He let her. He seemed as dazed as she felt.
Westmead threw open the door to the billiards room and gestured at a sofa.
“Sit down,” he ordered them.
They sat, side by side, like two naughty children.
“Be honest,” he growled. “Is there a need for a special license?”
“No, Archer!” she sputtered, trying not to laugh at the idea she might be carrying Apthorp’s child. She suspected Lord Bore would no sooner take her virtue prematurely than he would parade through Windsor Castle in his small suit, his performance in the powder closet and a certain illicit members’ club notwithstanding.
Apthorp cleared his throat and took her hand in his. “Your Grace, I sincerely apologize that I let my emotion and affection for your sister overcome my gentlemanly propriety just now. I assure you that Constance’s honor is safe in my hands. There is no undue haste; if you are amenable, we will post banns and be married at St. James’s Church after the parliamentary session concludes.”
Archer paced, his black frock coat trailing him like the feathers of a crow. She distracted herself from her nerves by discreetly tracing her middle finger along the inside of Apthorp’s palm. When he subtly squeezed her hand, as though to shore her up, it made a prickly feeling dance upon her spine, rather like the sparking of joy at unexpectedly good news.
“Fine,” Archer said suddenly. “If you want to do this foolish thing, I will not stand in your way.”
Ah, but victory was warm. She could feel it flooding through her like the waters of a soothing bath.
She gave her brother her meekest, most grateful smile. “You are so kind, Archer. Of course, it goes without saying that we will need to do something about Julian’s waterway bill. If it’s allowed to languish, our future will be limited to my dowry, which I doubt will be sufficient to keep me in the immoderate comfort to which you have made me accustomed.”
She winked at him. Her great facility for spending his money was an old joke between them. The kind that took its humor from profound veracity.
Archer was not amused. “If you expect this marriage to redeem his reputation, you will need a very clever plan to carry it off. The evangelicals are still parading in the streets as we speak.”
“My dear brother, have you ever known me to lack for a clever plan?”
Constance had truly missed her calling on the stage. Apthorp could have sworn she’d felt it just as deeply, what had happened in the closet. And yet now she was her usual effervescent self, sharp and fizzy as a brut champagne.
He, on the other hand, could just barely get through his lines. Kissing her had made pudding of his brain. His head was still thick with the incense and jasmine her skin exuded when he’d brushed his lips along the hollows of her collarbone.
God, she was disarming. Lush and vulnerable as a dewy maiden when touched, yet canny and self-possessed as a woman twice her age when speaking. And yet despite her airy tone, she gripped his hand like he was her sole attachment to this earth. He simply didn’t know what to make of her.
Westmead glared at him, and he realized he’d been caught staring at her in wonder. He lifted his eyes to the duke’s angrily tapping fingers.
Westmead turned his eyes back to his sister. “I never doubt your ability to craft a plot, Constance, but even with the most careful management, I am not certain any amount of coin or influence can repair the damage that’s been done to Apthorp’s bill.”
Constance waved this off. “It can. I have it all worked out.”
“Does he?” he drawled, raising a brow pointedly at Apthorp as though to ask if he was sitting on the sofa in silence because he had a head injury, or if he had merely ceded his will to Constance.
It was possible he did have a head injury. Westmead’s fist had alighted on his jaw with all the delicacy of a cannon blasting into a puddle. But more likely, the trouble was that he simply could not outthink the outrageous pleasure of feeling Constance Stonewell’s finger rubbing circles on the inside of his palm.
“We have a strategy,” he affirmed, pulling his hand away. “Though it will not surprise you that the social aspect of it rests with your sister.”
Constance smiled at him like a cat who’d been served foie gras.
“Indeed,” she said. “First, we need the family to make a show of support. It needs to be understood that to cut Apthorp is to cut the Rosecrofts and the house of Westmead. We’ll start with a public appearance in the Rosecrofts’ box at the opera tomorrow. You will grace society with one of your rare outings and make a great show of being protective and intimidating and Apthorp’s greatest friend.”
“That won’t be enough,” Westmead said. “This goes beyond operas and ballrooms. If we can’t win back political support—”
“We can. I intend to enlist my godmother’s support. She will help us with the evangelicals. She might even pick off a few Tories.”
Westmead laughed. “Lady Spence? Not likely. Her impulse will be to cut us both entirely. She’s flirted with the idea ever since your stunt with those foxes on Boxing Day.”
“Nonsense. She has been itching to save my soul ever since you sent me to the nuns. You will seed her sympathies by requesting guidance in preparing me for marriage in the absence of our mother. Say I’ve gone wayward like my father. I’ll handle the rest.”
Westmead nodded, as though this was a normal conversation. It was terrifying to watch them when their full powers were aligned. The duke and Constance had gone from being outsiders of ill repute—dispossessed children of the most infamously dissipated man to grace the peerage in a century—to influential members of society in the span of the last half decade. Westmead had furnished the financial power and amassed a bloc of seats in the Commons, while Constance had beguiled the beau monde with her charm and lavish entertainments and ability to make intriguing introductions.
