Dangerous Gentlemen

by Beverley Oakley

  Predictably, both her mother and Stephen objected strongly to this.

  “Why, Hetty, I found you far more to my liking,” her cousin told her. “Araminta’s style is not to everyone’s taste.”

  “I suspect it will be with regard to this gentleman…when it comes to taking a wife,” she mumbled, her previous pleasure rapidly eroding. But she shook her head when they looked inquiringly at her. Her desire for Sir Aubrey—both in essence and in practice—was a secret she was going to have to guard very closely.

  Changing the subject, she said airily, “It would appear Araminta is not heeding your advice to steer clear of Sir Aubrey, Cousin Stephen.”

  “And who is Sir Aubrey?” Lady Partington inquired, patting Stephen’s thigh.

  Hetty was surprised when Stephen gripped her mother’s hand, saying, “Suffice to say he is a gentleman in whom Foreign Office is interested.”

  “You have no proof Sir Aubrey is the villain you believe,” Hetty burst out. When Stephen looked suspiciously at her, she added hastily, “That’s what Araminta says, which is why she believes it’s all right to encourage him.”

  A small frown of concern creased her mother’s brow. She glanced between Stephen and Hetty. “Should Humphry speak to Araminta if you don’t believe Sir Aubrey is a suitable candidate for her interest? She’d be more inclined to listen to her father than to either of us.”

  “If she’s in danger of eloping with Sir Aubrey, then yes.” Stephen sent Hetty a narrow-eyed look. “While it is true we have nothing more than Lord Debenham’s unsubstantiated allegations to work with, Hetty, the fact is that Lord Debenham is a highly esteemed politician while Sir Aubrey has done little to distinguish himself other than play fast and loose with the ladies and at the gaming tables.”

  Ignoring this, Hetty leaned forward, eagerness making her words rush. “Could it be possible Sir Aubrey is the wronged party and Lord Debenham is making it appear he’s guilty of something he’s not?”

  “Why, Hetty, what a strange thing to say,” her mother cried. “What has Araminta been saying? It’s so like the girl to concoct a story she wants to believe. If she’s not careful, Lord Debenham will accuse her of libel and her second season will finish under a cloud.”

  Hetty saw doubt flit across Stephen’s face. She squared her shoulders. “Why should Lord Debenham be believed over Sir Aubrey when there’s not a jot of evidence either way?”

  With a grunt of irritation, Stephen rose, dropping Sybil’s hand with a look of surprise, as if he’d been unaware he’d been holding it. “If Sir Aubrey is thick with the Spenceans then he consorts with traitors who would turn this country upside down.” Hetty had never seen such a stern cast to his pleasant features. “The matter is serious, Hetty, for all you appear to treat it lightly and seem to believe what Araminta would like to believe. If you have chosen to champion Araminta in her quest to snare Sir Aubrey, then I urge you to think again.”

  * * * * *

  Hetty had as much intention of championing Araminta in her quest for Sir Aubrey’s affections as she had marrying Mr. Woking. So when her sister breezed into her room and asked to borrow her pearl earrings while Hetty was dressing for dinner, Hetty swung ’round on her stool, saying, “Cousin Stephen warned me again about what a dangerous man Sir Aubrey is. I hope you do not plan to see him again.”

  Araminta’s lips curved up in that self-satisfied smile that indicated she had no intention of doing anything other than what she desired. Toying with the tassels of a cushion as she relaxed on the bed, she said with a languid yawn, “You don’t really believe Sir Aubrey’s vile excesses and cruelty were the reason his wife took her own life, do you?”

  Hetty, in the middle of combing out her hair, nearly dropped her brush. “Sir Aubrey has been accused of being a Spencean by a man who was jealous of him.” She felt cold inside. As if all the warmth of her previous encounters had turned to ice. “Not a wife abuser.” The fact such a thing might be whispered in the public domain filled her with horror. She knew he’d been falsely accused but Lord Debenham had influence amongst those who mattered.

  Araminta laughed. “You’re so easy to shock, Hetty. Yes, that’s what people are saying, which is all the more reason to stay away—not that there’s any danger of you straying into his line of vision. Sir Aubrey is on the lookout for a wife. A rich, beautiful one.”

