Regency Masquerades: A Limited Edition Boxed Set of Six Traditional Regency Romance Novels of Secrets and Disguises

by Brenda Hiatt

  And then he bowed and turned away, leaving her to wonder what he meant as she tripped over the first step on her way upstairs.

  Flowers and children and love!

  Vayle wondered what he’d meant by that, even as he tossed the dice at White’s. Gwen had looked so sad as she left him that he was impelled to offer some comfort, and that, alas, was the best he could do. Mayhap it would work. Better that she dream of love than of revenge.

  Robin sat behind him, drinking soda water and pretending not to care he wasn’t one of the gamesters. They had agreed to test his restraint at a venue most likely to tempt him to folly, and so far he was behaving admirably. A young man-about-town could not entirely escape liquor and gaming, because they were everywhere, and Robin knew he had to content himself with watching. It could not be easy.

  But addiction had nearly destroyed him, so he had no choice but to avoid the clubs altogether or to learn to be an observer.

  As the stack of markers and scrawled vowels mounted in front of him, Vayle wondered if he ought to stop winning. Robin might be more inspired to forsake gaming if he saw his best and only friend run aground.

  Still, Robin knew very well how to lose. The best test of his resolve was to contemplate success and decide to forgo it.

  Vayle stacked markers worth several hundred pounds and pushed them in front of Robin. “Care to play?” he asked casually. “Free money, since I began with practically nothing and have won rather a lot.”

  Robin looked at the markers, at Vayle, and back at the markers. He nibbled the inside of his lower lip.

  “Have at it, Lynton,” Lord Halbersham encouraged with a hearty laugh. “That’s my blunt, and I want a chance to win it back. Vayle here is unbeatable.”

  Vayle swirled brandy in his glass, pretending to be transfixed by the play of candlelight on amber liquid. “What have you got to lose?” he asked softly.

  Unsteadily, Robin came to his feet. “You know the answer to that. Sorry, gentlemen. You must wrest your funds from the Devil while I call it a night.”

  Vayle caught up with him at the main door. “I’m leaving, too, Simpson,” he said, tossing the porter a sovereign.

  While Simpson went to the cloakroom, Vayle clapped Robin on the back. “Excellent,” he began, his voice fading as Robin turned on him with a murderous expression.

  “Damn you! Was that meant to be a test? A deuced cowhanded one, and I’m not so ungrateful as to break my resolve in your presence. If and when I fall, you’ll not stand witness.”

  Simpson returned with greatcoats, hats, and gloves before Vayle could reply, and the men remained silent until the carriage pulled up in front of Robin’s flat.

  “I never thought you’d actually join the game,” Vayle said mildly. “But I wanted to know your feelings when the chance was given you. Is the compulsion vastly strong?”

  “Bad enough,” Robin admitted after some thought. “It’s not the money, you know. It never was. But I love the action. And I despair of finding anything to replace the exhilaration I felt at the tables, even when I was losing. Tonight was easy, or nearly so with you standing watch, but how am I to go my whole life without gaming?”

  Vayle understood weakness and temptation, but full-fledged addiction was beyond his power to imagine. He had no answers for Robin, and his support had to be limited to a few more days. Come Christmas, the boy would be on his own.

  “Could you give it up?”

  Vayle frowned as he considered this for the first time. “If necessary. Unlike you, I game for the money. Well, partly, because I, too, have a need for competition. But I can find challenges elsewhere, in a fierce game of chess, for example.” He smiled as he recalled his match with Gwen. “Or fencing. Once I determined to be the best, other interests took second place.”

  “Perhaps I’ll set myself to beat you with the foils.”

  “You have talent,” Vayle said. “Enough to defeat just about anyone, eventually, if you put in the work.”

  “Does anyone include you?”

  When Vayle laughed, Robin opened the carriage door. “I thought not. Will you come upstairs for a moment? I’ve something to show you.”

  After instructing the driver to circle the block, Vayle followed Robin to his rooms and was astonished at what he saw when he stepped inside. The tiny flat was neat as a pin.

