Gareth: Lord of Rakes (16 page)

“I’m going to waltz you out the door on the next series of turns. You
will
follow my lead, Felicity.”

Gareth had bent his head to whisper his orders into Felicity’s ear; she beamed him a gay smile he knew to be false, and soon he had her, as promised, out in the brisk night air. The terrace was dimly lit with well-spaced torches, though other couples were moving in the shadows.

“Are you going to be chilled out here?” Gareth asked, giving her his arm as he walked them toward a descending set of steps.

“Probably, if we stay out long enough. But for now, the cool air feels wonderful.”

The cool air smelled wonderful too, of lavender and Felicity, rather than underwashed, overperfumed bodies in a poorly ventilated ballroom.

He led her, literally, down a garden path, stopping in deep shadows before a bench facing a small fountain graced with naked cherubs. When Felicity seated herself on the bench, he dropped his evening coat around her shoulders.

“Thank you.”

And the daft woman was truly grateful. “Felicity, you are such an innocent.”

“I am no longer
such
an innocent in anything but the technical sense. I fail to see what my thanks for a thoughtful gesture has to do with anything.”

Oh, delightful. She was in the mood to scrap—too. Gareth lowered himself to the bench beside her.

“A gentleman lending you his jacket is not a thoughtful gesture, Felicity, it’s a move in a game. No proper gentleman appears before a lady in his shirtsleeves. Under the guise of a solicitous gesture, he can get away with that and envelope you in his scent. He can begin the process of disrobing before you, and begin disrobing you when he retrieves his jacket from you.”

Increasingly, Gareth’s attempts to enlighten her regarding illicit amatory matters came out sounding like scolds. She hadn’t walloped him for it yet, and he hadn’t apologized.

“Gracious, all of that? And here I thought it had something to do with my health, or your fine manners.”

“You are driving me to distraction,” he muttered, skimming his lips over her jaw. That was a mistake, because she angled her neck to allow him her throat, her lips, her shoulders…

“Gareth, I have missed your touch,” she whispered, bringing her hand up to the back of his neck. “I have missed touching you,” she added right before their lips met, a soft reacquainting of mouths, scents, and tastes.

His response was to slide a stealthy hand under the jacket that sat loosely around her shoulders, and stroke her abdomen in feathery caresses. Felicity abetted this nonsense by sifting her fingers through his hair and making soft female noises of longing that called directly to Gareth’s breeding organs.

Which had developed damnably good hearing where she was concerned.

Before those same breeding organs drowned out the last clamoring of good sense, Gareth stood and helped Felicity to her feet. When she placed her hand in his, he kissed her gloved knuckles, then led her back up the steps.

Twenty-one more days, he reminded himself. Then he could take her to bed and indulge every whim and fantasy either of them had ever dreamed. The past week had been difficult, to say the least. With the collusion of his mother and brother, Gareth had observed the fiction of a proper interest in Felicity.

All of the mincing and bowing was enough to gag him, and Felicity obviously wasn’t enjoying it either.

“I wonder,” Gareth said quietly, “how I ever found this”—he gestured vaguely toward the ballroom—“of any interest. It’s beyond intolerable, now.”

“You enjoy the acquaintances you make in these surroundings,” Felicity reminded him. Her comment was aimed at his sexual recreation, but Gareth shared her distaste.

“I have in the past,” he rejoined mildly.

“Well, well, well,” came an amused voice from their left as they regained the terrace. “If it isn’t Heathgate, out trolling for a fresh catch. Lady Hamilton is quite relieved she needn’t suffer tedious attentions from you any further, old man.”

Beneath his hand, Gareth felt unease creeping through Felicity, and applauded her instincts.

“Riverton.” Gareth gave him the barest nod. “You will pardon me if I don’t pause to introduce the
lady
. Too much night air can be unhealthful, and I must return her to company.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady.” Riverton offered Felicity a slow bow, his thinning sandy hair flopping over his brow as he bent.

Gareth walked Felicity back across the terrace silently, pausing only long enough to whisk his evening coat from her shoulders and urge her back into the ballroom.

“Give me a minute to button this damned thing up and get my gloves back on,” he muttered. “I will find you in the refreshment room, where, I have no doubt, you will also find my brother.”

