Later that morning, Reardon Manor, Mayfair
Having found the breakfast parlor empty, a relieved Lucy settled into her usual chair at the round table and watched as a footman delivered a cup of tea, coddled eggs, toast points, and a rasher of bacon with a haste she hadn’t witnessed before.
“Smithers, whatever is wrong?” she asked.
The rather tall, lean servant paused near the door. “I’m needed upstairs, my lady,” he replied. “Your brother...” Here he stopped, his dark brows furrowed in confusion. “Well, you’re probably already aware.”
Lucy half-stood from her chair. “What? What is it?”
Smithers’ eyes rounded. “He’s not doing so well on this morning. A bit deep in his cups last evenin’.”
Blinking, Lucy settled back into her chair. “Oh,” she murmured, tucking into her meal. “Is that all?” This last was said with a roll of her eyes. Her mother had no doubt told him about finding her with Marcus Higgins when they returned from the ball at one o’clock that morning. He had probably drunk an entire bottle of brandy in response.
Although Christopher Fitzsimmons, the second Viscount Reardon, had joined them for the start of the Weatherstone’s ball, he had left the affair well before supper was served, complaining of heartburn. The news of her indiscretion with Marcus had probably only worsened his symptoms.
Well, she wasn’t about to take all the blame for something for which she was only half responsible. There were two people kissing under the watchful eyes of Cupid in Lord Weatherstone’s gardens last night, and Marcus Higgins was one of them.
The cur.
The wretch.
The scoundrel.
The rake.
The insufferable second son of a gambler.
Lucy choked down her third toast point, continuing to fume over the sudden disappearance of her cohort in her first kiss.
Once again, the thought of that kiss had her audibly sighing. Could there ever be anything else so wonderful in life as that kiss? Everything about it had been awe-inspiring.
The firm pillows of his lips.
The taste of champagne.
The scents of amber and citrus and musk.
The sensation of his tongue tangling with hers.
The way his hand caressed her jaw, sending delightful shivers beneath her skin.
The feel of his warm breath on her cheek.
The sight of his dark lashes resting on the tops of his cheekbones before she’d been forced to close her own eyes.
The hard planes of his chest where her hands had rested against it.
Even now, her breasts felt heavy and swollen, her nipples hard behind her stays.
What would it feel like for his lips to kiss them? she wondered. To be licked and suckled and flicked with the thumb he had brushed along her jaw.
Her entire body shuddered as frissons danced under her skin and through her belly to the space at the top of her thighs.
She felt the sudden dampness and wondered what was happening to her.
Desire had her wishing Marcus Higgins was with her. He needed to do whatever it was that came after a kiss. Whatever was necessary to relieve the throbbing ache. To sooth her heated skin. To quell her pebbled nipples. To put her to rights.
Where was her god of lust when she needed him?
The sound of the butler answering the front door had her pushing away from the table. Perhaps Marcus knew of her discomfort well before receiving the note she had given her lady’s maid. Persimmon had promised she would see to its delivery, claiming she knew of a maid next door who knew someone who worked in Pendleton House, home of the late Earl of Greenley.
A hint of panic had her wondering where she might hide Marcus once he was in the house. Perhaps they could make it to one of the guest bedchambers. There they could engage in kisses without fear of interruption. Engage in all manner of whatever else came after a kiss.
Surely Marcus would know what to do. He was older. He had been away at university. He had probably done whatever it was men did after such scorching kisses with a number of women.
A sudden wave of jealousy coupled with indignation had her experiencing a moment of indigestion.
She empathized with her brother.
Lucy made it to the door of the breakfast parlor and was about to step into the hall when the butler, Peters, hurried past, followed by a black-clad man carrying a valise.
She recognized him. Dr. Fortnum. Her brother’s physician.
A quick glance around the hall had her noticing a distinct lack of household maids. The house seemed entirely too quiet.
Climbing the stairs with the intention of going to her bedchamber, she instead stopped outside her brother’s master suite. Peeking inside, her eyes rounded at seeing the physician bending over the bed, administering something sweet-smelling, the odor so strong she was reminded of Lady Morganfield’s garden.
Laudanum.
“Is Christopher going to be all right?” she asked once her mother took note of her presence. The young man was only three-and-twenty. Despite his youth, he had shown valor during a particularly bloody battle the year prior—like his father before him, he had even suffered a bullet wound to his middle. Lucy was fairly sure her uncle, Matthew Fitzsimmons, Viscount Chamberlain and head of the Foreign Office, had something to do with his brother’s reward of the Reardon viscountcy by the king.
