“Are you certain?” he cajoled, resuming his own seat. “I’ll take you anywhere you like—Boodles, the Traveller’s, the Society, even.”
That roused a look of slight interest, but then she sat back and shut her eyes. “I think I’d just like to lie down, if you don’t mind.”
He nodded, pretending not to be concerned, and rapped on the door. “Waddle, home.”
Whatever it was that had happened between Stewart and Martin Brantley, it was obvious that Kit took it very seriously. Fleetingly Alex wondered if their familial troubles might be the reason she’d been left to her own devices in London. He hoped that was it. Not that a family feud excluded her from participation in other, more nefarious activities, but it seemed a reasonable explanation. “If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly was it that Furth did to your father?”
The green eyes opened and looked at him for a moment before they shut again. “You told me you weren’t interested.”
“Nonsense,” he countered. “I find you endlessly fascinating.”
Her breathing stilled for a moment, then she looked at him again. “Are you flirting with me?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I suppose I might be. Habit, you know.”
“Well, stop it. I just cast up my accounts.”
“Apologies,” Alex murmured, realizing it was the third time today he had begged her forgiveness. “So what happened between them?”
She straightened a little. “And another thing,” she continued, her voice stronger and color returning to her cheeks. “I don’t appreciate being dragged about like a sack of greens.”
“Quit turning the subject,” he replied succinctly. “Why does your father hate Furth?” He had his own reasons for asking, besides a surprisingly intense wish to set things right for her, but nothing he could possibly discuss with Kit Brantley.
She met his gaze. Then, apparently accepting that he was genuinely interested, she sighed and shut her eyes once more. “Because of my mother. Furth hounded her from the day my father brought her home, would never give her a moment of peace, even after she begged him to do so. It finally killed her.”
He examined her wan countenance and wanted to hold her, to comfort her and to kiss the lonely expression from her face. “How old were you?”
“Six.”
“And do you remember your uncle?”
“Stop interrogating me, Everton, or I shall cast up my accounts again.”
That reminded him that she was not any watery-eyed, weak-willed chit, but a strong-willed, beguiling, evasive one. He raised an eyebrow, but kept his silence. She had a right to be moody and depressed if she wished. Or, to pretend to be so. He was having some unexpected difficulty deciding what he wanted to believe about her, it seemed.
When Kit rose from her nap it was early evening, and as she had thought, Everton had gone out for the evening and hadn’t bothered to inform anyone where he might have headed.
Swiftly she changed into one of her new evening suits, and left for the Traveller’s. It seemed a good place not to find Alex or one of his bosom cronies, for Augustus Devlin had several times complained about the poor state of the liquor the club served. And much as she was beginning to enjoy Alexander Cale’s company, she had a task to complete, and she damned well couldn’t do it with him about.
She dearly hoped that her father’s quarry would not be Hanshaw. Aside from Reg being Alex’s friend, and a witty fellow in general, she preferred not to have to inform Stewart Brantley that the blue blood they’d been seeking was practically betrothed to Caroline Brantley. And as for Alex Cale—well, if he was involved…She took a breath. He couldn’t be.
Alex was not at the Traveller’s, but Francis Henning was, and he spied her before she could turn around and make her escape. When she was unable to dodge his company, she couldn’t help but win ten quid off him at hazard. He did introduce her about the club, and the patrons, as she had suspected, were mostly minor nobles and fringe ton who hadn’t yet or never would acquire the wherewithal to be admitted to the more exclusive haunts of the nobility.
“So what does a peer do all day, anyway?” she asked, tallying up points from the latest round.
“Oh, House of Lords on Parliament days, deciding on investments, keeping track of income from estates. Seeing, being seen, making certain everyone knows you’re an Important Personage.”
“What about those government appointments I keep hearing about?” she pursued. “I make it three crowns this round, Francis.”
