False Angel (7 page)

“So if I won’t have you as a father, you’re set on becoming my father-in-law?” The marquess smiled, before he went on earnestly, “But I did avoid the girl, Jason, and then, when I couldn’t ignore her for civility’s sake, I tried to be discreet for kindness’s sake, and she skewered me. I cannot imagine why. Then again, there’s a great deal about her that puzzles me, for she wasn’t a madcap at first, you know. I remarked her when she first came to Town and she was docile as a dove then. The wildness was a thing which grew upon her.”

“Then I think, my lad, you’ll just have to study her more closely, as you would any other wild thing, and so get to know her a deal better. I don’t believe her attitude will influence Talwin one way or another, if that’s what’s troubling you,” the duke said slowly, “but I don’t think that it is. She’s very beautiful,” he said off-handedly.

“And it’s decidedly not that,” Joscelin said, laughing, “for the world is full of beautiful women who do not have fathers I go in awe of. It preoccupies me so because,” he said, as though thinking aloud, his hard, handsome face growing very still, “I have always hated enigmas.”

“How very odd!”, the duke exclaimed, his low voice filled with amazement, “for I thought I knew you very well, Joss, and I believed you always loved a mystery.”

The two gentlemen said a lengthy good-bye on the street in front of the club. They were much remarked upon as they stood and joked and reminded each other of when they next should meet. It was not odd that this should be so, on either count. Even though the duke was all impatience to join his duchess again, since he seldom could like being gone from her for too long, and even though the marquess had a delightful afternoon arranged for himself, since he had no present obligations and felt he deserved a treat, the two gentlemen liked each other very well and were often loath to break from such congenial companionship. And since their appearances were almost as sensational as their reputations, it was only natural that bystanders should often ogle them and whisper “birds of a feather” when they were seen together.

But then, the duke mused as his companion at last took his leave, his young friend hadn’t needed to expend so much effort as he had in his past in order to earn his bad repute. He had not needed to bed half so many shocking creatures, he had only to wed the one, and then leave her, by decree of divorce. For that simply was not done. Not by a gentleman.

It was a pity it was so, the duke thought as he finally strolled off to his townhouse. Though he was not in actuality of an age to have been Severne’s father, he felt that same sort of protective concern for him. Not because the lad was incapable of looking after himself, but because it seemed so wrong that he was deemed an outcast by correct society. There was a legion of gentlemen who practiced far more despicable acts who were welcomed into the highest reaches of the ton because they indulged themselves in secret, thus socially acceptable fashion. The fact that young Joss could not woo or wed where a gentleman who, say, habitually sought the reluctant embraces of underage servants might, was damnable.

But then, thought the duke, his face brightening, even as his pace quickened as he hurried homeward, it was never necessary to wed some social lioness in order to be blissfully happy. Then too, he thought, so amused at himself that he chuckled low in his throat, only an old hopelessly married fellow like himself would even think that a dashing young gentleman like the marquess needed to be wed at all. Joss could accommodate half a dozen lovers this very afternoon and be happy as a man could expect to be, the duke concluded as he reached his own door, although from his own experience, he didn’t really believe that at all.

The duke, for all his urbanity, would have been surprised to know that his friend Joss completely agreed with him. For even as the marquess walked to his next afternoon appointment, he regretted having made it, even though it was planned to be an interlude of pleasure with an exquisite young woman. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy such a pastime as he had planned, it was only that in some little corner of his consciousness he wished it were more than merely a pastime. But he quelled that traitorous thought as he entered the carpeted hall of a quiet hotel on Park Lane.

He glanced at his pocket watch once as he took the stairs to the rooms he had previously arranged to let, and when he came to the door to the rooms, he sighed only once, knowing he was fifteen minutes late and she would be very angry with him. He could not blame her overmuch, for there were few men in London who would keep her waiting a fraction of that time.

But when he let himself in the door with his passkey and strode to the bedchamber, she sat upon the bed awaiting him and looked at him longingly, and never breathed a word of censure but only opened her arms to welcome him. As he came into her embrace, even as he took the kiss she offered, he wondered what strange mood she was in today to account for her gentle acquiescence.

“Joss,” she breathed at last, playfully, placing a finger upon his lips where her own had so lately been, “you utter beast. To let me wait and wonder at your tardiness, and worry that perhaps you had decided to abandon me forever. It was too cruel, but very like you. But I forgive you, as I always must do.”

This was so unlike the lady that the marquess sat back and ceased undoing his cravat.

“I’m sorry I’m late, but come, why not just screech at me for a while and be done with it? These gentle lamentations, sweet, are never like you. You make me quite uneasy, and that will never do, will it?” he breathed into her ear, while his long fingers stroked away the little golden curls that clustered over it.

“Ah Joss,” she said, exhaling and treating him to a gust of candied violet scent, “it pleases you to jest, I see. But here I have waited for you, alone and afraid in a strange room in a strange hotel, with never even my maid nearby to help me should I need her attentions.”

Aha, that tune again, the marquess thought wearily, the last traces of real desire deserting him, though all he said softly was, “But my dear, we have been through that too often. It is, I feel, enough that I entertain myself with Lord Lambert’s beloved wife. It would be too much, I believe, to avail myself of his bed, linens, and liquor as well as I do so, don’t you think?”

“Beast!” the lady cried, and struck him smartly-across the cheek before she turned and bent her head so that it was so completely covered by streamers of her shining golden hair that he could not see how hard she tried to bring out some realistic tears.

