The admittance burned straight through him. She was happy to see him. Warmth fanned out in the confines of his chest. “So then?”
“But you obviously have an issue with him, in which case you probably should have considered avoiding us or riding off again after a brief greeting. Instead, you ruined what was actually a perfectly nice walk.”
Sighing, he determined to make an attempt at an apology. “I am sorry. That was not my intention. But you cannot possibly be enamored with him, in which case—”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“Because he talks about nothing but sheep!”
She actually stomped her foot in response to that remark. “Only because you encouraged him to do so. Until you arrived, we were actually having a riveting discussion about hothouse roses.”
He couldn’t help but stop for a second. “You have an interest in that?”
“No. Of course not. He brought me a bouquet, and my enthusiasm with it sort of led to the subject in a roundabout way.”
Noting that her anger had dissipated a little, he decided to take advantage. “Come,” he said, offering her his arm. “I will escort you home.”
She stared at him for a long second, then sighed as though expelling all of the hardships of the world with one single breath. Her hand slipped into place, and the two of them started forward, crossing Piccadilly and following one of the paths through Green Park toward the Huntley House garden gate.
“I’ve missed you, you know,” she said after a while.
The comment completely threw him. “Really?” He couldn’t help but glance at her. She was biting her lip in a way that made him want to sink his own teeth into that plump piece of flesh. Would she welcome such a wicked advance? Or would she protest and insist upon gentler caresses?
The wondering was going to see him committed in Bedlam.
“Not the arguing,” she went on, “but the company. Mr. Lowell and Mr. Burton are both pleasant enough. I’m sure marrying either of them would result in a comfortable life. But . . .”
Her voice faded into the background, drowned out by his mind’s fixation with that one sentence. It would mean that one of those men would have the right to bed her, that one of them would see her naked, have the privilege of touching her in the most intimate of ways possible, of bringing her pleasure, and worse—of having her bring them pleasure. Such a notion was not to be borne. It clawed at his brain and turned his blood to thick and sluggish gunk that made his entire body feel heavy with disgust.
“Coventry?”
He started at the urgent sound of her voice. “Hmm?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
Shaking his head, he tried to focus on her pretty features in the hope that doing so would banish the unsettling thoughts he’d just been having. “Forgive me, but I must have gotten distracted.”
“By what?”
“A political issue,” he lied, hoping such a subject would make her relent. To be certain of it, he followed it with a question of his own. “You were saying?”
“Nothing much besides how I enjoy your company.” He now wished he’d paid better attention. “We might not always agree on everything, but I find that I rather like that.”
“You do?” That he had not expected.
She shrugged. “There’s something to be said for complete and utter honesty. It means I can appreciate your compliments more because I know you’re saying what you truly think as opposed to what you’re expected to say. In other words, you would never tell me I look lovely unless you actually believed it.”
He couldn’t help but smile in response to her observation. “That is true. And since we are on the subject, you do look incredibly fetching today. Your hair is especially enticing.”
“My hair?”
He had not meant to go quite that far, but since he had . . . “It is sometimes more riotous, but today the curls have settled in exactly the right way.” When she blushed, he felt compelled to add, “I would be tempted to touch it if such a gesture were allowed.”
Surprise sprang to life in her eyes, and he wondered if perhaps he’d revealed too much. But this concern was quickly forgotten beneath the thick haze of lust that followed when she quietly whispered, “Oh yes,” for it bore with it not one but two revelations, the first one being that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. The second was that he now sensed how she might respond when she came apart in his arms, and that alone was enough to jar his senses back to the proper time and place.
He’d started a dangerous game now—one from which he’d be wise to retreat unless he wanted to acquire a wife. Which he really didn’t. His life was complicated enough without having to deal with a marriage, as well. Not to mention that Lady Amelia was the sort of woman who would want to be included in his affairs. He would have to explain things to her. Which was something he simply couldn’t imagine doing, because what if she failed to understand? What if she failed to forgive him for lying? It wasn’t a risk he was prepared to take. No matter what. Because if she failed to understand . . . if she failed to safeguard his secrets . . . His heart drummed an unsteady beat at the thought of such a thing coming to pass.
Taking her in, her now pondering gaze, he knew he ought to be able to trust her. After all, her loyalty toward her siblings was undeniable. But this wasn’t just about him. It was about protecting his sister’s reputation even in death and about safeguarding Jeremy’s future. So he would have to forgo the temptation she offered and throw a few punches instead.
“Will you tell me how your meeting went with the laborers?” she now asked. The passionate gaze with which she’d assessed him moments earlier had retreated, banked by a look of pure practicality.
“It went well. I found one of the offers particularly interesting because of the terms.” There was no denying her curiosity as he spoke. Her attention was now riveted on this new subject pertaining to the school. “They have agreed to a fixed fee as long as we buy all the materials ourselves, which should reduce the cost of labor while allowing us to negotiate with every supplier.”
“I like that idea.” She grew pensive for the next few paces, and he saw that they had almost reached her garden gate. “Are you still very busy?”
