The Pleasures of Passion: Sinful Suitors 4

by Sabrina Jeffries

“You know, wild-living gentlemen of rank and means. You . . . you gamble and drink and cavort with mistresses and—”

  “Wait one moment,” he cut in. “Why on earth would you think I’d had a mistress?”

  “Come now, Niall,” she said coldly. “Did you really expect me not to find out the truth about the duel?” When he froze, she added, “Oh, of course you did. Men like you blithely do as you please, and the women in your lives are supposed to look the other way. Well, it was hard to do that when I learned that you and Mr. Whiting fought over a mistress whom you shared. So if you had one while you and I were courting, then—”

  “What the blazes?” He leaned forward, outrage boiling up in his belly. “Why would you think we dueled over a mistress, much less one we shared?”

  She tipped up her chin. “Because everyone said that you dueled over some woman.”

  His heart sank. The gossips had gotten that much right? He’d hoped that Father and Mrs. Whiting had succeeded in squelching any talk about it, but he should have known better.

  He scrubbed one hand over his face. What a deuced muddle. He wanted to set her straight, but it wasn’t his secret to tell. And he still wasn’t sure if Bree could be trusted with such a story. If she couldn’t, or if she used the knowledge to blackmail him into getting her out of this scheme with her father—

  That would be disastrous. Clarissa was happily married now; she and Edwin damned well wouldn’t want the word to get out that she’d been raped before they met, or that Niall had dueled with Whiting over it. That kind of gossip cut one off completely from society. No one ever blamed the man; they always blamed the woman.

  Then again, Bree was Clarissa’s friend. Would she ruin her friend’s reputation that way?

  He couldn’t take the chance, not without speaking to Clarissa. And with Clarissa six months pregnant, that might not be wise either. Women who were breeding were notoriously delicate. If bringing up the rape sent her into a decline or cost her the child, he would never forgive himself.

  “Judging from your silence,” she said tightly, “I can only assume that the rumors about the duel were true.”

  That brought him up short. “Of course not. What kind of man did you take me for?”

  “You did have a reputation as a rogue.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Yes, but that was before I met you.” When she looked unconvinced, he added, “Did you really think I could have wooed you—bloody well asked you to marry me—while also keeping a mistress?”

  She thrust out her chin. “Why not? Other men of rank do it all the time. And you didn’t ask me to marry you—you asked me to run off with you.”

  “Blast it, you keep making a distinction that I never did! I fully intended to marry you the moment we could arrange it.”

  “So you say.”

  “Do you think I’m lying?” That sent anger roaring up in him. “Oh, for God’s—Did you even care one whit for me? Because I begin to think you didn’t. Certainly not if you believed any gossip that tarred me as such a scoundrel.”

  The carriage halted in front of her aunt’s house, but neither of them moved to get out when the footman opened the door. “Leave us,” Niall barked, and waved the man away.

  As soon as the footman shut the door and disappeared, she said, “You left me no choice. You wouldn’t tell me the real reason you fought the duel.”

  The words hung in the carriage, blunt and truthful. And he simply couldn’t answer her unspoken question. “Unfortunately, that situation hasn’t changed. Several people would be affected if the truth ever got out.”

  Her gaze narrowed on him. “Several? What, was your mistress married? You’re protecting her husband? Her family? Whiting’s family?”

  “I had no mistress!”

  “But you two did fight over a woman.”

  “I . . .” He gritted his teeth. “I cannot even reveal that much.” Because if he said he’d fought over a woman who was not his mistress, it wouldn’t take her long to figure out that it was his sister.

  Assuming she even believed him. The fact that she had listened to gossip about him instead of listening to her heart—if she even possessed such a thing—stuck in his craw.

  And that made him lash out at her. “I suppose you want me to believe that your entire reason for going off to marry Trevor only a few months after my departure was because you listened to some scurrilous gossip that said I was bedding another woman while courting you.”

