A Measure of Deceit

by Jess Michaels

  She caught her breath as he released her. Damn, but he was temptation embodied. How could she not love him? What would she do when she lost him?

  She shook that away. “But?”

  “Did you mean it when you said you would invite my father to a gathering?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral.

  She looked at him. To any other person in the world there would be no guessing his thoughts on that question. His face was flat and emotionless, as if he had asked her for nothing more than a cup of tea in a drawing room.

  But she knew him. She truly knew him, even better than he realized, and she saw that flicker of anxiety in the bright green of his gaze. She saw pain and anger, regret and a desperate need for acceptance and perhaps even love. She saw it all and she ached for him.

  Was it right to offer him a chance to see a man who would likely only disappoint him? Wouldn’t that make her a party to his pain?

  But how could she take it back?

  “If that is what you want, I would do it, yes,” she said softly. “It would be no trouble to arrange a gathering in a few days with enough mixed company that his invitation wouldn’t seem out of place.” She shifted. “Are you certain?”

  He smiled as he cupped her chin. “You don’t have to save me,” he said softly before he kissed her.

  But even as he lowered her to the bed another time, even as he swept her away again and again, she couldn’t help but wonder if that was true.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “When you have spent your life being told you are something, it is difficult to rebel against that. But I am here to tell you, it could be well worth the pain.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  Grace was not accustomed to feelings of nervousness, but now, standing in her parlor, she felt as shaky as a girl at her debut. Around her was a small group of people, from friends to people Seth and Jason had suggested she invite as potential investors for Connor, to the man himself.

  The only person who had not yet arrived was the Marquis of Merewood. She looked at the clock closest to her with a sigh. He was fashionably late, but not exceedingly so.

  Doing her best to remain calm, she whispered an order to a servant who passed by and waved to Viscountess Montgomery across the room. The woman’s eyes lit up and she excused herself from her group and stalked across the room toward Grace.

  She steeled herself for unpleasant conversation. Grace never would have invited the overbearing woman had Seth not suggested that her outrageously rich and elderly husband would be a good potential investor for Connor.

  “The things I will do for that man,” she muttered under her breath before she held out her hands with a false smile. “Darling Caroline, how are you?”

  Lady Montgomery pressed a kiss to her cheek and laughed. “Wondrous, as always, Your Grace. So happy to be invited tonight, especially when I heard magnificent Mr. Sheridan would be here.”

  Grace shifted. The viscountess was a few years younger than she was herself, and no one could say she wasn’t pretty in her own hawkish way.

  “Are you a fan of the book, then?” Grace asked, not bothering to clarify which book, since she doubted Caroline had ever read more than one.

  “Of course—isn’t everyone?” Caroline said with a wave of her hand. “And a fan of very handsome Scotsmen as well.”

  The viscountess looked across the room at Connor, who was standing with his back to them. The woman looked him up and down and folded her arms. “Mmmm, delicious indeed. Do you think he’s taken a lover yet?”

  Grace stiffened and tried not to give in to the urge to slap the woman. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Caroline tilted her head. “Really? I thought you knew everything of importance in Society.”

  “Is the lover of a book editor important to Society?” Grace asked as mildly as she could.

  Caroline laughed. “Of course, when he looks like that. Do you think I should try my hand at landing him?”

  Grace drew in a long breath, but before she could respond she was saved by Nash’s deep voice at the door.

  “The Marquis and Marchioness of Merewood,” he intoned into the room.

  Grace jerked her gaze toward Connor. He stiffened without turning to face the door, but it was the only indication he had heard of his father’s arrival. With her heart racing, Grace turned back to Caroline.

  “I’m sorry, my dear, but I must greet my final guests. Good evening.”

  Grace spun away without waiting for a response and prayed her expression was calm as she crossed to the entryway to the parlor.

  “Lord and Lady Merewood,” she said. “How nice to see you.”

