Good Earl Gone Bad (22 page)

“Don't do that,” he said, though there was a smile in his voice. Coming up behind her, he slipped his arms around her waist. “So I can take all that to mean that you are pleased.”

“An understatement if ever there was one,” she said with a laugh. “I cannot possibly let it go with such faint praise. Thrilled might be a better word. Or perhaps ecstatic. Pleased sounds almost grudging by comparison.”

“Then ecstatic it is,” he said, kissing her cheek and letting her go. “I'll be off to let you rest before supper. I thought instead of a formal dinner we could have a private meal up here in your rooms. Will that suffice?”

Unable to stifle a yawn, with a nod to her departing husband, she kicked off her slippers and climbed up onto the enormous bed and stretched out upon it.

What an extraordinary day it had been, she thought with a nervous laugh. And before he firmly shut the door behind him, she was fast asleep.

 

Sixteen

Jasper would have liked nothing better than to remove his boots and climb up into the bed beside Hermione for a cozy sleep.

Unfortunately, her conversation with Miss Fleetwood had given him enough concern over the possibility that the lady's brother might be involved in the murder of Saintcrow that he found it imperative to relate the information to the authorities at once.

This meant having his horse brought round and leaving his home on the evening of his wedding night.

It couldn't be helped, but he felt a pang of regret at leaving Hermione so soon after the ceremony. No matter that he would return before supper. It simply didn't feel right.

He was donning his hat and coat in preparation to leave when he was delayed by his mother.

“Already going out?” she asked with a raised brow. “I should have thought the chit would be able to entertain you for a whole day at the least.”

“Don't be nasty, Mama,” he said without malice. “I have an errand. And Hermione is resting at the moment.”

He hadn't been the only one to notice the shadows beneath her eyes, he was certain. His mother for one was sensitive to such physical signs of weakness, since exploiting them was her stock in trade.

“I mean no disrespect,” she said, affronted. “Can not a mother express concern when her only son marries in haste?”

“Of course you may,” he said firmly, “but that does not mean you should cast aspersions on her ability to keep me ‘entertained' as you put it. If I were interested in hearing your opinion on the matter I would ask for it. As you well know.”

But the dowager only sniffed. “As if you would ask my opinion on anything,” she said haughtily. “But, as it happens, I did not come down to question you about your new bride, but instead to inform you that your sisters and I will be attending the Hartford ball this evening.”

Which was a fib, he knew, but he let her save face by not calling attention to the fact.

“I am happy to hear it,” he said aloud. “I hope you will enjoy yourselves.”

“The reason I mention it,” she continued with a frown, “is that I feel sure we will be questioned about the match. Is there something you wish us to convey to those who question it? I know how you like to control what is said about you.”

It was a fair question since there was little doubt that his swift marriage to Hermione would be the topic of conversation among the
ton
for some weeks. Especially given the way it had come about.

“Thank you for asking, Mama,” he said sincerely. “If you are asked, simply say that it was unusual the way it came about but that Lady Hermione and I had formed an attachment long ago and this was simply an acceleration of what would have been a conventional engagement.”

“I suppose that will have to do,” the dowager said with a moue of distaste. “I do wish you had consulted me before you went about it this way. I could have saved you both some degree of difficulty with the public's reception of the news. It is one thing to marry in haste, but to win your bride's hand in a card game is simply not the thing.”

“But it is the way things happened,” he said, pulling on his gloves. “And now, if you will excuse me, I must see to a few things before my bride awakens.”

Hurrying from the house, he mounted Hector and rode the short distance to Lord Payne's residence in Berkeley Square. As the current president of the Lords of Anarchy, Payne would be one who would best be able to tell Jasper about Saintcrow's involvement with the club, and whether there was any truth to what Miss Fleetwood had said about the club being the cause of his recent wildness.

When he arrived, however, it was to find the house was lit up like a fireworks spectacle at Vauxhall.

