Rogue's Kiss (Scandalous Miss Brightwell Book 2)

by Beverley Oakley

  Fanny nudged her. “Smile,” she admonished in a whisper. “Always remember to smile, no matter how afraid or how excited or otherwise you are. Ah, Mr Ponsonby, of course I remember you. How delightful.”

  Despite the fact Fanny was clinging to her handsome husband’s arm, Thea was astonished by the attention she and Antoinette received from gentlemen from all walks of life. Lord Fenton didn’t seem to mind. Thea gazed dreamily at him. He was the epitome of any girl’s wistful fancies, she decided, with his devilish good looks, his nonchalance and, above all, his obvious devotion to his wife.

  Lord Quamby was not here this evening but Antoinette did not seem to miss her husband and Thea was quick to notice the disapproval in her aunt’s eye as she watched her niece flirt with a great many clearly entranced young men.

  Forming a rather regal group, the Brightwells and Lord Fenton progressed through the room, greeting friends and causing more than a ripple of interest from those on the sidelines, Thea noticed self-consciously. She was of course aware of the whispers of scandal—thanks to Aunt Minerva’s information—that surrounded her cousins, but she could also see it had not been to their detriment and that indeed a well connected husband made up for any amount of prior scandal.

  Still, Thea acknowledged she wasn’t a risk-taker like Fanny and Antoinette even if she wouldn’t have minded an opportunity to at least be temped to do something scandalous.

  Antoinette, who’d linked arms with her as they made their progress, suddenly gripped her wrist and Thea heard her slight intake of breath. Surprised, she raised her head as her cousin stopped to address a dark-haired man with the most arresting eyes Thea had ever seen; though not in a handsome way, she quickly noted, for they rather resembled coals glowing in his pale face. Meanwhile his lips were curved in a thin line and his expression as he gazed at Antoinette was decidedly dangerous.

  Of middle height and neither slender nor portly, he was exquisitely turned out and yet Thea had the impression his coat of superfine would have looked better on a lowly footman or coal lugger. She shuddered inwardly. There was something decidedly off about this young man who, though he smiled and enquired after her health in an apparently congenial manner, continued to look at Antoinette as if he’d like to do her a great deal of damage.

  “Dear Mr Bramley, it is always delightful to see you but I really must not keep you from your friends…though perhaps you’d like me to tell you about young George.”

  Once Antoinette had dispensed with the introductions, Thea had imagined she’d move on in the face of such blatant hostility dressed up as social nicety, but her cousin remained, telling Mr Bramley, almost coquettishly, “The lad is so strong and lusty these days. You’d be very welcome to pay us a visit before the christening next week. Lord Quamby thinks baby George has his nose, but indeed it is just like yours, my darling boy’s own beloved Uncle George.” She turned to Thea. “Do you not think baby George has a nose just like Mr Bramley’s? Or perhaps, Mr Bramley, I can call you ‘nephew’ and we can be on more familiar terms, now that we are related. Well, by marriage at any rate.”

  Thea didn’t know what to say. There seemed some odd, almost dangerous subtext behind her cousin’s words.

  George Bramley glowered but Fanny arrived at that moment, draped over her husband’s arm. Taking her sister’s wrist, she gave it a little tug, saying with a smile and a nod at Mr Bramley, “There are so many charming people to greet tonight, I’m afraid we really must proceed. Come, Antoinette. So delightful to see you again after so long, Mr Bramley.”

  Carried along in their wake, Thea stretched around to look over her shoulder and was surprised—and a little daunted—to observe the fulminating look in Mr Bramley’s eye as he stared after them.

  “Have I missed something?” she asked, once they were gathered around the refreshments table. Antoinette was helping herself to ham and chattering to a fair-haired gentlemen—though flirting was perhaps a more apt description.

  In a discreet undertone, Fanny whispered, “Mr George Bramley is the nephew of Lord Quamby.”

  “I know,” said Thea.

  “He’s also the father of little George.”

  Thea nearly dropped her plate. “No!” Wide-eyed, she stared at Fanny. “But…how?”

