by Mary Balogh
Which fact merely added titillation to the challenge, for Con was, of course, his friend.
The other men were preparing to leave, he saw. He was very glad that he was already at home, though even the thought of hauling himself to his feet and climbing the stairs to bed was daunting. He had better make the effort, though, or his valet would be in here within a half hour with a burly footman or two to carry him off to his bed. It had happened once, and Jasper had found it more than a mite humiliating. Perhaps that had been Cocking’s intention. It had never happened again.
And so less than half an hour later, having seen his friends safely off the premises, he weaved his way upstairs to his rooms, where he found his valet awaiting him despite the hour, which was late or early depending upon one’s perspective.
“Well, Cocking,” he said, allowing his man to unclothe him just as if he were a baby, “this has been a birthday best forgotten.”
“Most birthdays are, milord,” his man said agreeably.
Except that he was not going to be able to forget it, was he? A wager had been made. Another one.
He had never lost a wager.
But this time?
For a few moments after he had dismissed his valet and crossed his bedchamber to open a window, Jasper could not remember what it was he had wagered upon. It was something that even at the time he had known he would regret.
He did not usually look too closely at each year’s new crop of young marriage hopefuls. There were often a few notable beauties among them, but there was also too much danger of being ensnared in some matrimonial trap-despite what someone had said earlier about the innocents not wanting to marry him. He was, after all, a wealthy, titled gentleman, two facts that could easily wipe out a multitude of sins.
But he had looked closely more than once at Katherine Huxtable.
She was more than ordinarily beautiful. There was also a very definite aura of countrified innocence-or naivete-about her. But an air of good breeding too. And there were those eyes of hers. He had never seen them from close up, but they had intrigued him nonetheless. He had found himself wondering what was behind them.
It was most unlike him to wonder any such thing. He was a man of surfaces when it came to other people and even when it came to himself. He was not in the habit of looking within.
Perhaps part of the lady’s appeal was the fact that she was Con Huxtable’s cousin and Con had made a point of not introducing her to him.
Now he was pledged to seduce her.
Full sexual intercourse.
Within the next fortnight.
Devil take it! Yes, that was it. That was the wager. That was what he had agreed to do.
It was a sobering thought-literally. He felt as he climbed into bed as if he had progressed straight from deep drunkenness to the nauseated, head-pounding aftermath.
One of these days he was going to renounce drinking.
And wagering.
And sowing wild oats, or whatever the devil it was he had been sowing for more years than he cared to count.
One day. Not yet, though-he was only twenty-five.
And he had a wager to win before he set about reforming his ways. He had never lost a wager.
2
KATHERINE Huxtable was one of the most fortunate of mortals, and she was well aware of that fact as she took a brisk morning walk in London’s Hyde Park with her sister Vanessa, Lady Lyngate.
Just a few short months ago she had been living in a modest cottage in the small village of Throckbridge in Shropshire with her eldest sister, Margaret, and their young brother, Stephen. Vanessa, the widowed Vanessa Dew at the time, had been living with her in-laws at nearby Rundle Park. Katherine had spent a few days of each week teaching the very young children at the village school and helping the schoolmaster with his other classes. They had been living a life of genteel poverty, which had meant that there was almost no money except for food and the essentials of clothing-and what Meg had been saving for Stephen’s education.
And then suddenly everything had changed. Viscount Lyngate, a total stranger at the time, had arrived in the village on Valentine’s Day, bringing with him the startlingly unexpected news that Stephen was the new Earl of Merton and owner of Warren Hall in Hampshire as well as other sizable and prosperous properties-and a huge fortune.
And all their fortunes had changed. First they had all moved to Warren Hall, the mansion and park that were Stephen’s principal seat, taking Vanessa with them. Then Vanessa had married Viscount Lyngate. And then they had all come to London to be presented to the queen and the ton and to participate in all the busy activities of the spring Season.
So here they were, she and Vanessa, walking in the park as if there were nothing better to do in life. It all felt shockingly decadent-and undeniably enjoyable too.
Suddenly they were in possession of all sorts of new and wonderful things-money, security, fashionable clothes, vast numbers of new acquaintances, and more entertainments than there were hours in the day during which to enjoy them. And suddenly for Katherine there was the prospect of a glittering future with one of the numerous and eligible gentlemen who had already shown an interest in her.
She was twenty years old and still unattached. She had never been able to persuade herself to fall in love when she lived in Throckbridge, though she had had a number of chances. The trouble was that she still could not here in London even though she genuinely liked a number of her admirers.
She had just admitted in response to a question Vanessa had asked that there was no one special among the gentlemen of her acquaintance.
“Do you want someone special in your life?” Vanessa asked with perhaps a thread of exasperation in her voice.
“Of course I do,” Katherine admitted with something of a sigh. “But that is it you see, Nessie. He must be special. I am coming to the conclusion that there is no such person, that I am looking for a mirage, an impossibility.”
Though she knew romantic love in itself was not an impossibility. She had only to consider her sister’s case. Vanessa had been deeply in love with Hedley Dew, her first husband, and Katherine strongly suspected that she loved Lord Lyngate just as much.
