A Perfect Gentleman (2 page)

Or: “My friend Stony here accompanied his stepmama to the ball, but she's gossiping with the matrons, and he needs a female at his side to fend off the matchmaking mamas. Won't you take pity on him, Cousin?”

Or: “I owe the viscount a favor, Sis, so I lent him the opera box. He would be pleased if such a knowing music lover as you attended with him and Lady Wellstone.”

Or even: “Don't tell anyone, Aunt Louisa, but Wellstone confided in me that he is interested in growing roses. I told him no one knew more about the plaguey—ah, precious blossoms than you.”

The women, young and old, were delighted. The gentlemen, bored or busy, were relieved. And Stony? Viscount Wellstone was having fun. To his own amazement, he was enjoying himself. He liked to dance, to attend the theater, to go for drives, all the things he could not do while leaning over a dice table in some dark corner of a gaming parlor. If he never had to see a deck of cards again, he'd escort Medusa to the art museum.

Most of all, he found, he liked women, and he liked making them happy. A few of his new companions were silly or spoiled or just soured old spinsters, but he tried to find something to enjoy about them too. If he looked hard enough—and for some he needed his new magnifying glass—he could find admirable qualities to cultivate and encourage.

The fat, ugly, or stupid females offered a greater challenge than any game of chance ever had. If he could make them shine in society's light, then he was a winner, indeed. Here his stepmama rose to the challenge, fussing over his motley brood like a hen with no chicks of her own. Gwen might not make them into swans, but her fashion sense was unequaled. So was her knowledge of the latest skin treatments, the newest cosmetics, and which fat, ugly, or stupid gentlemen could not afford to be so choosy in their dance partners.

Stony's favorites were the shy, uncertain girls, the ones who bloomed under the sunlight of attention, who flowered into attractive, assured maidens. He started to take pride in all his girls, and in himself, without suffering too many regrets that he was making his living in a somewhat underhanded manner. Taking money—gifts, to put a more polite cast on his income—for saving unwilling gentlemen from Almack's and waltz parties and amateur musicales was no more, he told himself, than being treated to dinner after exercising an absent friend's horse. He chose to think of his new occupation as shadowed, rather than shady, for although he was receiving compensation for playing the courtier to unknowing females, he was also making them better women, better future wives and mothers.

Some he actually made wives and mothers. With his guidance, and his stepmama's enthusiastic assistance, introductions bore fruit, engagements were announced, marriages took place. Viscount Wellstone always received invitations to the receptions—and handsome wedding gifts for himself.

The only flies in the ointment, the ants at his picnic, the dogs in the manger, were those selfsame wives and mothers. Gentlemen trusted him to usher their proper spouses to proper functions, so they were free to conduct thoroughly improper affairs. The gentlemen should not, perhaps, have trusted their wives. Too often Stony found himself expected to accompany a bored young bride straight to her boudoir. Neglected matrons thought he should continue the dance long after the ball was ended. Even the occasional old maid sought a better bed warmer than a hot brick. A few of the more knowing ones hinted at recompense.

Stony resigned those commissions. He might be a paid companion, and the devil take him for it, but he was not a whore. His services were definitely not all for hire.

Despite these few setbacks, or maybe because he showed such scruples, the viscount received more and more requests for his company. His bank account grew, and his fame, if one could consider a knowing wink and a slap on the back to be fame. After the first Season, his club was more of an interviewing office. After the first betrothal, his new appointment calendar saw more entries than White's betting book.

Business was so good, and the male aversion to watered wine, harp recitals, and untouchable virgins so bad, that the following year Stony had to enlist two of his friends as assistants in his endeavor.

The second son of a demanding duke, Lord Charles Hammett was kept on a tight rein. One misstep and his allowance was reduced. Two and he'd be sent to inspect the family holdings in the Americas. Lord Charles suffered both mal de mer and a fear of his domineering parent, so at four and twenty he was a pattern card of respectability. Eventually he would be wed to a girl of his father's choosing, one who could advance the dukedom, of course. Meantime, Charlie was borrowing money from friends to pay his artiste of a tailor. Viscount Wellstone rescued him.

