With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection

by Kerrigan Byrne

  He glanced excitedly at Charles. His brother inclined his head, directing Gareth to turn his attention back to this long-ago scene that was unfolding before them.

  “Really, Mary,” Lady Brookhampton was saying waspishly, “I don’t see why you defend him so. I don’t think his antics are charming at all! He’s a mischievous brat, and he’ll cause you nothing but heartbreak and embarrassment. Charles is the one who will be the heir if anything happens to Lucien, Charles is the one who deserves your time and efforts— not that horrid little hellspawn!”

  Not that horrid little hellspawn.

  Charles looked pained. He gazed quietly at Gareth, who faltered, undone by the blatant love in his brother’s eyes. He knew that Charles had hated the comparisons between the two of them as much as he did, if not more. He knew that Charles had always felt guilty about coming out on top, as though it were his fault that he and Gareth were made so differently. The sympathy in Charles’s gaze was almost unbearable. Pretending to be cold, Gareth shifted his feet and shivered. And then Charles turned and began moving once more, leaving the two women in their cozy summer scene far behind. Like an obedient dog, Gareth followed.

  “Where are we going?” Gareth called after him. “Are you a ghost or a memory? Where are we? Charles!”

  The scarlet-clad figure neither turned nor answered, merely kept moving, the sunlight glinting off his accoutrements and catching the gold in his hair. And when he stopped again, it had grown dark, and the two of them stood before the statue in the village green.

  Gareth knew immediately what he would see: Chilcot with the bucket of purple paint in his teeth, Cokeham rooting in the grass and making pig-noises, and all of them foxed out of their heads on Irish whiskey. An involuntary burst of laughter escaped him, for it really was quite funny.

  He glanced at Charles.

  His brother wasn’t laughing. He looked infinitely sad.

  The guffaw died abruptly in Gareth’s throat. He cleared his throat and looked away, suddenly ashamed of his behavior. While he had been running wild over Berkshire, his brother had been off fighting for his king. While he had been up to his usual drunken debauchery, his brother had been dying a lonely death in a land far from home. Suddenly, Gareth could not bear to meet Charles’s gaze. Could barely force himself to raise his head and look again at what Charles had brought him to see. And when he did, he saw himself clinging to a rope slung from the statue’s neck, a paintbrush in his hand and a foolish, drunken expression on his face that now made him cringe with embarrassment. He heard his silly words, saw his friends acting like fools, felt Charles’s infinite despair as he stood quietly beside him.

  “Please, no more, Charles,” he said, turning away from the scene of mayhem. “This is damned embarrassing.”

  Charles merely studied him for a moment, thoughtfully, then turned and began walking again.

  And when he stopped once more, it was in the Spitalfields church where Gareth had married Juliet just that morning. The Den members were laughing and insulting each other, the vicar looked harassed, and everyone was behaving as though marriage was some grand joke. Everyone, that is, except Juliet. There she stood, alone, looking sad and mature beyond her years, pledging herself to a man who didn’t know the meaning of the word “responsibility.” There she stood, still and silent, facing the adversity that was marriage to Lord Gareth de Montforte with the same stoic resolve with which she must have faced everything else in her young life. She, who had crossed an ocean to secure a future for her baby; she, who was putting her entire faith, trust, and future in the hands of a fellow who was sadly undeserving of any of it.

  Gareth swallowed, hard, and looked away. He did not deserve her. He was everything Lucien said he was, and he did not deserve her.

  He put his hands over his eyes, overcome with shame and self-disgust.

  You are lazy, feckless, dissolute, useless. You are an embarrassment to this family, and especially to me.

  He bent his head to his balled fist, seeing all the stupid things he had recently done, seeing Juliet—his sad, woebegone little Juliet—standing trustfully in that church once again. Oh, God He did not know how long he stood there, rocking silently back and forth in his self-imposed agony. But when he finally looked up, the scene was gone, and he and his brother were alone in the deep quiet of a Lambourn night, the stars pricking through the black sky that arced up over the downs, the insects humming all around them.

  Charles was staring out over the downs, his hawkish profile dim against the night sky. And then, for the first time since this strange journey had begun, he spoke.

  “You have two choices,” he said, quietly. “You can either abandon your pride and go back to Lucien—or you can make something of yourself.” He turned then, his clear, intelligent gaze holding Gareth’s own. “Whatever you do, I trust you not to let her down.”

  They stood looking at each other for a long, silent moment, two brothers, two friends.

  Then Charles turned and walked down the hill, leaving Gareth all alone. And this time he knew he could not follow.

  He stared after that scarlet-clad figure, growing smaller and smaller, now fading into the darkness. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Pain gnawed at his heart. And now the wakefulness he’d tried so hard to reach was starting to drag him away.

  “I’ll prove myself!” Gareth shouted into the darkness that had swallowed up his brother. “I swear it, I will! I’ll prove myself worthy of Juliet’s loyalty, her trust, and her hopes for me! I’ll be a good husband and a good provider! By God and heaven, I will, no matter what it takes!”

