And, just like that, he had an idea.
A brilliant idea.
A brilliant, awful idea.
Did he dare? He glanced sideways at his wife, the memory of her patently false cough echoing in his mind.
Oh, he did dare.
“My lady,” he said, all of these thoughts coalescing within him in an instant. “Should you ever have need of anything, you know that you must call upon… us.” He paused for a fraction of a second before saying the word us, just long enough for all present to realize that what he really meant was me.
Jeremy frowned at him.
Violet stiffened.
And Lady Fitzwilliam… She arched a brow, her gaze flicking between him and Violet lightning-fast. She must certainly have heard the rumors swirling about the state of their marriage—said rumors being quite numerous, of course. While one could never credit the ton with an extraordinary amount of collective intelligence, it could not help but notice when one of the great love matches of the past decade turned into a chilly marriage of cordial strangers instead.
“Thank you, my lord,” Lady Fitzwilliam said after a moment, since it was, in truth, the only polite thing she could have said. Jeremy was still staring at James as though he were a particularly tricky puzzle that he was attempting to work out. James shot him a speaking glance—or, rather, he very much hoped it was a speaking glance. And he very much hoped that the message it spoke was, I’ll explain later, please don’t make a fuss, and not, Please make a scene here in the middle of Hyde Park.
Whatever message Jeremy took from said glance, it was enough to keep him silent. This in and of itself was quite an achievement. James felt rather pleased with himself.
And, feeling pleased with himself, he decided to test his luck.
“In fact,” he proclaimed, “you should dine with us. Next week.”
There was, of course, nothing so very improper about a dinner invitation—and yet, James did his best to make it so. He’d inched his horse forward as he spoke, making it so that Violet’s view of Lady Fitzwilliam was blocked slightly by his shoulder. And his voice had dropped a register as he murmured the invitation, making it all seem rather more… intimate than it should have.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lady Wheezle ride past in the company of a groom and turn her head to stare at their little tableau.
“I beg your pardon?” Lady Fitzwilliam asked, clearly perplexed by whatever undercurrents she detected between himself and Violet as he made this invitation.
“Dine with us,” he repeated, flashing her the winning smile that had served him so well in his bachelor days, on the select occasions he had chosen to deploy it. “We could celebrate your reentry into society.”
“When have you ever given a deuce for society?” Jeremy asked grumpily, his hands twitching on the reins he held. James was certain that, were they not in a public park, Jeremy would have reached across to lay an entirely inappropriate hand on some part of Lady Fitzwilliam’s person, like an animal marking its territory. However, since they were in a public park, he contented himself with repeated fist-clenching.
“Darling,” Violet cut in, and never had the word darling sounded more menacing, “I believe you’re forgetting the state of my health.”
“I assure you I wasn’t,” he said, turning to his wife. “After all, was it not you who insisted that we ride in the park this afternoon?” He blinked innocently at her.
Her eyes narrowed.
“I can’t say how I shall be feeling next week,” she said, and James nearly laughed aloud at the look on her face, which rather resembled that of someone who had just been served an extremely unpleasant dish by one she didn’t wish to offend.
“If Lady James is unwell—” Lady Fitzwilliam started to say, but James and Violet both ignored her.
“Then let us assume you shall be perfectly well,” James said, his eyes never once leaving his wife’s face.
“But I can’t say for certain that I shall be perfectly well.”
James was dimly aware that Jeremy and Lady Fitzwilliam were watching this exchange with great interest, their heads bobbing back and forth as though they were spectators at a duel.
“Well then, let us choose to be optimistic.” He gave her a thin smile.
“Funny,” Violet said, “I’ve never known optimism to be a trait that you possessed in great abundance.”
