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Authors: Maya Rodale

BOOK: The Rogue and the Rival
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“We all fall from time to time, my dear,” Lady Palmerston said with a faraway look in her eyes, and Angela knew her aunt was speaking of her own experience. “But we stand up again, too.”

 

Chapter 20
THE FOLLOWING DAY
 
If
sitting in Lady Palmerston’s drawing room listening to his past sins was akin to the eighth circle of hell, then Phillip did not dare to think of what kind of torture it would be to actually call upon all these women.
He knew he wasn’t guilty of even half of the things whispered about him. But that still left a lot to repent for. But if all Angela wished for was an apology, and if these women felt the same way, then he could do that. All he had to do was show up and say that he was sorry.
He very much was.
It only took one quick glance at Angela and the smile she gave him to remind him of why.
“The first was Miss Emily Preston, the seventh daughter of Baron Raglan. The last I heard, she had returned to the country. Oxfordshire, I believe,” Lady Palmerston said. “She didn’t last long in London. Not even a month, I think.”
“How many years ago was this?” Angela asked.
“Nine, I believe,” Lady Palmerston said.
“And the next one?” Phillip asked, urging her to continue to get this over with. Vague recollections began to filter through his mind, but he did not want to entertain them now.
“And then there is Lila Althorp, although she is a countess now,” Lady Palmerston said, smiling fondly. “Prinny himself gave her and her husband the earldom. I was at their wedding.”
“Really?” Phillip was surprised, and he thought that he wouldn’t have been if he read the papers like everyone else. But she was married, and acknowledged by the king, so really, he couldn’t have ruined her too thoroughly.
“Oh, I remember reading about this now,” Angela added. “She had become a spy, as was her husband. The earldom was a reward for their service to the country.”
“Phillip, she was the one you ruined within an hour of her coming-out ball,” Lady Palmerston reminded him.
“Oh right. Nothing really happened to her. We were caught within five minutes of leaving the ballroom. Not enough time to—”
“But still, you were caught,” Lady Palmerston cut in. “Then there is Christine Grey.”
“We’ll skip her, of course,” Phillip said. If anything, they were even now.
“No. She obviously still harbors ill will toward you and demonstrated that she will act on it,” Angela answered. “And furthermore—”
“Don’t even say what I fear you are thinking,” Phillip said wearily.
“I’m curious to see what a brothel looks like,” Angela said with a shrug.
“I confess I am curious as well,” Lady Palmerston added.
“Her sort doesn’t live in a brothel. She likely lives in some grand apartment that some poor sop pays an arm and a leg for. And
we
are not going. Your reputations would never recover if you were seen.”
“Oh, now you have an attack of propriety,” Angela retorted.
“Just in time to ruin our fun,” Lady Palmerston said, miffed.
“You think all of this is fun?”
“I think that you are not going to call on her alone,” Angela stated firmly.
“The last one is Lady Grafton,” Lady Palmerston continued. “She lives in the country, alone, with her son.”
His son, actually, if the rumors were true. He didn’t think he needed to mention that. Judging by the silence in the room, Phillip knew they were all thinking of the same thing: Were the rumors true?
He had never seen the child and had never planned to. But what if he did have a son? The thought was too overwhelming to contemplate, so he ignored it, as he had always done.
“I made up an itinerary for us earlier this morning. I could have sworn that I brought it downstairs,” Lady Palmerston muttered, while rummaging through the stack of newspapers and invitations on the small table at the side of her chair.
“Perhaps you left it on your writing desk upstairs,” Angela suggested. She was a terrible liar, because she looked all too pleased with herself for having thought of a way to steal a moment alone with him. Lady Palmerston gave her a look of annoyance mixed with pride. She gave a look of unmistakable warning to Phillip.
“I shall be back in a moment,” she declared, before stepping out into the hall. The drawing room doors were left slightly ajar.
Angela knew that she was asking a lot of Phillip. But broken trust was a hard thing to repair. Doubt was something not easily soothed. Heartache may not be fatal after the first bout, or even the second, but Angela did not dare risk a broken heart for a third time.
She didn’t doubt that Phillip loved her. She simply wasn’t sure if love was enough. She had trusted her heart and her happiness to someone else’s care twice.
Both men had left.
But both men had returned.
She believed in second chances. But that didn’t mean she needed to make the same mistake twice.
And she had to admit to herself that it wasn’t just Phillip she didn’t really trust. It was herself. And that was why she easily agreed to go with Phillip on this ridiculous errand. And she was glad that her aunt was coming with her. Lady Palmerston wouldn’t let her give her heart and her body away too easily again, even if she gave Angela plenty of opportunities to do so.
“Phillip, thank you.”
“Shhh.”
He kept his finger over her lips to keep her from speaking, and she was glad. She didn’t know what to say. And then he pressed his mouth to hers.
She couldn’t help but yield to the pressure. She parted her lips, and he took full advantage. This was not a battle she wanted to fight. She surrendered quickly and easily, yet feeling like she still managed to attain the prize, a pleasure she had never quite stopped longing for.
And then thoughts surrendered to sensation. His breath became hers, and hers his. He was the source and the reason for the waves of heat she was feeling. Phillip was the reason her skin tingled, anticipating his touch. She had hungered for this, and he had, too; some things a girl just
knew.
Just as she knew that it was his kiss and no one else’s that seemed to wake up all the dormant parts inside of her.
Just as she also knew that if this kiss didn’t stop
now
, they would end up making love on the floor of Lady Palmerston’s drawing room.
At the sound of her aunt descending the stairs, they both pulled back. When Lady Palmerston entered, she saw nothing compromising, although both Phillip and Angela looked a little bit happier.
 
