“Such categorization was unkind of your brother, but I suspect I would feel the same had my governess abused me in such an appalling fashion.”
His expression turned wry. “It only lasted until we were both of us old enough to head off to Eton and besides, it was immeasurably preferable to fists.”
“Fists?” She hadn’t imagined public school lads could be that vicious.
“The dead earl,” he clarified, “may his rotten hide swelter in hell for the next several hundred years at least.” The current earl cursed his father without the slightest hint of anguish. It occurred to her that the man before her was an illusion, an elaborate act. He may have been speaking of a game of croquet if not for the slight glint in his eye.
For a moment, as she locked gazes with him, Cleo realized this was what a man who was jaded beyond his years, utterly soulless and terribly scarred looked like. Discomfited by the revelation, she glanced down at Tennyson still open in her lap. She wondered how she must appear to others. Cool and complacent? Heartless and arrogant? Pathetic and sad?
“You need not avoid my gaze, Lady S. I know speaking ill of the dead and airing one’s ugly family secrets is not done. But when a man has sunk to my level, platitudes and pretty rules cease to matter.”
Cleo considered him again, strong and handsome, immaculately dressed in first fashion. Presumably, it had been provided by his last rumored conquest, Lady Hampton, whose elderly husband was deaf, daft and sinfully rich.
“I do not mean to be callous, my lord, but it seems to me that your level, as you say, has been a place of refuge. Perhaps if you were to—”
“What?” He interrupted her suggestion. “Marry myself off to some plump little heiress with a father to keep me tethered to her heels? I’d sooner keep my freedom. As for trade, it would ruin my sisters’ marriage hopes. I haven’t the head for business. I’ve been raised a proper, useless Englishman, good at sport, skirt chasing and looking down my nose.”
“You underrate yourself, I think.”
“You flatter me, my dear.” He rose and bowed elegantly before her. “It is a pity your head’s been turned by that turnip-faced Thornton. I like you.”
Cleo took to her feet and extended her hand to him, their actions together as formal as if they had been engaged in proper conversation rather than propositions and thwarted seductions. “Thornton is not turnip-faced.” She paused. “You do not like your other lady friends?”
His lips twitched, his blue eyes deepening to the purest navy of an early night sky. Truly, that gaze could trap a woman if she were so inclined. “Like is not apt. We have our mutual uses for one another and that is a different beast altogether. You, Lady S., are a rare treasure. Scarbrough ought to be hung by his toes.”
“Preferably by the neck,” she quipped before she could stop herself. When he appeared startled by her bluntness, she gave him an innocent shrug. “I know it is not done to speak ill of one’s husband, but we’ve already established that like you, I prefer plain speaking.”
“A woman after my own black heart.” Lord Ravenscroft bestowed a lingering kiss upon her hand again. “Can I not persuade you to look upon me with favor and abandon that snout-nosed Thornton?”
Cleo laughed, charmed despite herself. “Lord Thornton is not snout-nosed either, nor do I look upon him with favor.”
“Call me not a fool though you may call me many things, sweetheart. I’ve seen the way you two look at one another when you think no one is watching.”
“You are mistaken, sir. Thornton and I do not look at one another with anything more than mutual enmity.”
“As you say.” He sounded as unconvinced as he appeared unconcerned. “Your past together is well known and whilst I would not ordinarily be so blunt after such a short acquaintance—unless we were in bed, that is—I assumed you and Thornton were exercising your regrets in amorous pursuits.”
“You assumed incorrectly,” Cleo informed him, her voice tart. Need the man be so perceptive? “Thornton and I are old friends. Do not believe idle gossip, my lord. It so often lies.”
In her distress at the direction of his unerring probes, Cleo dropped the Tennyson. It landed with an ominous thud near her hem, but she feared her dress improver, painfully tight-laced as it was for her form-hugging morning gown—haute couture but dashed uncomfortable—prohibited her from retrieving the runaway volume. Thankfully, Ravenscroft was more gentleman than he pretended and fetched it for her.