Mr. Henning sighed and nodded. “You’ve the devil’s own luck, Kit.” He sighed, then chuckled. “But then you are the devil’s own cousin, eh?” Still chortling at his own brilliance, he glanced toward the door as another gentleman entered. “Thadius Naring,” he informed her, jutting his chin in that worthy’s direction. “You want to know about government appointments, ask him.”
Kit turned to glance at the tall, thin-framed man taking a seat at an already crowded table in the center of the room. “He has one?” she asked, though she already knew something of it.
“Gads, two or three, probably. Trying to get in with Prinny. Any patriotic nonsense will do. Bought a knighthood, trying to slide into a barony. Likely do it, too.” He grimaced and leaned forward. “Thing of it is, he don’t need the money. Mother’s side of the family’s into textiles, I hear. He might leave a place for those of us who could use the income, damn him.”
Kit poured her companion another glass of port. “Surely there are others besides Naring who have appointments,” she suggested, trying to turn Henning’s attention away from her quarry now that she had him well in her sights. When Francis looked at her, she shrugged. “As you said, it’s extra income.”
“If you’re after an appointment of your own, you should be asking Everton,” he commented, draining the glass. “I’ve been badgering him to put in a word for me for months, and he laughs it off. You’re family, though, so you might be able to turn him to it.”
Kit forced herself to take a slow breath, and swallowed a large portion of port before she sat back. “His appointment doesn’t seem to amount to much, though,” she noted, keeping both hands against the table so he wouldn’t see them shaking. After all, it couldn’t be that unusual for a peer to have an appointment. It could be any stupid duty. Counting cattle in Cumberland, or some such thing. “I doubt he has much influence.”
Francis laughed. “Everton, no influence? I can name only three people who have more influence with Prinny than Alex.” He raised a hand and folded his fingers over one at a time. “The Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Liverpool, and the Duke of Furth.”
The last name made her flinch, and she covered it by taking another drink. “No wonder he’s so high in the instep sometimes.”
“Selfish, too. Won’t help me out, and last Season he and Hanshaw simply vanished for nearly a month, and no one to spot me a penny for a shoe shine.”
“You mean they went somewhere together?” she queried. She was reaching the border between getting Francis drunk enough to talk, and too drunk to say anything remotely coherent. Admittedly, she had found some evidence that Alex might be involved in this mess, but it hadn’t seemed all that significant. Or so she had managed to convince herself.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Francis whined, thumping his hand on the table. “They never tell me a bloody thing. Say I can’t keep a secret.” He leaned forward again, breathing a fair amount of liquor in her direction. “I think it was about some money troubles Reg’s brother was having, but he wouldn’t confess.”
She and her father had smuggled fresh produce and various other items into France all last year, and until their current difficulty, they had been intercepted only once—during the Season—and her father had come damned close to being caught at it. She took another deep breath. Probably dozens of lords had exited London for various periods of time during the Season. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. But neither could she take the chance of ignoring the possibility any longer.
“He’s at White’s,” Kit decided. “I wanted a change.”
Francis was shaking his head. “No, he ain’t. I was there earlier.” He chuckled and drained his glass. “Making up with Barbara Sinclair, I’ll wager.”
That possibility hadn’t even occurred to her. An image of Alex kissing and holding that woman leaped unbidden into her mind, squashing all orderly thoughts. Kit pushed to her feet and shoved the half-empty bottle into Francis’s surprised hand. “I forgot,” she stammered. “I’m supposed to be at the Downings tonight.”
It made sense, she decided, as she hailed a hack and instructed the driver to take her back to Park Lane. Alex had wanted female companionship of the kind she’d denied him, so he had gone off to spend the evening with Barbara Sinclair. The thought left her with a queer, tight feeling in her chest.
In spite of her disarrayed thoughts, there was little further she could accomplish—at the moment, anyway. Ideally she should have been introducing herself to Sir Thadius Naring and getting him comfortably sotted, so she could ask him whether any of his government duties involved stopping smugglers along England’s eastern coast. Francis would have noticed, though, and would then likely complain to one of his cronies that Kit Riley had cut him, and Alex would hear of it, and would ask all sorts of questions and look at her with those beautiful, mesmerizing eyes, and she would have to lie to him again. She’d go after Naring the next time she could slip away.
