The carriage came to a halt in front of Lord Charleton’s residence.
“Demmit,” Pierson muttered as he glanced up and out the window.
Beneath him, Louisa struggled up, her hair tousled and her dress askew.
Askew. That was putting it mildly. Hell, it was nearly up over her head.
And he’d done all this—from the sly smile on her lips to the heavy-lidded gaze looking up at him in admiration. Even the smoky desire still simmering in her eyes.
Offering as much as he had given her.
He was hard as a rock, and wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her. Find his release as quickly as he could and then . . . then . . .
Oh, hell that was the problem.
The “then.”
As he looked down at Louisa Tempest, her cheeks flushed, that gorgeous mahogany hair all tumbled and begging to be pulled free from the pins that remained, he knew that as much as he wanted a singular, hastily taken moment of gratification, wanted to tell the coachman to take one more slow turn around the block, he also wanted the “then.”
And everything that came after.
Seeing her bright smile every morning.
He suspected Louisa Tempest arose each day, just as dawn crept over the horizon, brimming with delight, only because a full day of meddling lay before her.
And how she would meddle her way through his lair.
Well-cooked meals. An orderly house. Suppers with friends. (Never mind that he had none currently, Louisa would remedy that.) Lively discussions. Even more lively arguments. Improvements. Changes.
Reopening Stratton House. Good God! She’d be in alt over all those Holland covers and all the dust that needed to be swept aside.
And then she’d make it a home again. She’d insist.
A lifetime whirled before him. Marriage. Children. An heir.
And Louisa. Always Louisa. Smiling. Chiding. Loving.
His heart, cold and abandoned, warmed and beat anew.
But not for long.
What makes you think you deserve any of that? That dark whisper invaded his joy with the swift surety of a well-aimed arrow.
That horrible voice, the one filled with guilt and anger, could stem any tide, cut through any bit of hope. A fiendish demon he’d spent so many hours trying to blot out. And yet it always found a way out of the blackness, a way to call him back into the hole into which he’d climbed the moment he’d awakened to find his leg festering, his best friend dead. That soulless demon reached out and caught hold of him, towing him back into its dark clutches.
You don’t deserve her. Not you.
Then the darkness tugged and pulled at him, like determined street urchins after the meager coins of hope he’d hidden away in his pockets. He could feel its grasp and knew he was losing.
When he glanced at Miss Tempest, he also knew a horrible truth.
He’d drag her right down with him.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Pierson said as he hastily pulled her skirt back down and clumsily tried to put her back into some semblance of order.
For worse yet, a second carriage had just pulled in behind them and he could hear his uncle’s voice bellowing for his butler.
“Brobson! Where the devil are you? Open the door!”
Oh, yes, Charleton was in a rare and foul mood.
Taking another glance at the tumbled and all-but-ruined lady beside him, Pierson knew without a doubt if his uncle caught a glance at his houseguest’s starry expression and rumpled state of dishabille, he’d be facing a different set of seconds in the morning.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he muttered as he quickened his efforts.
With her usual efficiency, Louisa brushed his hands aside. “Good heavens, let me.”
And in moments she was nearly in order.
Nearly. For there was no way to remove that blush from her cheeks, that knowing light in her eyes.
He’d done that. And while he wanted to proudly claim it, he didn’t fancy his uncle aiming a pistol at his heart.
“I—I—” he stammered. The words that so desperately wanted to come out, stuck in his throat. “Oh, hell!” was all he could manage to sputter.
Louisa looked up at him, her hand reaching out to cradle his jaw. “You are a devil of a beast, Lord Wakefield.” Her smile widened, as if it could light up the darkest corners, and then she got out of his carriage and was gone.
Leaving him to gape after her. Whatever did that mean? He was a devil of a beast? Was that good or bad?
The carriage rolled forward down to the next set of doors, leaving him little time to consider the notion as he climbed out.
He told himself not to look for her, but he couldn’t help it.
It took all of a second for his gaze to light on her as she followed Lady Aveley up the steps. Then and there, she paused, her hand on the railing, and slowly she glanced in his direction.