  “I borrowed from the cent-percenters,” Robin explained. “Only a trifle, to hang new curtains and hire a maid twice a week. She is a harridan and complains if I leave so much as a cravat out of place.”

  He pointed to the desk, now covered with books. “I also joined a subscription library and am trying to repair my education. Dorothea was furious when I left Oxford after one term, but I’d gambled away the funds she wrung from our uncle to put me there. Now I want to make it up to her. There is an elderly man down the hall who was once a schoolmaster. He is tutoring me.”

  Vayle gazed around him at the transformed room, his heart swelling with pride. Robin was trying so hard to redeem himself.

  In many ways, Robin had more raw courage than he could claim for himself. Vayle had never needed courage, because everything had come easily for him. Proctor had the right of it—“a useless, self-absorbed mortal wasting gifts that should have been put to better use.”

  He looked up through burning eyes to see Robin in front of him, grinning boyishly.

  “I have a Christmas gift for you,” he said. “It’s early, I know, but I couldn’t wait. ’Tis little enough after all you have done for me.”

  Vayle lifted his arms, intending to protest, and into his right hand Robin dropped a small, smooth object.

  As his fingers closed, Vayle recognized the oval shape, the familiar weight, the cool feel of solid gold. He ran his thumb over the cloisonné lid where the Lynton crest was marked out in red, black, and silver. Around the body two dragons were engraved, their tongues of fire meeting to form his initials. VC, for Valerian Caine. His brother had given him the snuffbox on his coming of age. Now his brother’s descendant gave it to him again, more than a century later.

  Unable to speak, he shook his head.

  “I’ll not hear any objections,” Robin warned. “Many were the times I thought of selling it, but could never bring myself to let it go. Until this moment, I did not know why. Probably you don’t believe in such things as fate and destiny, but I am convinced it was meant for you.”

  Caught in a whirlwind of emotions, Vayle struggled to pull himself together. “I am most grateful,” he said in a husky voice. “And I will treasure this all my life.”

  “Well then.” Robin cleared his throat, as if such sentiments made him uncomfortable. “Good. Never cared for snuff myself. Makes me sneeze.”

  “I am partial to it,” Vayle said, matching Robin’s nonchalance. “Tomorrow we’ll go to a tobacco shop and select a special blend. After that, you can have another try at me with the foils.”

  “Done. But I expect you should go before the horses wear a rut in the street.”

  “Yes. I should. Good night. Thank you.”

  When the door closed behind him, Vayle stood for a moment, pain and pleasure washing over him in waves. He lifted the lid of the snuffbox and held it to his nostrils. Was it his imagination, or did he catch the fragrance he’d delighted in a hundred years ago? Surely the snuffbox had been used since, by other Caines, before it came into Robin’s hands, and yet it conjured memories of the splendid life he wanted more than ever to reclaim.

  The memories were all the sharper because he had little more than a glimmer of hope of completing his tasks to Proctor’s satisfaction by Christmas.

  He could not regret neglecting them in favor of Robin, who was coming, slowly but surely, into his own. But Robin was well launched now, and Vayle’s own goal more elusive than ever. Counting on his fingers, he realized a mere eight days remained to him.

  Without question he was doomed. He might have succeeded with Max and Dorie, as he had great faith in Max’s persistence and in Dorie’
s appeal. But he had only to think of Gwen’s bleak face this evening to know that her happiness was outside his control.

  Yet no matter what his fate, he was no worse off than before Proctor sent him here. How many souls got the chance to live again? Eight more days and nights to be human, he reminded himself. Enjoy yourself while you can, Valerian Caine!

  He trotted down the stairs and whistled for Max’s coach. Robin would get the snuffbox back in just over a week. The boy could have his clothes, too, and anything that remained of his winnings at the tables. Vayle resolved to write a will when he got home, making sure of it.

  And before he was reabsorbed into the bloodless Afterlife, he would make love to a woman. His body ached constantly with the need. Perhaps he could find Lady Melbrook again. If not, he suspected his valet Clootie would be eager to point him in the direction of entertainment.

