“Send my goddamn acceptance,” he bit out. “And get back to the floors. I found the storage room in the first floor corridor broken into. I’ll be down to speak to Niall shortly.”
Calum cursed roundly, all earlier levity gone, and hurried from the room.
With the other man gone, he unleashed a string of black obscenities. He’d survived more blades in his person, gunshots, and street fights than any man had a right to live through and tell of. And he’d welcome any one of those tenuous situations to entering London Society.
Cursing his sister, Ryker found his place at the window and stared at the colorful dandies crowding around his tables. Yes, Ryker had survived life on the streets. He could certainly survive an evening with these same brainless fops and their equally brainless ladies.
Then his debt was paid to Helena and Somerset, and Ryker was free to carry on an existence in which his only need of the peerage was the coin they’d toss down at his tables.
Chapter 3
Dear Fezzimore
I do say, of everything I’ve mastered since Mrs. Dundlebottom began serving as my governess, my greatest skill has been hiding. If she weren’t such a miserable harpy, I would almost feel bad.
Penny
Age 11
If she were the dramatic sort, Penelope would have called the Duke and Duchess of Somerset’s ball the worst night of her life.
But she wasn’t. Her sister Poppy was.
Nonetheless, this evening would still be filed away as one of the most miserable nights of her life. Due in no small part to the nasty gossips . . . of which there were two particularly vile ones whispering near her now.
“There is the Tidemore lady . . .”
Standing behind the impressive white Doric column, Penelope sighed. Life should have taught her it was impossible to escape polite Society’s gossip. In her foolish optimism, or with her romantic spirit, as Jonathan referred to it, she’d expected so much . . . more from her first ball.
Alas, for her mother’s high hopes for the night, not even the more than slightly terrifying gaming-hell owner scowling at the edge of the ballroom could detract from a Tidemore.
Now, Penelope appreciated just how naïve she’d been.
She’d been the only Tidemore sister to believe that following their mother’s mantra would place her above Society’s gossip.
“I expect she’ll find herself in a rushed marriage . . .”
At the catty whispers just behind her, Penelope squared her shoulders. Bloody gossips, the lot of them. I should leave. I should tilt my chin up and march off. She firmed her jaw. But to do so, she would be the coward run off by nasty harpies. Society had many things to say about the Tidemore girls . . . but not a single one of them would ever dare call Penelope or her sisters cowards.
Granted, the torn lace dangling at the bottom of her gown was also a decided deterrent in properly marching off.
“I daresay she’ll be wed within the . . .”
Whatever that predicted time frame happened to be was lost to the din of the orchestra striking up another set.
Penelope glanced down at the empty dance card dangling forlornly from her wrist. As it was, unless that wager was struck on the quick side of never, then the nasty gossip didn’t have much chance. In a week of attending ton functions, there hadn’t been a single suitor. Nary a nibble. Not even a sidelong glance. And where her sister Prudence had landed a fortune hunter and found love, Penelope had come to appreciate just how hard it was to even bring a fortune hunter up to scratch. Not that she wished one.
She would settle for dancing a waltz, however.
“I do believe she hasn’t so much as danced a set this entire night . . .”
Penelope gritted her teeth. That much had been true. Well, if one wasn’t counting dances with one’s elder broth—
“The Earl of Sinclair danced with her,” Lady Mean Girl Two aptly pointed out.
Which was met only with another round of sniggering.
She sighed. Yes, she’d hardly counted her only brother’s partnering as an actual set. Nor the quadrille several dances ago with her brother-in-law, Christian, the Marquess of St. Cyr.
“The only reason any gentleman not related would bother to dance with her is as a favor to the family . . .”
Frustration rolled through her. But surely two wholly perfect English ladies with proper golden curls and pale porcelain cheeks had more to do than linger around her, just to be . . . cruel?
“There you are!”
