Windemere’s face convulsed with rage. It was well known that the duke desperately wanted a son.
The duchess turned pale and moved to the old man’s side.
He never acknowledged her, instead continuing to glare at Messalina. “I’m so glad you’ve found yourself satisfied in your marriage, Niece. Come, Ann.”
The duchess started to babble a farewell, but he pulled her out of the box before she could finish.
Gideon stared after the old man. He’d assured the duke that he’d fulfill his task. He glanced at Messalina. She was smiling shyly at him.
Could he really kill her brother?
* * *
Messalina watched Gideon after they sat. He’d seemed unperturbed by her uncle’s visit, but now his brows were drawn together.
She cleared her throat. “I shouldn’t have said that about delight and marriage. Poor Ann. She’s quite sweet, you know.”
At her words his brow smoothed. “You’re fond of her?”
Messalina shrugged, now feeling guilty. “We have little in common, I’m afraid. We tend to discuss fashion when we meet, which isn’t often. I avoid my uncle, as you know, and as a result don’t see Ann very often.” She sighed. “I remember when they wed. Ann looked so young and happy. Their match was the wedding of the season. Now she’s like a ghost of her former self.”
She shook her head and then realized that Gideon was no longer paying attention to her. He was gazing at the theater, every once in a while scanning the boxes as if searching for someone. Was he working for her uncle now? Intent on finding a certain person and then…
She didn’t want to imagine what he would do—what he could do.
Most of society—the ones who had not retired to the country for the summer months—were at the theater tonight. Besides Lady Gilbert she could see Mr. and Mrs. Evelyn, Viscount Norbourne, the elderly Henley sisters, and the Holland family accompanied by the Earl of Rookewoode, just sitting down.
Impulsively she asked, “Whom are you searching for?”
“I have information,” he said absently, “that several aristocrats I’m interested in will be here tonight.”
The curtain to the box parted again and a handsome young man stepped inside. “Hawthorne! I never thought to find you at the theater.”
“My attendance is a wonder to all,” Gideon replied with a bite to his voice. “Messalina, may I introduce my business partner, Mr. William Blackwell. Blackwell, my wife, Messalina Hawthorne.”
Business partner? She’d had no idea Hawthorne had a business partner. Messalina extended her hand, being sure to keep the surprise out of her face. “How do you do?”
“It’s a great pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Mr. Blackwell said, bowing elegantly over her hand.
He wore a simple but well-cut nut-brown suit several shades lighter than his hair, which was clubbed back neatly. His eyes seemed iridescent, changing from blue to gray to green.
He slid a sly glance at Gideon. “You could’ve struck me down with a feather when I heard the news that Hawthorne had wed. He seemed a confirmed bachelor.”
“You’re hardly one to talk,” Gideon returned. “I can’t count the number of feminine hearts you’ve led astray.”
“You’ve painted me a cad,” Mr. Blackwell said with mock hurt. “I don’t know how I’ll gain your wife’s favor now.”
“Your skills at flirting are quite adequate on their own,” Gideon said drily as he stood. “You can practice them while I attend to some matters.”
With that Gideon bowed and exited the box.
Messalina couldn’t help staring after him with a sense of hurt. He’d not asked her opinion before abandoning her with a virtual stranger.
But what else did she expect? Gideon had made it more than plain that theirs was a union of practicality, not affection. Just because they’d been able to converse amicably this afternoon didn’t mean that Gideon had thrown away everything he’d said before.
And that was good. Uncle Augustus had threatened Lucretia. Now more than ever it was imperative that they leave just as soon as she had enough money. Nothing could stand in the way of that vow.
“I hope my presence doesn’t distress you, ma’am,” Mr. Blackwell said, drawing her wandering attention back to him. “But I couldn’t help seeing for myself when I heard that Hawthorne was in attendance tonight. I can leave if it pleases you.”
“Not at all,” Messalina replied warmly. “Will you have a seat?”
He grinned, revealing charming dimples at the corners of his mouth. “Thank you.”