  Fanny sent her a considering look. “One day I shall tell you exactly how but perhaps here is not the place or time. Just one word of warning…” Her look became serious. “I can’t say this too many times, Thea. You must beware of Mr Bramley. He has no love of the Brightwells. Fortunately Antoinette and I survived the scandalous things he put about regarding us last season that would have ruined our entire family’s prospects. I just don’t want him doing the same to you.”

  Nodding, Thea was about to spear a thin piece of buttered bread when now it was her turn to gasp.

  “What is it?”

  Thea knew she was beginning to resemble the strawberries garnishing the syllabub. She was ever one to show her heart on her sleeve, and even though she shook her head to deny anything was the matter, she could not fool Fanny, who immediately deduced the truth.

  “He must be quite the Corinthian to have elicited such a reaction.” Grinning, she rescued Thea’s teetering plate and put it on the table. “I first thought you’d seen a gown you covet but indeed that gasp was uttered in such tones it soon became clear a young man was more likely. Well, do point him out.” There was laughter in Fanny’s voice before she sobered, not yet looking in the direction in which Thea was staring, wide-eyed. “First, though, a word of advice. Take a deep breath, pull back your shoulders and look away. That’s right. You must learn to temper your emotions a little better, Thea, if you are at least to fool Aunt Minerva.” Now Fanny squinted in the direction where, a second before, Thea’s attention had been riveted. “Ah…I think I know who he is, or at least Bertram does, so I can orchestrate an introduction but if you show how much you’re dying to dance with him in front of Aunt Gorgonia, you know you’ve damned your chances.”

  Thea nodded miserably. “I know, and I also know it’s perfectly pointless. Please don’t say anything to Bertram. Just let me look at Mr Grayling from afar. I can at least pretend there is some prospect of hope.” She put her hand on Fanny’s sleeve and added urgently, “Promise you won’t say anything to anyone?”

  Fanny shrugged lightly as she loaded her plate. “If that’s how you want it, Cousin Thea. But remember, you’ll never get anywhere in life if you don’t put the wheels in motion, so to speak.”

  Thea stared at the array of ham and thinly sliced bread and butter spread out upon the table. She had been ravenous when she’d arrived but suddenly she had no appetite. Mr Grayling might have made an unexpected appearance and given her heart a tremendous jolt of pleasure but, in truth, there was no possibility of Aunt Minerva countenancing anything between them. Not even a dance.

  Despite Fanny’s bolstering, Thea’s own gloomy predictions seemed destined to win the day. Seated on her aunt’s left side a little later, she responded as required—in the affirmative—each time Aunt Minerva made a comment, such as, “What a charming toque Lady Milton is wearing.”

  “Indeed it is.” Obediently, Thea picked up the refrain.

  “Her daughter certainly has a face that would push up mushrooms.”

  “Hmmm.” This, she uttered in vague tones.

  “Well, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Thea, it’s not nice to always agree that something is bad or wanting. In fact, it is tiresome for me to hear it. What about something that shows a little more imagination, such as: ‘Indeed she has and that’s because she has a proboscis that could launch a ship.’ You’re very dull company, I’m afraid. Ah, here’s a young man passing by. Let us try again but this time with a response from you that’s a little more diverting.” Aunt Minerva looked at Thea to see she understood the game, then settled herself more comfortably upon the cushion of her chair. “Ready?”

  Thea nodded.

  “A handsome m
an this one is, to be sure, but too handsome for a lady to trust. Why, just behold the way he’s looking at you, Thea. As if he’d like to gobble you up!”

  The last was begun with quelling opprobrium and finished upon a squeak, for, to Thea’s astonishment, the gentleman, whom she’d just identified as Mr Grayling, was now bowing before Aunt Minerva, asking her venerable relative if he might be permitted the pleasure of the next dance with her young companion. And Thea, squirming in her seat, a smile spreading across her face, could only despair at the response.

  “Miss Brightwell does not dance.”

  Aunt Minerva’s clipped tones brooked no argument, imperiously drowning out the eager acceptance that had sprung to Thea’s lips as she raised hopeful eyes to the handsome, brown-haired young man before her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, disappointment threatening to overwhelm her. Mr Grayling inclined his head as he now turned upon Thea an enquiring look, as if she might have the power to sway her aunt.

