Читать книгу Regency Silk & Scandal eBook Bundle Volumes 1-4 - Louise Allen, Christine Merrill - Страница 22

‘Hal!’ He had never been happier to see his hellion of a brother, and never been so close to wanting to strangle him. Hal had been in the house, what, a few hours? And there he was, smiling at Nell with that look in his eyes, his fingers all over hers.

And was she retreating in blushing confusion from a man she must know, with one glance, was a rake? Was she shaken and trembling after what had happened in the folly with him?

Oh, no. Miss Latham was smiling at his brother. Miss Latham was glowing. Miss Latham had never, he was damned sure, looked better in her life than she did at this moment, her hair gleaming in the candlelight, her skin soft and creamy, her figure admirably displayed by a gown that brought out the green in her eyes. And her mouth, soft and full with that delicious hint of a pout curving in appreciation of whatever outrageous flummery Hal had just spouted. The mouth that had opened under his that morning, the mouth that had trailed fire along his jawline.

Marcus smiled. Damn it, he knew he was smiling as he strode into the room, hand out to Hal; he could feel the muscles in his cheeks ache. But she had seen something in his face. Nell put the teacup down on a side table and retreated in a whirl of skirts to a seat on the far side of his mother, her eyes cast down, her hands in her lap, the picture of modesty.

‘Hal,’ Marcus said again, his fingers closing round the brown hand held out to him as his brother got to his feet. They embraced, hard, no need for words. Hal was back, alive, unmaimed. Under his hands, his brother’s body felt slighter than he remembered, the lines of his face when he pulled back to look at him properly were fine-drawn with fever. He read the message in his eyes: Don’t fuss, don’t ask. He would, of course, but not until they were in private and the others could not hear.

‘You look well,’ he said instead, slapping him on his shoulder and taking the seat next to him. ‘All that lying about in bed, I suppose.’

‘Of course. Dreadful bore, but I caught up on my reading,’ Hal drawled.

Marcus was not deceived. If Hal had been ordered to his bed—and stayed there—then he had been ill indeed and being kept from active service would have fretted his nerves raw. But there would have been diversions, he had no doubt. And pretty girls to play at mopping his fevered brow, and bottles of wine smuggled in against doctor’s orders.

‘Strategy and the Classics?’ he suggested.

‘But of course. French novels,’ Hal added in an undertone. With a grin he turned back to the rest of the family. He knew his duty as the returning son: it was to suffer himself being fussed over for at least a day while they satisfied themselves that he really was safe and well. He picked up his teacup and proceeded to regale his mother and sisters with tales of Lisbon’s shops and amusements and tease all three of them with hints about presents he had brought back.

Marcus caught his father’s eye and nodded reassuringly, seeing the older man’s shoulders relax. Lord Narborough had never had the easiest of relationships with his younger son, who could not recall his father fit and vigorous as Marcus could. The two found it hard to talk to each other and the earl’s disapproval of Hal’s wilder excesses resulted in a certain coolness.

Honoria and their mother were drawing Nell into the conversation about Portugal now. Didn’t it occur to Mama that exposing Nell to Hal was not a good idea? Their guest was ignoring Marcus now, smiling and asking Hal questions, her apparent embarrassment when he had come into the room quite gone.

Marcus collected a cup and went to sit down, listening, studying his brother’s face until his anxiety began to give way to a certainty that Hal really was on the mend.

With that reassurance, and not the slightest interest in the Lisbon pastry shops which seemed to so intrigue Verity, he let himself think about Nell. He had come back after an uncomfortable morning of soulsearching to apologise, to make her an offer of a partnership in a shop, a respectable business. Her talent and work, his money—a fair exchange with no obligations on either side beyond those that were strictly businesslike.

He would find something that would keep her safe and comfortable and not in any danger of being tempted to fall into the clutches of some man. A man like his brother. Like himself. Marcus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His conscience was giving him hell. What had he been thinking of to equate Nell with the likes of Mrs Jensen and the rest of the muslin company? She would make a very good courtesan, he had no doubt, crossing his legs as the memory of her untutored passion came back with inconvenient force.

She was intelligent, thoughtful—oh yes, with time she would be magnificent, not because she was naturally wanton, but because she was the sort of woman that a man would be comfortable with and she would try to do her best whether she was trimming hats or learning sophisticated bedroom tricks.

