Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance)

by Carolyn Jewel

  He held the carriage door for his father, too, and watched as he and Miss Rendell headed toward Eugenia and the others, both walking with their hands clasped behind their backs. His father took notice of so few people, and made friends of even fewer. How strange to see Camber make a friend of Miss Rendell. Or was it Miss Rendell who’d managed to make a friend of Camber?

  On the path ahead, Eugenia fell in step with them and provided Fox the answer he’d hoped not to have. Damn. Damn, damn, and damn again. She did not look back or slow down or wait for him. With a sigh, he started after them.

  The necessary introductions were made when they reached Sarah and her companions. Where was the line he must toe with respect to Sarah? Too warm toward her, and Eugenia would believe he was still Sarah’s lover. Too cold, and he ran the same risk. He settled, in the end, on making it plain he and Baring were on easy terms. That fact must prove Sarah was no longer a lover of his.

  As he walked, with nothing much to say to anyone, Miss Rendell was greeted enthusiastically by three young ladies her age. As far as he could tell, Hester Rendell had skipped those typically young and excitable years. She was head and shoulders more mature than any of these young women. Miss Rendell gestured to his father, and to his astonishment, Camber went to her side. She drew her arm through the duke’s, and he patted her arm. He’d long suspected his father had wanted a daughter of his own. Here was proof.

  Farther along the path, one of the fawning puppies who made up Sarah’s group strolled beside Eugenia. Before his eyes Aigen very neatly cut out the boy and took Eugenia’s arm. The man knew Mountjoy, Fox told himself. Of course he would pay his respects to Mountjoy’s sister. Aigen now walked with his head bent toward Eugenia in a far too confidential manner. She laughed at something he said to her. He hoped to God it wasn’t more poetry. Fox closed his eyes and stopped walking. He would not succumb to mindless jealousy. He would not. And had.

  He opened his eyes and saw nothing had changed. His father and Miss Rendell remained deep in conversation. Aigen and Eugenia continued to walk arm in arm. Jesus, he wasn’t fit company for anyone. God knows in his petulant mood he’d end up convincing Eugenia he despised her, after all. He stayed where he was, far behind the others and taking a vicious satisfaction in doing so. He didn’t start walking again until he was quite alone. He concentrated on the scenery and landscaping, aware he was behaving badly, that he had no excuse for feeling as he did, and that there was every chance his mood would degenerate.

  He would not stare. Not at them or at anyone. Eugenia could do as she liked. She was entitled to make friends. She deserved to have them. Nevertheless, as he walked, he plotted how he would get her alone and when he had, what words, tone, and expression he would use to explain about Sarah and make sure Eugenia understood his ties to the woman were those of the past. He drifted into a remembrance of Ginny’s hand around his cock, of her in his arms, of kissing her and of her kissing him back. So lost had he become in his thoughts that he actually achieved his goal of not watching Eugenia.

  When he looked up again, Aigen had left Eugenia and was now walking beside Miss Rendell. She wore her bonnet again, though from where Fox was, it looked a bit bedraggled. His father continued on her other side.

  Eugenia, he now saw, walked by herself. Slowly. Behind Miss Rendell, Aigen, and his father. This was his chance. He caught up to her and captured her arm before she could walk away. Every bit of his measured and supremely logical explanation about Sarah scattered to the wind. “Lady Tyghe is an old friend. Nothing more.”

  She smiled, and he knew he’d given everything away and for no benefit at all. The curve of her mouth was at least a century distant. “I don’t know why you feel compelled to tell me something like that.” A person could die from such deadly sweetness. “I’m glad she’s your particular friend.”

  “Don’t pretend,” he said. “It’s unbecoming of you.”

  Her eyes opened wider. “It’s not as if you can’t have a mistress. Gentlemen like you do that sort of thing.”

  “She is not my mistress.”

  Her response to that was a disbelieving snort. “It’s no business of mine, sir.”

