Dauntless

by Lynne Connolly

  Eagerly, she stretched up when he kissed her again, but he did not linger to taste and touch. “We cannot indulge here. Come to the theater tomorrow, Dru.”

  “What?” she said, bewildered by the abrupt change of subject.

  “I’ll bespeak a private room.”

  Even that did not evoke outrage, as it should have. She was not the kind of woman to engage in secret trysts in private rooms, and she said so.

  He touched her nose, but still held her close to him, one arm lashed around her waist. “I know. It was wishful thinking. But come anyway.”

  She swallowed. Was this what was meant by bringing a man to scratch? She had no idea, since she had never tried to do it before. “Sir, we’ve been seeing each other quite often recently. Every day, I think.”

  “Sometimes,” he admitted.

  “Twice today.” She had seen him earlier on Oxford Street, and he’d stopped to speak to her. Every time she saw him, he warmed her heart, but not like this. No, she could not do it, could not push him. She hadn’t meant to earlier, and his reaction had been harsh. Whatever he was thinking, she didn’t want to provoke that reaction.

  “I knew you were coming here tonight. It’s the only reason I accepted the invitation. I wanted to see you again, Drusilla. I admit it. And when we are in private, like this, please call me Oliver.”

  “Oliver.” She tried the word, rolled her tongue around it, tasted it. “My family calls me Dru.”

  “I am not yet family.” A smile flashed across his lips. “But thank you.”

  That “yet” made her wonder what he meant.

  But he did not do anything more or say anything. Did he mean to propose? Because she would accept before the words left his mouth, as long as he kissed her again. Instead, he released her and stroked her fichu back into place. If the neat pleats Forde had put it into were disturbed, they were not in such disarray that people would notice. Her lips, though—they were another matter. They felt full and hot. When she touched them, she was surprised to find them no different to usual.

  “Don’t do that. Or I’ll kiss you again and someone will find us. That soprano won’t warble forever.”

  “And Livia is waiting.” Dru had no idea how long she had wandered around the garden with him. The windows stared down at them blankly, but who knew who had seen her indiscretion?

  But Dru discovered she did not care. She only wanted more. She had never known such aching urges, things she didn’t know about waited for her on the horizon, she just knew it. But only with this man.

  He chatted, about what she did not know. He’d given her a chance to recover from the assault he’d inflicted upon her. But such a welcome assault! The effect felt that way. He’d reached every part of her with his kisses and caresses. Her whole body tingled, and he had awoken her to possibilities she’d never thought of before.

  Marriage was for linking families and interests. It was for the procreation of children, heirs, to be precise. Not for personal pleasure. Did her parents experience this? Her mother had said she fell in love with her father after their marriage. Could this be why?

  “Ready?” His gentle smile reflected none of the turmoil she was feeling.

  She let him take her back indoors.

  * * * *

  Even the screeches of the soprano didn’t rouse him from his shock. Oliver had no idea how he had kept a calm demeanor after those kisses in the garden. Just kisses. Gentlemen stole kisses from ladies all the time.

  But he’d taken her indoors, restored her to her family, and repaired to his own seat at the back of the room. He would have left, but Lady Comyn would probably take it amiss, and she was a particular crony of his mother’s. Better suffer half an hour of excruciating singing than several weeks of his surviving parent’s opprobrium. Even though she did not live with him any longer, she could write, and she did. Screeds of the stuff.

  Besides, the respite gave him a chance to recover from the overwhelming experience in the garden. |He’d wanted a flirtatious kiss. Not this…devastation of his senses. Did she know what she’d done? He guessed not, because apart from the disarray of her clothes, which he had caused, and the reddening of her lips, she did not seem as perturbed as he.

  At least his heart rate had returned to normal by the time the woman finally finished murdering opera.

  The applause sounded like relief to Oliver. From his neighbors he gathered that she’d been warbling for two hours.

