by J. A. Rock
Balfour’s London home was as chilly and polished as the man himself. The entry hall had narrow walls of deep blue and opened into a large, open room with a high ceiling. The walls were lined with tall, dreary portraits with dark wood frames and darkly attired subjects.
Hartwell scanned the ballroom for Becca and was at once relieved and annoyed not to find her. He wanted to put things right with her, yet he dreaded making the attempt. She was by far the quicker wit, and if she did not intend to forgive him, her rejection would be swift and public. His goal tonight was simple, he decided. He would dance with any young lady available, and at the end of the night, he would select the least offensive one and propose to her. That way he would be assured of his father’s money if not his affection. And whoever his wife was, he vowed to be the kindest, most attentive husband to her in all the world so that Becca might see what she had missed.
And Warry. Let Warry see that I am no failure. He pushed the thought away, wondering what on earth was the matter with him. He deserved neither of them. He never had.
Allowing Warry into his thoughts seemed to have conjured the little devil, for he soon spied Warry and Balfour off in a corner, deep in conversation.
How jolly for them. Hartwell did not care one whit how close they stood or of what they spoke. He took a step he had not meant to take toward their corner and bumped into someone who cried in a familiar voice, “Lord Hartwell! Oh, Hartwell.”
He faced Lady Warrington with a ready smile. “My lady. It is good to see you.” How easily he brought forth the smile. How easily he pretended that he had not made the truest wreck imaginable of his life.
Lady Warrington clasped her hands beneath her bosom and tittered anxiously. “Yes, Hartwell, it is always good to see you.” And yet her eyes darted in a way that suggested the statement was a strain on her ability to tell a social lie. Hartwell’s stomach flipped. Surely Warry would not have said anything to his parents about…
“Becca is over at the punchbowl!” Lady Warrington’s face collapsed in the next instant. “Well, how foolish of me. You are not looking for Becca. Unless you are?”
“No,” Hartwell said quickly, despising the hope in her gaze. “No, I am not looking for Becca.”
“I must confess, I had rather hoped tonight would be a happy one for both of you.”
“Yes, I had hoped the same. But sometimes these things do not work out.”
“I tried to explain to Becca that you did not fire that arrow at our Warry on purpose.”
Ah, yes. The arrow. “With all due respect, my lady, Becca and I have discovered that our incompatibility goes beyond a misfired arrow. But please do accept my apologies once more regarding the near miss with Warry.”
I should not have missed, he thought bitterly.
At once, the guilt was on him again.
I should have protected him.
Lady Warrington nodded. “Of course. It was but an accident, though Becca took it quite personally. I hope you will not…Well, I must say, sometimes it is the very person we consider ourselves to be least compatible with who is our best match.” She cast her eye across the room. “Why just look at Warry and Lord Balfour.” Hartwell had never heard her tone so sour.
“Lady Warrington, I am sorry for causing you pain. I know you wished for the opportunity to announce an engagement tonight. Perhaps Warry will not disappoint you as I have.”
By the expression on Lady Warrington’s face, Warry already had.
“Will you look at Lord Balfour’s nose?” Lady Warrington said softly, almost to herself. “The more I consider it, the more I think it is not the nose of a gentleman. No, no, I hardly think it is.”
Warry fairly jumped when Balfour’s hand came toward him. Balfour paused, frowned, then reached forward again, straightening Warry’s cravat. “I do not like to see you flinch from me,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Warry replied woodenly. “I shall endeavour not to in the future.”
Balfour tugged his cravat lightly. “You have been skittish all night.”
“I suppose I am thinking about our announcement. This is such a large group. I am nervous about the attention our news will draw.”
Balfour slid his hand to Warry’s shoulder, and Warry tried not to wince. “There is nothing to be frightened of. I will make the announcement. You need not say anything.”
Warry nodded. “Thank you.” He was to be the same silent prop before the ton that Balfour would expect him to be as a husband. Very well. He hesitated, his heart pounding. If he did not act now, he never would. “I should like to speak with my mother for a moment if that is all right.”
“Certainly.” Balfour squeezed his shoulder. “Be back by my side on the hour.”
Warry attempted a smile and a nod, then hastened away. He did his best to lose himself in the crowd. He was not certain if Balfour still watched him, and he knew he mustn’t take the chance. He passed behind clusters of revellers, making his way ever closer to the stairs. There were a few people gathered on the staircase, and he hurried past them, using them for cover when he could. At the top of the staircase, he ducked under a thin, tasselled rope, and entered a darkened hallway. Somewhere up here was Balfour’s study. Balfour had given him the grand tour earlier before anyone else arrived. If he could just remember which door…
Even through the dimness, he recognised the door he sought—thick, carved oak with an enormous brass handle. He held his breath as he pulled, praying there would be no creak, and then slipped as quietly as a mouse into the dim room.
There was a lamp on the desk, turned down so low that it was almost entirely extinguished, and Warry hurried forward and twisted the mechanism to allow the flame more wick to climb. Then, holding the lamp as gingerly as if he were Aladdin from Arabian Nights, afraid of the genie inside, he turned his attention to Balfour’s desk.