Messalina nodded, thinking of how to phrase all the questions she had for him. “Forgive me my abstraction. I was just wondering how it was that you met my husband?”
“Ah, well, I’m afraid the tale doesn’t show me in a flattering light,” Mr. Blackwell said, sounding sheepish. “I was in a notorious gambling den some ten years ago when Hawthorne caused a commotion. He was collecting a debt owed to His Grace by a rather disreputable lord. Hawthorne couldn’t have been over twenty years at the time, yet he strode into that house as if he were the devil himself, malevolent and sneering. He caught the attention of everyone there.”
Messalina couldn’t repress a shiver. It wasn’t hard to imagine Gideon in that role. “What did he do?”
“He demanded payment from the younger son of a duke.” Mr. Blackwell shook his head. “Such establishments don’t like those sorts of disruptions, and they have bully boys to guard their houses. Hawthorne fought three of these bullies without turning a hair. By the time he got the money from his blubbering mark, everyone else had fled the table.”
Across the way Messalina could see the Hollands and Lord Rookewoode in their box. It appeared to be quite crowded, but someone was trying to push their way to the earl. Surely it couldn’t be…?
She realized suddenly that Mr. Blackwell had stopped in his story, apparently waiting for some comment from her. She cleared her throat, trying to remember what he’d been saying. “And did you flee as well?”
“No.” Mr. Blackwell smiled deprecatingly. “I’m afraid I wasn’t there to game.”
“Why were you there, then?” Messalina asked absently.
It was Gideon, and he seemed to be attempting to talk to the Earl of Rookewoode.
Without an introduction.
She watched with a sort of fatalistic horror.
Mr. Blackwell explained, “I’d come to collect on a debt as well, though not nearly as successfully as Hawthorne did. In fact, after observing him obtain his money so easily I approached him on the street afterward and made a rather daring proposition.”
He stopped and looked at her expectantly.
Messalina had to tear her eyes away from the box across the way. Something in her chest had seized at the sight. Gideon was in plain clothing, while every other man in the box wore silk. Lord Rookewoode wasn’t even looking at him.
She forced a smile for Mr. Blackwell. “What did you propose?”
Mr. Blackwell grinned. “I suggested that he collect my money, and in return I offered to invest some of that amount and a bit of his own money and split the earnings.”
She raised her eyebrows in some astonishment. “And he agreed to this?”
She had to fight to keep her gaze on him rather than Lord Rookewoode’s box.
“I did rather have to talk him into the partnership.” Mr. Blackwell winced. “Which entailed spending quite a lot of time in his company.”
He stopped speaking for a minute, and Messalina looked at him curiously.
Mr. Blackwell wore a troubled expression. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your husband is a rough man. And a rather…er”—he darted a worried look at her—“dangerous man. I hope I don’t offend by saying such.”
“Of course not,” Messalina murmured. Gideon was dangerous. There was no point in denying it.
Mr. Blackwell pressed his lips together as if trying to contain himself before blurting, “Please, ma’am, be careful. Your husband has a prodigious
temper, and the violence he’s capable of is…”
He trailed away, shaking his head.
Messalina stiffened. “I do not need to be warned about my own husband.”
He shrank back. “I beg your pardon, ma’am.”
Messalina nodded coolly.
“In any case,” Mr. Blackwell resumed after an awkward pause. “It took all of my courage to keep returning to Hawthorne until he at last gave in and went to collect my money. I think in the end he did it simply to make me go away.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “You must’ve been very persuasive.”
She risked a glance at Lord Rookewoode’s box, but Gideon was nowhere to be seen. Her heart sank. Why did he care so much that a gentleman invest in his business? Surely there were other investors?
“Fortunately, we made money from the start,” Mr. Blackwell was continuing. “I doubt Hawthorne would’ve had the patience to wait for a return on our investment.” He stopped abruptly and looked at her with a contrite expression. “But I’m boring you, Mrs. Hawthorne, with this talk of business.”
Messalina blinked. She’d been occupied wondering what Hawthorne was doing. Was he going to come back to his box?