  Not tomorrow, though. He was promised to Robin for the afternoon, and planned to escort Gwen to a ball in the evening. Such a virtuous schedule played havoc with sinful intentions, he reflected with a chuckle. But there were always the hours before dawn. He would sin, while he could, and the consequences be damned.

  So long as he had a body, he’d use it to best advantage. And nothing else he’d experienced, in his former life or the shadowy interim or the few weeks allotted him now, surpassed the delight of pleasuring a woman and taking pleasure from her.

  Except, perhaps, the moment Robin handed him the snuffbox and thanked him for being a friend.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Her new husband was a gentleman, Dorie learned, but a man nonetheless. When it was time to dress or undress, he would linger hopefully in their room, until she glanced toward the door to indicate she couldn’t proceed in his presence.

  By the end of the third week of December, Dorie was torn by his expression of regret as he exited. What would happen, she wondered as she dressed for dinner, if someday she failed to announce her intention and simply began to strip off garments?

  No need to speculate. As she tugged her chemise over her head, she remembered the heat in Max’s eyes that morning when the bodice bow on her nightgown came undone. It revealed no more than an evening gown might, but somehow it was different. They were in bed, and she was undressed, or at least less dressed than she ought to be. If she hadn’t slid out of bed on the pretext of getting more wood for the fire, he might have—

  Well, he might have, it was true, but in fact Max merely dug his head under the pillows and groaned. Max was a gentleman. Gentlemen didn’t insist on consummating a marriage begun under awkward circumstances, even if subsequent awkward circumstances required bedsharing.

  And Dorie was a lady. Ladies didn’t tease gentlemen with glimpses of the forbidden, or promise what they could not fulfill. That was why she was surprised to find herself opening the door and calling to her husband that she needed his assistance.

  He appeared with pleasing alacrity. But when he entered the room and saw her, fully dressed to her pumps, his face fell.

  Ladies did not disappoint gentlemen either. So she held out her hand, palm upturned. “Would you mind fastening this bracelet for me? I can’t seem to do it one-handed.”

  It was not, probably, the request he had hoped for, but Max took the bracelet and did his duty with his battered and bandaged fingers. In fact, he did a bit more than that, bending to kiss her wrist just under the clasp.

  It was the most gallant gesture he had ever made, and as Dorie took back her tingling hand, she murmured her thanks and turned to hide her blush. But Max didn’t take the hint and move away, or perhaps he thought she was hinting that he should stay next to her? She didn’t quite know herself what she was hinting, or why she was hinting it, for that matter.

  The space between the bed and the door was so limited that she could feel the brush of his evening coat against her bare arm, and a comforting warmth that she recognized as radiating from his—well, there was no other word for it—from his body.

  She had no reason to object, she told herself firmly, for after all, she had once spent a few hours right up against that body, though only under threat of freezing. And each night this last week she lay a few inches from it. Any objections at this point would be moot. And besides, he was speaking now and it would be rude not to answer him.

  “Scent? Yes, I did apply a bit of scent.” Glad of an excuse for action, she grabbed the crystal bottle from the night table and showed it to him. “It was my mother’s. She always used this scent, you see. Always.”

  The expression on his face was so arresting that she thought she had better go on talking to distract them both. “She loved this scent. My mother. She had it made special by a perfumer on Bond Street. But it’s gone now. The perfumer. I don’t mean the scent is gone.”

  She knew her words were tumbling out in no particular order. Now he had taken her hand again and brought it up to his face, intending, she supposed, to sample the scent again but accidentally missing his nose and instead touching her wrist to his lips.

  “But I have just a bit left. Just a bit. Once Mama had simply quarts of it, because Robin and I always knew she would welcome it as a gift. So each Christmas that’s what we got her. This scent.”

  “It’s lovely.” Max’s voice was husky, and his warm breath caressed her wrist. “Did you apply a bit to your, umm, your throat also?”

  She caught her breath, wondering what he might do if she said yes. But she couldn’t lie. “No. I haven’t enough to spare. It’s almost gone.”