  Lord Osborne commented, “I generally turn off my watch, but it came as a relief to hear the chiming. Two and a quarter hours, by my reckoning.” Drawing out the watch from his waistcoat pocket, he touched the button at the top and let the lid spring up. The instrument had a particularly interesting way of marking the hours. A man was busy driving his cock into a woman, who had flung her skirts up to receive him.

  “Midnight must be interesting,” he murmured.

  While he admired the ingenuity of the maker, he’d rather have a watch he could take out whatever the company. But the gentlemen sitting on the back row snickered and exclaimed on the item. Lord Osborne had to snap it hurriedly shut when the lady in front turned around to demand to know what had amused them so much. When Lord Osborne restored the item to his pocket, she flushed beetroot red and returned to her friends.

  Oliver smiled at her rigid back. The floral fabric strained at the seams, but he was too much of a gentleman to say so. Only to think it.

  At least the soprano did not perform an encore. Unless Oliver had entered during the extra pieces. Funny that he had not anything at all in the garden. The woman’s voice would have carried considerably, but he had been aware of nothing except the lady in his arms. Dru had taken him over completely, swamping him with sensation.

  He stayed seated until the company began to disperse. Lady Comyn had refreshments laid out in another room, but he didn’t intend to stay. He had too much to think about.

  He merely nodded to Drusilla as she passed him. She jerked, but only slightly, and then returned his greeting. Oliver didn’t leave until he was sure everyone was gathered in the other room, then he took his leave of his hostess. She asked after his brother, but as usual he answered in a noncommittal way and left.

  When he got home, he headed upstairs.

  Charles responded to his gentle tap on the door.

  “I think I will propose to Lady Drusilla,” he said as soon as he had poured himself the sherry Charles insisted on.

  His brother nodded. “I thought you might. Mama may not approve. You know how straitlaced she can be!” He laughed, but Oliver didn’t join in. “Once she hears, she is bound to come straight up to town.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. She’s from one of the premier families in the country.”

  Charles’s hand tightened on the arm of his chair. He was wearing a nightshirt and robe, but he didn’t sleep much. His wheeled chair would be pushed to the bed by his valet when he rang the little bell that he carried everywhere, and then he’d be lifted into it. “The scandals, dear boy.”

  Oliver couldn’t imagine living that way, or with the utterly terrifying fits that exhausted Charles for days afterward. He admired his brother for his stoicism and his constant cheerfulness. So he answered mildly. “They are, however, still extremely influential. Nobody wants to upset them.”

  “The Shaws or the Emperors?” Charles enquired mildly. “It was the Shaws in particular I was referring to. Their relatives have helped them cheat the gallows, survive a runaway marriage, and Lord knows how many duels and gaming debts.”

  “Gaming debts? I was not aware of that.” Were they fortune hunters in disguise? Many a family lived extravagantly while owing thousands.

  Charles grunted. “They tend to win, so the debts are usually temporary. The people who do not need the money always do win, don’t you find?”

  Oliver shrugged. “I don’t gamble
very much. After an hour at the tables, I grow bored.” He had too many things to think about. Simple games of chance failed to hold his attention for long, but everybody played, so he indulged for an hour or two on occasion.

  Charles shifted, moving his body from side to side carefully.

  Oliver swallowed. He knew the problems Charles had, and what was entailed in caring for him, although Charles never allowed him to help. Or even to be in the room when his attendant did what was necessary. He knew better than to mention his brother’s obvious discomfort. Charles would poker up and order him not to talk about it, that he was perfectly well. Oliver gleaned what he could from his brother’s attendant and companion, Burnett, who was utterly devoted to him.

  “Not to mention the younger brother’s sins,” Charles said in a low voice, as if someone were listening.

  Oliver knew exactly who Charles meant. “Lord Darius has allied himself to a lawyer and set up in business with him.”

  “We know that is not all.”

