by Kerryn Reid
Lewis tensed as a bruiser of a man stepped from the neighboring doorway. “Mr. Aubrey?” he said through the gaps between his remaining teeth. At Lewis’s cautious assent, the man tugged at his forage cap in deference. “I work for the lady.”
He pulled a key from his pocket and opened the door into a narrow stairwell smelling of boiled mutton. Up they went, past the first-floor landing and up again. Lewis tugged at his cravat, damp from perspiration. Lord! What am I doing here? This is where she and Jack…
He had no notion what to expect. Oh, he’d heard plenty of stories. In and outside the ton, bucks liked to brag about their carnal adventures. But in telling their tales, men focused on the women and the act itself, not the surroundings.
The place was perfectly ordinary, one of the most comfortable rooms he’d ever seen. A sofa and chairs, a table, a fine rug on the floor. The window boasted yellow curtains, open to the hazy sunshine. There were flowers everywhere, in yellows and purples and pinks. They filled the air with their scents.
He couldn’t say what kinds they were. Though he’d drawn flowers often enough, he’d never been so stupid as to ask anyone their names. Wouldn’t Gideon have had a grand time if he heard about that! Little Lew likes lilacs, lilies, and lupines. No, Lewis had burned the flower sketches as soon as he finished, or torn them to shreds and tossed them in the stream. They hadn’t been much good, in any case.
“He’s ’ere, mum. I’ll be outside if you need me.” The servant stepped back out to the landing and closed the door.
Miss Squires rose from a chair by the window. Lewis hadn’t noticed her, half hidden behind one of the bouquets.
He certainly noticed her now. She wore embroidered silk slippers on her feet and a jade-green satin dressing gown with, he was almost certain, nothing underneath. She tied the sash tighter as she glided toward him. With a portion of her hair held loosely back, the remaining locks kissing her shoulders, she appeared younger, and lovely.
“So, Mr. Aubrey. You’ve come to collect Mr. Wedbury.”
She made it sound so simple, as though he were taking Jack for a drive in the park. It was possible they might never drive or ride together again.
He dragged his gaze up to her face. “Perhaps I should wait outside with your—uh—footman, and you can send Wedbury out to me?”
She chuckled, low and seductive, and performed an inspection of her own. Her scrutiny took in his cravat, his waistcoat, the buttons on his coat, and finally his groin. Which, annoyingly, responded. “That’s why I enjoy younger men. They’re eager, yet so diffident.”
Lewis had had enough of whatever game she was playing with him. “He is here, isn’t he?”
“On the other hand,” she said with a teasing little smile, “they’re dreadfully sensitive.” Then she seemed to drop her act and become a normal person. “He’s sleeping. Tell me, if you please, why he showed up at my door seeking refuge. He’s not done anything criminal, has he?”
“Oh no. A minor breach of honor, that’s all.”
“Minor? He insists he can’t go home, and that you will never speak to him again.”
Lewis grunted. “How does he feel about that?”
She shrugged. “He’s complaining of headaches. I’ll wake him.”
Miss Squires disappeared into what Lewis took to be her bedchamber, and five minutes later Jack staggered out, his shirt untucked and hair uncombed. With sleep-glazed eyes, his cheeks and chin pocked with dark bristles of unshaven beard, he looked like a vagrant. And a stranger.
“It’s not visiting hours,” Jack grumbled.
“Since when do you care about that, Jack? If there’s somewhere to go, let’s go—I must have heard you say it a thousand times.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “But I’ve got nowhere to go.” He collapsed into a chair, his legs sprawled out in front of him. He might have been raised in squalor rather than privilege. If this was the way he’d behaved, no wonder Miss Squires wanted him gone.
Lewis sat facing him, leaning forward. “Of course you do, Jack. I’m here to take you home.”
“Home?” Jack delivered a sneer worthy of Gideon. “God, no. I don’t want to hear Mama’s strictures about what Society will say.”
“She’s only angry that you disappeared without a word. She doesn’t care one way or the other about fencing etiquette. And your father is nothing but worried. He was at Angelo’s and saw the whole incident, did you know?”