Hal’s rich, slightly wicked and utterly infectious laugh had them all smiling. And of course, Marcus thought, his own smile congealing on his lips, she has to storm back into the house after his crisis of conscience, straight into the company of a man who could most certainly teach her any bedroom trick she could possibly want to learn.

And why was she looking so damned lovely? He had come back braced for a furious, tear-drenched woman yet she appeared to have emerged from an experience that had shaken him severely looking not just untroubled, but blooming.

Marcus drained his cold tea and studied the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup as though to read his future there. He thought he could make out a gallows, which felt about right. What had happened up there in the woods? I do not lie to you, she had said, a thread of bitterness running through her voice. And he had looked at her and seen truth and pain and need in her eyes. Need for him that had called up an answering ache in his chest, the impulse to hold her, love her, claim her.

And the madness had seized him, swept way everything that might have held him back until that moment, almost too late, when he had found himself at the very point of surging into her body. It had been her eyes again—filled with trust—that had stopped him. Trust. And he was betraying it, whatever she thought she wanted or needed at that moment.

Damn it, why should she give him a second glance now? Hal was here: handsome, laughing—Hal never frowned—fun. Good. Excellent in fact, provided Hal did not seduce her. He would have a word with him about that, explain her circumstances, tell Hal all about the mysterious attacks.

Marcus looked across, satisfied he had now solved the puzzle of what to do about Nell Latham. All he had to do was warn his brother to behave, let her enjoy whatever parties or amusements that Hal’s fertile brain conjured up, and then when this was all over, establish her in a neat little shop in a fashionable district. She could communicate with his man of business; there would be no need to see her again. That had to be good.

He caught Hal’s eye and jerked his head slightly towards the door.

‘I’ll go up and er…rest before I change for dinner,’ Hal announced, getting to his feet. ‘Keep me company, Marc?’

‘Of course.’ He followed his brother out and they climbed the stairs together in silence until they were out of earshot of the footmen in the hall.

‘What’s afoot?’ Hal asked. ‘Mysterious ladies disguised as milliners—or is it the other way round?—gamekeepers all over the place, Mama putting a brave face on something, you all here with only weeks to go to the start of the Season. This is a damn sight more interesting than I expected my convalescence to be.’

They walked into Hal’s room to find his batman laying out his evening clothes. ‘Thank you, Langham. Lord Stanegate will assist me.’

‘It’s a mystery,’ Marcus said as the door closed and he went to help Hal out of his well-fitting coat. ‘And a dangerous one, I suspect. I’d best start at the beginning. What do you know about the scandal of ninety-four?’

‘Nothing.’ Hal began to unbutton his waistcoat. ‘I was five, remember? No one has enlightened me since, and on the one occasion I asked, I had my head bitten off for my pains. Life’s too short to worry about ancient history.’

‘Not so ancient,’ Marcus said, going down on one knee to pull at his brother’s boot. ‘It’s come back to haunt us.’

‘Bloody hell.’ After half an hour of concise explanation, Hal had given up undressing and was still in his shirt sleeves and stockinged feet. Military life had certainly given him an ability to absorb facts, Marcus noted. The questions had been few and pertinent, but Hal’s eyebrows still had to descend to their normal level.

‘No wonder you’ve abandoned the field and surrendered the delicious Mrs Jensen to Armside,’ he added, when the tale was finally told.

‘What? Damn it, I was on the point of settling with her.’

‘I know. The clubs are full of it and Armside is smug beyond bearing. Mind you, having seen the delicious Miss Latham—’ He broke off as Marcus’s fist clenched involuntarily. ‘No?’

‘No,’ Marcus said with emphasis. ‘Miss Latham is gently born but has fallen on hard times since the loss of her family and is now employed as a milliner. She is mixed up in this because, as I told you, our mystery man used her as a messenger.’

‘That’s not all, is it?’ Hal began to strip off the rest of his clothing.

‘No. She knows more than she’s saying, but I can’t believe—Hell’s teeth, that looks sore!’ A raw scar cut a jagged path down Hal’s ribs. In the centre, there was still a dressing and the skin looked heated and slightly swollen.

