“Stop calling me that.”
He leveled a hard glance on her. “Why?”
Because it’s too much like before. Because it brings back memories. Because it makes me forget who you really are.
She met his gaze steadily. “My father is unaware of our past . . . friendship, remember? If you call me Bree, he’ll find it odd that you have a pet name for me when we can’t have known each other long. I’m sure he’s heard the news about your recent return to England. Apparently, it was in all the papers.”
She only wished she’d seen it, but at the time, she’d been so busy dealing with Delia and Silas and Aunt Agatha that she’d missed that particular article.
“Then I won’t use the nickname around him.” He smirked at her. “Bree.”
“Oh, you are such a . . . a rogue.”
That wiped the smirk from his face. “Well, I am supposed to be playing a reckless fellow who needs money.” His eyes narrowed. “Actually, that would work. I could be marrying you for your dowry.”
She stiffened. “My father may be unreliable and untrustworthy, but he’s not so awful that he’d want to see me wed to a fortune hunter.” Especially if the association was of no benefit to him.
“Fine.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You already think me a rogue, so how about if I want to marry you simply to have a beautiful wife in my bed? And what if you’re willing to go along because you want to be a countess, not to mention the mother of the next Earl of Margrave? That sort of transaction is fairly typical in our circles.”
She eyed him warily. “Is it believable, though? Why should you marry a beautiful woman of no consequence, when you can satisfy your desires with any available light-skirt?”
He shrugged. “Plenty of women snag lords based on appearance alone. Look at the Gunning sisters. Their father was a nobody, and their mother little more. One of them married a duke and the other an earl. For a man, it’s rather like acquiring a fine piece of art to show off to one’s friends.”
“How flattering,” she muttered. “I get to be the Rembrandt you flash around.”
“More like the Botticelli.” His gaze dipped down to her breasts, and there was no mistaking the glint of desire there before he jerked it back up. “The Birth of Venus comes to mind.”
Oh, Lord. Wasn’t that the painting of Venus rising naked from the sea on a shell? Scoundrel. And he’d said that this wasn’t about trying to seduce her.
Shaking off a frisson of awareness, she glared at him. “That makes it so much more palatable.” Reynold had essentially married her for her looks, and she’d liked it no better with him.
A chuckle escaped him. “I’m not saying that I feel like you’re a work of art to show off. Just that plenty of other men feel that way. And I can pretend to feel that way.”
“Yes, but will Papa believe that you’d want me just for my appearance? That’s the question.”
He scoured her with a heated look that burned wherever it touched. “Trust me, any man with eyes would believe it.”
Before she could react to that shockingly intimate glance, he turned and began to pace. “And it would work for our scheme in other respects. A man pursuing beauty will pay anything to gain it. That gives me a reason for needing quick funds—so I can buy you whatever pretty thing you want, including a proper wedding.” He halted in front of her. “I daresay you could make that role believable. Then you won’t have to pretend to be in love with me.”
The edge in his voice gave her pause. He was hinting at something insulting—she felt sure of it. But what?
Or perhaps she was just so annoyed with him in general that she saw insults wherever she looked.
“I guess that would work,” she said. “I’d certainly rather play a grasping female than one who’s mooning over you.” As I so foolishly did before. “Though Papa might not believe I could be so mercenary.”
“Why not?” he said evenly. “He’s mercenary, so surely he expects his daughter to follow in his tracks. Besides, people change. He hasn’t seen you in years, so he doesn’t know whom you’ve become.”
That was certainly true.
“And you do have a son to consider, who needs a father. That’s another reason for you to wed.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Yes, but I’d be a fool to marry a reckless character like you and risk my son’s future inheritance, wouldn’t I?”
A self-deprecating smile tightened his features. “Ah, but I have a title. Some women are fools for titles.”
“True.” That was difficult for her to fathom. She’d never cared much about such things. “Very well. We’ll do it your way. I’ll play a dimwitted upstart eager to rise in the world, and you’ll play the licentious lecher who wants me for my body. And we’ll do it to capture my dastardly father in an act of ‘treason.’ ” She gave a shaky laugh. “It sounds like something out of a gothic novel.”
“With any luck it will end like a novel, as well, with the virtuous heroine prevailing over godlessness. And your role needn’t include being dimwitted. Now, that I would find hard to believe.”
The compliment startled her, especially since it held the same edge as before, making her wonder if it really was a compliment. “Thank you. I think.” She wanted to say that she couldn’t see him as a licentious lecher, either, but the words stuck in her throat.
Although that reminded her of something she’d better settle before they launched into this. “Yours will be just a role, I hope. No need to . . . er . . . behave lecherously to play it.”
“What? But I was looking forward to that part.”
“Niall—”
“Relax, Bree,” he said acidly. “I won’t assault your precious virtue. I’ll have my hands full just trying to keep up with your father’s machinations.” As she let out a breath, he added, “And speaking of that, we should arrange a visit to him as soon as possible. Assuming that you’ve decided to do this.”
