No Marriage of Convenience (20 page)

Suddenly he realized that perhaps he shouldn’t have been avoiding Riley’s practices, for it appeared the entire house was finding themselves engaged in rather questionable love affairs.

Especially given the moon-faced expression on Cousin Felicity’s face; the lady appeared as lovestruck as Louisa.

Gads, what was he in for now?

“I’m quite fine here, Uncle,” Louisa told him, edging closer to Roderick, who stood posed and glowering, just like the frustrated Geoffroi in the play.

“Oh, so am I,” Cousin Felicity said, in a show of solidarity.

“No, you are not,” Mason said. “Don’t you have some embroidery that needs attending, Cousin?”

“I would, but I am out of thread.” She turned to her new amour and said, “It is terrible trying to find the right shade of azure.”

Mr. Pettibone stepped forward and took Cousin Felicity’s hand. Drawing her fingers to his lips, he placed a lingering kiss there, then said, “Just look in a mirror and you’ll find the most royal shade of that color I’ve ever beheld in those glorious eyes of yours, my dearest lady.”

Mason shuddered at this overblown gallantry, before he caught Cousin Felicity’s elbow and retrieved the rest of her arm from her attentive suitor. “Perhaps you and Louisa can go find the right shade this afternoon,” he told her.

“Go shopping?” the delighted lady said. “Oh, Mason, how kind of you. Mr. Pettibone can assist us, Louisa.”

“Oh, no, he can’t,” Riley said, much to Mason’s relief. “Aggie has far too much work to do this afternoon.”

“But, Riley—” Mr. Pettibone started to say.

“No, Aggie,” Riley told him, moving between her partner and Cousin Felicity. “You have a fitting this afternoon with Jane and must wait at the theatre for the playbills to be delivered.”

Mr. Pettibone looked exceedingly put out, but he turned to Cousin Felicity and laid his hand on his breast. “We must not think of ourselves as parted, my love, but together always, here in our hearts. Our love is forged so that no one can tear it asunder.”

Mason heard Riley muttering something about having to cut those lines as well.

“I don’t see why I have to go,” Louisa complained. “Riley, tell my uncle you need me here.”

Riley glanced at Mason, who in turn shook his head. “We are done with the scenes I needed you for,” she said. “So you are free to go with Cousin Felicity.”

Louisa frowned, casting one last heartbreaking moue up at Mason, who held firm to his resolve and pointed toward the door.

The last thing he needed was a St. Clair running off with an actor and casting the entire family into shame.

His infatuation and growing admiration for the Queen’s Gate leading lady was enough scandal for now.

The waiter at White’s leaned over the gaming table and said quietly to Lord Cariston, “There is someone to see you, my lord.”

“What does he want?” he grumbled at the fellow.

“Perhaps the rest of your money, Cariston,” Colonel Pollard joked. His sturdy fingers tapped the pile of vowels in front of him—all of them the Marquis’s.

“That is, if there is anything left!” said a young lordling who’d joined the play early and also held a fair share of Lord Cariston’s vouchers.

Everyone but Cariston laughed.

The waiter shifted back and forth. “My lord, he says you asked to meet him regarding
certain matters
.”

“Yes, right.” Cariston rose from the table, his fellow gamblers complaining about his untimely departure.

“Business, eh, Cariston?” Colonel Pollard asked. “Should I send my man around to collect these now, or will there be anything left in the morning?” He laughed, as did the others.

Lord Cariston steamed at the insult, but hadn’t the wherewithal to call the man out. Pollard could as easily put a bullet between his eyes as beat him at cards. The man had the devil’s own luck, whereas Cariston seemed to have lost his—for now.

That would soon change, he thought, as he followed the waiter down the hall and through the kitchens.

In a few moments, Nutley would tell him that she was at long last gone from his life, and he would go on receiving the income he needed to maintain his more costly habits.

Stepping out into the alleyway behind the club, he found his hired assassin waiting for him.

Dressed as always in the guise of a gentleman, Nutley appeared bored and insulted at having been made to wait amongst the garbage.

As if he had a right to care where they met, Cariston thought. Looking around to see that there was no one about, he said, “How fares the lady, Nutley? Is she slumbering in the Thames yet?”

“No,” the man grumbled. “The little bitch has more lives than a cat.”

“You mean she still lives?”