She didn’t acknowledge him with a nod or a smile or even any indication that she’d seen him.
But his heart knew. It walloped in his chest. Don’t let her go. Fetch her back here, you fool.
Pierson started to turn, about to race down his steps (as fast as a man with a cane could), with only one thought: Toss her over your shoulder and bring her home.
Despite all the obvious flaws in such a ridiculous plan, first and foremost, he doubted his uncle would approve of such an arrangement. Especially given his current mood.
He stole another glance at her just before she entered Charleton’s house, and the temptation, the need to have her, nearly drove him forward.
But this time it was Ilford who stopped him.
Bloody Ilford and all his insinuations about the chit’s mother.
For had he, Pierson, just treated Miss Tempest any better?
The answer drove him up his steps and into his house. Where he belonged.
Yet as he entered and stood there in the quiet, empty foyer before him, Pierson Stratton, Viscount Wakefield, realized that there was no escaping the matter now.
The only way to save Louisa Tempest from a lifetime of ruin was to marry her.
To have her at his side always. She’d be his light, his spark, what with her busybody ways. Her smile.
Her kiss.
And that was what was wrong. For if he married her, he would surely snuff out that light of hers eventually. Darken her bright spirit.
And that was something he wouldn’t allow himself to do. She deserved so much better.
Why was it, at that moment, an image of Brody whirled in his thoughts. Poldie’s brother. His heir. A baron now. He was the sort of happy, settled man Miss Tempest should marry.
Not him.
Pierson’s gaze turned upward, to the dark, gaping hole of the stairs that led to where it was all shadows and coldly familiar. His room. His bottle. The place where he could shut out the dreams. The visions that had haunted him ever since . . .
He closed his eyes to try and blot that image out.
Poldie, his chest a river of blood. His eyes staring up into the sky, his lips moving to form a single word over and over again. Live. Live. Live.
And yet Poldie hadn’t. He’d died there. Taken the full force of the bullet meant for another.
Pierson had no right to live a good and happy life—certainly none to the happiness that burst into his heart when he saw Louisa turn in his direction. Nor the anxious joy that nudged at him when he heard the snip, snip of her shears in the garden.
Not when Poldie was lying in a cold, unmarked grave beside an empty Spanish road.
He, Pierson, should be in that hole. Not Poldie.
Looking back up the stairs, he let the darkness beckon him.
Taking the stairs slowly, painfully, he let the blackness close in around him. It was bleak and cold, and he didn’t mind at all. For when he found his room, he closed his door and reached for the bottle.
And let the oblivion it offered wash over his broken heart.
Louisa didn’t look left or right as she went up the stairs, through the foyer, and up the long staircase to the chamber she shared with Lavinia—hoping to make it there quickly, if only to escape Lady Aveley’s or Lord Charleton’s notice.
Not that she was going to escape her sister’s scrutiny.
Lavinia closed the door behind her with a solid thump. And then remained in front of it like a prison guard, unwilling to let her charge move one step out of her sight. After several long, tense moments of silence, her sister finally spoke. “What was that?”
Louisa stood with her back to Lavinia, trying to find the words, but standing as she was meant that she faced the window.
The window that looked across the garden and at his house.
And that was unbearable.
Better to face her sister.
Or so she thought before she turned around and saw Lavinia’s expression. Brows arched, jaw set stubbornly.
“Why did Wakefield strike that man?”
“I haven’t the least notion—” Louisa began, but stopped right there, for it was impossible to lie to Lavinia.
“He’s gone and ruined us. Can’t you see that?” Lavinia took a step closer.
“He hasn’t ruined us—” Me certainly, but not us. Though Louisa could hardly admit that aloud. And then she thought of something else. “However did all those people end up toppled over on the dance floor?”
Lavinia’s cheeks blushed to a deep shade of pink.
As Louisa had suspected all along. “You promised not to dance.”
“So did you. I didn’t see you refusing Lord Ilford.”
Louisa shuddered at the memory. “He made it impossible to refuse.”
