Nick had taken no more than two steps toward the group, intending to either watch the sparks fly or provide the woman’s escape before his sister noticed, when jerked from his tunnel vision by a tap on his shoulder.
“She set you on me early this evening,” he observed without turning his head.
Allie’s husband, Thaddeus Findemoor, Viscount Nockham, tried to appear stern, a difficult proposition five years younger and two stone lighter than Nick. Under his voice and below the buzz of conversation, he said, “I thought last time was the last time.”
Nick raised a quizzical brow, pretending relative innocence.
“The dreadful-looking girl who just stopped your world turning,” Nockham said, even his freckles aligning against her. “You told my wife you had finished with married women a year ago. To say nothing of why you’d want such an ugly one.”
“Ugly is an overstatement.” He took in his brother-in-law’s plain brown coat and unruly cinnamon-colored hair, tidy only by the good graces of Nick’s sister. “Not as ugly as you, at any rate.”
Nockham ignored the insult. “You are the only man in London who would disagree. And she is married nonetheless. Lady Holsworthy, if you hadn’t guessed.”
“Lady Holsworthy?” Nick repeated, like a schoolboy who hadn’t studied his lesson. Whatever the object of his attention had just said in conversation, Lady Yarley and Lady Lannadae looked to be on the verge of a synchronized swoon.
Nockham rolled his eyes at Nick’s obvious distraction. “Did you not meet her when she was in England?”
“I have never seen her before in my life.” If he had, Nick would have bedded her long before now.
Nick didn’t take up with a man’s wife every Season. On occasion, he engaged a paid companion or kept a mistress in the demi-monde, but he seduced men’s spouses often enough to be known for it. With no inclination toward marriage, logic dictated he choose women who couldn’t ask it of him. His lovers were always worldly, with plenty to lose and no intention of losing it. He would rather remove his own feet with a penknife than dance with anyone in the marriage mart.
The coterie of women circling his sister was becoming unruly. Girls laughed aloud against their mother’s whispered admonishments; dowagers made half-accurate pronouncements about Nick’s lifetime of debauchery; the female chattering became so noisy, Nick could almost hear the married women and widows discussing the cut of his breeches. He was surprised none of the hostesses had made her displeasure known, though Lady Sefton was eying him with an unquestionable glower and the orchestra had increased in volume.
Looking away from the melee, he saw Malbourne bowing over Lady Holsworthy’s hand. He nearly upset a chair in his haste to attend her before the ingratiating Frenchman danced with her first. Unfortunately, Nockham grabbed his arm before he could make his escape.
Forcing a laugh for the benefit of those nearby, Nockham hissed, “You. Are. Staying. Here. If you refuse the girls Allie has chosen so you can chase yet another man’s wife, you will tell her the reason why.”
Nick wrenched his arm away and straightened the offensive lace, asking caustically, “Wagered on my prospects, have you?”
“I lost a monkey when Lady Cecily set her cap for you last year, and have declined to enter into the continuing fray. You are more stubborn than I credited, but at nearly fifty, you should be married with ten children, like the rest of us poor chaps.”
“I am but six-and-forty, and you have only four children.”
When Baron Holsworthy appeared by his wife’s side with the Marquess of Firthley, preceded by whispers throughout the building, Nick remembered why he had wanted to meet her in the first place, which had nothing to do with her fascinating face and remarkable, sunrise-tinted hair.
Eight hours earlier, during extended discussion among the king and a handful of other noblemen, Nick had played a very small part in the baron’s probable elevation to earl and Privy Councilor, inspiring him to further an acquaintance with both man and wife. When asked, he had opined that the elevation was only Holsworthy’s due, having made billions of pounds for two monarchs and many members of Court in nearly a half-century of service to the Crown. Not to mention many mysterious missions among the heathens of the world as His Majesty’s ambassador and spy.
Lady Holsworthy’s chin jutted out, shoulders straightened, and voice resonated across the ballroom, “I don’t give a tuppenny damn for the way of things in London!”
Nick choked on his laugh and almost spilled his champagne, interest growing by the minute. If not for His Majesty openly pondering whether Lady Holsworthy should be made a countess in her own right, she had just ruined herself utterly. An assignation with Nick could hardly make things worse.
