Rules of Engagement

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “Because our father wanted it so,” James amended. “And because one of us, at least, should get to enjoy the experiences both of us want to have.”

  Chapter Four

  The highlight of Lady Mary Percival’s extremely fashionable weekend house party was a mummy-unwrapping, which Eleanore found too gruesome for her tastes. While the more tolerant of the house guests crowded around the narrow work table to pluck and cut ancient bandages from the corpse, Eleanore stayed at the sideboard, where the madeira was plentiful.

  Trenton Belmont found her there. He poured himself a glassful of the madeira, for the house staff were reluctant to step into a room with a dead body, no matter how old it was. Then he turned and leaned against the sideboard—a remarkably casual pose for a man dressed in the best suit Saville Row had to offer.

  He stared at the worktable. “I can’t help wondering about the poor blighter under those bandages. What if, thousands of years from now, it was me lying upon a table while people undressed my bones and poked at me?”

  “It seems rather rude,” Eleanore admitted.

  “This is the second mummy-unwrapping I’ve been to, this year,” Belmont said. “I’ve heard there is a shortage of mummies, now, and one must take care to acquire genuine mummies, for there is a brisk market for counterfeit ones.” He shuddered.

  Eleanore shook her head. “I would rather go hunting.”

  “You like hunting?”

  “I hate it,” she said.

  He smiled and indicated her glass. “Shall I pour you another?”

  She handed him her small glass and he turned to refill it. “We haven’t been formally introduced—”

  “No one has, this weekend,” Eleanore pointed out. “You are Trenton Belmont, the one commoner in the house.”

  He lifted a brow.

  “You were pointed out to me.”

  “Someone objected to a commoner among them?”

  “Yes.” She smiled to take the sting from it.

  “You could have told them how much money my family has. I suspect it would remove their objections.” His smile was easy and unforced. He had a nice smile. His lips were evenly formed and full, surrounded by a dark blond, closely trimmed beard.

  “You have a lot of money?” she asked. “Thank you,” she added, as she took the glass.

  “An obscene amount. Although, really, is there such a thing as an obscene amount of money? It seems to me the only people who talk about money being obscene are those who feel they don’t have enough and resent others having it.” He raised his glass and leaned against the sideboard once more. “I do not include you in that category,” he added.

  “Ah, then you know who I am, too.”

  “Someone pointed you out to me.” His green eyes lit with amusement.

  “As someone with money,” she guessed.

  “As the Lady no one can touch.”

  Eleanore sipped, hiding her reaction. Is that what men called her, behind her back?

  “Although they needn’t have bothered,” Belmont continued. “I had already noticed you. That multi-colored gown you wore yesterday was eye-catching. My family is involved in the garment industry, so I know it wasn’t something you bought ready-made. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “You have a lot to learn about the upper class, Belmont, if you think any woman of the peerage would stoop to wearing manufactured gowns.”

  He smiled, unoffended. “Perhaps you can teach me.”

  “Oh, but I am the untouchable Lady, remember.” There was more bitterness in her voice than she liked. What did she care what men said about her? They were being petty because she played cards and drank better than they did.

  Belmont rested his fingertips against the back of her hand, where it curled around the tiny glass of madeira. “There. I have touched you.”

  Eleanore studied him, her heart shifting uneasily. “Belmont, really, I am unavailable. Surely the gossip must have told you why I am so untouchable?”

  “A prince, isn’t it?”

  “Prince Ferdinand Josef Salamon of Temeswar, in the Kingdom of Hungary.”

  Belmont pursed his lips and whistled, sounding impressed.

  Eleanore almost laughed at the crude sound. “Simon is cousin—”

  “Simon?” he repeated.

  “His family name,” Eleanore added. “The Prince is cousin to the King of Hungary. I was betrothed to him when I was three.” She added, “Betrothals are unbreakable.”

  “I didn’t think anyone did that, anymore,” he said. He considered for a moment. “They’re really unbreakable?”

