All of which left him with only one last problem to solve.
Callista herself.
Chapter 9
Could her too-gorgeous-for-his-own-good brother finally be showing some real intelligence?
“Are you thinking of marriage to Miss Higginbotham, Dom?” Jane asked her brother the next afternoon in St. James’s Park.
Dom almost fell over into the duck pond; he was rescuing Henry’s yellow boat, stranded among the lily pads. “Marriage? To Callista? Good God, Jane—no! I’m not thinking of marriage at all. And Callista—why, she’s the bluest of the bluestockings! What a ridiculous match we’d be! The laughingstock of society!” He sputtered on, escaping her question by going around the other side of the pond for the boat.
Jane would have laughed at his overwrought protests, except she saw how much the poor wretch believed them to be true. She loved her brother. She truly did. The problem was, he was an idiot.
Oh, not in the sense everyone else thought him, an idiot: a shallow lothario without a brain in his pretty-boy head, given over entirely to games of love. She was probably the only one who realized how brilliant Dom really was and how much he took after their father in that regard. His shame and insecurity over his intellectual interests had been drilled into him by the cold contempt of their father. As a girl, she’d been spared that contempt, although the complete indifference with which he’d treated her was hardly any better. At least he’d speak to Dom, if only to berate him as ridiculous-looking. Her, he’d simply ignored.
She sighed over the old wounds. Silly to still care. Worse, however, was how she’d let it affect her life choices. Her husband, the Earl of Yarborough, was universally admired as a great political orator. But he was as cold and emotionally distant as her father had been. Their mother realized early on in Gideon’s brief courtship how similar the young politician was to her father, for whom they’d just come out of mourning. She’d even understood what Jane was up to, in trying to win his love. Jane would have said not listening to her mother’s warning was the worst mistake she’d ever made, except that it produced her two boys. She hadn’t succeeded in getting Gideon to love her, any more than she had her father, but she’d learned to be a good political wife and she’d birthed two wonderful sons who soaked up her love and lavished it back on her.
For her, it didn’t matter so much—many society couples lived separate lives—but Gideon’s cold disinterest in Jason and Henry pierced her heart. If not for Dom’s constant loving presence in the boys’ lives, she’d have despaired over their lack of a father figure. As it was, her brother adored the boys and spent hours on end with them. In fact, it often struck her as the only time Dom seemed truly happy.
“It would only seem odd if you insisted on playing Master of Love,” she replied mildly when he finally returned.
“I am what I am, Jane,” he said. “A leopard can’t change its spots.” He straightened the boat’s sails and called for Henry, who was chasing ducks in the breezy sunshine around the pond’s other side.
She shook her head, exasperated at their old argument. “You’re not just your ‘spots,’ Dom. It’s what’s inside that’s important. You and Miss Higginbotham share many common interests in your love of books and philosophy.”
“What’s philosophy, Uncle Dom’nick?” Jason toddled up with his blue boat and the governess, ready for another race.
“Nothing important,” Dom muttered.
“Why do you love it then, like Mama said?” The three-year-old looked up at him with the same dark brown eyes the family males had all inherited from the late Lord Rexton. Yet where that scholar’s gaze had been harsh and judgmental—whether evaluating a text or his disappointing family—Dom’s and her boys’ eyes always put Jane in mind of a soulful deer.
“This conversation has gone on long enough,” her brother declared. “Ah, here’s Henry—you brought the kite, didn’t you? Race each other up the hilltop, boys, and we’ll fly it.”
Dom sent the governess trailing after the whooping boys and turned back to Jane. “Through no fault of her own, Miss Higginbotham has become the target of gossip and unwelcome advances. In fact, the fault is my own for stupidly allowing a situation to develop. I’ll do what I can to nip it at the source, but I’d appreciate any efforts you could manage as a well-respected society matron to repair the damage as well.”
Jane looked at her brother for a long moment. She’d known for some time her command performance as hostess at Rexton House had to do with the intriguing “Miss H.,” as that cheeky footboy called her. And she knew she’d been called in to replace Lady Barrington, who with her friend Lady Vaughnley had been spreading subtle but most unpleasant insinuations about this young lady. “It won’t be easy, as much harm has been done. But I like her, Dom, so I’ll do what I can for her sake.” She reached up to rest a gloved hand against the chiseled planes of his cheek. His face was a sculpture of arrogant male perfection. Hardly anyone, Jane knew, saw more than that in her brother, or believed there could be any depth beneath such beauty. “And for your sake,” she added quietly.
He said nothing, merely narrowed those dark liquid eyes at her before loping off after the boys. A memory came to mind of a magnificent stag shot high in the shoulder during a hunt at their country seat of Yarborough Manor. She’d become separated from the group and had surprised the stag in some woods, its blood dripping and chest heaving as it sought to escape the dogs. Their gazes—hers and the deer’s—had locked for a long moment before it ran again. In its wounded stare, she’d read pain and exhaustion and pride and defiance. Their game warden spent three days tracking the stag to the creek bank where it finally collapsed and died.