Someone in her foursome must have said something amusing, for Lady Holsworthy’s distinctive laugh rang out like a too-loud clock chime ringing just slightly earlier than the hour, causing another ripple of turned heads and titters across the ballroom.
Lines were forming for a contredanse, but Lords Firthley and Holsworthy left their wives alone, presumably to find the card room. Lady Holsworthy glanced longingly toward the ladies’ retiring room, but as she took a step toward the hall, Lady Firthley latched onto her wrist. Nick watched them battle it out beneath feigned good humor.
“You must have been abroad when she had her come-out,” Still at his elbow, Nockham imparted a tasty morsel. “I heard fifteen years ago three times on the way across the ballroom, so I assume it’s true.”
“Is that your standard?” Nick asked, smirking. “I had wondered.” He thought for a moment, reminiscing. “I think I was in… India? Perhaps Russia.” He had spent more than ten years travelling extensively during his youth; the reason Lady Holsworthy had piqued his interest even before he laid eyes on her.
“Not a suitor to be found,” Nockham continued, “but a few days after her presentation, the biggest wallflower of the Season was betrothed to a newly minted baron with an independent fortune larger than most peers. Soon after, they left England on a ship provided by the Prince of Wales. Since then, huge quarterly dividends and any number of settled treaties, but no Holsworthys.”
“He will shortly be made a Privy Councillor and styled Earl of Huntleigh.” Glancing around, Nick lowered his voice. “Which is confidential. I doubt Holsworthy has yet been informed, and I’ll not break the king’s confidence.”
“‘Tis a poor-kept secret. Now that Prinny can grant peerages without Parliament, seven-to-one at White’s Holsworthy will be the first.”
“His Majesty, King Prinny, to you, my boy,” Nick quipped. “It will never do for a mere viscount to be so familiar with the most recent King George.”
“She’ll be a dowager countess soon, and a wealthy one at that. He’s come home to die, I heard.” Nockham indicated Lord Holsworthy with nothing but a shrug of his shoulder, continued disdain for a merchant, even a titled one.
“When His Majesty confers a title ‘for a lifetime of service to the Crown,’ the recipient is likely to expire before long. Had he stayed in England, this might have happened years ago.” Of course, they both knew—everyone in London knew—if Lord Holsworthy had stayed in England, he would never have amassed such a fortune or so advanced the interests of England, so there would be no earldom at all.
“If he had stayed, he would never have had the money to buy his barony,” Nockham pronounced.
Nick refuted this with a snort. “Holsworthy’s barony, with his appointment to the diplomatic service, was conferred by the late king after he ‘liberated’ a huge tract of South American timberland from under Spain’s nose.”
Nockham tilted his head, questioning any facts he hadn’t made up himself, so Nick obliged. “A peaceful treaty with some unheard-of heathen tribe.” Nick had listened to the tale just that afternoon, punctuated with Prinny’s laughter and pithy commentary about vanquished enemies of the Crown. “Eight thousand tons of mahogany and rosewood stripped and shipped back to England before the Spanish even knew
it was there—at fifty pounds sterling a ton, mind you—and he left the natives with enough guns and powder to slaughter every Spaniard on the continent. So, Mister Clewes became Baron Holsworthy, married the first girl he found with a yen for travel, and sailed away with a brand-new ship and a tea plantation in India as a royal wedding present.”
Nick paused while Nockham scoffed at the idea any king would show so much preference to a merchant, allowing Nockham to believe whatever he liked. Eventually, in a low, gruff voice reserved for times when Nick was discussing ladies with other men who were theoretically gentleman, he said, “The baron is more than twice her age.”
Nockham knew the voice quite well, and his raised eyebrows indicated what he thought of the innuendo inherent.
“Back to the wealthy would-be widow. You are becoming besotted.” Nockham looked down his nose. “And goodness knows why. Her skin, that gown.” He shuddered dramatically. “No wonder she never took. Of course, now she will have a title and her husband’s fortune and the sponsorship of the king.”