Felicity looked as if she might engage him in further discussion, which was not precisely convenient. Gareth offered her a wink, which had her moving back into the ballroom, her expression more puzzled than pleased. Abandoning any pretense at humor, Gareth recrossed the balcony to where Riverton lounged against the balustrade.

“That one looked tasty enough,” Riverton commented, “if a bit prim. But the prim ones can be the most fun, eh?”

Gareth considered his options while making a production out of removing a cigar from a nacre case he carried in a pocket of his evening coat. They were a prop his valet insisted on—Gareth never had, and he never would, smoke the damned things.

Fifteen years Gareth’s senior at least, Riverton was among the barely tolerated effluvia one encountered when moving in certain social circles. He had the sallow complexion, thinning hair, and thickening gut of the aging roué, and no Lady Riverton to curb the worst of his excesses. Gareth generally offered the man terse civility when they crossed paths, but no more.

And yet, Riverton was named in Callista’s will. What did Riverton know, and how was Gareth to find it out? The last time Gareth had exchanged more than a few words with the man had been—of all the unlikely and miserable places—at a memorial service they’d both likely just as soon forget.

“Riverton, I believe an apology is in order. Your observations were tendered in inappropriate company.” Gareth adopted a mild, almost humorous tone.

“As if any female in your company has ever expected the pretty from you, Heathgate. Your reputation alone damns the woman.”

And to think that nine years ago, Gareth’s family had considered him the antidote to scandal for at least one young lady. In deference to the woman’s memory, rather than remind Riverton of that salient bit of history, Gareth let a silence stretch until Riverton had to feel the awkwardness.

“Even such as I, Riverton, must eventually do my duty to the title, and when I am thus occupied, you can be assured the fortunate object of my attentions is all that is deserving of
prim
and
proper
decorum
.”

While that little speech wafted about on the night air, Gareth mentally located his dueling pistols, then set them aside. A duel fought over Felicity’s honor would ruin her every bit as much as what Gareth had planned for her.

“You don’t say! Well, apologies all around then,” Riverton wheezed. “Holy matrimony, heirs,
and
duty! You don’t say, indeed!” He spun on his heel and went chuckling off into the night.

Gareth pitched his unlit cigar into the bushes and wondered if Felicity would consent to leave before supper.

“Well, that ought to get the tongues wagging,” came a voice from below the balustrade.

“Andrew, quit lurking like a sneak thief. Nothing I had to say to Riverton was worth eavesdropping on anyway.”

Though Andrew might also have seen Felicity with Gareth’s jacket around her shoulders, which had been pure stupidity on Gareth’s part. More pure stupidity.

And all those years ago, Andrew had been at the memorial service too.

“What prompted an exchange with that weasel in the first place?” Andrew asked as he ambled up the steps.

“I took Felicity out for some air, and Riverton made an untoward comment.” Though the man’s comments about Gareth’s usual company were… not inaccurate.

“An untoward comment
regarding
Felicity?” Andrew asked sharply.

“Not quite. He described me as trolling for a fresh catch and informed me Lady Hamilton was relieved not to have to suffer my tedious attentions. I should have called him out on Edith’s behalf, but he isn’t worth an extended visit to the Continent. Moreover, he might well know who Felicity is and why she is in my company.”

“Why wouldn’t he know?” Andrew asked, propping his elbows on the stone railing beside Gareth.

“Because he’s tiresomely stupid and concerned with only the pursuit of his own tawdry pleasures?” Gareth suggested, feeling a pang of regret on Edith’s behalf that this should be so. “I wasn’t aware Callista had involved me in her schemes until Felicity appeared on my doorstep. If Callista didn’t see fit to gain my prior consent, I doubt she would have troubled to inform Riverton he was the proposed alternate.”

“Riverton is tiresome, Gareth, but he is not completely witless. Yes, he’s stupid enough to fornicate his way into an early grave—the same affliction affects half the peerage—but he’s… cunning.”

Andrew was no longer a pup just down from university, and Gareth could not tolerate the notion Andrew might be worried on his brother’s account.

