Beyond Scandal and Desire

by Lorraine Heath

  “To lose?”

  “To win.” Shoving himself away from his little hovel, he leaned earnestly toward her. “You can’t imagine it. Your heart pounds so hard you can hear the blood rushing through your ears. There is an elation in your mind that makes it seem the entire universe is expanding. Your nerve endings tingle and become incredibly sensitive. Every sensation, every emotion is heightened. It’s like nothing else. It’s like being alive.”

  Only she’d felt devastated, dead, handing over her pearls. “You must stop. You can’t continue doing this after we’re married.”

  Slowly he blinked, as though having a difficult time processing her words. They should probably wait until liquor wasn’t sloshing through his veins, but the anger and disappointment were roiling through her now, and she was having a difficult time containing them.

  “Are you forbidding me?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yes, I believe I am.”

  “Wives do not forbid.”

  “Husbands honor their wives’ requests if they want accord in their marriage.”

  “Not when they’re unreasonable.”

  “You lost your father’s watch. You lost a thousand quid. You lost my pearls, my comb—­all in a single night. I’ll not have the money in my trust frittered away after we’re married.”

  “I’m not going to give up my life. I’m not going to become my father, always doting on my mother to the exclusion of all else, including his own son. You can’t expect it of me, and if you do, you’re going to be sadly disappointed.”

  “No, I don’t think I shall be disappointed, as I very much doubt I’m going to marry you if you’re not willing to forgo this incessant gambling.” The words came out unbidden, tightening her stomach into a knot, and yet she could not deny the truth of them. She knew beyond any doubt that she would not find happiness with the man—­drunk, disheveled, and demanding—­who was currently sitting across from her.

  “You’re being absurd,” he stated. “Overreacting. I enjoy gambling. It’s harmless. It’s not as though I’m going to be beating you.”

  The conversation was deteriorating quickly, upsetting her even more. Not once had she considered him capable of this unflattering demeanor. “I never thought you would, but you hurt me tonight. And embarrassed me, as well as yourself. You made a spectacle of us both.”

  “To a bunch of commoners whose opinions have no merit. They’re nothing—­oh, dear God.” Bracing his hand on her seat, he lowered his head.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m going to cast up my accounts.”

  “Stop! Stop!” she shouted as she banged on the ceiling.

  The carriage came to a halt. Kip flung open the door and staggered out. She heard him retching, felt rather ill herself. The man traveling with her was not one she could admire. She couldn’t even claim to like him, to enjoy his company.

  She feared she may have become betrothed to a man she didn’t really know. More, she feared the man she’d witnessed tonight was the true Kip—­and that man she could not marry.

  Some hours later, after everyone had left, all the lights had been doused and silence wove itself through all the rooms, Mick stood at the window in his library and gazed out on the night, slowly pulling the pearls on a serpentine path through his fingers. He could well imagine he felt the warmth from her neck still pulsating through the white.

  He’d never had much respect for the aristocracy. Bloody toffs who were given so much, didn’t appreciate it and tended to lose it with such ease, as though it were of no consequence and more was to be found with the snap of fingers. In his desk drawer were half a dozen markers attesting to that attitude. Also in that desk drawer now rested a gold pocket watch that bore an intricate engraving of a stag, similar to the one that occupied a corner of the Hedley crest. Perhaps one day he would attach the chain that accompanied it to a button of his waistcoat and tuck the watch into the small pocket where he could easily reach it, gaze down on it and mark the time.

  Tonight his focus was on the pearls. He knew the moment she realized they were lost to her. She’d been devastated. He’d seen the shattering in her eyes, then gone, with little more than a blink. If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he’d have missed it. But he had been watching, studying her all night, searching for weaknesses—­and all he’d found were strengths.

  He’d wanted to applaud when she reached up and unlatched the pearls from about her neck. Spud didn’t realize how lucky he was that she’d taken the initiative. If he’d touched her, Mick would have broken his fingers or at the very least punched the man. He wouldn’t have been deserving of either treatment. Spud had been following the bricklayer’s orders to gather the winnings, but Mick recognized that where Lady Aslyn was concerned, he seemed to lack the ability to think with any rationality.

  When she had walked from the room with her head held high, her shoulders back, her spine straight—­in spite of the mortification that the drunkard Mick had been dragging along had caused her—­he thought he’d never seen anyone with more regal bearing. And the lady—­a true lady, if ever there was one—­despite everything, had taken the time to say a few words of farewell to his sister.

  Kipwick was undeserving of her. He wondered if she might realize it before it was too late. Or if it would be left to him to prove it to her.

  He’d once thought her crucial to his scheme of bringing about Hedley’s downfall. Now he feared that she might very well lead to his.

  Chapter 10

  Aslyn awoke to sunshine pouring in through her bedchamber window. She hadn’t expected that. With such a heavy heart, she should be greeted with rain, an abundance of it gushing down in sheets that hampered visibility. Heaving a deep sigh, she shoved herself up and settled against the pillows. Last night, she’d instructed Nan to bring her breakfast. She couldn’t face the duke across the dining table.

