“How dare he pass judgment?” Terence ground out. “His father may have been secretary to a prime minister, but he hasn’t a noble bone in his body. The man spends most of his nights gambling to support a lifestyle far above his touch. Only a bit more ill luck and he’ll be clapped up for debt. And this darling of the ton dares to make you a byword!” Terence did a fast turn about the small room while Beth gaped.
“It was a compliment, Terence. He liked me.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. Taking a deep breath, Terence plunged on. “And two nights ago, you also caused a furor.”
“Don’t be absurd! You know I cannot be blamed for Madame Rolande’s sudden illness. And Lord Monterne was quite wonderful, I can tell you. If he had not caught her, she might have been seriously injured. But I most certainly did not cause her upset. In fact, she was being most gracious. She even asked my name.”
“Ah . . . of course,” Terence murmured, biting his tongue, “but it would be an infinite blessing if you could avoid calling attention to yourself. And don’t flare up and say it was not your fault. If you were not quite so . . . so . . .” With a helpless wave of his hand, Terence gave in. “I admit there is no way you can vanish into the woodwork. You cannot help being shockingly wealthy, charming, and–um–pleasant to look upon.”
Beth goggled at him. Though she was nearly certain he loved her as more than a sister, compliments from Terence were few and far between.
“But that’s not why I came,” he announced.
Beth, deflated but still on alert, began to calculate what other offences she might have committed.
“Tell me what you think of Sir Darius Fane,” Terence commanded.
“And why should you wish to know?”
“Because he has made you an offer, one Tobias thought you might wish to consider.”
“And Papa has sent you. How could he?”
“You’ve had three more offers this week. Tobias says he’s sick of dealing with dandies and rakes and out-and-out fortune hunters and has deputized me to finish the job of marrying you off.”
Beth leaned against the back of the small loveseat and closed her eyes. “Even for Papa, that seems a bit . . . callous,” she said faintly.
“Must I remind you Tobias didn’t get where he is by being sentimental?” Terence sat, rather abruptly, in chair across from Beth. “I believe he prefers not to know our feelings,” he admitted. “It’s much easier to see his empire in terms of well-oiled cogs in a machine which do exactly what they are designed to do. Even those he loves are relegated to the roles he has assigned. If we are well compensated for our sacrifices, that is enough. Or so he thinks.”
“Dear God,” Beth whispered, “I fear you are right. Am I a fool, then, to do as he chooses?”
“Beth, we all love you too much to do anything other than want the most glorious life for you.”
“We, Terence?”
“Tobias, Tildy, and I. Jack too. We care very much what happens to you, you know. You are our crowning achievement. Our star who will breech the barriers of the beau monde and rise to shine above them all. Our hope, if you will, that the day will come when rising above our class will not be the struggle it is now.”
“Unfair!” Beth cried. “I cannot carry such a burden. Nor should you ask it.”
“I can, and I have.” Terence’s tone was inexorable. “You are a symbol, a beacon of hope of us all. Perhaps it’s never been said quite so plainly, but you have known it for years.” While Beth sat staring at her lap, Terence added, “Now tell me what I should do about Fane.”
Chapter Eight
Once again, Tobias Brockman’s private army, under Terence’s orders, fanned out into the stews of London and ranged over the countryside in search of the elusive Lily Mason. All were armed with sketches of Rodney, Viscount Monterne, drawn by the talented Trowbridge twins. A wild goose chase, Terence knew, but he had to try. Beth was at risk. His Beth, whose life could become a living hell if they approved the wrong suitor.
As the reports came in about the viscount’s nocturnal London haunts, Terence’s doubts increased. He could not have orchestrated worse places for the young nobleman’s patronage, even if he had been actively looking for a way to sabotage the young nobleman’s pretensions. Which he wasn’t, of course he wasn’t. He’d quashed his own dreams so his darling girl could take wing and soar far above him. His little Beth with a husband who would one day sit in the House of Lords.