“What do I care?” Jack leaped to his feet and strode about the room, squeezing his head between his palms.
Headaches, Jack? That’s what you get for drinking so much. Wouldn’t help to say so.
Jack stopped and peered out into the street. His words sounded hard, bitter.
“And you, Lewis? What did they promise you to come find me? Half my inheritance?”
Lewis rose too but kept his distance, torn between anger and hope that he could make things right again. That in three short weeks they would go home to Yorkshire with everything unchanged. He and Jack, best friends forever. “Don’t be daft, man. We’ve been friends since we were born. D’you think that won’t survive a scratch on the arm?”
The new Jack did not cooperate. Hands clenched at his sides, he turned from the window and rushed toward Lewis. “Don’t patronize me, damn you! All I want to do is have some fun. Is that such a sin?” He stopped an arm’s length away, his skin flushed, eyes slitted in fury. “I have no desire to go home. You mind your business and I’ll mind mine.”
Lewis could feel the heat emanating from Jack’s body. His breath was foul. “You weren’t invited for a long-term stay, Jack. How do you think I knew where to find you? Miss Squires wrote to me. She has better things to do than play nursemaid to a spoiled, rag-mannered drunk.”
That provoked a hard laugh from Jack. “She’s a whore, Lewis, and an actress. Give her enough money, she’ll play any role I ask.”
Before he could call it back, Lewis’s fist left his side. It connected with Jack’s chin and he fell backward, knocking over a small table and the vase of flowers it contained. Jack lay unmoving atop the mess.
Lewis stared as he pressed his throbbing hand to his side. He’d never been much of a pugilist.
Miss Squires erupted from one door, her manservant from another.
“I thought you would employ subtler tactics, Mr. Aubrey,” said Miss Squires, her voice sharp. “Gully could have done that.”
“He said—”
Jack groaned, lifted a hand to his head, and achieved a sitting position among the flowers.
“I heard what he said.” She paused before continuing, cool and inscrutable. “Thank you for coming to my rescue. Now it’s time for you to leave.” She glared down at Jack. “Both of you. Gully, please see that Mr. Wedbury is properly dressed. As your nursemaid, Mr. Wedbury, I cannot allow you to roam the streets in your stocking feet.”
Damp and bedraggled, Jack slumped in one corner of the hackney. “Why the devil did you hit me, you double-crossing nit? Did you think to protect sweet Juliet’s reputation?” His bark of laughter held no humor. “That’s rich.”
It seemed a long ride to Brook Street. The smell of flowers failed to mask the stink of Jack’s breath and body. Sweat beaded on his face and soaked his hair.
Lewis frowned, but they were three weeks into June. Lewis was sweating too. A man had a right to sweat in midsummer.
God forbid Sir John and Lady Wedbury should see their son this way.
Chapter 13
Lewis directed the driver to the mews behind the house. But even going in the servants’ entrance did them no good.
The butler met them on the first-floor landing, somewhat out of breath. One of the servants must have scuttled off to inform him of their arrival, and he’d dashed up the front stairs as they crept up the back.
“Sir John wants you both in the library.” The man was too proud of his place to show the surprise he must have felt at Jack’s appearance, and too well-trained to apologize for the message he
delivered. But a softening of his tone and pucker of concern around the eyes said what his words did not.
Jack didn’t notice. “The devil fly away with you, Wimbley, and with him. I wager Mama’s there too, ain’t she?”
Lewis grabbed Jack’s arm and pulled him toward the main staircase. “You’re out of line, Jack. Come on.”
“Oh hell, it’s Saint Lewis again. Tsk tsk, you mustn’t swear at the servants.” Jack’s sanctified whine mimicked a campaigner for social justice. “Okay, let’s go. No point in putting it off. You didn’t tell them where I was, did you?”
“How can you ask? Of course not.”
Jack muttered something that might have been “Thanks.”
