by Merry Farmer
“On—but I—”
“You have that within your power,” he reminded her. “I cannot be the one to put an end to our engagement, but you can.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Why not, if the idea of being married to me is so odious? Why not call the whole thing off?”
“No one is calling anything off.”
A burst of prickles, like icicles falling down his back, hit Fabian as Lord Stanhope stepped out from the doorway at the end of the room that led to one of the parlors. He glowered at Alice so hard that she jumped closer to Fabian’s side, almost as if she would hide behind him.
“Lord Stanhope.” Fabian greeted the man by clasping his hands behind his back and bowing a few, sharp inches. What was the man doing there? Had he overheard the entire conversation? Had he been listening in on Alice’s conversation with Georgette?
“No one is calling off any weddings,” Lord Stanhope growled, marching up to Alice as if going to war. “Do you hear me?”
“Y-yes, Papa,” Alice stammered, shrinking a few more steps toward Fabian. She glanced up at his deep frown, gulped, then inched way from him.
A maelstrom of emotions raged instantly to life in Fabian’s gut. Alice was afraid of her father. That seemed to fit with what she’d been telling Georgette. Indeed, Lord Stanhope looked like the kind of man who terrorized women as he marched up to Alice’s side and grabbed her wrist.
“This marriage will take place,” he hissed. “You will not wriggle out of it, like your useless sister did. I demand that you live up to your duties. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Papa,” Alice said, barely above a whisper.
“I’ll thank you to unhand my bride,” Fabian said in a threatening voice. Within seconds, he’d gone from furious with Alice for what he saw as her dishonesty and deception to ready to protect her with his life.
Lord Stanhope let go of Alice and pivoted to face him, eyes narrowed. “Christmas is in four days,” he said. “The wedding will take place on Christmas day. I won’t have you backing out of this deal either. Everything has been arranged, and it will all continue as planned.”
Fabian pulled himself to his full height, returning the man’s threatening look with one of his own. To refer to the marriage of his daughter as a “deal” was despicable. But it also brought everything into shocking clarity. Lord Stanhope wanted to profit from marrying his daughter to a wealthy and famous man. He’d always known it, but now it seemed even more despicable.
“The wedding will take place,” Fabian said, though not for the reasons Lord Stanhope wanted it to.
“Good.” Lord Stanhope nodded, then promptly marched from the room without a backward glance for his daughter.
Alice’s shoulders slumped and she sucked in a fast breath that might have been a prelude to a sob. She held herself together long enough to mumble, “If you will excuse me, my lord, I require breakfast.”
She too fled from the room before Fabian could think of anything to say to stop her. He watched her go, staring at the empty doorway with a frown long after. Something was desperately wrong. The situation between Alice and her father was worse than he ever could have imagined. He had the power to save Alice, he was sure, but at the moment, in spite of her amorous tendencies, there was a block between them that needed to be removed. And that block was clearly Lord Stanhope. The man had to be taken out.
Chapter 5
“It was uncanny and desperately wrong,” Fabian told Matthew two days later, as the two of them enjoyed fortifying nips of brandy in one of the family’s private, upstairs sitting rooms before heading down to the massive, Christmas ball.
Fabian’s mother had invited what felt like half the county to the grand, festive event. The entire house had been in a state setting up for it during the last few days. So much so that Fabian hadn’t had any time at all to address the odd scene he’d witnessed between Alice and her father in the library. He hadn’t been able to get Alice alone to ask her about it either, and not for lack of trying. Every time an opportunity presented itself, Alice would rush away from him as though he were the very devil come to steal her soul.
Of course, it wasn’t lost on him that he’d stolen something else that was precious to her. He’d lain awake the last two nights, hoping she would steal back into his room for more, rousing bedsport. His anticipation and longing for her was so acute that he’d resorted to sporting with himself, which he hadn’t done since he was a green boy at university. But Alice had stayed away, at night and during the day.
“What could be wrong about a father instructing his daughter on her upcoming nuptials?” Matthew asked, swirling the dark liquid in his tumbler. He wasn’t asking as if to dismiss Fabian’s concerns, but rather like a scientist attempting to discover the root cause of a new phenomenon.
“He was cold,” Fabian said. He swallowed the last of his brandy, set his glass on the table, then paced to the window. “Ice cold.”
Outside, the world was a perfect winter landscape. Snow had fallen during the afternoon, blanketing everything in pristine white, but it wasn’t enough to keep his mother’s guests away. They were already arriving in a line of carriages that stretched to the edge of the property. Rows of lanterns lined the drive at equal intervals, each one decorated with greenery and ribbons. Fabian could just make out the edge of the decorations around the front door that welcomed guests to the ball in the style of the season.
Everything was festive and bright, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that a deeper darkness lurked in the shadows.
“What I don’t understand,” he continued his thoughts, turning back to Matthew and pacing in his direction, “is why Lord Stanhope was listening in on his daughter from the adjoining room.”
“Are you certain he was listening and that it wasn’t a mere coincidence that he appeared when he did?” Matthew asked.
Fabian rubbed his chin, then shook his head. “The timing was too precise. Not to mention that there is nothing in the room adjacent to the library but dusty artwork and ancient furniture.
