Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance)

by Carolyn Jewel

  “The next time?”

  “Yes.” He drew back and trailed a finger along the midline of her body before he slid off the bed. “Later tonight if possible. Tomorrow. The next day. Next month.”

  Eugenia frowned at his back as he walked to the table. She hadn’t been with a man as perfectly formed as he was, and she decided that she was a fool if she didn’t appreciate the beauty of his body. She hadn’t ever once thought about the fact that Robert had not been perfect. It hadn’t mattered.

  He brought back a plate of food, two glasses, and the wine, all of which he set on the table beside the bed. He sat beside her, cross-legged, and fed her another section of orange, then a slice of beef so thin he had to roll it up to bring it to her lips. “This time more than a drop of the wine. It’s one of my best.”

  She sat up enough to take the glass, and while she drank, Fenris lowered his head and took her breast in his mouth. His tongue flicked over her nipple, and then his fingers took the place of his mouth.

  “Is St. George’s acceptable to you?” he asked.

  “St. George’s is closer to Spring Street. Besides, I never see you there. That’s another reason I go to church there.”

  “I prefer to get my sermons at St. Paul’s, but for our purposes the privacy offered by St. George’s will do nicely.”

  She looked at him over the top of her wineglass. “Our purposes? You and I have no mutual purposes, Fenris.”

  His fingers got clever again. “I can think of at least one.”

  “Hush, you. Lord.” She gasped. “Incorrigible.”

  Fenris rolled onto his back, one knee raised. He took her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “Ginny. I came in you.”

  Her heart did a peculiar turn in her chest.

  He tilted his head on the mattress so he could look at her. “Ginny.” He cocked his chin in her direction. “I don’t want your brother accusing me of impregnating you and leaving you to bear my bastard. More to the point, he wouldn’t permit it.”

  Eugenia’s mouth went dry. “We can’t be that unlucky.”

  He smoothed a hand over her belly. “Suppose we have been? What will happen when your brother discovers that fact? I don’t know which of us is the better shot, but I hope to hell it’s me.”

  “Mountjoy wouldn’t shoot you.”

  “If I refused to marry you? Of course he would. And I’d have to let him.” He cupped the side of her face and rolled over to pull himself partially over her. “Did you mistake me or my intentions?”

  “You said a quick—” She waved her hand.

  “I apologize for my coarse language. Perhaps it led you to mistake my intentions, though you’re more than intelligent enough to understand. You are the sister of a duke. You can’t possibly have thought I would take you to bed even once if I was not prepared to marry you. You can’t have thought I would contemplate abandoning you to the possibility of a bastard.”

  “But—” Her throat closed off.

  “But?”

  “But, Fenris, I don’t love you.”

  He laughed. “That is no secret.”

  “It would serve you right if I told you yes.”

  “I won’t press you for an answer now. But be assured, if there are consequences, you and I must be married.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  A week later. No. 6 Spring Street.

  EUGENIA COUNTED THE DISTANT CHIMES OF THE clock in the front parlor. Two. In the morning. Her body still vibrated with the emotional residue of her dream, and she didn’t dare close her eyes lest she fall back into that dreaming despair.

  She and Hester had not stayed out late, electing to make an early night of it after a pleasant supper with friends of Hester’s father. Not so most of the Ton, who might only now be coming home from the evening’s entertainments.

  With her arms wrapped tight around her upraised knees, she stared at the folds in the canopy overhead and wondered if the void in her soul that was Robert’s absence would ever grow smaller. She’d dreamed about him, so vividly that when she realized what had happened, her heart broke as if she’d only just lost him.

  She missed him. She missed his voice and his smile and even the way he scowled when something annoyed him. She missed him telling her about his day and about how his research was going. She missed his kisses and his arms around her at night. She missed the intimacy, the way their bodies pleased in both giving and receiving.

