Duke of Scandal (Moonlight Square, Book 1) (8 page)

But how could she? To him, his desire for her had been like a thorn stuck in his paw for years. He was constantly aware of it. But to her, all she saw was his pointed effort to stay away from her. As he’d always known he must. He had a frightfully low resistance to temptation. Best just to stay away. So why had he asked her to come here tonight?

When she caught sight of him from across the room and sent him a little wave, the doubts and questions fled. He smiled at her, quickly striding over to her side to make her formal introductions to their hosts, since he gathered she did not know the earl and countess personally. Though Felicity had been out in Society for a few years now, they hadn’t seen much of each other—partly by design on his part.

On those occasions when they had even attended the same balls, Felicity and Lady Kirby had either been on their way out or had already left when he was just arriving. After all, rakes of a certain stature did not go out before eleven, and dowagers of a certain age did not stay up much past ten.

It had frustrated him sometimes that they were always missing each other, but it was probably just as well.

Of course, current circumstances had changed the situation. Felicity needed him now, and being needed was something Jason secretly craved. His life of pleasure and luxury left him starved for a chance to be of use and do something—anything—that really mattered.

Helping his darling girl had given him a much-needed mission. One he’d complete, whether she liked it or not.

Upon joining her, he introduced her and Mrs. Brown to their hosts and their daughter, Lady Simone. As greetings with welcomes and thanks for the last-minute invitation were exchanged, Jason noticed Mrs. Brown looking rather less than pleased to see him.

“Do take your seats, ladies,” the glamorous Countess of Pelletier said, relishing her role as the grand hostess of the evening. “They’ll be starting any moment now.”

“You see? You got here just in time,” Jason said fondly to Felicity as they drifted into the joined concert rooms side by side.

“I wasn’t sure we were going to make it at all,” Felicity confessed as they put just a little distance between the two of them and her chaperone.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. You look beautiful,” he added.

She laughed off the compliment, glancing around at all the brightly garbed ladies. “I feel like a lump of coal in the midst of a rainbow!”

“Well, at least you’re not the only lump of coal here. I wore black, too, so I could match you. See?”

She chuckled. “Maybe we’re just two diamonds in the rough.”

“Ah, me, no doubt. But you, my dear, are already
very
much a diamond.”

“Such charm! And directed at me, of all people! Are you feeling all right?” she asked pertly.

“Of course I am. I just don’t want you to feel out of place on account of your mourning attire. Lump of coal, indeed. It’s not the clothes that determine a woman’s beauty, anyway.”

“You would know.”

He ignored the jibe. “Besides, very soon, you are going to blossom like a flower into beautiful color again, and then you will outshine every woman here.”

She squinted up at him. “I really am going to call the physician if you keep saying things like that. Do you have a fever?”

“I’m just glad you came.” He gave her a rueful smile and offered her his arm.

She took it, her gaze intrigued. “So am I. The invitation arrived, just as you predicted.”

He smiled at her. “The Pelletiers are good friends of mine. They were dying to know why I wanted you here.”

“So am I, frankly.”

“What? To cheer you up in your mourning, of course. Why else?” he drawled. “Anyway, word has it there’s going to be a special guest for tonight’s grand finale,” he confided as he led her toward the orchestra, ignoring the stares as people watched him with Felicity, a young lady who, despite her beauty, had somehow managed to stay in the background of Society for the past few years.

As if she did not want to be noticed, hiding behind her eccentric dragon of an aunt.

As if some part of her was ashamed of herself. Or at least, did not trust herself.

And that was all his fault.

Oh yes, deep down, Jason knew how he had hurt her by rejecting her adorable, kittenish advance on him eight years ago. He’d had no choice. She was too young, too tempting, and at nineteen, he had been in no wise ready to take a wife, which was what the situation would have demanded.

Why, at that age, he hadn’t even known yet who he was, other than a randy young buck who wanted sex all the time, but good God, not from her!

Thankfully, he had discovered he at least had some semblance of morality that day, to his relief, and had walked away from what she had offered, turning his back on the girl that he knew worshiped him for some ungodly reason.

