“And I shall provide you with a carriage,” he promised, his generosity fuelled by her kindling look.
“Oh, that will not be necessary, as I shall have my own.” Leaning in to him, she raised her hand to stroke the curls at the nape of his neck as he tied her bonnet. He was taken aback when, sighing, she added, “My love, I have much to organise during the next few days. I will send a note around when I’m free to see you again.”
Free to see you again?
He did not understand her meaning. “Of course we must be discreet but, my darling Fanny, I want to be with you every moment of the day.” He was surprised at how anxious he suddenly felt. Had she not considered their coupling the most extraordinarily exciting experience of her life?
He certainly had.
* * * *
Rain slashed against the windowpanes. It was a fitting tribute to his mood. Like a caged beast, Fenton paced the hearthrug, his mind able to turn upon only one thing—Miss Fanny Brightwell. For three days she had been unobtainable, neither at any of the fashionable watering holes or even, when in desperation he’d begun calling in person, at her London lodgings.
He turned, heart pumping in hope and expectation at the sound of crashing upon the front door, though it was not a ladylike entrance.
Instead, Bramley thundered past a clearly distressed Brimble and burst into the library. As he removed his hat a great torrent of water splashed from its brim and joined the droplets from his multi-layered coat in a puddle on the Wilton carpet.
“Perhaps, Brimble, you’d divest Mr Bramley of his sodden garments,” Fenton said with pointed disapproval to the hovering and clearly enraged butler. The fact that he had hoped it might be Fanny made him even more disinclined to entertain Bramley, who was obviously in one of his moods.
“No time.” Bramley sucked in a breath, running a hand through his rain-darkened hair as he fended off Brimble’s discreet ministrations. His eyes burned like coals in his pallid face, his agitation clear as he rasped, “You have to come quickly, Fenton. The news is all over town. I heard it just now at my club. Miss Brightwell is betrothed to the Earl of Quamby.”
Fenton could only blink. Stupidly, like an owl. Shock and astonishment robbed him of an intelligent response and left him physically deflated, as if the air had been sucked right out of him. Not just the air but the bones and substance that enabled him to walk tall, like a man. He gripped the sideboard for support. His Fanny Brightwell? The woman who’d played his heartstrings not three nights before like a bewitching harpist before disappearing in a puff of enchanted smoke?
“I’ve come directly from my uncle’s house, where Quamby confirmed that he and Miss Brightwell are to be married without delay.” Bramley’s face contorted with malice as he paced. “I believe the betrothal took place three days ago.”
“Three days ago?” Fenton repeated. Devastation gutted him. On top of wounded pride, it was a powerful combination that swept out the thick, sluggish shock that had slowed his responses.
This could not be. Miss Fanny Brightwell could not do this to him. She could not be allowed to shake up the happy, ordered world that revolved around her making him the most important man in her life.
What was she up to? Three days ago he’d been the happiest man alive. Miss Brightwell had been wrapped in his arms, sighing happily as he rained kisses upon her face. Dear God, she’d been beneath him on this very carpet, moaning in ecstasy as he’d thrust deep inside her. He’d assumed that the giving of her smooth, fragrant, sensual body was her ultimate gift to him. He’d felt like some great, all-powerful God. So what had happened? Had she walked straight from Fenton’s embrace into the path of Lord Quamby, who had made her an offer of marriage she couldn’t refuse?
“Lord Quamby.” The growl came from his very depths. He was vaguely aware that Bramley was at the sideboard helping himself to brandy and, with shaking hands, was trying to replace the glass stopper. Neglecting to consult with his host, or even offer some much-needed fortification, he quickly followed the first shot with another.
“Why have you come to me?” Fenton’s tone was clipped. Calm and reason were slowly returning.
Bramley slammed down the glass tumbler and turned. His lip curled. “Because Lord Quamby is my uncle and I am his heir. He was never supposed to marry. A woman in his bed is laughable, yet that insinuating little baggage has sneaked right under my guard, wrapped my uncle around her little finger and is about to deny me my inheritance. Antoinette told me all about the pair of you. God knows, I’ve seen it in the way she looks at you. You’re the only one who can stop her!” In several strides he was across the room, seizing Fenton by the arm and propelling him to the door as he called to Brimble for his Lordship’s coat.