“Or perhaps,” she admitted, “there is such a person but I just cannot recognize him. Perhaps the fault is in me. Perhaps I was just not made for soaring passion or tender romance or-”
Vanessa patted her reassuringly on the arm and laughed.
“Of course there is such a man,” she said, “and of course you will recognize him when you find him and feel all the things you dream of feeling. Or after you have found him, perhaps, as I did with Elliott. We were married before I knew how much I loved him-or that I loved him at all, in fact. Indeed, I have still only just admitted it to myself, and I am not at all sure it would not alarm him dreadfully to know it, poor man.”
“Oh, dear,” Katherine said. “This does not sound at all encouraging, Nessie. Though I am sure Lord Lyngate would not be alarmed.”
They looked at each other sidelong and both chuckled.
But perhaps the fault really was in herself, Katherine thought in the coming days and weeks. Perhaps she had too rigid a notion of what the man of her dreams would look like or behave like. Perhaps she was just looking for love in the wrong places. In all the safe places.
What if love was not safe at all?
That startlingly unexpected and really rather alarming question occurred to her when she was at Vauxhall Gardens one evening.
Margaret and Stephen had just gone back to Warren Hall to stay, Margaret because she was upset over the recent news that Crispin Dew, her longtime beau, had married a Spanish lady while with his regiment in the Peninsula-though she would never have admitted it if confronted-and Stephen because at the age of seventeen he could not yet participate fully in the social life of the ton but could get back to his studies and prepare himself for Oxford in the autumn. Vanessa and Lord Lyngate had gone with them to spend a few days at Finchley Park, their home ne
arby. Although Katherine would have been more than happy to go too, she had been persuaded to remain in London for the rest of the Season to enjoy herself. So she was staying at Moreland House on Cavendish Square with Viscount Lyngate’s mother and his youngest sister, Cecily, who was also making her debut this Season. The dowager Lady Lyngate had promised to keep a maternal eye upon Katherine.
But that eye was perhaps not quite as watchful as it ought to have been, Katherine concluded during the evening on which she and Cecily joined a party at Vauxhall Gardens organized by Lord Beaton and his sister, Miss Flaxley. Their mother had undertaken to take charge of the party of young people, and the dowager Lady Lyngate had decided upon a rare evening of relaxation at home.
It was a party of eight young persons, not counting Lady Beaton herself-and it included Lord Montford of all people.
Baron Montford was a gentleman who had been specifically pointed out to Katherine as one of London’s most disreputable and dangerous rakehells. The warning had come from one of his friends and therefore someone who ought to know-from Constantine Huxtable, in fact, her wickedly handsome, half-Greek second cousin, whom she had met for the first time only recently when she had moved to Warren Hall with her family. Constantine had been obliging enough to take both her and his first cousin, Cecily, under his wing here in London, escorting them about town to see the sights and to meet new people whom he considered suitable acquaintances for them. No chaperone could possibly have been stricter on that point, though Katherine suspected that he knew any number of less savory persons and was perhaps even friendly with them.
There was Lord Montford, for example. That gentleman had approached them in the park one day, calling a greeting to Constantine as if he were his closest friend in the world. But Constantine had merely nodded to him and driven on by without stopping to make introductions. It had seemed almost rude to Katherine.
Baron Montford was mockingly handsome, if such a word could be used to describe a man’s looks. Even if Constantine had not proceeded to warn her against him after that chance meeting, Katherine was sure she would have taken one look at him and known that he was a rake and someone best avoided. Apart from his good looks, the careless, expensive elegance of his clothing, the assured skill with which he rode his horse-all attributes of numerous gentlemen she had met during the past several weeks-there was something else about him. Something-raw. Something to which she could not put a satisfactory name even when she tried. If she had been familiar with the word sexuality, she would have known it as the very one for which her mind searched. He positively oozed it from every pore.
He also oozed danger.
“If I should see either of you so much as glancing his way at any time for the rest of the Season,” Constantine had said after Lord Montford had ridden by and he had explained who the man was and why there had been no introductions, “I shall personally escort the culprit home, lock her in her room, swallow the key, and stand guard outside her room until summer comes.”
He had grinned at each of them as he spoke, and both of them had laughed merrily and protested loudly, but neither Cecily nor Katherine had been left in any doubt that he would do something dire if he ever caught them consorting in any way at all with that particular friend of his.
All of which, of course, had piqued Katherine’s interest-quite against her will. She had found herself stealing curious glances at Lord Montford whenever she saw him-and because they moved in largely the same social circles, that was often enough.
He was even more handsome than she had thought from that first glimpse in the park. He was tall without being too tall, slender without being thin, and firmly muscled in all the right places. He had thick, dark brown hair, which he wore rather longer than was fashionable, and there was one errant lock of it that was forever falling over the right side of his forehead. His eyes were dark and slumberous-though perhaps that was not quite the right word. They looked sleepy because he often kept his eyelids drooped over them, but Katherine had come to realize that the eyes beneath those lazy lids were very keen indeed. Once or twice she had even met their gaze and been forced to look beyond him on the pretense that she had not really been observing him at all.
