Authors: Judith McNaught
Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #England, #Historical Fiction, #Americans - England, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #Americans, #Amnesia, #Historical, #English Fiction, #General, #Love Stories
Until You (27 page)
Their wives, who had gathered in the blue salon to discuss the situation, were of a like opinion.
Whitney slumped back in her chair, staring dully at her hands, then she glanced around at her coconspirators, including the dowager duchess. "It was a mistake," she told her mother-in-law, who'd watched the "show" from the window of her bedchamber.
"I felt like crying when he ignored her gesture," Alexandra said with an ache in her voice. "Sheridan was so brave about it, so open, and so terribly vulnerable." She looked over her shoulder to politely include Miss Charity in the conversation, but the elderly lady had nothing to say. She sat on the window seat, her brow furrowed in concentration, looking straight ahead, giving the impression that she was either listening intently or not listening at all.
"We still have another full day and evening," Stephen's mother said. "He might soften by then."
Whitney shook her head. "He won't. I was counting on proximity to make him listen, but even if he listened, he wouldn't change his mind. I realize that now. For one thing, I discovered earlier that he knows she went to Nicki the day she left his house, and you know how he feels about Nicki."
Miss Charity turned her head sharply at that, her frown deepening with intense concentration.
"The thing is that Stephen wouldn't believe anything Sherry says without proof. Her actions spoke so loudly that nothing else matters. Someone would have to present him with some other viable reason for her to have run away—" She broke off as Miss Charity stood up and walked silently out of the room. "I don't think Miss Charity is holding up very well under the added stress of all this."
"She told me she finds it all very exciting," the dowager announced with an irritated sigh.
From Sheridan's perspective as she stood at the window of her room and watched Stephen laugh at something Monica said to him, the situation looked even more bleak. She couldn't get him off alone to try to talk to him because he clearly wouldn't cooperate with anything she wanted, and she couldn't talk to him in front of the others because she'd tried to communicate with him when she gave him her "favor," and that had been a disaster.
S
tephen's decision to ignore her existence became harder and harder to adhere to as evening drifted into night, and he saw her hovering on the edge of the torchlit area where the tables had been set up for supper. The shock of seeing her had fortified him for the first few hours, but now he no longer had the advantage of that barrier. Standing off to one side, behind the other guests, his shoulders propped against an oak tree, he could watch her without being observed, while the memories he couldn't seem to stifle paraded across his mind.
He saw her standing outside his study doors, talking to the under-butler. "
Good morning, Hodgkin. You're looking especially fine today. Is that a new suit
?"
"Yes, miss. Thank you, miss."
"
I have a new gown
," she'd confided, doing a pirouette for the under-butler's inspection. "
Isn't it lovely
?"
A few minutes later, when Stephen had stalled for time before he told her he wanted her to look for another husband, he'd asked why she hadn't read the magazines he'd ordered for her.
"
Did you actually look at any of them
?" she'd asked, making him grin even before she embarked on her description. "
There was one called
The Ladies Monthly Museum, or Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction: being an Assemblage of what can Tend to please the Fancy, Instruct the Mind or Exalt the Character of the British Fair," she'd explained. "
The article in it was about how to rouge one's cheeks! It was absolutely riveting
," she'd lied with an irrepressible smile. "
Do you suppose such an article falls under the heading of 'Instructing the Mind' or of 'Exalting the Character?"
But most of all, he remembered how she felt when she melted in his arms, the sweet generosity of that romantic mouth of hers. She was a natural temptress, Stephen decided. What she lacked in expertise she more than made up for with willing passion.
A few minutes ago, she'd gone into the house to get the Skeffington boys, who were evidently going to sing for the amusement of the guests, and when she emerged, he could see she was carrying some sort of an instrument. He had to drag his gaze from her and force himself to stare at the brandy glass he held, so that he wouldn't meet her gaze and wouldn't start wanting her.
Wouldn't
start
wanting her? he thought with bitter disgust. He had started wanting her the moment she opened her eyes in his bed in London, and he wanted her no less badly now, within hours of seeing her again. Clad in that plain gown with her hair scraped back off her forehead and twisted into a stern coil at her nape, she made his body harden with lust.
He glanced at Monica and Georgette who were talking to his mother. They were both beautiful women—beautifully gowned, one in yellow and the other in rose, beautifully coiffed,
and
beautifully behaved. Neither one of them would have considered dressing like a groom and galloping about on that damned horse.
But then, neither one of them would have looked so glorious had they tried.
Neither one of them would have offered him a grain sack with a beguiling smile and pretended she was bestowing a "favor" upon him.
But then, neither one of them would have been brazen enough to gaze into his eyes,
inviting
him to pull her into his arms,
daring
him to do it.
In the past, he'd thought of Sheridan Bromleigh as a sorceress, and as the first strains of music began to throb from the instrument she was playing, the thought hit him again. She mesmerized everyone, especially him. Conversations among the guests had broken off completely, and even the servants were pausing to look at her, to listen in awe. Stephen glowered at the brandy in his glass, trying not to look at her, but he could actually feel her gaze on him. She'd looked at him often enough tonight to make that likely. The glances were always soft, always inviting, sometimes pleading. They infuriated Monica and Georgette, who were confused and disdainful of how forward she was, but then Stephen hadn't had his hands all over either of their bodies. Sheridan alone knew exactly what she could make him want… and make him remember.
Furious with his weakening resolve, Stephen shoved away from the tree and put his glass down on the nearest table, then he bade the guests good night and headed for his room, intending to drink himself into a private stupor if that's what it would take to keep him from going to her.