“And what if Riverton is cunning? I am fulfilling the request Callista made of me, and Felicity will meet the terms of the bequest. In a very few months, the brothel will be sold, and it all will have been none of Riverton’s concern.”

“One hopes.” Two words, each towing a bargeful of fraternal censure.

“One will do more than hope, Andrew. I have given Felicity my word, and thus it shall be.” Gareth kept his voice down, because a couple was strolling beneath the balustrade, the woman plastered to her escort.

“You were giving her more than just your word, Brother mine, when I spied you down by the fountain a few minutes ago,” Andrew retorted, albeit very quietly. “I thought the idea was to show the lady proper attention, not make her out to be yet another one of your illicit conquests.”

Every word of which was also damnably, rottenly true. The couple below paused in the shadow of some rhododendrons and stood far too close to each other.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Andrew?”

“Oh, don’t pull that with me, Gareth. You took a risk with Felicity in the garden tonight, and you know it. She is in an extremely vulnerable and difficult position. Take advantage of her, and you shame yourself while she pays the price.”

“Andrew…”

“Oh, yes, I know. She needs you to ruin her, but, Gareth, you don’t have to make sure the whole of Society is in on the joke. I’ll marry her myself before I’d let you do that.”

That his brother would hold him accountable for honorable behavior was an occasion for pride, and for far less comfortable emotions.

From the direction of the rhododendrons, somebody giggled.

“Do not judge where you have only some of the facts, Andrew,” Gareth said. “Felicity is a problem thrust upon me by circumstances, and I am trying to deal with her as expeditiously as possible.”

“For God’s sake, Gareth, cut line. You are not the victim in this farce, she is. But if you continue to take chances like you took tonight, I won’t marry Felicity to protect her from the cruel scorn of her peers. I’ll marry her to protect her from what you’ve let yourself become.”

Andrew made his exit on that uncomfortable note, Gareth staring into the darkness and ignoring another spate of giggling. The conversation had been startlingly awkward, particularly because Gareth grasped Andrew’s point all too clearly.

If Andrew were the one ruining a decent woman so she could become a silent owner of an indecent business, Gareth might very well be cleaning his matched set of Mantons.

The realization was sour, stark, and inescapable.

Gareth considered going after his brother, when the sound of a palm slapping stoutly against a cheek came from the shadows below. The notion that somebody else was being soundly scolded for a lapse in judgment brought a smidgen of comfort.

“I won’t marry him, you know.”

Oh, lovely. The evening needed only that.

“Everyone has taken to spying and lurking in shadows,” Gareth observed. “I find myself sadly out of fashion, standing here where all and sundry may note my presence.”

Felicity came away from the door to stand beside him, peering up at him in the dim light.

“Andrew was not in the refreshment room, and somebody told me I could find him out here. I knew you were also here, so I returned. I’m sorry I overheard, but you mustn’t be perturbed with your brother, Gareth.”

They fell silent as a young lady stalked past, a gentleman sporting one red cheek beside her but not touching her.

“Well, he’s more than perturbed at me,” Gareth replied. And that was intolerable, also completely understandable.

“He’ll get over it, and it’s good for you to occasionally hear something besides ‘yes, your lordship,’ and ‘certainly, your divine perfectionship.’ He’s a dear man, and you are fortunate to have him for your brother.”

Andrew was dear. Dear to Gareth like no other—a loyal brother and a patient, tolerant friend. They had been at outs before, but this last discussion had a disturbing depth to it.

“Would you mind very much if we departed before the supper?” he asked Felicity as they regained the ballroom.

“I would not mind one bit. I am not used to Society’s hours, and I am uneasy leaving Astrid home with only staff this far into the night.”

She would worry about her sister, while Gareth, if asked to bet on little Miss Astrid or a she-wolf, would not have bet on the wolf. Gareth escorted Felicity through the crowd, nodding and almost-smiling with enough distance that those who would have approached were dissuaded.

Until a cultured male voice cut through the hum and buzz of the ballroom. “Why, Miss Worthington, what a pleasure.”

David Holbrook smiled at Felicity and in return, she was gifting the man with one of those rare, genuine expressions of pleasure that dazzled with the sincerity of her warmth.