Always a Scoundrel

by Suzanne Enoch

“I saw it in the book at White’s,” James put in. “Nearly fifty men wagered over the outcome. It’s noted as a successfully completed wager.”

  “You see? I told you, Caro!” Oscar crowed. “I’m going to ride backwards all the way from Brighton to London. It will be very difficult, but I’m a sterling rider.”

  “I don’t think so, young man,” a new, deeper voice said from the doorway. “If you break your head then your uncle Bramwell will inherit, and none of us want that.”

  The children, followed by Lady Haithe and her husband, then James, hurriedly stood. Instinctively Rose followed suit, though Bram beside her remained seated, and in fact shoveled another mouthful of stew off his plate.

  The Duke of Levonzy strolled into the room, eyeing each of the occupants in turn. His gaze lingered on her for a moment before it moved past her to Lord Haithe. “Apologies for my tardiness, August,” he rumbled, taking the seat at the foot of the table as footmen hurried to serve him. “I had a meeting with Prinny and Melbourne.”

  “No apology is necessary of course, Father. Have you met Lord Lester and his sister Lady Rosamund? My father, the Duke of Levonzy.”

  “Your Grace,” she said, curtsying. Across the table from her, James bowed before they all seated themselves again.

  “Yes, we’ve met, though Lester there wasn’t yet in breeches, and the girl barely talking. The oldest girl, Beatrice, was the pretty one.”

  Rose returned her attention to the meal. Hearing the duke’s assessment of her appearance was nothing new; she’d known precisely who the beauty in the family was since before she could walk. It did seem a bit of a slap in the face to hear a near stranger say it, but Levonzy and her father had known each other for ages. The duke was undoubtedly very aware of her family’s opinion of her.

  “So says a crow among snowy doves,” Bram commented, reaching for another roll and gesturing for the butter.

  The Marquis of Haithe made a choking sound. “How is the Duke of Melbourne these days?” he asked swiftly.

  “Considering that his family doesn’t insult him to his face, I would say he’s quite well.” The duke finally looked at Bram. “I hadn’t realized you were here.”

  “I’d prefer if you continued not to realize that. Or better yet, notice enough to keep your mind-numbingly heavy-handed insults aimed in my direction and leave August’s guests be.”

  “He didn’t invite them,” Levonzy returned. “They are your guests. And why is that, pray tell?”

  Rosamund’s cheeks heated despite her best efforts. Was the duke’s query because of Bram’s invitation, or because she was promised to Cosgrove? Neither one seemed likely to make her very popular.

  “This is my house,” Haithe unexpectedly broke in. “Everyone here is my guest. And since Oscar is determined to end the evening with a pound of peanuts in his possession, I think the old axiom ‘The more, the merrier’ applies.”

  “Two pounds,” young Oscar amended. “Did you bring any blunt, Grandfather?”

  “I am not engaging in your ludicrous games.”

  Bram chuckled, no trace of humor in the sound. “He’s embarrassed that he might lose, Oscar. No worries. You and I understand that the challenge is half the fun.”

  “I think it’s a silly game, too,” Caroline stated.

  “That’s because you don’t know your addition.”

  “I do know my addition, Oscar. You cheat.”

  “Now, now, Caro. You know we don’t make accusations like that.” Lady Haithe looked as though she would prefer to be standing outside in a rain shower. Rose hoped she hid her own dismay a bit better than that.

  “Tell me, young Lord Kerkden, what do you think of Lowry House?” His Grace asked, turning his nose up at the potatoes one of the footmen offered him.

  “Uncle Bram’s house? It’s very nice.”

  “You know it’s going to be yours when you reach your majority. You are your father’s heir, and thus, my heir.”

  The boy frowned, his dark eyes puzzled. “But where is Uncle Bram going to live?”

  “Me? I’m going to become a farmer and raise sheep. I imagine your grandfather will be my largest purchaser.” He winked at the young viscount. “Or perhaps I’ll move to the tropics and grow peanuts.”

  Oscar laughed. “You’ll be rich.”

  “Yes, I believe I will be. Speaking of which, Your Grace, how is Braithewaite these days? I heard he’d been burgled. By the Black Cat, yet.”

