Say something. She silently pleaded with him. Say you know I’d never give myself in any way to Henry Pratt. That you know I love you…
Only, why should he know that? She’d never told him. And he believed that everything that had come to pass was nothing more than pretend. Yet, if that were the case, why should he feel anything at discovering Alice with Henry?
Too late. She’d been too late.
Lord Lovell turned the corner and abruptly stopped. “I do say,” he squinted, “is that you Rhys Brookfield?” the wizened viscount boomed, loud enough to bring the entire household awake. “And Miles and…?” His brown eyes widened on Alice. “Oh,” he blurted, scratching at his cravat.
“Lord Archibald,” Rhys’ brother greeted with the aplomb only a powerful marquess could manage.
Viscount Lovell blinked slowly. “Highly unusual… this…” He gestured to Alice’s wrapper.
Bile climbed up the back of her throat. Could the gentleman see her swollen lips, too, in this instance? She briefly closed her eyes as horror assaulted her senses.
“Indeed, it is,” Rhys’ mother seethed.
Another scandal… over the same man, and yet entirely wrong in how it now appeared to the world.
She peeked over at Rhys and her heart stumbled. The sharp, chiseled planes of his face were an immobile mask, bearing no hint of the teasing gentleman who’d reminded her what it was to feel and laugh… and love. Look at me, she silently implored. Look at me and know I am not like that woman who hurt you…
Instead, his stare remained on Lord Lovell.
“Peculiar night this one is,” the viscount puzzled aloud. “A moment ago, I saw my Sybil’s brother-in-law running down the hall. Nearly knocked me down, he did. I wouldn’t take the youngest Pratt do be racing about.” He chuckled, his gaunt frame shaking with mirth. “Now my son-in-law, Nolan? I trust he’d be one to do so.”
Through his prattling, Alice stood frozen, feeling like an actor in a play who hadn’t the benefit of her lines.
The night could not very well get any worse.
“Lord Lovell, where are you?” The leading Societal hostess rounded the corner.
Alice’s face crumpled as she was, yet again, proven wrong.
The viscountess slapped a hand to her breast as her gaze went from Alice to Rhys. “Oh… my. My.”
“It is not how it looks, Lady Lovell,” Rhys’ mother snapped. “It was this one,” she whipped a hand in Alice’s direction. Panic threatened to drag her down and she braced for the revelation that would thoroughly destroy her. Nor did she give a jot about what the ton said. Only Rhys mattered. “And M—”
“Miles, who was good enough to help the lady when she became lost.” Rhys’ quiet interruption managed the seemingly impossible—it silenced the greatest gossip in London.
Her heart soared at that defense and Rhys briefly looked to her.
And all the hope she’d foolishly allowed herself at that gesture was dashed by the glint of indifference in his gaze; that sentiment all the more painful than had his eyes brimmed with rage and hurt.
Lady Lovell tipped her head. “Oh?”
The marquess cleared his throat. “Might I suggest we adjourn for the evening?” he offered, pulling Alice back from the brink of madness.
“Thank you for your assistance… my lord,” Alice managed and, bringing her shoulders back, started the long, painful trek to her rooms.
As soon as she reached the next corridor and found herself alone, Alice took flight.
A sheen of tears blurred her vision and she damned those useless drops as in her mind she relived Rhys’ response. Suspicion and anger had darkened his eyes and then… an absolute nothingness. His mistrust had been as palpable as if he’d condemned her with the same harsh words his mother had.
He’d been too jaded by his former betrothed’s betrayal to see that which had been before him and the truth of that left her bereft inside.
A short while later, attired in a proper gown, ensconced in one of Lord Guilford’s carriages, Alice continued her flight home… and away from Rhys Brookfield.
Chapter 18
In the thirteen days since Rhys had arrived for his brother’s house party, his life had come full circle.
“What in the blazes are you doing?”
The following morning, the sun not even yet risen, Lettie stormed the billiards room, stealing the futile moment of peace Rhys had been in search of.