  “That is the point of them,” Eleanore said.

  Belmont shook his head. “There are so many rules which hedge you people in, aren’t there? What about what you want?”

  Eleanore kept her smile in place. “That isn’t how it works.”

  “Seriously,” Belmont said, turning to face her squarely. “Have you met Prince Simon?”

  She almost giggled at the combination of Simon’s pet name and his title. No one had ever been so casual with Simon’s name before. “I’m told I met him when I was a young child, but I don’t remember it.”

  “What if you and Simon meet and you can’t stand each other? Or he met another lady who steals his heart? Or you fall in love?”

  Eleanore’s heart hurried on, now, making her temples pound. She sipped the madeira to give herself a chance to recover. “I suppose, in that case, it might be possible to bring the two families together and come to a mutual understanding, although I’ve never heard of it happening. Betrothals are promises of future alliances between families.”

  “Then it is a matter of economics,” Belmont said.

  “It is a matter of power,” she corrected him.

  “Economics is power,” Belmont replied. “Money crosses all borders. Look at me. I stand among the greatest peers of England and I am here only because of my family’s money.”

  “Such frankness,” Eleanore murmured.

  Belmont’s smile was knowing. “At which you have not yet expired in shock.”

  “You find that shocking?”

  “I find it hopeful.” He tipped the glass, draining the madeira, then turned back to the decanter. He held out his hand and Eleanore put her glass into it.

  As he poured two more drinks, he said, “As frankness does not send you into hysterics, I should warn you, Lady Eleanore, that my father is an ambitious man. He would very much like to add a touch of respectability to the family name.”

  “He wants you to marry a peer,” she guessed.

  Belmont shook his head and handed her a glass. “I said he was ambitious. I already knew you would be at the house party this weekend.”

  Eleanore sipped. “Your father’s ambitions are impossibly high.”

  “That is what I told him.”

  “Yet you are still here, speaking to me.”

  Belmont smiled as he sipped. “My ambitions are somewhat different. I have been watching you, Lady Eleanore. You are not like other upper-class women I have gouged myself upon.”

  “Ouch,” she murmured. “The prospect of an unbreakable betrothal does not fill you with dismay?” she added.

  “It is a barrier, I admit,” he said softly. “It makes you all the more intriguing.”

  “I should warn you, Mr. Belmont, that I know how to defend myself.”

  “Even more intriguing,” he added. “Call me Trenton.”

  Eleanore shook her head. “I will only disappoint you, Mr. Belmont.”

  “You haven’t so far,” he assured her.

  A cry went up from the men and women standing about the worktable. Everyone took a step back from the table and one woman gave a cry of disgust. “What are they?” she added, her voice rising.

  Through the retreating people, Eleanore could see the worktable and the remains of the poor soul lying upon it. Around the remains scurried hundreds of little black, shiny creatures, scattering in all directions.

  “Beetles.
” Belmont laughed.

  Beetles. Eleanore gripped her glass as an insistent memory inserted herself. She had been staring at a beetle creeping over the polished bricks of the conservatory floor that day…the day James brought Cian to see her.

  It had been a shock to lift her head and see him right there in her house—a hated Williams man, standing beside James.

  While all other memories were hazy, that impression was strong—that the family did not accept him. Although why that singular fact would linger when she must work to recover all others still puzzled her, even now.

  Cian handed her the box he carried. In the box was every letter she had written to him. She ran her fingers over the letters, marveling. Until that moment, she had not remembered writing to him.

  She read all the letters right then. His and hers. It had been overwhelming. Frightening. How could she not remember the feelings and emotions and events she spoke of in the letters? How could she let go of something so important?

  “You don’t like beetles, either?” Trenton Belmont asked.

  “I don’t like anything underfoot,” Eleanore told him, shaking off the memory.

  Belmont’s brow raised. “I’ll keep that rule in mind, too,” he told her.

