The duchess nodded. “It has to be said and done. You need to grow up and settle down, my son.”
David raised one eyebrow. “In that case, there is no more to be discussed.” He bowed to them both punctiliously and turned toward the door. “Oh, and this is what you can do with your list.” He tore it into tiny pieces and dropped them over his father. How he controlled his rising ire, he had no idea. Nevertheless, he held his increasing temper in check, knowing he needed to get out of the room before he really disgraced himself and told his parents what he thought of their lack of trust. It would do no good, they wouldn’t listen—or believe any protestations of innocence. They had decided to be judge and jury and find him guilty. “I bid you farewell.”
“Oh no you don’t,” the duke said. “I need to hear your response.”
Did he? Were the scraps of paper that decorated his shoulders and lap not enough? Then in that case he would spell it out. David swung around and looked from his worried mother to his red-faced father. “Go to the devil,” he said clearly. “You do not know me. You never have.”
On that he walked out of their lives.
Chapter One
London, 1818—one year later
The lady had a vicious tongue. David was glad he wasn’t on the end of the lashing she was in the process of handing out to one hapless peer. Not that the man in question didn’t deserve it. He did. It was a given that if a lady replied in the negative to anything a gentleman requested, the said gentleman had to accept she meant no, even if he chose to assume that reply was misplaced. Not so, it seemed, the man in question. He stretched out to grab the lady’s arm and she swung around out of the shadows. Even as David took a step forward to aid her, she made a fist—a proper fingers-and-thumbs-tucked-in fist—and hit Lord Algernon Reginald on the side of his nose. For one so slight in stature, she threw a mean punch. The blow was hard enough to make the man sway on his feet. The lady—whoever she was—planted a facer as well as any man David knew. He would remember never to get on her bad side.
“Do not dare to touch me, you oaf.” Her tone was scathing and her voice rang with contempt as Lord Reginald’s head snapped back with a jerk that made David wince. “Or the next blow will hurt you even more.”
He thought he recognized that voice. As she moved fully into the light, he realized he had identified her correctly. Lady Josephine Bowie. Also know by the sobriquet Lady Contumelious—Lady Disdain. Blonde-haired with curls that framed a heart-shaped face, unusual green eyes, a slight but still curvaceous figure, and it seemed, contrary to what he’d previously imagined, a termagant. What on earth was going on?
“May I assist you?” he asked as he stepped into her line of vision and bowed. “You seem to be rather irritated.”
“What?” She swung around and frowned. “Oh, it is you,” she said flatly when she saw who spoke. “No thank you, my lord. This gentleman”—she invested the word with scorn—“is about to leave.” She swung her skirts away from Lord Reginald very deliberately and gave David a quick view of a trim ankle. “He makes the place untidy.”
David laughed. “I have often thought so,” he replied with a wink she ignored. She appeared immune to his charms. It was a novelty, and one that immediately put his interest on high alert. No young lady of the ton had treated him so cavalierly before and it wasn’t a comfortable experience. It was, however, something he thought worth pursuing at a later date.
How his father would laugh. Actually, he decided, no he wouldn’t. He would see it as yet one more failing on David’s side before dismissing Josephine as the sort of person no heir to a dukedom would contemplate. Blonde-haired chits without obvious assets—or good childbearing hips—were considered insipid, plus her attitude would be seen as an insult to David’s status. Unmarried ladies of the ton did not treat lords in such a dismissive manner. They were expected to revere them.
“Ah, so that’s the way the wind blows, is it?” Lord Reginald said thickly and sneered as he put his handkerchief over his nose, which now bled copiously. “Why didn’t you say you wanted a rake…ooft.”