Capt. Daniel Brisbane had been a schoolmate of Stony's. Now he was returned from the army with a permanent limp, no career, and no hope but the salvation found in a bottle. Stony rescued him, too.

What female would not be thrilled with the attentions of a duke's offspring, a retired hero, and a handsome viscount? So what if Captain Brisbane could not dance and was not much for small talk or flattery? So what if Lord Charles was a mere second son with a weak chin and weaker fashion sense? So what if Lord Wellstone was below hatches, and a confirmed bachelor besides? Together they meant a girl always had a presentable partner for supper, an attractive, attentive afternoon caller, an enviable companion to whichever event her father's gout prevented him from attending.

She had an escort.

She was a success.

So was Stony.

Soon he would have Wellstone Park restored to its self-sufficient, income-producing prosperity. Soon he would have enough funds to establish a horse-breeding program, or a small shipyard on the Norfolk coast. Soon he could give Gwen the widow's portion she was due, and pray she used it for a dowry. After one more spring Season, he calculated, he'd be done with debutantes, finished with wallflowers, out of the escort business once and for all. When he reached the age of thirty, he would leave London with no regrets. But first….

*

“What do you mean, you have compromised Earl Patten's daughter?”

Neckcloth untied, coat unbuttoned, Stony was in his study going over the account books one last time before heading to bed and pleasant dreams. Then this nightmare walked in. Captain Brisbane's hand was shaking too much to pour the wine from the decanter on the viscount's desk. Stony took the bottle and filled the glass—then drank it down himself. “Damnation,” he said, “you were supposed to dance with the girl, by Zeus, not destroy her reputation!”

The half-pay officer sank into the facing chair without waiting for an invitation. “She said she felt ill. I led her toward an empty room, thinking to go fetch her mother, our hostess, or a maid. Anyone. What did I know about women's ailments? But somehow when we reached the room and I steered her toward the couch, she fell against me. And my bad leg, you know.”

“No, I do not know how your bad leg could have ripped her gown, dash it!”

“Well, it collapsed, and we fell to the couch. I tried to grab for the table, only I seem to have caught the lace at her bodice on the button of my coat and there was this awful sound and she screamed, and then her mother and half the guests ran in, and her father, Earl Patten, started shouting. And—”

“And you are betrothed. I wish you well. The lady might be a bit vaporish, but her handsome dowry ought to provide proper medical—”

“No.”

Stony shook his head. The brandy could not have addled his wits so quickly. “No…what?”

Brisbane studied his shoes. “No, I will not marry the earl's daughter.”

“But you're a gentleman, by all that's holy!”

“Who is going to marry the woman I love, on my honor.”

“On your honor? Honor demands you marry— What is her name anyway?”

“Lady Valentina Pattendale. That is the family name.”

“Right. Well, you have ruined the girl. She'll likely want to be wed on St. Valentine's Day, so you have nearly a year to grow fond of her.”

“You do not understand. I love another. I am promised to her.”

Stony poured another glass. This time he remembered to pour one for his guest. “And you never thought to mention the young lady to me?”

“What for? I cannot afford to marry her yet, so nothing is official. Her guardian disapproves.”

The viscount let out a sigh of relief. “Well, there you have it. No notice in the papers, no ring on her finger. No, you are Lady Valentina's, all right and tight.”

“No.”

“Deuce take it, someone has to marry the cursed female!” Stony slammed his glass down on the desk.

The captain did not meet Stony's gaze. Silence fell like a shroud. Finally Brisbane said, “The earl is calling on you here in the morning. Or his seconds are.”

“Oh, Lord. You'll have to meet him, you know.”

“No.”

“Gads, man, you cannot keep saying no! Everything that makes us gentlemen demands giving the earl a son-in-law or satisfaction. He is entitled to one or the other, by Harry.”