“Just like I said. She ain’t dead.”

Cariston came eye to eye with his dangerous accomplice. “Why not?”

“I had it all fixed. Then he came along.”

“Ashlin.” Cariston’s hands balled at his sides. How he hated the man. Had since they’d been lads together at school.

“Yeah, that bookish fribble. Who’d have known he’d carry a blade?”

“You idiot,” Cariston said. “I told you not to discount the man.” He paced a few steps. “Why haven’t you gone back and finished the job?”

“I would, but she went and moved in with him. Have you seen that pile of stone?” He shook his head. “It will take a bit more gold to see the job done now.”

Lord Cariston turned on him. “You’ll do it for the price we agreed on, and you’ll do it immediately. I want her dead.”

“That’s hardly the tone to take with me, milord,” Nutley told him, pulling a knife from his jacket and putting it beneath Cariston’s neck. The point pressed against the fluttering vein there.

“I could slit you real easy and no one would care,” Nutley said. With that, he nicked his employer’s neck.

Cariston howled in pain. “How dare you,” he managed to sputter. “I’ll have the watch on you.”

“No, you won’t,” Nutley told him. “Because if you do, they’ll need a bed sheet to mop up what I’ll bleed from you.”

His guttural laugh echoed down the alley like a banshee’s promise, and by the time Cariston had looked up to see where he’d gone to, Nutley had disappeared into the night.

M
ason had never considered himself a coward before, but when it came to facing Riley and the girls now that he continued to remain obstinate about their not attending the Everton masquerade, he thought he might be safer going to a Royal Society meeting than spending another night at home.

Riley had not given up, and spent a part of each day badgering him on one reason or other as to why the girls deserved to go—they were making great strides in their lessons. Bea had gone three entire days without cursing. Maggie had mastered the steps to not one, but three dances.

Yet his pride kept him from explaining that his refusal was more a matter of money than manners.

Someone was buying up Freddie’s vowels at an alarming rate—and Mason had no doubts that this unknown creditor would soon be arriving on his doorstep demanding complete reparations.

With this added pressure to their already strained finances, Mason couldn’t see how they could spare even a shilling for costumes that would be worn only once.

Still, they needn’t be so put out, he thought, after an
other afternoon tea of sullen looks and steely quiet. He hadn’t given up on the idea that the girls would still have their Season, albeit a scaled-down one.

Besides, they were up to something, like cats watching an unsuspecting mouse, and he didn’t want to be around when they decided to pounce.

It also didn’t help that when it came to refusing Riley, he felt himself the veriest greenling. The lady, in all her guises, touched that part of his heart, that very unrepentant Ashlin core, to which he’d vowed never to succumb to its siren call of vice. And he knew with the right enticement, eventually he would fall prey to her requests and relent.

Much to his chagrin, the scheduled lecture at the Society had been cancelled, and the replacement speaker had been dull and unimaginative.

Throughout the speech he found himself wondering how Riley would be presenting the material—a very distracting notion indeed.

So he’d left at the first break and much to his surprise run into Del’s uncle, the Duke of Everton, on the steps of White’s.

He’d always liked Everton and looked up to him like a father, since his own dissolute sire had rarely had time for his children, especially a second son with no taste for drinking and gambling.

Glad for the chance for the erudite conversation the Duke always brought to the table, he accepted the man’s invitation to join him in a glass of port at their club. The rooms were still relatively quiet at such an early hour, so they could talk without interruption.

Unfortunately, the only subject Duke had wanted to talk about was Riley—where she was from, her lineage, how long Mason had known the girl, and why she’d come to London.

Mason had repeated the lies they’d shared with everyone else, trying to steer the Duke onto another subject, but the man would not be diverted.

Probably the work of Lady Delander, Mason thought. Sending her brother out to do her dirty work. Then again, perhaps the man was being overly cautious about who his nephew married.

Eventually he made his excuses and left, rather than continue to lie to a man he respected. At least at home he could hide in his study and not be interrogated.

His solitary walk home ended when he found Del lounging on his front steps, a wilted flower arrangement in his clenched hand. His friend’s horse pranced and snorted impatiently at the post.

“Your demmed butler will not let me in,” Del complained.

Mason crossed his arms over his chest. “That is because I told him not to let you have entrance to the house unless I was at home.”