H
er head reeling from the tension of the day, Sheridan opened the door to the small bedchamber across from the playroom. Moving cautiously in the dark, unfamiliar room, she found the bureau and felt for the tinder to light the candles in the holder on her bureau. She was in the process of lighting the fourth candle when a deep masculine voice made her choke back a startled scream as it said, "I don't think we're going to need much light."
She spun around, her hand falling away from her mouth, her heart beginning to beat in deep, fierce thuds of pure joy. Stephen Westmoreland was sitting in the room's only chair, the image of relaxed elegance with his white shirt open at the throat and one booted foot propped casually atop the opposite knee. Even his expression was casual. Too casual. Somewhere in her whirling thoughts she registered that he was treating this momentous meeting with a cool nonchalance that didn't seem at all appropriate, but she was so happy to see him, so achingly thrilled to have him this close, and so much in love with him that nothing mattered. Nothing.
"As I recall," he said in the lazy, sensual drawl that always made her heart melt, "the last time I waited for you we were planning a wedding."
"I know and I can explain," she said. "I—"
"I didn't come up here for conversation," he interrupted. "Downstairs, I had the distinct impression you were offering me a great deal more than talk. Or did I mistake the matter?"
"No," she whispered.
Stephen looked at her in impassive silence, noting with the eye of a connoisseur, not the besotted fool that he'd been, that she was every bit as enticing and exotic as he'd recalled… except for the severe style of her hair. He didn't like that look, especially not when he was letting lust and revenge drive him to consort with this scheming, ambitious slut who looked more like a prim virgin at the moment. "Take the pins out of your hair," he instructed with curt impatience.
Startled by the request and his tone of command, Sheridan obeyed, reaching up and pulling out the dozen or so pins it took to hold the heavy mass securely in its coil. She turned to drop them on the bureau, and when she turned back, he was standing, slowly unbuttoning his shirt.
"What are you doing?" she gasped.
What was he doing
? Stephen wondered savagely. What the hell was he doing up here, invited or otherwise, dallying with the same woman who'd left him without a word on their wedding day? In answer to her question, he reached for his neckcloth. "What I am doing is leaving," he clipped, already stalking the three steps to the door.
"No!" The word burst out of her. "Don't leave!"
Stephen turned, intending to give her the scathing reply she deserved, but she flung herself against his chest, all soft, entreating woman, drugging his senses with the sudden familiar scent and feel of her. "Please don't go." She was crying, her nails biting into his shoulders, and still he kept his hands at his sides, but he was losing the battle, and he knew it. "Just let me explain… I love you…"
He grabbed her face between his hands to silence her, his eyes already on her parted lips. "Understand this. There is nothing you could say that I would believe. Nothing!"
"Then I'll show you," Sheridan said fiercely, clutching his neck as she crushed herself against him and kissed him with that strange combination of naive inexpertise and instinctive sensuality that used to drive him wild.
And still did. Shoving his hands hard into the soft hair at her nape, Stephen kissed her back, forcing her to show him the sensual desire she was making him feel. With the last thread of rationality he possessed, he lifted his mouth an inch from hers, and gave her one last chance to call a halt. "Are you sure?"
"I know what I'm doing."
He took what she was offering, took what he had wanted from the first moment he'd touched her. He took it mindlessly, driven by a violent compulsion to have her, he took with a determination and urgency and hunger that stunned and aroused him. A wild, primitive mating for him and yet one he wanted—needed—to know was as exciting for her. Pride drove him to make certain she wanted him with a desperation that matched his, and he used all his sexual experience to battle down the defenses of an inexperienced girl who hadn't any idea how to withstand it. He shoved his finger deep into her wet warmth, drawing hard on her taut nipple until she was arching and crying and clutching him tightly. Then and only then did he take her, parting her thighs with both hands and driving into her with just enough restraint to keep from shoving her into the headboard, and he felt her body jerk with pain and her nails bite into his back, heard her muffled cry of shock and pain, and he froze. "
I know what I'm doing
."
With dread and confusion he forced his eyes open. Hers were damp with tears, devoid of either accusation or triumph for having gotten him to do this for whatever reason she could have had. Her choked, whispered words reinforced the drugging expression in her eyes as she curved her hands over his taut shoulders. "Hold me," she whispered magically. A gentle benediction. "Please…"
Stephen complied, letting the mindless pleasure overtake him again. Wrapping his arms around her, he took her mouth in a stormy demanding kiss and felt her hands shifting softly over his shoulders, gentling him at the same time her melting body was welcoming him, sheathing him, offering them both release… offering and offering and offering…
Every nerve in his body was screaming for release and still he held himself back, driving deeply into her, while the muscles in his arms strained with the rest of his body, refusing to deprive her of the same pleasure she was going to give him any second now. She was whimpering, eyes closed tightly, desperate for something she didn't understand, afraid to have it. Afraid not to. Sobbing with desire, needing reassurance. He gave it to her in a hoarse whisper. "… Any second now…"
She went up in flames before he finished the sentence, her body clenching his, and Stephen heard himself groan with the extravagant splendor she was somehow making him feel. And then he gave himself over to it, driving toward it… and then past it, climaxing, his body jerking as he poured himself into her.
Whatever thoughts of revenge and wounded pride had driven him to bed her, they were forgotten as he wrapped his arms around her back and hips and pulled her with him onto his side. She was too magnificent to be used for vengeance, too exquisitely soft in his arms to be anywhere else. From the first moment his mouth touched hers, he'd known they were an oddly combustible combination, but what had just passed had been the most wildly erotic, satisfying sexual encounter of his life. Lying there while she slept in his arms, he marvelled at the heady, primitive sensuality of her. Whatever she'd felt during their coupling had been real—that was one of the few things about her he did not doubt. That at least was real and uncontrived. No woman on earth could have feigned those responses, not without a great deal of practice, and as he now knew, she'd had no practice at all.