He needed to think clearly or his own will would be lost to the house of Westmead’s machinations. He did not intend to be treated like a hapless damsel in distress; when it came to politics, he was capable of captaining his own redemption. And if he wasn’t, he deserved the failure that awaited him.
He cleared his throat. “Your Grace, I am confident of the political equation. I’ll bolster up the borough votes first—they’ve been with me all along and will fall in line as soon as they see your support is assured. The Midland shires will benefit from the waterway and will therefore succumb to political pressure—it’s an election year and constituents will not take kindly to a vote against their interests. If Lord and Lady Spence can bring us back the evangelicals, we can make up the numbers. But it will take incentive.”
“What incentive?” Westmead asked. “It’s too late to rewrite the bill.”
“Not political incentive,” Constance said, meeting Apthorp’s eye with an approving nod, like she could read his mind. “Social incentive.”
He was impressed that she caught his meaning so easily. Once again he felt a pang of pleasure at being her ally. And an equal measure of loathing for enjoying it so much, given how poorly it reflected on his dignity. He needed to do a better job of remembering this was all pretend.
“Dare I ask what you have in mind?” Westmead drawled.
“An engagement ball, of course,” Constance said. “An evening so unforgettable that the entire city will live in fear of missing it. An invitation people will do whatever they must to secure.”
“Exactly,” Apthorp said. “We’ll host the ball the day after the vote and make it understood that anyone who does not count themselves among our allies will be unwelcome.”
Westmead looked at the two of them with an expression that bespoke either dyspepsia or grudging admiration. “You,” he said to his sister, “are a terror. And you,” he said to Apthorp, “should not encourage her.”
“I assume that means we have your support, Your Grace?” Apthorp asked.
“I will do what I can. But that still leaves the matter of this unpleasant chatter. We will need
to uncover whoever is behind the rumors. Constance, excuse us. I need to speak to Apthorp privately.”
There was nothing Constance loathed more than being dismissed from a room so that a pair of men who lacked a fraction of the gifts she had for shaping public opinion could attempt to discuss the flow of news in private.
“I think I’ll stay,” she said. “Whatever you wish to discuss with Apthorp you can say in front of me. We’re to be married after all.”
Her brother gave her the driest stare imaginable, a look with all the humidity of a particularly arid day in the Sahara. “Go.”
“No,” she parried with equal precision.
“I’d prefer she stay,” Apthorp said, surprising her. “I have no secrets from my future wife, and even if I did, I would think it safe to venture she has as firm a grasp on London hearsay as the most committed journalist on Grub Street.”
She rewarded her dear, clever pretend beloved with a fond smile. “Thank you. It is so kind of you to notice my accomplishments.”
She returned her attention to her brother. “It is clear to Julian and I that the rumors were planted by a political enemy,” she said, before Archer could mount an argument. “I shall very discreetly make inquiries to see who might have ties to Saints & Satyrs and reason to oppose the waterways.”
Her poem could not have found its way to Henry Evesham’s circular by accident, after all. Nor, she suspected, had the rumors found their way to her by accident. Someone had told her about Apthorp’s nocturnal predilections deliberately, to use her. And she hated being used without gaining something in return.
“Is everything all right?” Hilary asked, startling all three of them by appearing in the door with Poppy at her side. “We heard quite a lot of shouting.”
“And what sounded rather like someone being thrown into a wall,” Poppy added, narrowing her eyes at her husband.
Constance remembered she was meant to be in the throes of infatuation and rose to her feet. “Everything is wonderful! Archer has given us his blessing. Julian and I will be married as soon as the season is over.”
“My darlings, what exciting news!” Hilary cried, rushing forward to draw Constance into a hug.
Constance made a show of twirling around in raptures, nearly knocking an ancient suit of Rosecroft armor over with her skirts. “I’m going to plan a ball to celebrate the engagement. It must be the most spectacular one yet. Poppy, will you help me with the flowers? I think lilies. Thousands of them.”
Poppy winced. “Lilies are quite heady. Thousands might cause your guests to suffocate.”
“Nonsense. And of course I will need entertainment. Perhaps I’ll hire the opera dancers again.”
“Please, not the opera dancers,” Hilary said weakly. “Anything but those opera dancers.”
Apthorp turned to her with a fond, shy smile, perfectly in pitch. “My bride shall have opera dancers if she wishes. Anything her heart desires.” He was proving a better actor than she’d thought.
Hilary smiled at him. “The spirit of a happy marriage if ever I heard it, cousin. Will you join Rosecroft for a brandy? He’s taking it on the terrace, given the warm night.”
“No, I must take my leave,” Apthorp said. “I need to write to my mother to inform her of the happy news. Thank you all for your kindness. I am humbled by your forgiveness.”
“I hope you will be very happy,” Hilary said.
“I have every confidence we shall,” Apthorp said, looking at Constance with a gaze that was warm enough to make beads of sweat bloom along the back of her neck.
Hilary shot Poppy a look, as if to say I told you so.
“I’ll see you out,” Constance said, offering Apthorp her arm.
“That went well,” she whispered as he led her toward the entry hall. She used the pretext of lowering her voice to draw even closer to him, because she was enjoying the newfound pleasure of brushing up against his side.
