Authors: Gaelen Foley
“Of course he has a nurse, but
“But
I
need you,
chérie
.” He slipped her a coaxing little smile, wondering if his own late mother had occasionally suffered similar pangs of conscience. What a piece of work she had been, the scandalous duchess of Hawkscliffe, making conquests of half the men she met. Indeed, the twins’ own father had not been their mother’s husband, but her devoted lover of many years, the powerful and mysterious marquess of Carnarthen. The marquess had died recently, leaving Lucien the bulk of his fortune and his infamous villa,
As Lucien stared at Caro, he realized why he felt so strongly about stopping Damien from marrying her. He could hardly let his brother end up with a wife who was just like their mother. Turning away abruptly, he began walking down the hallway, leaving Caro where she stood. “Never mind, woman. Go home to your brat,” he muttered. “I’ll find someone else to amuse me.”
“But, Lucien, I want to come!” she protested, hurrying to catch up in a rustle of satin.
He stared straight ahead as he stalked down the hallway. “Your boy needs you and you know it.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Her tone was so bleak that Lucien looked askance at her. “He doesn’t even know me. He only loves
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s the truth. I am an incompetent mother.”
He shook his head with a vexed sigh. What was it to him if she wanted to lie to herself? “Come along, then. Damien is waiting.” Tucking her hand in the crook of his arm, he led her to the ballroom to face her fate.
Under the bright glow of the balloon-cut chandeliers, the ballroom looked like a civilized place to those who did not know better; but to Lucien, not for nothing was the marble floor laid out in black and white squares like a giant chessboard. Carefully watching the crowd from behind the facade of the decadent, self-indulged persona he had created, he kept all his senses sharply attuned, on the lookout for anyone or anything that set his instincts jangling. Nothing was ever obvious, which was why he had cultivated an enlightened paranoia and trusted no one. In his experience, it was the most average, ordinary-looking people who harbored the most dangerous treacheries. The strange characters were usually harmless; indeed, he had a fondness for all creatures who refused to be crushed by the iron mold of conformity. This preference was borne out in his acquaintance as, here and there, disreputable persons, odd fellows, outsiders, assorted voluptuaries, rebels, disheveled scientific geniuses from the Royal Society, and freakish eccentrics of every stripe nodded to him, furtively offering their respects.
Ah, his minions were eager to return to
“Your Unholiness,” she whispered, giving him a come-hither look.
He bowed his head.
“Bon soir, madame.”
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Caro staring at him in fascination, her lips slightly parted. “What is it, my dear?”
She glanced at the velvet-clad scoundrels who bowed to him, then met his gaze with a sly look. “I was just wondering how Miss Goody Two-Shoes would fare with you around. It would be such fun to watch you corrupt her.”
“Drop her by sometime. I’ll do my best.”
She smirked. “She’d probably faint if you even looked at her, the little prude.”
“Young?”
“Not very. She’s twenty-one.” Caro paused. “Actually, I doubt that even
you
could scale her ivory tower, if you take my meaning.”
He frowned askance at her. “Please.”
Caro shrugged, a mocking smile tugging at her lips. “I don’t know, Lucien. It wouldn’t be easy.
good
as you are
bad
.”
He lifted his eyebrow and dwelled on this for a moment, then pursued the matter, his curiosity piqued. “Is she really such a paragon?”
“Ugh, she turns my stomach,” Caro replied under her breath, nodding to people here and there as they ambled through the crowd. “She won’t gossip. She doesn’t lie. She doesn’t laugh when I make a perfectly witty remark about some woman’s ridiculous dress. She cannot be induced to vanity. She never even misses church!”
“My God, you have my sympathies for having to live with such a monster. What did you say her name was again?” he asked mildly.
“
“Montague?”
“Yes. She’s my poor Glenwood’s little sister.”
“Alice Montague,” he echoed in a musing tone.
A baron’s daughter,
he thought. Virtuous. Available. Good with the brat. Sounded like a perfect candidate for Damien’s bride. “Is she fair?”
“Tolerable,” Caro said flatly, avoiding his gaze.
“Mm-hmm.” He passed a scrutinizing glance over her face, and his eyes began to dance at the jealousy stamped on the baroness’s fine features. “How tolerable, exactly?”
She gave him a quelling look and refused to answer.
“Come, tell me.”
“Forget about her!”
“I’m only curious. What color are her eyes?”
She ignored him, nodding to a lady in a feathered turban.
“Oh, Caro,” he murmured playfully. “Are you jealous of little luscious twenty-one?”
“Don’t be absurd!”
“Then where’s the harm?” he insisted, goading her. “Tell me what color
“Blue,” she snapped, “but they are lackluster.”