“I thought it would be self-explanatory,” he drawled. He let his cue stick fly, landing a perfect strike. “I am playing billiards.”
The crack of the balls filled the room, usually calming, and now—
Nothing.
Alice had been in Pup Pratt’s arms. She’d had that pompous bastard’s lips on hers. He’d given her leave to sever their arrangement before the house party had concluded. Nothing could have provided a greater death knell to their whirlwind courtship than Alice being discovered… with her former love.
His grip tightened reflexively around the stick, draining the blood from his knuckles.
“Alice,” his termagant of a sister clipped out. “I’m speaking of Alice and… you.”
Alice and Rhys. They had done it. They had crafted a masterful display for his family and friends. “What of her?” he forced himself to say, infusing a bored nonchalance to that query. “It is my understanding the lady took her leave this morning.” Even as he said it, agony sluiced away at his chest; the jagged ache of a thousand knives being thrust into his heart. They’d known one another thirteen days. Thirteen damned days. And yet, she’d shown him how to laugh again. She’d kicked down the walls he’d built about himself, keeping the whole world out, and let her inside. Fool. You bloody fool.
Lettie slammed her palm down on the felt. “That is what you’d say?” she cried. “You are in love with her.”
Love her? Alice? It was preposterous. Madness. It was… true. God help him, somewhere along the way, truth and pretend had merged, and upended his entire world. He swallowed around the despair stuck in his throat. I love her.
Feeling Lettie’s eyes on him, Rhys started a path around the table, considering his next shot.
Planting her hands on her hips, Lettie moved into his path. She wrinkled her nose. “Are you cup shot?”
“No.”
His too-clever-than-was-good-for-anybody sister knitted her eyebrows into a single line.
“Very well, I’m a little foxed,” he mumbled. The half-bottle of brandy he’d consumed since Alice had fled the hall last evening, however, had little effect on his misery; despair continued to invade corners of his being that had been previously empty, parts of himself that she’d brought to life.
And now she is gone.
Rhys’ throat moved spasmodically as the energy drained from his legs. Sliding to the floor, he leaned against the billiards table, borrowing support from the mahogany leg. “She is gone,” he forced himself to say those three words aloud.
Their game of pretend had come to an end, serving them both well: Rhys had been spared his mother’s matchmaking attempts and, by the passionate embrace he’d stumbled upon last evening between Pratt and Alice, the pup had been gripped by jealousy. Red, searing, vicious poison that destroyed. The kind eating Rhys alive like a fast-moving cancer even now.
The floorboards groaned and he dimly registered Lettie settling onto the floor beside him. His always garrulous sister laid her head against his shoulder and, this time, she said nothing.
“I miss h-her.” His voice broke.
“Then go to her,” Lettie urged. She gave another wrinkle of her nose. “Not now necessarily. You stink like you’ve been rolling around the stables.”
An agonized laugh escaped him. “Oh, poppet.” He ruffled the top of her head, the same way he once had when she was a small girl. “It’s complicated.”
She swatted at his hand. “I’m not a child. You love Alice. Alice loves you.”
“Alice loves Pratt.” That admission cr
acked another part of his heart and the already useless organ crumbled under the truth there.
His sister worried at her lower lip. “Is this about her being discovered last evening… with him?”
“You know about that?”
“I overheard Mother speaking to Miles,” she muttered, layering her cheek against her skirts. “I did not believe it.”
“I saw it,” he said gruffly. How was his voice so steady?
Lettie stared contemplatively at the doorway. “There has to be more there. There just has to. She never loved Henry. Not truly.”
The portion of his foolish heart that lived only for hope, jumped. “Did she tell you that?”
The hesitation there told Rhys more clearly than words the answer before his sister spoke. “No. But I know her and I’ve seen you both together and it is… magic.” She clasped her hands to her breast and, in this moment, she was transformed back into the troublesome, starry-eyed girl of long ago.
