“And I ended it. Which you seemed loathe to do, sweeting,” he drawled.
“Why, you arrogant rake—”
“Better a rake who knows himself than a self-deluding virgin.”
“How dare you.” Her eyes flashed. “I know exactly who I am.”
“Do you? Then why the masquerade?”
She paused for a tray-bearing footman to pass by before saying hotly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s a costumed event where people disguise their true identity.”
Reaching the end of the buffet, she marched to the other side of the Oriental screen where the beverage service was laid out. The exotic panels of birds and blooms didn’t offer much privacy but did partially shield them from the view of those at the table.
“I know what a dashed masquerade is,” she said between clenched teeth. “I simply don’t know why you’re blathering on about it.”
“Because I see through that camouflage of yours, and you’re not the lady you pretend to be,” he said succinctly.
~~~
A loud ringing sounded in Polly’s ears. Her respiration shallow and choppy, she stared at Revelstoke. Dear Lord, he couldn’t have gleaned her freakish ability…
“I b-beg your pardon?” she whispered.
“Do you think that your dowdy gown and holier-than-thou attitude can hide that you’re a hot-blooded wench through and through? Well, they don’t,” he said coldly. “All they do is make you a hypocrite.”
In a blink, her relief that her defect remained a secret turned to an anger so intense that scarlet seared the edges of her vision. He was lecturing her on hypocrisy? After he’d torn her to pieces behind the hedge with his friends for the sake of entertainment?
Resentment shattered her self-restraint.
He wants to talk about duplicity? Then, by God, we will.
“I know who I am. A plain, fat, and peculiar wallflower.” As she said the words, she felt a strange, painful satisfaction—like that of lancing a boil. It hurt, but it also felt good to release the festering inside. “If you try to say otherwise, you’re the hypocrite. Because I heard you—heard you say I’m not worth the sport.”
For an instant, he just stared at her. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Don’t bother denying it. I heard you,” she repeated with quiet vehemence.
“Then you ought to have your hearing—and your head—examined,” he clipped out. “I never said that.”
“You don’t even remember, do you?” she breathed in outrage.
Impatience flared around him. “Remember what?”
She leaned in, her plate nearly poking into his waistcoat. “A year ago, in the Kitburns’ garden. You and Lady Langley were talking with Lord Brockhurst and Mr. Severton.”
He frowned. “What of it?”
“Severton told you about their wager. That Brockhurst had won because he’d gotten a kiss from a wallflower. And you replied that he’d do as well to kick a half-dead mongrel because there was no sport in seducing a wallflower.” Pain and vindication made her voice tremble. “Well, I was that wallflower.”
She didn’t know what she expected as a response. Embarrassment. An apology, perhaps. Instead, his eyes darkened, as did his aura, his anger filling and vibrating in the sliver of space between them.
“That’s it?” His voice was menacingly soft. “This incident… it explains why you’ve been a judgmental shrew toward me since the moment we met?”
Her jaw slackened. “How dare you—”
“How dare I what? Accuse you of being something that you’re not?” His fury whipped through her. “The shoe doesn’t feel quite as comfortable on the other foot, does it?”
Oh no, he didn’t. He wasn’t going to shift the blame onto her.
“I am not the one at fault. I’m not the one who said unforgivable things—”
“Did it ever occur to you to ask me about that night? Instead of holding a grudge, of blaming me, did it ever cross your mind to just bloody ask?”
“And what would you have said if I did? That I misheard the entire incident?” she said scornfully.
“You didn’t mishear anything. I did say there’s no sport in seducing a wallflower,”—he said, his tone furious—“because it is a damned dishonorable activity. There’s no pride to be had in taking advantage of a female—of anyone who is vulnerable. That is the despicable act of a coward. The same kind of bastard, incidentally, who would kick a hapless mongrel.”
She blinked at his thunderous expression—at the righteous wrath blazing around him. He believed his words… he wasn’t lying. His explanation prickled through her like the painful, sensations of a reawakening limb. Her lips numb, all she could manage was a faint, “Oh.”