  Thea glanced at Aunt Minerva but the old lady had her eyes raised to the ceiling and was fanning herself as if she’d lost all interest in the conversation.

  “My niece doesn’t dance so there’s no point in hoping she’ll suddenly grow dancing shoes,” she snapped, swinging round to lance the young man with a terrifying scowl.

  “Aunt Minerva,” Thea whispered, horrified at her aunt’s rudeness.

  But Aunt Minerva’s word was final.

  And in the crowded Assembly Rooms, the sprung boards of the dance floor groaning under the weight of everyone else in the room who did dance, Thea knew this was unlikely to be the only pleasure snatched away before the night was over.

  Prolonging his look of enquiry, Mr Grayling’s beautiful grey eyes seemed to drink in every last detail of the lady whom he hoped to honour but he received nothing from Thea who could only blush, she was so mortified. With a final, regretful smile he turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.

  In an irony to compound Thea’s devastation, Aunt Minerva’s sudden need of the chamber pot was not timely enough to recall Mr Grayling but her aunt’s replacement by Fanny and Bertram was a welcome relief.

  “I had not thought that being Aunt Minerva’s companion meant I must cut myself off from every pleasure,” Thea said sadly. “I’ve met Mr Grayling before. He’s a most charming gentleman, and when he asked me to dance, Aunt Minerva sent him away.” Choking back tears, she fiddled with her ivory fan in her lap, grateful for her cousins’ obvious sympathy when she looked up. “Aunt Minerva declares no gentleman is interested in a dowerless young lady but even so, she won’t let anyone remotely eligible slip past her guard. I thought she’d be glad if I made a good match.”

  Fanning herself furiously to match her roiling emotion now that sorrow and self pity had given way to anger, she cast a surreptitious look in the direction of the handsome gentleman who’d been given such short shrift moments ago. Mr Grayling was lingering just near a knot of revelers a few yards away.

  “He does seem taken,” Fanny murmured as she sipped her champagne, seated demurely beside Thea. “I shall have to ask Antoinette what she knows of him. She’s far more active in courting diverting society than I am these days. Oh look, Thea, he’s staring right at you.”

  Thea’s heart rate doubled. Buoyed by the thrill of the interest she saw reflected in his direct gaze, she nearly snapped one of the little ivory points of her fan with her sudden burst of energy.

  “A match would take me off Aunt Minerva’s hands,” she declared with a toss of her head.

  “More fool you, Thea, for such silly daydreams.” Unfortunately for Thea, her aunt had chosen this moment to return. Smiling equably at everyone’s embarrassment as Bertram and Fanny rose hastily, the older woman settled her bulk across the space on the settee they’d just vacated, tapping her charge upon her shoulder with her lorgnette.

  She patted her side curls and raised one eyebrow. “An illustrious match would of course be desirable but bear in mind, Thea, that most girls aren’t as lucky as your Brightwell cousins. Fanny’s viscount and Antoinette’s earl were lured very cunningly, but you are not so clever. Neither is your cousin Bertram,” she added with a quelling look at her young nephew who shifted in the chair opposite which he’d just commandeered, no doubt wondering if Thea had revealed the fact he’d lost another five hundred at Hazard only minutes before.

  Aunt Minerva’s features settled into an expression of prune-like rectitude. “No doubt, you think I’m a mean-spirited creature who wants to deny you happiness in order to tend to my wants and vagaries. Is that not right, Thea?”

  This was so on the money that silence greeted this pronouncement. Aunt Minerva’s chin wobbled and then her mouth started working as if caught in the current. To Thea’s surprise, she actually discerned moisture in the corner of her aunt’s drooping eyelids as the venerable creature went on with considerable emotion, “The truth of the matter, my dear, is that I will not see your heart broken as mine was when I was your age, all on account of a heartless fortune hunter. Yes, a fortune hunter just like that—” she stabbed the point of her fan in the direction of a debonair, greying gentleman holding court with a couple of simpering matrons, her eyes pinpricks of malice—“so-called gentleman.”

