Beyond A Wicked Kiss (8 page)

Ria chided herself for not offering up that most simple explanation. She just hadn't thought of it. The truth was that while he had not been aware of her for two decades past, it could not be said that she was in ignorance of him. She did not tell him this, however. Instead she said, "Mr. Dunlop gave me a sign." Ria watched West mull this over. As a lie it was a good one, she realized, for he was prepared to believe he might be betrayed for some coin. It also explained her earlier dissembling as an attempt to protect the footman from retaliation. When West grunted softly she knew he had taken the bait and swallowed it whole.

How could she tell him that she had grown up asking after him? Although she was discouraged from doing so by those around her, it merely made her more curious... and more careful. On visits to Ambermede when her parents were still alive, there were always trips to the village, and in the village there were always those who were willing to talk about the duke's bastard. She'd heard about his wild ways and his fiery temper, compliments of his upbringing and his red hair, they'd said. She knew he had been sent to Hambrick Hall so that he would not cross paths with his half-brother Tenley at Eton. He had distinguished himself at cricket and rowing, but perhaps more so as a brawler. When she was yet in the schoolroom, he had gone to Cambridge and studied mathematics. The villagers allowed that he was recklessly handsome but still no better than he ought to be. They were suspicious of his successes, and not a little envious of them, telling wild tales of smuggling French brandy and debauchery on the Continent.

She had seen a portrait of him once and wondered immediately how he had been coerced into sitting for it. Ria amended that thought: he had not actually been sitting. As a young man, West had posed standing beside a great black stallion. The artist had been skillful enough to capture insouciance in every line of West's lithe frame, from the shoulder resting negligently against his mount's flank to the leg making a casual cross of the other at the ankle. There was carelessness also in the shape of his mouth, in the smile that revealed a profoundly wry appreciation for the vagaries of life. That particular placement of his lips carved a deep dimple in one cheek and merely hinted at one in the other.

It was the eyes, though, that had riveted her attention. There was humor suggested in the dark green depths, but there was something else that was not so easily defined—and it made her shiver.

Ria had glimpsed it this evening, just moments before he had spoken her name aloud, and she wished she had been looking elsewhere. It was a glance that pinned her back and made her heartbeat trip.
Anger
was insufficient to describe it.
Rage
was rather more than it was. This was temper on a short tether, the desire to do harm and damn-the-consequences, masked by humor and a careless smile.

It made her less afraid for herself than it did for him.

Drink in hand, West returned to his chair. Instead of sitting, he hitched his hip on the arm and balanced himself with easy grace. She had been woolgathering, he noted, and wondered at the direction of her thoughts. She was not entirely comfortable in his presence—which he counted as a good thing—but neither had she made any noises about leaving him. He wished there were less trust and more wariness in her manner. What the devil did she want with him?

"So you induced Dunlop to betray me," he said consideringly. "Dare I hope it cost you thirty pieces of silver?"

"Not nearly so much as that."

"I was bought rather cheaply, then."

"I'm afraid so."

He nodded and sipped his brandy again. "To what purpose? You still have not explained yourself. You have made a rather long journey to arrive at just this end. Surely I am owed your reason for it."

"I require your help."

His smile was sardonic. "I am not so deep in my cups that I could not surmise that myself. The more salient point is, how much."

"A great deal, I should think."

"A hundred pounds? A thousand? You will have to name your figure." He observed that she was much struck by this. Her mouth parted and formed a perfect O.

"More than a thousand?" he asked. "Is it to be some blackmail scheme, then? You will be sadly out of it there. The wags have always been willing to say the worst of me, and there have never been any serious repercussions, save that I am not always invited to the best affairs. That, by the way, has always seemed a good thing to me."

Ria stared at him in fascination, her jaw having snapped shut when he mentioned blackmail. "You really are a most peculiar gentleman," she said at last. She added quickly, "I hope you are not offended by my plain speaking. I mean no offense."

He gave a short bark of laughter, genuinely amused. "You will have to expand your vocabulary considerably if you ever mean to give me offense, though you've made a good start by calling me a gentleman."

"Oh, but I didn't mean—" Ria stopped because she realized he was having fun with her. It was disconcerting, the way he could blow hot and cold, sometimes both at once. She raised her glass and swallowed a mouthful of brandy. Perhaps considerably more libation than she had consumed was required for full comprehension.

"I am not in need of funds," she told him, "as long as there is no interruption in my allowance. I can depend on you, can I not, to quickly take care of the matters Mr. Ridgeway puts before you concerning me?"

West found that his balance on the arm of the wing chair was suddenly precarious. Not taking his eyes from her, he carefully lowered himself onto the cushion. "Why would Mr. Ridgeway put what concerns you in front of me? And what do you mean about an allowance?"

"Surely you understand that you will control my allowance?"

"I surely do not."

"But it is one of the responsibilities of guardianship."

West did not like where this was going. If he could turn back the clock, he would once more be standing at the curb outside the club. On this occasion he would time his step onto the street differently. He would count himself fortunate indeed to be flattened by the approaching carriage and again by the hack.

"Then you must apply to your guardian," he said.

"That is what I am doing."

Even though he knew what was coming, it was not possible to brace himself for the blow. It was every bit as sharp as a jab to the ribs. He had traded punches in the ring at Gentleman Jackson's salon and not had the wind so cleanly knocked out of him. "You are mistaken," he told her bluntly.

"You are welcome to think so." Under her breath, she said "But I am not."

"I heard that."