“Meaning you should be doubly glad that I am attempting to turn over a new leaf.” He inched his mount closer to her as they spoke, and they were now in such proximity that he could have reached out and knocked his knee against hers. He’d meant only to intimidate her, but he realized belatedly that this might have been a mistake—this close, he could smell her skin, could practically feel the warmth radiating from her. Her cheeks were flushed—whether from anger or the exercise of their ride, he wasn’t certain—and she looked so much the picture of health that he had to fight back the urge to laugh. She looked…
Radiant.
Yes, radiant. Her hair curled around her face, and her eyes sparked in that familiar way they did whenever he was arguing with her.
And in that moment, he wanted to kiss her so desperately that he nearly forgot that they were in the middle of Hyde Park, with Jeremy and Lady Fitzwilliam watching from a few paces away. His eyes caught hers and held, and the color of her cheeks deepened further under the intensity of his gaze. She bit her lip—he’d nearly forgotten that old habit of hers—but did not break their eye contact.
And James found that he was incapable of doing so as well.
She was infuriating, and he was still determined to best her at whatever this game was that they were playing—but he also wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman in his life.
Still. After five years. And there was no point in lying to himself about this fact any longer.
He wanted her, and he did not know how to have her. Christ, what a mess.
It was impossible to say how long this stalemate would have continued had Lady Fitzwilliam not broken the silence.
“I am certain that I wouldn’t wish to impose if Lady James is feeling unwell.”
“Lady James was just telling me this morning how improved she is,” James said smoothly, wrenching his gaze away from his wife with great difficulty to refocus on Lady Fitzwilliam. Violet elbowed him in the ribs, which he ignored. “But regardless, Soph—Lady Fitzwilliam,” he amended hastily, as though he hadn’t intended to nearly address her by her Christian name, “my offer stands—please do call upon us if you should need any assistance of any sort.” He urged his horse closer to Lady Fitzwilliam’s, reaching up to take her hand in his own.
“Audley,” Jeremy said, and James nearly laughed out loud at the strangled note in his voice. “Are you feeling quite the thing?”
“Never better, I assure you,” James said cheerfully, allowing his thumb to stroke rather intimately across Lady Fitzwilliam’s palm before he released her hand. He would have felt like a cad had she not continued to regard him with that questioning, suspicious look of hers—the one that told him she was not at all fooled by his rather blatant attempts at seduction. “I don’t seem to have picked up Violet’s little malady, much to my relief.”
Next to him, Violet coughed. Unlike the noises she had been emitting of late, which James thought seemed carefully calibrated to achieve the perfect mix of frailty and feminine delicacy to play upon his sympathies, this was a violent cough indeed. More of a hack, really.
“Feeling all right?” he asked mildly once she had subsided.
“I was feeling considerably better five minutes ago,” she said with a bland smile.
“Must be all the fresh air,” James said wisely. “It might be a bit much for your fragile lungs.”
“In that case, my lord, I should be exceedingly grateful if you were to escort me home.”
“But of course,” he said gallantly. He turned back to Lady Fitzwilliam and Jeremy, who were both regarding him as they would a madman.
An affable madman, perhaps, but still a madman.
“Jeremy, Lady Fitzwilliam,” he said, nodding to each in turn. “I’m afraid we must take our leave.” He reached for Lady Fitzwilliam’s hand once more, and she gave him a startled look as he bent down to press a quick kiss to the hand in question. “Lady Fitzwilliam,” he murmured in intimate tones—intimate tones still loud enough to carry, “it has truly been a pleasure. One I look forward to repeating very soon.” And with a cheeky grin, he turned his horse and took a few quick steps back to Violet’s side. “Shall we?”
She did nothing but nod tightly—and proceeded to ignore him for the entire ride back to Curzon Street. She also, James noticed, failed to cough once.
Nine
“Have you quite lost your mind?” Jeremy demanded.
It was later the same evening, and Jeremy and James were seated in Jeremy’s study—Jeremy at his desk, James lounging across from him in an armchair, brandy in hand. In truth, the study at Willingham House was not a room Jeremy frequented, and James was nearly certain that he had elected to receive him here as a show of authority. It would have been a more effective display if Jeremy had not looked so uncomfortable in the seat his father and brother had once occupied.
