Imogen’s smile conveyed a genuine compassion that made him shift in discomfort. “What about your political career?”
“That was always Father’s plan for me. I went along with it because it seemed a suitable use for my time and talents, but it’s time I forged my own destiny.”
“With Lady Verena?”
“I said that she’d refused me.”
Imogen shook her head, as if she was disappointed in him. “Eliot, you’re not a man to give up at the first hurdle.”
Self-deprecation twisted his lips. “She’s refused me several times. She doesn’t wish to marry.”
“Even though she loves you?”
“Does she?”
“When I saw you together, she looked to me like she did.”
“Whether she does or she doesn’t, she’s adamant that she won’t become my wife.”
Imogen remained unconvinced. “You’ve won so many victories in parliament when everyone said that a solution was impossible. You’re thinking like a man in love and not a politician.”
Startled, he studied Imogen. “I love Verena dearly, but she’s right that there will be an avalanche of talk if we wed. Don’t you mind?”
With a laugh, Imogen batted away his question. “Right now, the family name is mired in scandal. What difference will a little more gossip make?”
Eliot couldn’t help smiling back. Her time in London had given her a sophistication that he’d never imagined his garden-mad sister developing. “Get it all out of the way at once?”
“Why not?” Imogen’s voice lowered into seriousness. “If you love Verena and Verena loves you, it would be a crime to let that hope of happiness slip through your fingers. Love is too precious to waste.”
“When did you become so wise?”
She made a dismissive gesture. “I’ve always been wise. You’ve just been too wrapped up in playing my lordly older brother to notice.”
***
“We caught the nice weather,” Verena said, as she and Shelburn drove under the arching trees in Hyde Park. This Friday afternoon, the park was almost empty. It was too early for the fashionable hour, which suited Verena. She wanted privacy for what she planned to say to the earl. “Thank you for taking me out in your carriage today.”
She’d been desperate to get out of her house. At home, she was too aware that for most of the last year, her Friday afternoons had belonged to Eliot.
Last Friday afternoon, she’d moped around like a sick cat. She refused to do that ever again. For heaven’s sake, she was the fascinating Verena Gerard. No man could bring her down. She was tired of feeling sorry for herself. It was bad for her complexion.
Yesterday, she’d sent a note around to Shelburn, asking him if he’d like to take her driving. She’d had a disappointment in love. It happened to everyone. She wasn’t going to let losing Eliot color the rest of her life in dour shades of mourning.
She’d shone for the last seven years. She’d go on shining.
“Well, you asked me.” Shelburn’s glance was sardonic. “I could hardly say no to an old friend, could I?”
Her lips firmed with resentment. He didn’t need to make it sound like she’d begged him. “I had something particular to talk about,” she said, curling her hand around his arm in a way that she hoped would give him a clue to where her thoughts were heading.
“Oh?” Shelburn said, drawing the horses back to a gentle amble. “Something you can’t say at the Chastain ball tonight, when I believe we’re engaged for a waltz and a quadrille?”
She frowned, then smoothed her expression to a smile. Shelburn wasn’t acting much like a swain, but she could change that, she was sure. He just hadn’t guessed what she was about to offer him. “I don’t want anyone listening. You know how the ton like to talk.”
“I do indeed.” He pulled the horses to a stop and turned to face her, breaking her hold on his arm. “Spill it, Verena. What is all this about? Since I collected you, you’ve been positively kittenish. What the devil are you up to?”
She struggled with the urge to box his ears. She’d done that once when she was a girl, after he’d teased her without mercy about a fussy new bonnet that the twelve-year-old Verena had just adored.
“Kittenish?” she asked, trying not to sound annoyed.
He nodded, dark eyes amused beneath the brim of his stylish high-crowned hat. “Kittenish. I was wondering if I should stop at Gunter’s and request a bowl of milk for my companion.” He studied her with closer attention. “Actually, some milk or something equally fortifying might be just the thing for you. You’re looking decidedly peaked. Almost haggard.”