Her elder sister Prudence’s voice sounded several paces away, and relief flooded her. Pru strode like a stalwart general with determined steps toward her. And how very reassuring it was having a friend amidst the loneliness of polite Society.
Pru drew to such an abrupt stop that her skirts snapped wildly about her ankles and peered closely at Penelope’s face. “Why are you hiding here?”
From behind the pillar, the two mean ladies ducked back. Of course, where was the fun in attacking a pair? Cowards would only ever take on a single, solitary lady on the fringe.
“Standing,” Penelope muttered.
The happily married marchioness tipped her head. “I don’t under—”
“I am standing here. Not hiding. I tore my hem,” she said, pointing to the scrap of dangling lace. Then, what could one expect of a hideously gauche gown with scraps of itchy fabric uncleverly draped over the monstrosity. Making misery of her skin, no less. Though said rip had little to do with her hovering on the fringe, it did at least present a convenient excuse.
Her ever-cheerful sister made a tsking noise. “That will not do, Penny—”
“Penelope,” she corrected. When she’d resolved to be a proper lady and put away her mischief-making days, she’d also ridded herself of that nasty moniker.
“How ever is a gentleman to dance with you, Penny?” Or she’d tried to remove it.
They aren’t. They weren’t, anyway. Lest she say as much and have her sister believe she was searching for pity, or far worse, earn a lecture along the lines of “I told you what it was really like in London but you believed properness could fix this.”
She settled for “I’ll retire in a moment and have it fixed.”
Prudence gave a pleased nod and motioned across the ballroom, bringing Penelope’s attention to where her brother-in-law stood conversing with a tall, golden-haired gentleman. “The Earl of Maxwell will dance with you,” she said with such cheer, Penelope gritted her teeth.
Where Prudence had simply wished for her sister to dance a set, Penelope wanted a gentleman who wished to dance with her. “Splendid,” she said with a dry rancor her sister either failed to note or hear. The Earl of Maxwell was only one of the most sought-after bachelors . . . and he’d dance with Penelope on a favor. Splendid evening, indeed, she thought wryly.
“Oh, Christian is motioning to us.” Her eyes brightened, and with a boldness their mother would have lamented, Prudence waved excitedly at her husband.
A niggling of envy tugged at Penelope.
“Would you care to dance with him, again?”
Tamping down another sigh, Penelope forced a smile. “One set was enough.” She wished to dance, but no lady wanted the pity of dancing only with her brother-in-law.
“Lord Maxwell, then,” she said, taking Penelope by the hand.
Which earned another flurry of giggles from Miss Mean One and Miss Mean Two.
Panic crested, and she pulled her fingers back. She’d not be the pathetic creature danced with by her brother-in-law’s best friend for nothing more than a favor. No matter how much she wished to dance. It was entirely bad enough having to dance with one’s brother as a partner. “I have to attend my gown,” she reminded her exuberant sister.
“Of course.” Prudence cast another glance at her husband, and over the heads of the duke and duchess’s guests, Pru and Christian smiled and waved. “I’ll join you,” Prudence said, linking their arms.
“No.” Penelope quickly disentangled the
m, and to the resolute glimmer in Pru’s eyes, she said the only thing that would spare her from further machinations: “Christian is waiting for you.”
At the pretty blush staining Pru’s cheeks, a sliver of envy pebbled inside Penelope. What she wouldn’t give to know that kind of love.
“Go,” Penelope urged, when her sister hesitated still. “I’ll be along shortly.” Tiring of her sister’s indecision, she took Pru by the shoulders and gently nudged her back toward her husband.
A moment later Prudence’s shorter frame was lost amongst the crush of guests. No sooner had her sister taken her leave than the whispers resumed.
“Who would wed one such as . . .”
Do not say anything, Penelope Pippa Tidemore. Do not say anything . . . She desperately tried to draw forth her mother’s mantra: You are to be everything and all things proper, all the time.
“The elder sister, they say, was enceinte with the babe of the man she eloped with . . .”