  “She is not currently my mistress.” That earned him another stare. “Years ago, yes. I don’t deny that. And even then I don’t believe she would have been classified as my mistress. I did not keep her. Am I to be judged as harshly as that, Ginny? It’s unfair. I don’t judge you that way.” He frowned and stopped walking. So did she. The hole he was digging was getting deeper. “We ought not to be talking about such things. It’s not proper.”

  “You brought it up, not I.”

  To hell with it. There was a large chestnut tree not far off the path, and he moved them there, under the shade of the branches and out of sight of the others. He held her upper arms. “Look at me, Ginny. Look.” He waited for her blue, blue eyes to meet his. “I never took her to Bouverie. Or to Upper Brook Street. She had, still has, I imagine, her own house. True, we had passionate relations for a time. We were intimates exactly as you imagine. I was impossibly young.” Not a single word came out as planned. “You know what I was like then, for pity’s sake. She was beautiful, and that’s all I wanted in a woman. I know it’s callow, but then I was a callow youth. We were lovers. I bought her fine jewelry, paid her expenses, and then…we ended. Years ago.”

  She was almost, but not quite, laughing at him. “As I said, it’s none of my business.”

  “I don’t know how to make you understand. I’m not proper enough for you, of that I am aware, but I shan’t pretend to be what I’m not. What I am not, is that woman’s lover. Once, yes, but not now.” He drew in a breath. “That is to say, yes. It is very much your business. She’s using me to get at Lord Baring. There’s nothing more going on than that.” He brought her closer, his heart pounding in his chest. “You and I are not done. Not by a long shot. Do you think I would settle for anyone but you after you—” A polite word escaped him, and while he struggled for one that was not crude, she took a step away and he was forced to release her. “That. What you and I did.”

  She glanced down the path where they could still see the others, including Camber and Miss Rendell. Sarah and Baring, too. He moved them out of sight of them, deeper into the shadows provided by the tree. “That should not have happened. The Turkish room.”

  “Why not? Look at me, Ginny. Why not?”

  “You know exactly why.” She did look at him, and his heart constricted at her bland expression. Then, her cheeks flushed pink, and he grabbed her gloved hand and held on so she wouldn’t walk away.

  “I’m sure I don’t know why, Ginny. Will you tell me?” His fingers tightened around hers, and he tugged on her hand until she had no choice but to come nearer. “Let’s not talk about sin, if that’s what you mean, but of unhappiness and pleasure. Once, you were a woman who laughed and smiled so often it was a joy to be near you. You loved life.” Emotion spiraled through him, all the reasons he’d been so attracted to her, and it killed him to think he’d met the right woman, the only woman for him, and he’d been too full of himself not to ruin everything. “It’s why men fell in love with you. Why Robert loved you. You’ve lost that. I think it happened when you lost Robert, and I’m sorry. So sorry he’s gone.” He pulled her close because he could not bear to see her grief. “Don’t cry, Ginny, please. Please don’t.” He slid an arm around her waist. “I want to see that joy in you again. When I saw you at Bitterward.” He shook his head, relieved, selfishly relieved, that she had herself under control. “You were so altered.”

  “I’m older now.” Oh God, her voice was barren and he didn’t know what to do to help her find her joy in life. “Wiser. Not a girl anymore. What young person, gentleman or lady, does not eventually learn to behave with less exuberance?”

  “Most of us do, I suppose.” He put a hand to her chin and brought her face back to his. “Robert loved the joy in you.” He hesitated and almost didn’t continue. But he did. “As did I, and when
you and I were at Bouverie, in the library and again in that damned Turkish room, I saw that spark again. I felt it and it burned me to my core. You laughed, Ginny. You were alive, and I would sell my soul a dozen times and then a dozen times more to make that happen again.”

  “You mustn’t say that.”

  He’d already taken exactly the wrong tack with her, but it was too late to correct course. She moved away from him, not far, but he still raised his voice. “I can’t be Robert. I’m not him.”

  She stayed with her back partially turned away.

  He went on in a softer tone. “I never was and never could be, but if you and I can find pleasure together, if I’ve found a way to make you love life again, I ask you, why should we not?”

  She faced him and let out a breath. “Because.”

  He cocked his head, and he could see she was irritated by that. “Because?”

