remained elusive. Genevieve yawned into her glove, earning another sharp glower from her mother. “The marquess might see,” she whispered.
“The marquess would have to attend,” she returned.
Another tall figure appeared at the threshold of the ballroom and the guests, her mother included, leaned forward. Alas, given the collective groan, the dark-haired gentleman at the front of the room was, in fact, not the future duke.
She cringed at the crowd’s tangible desire for that missing gentleman. What bad form. “Why throw a blasted ball?” she muttered. Why, if one had no plans on attending, and worse, forcing others to endure the tediousness of the affair?
“What was that, Genevieve?” her mother asked, returning her attention to her daughter, which was the last thing she cared for—attention from her mother, a mother who’d not given up hope of her only daughter of marriageable age making a match.
“I said, what a splendid ball,” she replied, with a smile.
The narrowing of her mother’s eyes indicated she knew the lie there and Genevieve gave thanks as her mother’s friend, the Countess of Erroll, approached.
The two women greeted each other eagerly as young ladie
s might. Their friendship went back to their days at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School and, as such, when together, they tended to forget everyone else around. Genevieve cast a special thanks skyward for that blessed diversion.
“…Why else would he host a formal ball, and make an appearance except to find a wife…” the other woman said excitedly.
Genevieve rolled her eyes. She had to tamp down the pointed reminder that the rake’s father was responsible for hosting said event, and that the Marquess of St. Albans still couldn’t be bothered to attend. Those were hardly indications of a marriage-minded lord. Nor would any sensible person ever mistake that elusive lord as marriage minded. The man had earned a reputation as one of Society’s most scandalous rakes and took care to avoid polite affairs.
“Well, I heard from Lady Delenworth who heard from Lady Fitzhugh, that he’s going to at last see to his responsibilities and wed.” Mother concluded that admission with a decisive nod, as though it declared her words fact.
Every scandalous widow and marriage-minded miss, however, seemed to be of like opinion to Mother. They all eyed the door with a breathless anticipation for the rakish Marquess of St. Albans to make his appearance—to his own ball.
Except, Genevieve. She wanted nothing to do with those rakish sorts. Especially one who couldn’t bother with punctuality. She didn’t care if the person was a prince or a pauper. In being late, it signified another’s belief in their own self-importance and devalued those individuals kept waiting.
She sighed. Yes, she’d be quite contented with a perfectly charming, romantic fellow who read her sonnets and snipped tresses of her hair to hold close. Forcibly thrusting back the painful musings, she looked about the room for a glimpse of a friendly, familiar face. Alas, she knew but one. Gillian, now otherwise occupied with her friend, chatted at the opposite end of the room. Envy pulled at her and she hated the niggling green monster that needled at her for Gillian having friends when Genevieve remained—alone.
“Mother,” she said, taking advantage of the other woman’s diversion. Genevieve shifted and then swallowed down a curse at the throbbing of her toes. “I am going to see Gillian,” she lied, crossing her fingers behind her back. “She is speaking with Miss Fairfax.”
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 33