It was a very short interview. Jack shambled into the library ahead of Lewis. He’d been given no time to do more than run his fingers through his hair on the way downstairs, and that had done more harm than good. Particularly with the bruise developing on his jaw where Lewis had hit him, he looked as if he’d spent the night boxing the watch, not curled up in an actress’s bed.
Lady Wedbury surveyed her son from head to toe and back again. Her brows drew together, her chin lifted, her nostrils tightened.
“John Horatio Wedbury. Have you taken leave of your senses? How dare you come in here like that.”
Lewis couldn’t see Jack’s face, but his posture was an insult, his voice held only contempt. “I had every intention of washing up, dear Mother, but you and Papa were too eager to bite my head off.”
“I had no notion you’d spent the night in a byre. You will—”
“You’ll take the opportunity now,” said Sir John, averting his lady’s threatened rant. Lewis had seldom heard him so severe. “I expect to see you here again within the hour, clean and dressed like a civilized man—and prepared to pretend, at least, a suitable respect for your mother!”
Jack bowed low, exaggerating his insincerity. “Sir. Madam. My apologies for sullying your royal presence.” He backed his way to the door, bowing and scraping all the way, reached behind him to find the handle, and let himself out.
What an absurdity! Taken leave of his senses, indeed. Stunned, the three remaining gaped at each other. There was nothing to say. Lewis shook his head and turned to go.
“Lewis!” Sir John’s peremptory command stopped him. “Where did you find him? After this appalling display, we’re entitled to know.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I promised him.”
“You might have promised Jack. That,” said Lady Wedbury, pointing at the door, “is not Jack.”
Jack’s shout penetrated from his bedchamber to the corridor as Lewis retreated to his own room. “Ow! Be careful, you clumsy oaf!” Poor Robert.
Barely within the hour allotted, Lewis heard Jack leave his room for a second round with his parents—and he heard him return. His footsteps pounded up to Lewis’s door and he burst in with a red face and a mulish set to his mouth.
As though nothing had gone awry with their friendship, Jack told Lewis all about the scene in the library at high volume, accompanied by grand gestures that were not his style at all. With the servants already packing for the return to Yorkshire, Jack refused to go.
No doubt the Wedburys would feel happier about cutting the leading-strings if Jack had stayed within his allowance while in London, come home before dawn, drunk fine brandy instead of Blue Ruin, and most of all, remained the same person he’d always been. But he was of age. He had a right to make that decision.
And Lewis had a right to make his. It did not include spending the whole summer in London. Tomorrow he would go to Bristol and satisfy himself as to Miss Spain’s welfare. Then he was going home.
Cassie should have felt the same. Yet when Lewis found her in the morning room and told her about his own plans and Jack’s, she flew up into the boughs. “If that isn’t the outside of enough! I have more reason to stay than Jack does.”
“Lord, Cassie. Only a fool would forego a summer in Yorkshire to stay in this cesspit.”
She stopped pacing to stand in front of him, hands on her hips, chin thrust forward. She barely reached his cravat pin. “I guess I’m a fool, then.”
Lowering her gaze, she stroked the lapels of his coat as one might soothe an aggravated cat. Was she blushing? “Don’t you think if Jack is going to stay, we should all stay? He might get into real trouble, and there would be no one here to take care of things.”
“What are you up to, Cassie? Why do I have this feeling Jack is not your only motivation?”
“Well…” She took his arm and pulled him farther away from the door and any possible eavesdroppers.
“Neil—that’s Captain Fuller—was at the ball last night. He wants us to get married, Lewis.”
“Ah.” Lewis’s voice came out flat. “Your air of intrigue makes it all sound very exciting. Am I right to assume he has not spoken to your father?”
“Not yet, no. He’s…” She deflated and dropped onto the sofa. “He’s afraid Mama and Papa will be against the match.”
Lewis took her hand and gave it a pat. “You can’t expect them to be in alt over marrying you to a soldier with no assets but his commission. It’s not quite what they had in mind.”
“It’s a Guards commission! It’s not like he’s penniless!” She gripped his wrist and peered up at him. “Do you know, Lewis? Have they said anything to you?”
