by Shana Galen
“I see.” She rose with all the grace of a dancer, though she had the body of a goddess. “Am I to fill the gap until you find another light-skirt?”
Charles curled his fingers, anger seeping through him. How dare she act as though this rift were his fault? She was as guilty of infidelity as he. But if he allowed his anger to get the better of him, he might never have another chance to speak to her like this.
He took a breath, tried to calm himself. “The truth is, Susan, I don’t want another mistress.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and his pride with it.
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
“I don’t want any woman…other than you.”
She did not speak for a long, long moment. “Those are lovely words, but I think they come a few years too late. Go back to your room, Charles. You’re not welcome in my bed any longer.”
“I don’t want to take you to bed.”
When she lifted her brows, he spread his hands. “What I mean is, my purpose tonight was not to take you to bed. At the moment, all I want is to regain your affection.” He had hoped for some reaction from her, but she only stared at him with those cool hazel eyes. “I will fight for you, Susan.”
And he would fire the first salvo now. He took half a dozen steps until he was within arms’ reach of her, then he took her hand in his. Her skin was soft and supple and slightly moist from the cream she put on it before bed.
He bent his head to kiss her knuckles, then at the last moment, turned her hand and placed a kiss in her palm. The scent of roses wafted up to him, and he closed his eyes and allowed himself to be surrounded by it.
Then slowly, ever so slowly, his lips drifted upward until they caressed the skin at her wrist, where he felt her pulse flutter.
She snatched her hand away, and when he looked up at her, her face was impassive. “Goodnight, Duke.”
He bowed and left the room. Closing the door, he leaned against it and smiled. She might pretend she had been unaffected, but he had felt her pulse jump. He knew he could still fire her blood.
Now he just had to make her love him again.
* * *
Ewan stopped at Langley’s to change his clothing before returning to the Duke of Ridlington’s town house. He had brought clothing and a few other necessities to the duke’s establishment, but he had no desire to arrive mud-streaked and soaking wet.
By the time the Ridlington’s butler opened the door to him, it appeared most of the house was asleep. He saw no sign of the duchess or Lady Lorraine. The duke, wearing a banyan, emerged from his library, glass of amber liquid in his hand. “I wondered when you would reappear. What the hell happened tonight?”
Ewan held his head up. “I failed you, Your Grace. It won’t happen again.”
“Failed me? You pulled my daughter from the middle of two numbskulls so drunk they failed to notice the lady in their path. And then you went back and took them to task. I trust you didn’t kill the poor bastards.”
Ewan shook his head. The men were alive and whole, though the pain of their recovery might make them wish they were dead for a day or so.
“That’s not failure,” the duke explained. “Why didn’t you ride home in my coach?”
Ewan looked at his clean clothing. “I was wet.”
The duke laughed, and Ewan’s head jerked up. He was wary of laughter. It usually indicated he’d said something wrong. Again.
“We were all wet,” Ridlington explained without malice. “Next time, get in the bloody coach.”
Ewan nodded.
“You’ll sleep here tonight.”
“Yes,” Ewan said, though the duke hadn’t exactly asked a question.
“Good. We’ll have plenty to break your fast. You know where your room is?”
“I can find it.”
“Then I’ll see you in the morning.”
Ewan was left alone in the library. The house was quiet, and Ewan could only assume everyone had gone to bed. He was in no hurry. Sleep did not come easily to him, and when it did finally overtake him, it was not restful. The Survivors didn’t discuss the nightmares often, but even a lackwit like Ewan noticed the shadows under his friends’ eyes and the way many of them stayed at the club late into the night to avoid their beds.
A man did not see the things he and his friends had seen and rest easily. There had been thirty of them at the beginning; there remained only the twelve of them now. Ewan remembered each of the deaths. He’d been the muscle, the brute force that went in before the other men with more sophisticated skills. And so he’d been there when men were shot or stabbed or blown to pieces. Ewan had fully expected to share the same fate. There was nothing special about him. No reason he should be alive when so many of his friends were dead. It had been sheer luck and sheer waste.