  Her face grew shuttered. “That was part of it, yes.”

  “Right.” Throwing himself back against the squabs, he crossed his arms over his chest. “So it had nothing to do with the fact that I was no longer going to be able to provide you with all the things you craved—the fancy house, the fine gowns, the prestige of being the wife of an earl’s heir.”

  She gaped at him. “I never cared about any of that!”

  “Really? I recall hearing you talk with your maid about ‘snagging’ an earl’s heir.”

  A flush spread over her cheeks. “That was not . . . I was not . . .” She swallowed. “It wasn’t how it sounded.”

  Now he was finally getting at the truth. “Wasn’t it? Because you certainly balked at running away with me. And the only reason I can think of for that was your realization that if you followed me into exile, you would lose all the advantages of being married to a man of rank and property.”

  Fury flashed in her eyes. “How dare you? I would have followed you to the ends of the earth, if not for Mama’s being ill.”

  “Yet you married Trevor while she was still around.”

  “Because marrying him allowed me to take Mama with me.”

  That stunned him speechless.

  “I didn’t care about your going into exile,” she went on. “I loved you.”

  Fighting to ignore the power of those words—and the fact that they were in the past tense—he clenched his hands into fists at his sides to keep from reaching out to shake the truth out of her. “You had an odd way of showing it.”

  “So did you, taking up with another woman. You merely saw me as one of your conquests. I daresay if I’d gone with you, I would have regretted it. It’s just as your father told me: You were not—”

  “My father,” he interrupted, his blood going cold. “What did my father have to do with it?”

  She gazed steadily at him. “He’s the one who told me it was a mistress that you and Mr. Whiting fought over.”

  “My father,” he echoed hollowly, unsure what to think. “Told you I had a mistress.”

  “Yes, the one time I met with him. I asked him about the rumors that you two had fought over a woman, and he told me it was true. That you’d dueled over some light-skirt.”

  Why would he . . . Damnation. Could Father have panicked when Bree had repeated the rumors that the duel was over a woman? Might he have said the only thing he knew would deflect the gossips from suspecting that the duel had been over Clarissa?

  But Father had to have known it would also have been the only thing to poison Bree against him forever. And Niall had made it very clear how important she was to him. Father had sworn to do what he could to help her.

  His heart began to pound. No—it wasn’t possible. Father wouldn’t have betrayed him like that. Not after what Niall had done, the sacrifices he’d made. The very idea was . . . was . . .

  Unable even to consider it, he pinned Bree with a hard look. He would get her to admit the truth if it was the last thing he did. “That’s a bloody lie, and you damned well know it.”

  Eight

  The conviction in Niall’s voice took Brilliana completely aback. He seemed genuinely shocked by the idea of his father telling her about his . . . peccadilloes.

  Well, of course he was. Men were supposed to keep each other’s salacious secrets. And a father should almost certainly keep his son’s.

  “It is not a lie, I swear.” She tipped up her chin. “Perhaps you should have instructed him better not to reveal the truth.”

&n
bsp; “It wasn’t the truth, blast it!” He looked like a pugilist staggering from a blow.

  “Then why did he say it?”

  Niall glowered at her. “I don’t believe he did. He wouldn’t lie like that. Not about me. Not to you. He knew how I felt about you.”

  “You mean, he knew you wanted me in your bed since you apparently couldn’t get your paramour to go with you.”

  She choked down bile, remembering how news of the real reason for the duel had sent her spiraling down into despair. Until then, she’d hung her hopes on Niall saving her from having to marry Reynold, but after his father had revealed the truth, she’d begun to think that Reynold might be the lesser of two evils.

  “He knew I loved you,” Niall bit out.

  The words sang in her . . . before she reminded herself that they were lies. “That’s not what he said. He was very kind about why there was no point in his sending on my letter, but—”

  Niall pounced on that. “What letter? He never told me about a letter.”