David had plowed his fist into the man’s stomach. Reginald made a noise akin to a pot on the boil, folded and slid to the floor in a heap of uncoordinated arms and legs. It wasn’t easy, but David resisted the urge to kick him and looked at his scraped knuckles ruefully. He’d caught them on Reginald’s waistcoat buttons. David sent up a prayer of thanks no one else had seen what happened. Lord help him if his father ever got wind of it all, or discovered the state his son’s knuckles were in. All his sire’s ideas about David’s behavior would be reinforced threefold, something he could well do without. David dusted his hands together, winced as one scrape rubbed against another and held out his arm very punctiliously to Lady Bowie. She glanced at his knuckles.
“You need salve on those.” This time her solicitousness didn’t seem to be feigned. “You don’t want them to get infected.” Whether she meant because of the scrapes or because of whom he’d hit, she didn’t make clear.
“Later.” David dismissed her concern. She intrigued him. This solicitous side of her was something new to him, and he suspected to most, if not all, of the ton. He wanted her attention on him as a man, not his skinned knuckles, not even if her sympathy would be directed at him. Something bothered him about that unwarranted thought. What had brought it on? “Are you all right?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Of course, my lord. He was an irritation I needed to get rid of, no more.” She paused and licked her lips.
Did she know what that sensuous gesture—unconscious or not—did to a man? David supposed not.
“I, ah, thank you for your timely intervention, my lord.”
Does she mean that or is she pandering to what she thinks is convention? It was hard to tell from her tone of voice. “Perhaps you will let me escort you back to the ballroom?” David asked, loath to let their interaction end. “To take you to your mama, perhaps?”
She looked him up and down with an expression on her face that made him wonder if he had dressed correctly or forgotten to fasten something that should be closed. The impression that he had been weighed up and found lacking, as yet just another annoying male member of the ton, was not a comfortable or, he decided, a warranted one.
“No, thank you, my mama wouldn’t want that. She is busy enjoying herself.” The way she phrased her sentence intrigued David. As if she herself was not enjoying the ball, which was one of the highlights of the season, or as if her parent did not want her around. Surely not?
Intriguing.
“I came out here for peace and quiet,” she continued frostily. “It seems I am forever surrounded by idiots. The last thing I want is to be accosted by them.”
David would have taken her words at face value if he hadn’t noted the flicker of relief in her eyes when he’d struck Reginald. “That is good then,” David said cheerfully, as if he hadn’t heard the implied insult. “As I am no idiot, and intend not to accost you, but accompany you instead. Shall we?”
He could almost see the cogs whirring. Dare she trust him? Would he prove to be the same or worse than Lord Reginald? It was understandable. After all, ever since his come out, he had not been known as a steady reliable sort, more a rake and an incorrigible rogue. Strangely—luckily?—not as one who made a man a cuckold. His papa and Lord Whitcombe had never let their belief about Lady Whitcome’s child’s parentage be known. He had heard nothing more except she had retired, unwell, to the country to wait out her confinement. He assumed the child had been born—it was not, after all, an elephant—but as he’d made a deliberate choice not to discover what sex it was or when it arrived, he was still happily in the dark. As the one thing he was certain of was it could not be his, he needed to know nothing else.
“I assure you, in cases like this,” David said, “I am the perfect gentleman.”
“I believe you.” ‘I think’, her tone intimated. “Nevertheless, many do not, and I do not want to sully my reputation,” Josephine
replied slowly, as if she chose her words with care. She sighed. “I am sorry if that appears harsh, but it would do me no good to be seen talking to you, rogue that you are. Life is complicated enough as it is without my parents castigating me for encouraging a rake—or for not encouraging the heir to a dukedom. I have no idea which tack they would take.” She grimaced. “I suspect, sometimes it depends how the wind blows.”
Her voice seemed to indicate there was no love lost between her and her parents. A little like him and his, perhaps? It was a sad fact his mama had continued to do as his father decreed and had no contact with him. David missed her but had come to terms with it. However, Josephine’s parents? Surely not. After all, what could a young, even though not very young lady have done to encourage that sort of attitude? Once more, his interest was piqued. “Then we will part before we enter,” David said amiably, even though he wanted to shout, ‘My persona is not me,’ at the top of his voice. He had cultivated it, assiduously, in the past, and even more so over the past year. It had served its purpose well but sadly now it haunted him. Therefore, it was nobody’s fault except his own.