  Snapping her head round, she glared at Thea. “If you came with anything even remotely substantial, you’d have the young men tripping over themselves to charm you down the aisle. As it is, they’re all wondering if I’ll make you my beneficiary, and who knows but that I may choose to reward you over my good-for-nothing nephew. My dear, you must know that I have only your interests at heart when I turn your potential suitors away.”

  Thea pressed her lips together. “So…it’s not that you don’t want me to marry, it’s that you’re afraid I’ll marry the wrong man. That I’ll allow my head to be turned by a fortune hunter.” She knew her combative tone was not wise but after mouldering away under the same roof as her father’s sister for what seemed like eternity, the little patience she had left was at snapping point. Thea’s nature was retiring and she knew the importance of keeping her head low but she did have a good deal of pride, and spirit, and this had led to the occasional burst of pique. Had she and Aunt Minerva been born male, they’d have certainly come to blows before now.

  Of course, had she and Aunt Minerva been born male, Thea certainly would not be playing housemaid to anyone, for she’d have been educated and given a meaningful role in life and Aunt Minerva would probably be running the Bank of England, cheese-paring miser that she was.

  Bertram cleared his voice. “I think Aunt Minerva means that your best interests are her chief concern.”

  “I know how to say what I mean to say,” Aunt Minerva snapped. “And I couldn’t have said it more clearly than I did. That man,” she went on with another vicious stab with her fan in the direction of the silver-haired gentleman in the yellow striped waistcoat, “was under no illusions that I would have laid my heart at his feet had he merely crooked his finger at me—but did he come running?”

  Thea hoped the glances she and her cousins sent in her aunt’s direction did not indicate their astonishment that the gentleman in question might ever have been in danger of responding to Aunt Minerva’s lures.

  Bravely, Bertram persisted in his self-appointed role of peacemaker. “I’m sure the gentleman must have been distraught to have lost his opportunity with you, Aunt,” he murmured.

  “Perhaps you were not direct enough,” suggested Fanny, and Thea had to stifle her snigger. Her cousin’s sense of irony was acute.

  “Oh, Mr Granville had every opportunity. I smiled at him, I wore my most becoming gowns, I engaged him in diverting chatter…but he returned my interest only after I inherited my fortune.”

  “Mr Granville asked you to marry him?” Fanny sounded intrigued while Thea glanced at her aunt’s goblet and wondered if the Madeira had gone to her relative’s head.

  Aunt Minerva sniffed. “He did and I refused him,” she said self-ri
ghteously. “I wanted to give him the set-down he deserved.”

  There was an awkward silence in the face of her clearly profound agitation. It was Fanny who bravely ventured, “And…what happened?”

  Aunt Minerva cleared her throat. “Of course, he was supposed to repeat his offer the next day.”

  “And he didn’t?” Thea glanced from her aunt to the silver-haired scion of sophistication who, she noticed, was sending very interested looks in their direction. He was handsome, she decided, if one liked older men; though not nearly as handsome as the young man who’d asked her to dance earlier.

  Resigned to her fate, now, she tried to persuade herself that her lovely Mr Grayling was no doubt just as her aunt painted him: a designing rogue who’d lose interest the moment he learned she had not a penny to her name.

  Chapter 4

  SYLVESTER Grayling rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he listened to everything his new acquaintance, George Bramley, was telling him about the illustrious throng which pulsed around them.

  He’d left Bath several days previously on the business of negotiating a fine piece of horseflesh but that had been expedited faster than he’d anticipated and now he was enjoying an evening at the Assembly Rooms, even though he’d promised to drive to London to see his friend, Starky Willis. But the possibility that he might see the charming chit he’d met on the road amidst all that baby palaver was more enticing.

  He thought she’d melt into his arms after he’d honoured her with a dance offer but that gorgon of a relative had proved an effective gate-keeper. His pride was still smarting that an old woman in oyster velvet should have the power to make him feel like a schoolboy again.

  Nevertheless, there was some pleasure in the shy smiles the young lady sent him each time he caught her eye from across the room. Sylvester was determined that, if for no other reason than he would not endure a repeat of the four years his own horrendous Great-Aunt Phillida had taken his rearing in hand, he would contrive to dance with Miss Brightwell.