Sheridan awoke alone in her bed, which seemed normal enough and yet… not. Her eyes snapped open, she saw him sitting in the chair beside the bed, and sweet relief flooded through her. He was dressed already, his shirt open at the front, his handsome face unreadable. Self-consciously, she drew the sheets up to her breasts and sat up against the pillows, wondering a little desperately how he could look so utterly casual after the things they had just done. Somewhere at the edges of her mind, she was beginning to realize they were shameful things, but she shut the thought out. His eyes dipped to the sheet she was clutching to her breasts, then slowly lifted to her face, telling her as clearly as if he had spoken that he was amused by her modesty. Sheridan couldn't blame him for that, but she wished he didn't look quite so nonchalant or quite so amused or quite so distant… not when she was struggling to look even a little normal in the aftermath of the things they had done with each other. On the other hand, she realized, he no longer looked cold or cynical or angry, and that struck her as a wondrous change. Tucking the sheet tightly under her arms, she drew up her knees and linked her fingers around them. "Can we talk now?" she began.
"Why don't you let me begin?" Stephen suggested blandly.
Not that eager to bring up the matter of Charise Lancaster when things seemed almost cozy, Sheridan nodded.
"I have an offer to make to you." He saw her eyes kindle with happiness at the word "offer" and could not believe she thought him stupid enough to actually suggest marriage. "A
business proposition
, "he emphasized. "Once you've had time to consider it, I think you'll find it sensible for both of us. Certainly, you'll find it preferable to working for the Skeffingtons."
Uneasiness doused Sheridan's momentary happiness at his mention of an offer. "What sort of proposition?"
"It's obvious that despite our many differences, we are extremely compatible, sexually."
She couldn't believe he could sit there and describe the stormy intimacies they had just shared with such clinical calm. "What is your proposition?" she asked shakily.
"You share my bed when I'm wishful of your body. In return for that, you will have a home of your own, servants, gowns, a coach, and the freedom to do as you please so long as no other man is given the use of what I'm already paying for."
"You're suggesting I become your mistress," she said dully.
"Why not? You're ambitious and clever, and it's a hell of a lot better than what you're doing now." When she didn't respond, Stephen said in a bored drawl, "Please tell me you didn't expect me to offer to
marry
you because of what just happened. Tell me you aren't that naive or that stupid."
Flinching from the sting of his tone, Sherry looked at his hard, handsome face, at the cynicism she hadn't recognized in his eyes before. Swallowing convulsively, she shook her head and answered him honestly. "I did not know what to expect, of anything we did, but I did not expect it would make you ask me to marry you."
"Good. There's been enough deceit and misunderstanding between us before. I wouldn't like to think you misled yourself."
He thought he saw the sheen of disappointed tears in her wide gray eyes and stood up, pressing a perfunctory kiss on her forehead. "At least you are wise enough not to indulge in a fit of ire over my offer. Think about it," he said.
Sherry stared at him in mute misery as he added with a chilling bite in his voice, "Before you decide, there's a warning I feel obliged to give you. If you ever lie to me about anything, ever—just one time—I will throw you out on the street." He reached for the door as he added over his shoulder, "There's one more thing—Don't ever say 'I love you' to me. I never want to hear those words from you again."
Without another word or a backward glance, he walked out. Sherry laid her forehead on her knees and let the tears slide, but she was crying for her own lack of character and restraint when he took her in his arms, and for actually being tempted, for just a few moments, to accept his indecent, coldhearted proposal.
T
he full realization of what she had done last night had set in long before Sheridan dragged herself out of bed and got dressed the next morning. In the bright light of full day, there was no way to deny the awful truth: she had sacrificed her virtue, her principles, and her morals, and now she would have to live with the shame of that until the end of her life.
She had done it all in one desperate gamble to regain his love—if he had ever really loved her—and how had he reacted to the enormity of her deed? The agonizing answer to that question was below her bedchamber window—on the side lawn, where everyone was having luncheon—and it was there for her to see in every humiliating detail: the man she had lain with last night was dining with Monica, who was turning herself inside out to entertain him, and he looked perfectly willing to be entertained this morning. As Sheridan watched from her window, he leaned back in his chair, his gaze intent on Monica's face, then he threw back his head, laughing at whatever she was telling him.
Sheridan was a mass of shame and anxiety, while
he
looked more contented and more relaxed than she had ever seen him. Last night, he had taken everything she had to give and thrown it in her face with an offer to prolong her humiliation by making her his mistress. Today, he was socializing with a woman who'd never have been stupid enough to do what Sheridan had… a woman worthy of his own inflated opinion of himself, she thought bitterly. A woman to whom he would offer marriage, not some tainted liaison in exchange for her virtue.
All those thoughts and more marched through Sheridan's tormented mind as she stood at the window, staring down at him, refusing to cry. She
wanted
to remember this scene, she wanted to remember it every single moment of her life, so that she would never, ever soften in her thoughts of him. She stood still, welcoming the icy numbness that was sweeping away her anguish and demolishing all her tender feelings for him. "
Bastard
," she whispered aloud.
"May I come in?"
Sheridan started and whirled around at the sound of Julianna's voice. "Yes, of course," she said, trying for a bright smile that felt as strained as her voice sounded.
"I saw you standing up here when I was having breakfast. Would you like me to bring something up here for you?"
"No, I'm not hungry, but thank you for thinking of me." Sheridan hesitated, knowing some explanation was in order for her behavior yesterday when she had offered Stephen her favor, but she hadn't been able to think of a single reasonable excuse.