  He opened his eyes. The dream was still very near, Charles’s quiet words still ringing in his head. For a moment he lay there in the darkness, disoriented. Then he heard the rain drumming on the street outside. He felt the cold, hard stone beneath his back, smelled the pungent aroma of horses, and knew that he was still in the mews, where he’d been all along.

  And Gareth suddenly knew what he must do.

  A finger of early light was just creeping toward him through the open doorway, stretching across the dirty hay scattered across the floor, the patches of bare stone, and bits of litter until it finally glowed against a crumpled white wad that lay several inches from Gareth’s face.

  His heart pounding, he reached out and picked it up.

  It was the card that Snelling had offered him earlier.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I think you should go straight back to the duke,” the Dowager Countess of Brookhampton declared, setting down her teacup with an abrupt clatter. “Here it is, nearly two days since he dumped you here, and where is that reprobate you married? Probably lying drunk in a gaming hell somewhere—or in the arms of some woman of sin. You’ll not see the likes of him for another fortnight, I tell you!”

  Perry’s mother had come round on the pretense of a social call, but Juliet knew that was just an excuse; like the dozen or so other nosy harridans who’d called at de Montforte House since word had got out that the Wild One had married, Lady Brookhampton and her daughter wanted to glean information for the gossip mill, see for themselves the woman Lord Gareth had wed, and take the opportunity to malign him to his new wife.

  Lady Brookhampton was a particularly unpleasant creature, and her daughter, Lady Katharine Farnsley—a tall, icy blonde whose beauty made Juliet feel shadowed—was equally mean-spirited. As they all sat down to take tea, it became glaringly obvious that Perry’s sister had set her own cap for Lord Gareth—and was deeply resentful that Juliet had got to him first.

  “I suppose it’s just as well that you married him,” Lady Katharine mused, stirring sugar into her cup and eyeing Juliet’s plain clothes—and baby on her knee—with raking contempt. “After all, Lord Gareth did ruin his share of young women, and he’s not likely to change. Better you have to worry about him than me, is that not so, Mama?”

  “Indeed, my dear. You can do much better than that libertine.”

  “I understand he’s currently hav
ing an affair with Lord Pemberley’s wife.”

  Juliet smiled tightly. “Not anymore he’s not.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that after all, he’s not here with you, is he?”

  Juliet bounced Charlotte on her knee and leaned sideways so the baby couldn’t make a grab for her teacup as she picked it up. She was not naive; it was evident that these two troublemakers wanted nothing more than to sow dissent in the newly-tilled garden of her marriage. Still, she could have done without their taunts. She had seen neither Gareth nor his friends since that rainy night he’d brought her here, and she was worried enough about his safety without these two giving her something else to be concerned about. Surely the man who had made such tender love to her—she blushed even now, just thinking about it—on their wedding night would not be in the arms of another woman. Surely he had not abandoned the wife and daughter he’d gone through hell and high water to wed, in favor of someone else.

  Had he?

  Juliet said, “You misjudge my husband. He’s a fine man.”

  “A fine man?! Ha, did you hear that, Katharine? Ha, ha, ha, she says he’s a fine man!” Perry’s mother raised her brows, much affronted, and turned her stare on Juliet. “Let me tell you, gel, I’ve known the Wild One since he was a little boy, and he hasn’t changed one bit!”

  And with that, Lady Brookhampton related the tale of a summer afternoon nearly seventeen years before, when Lord Gareth had been a mischievous blue-eyed prankster who’d been anything but innocent. The duchess had come by for tea in the garden, bringing Charles and Gareth with her; Charles had sat cross-legged on a blanket beside them, studiously reading a book while Gareth and Perry had gone off to play.

  “Oh, I can still see it all so well!” Lady Brookhampton said, holding her cup out so that Juliet could pour more tea. She went on to describe the scene: the duchess pregnant with Nerissa, smiling and rubbing her swollen tummy, her nanny suddenly charging up the lawn, skirts high as a strumpet’s and screaming that little Lord Gareth had tumbled into the pond and disappeared beneath the water. The alarm was raised. Mass confusion and chaos had ensued, with servants—even those who couldn’t swim—leaping into the pond, dashing to get the small boat, racing this way and that. Even her husband, the Earl of Brookhampton, had come running, shedding his waistcoat and diving into the brackish water in search of the boy, and as he’d come up for air, Lord Gareth—with Perry following reverently behind—came strolling out from behind one of the ancient yew trees, soaking wet, and laughing at having tricked some fifty people into thinking he had drowned.

  “He should’ve been whipped!” Lady Brookhampton declared vehemently. “But the duchess wouldn’t hear of it; why, I doubt he got anything more than a gentle admonition not to do such a thing again. Had she punished him as she ought to have done, perhaps he would have turned out all right, but no, he was her favorite, you know, her wild child, and he could do nothing wrong. She didn’t even punish him when he turned six and shocked everyone in Ravenscombe by offering threepence to any of the village girls who would let him look beneath their skirts!”

  “What about Charles? Did she ever punish him?” Juliet asked, with faint sarcasm.