A line of curricles being handled by tigers, or in some cases coachmen, stretched down the street and round the corner.

Directing Hector through the throng of traffic, Jasper handed the reins to a footman and mounted the steps to the door. When he handed the butler his card, the fellow said, “I regret to say, my lord, that Lord Payne is occupied at the moment.”

Well able to see the raucous clusters of men in various stages of inebriation down the front hallway and huddled in the doorways on either side, Jasper was willing to bet that Payne was occupied. Even so, it was imperative that he speak to the man regarding Saintcrow, so he said, “I will only take a few moments of your master's time. He will be quite cross if you turn me away, I fear.”

He watched as the butler, who was built more like a prizefighter than the faithful retainer of a nobleman, seemed to think over what Jasper had said. Finally, he gave a dour nod and instructed a footman to show Jasper into the playroom.

Because he was well-known amongst the
ton
for his skill at cards, Jasper found himself the recipient of a number of slaps on the back and a mixture of congratulations and commiserations regarding his marriage. None of them went so far as to mention the fact that Hermione was, because of her recent membership in the club, one of theirs. But he thought that might be because he was also known to be, if not an enemy of driving, at the very least a skeptic. He might not be considered a man one didn't cross, but he was most certainly not one that they would engage in open war without serious consideration.

The playroom, it turned out, was likely termed “the ballroom” on the blueprints for the large town house. But, sportsman that he was, Viscount Payne had transformed the large chamber into a sort of gentleman's amusement hall. In one corner, a pair of men whom Jasper knew slightly were stripped to the waist and dancing around one another in the stance championed by Gentleman Jackson in his saloon on St. James Street.

Still another pair, in the opposite corner, were receiving instruction from the famous Angelo in the art of the sword. A third corner was set up with card tables, though how the men there could possibly hear the declaration of trumps or even the contents of their own minds, he had no notion.

Payne himself was involved in a heated discussion in the fourth corner with a man Jasper recognized from the morning Saintcrow took Hermione's grays. “I don't care how you make it happen,” the viscount said in a harsh voice, “but you make it happen. If this business remains hanging round my neck like a bloody albatross I'll hold you personally responsible, Newsome.”

As if sensing an outsider in their midst, both men looked up at Jasper's approach. Payne's expression turned from one of intensity to one of jovial welcome. “Well, damn my eyes, if it isn't Mathematical Mainwaring! Have you come to join us now that you've married into the club, so to speak?”

“Hardly,” Jasper said with a shudder he made no attempt to hide. “I would sooner jump headfirst into the Thames.”

At that the other man just grinned. He knew well enough that Jasper was not interested in coaching in the least. And since they'd been at Eton together when Jasper's father died, he knew the reason for it. Even so, he enjoyed inviting the other man to join the group from time to time. As if in the asking he was fulfilling some sort of obligation to welcome even those who despised the club's very purpose.

“Then I hope you are here to tell me your lady will be joining us on our next outing to Dartford,” Payne said, indicating with a gesture that Jasper should follow him from the loud chamber and to the hallway beyond. “I do not mind telling you how disappointed I was that our newest member was unable to join us thanks to Saintcrow's untimely collection of her father's debt.”

Once they were in what Jasper presumed was Payne's study, the other man poured them both a glass of whisky and indicated that his guest should have a seat.

“I confess that after seeing tonight's activities,” Jasper said with a raised brow, “I am tempted to ask my new wife to renounce her membership in the club. If there were other ladies to lend some propriety to the group, it would be one thing, but all this tonight looks like a Roman bacchanal without the orgy.”

“Oh, I suspect there will be an orgy later,” Payne said, sipping his drink. “But it's a bit early yet.”

“I rest my case,” Jasper said to Lord Payne. It was one thing for Hermione to test her driving skills against the other members of the club, but quite another for her to be present at what was going on tonight in Payne's residence. He was hardly a prude, but this was insanity. And a group of men engaged in sport in large numbers like he'd seen tonight were prone to behave in reckless ways.