“How serious the two of you appear!” Rosie’s cheerful tones sliced through the thick tension. Poised by the screen, she was giving Polly and Revelstoke a quizzical look. “What scintillating topic are you discussing so intently, and may I join in?”
Polly wetted her lips, guilt warring with mortification.
Turning his back to her, Revelstoke bowed to Rosie. “It’s nothing of import.” His smooth words were a sharp contrast to his smoldering aura.
Rosie gave his arm a coquettish tap. “Are you certain you two aren’t keeping secrets from me?”
“Not at all. It is just that your charming presence eclipses my memory of the inconsequential conversation,” he drawled.
If a hole were to open up in the parquet floor, Polly would have leapt right in.
“Well, never mind, then.” Dimpling, Rosie said, “Mama has agreed to chaperone a tour of the garden, my lord. Will you come, too, Pols?”
“No.” Heat nudged horrifyingly behind Polly’s eyes. Setting her untouched plate down on the nearest table, she blurted, “That is, I, um, just remembered I have something to do after breakfast. If you’ll excuse me.”
Before the tears could fall, she turned from them both and fled for the door.
Behind her, she heard Revelstoke say, “Shall we, Miss Primrose?”
Chapter Twelve
An hour later, after a good and cleansing cry, Polly sat at her escritoire. She was trying to compose a letter to her sister Violet. The closest sibling to her in age, Vi was married to Viscount Carlisle and lived most of the year in Scotland with her husband and their young son.
Pen poised above the parchment, Polly tried to collect her thoughts.
Dear Violet,
I hope the weather is fair in Scotland. (Too mundane.)
I can’t wait for you to visit at the end of summer. (Too desperate.)
I’m a horrible person. I labelled Revelstoke a bounder when, in fact, I misjudged him badly. On top of that, I wronged Rosie.
A droplet of ink dripped off the nib, bleeding into the parchment.
“Dash it all,” she muttered.
The door whipped open, and Rosie burst into the room. “We must hurry!”
Balling the paper, her heart pounding, Polly said, “Are we, um, late for something?”
“Papa’s home.” Rosie hooked her by the arm, pulling her to her feet. “Mr. Lugo and Mr. McLeod are here as well, and they’re all in the study with Revelstoke.”
At the mention of Ambrose’s business associates, a cool drop of premonition slid down Polly’s spine. “What does that have to do with us?”
“We’re going to eavesdrop, of course,” her sister said, tugging her toward the door. “Don’t you want to know what is going on?”
Polly did… and didn’t. She needed to stay as far away from Revelstoke as possible. He was the ultimate threat to her equilibrium, bringing her to the heights of untold pleasure—she’d never experienced anything like that magical release in the stillroom—before dropping her like a stone into an ocean of guilt and misery. He was too dangerous a temptation, and, moreover, he brought out the worst in her.
You’ve been a judgmental shrew toward me since the moment we met
.
She swallowed painfully. He wasn’t wrong. And it shamed her.
While she might not be pretty or popular, she’d always thought of herself as a nice sort of girl. Not one who harbored unfound hostilities—and definitely not one who’d kiss the gentleman her sister fancied.
Guilt spiking inside her, she dragged her heels. “The earl’s affairs are none of my business.”
“Of course they are, silly.” Like a determined tugboat, Rosie towed her along, out of the room and toward the curving staircase. “Anything that involves Revelstoke involves me, and anything that involves me involves you.”
Her shame and remorse ballooned. The hours before dawn had indeed been dark as she’d contemplated whether to tell Rosie about her encounter with Revelstoke. Her mind had teeter-tottered between possible courses of action. On the one hand, the wrong she’d done was festering inside her. She hated herself for betraying Rosie and, to make matters worse, concealing the truth.
On the other, the possibility of angering Rosie gnarled her insides with anxiety. She’d never fought with Rosie over anything before. Typically, Polly was the easy-going one, the tag-along who was happy to let the other take the lead; she rarely gainsaid her sister, let alone interfered with the other’s wishes. Bewildered, she still didn’t understand how she and Revelstoke had wound up kissing when animosity simmered between them.