“No. In any case, what’s the rush? He can take some leave, come up to Yorkshire for a visit later on. No reason you need to—”
“You don’t understand, Lewis. It might be months before he could get away. I can’t survive months without him.”
“Gracious me. When did things get so serious?” Had Jack absorbed so much of his attention that he’d had none left for Cassie? However badly he felt about that, it did not change his judgment that Yorkshire was the best place for all of them.
“No! If Jack doesn’t have to go, I won’t go either!” Cassie’s words fizzed in the still air of the library. Like an electric storm rolling down from the moors, a force a blind man could feel, exhilarating and frightening.
“Cassandra Marie Wedbury,” said her mother, her face an ominous shade of purple. “Would you repeat what you just said? My hearing must be failing.” Lewis glanced at Sir John, sitting stunned in his desk chair.
“Good lord, Cass,” Jack snarled, jumping down from his awkward perch on the library ladder. “What do you think you could possibly do for me? Get in my way, that’s all. I don’t need you. I don’t need any of you!” He charged out of the room.
All eyes swiveled to Cassie, on trial in the center of the room. She herself had called this family council, but it had not gone the way she’d hoped. Lewis could have told her it would not.
Tears streamed down her cheeks and she used both hands to swipe at them. “I never cry.”
Sir John surged to his feet and angled around the desk, but Lewis was already beside her, an arm around her shoulders. She turned to him, sobbing against his coat.
Her father took hold of one damp hand. “He didn’t mean that, Cass. You know Jack’s not quite…”
Lady Wedbury cut through the platitudes. Her voice shook. “Cassandra, these Cheltenham tragedies are extremely unbecoming. If you can’t control yourself, go upstairs until you can. You may take your meals in your room.”
“She has some reason,” Lewis told her. Reasons he could not tell. First Anna, now Cassie. Too many damned secrets.
Cassie pulled out her little embroidered handkerchief and blew her nose. Then she drew herself up tall and proud. “Neil wants to marry me, Mama!”
Lady Wedbury tottered to the nearest chair and fell into it.
Sir John dropped Cassie’s hand and wandered toward the door, for all the world like a sleepwalker. He stopped at the little table that stood just inside the room bearing a pair of decanters and an assortment of glassware. He poured some brandy and drained it, coughed, and filled the glass again. This time he took it to his wife.
She ga
ped up at him, her expression blank. Then she focused on the glass and put it to her lips, sipping once, and then again.
Cassie stepped closer to her parents, planting her hands on her hips in battle stance. “For pity’s sake! We’ve been driving or walking or dancing together every day he can get away. He comes by the house for no reason at all. Why should you be shocked at the idea?”
“How is it,” said Sir John, “that you know his intentions, yet I do not?”
Cassie tsked. “Oh, Papa. Don’t be so stuffy. Maybe it was different when you were courting Mama, but modern couples talk to each other. He’s going to see you, but you’ve been preoccupied with Jack.”
Sir John turned to Lewis. “You don’t seem surprised. How long have you known about this?”
“Perhaps an hour, sir.”
“Humph. What do you think about it, lad?”
Cassie’s hands formed into fists. “What does he have to say to anything? Lewis isn’t—”
He touched her shoulder. She stopped, thank heavens. His insides had twisted in a tightening spiral of tension. Yet he did have some support to lend her.
“She’s right that my thoughts have precious little bearing. It caught me unawares, just as it did you, sir. Cassie, married? It seems impossible.” She would no longer be his playmate and confidante. “But for what it’s worth, I like Fuller. I can’t speak to his finances, though he always has enough for his needs. He seems a steady sort of fellow with a good head on his shoulders.”
“We all like him,” grumbled Lady Wedbury, as though she resented him for it. Her brandy glass sat empty on the table beside her. “But we did not spend all this money on a Season in town in order to marry you to some fortune hunter, Cassandra!”
Lewis almost groaned aloud as Cassie fired up again. “He’s not, Mama! How can you say such a thing? He has investments. He has expectations. And there’s his commission in the Guards, they don’t come cheap. Papa, surely you don’t think he’s a fortune hunter?”