Life had a way of making every little thing awkward.
In the distance, David heard the orchestra once more strike up a waltz. “If we move toward the ballroom now, your re-entrance should not be noted. I promise not to follow you. Though I do wish to plead my case. Not everything you hear is true.”
“Then you didn’t climb those lampposts and put ladies’ hats on them all? Or swim naked at Brighton under a full moon?” she asked quizzically, then blushed as if she had just realized she had committed the sort of faux pas no well-brought-up female should ever do. Commenting on a gentleman’s less-civilized activities. However, the flush went as fast as it appeared and, to David, seemed unreal. Yet something else to ponder on.
Life was becoming interesting. His body sizzled with the thrill of the chase. Perhaps not sexual—yet—but a definite hint of interesting things to come.
“Guilty as charged but with extenuating circumstances.” David decided if he was to be castigated, it might as well be for something real, not imagined. The hats on lampposts had been harmless, the nakedness not quite true. He’d kept his unmentionables on. Nevertheless, the gossips had picked up on the fact his bare chest had been easily visible in the moonlight, and thus a scandal had been created. If it kept his papa’s thoughts and interests away from his real everyday activities, it had been worth it.
“Or race down Rotten Row, with others of your ilk?” Josephine finished in a rush.
“Ah, well, I was much younger then,” he said apologetically.
For a long moment Josephine considered him, then nodded. “Six months or so younger. Very well. I…” She hesitated as she took his arm and they strolled toward the ballroom doors. “I truly am sorry if I sound rude, my lord, but the complication of my being seen with you is something I can well do without.”
Her wording intrigued him. Rake or not, as she had intimated, her parents would no doubt jump at the chance of their daughter being observed conversing with him. David was under no illusions of his desirability as a potential husband. Even with his at-times-less-than-savory reputation, he was considered, as the heir to a dukedom, a catch of the first degree. Minor indiscretions would be overlooked, others put down to an ebullient youth—even now, in his thirties—and women—mistresses—just not mentioned. Every woman, or so he had been told by a good friend, saw him as redeemable—but only by them.
No one had realized he and his papa, who was one of the country’s foremost peers, and in the ton’s eyes at all times, were estranged. Due to the age gap, they patronized separate clubs and had different pursuits, thus their lack of communication wouldn’t be seen as unusual. He had to hope it would continue that way. Because, as the heir to what most people still saw as a vast fortune, it would be automatically assumed any parent would turn a blind eye to some of the escapades of an heir such as he, if it meant their daughter eventually became a duchess.
Was that what worried Josephine? That she might be pushed into marriage? If so, why? She had never shown even one iota of interest in him, or he in her. Even if her mama schemed and plotted, he hoped he was up to snuff enough to be able to avoid being caught.
David was honest—no well-brought-up young lady appealed to him. They never had, and he was wise to every trick any encroaching mama or deb might try to pull to ensure he had to make an offer.
Until now? He quashed that thought to be re-examined later. His tastes had always run to those females who were up to snuff and needed a man to dally with and satisfy them. That usually meant bored matrons—and only those with the requisite number of children of the correct sex, whose husbands accepted dalliance would be the next step. Plus, he didn’t approach opera dancers or the demimonde, whatever the grand dames of the ton chose to think. In fact, he ruminated as he glanced at the silent woman next to him, just lately he hadn’t had time to dally with anyone. Parts of him could well have seized up through lack of lubrication.
However, he had to acknowledge her lack of interest intrigued him.
Josephine halted just outside the ballroom and the tug on his arm made David stop mid-step. He looked at her inquiringly, and she grimaced before she must have remembered herself and curtsied. A gesture that was correct to the nth degree, he could imagine how much it had cost her.
