Richard laughed, his friend's good humor a welcome balm for his overheated mind. "Pierce, I hope you never change. It would be a sad day for all the lonesome wenches of the world. Have a seat, man"
"What of you?" Pierce said, his brown eyes sparkling as he flopped onto a wing chair across from Richard's desk. "The on dit is that you are so smitten by your new wife, the Cyprians and Impures have given up all hope of your ever gracing their beds again. I have heard from those in authority that you hover over her at all the routs and balls, growling and snorting at any man who so much as even glances at her."
The all-too-accurate picture Pierce was painting of Richard's behavior made him wince. He had acted like a love-sick fool because he was a love-sick fool, his thoughts consumed by Leah, by the scent of her skin, the taste of her lips, the heat of her passion, his body thrumming to life, just from the sight of her smile.
"Pure exaggeration," he said, his throat tightening on the lie. "I've had disasters aplenty these few weeks past, and with you gone from Town, I've lacked a companion wicked enough to accompany me in my debaucheries. Care to free me from my domestic chains this evening?"
"Absolutely," Pierce agreed cheerfully. Then his smile waned, his brows drew together, the sparkle of merriment vanished from his eyes. He circled the brim of his top hat through his fingers. "So, how fares your brother?"
"You've heard, then?" Richard pinched the bridge of his nose. "What is the gossip?"
"That he tried to pop himself off."
"And he nearly succeeded, too, the half-wit."
"So he recovers?"
"Thanks to God and my wife." Richard ran a shaking hand over his face, his mind conjuring images of his brother with a gun pointed at his head, an image likely to haunt Richard all the days of his life. He could still smell the smoke, the blood, the acrid sweat of his own fear. "He has seen the light, or so he says, and vows he will mend his wicked ways. And as he was tied to his bed for over a week, he couldn't get at the liquor cabinet, so his body is free, too, which is why I cannot offer you a brandy. I've ordered it all packed away. When he starts to get around, I want no temptations glaring him in the face"
"Sounds as if the boy is ready to grow up," Pierce said quietly, his gaze meeting Richard's. "For your sake, I hope it is true. You look haggard as Hamlet lost in his madness"
"Thank you for sharing that," Richard drawled, scrubbing his hand over his jaw, the bristle reminding him he hadn't shaved in days. "But enough of my troubles. Tell me the news from Greydon Hall. What are your plans for the estate?"
Pierce studied the toe of his black Wellington boots. "'Tis very bad news, I'm afraid. The coffers are empty. The estate bled dry. I am forced to raise the ready the hard way. The contracts are signed. The announcement will soon be made. I'm to marry an heiress." "
Richard's eyes widened in shock. Then mirth replaced shock. He snorted and laughed until he was laughing so hard his sides ached. Pierce's features remained grave, as if he were perched atop a horse with a noose wrapped around his neck, waiting for the animal to be yanked from beneath him.
... Twasn't a jest, then?" Richard said, still laughing. "Who is the lucky lass?"
"Lady Julia Houghton."
Richard shuddered. "A haughty beauty and cold as ice. Out with it, man. I want all the gruesome details."
"The Houghton estate marches with mine," Pierce said bitterly. "The marquess has only the one child, a daughter to his ever-lasting disgust, who, for some unfathomable reason, has decided it is I she wishes to wed. After three seasons out, with no prospect of a match in sight, her father finds himself so desperate, he is even willing to settle her on a mere viscount, a newly titled and lascivious lord, no less. The letters patent, it seems, allow the properties to pass through the female line. You behold before you, Richard, a prime stud."
"I know how you feel," Richard said quietly, sliding his pen and standish to the right hand corner of his desk, before sliding them to the center again. "I was bought and paid for myself."
Pierce grunted. "I believe your circumstances differed greatly from my own. You sacrificed yourself on the altar of paternal devotion. I, on the other hand, am selling myself for money as any other bawdy basket would."
