A Wild Night's Bride (2 page)

“Desperately.”

“But what are you willing to sacrifice?” His gaze narrowed as it swept her top to toe. “If I grant your wish and put you on stage tonight, I wonder if you are prepared to make the best use of it?”

Phoebe knew what he was asking, and it was the last thing she wanted—to barter what little she had preserved of her self-respect. Having already experienced the faithlessness of one man’s heart, her greatest fear was to base her entire future on another’s fickle affections. Experience had taught her the folly of trusting pretty words and the emptiness of murmured promises. She had once given freely, and it had cost her dearly. Yet, she now found herself at an unavoidable, unenviable, and ultimately inevitable crossroad.

At least this time, she stood to reap a tangible reward for her favors. What more did she really have to lose? “Yes, I will,” she whispered her life-changing decision. “I will make the most of any chance you give me.”

“Very well then.” Hull nodded to the wardrobe mistress who tossed her an elaborate silk gown with a feathered and bejeweled domino. Phoebe caught them with a racing heart. “Kitty’s masquerade costume? I have the part of Kitty?”

Hull gave a curt nod. “Apropos, don’t you think? If it is patronage you seek, a well-played Kitty shall surely deliver. I just pray you don’t squander the opportunity...as it could well be your last.”

“But it is a meager six lines.” Phoebe stared dismally after his departing back.

“E’s right enough, duckie,” Mrs. Andrews clucked. “’Tis not the lines but the delivery what counts. Every great actress knows when a part is well-played, the audience believes the player for the real person. Kitty is a shameless little baggage. If your six little lines are well-played, you will have gents queued at your dressing room door—that is
if
you have the pluck for the part.
That,
dearie, is the decision you must needs make.”

Accepting the role of the disreputable Kitty would certainly determine her path. With this truth staring her otherwise bleak-looking future right in the face, Phoebe lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and jutted her bosom with a hand placed saucily on her hip. “If that is so, Mrs. Andrews, I promise to be a Kitty they won’t soon forget.”

C
HAPTER
T
WO

Boodles Club, St. James

Sir Edward Chambers ducked into the crowded public room, eagerly scanning the occupants. His gaze lighted upon the individual he sought, and a broad grin threatened to split his face as he elbowed his way to the familiar figure. “Hang me if it isn’t the devil’s agent!”

“Chambers? B’gad, it is that Dull Dog Ned!” Viscount Ludovic DeVere rose to clap his best friend heartily on the back. “I’d nigh forgotten what you looked like after all this time! What curse has kept you away for so long? We’ve what? Three years to catch up on?”

“Aye.” Ned sobered. “I quit coming to town when I lost Annalee. There seemed little purpose after that.”

“Three years is long enough to wear black,” DeVere said. “’Tis damn-nigh time you came back to the living, and I’ve a mind to be your bloody guide!” DeVere signaled the drawer. “Damme, but let’s make it a bowl of royal punch. By the bye, Ned, there’s a new nunnery in St. James—”

Ned raised a hand. “The effort is wasted on me, my friend. I’ve not your taste for tarts and even less yen to acquire the pox.”

Ludovic laughed. “Things have changed since you last came to town. The better houses make accommodation for a gentleman’s safety by providing cundums and such.”

“I truly have no interest, Vic.”

DeVere gave a knowing grin. “Then you’ve finally taken a mistress. I’ve an eye on a new one myself. She appeared out of nowhere closing night at Covent Garden Theatre. Quite a taking little thing and knows it too. The baggage turned them all away at the stage door which, of course, only added to her appeal. I’m determined to have her.” He gave his friend a cynical smile. “If she’s like all the rest, she’ll give herself to the highest bidder, but competition only makes the fruits of victory all the sweeter. Perhaps you should give her a go, ol’ chap. You are not without means and have a certain
rustic
charm.”

Ned shook his head in abashment. “I’ve no wish to use any woman in such a manner.”

DeVere looked first confounded and then guarded. “Don’t tell me you’ve acquired a penchant for buggery?”

“Gad, no!” Ned exclaimed with a shudder. “Is it impossible for you to comprehend that a man might
choose
to simply control his baser urges?”

“You mean
celibacy?”
DeVere regarded his comrade as if he had two heads.

“Indeed,” Ned said. “You needn’t look like I’m a freak of nature!”

The exchange was interrupted by the drawer returning with a large bowl of royal punch. DeVere filled two cups with a scowl, as if deliberating the most profound of philosophical questions. “Why the devil would any man
choose
to deny himself an essential element of life? Every man has needs, Ned. Indeed, medical science advocates the regular emission of the male essence to ensure good health. Damme, but I surely can’t fathom it!” He shook his head and emptied his cup in one long draught. “Then if it isn’t good, clean, plentiful quim that’s lured you to town, what has?”

Ned hesitated. “If you
must
know, it’s a delicate matter pertaining to my daughter.”

DeVere blinked. “You have a daughter?”

Ned made an exasperated noise. “Come now, DeVere! You know I do. You were at her christening and are, after all, her bloody godfather!”

“Was I sober at the time?” DeVere’s lips quirked into a mischievous smile. “Just how old is little Vesta now?”

“
Little
Vesta is no longer so little,” Ned said. “She’s past seventeen and coming into the full bedeviling bloom of womanhood. I hardly know her anymore.”

“Seventeen?” DeVere gave a low whistle. “Has it been so very long?”

“Aye. Eighteen years next month since Annalee and I married. We still miss her terribly and would both have been lost long ago without the redoubtable Diana.”

“Diana?” A strange look passed fleetingly over the viscount’s face.

“Yes. Annalee’s cousin, Lady Diana Palmerston-Wriothesley. I can’t believe you could have forgotten her.”