“Did it?” he sighed absently. She glanced up and his face was utterly devoid of the serene joy he’d displayed moments before. He looked depleted.
“Are you quite all right?” she asked.
He paused, massaging the stretch of skin around his temple. “I must say, I do not love the feeling of lying to my family, or to yours.”
The darkness of his tone should not have knocked the air out of her, but it did anyway.
Because she was being thick. He was not happy about what had just occurred. He had, of course, been pretending. And she had let herself get swept up in his fond smiles and sentimental speeches and his ardor in the closet, forgetting she’d written the script herself.
“It is unpleasant,” she said quickly. “But it’s necessary.”
“Yes,” he said in that weary voice, looking rather hollow about the eyes. “It is.”
“Well.” She straightened her spine, hoping to seem unreduced, even if she suddenly felt wilted. “Good evening.”
He nodded and walked out the door into the night.
And she, fool that she was, could not help but admire how elegantly the line of his coat fell as he descended the stairs to the street.
Chapter 6
“Good evening, my lord,” Winston, the Rosecrofts’ butler said when Apthorp returned the following day to join the party headed to the opera. “Lady Constance awaits you in the orangery.”
“The orangery?” he asked, with a wince for his formal attire. A glass room designed to catch the sunlight was not the ideal environment for a well-starched cravat.
“I’m afraid so,” Winston said with a sympathetic smile. “Shall I take your coat?”
“You’d better.”
He found Constance pacing back and forth in the warmest section of the room, clad in a pink gown so voluminous that it swished against the foliage as she walked.
Her brow was dewy with exertion.
She was lovely.
Not lovely, he corrected himself. Sweaty.
He’d spent the day rebuking himself for feeling far too much affection for her after their tender moment in the powder closet. Arriving at Parliament to a sea of disgusted faces and vulgar innuendos had been all the reminder he needed that she was dangerous, however lovely it might feel to make her tremble at his touch. He needed to harden himself to her, or the next month would be an unremitting torture.
Unfortunately the part of him that principally wished to harden at the memory of her shuddering against him was not his heart but, alas, his cock.
And the way she was currently smiling at him, very much like she was remembering too, was not helping.
It was unbecoming of a gentleman to slaver over women who hadn’t asked to be the objects of his fantasies. As a general rule he kept his amatory attentions limited to his compatriots on Charlotte Street, where his lovers did a fair bit of slavering themselves.
But the shock of hunger that had lit up in Constance’s eyes when he’d given her a proper kiss had awoken some primal part of him that could not let the image go. He wanted to see that look again. He wanted to make her shaky with a single word whispered in her ear, or a bold command on a scrap of paper pressed into her hand. He wanted to sit beside her at the opera and make her come without removing a single stitch of clothing.
He wanted her to see him as he truly was. Which was a gentleman, yes.
But one with a preternatural talent for fucking.
Which meant he could look forward to a month of pure frustration. Because outside the orderly arrangements he made on Charlotte Street, gently bred virgins were not fair game for men with any scruples. And he had many, many scruples. Abandoning them would make him exactly as bad as the man he most despised.
“Ah, you’ve arrived,” Constance said, walking toward him. “And you haven’t worn your wig.”
She winked at him. Winked at him.
He blushed, for he had dispensed with his peruke for exactly the reason she intuited: because she preferred him without it.
You have to stop this.
“Com
e, stroll with me,” she said, offering him a satin-clad arm. “I have excellent news.”
He remained posted by the door, where he might inhale the cool, calming air of the dim marble corridor and not the intoxicating blend of amber and lilac or cedar and tuberose or smoke and bloody lust that seemed to curl around her in a cloud of pure temptation that made him so irritable he wanted to rip out his own hair.
“I’d rather stand where I can breathe,” he demurred. “Why are you marching about in here? You’ll give yourself a fever.”
“I always pace the orangery before the opera. It improves my dull complexion.” She sashayed prettily on her heel and began another lap.
He stopped himself from pointing out that her complexion was luminous, and one could not look at her skin without wanting to stroke it to see if it was indeed as soft as it looked. Which, he now knew, it was.
Stop. It.
“Where are the Rosecrofts?” he asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.
“They’ll be down soon. I hoped we might have a brief word alone. You see, I’ve discovered something I suspect might be helpful.” She gave him a mysterious, pregnant smile, like a Madonna in a sacred painting.
“And what is that?”
“A clue to the mystery.” She waggled her eyebrows playfully.
Was she flirting with him?
He wanted to shove his fist into a wall. Why could she not have flirted with him a week ago? Why must she discover a taste for it now, when they were alone, and he was trying his best to remember to loathe her for what she’d done, or at least refrain from picturing her bodice tugged down below her dewy breasts, and failing on both counts?
He steeled his face into a grim line, determined to get hold of himself. “Explain.”
“Well, you see”—she lowered her voice conspiratorially—“I had a fitting at my mantua-maker’s today and made some subtle inquiries, for Valeria Parc dresses all the most scandalous ladies in town. Tell me, have you had any … confidential dealings with an actress at the Theatre Royal?”
The Earl I Ruined Page 7