He had even told her brother what she had done, feigning mere concern about his little sister’s fast behavior. But in truth, he simply had not wanted her trying to tempt him again. He wasn’t
that
good.

Nevertheless, he ached to know how hard she had taken his rejection. No wonder all that anger had flashed out at him yesterday afternoon from under her smooth surface. She had reason.

At the moment, though, things were friendly between them, almost like the old days of childhood, before the little widgeon had decided that she wanted to marry him when she grew up. He had laughed at that when she was eight, scowled about it when she was twelve, and run like hell from it from the moment she had sat down on his lap.

“So who is this special musical guest supposed to be?” she was asking.

“They haven’t told us,” he replied. “It’s a surprise. Can I get you something to drink?”

She said she’d take a glass of white wine, while Mrs. Brown opted for a lemonade. Jason told the nearest footman and sent the fellow scurrying.

“How are you this evening, Mrs. Brown?” he asked politely.

“Humph,” was all the lady said, turning away to chat with an acquaintance.

Jason arched a brow at Felicity, then bent to murmur in her ear. “I take it she’s cross with me for coming over to see you yesterday?”

“No, she’s cross with me for not ordering the servants to wake her so she could sit with us. I got quite a tongue-lashing after she awoke.”

He winced. “Sorry I got you into trouble.”

“Nonsense. I assured her you were barely half an hour at the house, and besides, I’ve known you longer than I’ve known her. I did not argue with her, but I didn’t apologize, either. And why should I?” she whispered. “You came to help me. That is all. We did nothing wrong. Frankly, after talking to you, I realized maybe you were right.”

“About what?”

“Perhaps I’ve been the obedient companion long enough. I’ve done what they’ve told me. I’ve followed all the rules. But now, maybe it’s time I start taking hold of a little of my aunt’s independent spirit, since that was the whole point of her leaving me her fortune in the first place. Don’t you think?”

“I couldn’t agree more,” he said in amused approval.

“As dear Cousin Gerald pointed out, I’m not getting any younger. It’s not as though I’m a chit fresh out of the schoolroom anymore, like some of the debutantes here are, the sweet little things.” She glanced around at the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls clustered here and there, looking terrified, but if there were other females in the room, Jason had not seen them.

There was only her.

After a brief check with her chaperone, Felicity beckoned him closer. He leaned down breathlessly to catch her whisper in the noisy room and tried to hide his shiver of longing when her warm breath tickled his ear.

“Anyway, I have a sneaking suspicion that the real reason Mrs. Brown is annoyed is because she missed the chance to see my cousin Gerald.”

Startled out of his trance by this information, he straightened up with a roguish grin. “Really?”

Felicity nodded, her eyes dancing with wicked mirth. “She quite fancies him,” she mouthed, nodding at her chaperone’s back. “What we see as bluster, she views as strength. Decisiveness. She told me so once, and said Her Ladyship simply didn’t understand him.”

Jason laughed aloud, causing several folk to look at him strangely. “There’s your solution to the cousin problem, then.”

“Exactly. If Gerald hopes to avoid the sponging house, let him redirect his attentions to a lady who’d enjoy them, for I have no interest in the creature.”

“I see. And has any inspiration struck yet on what you might do with it in the interests of expanding this
freedom
your aunt intended you to enjoy?”

“Not yet. But I’m pondering the possibilities,” she said shrewdly.

As am I,
Jason mused rather wickedly. Charmed by the sparkle in her eyes, he watched her take her wineglass from the footman, who had returned with the drinks he had requested.

Jason lifted the lemonade off the tray and offered it to Mrs. Brown with a penitent smile, but though she accepted it with a terse “Thank you,” she still eyed him with as much disapproval as any other matron in the room.

Ah, well.

“Cheers,” he said to Felicity as she lifted the wineglass to her rosy mouth.

Those lips…

“Cheers, Your Grace. To old friends,” she added meaningfully, and tapped her glass to his, holding his gaze as they each took a sip.