  The duke’s skin paled. “You go too far.”

  “There’s no such thing.”

  Rose looked from son to father. For heaven’s sake. She was to be married to a monster to aid her family, and Bram was apparently to be removed from his own home for his family’s convenience. They had more in common than she’d realized.

  And being hurt by others’ expectations—that was something she could understand. Bram sent her a sideways glance that plainly told her not to be alarmed. But she wasn’t alarmed by the duke’s blustering. She was intrigued. And she very much wanted another lesson in kissing.

  Phineas Bromley sent a glance around the long room for perhaps the seventh time. The former army colonel had a strong survival instinct, but Bramwell doubted that he suspected an ambush in the Egyptian display at the British Museum.

  “What are we doing here again?” Phin asked, slanting him a glance.

  “I’m trying to be unnefarious today. I haven’t seduced anyone here, at least not to my recollection, so I thought it would serve.”

  “You’re aware that’s not a word. ‘Unnefarious.’”

  “I’ve just invented it. And you owe me a shilling because you’ve used it.”

  “Mm hm. I’m supposed to be meeting with an architect this morning.”

  “Then I’ve saved you, and you owe me a favor and a shilling.”

  “I wanted to meet with him. We’ve nearly finalized the building design for the mineral baths at Quence.”

  Bram wandered over to a highly decorated sarcophagus. “Don’t you miss it?”

  “Miss what?”

  “For ten years you risked your skin on a daily basis, Phin. War, women, wagering, drinking, danger—hell’s bells, you rode as a highwayman.”

  Phin took a quick step closer. “Lower your damned voice, will you? And no, I don’t miss it. I am very pleased with the life I’ve found.” He slapped his gloves against his palm. “Is that what this is about? You feel the need to lure me into admitting that I enjoy being domesticated so you can then insult me and call me a gelded bull again? We’ve been through this. You need a new path, Bram, because you’ve worn all the vegetation off this one. Has some woman rejected you and you’re bored?”

  “No. That’s not it.” If only that was the problem. “I haven’t slept in other than my own bed in a week. And I’ve slept alone in my bed, if you meant to ask about that.”

  His friend laughed. “I’m so sorry. Are you not feeling well? Bits and pieces begun falling off, finally?”

  Bram narrowed his eyes. “Damnation. I knew I should have gone to speak with Sullivan. The damned horse breeder won’t come to London, though.”

  “He’d come, if you asked.” Phin eyed him again. “Stop beating around the subject and tell me what’s troubling you.”

  “I don’t know what’s troubling me.” He hadn’t felt like himself in days. And he couldn’t very well ride off to Sussex to see Sullivan Waring, because Rosamund had only three weeks before her engagement would be made public, and only days after that before she would be married. To Cosgrove. He shook himself. “I burgled Lord Villiers night before last, and even that hasn’t helped.”

  “Bram, damn it all,” Phin murmured, “you have to stop doing that. I’ve heard the talk. The Black Cat is being sought by every Bow Street Runner in London. Prinny’s going to send out soldiers if one more nobleman complains.”

  “I should hope so; it would be a great deal of wasted effort on my part if no one noticed.”

  Levonzy had noticed, of course, but a
ll he’d done was more of his general ill-tempered grumbling and spitting. In all fairness Bram hadn’t been putting his all into his nighttime activities—any of them—over the past week, but neither had he been summoned for a formal dressing-down since before the beginning of the month.

  “I don’t know how to advise you then, my friend. Come to dinner tonight. Beth has become infatuated with Lord John Elliot, so you should be safe.”

  “Your sister is a menace.”

  “Only to you.”

  Bram hesitated. “Might I bring a pair of friends?”

  Immediately Phin’s expression grew wary. “Which friends?”

  Stifling his annoyance, Bram curved his lips. “Not Cosgrove, if that’s what’s troubling you.”

  “I’m afraid I’m even more particular than that, these days. I’m responsible for an eighteen-year-old menace, and I have a wife who’s seen enough scandal.”

  “Good God,” Bram exclaimed, “you have been gelded.”