"I was wondering if you would like to leave here?"
"Leave?" Sheridan said, trying not to sound as desperate as she felt to do exactly that. "We aren't to leave until tomorrow."
Julianna walked over to the window and stood beside her, quietly looking down at the same tableau that Sheridan had been torturing herself with. "Julianna, I feel I ought to explain about what happened yesterday, when I said what I did to the Earl of Langford about holding him in deepest respect."
"You don't need to explain," Julianna answered with a reassuring smile that made Sheridan feel like the seventeen-year-old ingénue instead of her paid chaperone.
"Yes, I do," Sheridan persevered doggedly. "I know how much your mother was hoping for a match between you and Lord Westmoreland, and I know you must wonder why I—why I behaved to him in such a
forward
, and
familiar
way."
In what seemed like a change of subject, Julianna said, "Several weeks ago, Mama was quite despondent. In fact, I remember that it was less than a week before you came to stay with us."
Seizing her conversational reprieve like the coward she was at the moment, Sheridan said brightly, "Why was your mama upset?"
"Langford's betrothal was announced in the paper."
"Oh."
"Yes. His fiancée was American."
Uneasy under the unwavering gaze of those violet eyes, Sherry said nothing.
"There was some gossip about her, and you know how Mama adores being privy to any gossip about the ton. His fiancée reportedly had red hair—very, very red hair. And he called her 'Sherry.' They said she'd lost her memory due to a blow to the head, but that she was expected to recover quickly."
Sheridan made one more bid for anonymity. "Why are you telling me this?"
"So you'll know you can ask me for help if you need it. And because you are the real reason we were invited here. I realized that something was very strange when I saw the way Lord Westmoreland reacted to seeing you at the pond yesterday. I'm surprised Mama hasn't figured out what's in the wind."
"There is nothing in the wind," Sheridan said fiercely. "The whole awful matter is closed, over."
She tipped her head toward Monica and Georgette. "Do they know who you are?"
"No. I'd never met them when I was—" Sheridan broke off as she started to say,
When I was Charise Lancaster
.
"When you were betrothed to him?"
Sheridan drew in a long breath and then reluctantly nodded.
"Would you like to go home?"
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in Sheridan. "If I had anything to trade for the opportunity, I'd do it in a trice."
Julianna turned on her heel and started from the room. "Start packing," she said with a conspiratorial smile over her shoulder.
"Wait—what are you going to do?"
"I am about to draw Papa aside and tell him I'm feeling unwell and you must accompany me home. We'll not be able to pry Mama out of here early, but she will not want me to stay and give Langford a disgust of me by becoming quite terribly ill in front of him. Would you believe," she said with an incorrigible laugh, "she
still
cherishes hope that he'll look up at any moment and fall madly in love with me, despite everything that should be very obvious to her."
She was closing the door when Sherry called to her, and she poked her head back into the room. "Would you tell the duchess I'd like to see her before we leave?"
"All the ladies left for the village a bit ago, with the exception of Langford's ladies, that is, and Miss Charity."
The last time Sheridan had left them, she'd made herself look guilty and ungrateful. This time, she did not intend to flee in secret. She intended only to flee. "Would you ask Miss Charity to come up then?" When Julianna nodded, Sheridan added, "And don't say a word about our departure to anyone except your father. I intend to tell the earl myself, face to face."
M
iss Charity's face fell as Sheridan explained that she was leaving.
"But you haven't had a chance yet to speak to Langford alone and make him understand exactly why you disappeared," she argued.
"I had that chance last night," Sherry said bitterly. She glanced at her bedroom window as she packed the few things she'd brought into a valise. "The result is out there."
Charity walked over to the window and looked down at the two women who were entertaining the earl. "How very vexing men are. He does not care in the least about either of those two women, you know."
"He does not care about me either."
Charity sat down on the chair, and Sheridan thought poignantly of the first time she'd seen her and been reminded of a china doll. She looked like one now—a very perplexed, unhappy one.
"Did you explain to him why you ran away and never came back?"
"No."
"Why
did
you do it?"
The question came so quickly that it took Sheridan aback. "I told you most of it yesterday. One minute I thought I was Charise Lancaster, and the next minute, Charise was standing there, accusing me of deliberately impersonating her, and threatening to tell Stephen that. I panicked and ran, but before I could recover from the shock of realizing who I really am, I began to realize that everyone else had been lying to me about who
they
were. Among the things I remembered was that Charise had been betrothed to a baron, not an earl, whose name was Burleton, not Westmoreland. I wanted answers, I needed them, and so I went to see Nicholas DuVille. He at least was honest enough to tell me the truth."
"What truth did he tell you, dear?"
Still embarrassed by what she had learned, Sheridan looked away and pretended to check the neatness of her hair in the mirror as she said, "All of it. Every mortifying bit of it, beginning with Lord Burleton's death and why Stephen felt obliged to find another fiancé for me—for Charise Lancaster, I mean. He told me everything," Sheridan finished, pausing to swallow over the lump of humiliated tears in her throat as she thought of her gullible belief that Stephen had wanted to marry her. That same deadly streak of naiveté had led her to sacrifice her virginity and her pride to him last night. "He even explained the greatest mystery of all, though I let myself believe otherwise when I talked to all of you yesterday."
"What mystery was that?"
Sheridan's laugh was choked and bitter. "Stephen's sudden proposal of marriage, the night we went to Almack's, coincided exactly with the news he'd received earlier that day of Charise's father's death. He proposed to me out of pity and responsibility, not because he cared for me or even wanted to marry me."
"It was very bad of Nicholas to put it exactly that way."
"He didn't have to. I am only a fool when it comes to that man out there."