“That’s not very gallant,” she snapped, before she reminded herself that a squabble wouldn’t advance her cause.
She’d hoped the rouge pot and some red lip salve might hide the signs of wear that she’d seen in her mirror when she dressed. That, and the dashing scarlet carriage dress that had always been one of her favorites.
It seemed that she’d hoped in vain.
He shrugged. “With a childhood chum, I’m not going to waste time on lying flattery.”
“I think I’d prefer lying flattery to brutal frankness,” she said dryly.
“Then you’ve changed.” Disbelief arched his eyebrows. “I’ve always admired your courage and your willingness to face up to life’s harder realities.”
She caught her breath at the unexpected compliment and smothered the reluctance that had weighted her stomach since she’d decided to take this path. Once perhaps, she’d been brave, as Shelburn had called her. At this moment, she fought the urge to pack herself away in a dark room and never come out again.
Verena steeled herself to proceed. Shelburn had given her the perfect opening.
She summoned what was left of her failing determination and lifted her chin, sending him what she hoped was a glance loaded with sultry appeal. “I’m sure that you admire more about me than that. I’m sure in fact that you’re wondering, as I always have, why you and I haven’t ever ended up in bed together. We get along so well. We’ve flirted for years. I find you very attractive, and you’ve always given every sign that you’re attracted as well. It’s time we did something about that, don’t you agree?”
There. She’d done it.
She’d started her recovery from the madness that had descended on her when she took up with Eliot. Why, after a month of Shelburn as her lover, she’d barely remember who Eliot Ridley was. By all reports, Shelburn was a passionate and inventive partner in bed sport.
Whenever she’d invited a man to be her lover in the past, he’d responded with overjoyed enthusiasm. Although it was more usual for gentlemen to make the proposition and leave the acceptance to Verena. In those cases, her agreement resulted in gratitude as well as anticipation.
Shelburn, the villain, reacted with neither joy nor gratitude. Instead, he regarded her with a thoughtful coolness that made her hands clench around the red leather reticule resting in her lap. “Are you asking me to sleep with you, Verena?”
What else? Had he suddenly lost his ability to understand English? “Yes.”
This wasn’t going as she’d planned. She’d imagined an acknowledged rake like Shelburn would leap at the offer of an affair.
“I’m sorry, my dear, but I don’t think we would suit. I’ve known you since you were in your cradle. I feel like your brother.”
How very awkward. It turned out that if the scoundrel was leaping anywhere, he was leaping away from her. Verena began to wish that she’d never started this and she’d chosen some other gentleman to eradicate her obsession with Eliot. Except nobody else appealed to her at all.
If she was brutally honest, Shelburn didn’t appeal to her either. Not in that way.
But at least she liked him and trusted him, and a liaison with such a noted rake would confirm that she was the comely widow, able to make a claim on any attractive man she wanted. She was desperate to remind herself and the world that she was a rapacious seductress.
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To her annoyance, Shelburn didn’t look seduced. In fact, he looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt.
“But you’re not my brother,” she said in a cutting tone, before she remembered that she meant to sound alluring.
Shelburn released a heavy sigh and reached across to take her gloved hand. Not, she suspected, as the prelude to touching any of the more intimate parts of her body. “Verena, we’ve always been such good friends. Why spoil that with asking for anything further? Women willing to come to my bed are ten a penny. But I can count my genuine friends on one hand. And I include you in that number.”
“Friendship doesn’t stop us being lovers,” she said with a hint of desperation that she feared he might hear. If he did, that would just be the utter end of enough. “It adds an extra dimension to the association.”
“Perhaps,” he said gently, squeezing her hand in a damnably fraternal fashion. “You’re a beautiful woman. And smart. And witty. And interesting.”
“None of those sound like compliments,” she said in a flat voice.
He smiled at her with the fondness that she’d always relied upon. Fondness, but not a hint of desire, curse him. “That’s a pity, because they are.”