  “Well, I wrote one. Because I needed you. I met your father so I could give him the letter to send to you. But he said I had misconstrued your . . . interest in me. That sending it would be futile.”

  Pure shock showed on his face. “That can’t be true.” Though he now sounded a bit less certain. “He swore he would pass on anything you gave him, any news of you.” His voice hardened into conviction. “My father was a man of honor. He always kept his word.”

  That unsettled her. “Perhaps he thought he wouldn’t be able to find you.”

  “He found me well enough when he sent me money. And the newspaper announcement of your bloody nuptials.”

  That sparked her temper. “Are you saying he lied to me about . . . about how you felt?”

  His eyes glittered at her. “I’m saying that you’re making the whole thing up to malign his character. He’s dead, after all. It’s not as if he can defend himself.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, why would I do that?”

  His features looked carved from ice. “I don’t know. So you can make yourself look less like the adventuress you were, and more like my beleaguered sweetheart?”

  The attack came so out of the blue that it snatched the breath from her lungs. “An adventuress! That’s what you thought of the woman you claimed to love.”

  He leaned forward to stare her down. “Who married another man scant months after I left. Just today, your father told me you were ‘mad for’ Trevor.”

  The very idea of Papa speaking such an untruth made her shake with fury. “So you’re listening to my father now, the man who may very well be counterfeiting banknotes, who only looks out for himself, who wants to take over Camden Hall and weasel his way into every aspect of my life.”

  That seemed to bring him up short. Temporarily.

  “Fine,” he said in a hard voice. “What was in this letter you wanted sent to me?”

  “I thought you said there was no letter?” she spat.

  He muttered a foul oath. “What do you claim was in the letter?”

  She glared at him. No matter what she told him, he would gainsay it. Meanwhile, he wouldn’t admit anything about the duel, he called her a liar and an adventuress, and he acted as if she should tell him all the humiliating little details of her life, while he pretended he had never abandoned her and had never had a mistress. Well, she’d had enough of bullying men.

  She’d had enough of him. “You can go to the devil, you and Lord Fulkham both.” She opened the door to the carriage. “I don’t have to put up with your plotting and scheming and this ridiculous farce of an engagement. Nothing is worth enduring your company.”

  As she climbed down from the carriage, he caught her arm. “We are not finished.”

  She snatched her arm free. “Oh yes, we are.”

  Anger darkening his handsome features, he jumped out. “And your father? What about him?” With a glance up at the coachman, he bent to hiss, “Will you let him hang?”

  Her stomach clenched. “No. I’ll simply have to find another way.”

  But as she hurried into the house, she knew that finding another way was impossible. So what was she to do now?

  She’d have to beg Lord Fulkham to call off this mad scheme. Surely they could put their heads together and figure out how to cut Niall out.

  Because she was not putting up with him for one more moment.

  Niall’s gut twisted as he watched Bree disappear into the house. He’d handled that with all the finesse of a drunk playing billiards. He should have elicited her confession with subtle questioning.

  Deuce take it, he shouldn’t have tried eliciting anything! This mission wasn’t about her and him, and the fact that he’d tangled their lives up in it showed how far afield he’d gone from investigating counterfeiting.

  He’d have a devil of a time explaining to Fulkham how he’d managed to alienate the one woman who could enable them to get close to Sir Oswald.

  But damnation, she drove him mad!

  Throwing himself back into the carriage, he ordered his coachman to drive on, then sat and stewed. How could she accuse his father of such deceit? The idea that Father had seen her and never said a word to him about it, knowing how Niall felt . . .

  God rot her—his father would never have told her that the duel had been over a mistress!

  Unless it was to protect Clarissa.

  No, how could he believe Father would have purposely cut him off from his love?

  Part of their conversation the day of his departure came to him: The last thing you need as you head off to an uncertain future is to be saddled with a wife who’s unhappy about your exile. She did you a favor, don’t you see? Now you can start life over abroad without such a burden.

