David nodded and, as Abernathe departed into the crowd, let out a long breath. It was going well, he knew that, and some of his nervousness was easing. He knew he should rejoin Richard for more introductions to important men and women of Society. He craned his neck to find his cousin, but before he could, he saw a woman make her way through the crowd. The way she moved was so familiar that his breath left his lungs and his heart lodged firmly in his throat.
It looked like Rose.
And as she glanced over her shoulder in his direction, it was clear she was Rose. Here, at this ball. Her eyes meeting his.
She shook her head slightly, a silent message to leave her alone and then she was gone, fleeing toward the terrace with her plain, dark blue skirt gripped in her white-knuckled hand.
He realized he shouldn’t chase her. For her sake as much as his own. But he couldn’t help himself. He strode after her, watching as the terrace door opened and closed in the distance.
He reached the doors in a few long paces and exited the ballroom behind her. She was fleeing around the huge, wraparound terrace, away from the doorway, the light. Toward a dark corner. She glanced over her shoulder again and when she saw him, her eyes went wide. She mouthed no and kept going.
Perhaps he should have let her go. Perhaps he should have forgotten her.
He couldn’t. He continued to make chase, and soon she had run out of places to hide. She pivoted in the far corner of the terrace and stared at him as he closed the last distance between them.
“Please don’t,” she whispered, her voice shaking as she held up a hand to ward him off.
He caught it and lifted it to his chest, just as he had in their last meeting. And his heart throbbed beneath it just as it had that day. She let out a soft sob, a tiny sound that cut to his bones. He was hurting her, just as he was hurting himself.
But he needed to be with her too much to stop it.
“You’re here,” he whispered.
“One of my students,” she choked out. “I’m a chaperone. Please, please, you must go back inside. You can’t be out here with me. We must—”
He didn’t let her finish. He cupped her cheeks and dropped his mouth to hers. Her protests were lost as she wrapped her arms around his neck and yielded with another of those soft sounds. This time it was one of pleasure. Of surrender.
It had only been a week since he last touched her, kissed her. But he was like a man starved. He deepened the kiss, tasting the flavor of her, tracing the hollows of her mouth and remembering each one like it was home. For the first time since he arrived in London, he felt like he belonged.
She pushed at him and he reluctantly released her. Her eyes were wide, dilated with pleasure and desire and fear. Her cheeks were flushed and her hands shook at her sides as she stared up at him.
“You can’t,” she murmured. “David…”
He groaned at the sound of his name coming from her lips. He loved that sound. He loved her. That was as obvious to him in that moment as anything else. He loved her, he craved her, he needed her…and yet…
“Shaw?”
His other name was called from the terrace door and Rose’s eyes went even wider. She shook her head, silently pleading with him.
He turned to see Richard coming across the terrace toward him, a wide smile on his face. At least one of them was happy.
“There you are, my lord,” he said, and then he stopped just a few feet away. “Oh, Miss Higgins. I didn’t know you were here.”
She smiled, though the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “I am escorting one of my charges since her usual chaperone took ill yesterday.”
David cleared his throat. “I saw Miss Higgins and could not resist the opportunity to say hello to a—to a friend.”
Her expression dropped a little at that descriptor, but then she smiled once more, as if none of it meant anything. “Well, I should return to my charge. It was lovely seeing you both again. Best of luck tonight, my lord.” She breezed away with a nod to his cousin. “Mr. Shaw.”
David stared as she walked away from him, her shoulders set back. How he wanted her to look at him before she entered the ballroom, just one glance. But she didn’t.
“What a coincidence to see Miss Higgins here,” Richard said with a glance at David. “I’m sure she must be very proud of what you are accomplishing tonight.”
David turned and leaned both hands on the stone wall of the terrace. He gripped the rough surface, letting it bite into his palms as he stared into the night. “And what am I accomplishing?” he asked, unable to temper the roughness of his tone.
His cousin didn’t seem to notice. He laughed. “Not half an hour into the night and the stir around you is almost entirely positive. Having the Duke of Abernathe speak to you with such friendliness, then your comportment all evening, has begun a shifting of the tide. Even your stepping outside has only increased the mystery around you.”
David squeezed his eyes shut, only able to think about the feel of Rose in his arms. The taste of her lips as he held her. The way she trembled…or was it he who had trembled?
“That’s wonderful,” he managed to croak.
Richard caught his arm and shook gently. “Don’t sound so morose, cousin! This is what we worked for. Now, we must return to the ball. I have a few people for you to meet. Come, come.”
Richard all but hauled him back to the room, and David allowed it. Not because he was incapable of refusing, but because there seemed no point in it now. Rose was in that room, but she was unreachable. And he would have to live with that reality tonight and for every night thereafter.
David strode into the parlor, peeling off his jacket as he did so, and stopped at the sideboard. There he popped open a bottle of scotch whisky. For a moment he considered a glass, but in the end decided to slug directly from the bottle itself.
“Oh dear.”
He froze and lowered the bottle as he turned toward the voice at the door behind him. His mother stood there in a fine gown unlike any she’d ever owned before, her hair done by a maid earlier in the day. And yet, despite those niceties, she was still the same. A rough and sad life had aged her beyond her years and her gaze darted around the room still like she was waiting to be found out and thrown from the estate.