“Oh, tonight is not really a club function,” Payne said, waving away Jasper's disapproval. “I decided to have a bit of a large-scale sporting evening tonight. I daresay there are any number of fellows here who do not even belong to the club.”

“Which is why there are enough curricles to populate a small nation stretched round the square,” Jasper said dryly.

“Well, not every fellow in London with a curricle belongs to the club, Mainwaring,” said Payne primly. “But I daresay you are not here to discuss tonight's entertainment. Did you not celebrate your marriage today?”

It never failed to amaze Jasper how quickly gossip made its way through town. Even someone like Payne, who spent most of his time in company with men, was able to learn all there was to know almost as quickly as it happened.

“Indeed, I did,” Jasper said, inclining his head. “But as it happens, my bride was visited this morning by her neighbor at her father's house. A Miss Fleetwood.”

“And I am supposed to know the significance of this?” Payne asked, brows raised.

“She was the fiancée of the late Lord Saintcrow,” Jasper said baldly. “The fellow who cut short Lady Mainwaring's first foray as a member of the Lords of Anarchy. The one who was murdered the following day.”

“Aha.” Lord Payne set his glass down on the desk before him. “A terrible loss for us, the death of Saintcrow. I was shocked to hear he'd been killed in his own home. What is to become of us if ruffians are willing to venture into a man's home and kill him without a by-your-leave?”

“Miss Fleetwood informed Hermione that Saintcrow had become increasingly reckless once he began associating with the Lords of Anarchy,” Jasper informed the other man, watching carefully to see what his response to the accusation would be. “Do you have anything to say to that?”

“If I had a guinea for every time an overprotective lady blamed the club for her son, brother, husband, betrothed's descent into dissolution, Mainwaring, I'd be a wealthy man.”

“So you disagree with her characterization of her fiancé's dealings with the club?” Jasper asked. He was not surprised that Payne had not seemed surprised at the accusation. Clubs like his were considered the bane of polite society's existence in some quarters. Certainly those of ladies whose menfolk were drawn into so-called wicked behavior by them.

“I don't deny that Saintcrow enjoyed driving fast and drinking loud toasts afterward,” Payne said with a shrug. “But that hardly means he was headed for Hades. Indeed, if he was engaging in risky behavior it wasn't at club functions. He was not even a club member.”

“So you are aware of his risk-taking in other venues?” Jasper asked, hearing what the other man wasn't saying.

“Between the two of us,” Lord Payne said, picking up his glass again and staring at the amber liquid within, “there is a small faction of club members who have been giving me a bit of trouble.”

Jasper's senses went on alert. “How so?”

“You know what happened earlier this year when Sir Gerard was head of the club,” said Payne, referring to the man whose tenure as the president of the driving club had led not only to murder but also to its dissolution in the face of accusations of illegal fighting and threats from one of the most dangerous men in the London underworld, Smiling Jack O'Hara.

When Jasper nodded, Lord Payne continued, “Well, most of us were glad to see Sir Gerard gone. He took what had been a pleasant diversion and turned it into a place where most of us had to worry from one minute to the next about getting on the wrong side of the law. And I don't mind telling you, I don't have the bottle for that sort of thing. I am quite happy with my life as it is. And I got damned tired of explaining why I kept coming home with black eyes and bruised ribs.”

Payne might give the impression of being the sort of man who could hold his own—he was tall and beefy with the body of a laborer rather than that of a manicured aristocrat. Even so, looks didn't always hint at a man's true nature, and Jasper was well able to imagine that the viscount would not want the bother of involvement in illegal activities.

“So, there were others who were not so willing to leave the risk that Sir Gerard offered in the past?” he concluded.

“Precisely,” Payne said with a shake of his head. “I warned them that they would not use the club to run their backroom dealings and secret boxing matches.”