Patrina. Hearing the cold mention of her loving, devoted sister, Penelope’s patience snapped. She could endure their nasty whispers, but she’d not allow them to disparage any of her siblings. Not caring that they’d surely talk even more after any outburst, she turned abruptly and marched the handful of steps over to the impossibly beautiful golden creatures, who widened their eyes.
“You may wonder what manner of man would wed one such as me,” she said tightly, flicking an icy stare up and down their perfectly rounded frames, “but I can say with certainty that I pity the poor gentlemen who find themselves wed to such foul, nasty creatures as yourselves.”
Matching gasps left their rounded mouths, and thrilling at those twin expressions of shock and fury, Penelope elegantly strode off.
Or she almost did.
She stumbled on her torn hem. Heat exploded onto her cheeks as laughter swelled behind her. Blasted hem, ruining a lady’s proper exit. Feeling those derisive stares burning into her back, she forced herself to move at a sedate pace along the perimeter of the ballroom. As soon as she stepped outside the Duke of Somerset’s ballroom, she quickened her stride.
This is not what she’d expected her London Season to be. She was to be proper and polite, and Society was to have seen that, and then to have overlooked years of Tidemore scandals. There was to have been a loyal suitor who didn’t give a jot about her family’s history.
Fool. Fool. Fool. The litany pounded in her head, matching the rapid beat of her heart. Penelope reached the last door at the end of the corridor and pushed it open.
A wave of cool air slapped her cheeks and sucked the breath from her lungs. Yet there was something refreshing, and almost clean, in it. Penelope pulled the door closed and rushed forward onto the stone terrace. Teeth chattering, she rubbed the exposed skin of her arms, willing warmth into them.
She’d been in London for her first Season but two months, and she hated every part of it. She hated the lack of dance partners and the blatant stares. She hated the unkind words uttered about her family. And she hated that she’d allowed those two young ladies to bring her to a public display. After all, it hardly mattered what they said about her family. Penelope knew their unkind words to be nothing more than cruel lies cooked up and fed to a voracious ton.
Shivering, she glanced about. The Italianate terrace with its stone and wrought-iron balconies overlooked a walled-in gardens. On the surface, she may as well have been standing outside any country estate. The thickness of the air, however, proved that falsity. Penelope wandered over to an armillary and walked a small, distracted circle around the sphere with its jutting arrow.
As a girl, she’d dreamed of London and the day she’d make her Come Out. The balls. The soirees. How very grand they were supposed to have been, and yet . . . how stifling they, in fact, were. She paused and gripped the opposite end of the globe.
“Wh-where would I go?” Her teeth chattered from the cold and she drew in a slow breath, letting the unseasonably cool air fill her lungs. She stuck her finger out beyond the tip of the arrow and followed it to the handful of stars that peeked through the cloud cover. Mayhap she would—
A faint click sounded like a shot. With a gasp, Penelope stumbled into the ornament. The lace trim of her décolletage snagged the opposite end of the spear.
Bloody hell.
Heart thundering, Penelope wrenched the fabric away from the metal piece. Riiiiip. With a speed born of years of eluding governesses, she raced down the handful of steps into the gardens.
Panic sent the blood rushing to her ears, muffling her rapidly beating pulse.
Mayhap she’d simply imagined that faint click.
Someone closed the door. Running through a litany of every vile curse she’d ever heard from her brother, Penelope dropped to her knees and crawled through the Duke of Somerset’s winter-burned grass.
It could be worse. There could be gravel and she could even now be noisily making a futile retreat. Penelope frantically surveyed the grounds. Dismissing the wrought-iron bench, she made for a stone bench with a scrolled serpentine back. Her gaze snagged upon the winged, grotesque creatures with their stone mouths open in frozen laughter. A shiver wracked her frame and she rolled under the broad piece.
An endless silence stretched into an absolute still so powerful even the night wind and birds adhered to it. She clenched her teeth to keep from chattering away her hiding place.