  “Bram, that is n—”

  “Lord Lester and his sister. I’m…taking the lad under my wing.” And he hadn’t seen Rosamund in three days, since the night he’d kissed her. Banishing himself from her presence, though, hadn’t done a damned thing to remove the troubling and annoying batting about in his chest that occurred whenever he thought about her.

  “Bring them along, then. Seven o’clock.” Phineas pulled out his pocket watch and flipped it open. “I think I can still manage my meeting. I’m leaving you now. Don’t steal anything from the museum, or I’ll turn you in, myself.”

  “Yes, yes. Run along, you henhouse Harry.”

  With a grin, Phin clapped him on the shoulder and hurried off to meet with his architect. Bram was happy for him, he supposed, though it was damned inconvenient that his friends’ evenings—when they even came to London—were full of family dinners and evenings that ended early so that they could return home to their adoring wives.

  Taking a breath, he left the museum himself. He needed to inform Lester that they’d been invited to another dinner. A note would be the most appropriate, but he’d been neglecting his so-called duties to Rosamund. And, damn it all, he wanted to see her.

  With that idiocy in mind, he rode to Davies House and knocked the rapper against the front door. A few seconds passed before it opened. “My lord,” the butler said, bowing.

  “Is Lester to home?”

  “No, my lord. I believe him to be at luncheon with Lord Cosgrove.”

  Damnation. “Lady Rosamund?”

  “If you’d care to wait in the morning room, I shall inquire.”

  She was home, at least. And he’d been allowed into the house. There were occasions, more and more frequently, in fact, when he wasn’t welcomed beyond the foyer.

  Now that Rose had had three days to consider whether his assistance would help at all in her next encounter with Cosgrove, he had to wonder whether she’d wish to see him. Unaccountably restless, he paced the morning room and waited.

  “Bram.”

  He whipped around at the sound of her voice. She wore a green and yellow sprigged muslin walking dress, an old-looking mauve pelisse over it. Only being blind would have kept him from taking her in, from her walking boots, to her pretty gown with its swooping neckline, to the pulse jumping at her throat, to her ginger hair with a damp strand caressing one cheek.

  “Rosamund. I—Did I interrupt something?”

  She brushed at her hair. “I was helping rearrange some furniture in the drawing room.”

  A maid entered the room behind her, and deeper annoyance pushed at him. Bloody propriety. “Shall I go, then?”

  “I don’t know. Why are you here?”

  His mind went blank as a new painter’s canvas for a moment. Then he remembered. “I’m inviting you and your brother to join me again for dinner, at Lord Quence’s home. Bromley House. On St. George Street. Do you know it?”

  “You’re acquainted with Lord Quence?”

  “More closely with his brother, Phin, but yes. Do you wish to go?”

  Her soft lips twisted. “Martha, give me a moment, will you?”

  “But your mama said—”

  “I think my reputation has been established,” Rosamund interrupted. “A moment, if you please.”

  The maid bobbed and scurried out of the room, closing the door behind her. Bram, though, stayed where he was, with half the room between them. Generally he could read a person’s character and intentions in a heartbeat; it was a gift that came in very handy both when wagering and when avoiding duels with cuckolded husbands. Today, though, he had no idea what Rosamund might be thinking.

  “I thought perhaps you’d changed your mind,” she said after a moment. “That you’d kissed me and had your amusement, or won some sort of wager with Lord Cosgrove or something, and gone on to your next conquest.”

  Bram lifted an eyebrow. “You’re angry with me? For what? Stopping with one kiss? For not ruining you?”

  “No. Yes.”

  For one of the few times in his life, Bram found himself utterly baffled. “I thought I was being honorable. I suppose I could be in error about that; I don’t have much practice.”

  Rosamund snorted.

  Finally he stalked closer. “Oh, you think that’s amusing, do you? If you had any idea what I’d like to do with you, you would run the other way.”

  The humor faded from her meadow-colored eyes. “Are you trying to convince me that there’s no difference between you and Lord Cosgrove?”

  Unable to resist touching her, he stroked a finger along her bare arm. “There isn’t much,” he conceded. “We’re both self-serving hedonists more concerned with our own pleasure than anything else.”