He hoped that tonight’s subterfuge would be simple. He meant to retrieve Becca’s letter and thus break Balfour’s hold over him before the man announced their engagement. Warry didn’t even care if Balfour said vile things about him in Society afterward. He couldn’t imagine anything more vile than being married to the man. Even a tarnished reputation, if Balfour wanted to sink so low, would be easier to bear than matrimony. Perhaps Warry would travel to some distant corner of the world and fake his own death like the rake Slyfeel in volume three of The Maiden Diaries, except he wouldn’t return a few chapters later to reveal himself dramatically. No, he’d make a life for himself somewhere that he wasn’t known and be nothing more than a footnote in the Warrington annals.
He realised with a jolt as he began to search Balfour’s desk drawers that marrying Balfour would lose him his claim on the title anyway. Balfour’s rank was greater than his, and their marriage would not produce heirs, so Earl Warrington’s title would pass to his younger brother Thomas in any case, to preserve it. It was the reason marriages between men were reserved for younger sons. The reason, he recalled, or one of them, why Hartwell never would have wanted to marry him at all. Not that Hartwell would lose his title—the son of a duke outranked the son of a mere earl—but because any union between them could never produce an heir. So, it didn’t matter if Hartwell wanted him or not because, even if Warry extricated himself from Balfour’s grasp, and Hartwell never got re-engaged to Becca, and they both put aside their ridiculous dedication to wounding each other and expressed instead a mutual and lasting affection, it would never happen.
Except that it mattered, just a little, to Warry’s bruised heart.
He closed one drawer in the desk and checked the next one down, stubbornly ignoring the wall full of books that faced him and the fact that the letter could be tucked into any of the hundreds of covers there if it was even in the study at all. What if Balfour had hidden it someplace else entirely? Like in his bedroom, or the sitting room, or in the bottom of a tub of potatoes in the kitchen pantry? Good Lord, this really was hopeless, but Warry couldn’t stop looking now, both for his sake and Becca’s.
“Well, my dear,” he said. “What have we here?”
Warry set the lamp down on the desk and stared back at him. It seemed pointless to come up with yet another lie. He could think of none that would explain away his very obvious transgression, and Balfour was no fool.
Balfour closed the door. “We’re not married yet. I hardly think my private papers are of any concern of yours, do you?”
Warry lifted his chin. “It is not your private papers that concern me, sir, but my sister’s.”
Balfour raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. “Ah, and to think I mistook you for a gentleman of good breeding when here you are trying to cheat your way out of our arrangement.”
Warry felt his face grow hot, and he hated Balfour for his ability to sting him with his words when he was not the one at fault. “An arrangement you blackmailed me into!”
Balfour rolled his eyes. “What a tiresome little prig you truly are. If you didn’t want to be blackmailed, Joseph, you should have counselled your dear sister to keep her legs closed. Or at least not to be so witless as to write down her indiscretions!”
“Why do you want to marry me?” Warry asked hotly. “You don’t even like me!”
Balfour waved a hand as though batting away an irritating gnat. “I don’t like your newfound impertinence, certainly, and as your husband I shall enjoy taking you in hand and reminding you of your manners, but I like you well enough.”
“You mean you find me malleable enough!” Warry hated himself because he knew it was the truth.
Balfour’s smirk grew into a smile. “You are pleasingly docile. It’s true.”
“You may find I have more spine than you imagine.”
“Oh! Really?” Balfour folded his arms across his chest. “Where have you been hiding it all the time I’ve known you?”
Warry straightened his shoulders. “You do not really know me at all.” His voice sounded weak to his own ears.
“I will soon enough,” Balfour replied, unfolding his arms. He reached out, stroking Warry’s cheek with the back of one finger. “You know, for a time, I thought I wanted what my father had. When you fell into my lap, as it were, I thought this will solve all my problems. My grandmother will be satisfied that I have made a good match, and I will be husband to someone I truly desire. Yet the more I reflect, the less I believe marriage capable of bringing about lasting happiness. It is that word, ‘desire’, that has become key to me. I crave you, Joseph. My thoughts of you seem branded on my body like plague sores, and every way I toss and turn, I am in an agony of wanting you.” His finger trailed over the line of Warry’s jaw. “So now, marrying you is simply a way to ensure your compliance in all that I wish to do to you.”
Warry closed his eyes, humiliation rising in his throat with all the acidity of bile.
“I must say…” Balfour brushed his finger down his throat and pressed the bruise that still lingered there. “Seeing how much Hartwell desires you has spurred me like nothing else. I wish for him to know, whenever he looks at you, that I have claimed you thoroughly, in body and in spirit.”
Now Warry did pull back—so sharply he nearly stumbled.
“Ah, you desire Hartwell in return? No matter. You will forget him entirely once we are wed and I have given you pleasure you could never have imagined.”
Warry’s blood roared. He had already known pleasure beyond anything he had ever imagined. If he married Balfour, he was not just condemning himself to a lifetime of cruelty, but he was cutting himself off from any chance of a match borne of mutual passion. Even if he could not have Hartwell—even if he did not want Hartwell, he reminded himself—there might be others he would feel such fire for. And he had wanted for so long to know what it was to love and be loved without feeling shame for it.