  Yes, he did, but he had never seen Lord Darius become over-affectionate in public with the man people assumed was his lover. The pair did not make too many appearances in society, either. As far as he knew, no outright scandal had ensued, even though there had been a great deal of gossip.

  “I would think seriously about allying yourself to that family,” Charles advised now. “I’m not sure one of them would make you happy. And above all, Oliver, you deserve to be happy.”

  Oliver did not cry, but the closest he ever came was in his brother’s company. “I’m not sure about that,” he said gruffly, and cleared his throat. “I do what I can.”

  “Would Lady Drusilla make you happy?”

  Yes, so much. “She is young, pretty, and eager.” He was still processing their astonishing kiss. No kiss he’d ever had before had affected him that way. He could still feel her hands on his shoulders, her fingers in his hair. She’d marked him for life.

  “The worst woman is the one who gets her claws into a man and turns him into her pet,” Charles observed casually, picking up his hand bell.

  Oliver had not thought of his relationship with Dru in that way. But yes, he would do almost anything to get her into his bed. Perhaps Charles was right. Was physical attraction, even something as powerful as what he shared with Drusilla, enough?

  He should let matters between them cool down a little before he found himself caught in a trap he might come to regret.

  Chapter 6

  A week later, Dru had given up on Oliver. She had gone to bed every night reliving their kiss, the way he’d held her so close. She tried to imagine what it would be like to share a bed with him. Or a couch, for that matter. Or a table. She wasn’t so innocent as to believe all personal relations happened in the bedchamber.

  And the proof of passion was around her every day. Even her brother Darius, who brought his partner to dinner that week, was deeply in love. When nobody, least of all Darius, had believed such a thing possible, by dint of a few sacrifices Darius had found bliss. Although Dru could not begin to understand what he shared with Andrew Grey. Some things were beyond even her vivid imagination. For all she knew, they did not share a bed or engage in the most intimate of exchanges.

  While society and the church disapproved what Darius had done, Dru had grown up seeing her brother grow ever more unhappy and distant. Now he’d returned to the carefree boy she had played with in their youth, happy and fulfilled in his new life. Again, the Shaws had skirted scandal and escaped the cut direct, the way society sliced someone out of its midst. If they had done that, the family would have followed them. Because of their wealth and influence, society tolerated them.

  Such reminders only served to make Dru more uncomfortable as the week wore on and she heard nothing from his grace the Duke of Mountsorrel. His partiality to her seemed to have disappeared, as had his presence. Yet she read of reports of him visiting this ball or that performance at Drury Lane. Just not when she was there.

  If he had decided to cut the connection, she could not force anything. Just mourn what could have been. And move on to a new suitor, even though her heart would break when she did so.

  After breakfast one morning, her mother called her to her side. “Go into the drawing room, dear. A gentleman wishes to have a word with you.”

  Dru’s throat closed. “Who?”

  “Lord Trelawny.”

  Oh, no. Why did it have to be him? Of all the gentlemen vying for her hand, he was the one she liked most. But only liked. Perhaps that was for the best. It might be a sign, that he was the first of her suitors to come up to scratch. He had intimated as much when he put his primitive claim on her at the musicale. “Oh. Has anyone else spoken to Papa?”

  “Not since the last time we spoke.”

  Her final spark died. The fire that Oliver had set last week was now completely extinguished. She would not think of him, would not speak of him ever again. When she saw him in public, she’d grant him a distant nod. That was all. She would be the first member of this generation of her family to enter into an arranged marriage.

  Her only married sister, Claudia, had done well, but her love affair with her husband displayed itself whenever they met. So did their frequent quarrels, which both appeared to thrive on.

  Dru would have a perfectly conventional, calm marriage. She’d bear children and sail through the rest of her life with tranquility and absolutely no violent emotions.

  What a prospect to anticipate! Every bone in her body revolted at such an idea. But she would do it. Perhaps she would find the same connection with her chosen husband as she would have with the Duke of Mountsorrel. For all she knew, that incredible reaction could happen again with someone else. How did she know how these things worked?