  Niall’s throat closed up. What if Father had decided to take matters into his own hands? To ensure that Niall wasn’t “saddled” with the wrong sort of wife?

  He recoiled. It wasn’t possible. His father had promised to help her, to treat her like Niall’s fiancée. He’d sworn it.

  He’d also voiced skepticism that she would rise to the occasion and follow Niall to the Continent, but still, he’d made the vow. And Father had never broken a vow.

  That you know of.

  Niall drew himself up. No, blast it! He refused to believe it. Just look at how Bree had refused to answer when he’d demanded to know what was in the letter. Didn’t that prove she was lying?

  Or . . . protecting her dignity. Because if she really did believe that he’d fought a duel over some mistress, it was no wonder she was wary around him. And he had called her an adventuress.

  He winced. He’d said things he shouldn’t have, accused her of things he wasn’t even sure she’d done. What he’d seen of her today warred with the image of her he’d built up in his head through the years.

  And if she were telling the truth about the letter . . .

  She couldn’t be. He must stop letting her words lodge inside his brain. Not when he had no way of confirming them.

  Or—did he? Fulkham might know more about her marriage and what had precipitated it. Failing that, perhaps he could get the truth out of Sir Oswald.

  That thought sobered him. He still had a mission. She probably wouldn’t tell anyone tonight that she’d jilted him. Surely she wasn’t that reckless. So he could still go to the card game later and see what he could find out.

  Perhaps that would be enough to give Fulkham something to go on. Or perhaps by tomorrow she would have come to her senses and realized she had to continue with this.

  Either way, he still wanted to see what he could learn from Fulkham about her marriage. And he needed to discuss the new fellow, Whiting, with the spymaster before the card game, too.

  With a clear goal in mind, he sought to not think about her and her accusations and focus on the mission. He changed clothes for the evening, then headed to St. George’s. Unfortunately, Fulkham wasn’t there, but Quinn Raines was in the otherwise empty reading room, dining on a
sandwich while he scanned the evening paper.

  Excellent. Why not start there? At least Niall could take his mind off Bree for a while. And Raines might have a different perspective on Sir Oswald’s compatriots than Fulkham.

  Being the director of his father’s bank, Raines was Fulkham’s prime suspect, although Niall thought that seemed too obvious. Yes, the man would be more than familiar with how to counterfeit a banknote, but would he really be so foolish as to risk his own reputation and that of his bank to do so?

  Then again, Fulkham based his suspicions on the fact that Raines made a conscious effort to avoid him. That wouldn’t mean anything in anyone else, since the undersecretary of the foreign office would intimidate just about anyone. But Raines dealt with foreign banks regularly. One would think he’d relish a connection to the foreign office.

  Niall called for a bottle of wine from the steward, then took a seat opposite Raines. “So, I hear you’ll be part of the card game at the Star and Garter tonight.”

  Raines gave a start and set aside his paper. “I will indeed. You too?”

  Niall nodded. “Sir Oswald invited me.”

  “Ah, yes. I heard you became engaged to his daughter. You won the prize that many a bachelor has been eyeing.”

  The odd trace of bitterness in his tone made Niall bite back a hot retort. “Even you?”

  “Hardly. My interest lies elsewhere.” His face clouded over. “For all the good it’s doing me.”

  That surprised him. Raines was an attractive enough fellow, despite the swarthy looks that came from his mother, the daughter of a Spanish count. Raines might not be English nobility, but his family held great consequence in the city. Another reason Niall wasn’t inclined to think him a counterfeiter.

  “Do I know the lady lucky enough to hold your attention?” Niall asked. “Perhaps I can put in a good word.”

  Raines stiffened. “I’d rather not say. Her family is unaware of my interest just now. Best to keep it that way for the moment. You understand.”

  “Better than you think. And let me give you a word of advice. Don’t keep it secret too long.” Because what if, God forbid, Niall’s caution years ago had cost him his lady? What if Bree had been telling the truth? “That always ends badly.”