Each time her heart had thumped rather uncomfortably in her bosom. He was not the sort of man one wished to be caught observing. It was at such moments that the word mocking leapt to mind.
He had a handsome, arrogant face with the right eyebrow often cocked higher than the left. His finely chiseled lips were usually slightly pursed, as if something rather improper were proceeding in his mind.
He was a baron and was reputed to be enormously wealthy. But his company was not courted by the very highest sticklers of society. Constantine had not exaggerated about his reputation for unbridled wildness, for taking on any mad and dangerous challenge anyone was willing to wager on, for hard, reckless living and wicked debauchery. Several matchmaking mamas, even some of the more aggressively ambitious ones, avoided him as though he had a permanent case of the plague. Or perhaps they avoided him more because they feared he would turn those keen, mocking eyes on them, raise his right eyebrow, purse his lips, and make them feel as if they were three inches high if they presumed to suppose that he might pay court to their daughters-or even dance with them.
He never danced.
Many ladies gave Lord Montford a wider than wide berth for another reason too. He had a way of undressing them with his eyes if they looked too boldly at him. Katherine knew it to be true-she had seen him doing it, though never, thank heaven, to her.
She was fascinated by him, if the truth were known. Not that she had ever been even remotely tempted to try acting upon that fascination. But in unguarded moments she had often wondered what it would be like…
She had always stopped her wonderings before asking herself what she meant by it.
And now she was a member of a select party that included him, so she was doomed to spend a whole evening in fairly close proximity to him. The dowager Lady Lyngate would be horrified when she knew, for of course Cecily was here too, and Cecily was only eighteen years of age and was fresh out of the schoolroom. Constantine would be furious-except that he was not in London at the moment. He had recently purchased property in Gloucestershire and had gone off to see it. Lady Beaton was not too happy either if her stiff posture and rather sour facial expression were anything to judge by.
Katherine felt some sympathy for her because this was really not her fault at all. What could she have done when presented with a fait accompli, short of being very rude indeed? Miss Rachel Finley, another member of the party, was a particular friend of Miss Flaxley-and a close acquaintance of Cecily and Katherine too, even though she was a number of years older than them. Naturally, then, she was an invited member of the party-as was Mr. Gooding, her betrothed. But Mr. Gooding had had the misfortune to turn his ankle that very morning when jumping down from his curricle and was unable to set his foot to the ground as a consequence. Rather than cancel her plans for the evening, Miss Finley had done the best she could in the short time available to her. She had pleaded with her brother, Lord Montford, to escort her instead-and he had been obliging enough to agree.
And here he was, and here they all were with no alternative but to act as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be sharing a box at Vauxhall with one of London’s most notorious rakehells.
Katherine found herself wondering why he had agreed to escort his sister. He did not seem the sort of man from whom one would expect any deep filial feelings, and this was hardly the sort of company with which he usually consorted. None of the other gentlemen were particular cronies of his, though they all showed a tendency to eye him with awe and even hero worship, which was perhaps marginally better than open hostility. Or perhaps not. Why would any gentleman hero-worship a rake? But here he was anyway, looking sleepy-eyed and slightly amused, as if he were enjoying a private joke and not bothering to share it.
And what a joke it was! Gracious heavens! Ce
cily had fanned her face vigorously on his arrival and looked genuinely frightened.
“What shall we do?” she had whispered to Katherine on his arrival with Miss Finley. “Con said-”
There was, of course, nothing they could do.
“We must relax and enjoy the evening,” Katherine had told her, just as quietly, “under the safe chaperonage of Lady Beaton.”
After all, it was highly unlikely that Lord Montford would try to bear one of them off in among the trees to have his wicked way with them. The thought amused Katherine considerably, and she decided to follow her own advice and enjoy the evening and the unexpected opportunity it presented to observe the gentleman more closely.
Lord Montford had seated himself beside Lady Beaton and had proceeded to make himself agreeable to her, and even charming-with noticeable success. The lady soon relaxed and was laughing and even flushing with pleasure and tapping him on the arm with her fan. Everyone else gradually relaxed too and chatted among themselves and looked about with interest at their surroundings. There could be no more magical setting on a warm summer’s evening than Vauxhall on the southern bank of the River Thames, one of Europe’s foremost pleasure gardens.
Lord Montford had a light, cultured voice. He had a soft, musical laugh. Katherine observed him surreptitiously from the opposite corner of the box until he caught her at it. He looked at her suddenly, while she was biting into a strawberry. It was a direct, unwavering gaze, as if he had deliberately picked her out-though his eyes did dip for a moment to watch the progress of the strawberry into her mouth and the nervous flick of her tongue across her lips lest she leave some juice behind to drip down her chin.
He watched as she lifted her napkin and dabbed her lips and then licked them because she had dried them too much and his scrutiny made her nervous.
Oh, goodness, she ought not to have looked at him at all, she thought, lowering her eyes at last, and she would not do so again. He would think she was smitten with him or flirting with him or something lowering like that. She wished Margaret were here with her.