Sometimes she wondered how long her brother had before he collapsed as well, and how much of him would be left inside when—and if—he finally stopped running.
Early the next week as the guests departed after luncheon, Lord Gordon—whose passion was the philosophy of the Renaissance—handed Callista a list of Latin and Italian texts and asked if she could handle the order. She was stunned to see how long it was. And later that afternoon, as she was tidying the library to leave for the day, Graves delivered an invitation from Dominick’s sister for her and Lady Mildred to attend a musical entertainment Lady Yarborough was hosting at her Belgravia mansion three days hence.
Callista ascertained from the butler that Dominick was back from his mysterious afternoon outings and working on estate business in the study, it being the carpenters’ day off.
She stormed in. “Lord Rexton, I will not be your object of pity.”
“You will never be pitied by me”—he looked up, grinning—“I find you far too frightening.”
“Be serious.” She slapped onto his desk both the book order and Lady Yarborough’s invitation. “You arranged these, didn’t you?”
He glanced at the documents. “I told Gordon you could get him the books he needs, faster and at a better price than Marshall’s, where he’s taken his trade recently. Isn’t that true?” He arched a dark golden brow at her. “Or are you perhaps not up to the challenge?”
“Of course I am!” she answered hotly. “Marshall senior is in his dotage, and his son is an idiot. I can do far better for Lord Gordon.”
“Good, that’s what I thought as well. See you don’t prove me wrong.” He returned his attention to his papers.
She refused to be put off so easily. “And your sister’s invitation?”
The leather of his chair creaked as he leaned back and steepled his fingers under an amused gaze. “Not everything is about you, my dear. A little humility might serve you well.”
“Whatever are you talking about? You’re the peacock around here.” Despite her annoyance at his interference in her affairs, she was aware of a thrumming undercurrent of pleasure in sparring with him. A month ago, she wouldn’t have dared tease him, but after they’d spoken so frankly coming home from the British Museum last week, somehow enough trust had grown to allow for such banter. It was a
new game for her, one she’d never played with any man. Their jesting surprised her with its delights. At the same time, to her shame, she’d begun to fear there were other, deeper games she’d be unable to resist playing with him, should the opportunity arise. To distract herself from those forbidden thoughts, she tossed another volley: “Is it true, for example, what the gossips say, that you curl those long lashes of yours?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry to inform you Lady Mildred is the one whose attendance is desired. As I understand it, you are merely the escort.”
“My great-aunt? What trick is up your sleeve now?” This was more serious. “I’ll not have you toying with her simply because you’ve managed to twist her around your little finger, like all the ladies of your acquaintance.”
“Ah, there I’m afraid you’ll have to take your fearsome attack to my uncle George. He’s apparently the one who requested Lady Mildred be invited to Jane’s musicale. He’s staying with my sister in Belgrave Square, arrived at her town house just yesterday. With my mother coming back next week as well, it’s going to be quite the family reunion.”
“What is your family up to?” She frowned suspiciously.
“In Sir George’s case, I have no idea,” he said, spreading his hands. “Usually he visits us at my country seat. As far as I know, he hasn’t been to the city in over a decade. He wrote to Jane last week that he had a desire to visit London and wanted to stop in with her. You tell me why he wants Lady Mildred invited to Belgrave Square; I wasn’t even aware they were acquainted.”
“How odd.” Callista dropped into the chair in front of his desk. “My great-aunt was somewhat friendly with your mother, of course. She’s also mentioned she knew Sir George, as your mother’s older brother. I think they were all generally acquainted when they were much younger. But it’s such a long time ago that I can’t imagine why Sir George would seek to renew any of these relations now.”
“Well, I think you owe it to him to show up at the musicale and bring your great-aunt along. He’s the one who insisted I hire you, you know.”
He looked so innocent she was inclined to believe he was uninvolved in the invitation. But she didn’t want to let him off the hook so easily or abandon the intimate enjoyment of their easy repartee. She leaned forward to examine the sprawl of handwritten pages on his desk. “What are you working on, anyway? Graves told me you were doing estate business.”
He gathered in his foolscap sheets as a blush began to stain his cheeks. “Nothing in particular.”
As she saw he had volumes of the philosophers Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant open across the desk, his answer seemed unlikely indeed.
“You’re writing an essay, aren’t you?” she guessed. “Why would you hide it?” The notion was bizarre to her. “There is nothing shameful about philosophy.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” he protested, scrambling to put away his papers. “These are just some scribbles, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you show your writing to members of the Philosophical Society?” she said, ignoring his denials. “What about your young protégé Mr. Thompson? You’re very keen on him; the two of you are always talking together at the luncheons. I’m sure he’d appreciate you sharing your ‘scribbles’ with him.”
His mouth tightened in silence. She pulled back to more neutral ground and rose to inspect the new shelving. This point about his uncle was one she’d never understood. “Did Sir George insist on my hire simply because my father supplied him with many of his books?” she asked over her shoulder as she ran her hand over the smooth raw wood.