  “I come well provided for,” Hetty murmured as she bent to pick up the brush. She stared unseeing into its figured silver back.

  “You’re hardly his type, dearest.” Araminta’s laugh was light. “Sir Aubrey is a man of discerning tastes. His wife was the most celebrated debutante of her season.”

  “No man marries only for beauty…not if he can see the character is flawed.” Hetty sent a baleful look at her sister. “No intelligent man, that is.”

  “I really don’t know where you get these deep thoughts from, Hetty.” Araminta lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, a beatific smile upon her face. “However, you’ve missed the point. Sir Aubrey needs a wife who can pull strings for him. A wife who is adept at playing by society’s rules and seizing the advantage.” She trailed her hand over the damask counterpane, adding, “I am exactly the type of beauty Sir Aubrey favors. Dark, vibrant and—to use his own words—irresistible.”

  “When did he say such a thing?” Hetty muttered.

  “When he asked me to stand up with him twice at Lady Milton’s ball last night. Cousin Stephen was, as you can imagine, terribly censorious.”

  Feeling sick, Hetty rose from the stool and began to pace. Was this before or after Hetty had frolicked with him in his bedchamber? She needed air. Knowing the nocturnal hours Sir Aubrey kept, it was quite plausible that no sooner had he seen Hetty off in her carriage than he had sought a spot more entertainment and returned to Lady Milton’s ballroom. To dance with Araminta.

  “You still can’t marry him,” she said. “Not if he’s under investigation for some terrible crime we don’t quite know the details of.”

  “Being a Spencean? Lord Debenham says his wife accused him in a letter. Conveniently it’s now gone missing and besides, Lord Debenham was Sir Aubrey’s wife’s lover, so one wonders how credible her claims are.”

  With a gusty sigh, Araminta sat up. “Well, this all happened an absolute age ago. I’m just concerned with the here and now, Hetty. This is my second season. My first ended under a shadow when that silly boy took his own life after I said I wouldn’t marry him after all.” For a moment she adopted the look of the grieving betrothed. “Sir Aubrey’s wife ended her foolish life the same way. He and I have a great deal in common. I need a husband before Christmas and I’ve decided Sir Aubrey is the perfect candidate.”

  Hetty swallowed past the lump in her throat as she imagined a lifetime of having to witness her sister’s and Sir Aubrey’s mutual delight in one another. “So you really are not concerned about the rumors that surround Sir Aubrey?”

  “If they don’t affect his pocketbook and he’s not about to dangle at the end of a noose and so dishonor his family, then no.” Araminta performed a twirl before the looking glass then, patting her perfectly coiffured hair, announced, “And now I think I shall promenade in Hyde Park for it is at this time I’m most likely to encounter the eminently desirable Sir Aubrey. Would you like to accompany me, Hetty?”

  “No!” Of course she’d spoken with far too much feeling so she quickly added, “I can’t imagine why you’d want me to come.”

  “Why, my dear, I love it when you accompany me.” Araminta put her head next to Hetty’s and simpered at their reflection. “Every clever and beautiful girl likes to have someone by her side to show her in sharp relief.”

  When she briefly touched Hetty’s light-brown hair before wrapping a finger ‘round one of her own dark curls, Hetty knew she wasn’t referring to their coloring.

  Also, that her observation was acute. Araminta, the beauty, would always throw her sister into the shade.

  Hetty drew herself up but w
ith not a glimmer of a facial muscle did she reveal herself. Only deep in her heart did she determine that she would triumph when it came to finding her own happiness.

  * * * * *

  Aubrey could sense when he was being watched. At balls and routs he was used to the interested feminine glances sent his way. When he’d been a young man trying hard to satisfy a beautiful, demanding and ultimately unsatisfied wife, he’d become aware of the masculine competition also.

  Margaret had not loved him when they’d pledged their troth but that had seemed inconsequential at the time. She was young and unformed; eminently desirable, and he desired her. It had not crossed his mind that her feelings would enter into the equation, so crass had he been. His parents, as usual, had indulged him, sanctioning the match, even if Margaret was not as well connected or dowered as others their son might have chosen.