"You are in good company, then," Richard said, wishing he could slam his fist into the wall, anything to drive away the guilt and pain gnawing his gut, the visions of Leah haunting his dreams, the aching need he felt for his wife. "Half the husbands of the ton were bought and paid for by their wives. What say you. Let us retire to the Stag and drown ourselves in whisky."
"Lead on," Pierce agreed, rallying his usual good cheer.
A soft knock sounded on the door.
Until that moment, Richard had never known he had a yellow streak as wide as the Thames running down his spine. His hands shook, his breath burned. The room suddenly seemed much too small, the walls pushing in on him, with no means of escape. He wanted to lock the door, bar the entry. Anything but face her.
Instead, he shoved his hands into the waistband of his breeches and gave the call to enter. He held his breath.
First the door opened a crack. Then her dainty hand appeared. Then Leah peeked around the corner, all golden hair and shining eyes. Her smile lit her face like a sunburst on a cloudy day, blinding in its intensity.
"Forgive me," she said, her gaze meeting Richard's, her lips curved in a tentative smile, as if unsure of her welcome. "I did not realize you had company"
Her melodious voice, soft and enticing, wrapped around Richard, drawing him closer, his feet moving of their own accord. He forgot about resolutions and defenses and Pierce as he gawked like a schoolboy at his wife, tension running from his fingers to toes, clenching the muscles along the base of his spine, not understanding her words until the door started to close.
"No, wait," he shouted, and even to his own ears, his voice sounded desperate, as if once the door closed, he would never see her again. Stupid, foolish dreams.
She stepped into the room. Her golden hair flowed over her shoulders in luminous, cascading waves. Her simple frock of pomona green paled beneath her clear green eyes, their dusting of amber catching the light shining in through the bay windows, her bewitching green eyes that had enslaved him.
Richard's throat clenched, his mouth so dry, he needed a bucket of water to ease his thirst. He locked his knees against the overwhelming urge to drag her into his arms, to ravish her lips, to take her here on the library floor. He was insane.
A gasping sound brought Richard's attention back to his friend. Pierce stood as stiff as a day-old corpse, his face stark, his eyes wide and fixed on Leah's face. His lips moved, but no sound escaped, then a name carried on a whisper.
Richard shot his gaze to Leah, but she didn't appear to have heard. A concerned frown narrowed her eyes.
"Perhaps you should send for a doctor," she said.
The sound of her voice seemed to snap Pierce out of whatever spell had possessed him. His breath escaped in a furious gush. His cheeks turned as crimson as his waistcoat.
He bowed. "Forgive me for frightening you, Your Grace. I am travel weary. Nothing more, I assure you"
With stiff formality, Richard performed the introductions. He had to get her out of the room before he gave in to temptation and dragged her into his arms, with no regard to propriety or sanity or Pierce's presence in the room.
Leah smiled. "I am happy to meet you, at last, Lord Greydon. I have heard many bad things about you, you know."
"All true, I fear." Pierce gripped her hand, raised it to his lips. His gaze studied her face with relentless intensity. "I understand you come from Lancashire. Near Preston?"
"That is correct," Leah said. "And you are the new Lord Greydon. My aunt wrote that the old lord had died. She hinted at dark scandals and ancient secrets. My aunt has a flair for the melodramatic. Much as I do, I'm afraid," she added with a soft sigh.
"By any chance, would you be related to the Buttons of Heallfrith Manor?"
"Bu
rton was my mother's family name," Leah said. "But my mother passed away and only my mother's sister remains
"There is no one else?" Pierce said sharply, making her brows lift and her eyes widen.
"What did you want, madam?" Richard interrupted, anxious to sweep her from the room before Pierce blurted out suspicions that would only cause her pain.
His rudeness made her blink. She tilted her head as she turned to him, a warm flush spreading over her cheeks. "Alison and I wished to invite you to join us for supper in the gardens. Or will you take a tray with Geoffrey?"