She made a slight, apologetic smile.

"You are four-and-twenty," he said.

"Yes."

"In what society is that not considered past the age of majority?"

Ria tempered the urge to smile more deeply. His frustration—or was it fear?—was palpable. "Your father had rather strict notions of what should be required for my independence. It was determined that I was incautious in my judgments, though I do not think many concessions were made for the fact that I was yet a child when my parents died."

"How old?"

"I was just shy of my tenth birthday."

"You were orphaned at once?"

"Yes. Cholera, I am told. My parents were in India. My father was assigned to the regiments in Delhi and my mother was with him. It had already been arranged for me to join them when word arrived of the epidemic. Not long after that, a second missive came informing us that they had died."

West thought Ria made this recitation with some effort to detach herself from it. He understood and appreciated what it cost her to do so.
"Us?"
he asked, prompting her gently to continue. "Who is
us?"

"My great-grandfather. I was living with him when word came. His late wife was your father's mother's sister."

It was precisely this sort of revelation that made his head hurt. "The duke's aunt, you mean."

"Yes."

"You might have simply said so."

Ria regarded him from under the raised sweep of her perfectly arched brows. "I thought I did," she said. "Shall I draw the tree for you? Connect the—"

He held up one hand, palm out. "Pray, do not elaborate on that theme. We are family, then."

"Cousins."

"Distant," he said.

"To be sure."

West leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and pressed the crystal curve of his snifter against his forehead. While it had seemed warm in the cup of his hands, it was cool against his brow. He lowered the glass slowly and opened his eyes. Ria was still watching him intently, and he suspected she knew most of what was in his mind. He'd made no attempt to temper his reaction to her words.

"Why did you not remain with your great-grandfather?" he asked at length. "You were already in his care."

"Yes, but his health was failing, and no one expected that he would survive his own great-grandson. It is one of the reasons I was to join my parents in India, the other being there was no love lost between him and my father. Since he was not named my guardian in my parents' will and because they clearly specified that I should be placed elsewhere, that is what was done."

"What about other relatives? Your grandparents, for instance."

"Dead before I was born. My side of the family tree has few sturdy branches."

"So it would seem." He finished his drink and set it firmly on the table at his side. "More's the pity."

"The duke was made my guardian."

"Yes." West's slight smile held no humor. "I may have come at the thing rather slowly, but I have finally arrived."

Ria was uncertain if this were true. He did not look like a man who had gotten his mind entirely around the notion. "Shall I pour you another brandy?"

"Pray, do not try to be helpful. It is too little, too late."

She made no other offers, but sat silently and allowed him to absorb this further evidence of how his life had been altered by his father's passing. He was not taking it at all well, and she had yet to arrive at the purpose of her visit. It would occur to him sooner or later that she had not traveled all the way from Gillhollow to inform him of his responsibilities as her guardian. When she set out, she had supposed that Mr. Ridgeway had already done that.

West placed his thumb and forefinger on the high bridge of his nose and rubbed gently. Weariness was setting deeply in his bones. He imagined if he multiplied that feeling tenfold, he still would have only an approximation of the weariness in hers.

"It seems to me that whatever else must be said," he told her, "it will be said better in the morning. There will be time before the interment. You mean to attend the service at Westminster, do you not?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then you have no objections to postponing further discussion until tomorrow."

She did, but it seemed the wiser course not to raise them. In truth, the prospect of putting a pillow beneath her head was a tantalizing one. It was becoming increasingly difficult to fight back each urge to yawn. "No objections," she said. "We will speak in the morning."

West nodded, relieved that exhaustion seemed to have made her more biddable than recalcitrant. "Tell me. What arrangements have you made for your stay in London tonight?" he asked. "I will summon a driver to take you there." He saw the last vestige of color leave her face. "Oh no," he said, shaking his head. "Never say you thought you might remain here."

Ria decided that hearing it aloud made it seem remarkably cork-brained.

"It is becoming clear to me," he said quietly, "why, at the advanced age of four-and-twenty, you still require a keeper."

"That is unfair"

"On the contrary, it seems to put a neat bow on the thing."

"I traveled here with funds," she said. "I did not acquire a room for myself because I determined it was more important to find you at the outset."

"And I say to you again, Miss Ashby, that your poorly set priorities, as well as your manner of making my acquaintance, underscore the reasons you have yet to achieve independence. To point out that you have gone about this in a havey-cavey fashion vastly understates it. I might have cut you this evening."

Fatigue did not prevent Ria from lifting her chin. She spoke quietly, however, in softly clipped accents. "Your chastisement is unwarranted. You have not the least notion as to why I've sought you out. You would have me not speak of it until morning because it is an inconvenient hour, and yet this lack of knowledge does not halt you from a rush to judgment." She stood and was pleasantly surprised that she did so steadily. It was unfortunate, perhaps, that the hem of her gown was still so damp that droplets of water fell lightly on the rug. Ria resolutely ignored this sign of her shabby appearance and went on. "I will call on you at eight. That should present us with adequate time for discussion before we must go to the service."

West roused himself sufficiently to regard her with a remote glance, one eyebrow coldly cocked. The effect, he was gratified to see, dropped her right back on the bench. When she was seated, he nodded approvingly. "Very prettily said."

Ria's legs were shaking now, and she doubted she could pull herself to a stand a second time. Even the late duke had never been able to pin her back so deftly. West would not credit it, she thought, but with few exceptions his father had been more likely to indulge her than take her to task.