  The occasional rumor that drifted his way that Margaret was in love with her cousin troubled him little during the early days of their union. The contract had been signed to the mutual satisfaction, so it seemed, of all parties. Margaret Larkin, a solicitor’s daughter, had risen in the world, it was generally acknowledged, by marrying the local squire’s son. A man possessed of exceeding good looks, high intelligence and dogged purpose when he set his mind to something. Furthermore, only a sickly cousin stood in the way of him inheriting a great estate.

  Despite Margaret’s lackluster responses toward him in the early days of their marriage, it was not long before Sir Aubrey had the satisfaction of reducing his young wife to a quivering jelly during lovemaking, her sighs and gasps quite definitely not those of the reluctant participant. The fact that he’d apparently won her over made the union all the more satisfying.

  A year into their marriage, Margaret suffered a miscarriage and Sir Aubrey thought to console his wife with the bolstering truth that it only proved she was healthy and able to bear more children.

  Margaret, however, did not see it that way. She retreated, inventing excuses not to share a bed with him, then later bolting her bedchamber door so he could no longer enter with sweet, ultimately futile attempts to entice her back into his embrace.

  It was an irony that his success was indirectly the cause of her cousin’s return.

  In the years since he’d left England, impecunious George Carruthers had channeled his frustrated romantic ambitions toward the pursuit of money and made his fortune in the East India Company. Fate had continued to be kind to him, removing two cousins who stood in the way of him inheriting a title and estate. Now as Lord Debenham he returned, his first stop on English soil to visit the cousin who’d been pressured by her parents to reject him five years earlier.

  The only condition upon which Sir Aubrey was prepared to accept Debenham’s presence, however, was that Margaret honor her conjugal duties. Her agreement had evoked mixed feelings. Did she desire her cousin’s company so much she was prepared to sleep with her husband to have it?

  With a sigh of relief, Sir Aubrey had farewelled Debenham to London after one month, and the only contact during the next two years were reports of his meteoric rise within the Tory party ranks.

  In the interim an infant son was born, then mourned, and the mutual passion that had briefly flared between Sir Aubrey and his wife finally sputtered. Yet his feelings remained intense.

  To his surprise, Sir Aubrey had grown ever more attached to his wife. Routine and familiarity were not the stuff of excitement for him but he’d eschewed London revels to enjoy her restrained company and to nurture her return to health. He loved the flush that pleasure brought to her cheeks and like a lovelorn fool, he fed this with surprise offerings of flowers, silks and unusual foods he brought back from his local travels. He continued to exert his considerable capacity for charm and restraint in the hopes of lessening her pain but Margaret was in the grip of a terrible malaise.

  His wise mother counseled patience, and Aubrey was patient. More patient than he’d believed possible. Once again Margaret took to her bed—alone—in her own apartments and Aubrey, though he felt like a bull on a short rope, left her in peace this time. Nor did he seek other diversions. The life of celibacy did not come easily but he was smitten by his wife. Each day he sat with her, forcing himself to offer the kind of inconsequential chatter the doctor and his mother counseled.

  Then Debenham returned. For the first time since her child’s death, Margaret laughed with pleasure as she welcomed her cousin on a week-long visit.

  Jealously, Sir Aubrey observed their absorption in one another as they sat, heads close together in the conservatory or in the garden. Margaret’s tinkling laugh had the power to strike an all-consuming desire to damn the now-dashing, urbane Lord Debenham to hell, but wisely Sir Aubrey held his tongue.

  Sir Aubrey had hoped that after Debenham’s week-long visit he would again enjoy the sweet compliance of his wife.

  But as the amount of time the pair was closeted alone lengthened, Aubrey became increasingly hostile. His mother, who lived in the dower house and ate her dinner with the family, bade him show restraint, whatever it might cost him. Sir Aubrey was now a man of thirty, and patience and fortitude came more easily; but four months of celibacy prior to Debenham’s visit had made him restless.

  His dismay was acute when Margaret wept silent tears and begged him to allow her a little more time to embrace the evening peace and solitude she claimed was making her better.

