Blake drew his bride-to-be in front of him and finally turned to nod a greeting at his mother and sisters. Damn, but even Frances was here to witness his downfall. “Miss Carrington has agreed to make me a happy man, Mother. I would have announced the news this evening.”
“Miss Carrington, may I say how delighted we are to welcome you to our little family?” Lady Montague cried, rushing forward to grab her hands.
“If you call my two brothers and four sisters a little family,” Blake murmured in her ear. “And each one nosier than the next, which is why they’re here now.”
Like him, she did not express dismay at being trapped. Unlike him, she donned a smile of delight and accepted his mother’s hand in greeting. “Lady Montague, how good of you! Frances, such a delightful bonnet! Did you find it at that shop on Berkeley I mentioned? And, Agatha, I’m so pleased to see you. . . .”
She caught his mother’s arm and turned Lady Montague toward the stairway, chattering and behaving as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be caught in flagrante in a filthy corridor.
Surely, she could not have set him up to be caught?
Horrified to think that Miss Carrington’s pretty head could conceal a tactical skill greater than his own, Blake gave himself a minute to cool off before stomping down the stairs after the women. He should have questioned why she was out here alone. He damned well should have done a lot of things besides have his way with her. Not that he’d fully done that yet, which was probably why he was feeling so hostile.
“Mr. Montague believes a chimney sweep is required, and a glazier to repair the conservatory.”
Mr. Montague thought no such thing. That was pure Miss Carrington talking. Mr. Montague would rather be in his rooms, drinking a glass of brandy and pondering the blasted French cipher instead of shepherding chattering females about a filthy house, inhaling their sweet perfumes. Atherton, the rake, belonged here, not him.
He despised the kind of social conniving Miss Carrington was currently engaging in.
“Have you set a date, dear?” his mother asked eagerly.
“If you had not interrupted,” Blake curtly intercepted his intended’s response, “we might have set one by now. Come back next week and perhaps I’ll have had time to make arrangements.”
Blake knew it no longer mattered how his father drew up the settlements. They were trapped. He had to accept whatever bones were thrown at him. He’d compromised a lady in front of his family. For better or worse, his carefree bachelor days had ended.
“A special license would be romantic but would probably cause too much gossip,” Miss Carrington replied gaily.
Blake wanted to clap his hand over her mouth before she offered to elope to Gretna. “I need time,” he warned. “Banns take three weeks, and we haven’t even chosen a church.”
“Lady Belden lives in a lovely parish,” his mother corrected. “If Miss Carrington’s banns are called there, the church will be perfectly suitable. I’m sure the house can be ready in three weeks.”
Three weeks! He wasn’t sure he could be ready in three weeks. Planning a courtship was all he’d been prepared for. Suddenly, he seemed to have boarded a runaway mail coach.
“Don’t rush us, Mother. We’ll do this at our own time and pace. You can scarcely expect me to bring a bride to a home in this sorry state.”
His mother looked hurt by his cold reply, but he was too furious with himself to care.
Letting his mother and sisters wander into the next room, Blake caught his betrothed’s elbow and held her back. “I won’t be manipulated, Miss Carrington,” he said in a low voice. “Our decision to marry may have just been removed from my hands, but I am in no hurry to turn my life inside out because my family—or you—wishes it so.”
Frost whitened the deep blue of her eyes to gray. “You, sir, are the most rude, unsociable, difficult man I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. It was not my fault or your mother’s that you were caught kissing me and now have no choice but to marry. Do not take your anger out on us!”
Which was what he’d been doing, admittedly, except it wasn’t his lack of choice that was the problem. The problem was that he would break his family’s hearts no matter what he did, so it was better if he kept them at a distance. As it would be better for any wife to keep hers. They may as well lay down the terms of their arrangement now. “I have spent my life avoiding their intrusive manipulations. I do not intend to let them take over now. You may endure their managing ways, for I will not.”