It was pretend. That answer hung on his lips. In the end, he couldn’t shatter Lettie’s naïve but poignantly beautiful dream of love.
A light rapping on the door spared Rhys from saying more.
“Enter,” they both called out.
Philippa ducked her head inside. She did a search of the room, and then her gaze snagged on where Rhys and Lettie sat. “Forgive me for interrupting,” she said quietly. “I was wondering if I might speak with you.”
“Of course,” Lettie said, hopping up.
“No…” Philippa’s pretty blue eyes went to Rhys. “Your brother, that is.”
Oh, bloody hell. Intervention from his sister-in-law now, too.
Lettie inclined her head. “I must warn you,” she said, skipping over. “He stinks.” His youngest sibling lowered her voice to a whisper loud enough to be heard around the room. “Badly.”
Philippa grinned. “I will uh… take care to leave a sizeable distance between us when we speak.”
Lettie winked and took her leave. She slammed the door hard in her wake.
Reluctantly, Rhys came to his feet. “Philippa,” he greeted, dropping a deep bow.
The lady jerked to a stop several paces away. She touched gloved fingertips to her nose. “Uh… yes. Well, it appears your sister was not exaggerating.”
“How may I be of assistance?” he drawled, fetching his cue stick.
“Miles shared with me the situation you and he both stumbled upon late last evening.” She folded her hands primly at her waist.
“The situation?” he echoed, taking his next shot. “Is that what my mother has taken to referring to it as?”
Philippa went silent.
Rhys looked over his shoulder.
A frown marred her lips. “She cannot very well take to calling it a scandal when she still carries the hope you’ll marry Miss Cunning.”
No, that had always been the aspiration and expectation. He brought his arm back and propelled the stick forward. “My dear mama will take great care that…” A vise strangled his heart as the memory assaulted him. Pratt’s hands on Alice as she’d been in nothing more than her nightshift. The other man’s groans as he’d—“My mother will say nothing,” he finished in deadened tones.
His sister-in-law frowned. “Is that what you believe?” she said crisply. “That I have some worry about what will be said about my house party?” Hurt outrage tinged her voice.
He scrubbed his spare hand over the stubble on his unshaven cheeks. “Forgive me.”
Philippa waved him off. “That lady loves you, Rhys Brookfield. That is what I’ve come to say.”
The stick slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. It rolled to a stop at his sister-in-law’s slippers.
“You are wrong,” he said hoarsely, wanting her to be correct. Wishing it were so.
“Sometimes, I am.” Her eyes twinkled. “This, however, is not one of those times. Prior to the situation in the hallway, we had spoken in her chambers. I mentioned you were in the billiards room with my husband.”
Hope flared in his chest, born of his want and desperation. “You spoke to her?”
She nodded.
He took a frantic step forward and then forced himself to stop. “What did you…?”
“What did I say to her?” She arched a brow. “I encouraged her to follow her heart.”
Follow her heart.
And that is precisely what she’d done. She’d followed it all the way to Pratt’s arms and an embrace that would be forever etched in Rhys’ mind.
But what if Philippa is correct…?
The tantalizing prospect whispered forward.
“And you believe that talk you shared was leading her to me?” he ventured hopefully. How to explain then that kiss? That bloody embrace that fueled Rhys’ bloodlust, filling him with a primitive need to tear Pup Pratt apart limb from scrawny limb?
“I would never presume to know what is in her heart,” Philippa said regretfully. “I do believe, however, you know the answer to that better than I, or anyone, ever could.”
With that, Philippa took her leave and Rhys was left alone with only that veiled statement for company.
Chapter 19
It was coming.
After all, it was inevitable.
Just as it had been a certainty following Alice’s storming of St. George’s.
The Scandal.
Or what happened when a lady found herself embroiled in not one, but two of the greatest public disgraces of the Season?
Would the ton create one name for the two events? Or would they simply ascribe a moniker to Alice herself?
