Rhys stretched a hand out, covering hers. “Your happiness,” he finished for her, in somber tones.
She remained with her gaze locked on their joined hands. “My happiness,” she murmured, as two competing emotions vied for supremacy within him: the desire to bloody Pup Pratt senseless for having hurt her and the need to drive back her sorrow. At last, she lifted her eyes to his and anguish spilled from their depths. “And do you know why he threw me over?”
Because he was a damned bloody fool. There was no other reason for it. “The Pratts are impoverished,” he ventured, reluctantly forcing his arm back to his side. All of Society knew the financial woes of the former roguish, now wedded, Lord Nolan Pratt. The gent had wedded Lord and Lady Lovell’s eldest daughter, Sybil Cunning. But the Cunning fortune was not great enough to have sufficiently eased that family’s debts.
“My dowry is sizeable,” Alice explained. “Henry would have had a fortune upon our marriage.” With the tip of her index finger, Alice trailed some invisible, nebulous outline on the corner of the stone table. She gave all her attentions to that distracted movement and then stopped. “Henry aspired to the role of partner within his firm,” she lifted that same long digit and spoke in a remarkably like impersonation of Pratt’s stiff, concise tones. “Monies are fleeting but his reputation as a barrister is forever. He couldn’t rely upon anyone but himself to restore the Pratt name to its onetime greatness.”
All Rhys’ muscles went taut. “Good God, surely he wasn’t so sanctimonious that he’d said all that?”
Alice shook her head.
The tension left him.
“He wrote it.”
Wrote it?
She expounded, moving an imagined quill through the air. “In a note.”
Rhys fought the growl working its way up his chest. “My God, he called it off in a bloody letter?” The desire to thrash the pup senseless filled him once more. Not only had young Pratt proven himself faithless, but he’d shown he was a coward, as well.
“Indeed,” she murmured, lifting a fir branch. That delicate movement wafted the fragrant evergreen scents.
He searched his mind for a suitable reply. And yet, to tell her she was better without that cad in her life, to remind her Pratt had never been deserving of her, was the same rubbish Rhys had been fed by his mother after Lillian’s treachery. In the aftermath of a broken heart, all one knew was the agony of regret, of what had been, of what almost was, and all that would never be.
In time, Alice would come to appreciate that she’d been spared. Just as Rhys had eventually reconciled Lillian and Anthony’s betrayal in his heart and mind. But no person could force that acceptance upon another. His former best friend served as life’s testament to that.
Alice cleared her throat. “I should leave.”
“Yes,” he acknowledged. The guests would be rejoining soon for the evening’s parlor games and their absence would be noted.
Did he imagine the lady’s reluctance? Did he simply see that which he wished?
Alice turned to go.
“Alice?” he called out, staying her.
She cast a questioning glance back.
“Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.”
Her lips parted, the softness there filled her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.
And then she was gone.
Chapter 13
The house guests having long ago sought their chambers and the sprawling house quiet, Alice sat in Lord and Lady Guilford’s libraries.
Sleep had proven elusive.
As such, she’d gathered her book, abandoned her chambers, and sought out a distraction that had always come from literature.
That same leather volume, however, now rested beside her, forgotten and useless.
Her knees drawn close to her chest, Alice rested her cheek atop them, and stared absently into the impressive flames that still raged in the hearth. Rhys’ parting words echoed around her mind.
Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet…
Just seventeen words from Bentham’s work… and they’d thoroughly transfixed her since Rhys murmured them in his silky baritone hours earlier. Four hours, if one wished to be truly precise. And since they’d parted, he’d retained hold of her thoughts with an unrelenting tenacity.
Alice rubbed her chin along her cotton robe.
Who was Lord Rhys Brookfield?
Conversing so freely with her on Bentham’s works one instant, and bringing her to blush with nothing more than his crooked half-grin, the next? He was equal parts scholar and equal parts charming rogue. And together, they made for an alluring gentleman who robbed a woman of sleep.