"And you discussed all this with Langford last night?"
"I tried, but he said he wasn't interested in conversation," Sheridan said bitterly as she picked up her valise.
"What
was
he interested in?" Charity tipped her head inquiringly to the side.
Something about the sudden way she asked made Sheridan look swiftly at her. There were times when she wasn't certain whether the Duke of Stanhope's sister was quite so vague as she seemed, times like right now, when she was studying the hot flush staining Sheridan's cheeks with a distinctly knowing look. "I suppose he would be interested in proof of my innocence, if he were interested in me at all, which he is not," she evaded hastily. "When you look at it from his side, which I tried to do yesterday and last night, I ran away and hid because I was guilty. What other excuse could I have had?"
Charity stood up and Sheridan looked at her, knowing that she was never going to see her again, and tears burned the back of her eyes as she enfolded the tiny lady in a swift hug. "Tell everyone good-bye for me, and tell them I know they truly tried to help."
"There must be something else I can do," Charity said, her face looking as if it were going to crumple.
"There is," Sheridan said with a fixed, confident smile. "Please tell his lordship that I would like to see him privately for a moment. Ask him to meet me in that little salon immediately off the front hall."
When Charity left to do that, Sheridan drew a steadying breath and walked over to the window, watching a few minutes later as Charity went over to him and delivered the message. He got up so quickly, striding swiftly toward the house, that Sheridan felt a sharp stab of hope that perhaps—just perhaps—he wasn't going to let her leave. Perhaps he would beg her forgiveness for his callousness last night and ask her to stay.
As she walked down the steps she couldn't stop herself from indulging in that last, tormentingly sweet fantasy. The frail hope made her heart accelerate as she walked into the salon and closed the door, but the hope began to die the instant he turned and looked at her. Clad in a shirt and riding breeches, with his hands shoved into his pockets, he looked not only casual, but supremely unconcerned. "You wanted to see me?" he suggested mildly.
He was standing in the middle of the small room, and a few steps brought her almost to within arm's reach of him. Displaying a calm she didn't at all feel, Sheridan nodded and said, "I came to tell you I'm leaving. I didn't want to simply disappear this time, as I did the last."
She waited, searching that hard, sardonic face for some sign that he felt something, anything, for her, for the fact that she was leaving, for the gift of her body. Instead, he lifted his brows as if silently asking her what she expected him to do about it.
"I'm not accepting your offer," Sheridan clarified, unable to believe he could be so completely uninterested in a decision that affected her entire life—a decision made after a night spent in his arms, after she had surrendered her virginity and her honor to him.
He lifted his broad shoulders in a slight shrug and said in an indifferent voice, "Fine."
That did it—that single bored word sent her from the depths of humiliated despair to a fury that was almost uncontainable. Turning on her heel, she started to walk out on him, then she stopped and turned back.
"Was there something else?" he prodded, looking impatient and unconcerned.
Sheridan was so infuriated, and so
pleased
with her intention, that she actually gave him a bright, disarming smile as she stepped up to him. "Yes," she said lightly, "there is something else."
One brow lifted in arrogant inquiry. "What is it?"
"This!" She slapped him so hard his head jerked sideways, then she took an automatic step back from the rage in his face and held her ground, her chest heaving with fury. "You are a heartless, evil monster, and I cannot believe I let you touch me last night! I feel filthy and defiled—" A muscle began to tick in the side of his jaw, but Sheridan wasn't finished and she was too infuriated to care that he looked murderous. "I committed a sin when I let you do what you did to me last night, but I can pray for forgiveness for that. But, I will never be able to forgive my stupidity for trusting you and loving you!"
Stephen watched the door crash into its frame behind her, and he stood perfectly still, unable to shake off the image of a tempestuous beauty with blazing silver eyes and a face alive with fury and disdain. The picture branded itself on his mind along with a voice that shook with emotion. "
I will never be able to forgive my stupidity for trusting you and loving you
!" She'd actually looked and sounded as if she meant every single thing she'd said to him, including that last. Christ, she was a superb actress! Better by far than Emily Lathrop. Of course, Emily hadn't had the advantage of Sheridan's aura of virtuous innocence or her tempestuous temper. Emily had been sophisticated and carefully restrained, so she couldn't have pulled off this scene.
On the other hand, Emily probably wouldn't have flung his proposition in his face…
Somehow, he hadn't expected Sheridan to do that either. She'd been clever enough and ambitious enough to turn a brief loss of memory after her accident into what appeared to be a full-fledged case of amnesia that seemed to last for weeks, and to very nearly raise her status from a governess to a countess as well. The proposition he'd offered last night wouldn't have made her a countess, but it would have given her a hell of a lot more in the way of a luxurious life than she could possibly expect otherwise.
Either she wasn't as clever as Stephen had credited her with being…
Or she wasn't as ambitious…
Or she wasn't interested in luxury…
Or she'd been innocent of deviousness all along—as innocent of it as she'd been sexually innocent before last night.
Stephen hesitated uneasily and then rejected the last possibility. Innocent people did not run away and hide—not when they had Sheridan's kind of courage and daring.
O
ut of consideration for Noel's birthday, and in a futile effort to maintain a semblance of a festive atmosphere, Whitney declared the subject of Sheridan Bromleigh and her departure off limits for the rest of the weekend, but the failed attempt at a reconciliation hung like a pall over most of the guests at Claymore. Within hours after Sheridan left, storm clouds rolled in and rain began to fall, driving everyone indoors and further dampening feminine spirits. Only Charity Thornton was immune to the atmosphere and so energized that she declined to follow suit when all the other ladies and most of the men repaired to their chambers for a nap before supper. In fact, their absence suited her perfectly.