“Are you saying no to my offer?” she asked, although she already knew the answer.
“I’m very flattered that you thought of me, my lady.” He raised her hand and kissed her knuckles through her red glove. “But I’m afraid that it just won’t do.”
Verena was tired and on edge. And she’d already spent too much time crying. Nonetheless, hot tears pricked at her eyes. Mainly pique, but injured feelings were present, too. “We could be marvelous together.”
“No, we couldn’t.” His rueful smile deepened. “And you know that as well as I do.”
“No, I don’t.” Plague take him, her voice was cracking. If she wasn’t careful, she’d start blubbering like an abandoned infant any moment now. She snatched a shaky breath and struggled for composure. “I don’t know that at all.”
“Yes, you do.” Shelburn’s eyes were kind. She was getting vastly sick of kind men. “If I take a mistress, I want her to be devoted to me alone. At least while the affair lasts.”
“I’m always faithful to my lovers. You know that.”
“I do. And I know if you come to my bed, you won’t stray. But you’ll still be in love with Eliot Ridley, and I don’t want a mistress who’s pining for another man when I’m doing my best to keep her entertained.”
“I’m not…” she began in shock, then she let her appalled protest peter out to silence. Shelburn was watching her with too much understanding for her to have a prayer of convincing him that he was wrong.
“I don’t want to be in love with Eliot.” She tugged her hand free of his and buried it in her skirts to hide its trembling. “I don’t want to be in love with anyone.”
The compassion in Shelburn’s smile made her bridle with resentment. All her life, she’d loathed pity. The idea that someone who knew her so well should feel sorry for her made her want to hit something. Her preference would be Eliot, but he’d never again be within reach.
“I’m sure that’s true, but it happens to most of us. I must say I’m surprised that after all these years of roués and cads, you’re enamored of someone so respectable. Although I suppose if you were likely to fall for a roué or a cad, you’d have done it before now.”
“There’s nothing between Eliot and me,” Verena said, hating how that admission flooded her with misery.
“He likes you. He must. Or he wouldn’t have made such an exhibition of himself, chasing you these last few weeks. Why not make a play for him? If you want him, have him. It’s what you usually do.”
She sat up straight and glared at Shelburn. “As you have refused my invitation to become my lover, you have no right to an opinion on my private life. Please take me home. I find myself rather fatigued, and as you pointed out, the Chastain ball is tonight. I’ve been told that I need to catch up on some sleep if I want to look my best.”
Her spiky response only made Shelburn laugh, which didn’t put her any more in charity with him. “That’s the way. Come out fighting. Although, damn me, I can’t work out why a bonny fighter like you isn’t fighting for the man she wants, instead of fighting with the man she doesn’t want. Makes no sense, Verena.”
Her glare sharpened. “Have you finished making obnoxious remarks, my lord?”
Her set-down didn’t quash his effrontery. Why would it? In all their years of acquaintance, she’d never managed to gain the upper hand over Shelburn. “Very well. I’ll pull my head in and let you gallop headlong to hell in your own way. But when you’re nursing a broken heart, don’t cut up rough if I say I told you so.”
“I have no heart. Don’t you know that?” She stopped looking at him and stared over the horses’ heads. “I’m untamed, reckless Verena Gerard, who allows no man dominion over her and who does whatever she pleases.”
The acid note in her voice gave away how upset she was. Although what she said had once been true. As with so much else in her life, Eliot had destroyed her freedom, too. If she didn’t love him so much, she’d hate him.
Shelburn clicked his tongue to his chestnuts to move them on. His voice was soft as he responded to her shaky defiance. “You might try and make the rest of the world believe you’re hard and uncaring, my girl, but you can’t pull the wool over my eyes. Your problem has always been too much heart rather than not enough.”
Verena didn’t reply. Partly because she was terrified that he was right. When too much heart had only caused her endless trouble.