“This is far enough, thank you. I, ah, appreciate your help,” she added stiffly. “Although I could have dealt with him myself, I do thank you for your intervention.” She didn’t add, ‘unnecessary as it was,’ but David could imagine her wishing she could.
“Of course you do,” he replied genially. “Why would you not? “
She flushed and he wished he had held his tongue, if not his actions. Because with regards to his intervention, he wasn’t so sure what his intentions were. Lord Reginald had a reputation for acting first and thinking later—and not always in a good way. The problem was how to divulge the information so she understood, took action and did not ignore him—or indeed overreact.
“Is it all men or only me you have an aversion to?” he asked as she began to walk away. He pitched his voice just loud enough for her to hear. She might ignore his question but there would be no chance of her not hearing it. “For if it is me, what have I ever done to you to deserve your contempt?”
“What?” She turned and took the three steps necessary to get within arm’s reach once more. Her blue eyes sparked in a way he had never noticed before and his body responded accordingly and tightened with interest. Again, she tempted him in a manner he would not have thought possible. How he’d like to shake her out of her present mood, but not in a manner that would be at all acceptable.
Not yet, anyway.
Again a notion to contemplate. Was he really debating dallying with this woman? His head said no, the rest of his body, the opposite. Why had he never really examined her luscious curves before? They appeared perfect in every way.
“Dare you not answer me?”
She frowned as if puzzled by his remark. David repeated himself. “How have I earned your contempt?”
“Sadly, as far as I can see, from my knowledge of your sex it encompasses all men, my lord. Although, with your reputation, I would put you near the top of my list.”
Well, that told him. David bowed and with a swift look around decided, if she thought she knew him, he might as well live up to the sort of person she thought she was. He grasped both her arms, drew her close and pressed a hard, swift kiss to her lips.
The jolt of immediate arousal was as unexpected as it was exciting.
She was so surprised, she didn’t have the nous to struggle. As his scent surrounded her, Josephine lost any wits she had held on to and just savored the sensations that swirled within her. Sensations that were new and she wasn’t certain were comfortable, but that her mind insisted she explore. When before, for instance, had her breasts ached in such a way? Her nipples hardened to the point of pain and…her min
d closed down.
She leaned into him to discover more, even though she wasn’t sure what else there could be. Sadly, before she had time to decide how those tingles and shivers affected her, he drew back, cursed and studied her in a considering manner. The sharp pang of disappointment that coursed through her was as sudden as it was surprising and she swayed and reached for the wall for support.
“Well, that was not as I expected,” David said in a guttural tone that she had never heard before. So different from his normal languid and urbane voice, it reverberated through her like a melodic wave of emotion. “You, my dear, have hidden depths.”
Her hands fisted and David chuckled. “No, do not hit me. I spoke nothing but the truth.”
Drat the man. He was, of course, correct, but even so… “Only a cad would choose to point such a thing out,” she said in the frostiest tone she could manage. Damn him.
He held his hands up and his eyes twinkled. The expression took ten years from him, and he looked, she decided, relaxed and a rogue. Dangerous.
“I couldn’t resist it and I’m glad I didn’t. But, as I value my body the way it is, and I have seen what a good right hook you have, I think discretion will be the better part of valor here. I will now take my leave of you.” David bowed and chuckled. “You might want to tidy your hair and cool down, my dear. You look thoroughly flustered.”
The wretch moved away before she had a chance to react.
Josephine took a deep breath and counted to ten—twice—as she watched him disappear into the card room. Then she shook her head and, instead of going toward the ballroom as she had intended to, detoured to the ladies’ withdrawing room instead. The reprobate was correct. When she glanced in the mirror she noted stray tendrils of hair had fallen from her neat topknot to trail around her face and neck. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with what she wanted to kid herself was temper and her pulse overfast.
The Viscount Meets his Match: A Regency Romance Page 2