“As did Mr. Rowland. He kept insisting that he must dance with me to ‘keep Charleton happy.’ And then he just led me out. Dragged me, if you must know. And then imagine my horror upon discovering it was a cotillion and I was—”
Yes, Louisa knew exactly what Lavinia was. Ruined. Mr. Rowland might as well have asked Lavinia to perform at the ballet, as to ask her to dance something as complicated as a cotillion.
Poor Lavinia.
When she glanced up, she found her sister’s eyes awash with brimming tears. “Louisa, all I wanted was to make a respectable match,” she said in a whisper. “Be married. Prove I’m not like—”
And right there Lavinia stopped, so abruptly it startled Louisa.
I’m not like—
Her sister’s mouth fell open and then she closed it quickly, biting her bottom lip, as if that would prevent anything else from slipping out. Even her tears seemed to still.
“Not like who?” Louisa asked, a wary niggle running down her spine.
“Never mind,” Lavinia told her, suddenly busy taking off her gloves and then reaching up to unpin her bonnet. “It matters not now. Your viscount has seen to that.”
“He’s not my viscount,” Louisa told her, coming over to help. She found the pin that had been eluding her sister—it was always the one on the left—and pulled it free.
Lavinia turned slightly, and they were so close, there could be no lies between them. “Are you certain?”
“He won’t marry me,” Louisa whispered. She knew that. The darkness in his eyes had told her that. Oh, he’d looked at her with longing and desire, and for a whisper of a second, she’d thought . . . Well, she’d been foolish to think so.
Her sister reached out and took her hand. “Should he, Louisa? Should he ask for you? He hasn’t . . . You haven’t . . . You aren’t . . .”
How could she answer? She hadn’t lost her innocence . . . entirely. Yet as she stole a glance out the window, toward the dark house across the way, she knew she would have let him.
Wished with all her heart that he had.
“Louisa?”
“Oh, Lavinia, I am in such a muddle,” she finally confessed, and they were in each other’s arms, hugging and holding each other close.
“We should never have come to London,” Lavinia lamented.
Louisa pulled back a bit. “You insisted.”
“I did, didn’t I?” She went and sat down on the edge of her bed and Louisa followed. “Why didn’t you talk some sense into me?”
Talk sense into Lavinia? Louisa would have laughed if she could have. “No one can do that, my dear. No one.”
“I suppose not.” Lavinia sighed and glanced around the room. “Whatever did Lord Ilford say to Lord Wakefield to provoke such violence?”
Louisa shook her head. “He wouldn’t say.”
“That doesn’t mean the rest of London will be so discreet.” Lavinia stifled a sob and looked away.
“Vivi,” Louisa whispered, using an old, childhood nickname. “What is it?”
“Oh, Lala, forgive me,” Lavinia told her. “Forgive her. I should have known. We never should have come here. I was so wrong to think—”
“That no one else knew about Mama?” Louisa whispered, deciding it was time.
Lavinia’s gaze flew up. “You know?”
“You know?” Louisa asked back.
And then the two confessed how much they knew of their mother’s ruin and what all of London would know come the next day.
“Charleton! This is a disaster!” Lady Aveley exclaimed as she paced in front of the fireplace in his study.
To the baron’s credit, he’d managed to quickly get them all out of Almack’s and away from the scandal.
But nothing would stop the storm that had been unleashed when Wakefield had struck Lord Ilford.
Egads! Ilford, of all people! Not that Lady Aveley was surprised. That wretched marquess loved to share his font of gossip and disgraceful on dits.
It wasn’t very difficult to imagine what Ilford had said—but Wakefield? Good heavens, she expected such antics of Rowland, but certainly not Wakefield.
Still, the outcome was all that mattered, and now Ilford’s wrath would be squarely pointed at the Tempest sisters. For given the blow he’d received, the lady doubted he’d impugn Wakefield. At least not openly.
Not and risk a second thrashing.
Lady Aveley sighed heavily and sank into the chair beside the fireplace.
When she looked up, there was Charleton holding out a glass for her.
“I don’t imbibe spirits,” she told him.