"I shall dine out with Greydon this evening," he said, taking her arm and leading her toward the door, then wishing he had never touched her as the heat of her skin, the scent of roses clinging to her hair, made his blood burn, his body harden, his heart break. "Was there anything else?"
Leah shook her head.
"Then I shall bid you adieu."
Confusion at his curt tone narrowed her eyes. "Yes, of course," she said. "Forgive me for disturbing you. It was a pleasure to meet you, Lord Greydon ."
She dipped a speedy curtsy, then walked with quiet dignity through the door. The room turned bleak without her. He rubbed his hand over his chest, as if he could rub away the hollow gorge where his heart used to be. He had to distance himself from her, and he had to do it fast, because he wanted her as he had never wanted anyone in his life, and it was killing him.
He drew a steadying breath, then turned to Pierce.
"Although I think I know the answer, would you mind very much telling me what just happened here?"
"Richard," he said, his voice choked, his face as white as his cravat. "You are never going to believe this. Your wife looks just like her. The resemblance is amazing. They could have been sisters."
Chapter Twenty-Three
Through eyes clouded by whisky, Richard leaned his back against the door as he stared at the naked whore on the bed.
Never had he seen such massive breasts. While he watched, she lifted and squeezed and played with herself. One hand slipped between her thighs, dipped into her wetness, an erotic display that failed to entice him. The stench of ale and sweat was thick and heavy in the room. It clung to the bedding, to the walls, to the very air. Bile rose in his throat.
What was he doing in this rancid, rat-infested sewer when he could be home with his wife, the only breath of fresh air in his stinking, miserable life?
Leah ... just the thought of her name sent the heat of longing through his veins. But it wasn't a mere physical desire, though, of course, there was always that, the burning need, the desperate, hungry ache to possess her. But this was different. Something he had never experienced before. The sheer desire to cradle her against his chest, to breathe the scent of her hair and skin as she lay in his arms, her soothing voice relating the mundane details of her day, which children at the foundling home needed what articles of clothing, which charity was soliciting her support, what meals she had planned for the week.
He wanted her worries and her joys. Her sorrows and her pain. He wanted her, dammit. Only her.
His gut clenched, once again sending the threatening taste of bile up the back of his throat. He pulled a sovereign from his pocket, tossed it on the bed, then stumbled from the room to the next chamber along the passage.
He pounded on the door. "I am leaving," he shouted through the wood. "I will send the carriage back for you"
The door snapped open to reveal the naked, smiling viscount.
"Done so soon?" Pierce chided in a drunken slur. "Do not bother with the carriage 'til morning. This bawdy wench and I should be done by then"
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Richard strode down the stairs and through the taproom, filled with drunken sots and sailors and whores, their boisterous laughter following him onto the streets. Once inside the carriage, he extinguished the lamps and let the darkness surround him. The wheels rattling over the uneven paving stones jostled his already aching head.
Most people wondered why he bothered with a reprobate like Pierce who seemed hell-bent on his own destruction. Only Richard knew the man behind the mask of devil-maycare depravity. They were kindred spirits, each haunted by the sins of their pasts.
On rare occasions, the gentle heart of the man Pierce used to be would shine through. Like the time he had offered those insightful words to Richard on how horrible it must be to watch one's children die. But for one cruel twist of fate, Pierce's life would have turned out very differently.
If Richard's suspicions proved true, Pierce was the father of Catherine Jamison's child. There was no doubt that the two of them could have met. Pierce spent many a month throughout the years at his uncle's estate, situated not many miles from Leah's childhood home, but Pierce was not a man who would seduce an innocent maiden, then abandon her to the streets. He confined his illicit relations to bawdy wenches and courtesans, women to whom he paid good coin to service his needs.
No, if it were true, something more sinister had to have happened. Richard would wager a thousand pounds that Leah's father set the whole sordid story in motion. It was one more piece of the puzzle he was working to solve, though at this point, his solicitors had turned up nothing. The lack of clues was not surprising, given how many years had passed.
The carriage lurched to a halt. Richard trudged up the stairs, entered his room, then stalked straight to Leah's door.