The marquess sighed. It was becoming tedious, he thought, even as he attempted to gently pull the lady back into his embrace. The affair had started well, but was ending badly. Obviously, she wanted her husband to know of the liaison for her own reasons, and his own insistence on keeping their meetings discreet was running counter to whatever plans she’d hatched. Although there could scarcely be two more different females in appearance and style, she too, he thought, even as he assured her of her safety in the hotel and his regret at being late, wanted him mainly for his reputation, even as the wicked young lady he’d been discussing at lunch no doubt had.

But for all of his sagacity about the lady in his arms, and her whims and machinations, he was entirely wrong about her reasons for wanting him. As she swept her hair back from her eyes and turned her face to him again, realizing that she’d get no further with her importuning today, she gazed at him. And were she the sort of female wise enough to understand that gentlemen need flattery too, she would have told him what pleasure she took in that simple act.

She looked into his searching eyes and even forgot to look for her own reflection there, they were so deep and blue and intense. Just staring at that hard young face, with its clean contours and curiously full lips awaiting her own mouth’s touch, made her want him more than any other man’s presents or flattery or fame ever had. And though it would have been very good if Lambert did more than suspect their meetings, just to show him how well she could do for herself, since he had that shocking Turner woman’s favors now, she would forego that simpler pleasure for the more complex ones she could discover in the marquess’s close embrace.

But, even as he gathered her to himself, as he whispered a list of her physical virtues for her to glory in, he found that only a part of himself was involved in the proceedings. Another, more rational Joscelin had already risen, walked across the room, and seated himself in a chair, and idly swung his booted foot and waited for the randy fool to be done with his foolish pleasures. Or so it seemed, or so it increasingly seemed to happen to him.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like females, he did, and had always done so. He was a devoted son to his fond mama, and he had looked after his two younger sisters’ welfare with so much affection and goodwill that they’d both grown to be jolly, confident young girls who were now the delight of their husbands’ lives. Perhaps it was because he genuinely liked females that he was lately so disconsolate in each of his fleeting affairs. For he was used to valuing those of their gender as he valued his men friends, as separate and distinct persons.

And yet lately he’d only had dealings with those women who, if truth be told, he didn’t care for too very much once they were up and out of his bed. He was not so compelled to find bedchamber companionship as, for example, his friend the duke had been in his youth. Yet while not precisely a rake, it could be said that the Marquess of Severne was also never long deprived of a female’s intimate company. But since he was not driven, he exercised selectivity in his choice of partners. Now that he was a grown man he no longer visited those establishments where he could choose a female for the evening as he would a bottle of wine. Nor could he enjoy any relationship such as so many of his fellows did, where a young person was properly housed and clothed and paid quarterly, even as a footman or a housemaid was, in exchange for the performance of personal services that were supposed to pass for acts of love.

But it was never love he sought, or so he told himself. At least he was wise enough to know it could not be found among those he had deceived, as they attempted to deceive him, on his missions upon the Continent. Neither did he expect to find himself such a gentle passion either with or among those ladies he did disport with, those bored and spoiled beauties whose husbands allowed them to stray so long as they reciprocated that privilege. Females of the servant class were too amazed at his attentions, or too conniving at receiving them, for him to become involved with, and respectable young women from any social station, were, of course, quite above his touch.

He was saved from these gloomy reflections before they could hinder his present plans, by his lady’s suddenly twining her fingers in his thick hair and wrenching him even closer to her. When he stopped his ministrations to stare in puzzlement at her, and even that other Joscelin, the one that had abandoned him to solitary carnality, looked up in surprise, she breathed, “Ah Joss, do not be so cruel to me. I know I deserve it after my complaints, but please spare me.” Since she said this with a look of great anticipation upon her uplifted, lovely face, he sighed deeply. That other Joscelin gave a cough of a laugh and left him alone again.

Games, he thought wearily, whenever an affair became flat, they always thought to recapture his and their own interest with never-ending games. He decided to ignore her.

“Joss,” she whispered, as though she might be overheard, even though he had difficulty hearing her, close as he was, “go ahead, I won’t mind. Be savage with me if you must. I’ve known you weeks now and you no longer need restrain yourself.”

“My dear,” he said slowly, “you know I am not cruel, nor do I enjoy cruelty, nor will I indulge you in it.”

“So you say.” She laughed until her whole body trembled beneath his and then looked up at him wisely. “But you cannot deny the evidence in your face. Nor have you seen that pitiless look in your eyes as others have. And I have heard the rumors. Oh yes. We all know it is not your inability which took you from your marriage. I can vouch for that,” she said smugly. “Nor is it any part of your person or personality. Save that. It must be that. That’s what everyone says. So go ahead. Don’t hold your desire back. I’m not some inexperienced chit, as your wife was. I won’t mind. I rather like it, actually. Only don’t get too carried away, I have a dinner party to attend tomorrow night.”

He stopped completely. And it seemed that a small surviving scrap of his pride, which had escaped the slaughter of his self-esteem five years ago, now quietly stopped breathing as well. The fantasy he had of that other, watchful, safe, and uninvolved Joss died, too, for he was entirely appalled.

He had known her for weeks, as she’d said, which was longer in fact than he had known the wife she mentioned. That this woman who waited eagerly beneath him, trembling not with laughter now, but in excited anticipation of what dark and nameless deeds she believed him capable of, could so misjudge him, could so value him for what he would consider repugnant, astonished and infuriated him.

He did not leave her at once, for he was only human. And though he did not half meet her expectations, as he could never so completely unleash his anger in such fashion, he did not precisely disappoint her, though his callous divorce of his mind from his body more than disappointed himself. And when he left her, he left her for good.

But as he walked home in that London twilight, he thought for the first time that perhaps, just perhaps, it was time for him to marry again. If not for love, then for an end to expecting love. And to anyone who would be willing to have him, and his heirs, and not a great deal more of him than that.