The Pleasures of Passion: Sinful Suitors 4

by Sabrina Jeffries

  Ah, very good. She was getting into the spirit of the thing. Best to make him seem reckless from the beginning.

  “What makes you think I will lose?” he countered.

  “Yes, Brilliana,” her father said. “And what right have you to lecture your husband on his gambling?”

  Given her sudden stiffening, that remark didn’t go over well. “He’s not my husband yet, Papa.”

  “But he will be. And when he is, you won’t be dictating to him about his card-playing, I’ll wager. For God’s sake, girl, he’s an earl. He can do as he pleases.”

  This was the most vulgar conversation Niall had ever participated in. He began to understand Brilliana’s resentment toward the man. Did nothing shame him regarding his daughter? Clearly, her mother had been the one to teach her how to behave in polite society.

  Despite the conflict with his aims for the evening, Niall smiled warmly at her, if only to counter her father’s dreadful behavior. “Truly, sweeting, if you would prefer that I not play—”

  That flustered her. “Oh no, I did not mean to say . . . That is, of course you may . . . you should play cards with Papa if you wish.”

  “Good, then it’s settled,” her father said. “We start at ten o’clock at the Star and Garter.”

  That gave Niall the opening to go in another direction with the conversation. “So, if Pitford and Dunsleigh aren’t going, who’s playing tonight?”

  Fulkham had given him a list of eight men associated with Sir Oswald.

  “Well, aside from Quinn Raines, there’s Sir Kenneth Whiting.”

  Niall’s heart nearly stopped. “Of the Essex Whitings?” Fulkham hadn’t mentioned that name.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bree stiffen. In a flash, he remembered telling her years ago that Joseph Whiting was the man he’d killed in a duel.

  But her father hadn’t apparently heard about Niall’s duel, for he merely said, “I believe he’s from Suffolk, but I’m not sure. Pitford brought him in recently. He’s the man’s cousin, here from out of town.”

  Forcing himself to relax, Niall said, “Ah.” Whiting was a common enough English surname. No reason to assume that Sir Kenneth was related to Clarissa’s assailant.

  Though the fellow’s recent appearance explained why Fulkham hadn’t known of him—unless Fulkham had deliberately not told Niall of the man because he feared Whiting’s involvement would make Niall balk.

  Niall frowned. It would be just like Fulkham to keep that to himself, the damned bastard. It also made Whiting a good choice for counterfeiter, depending on how recently he’d joined the group—because being connected to Joseph Whiting in itself might show him to be a villain.

  He chose his next words carefully. “So, are Raines and Sir Kenneth as feckless as your brother made them sound?”

  Sir Oswald waved his hand dismissively. “Pay my sourpuss of a brother no mind. He always disapproves of everyone in my orbit.”

  That was interesting. Especially since Toby Payne’s sudden appearance in England seemed markedly suspicious. “Yes, a pity that your brother doesn’t play. I confess myself curious about his export business, since I’ve just returned from the Continent myself. Does he export from France to England, or the other way around? And what exactly does he export?”

  “Wines from France. And other foodstuffs.” Sir Oswald leaned forward. “He brought me some excellent French cheeses for my kitchen.”

  Not exactly the kind of business that would provide much help to a counterfeiter. If the man was a dealer in engravings or ink or some such, that might be different. “Well then, surely his French cheeses make up for his disapproval of your gambling.”

  “I suppose. Though, truth is, my cook don’t really know how to serve them properly. Keeps trying to put mustard on the Camembert.” Sir Oswald glanced at his daughter. “Now that you’ve remembered what you owe your old papa, you could take my kitchen in hand, you know.”

  When a look of horror crossed her face, Niall stepped in. “I’m afraid she’ll be far too busy taking my kitchen in hand, sir, to manage yours.”

  “I was only saying—”

  “Trust me, my kitchen will take up a great deal of her time. Indeed, I expect that entertaining on the scale expected of a countess will tax her exceedingly.”