  Lady Merewood’s kind face lit up with a smile as she extended an elegant hand toward Grace. Grace hadn’t known the lady well, as Lady Merewood was close to a decade older than she, but now Grace looked at her. Did the woman know of her husband’s youthful transgression? Of his illegitimate son?

  Grace somehow doubted it. Men of an elevated station tended to keep their secrets well and ladies learned not to ask questions whose answers they might not like.

  “Your Grace,” Lady Merewood said. “We’re so pleased to be invited to your soiree. I have often wished to make a better acquaintance with you.”

  Grace shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. She hadn’t thought the wife of her lover’s absentee father would want to form a friendship. What was the proper response to that? It wasn’t something she had written about in The Ladies Book of Pleasures, that was certain.

  She swallowed back a nervous laugh and nodded. “I’m pleased to be able to do so tonight.”

  Shifting her attention to Lord Merewood, she looked him up and down. Connor was right—the two did share a nose. And the shape of their jaw, but otherwise he was nothing like the man before her. Lord Merewood had lighter hair and brown, hard eyes that had no warmth to them.

  “Good evening, my lord,” she managed to squeak out. “Lovely to see you again.”

  He nodded, but he already seemed to be looking around the room for a drink. Or an escape. Or both.

  “Yes, yes. Very nice,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

  His wife blushed a little at his attitude and said, “It seems there have been a few more parties than usual this Season.”

  Grace bit her lip. Here was the perfect opening for her. She steeled herself and said, “Yes, that may be true. After all, everyone is agog over Mr. Connor Sheridan, the editor of that naughty little book that seems to be all the rage.”

  She watched the marquess, but the man didn’t even flinch at the mention of his son’s name. He continued to scan the room as if he wasn’t even listening.

  “I haven’t had the chance to meet him,” Lady Merewood said. “Though I’ve heard he’s quite an interesting fellow.”

  Merewood shot his wife a glare. “Interesting because he involved himself with such garbage?”

  Lady Merewood blushed again and Grace interjected swiftly, “If you two are interested in making his acquaintance, then you are in luck. He is here tonight.” She didn’t wait for Lord Merewood to respond, but motioned for a servant. “Will you fetch Mr. Sheridan for me?”

  Her footman nodded and Grace returned her attention to the couple before her. Lady Merewood smiled, but her husband’s cheeks were now flushed and his eyes dark.

  Grace peeked over to find Connor walking toward the three of them. He had no expression on his face that would ever lead anyone to believe that this was an important moment to him, or that he knew Lord and Lady Merewood in any way whatsoever.

  “Your Grace, did you require my presence?” he asked, all smooth propriety as he stepped up to her.

  She smiled to reassure him, then motioned to his father and Lady Merewood. “I was simply discussing you with Lord and Lady Merewood.”

  Connor arched a brow. “Only good things, I hope.”

  “Indeed.” She longed to take his hand, but resisted and instead stepped back and motioned to her companions. “Lord and Lady Merewood, may I prese
nt Mr. Connor Sheridan?”

  Connor’s gaze flicked over his father, but then he nodded. “My lord, my lady.”

  Lady Merewood stepped forward and shook Connor’s hand without hesitation, proving to Grace once and for all that the lady had no idea of the truth.

  “Mr. Sheridan,” she said with a wide and welcoming smile. “What a treat it is to meet you after hearing about you from friends who have made your acquaintance as of late. I wanted you to know how much the books you have produced have meant to me.”

  Connor nodded. “I assume you mean the Lady’s book,” he said and again his gaze flitted to Lord Merewood, who had turned slightly pink, but still appeared utterly unfazed otherwise.

  Lady Merewood flushed. “Ah, actually I meant the book by George Swan.”

  Connor’s eyes widened. “Thank you, my lady,” he said, his tone genuine. “I am a fan of Mr. Swan’s work as well.”

  Lady Merewood seemed to wish to discuss her feelings on the subject further, but before she could go on, Lord Merewood cleared his throat.