“Palmerston-Wriothesley? Yes, I do remember now. She’s the relict of the feckless baron who gamed away his entire fortune?”

“Might I remind you of your
slight
culpability in the matter?”

“Surely you don’t hold
me
to blame for his demise?” DeVere flipped open his snuffbox and offered it to Ned. “The man heedlessly wagered more than he could afford, and he lost.”

“You did little enough to intervene.” Ned waved away the offer and retrieved a clay pipe from his pocket instead.

DeVere rocked back in his chair. “You should know any attempt to shame me is wasted breath. I carry no guilt. He was fully culpable for his own actions. He didn’t know when to quit. Just as a dog returns to his vomit, so does a fool repeat his folly.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ned looked up from packing his pipe.

“That he didn’t accept his losses with grace and walk away.”

Ned pointed an accusatory finger. “But you
did
exploit his weakness.”

DeVere shrugged. “It’s not as if I held a pistol to his head.”

“No, you did not pull the trigger. He did that himself.” Ned pierced DeVere with a reproving look as he went to work with flint and steel with expert hands.

“How was I to know the blighter would blow his head off?”

“He was ruined beyond redemption,” Ned replied. A single spark ignited the char cloth to a glow sufficient to light his tobacco. “I suppose he felt it was his only honorable recourse.”

“The man had no honor, Ned. In truth, he was a bloody cheat.” DeVere’s mouth was a grim line. “There is much more to the story than you know.”

“What do you mean?” Ned drew his brows together and took three long puffs.

“While I did, indeed, liquidate the stables, I never claimed the entirety of my winnings.”

“No?”

“In learning of his self-murder, I didn’t take the estate. I had the deed but returned it to his widow.”

“You did?” Ned was incredulous.

“Yes, I did. It was never my intention to leave her destitute.”

“As I recall, you had quite other intentions in that direction.”

“Yes, I quite clearly recall what you said.”

“That she wouldn’t touch you with gloves? True enough, wasn’t it my friend? Yet, I had no idea—”

“That the milk of human kindness courseth through my veins?” DeVere gave a mocking laugh.

Ned ignored the sarcasm. “It was a good thing you did, you know. Diana is a fine woman. She has been as a mother to Vesta.”

“Ah,” DeVere said with pointed look. “It all becomes clear now. Perhaps not so celibate, after all, dear Ned?”

“Hang you, DeVere! She’s a close friend, nothing more.” He furrowed his brow once again. “Though I do fear of late that she entertains some...expectations.”

“You think the young widow may aspire to quite another surrogate role? They all do, ol’ chap. Expectations and demands—titles, money, time, attention. The female half of the species are little better than vampires, sucking away one’s very lifeblood. Thankfully, I learned my own lesson early.” He emptied his tankard and refilled it.

“Come now, DeVere! You talk a pretty speech, but there is one you would have taken as surely as I breathe.” Ned declined another drink to concentrate on blowing perfectly formed, translucent, blue-gray smoke rings.

“And to her credit, she chose the better man.” DeVere raised his drink to Ned in a mock salute.

Ned broke the awkward silence that followed. “I daresay your heart was no more than bruised by Annalee, for I recall your subsequent eager pursuit of a certain Caroline Capheaton.”

“Ah, Caroline.” Grinning ear to ear, DeVere offered another toast. “To sweet Caroline, the lushest mouth in London. I learned as much the night we were to be engaged, you know. We’d meandered the Lover’s Walk at Vauxhall until the melodious strains of the orchestra grew fainter, the lamps sparser, and the tree-lined pathway narrowed to the privacy of the deepest wooded recess. She took me in her mouth, Ned, and then, not two hours later, threw me over for the Duke of Beauclerc.” DeVere laughed, a low, raucous sound.

“It was undoubtedly no less than you deserved. Try as I may, I can’t envision you settled down with one woman.”

“Neither can I,” he said. “Don’t know what possessed me unless it was a case of melancholia in losing my best friend to a life of dull and bucolic domesticity.” DeVere took another pinch of snuff.

“To each his own, DeVere.” Ned inclined his head at the snuffbox and took another long drag on his pipe.

“We digress,” DeVere said. “At the time, I wanted nothing more than to remove the smug smirk of triumph from Beauclerc’s face, but I soon perceived it was only my injured pride. With reflection, I realized my passion never surfaced because I never loved the baggage. She excited me for a while. Nothing more. In the end, the duke did me a great service.”

“How do you mean?” Ned asked.

“The burning question of Caroline’s capacity for fidelity no longer plagued my mind. But shortly after their marriage bed cooled, I ensured it plagued the good duke’s instead.” He laughed a low devious rumble.

“She became your mistress?”

DeVere smiled. “A mistress is a fine thing, Ned, but a married mistress with a complacent husband is the very best bargain. They cost far less to keep, make fewer demands, and should any inconvenient
package
arrive, it may easily be presented to the cuckold, an altogether neat arrangement. But I can see how in your case a comely young widow at a neighboring estate could very well answer. Just heed my advice, old friend, and take care how you...
spend
your assets.”

Ned slammed his fist on the table. “Pox on you, DeVere! I’ve already said I don’t harbor that kind of feeling for Diana.”

“Feeling?” DeVere looked aghast. “The only
feeling
I’m talking about is planting your long-deprived staff and in who better than a lonely grieving widow?”

“I’ve more pressing matters to worry about than my neglected
staff,
” Ned replied, snuffing his pipe and emptying his drink. “Diana has brought to my attention that my daughter is in need of a proper come-out. Thus, I am arrived in London to lease a townhouse for the season.”

“Then I perceive no conflict at all should you mix a bit of pleasure with your business. Indeed, I shall put my own agent at your disposal in this property matter, while you, my friend, will endeavor to catch up on lost time.”