“It’s not often used,” Matthew agreed. He finished his brandy then fell into pacing with Fabian, crossing paths with him in the center of the room.
“Aside from Lord Stanhope being where he shouldn’t have been, what disturbed me about the incident was the fear in Alice’s eyes,” Fabian went on.
“She wouldn’t be the first daughter who is afraid of her father,” Matthew said with a tense frown.
Fabian knew too well what he meant. In his work designing gardens for England’s wealthiest and most influential aristocrats, he’d been privy to far too many scenes of domestic misery. Some men used their position as the head of their household to terrorize and rule over the women in their lives. The practice was far too common, and it disgusted Fabian. After all he’d seen, he’d vowed that when he became a father, he would fill the lives of his wife and children with love, happiness, and enjoyment. He was far more inclined to follow the models of peasant families in Italy that he remembered from his own childhood, before Bonaparte’s conquest had pushed his parents to flee to his mother’s homeland until stability returned to the Italian States. The peasants might not have had money, but they’d had laughter, they’d had togetherness, and they’d had love.
“The other thing I don’t understand,” Fabian spoke again, starting back in the opposite direction and crossing paths with Matthew again, “is why Alice continues to run from me when I am the very person who could save her from her father’s machinations.”
To Fabian’s surprise, Matthew laughed. “Friend, you realize that you are her father’s machinations.”
Fabian paused at the far end of the room, blinked, and turned to his friend. “Surely, she must see that I could be her savior.”
Matthew shook his head, walking back to the center of the room. Fabian strode over to join him. “I overheard your Lady Alice talking to Georgette yesterday. She sees you as the bait in the trap her father set for her.”
“I am not,” Fabian balked.
Matthew shrugged, almost apologetically. “But you are. As much of a catch as the greater part of the host of mamas of England sees you to be, and as much as some young ladies swoon over you, with your exotic origins and devilish good looks, Lady Alice did not herself choose to become engaged to you.”
Fabian frowned, still having a hard time accepting the possibility. “We got along quite well this summer, at Herrington’s house party. We’ve gotten along exceptionally well since this party began.” His face went hot at the admission.
Matthew answered the comment with a knowing grin. He and Fabian might not have been brothers by birth, but Matthew was like the sibling he’d never had, and Fabian had already told him everything about his night with Alice. All the same, Matthew said, “In my experience, it’s all too easy for passion and trust to be entirely separate. You said she didn’t end up in your bed deliberately—”
“But she didn’t seem to mind being there once she was,” Fabian cut his friend off before he could draw the same conclusion he’d been trying not to draw for days, that he’d done something underhanded and unforgivable. Even if it had seemed glorious at the time.
“Still,” Matthew went on. “The facts are clear. Lady Alice might have enjoyed your activity the other night, but she is wary of you now. Her father is a bully who, it appears, has her under his thumb and has forced her into marriage with you.”
“But we get along so well,” Fabian argued, then sighed heavily. “At least, we did.”
They both resumed pacing on opposite tracks, moving away from each other as they strode to the far corners of the room, then toward a spot where they crossed in the center of the room.
“Let’s examine another fact,” Matthew said after one turn about the room. “Lord Stanhope’s other daughters were given away in marriage alliances as well.”
“Except that the youngest eloped with Lord Thaddeus Herrington,” Fabian added.
“But she would have been wedded to that disgusting, old brick, Sloane, if she hadn’t,” Matthew said.
“And the oldest was forced to marry Garland before being whisked off to America,” Fabian finished the thought. He reached the end of the room, turned, and shrugged. “I am not half as disagreeable as either Sloane or Garland. At least, I hope not.”
“You aren’t,” Matthew reassured him. “But in Lady Alice’s eyes, you’re the same as them.”
“God, I hope not.” Fabian sent his friend a wary look as they crossed.
Matthew only made it a few more steps before stopping and turning back to Fabian, his expression brightening. “But, you see, that is both the problem and the solution.”
The mention of a solution caught Fabian’s attention. He interrupted his pacing to stride up to Matthew’s side. “I’m open to any solution that will end with Alice happily in my arms, as smiling as she was at the house party and as sinful as she was in my bed.”
Matthew squared his shoulders as though he were a university lecturer about to give a speech. “Lady Alice has been distant because she is being forced to marry you. Her father is a tyrant, and she feels as though she is caught in his trap. It doesn’t matter how sweet the bait is, she still feels as though she is being sent to the guillotine, not the altar.”
“But what can I do about that? How can I make her see that I am her champion and, dare I say it, her savior?” Fabian asked, nearing the end of his rope.
“You can’t.” Matthew shrugged. “At least, not as long as she feels marriage to you is succumbing to her father’s plots. However….” He arched one eyebrow, teasing Fabian with a grin.
“Don’t toy with me, Matthew,” Fabian growled.
Matthew laughed and shook his head. “The solution is simple, really. Lady Alice doesn’t want you because her father does. But I believe, based on the evidence at hand, that if her father didn’t want you, she would rush into your arms like a moth to a flame in an instant.”
Fabian frowned, but Matthew’s words had the ring of truth to them. “It can’t be that simple.”