They found a hackney carriage, though with the rain and traffic congestion of the fashionable hour it would have been quicker to walk.
The only one who can stop her?
Fenton hunched over in the shabby seat, his mind in turmoil. Three days ago he’d arrogantly thought he held the upper hand. Pain mocked him while gleefully lancing his vulnerable heart. He didn’t understand any of it. He’d thought she loved him.
Through clenched teeth he said, “It seems the Dowager Duchess of Quamby will see her son marry at any cost if she’s prepared to countenance a match with an ineligible. Why not Antoinette? She’s just as comely and willing and, unless you’ve ensured otherwise, her reputation is still intact.” He heard the snideness of his tone, an armour against the pain and turmoil within. “There’s no slur upon her past, for all that that happy truth is more due to me than to you. She’s not entertained Bickling and Slyther and God knows who else, although it matters not one jot to me.”
There was something jarring in Bramley’s stillness. Fenton turned from his angry contemplation of the passing foot traffic as a drift of memory from the ball a little over a week ago floated just out of reach. What exactly was it Miss Brightwell had said with regard to Bramley’s conduct? It had been derisive, he knew that. He stared at Bramley’s profile and racked his brain. Something to the effect that Bramley was unlikely to have much regard for Antoinette’s best interests—that in fact Bramley was on a mission to do the precise opposite. At the time, Fenton had been too concerned with seeing to Fanny’s best interests to register that her remark indicated more than just a passing association. Yes, he knew they were acquainted and that Bramley had perhaps been put out by Fanny’s lack of interest…but was there more to it?
“How well do you really know Miss Brightwell?” With shoulders hunched, Fenton leaned menacingly across the small space between them.
A flash of lightning illuminated Bramley’s pallid, sweating brow. As usual, his lip was curled with derision. “She has the airs of a princess”—his voice was rough and ugly—“though she has not a penny to her name.”
It was as if a veil had been drawn from across Fenton’s eyes, though in truth he’d suspected it before, then discounted it. “She spurned your suit”—Fenton thrust out his hand and seized Bramley by the neck cloth—“didn’t she? Not just your attentions?”
Bramley wrenched free and threw himself back against the squabs as he hissed, “She told me I had the address of a costermonger and not to insult her with my persistence.”
“You offered marriage!”
“Of course I offered marriage,” Bramley muttered. His fingers tapped the scratched leather seats as he stared grimly at the rain-soaked streets. “D’you think I’d offer to make her my mistress?” He chewed his lower lip. “Yes, Fenton, I lied about the lovely Miss Fanny Brightwell when I saw the way she looked at you. I did not want to see her compete with all the other pretty, vacuous debutantes who parade their wares at Almacks, knowing she was the cream of the crop and could have anyone she wanted.” He rasped in a breath, muttering, “Not when I wanted her.”
Horror and prickles of cold sweat made Fenton shiver. What had he done? He had been taken for a fool, believing Bramley without qualification when he’d witnessed Fanny
’s late-night visit to Lord Slyther’s. Believing the whispers of other no-doubt jaded, spurned suitors. Believing his mother’s insinuations. Assuming, upon reflection, that Fanny's eagerness for their coupling in the tent at Quamby’s ball and the fact that she had not bled were further evidence that she had not been a virgin.
Bramley was still talking. It was not soothing to listen to him go on, “And then Lord Slyther made her an offer. Antoinette told me. Miss Brightwell turned me down, but she was prepared to accept him. That mountain of pestilence!”
Fenton closed his eyes, mocked by memories that had, until now, sustained him.
He clarified, “Lord Slyther made an offer of marriage?” wincing as Bramley muttered viciously, “Given the choice, I daresay she’d have preferred me, but her mama had organised the match and was not about to let her wriggle out of it after her disappointment with Alverley.”
If ever a virtuous woman deserved revenge, Miss Brightwell did—but to be on the receiving end of her scorn and disgust when he’d imagined a lifetime of her delights was like a cold knife in his heart.