His blood roared in his ears, pounded through his veins, the whisky muddling his brain until his need turned savage. He curled his hands into fists, dragged them down the door.
With eyes clenched tight, he choked on a moan.
How long would it take to purge her from his heart?
To purge her from his soul?
An insidious voice inside his mind taunted him. Open the door. Or are you afraid? He grasped the knob, turned the handle. Just one look, he promised himself.
He wanted just one look. What harm could it do? He wrenched open the door. She was asleep on the chaise, her golden hair curling over the cushions, gold fire against plush green velvet. An open book lay on the table beside her. A candle burned low on its base.
His knees wobbled as he approached her, which he blamed on the whisky and not her perfume, a blend of rosewater and her own enticing essence, more powerful than the most potent of opiates.
His fingers shook as he brushed the soft curls from her brow, traced the fragile line of her jaw. Heat shot up his arm, burned through his bones. His head was throbbing.
This was madness. He knew what he stood to lose.
Careful not to awaken her, he gathered her into his arms and carried her to bed. But when he should have released her, he didn't. He couldn't. He pressed a tender kiss upon her brow, but not her lips. He knew if he kissed her lips, he would never let her go. He dragged his gaze up the length of her body, memorizing her shape, her form. Her long, lean legs outlined by the silk of her dress. The gentle flare of her hips. The sweet curve of her neck. He wanted to wrap her in his arms, to hold her against his chest. He wanted to love her.
His mind churned with the words, to love her.
With a supreme effort of will, he dragged his gaze to her face, burned her image into his brain. Her sun-swept hair. Her oval face. Her cheeks that glowed with a natural joy that couldn't be dampened, not even in sleep. Her lips that had so often parted for his kiss curled into a smile, and he hoped she was dreaming of him. Then he cursed himself for a fool.
He pulled the coverlet over her shoulders, turned and stalked to his door. Before he crossed the threshold, he paused.
One more look. He wanted one more look.
He knew he would never see her like this again.
Rachel suppressed her smile as she strode into the blue room and found Leah and Richard already seated at the table. Neither spoke nor raised their gazes from their plates. The only sound was the clank and clatter of silver scraping china.
A bubble of delicious laughter threatened to choke Rachel, but she pressed her lips into a so
ber line and took her seat with all the grace and dignity of her station. She had to take care not to let her feelings show, but it was so hard. Too hard.
Every time she looked at Richard, she felt her stomach curl and her breasts swell, aching for his touch. She longed to trace the hard slope of his jaw, to kiss his brooding lips, to run her fingers over his sex, to draw him into her body.
Good heavens, her pulse was beating frantically, and an unladylike sensation of wetness covered her skin.
She pushed her gaze to the wall.
For weeks, she had been forced to watch Richard and his foolish wife grow closer while all her attempts to drive them apart had failed. Absurd as it had seemed, Rachel had even begun to fear that Richard was falling in love with the girl.
The thought had driven Rachel to the edge of reason, until she could scarce think for the jealousy and the fear that this time, she had truly lost him. But all that was over now.
Richard had spent every night of the past two weeks at his clubs or carousing with his scurrilous friend, Greydon, while Leah remained at home with Alison and Geoffrey.
Though Leah tried to hide her growing agitation, her expressive eyes showed all of her pain, all of her confusion while her face was as stark as the moon in winter.
And to think, Rachel owed it all to the fiasco of Geoffrey's botched attempt to take his own life and the delirious ramblings of that drunken fool. The truth behind Richard's hasty wedding had surprised her. Yet it made such perfect sense.
He was so damned honorable, he would sacrifice his life for those he loved, and he loved Alison above all others.
She was his flesh, his blood, and Rachel's only real weapon in her fight to win him back. How stupid of her not to have realized it sooner. Now she knew what she had to do.
"Tonight is the Houghtons' ball," Rachel said into the silence. "You are promised to attend"
A Dangerous Man Page 22