In the bleak surroundings his companion seemed more animated than usual, a leftover late rose among dying leaves. Her dark hair set off delicately pink cheeks and a sweet red mouth. An invitation to a deserted garden usually presaged a kiss at the very least and Marcus was willing, even eager, to take it.
Without saying a word, he stood in the light breeze, letting her make the next move. He read hesitation in the hazel eyes, more blue than brown in the dull light. A quick nod, a deep breath, and she spoke.
“I had a letter from Caro today.”
No kiss then. How disappointing. But he had been expecting this and he was ready. “How is she?” he asked.
“She warned me against you, said I shouldn’t trust you. Because of what happened between you and Castleton.”
Tempting as it was to entirely blame the duke, he’d already planned to tell her as much of the truth as was politic, slanting it to his own advantage. That Anne had jumped to the conclusion that Caro’s grievance had something to do with her husband was an unlooked-for benefit.
“Caro is angry with me, and rightly so. Let me explain, though the story does not redound to my credit.”
She nodded and perched on a stone bench. He remained on his feet, looking down at her with his best troubled look.
“As you know, I have made my living by my skill at cards and dice, since I was sixteen years old. I had no choice. I have no fortune and it’s all my father taught me. He was a rogue. Lately I became aware that gaming was no way to spend my life. I returned to London this year, determined to find a more respectable means of support. The first thing I did was to raise some capital by collecting a few debts.”
“Caro?” She was quick.
“Robert Townsend lost a large sum to me just before his death. I didn’t want to dun Caro, and I never would have after Robert left her in such straits. Once she married a duke I thought she could afford it.”
“Did Castleton refuse to pay you?” she demanded with a convenient air of disapproval.
“He was under no obligation to pay another man’s gaming debt, and neither was she. I behaved badly.” Badly as in trying to steal Caro’s most precious possession from under Castleton’s precious nose. He saw no need to go into details.
“Did you apologize? Caro is the most forgiving person in the world. She would never hold a grudge.”
“But her husband does. He’s a distant connection of my mother’s and we had a childhood quarrel. He dislikes me.”
“This is terrible! I always thought the Duke of Castleton was a man of principle.”
“I have no reason to believe otherwise. Yet even the most upright of men can be ruled by his passions.”
“Do you know that Caro used to call him Lord Stuffy? And then she married him. I know she loves him but they are an unlikely couple. He used to disapprove of her circle of friends, but I thought he had come to accept them.”
“The others perhaps, but not me. We have too much history between us. My dear Miss Brotherton, believe me when I say I’d do anything to mend the rift.”
“I shall write to Caro on your behalf.”
Marcus, who had been standing over her with folded arms, ventured to sit beside her. “Your sympathy means so much to me.” He took her hand and stroked the smooth white skin, skin never marred by a minute of work, and bestowed a light kiss on the knuckles. “Thank you for listening and giving me the benefit of the doubt, which I fear I do not deserve.”
Her cheeks grew pinker and she didn’t pull away. Raising her eyes to his, she looked like a woman waiting to be kissed and he wanted to oblige her. He wanted to taste those lips much more than was sensible for an adventurer with a scheme. As Lewis Lithgow had instructed him from an early age, genuine desire or even liking for a mark was a weakness that led to carelessness and exposure. Summoning his resolution, he let her go. Side by side on the bench, each looked straight ahead. He wished he knew what she was thinking.
She recovered first. “I honor your ambition to find a new occupation and I know it’s difficult for a man without fortune or connections. What would you wish to do, if you had the choice?”
“Don’t laugh, but I think I would enjoy being a land steward. A brief time I spent at Castleton was a pleasure. I wished I could live in the country and was all the sadder when my father and I were ejected. I also visited a great-uncle’s house in Wiltshire and loved it there.” Which was sort of true. He hadn’t hated it. “But I have no experience. I’ve been reading a few books on the subject of estate management.”
She shook her head as though bewildered by the problems of such an unconnected man.