And for a brief moment when they’d been alone outside, she’d believed he was going to kiss her. The burn of his grey gaze had sent heat racing through her, driving back the winter’s chill. And she’d wanted his kiss. Yearned to know the crush of his mouth against hers.
Her betrothed had never kissed her. At first, she’d marveled at him for being unlike the rogues and rakes whispered about in Society. Henry Pratt was a gentleman in every way. Alice, however, had quickly tired of politeness. After weeks of his courtship and then their betrothal, she’d yearned for his embrace. Only, it hadn’t been a wild, burning passion that filled her; a need to feel his arms about her. Rather, it had been a frustrated curiosity to have her first kiss.
Having grown impatient, it had been Alice who’d taken matters into her own hands—both literally and figuratively. With him across from her reading poetry one visit, and her maid deliberately sent off for refreshments, Alice joined Henry on the sofa. She had looped her arms about his neck and pressed her lips to his.
Slightly damp, soft… and cold, there had been an absolute emptiness to Henry Pratt’s kiss that had left her hollow. Wishing for more. Yearning for a glimpse of the thrilling excitement written of in those romantic tales she’d read since she was a girl. All through that exchange, she’d told herself that all women surely felt the same way in a man’s arms. That the fluttering sensations and quickening of one’s heart captured on those pages of romantic novels was just that… words of fiction. And when Henry had jerked away, ending that sloppy embrace, a deep-seated shame had consumed Alice.
Not because of the wanton display that had earned a stinging rebuke from a blushing Henry, but because she’d been so very glad the embrace had been over.
That kiss she’d stolen had been her first… and her last…
Something told her, despite her conclusion that no embrace could stir a woman to grand passions, that being in Rhys’ arms would be altogether different. Somehow, she knew with a woman’s intuition that when Rhys kissed a woman, that lady would plead for more, and give over her reputation and pride just for the thrill of that embrace. All the while, knowing that one could never be anything more to him. She picked up her book, fanning the pages distractedly. No, with their every exchange, he’d reiterated time and time again that the last thing he desired was a respectable match.
Why, his failure to rejoin the party for parlor games was proof enough that even the exchange that still held her enthralled hadn’t been so very important to him. And the truth of that left her… bereft.
The faintest groan of a floorboard slashed across her pathetic musings.
Her heart did a funny leap.
It was as though she’d conjured him with her thoughts.
Still in flagrant disregard of proper dress, Rhys entered the library, similar to how she’d last seen him—sans jacket. And sitting as she was, in the corner, Alice hunched her shoulders in a bid to make herself as small as possible, using the opportunity to study him. A new, less rumpled, but equally crisp white shirt had replaced the previous article he’d donned. The garment hung loose. She stared on unabashedly at the olive-toned skin exposed, the hint of tightly coiled curls upon his chest. As he started across the room, she dipped her appreciative gaze lower,
to his narrow hips and buttocks.
He stopped at the sideboard, moving a hand over the collection of decanters.
Cravatless, shirtless, shoeless, he was every last inch of his remarkable frame the forbidden rogue that young ladies such as herself were so often warned of, and schooled to avoid.
Alice gulped. Announce yourself…
She would… eventually. Later. Soon.
Or mayhap she’d simply remain tucked in the corner, and he’d fail to notice that she’d been here admiring him like some empty-headed ninny. For the truth remained: he was a remarkable specimen of chiseled male perfection.
Her gaze worked over his broadly powerful frame before lingering on his bare feet. For the masculine strength that spilled from his heavily-muscled physique, there was something also so very tender in the sight of him so.
“Would you care for a brandy, Alice?” he drawled.
Shrieking, Alice jumped up. Her book sailed to the floor, landing indignantly on its spine with a near-deafening thwack.
His hip perched on the edge of the mahogany piece, Rhys lifted his snifter… and then his eyes caught on her gaping night wrapper. Thick, golden lashes, most women would have sold their souls for, swept down, hooding his gaze. She gasped and swiftly belted the garment.