Chapter 15
Shelburn pulled his carriage up in front of Verena’s house. He leaped down to come around and help her down, as a footman ran out to hold the horses. “Are we still going to dance together tonight, Verena, or are we at outs after today?”
She cast him a cold look. “Whatever you wish.”
He bowed with a flourish. “You’ll forgive me in the end. You don’t hold a grudge.”
“Don’t I?” she said in a neutral tone. “We’ll see.”
“You don’t want me. You know you don’t. Why not go for what you really want?”
“And why don’t you mind your own business?”
Her sniffy response made him laugh. He knew he was out of favor, but he also knew that like him, she didn’t have enough old friends to discard one of them just because she was in a huff.
Right now, she felt embarrassed and annoyed that he’d had the temerity to refuse her. But her pride wouldn’t let her reveal the wound he’d dealt to her vanity. She raised her chin and pulled her hand free of his. “Thank you for taking me driving, my lord.”
“It was my pleasure, my dear.”
“I’m obviously not your dear,” she said, her cheeks stiff with keeping her insouciant smile.
“Yes, you are.”
“As a brother.”
“I’ve been a better brother to you than either of your actual brothers.”
Even after today’s mess, that was true, but she wasn’t yet willing to admit that. “That’s not saying much.” The chestnuts shifted and scraped their hooves against the road. “Your horses are eager to go. You shouldn’t keep them standing.”
“No, I shouldn’t.” He bowed again. “Good afternoon, Verena. I’ll see you this evening.”
She didn’t wait to watch him drive away. Instead she climbed the steps to where Merton held the door open. Then she proceeded up the staircase to the bedroom that it seemed she’d never share with Shelburn. She’d denied Eliot access, and Shelburn didn’t want her. At this rate, she’d be celibate until Christmas.
Celeste was waiting to help her change out of her carriage dress. The maid slid a loose muslin robe over Verena’s shoulders. The day was too warm for the velvet peignoir. “I’d like to rest before I dress for dinner.”
“Oui, madame,” Celeste said. “Let me take down your hair.”
“Thank you.” She perched on
her dressing stool as her maid unpinned the stylish chignon and began to brush it out. Verena closed her eyes and let the soporific rhythm of the hairbrush soothe her jangling nerves.
Curse Shelburn. How dare he turn her down? How dare he give her advice? How dare he pretend to have some insight into her heart?
Verena was miffed, and her pride stung like blazes. But as she opened her eyes and studied her face in the mirror, she couldn’t help but admit that her principal emotion was relief.
She was glad that she wasn’t going to take Shelburn as her paramour. She was glad that she didn’t have to go through the same, tired old dance with a new lover. At least not straightaway.
How lowering to realize that right now, unless Eliot was in her bed, she’d rather occupy it alone.
Dear Lord, was she getting too old for the games she’d played since George’s death? Had she lost the thrill that she’d always felt when she broke every rule set down for well-bred young ladies?
She was thirty, after all. Perhaps it was time to find new challenges, new goals.
But what?
If she put away her life of sin and glamour, what was left? Yet was there any point in acting the wicked widow, if her antics gave her no enjoyment?
Shelburn had mentioned that she looked drained. He was right, devil take him. Her hair was still thick and shining, her skin still creamy and firm, her body curved and graceful. But when she looked into her eyes, the light had gone out of them. She looked like a woman suffering a secret sorrow. In a subtle way, she looked much older than her years. And she had a nasty suspicion that over time, that change would only become less subtle, as discontent and loneliness ate at her vitality.
Was it time for a change? Was it time to stop kicking against her dead father and her dead husband to prove that she’d won and they’d lost? She was alive, which was surely her greatest revenge on both of those monsters.
Was it time to put the anger and pain of the past behind her? Was it time to grow up at last?
***
On Saturday afternoon during fashionable hour, Eliot took the grays into the park. It felt odd not to see Imogen out enjoying the fresh air, too, but by now, she was safely back in Gloucestershire.
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