“Go that bad, did it?” Her heavy Cockney accent, rough from the street, reminded David of nights when he knew she was selling herself. Nights when men had hurt her and he was too young to stop it.
“No,” he said, pulling out a glass and pouring her a tall portion of the drink he was having. She smiled and sat by the fire before she took it. “In fact, Richard seems to think it went well enough.”
She rolled her eyes as she sipped the liquor. “Oh, that’s fine, ain’t it?”
He looked at the bottle. “It’s all fine here, Mama. At least from the outside.”
She shrugged. “Richard. Tha’ fop.”
David let out a sigh and sipped from the bottle a second time. “He’s not so bad. He’s…he’s been good to me.”
She wrinkled her brow as if that concept didn’t compute. That was what hurt David’s heart the most. She had become so jaded by her life. She didn’t have faith in anyone. Perhaps not even him.
“Then why you lookin’ so miserable, eh Davy?” She leaned forward, examining his face. Probably seeing more than he wanted her to.
He shrugged. “Revenge is a tricky business.”
She stared at him for what felt like an eternity. “Revenge?” she repeated. “What’re you goin’ on about?”
“Revenge,” he repeated. “Christ, what do you think I’m doin’…” He let out his breath in frustration. “Doing this for. My father didn’t want us, right? He’d hate me being here, hate me taking his place. What better revenge is there than that?”
Her lips parted, and for a moment he was shocked to see tears sparkle in her eyes. Eyes that were blue like his, though cloudier from years of drink and difficulty.
“Yer wrong,” she said at last, h
er breath a little more shallow. “Christ, Davy, is tha’ what you think?”
“He left us. What else is there?” he snapped, made emotional by the interaction with Rose and now this, whatever this was.
“Yer father loved me,” she said softly. “And he loved you.”
David pushed from the chair, nearly flipping it as he walked to the sideboard and slammed the bottle down. “Don’t lie to me now. Not after what I’ve seen and done.”
She shook her head. “God’s honest, Davy. Why’d ya think he married me? Thought it would turn his old man an’ protect me. But it…it didn’t work.”
David shook his head, confused by this new narrative that was so different from the one he’d constructed in his head over the years.
“Why?” he asked.
“His father was high in the instep an’ cruel as a wolf,” she said, and she shivered. “When he found out his heir was sniffin’ ’round a serving girl, he told me he’d have my blood. He was worse after we married. An’ yer father was as afraid of Shaw as I was. I knew he’d hurt you, Davy. So did yer Da. So we separated. And by the time the old man cocked up his toes, you were out running the street and I was…” She looked down at herself. “I was this. It was too late.”
“You did what you had to do to survive. Don’t shame yourself for that. I don’t. And if he loved you, that makes it worse. He should have goddamned well taken care of you. Provided for you. You can try to soften this, Mama, but it is not enough. It will never be enough.”
“Maybe yer right,” she said with as shaky sigh. “But you can’t get blood from a stone, Davy. Or revenge on a corpse. If that’s what yer tryin’ to do, yer gonna waste yer whole life.”
David flinched. Those words were similar to Rose’s. That thought that a search for revenge wasn’t worth it. That he could do this for himself and no one else if he just…let go. Of the past. Of the hate.
He let out his breath. “Another lady told me the same thing, not a week ago,” he whispered, his mind turning back to Rose. Tonight, before, in his bed, in his arms…in his life.
He was going to lose her, just as his father had lost his mother. Given her away. Let her go like an arse. Christ, he was doing the same thing. He ran a hand through his hair with a curse.
“The smart one,” his mother said with a sly smile. “That one you’ve been moonin’ over since you got back to London?”
He shrugged. “I suppose so, yes. She taught me how to…how to fit here. She taught me to succeed without losing myself.”
His mother got to her feet and set her glass down before she came to him. She reached out and took his hand. He felt the roughness of her palm, but knew someday that would change, soften. He could make her life easier by accepting his future. They could change together.
“Don’t make our mistakes, love,” she said. “Don’t spend yer life in a bad way, wishin’ for things you didn’t do. It’s no way to pass, with regrets on yer tongue.”
David bent his head, weighed down by all she’d said. As if she sensed it, she patted his cheek. “I’ll leave you to yer bottle. G’night.”
“Goodnight,” he said, watching her go before he returned to his place and took a swig from the bottle. Liquid courage wasn’t going to help him much…but he was going to make do with it nonetheless.
Chapter 10
David walked the parlor floor, watching the clock as the minute hand ticked by with ridiculous slowness. He was restless, troubled and anxious for his guest to arrive.
He’d meant to spend a night drinking. Instead, he’d found himself pacing, stone-cold sober, as he thought of everything his mother had said about the past he hadn’t understood. Thinking of how his father’s cowardice, his inability to protect what he’d wanted, had destroyed so many lives.
And how he was positioned on that same path.
In the end, there had been only one answer.
“Mr. Shaw, my lord,” his butler intoned before he stepped aside to allow Richard to enter the parlor.