But should it be this husband? There must be other presentable young sprigs of the ton who had no objection to the smell of the shop. Terence scowled at the sheaf of reports on his desk. The brothels where the sketches received a nod of recognition were among the most notorious in London. Establishments where only women who enjoyed rough or deviant sex could survive. Yet all claimed they had not seen Lord Monterne in several years. No, said the owners or majordomos, none of the women presently in their employ had ever known him. When the Brockman spies, some enjoying themselves hugely, managed to meet with the women in private, the verdict was the same. None of women were acquainted with Monterne, although after one look at the sketch, all vowed they’d be right happy for an introduction.
Jack, sighing heavily, slumped into a chair in front of Terence’s desk. “Brummel’s gone,” he announced. “Lost five thousand at Gordon’s, couldn’t pay up. Then Meyler denounced him at White’s. He’s gone to the continent, carriage and all. Just heard it from Cat’s cousin Edmund.”
“A waste,” Terence said with disgust. “A damnable waste. All that power and the cleverest wit in England whistled down the wind—”
“And charm,” Jack interjected. “Audacious though it may have been.”
“That too, though I never had the opportunity to see him in action.”
“The King of Manners,” said Jack. “The man who re-formed society into his personal image of moderation and grace. Perhaps, in the end, his fame will outlive us all. I wonder, though, if he will think his sacrifice worth it. Can you imagine the Beau living in exile, in poverty, after being the boon companion to royalty?”
“Can a man truly believe the world well lost for the shape of his cravat?” Terence mocked. “For the turn of a phrase, the dictum men must bathe regularly and wear black and white in the evening?”
Jack grinned. “And we’ve all knuckled under, have we not? Decked ourselves out in black swallowtails and trousers, shining white shirts and cravats, with only our vests to venture a bit of individuality.”
“Beth may have been right. She found him charming, and not at all malicious.” Terence raised a quizzical brow. “How long do you think men will dress as crows because of the Beau?”
“You’d prefer a recurrence of satin, lace, and wigs?”
“Heaven forbid!” Terence reached into his drawer for an ornate chased silver flask. “Is it appropriate to toast the Beau in good Irish whiskey, do you think? Or must we use brandy?”
“Pour, you fiend. You’ve long since corrupted my taste!”
After dutifully downing a toast to George Bryan Brummel, the two men got down to business. “We need to talk to Monterne’s mistresses,” Jack asserted. “We’ve been assuming they were of the standard garden variety. Perhaps not.”
“I thought we’d already done that.”
“We did, early on. But it was very casual, no pressure, no–ah–monetary inducements. We weren’t, at that time, expecting to find anything more than the usual youthful peccadillos.”
Terence nodded. “Very well, do what you wish.”
“Lost interest?” Jack challenged. “Not like you, old boy, to catch the scent of a rat and let him escape.”
“Too late,” Terence said, running a hand through his coal black waves of hair. “Far too late. Beth and Monterne are seen everywhere together. I fear she’s set her heart on him. And Tobias is fixed on having his Beth a countess. He dreamed of reaching so high but, in truth, I think he had his doubts.”
“Her heart?” Jack questioned. “Her deter
mination, rather, not her heart. Monterne’s by far the best of the lot, and she’s wise enough to know it.”
“She’s also very young,” Terence added, “and as capable of fancying herself in love as any other seventeen-year-old.”
“It’s probably for the best.” Jack waited a beat, two. Getting no reply, he said, “Shall I drop it, or question the women again?”
“One last time.” Terence sighed. “One last time.”
They had escaped!
Clinging tightly to the viscount’s arm, Beth reveled in the sudden freedom offered by one of the dark walkways at Vauxhall Gardens. When Amabel Trowbridge, Cat’s chaperon for the evening, had been taken ill that morning—inciting hope of an interesting condition rather than fear in the family—Matilda Spencer had reluctantly allowed Beth to go on the outing in the care of the wife of one of Lord Monterne’s friends. Though Miss Spencer knew she should have said no, she hadn’t the heart to keep her charge from Vauxhall. Beth adored the thousands of fairy-like lights, the fireworks, the casual atmosphere not found at ton events. And she’d been such a good girl, had tried so hard to conform to every dictate of the beau monde. So, reluctantly, Tildy agreed to Beth’s attending Vauxhall under the auspices of Mrs. Henry Munkholme, but she would not close her eyes until her charge was safely back under the roof of Brockman House in Cavendish Square.