  “Because you are Fenris.”

  “That’s no good reason. Why else?” He took her by the shoulders again and turned them so her back was to the tree. He leaned near and nearer yet, and his heart raced. He wanted her to kiss him. He wanted her to cling to him and believe he would do everything in his power to make her life happier. He continued to look at her, waiting for her to say something. His very life might end right here.

  She didn’t say a word. Didn’t move. Not away from him. Not toward him.

  He bent closer, and while he wondered if madness had taken him over, his lips brushed hers, and he had never in his life been more terrified of the consequences of rejection. She stood frozen. He kissed her again, lightly. Gently. In the back of his mind, he thought, such a soft and tender mouth. He wanted, he desired, her mouth on his prick. God strike him dead for it, he did. While he breathed in the scent of her, he cupped a hand to her nape and brought her toward him, and she allowed him to kiss her again.

  He drew back slightly, and he could have sworn she whispered his name.

  Fox.

  Then he brushed his mouth over hers again, just as tenderly as before, and something in his chest gave way because he’d wanted her for so long, knowing, believing there was no hope whatever and here she was, allowing this impropriety. His silent declaration of desire. He fit his mouth over hers and kissed her more insistently. He adjusted his arms around her, and so did she, and he nipped at her lower lip and then it was like before. Hot. Out of control. Their kiss became a prelude to much, much more.

  Her breath hitched, and the fact that she was responding to him was miraculous. She parted her lips under his, and she pressed herself against him while they kissed like that. He did his best to keep himself under some kind of control. In the back of his mind, he understood they were in public and if they were to be discovered like this, the only possible result was scandal.

  Eyes closed, she drew back, though he did not let go of her, and he assessed his state, which was just as madly aroused as before. Then she looked at him, brow furrowed. “I do not understand how or why you make me feel this way. It makes no sense when I dislike you so much. I’ve always disliked you.”

  “You don’t know me. Not the man I became. Don’t think about why you once hated me.” He tightened his embrace, nearly helpless with his desire for her. “Think about how I make you feel now. Think, if you like, for it’s true, that you’re fortunate I’m not taking you up against the damned tree because I owe you a quick fuck.”

  “You’re awful.”

  “I know. Kiss me again?” He braced his forearms on the tree trunk, above her shoulders, and leaned forward. “I promise I shan’t be offended if you do.”

  “I didn’t kiss you.”

  “No?”

  She grabbed the lapels of his coat and leaned her forehead against his chest. “I can’t think when you’re this close. I say and do the most shocking things.”

  He brought down a hand again and stroked her cheek. “Perhaps this is no great help, but I think you should do those shocking things more often.”

  Chapter Ten

  Two weeks later. 11 Cambridge Terrace.

  AT HALF PAST MIDNIGHT, FOX KNOCKED AT AIGEN’S door. For longer than ought to be the case, he waited on the steps, cold fog sinking into his bones. There were lights burning upstairs, so he knew the man was home. Eventually, the door opened and Aigen’s butler admitted him. Since Fox was a frequent caller, all he needed to do was hand over his hat and coat and drop a coin into the man’s hand.

  “In his bedchamber, milord.”

  “Thank you.” He knew the way, for he and Aigen spent many a night in long conversation here. He headed up the stairs.

  Aigen he found in his shirtsleeves, sitting at a secretary with pen in hand and paper before him. He blotted the page when Fox leaned against the doorjamb. “Good night, Fox.”

  “Were you not going to admit me?”

  Aigen sighed. “I thought about it.”

  “It’s bloody cold out there.” Normally, they got on comfortably. Tonight, however, Aigen did not rise to greet him. He stayed at the desk, quiet for the moment. Fox headed for the side table. They spent enough time together, either here or at Upper Brook Street, that they never stood on ceremony. “Whisky?” he asked, aware of Aigen’s loyalty to his country’s drink. He had his own private preference as well.

  But tonight Aigen tapped the end of his pen on the desktop. “There’s a port breathing, if you don’t mind. Over there.”