“You do tonight. Drink it,” he ordered, handing the glass to her and taking the chair opposite hers. “Is it as bad as it appears?”
“Worse,” Lady Aveley told him, stretching her slippered feet toward the warmth of the coals and taking a tentative sip from the glass. It was a brandy, smooth and elegant, and it warmed her in places the fire couldn’t reach.
“I have to imagine he knows about Kitty.” She glanced over to see if he knew what she meant.
He nodded and went back to examining his drink.
“I should have known someone would bring up that old business.”
Charleton shrugged. “I give Sir Ambrose credit. He did his level best with that falderal that Lady Tempest died in a carriage accident—”
“So the girls would never be tarnished by their mother’s sins.”
“Did she truly sin?” Charleton stared at the coals in the grate, his legs stretched out before him. “She didn’t love Ambrose. Married him because Eddowes died. I’ve even wondered if those girls—”
“Don’t say it—” Lady Aveley snapped, even if she had thought the same thing more than once. “Sir Ambrose loves his daughters.”
“Yes, so he does. Yet what is that worth when so many people know the truth?”
The truth. How was it that the truth could be so abhorrent, Lady Aveley mused. Why couldn’t everyone just believe the lie and leave well enough alone? The truth, well, the truth should have been left in Pandora’s box where it belonged.
But Kitty had ruined that. She’d never been one to be discreet.
Lady Aveley wished her old friend had taken to heart what most everyone knew: There are no secrets in the ton if more than one person knows the particulars.
Lord Charleton looked up from his own musings. “This is all her fault. Lady Tempest was foolish and stupid. She promised Sir Ambrose she’d disappear. Never come back.”
Lady Aveley shook her head. “I’m sure Kitty meant to, at least she did when she gave her word.” But most likely that promise, like so many others, had flitted out of her head the moment another need—a more pressing one—arose. She’d always been like that—so frivolous and spoiled. She’d probably convinced herself that running away with a handsome dancing master would be yet another grand adventure.
Not seen the ruin that it was.
“Yes, well,” Charleton began, reaching for the decanter and pouring out another measure, “she shouldn’t have written for money, begging help from all her friends.”
This stopped Lady Aveley. “She wrote Isobel?”
Charleton snorted. “Of course she did. And probably half a dozen others. Selfish chit.”
Here Lady Aveley had thought she’d been the only one. Then again, she should have known. How like Kitty to solicit help from her “only and dearest friend.”
Of course, each of her numerous friends had been the “only and dearest” in that vain moment. But it had left the entire ton knowledgeable of her scandal.
Which meant . . .
Lady Aveley closed her eyes and considered what was before her. “This mess is now my problem.”
“Our problem,” Charleton corrected.
There was a tendril to his words that wound inside her. Our problem. The idea left her unbalanced. And when she glanced up, she found him staring at her in a way he hadn’t in a very long time.
Tying his fate to hers.
Oh, that would never do.
“I haven’t the least notion how I’m to find those girls proper husbands now,” she admitted, sitting up and shaking off the warm and cozy air that was descending upon her. It was all too easy to be lulled into the false sense of security by a tumbler of brandy . . .
. . . and George Rowland. She glanced over at her host and recalled how in his own day, he had been ever so like Tuck. Devil-may-care and all too charming.
To her never-ending heartbreak.
Oh, dear, she was getting maudlin. All this talk of the past.
The past . . . When it had been she and Izzy and Kitty. All fresh from school and out for their first Season. How the years had passed so quickly. And now she was the only one left.
And Kitty’s daughters. So like their mother in looks and so different in temperament. It wasn’t fair that they should be tarred with their mother’s sins, and yet here they were—with Lord Ilford more than happy to wipe that brush from one end of London to another.
Setting aside the glass, she smoothed her hands over her skirt. “We were entrusted with these girls. They need husbands. Gentlemen who will treat them with respect and generosity. And now, most especially, with love.”
As you never did me, her heart silently added.
“And yet . . .” she finished, looking not at the baron but at the coals glowing in the grate.
“And yet?” Charleton prodded. As if he didn’t already know the answer.