“I love it,” Beth confided to Monterne, her voice little above a whisper. “It’s as if I’ve escaped to a different world where I can truly be myself. I suppose you think that’s quite silly and will inform me we have merely crossed the Thames into a pleasure garden and, like Cinderella, at midnight we will cross back to the other side and our lives will be exactly the same as they have always been.”
“I doubt you’ll find yourself wearing rags and carrying a coal scuttle.”
Even in the dim light of a pathway far from Vauxhall’s thousands of candles, Beth’s eyes shone. “Mayhap I shall find I am wearing glass slippers.”
“Which will shatter the moment you step onto the stone quai.”
Beth rapped the viscount on the arm with her fan. “You’re as bad as Terence. Not a romantical bone in your body.”
“On the contrary,” said Monterne, suddenly sweeping her off the path into a secluded grotto, “I am exceedingly romantical. Why else would I have enticed you down a dark pathway far removed from boring things like chaperons and bright lights?” Why else indeed? He still found it hard to believe Anthony Trowbridge’s wife had so conveniently taken ill on the same day Harborough’s wife had gone into the country. Or that Beth’s overly competent dragon had been foolish enough to allow Kitty Munkholme to take Amabel’s place. Bad move, that.
Unless, of course, they wished to entrap him.
In the gloom of the walkway shadowed by boxwood hedges as tall as he, Monterne allowed his lips a curl of satisfaction. He was, after all, most willing to be caught. Thoughts of the process of it sent his pulse soaring. Another part of his anatomy stirred to life. This was the moment he’d been waiting for, the time to demonstrate his considerable expertise in the romantic arts. Without, of course, scaring the poor child to death.
Beth was glad the darkness hid her blushes. Did Rodney truly think she was reluctant, a shy blossom he must entice into risking her reputation? This wander through the shadows was her opportunity to discover if she could do this thing. If she could marry a handsome young nobleman and live happily ever after, even when her silly heart kept asserting it would never love anyone other than Terence. But everyone, from Tildy to Cat and Amabel, kept reminding her she was young and inexperienced, that girls her age were flighty, their affections subject to mistakes, abrupt change. Perhaps she truly was as foolish as other girls of her age. Tonight she would find out, even if it meant ignoring every dire warning she’d ever heard about being caught alone with a gentleman in the dark walks of Vauxhall Gardens.
Willingly, Beth allowed the viscount to seat her on a cold marble bench. Willingly, she turned up her face to be kissed.
Only one young man had ever dared to try. On the night of her sixteenth birthday the pimple-faced son of the Brockman’s chief solicitor, a boy of seventeen who had not known how to hold his wine, had made a fumbling effort to find her lips. Beth had found the experience as disgusting as it was disappointing.
If only Terence had not been so difficult that night . . .
Heart pounding, Beth waited.
Lord Monterne, nine years her senior, was no pimple-faced son of a Cit. A man with little taste for giddy girls, he’d learned every nuance of love, in all its forms, from experts; the seduction of a green girl, child’s play. Fortunately, he liked the chit. No boredom at Vauxhall tonight. Anticipation keen, he reached for her.
If the flash of his smile had a tinge of the Wolf to Red Riding Hood, it was too dark for Beth to see it. She felt only the warmth of his gaze, the touch of his fingers as he tilted her head, the surge of wonder as his lips met hers. It was indeed a very fine thing to be kissed by a handsome nobleman in the mysterious depths of Vauxhall Gardens.
She was a bit less sure when his tongue flicked out, tasting her lips, sampling the corners of her mouth, becoming ever more insistent she allow him inside. Terence’s warnings suddenly rang in her head. This, she was quite certain, was one of the things she was not supposed to do. It was, he had told her, too much like . . . well, like the other.
But Terence had thrown her away. Pushed her out of his life. Terence wanted her here. In Vauxhall. In the arms of a man destined for the peerage.