  Fortunately neither he nor the duchess had been waiting for her when she returned home, so they’d been spared wondering why their son didn’t escort her inside. After his bout of retching, he’d clambered back into the carriage, curled up on the seat and begun to snore loudly as though her threat of calling things off mattered little. For all of a heartbeat, she’d considered waking him so they could finish their conversation and come to some sort of terms or an understanding, but she’d been unable to rely on any rational discourse in his current state. She’d have to wait for him to sober up.

  Upon arriving at the residence, she’d made a hasty retreat from the carriage, leaving him to see his own self home, where she assumed his servants would either assist in getting him inside or simply leave him to sleep it off in his conveyance. She rather hoped for the latter. He’d betrayed her trust, proved himself unworthy of her affections.

  Where he was concerned, how could she have been such a fool? While she’d been brought up to expect marriage, to see becoming a wife and mother as her duty, presently she wasn’t convinced she wanted it. Never before had Kip shown such blatant disregard for her feelings.

  With a deep sigh, she scrubbed her hands over her face. Melancholy didn’t suit her. She was weary of being so passive, of waiting for life to happen to her. She was as dependent on Kip for her happiness as he was on his damned cards and wagering for his own. When he had described what it was to win, all she’d been able to think was that the same things happened to her when she was near Mick Trewlove. She wasn’t exactly sure precisely what that meant. The man confused her in ways she’d never even known existed.

  And with whom could she discuss all these confounding feelings, the ones about Kip whom she’d once admired and whose actions she now detested, Mick whom Society insisted she shun because of his birth, and yet she’d grown to admire?

  She couldn’t seek advice from the duchess, couldn’t tell her about her son’s abhorrent behavior nor could she reveal what a gentleman she found Mick Trewlove to be. So
who was there for her to talk to? She’d been raised in near isolation at the ducal estate until it was time to have a Season. She’d met other ladies, but she hadn’t become close to them; they didn’t share intimacies, only gossip. Kip was the one to whom she’d always spoken before, had shared her doubts and fears, her hopes and dreams. She felt as though he’d squashed them, torn them up, cast them aside and in so doing had cast her aside as well, with little thought, and anger, and words that could never be unheard.

  Tossing back the covers, she scrambled out of bed, unable to abide this moping about. She was going to join the duke for breakfast. She was going to find a purpose to her life that didn’t involve marriage. She was going to determine how best to help Kip realize he needed to leave the gambling tables before they destroyed him. She wouldn’t abandon him, but neither could she embrace him, not as he’d been last night, not as he may have been many nights before.

  A soft rap sounded on her door just before Nan opened it and walked inside carrying a tray. “I thought you wanted breakfast in bed.”

  Oh dear. She couldn’t very well not eat in her room after putting her servant to such bother. “I’ll have it in the sitting area.”

  Nan set it on the low table before turning to face her, looking rather guilty as she did. “Another package arrived for you—­same as before. Well, not quite. It wasn’t the same gent who delivered it but a scruffy little lad who was told to give it only to me and I was to give it only to you.” She held out a leather box, similar in shape to the other, but larger.

  Aslyn took it, opened it. On a small card was written: A lady should never be separated from her pearls.

  She lifted out the note. Beneath it rested her necklace and comb. There was a pain in the center of her chest, a tight knot as though her heart were being squeezed tighter and tighter. Her eyes burned more than they had when she’d walked into the smoke-­hazed card room. More than they had when she’d realized Kip had not kept his promise to her, that he had in fact lost the wager.

  Mick Trewlove was showing her a kindness that her own betrothed had failed to do. A second man was stepping into her life while the first was stepping out of it. Confusion rocked her. She felt as though she were perched on the deck of a ship in the midst of a tempest. She had no business whatsoever thinking about Mick, but the horrible realization struck her that she had no desire to think about Kip.

  Still, two hours later she found herself standing in the foyer of Kip’s town house.

  “I’m sorry, m’lady,” his butler said, true sorrow reflected in his tone, “but his lordship is quite under the weather today.”

  Glancing up the stairs, she wondered if she looked hard enough if she might see him suffering. She needed to speak with him; they needed to get things sorted out. Too much had been said, too much left unsaid. “Let him know I came by, and that I expect him to call on me as soon as he is able.”

  “Yes, m’lady.”

  She turned to go, stopped, swung back around. “Is he often under the weather?”

  Clearing his throat, the butler looked down as though needing to check the polish on his shoes. His silence revealed his loyalty as well as providing the answer.

  “My apologies. I’ve put you on the spot. I’ll be certain to let him know you hold his trust.”

  “Thank you, m’lady.”

  She walked out with her two maids following. All her life she’d listened and adhered to the duchess’s admonishments that dangers loomed afield, and she must never stray far from the familiar. Yet it was the familiar causing her heartache. She needed to help Kip, but she didn’t know how. Although she thought she might have a good idea regarding where to begin.