She forced a smile and asked lightly, “Do you still invest my husband’s money, then?”
“Our money, for we’re in business together, but yes, that is the majority of my work,” Mr. Blackwell replied. “I manage coal mines now as well as keep track of the accounting and—”
Gideon stepped back into the box, holding a cup of what looked like punch. His lips were white and his expression grim. “Are you gossiping with my wife, Blackwell?”
Mr. Blackwell started, staring at Hawthorne’s expression.
“Guilty as charged.” Mr. Blackwell jumped nervously to his feet. “I’d hate to bore you further, Mrs. Hawthorne. I’ll leave you both to enjoy the play.”
“Good night,” Gideon drawled as he took the chair absented by the other man.
Mr. Blackwell hesitated. “Shall I see you tomorrow?”
Gideon grimaced. “If I’ve the time.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Mr. Blackwell said drily. He bowed. “A good evening to you, Mrs. Hawthorne.”
Messalina murmured a farewell.
Mr. Blackwell slipped out of the box.
Messalina turned back to Gideon, eyeing him. He still held the cup of punch and was glaring at the boxes across the way. She inhaled. “Is that for me?”
He turned to her, but his gaze was blind for a moment before he seemed to gather himself. “Yes. Here.”
He shoved the glass into her hand.
Messalina took a sip and found the drink overwatered.
“I confess I’ve lost track of the play,” she said lightly.
They both turned to look. On the stage a rotund man was chasing a very thin man around a settee, trying to strike him with a rose.
“Perhaps it doesn’t matter,” Gideon grunted. But as if almost in spite of himself, he leaned a little forward, intent upon the action.
Messalina felt a wave of…fondness? No, that couldn’t be. He was a brute, her uncle’s henchman. A man comfortable with violence according to Mr. Blackwell, his own friend.
She inhaled, mentally shaking her head. “I noticed,” she said carefully, “that you were in Lord Rookewoode’s box.”
She immediately regretted her words.
“What of it?” Hawthorne’s eyes burned with an alien hatred, and his hands were clenched into fists.
For the first time since her marriage she felt…fear in his presence.
Perhaps she should’ve paid more attention to Mr. Blackwell’s warning.
Chapter Seven
“This is all I have,” said the tinker in despair. “What else can I possibly give you?”
“Hmm,” said the fox, gazing contemplatively at the sky. “Well, I could do with a wife, and you, I hear, have a daughter.”
“Yes,” the tinker replied, trembling. “Her name is Bet.”
The fox smiled a very foxy smile.…
—From Bet and the Fox
Gideon couldn’t keep the loathing from his voice, even as he watched Messalina’s face shutter.
Damn Rookewoode and the rest of the bloody, smug aristocracy with him. The man hadn’t looked once in Gideon’s direction the entire time he’d stood in Rookewoode’s box. And the more he’d stood there without acknowledgment, the more Gideon had felt his anger mount, until now he couldn’t help but growl at his wife.
But Messalina was a woman who wasn’t easily cowed. “Why did you go to Rookewoode’s box?”
Gideon gritted his teeth as he stared at the stage. The play, so oddly distracting before, had lost his interest. There was no reason to confide in her. It wasn’t as if Messalina would understand—or even care—about his business.
She had asked, though.
“The entire point of attending the theater tonight was to see the earl. Blackwell and I have coal mines in the north of England, on the east coast. I’d like to buy more.” He inhaled, his nostrils flaring as he remembered his reception. “I went to discuss the possibility of investment with Rookewoode. He’s known to be quite rich and looking for suitable investments. A business association between us would suit both our needs, and yet he ignored me.” He sneered. “As if I were the dirt beneath his diamond-buckle shoes.”
“Ah.”
His head snapped to her.
Messalina’s face was in profile, and she looked pensive. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to comment, and then closed it again.
He rocked his head to one side and then the other, trying to loosen his shoulders. He wanted to smash something…or better yet, slash the fucking smile off Rookewoode’s face.