He sank to his knees like her loyal vassal and offered the leather-bound book to her. As she grasped it, their fingers brushed. The library door opened at that exact instant and Thornton stalked inside.
“Ravenscroft, you bastard,” he remarked in a deceptively casual tone, “have you become so depraved you’ve taken to peering beneath ladies’ skirts in the library?”
Not even Cleo was immune to the dig. She winced on behalf of the earl, who, while of questionable moral fortitude, really was a pleasant man after all. Ravenscroft released the Tennyson but seized her free hand, bringing it to his mouth for a protracted kiss. Good heavens, was that his tongue she felt on her wrist?
“Thornton,” he said after removing his lips from her shocked skin. He never took his eyes from Cleo or allowed her hand to stray too far from his ready mouth. “Have a care with your language in the presence of a lady.”
“All the more reason for my presence here,” Thornton returned, smooth as the cut of his trousers, which was to say delightfully so. “Have a care for the countess’s reputation. Surely you realize the ramifications of time spent alone in your dubious presence?”
Ravenscroft rose and spun on his heel to face his opponent. Cleo imagined herself quite like the proverbial bone watching two dogs square off over her.
“What would you have me do, my lord?” the earl demanded. “Leave her to your dubious presence?”
Her skin tingled with the heat of a revealing flush. She met Thornton’s steel eyes, both of them knowing Ravenscroft’s words too true. She also knew, as did all three of them, that one of the great—if scarce—freedoms of a married lady was her ability to consort with men of her choosing in private. This occurred particularly at house parties and especially, though by no means exclusively, when the husband in question gracefully ignored his wife’s peccadilloes. Since Scarbrough had not even seen Cleo in over a year, his acquiescence was a given. In other words, Cleo was quite safe in either man’s company, despite Ravenscroft’s sooty reputation and she informed the two men before her of as much, omitting the “peccadilloes” part, of course.
“Sooty?” Thornton was disdain personified, the born in the purple aristocrat he was. Then, true to form, his words utterly ruined the brilliant display. “You make him sound like a chimney sweep. His reputation is mired in pig shit, is more like.”
“Pig shit, is it?” The earl laughed as though he discussed nothing more benign than a lover’s sonnet. “Thornton, you silly lad. It isn’t pig shit I so often find myself in.”
She pressed her lips together to stifle a gasp of shock. Good heavens, the man knew how to string a proper crude sentence. Thornton went livid. He advanced on Ravenscroft, a gothic hero intent on restoring the honor of his heroine. Oh, she supposed she read too many old novels and ought to be reading more of Helen’s aesthetic books instead. But she couldn’t help herself, just as she couldn’t tamp down a primeval excitement at the thought that these two solid, roguish men might come to blows over her. It was rather delicious, she thought, only to frown when she realized she’d once again borrowed Thornton’s word. Drat him.
He grabbed a fistful of Ravenscroft’s shirt, but the earl stopped him with a steady hand and a mocking drawl. “Oh dear. I hope I haven’t overset you. I merely meant to clarify that, while you had mistaken me for a country gentleman such as yourself, I do not find myself in pig shit often. Quite the opposite. I find myself in only the best of everything.”
“As a result of your whoring.”
“Thornton!” This time, Cle
o leapt to her feet. She knew not where Tennyson plopped, nor cared.
She watched the scene before her, a spectator to two grown men losing possession of their wits. This time, Ravenscroft acted first, launching himself at Thornton. She sidestepped a Louis Quinze table and said a hasty prayer before inserting herself into the skirmish. She placed a staying hand on each man’s arm, attempting but unable to separate them.
“You cannot come to blows like this.” She tried for reason and logic, supposedly the fountainheads of manhood. “It will be said you fought over me.”
“We are fighting over you,” they said in unison, locked in a death glare with one another.
She yearned to level a sound kick to each of their shins to gain their attention. Or, better yet, pull their ears like a stout governess. Though they claimed to be fighting in her name, they more likely sought to assuage their mutually damaged pride. What an insufferable lot men were! She had all the painful dramatics of an amour and yet reaped none of the benefits.
“Blessed angels’ sakes! Why would you fight over me?”