  “I see Lady Lyndham over there,” he said, his tone harsh. “Why don’t you say hello? I’ll join you in a moment.”

  She looked at him in confusion and then nodded. “I—very well.”

  Grace gave Connor a quick look and then said, “Why don’t I escort you, my lady? I would like to speak to Isabel myself.”

  Lady Merewood nodded. “Very good. Lead the way.”

  Once again, Grace wanted to touch Connor in some way, any way, to offer comfort before she left him alone with the startlingly cold Lord Merewood, but she couldn’t. So she merely briefly met his gaze, then left him alone with his father.

  Connor could hardly hear over the rush of blood to his ears, but he hoped he was maintaining a façade of calm and collected detachment. His father was certainly doing so, for the man hadn’t even acknowledged him beyond a brief nod.

  Once the women were out of earshot, Connor cleared his throat. “Sir.”

  His father shot him a hard stare. “There must be another parlor in this house. Follow me.”

  Merewood cast a quick glance around the room, as if not wanting to be seen departing with Connor, then stomped out, leading Connor down the hall. He pushed open the first door he came to and stepped inside. Connor followed and as soon as Merewood could close the door behind them, he turned on his son.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Connor sighed. So it was to be this. He had hoped for, but not expected, more. “And what have I done?”

  “You know—putting yourself in a room with me!”

  Connor moved toward the fire and leaned on the mantel. “I was invited. What was I to do?”

  “Refuse,” his father hissed. “Or leave when you saw me here. You have no right to be in a room with me.”

  Connor turned his face, which suddenly felt like it had been physically slapped. He took a long breath to remain calm.

  “I believe Lady Jameswood has the right to determine who deserves entry into her parlors, sir, not you.”

  And her life. And her bed, though Connor wasn’t about to reveal that to his father. He could, he supposed, and upset him further, but Grace was not a weapon to be used. She was something more.

  “And why do you think she invites you?”

  Connor shrugged. “Quite a few ladies and gentlemen have invited me as of late, though I’d wager you knew that without my saying it.”

  “Because of that book you published with my money,” his father said, walking away from him to the window and slamming palm against the glass suddenly. The barrier trembled.

  “Once you gave it, it was my money,” Connor managed to say past clenched teeth. “Your pay-off to keep me away. And I have kept away from you and yours. I have kept away and made my own path, so you have nothing to say about it.”

  “I have plenty to say.” Merewood laughed. “Do you know what you are to those people out there, Sheridan? A freakish spectacle in a traveling circus. They are as repulsed by you as they are fascinated. You don’t belong here, and soon you will fade and they will find a new fashion to follow.”

  Connor turned away from Merewood and his ugly words. Words Connor recognized were likely true. But for this man to say them, this man who had stolen him from the life he knew only to deny him in every way that mattered…

  It made the words sting more.

  “Why do you give a damn what they do or don’t do?” he asked, moving on his father suddenly.

  “I don’t,” Merewood said with a shrug. “I simply don’t want you in the vicinity of my wife and family lest I somehow become associated with you. The best thing you can do now is fade back into the class you belong. Quickly.” Merewood straightened his jacket and walked toward the door. “Now I should get back before I’m noticed to be missing. I hope we will not have to speak again.”

  “We won’t,” Connor said as his father left the room.

  He stood there, staring out the door for a long moment. What he had expected from this encounter, he could not say. What he had gotten was far worse than any nightmare he’d had over the past decade. It was as if he were that fourteen-year-old boy standing in the doorway all over again, his father sizing him up from a carriage window, not even bothering to get out to greet him.

  And why would he? To him, Connor was trash. Inconvenient trash that had to be managed, but trash nonetheless.

  Only he wasn’t a child anymore. He wasn’t helpless. He could march out into the parlor and announce that he was Lord Merewood’s bastard son and watch his father’s life become fodder for scandal galore.