He tried to still his anger, hissing at Bramley, “You suggested I make her my mistress.”
Bramley stared through the window and didn’t turn. “You’d hardly be so stupid, my dear fellow.” He appeared to have trouble breathing as he added, “I wanted to find a way to punish her for turning her nose up at me. I wanted to punish you for being to her what I wanted to be.” He let out his breath in a burst of sour air. “Now I’d embrace you with open arms if you enticed her away from my uncle. No doubt the designing wench plans to present him with an heir nine months from their wedding day.”
Perhaps even earlier than that.
Fenton clenched shut his eyes. Quamby’s heir. Fenton’s child.
“Good God, Fenton, what’s got into you?” Bramley’s words ended in a wail of pain as Fenton seized him by the collar and thrust him across the seat.
“I should call you out, here and now!” Fenton snarled as Bramley struggled beneath him. “Though I’d rather beat your brains to a pulp where you lie, you puling, whining puppy.”
* * * *
“Lord Fenton, my Lord,” intoned Lord Quamby’s stately butler from the double doors of the saloon, where his employer was entertaining his future in-laws. With a disdainful sniff he added, “And your nephew, Mr Bramley.”
“What a pleasant surprise. Come to pay your respects to the happy pair, no doubt.” Lord Quamby patted Fanny’s hand, which rested on her primrose silk skirts, before introducing the rest of the party. “Indeed, we are all here to celebrate—joyful mamas and siblings, too.” He winked at Antoinette, who cast Bramley a coy but knowing look from beneath lowered lashes.
Fanny ran her eyes over Fenton, hoping the effects of her thundering heart were not visible through the fine fabric of her bodice. She was well satisfied by the wild look in his eye. His neck cloth was in disarray and there was a cut on his cheek. Bramley bore evidence of a bloody nose.
Wonderful, she thought without sarcasm, and her heart swelled. They’d been engaged in fisticuffs.
She’d assumed Fenton would be shocked by the news of her impending nuptials but it appeared that his reaction had surpassed that. So she was more than amenable to his suggestion when he growled, ignoring everyone else in the room, “I’d like to speak to Miss Brightwell. Alone.”
Fanny squeezed Lord Quamby’s shoulder as she rose, responding to her mother’s warning look with a bright, “Lord Fenton and I will take a turn about the room while the rest of you continue. Order up the wedding breakfast as you wish, but don’t plan the wedding tour without me. I've a particular desire to see Venice.”
The saloon was a palatial expanse divided into various seating and entertaining arrangements. It was to the large bay window at the far end, with bench seating around its sides, an area partly obscured by a gold velvet tasselled curtain, that Fenton led her.
“What is the meaning of this?” His voice was low and demanding. Fanny could hear the tension. The extent of his obvious suffering made her heart thunder even harder with excited longing and breathless anticipation.
Gripping her by the shoulder, Fenton swung her out of sight behind the curtain.
“My dear Fenton, we must be discreet,” Fanny objected mildly, revelling in the look of wounded pride on her beloved’s face. The agitation with which he raked his hand through his sooty, tousled curls was heart-warming.
“You’re playing with fire, don’t you know?” He shook his head, as if the situation was surreal. Which, of course, it was. “You’ve pledged yourself to me, Fanny. You gave yourself to me and now…” He began to pace back and forth in front of the window, his breathing laboured as he struggled for words. Swinging round, he glared at her. “If Lord Quamby were to discover what you were doing—” He swallowed and closed his eyes briefly as if the memory were too much to revisit. “What you were doing with me just hours, it would appear, before you accepted his suit, you and your family would be unable to hold your heads up in this town.”
“But Fenton, dearest—” She broke off and tilted her head, “I can call you Fenton, can’t I, if I’m to be your mistress? No, please, hear me out—it’s because I told dear Lord Quamby what we’d been doing that he asked me to marry him.”
“What!”