When the hack pulled into the Cale House drive, she flipped the driver a groat before she made her way inside. Neither she nor Alex had instructed anyone to wait up, so Wenton and the rest of the servants were already to bed. Late though it was, she felt too restless for sleep. She had left Robinson Crusoe lying on the table in the library, but the castaway’s lonely solitude felt too familiar this evening. She set the book aside and walked over to peruse the bookshelves. Finally she lifted a book of poetry from its place and curled up in Alex’s chair by the fire, imagining she could feel the warmth of his body lingering somewhere deep in the soft cushions.
After reading for a few moments, she stopped and turned the book around to look at the cover again. She had heard somewhere that Lord Byron wrote rather biting, sarcastic poetry, but whatever this was, it wasn’t sarcastic. She opened the book again, wondering whether Alex had purchased it simply as an addition to his collection, or if he had actually read any of it. With a slight smile, she began again to read.
“Has poor Crusoe escaped the island yet?”
Kit started and nearly flung the book across the room. “Alex!” she exclaimed, flushing.
An amused smile on his face, he lounged in the doorway, lean and dark and achingly handsome. As she wondered how long he’d been there, watching her, he pulled off his gloves. “Didn’t mean to startle you, chit. Saw the light. So how fares poor Robinson?”
Kit glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was nearly two in the morning. “He, ah, he’s fine,” she stumbled, closing the book and turning it so he couldn’t see what she’d been reading. If only she’d put Robinson Crusoe away, instead of leaving it in plain sight. It was too late to move it now. “How is Lady Sinclair?”
“Is that where I was this evening?” he asked, as he pushed away from the doorway and stepped into the room.
“Wasn’t it?” she sent back, with more boldness than she felt.
“Only if she’s moved her apartments to the Society and learned to play billiards, and has taken to disguising herself as my cousin.” He grinned, obviously in good humor. “Beg pardon. My other cousin—the tall, balding one.”
He hadn’t been with that woman! For a moment, that was all that mattered. Then she decided she’d missed a sterling opportunity to meet some of England’s bluest bloods. “You played billiards at the Society? Without me?” she asked indignantly.
“You were asleep,” he answered. “I didn’t wish to wake you.” He came forward and sat on the low table before her. As he did so, he scooted the book resting there out of his way, and absently picked it up to turn it in his hands. “I should have realized you would know how to play billiards.”
“Of course I do,” she returned, wishing he would put the blasted book aside before he realized what it was and became nosy.
“I have a table, you know, in the room off my study,” he said slowly, his eyes catching hers. “Mary …didn’t much approve, so I moved it there to keep it out of her way.”
That explained the secret game room. “How sad, that she didn’t let you play.”
Alex gave a short laugh. “Goose.” He reached out and brushed his knuckles softly along her cheek. One finger caught a lock of her hair, and gently swept it back behind her ear as he smiled. “I daresay I might have left the blasted thing in the middle of the ballroom, if I’d wished. I was only being polite.”
The caress surprised her, and it was a moment before she could muster a scowl at the insult that had preceded it. “Perhaps it was just that I didn’t expect politeness from you.”
The humor faded a little from his eyes. “Are you angry at me?” he asked directly, studying her face. She wondered what he saw.
“No. Apologies.”
“Hm,” he murmured in his deep voice. “What troubles you then, ma chère?” As he spoke he glanced down at his hands, and at the book still held between them.
“Nothing,” she said hurriedly. “Just a bit of a headache, is all.”
A slight frown creased his brow, and he turned the book over to look at the title. He glanced up at her again. “So what are you reading?”
“Are you my schoolmaster now?” she retorted, flushing.
“Not that I recall.” Alex favored her with a grin. “Come, Kit, what other piratical tale have you found?”