  She waited on tenterhooks until the residence was completely quiet and absolutely still. Eerily so. She ignored Nan’s warnings and declined her maid’s offer to accompany her. If something went awry, she didn’t want her loyal servant to be faulted. Besides, there was a thrill to walking out of the residence unaccompanied. Until the precise moment when the door closed behind her and she found herself standing alone on the stoop, she didn’t realize she’d never ventured forth without a cadre of servants waiting for her or following in her wake, or Kip offering his arm.

  But tonight it was only she. Well, she and the hansom driver waiting at the end of the long drive that now echoed her hurried footsteps. She’d made the arrangements earlier in the afternoon when she’d supposedly gone shopping. Instead she’d been scouting out her options for making a clandestine escape.

  An unfortunate word that, but there were numerous ways to be caged and not all of them came with steel bars or locked doors.

  The driver tipped his hat and opened the door as she approached. “Miss.”

  “Thank you, sir, for meeting me.”

  “Not often I get paid double in advance of the journey.”

  Her earlier outing had included a visit to the bank in which she had an account where a small bit of money from a trust her father had set up for her was deposited each month—­so she had some spending money. Most of the monthly allotment went to the duke so he could oversee her needs without causing a burden to his own family. When she married, it would go to her husband. If she were unmarried at twenty-­five, it would all begin coming to her. Until last night she’d never contemplated the final option. But now it loomed clear and welcome.

  As she placed her hand in the one the driver extended to her, a quiver of foreboding shimmied through her. If she was going to change her mind, now was the time to do it. Instead, she took a deep breath, climbed up and settled onto the seat. The door closed with a rather loud snap that gave her a little start.

  “Where to, miss?”

  She gave him the address.

  “I’ll have you there in a thrice.” The driver climbed up. The horse took off.

  She pulled the hood of her pelisse up over her head, not that she thought where she was going anyone would recognize her, but it seemed the sort of thing a lady traveling alone should do: hide her identity as much as possible. A lady going about without a chaperone was no lady at all.

  A chill hung in the air, or perhaps it was simply fear making her bones cold. All the responsibility rested with her, weighed on her. What if she’d judged Mick incorrectly, what if he was exactly the sort of rapscallion the duchess had warned her about, a man who would take advantage of a woman alone? With two sisters, how could he be? How could he look them in the eye if he treated another woman poorly?

  It was nearing eleven. Few people were out but more than she expected wandered about. She’d often returned from a ball late at night but never given any heed to what was going on around her. Now she wondered who these people were. Why were they not abed? What entertainments did they find?

  She saw the hotel long before they reached it. It stood out like a talisman. The carriage came to a halt, and she realized she had one more chance to change her mind, to instruct him to carry on, to take her home. Instead, when he opened the door, she allowed him to hand her down.

  “I’ll wait till yer safely inside.”

  She wasn’t quite sure she was going to be any safer inside than out here, but appreciated the sentiment. Marching up the steps, she saw the red-­clad porter who was standing outside the double glass doors straighten his spine and touch his finger to his top hat. “Miss.”

  As long as she could remember, she’d been addressed as “my lady.” No doubt the term had followed her into the crib. It was odd to have two gentlemen not refer to her as such, but then proper young ladies weren’t expected to be skulking about at all hours of the night.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Trewlove.” It suddenly occurred to her that it was very likely he wasn’t in residence. In which case it would turn out to be a good thing the hansom driver had remained.

  “Top floor, miss.” He pulled open one of the doors.

  “He’s in?” An inane thing to ask at th
at moment since he certainly wouldn’t have provided entry if the person she was seeking wasn’t about.

  “Aye.”

  Giving a nod, she glanced back at the hansom and the driver waiting patiently. “Will you wait twenty minutes? I’ll pay you for your time.” Her visit shouldn’t take any longer than that.

  “My pleasure, miss. And don’t you be worrying about the additional fee. You’ve more than covered my time already.”

  “Thank you!” With a little wave, she turned back and strolled inside.

  A man stood behind the desk where guests received the keys to their rooms. “Evening, miss.”

  “I’m here to see Mr. Trewlove.” At this rate all of London was going to know she was here and who she’d come to visit. She really hadn’t given this part of her plan adequate thought. Obviously organizing clandestine meetings wasn’t her forte.

  She started up the sweeping staircase and climbed, climbed, climbed until there were no more red-­carpeted steps, only a long hallway with several closed wooden doors and one glass one. Etched in the glass was Trewlove. As it was nearest to her, and she could see a light shining from within the depths beyond, she decided to start there.

  The door silently opened into a sitting area with a large desk where she suspected Mr. Tittlefitz worked while people waited to have an audience with Mick. She assumed that was the owner’s office farther inside. The door was open. She crept toward it—­

  He sat behind a desk of dark wood, almost ebony in color, twice the size of Tittlefitz’s. He wore no jacket or waistcoat or cravat. The buttons at his throat were undone, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up past his elbows as though he were in the thick of laboring. His hair curled in disarray. Little bits of shadow just above and below his beard hinted he had not shaved recently. He seemed rough, dangerous, a product of his origins. Her mind betrayed her with the thought that she’d never seen anyone look so marvelously masculine and alluring.