“Fine, why don’t you just keep your rooms in the city,” she said scornfully, providing him with the escape he’d already considered. “I will entertain your family here, in this sorry state. I think I like them better than I do you.”
“You like the house better than you do me. Just so long as we both recognize where we stand, we’ll march along fine.” He was almost relieved to have this tiff aired now.
Her smile was forced. “Excellent. We’ll lead our separate lives and be happier for it.”
She tugged her arm free of his grasp and swept from the room.
Although she’d said exactly what he wanted to hear, Blake felt a cold draft upon her departure, as if the sun had just gone behind a cloud.
12
That evening, Jocelyn was still confused by Mr. Montague’s imperious behavior and was almost relieved that a decision had been taken from her hands. She had to marry him now. She couldn’t precisely pay off Harold with a clear conscience, but she would do it. Richard was helpless, but Mr. Montague was not. The dratted man could wait a few months before becoming an officer and rushing off to Portugal. It would serve him right for being so insufferable.
Dithering over money was preferable to fretting over her inexplicable reaction to the annoying Mr. Montague’s kisses, and the astounding fact that she’d loved them. Their first kiss had been delicious, but the next . . . His arms, his caress, his mouth had stimulated such excitement that she’d been giddy with foolish anticipation. Her pulse still beat too fast just thinking about it.
She knew better than to expect anything from a man. She should have resisted.
Except—after she’d seen her home in such disrepair, she had been fighting tears and wanting to murder Harold. Blake’s kiss had wiped away the dismals and offered enticing promises, dreams she’d never dreamed, ones of true love and real marriage.
He had kissed her as if she might really be important to him. Her heart stirred a little more than it should at the seductive possibility. She had never been of much value to anyone. Still, it would be wonderful if she could matter to so eminently accomplished and self-sufficient a gentleman as Mr. Montague. . . .
Stop thinking like that. He would more likely throttle her than appreciate her once he discovered what she was about to do, and justifiably so. She’d already sent a note around to Lady Bell’s lawyer to arrange for Richard’s guardianship to be irrevocably transferred to her. She would have that paper signed before she paid Harold the preposterous, horrendous sum of four hundred pounds.
Once he’d learned what she’d done, Mr. Montague might never kiss her again.
She dared not think about that too hard, either. Preparing for the evening’s entertainment, Jocelyn raised her hair from her neck so her maid could fasten the buttons at the back of her bodice. “I am having second and third thoughts about this marriage,” she announced in a fit of pique at her own spineless vacillation.
Lady Bell looked up from the correspondence her secretary had just delivered. “He has made improper advances?” she asked dryly. “Men will try, you know. If you do not like intimacy, then you most certainly should reconsider.”
“You are a very broad-minded person,” Jocelyn said grumpily, taking a seat at the vanity so the maid might pin up her hair. “Most women say that side of marriage is a cross they must bear.”
Not that she knew anything of the familiarities they were talking about. But she had listened to her married sisters when she shouldn’t have and asked questio
ns when she could get away with them. And she’d hinted that she knew more than she did so that people like Lady Bell would open up and explain. Because she really wanted to know what would be expected of her.
Why in the name of all that was holy would anyone object to what Mr. Montague had done to her this afternoon? Really, it had been the most delectable experience.... If she could have the kisses without putting up with his irritable humors, she’d be thrilled with marriage. She had never known a man’s chest could be so very hard, or his lips so demanding. Or that his tongue could produce such intimate sensations! She suffered the most delicious tingles simply thinking about what they’d done.
“Most women are fools.” After sorting through her mail, Lady Bell tossed a letter to the vanity in front of Jocelyn. “Or they’re so desperate to marry that they accept the first man to ask, without consideration of the physical side of marriage. You have alternatives.”
Not anymore, but Jocelyn didn’t tell Lady Belden that. What she really wanted to know was if her husband’s kisses would continue to be exciting or if he would stop them altogether once he learned how she’d betrayed him.