Seated upon a tufted leather sofa in the billiard room, with her legs crossed at the ankles and her hands folded in her lap, she watched the Duke of Claymore playing billiards with Jason Fielding and Stephen Westmoreland. "I have always found billiards so very intriguing," she lied, just as Clayton Westmoreland poked a long cue stick at the balls on the table and missed his shot entirely. "Was that your strategy—to miss all the balls on the table so that Langford will now have to deal with them?" she inquired brightly.
"That's an interesting way of looking at it," Clayton replied dryly, stifling his annoyance with her outburst that had caused him to miss his shot.
"Now what happens?"
Jason Fielding answered with a chuckle. "Now Stephen will take over and neither of us will have another opportunity at this game."
"Oh, I see." Charity smiled innocently at her intended victim as he rubbed something on the end of his cue stick and bent over the table. "Does that mean you are the most skilled player here, Langford?"
He glanced up at the sound of his name, but Charity had the feeling he wasn't listening to her or concentrating on the game either. Ever since Sheridan had left, he'd looked as grim as death. Despite that, when he took his shot, balls clattered against one another, collided against the sides of the table, and three of them rolled into the pockets.
"Nice shot, Stephen," Jason said, and Charity saw the opportunity she'd been waiting for.
"I so enjoy the society of gentlemen," she announced suddenly, watching as Clayton Westmoreland poured Madeira into his guests' glasses.
"Why is that?" he asked politely.
"My own sex can be quite petty and even vindictive for no cause at all," she remarked as Stephen aimed and made his next shot. "But gentlemen are so very stalwart in their loyalty to one another and their own sex. Take Wakefield, for example," she said, smiling approvingly at Jason Fielding, Marquess of Wakefield. "Had you been a female, Wakefield, you might have felt jealous of Langford's superior shot a moment ago, but were you?"
"Yes," Jason joked, but when her face fell he quickly said, "No, of course not, ma'am."
"Exactly my point!" Charity applauded as Stephen walked around the table for his next shot. "But whenever I think of loyalty and friendship among gentlemen, do you know who immediately comes to mind?"
"No, who?" Clayton said, while he watched Stephen line up his next shot and aim.
"Nicholas DuVille and Langford!"
The cue ball slid sideways off of Stephen's cue stick and rolled to the side of the table, where it gently nudged the ball he'd intended to aim at. That ball slowly headed for the pocket, hovered at the edge, and finally dropped in. "That wasn't skill, that was blind luck," Jason told him. Trying to change the subject, he added, "Did you ever stop to calculate how many times you win a game with luck instead of skill? I've meant to do that."
Ignoring Wakefield's attempt to divert the topic, Charity forged ahead, carefully directing her animated conversation to Jason Fielding and Clayton Westmoreland and avoiding a glance at the earl as he walked around the table for his next shot. "Why, if Nicholas hadn't been such a
loyal
friend of Langford's, he would have sent Sheridan Bromleigh straight back home the day she ran away and landed on his doorstep, crying her heart out, but did he do that? No indeed, he did
not
!"
She glanced at the mirror on the opposite wall and saw Stephen Westmoreland arrested in the act of shooting, his eyes narrowed to slits, his gaze levelled on the back of her head. "Sheridan begged for the truth about why Langford wanted to marry her, and even though it wasn't poor Nicholas's responsibility to tell her everything and break her heart, he did it! It would have been so much easier to lie to her, or send her home to ask Langford, but he took it upon himself to help his dear friend and fellow man."
"Exactly what," Stephen asked in a low, savage voice as he slowly straightened without having taken his shot, "did my
friend
DuVille tell Sheridan?"
Charity looked around at him, her face a miracle of startled, vapid innocence. "Why, the truth, of course. She realized she wasn't Charise Lancaster anymore, so Nicholas told her about Burleton's death and how responsible you felt for it. That is why you pretended to be Sheridan's fiancé, after all."
Three silent men were staring at her in various states of shock and anger, and Charity looked brightly at each of them. "And of course, being a romantic girl, Sheridan still wanted to think—to believe—that you might have had some other reason for asking
her
to marry you, but dear Nicholas had to tell her, very
firmly
, that you'd only proposed after you got word of Mr. Lancaster's unfortunate death—out of pity, as it were. Which was dreadfully distressing to the poor girl, but Nicholas did what needed to be done, out of unselfishness and loyalty to his own sex."
Stephen slammed the cue stick into the rack on the wall. "That
son of a bitch
!" he said softly as he strode swiftly out of the room.
Startled by the use of profanity in front of her but not by his departure, Charity looked at Jason Fielding. "Where do you suppose Langford is going?" she asked, hiding her smile behind a blank frown.
Jason Fielding slowly withdrew his gaze from the doorway through which the earl had departed, then he glanced at Clayton Westmoreland and said, "Where would you say he's going?"
"I would say," the duke replied dryly, "that he is going to have a 'talk' with an old 'friend.' "
"How nice!" Charity said brightly. "Would either of you consider letting me play billiards with you, now that Langford is gone? I'm certain I could learn the rules."
The Duke of Claymore studied her in amused silence for a very long moment, so long in fact that Charity felt a little uneasy. "Why don't we play chess instead? I have a feeling that strategy is your particular forte."
Charity considered that for a moment and wagged her head. "I think you're quite right."
A
lthough the Season had wound to a close, the exclusive gaming rooms at White's were not lacking for wealthy occupants willing to wager enormous sums of money on the turn of a card or spin of the wheel. The oldest and most elegant of the clubs on St. James's Street, White's was far noisier than The Strathmore, and brightly lit, but not without its own hallowed traditions. At the front, looking out upon the street, was a wide bow window in which Beau Brummell had once held court with his friends the Duke of Argyll, Lords Sefton, Alvanley, and Worcester, and, on occasion, the then Prince Regent.