“Enough about my vain ambitions. I’d much sooner talk about you than me. Tell me about Anne Brotherton. What has she been doing all her life?”
She looked doubtful. “I’ve led a very dull existence compared to you.”
“Perhaps, yet I envy you that dullness. There’s much to be said for having an established position in a family and society.”
“I am lucky, I suppose.” She shook her head and continued slowly. “But I confess I don’t always feel that way. My good fortune is an accident of birth and nothing to do with me. I’ve always felt”—she paused—“like an empty vessel, the unwitting repository of the Brotherton future. My father and mother both died when I was an infant. I lived at Camber with my grandfather and my governesses and later my companion. Nothing much happened, except when Caro came to visit.”
“Livened things up, did she?”
“What do you think?”
“It’s impossible to be bored when she’s about. Robert was a lucky man, and so is Castleton. The loss of her friendship is one of the great regrets of my life.” He’d never spoken with more sincerity.
“She’ll come round.” A light touch on his arm squeezed at his heart, though never was sympathy less deserved.
“I hope so. Now go on. Did you have friends? And admirers. I’m sure you always had the latter.”
She wrinkled her nose. “My grandfather’s health was poor so we neither visited nor received many people. Felix was with us a good deal of the time, my second cousin, the heir to the earldom.”
“Was he your playmate?”
“Hardly, since he was a decade elder, but he was always kind to me, even when I was a little girl. He didn’t seem to mind too much when he proposed to me.”
Although he knew all about her former engagement to Felix Brotherton, Marcus feigned surprise. “A lady should expect a stronger sentiment from a husband than mere tolerance. I should hope you sent him about his business with a flea in his ear!”
She gave a little giggle, more animation than he’d yet seen in her. “Of course not! I always knew we would marry. We were betrothed when I was seventeen.”
Poor little heiress. In some ways she had even less choice in life than Lewis Lithgow’s son. He at least had traveled the world and made his own luck. He beat down pity and with it compunction.
“What happened?” he asked, well aware of the answer. “I hope you came to your senses and sent him to the right about.”
“I accepted him. He died of a lung fever less than a year later.”
He gathered her hands in a light clasp. “I’m sorry. Did you love him?”
“We were comfortable. We knew what to expect of each other.”
“Did he ever kiss you?”
“No.” The answer was more a breath than a word.
Her eyes grew large and lovely and her lips parted, just enough to emit a breath. Gently he cupped her cheek, warm and smooth as an Italian apricot under his palm. He lowered his head and brought his mouth to hers, soft as a whisper, frightened she might melt away. He found her as pliant yet firm as he’d suspected, and every bit as sweet. Instinct told him to surge in and take possession, and only years of practiced control held him back. His reward, after a second that lasted an age, was a perceptible movement. In her inexperienced way she kissed him back.
It wasn’t much of a kiss, little more than a ming
ling of breath, and he wanted more. His fingers found the wild pulse at her temple, threaded into the hair she wore firmly coiled about her head. It was soft and fine. Closing his eyes, he let her scent and taste and the texture of her lips wash over him. She felt clean and pure, and that very fact lent a faint erotic charge to their contact. He wanted to pull her into his arms, to discover the body hidden by ill-fitting layers of wool, and most of all to kiss her properly, until she was gasping and crying out for more.
Her innocent enthusiasm touched him, and shamed him too. A man like Marcus Lithgow had no business with this artless girl.
Too bad. He needed her and he couldn’t afford scruples.
He opened his eyes and hardened his resolution, gauging her reaction as though she were a hand of cards. He knew the moment when the crescendo of pleasure halted. Her mouth lost its pliancy and her entire body stilled. Before she could succumb to panic he ended the kiss himself, inching his face away and letting his hands drop to her shoulders. She gaped at him, then averted her eyes.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I do beg your pardon, but the temptation was more than I could resist.” He smiled his most ingenuous smile, a little humorous with only a hint of ardor. “For a rogue like me, there’s only one thing to be done with a pretty girl in a garden.”
