“Humph!” She turned away, pivoting on her heel and pouting at the wall, arms crossed.
“Humph, what?” he asked, bewildered. Then it dawned on George that she wanted his kisses.
And possibly more.
He was so shocked he could have fallen over.
“You must think I’m an empty-headed fool.”
“O-of course I don’t think that,” he sputtered, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Callie’s rage at him might actually be born of passion.
“Yes, you do. You must think I’m a nitwit if you’re actually trying to claim you only slept with her to protect me from your—manly impulses.”
He rose again, still dazed. “Every member of White’s has got a mistress, married or not,” he mumbled.
“Well, I will never have that kind of marriage, George. Never, ever, ever, ever! It’s awful and it’s wrong. And what about your gambling? Have you got excuses for that today, as well?”
“Callie, I’m not addicted to gambling. It’s just something to do! I have no talents. How do you want me to entertain myself? I’m an heir to a marquisate. I’m not allowed to do anything useful, remember?”
“You could have helped your father’s tenants. He doesn’t even notice the sort of shape they’re in, as long as their rents are paid—”
“Believe me, you won’t get any argument from me that Father has all the warmth of an iceberg, darling.”
She turned, eyes narrowed. “And you’re too much of a coward to stand up to him.”
George froze as though she had just slapped him across the face. “What did you say?”
“It’s not an insult if it’s the truth, isn’t that what you said?”
“I am not afraid of my father. You know it’s just that I have to dance to his tune, or he’ll cut me off.”
“Exactly. You’re a child. Not a man.”
He stared at her in shock, insulted to the core.
“As selfish as you are, George, you see, that’s not even your worst fault,” she mused aloud, gloating at him. “You could have helped the villagers. In fact, it should have been you, and that’s why I’ll never love you again, because you don’t care about anyone else.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t even notice that other people exist. You’re too much of a coward to let yourself care.”
George drew in his breath and turned away. If a man had dared to call him that most unacceptable of names, the one label that spelled destruction to any gentleman’s honor, it would have meant bloodshed.
But since she was a lady, he could do nothing but stand there, futilely, impotently, and take it.
So the girl he loved thought he was a coward.
It went against everything in him, but he tried to grovel one last time, just to prove her wrong, recklessly putting his heart on the line to a degree he never thought he would’ve dared. “Callie, I do care. Why else would I be here?” He swallowed hard. “I’m in love with you.”
“Well, you’re too late,” she said in cold satisfaction, reveling in her moment of revenge. “I’ve found someone better than you.”
George went motionless, frozen to the core.
“Someone brave, kind, strong, noble, and unselfish. A man, George. Not a boy like you.”
“Have you, indeed?” he forced out, scoffing outwardly to hide the fact that, inside, he was crushed.
“Yes, I have,” she flung out, lifting her chin. “And there’s nothing you can do about it! All I have to do is bring him up to scratch.”
“Please, tell me his name, by all means. Who is this paragon of manhood?” he bit out, already suspecting.
And there it was.
“Lord Trevor Montgomery!” she answered with a flourish, and then it was George’s turn to laugh.
Coldly.
Callie furrowed her brow. “Why are you laughing? You look down on him because he’s a younger son?”
“I’m not laughing at him, my dear. I’m laughing at you.”
“What? Why?”
George didn’t even try to fight it. All he wanted was to hurt her in some small measure, just like she had hurt him. “He has no interest in you. He’s in love with someone else. Someone far more deserving, actually.”
Callie looked shocked for a second, then scoffed with indignant denial. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, yes, I do. I suspect they are together even now. I’m sorry, does that hurt your precious feelings?” He ignored a twinge of conscience; after all, he hadn’t mentioned Grace’s name.
Callie gave him a withering look. “Honestly, George, for all your many flaws, at least you’ve never been a liar until now.”
A liar and a coward? he thought, stiffening. It was not to be borne. “Fine, don’t believe me. I wasn’t supposed to tell you, anyway. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Windlesham, I’ll take my leave of you and don’t worry, I won’t darken your doorstep again. Adieu.”
“George!” she snapped after him as he walked toward the doorway.
“What?” he growled, pivoting.
She studied him in suspicion. “Surely you weren’t referring to Grace Kenwood?”
He could not resist goading her. “Hmm?” he asked innocently.
Her eyes narrowed to fiery blue slashes. “That’s ridiculous! Lord Trevor cannot possibly prefer a plain, boring spinster over me!”
“Ouch,” he said with a wince. “You really can be quite a harpy, Callie dear. If that’s how your treat your friends, no wonder my life’s been hell being your enemy. Thank God I don’t care anymore, as of this moment. But, consider this: Maybe it takes a paragon to love a paragon, and a sinner to appreciate a sinner. Which reminds me. I think I’ll go and visit Marianne.”
“Oh! You’ll never change! Fine! Go! I still know you’re lying!” she yelled out the door after him.
“Am I?” he called back easily as he jumped up into his phaeton.
With a final cold glance at her, swallowed up in defeat, George slapped the reins over his horses’ rumps and left.