  Tears built up, pressing on her. If she stayed in bed, she was doomed to stare at nothing while she wept, and if by some chance she did fall asleep, she’d only dream about Robert again. She could not bear waking up convinced he was still alive. She didn’t dare give in to the temptation to hold on to that feeling, to imagine that he was only somewhere else in the house or perhaps visiting friends, and that all she need do was find him again or wait for him to come home and tell her how sorry he was to have left her alone for so long.

  But she did. She let her thoughts go back to her life in Exeter because she wanted to feel whole again. She closed her eyes and imagined she was home. Not at Bitterward but in Exeter, and that Robert was just downstairs. All the details of their bedroom were vivid in her mind. Burnt orange walls, that spot on the wall where a candle had fallen and made a black mark before Robert had rescued it. The view of the park to the rear of the house. When Robert came back upstairs, he’d say her name. Touch her shoulder, and she’d turn onto her back and look into his face.

  He never came. No matter how ferociously she imagined, Robert would never come to her again.

  She slid out of bed and rang for Martine. While she waited, she washed her face. The water in the basin was cold enough to raise goose bumps along her arms. Martine came in wearing one of Eugenia’s cast-off cloaks because by now she knew that Eugenia would want to walk. Swiftly. Sometimes for hours before she could stand to return to her empty house. Not empty, for Hester was here, and that helped her loneliness. But Hester wasn’t Robert. Even her company didn’t fill the numbing emptiness of moments like this.

  Wordlessly, Martine arranged Eugenia’s still-braided hair in a coil at the back of her head then dressed her in one of the gowns she wore only when she was at home in private. Respectable but hardly fashionable, but then, no one would see her. She put on a pair of half boots and a heavy wool cloak and added a reticule containing enough money to hire a hackney to get home if Martine was too tired.

  Martine picked up the lantern she’d brought in with her. “Milady?”

  She nodded.

  On their way through the foyer, Martine took one of the umbrellas from the stand near the door. One never knew what the London weather would do this time of year.

  Shadows lay deep around them as Eugenia strode out, as quickly as she could, and even this rapid pace wasn’t enough to take her mind off Robert or the feeling that she had betrayed his memory. At home, they’d often walked out at night to see the stars and talk about whatever struck their fancy. Politics. His research. Poetry. Village gossip; he knew everything that went on. He’d hold her hand, and not just because, with his mismatched gait, he needed to steady himself. He held her hand because he wanted to.

  Eugenia kept her hood up because she wished to be invisible. A shadow moving through the city. Martine’s boots clicked on the walkway, just behind her. The air was damp and heavy with fog and approaching winter, and that was another reason to be glad of her thick cloak. She stayed to streets still reasonably well lit, but not the most trafficked. Mayfair wasn’t large, though, and it was difficult to avoid the main thoroughfares. Indeed, the occasional carriage passed on the street, a gentleman or two on horseback, and once or twice someone on foot.

  She walked until she had to open her mouth to breathe, and she could hear Martine breathing, too. Heart pounding from the exertion, she slowed. They were near St. James’s Street, so she took the next turn to avoid the area. There’d be too many men leaving one of the various clubs having imbibed too much port with their dinner and cards. But she�
��d come too close to the part of the street where the clubs were. There were more people here, men who saw her and Martine and mistook their reason for walking out alone.

  “Here’s a pretty girl,” one of them cried. “Let’s have a look.”

  She grabbed Martine’s hand and wheeled around, walking rapidly away. They were followed. Heels clacked on the street. They walked more quickly yet. Not quite running but close enough.

  “Hold on there,” the man shouted, and the slurred, drunken voices of him and his companions were much too close. The men crossed the street. She threw a glance over her shoulder and fear shot through her. One of the men had separated from his companions and was now moments from intercepting her and Martine. “A moment, lovely ladies!”

  Martine gasped and, closed umbrella in one hand, grabbed Eugenia’s arm and planted herself firmly between Eugenia and their pursuer.

  “Mrs. Bryant?” Her name seemed to come from nowhere. A different voice. Not from the man who’d followed them. A voice she recognized.