While his dead friends were mourned by their parents and siblings, no one cared whether he lived or died. He was an imbecile, an embarrassment to the family. The Earl of Pembroke would rather not be reminded he had a dullard for a son. He had two perfectly normal sons, and if the third were to die on the Continent, he would not be missed.
As it was, Ewan came back from war and resigned his commission, which was inconvenient for everyone.
Ewan stood before one of the duke’s shelves, staring at the long line of book spines. His father had a library, but Ewan had never been left alone in it. He’d never once been offered a book from the Pembroke library to read. And he’d never asked.
Ewan could read a few of the titles. Not all of the letters insisted on jumping off the spines when he looked at them. The words were not supposed to do that. His brothers and cousins had thought he was trying to be funny when he had mentioned that words and letters sometimes jumped around when he tried to read them. Ewan had never mentioned it again, but the laughter still echoed in his memory.
Something was wrong with his mind. He’d realized it that day, and he hadn’t been much older than five or six. He’d known it already because he’d had trouble with nursery rhymes and learning the alphabet. But that was the day he’d known he was different from everyone else. The day he’d realized he was stupid.
Dumb.
A lackwit.
It wasn’t the last time he’d felt like an idiot. His tutor had seemed to take perverse pleasure in forcing Ewan to read aloud, an onerous chore for him and anyone listening. His cousin Francis, who was closest to him in age, had sniggered and taunted him every time Ewan said top instead of pot or loin instead of lion.
Eventually, Ewan did everything he could to avoid his lessons. He argued his head ached too much to go to the schoolroom, and it was not an exaggeration. His head did pound after he tried to make sense of words jumbled on a page. And yet, as he ran a hand along the spines of the books, he wished he could read them. So many men and women seemed to enjoy the act of reading. He’d watched his friends at the Draven Club reading the paper or a book and envied them the knowledge they had. Ewan knew no stories but those he’d been told, knew no news but what he heard from others.
And here in this room were thousands upon thousands of stories, not to mention books about other places and people. And Ewan would never know any of the information because every page looked like someone had shaken it up and moved the lines of text around.
But he’d found a place in the world, despite being a dimwit. As the boys grew older, Francis had stopped laughing when Ewan had confused letters or sounds. Ewan had made him stop laughing. Francis might be able to read anything put before him, but he didn’t have Ewan’s height, strength, or brawn. The last time Francis had teased Ewan, Ewan had waited for him after class, picked him up, and thrown him halfway across the lawn.
After that, Francis had resorted to meaner and sneakier methods of making Ewan’s life miserable. The abuse had gone beyond typical boyish pranks. Francis had managed to turn the boys’ tutor against Ewan, which had resul
ted in beatings and extra reading and writing assignments—none of which Ewan had any hope of completing. When his brothers and cousins had gone to Eton, Ewan had followed for a year and then been sent home in disgrace. His father told him openly he was an embarrassment to the family name and honor. From then on, he’d done his best to ignore Ewan.
Only Ewan’s mother, the Countess of Pembroke, had spent any time with him or seemed to love him. She’d encouraged his facility with numbers. He could do almost any calculation in his head. She’d also helped him purchase a commission in the army. As a third son, and not one well-equipped for the clergy, the army was the most logical place for him.
But his mother had never possessed a robust constitution, and she’d died before Ewan had been able to accept his commission. Without his mother in residence, Ewan had no reason ever to return to Pembroke Manor.
And now here he was in his father’s world again—in Francis’s world. During the war, Ewan had long hours of walking and waiting to think about his cousin’s behavior. Ewan had been a convenient outlet for Francis’s disappointment at his station in life. Not only had Francis not been born the son of the earl, his father was a notorious gambler who relied on his brother, Ewan’s father, to free him from financial scrapes.