Del sat up. “All these years of coming and going from this place as if it were my own and now even Belton is against me. I suppose that is why the poets are so inspired. The anguish. The agony. The pain of unrequited love.”

“I think you fell off that beast you insist on riding and hit your head. That might be the real cause of your agonies.”

Tossing aside his flowers, Del sighed. “Oh, heartless fiend. Oh, vile interloper. What would you know of my pain? You have hidden away the very angel sent down to cure me. I should have known that practical, cold heart of yours would never understand.”

“I understand you should go home and sleep off whatever you’ve been imbibing tonight.”

His horse snorted as if in agreement.

“You think I’m drunk?” Del asked. “Perhaps I am. But it is more from gazing into your cousin’s blue eyes…”

“Green,” Mason corrected.

“No, blue. They are like forget-me-nots in springtime.”

“No, they are green.”

“Aha!” Del said, staggering to his feet. It was then that Mason smelled the brandy wafting from the man in a thick French cloud. “So you have noticed her. And I suppose you are keeping her locked inside to prevent her from discovering that her heart truly does belong to me and not you?”

“Her heart is hers to give. And I assure you, it doesn’t belong to either of us.”

Del sighed. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

From the smell of the illegal alcohol filling the space between them, Mason would bet that Del had drunk a good portion of his departed father’s prized cognac.

“Don’t be all that sure,” Del repeated. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you. A lady does not gaze upon a man that way if she isn’t inclined.” He pounded his fist to his chest, nearly toppling himself over. “We poets know these things.”

Mason offered him a steadying arm. “So now you are not only an expert on love, but a poet as well.”

Del brightened. “Yes. Might give me an edge with your cousin. Seems a bit of a bluestocking, so I’ll court her with verse. That type loves poetry.”

“And am I to suppose you have spent the evening composing odes?” Taking his friend by the arm, Mason started to steer him down the steps, and toward the street.

“I have!” Del announced.

“Speak on, Lord Poet,” Mason told him.

Grinning from ear to ear, Del began, “There once was a girl from Dover—”

Mason groaned.

“What?” Del came to a wheeling halt. “Not literate enough for you, Lord Professor? I might not have the refined learning you boast, but you must admit it is an imaginative beginning.”

“Oh, yes, very imaginative,” Mason told him, getting him moving back down the square toward his mother’s residence. “However, my cousin isn’t from Dover.”

“I considered that,” Del told him. “Yet it rhymed so nicely with ‘rolled over’ that I couldn’t help taking a bit of a literary leap.”

“I’d say you took a large bounding one at that.”

Del considered this for a few more steps before it obviously dawned on him that he was being led away from his lovelorn post. “Oh, no, you don’t. I intend on staying on your front steps until she consents to be my wife.” He swung around and staggered back toward the house. “The bleak of night shall not deter me from true love’s path.” He tumbled back down on the steps and looked up at Mason. “What the devil is ‘bleak of night’?”

“Something I imagine you are going to discover by morning.”

Del nodded sagely. “’Twill probably make me a more perfect tragic poet, anguishing for my art and my lady love, don’t you think?”

“Oh, you’re something,” Mason told him, sitting down beside his friend.

Del whispered in a voice that carried all the way across the square, “After I’ve written the rest of my cantos or verses or whatever my masterpiece is called, I’ll see to my tailor about getting an entirely new wardrobe. Perhaps Mr. Pettibone will recommend me to his tailor. Now there is a man with a Continental sense of style.” He sighed and gazed up at the light in the second-story window. “Tell
me that is her room. I’ve seen her gazing down, and it is as if we have been looking into each other’s eyes forever. Even now I can feel the true meaning of love welling up inside me, for her face shines like the most brilliant moon, like Venus rising from the sea, like—”

“Oh, Del, leave off. That is Beatrice’s room.” Mason glanced up and saw the curtains in his niece’s room yanked back in place. “And whatever is coming up inside you is probably dinner from your mother’s house.”

“Well, it is all your fault I had to take dinner with her. She ordered me home this afternoon and started organizing my life, even decreed that the nursery be cleaned out.” Del dug around in his jacket and pulled out a large silver flask. “Putting the horse before the cart on that one, but you know my mother.” He took a long pull and then offered it to Mason.

Taking it, if only to keep his friend from drinking the rest, Mason took an appreciative sip from the flask and then stowed it in his own pocket.