Brisbane stood. He wobbled a bit on his bad leg, but held himself erect with a soldier's discipline. “War taught me how little the gentlemen's code of conduct matters. It taught me the value of life, my own included, and the horror of taking another's. Besides, I do not think the lady was taken ill at all. No, I will not meet Patten on the dueling field. Or the church steps. I am leaving London tonight. I merely came by to warn you, and to offer my regrets.”

Regrets? Stony already had enough regrets to last a lifetime—or the few days he had left before Earl Patten put a pistol ball through his heart.

Chapter Two

The earl was apoplectic, understandably. Not only was his daughter ruined by a poor soldier, but Earl Patten had been paying the crippled bastard to keep her safe from fortune-hunters and libertines! To add insult to injury, the penniless, landless, untitled ex-officer refused to marry the girl!

“I don't care if the blackguard is betrothed or back at the front lines. I'll have a husband for my daughter or I'll have my pound of flesh.”

The earl's face was turning redder with each pound of his fist on Viscount Wellstone's desk. Luckily the brandy decanter had been emptied long ago, so it could not splash wine on Stony's suddenly empty appointment book. The earl, it seemed, had been at his clubs shouting his displeasure all night. Canceled invitations had been arriving at Wellstone House all morning. Who would trust his womenfolk to such a reprobate? What woman wanted to be seen with a man whose services and smiles were strictly for hire?

Earl Patten had been quite thorough in his castigations. And in his violation of confidentiality. Along with the cancellations, Lord Wellstone had received two of his bouquets tossed on his doorstep, and one slap in the face. Then there were Gwen's tears. A duel was sounding more appealing.

Pistols at dawn were not harsh enough penalty for Stony's sins, it appeared. Patten shook his fist inches from the viscount's nose this time. “You! Why, you are not much better than that lily-livered soldier.”

His own honor notwithstanding, Stony had to stand up for his friend. “If you are speaking of Captain Brisbane, he is one of the bravest men I know, following a higher code of honor than either of us will understand. He nearly lost his leg, almost his life, fighting for our country. How can you call him a coward?”

“He ain't here, is he?”

Stony sat down again, farther from Patten's fist and the shower that accompanied the earl's diatribe.

“Pshaw,” Patten spit out. Stony reached for his handkerchief, but he'd handed his last one to Gwen. “Be damned if you are any more what I had in mind for a son-in-law than that craven was. A paid paramour, a Fancy Fred, by Jove.”

Stony would have protested the epithets—hell, he would have called out any other man using those terms—except he was too relieved to be offended. “You mean I don't have to—”

Too soon.

“Good grief, my daughter will never be able to hold her head up in society. I suppose I can ship the two of you off to India. Or the East Indies. It will break her mother's heart, but better than seeing the gal a laughingstock for the rest of her life. Damn you to hell, Wellstone.”

Which marriage to Lady Valentina Pattendale would certainly be. Stony took a deep breath. In contrast to the earl's furious blustering, he spoke in low, even tones. “My, ah, wife and I shall reside at Wellstone Park in Norfolk. The house is in some disrepair, having been standing empty these past years, so I hope your daughter is handy with a needle. And a mop. I'll be busy with the sheep, so I'll expect her to look after the chickens.”

Now the blood drained from the earl's face and his mouth hung open. “What? My daughter? A mop?” he sputtered. “Chickens? But her dowry….”

“Oh, I would not live off my wife's fortune. It is a matter of honor with me, despite what you might think of my morals. I'd set any of the lady's income aside for our children. We'll want a whole parcel of them, to help on the farm, you know. But do not worry, I hope to come about in a year or two of hard work. Maybe five at the most. Then we can afford to hire more help. If we can get any of the locals to accept employment at the Park, that is. My uncle hanged himself there, if you don't recall the scandal. They say he swings from the chandelier still, but I always thought the motion was caused by the drafts in the hall. I suppose I'll have to see about fixing the windows. Or should repairing the leaking roof come first?” Stony scratched his head, deliberating.