“Perhaps,” James said, tilting the glass in his hand so that the liquid within caught the last rays of summer evening light streaming in through the windows. “I assume you are referring to our meeting in Hyde Park?”
“Of course I bloody am!” Jeremy exploded. Jeremy was mild-tempered in the extreme—he was rather famous for it, in truth. The trait had served him well—it was impossible that one could sleep with as many men’s wives as Jeremy had without making some enemies, and James was certain that Jeremy’s famous charm and good cheer were the only reason he hadn’t yet been smothered in his bed.
“What the devil do you think you’re about?” Jeremy continued, sitting up straighter behind his desk. His own glass of brandy was sitting untouched before him—a sure sign of how deadly serious he was. “Fawning all over Sophie like that—and in front of Violet, no less?”
“I was under the impression—from you yourself—that you and Lady Fitzwilliam were ending your liaison,” James murmured.
“That’s not the bloody point,” Jeremy replied, which was his standard response in any situation in which he didn’t want to acknowledge the truth of someone else’s words. “I still want to know what the deuce you thought you were doing.”
James shoved his chair back and stood, suddenly unable to bear the thought of sitting still a moment longer. He’d been filled with a sort of frenzied energy ever since he and Violet had left the park. He’d been unable to settle to any single task at home, despite the numerous ones that demanded his attention, and hadn’t waited long before seizing his hat and gloves to visit Jeremy. Instead of calling for his horse or carriage, he’d walked to Jeremy’s house in Fitzroy Square, the exercise doing little to calm the jangle of his nerves.
Besting one’s wife, it seemed, was highly invigorating.
“I’m giving Violet a dose of her own medicine,” he said, pacing back and forth across the length of the room. Jeremy was a marquess, so his study was larger than most, despite how infrequently it was used, and yet James still felt caged.
Jeremy leaned back in his chair. “Don’t you think this has gone a bit far?”
“I apologized to her,” James said, stopping his pacing to look Jeremy directly in the eye. It felt odd to admit something so personal aloud, even to as close a friend as Jeremy. He was accustomed to keeping everything of real significance held tightly within him; discussing anything of his conversation with Violet made him feel strange, slightly uncomfortable in his own skin. And yet, as soon as the words were uttered, more followed, almost without conscious thought. “I apologized to her for the incident with the blasted horse, and she is still lying to me.”
“I see,” Jeremy said, and James rather thought Jeremy did see, and that he pitied him. It was galling. However, they were Englishmen, and Englishmen certainly didn’t sit about discussing their feelings, of all things. “So your new scheme is to pant over every widow you see until your wife becomes so enraged that she murders you in a jealous passion?” He lifted his glass to James in a mocking tribute. “Congratulations. I’ve no doubt the drama they pen about you will be performed before generations to come.”
James took a hearty sip of his drink. “I’ve no plan at all,” he admitted, dropping back into his chair. “Unless you consider needling her until she admits she’s been lying to me a plan.”
“You’ve likely caused a fair bit of gossip, and likely gained nothing for it,” Jeremy pointed out. “We were hardly the only people in Hyde Park today. There were plenty of witnesses to you making an ass of yourself.” He took a sip of brandy. “Don’t you think it would be easier to just speak with her?” Jeremy’s voice was uncommonly serious, his gaze direct. In that moment, he looked every inch the marquess, and not at all like the Jeremy that James had known for fifteen years—the devil-may-care rogue, the second son without a whit of responsibility. In the nearly six years since Jeremy’s brother’s death, James had seen flickers of this—hints of the man that Jeremy could perhaps be, if he were ever to dedicate his thoughts to matters more weighty than which young widow of the ton was the most desirable at any given moment. Usually, he found these glimpses comforting, an indication of the person that James had always known lurked within Jeremy, underneath all the flash and charm and merrymaking.