Phillip left Lady Palmerston and Angela and walked to White’s, since he had agreed to meet Parkhurst. Upon his arrival, he was pleased to discover that his club membership to White’s had not expired in his long absence from town.
Phillip passed card games in progress. Though it pained him to do so, he declined offers to join in. He found Parkhurst in the back room, drinking a brandy and watching a billiards game. Once the last ball was sunk, a new group left their seats to take their turn wagering large sums of money on a mere game. Phillip longed to join them, but instead he and Parkhurst found two empty leather chairs.
A waiter brought each of them a brandy. Phillip still did love the feel of a snifter of brandy in his hand. And explaining to Parkhurst that he didn’t feel like drinking would be a harder task than explaining why he didn’t feel like breathing. It was easier just to place it on the side table and pick it up and hold it from time to time.
“Ah,” Parkhurst exhaled after taking a sip of his drink, “a respite from the plague of females in my house.”
“Your wife doesn’t complain that you spend so much time here?”
“Hell no. I think it was written into the contracts that a portion always be set aside for my membership. Gets me out of the house and out of her way. It was only under the threat of my mother cutting me off that I married in the first place.”
“How is the old woman?”
“Still calling three times a week. Just survived another session. You came up, in fact.”
“I always do. But what have I done lately?”
“Your entrance at the ball merited at least ten minutes of discussion—almost entirely on her part. My contribution was that all you did was walk into a room, and it was not that interesting.
“I agree.”
“But then you had to go and punch out that Frost fellow last night. That merited a lecture on the lamentable state of men’s morals and inability to control their tempers and their fists. But what everyone, including my mother, is far more interested in is the reason you knocked him out. It was because of that Miss Sullivan, they say. A few people saw her leaving the scene. The saving grace is that Lady Palmerston was with her.”
“Between you and me, Parkhurst, I did beat that man senseless because of Angela.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Parkhurst said slowly, with an idiotic grin. “Never thought I’d live to see the day that you’d fight over a woman.”
“She’s not just any woman,” Phillip said.
“Clearly. And I’m not the only one who finds the whole thing shocking. You should see some of the wagers in the betting book. I was having a look before you arrived.”
“What is everyone betting on?”
“Well, since you and Frost were both seen following Angela out of the gardens, after fighting, everyone is betting on which one of you she’ll marry. Because she has to marry one of you or leave town indefinitely, according to my mother.”
“I’m guessing the odds are not in my favor,” Phillip mused.
“Definitely not. But, damn, Phillip, if you bet on yourself, and won, you’d be filthy rich.”
“Do you think, Parkhurst, that it’s fair to wager on myself, given that I can control the outcome?”
“You can’t, though. It’s up to the girl, isn’t it?”
“You do have a point,” Phillip conceded. He picked up his glass of brandy, only to set it back down without taking a sip.
“For once in my life,” Parkhurst muttered, though obviously pleased with himself.
“Do you think Angela will be angry if she finds out that I bet on our marriage?” Phillip asked, even though Parkhurst had absolutely no way of knowing.
“Who says she’ll find out?” Parkhurst said with a shrug and then a sip of brandy.
Phillip gave Parkhurst a look of disbelief.
“If we have learned anything, my friend, it’s that women talk.”
“Yes, but they can’t talk about what they don’t know about.” Parkhurst appeared smug, thinking he had made another point, and Phillip wished he had spoken the truth.
“First of all, they can and they do,” Phillip began his lecture. “It’s called speculation, which eventually snowballs into something ‘heard on good authority.’ And furthermore, all it takes it one idiot to comment on the wager a little too loudly to another idiot. A woman is bound to overhear, and she’ll tell someone, who will tell someone else, all in the strictest confidence, of course, and that person will then—”
“Enough. I get it! Maybe Angela will think it’s romantic,” Parkhurst said with a shrug, and saying the word
romantic
as if for the first time.
She might.
She might not.
If he made the wager and lost, well, he’d rather lose all the money in the world than her. It wouldn’t matter. In the end, though, he placed his bet because he couldn’t resist betting on himself for the first time in his life.

 

Chapter 21
The
following day, Lucas, still in his habit of keeping a watchful eye on Angela and Lady Palmerston’s town house, witnessed the incomprehensible sight of Huntley arriving at Lady Palmerston’s house. With luggage.
But that was not to be dwelt upon, because an even more wretched sight played out before his eyes. Footmen were securing luggage to Lady Palmerston’s lavender-colored carriage. He watched as she entered the carriage, followed by Angela. Phillip joined the ladies, and two maids followed in a second carriage.

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