The idea landed softly but ominously—the feather of a raven swaying down from the sky to light in the brim of his hat. It was a foolish plot, born of desperation and no rational thought whatsoever. But he was a fool, was he not? So it was a fool’s plan.
He met Balfour’s gaze, not giving himself time to doubt. “One night.”
Balfour tilted his head. “What did you say?”
“You do not truly wish to wed me. You could wed anyone at all to satisfy your grandmother’s requirement. And I would not make a good husband to you, no matter how you tried to mould me. The whole reason you desire me—this body—will grow old. You will not always hunger for it. Then I will become extraneous, a nuisance, as I am to everyone. So I offer you instead one night with me. I will tell no one. And I will do anything.”
Something sparked in Balfour’s eyes. A moment later, he burst out laughing. Which was not precisely the reaction Warry had hoped for. “Joseph,” he said between gasps. “Oh, I should like to dismiss this nonsense at once. What sort of fool must you be to think I would take one night in bed with you in place of a lifetime of possessing you? I—”
Warry forced himself on. “When we are wed, I will give you nothing. You will take what is due to you as my husband, I’m certain, but I will offer nothing in return. I will lie there like a corpse, I swear it. But if you take me now, tonight, I will do anything you wish. I will do it…willingly. I will be whatever you wish me to be.” He paused, his throat tightening. “Whatever you think I have done with Lord Hartwell, you do not know the truth of it. I am still a…”
“Still a what?” Balfour was no longer laughing. “I want to hear you say the word.”
“A virgin.”
Balfour stared, his eyes alight.
A shiver passed through Warry. “You may take that from me any way you like. You do not have to saddle yourself with me as a husband. At the end of the night, you give the letter back, and we part ways.”
Balfour clucked his tongue. “You did not allow me to finish, Joseph. Bad manners indeed. Although that was a pretty speech, I must admit. I was going to say that I am not opposed to what you suggest simply because you have suggested it.”
Warry tried not to let his confusion show.
“Never did I imagine you had it in you to make such an offer. It is quite the most delightful thing I’ve witnessed in some time, and it is made all the more delicious by the fact that I don’t think you truly know what you are offering.”
Once again, Warry’s face burned. “I know enough.”
“Whatever you don’t know,” Balfour said quietly, “I will teach you.”
Wasn’t that what Warry had wanted once, to be schooled in this way? He shut his eyes briefly, wishing one last time for it to be Hartwell who might educate him. Then he banished the thought from his mind and nodded.
“All right, then. At the end of the night, as my guests disperse, you will make your way discreetly to the bedchamber at the end of this hall. I will meet you there.”
“And you will have the letter?”
“Certainly, I will have the letter.”
“Then we are agreed,” Warry said, his heart pounding so wildly he was afraid it might fail at any moment.
“We are agreed,” Balfour echoed, his gaze surprisingly soft, holding a near-religious fervour. “Shall we shake hands like gentlemen?”
Warry extended his hand cautiously, trying not to flinch when Balfour grasped it. Instead of shaking, Balfour took his hand and turned it, bringing it up to his mouth. Then, instead of kissing it, he dragged his tongue along it like a dog might.
Warry tugged his hand free, disgusted.
Balfour laughed, the sound chilling and hungry at once. “Oh, my dear,” he said, “what a delight you shall be.”
And then he swept from the study, leaving Warry sick with fear at what he had agreed to do.
Chapter 16
“There really are only so many times a man can be expected to watch a quadrille without resorting to violence,” Christmas Gale said, sounding as bored and weary of life as ever. “Hartwell.” His voice sharpened. “Hartwell, are
you even listening to me?”
“Hmm?” Hartwell pulled his gaze away from the pretty couples on the ballroom floor, moving in perfect synchronicity, frills and ribbons flying. “I beg your pardon, Gale. What did you say?”
Gale narrowed his eyes. “You’ve grown tiresome of late. I don’t like it.”
“How fortunate that I exist for more than your pleasure, then,” Hartwell said, and won himself a rare, wry smile from his dour friend. “What was it you said?”
Gale waved his hand. “Quadrilles and inevitable violence. Nothing of note.”
“I cannot see Warry.” Hartwell scanned the crowd again. He caught a glimpse of Becca, trapped in conversation with several other ladies. Her smile looked false but only because he knew her so well. Or had known her. A pang of guilt bit at him, and he wondered if there was any way to repair their tattered friendship. He loved Becca too dearly to imagine a life without her. Of course, a repaired friendship with Becca would mean seeing Warry far too often, and Hartwell had no interest in such an outcome—which certainly didn’t explain why he kept staring around looking for the wretched fellow. Or at least it was no explanation that Hartwell wanted to admit to.
Gale arched a brow. “Yes, you are quite tiresome. Why don’t you just admit to yourself that you are head over heels for your dull little Warry and ask him to marry you?”
“What?” Hartwell laughed, and the sound was more strangled than he would have liked. “I certainly am not head over heels for Warry, and even if I were…”
“Even if you were?” Gale prompted.
“Even if I were,” Hartwell said, his stomach sinking, “my father would never approve of a marriage with a man.”