Not really.
“Yes.” He forced a more serious expression. “There are still a few things I must see to tomorrow and perhaps even on Saturday.”
“But you will come and collect me on Monday so we can visit the glazier?”
Being a man of his word and not liking the worry that spilled from her eyes, he deliberately put aside the concerns he had about keeping her company so often. Circumstance could not prevent it. Not when he’d now become her partner in this endeavor she was undertaking. He wasn’t precisely sure how that had happened, though his need to see her succeed so he wouldn’t get murdered by Huntley no doubt had something to do with it. It was the reason he’d offered to cover the costs and the reason he was now helping her procure the necessary people required to fix the house in a satisfying manner. That, and the fact that he had to keep an eye on her for his own peace of mind.
“Yes,” he told her simply. “I will come and collect you on Monday morning at ten. We will make a day of it since I would also like to take you out to visit one of the lumber mills and stone masonries outside London.”
“Oh. How fascinating!”
He couldn’t help but grin. “Do you know, I don’t believe I can think of another lady who would find it so.”
“Perhaps because they have no use for the products such places supply. But I do. Which is why I cannot think of anything else I would rather do than shop for flooring.” She gave him a wry smile. “I am fully invested in seeing this through to the end.”
“I know you are.” It was one of the things he admired about her, though he chose not to say so. Instead, he bid her a good day and waited until she was safely inside her garden with the gate securely closed behind her before mounting his horse and heading toward his club. From th
ere he would continue on home before making his way to the Black Swan Inn. He’d visited the place, which sat in the pit of St. Giles, a few times with Huntley when they’d been looking for something a bit tougher than what Gentleman Jackson’s was willing to allow.
The experience had been an exhilarating one. It had given Thomas the chance to shed his aristocratic shackles and to deny proper etiquette and protocol while engaging in a brutal fight that had served to exorcise his demons, if only for a moment.
There, in the Black Swan courtyard, with sweat soaking his shirt, his title hadn’t mattered. He’d been his opponent’s equal, and he’d taken a beating he now longed to experience again, if only to banish the lust that Lady Amelia provoked.
Tightening his grip on the reins, he directed his horse to St. James Street with strict self-censorship. He really had to pull himself together and stop thinking about her. Which of course, was much easier said than done.
Chapter 12
It was raining by the time Thomas returned home and handed his hat and gloves to his butler, Jones. Climbing the stairs, he headed along the dimly lit hallway and continued toward the third door on the left. Carefully, he opened it and stepped inside, immediately conscious of the easy breathing that came from the bed. He moved toward it on silent feet until he was close enough to study the sweet innocence of Jeremy’s face, now veiled in shadowy darkness. Thomas felt his heart clench. With each day that passed, he looked more and more like his mother—a living reminder of unrestrained love and of his irrefutable failure.
Returning downstairs, Thomas entered the parlor where he found his mother enjoying a sherry. She was reading a book and looked up when she heard him come in. “There you are.” Setting her book aside, she folded her hands in her lap and gave him her full attention. “I thought I would see you for supper.”
“I decided to eat at the club.” He crossed to the sideboard and proceeded to pour himself a brandy.
“A note would have been helpful. I waited over half an hour for you to arrive. You always join me in the evenings.”
Glancing at her, he wondered at how youthful she looked in spite of her advancing years. She was in her fifties now with the occasional gray hair starting to show, but that did not detract from her beauty. “Forgive me. I should have informed you, but there was much on my mind. Returning home at a specific hour so as not to disappoint you wasn’t one of them.”
She sat back as if he’d slapped her, but then her expression hardened, her spine straightened and her chin tipped up. She glared at him much like Lady Amelia was prone to doing these days. “Sit down, Thomas.” The use of that name sent a tremor scurrying through him. She rarely used it unless she was very displeased with him. Because of that, it always carried a sharpness to it, like a blade slicing away the last twenty years of his life until he was but a little boy feeling the shame of whatever wrongdoing he had committed.
So he sat and faced her, aware he’d made her the subject of his irritation once more. She didn’t deserve it. Not after everything she’d had to suffer already. He opened his mouth to speak, to apologize yet again for the rotten mood he was in, only to be cut short by her staying hand.
“I do not want you to tell me how sorry you are,” she said. “What I want is for you to explain what you are going through.” Her expression softened. “Perhaps I can help or offer some sort of advice.”
“I very much doubt that,” he told her grimly, then took a sip of his drink.
She gave him a dubious look that suggested she thought him naive. “You won’t know that unless you open up to me. This is what . . . the third time this week you have given me some cutting remark?” She sighed, and as she did so, her entire body seemed to deflate. “Something is going on, and I would like to be able to help.” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Is it this business with Lord Liverpool?”
“He made no effort to gain support for my bill.” The anger and frustration he felt hardened his words. “At least I was able to convince Hawthorne and Wilmington. They would have backed it as a personal favor, but Liverpool?” He shook his head. “His dismissal probably shouldn’t surprise me when not even you were willing to give your support.”