Reaching up on tiptoe, she pressed one finger to his lips, “Hush, Fenton, you sound as if you’re about to lose your temper.” It was hard to keep up the charade. Her sense of vindication fully equalled her joy at this confirmation of his true feelings for her. “And please don’t interrupt. Lord Quamby knew I’d lost my heart to you. He understood my devastation when you offered to make me your mistress rather than your wife. That was when he suggested that, as it would please his mama enormously if he took a wife—”
Seizing her by both elbows he pushed her backwards so that she landed with a thud on the bench seat.
Pinioned beneath his bulk of muscle, Fanny’s excitement increased as he loomed over her, his eyes roiling with passion. His chest pressed against her breasts. She could feel the hard bulk of his manly swelling further down, too, and her own body responded with a rush of warmth to her lower belly. She wanted to rip off his clothes and make love to him, right there in the alcove. She saw he was tormented by a similar longing.
With his face barely an inch from hers, he ground out, “Living here, in Mayfair, with a carriage of your own, no doubt?”
Fanny had never seen such tortured workings in a man’s expression. She was delighted. “Yes. I thought I’d order one in cerulean blue with two footmen wearing—”
“So when you visited me at my town house you’d already accepted him?”
“Of course, otherwise I’d have gratefully accepted your generous offer of accommodation on the spot rather than dissembling.” Stifling the urge to kiss away his scowl, she wriggled out from under him, smiling serenely as she smoothed her skirts. “I was secretly betrothed to Lord Slyther, only I couldn’t bear the idea of marriage to him after I met you. So in the hopes of receiving an honourable offer from you I delayed the marriage.” She sighed. “Then he died just hours before our nuptials. You can’t imagine how relieved I was—still thinking you cared enough for me to make me your wife.”
She glared at him before resuming with another smile. “Now, of course, I have the best of both worlds. I shall be a duchess rather than a viscountess and Lord Quamby, who is very generous, says you and I can be together as much as we wish—provided we are discreet. You shall be my cicisbeo, Fenton darling.”
Sweeping aside the curtain she took his arm. “The others will be wondering where we are,” she added, as she pulled him out of hiding, proceeding into the room with as much decorum as if they were at a state ball. “How proud you will be, Fenton, when your son becomes an earl instead of a mere viscount.”
* * * *
Twenty minutes later, Fenton threw open the doors to his mother’s sunny morning room and strode across the green and gold Aubusson ca
rpet.
His mood was grim but all was not yet lost. Not if Fanny truly loved him—though, Lord knew, she’d done a mighty fine job of humiliating him.
Lacerated he’d been, yet it had done nothing to dampen his desire. Hope flickered uncertainly in his breast.
“I need the Fenton diamonds, Mother.”
“Right now, darling?” Arching her plucked eyebrows, Lady Fenton glanced up from her book.
“Yes, right now, Mama.” He was in no mood for going through the motions of playing the dutiful son. She knew he could want them for only one thing.
“I plan to propose to Miss Brightwell this afternoon.”
“Goodness!” Lady Fenton dropped her book and twisted in her chair by the fire. “You’ve enticed her from Lord Quamby?” Her face was animated. “Well done, darling!” she cried, holding out her arms. “Come here so I may congratulate you.”
He blinked as if to clear his head. “You’re pleased?” This day was throwing out more shocks than he believed his poor, ravaged system could take. He stared with disbelief at the curved mouth, usually puckered with disapproval. “But, Mama,” he muttered, “you warned me against Miss Brightwell even before I met her. Lord knows, you threatened a veritable schism if I married her. You considered her patently unsuitable three days ago and I can’t see what’s changed. She still comes with no dowry, her father still killed himself to thumb his nose at the moneylenders and God knows who else was after him—”
“But you’ve enticed her from the Earl of Quamby. And the girl is a beauty. She has style and finesse. She’ll make you a fine wife.”
Fenton could only stare. There was not even the suggestion of a slur upon Fanny’s reputation. If his mother had heard whispers she’d have said something. Fanny’s ineligibility had been the result of something entirely different, as far as his mother was concerned. Something entirely irrelevant. Why, in view of everything he’d learnt in the past couple of hours, Fanny had been the most innocent of debutantes and certainly a virgin when he’d…
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