“I well imagine,” Del said, “that she will have my heir’s nanny, tutor, and schools planned by the time I get home.”

“Your mother is an extraordinary woman,” Mason told his friend diplomatically.”

Del scuffed his feet against the stones. “I suppose you aren’t going to let me in tonight.”

“No,” Mason told him.

Del got up on his own and staggered over to his horse. Catching the mercurial animal by its reins, he grinned at Mason. “No use then,” he said, nodding once again at Beatrice’s window. “Bea’s room, you say? Should have known my Bea would be looking out for me even when you won’t.” His horse nuzzled at his pocket, and Del drew out a bit of sugar for it. “If only I could charm your cousin like I can horses.”

“I doubt sugar lumps will win the lady’s heart.”

Del nodded and straightened. For a moment his face became serious and all the vestiges of his cognac binge fell away. “If that were the case I would buy an island in the West Indies for her and bury her in sweet cane. But I doubt even that would turn her heart.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s obvious she’s in love with you.”

Riley eased back from the window and into the darkened room, trying to remember where she’d left off reviewing the scenes she’d brought with her.

She had told herself over and over she hadn’t sat up by the window most of the night waiting for Lord Ashlin…no, not at all.

And now that he was home, her heart suddenly started thumping about like it was an opening night.

Even worse, after all these hours of practice, she couldn’t recall a single line from her play.

All she could hear when she tried to recall her opening monologue as she stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by darkness, was the statement Lord Delander had just pronounced to everyone on Ashlin Square.

It’s obvious she’s in love with you.

Riley took a deep breath. Well, the only thing that was obvious was that Lord Delander was well into his cups. He had been when he’d arrived at around eleven and been denied entrance to the house.

She’d cracked open the window then and listened half amused as Belton had politely but firmly told the young man he was not welcome in the house.

Even with the door slammed in his face, Lord Delander had taken up his solitary post like a sentry in front of Whitehall.

Riley smiled to herself. The Viscount was persistent, but he wasn’t…

She stopped herself from finishing that thought.

“Oh, bother,” she muttered, creeping back to the window and watching the departing figure of Lord Delander lead his horse down the street. Moments later, the front door closed and she could hear murmured voices in the foyer.

Probably Mason and Belton.

Then the voices ended and the sound of footsteps, strong and commanding, coming up the stairs sent her scurrying into action. She picked up her script and started into Act Two with renewed vigor, even though the room was so dark now she could barely see the page.

Riley didn’t care—she’d done everything possible to distract herself from admitting she’d been worried about him.

She was only too aware that Mason’s finances had a stranglehold on him. He hadn’t said more than a handful of words to any of them in the last few days. She admired his determination to stand on his own two feet, but she also knew that pride alone wouldn’t put food in the larders. She’d done what she could do to help—recommending a cheaper grocer and coal supplier to Belton, but these were only salves to keep the household running.

Riley knew what everyone in the house knew—the only way to save the Ashlin name was for Mason to make a marriage of convenience.

The very idea made Riley heartsick, and in her distraction she tripped over a book she’d discarded hours ago and landed in an ignominious heap in the middle of the carpet.

She scrambled to pull herself up into a sitting position, and fumbled around for the offending book.

When Mason had left for the evening without a word to anyone, Riley had assumed he’d gone out to make his fortune—or rather, to court it.

Oh, what the devil had taken him so long? she wondered, as he continued his path up the stairs, his footsteps tolling every ominous image Riley could imagine…

Mason asking Miss Pindar to dance. Or fetching the nonpareil a glass of punch. Riley’s thoughts ran wild as she saw him in the dark confines of a carriage, the girl’s dainty hand tucked into his protective one.

Miss Dahlia, will you do me the honor of becoming my—

Oh, it wasn’t fair!

She wanted to be that woman. Like one of the heroines in her plays—a lost heiress, a plucky girl, separated from her family by adverse circumstances only to be rescued by a noble hero who recognized her aristocratic bearing through the grime and rags of her now lowly and humble station.

“As if,” she muttered.

Just then the door swung open, the light of a single candle casting a solitary shaft of light across the floor.

“Riley, is that you?” Mason asked.

Her heart skipped a beat. Was it her imagination, or did the man sound hopeful of finding her?

Plain old notorious and dishonorable Riley Fontaine.