“Were I to marry again, any duchess of mine shall do as she pleases, including running the hounds or riding any matter of…mount,” the duke added, arching a suggestive eyebrow as he smiled down the table at his latest quarry. “Given your love of horses, I have recently acquired a pair of magnificent geldings. Perhaps you would care to see them at some other time, Lady Briannon?”
Though her face remained perfectly composed, Archer noticed Brynn’s fingers fisting in the folds of her dress in her lap.
“I should like that very much, Your Grace,” she said demurely. Archer saw her clenched hands tremble. When the conversation began to turn yet again, and the duke’s attention had been drawn away from Brynn, Archer leaned in toward her. His next words were a hurried whisper. “Second floor parlor, blue door.”
She shot him a puzzled glance as Lady Rochester stood and suggested the ladies retire to the drawing room. The footmen came forward, and the men rose to their feet. Before Briannon could move her chair, Archer glanced down, making certain of his own chair leg’s placement, and slid back. A harsh ripping sound rent through the room, and heads swiveled in his direction. Briannon caught her breath, her eyes rising to his, but the relief in them far outweighed the dismay at her torn dress.
“My deepest apologies,” Archer said, his expression suitably regretful. “The hem of your dress was caught beneath the chair. One of our house maids will have it mended at once.”
“Thank you,” she said, a footman rushing forward to take her napkin and hold her chair. “Please excuse me, Your Grace,” she said. “It appears that I must attend to this small inconvenience.” And at her mother’s inquisitive stare, added, “I will rejoin the ladies in the drawing room posthaste.”
Archer stood as Lady Dinsmore and the rest of the women continued to file from the dining room, Briannon behind them. The footman finally ushered her into the hallway, and Archer slowly followed the crowd of gentlemen filing into the billiards room, attached to the dining room by a pair of pocket doors. He had planned to take his leave as soon as he entered. He flicked an eye over his shoulder and watched Briannon disappear from view. Archer hoped she would heed his directions, though now he was beginning to doubt whether she had even heard him or had perhaps been confused. He tapped his fingers against his thigh and deliberated following now, rather than letting a safe minute pass between both their exits. The opportunity to speak with her in private could not be missed.
He cleared his throat. “Please give my regards to the ladies,” he said, standing at the entrance to the billiards room as the rest of his father’s guests got settled. “Regrettably, I will not be able to join you. I have an urgent business matter to attend to that requires my immediate departure.”
As he turned to leave the room, he couldn’t help noticing the scowl on the duke’s face. No doubt he suspected something, but he knew his father would never abandon his guests, at least not right at that moment. Archer answered the scowl with one of his own, and by the glances darting between the duke and marquess, the charged interaction was not lost on the other occupants of the room.
Unwilling to waste time engaging in a battle of wills, Archer swung on his heel and left. He turned toward the back of the foyer, and with long, decisive strides caught up to the footman accompanying Briannon. “I will see the lady to the sewing room,” he said, dismissing the footman with a curt nod.
Briannon’s eyes widened, but she did not say anything as Archer marched them up an elegantly carpeted set of stairs. They made their way down another impeccable hallway decorated with family portraits, and then another, lined with several Roman and Grecian busts, until Archer stopped at the aforementioned room with a blue door. He ushered her into the room, still without uttering a word, and checked to make sure the corridor was deserted before closing the door behind him.
Briannon glanced around the room, her face reflecting her surprise at the lovely floral decor and the subtle feminine touches of delicate rose wallpaper and plush seating. “This was my mother’s private sitting room,” Archer explained, his voice at last cutting through the silence between them. He glanced around, breathing in the subtle scent of disuse. And honeysuckle. Though closed up and musty, her perfume still somehow lingered in the room. Even after all these years.
“The maids come in once in a great while to dust, but otherwise, it has been left untouched,” he said when Briannon remained quiet. “Please sit. I’m certain she had a sewing box in here somewhere.”
He moved toward the far end of the room and began rummaging through some drawers in a white linen chest, his side vision tracking Briannon’s movements. She walked over to the window bench, her fingers trailing along a neatly stacked bookshelf tucked into the walls beside the windows. He watched her study some of the volumes and then touch the peach-colored cushions on the bench, set just so, as if the duchess were expected to return any moment. The sight of a woman who wasn’t his mother standing at the window made his chest feel hollow. It made him wonder what the duchess would have made of the beautiful creature standing within her private sanctuary, currently plumping a lace-trimmed pillow.
Briannon glanced over her shoulder at him, and he shut the linen trunk. “Do you miss her?”
A host of emotions ran through him at the innocent question. Archer settled for a safe, distant answer. “The duchess was mourned by many.”
Her eyes fluttered on him for a moment before they fell away, as if she could see right through him and didn’t wish to let on. Though he thought of her often, Archer rarely spoke of his mother. For some reason, every time he spoke of her aloud, he felt as if he were giving little pieces of her away. Memories given as gifts that he would never get back. So instead he kept his thoughts to himself. He did miss her. The late duchess had been the sort of person whom people couldn’t help being drawn to. She’d had a lightness of spirit and an infectious joy that everyone noticed, especially Archer and Eloise, whom she showered that joy and laughter upon the most. She’d been the light of Worthington Abbey, and the bridge between his father and he. When she died, his father had turned to his lifestyle of flippancy and excess, and Archer had been forced to learn how to run a dukedom.