“Decisions are difficult.” Jocelyn tried to see the writing on the letter Lady Bell had just tossed at her, but her maid tugged her hair to keep her from twisting. “When Mr. Montague is on his best behavior, he can be very . . . charming.”
Perhaps charming wasn’t the correct word, but she liked talking with him when he wasn’t growling. Sometimes, she even liked his cynical attitude. She’d learned smiles more often got her what she wanted, but men had the freedom to be themselves. They could afford to be unpleasant if they wished—as Lady Bell could when she felt like it.
“But?” the marchioness inquired, looking up with interest.
“He hates his family,” Jocelyn responded with a sigh. “He bristles like an angry cur whenever they’re about. He doesn’t like parties. He’s even more unsociable than poor Richard. I do not understand it, because he has gentlemanliness ingrained in him. Even when he is shouting at me, he helps me past mud puddles, and he protects me from falls when I’m trespassing and he’s chasing pigs. But he’s the most disagreeable man I have ever met.”
“Chasing pigs?” Lady Bell asked faintly.
As the maid finally released her, Jocelyn waved away a reply and picked up the letter. She stared at the elegant handwriting with astonishment. Richard! Richard all but lived in their sister Elizabeth’s barn. He never wrote letters. He hadn’t even sealed this one. She pulled the edges from the fold and straightened the badly crumpled paper.
He opened the windows and let them all out were the only words on the page.
Two fat tears ran down Jocelyn’s cheeks, and she grabbed a handkerchief to blot them before more spilled over. She covered her mouth to hold back a sob that threatened to escape, but she couldn’t prevent the shudder racking her.
“Jocelyn?” Lady Bell asked in concern. “Is it bad news?”
She shook her head, unable to explain clearly what those few words meant to her, much less how devastating they were to poor Richard.
Apparently her brother-in-law had tired of Richard’s aviary and had freed all the new specimens her brother had carefully collected these past few years. The monster may as well have taken a hatchet to Richard’s family. For the second time in his short life, Richard had lost all he loved. How could he survive such a blow?
Jocelyn had to give him hope. No one understood Richard as she did. They had shared a nursery and the bullying of their older half siblings, who’d resented them. Their mother lacked nurturing instincts and failed to protect her offspring. Richard had been scorned and pushed aside, until Jocelyn was old enough to imitate her father’s sister Matilda and use her looks to deceive and distract until she had what she wanted.
Richard had no conception of how to deceive. He would never learn how to survive in the real world. If Jocelyn had any say in it, he wouldn’t have to. She hoped and prayed that an intelligent man like Mr. Montague would recognize and accept her brother’s eccentric intellect, because really, she had no other choice.
Jocelyn tucked the precious paper into her bodice. Richard wrote so seldom, she might never see another letter from him again. “My sister’s husband has tired of my family, I believe,” she said with brittle gaiety. “I must marry Mr. Montague with all speed.”
Perceptive as she was, her hostess frowned but refrained from questioning the despair in her guest’s voice.
Having no valet, Blake ungraciously allowed Atherton to fold his neckcloth in some knot he’d never succeed in unfastening without ripping the aging linen to shreds.
“Bernie was here earlier,” Blake said, twisting his neck so he didn’t feel as if a rope was being tied about it. “He thinks because I’m courting Miss Carrington that I know where to find his damned bird.”
“And you don’t?” Nick asked wryly, knowing better.
“He insults me by questioning my integrity.” Which had left him feeling more surly than usual. “It’s all her fault. And now I have offended her and can’t even say why,” he complained.
It had been very well to agree to rooms in the city, but that left him without a woman in his bed. Miss Carrington had him practically slavering for the altar for that reason alone, and he’d be damned if he got leg-shackled for nothing. If he was to take a wife, he needed to learn what made one biddable. “How can I repair what I don’t understand?” He glared at his cravat knot in the mirror and deliberately loosened it.
“And do you want to?” Atherton asked affably. “She’s a bird-wit. She’ll drive you mad.”