Polly dreaded angering Rosie—almost as much as she dreaded triggering the other’s hopelessness. For even now, she could see the feverish desperation in her sister’s aura. Rosie was walking a tightrope between hope and despair, and Polly couldn’t bear to tip the other into the dark abyss.
And who knew what could happen between Rosie and Revelstoke? she acknowledged with an odd little spasm. Now that she knew Revelstoke wasn’t the heartless cad she’d believed him to be, maybe he wouldn’t be such an unsuitable match for her sister after all. In the breakfast room, she’d seen attraction in the earl’s aura—which had to be for Rosie, who looked stunning in her raspberry-striped morning dress, matching ribbons in her hair. At any rate, his desire clearly couldn’t be for Polly, not when he’d told her their kiss was a mistake… twice.
Maybe Rosie was right. Maybe he had come to court her. Maybe her beauty and charm could reform him—and Polly had merely gotten in the way.
Polly’s throat constricted. She’d made such a muddle of things, and after wracking her brain, the best solution she could come up with was to conceal her wrongdoing. To pretend the kiss—meaningless, anyway—never happened. It was the coward’s way out, she knew, but she couldn’t think of a better alternative. She vowed to herself never to repeat the transgression.
Rosie led the way to the main floor. They crossed the marble foyer toward the hallway, following the gilt-framed landscapes until they reached the library. Smelling faintly of leather and firewood, the room boasted stately bow windows that looked onto the street, the other walls covered in bookshelves. As Rosie closed the door silently behind them, Polly heard the murmur of male voices coming from the adjacent room—Ambrose’s study. Although she couldn’t make out the words, the somber undertone sent a frisson through her.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.
Rosie was already at the wall shared by the two rooms, busily removing books from a shelf. “Pish posh, give me a hand, will you?”
With a sigh, Polly took the leather-bound volumes from her sister, creating neat stacks on the floor. When enough space was cleared, Rosie leaned in and Polly followed suit, both of them pressing their ears against the smooth wood. She made out Mr. McLeod’s voice, which had the lilt of a Scottish brogue, and Mr. Lugo’s baritone, which bore the rhythm of his native Africa. Revelstoke’s low rasp responded to Ambrose’s measured syllables, yet she could only discern the occasional words—“interview” and “club” amongst them.
“I can’t make out what they’re saying,” Rosie whispered in frustration.
“Perhaps that’s a sign that we ought to—”
The door opened. Heart racing, Polly whirled around.
Edward, Ambrose and Marianne’s lanky fourteen-year-old, stood in the doorway, his dark head tilted. “What are the two of you doing?”
“Nothing.” Straightening hastily, Rosie shot her younger brother an annoyed look. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to skulk around startling people?”
“I wasn’t skulking. I just came to find a book,” he protested.
“Well go find one elsewhere,” Rosie said imperiously. “Polly and I are using the library at the moment.”
Edward’s green gaze travelled from the empty shelf to the pile of books on the floor. “Are you two eavesdropping on Papa?”
“Hush, for heaven’s sake.” Rosie hurried over, dragging her brother inside and closing the door behind him. “Must you announce it to all the world?”
“Why are you trying to listen in on Papa and his partners?”
“It is none of your business,” Rosie said loftily.
“It’s because of the earl, isn’t it?” Edward’s eyes turned speculative.
Precocious as a child, Edward was now an adolescent possessed of a startlingly keen intelligence. Marianne had ruefully called him the “Little Professor” until he’d contradicted her, saying that he didn’t plan to become a scholar but an investigator like his father. In fact, he and his cousin Freddy planned on establishing their own private enquiry firm one day—a venture Violet had humorously dubbed, “Fredward & Associates.”
Rosie said crossly, “Don’t you have anything better to do than to torment me?”
“Not really. I’m at loose ends until Freddy comes over.” Going over to the bookcase, Edward stuck his ear to the wood paneling. “Can’t hear much this way, can you?”
“Will you please be quiet?” Rosie said with a touch of desperation.