‘You might say so.’ Hal squinted down at himself. ‘The cut wasn’t deep—more of a slice—but it took all sorts of rubbish in under the skin and by the time I got some medical attention it was a proper mess. Healing now, though.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Marcus splashed warm water into the washbasin for him and propped his shoulder against the bedpost while Hal took the rest of his clothes off and began to wash. ‘Another dashing scar to fascinate the ladies?’

‘Well, not exactly ladies.‘ Hal grinned, comfortable in his nakedness. ‘You were saying about Miss Latham?’

‘That she might be hiding something and she might be a milliner now, but she has enough on her plate without you setting out to break her heart.’

‘Me?’ Hal managed a look of utterly unconvincing innocence as he pulled on his evening breeches. ‘What you mean is, you were enjoying a pleasant flirtation when along I come, with my superior charm and elegant profile, and now you’re getting all protective.’

‘As yet the French have not managed to flatten your elegant profile, little brother, but believe me, if you compromise Miss Latham I will do it for them.’ He managed to smile as though the threat was a joke.

‘Compromise her? Certainly not.’ Hal tucked in his shirt. ‘Pass me a clean neckcloth, will you? But I’ll enjoy cutting you out.’

Marcus contemplated retorting that his brother could try, then saw the trap. The worst thing would be to offer Hal a challenge, it was the equivalent of releasing a mouse in front of a cat. He shrugged negligently. ‘Stop mangling that neckcloth. I need to change too.’

‘I’m ready.’ Hal tugged at his cuffs and followed Marcus out. ‘So what, exactly, are we doing to solve this mystery, or does the family skulk out here for ever?’

‘We can’t do that,’ Marcus said when they were alone in his room. ‘The girls and Mama don’t know what is going on. They expect to be back in London for the Season. If it were you and me and Father we could lure him in, but I daren’t send the women away either, not without me.’

He tossed his shirt on the bed as Hal came and turned him by the shoulders into the light. ‘So this is the famous gunshot wound from the footpad?’ He lifted the edge of the dressing and drew a sharp breath. ‘Nasty. But small calibre. One might almost say a lady’s pistol.’

‘One might, if one did not care about the consequences to the lady.’

‘Ah.’ Hal nodded appreciatively. ‘What was she aiming at? Your head? Or your manhood?’

‘Nothing at all, apparently. According to this hypothetical lady, she had no idea it was loaded.’

Hal adjusted the dressing again. ‘Made a tidy mess of your shoulder. Hurt like hell, I should imagine.’

‘It stung a trifle,’ Marcus admitted with what he felt was commendable understatement. ‘I was bleeding like a stuck pig. Miss Latham was remarkably effective in dealing with that.’

‘Perhaps I can help her improve her aim,’ Hal remarked as Marcus washed. ‘It would be amusing to take her down to the Long Barn, assist her with getting a grip on a pistol.’

Marcus grabbed the soap so hard it shot from his hand into the basin. For a moment, the room vanished behind a red haze.

‘Miss Latham is…fragile as far as men are concerned,’ he said when he could master his voice. ‘She has had much to fear from them and a very recent encounter with one who was not—’ he searched for the word ‘—wise.’

Whether his brother guessed he was in the same room as the unwise man in question, he neither knew nor particularly cared. Hal could rag him all he liked, provided he left Nell’s feelings unruffled and her heart intact.

Dinner passed uneventfully, with everyone focused on Hal. Nell retired into her shell, while the family bombarded Hal with questions and nagged him into eating more. With his own worries over his brother’s health at rest, Marcus was left to watch Nell covertly and to wonder just why he was feeling so strangely unsettled. After all, he had a plan for dealing with her.

Lady Narborough refused to allow her menfolk to linger over their port, insisting that they had plenty of time to swap bloodcurdling tales of the battlefield later. So Hal was ensconced in the place of honour by the fire and fussed over, while Nell went quietly back to ponder the chess game she and his father were playing very slowly over several evenings. The earl, who seemed to enjoy teaching her, did not press her for a move, but sat back in his chair watching his younger son with an occasional smiling glance at Nell.

Marcus got up and sat beside her. ‘That pawn?’ he suggested, pointing. He had no idea whether it was a good move or not; his attention had been entirely on her face, not the board.