More famous than its bow window, however, was White's Betting Book, into which distinguished members had, for many years, entered wagers on events ranging from the solemn to the sordid to the silly. Included among the entries were wagers on the outcome of a war, the likely date of the death of a relative with a fortune to bequeath, the predicted winners in contests for ladies' hands, and even the outcome of a forthcoming race between two prime pigs owned by two of the club's members.
At a table near the back of one of the card rooms, William Baskerville was playing whist with the Duke of Stanhope and Nicholas DuVille. In the spirit of good-fellowship, those three gentlemen had permitted two very young gentlemen from excellent families to join them. Both young men were Corinthians of the first stare, obsessed with sporting and eager to make a name for themselves in town by excelling at the manly vices of gaming and drinking. Talk at the table was slow and desultory; betting was fast and heavy. "Speaking of crack-whips," said one of the young gentlemen, who'd been speaking of little else, "I haven't seen Langford at Hyde Park all week."
William Baskerville provided the answer to that as he counted out his chips. "His nephew's birthday, I believe. Duchess of Claymore is giving a small party to celebrate the occasion. Lovely woman, the duchess," he added. "I tell Claymore that every time I see him." Glancing at Nicholas DuVille who was seated on his left, he said, "You were friendly with her grace in France, before she came home to England, I believe?"
Nicki nodded without looking up from his cards, then he automatically added a proviso to forestall any gossip. "I count myself fortunate to be on friendly terms with
all
the Westmoreland family."
One of the youths who'd been drinking heavily heard that with some surprise and then demonstrated his lack of polish—as well as his inability to hold his drink—by verbalizing it: "You don't say! Gossip had it that you and Langford nearly came to fisticuffs at Almack's over some red-haired girl you both fancied."
Baskerville snorted at such a thought. "My dear young fellow, when you've more experience in town, you'll learn to separate rubbish from truth, and to do that, you need to be better acquainted with the individuals involved. Now, I heard the same story, but I also know DuVille and Langford, so
I
knew the whole story was pure faradiddle. Knew it the moment I heard it."
"As did I!" the more sober of the young men announced.
"A lamentable bit of nonsense," Nicki confirmed, when everyone seemed to wait for his response, "that will soon be forgotten."
"Knew it was," said Miss Charity's brother, the distinguished Duke of Stanhope, as he shoved chips into the growing heap at the center of the table. "Doesn't surprise me in the least to discover you and Langford are the best of friends. Both of you are the most amiable of men."
"No doubt about it," the sober young man said to Nicki with a mischievous grin, "but if you and Langford
were
ever to come to blows, I'd want to be there!"
"Why is that?" the Duke of Stanhope inquired.
"Because I've seen Langford and DuVille box at Gentleman Jackson's. Not with each other, of course, but they're the best I've ever seen with their fists. A fight between them would have lured even
me
to Almack's."
"And me!" exclaimed his companion with a hiccup.
Baskerville was appalled by their youthful misconception of civilized manhood, and he felt obliged to point out their gross lack of understanding. "Langford and DuVille would never stoop to settling matters with their fists, my good fellow! That's the difference between you hotheaded young pups and gentlemen like DuVille and Langford and the rest of us. You ought to study the excellent manners of your elders, acquire some of their town polish, don't you know. Rather than admiring DuVille's skill with his fists, you'd be wise to imitate his excellent address and his way with a neckcloth."
"Thank you, Baskerville," idly murmured Nicki because Baskerville seemed to be waiting for some sort of affirmative response.
"Welcome, DuVille. I speak only the truth. As to Langford," Baskerville continued, waiting for his turn to bet, "you couldn't have a finer example of refinement and gentlemanly arts. Fisticuffs to settle a disagreement, indeed!" he scoffed. "Why, the very thought of it is offensive to any civilized man."
"Ludicrous to even discuss it," the Duke of Stanhope agreed, studying the faces of the other players before he decided whether to wager on his rather poor hand of cards.
"My apologies, sirs, if—" the sober one of the young pair began, but he broke off abruptly. "Thought you said Langford was rusticating," he said in a bewildered tone that implied there was evidence at hand that proved otherwise.
All five men glanced up and saw Stephen Westmoreland heading straight toward them wearing an expression that, as he came nearer, looked far more ominous than amiable. Without so much as a nod to acknowledge acquaintances calling out greetings to him, the Earl of Langford stalked purposefully around tables and chairs and gamblers, bearing down on the five men at Baskerville's table and then circling around their chairs.
Four of those men stiffened, eyeing him with the wary disbelief of innocent men who are suddenly and unaccountably confronted with a threat they neither understand nor deserve from a predator they had mistaken for tame.
Only Nicholas DuVille seemed unconcerned with the tangible danger emanating from Langford. In fact, to the population of White's, who were all turning to watch in incredulous fascination, Nicholas DuVille seemed to be positively
inviting
a confrontation by his deliberate and exaggerated nonchalance. As the earl stopped beside his chair, DuVille leaned back, shoved his hands deeply into his pockets, and with a thin cheroot clamped between his white teeth, he acknowledged the earl with a sardonic questioning look. "Care to join us, Langford?"
"Get up!" the Earl of Langford bit out.
The challenge was unmistakable and imminent.
It caused a minor commotion as several young bucks sprinted for White's Betting Book to enter their wagers on the outcome. It caused a lazy, white smile to work its way across DuVille's face as he slouched deeper into his chair, thoughtfully chewed the end of his cheroot, and appeared to contemplate the invitation with considerable relish. As if he wanted to be certain his hopes weren't unfounded, he quirked a brow in amused inquiry. "Here?" he asked, his smile widening.