Nockham was right. Lord Holsworthy looked like a marionette held up by a puppeteer. The second his strings were cut, his poor wife would find herself as beset with fortune hunters as Nick. No, even more so, since Nick would keep control of his money and add his wife’s much smaller dowry. All of hers, rumored to be almost a quarter of a million pounds, would belong to her second husband.
“She will be the toast of the ton,” Nockham predicted. “And by toast, I mean burnt bread. Look at her. Like a badger up a tree. I had heard she was a proper diplomatic wife, setting aside the hyperbole about her barbaric travels, but can you imagine that charming an ambassador?”
Nick looked across at Lady Holsworthy and Lady Firthley bickering, the target of his interest hunched over, admittedly rather badger-like, half-hidden behind her cousin, peering furtively about, as though she might find a stalking wolf around a corner. With Nick in the room, a bit more apt a description than he would like to admit.
“During her season,” Nockham began, seemingly bent on destroying any warm feeling Nick might be developing, “not so much wallflower as wallpaper. It’s a wonder Holsworthy found her behind the potted plants. The very idea of Miss Isabella Smithson—Lady Holsworthy—as a prize in the marriage mart is absurd.” He used the honorific to emphasize the slight. As though his continued affronts needed additional emphasis.
“Her dowry will be a prize, to be sure.” Nick watched Lady Firthley, whose grip was surely leaving a bruise, foil the baroness’s attempted withdrawal behind a hideous screen painted with poorly-drawn cherubs.
“Lady Firthley is pretty, is she not?” he asked Nockham.
“I thought your interest was the baroness.”
“Invite her to dance with you.”
“Why would I—” Nockham sighed. “So you can sweep Lady Holsworthy onto the dance floor before anyone can tell her she should give you the cut direct. Your sister would skin me.”
“It would be ungallant to leave the lady without a partner.”
“It is ungallant to dance with a man’s wife without any sort of introduction, not that it has ever stopped you.”
Nick shrugged one shoulder. “Since both men deserted their wives in a ballroom without once dancing, their ladies are fair game. I do have some honor.”
“Is that your standard?” Nockham mimicked, “I had wondered.” He added, all but gnashing his teeth, “Leave her alone. There is enough talk without your dubious intentions.” Nick raised a brow at this sudden defense.
“Saving yourself being skinned?”
Ignoring him, Nockham leaned in, “Besides, I am not going to help you.” Nick sighed as he pulled out his pocket watch for the fiftieth time since he crossed the threshold.
“You may as well put that away. Allie has arranged dozens of eligible dance partners, any of whom would make you a beautiful, blushing bride.”
Nick’s jaw tightened as he glared at the gilt trim on the nearest wall, rather than the knot of beautiful, blushing would-be brides, now all peeking over their fans at him, since the music was nearing its end and they all hoped to be the one with whom he would choose to dance.
Through clenched teeth, he growled, “I’ve been a duke for ten minutes. I will marry when I tell you so, and not before.”
“Four years and your heir a second cousin,” Nockham nagged. “Your sister reminds me every morning at table. The last thing you need is some other man’s wife. And lest you imagine you will wed the widowed baroness—”
“Countess.”
“—you need someone young enough to give you children. She is well past thirty and Holsworthy never got a child on her.”
Nick eyed Lady Montingham’s grey hair and egret-feathered turban crossing the room with him in her sights, a girl in tow who looked no older than twelve. Deliberately assuming his most haughty mien, he turned his shoulder to speak more intently to Nockham, hoping she would see his temper and leave him be. Perhaps, if he looked serious enough—as though he were discussing the loss of his entire fortune, for instance—she would just apply to his sister.
“Stop talking about children unless berating the age of the schoolroom misses paraded before me. The girl with Lady Montingham should still be in leading strings.” He tossed a contemptuous glance and the lady changed course with her debutante to join the fresh-faced, young breeding stock surrounding Allison. Nick’s shoulders relaxed a bit.
They seized up again when Nockham casually jibed, “If you turned your adoring gaze toward the little girl with Lady Montingham, you’d make everyone’s life easier, including mine. You’ve been damned lucky, playing the second son all these years, but the need for an heir is not news.”