“Vermin!” Callie said under her breath after he had driven off. Well! she thought. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.
Then she yelled at the groom to ready her pony gig and soon went barreling off to get some answers for herself. With her carriage wheels throwing up a furious dust cloud behind her, Callie headed for the Grange like a young Athena in her chariot, off to war.
Grace lay in Trevor’s arms, savoring their closeness, though by this point, they had put on at least some of their clothes again. With their passion spent for now to a state of peaceful, warm contentment, it seemed as good a time as any to tell him what she had heard.
“Trevor?” she spoke up uncertainly.
“Hmm?”
“I have some news from London that I think you’ll want to know. But it might upset you . . . unless, of course, you’ve already heard. But I don’t think you have.”
Lying on his side, his cheek propped on his right first, he paused in drawing little circles on her chest with his fingertip and frowned. “What is it?”
She hesitated, scanning his face. The hard planes and angles of his countenance had softened with tenderness after their lovemaking. She did not want this intimacy between them to be strained, but she had to give him the news. “George told me your former fiancée has now married her new beau.”
“Oh, that,” he said absently, to her relief.
“I’m sorry,” she offered.
“I’m not,” he replied.
Grace was pleased but did her best to be sympathetic. “It must have been difficult to lose her.”
“Ah, I think I came out all right in the end.” He stole a kiss.
“It really doesn’t bother you?”
“No. In a way, it’s a relief.�
�
She looked at him in puzzlement.
“Grace—” He struggled visibly for how to put it. “I was never as close to her as I am to you. Perhaps you find that hard to believe, given all the time we were officially a courting couple. But I’m afraid our failed alliance had more to do with ego than affection.”
“Really?” she asked in surprise.
“Mm-hmm. I’m afraid we saw each other as an enviable catch with which to impress our friends. And our families approved, as well.”
“So you didn’t ever really love her?”
He gave an idle, one-shouldered shrug. “I thought I did at the time. But now, in hindsight, I think that simply knowing I had picked out a wife and had my future plans all sorted out made it easier for me to put that part of my life in a box—mentally speaking—and set it aside, so I could concentrate on my missions for the Order.”
“Ah,” Grace nodded, contemplating this. “Did you tell her about the Order?”
“A bit. Given the risks, I didn’t expect her to go into it blindly. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone. I never shared specifics, but I at least wanted her to have an idea of what she was getting into.”
“What did she think about it?” she asked as she ran her hand lovingly over the broad angle of his shoulder and traced the hard sinews of his arm.
“Oddly enough, she wasn’t really curious.”
Her roaming hand stopped its explorations as she looked at him in astonishment. “Not curious!”
“I don’t think she really cared, to be honest with you.” He hesitated. “Truth is, I don’t think she ever really cared that much about me. She fancied my friend, Beauchamp.”
She shook her head. “Then why on earth get engaged to her?”
“Eh, every woman wants Beauchamp. You probably will, too, when you meet him.”
“No, I won’t!” she said indignantly, but he just chuckled.
“The point is, Beau saw through her, while I was dazzled by her looks. She was a trophy that other men would envy, that is all. I’m not proud of my motives. But her shallowness, her superficial attachment to me, her lack of curiosity, indifference—all of it actually made my life much easier, and there it is.”
“I see. So you could have your cake and eat it, too?”
He nodded. “A suitable betrothed by my side when I had need of her for family occasions and the like, then I could set her aside and simply go about my business. Damned cold of me, wasn’t it,” he stated.
She gave him a rueful half smile, but she wasn’t about to convict him, considering that Lady Laura’s loss had been her own most splendid gain.
Trevor sighed and rolled onto his back, gazing at the ceiling for a moment. “Well, I hope she will be happy with the dragoon. Because I intend to be very happy with you.”
With that, he pulled her on top of him and began kissing her with renewed intent. Grace laughed breathlessly between kisses as she felt his body respond beneath her as she straddled him.
But then, all of a sudden, the sound of Nelson’s barking outside alerted them to the arrival of some visitor.
“Oh, be quiet, you silly mongrel!” an angry voice outside yelled at the dog.
Grace and Trevor looked at each other in sudden shock, recognizing that voice.
“Calpurnia!” Grace whispered, leaping guiltily out of Trevor’s bed.
“Shite. What is she doing here?” Trevor muttered, then he, too, was on his feet, pulling on his shirt, hastily tucking it in.
“George must have said something he shouldn’t. Blast that foolish churl! He promised!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this,” he said, as an angry rapping sounded on the door below.
“Lord Trevor! I know you’re in there! Is Miss Kenwood with you? I need to speak to her!”
Grace shut her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her forehead, feeling a trifle dizzy. “What a debacle. I’m going to wring George’s neck.”
Callie banged on his front door. “Come down here and face me, you two! I deserve an explanation!”
“No, she doesn’t,” Trevor said quizzically. “What is she talking about?”
“She’s in love with you!” Grace exclaimed.
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve tried to drop the hint—and now she’s breaking in,” he said dryly when they heard the door fly open downstairs.