  “Not at all.” Fox poured them both three fingers and took one of the glasses to Aigen. He lifted his and crossed half the distance of the room so that he stood nearer the fire. A line of porcelain and brass chimney ornaments, horses mostly, lined the mantel. “To good friends.”

  Aigen nodded. “To good friends.”

  When they’d drunk, Fox turned a chair to face the secretary where Aigen still sat. “I haven’t come too late, have I?”

  “Too late for?”

  “At night, Aigen.”

  “You haven’t.” He leaned a forearm on the writing surface, and some of the tension went out of him. But not all. “I’ve had another letter from the family rock pile, and it’s put me in a temper.”

  “What malady does he have this time?”

  “Chilblains. And gout. Something else painfully mysterious and likely fatal. Dead in a fortnight, he says, though I’m not to rush home on his account. He’s sent me the name of the stone carver he wants to chisel his headstone.”

  Aigen’s grandfather, the possessor of one of the last of the Scottish dukedoms outside of Argyll’s holdings, had been dying of some disease or other for the last twenty years. The man was eighty-one, had outlived three wives and four sons, and had never once set foot out of the Highlands. “I thought you Scots were hardier fare.”

  “He’ll outlive me—I own it.”

  “Unlikely,” he said softly.

  “If he doesn’t, I’ll be saddled with that damned dukedom, and I’ll go bankrupt. I’ve seen the way he lives. Hasn’t two pennies to rub together but what I send him.” Aigen had inherited a decent fortune from his mother’s family, monies he’d immediately put in the five percents and in a ship sailing to the Orient that came home with a decent enough cargo to give Aigen relief from his most pressing debts. He downed half his port. “Now that he’s dying for certain, he says he’s given up on my marrying a female Scot.” Aigen glanced in Fox’s direction, a crooked smile on his mouth. “He must really be ill.”

  “I’m sorry if that’s so.”

  He put a hand on the letter he’d been writing. “He’s ordered me to find a rich Sassenach wife while I’m here in London. Bring her home to meet him before he’s off to lecture his Maker about all He’s done wrong.”

  Fox chuckled. “All that in a fortnight?”

  Aigen exaggerated his accent. “I’m to show the poor English lass all the riches the clan can offer. The Highlands—now there’s beauty, I won’t gainsay him that—and the castle falling down around his head. Our heads.”

  Fox returned to the sideboard to fetch th
e decanter. He brought it to Aigen and refilled both their glasses. “It’s fortunate I came tonight, if only to rescue you from self-pity. Poor fellow, Aigen, to inherit a dukedom and your family’s honor. Even if it is a Scots one.”

  “I like being Aigen. It suits me.”

  “You’re suited to more.”

  He bowed his head and grabbed his hair with both hands. “God, a wife. The worst of it is I was thinking of it even before I got his damned letter.”

  “There are worse fates than to marry a fine woman.”

  Aigen turned his head to him. “How would you know? You haven’t a wife.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Which one should I choose, Fox? Who do I take home to the old man before it’s too late?”

  “Anyone you like.” Save one, damn it. Anyone save one. “The woman you find most suitable.”

  Aigen took a long drink from his goblet. “There’s one who interests me. It’s odd the way she stays in my thoughts. Never thought that would happen.”

  “Only one?”

  “You know who.”

  “Do I?”

  Aigen let out a breath. “I’ve always admired the women you do. We’ve similar tastes. So I ask you, shall I ask Mountjoy’s sister if she’d like to live in a Scottish rock pile one day?”

  His heart stilled. He’d hoped things hadn’t come to such a pass. “Why her?”

  “A sad and lovely woman, Lady Eugenia.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see her at parties with that handsome girl she’s got with her. Trying so hard to find her a husband when it’s clear as day the girl’s not interested in anyone. Not even me, Fox.”

  “Miss Rendell.”

  “Yes, Miss Rendell. I don’t know why you two don’t get on.”

  “Miss Rendell and I get on splendidly.”

  “Lady Eugenia. You ought to get on better with her. Why don’t you?”

  “Are you in love with her?”

  Aigen sipped his port before he answered. “I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life making her smile.”