  Outside the drawing room, she smoothed her voluminous skirts with a hand that had become sweaty. Lifting her chin, she smoothed back an errant curl and prepared to meet her fate. The footman, at his most stiffly formal, probably aware of the decision she was about to take, threw open the door.

  She walked through, ready to take the step that would alter the rest of her life.

  * * * *

  Oliver had not realized how small the London house was before. It had been a convenience, a place he could enjoy because there were no childhood memories to trip him up. Now, he felt penned in, like a sheep waiting for the knife of the slaughterman. The whole place reeked of sickness.

  The day after his conversation with Charles, his brother had fallen into one of his fits. Three men had to hold him down for fear he would hurt himself. After he had recovered he had vomited the contents of his stomach and continued to do so. He’d run a dangerously high fever. Oliver was beside himself. Would Charles’s sufferings never end?

  He sat with Charles when his brother allowed him to, but he was still annoyingly independent. He insisted Oliver attended a few functions, to demonstrate to the outside world that everything was well in his household. He kept his attendants to their usual minimum, which meant the three men were more than busy in the hours and days following.

  When he visited his brother just after lunch, Oliver found one of the men asleep in a chair by his brother’s bed and Charles tossing and moaning. Oliver did not blame the man who had been up for three days straight through, but set to helping his brother himself.

  Stripping off the bedcovers and Charles’s nightshirt, he’d found the bowl of water put ready and set to sponging him. He tucked towels around Charles’s poor body and bathed him in cool water until Charles opened his eyes with a snap. Shock made them wide.

  “I don’t want you,” he whispered hoarsely, reaching for the sheet. “Wake Latimer.”

  “No. He is exhausted. Let me do this, Charles. It’s me or no one.”

  Charles groaned and gave up, obviously too tired to do anything more to stop him. He watched listlessly as Oliver smoothed the damp sponge over the ho
ttest parts of his brother’s body. He soaked a cloth and draped it across Charles’s eyes. Charles sighed, relief probably.

  After, he covered Charles’s naked body with a light sheet and blanket. Whoever had tucked him in before had done their job too well. There was no need for heavy blankets and quilts.

  By the time he’d finished, his brother was asleep and Latimer had woken.

  Oliver nodded to him. “I think he’ll do now.” He glanced at the various potions laid out on the dressing table, sighing when he found the laudanum. A necessary medicine, but not one he wanted his brother to take on a regular basis. But it helped with his crippling headaches and gave him relief from the constant agony he suffered.

  Every time he saw his brother’s body, guilt racked Oliver, but he refused to turn away. The twisted legs, the useless arm. Without the disguise of his elegant clothes, Charles’s slim, white body spoke of his daily agony. He softly drew the sheet up and left the room.

  Oliver had done his duty, and he would continue to do so. Was it so terrible for him to ask for a little pleasure for himself?

  With his brother asleep, he saw no reason not to continue with his plan. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If the lady had promised herself to another man, he could do little. Charles had kept him busy this last week, and he could not do anything but care for him.

  Half an hour later, resplendent in dark green velvet, he left the house. Deciding to walk, he ignored the chairmen gathered at the corner of the square and nodded to the watchman. Midafternoon, the visiting hour. He should probably seek an interview with Lord Strenshall, but he rebelled against it. As he’d told Drusilla in Lady Comyn’s garden, he wanted to be sure of her before he sought formal permission. After all, he would be marrying her, not her father.

  As he strode through the streets of the West End of London, his heart lifted. With the sick room behind him, he could finally continue what he had left off last week. Here the air smelled as fresh as it ever got in the city. The tang of coal smoke was nearly undetectable but served as a constant reminder of the thousands of people here. While he had to nod to several people on his way, he did not stop to chat. He wasn’t in the mood for chatting. Exchanging the time of day was completely out of the question.