And yet, a voice at the back of his head whispered that it could. Alice had been beyond biddable in his bed. She’d sighed and moaned with pleasure, taking more of him than he should have given. And in the morning, she had been as sweet as a ray of sunshine, admitting that she liked making love with him, even though he’d been a brute. There was absolutely enough between them to build a happy life with, if he could just take advantage of it.
He blinked out of his thoughts and focused on Matthew once more. “Are you suggesting that if Lord Stanhope suddenly believed me to be a bad match for his daughter, if he pressured her to call off and end things, Alice would do exactly the opposite and cling to me?”
“I believe so,” Matthew said with a smile.
“So what do I need to do to convince the blackguard I’m a bad match?”
Matthew shrugged. “He pursued you for your fame and fortune, as well as your good name.”
“I’m not eager to part with any of those things,” Fabian admitted stiffly.
“You don’t actually have to part with them,” Matthew went on, the light of mischief in his eyes. “You only need to make Lord Stanhope think you’ve lost everything.”
“And how do I do that?” Fabian asked, beginning to warm to the plan he could see his friend forming.
“Leave it to me,” Matthew said, grinning. “All I ask is that you pretend we had more than a few brandies before the ball.”
“Understood.” Fabian nodded, his smile and his sense of heading into battle growing.
“And play along with whatever happens at the ball,” Matthew finished. “Play along with everything.”
The last thing Alice wanted to do was attend a ball. The last thing she wanted to do was be in Sussex at all. She sat by the window in her bedroom, delaying going downstairs to join the festivities, and thumbed through her well-worn pages of The Secrets of Love. She wished she and Imogen and Lettuce were together again, somewhere far away from their father and the misery he wrought on their lives. Of course, she would wish for Lord Thaddeus to be with them for Imogen’s sake.
That thought brought another that left her squirming with heat and emotion. She wanted Fabian with them as well.
No, she didn’t. Count Camoni was an instrument of her father’s tyranny.
But he was magnificent. His body had felt heavenly against hers and inside of her. And he was kind, even if he’d gone along with her father’s plans.
“It simply isn’t fair,” she wailed aloud, shoulders slumping.
She took comfort from the only thing that had lifted her spirits at all in the last few months. Well, the only thing aside from Fabian’s wicked, wandering hands, his captivating mouth, and the hot thickness of his cock. She opened her segment of The Secrets of Love to where she’d left off and read.
“Pleasure breeds contentment, and contentment gives rise to affection. Affection, in turn, demands more pleasure, causing increase in every measure. It is a mistake to think that love strikes us all, like a flash of lightning in a storm. For most, love is the gentle unfolding of pleasure, contentment, and affection in never-ending circles, like the petals of a rose overlapping and expanding as the rose blooms. Let yourself bloom as well. Let your petals unfurl slowly. Explore your lover over a lifetime, and do not be daunted if the bud between you seems closed at first.”
Alice sighed and sank back in her chair, twisting to glance out her frosty window into the night. The memory of the way Fabian had parted her legs and teased the petals of her womanhood rushed back on her, making her squirm in her seat. She wondered if that was precisely what the author of The Secrets of Love was talking about. It certainly felt as though she’d blossomed under Fabian’s touch. And if she were honest with herself, she had more affection for him after the passion they had shared, in spite of not wanting to give in to him.
A frown creased her brow and she sat up, setting the ragged pages of her book aside. She couldn
’t submit quietly to her father’s wishes. To do so would represent a failure of character on her own part, and it would be an insult to her sisters after the ordeals they had gone through. But Fabian was delicious. She’d come so close to begging him to hold her and take her to bed again in the last two days that she’d ended up forcing herself to stay away from him or be defeated.
Not that there was a single thing she could do to avoid marrying Fabian. She didn’t have another man waiting to whisk her away, like Imogen had. She didn’t even have a—
A rough knock sounded on her door before she could finish the thought, and a moment later her father burst into the room without waiting for Alice to bid him enter.
“What is the meaning of this?” her father demanded, shutting the door behind him and marching across the room.
Alice leapt to her feat, fear making her dizzy. “The meaning of what, Father?” she asked, shifting away from her chair and attempting to keep her distance from him.
“You’ve poisoned Lady Georgette’s mind against me, you little whore,” her father growled.
“I…I didn’t….” But, of course, she had.
Her father surged toward her, one hand raised. “Don’t lie to me, bitch.”
Alice squeezed her eyes shut, certain a blow would rain down on her. But nothing happened. She peeked at her father only to find him stepping back, flexing his hand.
“It would be noticed,” he said, half to himself. “Questions would be asked. I won’t have questions asked.” He seemed to remember she was in the room. “I wanted Lady Georgette, and now I’m told my suit would be rejected if I should offer it. I blame you for this entirely.”
Alice swallowed, trying not to cower under the force of her father’s anger. She had finally made her case to Georgette and had been relieved beyond measure to find that Georgette wasn’t in the lease bit interested in her father. In fact, a young viscount that she’d known since the two of them were children had made his intentions toward her clear just a few weeks before, and Georgette believed a Christmas proposal was imminent.