Beth opened her lips, tentatively returning Monterne’s explorations. If this were seduction, then she really ought to understand the full process. After all, Tildy had always insisted she do proper research for her studies.
Rodney suddenly broke their tangle of tongues, trailing kisses across her cheek, nibbling at her ear, scattering sparks as his lips moved lower. With a sharp tug, the fichu Tildy had insisted Beth wear in her décolletage fell into her lap, the viscount’s lips eagerly sipping at the tops of her breasts. Years of rigid training wiped out Beth’s thirst for knowledge. She gasped a protest, her hands jumping up to push him away. Strong fingers caught her wrists, swinging her hands behind her back before returning to his intimate caresses.
She could fight him, cry out, summon help, but Beth knew she wouldn’t. She had encouraged him, she had wanted to know. And now . . . shame shook her. She was hopelessly capricious, no better than a whore, for his lips felt quite wonderful, even in such a forbidden place. Ah, dear God! Beth’s stomach clenched, her body quivered, froze in shock. Monterne, still clasping her wrists in one hand, had shoved down one side of her gown and was suckling her nipple. By the time she could summon a coherent thought, it was too late. Excitement blossomed in the depths of her being, every sort of strange sensation surging forward to overwhelm her innocence. She gasped, made a futile attempt to struggle to her feet. Instead, she found herself hard against the viscount’s coat of superfine wool, his hand shoving its way up under her thin muslin chemise. Her skin went to goosebumps from head to toe. Terence had not covered this aspect of seduction.
“Drawers!” the viscount bawled. “Bloody hell!” He sat back on the marble bench and glared at her.
“I know it is quite outré, but Tildy and Terence insisted—”
“Terence! O’Rourke governs your most intimate garments?”
“I beg your pardon, I mis-spoke.” Mortified, Beth dropped her gaze, and discovered not even the gloom of the grotto Beth could hide the bulge in the viscount’s trousers. Clearly, Terence’s drawings had underestimated the physical expansion of a man’s private part. She could not take her eyes off him. Indeed, she must be a fallen woman at heart.
A–ah! Perhaps that was why Terence had sat so long behind the table that night. Innocent that she was, Beth had never dreamed he might be having a problem. Now that she considered the possibility, she was strangely pleased. Even if the erratic fluctuation of her desires meant she was a tart and destined
for the fires of hell.
“I am sorry,” she apologized. “I should not have encouraged you.”
“Encouraged?” Monterne choked. The child could not possibly be that innocent. Or was she very clever? “Indeed,” he declared, “it is I who should apologize. It would appear the night is much too romantical. It’s plain why young ladies are warned against walking down the dark paths at Vauxhall. Please accept my most humble apologies. I was overcome by your ethereal beauty. I shall, of course, call upon your father in the morning.”
Beth concentrated on tucking her fichu back into the top of her bodice. This was the moment then. Lord Monterne had crossed the bounds of propriety and was making the expected offer. Conversely, she had allowed his intimacies. She had not boxed his ears or run screaming toward the light. She was as honor-bound as he. But surely he was by far the best of her suitors. If she could not have Terence, Rodney, Viscount Monterne, would do.
Tucking the last bit of gauze-like silk back in place, Beth sighed. All her life she had thought of herself as a good person, as an intelligent young woman who knew her own mind. Now she was no longer certain. She had allowed a man who was not Terence to touch her intimately. And she had liked it. Well, almost. She had experienced enough to know she would enjoy it when he had a legal right to touch her so.
It was all very sad. She could not truly be a good person.
“I shall tell Papa to expect you,” Beth declared as primly as if they’d been sitting under the scrutiny of Miss Spencer’s chaperonage. Eyes demurely lowered, she peeked at the viscount’s trousers. “I believe we can go,” she murmured.
As they walked back toward the sounds of music and laughter, Beth scolded herself for allowing her feet to drag. She had just accomplished Papa’s dream. Miss Elizabeth Brockman, daughter of the Merchant Midas, was about to snabble the long-awaited prize. Why, then, did she feel so utterly empty? As if the sun would not rise tomorrow, as if light had gone out of the world?
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