“All right.” Shrugging, Edward strolled back toward the entrance. “Seeing as you aren’t interested in listening to what is going on in the study, I’ll just be on my way—”
“Hold up.” Rosie’s gaze narrowed. “Do you know a better way of eavesdropping?”
Pivoting, Edward nodded.
When he added nothing more, Rosie demanded, “Well, spit it out.”
His brows lifted. “I thought you wanted me to be quiet?”
Edward might be a genius, but he was still an adolescent, Polly thought ruefully. Like any self-respecting younger brother, he couldn’t resist trying to get his sister’s goat.
Seeing Rosie’s rising color, Polly intervened. “Be a dear, Edward, and tell us how to do it.”
“Since Aunt Polly asked so nicely,”—Edward flashed an impish grin—“I’ll be right back.”
He loped off. When he returned a few minutes later, he had a pair of gadgets in hand. Each device consisted of two metal funnels, one larger and one smaller, connected by a length of metal tubing.
“What on earth are those?” Rosie said.
“Ears of Stealth,” her brother said proudly. “Freddy and I invented them for the purpose of clandestine monitoring. They’re even collapsible for easy portability.” He shortened and lengthened the metal tubing with clear relish. “We were inspired by Mr. Rein’s ear trumpets, you see, which operate on the principle of collecting sound waves and intensifying their impact on the eardrums, thereby—”
“Never mind the science lesson,” Rosie said, rolling her eyes. “How do you use them?”
“It’s quite elementary.” Edward led the way over to the bookcase. Pulling the funnels apart, he positioned the larger funnel against the wood and fitted the smaller end to his sister’s ear.
Rosie’s face lit up. She whispered, “I can hear what they’re saying. You’re a blessed genius.”
Beaming, Edward handed Polly the second pair. Before she could try out the device, the doorbell rang.
“That must be Freddy,” Edward said. “You two all right without me?”
Rosie waved him away, and he ambled off, closing the doo
r behind him. Joining her sister at the wall, Polly placed the larger funnel against the wood, and voices flowed with startling clarity from the contraption into her ear.
“… located Miss Nicoletta French at Number 12 Castle Street, a townhouse owned by her employer, Corbett.” The somber tones belonged to Ambrose. “During my interview with Miss French, she denied the presence of another man that evening. According to her, you’d been drinking heavily all night, and after the two of you, ahem, completed your transaction, you went mad and assaulted her. She claims you stopped only when you lost consciousness.”
Dear God, Revelstoke beat a woman? Polly exchanged shocked, wide-eyed looks with Rosie.
“Fearing reprisal for reporting the matter to the authorities,” Ambrose went on, “Miss French instead sent a message to your father, the Duke of Acton, to come collect you. This was against the wishes of the club’s owner, Corbett, who wanted to have you hauled off to the nearest gaol. But Miss French refused to testify against you, and thus he has no case to bring before the magistrates. That, my lord, is the summary of our interview.”
A heavy silence ensued, during which Polly was acutely aware of the ringing in her ears. Was it possible, what Ambrose said? she thought dazedly. Could Revelstoke be a brute?
Her gut balked at the possibility. Despite the antipathy between her and the earl, she couldn’t fathom him abusing a woman. She knew first-hand that he could lash out with scathing words and sarcasm, yet he had not, in any of their interactions, showed any propensity toward violence. His words returned to her.
I did say there’s no sport in seducing a wallflower because it is a damned dishonorable activity. There’s no pride to be had in taking advantage of a female—of anyone who is vulnerable. That is the despicable act of a coward.
His aura had burned with angry veracity; he’d meant what he said.
Further, with an embarrassed twinge, she had to admit that when they’d kissed in the stillroom, he’d been the one to put a stop to it. She’d been so lost in passion that, if he’d chosen to, he could have progressed things much further. Taken advantage of her, if he wished. But he hadn’t. He’d apologized for his actions not once but twice—owning up for his “mistake.”
Never Say Never to an Earl (Heart of Enquiry Book 5) Page 10