“Just an old something to amuse myself with,” she replied flippantly, then exaggerated a yawn. “I’m to bed, I think.”
He leaned back a little. “I’m not going to try to take it from you. I was only curious about what might interest you.”
“You are endlessly curious about me, aren’t you?” she countered, then regretted challenging him. Or told herself she did, as a slight smile touched his lean, sensitive face again. She drew a soft breath at the sight. She could sit and just look at him forever, she thought.
“I am,” he agreed. “Endlessly. So if you won’t discuss literature, answer me something else.”
His husky murmur was making it oddly difficult to concentrate. “What is your question, Everton?”
“Where did you go this evening?”
“Go?” she returned, raising an eyebrow and thinking he must have encountered that prattling Francis, after all.
“You’re in your evening clothes,” he pointed out, and she cursed herself for an idiot. Never tell a lie you can’t stand behind, her father had always told her. It was just that Alex Cale was so damned distracting. He leaned closer, and she watched him warily. “And I detect cigar smoke in your hair,” he whispered, “and port on your breath.”
“I was at the Traveller’s,” she admitted, meeting his gaze, feeling the hold those eyes had on her. “I won a few crowns off Francis.”
He nodded, and she thought he relaxed a little. “Might I?” he asked, gesturing at the book she clutched against her.
Feeling her face turn scarlet, Kit sighed and handed it over. “It’s just Byron,” she said carelessly.
He lifted an eyebrow. “The comedies? Child Harolde, perhaps?”
She shook her head again, lowering her eyes.
“Ah,” he said softly. “‘By day or night, in weal or woe, That heart, no longer free, Must bear the love it cannot show, And silent, ache for thee.’”
Of course, he would have read the blasted book. For a moment she was afraid to look up, afraid to meet his eyes, but when she finally lifted her head he was perusing the book’s pages, a soft, sensual smile on his lips. A lock of wavy, dark h
air fell rakishly over his forehead. And for the first time in her life, Christine Brantley was conscious of wanting to be a female. Of wanting Alexander Cale to know her as a woman. “Alex?” she whispered.
Slowly he raised his head to look at her with amused eyes. “Yes, chit?” He hesitated, gazing at her, then returned the book to her abruptly clumsy fingers.
She cleared her throat and glanced at the fireplace, the window, anywhere but at him. “It’s late. I should be getting to bed.”
For a moment he was silent. “No more poetry this evening?” he asked quietly, and looked at her from beneath his dark lashes. “I would be happy to read you another.”
Kit shook her head tightly. “I don’t think that’s wise,” she responded, wishing she had the courage to let him continue. On occasion he read aloud from the morning paper, and she loved the sound of his voice. But to hear him read her another poem would be more than she could bear.
Alex shrugged. “Is it necessary always to be wise?” His fingers stretched out and touched her knee. “Are you afraid to be foolish for just one moment?”
Kit took a breath, wanting nothing more than to fall into his arms and feel his lips on hers again. “Yes,” she said instead.
He looked into her eyes for the space of a dozen heartbeats, as if examining her face for any indication that she felt differently. Finally he nodded. “You will let me know if you change your mind, of course.”
Alex stood at the same time she did, and they nearly collided. Reflexively he put out a hand to steady her, and she lifted her face again to look at him. Apparently he read her ill-hidden yearning, because something changed in his eyes, and he leaned down toward her. Not daring to breathe, her heart hammering furiously, she tilted her face up and shut her eyes. She could feel the warmth of him as his lips trailed a feather’s touch away from her skin. His light breath passed slowly over her mouth and paused there, then traveled up her cheekbone, and over her eyelid, to kiss her very softly on the forehead. “Good night, Kit,” he murmured, and was gone.
Kit, breathing rapidly, looked after him for a moment. When she heard his bedchamber door shut upstairs, she started. She needed to get out into the cool night and think. And she needed to get the information her father wanted. The sooner, the better.
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