  One evening Sir Aubrey visited her unannounced and dismay turned to horror when he saw it was not peace and solitude she was embracing, but her beloved cousin.

  Debenham had faced him defiantly from the crumpled bed while Margaret sobbed into the pillow beside him. If Aubrey had a pistol he’d have shot him on the spot. Instead, he coldly gripped Debenham by the ear and hauled him, sputtering with indignation as he tried to cover his nakedness with his hands, across the room. He was about to hurl him into the passage when he realized he had no wish to advertise to the entire household—and hence the world—the fact he’d been cuckolded. So he kept silent.

  Debenham’s valet, Jem Perkins, and several trunks were loaded summarily into the family carriage and dispatched to Margaret’s brother’s house. Aubrey, simmering in his own anger, had accepted Margaret’s tearful suggestion as the easy way out. It also gave him time to decide what to do.

  Her betrayal had sliced his heart in two. As he’d stared into her beautiful, defiant face and listened to her tell him that while she’d come to love the husband she’d been forced to marry, she’d always loved her cousin and knew now she always would, he’d felt defeated for the first time in his life.

  He had no notion of what to do, for to speak of his pain and anger and Margaret’s betrayal was to advertise his inadequacy to the world. So, like Margaret, he withdrew into himself.

  His mother assumed it was his despair at his wife’s continued listlessness. She suggested Aubrey enjoy a few weeks in town. But while he’d attempted to take up with his old friends and find himself a mistress to ease his sexual frustration, he could think only of the lovely young wife he adored.

  She did not love him but he did not want a separation. Debenham was due to return to the West Indies soon and Margaret would be henceforth the wife Aubrey wanted and needed. The memory of her soft cheek against his when he’d held her while she’d cried and begged his forgiveness was greater motivation than internal fury.

  He decided he would forgive her, praying that no bastard child would be born within the next nine months for there were limits to what he was prepared to countenance.

  But he loved her. The feeling was intense and he was powerless to force his mind to alternative pleasures or to put in motion some decisive action that would result in an informal separation.

  Ten days after Margaret’s betrayal, Sir Aubrey had returned after some business to be told by his mother that Margaret was visiting her brother for a few days.

  What happened after that was mired in blackness. Margaret, her brother James and their cousin Debenham ha
d been closeted in the library when he’d walked in. That they had been surprised in clandestine activities was supported by the fact that Debenham had seized the document on which they’d all been working and thrown it on the fire.

  Within the hour, Margaret would be dead from a lethal dose of nightshade.

  After that, Sir Aubrey became a different man.

  In London he pursued pleasure to just short of a lethal dose and drowned that part of him that recoiled with sensitivity to unkindness and injustice. There was no room for that now.

  So as Sir Aubrey sauntered amidst the Hyde Park promenaders, his finely tuned senses bade him observe from the corner of his eye that he was being regarded with feline interest by that bold and aggravating beauty, Miss Araminta Partington. She was advancing toward him beside a pale and uninteresting-looking friend, her gaze trained upon him.

  He doffed his hat and offered her a sardonic smile. There was nothing of the retiring debutante about Miss Partington. Not that she was a debutante. Aubrey was well versed in the details regarding the unfortunate fate of her suitor who’d blown out his brains the previous season when Miss Partington reneged on their impending nuptials. Indeed, the affair had given rise to a wager in White’s Betting Book with high odds on Miss Partington once again being prevailed upon to spread her lily-white thighs without the promise of a wedding band. Aubrey knew Debenham was one of many intent upon securing such favors and winning the bet.

  Any doubt that Miss Partington might still be mourning the unfortunate gentleman in question was put to rest by the jaunty glint in her eye as she surveyed the male contingent.

  He cursed the stirring in his loins, a frequent ache that made him long for Margaret. Since her death he was the first to admit he’d descended into a pit of vice quite foreign to him prior to his marriage. His sexual impulses, however, would only be assuaged by cypriots, he’d decided after leaving the brooding solitude of the country for the faster pace of city life. While he was not amongst those betting on the chance to tup Miss Araminta Partington, he was nevertheless not immune to her charms. Indeed, there was a brash carelessness about her that appealed to his jaded senses.