“I was rather hoping to leave this world long since, killed defending a lady’s honor or dispatching a scurrilous villain.”
“More likely your throat slit by a cardsharp or mind poisoned by demon rum. But all that is done. No more gaming hells. No more blue ruin. No more French mistresses. You have a duty.”
“To the Devil with deuced duty!” The last thing Nick would discuss was the misguided notion he hadn’t fulfilled his. Having been given every opportunity, and every reason, to shirk, he had instead made his mother happy by returning home before she died; bolstered his brother and the duchy, even as he watched David’s body fail; ensured his sister would never want for anything, even if her presently annoying husband died penniless; and nearly doubled the value of his family’s substantial holdings. No one he cared for would lose anything if the dukedom passed to his second cousin.
Nick dodging the subject of marriage seemed a small price for everyone else to pay.
“No French mistress has graced my bed since before the Revolution, nor have I drunk gin since I buried my brother.” He waved his gloved hand in Nockham’s face. “Gaming hells, I will grant you.”
He looked for Lady Holsworthy one last time, but she and her cousin had vanished. Shrugging philosophically, he concluded there was no sense in tempting himself. Nockham was quite right; he had given Allie his word, and she was dying to begin the introductions.
Besides, there was no need for Lord Holsworthy to become suspicious before Nick had even danced with his wife.
Chapter 3
Adolphe Fouret stepped into an alcove behind a folding wooden screen to surreptitiously toss back a mouthful of cheap rum from his flask. Ridiculous custom at this miserable establishment, serving tea and lemonade to grown men who needed to be good and drunk to stomach the endless matchmaking mamas and their marriageable misses. Not to mention, no matter the lies the hostesses told about exclusivity, they would allow anyone in knee breeches to walk through the door. Even a merchant, if he had enough money in the bank.
The rough liquor burned the back of his throat, but didn’t erase the humiliation of a common tradesman telling him off, as though the Duc de Malbourne was a whoremonger asking to pay a sou for his wife. That a man no better than a sailor had even been allowed to speak to a duke was intol
erable; his words and tone should have seen him drawn and quartered: “I will not countenance your advances toward my wife, Sirrah! Be gone, ere I am forced to demonstrate my contempt more plainly!”
Earl and Countess of Huntleigh, indeed. As if Adolphe needed any further proof King George was as mad as his father.
She was ugly as a street dog, with a mouth like a hellcat, and couldn’t even dress herself properly. Swarthy skin like a gypsy, even darker than his own, and he doubted she could dance a step, as adamantly as she was avoiding the floor. Once she was his duchesse, he would keep her locked in an armoire until she learned not to disgrace him in public.
Holsworthy should be grateful someone else wanted to dance with her, so he would only have to touch her in the dark—if he still had the stamina to screw her. With no children to show for it, he probably never had, not that Adolphe could blame him. It would take an Act of Parliament to get hard in her bed.
But for her merchant husband’s enormous fortune, Lady Holsworthy was as worthless as a provincial banknote.
Good God, this polka music was almost as grating as the teasing girls who had no idea what they weren’t offering. He would give anything to be back in Dover, enjoying the crashing silence of his seaside cliffs and the charms of Marie-Thèrese, with whom his fascination was coming to an end. She would have to be disposed of soon and another woman acquired, but for now, she was preferable to the unending misery of English aristocratic entertainments.
If King Louis had kept his word, Adolphe would be in the Vosges now, in his ancestors’ château, not at this grubby little dance hall peddling his title to repay debt amassed so Louis’ court-in-exile could live beyond its means. But he had been waiting five years to hear the French king had reinstated his property, and Adolphe’s creditors had finally lost patience with his claims to a noble fortune.
Louis had no right to renege on his promise. It wasn’t as though the woman had been a virgin or someone’s wife or mistress, and French women never meant non. How was Adolphe to know the king’s nephew nursed a fondness for her, when she looked nothing like his other women? Childhood friend—more likely the first girl to suck Antoine’s cock, and he fancied himself in love even now that she was a dried-up, ugly, old hag.
Royal Regard Page 3