"Get out of that chair," the earl snarled in a dangerously soft voice, "you son of a—"
"Definitely, here," DuVille interrupted, his smile hardening as he shoved up from his lounging position and jerked his head in the direction of one of the back rooms.
News of the impending fight reached White's manager within moments, and he rushed out from the kitchen. "Now, now, gentlemen! Gentlemen!" the manager entreated as he shoved through the crowd exiting in polite haste from the back room. "Never in the history of White's has there ever—"
The door slammed in his face.
"Think of your attire, gentlemen! Think of the furniture!" he shouted, opening the door just in time to hear the savage sound of a fist connecting with bone and to see DuVille's head snap back.
Yanking the door closed, the manager spun around, his faced drained of color, hands still clutching the door handle behind his back. A hundred male faces eyed him expectantly, all of them interested in the same information. "Well?" said one of them.
The manager's face contorted with pain as he contemplated the possible damage to the back room's expensive green baize faro tables, but he managed to gasp out a quavering reply. "At this time…I would suggest… three-to-two odds."
"In whose favor, my good man?" demanded an impatient, elegantly dressed gentleman who was standing in the long line, waiting to write his wager in the Betting Book.
The manager hesitated, cast his eyes heavenward as if praying for courage, then he twisted about and opened the door a crack, peeking inside at the same moment a body collided with a wall with a thunderous crash. "In favor of Langford!" he called over his shoulder, but as he started to pull the door closed, another explosion like the last one rattled the rafters, and he took another look. "No—DuVille! No, Langford. No—!" He jerked the door closed barely in time to avoid having it snap off his head as a pair of heavy shoulders slammed into it.
Long after the sounds of human combat finally ended, the manager remained with his spine riveted against the door, until it suddenly gave way behind him, sending him careening backward into the empty room as the Earl of Langford and Nicholas DuVille walked out. Alone in the room and dazed with relief, the manager slowly turned and surveyed a room that, at first glance, looked miraculously undisturbed. He was uttering a fervent prayer of gratitude when his eyes beheld a polished end table resting upon three sound legs and a fourth that was badly splintered, and he clutched at his heart as if it, too, were splintering. On shaking limbs he walked over to the faro table and removed a tankard that oughtn't to have been on it, only to discover that the tankard concealed a dreadful gouge in the faro table's green baize top. Narrowing his eyes, he inspected the room more closely… In the corner of the room, four chairs were neatly arranged around a circular card table, but now he noticed that each chair possessed only three legs.
An ornate gilt clock which normally graced the center of an inlaid serving board was now on the right end of it. With shaking hands, the manager reached out to slide the clock back to its rightful place, then he cried out in horror as the clock's face fell forward, its hands swinging limply from side to side.
Shaking with outrage and anguish, the manager reached out to brace himself and grabbed the back of the nearest chair.
It came off in his hand.
On the other side of the wall, in the main room of White's, an outburst of unnaturally boisterous conversation erupted when DuVille and Langford strolled out—conversation of the sort used by adult males as a diversionary tactic intended to convey the impression that one's attention was everywhere except where it actually was.
Either indifferent to, or unaware of, the unnatural atmosphere and watchful eyes that followed them, the two former combatants parted company at the center of the room, Langford to search for a servant with a tray of drinks, and DuVille to return to his empty place at the card table. "Was it my turn to deal?" he asked, settling into his chair and reaching for the deck.
The two young men answered in unison that it was, the Duke of Stanhope courteously replied that he wasn't entirely certain, but Baskerville was in high dudgeon over having been made to look a fool before the young gentlemen, and he brought up the subject on everyone's mind. "You may as well tell these two what happened in there, since they won't be able to concentrate or even sleep without knowing the outcome," he said testily. "Disgraceful behavior, I don't scruple to tell you, DuVille. On both your parts!"
"There is nothing to tell," Nicki said blandly, picking up the abandoned deck of cards from the center of the table and shuffling it expertly. "We discussed a wedding."
Baskerville looked hopeful but unconvinced. The two younger men looked serenely amused, but only the drunken one of them had the temerity and bad manners to scoff at the offered explanation.
"A wedding?" he hooted, casting a meaningful eye upon Nicki's torn collar. "What could two men discuss about a wedding?"
"Who the groom is going to be," Nicki replied with casual nonchalance.
"And did you decide, sir?" the courteous one asked, sending his companion a warning glance and trying desperately to pretend he believed the whole tale.
"Yes," Nicki drawled, leaning forward to toss his chips into the center of the table. "I am going to be the best man."
His careless friend took another long draught of wine, and gave a laugh. "A wedding!" he snorted.
Nicholas DuVille slowly lifted his head and gave him a long, speculative look. "Would you prefer to make it a funeral?"
Fearing that the worst might yet be to come, Baskerville leapt into the breach. "What else did you and Langford discuss? You were gone a good while."
"We discussed little old ladies with faulty memories," Nicki replied ironically. "And we marvelled at the wisdom of a God who, for some incomprehensible reason, occasionally allows their tongues to go on working long after their brains have ceased to function at all."
The Duke of Stanhope looked up sharply. "I hope you are not referring to anyone I know."
"Do you know anyone called by the unlikely name of 'Charity,' instead of 'Birdwit'?"
The Duke choked back a horrified laugh at that deliberate, and unmistakable, description of his oldest sister. "I may." He was spared further discussion of that embarrassing topic by the arrival of another gambler, who nodded a casual but friendly greeting at Baskerville and himself as he pulled out the chair beside DuVille and settled into it.