Alice’s previous fall from grace had been swift and complete, which was why five days after she’d fled Lord and Lady Guilford’s country estate, she was so blasted confused.
There hadn’t been so much as a word whispered among servants or written in the papers and Alice would know. She’d spent the past five mornings scouring those pages for a hint of a mention.
Uncaring about what was printed about her, the greater worry came from Daniel, who’d developed an older brother’s worry twenty years too late.
It was only a matter of time until he learned of Alice’s latest scandal… and with his business partner. And then, she would tell him and Daphne everything—well, not everything, but something.
For now, she opted for the coward’s way—delaying.
Her nephew perched on her hip, Alice rushed into the foyer. “Haply,” she greeted, with a forced smile. “Has the…?”
“Nothing yet, my lady,” the ancient butler, Haply, murmured from his post by the front door.
Alex caught one of Alice’s curls and yanked hard. “You’re certain?” she pressed, gently disentangling the strand from his determined little fingers.
A twinkle lit the loyal servant’s gaze. “My vision and hearing are not what they once were but I promise I will know when it arrives.”
The thump of a cane striking marble announced the arrival of Alice’s sister-in-law. “There you are.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. Must Daphne be one who rose before the morning sun made its ascent? It rather complicated all this subterfuge business. “I was unable to sleep,” she lied, her voice creeping up an octave.
Limping over, Daphne eyed her peculiarly. “Uh… I was not referring to you.” She tipped her head.
Alice followed her stare to the plump bundle in her arms. “Of course,” she said on a rush, making to hand her nephew over to his devoted mama.
He fidgeted, squirming away from Daphne. Twining his arms about Alice’s neck, he clung tight.
“It appears my son has other ideas.”
“That is just because your Aunt Alice sneaks you her dessert every night. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that right?” she cooed, bouncing him in her arms.
The babe squealed and clapped excitedly.
Alice cradled his plump body close and buried her head into his riotous curls. Only in these moments when she held her beloved nephew, did the misery abate.
Even those reprieves, however, were fleeting and gave way to a fantasy she saw in her mind: Rhys’ babe with luscious, golden curls and a dimpled smile, being carried about on his doting papa’s shoulders.
A sheen of tears filled her eyes. Using her nephew’s frame to shield herself, she dusted her eyes along his linen gown. Her sister-in-law leveled a clever gaze on Alice.
Please do not let her pry. Please let her be content with the illusion of Alice as a happy, doting aunt and not the woebegone creature who’d consistently read through the scandal sheets each morn.
“You are waiting for the newspapers,” Daphne murmured, the unexpectedness of that observation jolted Alice.
Her cheeks warming, she rocked Alex.
“Bab,” Alex pouted, thumping his fist in the air. “Ba-ba-ba.”
She caught a tiny blow to her head. “You are going to be a brilliant pugilist someday,” she vowed in a sing-song voice. “Better than Gentleman Jackson. Better than anyone in all of England.” His lower lip quivered. “In the whole of England,” she corrected, spinning him in a quick circle until laughter spilled from his lips. Reluctantly, she placed him in Daphne’s arms. As the other woman adjusted her cane, she shifted the boy into the crook of her opposite shoulder. Despite his earlier protestations, he snuggled against his mother’s breast. Daphne brushed her lips over his brow.
The pair presented an idyllic image as glorious in its beauty as the Mother Mary with Jesus cradled in her arms. And Alice hated herself for envying her sister-in-law that joy. I want that… I want it all… with Rhys…
Her heart spasmed.
Do not think of him. Think of the latest scandal about to ensue which was vastly less painful than thoughts of how very happy she’d been with Rhys.
A footman strode into the hall with a silver tray in hand. “Your papers, my lady,” he murmured, the way one might when presenting the crown to the king.
Alice raced over and plucked the first scandal sheet to arrive that morn. Unfolding it, she frantically skimmed the front page. Scandals such as hers invariably found themselves on the front of those useless rags, not buried several pages in at some obscure location.
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 187