“N-No,” she squeaked, humiliation bathing her cheeks in heat. “No brandy that is. Thank you,” she spoke quickly, her words rolling nonsensically together. “You must be wondering at my silence.” Hush now, Alice Winterbourne. Hush. Her tongue, however, moved without a care for her silently pleading logic. “I intended to call out a greeting, but I was…”
Ogling you.
He lifted a single, elegant brow.
Alice winced, wishing the Aubusson carpet under her feet had a hidden passage so she might disappear within. Even with the length of the room, a knowing glitter sparkled in his eyes. “Reading,” she lamely settled for. “I was engrossed in my book,” she repeated as he joined her.
Belatedly, Alice rescued the forlorn volume and held it aloft. “Do you see?” she blurted. Good God. She cringed inside.
The ghost of a smile teased the corners of his lips. “I do… see.” And something in that slight emphasis suggested, he very much did. That he’d seen entirely too much. Rhys dipped his eyes to the lace trim that ran the length of her wrapper. “First, meeting over snowballs, then over cheroots, now brandies.” Rhys motioned for her to sit.
She chewed at the inside of her lower lip. Having been alone with him several times before, she’d risked scandal. To remain closeted away in this room, with him in flagrant dishabille and her in her night garments, would have her dancing with ruin that no lady could ever recover from.
“That is probably the wise decision,” he murmured. “Your leaving.”
There was a challenge contained within that statement. Alice set her jaw.
With stiff movements, she reclaimed her seat. Placing the book on her lap, Alice folded her hands primly atop the leather volume.
Taking a sip of his brandy, Rhys settled his broad frame into the peculiar pale green upholstered mahogany chair. Women’s figures carved into each arm, it was a strange seat at odds with the simplicity of the other décor.
With one hand lazily cradling his glass, Rhys draped his spare palm along one etched beauty. His fingers grazed the décolletage, and there it was again… that wild fluttering in Alice’s chest. Compelled by his every movement, she stared transfixed by his long fingers stroking back and forth along the swells of the woman’s breasts.
Back and forth.
Back. And forth.
From over the rim of his glass, Rhys’ unswerving gaze met hers.
If he expected her to hastily avert her eyes, he knew her not at all.
That distracted caress kindled a yearning low in Alice’s belly. The stirrings of desire she’d accepted solely as false words printed in books, now proven wrong by Rhys Brookfield… and an engraved armchair.
The wondering that had slithered forward earlier that night reared itself once more. What if Rhys, in fact, had assignations planned with another lady and Alice was nothing more than an in-the-way distraction? A stone pitted in her stomach.
Alice caught a lone curl and twisted it around her finger distractedly, until his gaze caught on that movement. She abruptly stopped. During your exchanges with gentlemen, be nonchalant. Never show emotion. Miserable Mrs. Belden’s frequently echoed lecture rattled around Alice’s mind. Who would have believed a single lesson from the old harpie would have proven useful? “Do you know, Lord Rhys, it occurs to me you also happen to be missing from all the planned festivities.” Also conspicuously absent had been Miss Cunning. Alice’s stomach muscles clenched. “Why is that?” she asked, dropping her elbow onto the arm of her chair.
Contrary even in drink, Rhys swirled the contents of his glass in a counterclockwise circle. “Truthfully?”
“I’d rather you did not lie to me, if that is what you’re asking.”
He grinned and then leaned forward, conspiratorially. “I was… avoiding certain guests.”
An odd lightness suffused her breast as the tension went out of her. “Your… mother?” she ventured, hating the hopeful edge she was unable to conceal.
“My mother?” he snorted. “She is, of course, a given.” His expression tightened. That affable demeanor lifted and, in its place, came the cynical, hardened shell of the person whose company she’d come to enjoy these past days.