Archer resumed his search for the mending kit. The risk that one of Brynn’s family members, or worse, the duke himself, would come looking for her and stumble upon them was high. He had all the time in the world to think about his late mother, but only a few precious minutes with Briannon.
With a soft exclamation of triumph, he located the silk-pillowed box and strode over to where she was sitting on the peach cushions. She looked entirely too fetching in that golden gown. It managed to look both ethereal and provocative, the bold color complementing her to perfection. It set off the gilded lights in her hair and made her hazel eyes sparkle with the sort of vivacity that reminded him of the late duchess. She would have approved of the young woman now sitting so daintily in her favorite seat. He frowned at the errant thought. He wasn’t in the market for a wife, and he certainly didn’t want to marry Briannon. He just didn’t want his father to marry her.
He knelt at her feet and opened the box.
“My lord,” Briannon exclaimed. “Where is the maid?”
“In the sewing room most likely, where the footman would have sent her.”
“Shouldn’t I be there, then?” she asked.
“No need. I can darn just as well as any under maid,” he said, sifting through the various threads until he found one that matched the vibrant hue of her dress.
He glanced up to find Briannon’s expression loose with shock. “You know how to sew?”
The humor sparking in her eyes helped him to brush away the pall of sadness the thoughts of his mother had brought on. “Why is that so surprising? You approve of ladies who hunt, but not of men who know how to wield a needle? That seems somewhat hypocritical, does it not?”
“I did not expect…you of all people…I…”
Archer grinned. “It is eminently satisfying to find you at a
loss for words, my lady.” He threaded a needle and held together the ripped edges of her dress. “My mother enjoyed needlepoint, and in those spare moments when I was not encumbered by my studies, I spent them in here with her. She was far better company than my father, and I seemed to have had a knack for it.” He glanced up with a small smile. Odd. Sharing that memory hadn’t felt like giving it away at all.
“I would insist that you let me do it myself, but I fear that I am not as skilled with a needle as you claim to be,” she said in an odd, softened voice. “I would likely stitch my skirts to my stockings.”
Archer could feel the heat from those delicate stockinged ankles, a hair’s breadth from his fingers, and his hands shook as he held the frayed ends of the material together. His fingers ached to peel the delicate silk from her calves, explore the softness of her skin, and venture higher still. He inhaled sharply. The lady’s proximity nearly made him forget why he’d purposely torn her dress in the first place. They had little time, and he needed to know what she knew—or suspected—about the bandit. He cleared his throat and focused on making tiny, precise stitches.
“This is quite improper, really,” Briannon remarked while he worked, her voice flustered. And yet she did not push his hands away or try to take the needle and thread herself.
“We do seem to find ourselves in these situations,” Archer said, biting his tongue in concentration as he put the finishing touches on the nearly invisible seam. “One of these days, we shall not be so lucky to evade the threat of discovery, and then what shall we do?”
“Pledge my hand?” she said with a laugh. “Or one of them, at least.”
Archer appreciated her wry sense of self-deprecating humor. He knew she was referring to the duke’s attentions. “You would be the toast of the season. A duke and a marquess desperate to win each hand? Mothers of the ton have waged wars for less.”
Briannon laughed at him, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “Somehow I can hardly see you in the least bit desperate to win anyone’s hand.”
“Why would you say that?” he said, keeping his tone light. “There are many things in this world I yearn for.”
Briannon colored and bit her lips. He could see she was shocked at the turn of the conversation and the airy nature of his response—as was he, himself. Archer hoped propriety would not win out.
It didn’t.
She grinned wickedly. “Sadly, I have heard that it will be a cold day in Hades before the Marquess of Hawksfield proposes marriage to any debutante.”
His eyes met hers. “I have it on unimpeachable authority that the marquess could be swayed by the right maiden.”
“Then I would say that your source is mistaken.” She laughed. “The marquess in question is, as I’ve heard, a ruthless and uncompromising man driven by amassing his fortunes and interested in little else beyond that, much less the attentions of some simpering maiden.”
His reputation was exactly as he’d molded it to be, it seemed. Why the description fell through him like coins in a well gave him pause. He wrinkled his forehead and turned his eyes back to his task. “What if his attentions were drawn by a fascinating sprite in a golden dress whose skill with a pistol was matched only by her razor-sharp wit?”
Damn. Flirting with her was turning out to be rather intoxicating. He peered at her before tidying a crooked stitch. Her cheeks were like pink rosebuds before bloom.
“That would be surprising indeed,” she whispered.
Archer was surprised as well, mostly at himself. He’d brought her here to discuss more pressing things, not flirt. He replaced the needle in the box and stood. “There, done.”
“It’s perfect,” she breathed, inspecting the repair with incredulous eyes. “I did not believe you could do it, sir, but your stitches are near invisible. Madame Despain would applaud.”