“That is unfair. I encouraged you to do what you could—for Jeremy’s sake. The problem is I am no longer sure it would be in his best interest to inherit a duke’s title. And before you start getting defensive and insist I am against him, I am not. I love that boy with every piece of my heart. His existence means the world to me.”
Nodding, he reached out and covered her hand with his. “I know.” Their eyes met, and for a moment their mutual pain hovered between them.
“It might be easier if you were to marry.”
The comment made him withdraw his hand. He leaned back and downed the remainder of his drink in one quick gulp, relishing the way it burned his throat and numbed his mind just a little.
“That is not an option.”
“Be reasonable, Coventry. You must think of the continuation of your title.”
“Prewit can inherit,” he said, in reference to his cousin. “Or one of his sons, if he happens to die before me.”
“Well yes, I suppose that is true, but what about sharing your life with someone who cares for you? What about children?”
“I already have a son, in case you have forgotten.”
“Forgive me. I did not mean to—”
“As for a life partner . . .” A vision of hazel eyes entered his mind. “She would have to know everything, and I am not prepared to share that much with anyone. The amount of trust required . . . It simply isn’t possible.”
She seemed to consider this and, to his surprise, she nodded. “You are probably right.”
“What?”
Picking up her glass, she set the rim to her lips and drank. “I see no point in pursuing a hopeless topic.” Returning the glass to the table, she suddenly smiled. “Let us discuss Lady Amelia instead, shall we?”
His entire body revolted against the idea. “Why?”
“Well, we are responsible for her until her brother’s return.”
“You must not forget about Lady Juliette,” he said in the hope of avoiding a lengthy discussion on Lady Amelia alone. With the state he was in, he might not survive it.
“Of course not. But she is not our main concern. She will have at least another year in which to prepare herself for courtship while Lady Amelia must make an attachment as soon as possible.” She expelled a breath. “Lady Everly agrees that Mr. Burton and Mr. Lowell both make excellent suitors for her. What I wish to know is your opinion.”
He tightened his hold on his glass and made an effort not to bare his teeth when he spoke to her next. “Mr. Burton is a bore—an amicable bore, I will grant you, but a bore nonetheless. Certainly, she may enjoy his kind gentility at first, but after a year or so she will begin to feel trapped. The man simply hasn’t a passionate bone in his body. Unless he is speaking of sheep, that is.”
“Well.” His mother stared at him from behind a pair of wide blue eyes. “You have given that quite a bit of thought, I must say.”
Wincing, he tried to dismiss her implication. “It is something that became glaringly obvious to me earlier today when I encountered him in the park. He was out walking with Lady Amelia.”
“Ah.” She nodded as if this were the solution to every puzzle that had ever existed.
He clenched his jaw. “What does that mean? Ah?”
She gave a little shrug. “Nothing. Tell me your thoughts on Mr. Lowell.”
Hesitating, Thomas wondered briefly about her quick dismissal of his question. It felt as though she was trying to distract him from something, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what. So he pushed his wariness aside and formed a response.
“He is handsomer than Burton, but his reputation isn’t nearly as clean. That being said, I do believe he will be faithful to the woman he chooses to marry and . . . given his rakish streak and his academic interests, he wil
l definitely prove to be a more interesting companion.”
“You have no concern about his club?”
“Its exclusivity, and the fact that even the king enjoys a membership there, prevents me from being critical of it. Certainly, there are no doubt those who find it scandalous, but such is life, Mama. One cannot please everyone.”
“So then you would recommend Lowell? He is your preferred match for Lady Amelia?”
His entire body seemed to strain against the idea. It repelled him to think of her wrapped in another man’s arms when he . . . Damn! He hadn’t even kissed her, so what claim could he possibly think of having? None. That was what. And this whole possessive streak he was on—this itch to shout at someone or hit something—was getting out of hand.
“Yes,” he managed to say while his throat closed around the word, strangling it as he pushed it past his lips.
His mother studied him. “You look like you did when your father and I denied you that rifle you wanted when you were a child.”
He blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember?” Her eyes had taken on a faraway look. “You saw it in a shop window when we walked to church one Sunday morning. It was a splendid thing, I have to admit, but you were much too young—only ten, if I recall.” She shook her head as if trying to clear her mind. “In any case, you were very displeased to be denied it, and your face . . . it bore the same petulant expression it does now.”
“Don’t be absurd.” Averting his gaze, he focused all his attention on trying to rid himself of the panic creeping into his bones.
“Perhaps your grumpiness this past week is not only because of Lord Liverpool’s lack of cooperation.”
Don’t say it.
He clasped the armrest while she continued. “Perhaps Lady Amelia is partly to blame, as well?”
His head snapped around to face her. “That is ludicrous, Mama. She is Huntley’s sister—a woman whom I have been charged to protect no matter how bloody difficult she likes to make that task at times.”
The Duke of Her Desire: Diamonds in the Rough Page 14