Still, she told him. “Well, I don’t know. I haven’t the least notion what’s to be done. Ilford is not one to suffer humiliation.”
Charleton leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. “You can fix all this, Amy. I know you can.”
Amy. He hadn’t called her by her given name in years. Not since . . . Well, not since another had gained his heart.
But such a moment of familiarity wasn’t going to be her undoing. “Don’t you try and cozen me,” she warned, reminding herself she was a respectable matron, not a fresh-out-of-school girl whose heart raced when a man took such a liberty.
Amy.
“Bah, you make this all sound so dire,” Charleton told her. “You had a bit of scandal attached to you when you came out—”
“George Rowland!” she exclaimed, feeling heat rising on her cheeks. Even all these years later, she still blushed over her less-than-stellar coming out.
“Oh, don’t get missish on me. We’ve known each other too long for that. Besides, look how well you turned out. Got Aveley to boot and broke hearts all over London.”
Except yours.
Lady Aveley bit her lip and glanced over at her half-drunk glass. Oh, good heavens, what was in that brandy?
Giving the tumbler another nudge well out of reach, she reminded him of the obvious. “I did well because I had a dowry that lessened my faults.”
“And so do those chits upstairs,” Charleton told her, nodding toward the ceiling. “Had a letter from Sir Ambrose just today with the particulars—just in case one of them manages to ‘trip up some fool.’ ” He glanced up, probably knowing how she would react to such a description and added, “His words, not mine.” Then he chuckled. “Both of them stand to inherit a small fortune.”
“How small?” Lady Aveley asked. A fortune always managed to smooth over minor social missteps.
Unfortunately, Kitty’s sins could hardly be called minor.
“I wouldn’t worry much over all this,” Charleton continued. “If you would stop wringing your hands, you might see that we’ve got two excellent prospects for the girls right before us.”
Lady Aveley’s brows pulled together as she tried to comprehend who he was talking about. And then it hit her.
“Tuck and Wakefield?” she sputtered. “Are you mad?”
Lord Charleton looked at her with a bit of puzzlement, as if he was surprised she couldn’t see this as the perfect solution. “Not in the least. The pair of them solves everything.”
Lady Aveley huffed. “Wakefield is a temperamental recluse, while Tuck is . . .” She tried to come up with the right words and still remain ladylike.
“Yes, well, Tuck is Tuck,” Charleton supplied, saving her the embarrassment, but grinning at her all the same—just as he used to when he was fresh from Cambridge. “Why do you think Wakefield sent Ilford flying?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “As I said he’s unpredictable, he’s got a screw loose—”
“Have you not considered all the time that gel’s spent over there?”
Her eyes widened. “She’s been helping the staff . . . Getting things in order . . .” Wasn’t she? “Oh, goodness, no!”
Charleton grinned. “Oh, goodness, yes. Which is perfect, because of all the things Wakefield is, he’s an honorable sort. Why do you think he was there tonight? At bloody Almack’s, for God’s sake?”
Lady Aveley got up, because that grin, that mischievous light in his eyes had always been her undoing. “You think he’ll come up to scratch?” Her question was more a statement of disbelief.
“I’d wager it. Care to place a bet, Amy?”
Her mouth went dry, but she managed to answer him. “No.” She’d wagered her heart on him all those years ago and lost.
She wouldn’t take that bet ever again. Instead, she nodded to him and went to leave.
Yet when she got to the door, Charleton asked one more question.
One that stopped her cold.
“Are you still as cowhanded as you once were, Amy? Is that why you didn’t dance tonight?”
Her hand on the latch, she paused. Of all the infuriating things to ask, why, she should . . . Why, she ought to . . .
She stopped herself right there. Charleton had always been able to vex her with his teasing—since they’d been children.
Seemed he could still find a way to raise her temper.
Well, no more.
Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at him with a level gaze that she hoped hid her racing heart. “I didn’t dance because no one asked me.”
“London fools,” he remarked, tipping his glass at her.
“Yes, indeed. Fools,” she replied.
One especially.