“As everyone keeps pointing out, I don’t have a choice.” She sighed. “But I do have one other question. How do you wish to handle announcing the engagement? Do we tell only Papa and hide it from anyone else, the way Lord Fulkham said we might? Or do we leap into it wholeheartedly and deal with the consequences later?”
“I prefer to leap in wholeheartedly, myself.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” she said. The man had always leapt into everything—meeting her, courting her . . . leaving her.
“Hear me out. It will be hard enough to manage the subterfuge involving the counterfeiting. If we have to keep track of who knows what about the engagement, too, we’ll forget ourselves and muddle everything.”
He flashed her a rueful smile. “Besides, we’d never keep it from my mother. Don’t let her flighty behavior fool you—she can sniff out a secret at ten paces, especially one of that sort. As for your aunt—”
“Oh no, my aunt!” Her stomach knotted. “Goodness gracious, I forgot all about her. How am I supposed to lie to her after everything she’s done for me and Silas?”
“Did you ever tell her about our previous association?”
“No.” She thought a moment. “But Delia and Clarissa told her about our encounter two weeks ago at Stoke Towers.”
“Then it shouldn’t surprise her that we know each other well enough to get engaged.”
She bit her lip. “Still, she’ll hate me when she finds out our betrothal was merely a ruse.”
“No need for her to find out at all. Once the counterfeiters are routed, you can pretend to be appalled that I used you as a pawn in my spying, and then you can break off the engagement. She’ll probably applaud you for jilting me.”
“I doubt it. She’ll probably applaud you for turning Papa in. She doesn’t like him, because of what he—” She halted, before she could reveal too much of her mortifying past. “Besides, in the meantime, I’ll have to make her think I’m eager to marry you, and I’m awful at playing roles. Unlike Delia, I can’t pretend to be something I’m not.”
He turned instantly wary. “By what?”
“Your snort! It sounded as if you didn’t believe me. When have you seen me pretend anything?”
“During those months we were secretly courting, for one thing.” His expression turned curiously wary. “You had no trouble pretending not to know me when we were in public.”
She swallowed. “That was different. We hardly saw each other in public, since I wasn’t yet out. But every time I told some tale to Mama so I could sneak out and meet you, I felt horribly guilty. Thank heaven she was too sick to notice how bad a liar I am.”
He snorted again.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“Doesn’t matter. Look, we’ve got to go into this full force. Hell, we should announce it here, tonight. Clarissa will be ecstatic, and Mother—”
“Clarissa, oh, heavens! She’ll hate me after this, too!”
“No, she won’t,” he said firmly. “I’ll smooth it all over, I swear.”
“Niall—”
“Just think of your lad, all right? You’re doing this for him. Not Fulkham, not your country, not even your father. You’re doing it to save your son’s future. That’s all that matters. The rest will fall into place.”
“But what do I say if Clarissa wants to know details—how we fell in love, when we fell in love?”
“Tell her what we’re telling Sir Oswald. This is a sensible arrangement—a way of giving your son a father, that’s all. Clarissa will understand that.”
“I’m not so sure. Clarissa is something of a romantic.”
“But she knows that you’re not, doesn’t she?”
Brilliana caught herself before she could protest his assumption and reveal exactly how susceptible she still was to him, how much her heart had bled when he’d left. If he knew, he’d take advantage of it to get her into his bed. “Yes, she does.”
He nodded, as if that confirmed something. “You needn’t give her the nonsense about my checkered past and your mercenary desires. Just tell her—and your aunt, if you like—the part about how we’re making a practical arrangement. They won’t find that odd for a bachelor needing an heir and a widow needing a father for her son. Then, when everything falls apart, you won’t feel guilty for deceiving them, and they won’t worry about your broken heart.”
“Right.” She would be the only one worrying about her broken heart.
No, curse it! She would not lose her heart to him again. It was time she accepted that the man she’d loved had never existed. It was time she took control of her own happiness. Once this was done, she would purge Niall from her system, retire to Camden Hall, and live out her days there with Silas.
“Can you manage that?” he asked.
Perhaps, if she approached it the way he suggested. In a way it was the truth. This was a practical arrangement, to further Silas’s future. Only the marriage part was a lie.
“I believe so, yes.” She rubbed her arms. “I’ll have to, won’t I?”
He eyed her closely. “Don’t think of it that way, or your resentment will show. Think of it as an adventure. Your first effort at being a female spy. If you really mean to bury yourself in the country after this, then here’s your chance to have a bit of fun.” A trace of irony threaded his voice. “To flit about town on an earl’s arm and get invited to all the best parties.”
“Where I have to pretend to be something I’m not,” she said glumly.
“You’ll get used to it.” He came toward her. “Tomorrow I’ll come fetch you at your aunt’s at two, and we’ll go pay our first call on your father, if that’s all right with you.”
“The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. I just want to be done with this as quickly as possible.”
The door to the library opened, and Lord Fulkham stepped in. “Have you made a decision, Mrs. Trevor?”