Her lips glistened, damp from the wine, and Jason flinched, forcing himself to look away. “Come,” he said, trying to emulate a breezy manner, “I saved you a seat. Best in the house.”

“You did? That was very thoughtful.”

“Unfortunately, I do not think it would be wise for me to sit with you, however.” He looked askance at her.

“Ah, I understand.” The grateful look she gave him said she was well aware that scandal tended to follow him. Though, honestly, it was never his intention.

He showed her to the seats he had reserved for her and Mrs. Brown in the front row. His gloves were on one chair and his hat on the other. He had chosen for himself one of the chairs on the side, where the U-shaped row curved around opposite the pianoforte. The players would be in profile from his vantage point and the sound would’ve been better in the middle, but what mattered to him was that he would have an unfettered view of Felicity.

Which was all he had really wanted.

Taking leave of the ladies, he went and sat down.

He quickly found that Azrael Chambers, the Duke of Rivenwood, had ended up beside him.

They were both members at the Grand Albion, which, in addition to the exclusive gentlemen’s club on the ground level, contained the famed Assembly Rooms on the
piano nobile
, as well as a few luxurious hotel suites on the top floor.

Though Rivenwood was not really a member of his set, they got on well enough and occasionally played cards. Still, Jason had to admit the highborn loner was endlessly mysterious. He seemed a haunted man, and struck Jason as, well, just a little damned strange.

At first, Jason had assumed they’d had the same idea—to watch the ladies rather than the concert—but then it occurred to him that, with Rivenwood, you just never knew what was going through that head of his. Rivenwood, the enigma, had a tendency to watch everyone and everything, but mostly kept his conclusions to himself.

Of course, he was pleasant enough, and rich as Croesus, but as for reputation, where Jason was called
scandalous
, Rivenwood was viewed as rather eerie. The rumors that surrounded his family were considerably darker than the merely adulterous tales of Jason’s own. Word had it he had seen his father murdered as a boy, but nobody in memory dared speak to him about it.

Rivenwood even
looked
mysterious, with his long, straight hair as pale as moonlight pulled back into a smooth queue. He was a tall, elegant man in his early thirties, with high cheekbones and strong, symmetrical features, but his intense eyes were the ice blue of a glacier.

What sort of father names his child Azrael, anyway?
Jason wondered as he nodded to his acquaintance and took his seat. To be sure, the odd name fit.

Apparently, the previous Duke of Rivenwood had had some fixation with the occult secrets of antiquity and had thought it a fine idea to name his son after the archangel of death.

Poor beggar. And I thought my childhood was bad.

“Netherford,” his fellow duke said as Jason joined him.

“Rivenwood.” Jason flipped the tails of his coat aside as he sat down, then tugged his white silk waistcoat into place. “Evening.”

They sat in silence for a moment while the rest of the audience snatched up fresh drinks before settling into their chairs for the first hour of the recital.

“So who’s the young lady?” the archangel of death drawled under his breath.

Jason looked askance at him, briefly wondering about the reason for his interest as he met the man’s wary, pale blue eyes.

“That’s Felicity Carvel,” he conceded.

“Ah. The Kirby heiress I’ve been hearing so much about?”

“Yes.”

An idle pause while he contemplated her. “And who is she, exactly?”

“Do you know Major Peter Carvel?”

“Heard of him. Gentleman soldier turned explorer. You’re funding his expedition, no?”

Jason nodded. “Great friend of mine since boyhood. That’s his sister. Known her all my life. I’m keeping an eye on her for him while he’s away.”

“Now there’s a pleasant task.” Rivenwood was now studying Felicity intently through narrowed eyes. “What is her lineage?”

“Why do you want to know?” he asked, forcing a tone of amusement, though his thoughts were otherwise.

Don’t even think about it. You’re too damned strange.

Now, now,
he scolded himself. The attentions of multiple dukes would help any girl in Society. Even dukes known as scandal hounds and spooky quizzes.

Rivenwood waited.

“She’s the niece of the Marquess of Bellingham,” Jason told him.