‘Really?’ She looked up at him, puzzled. It was obviously a foolish suggestion. ‘But I am playing the red pieces.’

A very foolish suggestion. ‘Of course, I was not thinking. You are not chilled after our drive this morning?’

‘And my walk?’ Nell met his eye with tolerable composure. ‘Yes, I deserve to catch a cold with such foolishness, do I not?’

‘It was my fault entirely,’ he said. ‘I am sorry.’

‘You did not force me to get down from the carriage,’ she pointed out, her voice low. ‘What followed was just as much my responsibility.’

‘I was tactless,’ Marcus persisted, determined to apologise comprehensively while he was at it. ‘Afterwards.’

‘True.’ Nell turned back to her contemplation of the board. ‘And I was provoking.’ She sent him a slanting glance from under her lashes, an utterly feminine trick to gauge his mood. Marcus felt his lips twitch, just a fraction.

‘Very true,’ he agreed, and she smiled, a small, secret smile that did the strangest things to his breathing. What the devil was the matter with him?

Her fingers poised over the chessboard, she hesitated, then moved a bishop. Across the table, Lord Narborough chuckled.

‘Oh dear, have I walked right into a trap?’

‘Most certainly. You see, I will now do this.’ The earl leaned forward. ‘And what will you do now?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ Nell said, half laughing, half plaintive.

‘Let me see.’ Hal strolled over and studied the board, then leaned down and whispered in Nell’s ear.

She went pink, laughed, bit her lip and sent Hal a roguish look that had Marcus’s blood seething. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant Carlow,’ she said demurely, leaning forward and making a move that had Lord Narborough sitting up and frowning.

‘Miss Latham will learn faster if you do not tell her what to do,’ Marcus observed as Hal took up position leaning on the back of Nell’s chair.

‘But it is such fun to teach, don’t you think so?’ His brother’s expression was bland and innocent, his suggestive words went straight to the most tender part of Marcus’s conscience.

Teach Nell. Oh yes, that is what I want to do. Teach her to make love, teach her to love me. Love. His heart gave a sudden thump. Marcus stared at his own clasped hands, keeping his eyes down in case Hal read the truth in them.

He had fallen in love with Nell Latham. That was why he was so defensive, so possessive when Hal was close to her. That was why he could not make love to her like that, why the thought of her with any other man filled him with hot anger. That was why, whatever her secrets, he wanted her. Wanted to marry her.

Marcus got up abruptly, walked away across the room to the window and jerked back the curtain. His own face stared back, reflected in the glass. Wanted her for ever, as his wife. God. What was happening to him? He stared blindly at the dark world outside. It was like discovering something totally new about himself. He supposed it was something new, this feeling. It was certainly overwhelming.

He watched the scene behind him reflected as though in a mirror. His father frowning at the problem Hal’s move had set him. Hal using his hands to describe something to his sisters that was making them laugh. His mother’s smile. And Nell, quiet, contained, full of unexpected depths and passion. Nell, who had turned to liquid fire under his hands in that cold folly, whose skin smelled of roses and whose mouth tasted of cherries.

What did it matter that she had fallen on hard times, that she was having to earn her own living, that she had no family around her? He was Viscount Stanegate, heir to an earldom. He could do what he wanted. Just for once, he could do absolutely what he wanted. There would be gossip; he would have to deal with that, as much for her sake as for the family.

She must be from a gentry family, at the very least, he supposed. He would have his people look into it. There would be some respectable relative, however distant, who would be glad to oblige the Carlows by lending her countenance.

Now all he had to do was to find the right moment, the right words. The seriousness of what he was contemplating was beginning to sink in. He was in love, and his world was no longer on its right axis, and perhaps never would be again. He was no longer in control of his emotions or his destiny.

That slim figure across the room was going to change everything. Everything he believed about himself, he realized, would be challenged and transformed. And yet, he had never felt more right in himself, more certain of who he was and what was important.

Marcus looked around the candlelit room that held everyone who mattered to him, a room set in the heart of the house and the estate that was rooted in his very being. If he had not stopped, up there in the folly tower, Nell could now be carrying the next generation to love this place, beneath her heart.

How long had he felt like this about her and not realized? How was he going to keep her safe?