The French modiste on Bond Street had created this dress? He pictured Briannon standing in the center of a room filled with mirrors and bolts of fabric, stripped down to her underthings as the modiste and her assistants swathed her in this golden silk, and fought to breathe. He wanted to touch the silk against her body, warm it with the palms of his hands.
For the second time that evening, he felt uncomfortably tight in his trousers—which were already tight as it was. He stood, grimacing at the twinge of pain in his injured leg, and regretted kneeling for so long. He backed away from the bench seat, needing distance to clear his fuddled mind.
“Thank you,” Archer said. “It is nice to know should I lose interest in the strenuous pursuits of men, I will have something to fall back upon.”
“You mock me,” Briannon said with a smile at his teasing.
“On the contrary. Now we are even, for I can set a tight stitch and you can ride a horse without a saddle. My dignity has been set to rights.”
The flickering movement of her lips burgeoned into a full-fledged smile. “Your dignity?”
“I couldn’t walk for hours after I returned to Worthington Abbey upon your stallion. You made it look easy, and I assure you, it was not.” He returned the box to the linen case and closed the glass doors. He knew he should remain across the room from her. A good ten paces. At this distance, he could not trace the warmth from her body or the whisper of her perfume. Not the cloying florals most other women wore, but something subtler, earthy, and bright. Like green clipped grass and lemon.
He should have stayed where he was.
He didn’t.
Briannon’s humor fled her face as he approached her, taking slow, measured steps. The mood shifted from flirtatious to serious with each one. The lightness of their banter evaporated now that he was no longer hindered by the task of mending of her dress. She stared at the door and then at him, her hands twisting together in her lap. “My Lord Hawksfield—”
“My name is Archer,” he interrupted and took the seat at the other end of the window bench, again ignoring the accompanying pain at the stretch of his injured thigh.
Her lips parted at the offering of his given name and his intimate position on the seat. “Lord Hawksfield,” she insisted, “why did you bring me here?”
“Are you interested in the duke’s suit?” he countered.
It was not the question he’d wanted to ask, but bringing up the bandit had to be natural. At this moment, it would be anything but.
“Should the duke make an offer,” she said, her eyes drifting to the floor, “it is my duty to do as my father wishes.”
He saw her throat bob and her lips pull into a slight grimace, as if she’d just swallowed something distasteful. She was a truly awful liar.
“That’s not what I was asking,” he said.
She stared at him, no doubt hearing the swift notes of anger in his voice. Her chest rose along with her chin. “Your question is rude, and I do not have to answer it.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked in perfect time with his ballooning frustration. “Brynn, what happened between us at the masquerade—”
Her eyes widened at the use of her nickname, but she did not correct him. “Was a mistake.”
“Was it?” he countered.
“Yes,” she said, her color rising.
“That is a lie.” His words were soft, and he watched trepidation play across her expressive face. “Tell me you felt nothing.”
A beat passed. She inhaled through her pert little nostrils, as if fortifying herself.
“I felt nothing,” she said, but her words sounded hollow. She knew it, too. Her eyes flashed with mortification and then with something darker and fiercer. Something he recognized immediately, because he felt it, too.
She tossed her head, defiant to the last, and attempted to turn the conversation. “Where did you go when you left the masquerade?”
Archer paused at the flicker of surprise in her eyes. As though her own question had startled her. “Home. Why do you ask?”
She lifted her chin a bit higher. “You left around the same time as Lord Maynard. Perhaps you may have seen something.”
Here it is—the perfect opportunity. He’d told Brandt he’d discover what Briannon knew of the Masked Marauder and quash it. “Lord Maynard,” he echoed carefully, though every muscle in his body tensed.
Briannon met his eyes. “Perhaps you saw someone…suspicious.”
“Do you not think I would have come forward with any informative accounts by now?”
The blunt question stumped her, and she cast her eyes down, her teeth buried in her lower lip. She seemed to be staring intently at his knees while thinking. But then she blinked, a small pinch between her brows, and released her lip. She slowly lifted her eyes and met his gaze again. “The bandit was also on your property a few nights previous. He waylaid my carriage.”
“Yes, I am aware.”
“I spoke to him,” she whispered, flushing.
“As you said earlier at dinner. What of it?”
Briannon breathed in sharply. “I looked into his eyes.”
Now would be the time to laugh at her. Accuse her of being a silly girl with an overactive imagination. “It seems this bandit affected you, Lady Briannon,” he said coolly, standing up from the bench. His wounded leg twitched again. Archer winced, and his hand went to his thigh before he could stop himself.
Briannon witnessed it. “Your leg,” she said softly.
“It’s nothing,” he said tersely. “My ankle is still sore.”
She hiked her chin. “So then why is your thigh bleeding?”
He went still, his eyes lowering. A minuscule red stain had blossomed on his gray trousers. The tenuous scab must have split, and the bandage wrapping it must have been too thin to absorb the weeping wound.
There had been an article printed in the Times about the attack on Lady Emiliah’s carriage. How their rescuer had shot the bandit in the leg. And Archer already knew Briannon’s penchant for reading her father’s papers.
My Rogue, My Ruin Page 18