Determinedly he fixed his gaze upon the bloody stage.
Two minutes hadn’t passed before he couldn’t stand Messalina’s silence anymore. “What?”
She started and raised her brows. “I beg your pardon?”
He breathed deeply before saying evenly, “What was that ‘Ah’ about?”
“Oh.” She hesitated. “I doubt you’ll like my answer.”
His eyes narrowed. “Nevertheless.”
“Well.” She turned fully to him. “If you truly wish to converse with Lord Rookewoode—or really with any gentleman of quality—you’ll need an introduction. And what is more, you’ll have to look the part.”
He frowned impatiently. “I have money and I have a business that will make him money. Why should I—?”
“Because that’s the way it’s done.” She took a deep breath as if trying to calm herself. “I know you might find it silly and—and even offensive, but he’s an earl. One can’t simply walk up to him and ask for his money. Not, at least, if you want to truly do business with him.”
Gideon grimaced. He knew she was right. He might work for a duke, might ghost around the edges of the aristocracy, but he had done so as a servant. Now what he wanted to do was actually mingle among them. To be recognized as their equal.
An entirely different thing indeed.
Christ. He was going to have to ask for her help.
He sighed and asked grudgingly, with near-physical pain, “What did you mean that I need to ‘look the part’?”
Messalina’s entire face lit up, and for a moment he was startled that such a joyful expression should be cast his way. Her gray eyes were soft, her plush lips wet and open in a smile.
She was beautiful.
Something twinged within his chest—not his heart. He hadn’t much of a heart, and what he had was atrophied from long years of disuse. But it felt near enough, and the feeling filled him with something close to fear. He couldn’t care for her. She was a means to an end. A stepping stone to his better future.
If he cared for her, he couldn’t kill her brother. He couldn’t fulfill his dreams.
Besides. An aristocrat such as she would never give her heart to a baseborn blackguard such as he.
Gideon was so caught up
in his alarmed thoughts that he nearly missed his wife’s words.
“You need to dress as if you were born to the aristocracy.” Messalina gestured to the theater and its audience. “As if you’re a man of means, a gentleman that other gentlemen can trust with their money.”
Gideon snorted. “The majority of gentlemen have no idea whatsoever of how to make money. They scorn the making of money.”
“Yes, you’re quite right,” Messalina said slowly, “but oddly, that doesn’t matter. Gentlemen are more likely to talk to other gentlemen. I admit freely that their prejudice is ridiculous, but that’s the way it is.”
He scoffed. “Much of what the aristocracy does is ridiculous—and somehow set in stone.”
“I suppose you think their—our—rules are awful.” Her cheeks colored as she added, “They are awful.”
He had a foolish urge to comfort her. “People in power tend to protect that power by excluding others. It’s merely human nature.”
“But in this case entirely wrongheaded.” Her brows knitted. “You could attempt to contact Lord Rookewoode’s secretary or man of business and make your appeal that way, but—”
“No.” Gideon stiffened at the suggestion. Going through Rookewoode’s lackeys would place him firmly at the level of a servant. He was Rookewoode’s equal. He was any aristocrat’s equal, and he’d damn well prove it to them. “I’ll make the deal with Rookewoode himself or not at all.”
“Then…” Messalina indicated the boxes across from them.
He turned in the direction she indicated, examining the gentlemen attending the theater. Several wore pink—a most fashionable color—and there were men in purple, green, yellow, and several shades of red, and one individual in blinding white silk. Nearly all wore white powdered wigs. Diamonds—or paste made to look like diamonds—sparkled on hands, buttons, cuffs, and, of course—though he could not see—shoe buckles. Every waistcoat was heavily and colorfully embroidered.
He scowled. “I don’t want to wear such frivolous clothes. It’s a waste of money.”
She shrugged and turned back to the stage.
He looked as well, but he couldn’t seem to see the players or what they were doing. Messalina had been talking to him. Without disagreement or hate. And she’d been interested in his problem.
When a Rogue Meets His Match Page 11