Francis had taken out his frustrations at his unhappy and uncertain childhood on the easiest target—Ewan Mostyn. No one would have stood for taunting or teasing of the heir to the marquessate, and Ewan’s second oldest brother was both handsome and intelligent. But Ewan had been big and dumb and slow, and Francis had seemed to dislike him from the first time the two boys—just toddlers—had met.
That was all in the past now. Ewan wouldn’t have wasted his time seeking his cousin to exact revenge, but neither was he averse to placing obstacles in his cousin’s path to happiness. If Francis wanted Lady Lorraine, Ewan would happily thwart him. But that wasn’t the only reason he’d taken this position. Ewan knew Francis better than anyone else, and Francis didn’t love anyone but himself. He’d somehow managed to convince Lady Lorraine he loved her, but Ewan suspected what Francis really loved was the lady’s dowry. And the only thing Francis loved more than himself was blunt.
Ewan didn’t know Lady Lorraine very well yet. His impressions thus far were that she seemed to have a knack for finding trouble, and she was willful in the way daughters of dukes—and earls, for that matter—tended to be.
She had no love for opera, which meant she was not a complete loss. She was also quite pretty in a way that tended to distract him. Women did not usually distract him. Women usually annoyed him with all their games and chattering. But he hadn’t found himself annoyed when he’d lifted Lady Lorraine into his arms and carried her away from the brawling men.
He’d liked the feel of her in his arms. She was soft and fragrant and warm. He’d looked down at her pale face and wanted to kiss her until the color flooded her cheeks again.
And that made her dangerous. Men might call him an idiot, but Ewan was no fool. He knew kissing Lady Lorraine was out of bounds. He was to keep her safe, nothing more. He needn’t touch her or even look at her more than absolutely necessary.
He’d already looked at her far more than he was obliged. The gold dress she’d worn tonight had flattered curves he hadn’t noticed before, and she had all that long, dark hair. He didn’t dare to look at her eyes except when she was gazing the other way. Her eyes were far too perceptive and their shade of green was one of the loveliest he’d seen. He remembered a field in the French countryside where he and others from Draven’s troop had camped one night when they’d gone ahead of the others. The spring morning had dawned golden, casting the green field in a muted light. That was the color of Lady Lorraine’s eyes—a verdant field dipped in palest gold.
Ewan could never have her. She was like a pastry in a display case. He could look but not touch. Boys who couldn’t read their primers weren’t given pastries, and men who were lackwit former soldiers did not aspire to possess a duke’s daughter.
But what he could do was ensure she remained out of his cousin’s reach as well. Because Ewan would rather go to hell and back before he ever allowed Francis to get his hands on her.
Five
The next morning, when Ewan arrived at his club, he found a summons from his father waiting for him. Porter handed it to him when he arrived, and Ewan walked into the vestibule to find his former commander staring up at the shield and sword.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Porter said, making a discreet exit.
Neil glanced over his shoulder as Ewan walked past the suit of armor and the broadswords hung on the wall to stand beside him. For a time, the two stared at the shield and those eighteen fleur-de-lis carved into the flanks and base. Peter had been the sixteenth man of the troop to die, and Ewan focused his gaze on that sixteenth mark, trying to remember the man and not his fiery death.
“It should have been me,” Neil said softly, so quietly Ewan had to strain to hear him. “I shouldn’t be standing here. Bryce or Guy or Peter—or, hell, any of them should be here rather than me.”
Ewan didn’t argue. They’d all felt that way at one time or another. Ewan had often wondered why he’d lived and others hadn’t, but Neil seemed tormented by his own survival. “I know what you’ll say,” Neil said, his gaze back on the shield and sword. “All of us feel that way, but for me it’s different. It should have been me. I’m a bastard. I was unwanted and have no legitimate place. I should have died.”
“No,” Ewan said simply. “You kept us all alive.”