“Because you’re a beautiful woman,” Ravenscroft announced through gritted teeth at the same moment Thornton muttered, “Damned if I know.”
Affronted in spite of her best efforts to remain the restorer of order, she released the earl to better berate Thornton. An error in judgment, that. Ravenscroft took the opportunity to land a painful-sounding punch to Thornton’s jaw.
Thornton’s head snapped back. He recovered with haste, rubbing his jaw before taking up a pugilist’s stance. The earl followed suit, holding his large fists before him, swinging, feinting to the left then right. Thornton delivered a swift blow to his chin.
“Stop!” Cleo swatted at them, as ineffectual as a butterfly attempting to halt a marching brigade. Her erstwhile suitors were determined to ruin the very reputation they’d just argued over by beating one another senseless in Lady C.’s library.
“Stand aside, Cleo,” Thornton ordered her, swinging again.
“I will not! This is madness. Childishness,” she continued, savoring the harangue on her tongue.
The earl gave her a gentle shove and she lost her balance, her moment of triumph ended in rudest fashion. Cleo landed in a chair some few feet from the impending melee. Pandemonium ensued. Thornton pounced on Ravenscroft, slamming the earl’s body against the wall of books. Several tomes fell to the floor in a jumbled heap. An upholstered chair tipped next, followed by a crystal decanter shattering on the floor. Ravenscroft tackled Thornton onto the Louis Quinze table and its legs gave out.
Catching onto the commotion, guests and servants began milling into the library. Naturally, the first woman through the door was the gossipy Margot Chilton and the second, the equally free-lipped and possibly more odious Lady Grimsby. Cleo’s horror mounted as she spied the dowager marchioness, Lady Bella, Lady C. herself and Tia’s and Helen’s wide eyes. Not even the servants were immune. The butler lost his composure and gaped from the threshold along with the housekeeper.
“Fight!” hollered an impudent young footman as he rushed past them and into the library, his wig askew.
Cleo fought the urge to shield her face. Thornton and Ravenscroft pummeled on, either oblivious to or uncaring of their growing audience. This was the end of her reputation as a respectable woman. They’d truly made a muck of things now.
Tia gesticulated in a less than subtle manner, indicating that Cleo should cross to the other side of the room to lessen the obviousness of her involvement. Taking the cue from her younger sister, she began a slow retreat from the spectacle. She feared, however, the damage had been done. Between Lady Grimsby and Margot Chilton, all the Quality would know in short order that the notorious Ravenscroft and the ordinarily respectable Thornton had beat one another to bits over the Countess of Scarbrough. Before Cleo could reach the haven of her sisters, Lord Cosgrove made his way through the crowd.
“What is the meaning of this?” he boomed, apparently having been summoned from his smoking room and customary bottle of port for this very purpose.
Predictably, neither Thornton nor Ravenscroft appeared to notice. Unfortunately for Lord C., enraged by the insult to his authority as one half of the hosting duo of the best country house party in England, he stumbled into the fracas.
Cleo winced. Ravenscroft landed a sound punch to Lord C.’s arm before he realized what he was about. To his credit, Lord C. answered with a respectable cuff to the earl’s head. She was quite certain she’d never witnessed the like. Their host’s interference in the scrap appeared to have a sobering effect on Ravenscroft and Thornton. She could discern the precise moment Thornton realized he had an audience. To the impartial observer, his demeanor would remain as impassive and arrogant as ever. But Cleo recognized the quirk of his brow, the slight intake of breath. She knew when he caught sight of his forbidding mother from the way he stiffened. He met her gaze and smirked. There went that dratted dimple.
The air fled from Cleo’s lungs. Like a hare, she had been caught in a snare. Keenly, she recognized a kinship with the doomed creature of a hunt. Helpless. Thornton was her fate. Perhaps Shakespeare had rotted her brain and rendered her maudlin and terribly romantic. Perhaps she’d been reading too much poetry. Whatever the reason, she was his. He was hers. The shocked ladies and lords around them mattered naught. His gray eyes gleamed in triumph. She was his.