Niall glanced at her expectantly.
“Yes. I’ll go along with your scheme.”
“For as long as it takes to catch my counterfeiter?”
She nodded.
Niall stepped forward. “We want to announce it tonight, while everyone is here. We both feel that making one grand announcement and having everyone know would be less demanding than juggling which people know what.”
“I see.” Lord Fulkham strode over to pour himself a glass of brandy, then stood there sipping it. “That actually might work better in convincing Sir Oswald, as well.” He stared at her. “Your father will hear the gossip about your betrothal, and just as he’s getting his feelings hurt that you haven’t involved him, you’ll show up to introduce him to Niall. He’ll be so pleased to have you seeking him out that he might not notice the strangeness of it.”
“You attribute an enormous amount of familial affection to my father,” she said dryly. “I daresay he won’t care one way or the other.”
“You’d better hope he does,” Lord Fulkham said, “or this scheme will be for naught.”
“One more thing,” Niall said. “I assume you’ve already looked into her father’s compatriots to the extent that you can without being obvious. So I’ll need a report of everything you know, whom you suspect, et cetera.”
“Of course. I’ll have that sent over first thing in the morning, along with samples of the counterfeit notes for you to examine and instructions on what to look for. You’ll need to be able to recognize the flawed ones when you see them.” He held up his glass. “But for tonight, let me be the first to congratulate you two on your engagement.”
When she couldn’t stifle a snort, Niall said, “Oh, stubble it, Fulkham.” He offered her his arm. “Come, Bree. Let’s show this arrogant arse what we’re made of, shall we?”
As she took his arm, determination coursed through her. She would show Lord Fulkham what she was made of, him and her father and everyone else. She would weather this as she’d weathered her arranged marriage to Reynold, and the awful things that had come afterward. She would do it for Silas, and only Silas.
Then, when it was done, she would retire to Camden Hall, hopefully with more knowledge about estate management than she’d had before. And with any luck, she wouldn’t have to deal with society sorts or Niall or her dratted father ever again.
Four
By the time Niall left the library with Bree, the gentlemen were coming down the hall to join the ladies in the drawing room.
He stared at her, a lump catching in his throat. God, she was beautiful in that forest-green dinner gown, which skimmed her breasts with loving care and left far too much of the rest of her to the imagination. He would love to see what lay beneath the froth of petticoats that women wore these days. He had no doubt she would be a Botticelli indeed.
Well, except for her prudery and her absurd worries that he might be plotting to get her into his bed, that he might have plotted to get her there years ago. That angered him. The fact that she would even believe—
Don’t think about that right now, man. You’re supposed to be happily anticipating announcing your engagement, remember?
Right. To a woman who looked as if someone had just stolen her joy. How annoying. Years ago she’d refused to marry him, and now that she had her chance to get her hooks in him again, she balked?
That made no sense. And was rather insulting. He’d make any woman a good husband, blast it. Not that he wanted to be one to her, but still, she ought to be running after him like the other females in society.
Unless she’d truly loved Trevor.
The very thought of it was like an itch under his skin that he couldn’t scratch. He hadn’t been able to make her love him enough to leave her family behind for him, but Trevor had succeeded?
Although her point about her mother’s being unable to go abroad had been valid, he supposed. Still, he found it hard to believe that her mother had been her only sticking point. If so, Bree would have waited for him until her mother died. Then she would have sent word.
Well, this would be over soon enough.
He halted at the threshold of the drawing room to gaze down into her grim face. “Are you ready for this?”
“No. But waiting won’t make me any more ready.”
“You might want to smile. You’re announcing your impending wedding, but you look like you’re going to your execution.” He forced a teasing note into his voice. “You may not be aware of this, but I am considered eminently eligible.”
That softened her features. “And modest, too.”
“Why should I be modest?” he quipped. “I’m an earl, for God’s sake. We have and deserve everything, don’t you know?” When that actually got a smile from her, he murmured, “It will work out in the end, Bree. I swear.”
“It didn’t work out last time.”
“That’s because we actually planned to marry. It’s much easier to manage imaginary engagements. You can dissolve those at a moment’s notice with little difficulty.”
He was rewarded by her throaty chuckle.
But when he started to enter, she halted and said, “Hold on.” She reached up to straighten his cravat and smooth a lock of his hair. “That’s better. Now we’re ready.”
The wifely gesture made his pulse stutter. Damn her. Every time he thought he had her figured out, she did something so . . . so bloody endearing that he wanted to toss his opinions of her out the window.
Careful, man. She’s not the woman you thought you knew.
He’d simply have to keep reminding himself of that.
When they entered together with her hand on his arm, they drew furtive looks of curiosity. Niall debated whether to consult with Clarissa about the announcement or ask Edwin’s permission. But that would require too much explanation. Best to let the cat out of the bag without swinging it around first.
The footmen were serving wine, so he snagged a glass and tapped it to gain everyone’s attention.
The Pleasures of Passion: Sinful Suitors 4 Page 6