It was true. If they’d lost Neil, they’d have lost their leader and their heart. Ewan doubted any of the men would have come back alive if Neil hadn’t.
“Besides, I had to keep you alive,” Ewan said, thinking to make light of the situation and thereby erase some of the shadows from Neil’s eyes. “We couldn’t have the only virgin in the group dying before he bedded a woman.”
As Ewan had wanted, Neil turned and scowled at him. “I’ve bedded women. I just haven’t performed one act.”
“It made for a good rally cry. Protect the virgin!”
Neil glared at him. “Say it again, and I’ll break your nose. It wasn’t amusing then, and it’s not now.”
Ewan had liked it better than the one that had replaced it, a phrase about dancing with the devil.
To Ewan’s relief, Neil moved toward the stairs. “Did you come to taunt me or did you have another reason?”
Ewan pulled the missive from his coat and thrust it into Neil’s hands. Still striding up the stairs, Neil took the missive and broke Pembroke’s seal. He scanned the contents. “Your father wants to see you immediately at his town house.”
“Why?” Ewan asked, pausing at the top of the stair, hands on his hips.
Neil looked back at the paper. “He doesn’t say.” They continued into the reading room. “This is dated yesterday, so I imagine he’s grown quite impatient.” Neil headed for a grouping of chairs and sat heavily. Ewan followed but didn’t have time to take his ease.
“You will simply have to tell him you were at the opera last night,” Rafe Beaumont said, reading the missive over Neil’s shoulder and then sliding into the chair beside Wraxall. “Quite the hero you were too—or so I heard. I want all the details.”
Ewan scowled. He was no hero. He’d pulled Lady Lorraine up off the street, where she wouldn’t have been in the first place if he’d been doing his duty.
“Will you go?” Neil asked.
Ewan grunted, the sound indecisive. He had no desire whatsoever to see his father. For the past two decades the man had behaved as though Ewan did not exist. Ewan saw no reason that should change now. On the other hand, the few times his father had acknowledged him were times the earl had needed Ewan’s assistance—when an overly enthusiastic suitor would not accept that Lady Henrietta did not return his affections and when one of the servants, upset at having been l
et go without references, went about destroying one of the parlors in a drunken rage.
Little as he cared for his father, he did feel some loyalty toward his family and his name. If the earl had called for him, the matter was most likely urgent.
“You might join Jasper in a game of billiards,” Rafe offered. “I’ve already lost five pounds to the man, but perhaps you’ll fare better. And then you can tell me about your feats of valor last night.”
Ewan held his hand out to Neil, who gave him the missive. “I have other business.”
“Want company? Want to tell me about last night?” Rafe asked.
“No.” Ewan turned and strode back out of the club. He hailed a hackney and directed the jarvey to take him to Pembroke House in Mayfair.
The house looked much as it had the last time Ewan had been here, several years before. Rectangular and white with a black wrought iron fence surrounding it and flowers in the boxes at the windowsills, the London home of the Earl of Pembroke looked warm and welcoming.
Ewan knew the truth.
He opened the gate, walked up the four steps to the door, and stared at the knocker. He did not want to do this. He did not want to go inside. Standing here, he felt every bit the miserable boy he had once been. And that boy had wakened every morning with a knot of loathing in his belly because he’d known he was a disappointment. His life had been one of looking in from the outside. He’d stood on the fringes while, knowingly or not, his parents had spent what little time they had for their children lavishing attention on his brothers and sister.
At some point Ewan must have known it was futile to try. No matter how many pictures he drew or how clean his fingernails or how straight the part in his hair, his father always found some fault with him. Ewan forgot he was a dolt and opened his mouth, saying the wrong thing; or he didn’t say enough; or he knocked over a vase, breaking yet another of his mother’s expensive Sevres porcelain pieces. His father would call him a “clumsy oaf” and banish him to a corner where Ewan could see but not be part of the family gathering.