His cousin smiled at him. “Good day, my lord.”
“Richard,” David said, suddenly nervous. God, he was never nervous. That just went to show how much he had come to let himself want what he was about to declare.
“I admit I’m surprised to hear from you so soon after your triumph last night,” Richard said as the two men settled into the chairs in front of the fire. “I thought you’d want a day or two away from it all to bask in your success.”
“Bask?” David said with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, cousin, but I still feel like all I did was dance to the jig of a few rich men.”
Richard’s smile fell a fraction. “I know it’s difficult. But I think you’ll come to like some of those men. In time, you won’t feel so awkward in your duties.”
David nodded slowly. “I suppose that might have been true. Men like Abernathe and the friends he introduced me to later in the night, they do seem a good lot. Perhaps a bit stuffy, but not as bad as I thought they would be. But that isn’t why I asked you to join me here today, Richard.”
“No? Then why?” Richard cocked his head slightly.
David drew a breath. Under normal circumstances, this was not something he would wish to say to his cousin first, but these were the conditions at hand.
“I am in love with Rose,” he said softly.
Richard’s brow wrinkled and he stared at David blankly. “Who?”
David pursed his lips. Of course he would not know her first name. That was not proper. “Miss Higgins,” he clarified.
Richard’s shoulders rolled forward and his face fell with a sad expression. “I had hoped I was wrong about the connection I sensed between you. Christ, I should have hired a gentleman to train you, but she came with impeccable references. I shall—”
“You shall do nothing,” David interrupted, spearing his cousin with a look that spoke of how serious he was on this score. “Let me repeat that, you shall do nothing when it comes to Rose. She did nothing wrong. I instigated the…relationship between us. And she did exactly what you hired her to do.”
“She did that,” Richard said with a sigh. “So what is it you want? You could keep her as a mistress. The Livingsworth house where you met her was our grandfather’s house for his…paramours. You have enough to offer her security.”
David shook his head. “I watched my mother play out that role, though in lower forms. I would not subject any woman to the uncertainty it entails. Certainly not a woman I love.”
The more he said it, the easier that word became to say. The more…right. The more true he knew it to be.
But as his peace deepened, Richard’s anxiety seemed to double. “Then what do you want, David?”
“I want to be with her, Richard. I want to make her my wife.”
“The scandal that will create,” Richard muttered. “Her family is…there are issues, and they are not titled.”
“I don’t give a damn about that,” David snapped. He stood up and paced away. When he pivoted back, he speared Richard with a glare. “Did my father love my mother?”
Richard blinked as his cheeks reddened with embarrassment at the intimate subject. “I-I—”
“I thought my whole life that he didn’t give a damn about us,” David continued. “And last night that idea was weakened by something my mother told me. You knew him better than anyone, so you tell me what is true. Did he love us?”
Richard nodded slowly. “Yes, David. I think he did. He often spoke of how he wished he had stood up to our grandfather, who was a dreadful, cruel man. I didn’t know what he meant when he talked about all he’d lost for his weakness, but now I understand he meant your mother. And you.”
David clenched his fists. “Then I am becoming the same man I always tried not to be.”
“David—” Richard began.
David shook his head. “If I love her and I let her go, I will be my father. Worse than him because there are no so-called good reasons to fail her. Because I know the consequenc
es of such cowardly behavior. I don’t want that to be the legacy he passes on to me. To regret the love I could have had but threw away to please Society.”
Richard stood, and David could see his cousin was adjusting to the news. “Well, the idea of marrying for love has come into fashion lately. The Duke of Sheffield married a poor American, for God’s sake. If that can be overcome, certainly so can this. And I saw what regret did to my uncle.” He moved forward and clapped a hand on David’s forearm. “I would never wish it for you, cousin. So she has agreed to marry you?”
“No,” David said. “I haven’t confessed my heart. She is convinced that I must let her go and take the future you wanted for me.”
“Good woman,” Richard said with a soft smile. “Exactly the kind worth giving up anything for. Well, it sounds like you have someplace to be, my friend. And it isn’t here talking to me.”
David grinned at him. “Thank you for understanding and for remaining at my side.”
“We’re family,” Richard said. “I will always remain at your side. Now go. Get the girl.”
The weight David had been carrying for months, for years, for decades, lifted from his shoulders in that moment. He laughed as he raced to the foyer to call for his horse. And he prayed that Rose could be convinced as easily as his cousin had been that their bond was worth fighting for.
Rose sat at the desk in her small parlor, re-reading the letter she’d received from that morning. Her mother wanted her to come and visit. Normally during the Season, she had to refuse these requests, but now…
Well, it was tempting.
Last night’s encounter with David at the ball had been utterly excruciating. To be touched by him, kissed by him, to feel all the love that burned in her heart…and to know it was for naught—that was devastating, far worse than she’d ever imagined when she left him for London a week before.
And she had, of course, been forced to stay at the ball, to watch as he talked and connected with those around him. As he danced—not many times, but a few—with beautiful women as even more ladies eyed him with feral interest.
My Fair Viscount: (The Scandal Sheet Book 4) Page 8