  “Of course not, Charles never did anything wrong. But Gareth—he was too charming, too full of naughty, sparkle-eyed innocence for anyone to take him seriously … or remain angry with him for too long. He’d do something awful, and his mother would just smile and say that the years would cure him of his uncontrollable ways. But they never did. If anything, he grew more daring, more outrageous the older he got—especially after the duchess died.”

  “Perhaps he did those ‘awful’ things for attention,” Juliet said flatly, her teacup coming down a little too hard. “Especially as everyone seemed to pay more of it to his brother.”

  “That is because his brother deserved it!”

  Charles, she was told, had remained studious, serious-minded, and unfailingly polite, but Gareth had become the black sheep of the family, the bane of the Lambourn Downs—and, much to Lady Brookhampton’s dismay, Perry’s closest friend.

  “Perry’s a grown man now; of course, I cannot keep him away from your husband’s corruptive influence. But I can ensure that everyone who’s anyone knows how wicked he is—a crusade I started after I found he’d dragged my darling Perry into some den of corruption where wild orgies were held every Saturday evening, and duels over the loose women who inhabited the place erupted at least once a fortnight. And do you know how I know about those duels, gel? I know because Perry was involved in one last February, and I heard all about it over tea at Lady Waltham’s the following afternoon. Enough was enough, I said. Right then and there, I vowed that the duchess’s wild son would never again darken my door.” She picked up her tea and eyed Juliet with something like malicious triumph. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I know he’s handsome; I know he can charm the maidenhood right out of a virgin—and no doubt has. But if you married him thinking he’d make a decent husband, you’re going to be sorry ’til the day you die. The only thing he’ll make you is miserable, I tell you. Miserable!”

  Katharine said, “Charles was the better of the two, don’t you think, Mama?”

  “Absolutely. He was a credit to his family, to his rank, and to his country. Went out of his way to help people, was always good and kind and giving—”

  “Lord Gareth is just as kind and generous as Charles was,” Juliet said tersely.

  “How would you know? You never even met Charles, whereas my daughter here was promised to him since birth. We knew both brothers quite well. As for Lord Gareth, ha! Everyone knows he is nothing but a useless wastrel, a rake!”

  “Actually, I did meet Charles,” Juliet returned, concealing her shock at Lady Brookhampton’s announcement and resisting the urge to add, And I knew him in a way you never did. “And as for Lord Gareth, he is my husband, and I resent how everyone seems to feel a need to say something cruel about him or compare him to Charles. It’s not fair, and it’s not right—to either of them. They were two different people.”

  “Yes. Of course.” Sipping her tea, Lady Brookhampton stared out the window at the pigeons walking on the roof of the opposite town house. “Chalk and cheese, they were. Sometimes I wonder why the good Lord took the one instead of the other.”

  “Lady Brookhampton!” Juliet cried, horrified. “What a wicked thing to say!”

  “Is it? Well, I can’t help it, that’s the way I feel,” she snapped. “It’s all Gareth’s fault that my poor, dear Perry is wrapped up in that dreadful Den of Debauchery business, Gareth’s fault that Perry goes to drunken parties and orgies, Gareth’s fault that Perry’s involved in daring midnight steeplechases, sabotaged hunts, and the ruination of decent women—”

  Juliet felt her temper rising.

  “—and here I am, a God-fearing mother, trying my best to teach my son morals and good behavior, but despite all I’ve done, Gareth has ruined everything and turned Perry into the worst sort of rogue. If it weren’t for him, my Perry would be home, looking after his mother and sister and being a dutiful son, not running wild through London, getting up to the worst sorts of mischief and socializing with all manner of unsavory characters. Oh, I can’t help but think how my son would have turned out if he’d never met that scoundrel!”

  Juliet bit back the retort that was itching to escape her lips. With this termagant for a mother, meeting “that scoundrel” was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to Perry. God knew how he might have turned out if he hadn’t!

  She leaned over Charlotte and reached for the sugar. “You speak as though your son had no choice in the matter. Are you saying that Perry, a grown man, doesn’t have free will to do as he pleases?” she asked, feigning innocence.

  “I’m saying that Gareth has blinded him to what is right and wrong. Gareth was a wicked child, and now he’s a wicked man, and you might as well face the fact, gel, that he’s never going to change.”

  “Lady Brookhampton,
” Juliet said firmly, “from the moment you arrived, you and your daughter have been saying terrible things about my husband. You’ll forgive me, but I’m beginning to question your motives.”

  “Motives?” Lady Brookhampton, taken aback about being so directly confronted, gave a nervous little laugh. “Oh, we have no motives, do we, Katharine?”

  “Indeed not, Mama. We just want his wife to be prepared.”

  “I don’t need any preparation,” Juliet said sharply.

  “Oh, but you do. That rogue you married will break your heart, I can tell you that right now. Is that not so, Mama?”

  “He will indeed, Katharine.”

  Juliet, fuming, had had enough. She slammed her teacup down so hard, it nearly cracked the saucer. “I don’t know the man you’re talking about, but the one I married risked his life to save me—and a coach full of other innocent people he didn’t even know. He sacrificed his own future to do right by his dead brother, and he defended my honor when it would otherwise have been compromised. If you cannot find something nice to say about him, I think it’s time you both leave.”