“Again, I have no idea.” Gentleman—or predator—that he was, Dominick stood and paced over to join her. His features relaxed and his habitual half smile returned as they left behind both the topic and location of his writing. “I wasn’t inclined to argue about the stipulation when he offered me his collection.” He leaned one broad shoulder against the aromatic wood and took her hands in his.
It seemed a fascination of his, this desire to touch and hold her hands, to play with her fingers. Or perhaps he was only trying to distract her from further questions about his writing. She only knew that when he lifted both her hands to his mouth, rubbed his velvet lips across their backs, and flashed her a grin paired with that dark smoldering gaze, she prayed God he’d keep in the habit. His breath was warm—hot—as he purred, “You came well recommended enough, eccentric bluestocking though you are.”
It was a bit of revenge perhaps, as he teased her now, and it was her turn to feel the words hit home. She’d had a commission returned just this week from a former dealer, with a note saying he could no longer be in trade with her. And she’d been cut in Piccadilly only yesterday by the wife of a baronet whom her father had long supplied. The lady, one of the curious throng at Professor Jamieson’s lecture, had ignored Callista’s polite greeting and lifted her nose instead.
There would be more such people at Lady Yarborough’s musicale.
Callista couldn’t decide if Dominick’s flirtation and teasing made things better or worse. He kept her so constantly off balance—uncertain what he was up to, unsure how to reply, terrified it meant nothing . . . terrified he’d stop.
She pulled her hands away. “I’ll recommend to my great-aunt we accept Lady Yarborough’s kind invitation. And I’ll try not to embarrass you and your sister at her entertainment, with my eccentricities and ill repute.” She aimed for a tone as light and sophisticated as his own, but her laugh sounded hollow even to her own ears and she had to bite the inside of her lip when it began to tremble.
Dominick’s expression sobered as well and he pulled her into a hug. “All will be well, Callista—I promise.”
His embrace was so very, very tempting, near intoxicating. It offered comfort and security—as well as mysterious hard male passion. The heat of his body, his spicy scent, his deep rumbly purr filling her senses . . . she felt herself waver.
But she’d given up on promises long ago, and being in his arms was terribly inappropriate. She had to draw deep for the strength to step back, but she managed to push away from the heady seductive pleasure of his promise and his arms.
“Of course, my lord”—she smiled tightly—“no need to worry. I am fine.”
Dom went over early to Belgrave Square to help his sister with the preparations for the afternoon’s musical entertainment. To his surprise, he was nervous.
His sister seemed rather stressed as well. She snapped uncharacteristically at a footman who tripped while carrying a large arrangement of pink roses into the music room. Servants bustled about setting up the chamber for the soprano and pianist who were to perform.
“Is there a problem, Jane?” Dom asked.
“Oh, not a problem in the world”—she threw her hands up in the air—“just your sorry affairs to manage, Gideon informing me we’re hosting the prime minister for dinner next week, Uncle George in for a visit, and Mama arriving back in town as well.” She paused to draw a breath. “At least she has her own town house,” she muttered, shuddering dramatically.
Dom walked over and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Settle down, sister,” he said, smiling fondly. “You’re the consummate hostess; you can handle it in your sleep.”
She snorted at him and went to efficiently rearrange the pink blooms in a Chinese cloisonné vase. “Some new gossip did reach me last night,” she said, warning him, over her shoulder. “Gideon has us out or entertaining so much, I vow there’s little I don’t hear. I understand that unpleasant American Mr. Harris is cutting short his tour and taking Lord Overton with him back to Boston.”
“Is that so?” Dealing with those two bastards had been one of the pleasures of his week. An intimidating chat, a visit to a banker friend with control over Harris’s line of credit, and a few words with Overton’s father, who sat on Dom’s parliamentary subcommittee, were all that was needed to send the jackanapes packing.
“It won’t help the rumor mill, you know. People are saying the Master
of Love must be losing his touch if he feels so threatened he has to boot those pups out of the country. I heard stories you started a brawl on the steps of the British Museum after they tried to carry off Miss Higginbotham. It’s widely assumed your response confirms she’s your mistress.”
“Those brutes needed to leave. It was either America or a bullet through their hearts.”
Jane blanched. “I see. It’s come to that, has it?” His sister paused, caressing a pink rose petal. “Are you developing deep feelings for this young woman, Dom?”
He hadn’t a damn clue what to make of the tangle of fixation and annoyance he felt around Callista—although clear as hellfire was the blast of lust consuming him in now-nightly dreams. All he knew was that first, he’d fix the damage to her reputation and business prospects caused by the false rumor of their affair.
And then, he very much feared he’d start up an affair.
A stupid, ridiculous mess, he knew, and one that proved him even more of an idiot than he’d thought. But Callista was lonely enough, and innocent enough, that she wouldn’t much resist were he to push their attraction to its conclusion. She hadn’t the experience to either understand or fight the desire sparking like wildfire between them. The dark knowledge that it would take so little to bring them together dangled before him, the most delicious and tempting of forbidden fruit. He wanted her. Badly. And he read the need budding in her as well, the yearning that confused and frightened her. It intoxicated him as nothing else had for a very long time.
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