Half expecting to have his face slapped, he gave her credit for poise. Wrinkling her nose, she made no effort to pull away. “Well,” she said. “I’ve never been kissed before and it had to happen sometime.”
“I am honored.” He meant it. “I hope the experience met your expectations, otherwise I truly would be a villain.”
She now shook off his touch, but not sharply. “What do you want of me?”
“Anne—Miss Brotherton, I’m not in a position to want anything. I know how disparate our positions are. You will make a great marriage, sooner or later, and there’s no place in your life for a man like me. I will settle for liking.”
She regarded him, clear-eyed, for some moments while he maintained the sincerity of his expression. There wasn’t a gamester in Europe who could read what he was really thinking. He wasn’t even sure himself. When he expressed regrets at his lack of eligibility, he had an uneasy feeling that he meant them. He’d kissed Anne Brotherton to render her flustered and yearning for more. He couldn’t tell how he’d succeeded with her, but he’d certainly managed to confuse himself.
“I hope we can be friends. That is all,” he said, pulling himself together. “You needn’t fear that I will ask for more. I will never do such a thing again.”
“I would like that,” she said with a nod. “Friends. We all need friends.”
Chapter 5
Anne thought about kissing.
She thought about kissing her dinner partner, Lord Algernon Tiverton. To distract herself from what was coming out of his mouth, she concentrated on the shape of it. Quite pleasant, she concluded. Neither too plump nor too thin, a healthy color, and a nice little dip in the middle of the upper lip. She’d never paid much attention to mouths before, but now found she noticed nothing else. About gentlemen, that was. And more specifically she considered what those mouths would feel like on her own.
She wondered how Lord Algernon would taste. Then he drew breath to insert a forkful of cabbage and she shuddered. She hated cabbage. Trying to be fair, she acknowledged he wouldn’t always be eating cabbage. Even Marcus Lithgow’s kisses would be less than ideal if he’d been eating cabbage. Or fish.
Lord Algernon swallowed a morsel of haddock.
The past two days had been spent trying not to think about kissing Lord Lithgow. Since that proved impossible, she compromised by thinking of kissing in general and assessing the possibilities of other men. The dinner party at Lady Ashfield’s had come as a welcome opportunity to extend her investigations beyond footmen and shopkeepers. Unfortunately, her hostess seemed to have selected her guests with the aim of making Tiverton, her nephew, appear attractive in comparison. Poor Cynthia’s expression was one of barely concealed horror as she listened to an elderly general with giant gray whiskers.
“Are you staying long in London, my lord?” Anne asked.
Tiverton took her polite inquiry as encouragement. “As long as necessary, Miss Brotherton. I look forward to pursuing your acquaintance. I expect we shall meet often at such assemblies as are planned, despite the dearth of people in town.”
“I hardly find London empty. I cannot set foot outside without entering a crowd. I read in the Morning Post recently that the population exceeds a million.”
“I see you are a young lady who values precision,” he replied. “An excellent quality. I should have made myself clear that I refer to a scarcity of people worthy of notice. But you are quite correct in stating the capital holds an abundance of the lower orders that is impossible to avoid. In the country it is different. At Locksley, my Derbyshire place, I go weeks without encountering a soul beyond those neighbors of a proper rank.”
“Really? How uncomfortable it must be to live without servants.” Anne tried to avoid Cynthia’s eye lest she burst out laughing.
“A jest, Miss Brotherton,” he said. “Most amusing.”
No, the conversation of Lord Algernon Tiverton was not enough to keep Anne from thinking about Marcus Lithgow and his kiss. Especially since he required nothing from her but an occasional word of agreement as he droned on—though droned was the wrong word for his clipped and slightly high-pitched voice—about his own interests, which interested Anne not a whit. The branches of Lord Algernon’s family tree were extensive, ancient, and unpolluted by scandal. A murderer or pirate would have enlivened the tale.