“I doubt that she’s a bird-wit, but she’s already driving me mad,” Blake grumbled, hunting behind a towering stack of books for his hat. “Every time I see her, I have the urge to either throttle her or kiss her. It’s deuced annoying.”
Atherton laughed. “Then you must marry her, by all means. No other woman has ever roused you to such passion. It’s healthy for you, old boy. Stirs the blood, y’know.”
Blake sent his friend a jaded look. “Says the man whose blood is ever stirred. I doubt it’s healthy if a husband shoots you or a spurned lover takes off your head.” He pounded his hat onto his head and opened the door.
The rooms he rented were in the upper story of an ancient town house. The narrow, crooked corridor had only a single lamp and no window to light the stairwell. Blake had taken the stairs thousands of times without mishap.
Which meant he was unprepared for his foot to hit a solid lump on the top step. Before he could right himself, he tumbled head over heels to the landing, breaking his fall with only the training he’d received in the boxing ring, by twisting his torso so his shoulder took the blow.
Atherton grabbed a lamp from inside the rooms and held it aloft. “You still alive down there?”
Beyond furious now, Blake grabbed a banister and hauled himself to his feet, heedless of whatever damage he might have done to his bones. “What the devil did I trip on? Someone will hang for leaving it lying about, whatever it is.”
Atherton gave him a cool once-over, hiding any relief before examining the floorboards. “An andiron, I believe, with the yoke caught between the stair rails so it cannot move. Are you in the habit of losing andirons, old chap?”
“I have a coal stove, not a fireplace.” Limping worse than ever, Blake climbed the stairs and attempted to dislodge the heavy iron piece. “I must have a talk with my landlady.”
Atherton finally had the grace to look concerned. “She was leaving just as I came up. Is there any chance that could have been placed there on purpose?”
Blake’s rooms were on the top floor. If the andiron had been left intentionally, it was for his benefit alone. “It makes no sense. I have nothing anyone could want. I think we’ll find Mrs. Beasel had it in her hand for some reason when she cleaned my rooms and she simply forgot it.”
Atherton’s usually affable expression replaced his earlier frown. “Of course, that’s bound to be
it, unless you have French spies following you, searching for that demmed paper that half London knows you possess.”
Blake almost laughed. “Since it came from a battlefield, one assumes the French already know what’s in the message. Besides, it’s too late for them to try to hide the code. My version is but a copy. The original is somewhere in Whitehall, being pored over by experts—provided anyone has bothered to look at it at all.”
“Well, then, batty landladies and not French spies. How boring your life is, old chap.” He handed Blake his stick. “You might want to use this. Looks to me as if you’re in more danger of losing your head than I am.”
“Your conquests—and their husbands—are more dangerous than andirons. One of your jilts or their irate spouses is likely to take a knife to your neck one of these days.” Blake returned to their previous topic while his mind quietly worked at the puzzle of who might want him dead—or if the family curse was more than superstition. Neither possibility seemed credible. A string of bad luck made more sense. Still, Bernie had just been here. Could he have . . . ? No, that made even less sense. Killing Blake wouldn’t get the bird back.
“Wealthy widows are more my taste these days.” Exhibiting no shame at the admission, Atherton ambled down the stairs after Blake. “If it were not for Quent’s eagle eye, I should go after Lady Bell. Now there is a lady ripe for dalliance.”
“Dragon Lady would bite off your foolish head. Leave her to Quentin. They deserve each other,” Blake said dismissively. “I should have studied the strategy of courtship instead of chess. How do I make Miss Carrington speak to me again?”
“I almost hate to see another friend caught by ball and chain,” Nick said mournfully as they left the house. “But Fitz seems to have done well, so perhaps there is something agreeable about the wedded state.”
“Money,” Blake said succinctly, striding down the street in the direction of the soiree he knew Miss Carrington would attend. “An ability to pay one’s bills leads to happiness.”
The Devilish Montague Page 11