  The man who’d called her name was taller than the other and without the prodigious belly. He left the middle of the street and joined her on the walkway. She recognized his silhouette long before the light from the street lamp identified him to her.

  “I’m not mistaken,” he said. “It is you.”

  “Lord Fenris.” She curtseyed, aware at the same time of Martine stepping back. She pushed back her hood.

  “What are you doing out here at this hour?” He looked down his nose. He wore evening dress. Dark coat, the white of his shirt and cravat against a claret waistcoat. A cream silk scarf peeked from the edges of his greatcoat. “With only your maid? You can’t be on your way home, unless you’re lost. Are you?”

  “No.”

  His eyebrows rose. “You live several streets in the other direction, I hope you know.”

  “Yes.” Why, why, did she have to be so infernally unlucky as to encounter Fenris?

  “Well, then?”

  This man had been Robert’s friend. He’d sat with her husband, dined with him. He’d had years to know Robert, and she wondered, if she touched his arm or his shoulder and concentrated, would she feel the remnants of Robert’s friendship with him? Would her fingers tingle from the contact? “I am walking.”

  He cocked his head in that annoying way he had but did not immediately ask the question he so obviously wanted to pose to her, which must be something along the lines of was she out of her mind? All he said was, “May I ask why?”

  If he’d sounded like his usual pompous, blue-blooded self she’d not have answered him, but his question was soft and careful, and she was not in the correct frame of mind to deal with Lord Fenris or any of her contradictory feelings about him. She wanted that wall back between them because feeling hurt. “I could not sleep.”

  “An unpleasant affliction.” He bowed. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He hesitated. Even in the dark she could see the emotions flickering over his face, and none of them were condescending. “Are you well, Mrs. Bryant?”

  She hadn’t the fortitude to answer him in a way that would not reveal more than she was willing to have him know.

  He looked away and then back at her. “Is there anything I can do?”

  The question, coming from him, astonished her, but what threatened to bring her to tears was his sincerity. She was in a fragile state indeed if she believed he was sincere about anything but his condescension. No matter what they’d done in private. She swallowed hard and struggled for com-posure.

  “Would you object if I accompany you on your walk?” He waded into the river of silence between them. He looked at the sky. “Early, I suppose, but dark nevertheless. The streets are not as safe as they ought to be. If something happened to you, I don’t expect I would long survive the ensuing encounter with your elder brother. I can follow behind you if you prefer to avoid my company.”

  Lord, it was as if he wasn’t really Fenris, but some other man entirely. “I shan’t make you walk behind me. Don’t be absurd.”

  He flashed a smile at her before he offered his arm. “I am relieved.”

  Eugenia started walking again, not as fast as before. Fenris said nothing; he just kept pace with her. Martine stayed behind them.

  “I don’t think we’ll have rain,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Nor snow.”

  “No.”

  “We’re having a mild end to our fall.”

  “Yes.” She looked at him. He was the only person with whom she did not need to pretend she was fine when she wasn’t, and just knowing that eased her heart. “Listen to us, talking about the weather like two old tabbies.”

  “Civilized tabbies, Mrs. Bryant.”

  The silence came back, and after several minutes of that, she said, “I had a nightmare.”

  “The normal sort or was it about me?”

  “The normal sort.” She did not entirely succeed in sounding light or carefree. “I find that a walk is the only thing that settles my nerves.”

  “I, too, find activity is beneficial when I’ve not achieved a calm state of mind. I am sorry to hear that your sleep was interrupted in so unpleasant a fashion.”

  “I dreamed about Robert.”

  He glanced at her but kept walking.

  “I woke up crying. That hasn’t happened in months.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s odd the way something will make me think of him.” She swallowed. He’d known Robert. Before her, they’d been dear friends. “Lately, I’ll think, oh, Robert would have liked to know how that vote went, or that’s a story he would have loved to hear.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “I mean, what you said about Mr. Lane having the brains of a lobster. He would have loved to hear that.”