Or a gamester.
That got her thinking about kissing again. Her new gown was of whisper-soft silk with an overdress of gauze that caressed her shoulders and arms. She’d let Cynthia persuade her to buy new undergarments of linen so fine as to be almost transparent. The touch of the delicate material gave her a new awareness of her own skin. All over. These thrilling and not altogether comfortable sensations seemed to be connected to the kissing business. But not Lord Algernon.
“What do you think, Miss Brotherton?” He was actually asking her opinion? “Do you think I should quarter my personal escutcheon with that of my mother’s family? I would also, of course, be willing to do the same with my wife’s.”
He had his beady eyes on the Brotherton coat of arms.
“I know little of heraldry.”
“I shall be happy to instruct you.” And off he went again, leaving her sure that she would never, under any circumstances, wish to kiss him. She’d rather listen to Marcus Lithgow talk about laundry than endure another hour of Tiverton’s company.
After three interminable courses, Lady Ashfield led the ladies out and invited Anne to her boudoir to tidy herself. Since none of the others received this privileged invitation, Anne expected the ensuing tête-à-tête.
“Lord Algernon admires you very much,” the countess said.
Anne sat at the dressing table and pretended to tweak her neat plaits, arranged so tightly by her maid that not a hair was out of place. “I don’t know what to say.” Not without being impolite to the gentleman’s cousin.
“I have written to dear Lord Morrissey and I am happy to say he favors Algernon’s suit.”
“A younger son?” she replied, not letting a twinge of panic show. This was unwelcome news, suggesting that her guardian was becoming serious about finding her a match. If she wasn’t careful her days of freedom would soon be over. The thought caught her by surprise. She hadn’t previously seen her unmarried state in that way. Rather the opposite, since she couldn’t conceive of a husband who would be more autocratic than her late grandfather or her current guardian.
“Lord Algernon is no fortune hunter,” Lady Ashfield said. “He has a very easy competence of his own and no need to seek a rich wife. Besides, he has far too much principle.”
“My guardian has always wished me to look higher.”
&nbs
p; “There’s nothing wrong with Algernon’s birth and connections. His position makes him an ideal custodian of the Camber estates because he won’t be distracted by his own responsibilities.”
Anne bit back the retort that he was more likely to be distracted by his own conceit.
“He’s even willing to add the Brotherton name to his.”
“Do you mean to say that if I married him I would be Lady Algernon Brotherton-Tiverton?”
“A trivial matter. I know half a dozen people with sillier names. I daresay Morrissey will exert his influence with the king to have the earldom of Camber revived for him.”
For him. For a pompous creature who cared nothing for her person or her interests. Anne wished quite desperately that she had not been born an heiress. Then there would have been some chance she could be an individual. Her heritage and her duty to marry oppressed her.
And then there was the matter of kissing. That marriage involved kissing—and a good deal more—could no longer be ignored. She had a lowering suspicion that the least eligible men were the most kissable.
“There’s another thing I must mention,” Lady Ashfield said. Anne wished she wouldn’t. As a close friend of her guardian, the countess felt she had the right to favor Anne with her trenchantly expressed opinions on every subject. “Lithgow.”
“What?”
“I heard a report that you walked from Berkeley Square to Piccadilly on his arm. It will not do.”
“My maid was with me.” Until their unplanned excursion into Soho.
“I don’t care if you were followed by an army of footmen and the Prince of Wales himself. Marcus Lithgow may have somehow fallen into the peerage but he never was and never will be suitable company for any young woman of reputation. Do you have any idea who his father was?”
“He didn’t choose his own father.”
“None of us chose our fathers, yet our course in life is determined by our birth. A man like that must do much to atone for the faults in his ancestry and upbringing, and nothing I’ve seen or heard of Marcus Lithgow suggests that he’s done anything at all. Quite the opposite.”
Miranda Neville Page 4