  The thought brought a smile to Connor’s face, until he thought of Lady Merewood. The woman had been quite kind when she met him. He could only imagine that if he hurt his father, he would damage her too, and her children.

  “As tempting as it is, an unfair solution,” he murmured out loud.

  His father said he would fade, that those in the room outside would forget him soon enough. Unless he gave them a reason to want more from him. A reason to involve themselves with him. Not only would that further his fortunes, but how he would love to see his father’s face.

  Connor smiled as he exited the room and returned to the parlor where the others remained gathered, waiting for supper to be announced. As he entered the chamber, Grace straightened up and hurried toward him, her blue eyes wide and filled with concern.

  “Connor, what’s wrong?” she whispered.

  He looked down at her, an unexpected comfort to him, a beautiful dream of something fair and good and far, far above him. If he stayed in Society, that meant more Grace, didn’t it?

  “Nothing,” he said, squeezing her hand briefly.

  He released her and walked toward the greater group before she could speak. Immediately, he found his father in the crowd. Merewood was standing beside his wife, a sour expression on his face as he glared at Connor.

  Connor smiled back and said, “I have wanted to make an announcement as of late.”

  The crowd quieted and drew closer.

  “But I thought I should wait until the right time. And since Lady Jameswood is clearly held in the highest esteem by all who meet her, perhaps it is she who should host this little boon.”

  Grace was watching him, lips parted, eyes narrowed with questions on her face. He tried to give her a reassuring glance. Once he said what he was about to say, she would be pleased. She, of all people, would understand why he was doing this.

  “Many of you have asked me, sometimes repeatedly, who the Lady is that wrote The Ladies Book of Pleasures and if she will write another.” He smiled into the crowd. “And while I cannot reveal the secret of her identity, I’m pleased to announce today that indeed, the Lady is hard at work at writing a second volume to her famous…or infamous book.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Be careful though, dear reader, about the path you travel. Sometimes you cannot go back.”—The Ladies Book of Pleasures

  Grac
e’s knees gave out from under her and it was only because she was standing in close proximity to a chair that she didn’t collapse entirely. She gripped the back of the chaise with both hands and stared at Connor in utter shock.

  He was grinning from ear to ear, obviously enjoying every moment of attention as the room as a whole rushed toward him, all talking at once. In the din she heard exclamations of joy, rage and questions all around.

  Of course she was not amongst the celebratory crowd. Nor was Lord Merewood, who remained at the back of the room, a drink in his hand and his face flushed ruby red with anger.

  She shot her gaze at Connor. He was speaking to those in the group around him, but she saw his eyes dart toward the marquess now and then, and they were filled with…

  Triumph.

  His meeting with his father must have gone very badly indeed if it drove him to this bitter lie. For a moment, she actually felt for Connor, until she replayed his announcement in her head and the reality of it hit her a second time.

  Merewood stepped forward and caught his wife’s arm. They spoke for a moment and then he all but dragged the woman over to Grace.

  “I’m sorry, my lady, but we must go,” Lady Merewood said, her voice shaking and her gaze filled with upset and humiliation.

  Merewood nodded toward her. “Watch what company you keep, Your Grace,” he said, his tone rage-filled. “Being associated with such trash can do you no good.”

  “Giles,” his wife admonished softly, but he shot her a harsh glare that silenced her before the two left Grace’s parlor.

  She moved on shaky legs to stand closer to the crowd. Jacinda and Isabel were in the front of the group now, as taken in by what Connor had told the world as anyone.

  “I’m shocked you never said anything before,” Jacinda said, her hands clasped in front of her in rapt adoration.

  Connor’s expression faltered slightly in the face of Jacinda’s utter belief in him and his lies, but he managed to cover that swiftly and his voice didn’t even shake as he said, “Well, the Lady wanted to wait until just the right moment to announce her intentions.” He sent a mischievous glance around the room. “We’re quite close, you know.”