  She sipped her madeira and reflected that unlike Belmont, Cian never needed to be told anything. He understood, often better than she did, the complicated layers of her life, for he lived with similar complications.

  Where was he right now?

  Raymond’s arrival at Innesford was unexpected, but not unwelcome. “I took the opportunity to escape from Marblethorpe for the day,” Raymond admitted. “I built a large house because I anticipated many people living in it. Only, having so many around one can sometimes be…confining.”

  “Like a never-ending Gather?” Cian suggested. “Come and sit by the fire. It’s damned cold out there. I’ll have some tea brought.”

  “And brandy to go in it, too,” Raymond added, shrugging off his coat and gloves.

  When they were both settled at the fire with tea, a decanter and sandwiches to offset Raymond’s early breakfast, Raymond said, “I’m glad I caught you before you headed to London.”

  “Only just. I leave in two days,” Cian replied. “The House assembles on the fourth.”

  Raymond nodded. “I will be there for the fourth.” He sighed and scrubbed at his hair. “Normally, I like the busy feel of a large household. Only, Iefan is still recovering. Mairin hovers over him, ready to take on anyone who breathes too heavily in his direction, while every other woman fusses around the pair…” Raymond shook his head. There was a touch of gray at his temples, the first and only sign of aging Cian had noticed in him. “Iefan plans to take Mairin to Paris as soon as he can stand long enough to marry her.”

  “He has business interests there,” Cian said. “The war interrupted them. He would want to re-establish them now.”

  Raymond’s smile was indulgent. “I didn’t think Iefan would ever settle down.”

  Cian stirred uneasily. “Is that what prompted this visit, Raymond? Are you about to give me the ‘you must settle’ lecture now?”

  Raymond picked up the decanter and poured a good dollop of brandy into his teacup, stirred it and drank. “Ah, that’s better.” He put the cup aside and met Cian’s gaze. “I am not your father, Cian. I’ve never pretended to be. However…”

  Cian rolled his eyes.

  “However,” Raymond repeated heavily. “Seth isn’t here and it would not occur to your mother to ask.”

  “Just ask?” Cian said.

  Raymond smoothed his thumb over the crease in his trousers. “The titles come with certain obligations. It doesn’t matter when you meet those obligations—there’s been more than one peer to sire his heir in his dotage. Only you must meet them, Cian. You must have an heir and it would be wise to plan for it. Have you?” His gaze met Cian’s.

  It was the same steady gaze Cian remembered from a day long ago, when Raymond found Cian in the pub at Truro, trying to drink away the knowledge that his mother had found someone else to love.

  Now, the knowledge held no sting at all. Raymond was family and once he had got over the shock of seeing his mother in another man’s arms, Cian had gradually come to approve of the idea.

  Although, he remembered the iron will Raymond had first revealed to Cian in that pub. The determination to win Natasha for himself, even if he had to take Cian outside and explain with his fists why Cian should not object.

  That same will was peering at him now. Raymond would have this resolved, one way or another.

  A simple lie would deflect Raymond. All Cian must do was tell him he was assessing the current debutantes for a suitable bride, and Raymond would be satisfied. In a way, it was the truth.

  Cian sighed. “There is someone,” he said. Speaking the raw truth made his heart leap. He had never revealed this to anyone before. His heart thudded unevenly as he added, “She can’t be mine.”

  Raymond’s thumb stopped moving. His gaze shifted away, to the flames dancing over the logs. “That is…unfortunate,” he said softly. Then, “Perhaps someone else—”

  “No,” Cian said flatly.

  “If there is no hope, then perhaps—”

  “How long did you wait for my mother, Raymond?” Cian shot back.

  Raymond drew a breath and let it out. “That was different.”

  “Fifteen years.”

  Raymond rubbed at his temple.

  “In all that time, you lived with the knowledge that there was no hope,” Cian added gently.