  “But you offered to help me.”

  Yes, he had, and the reason for that seemed to be becoming more complicated by the moment. “I know. That struck me as odd, too. But I gave my word, and I do attempt to keep that whenever possible.”

  “You are a very interesting man,” Rosamund stated. “And you have female friends. Actual friends. I don’t think Lord Cosgrove can claim that.”

  He smiled, sincerely complimented. “Why thank you, my lady. So, as long as I’m here, shall we kiss again, or do you wish to proceed along the garden path a bit further?”

  She backed up a step. “That’s not very romantic.”

  It took more control than he expected to remain where he was and not pursue her. “Neither is your prospective husband. Don’t expect posies. If you do receive them, they’re more than likely deadly nightshade.”

  Rosamund hesitated. “Does he mean to murder me?”

  What a question for any young woman to have to ask. “I would guess that he doesn’t.” Bram studied her face for a moment, the light freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. “King manipulates people,” he said slowly, still not certain how or whether he should proceed. “In order for him to win a game, his prey needs to step beyond where they would otherwise never care—or dare—to tread. A number of them have ended up ruined. Destroyed, rather. Some of them have ended up dead, by another’s hand or by their own.”

  She gave a shaky, forced-sounding laugh. “Oh, my. I don’t suppose you have ten thousand pounds you’d care to lend me?”

  It was his turn to smile grimly. “I receive a monthly allowance, just as your brother does. Generally. At the moment I’m cut off yet again.” He was also mainly earning his keep by wagering, but she didn’t wish to hear that any more than he wanted to say it.

  “This isn’t your disaster, anyway, Bram. I shouldn’t have asked you for help.”

  Fresh anger rose in him. Cosgrove, Lester, Lord and Lady Abernathy, they’d all made deals to suit themselves and set her, the only innocent party in this, to pay the price. Indignation was a new emotion, and he was fairly certain he didn’t like it. “There is one service I can provide, Rosamund.”

  Before he could consider that in his own way he was using her just as much as anyone else, Bram reached down for her hand
s and tugged her closer. King had given him reason to help her, but the truth was that he hadn’t kissed her to assist her; he’d kissed her because he’d wanted to do so, and with a hungry desperation that truly troubled him.

  This time as their lips met he was ready for the tingling, jangling warmth that shot down his spine. He tilted her head back, deepening the embrace of their mouths. It was odd, he thought fleetingly as her soft lips parted against his—as a man who didn’t particularly enjoy kissing, he’d certainly looked forward to this. With her.

  The thought shook him a little, and he took a step back. Yes, he was an animal who enjoyed rutting with a select number of pretty females. But he had no business lusting after a woman Cosgrove had chosen for himself. He was doing her a favor by showing her what King would do to try to hurt her. To remove the shock of the first kiss, first touch, first whatever she would allow of him. Nothing more. It was charity. Nothing more than a twisted, enjoyable good deed.

  “Bram?”

  He blinked. “I’m debating,” he improvised, “what to show you next. Mouth or hands.”

  “You’ve shown me mouth.” As she spoke, her gaze focused on his lips.

  At the responding heat lowering to his crotch, Bram narrowed his eyes. “If you think that, I have a bit more to show you,” he murmured.

  This time when he closed on her, he avoided her lifted, expectant lips and instead ran his mouth along her jaw, starting with her chin and moving back to her ear. She gave a feminine gasp of surprised pleasure, and he went hard. Damnation. Well, if he was teaching her, he might as well make it a true lesson.

  Bram slipped his fingers beneath the shoulder of her gown and slid the material down her arm, following the trail of bare skin with his lips and teeth and tongue. She stiffened perceptibly when his tongue flicked against the base of her throat, but a moment later tangled her fingers into his hair. One hurdle overcome. With a sigh Bram continued his assault.

  Though he’d had a great many lovers, Bram couldn’t recall ever previously being so…aware of the woman softly in his arms. He’d never bedded a virgin, but it wasn’t that. Her quick, shallow breaths, the shifting of her legs, the soap and lavender scent of her skin—she was quite the most intoxicating chit he’d ever tasted.