Chapter Seven
That evening, dinner was yet again a grand affair, this time in Elizabethan style. Lady C.’s guests—minus two since Thornton and Ravenscroft had been politely exiled from company following their fisticuffs—supped on borage salad, a trio of rich game stews, porret soup, codlings, pheasant and medlar fruit tarts. Cleo ate without gusto, bearing the scrutiny of at least a dozen eyes with as much grace as she could summon.
Thanks to the ruckus, the Shakespeare scenes Lady C. had taken great care in preparing had been postponed until the following afternoon. Cleo was spared from having to perform in a play, yet was forced to remain an actress for the evening.
She was heartily glad the two sources of her current predicament were lying in their chambers tippling whiskey and applying poultices to their blackened eyes. Their absence, however, did little to appease the blatant curiosity of the men and women at table.
Much to her dismay, Lady Grimsby was seated two chairs away, ignoring the contents of her plate. “Miss Chilton mentioned you were the only other person in the library when she entered, Lady Scarbrough. Do tell us what could have sparked such an inglorious display betwixt the earl and marquis.”
Finally, the question she’d dreaded all day arrived. She had carefully formulated her response, had even practiced alone in her chamber before the mirror to keep her face expressionless. She smiled with benign elegance at the elder gossip. “I dare say you will be surprised to learn it, Lady Grimsby, but it appeared to me upon entering the chamber myself that their lordships were arguing over a volume of Tennyson.”
Her ladyship raised a thin blonde brow. “Then you weren’t in the library prior to the argument?”
“I’m afraid not.” She had decided, while hiding from everyone in her chamber, that prevarication would be her best hope of avoiding scandal.
“Miss Chilton was so certain you were there,” Lady Grimsby insisted.
“She must have entered at my heels. With the commotion, she likely failed to notice me.” Cleo took a delicate sip of her wine, pleased with herself. That Miss Chilton was seated too far down the table to be solicited on the matter was fortuitous indeed.
“Coming to blows over a volume of Tennyson?” the Duke of Clarence intoned, slicing liberally at his roasted pheasant. “I didn’t realize Thornton and Ravenscroft were such bookish men.”
Tia coughed. Helen kept her wine goblet pressed to her lips. Cleo gritted her teeth. Sisters. Couldn’t they at least offer her some support instead of barely concealing their laughter at her expense?
“Apparently, Tennyson stirs the hearts of men,” she offe
red with a lame shrug.
“Something stirs the hearts of men, to be sure,” Clarence said.
“Hearts are not all that stir,” Tia whispered to Cleo with a saucy chuckle.
Lady Grimsby’s eyes sharpened. “What was that, Lady Stokey?”
Tia blinked, appearing innocent as a deb. “I merely said that I shouldn’t find it surprising Tennyson had such an effect on our dear earl and marquis. I too feel an angelic stirring in my very soul whenever I chance to read The Charge of the Light Dragoons.”
“Brigade, my dear,” Lady Grimsby corrected with haughty condescension. “The poem is called The Charge of the Light Brigade.”
Tia was unaffected by the slip. “Just so.”
“I’ve always preferred female poets to their male counterparts,” Helen interrupted, challenging the gossip to an unspoken game of wits. “For instance, I find Christina Rossetti’s work to be a positively illuminating experience compared with Alfred Tennyson’s pretensions. What think you, my lady?”
Having possession of a very limited literary landscape, the lady could only sputter. She looked quite like a hen robbed of her eggs. Cleo narrowed her gaze and turned her head to the right and the similarity was uncanny. Even her nose resembled a pointed beak.
“Men always make for better poets. They have a fount of rational intellect,” Lady Grimsby added at last.
“Called arrogance,” Helen remarked tartly.
“I say,” Clarence broke in with a charming grin, “should I be offended?”
“Not at all, Your Grace,” Cleo interjected, gracing him with a flirtatious smile. After all, it wouldn’t hurt to make their scandalmonger think it was the duke she preferred. Perhaps that would lessen the sting of her current predicament. “I’m sure that, like me, my sister holds you exempt from her singular opinions.”
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