  “Until there was,” Raymond finished. He looked at Cian, his mouth twisting at the corner into a small smile. “I think that was when I most afraid, when that hope was born.” He reached for the teacup once more and turned it on the saucer, watching the tea swirl. “Do you have any hope at all, Cian?”

  Cian considered the question as fairly as he could. James Gainford had revealed that Eleanore survived the shipwreck which killed her father, and returned to the family in late 1867, just over three years ago.

  A week after Cian gave her all the letters she had ever written, he sent her another, asking if he could formally call upon her.

  Her refusal had been gentle.

  I am not that woman anymore. You would not love me as I am now. Please wait.

  He had waited, for there was the smallest glimmer of hope in her words, and hope was enough to live on.

  At the beginning of the 1868 season, Cian wrote again. This time, James answered.

  While I know your character and would not object in principle, there are family complications which make it impossible.

  James’ blank refusal shifted that season, for Eleanore’s need to re-learn about herself and her life took her into places where he could not follow. As Eleanore’s adventures grew in wildness, Cian found himself hovering closely, waiting for either of them to call for help.

  Of course, Eleanore never did ask. James, though, learned that Cian offered no judgment along with his assistance, and no complications or expectations. As long as Cian helped freely and asked nothing in return, James would let him linger in Eleanore’s life in this extremely limited fashion.

  Cian realized he was staring at the fire, just as Raymond was. “Is there any hope?” he repeated. “A fool’s hope, I suppose.”

  Raymond didn’t meet his gaze. “Which is enough to keep you going,” he added softly.

  “Sometimes, I wish it was not,” Cian admitted.

  Raymond stirred. “The Williams men seem to like long odds,” he said, his tone brisk. “I think you took on every boy at Eton who dared to breathe the word ‘convict’ within your hearing.”

  “There were a few,” Cian said, smiling.

  “Your father took on the entire world for the sake of your mother. Did she ever tell you that?”

  Cian drew in a deep breath, as his heart jumped. “No.”

  Raymond nodded. “He met her, fell in love with her, then the ton learned he was a hardene
d transportee, convicted of murder. For her sake, Seth spent weeks uncovering the truth about his conviction and having it overturned. He risked everything, including the hangman’s noose, to clear his name.”

  Cian rubbed his chin. “You could only know that because my mother told you.”

  “She did.” Raymond smiled. “I never tried to take Seth’s place with her, either.” His smile faded. “You have reminded me of Seth a lot, lately.”

  Cian snorted. “His love of a scrap?” he hazarded.

  Raymond shook his head. “His relentlessness. He didn’t give up, either. Only, Cian, there might come a time when you must let this woman go.”

  “No,” Cian said, his tone flat. “That will never happen.”

  “For your sake, you might have to.”

  Cian looked into the flames, so he wouldn’t have to look at Raymond. Even when he had believed Eleanore was dead, he had not let her go. He simply couldn’t. “That will never happen,” he said.

  Raymond sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that. You are your father’s son, after all.”

  Chapter Five

  The large white stone house on Park Lane was full of people, which Cian found uncomfortable. Lisa Grace, who disliked society with even more passion than Cian, was holding a sociable at-home to please her mother, although she was doing it on her terms. She had invited close friends—most of them eccentric artistic types—and members of the family who were currently in London.

  It meant Lisa Grace did not have to guard her tongue or mind her manners. She sat in the big wing chair with her feet tucked under her and talked about art to her heart’s content.

  Cian barricaded himself in the library with the door shut and tried to ignore the light chatter and laughter and the clink of teacups coming from the drawing room on the other side of the wall.

  He frowned when Travers tapped on the door. “There is an officer here to speak with you, my lord,” Travers said. “A Brigadier William Gordon.”

  “Gordie!” Cian said, delighted, getting up from the desk. “Send him in, Travers. He has no need for an appointment.”

  “Very good, my lord,” Travers replied. He opened the door. “Please come in, sir.”