  That reminder of Niall’s position seemed to quell any further suggestions on Sir Oswald’s part that Bree should manage his household. Thank God. Niall wasn’t sure she could maintain that level of deception with her father.

  These visits would need to be strictly regulated so she could feel easy enough to be convincing. The hard work of investigation would take place at the gaming tables, anyway.

  Just then, the clock chimed, reminding him that they’d likely overstayed their welcome—and the limits of Bree’s patience.

  He rose. “If I am to join you this evening, sir, and Bree is to have time to dress for the ball, we should pay the rest of our calls.”

  Bree’s relief was obvious as she stood. “Yes, Papa, you know how it is with a new betrothal. Everyone must be visited.”

  As her father pushed to a stand, Niall added, “There’s no reason for you to show us out, sir. I would not wish to tax your leg any further.”

  Sir Oswald blinked. “That’s right kind of you, Margrave. Right kind, indeed. It does plague me something fierce today.”

  With a nod, Niall offered his arm to Bree and they headed for the door. But they hadn’t even reached it when Sir Oswald called out, “Brilliana!”

  Stiffening a fraction, she turned to look back at him. “Yes, Papa?”

  “You will bring your boy to see his old grandpapa, won’t you?”

  A welter of emotions briefly crossed her face before she masked them: fear, resentment, worry. “Of course. When we get the chance.”

  Niall began to understand her reluctance to expose her son to her father. “Brilliana will be quite busy in the coming weeks,” he told Sir Oswald, “so it may not be that soon. There’s much to be done to prepare for the wedding, you know.”

  An odd regret flashed over the older man’s face before he stiffened. “Wouldn’t want to inconvenience my own daughter,” he grumbled.

  She stared at him with a certain wistfulness. “I’ll see what I can do about bringing him by soon, Papa.”

  Before Sir Oswald could make some retort to her noncommittal remark, Niall said, “Now, we really must be going, sir. All those calls, you know.”

  And without waiting for an answer from the old bastard, he led her out into the hall. As they headed down the stairs, she murmured, “Are we really paying other calls after this?”

  He lowered his voice. “Not unless you have someone in particular whom you wish to visit. Before I go to the Star and Garter, I need to stop by the club and find out more about your father’s compatriots.” Particularly Whiting. And Niall wanted to ask Fulkham about the uncle, as well.

  When relief crossed her face, he couldn’t resist raking her with a slow, heated look. “Besides, we’re not finished with our discussion. And I mean to continue it on our way back to your aunt’s.” Because if she thought he was going to drop their argument from earlier, she’d lost her mind.

  Their kisses and caresses had ignited him, and no matter how he warned himself not to fall into the trap of desiring her again, he couldn’t help himself. He had to find out why she did this to him.

  “There’s nothing more to discuss,” she said dismissively.

  The hell there wasn’t. They hadn’t quite reached the landing and were blocked from sight both from below and above, so he took advantage of that to halt her for a kiss, a long, deep one that roused his blood, especially when she instantly responded. With his arm about her slender waist, he pressed her into him and took his time enjoying her mouth, his heart hammering all the while.

  She tasted like mint leaves and tea, as refreshing as a crisp spring day. He could stand here kissing her forever. He slid his hand down her back to smooth over her bottom and she j
erked away, her eyes alight with temper.

  But a pretty pink blush spread from her cheeks all the way down her neck. He wondered if it went lower. He meant to find out, and soon. He wanted to learn why a widow who’d borne a child, a woman he’d been sure was calculating and grasping, could blush so believably.

  So enticingly. “Nothing to discuss, eh? I can think of a few things.”

  “Like why your mind is always in the gutter, sir?” she snapped.

  “And why you don’t seem to mind it much.” When she blinked and drew a breath to give him a set-down, he drawled, “Careful, now, sweeting. You don’t want your father or the servants speculating about why you’re so cross with your new fiancé.”