  “He always did have a sense of the ludicrous, and Lane is certainly that.”

  “I fear you made an enemy of him that night.”

  “As if I hadn’t already.”

  She slowed because she could hear Martine laboring to keep up. Fenris matched her pace. “And the button. Awful as it was, Robert would have laughed so hard.”

  They seemed to be making a loop around the St. James’s area. The occasional carriage rattled by, carrying its passengers home from an evening of dancing and dining.

  She glanced at him as they walked, and she had the strangest sensation of unwarranted intimacy. Not the physical kind, but something deeper. She watched him from the side, and he was Lord Fenris just now. Not Fox. And she did not exactly hate him.

  “We are almost to St. James’s Street.” He pointed. “Best if we turn back rather than cross here.”

  “Are you afraid you’ll be seen with me?”

  He stopped walking, and his eyes burned into her. “Mrs. Bryant. St. James’s Street is not an area where a gentlewoman ought to be. At this hour. Unaccompanied.”

  As if to prove his point, indistinct but raucous singing from another street became louder. She ignored the noise. “You’re with me. Martine is here. It’s hardly inappro-priate.”

  Several men appeared at the far corner. They were singing and two or three had an arm slung around a compatriot. A very well-to-do group of young bucks. She wondered what and how much they’d drunk to get themselves in that condition. She even felt superior because she’d drunk whisky and not got herself into such a disgraceful state.

  “If we were anywhere but here, I would wholeheartedly agree.”

  “They’re on the other side of the street.” She returned her attention to Fenris. “Ignore them. Please. I don’t want to return home yet.”

  One of the members of the inebriated group separated from the others and crossed the street. “Fox?” he called. “Is that you?”

  “Damn,” Fenris whispered.

  The singing stopped in favor of low laughter. The others followed the first man, and before long, they were close enough for Eugenia to see that the man in the front was none other than the lobster-brained Mr. Dinwitty Lane. His fr
iends gathered behind him.

  Fenris pushed her into the shadows and flicked her hood over her head.

  “You’ve female company.” Lane walked to within a few feet of Fenris. “Let’s see your commodity, shall we? Not the Incomparable, I’ll warrant. But someone just as lovely.”

  Martine took a step forward, umbrella clutched in one hand. She put herself in front of Eugenia, between Mr. Lane and his friends. The men ogled her.

  Lane lifted his quizzing glass and examined Martine. “Pretty enough, but I must say, she’s not up to your usual standard.”

  This Fenris did not dignify with an answer, though he had the temerity to put an arm around Martine’s waist. Oh, he was a dog. A dog!

  “Haggling over price?”

  “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  “I’m well-to-do, I daresay.” The men behind him joined in his laughter. Lane moved his quizzing glass in Eugenia’s direction. “What’s this? Not one companion but two. Oh, ho, ho.” There was just no mistaking the sexual nature of that laugh. He waggled a hand and actually attempted to move past Fenris and Martine. “A blonde? I’ve always heard you were partial to brunettes.”

  “Lane, if you value your life, stand aside.”

  “Let’s have a look at her. Is this one up to your standards?”

  Martine blocked his way, putting a hand on his chest.

  Lane’s expression darkened. “I do not suffer whores to touch me without my permission.”

  Eugenia gasped.

  Lane looked Martine up and down again in the most insulting manner possible. “You might do for him, but not for me. I wouldn’t give a shilling for you.”

  “That’s enough.” Fenris addressed his companions. “Restrain him, or I won’t answer to the consequences.”

  One of the men took that to heart. “Lane, come along. It’s not worth it.”

  Lane, however, gave Martine a push and headed for Eugenia.

  Fenris made a rather frightening sound, halfway to a growl, and grabbed Lane by one shoulder and shoved him back. At the same time, Martine bashed the fool over the head with her umbrella. Lane’s hat, crushed by the blow, tumbled to the pavement. Amid all this, his companions shouted or laughed. A few called out objections. Someone yelled, “Melee!”