  “Too bad.” His whisper came in a stroke up her arm, and he had reached the inside of her elbow before she panicked.

  “Speaking of Robin—”

  He dropped her hand and stepped back. “Let’s not.”

  She hadn’t intended him to withdraw quite that far. Piqued, she said, “Speaking of Robin, I’m going to write to him and invite him to visit for Christmas. He hasn’t anywhere else to go, and I hate to think of him alone for the holiday. Your sister and her companion, and Mr. Vayle, might join us, too.”

  If she had hoped that this last remark would soften him, she was disappointed.

  “No.” It was his major’s voice, and he was wearing the matching expression, cold and commanding.

  Dorie stiffened. Setting the perfume bottle firmly on the table, she said, “I do not take your meaning.”

  “My meaning is that your brother is not welcome in my home.”

  “Not welcome in your home?” Suddenly what was only an attempt at distraction had become a struggle for authority. “But my dear Sevaric, perhaps you are forgetting. This is my home.”

  He had no response to this, unless she counted his taking two steps and seizing the doorknob and yanking it open. He was leaving—just the room, or her house? “Max!”

  He stopped but didn’t turn around.

  “He’s my brother.” She pressed her fist against her mouth, then dropped her hand to her side. “Oh, I know he isn’t the best of men, but we were children together. He taught me to ride a horse. And he’s the only one who knew my parents and remembers them as I do. Sometimes, when he hasn’t been drinking so much, he will talk about Mama. He remembers more than I do, for he is the elder.” Her voice faltered, and she said softly, “He is the only family I have.”

  “You have me.”

  Her heart stopped, then picked up again, beating more rapidly than before. “Thank you. But it can’t be at such a cost. Surely you know that. I would never ask you to abandon your sister.”

  “My sister has done nothing to merit that.”

  “But even if Gwen had, you wouldn’t! You would still try, as I have with Robin.”

  “I shan’t have my sister’s name mentioned at the same time as his.”

  “Just because he is a Caine?”

  “It starts there, yes.”

  Max’s voice was gritty with suppressed emotion, and Dorie knew a moment’s despair. He hated Robin. Hated him. And it made no sense.

  Once she might have thought her husb
and capable of impersonally carrying out the feud of his ancestors. Now that she had spent a fortnight in his company, she knew better. He was a hard man, no doubt, and in the war he had known violence and brutality. But he had integrity, too, and honor. He didn’t condemn men because of their ranks or stations in life. He wouldn’t condemn Robin for his name.

  Now, looking at his rigid back, his tense shoulders, she knew this rage had to be more than family prejudice. “But I am a Caine too. And you have treated me well. You do not hate me.”

  “You are a Sevaric now.”

  “My blood hasn’t changed. Only my name. And you don’t hate me.”

  “No.” His voice was so low she could hardly hear him. “I didn’t want this. It was my father’s fight, not mine.”

  “Then why fight Robin? What has he done to deserve this?”

  For just a moment, she saw a slight relaxation in his tension, and she thought he might tell her the truth. But finally he said, “I cannot betray a confidence.”

  He let go of the door and turned slowly. But still he didn’t look at her. He just picked up the perfume bottle and held it to the light, as if some answer might be found in the rainbow it cast on the scarred wall. Then he set it down. “You are my wife. Your loyalty must be to me now. And you must believe me when I say I cannot welcome your brother. If you invite him nonetheless, I will leave this house.” In the silence that followed, the striking of the clock startled them both. Max glanced at the time and in a normal tone, told her, “We must go, or we’ll be late for the squire’s dinner.”

  Subdued now, she agreed and gathered up her wrap and reticule and followed him out to the carriage. They did not speak on the drive to Squire Willett’s house, but by tacit agreement both made an effort to be sociable during dinner.

  As they were readying to leave, Mrs. Willett took Dorie aside, and on the pretext of straightening her bonnet, gave an assessment. “He is a handsome one, that husband of yours! And so kind, too. Not a drop of arrogance, either, considering he’s a lord and an officer, too. You did very well for yourself, capturing a man like that!”