  “Then don’t give them anything to speculate about.” With a sniff, she hurried down the stairs ahead of him. “Or you will become my former fiancé in short order.”

  He laughed. He liked this new version of Bree, the impudent one with a spine. It aroused him. Especially when her hand glided along the banister ahead of him with such delicacy that he couldn’t help imagining it on his chest, his belly . . . his cock.

  Deuce take it. He’d better get control of himself or that cursed cock would give him away to the servants downstairs.

  So he hurried down to take her by the arm and slow her descent. “Relax, sweeting,” he murmured. “It’s not a race.”

  They had another whole flight to traverse, during which he could attempt to get his raging urges under command. By the time they reached the foyer, it was as if they’d never kissed at all.

  Outwardly, anyway.

  They approached the door, and Jenkins, who was apparently one of Sir Oswald’s few remaining servants, appeared from the shadows to open it. He smiled at Bree. “I understand that congratulations are in order, miss . . . I mean, madam.”

  She smiled warmly at Jenkins. “Listening at doors again, are you?”

  The old servant chuckled. “If a body doesn’t do that around here, he won’t know what’s going on until the rug is pulled out from under him, I swear.”

  Her amusement faded. “I understand completely.” She cast a furtive glance back up the stairs. “Papa isn’t . . . too badly on the rocks these days, is he?”

  The butler shrugged. “Still paying me and Cook and a couple of maids to stay on. But his brother isn’t far wrong—most of his friends are rapscallions, and they’ll bleed him dry if they can.”

  That piqued Niall’s interest. What if someone else had used her father’s gambling debts to force the man into putting the counterfeits into circulation? Then Sir Oswald would be more a victim of blackmail than a perpetrator of the crime. It was certainly something to consider.

  “Thank you, Jenkins,” Bree said, and pressed the elderly man’s hand. “I promise to bring my boy Silas when next I visit.”

  The servant’s face lit up. “It would be an honor to meet the young master.”

  She gave him a wry laugh. “He’s sixteen months old. You may not think it quite such an honor when he’s running and laughing in the foyer.”

  Jenkins turned serious. “This house could do with some running and laughing. There’s been far too little of it since you and the mistress left.”

  She’d taken her mother away? Before the woman’s death? She had said that she would go with him if she could take her mother, but . . .

  Niall ignored his twinge of unease. Perhaps the servant hadn’t meant that the two women had left the household at the same time.

  Jenkins shot Niall a furtive glance. “You will be married here, won’t you?”

  When she blanched at that reminder that this whole thing was a farce, Niall said, “We haven’t yet decided where to have the ceremony, but we’re considering my church in Mayfair.”

  The old servant bobbed his head. “Of course, my lord. I wasn’t thinking. A man of your consequence would certainly wish something more impressive than a run-down town house.”

  “Thank you for understanding,” Bree said, with an odd catch in her voice. “And now we really must go, mustn’t we, my dear?”

  “Yes,” Niall said, and led her out.

  She was quiet as they walked down the steps. Too quiet, as if a heavy weight was crushing the breath from her. Though he’d hoped to kiss her again once they were inside the carriage, her demeanor held him back. He watched and waited, hoping she would tell him what was bothering her.

  As the coach pulled away, she gazed out the window at the town house. “I hate lying to them.”

  Ah. “I can understand that.”

  “Papa is one thing. At worst, he’s part of a criminal enterprise, and at best, he’s some criminal’s dupe. But Aunt Agatha and Jenkins and even Uncle Toby . . .” She shook her head. “They don’t deserve to be swept up in this . . . scheme.”

  This was probably not the time to mention that her uncle was as much a suspect as the others. For that matter, so was Jenkins. Anyone close to her father could have changed out those notes for the counterfeits.

  “Uncle Toby has always been so good to Papa in the past,” she went on. “If not for him, Papa would have ended up in debtors’ prison a hundred times.”

  “How so?”