Wounded eyes… strained smile… slumped shoulders… you have all the makings of a heartsick miss…
Her heart tugged. Rhys presented a flawless image of indolent rogue to the world. Until now, she’d failed to see that Rhys, too, had known hurt. She, just like everyone else in Society had seen the surface and never searched for anything more of him. Shame filled her at her own self-absorption. What secret pain did he carry?
When silence marched on and it became apparent he intended to say nothing else, Alice prodded him to continue. “So there is another you’re avoiding…”
Leaning back, Rhys stretched his legs out so the heels of his feet brushed her toes. An electric charge tingled at the contact; a thrilling shock like when she’d run in her bare feet across the carpets at Mrs. Belden’s.
“My mother is matchmaking at this house party.”
“Yes.” As a motherless girl, Alice lamented the absence of a caring, loving mama in her life. And then she’d born witness to the ruthless manner in which the dowager marchioness sought to maneuver Lettie into a respectable match. From that moment on, she’d acquired a whole new view on mothers and daughters. “She is always matchmaking,” she pointed out.
Rhys steepled his fingers, resting them on his flat belly. “She has now hand-selected my bride,” he muttered, that terse utterance at odds with his languid pose.
Alice’s leg jumped and the book again tumbled to the floor. Heart racing, she bent to retrieve the leather volume. All the while, her mind swirled.
He hadn’t been speaking about the dowager marchioness matchmaking Lettie with one of the gentlemen present. He’d spoken of himself. Her chest constricted.
Miss Cunning.
“Yes, well, my mother has never been circumspect in her attempts with any of my others siblings. I trust she wouldn’t change now for my benefit,” he drawled.
Cheeks burning, Alice jerked upright. She’d spoken aloud. She swallowed a groan.
Rhys sipped his drink. “The young lady is my mother’s goddaughter.” And breathtaking and able to make him laugh. Those two thoughts made her want to suddenly cry. “It was expected my brother would marry Lady Lovell’s eldest daughter.” The Baroness Webb… Henry’s sister-in-law. “And since the connection was never made between our families…”
“It falls to you,” she whispered. Why did the idea of him wedded to that dark-haired beauty clutch at her insides, scraping them raw?
He lifted his glass up, toasting that statement. “My mother certainly hopes so.”
N
onchalance, Alice. You must be nonchalant. Alice fanned the pages of her book. “And you do not see yourself marrying her?”
He blanched. “Little Aria? Egads, no.”
Little Aria? Tall, splendorous in her beauty, she had the look of the damned fertility goddess Diana painted upon the urn in her uncle Percival’s office.
“She is a child. Seven and ten years of age.” He furrowed his brow. “Almost eight and ten.” He knew that intimate detail about the young woman. It spoke to that close familial connection; one that the dowager marchioness was determined to solidify.
“She’s not so very young,” she said haltingly. At seventeen, Alice had given her heart to Henry… and now, she was just two years older than Miss Cunning.
Rhys downed the remaining contents of his drink in one long swallow; the muscles of his throat worked rhythmically. He grimaced, and then set the glass down on the table beside him. “She’s certainly too young for a man nearing thirty.”
In a Society where ladies married men two decades their senior, the eleven years Rhys spoke of was insignificant. Nonetheless, she’d not debate him on the lady’s suitability as a bride for him. For shamefully selfish reasons… even as she would never trust her heart again to any man, she abhorred the idea of Rhys married to the stunning beauty.
“We make quite the pair, don’t we,” she brought herself to say, instead. “Two individuals brought together because one,” she motioned to herself, “is avoiding her former betrothed, and the other,” she pointed to him, “his future intended.”
Rhys laughed. That booming, masculine sound was filled with amusement. Jumping up, he collected his glass and returned to the sideboard. The soft clink of crystal touching crystal, and then the steady stream of liquid pouring filled the library.
It did not escape her notice that he hadn’t refuted her latter claim. Alice curled her fingers over the arms of her chair, leaving little half-moon marks upon the ivory upholstery.
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 181