A heartbeat later, it slammed behind her. “Lord Trevor! Grace?”
“I’ll go talk to her.” He left the bedroom with a scowl, but Grace knew she couldn’t leave all the unpleasantness to him. Especially when most of this was her fault. She had to face Calpurnia herself, as painful as that was going to be for both of them.
She hastened to finish getting dressed, though the shaking of her hands slowed her progress fastening her buttons. To be sure, the sweet languor of the past hour in Trevor’s arms dissolved as she faced the full brunt of her mistake. If only she had been honest!
But she had not wanted to be cast in the role of villainess, getting in the way of Callie’s dreams. Guilt flooded into her mind as she saw she had also been a coward, too scared to risk crossing Lady Windlesham.
Most of all, she had lacked the faith, and indeed, the confidence in herself to believe that someone like Trevor could actually love her, that she might have a right to her own dreams and happiness.
The whole time she had thought she was being unselfish, trying to deny her attraction to him, in truth, she had been trying simply to shield herself from disappointment in a hope that seemed too good ever to come true for her. What she had called virtue had merely been a lack of guts.
Thankfully, Trevor had that in spades, but even so, she couldn’t leave him to face the music alone over what had happened here today.
“I can’t believe it,” Callie was saying in a withering tone to Trevor. “You led me on.”
“That’s a lie,” he bit out. “If you really believe that, it was not I but your own vanity that deceived you. How many times did I pull away from you when you threw yourself at me?”
“I did not!”
“Oh yes, you did. I didn’t want it to come to this, Callie—you’re just a child. I hoped you’d take the hint. I’m sorry. I’m not interested. You are too young for me, and my affections are elsewhere engaged.”
“So I see.” Callie’s eyes narrowed as Grace came uncertainly down the stairs. “You! Traitorous witch! So it’s true, then, what George said. You are Lord Trevor’s mistress!”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m his mistress, exactly—”
“And here I thought we were friends!” she shouted, tears rushing into her eyes.
“Oh, Callie, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Grace started forward.
“Stay away from me, you strumpet! Hypocrite!” she accused her in a shrill tone. “You go around acting like you’re better than everyone else—so virtuous!—but you’re no better than that, that harlot, Marianne! No wonder you’re friends with her. The two of you are just a pair of man-stealing whores!”
Grace dropped her jaw as Callie ran out crying.
Trevor glanced at her, an eyebrow arched.
“This is terrible,” Grace uttered when she finally found her voice. “She’s going to go running home to her mother, and it’s going to be a scandal.”
“How can it be a scandal when I’m going to marry you?”
“My father is a minister! Oh God, how could I do this? I’ve hurt everyone,” she said abruptly, as her stomach knotted up. “Callie’s heart is broken, and my father’s reputation will be tarnished—”
“Calm down,” he interrupted gently. “Listen to me. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll go speak to your father right now. You take my carriage and catch up with Callie before she reaches the village. Try to calm her down. Tell her it’s all my fault—say I seduced you if you want. I don’t care if you b
lame it on me. At least then she might not try to ruin your reputation. In the meanwhile, I’ll go ask your father for your hand. Don’t worry, everything will be well.”
As panicked as she was, his words temporarily captured her full attention and made her heart clench. Turning to him with a melting look, she leaned toward his solid frame. “We’re really going to get married?”
“I’m not foolish enough to let you get away,” he replied, bending down to kiss her with a handsome smile.
Moments later, however, they parted ways, dashing off on their separate missions.
Grace wasn’t sure how things were going for him at the parsonage, but to her dismay, she failed to catch up to Callie before the girl reached the village.
“Oh, Lud,” she mumbled under her breath when she saw Callie’s pony gig parked outside the Gaggle Goose Inn behind George’s fancy phaeton.
Jumping down from the driver’s seat of Trevor’s carriage, Grace quickly tied his horse to the hitching rail. Well aware that her own appearance was still nowhere near up to her usual prim standards, but guiltily tousled and flushed, she picked up the hem of her skirts and ran into the tavern to see what was going on.
Even before she opened the door, she could hear Calpurnia screeching in girlish fury. The piercing shriek that escaped through the pub’s doorway when Grace arrived spooked the horses tied up outside.
Calpurnia stood in the middle of the tavern, her back to the door, her fists balled at her sides.
Before her, sprawled in a chair at one of the tables was George, cravat undone, a bottle of whiskey in his hand—and Marianne seated proudly on his knee.
None of them had noticed Grace’s entrance just yet, in the sheer volume of Calpurnia’s rage.
For a moment, Grace feared the girl would attack the tavern maid.
George’s deliberate taunting was not helping matters.
“What do you care, Callie? You just told me in no uncertain terms that you want nothing more to do with me. Well, I give up. I promised not to trouble you anymore, so why did you even bother coming in here? Is it because you finally realized the great Lord Trevor is out of your reach? Pretty little fool! Well, don’t come crawling back to me—”
Gaelen Foley - [Inferno Club 06] Page 28