Then the faint tread of footfalls broke the quiet.
With every step, Penelope’s panic mounted. Ruined. I will be utterly ruined just like all my siblings before.
Oh, why had she not remained inside? Why hadn’t she followed Prudence to an antechamber like any proper lady would have?
Because you never have been a good English miss. No matter the person you’ve tried to fashion yourself into these past four years, you’re still the same incorrigible miss, hiding under her brother’s desk. Or in this case, under the Duke and Duchess of Somerset’s garden bench.
Now she lay on the ground like a naughty child, hiding from discovery. And with that, proving every last worry her mother and brother had of and for her. Penelope sank her teeth into her lower lip. If she were found outside, alone with her gown ruined, her reputation would be in greater tatters than all the scandalous Tidemores combined. She strained her ears.
The clouds chose the inopportune moment to shift, and moonlight bathed the grounds, illuminating the blasted white of her gown protruding from her makeshift shelter.
Holding her breath, she quickly yanked the fabric back. Blasted voluminous lace. Did her mother believe the endless yards of the colorless material could somehow hide or erase the stigma attached to the Tidemores?
Leave. Just leave.
Alas, the footfalls drew closer. She gulped. A pair of immaculate black boots stopped in front of her hiding place. Her heart climbed into her throat. Then, the stranger strolled deeper into the gardens.
He stopped beside one of the lamps that lined the path.
Drawing on every lesson in subterfuge that had driven her mama and brother mad, she made herself go absolutely still. And proceeded to wait until the blasted interloper took himself off.
Chapter 4
Dearest Fezzimore,
It is so unfair a lady must don skirts. When I am grown, I shall wear whichever garments I wish—and they will certainly not be skirts.
Penny
Age 10
Ryker was suffocating. A vise was cinching his lungs, cutting off his air. His ragged breaths filled his ears.
A breeze whipped at his face, and he welcomed the cooling effect it had on his sweat-dampened skin.
Every man and woman had a weakness. To believe one was infallible was, in itself, a weakness.
For Ryker, the key to survival had been owning his fears, and laying mastery to them. Since his days of weaving between lords and ladies on crowded London streets, terror had gripped him of being around large groups of people. It was a lesson handed down by Diggory years earlier.
; One wrong step would see you with a blade at your throat.
One wrong move, and you were ended.
He was . . . being watched . . .
Standing on the graveled path, Ryker flicked his gaze around the quiet gardens of his sister and her husband. He’d learned danger could lurk in every corner and crevice, and the lavish townhouse of a lord and lady was no exception. He continued to work his gaze over the grounds, but silence was his only company.
The remnants of a smile grazed his lips.
Of course, he’d been scrutinized the moment he stepped inside the Duke and Duchess of Somerset’s ballroom. After all, it was not every day a duke’s bastard son, a ruthless snipe from the streets, entered their honorable midst. The sickeningly fascinated stolen peeks from ladies and the terrified stares of the lords had dogged him all evening. It was those blatant stares that had sent tension thrumming inside him. To attract notice and invite curiosity was a fatal mistake.
Ryker gave his head a disgusted shake. What had Helena expected in having him attend? Did she think Ryker would don a gentleman’s attire and the ton would see beyond the scars on his face, or the hardness in his eyes, to the drop of blue blood flowing through his illegitimate veins?
No, they would never see past the truth of his existence. Just as he’d never be free of the deep abiding antipathy for everything those people were, everything they represented. They were the real bastards—people who didn’t see the plight of those around them, who carried on, driven by their own material pleasures.
He chuckled, the rusty, empty sound devoid of mirth. It had been an understanding of who polite Society was that had allowed Ryker to build all he had in St. Giles. His club was a testament to who he was and a recognition of who they were. It was a perfect marriage, and the only one he’d ever have with these people. No matter how much his sister longed for him to slide into the haute ton, as she’d done.
The Scoundrel's Honor Page 3