  She shrugged. “Uncle Toby would speak to Papa’s creditors, get extensions, loan him funds if need be. Of course, that was when my uncle was still living in London. After he left, he couldn’t do those sorts of things for Papa anymore.”

  “Perhaps that’s why he moved,” he said wryly.

  She sighed. “As you may have noticed, Papa can be a trial to those closest to him.”

  To say the least.

  They rode a moment in silence before she swung an earnest gaze to him. “Which is precisely why I should thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For making this easier. For managing it all so deftly.” Absently, she smoothed her immaculate skirts. “For nipping in the bud Papa’s attempts to draw me back into his household.”

  “I wasn’t doing it for you,” he lied. “It’s just part of the game—finding out his secrets. Determining whether he’s guilty. Accomplishing our mission.”

  “You do it very impressively. I would never have guessed you weren’t genuinely interested in pleasing Papa and playing cards with his scurrilous friends.” Her face clouded over. “I’m afraid I wasn’t nearly as adept at it. I hope I didn’t ruin things.”

  “Not one bit. And of course you weren’t as adept. You’re a novice at this, while I am not.”

  She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  He hesitated, but couldn’t see any reason not to tell her. This was his last mission. He was back in England, where his efforts for his country would be lauded, not despised, if they were ever discovered. And if knowing something of his past made her feel more secure, more convinced that she was in good hands with him, it could only help their scheme.

  “Has it not occurred to you to wonder about my friendship with Fulkham?” he said. “And why he was so sure I would agree to help him?”

  “You said it was because he got you that pardon.”

  “Yes, but they don’t just hand out pardons willy-nilly, even for men like me. Fulkham was able to argue that I deserved one because, among other things, I spent most of my exile feeding him information I gleaned while moving among the aristocracy of Spain and Portugal.”

  She gaped at him. “Wh-what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, sweeting, that for the past seven years, I’ve been serving as a spy. Off and on.”

  The expression on her face made it quite clear that she found the very idea preposterous. “I don’t understand.”

  Her obstinate refusal to accept what he was telling her annoyed him. Did she really think him so feckless? “I’m not sure how I can put it any plainer.”

  “A . . . a spy. For England?”

  “Of course for—” He muttered an oath. “I just told you I was feeding information to Fulkham. Who do you think he works for, for God’s sake?”

  “Yes,
but why would he choose . . . Why, given your . . . well . . . reputation, would he think you would be good at . . . at such a thing?”

  “He didn’t. He took a chance on me since I was ideally situated and in something of a pickle, given that I couldn’t return to England.” When she merely stared at him with incredulity, he added irritably, “I first met him when he was posted in Spain. In the beginning he only knew me as Mr. Lindsey, but he eventually pieced together who I really was.”

  “An escaped murderer.”

  Although technically that was true, he hated that she saw him like that. Still. “Yes. He confronted me about it, and I was, as you might imagine, alarmed, but he said he was willing to keep my secret from the authorities in England if I would . . . keep my ear to the ground and send him information from time to time.”

  “What kind of information? I mean, what could you possibly—”

  “I was still a viscount, you know. And after Father died, I was a newly minted earl—except that I couldn’t return to officially accept the title. It put me in a rather unique position. As an exiled lord, I was expected to be bitter, so I could move among foreign aristocrats more as one of them, than as a suspicious intruder. And it helped that I made a concerted attempt to improve my Spanish and Portuguese.”

  “So that’s why you and Lord Fulkham are so . . . chummy.”

  “Exactly. Fulkham had just been promoted and was returning to England. He wanted someone he could trust to give him the sort of reports he needed. And he deduced that I would be good at that.”

  “Excellent deduction,” she muttered, but she still looked as if she was trying to reconcile his admission with her own opinion of him.

  “What did you think I was doing all that time?”

  “I don’t know.” She flicked her hand dismissively. “The same things all men of your sort do on the Continent.”

  A slow burning began in his throat. “Men of my sort? What sort is that?”