“And her hair?”
“Blond. Red. I don’t know. What does it signify?”
“Indulge me.”
“You are an utter pest!
“She sounds delicious,” Lucien whispered in her ear. “Might I bring her to
Caro pulled back and smacked him with her black lace fan.
Lucien was still laughing at her ire as they sauntered into the knot of red-coated soldiers. “Ah, look, Lady Glenwood,” he said in bright irony. “It is my dear brother. Evening, Demon. I’ve brought someone to see you.” Sliding his hands into the pockets of his black trousers, he rocked idly on his heels, a cynical smile sporting at his lips as he waited to watch the show unfold.
Damien’s fellow officers looked disparagingly at Lucien, muttered farewells to their colonel, and predictably walked away, lest their honor be tainted by contagion, he thought dryly. With a war-hardened visage and lionlike decorum, Damien pressed away from the wide pillar where he had been leaning and gave Caro a stiff bow.
“Lady Glenwood. It is a pleasure to see you again,” he clipped out in a low, brusque monotone.
Damien’s manner was so grave that he might have been laying out battle plans for his captains instead of greeting the damsel of his choice,
Lucien thought. Indeed, after serving in nearly every major action in the war, Damien had come home with a deadened, icy look in his eyes that rather worried Lucien, but there was nothing he could do to help when his brother would barely talk to him.
“I trust you find the evening’s entertainments to your liking, my lady,” he said gravely to the baroness.
Caro smiled at him in an odd mix of patience and lust, while Lucien suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at his brother’s tense formality. Damien could lop off an enemy’s head with one blow of his sword, but put him in the vicinity of a beautiful woman, and the steely-eyed colonel turned as shy and uncertain as an overgrown schoolboy. The ladies of the ton were such sugar-spun confections that he seemed to fear that if he touched them he might break them. The hardy lasses who worked St. James’s Park at night put the war hero much more at ease.
Ah, well,
Lucien thought, shaking his head to himself,
it was comforting to know that his exalted brother had his foibles.
He looked on in amusement as Damien cast about haphazardly for something to say and suddenly seized on a topic.
“How’s Harry?”
Lucien shut his eyes briefly and pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation at his brother’s dim-wittedness with the opposite sex. Could he have made it any more obvious that he only wanted a highborn broodmare? No pretty compliments, no requests for a dance. It was a wonder women bothered with the great brute at all.
Even Caro looked uneasy with his choice of subjects, as though to admit that she had borne a child was to admit she was beyond the first blush of her youth. She glossed over her reply, not bothering to mention the boy’s illness, then quickly steered the conversation to other matters. Watching them, Lucien could tell that it cost his brother an intense effort to pay attention to Caro’s empty prattle.
“What a monstrous dull Little Season, don’t you think? All the
best
society has gone home to the country for the hunt, or to
Bored in seconds, Lucien suddenly slipped his hand around Caro’s waist and yanked her to him. “What do you think of this pretty wench, eh, Demon?”
She fell against his chest with a coy squeal. “Lucien!”
“Does she not tempt you? I find she tempts me quite to the breaking point,” he murmured meaningfully, tracing the curve of her side with a slow, wicked caress.
Damien looked at him in shock.
What the hell are you doing?
his scowl demanded, but perhaps he sensed the note of deviltry in his twin’s smooth voice, for he delayed judgment for a moment, regarding Lucien warily. He knew better than anyone that with Lucien, things were never as they seemed.
“Doesn’t she look ravishing this evening? You should tell her so.”
Damien glanced at Caro, then at him. “Indeed.” The single, ominous word rumbled like far-off thunder from the depths of his chest. He studied the woman, as though trying to penetrate her nervous, sugary smile, for he had not been born with Lucien’s gift of seeing past pretense in a glance.
“Let go of me, Lucien. People are staring,” Caro murmured uneasily, brushing her shoulder against his chest as she tried to squirm free.
“What’s wrong,
mon ange
? You only want my touch in secret?” he asked, his tone silky-smooth, though his grip on her body tightened ruthlessly.
She froze and stared at him in shock, her brown eyes looking even darker as her face turned white.
“Time to confess, love. You’ve been trying to manipulate me and my brother, but it’s not going to work. Tell Damien where you were last night.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she forced out.
With a look that could have turned her to a pillar of ice, Damien cursed under his breath and turned away. Lucien laughed softly and allowed Caro to shove free of his embrace.
“Damien, don’t listen to him—you know he is a liar!”
“You would bat your lashes at me after you’ve lain with my brother?” he whispered fiercely shoving off her clutching hands.