At the moment, however, he just found it dashed inconvenient, as he was the one bearing the brunt of Jeremy’s attention.
“It’s been four years,” James reminded him. “I’m not sure we’ve much to say to one another after four years.” A more accurate statement would be that they had entirely too much to say to one another after four years, but he didn’t feel like sharing that sentiment with even his closest friend.
Jeremy opened his mouth, then closed it again. James could see the internal struggle taking place, could see how desperately Jeremy wished to ask questions. Seeming to give up the battle, he said, “If you would just tell me what your argument was all about—”
“No,” James insisted, and something in his tone must had been thoroughly convincing, because Jeremy fell silent at once, which was entirely unlike him. James had no desire to discuss the events of that day, to share the conversation between his father and Violet that he had overheard. And he didn’t care to pause long enough to examine why exactly he was so bent upon keeping the details of that day locked up within himself. A small voice in the very corner of his mind, one that was easily silenced, whispered that he feared someone telling him that he had been in the wrong four years ago. That was a possibility that he did not wish to consider. Because if he had been, then Violet’s anger with him was every bit as justified as his with her. Perhaps even more so.
No. He could not bear to think on it. He merely avoided speaking of that day because no man liked to admit that he had been outmaneuvered. And four years ago, he had learned that the circumstances of his marriage had involved a good deal more maneuvering than he’d had any notion of.
“Fine,” Jeremy said, settling even deeper into his chair like a petulant child. His posture was beginning to rival Penvale’s for lazy indolence. “But you’re being a bloody idiot, and I begin to wonder that Violet hasn’t left you and taken up with the first dashing Italian to waltz across the Channel. For Christ’s sake, Audley, do you know that Penvale and I didn’t realize that you and Violet had stopped speaking for months after it happened?”
James frowned. “That can’t be true.”
“It’s true,” Jeremy said firmly. “We knew you were drinking yourself into a stupor on a nightly basis, but we’d no notion of the reason until Penvale finally resorted to asking that sister of his”—Jeremy said the word sister the way he might have said succubus—“and she told him what was afoot.”
“It was none of your concern,” James said.
“
If you treat Violet this way, it’s no wonder the two of you can barely hold a cordial conversation these days.”
“Jeremy, enough.” James suddenly felt a great deal more sympathy for the men who had challenged Jeremy to duels in the past. It was an appealing thought at the moment.
“Suit yourself, Audley,” Jeremy said in a way that made James somehow feel that he had come out on the losing end of this conversation. “But I warn you, the gossip will continue if you keep this madness up.”
James waved a hand dismissively. “There’s nothing to gossip about,” he said impatiently. “I hardly think a single conversation in the park is enough to whip the ton into a frenzy.”
“Ha,” Jeremy said, in the dark tones of a man who had had more than one irate husband threaten him with pistols at dawn after hearing the latest on-dit whispered in a ballroom. “You were practically falling all over yourself. And in front of me, no less.” He attempted an air of wounded outrage, largely unsuccessfully.
“Might I remind you, Willingham,” James said, and Jeremy looked up sharply at that—James almost never used Jeremy’s title—“that I have known Lady Fitzwilliam longer than you have, and quite possibly better.”
Jeremy eyed him for a moment.
“Then might I remind you, Audley, that all that business with your brother was six years ago, and the lady married in the interim.”
James opened his mouth to reply, but Jeremy wasn’t finished speaking.
“Might I also remind you that it’s no good acting wounded on your brother’s behalf, when you and West are barely on speaking terms these days.”
“I hardly think that’s any—”
“You never think anything is my concern,” Jeremy cut in sharply. “Not if there’s the least chance that you might be in the wrong. It’s much easier to be tight-lipped about it and then no one has to tell you when you’re being a bloody idiot.”
To Have and to Hoax Page 16