“I’ll be fine,” Christopher said, pushing away the doctor’s attempt to make him take a second spoonful of the medication.
“I never should have told you about what happened last night,” Jane said, a handkerchief gripped so tightly in one hand, Lucy feared the laundress would never be able to iron out the wrinkles. The skirt of the gray gown she wore showed evidence of her nervous habit of pleating the fabric between her fingers. She had probably been doing it all morning until the physician arrived.
Christopher barked out a laugh. “Oh, Mother, my current condition has absolutely nothing to do with Lucy and her foray into the gardens,” he claimed, straightening on the bed. “I’ve merely had heartburn since last night’s dinner.” He waved away the physician, who busied himself with the contents of his valise. “Now, Sister, tell me everything.” He crooked a finger in Lucy’s direction, summoning her to step closer.
“Everything?” Lucy repeated, a look of horror crossing her face. “About what?”
To her relief, Dr. Fortnum nodded to her brother and took his leave, the butler joining him once he was out in the corridor. Now only her mother and brother were in the master bedchamber.
“You’re sure it was Marcus Higgins who kissed you?”
Lucy scoffed. “Who said he kissed me?” she countered defiantly.
Her mother aimed a scowl in her direction. “Lady Pettigrew was quite insistent that she saw you in an embrace with the boy.”
“Only because she wants a tidbit of gossip to share,” Christopher put in, which had both women staring at him in surprise. He shrugged. “I am well aware the crone is a gossip monger,” he added. “The Tattler probably pays her for it.”
“So it doesn’t matter if I did or didn’t kiss Marcus Higgins,” Lucy argued. “Either way, she’ll claim I did, and my reputation will be ruined.”
Christopher exchanged a quick look with their mother. “Possibly,” he hedged.
“Probably,” Jane insisted. “Perhaps we can send you to live at the dowager cottage in Somerset? With a relative, of course,” she suggested.
“What?” Lucy’s eyes were wide with fright.
“You could attend balls in the Upper Rooms in Bath and enjoy the elegant stupidity of all the private parties,” her mother went on, apparently warming to the idea of sending her away.
“Mother, we’re not sending Lucy to live in Bath,” Christopher stated.
“Well, it’s just an idea,” Jane countered. Her attention was captured by the butler, who had returned to the doorway. “What is it, Peters?”
“You have a caller, my lady. Viscountess Pettigrew.” A wince crossed his face at the same moment his nose wrinkled, as if he had sniffed an especially offensive odor. Probably the laudanum. “I put her in the downstairs salon.”
Jane exchanged a glance of frustration with her children before taking her leave of Christopher’s bedchamber.
Moving to take her mother’s place closer to Christopher, Lucy whispered, “My reputation is most definitely ruined.” She let out a long sigh. “I was with him. Next to a fountain.”
“The one with Cupid?” Christopher asked with a crooked grin. Another moment, and the grin had grown into a huge smile. He was enjoying himself far too much. “Through the rose arbor?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I wasn’t looking at the...” She clamped her mouth shut and sighed again, wondering if her brother might have kissed his betrothed, Lady Maria, next to that very same fountain the year prior. “Well, all is not lost, I suppose,” she murmured.
Her brother sat up, his disheveled hair making him appear as if he’d had a rough night. “What have you done?” There was a glint in his eye suggesting he knew there was more to the story than what his mother had told him earlier.
“Nothing,” Lucy replied. Upon seeing his arched brow, she huffed. “I merely ensured there would be some recompense should we be discovered together before I allowed anything to happen.”
His eyes narrowing, her brother asked, “Recompense? How much?”
“He has to pay me ten thousand pounds.”
His bark of laughter could probably be heard all the way downstairs and into the front salon. “Marcus Higgins hasn’t got ten pounds,” he said. “His father was broke when he died, and everyone knows it.”
“We shook on it,” she countered, her mouth dropping open in dismay.
Seeing his sister’s expression, Christopher quickly sobered. “And if you weren’t discovered?” he prompted.
“If we weren’t discovered?” she repeated in confusion.
“What would he owe you?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh. Uh... well, nothing. Just the kiss, I suppose.”
Christopher sat back into the stack of pillows and stared at her with a most curious expression.
“What is it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’m still shocked you think he’s going to pay you ten thousand pounds.”
Tempted to punch him in the shoulder, Lucy huffed. Before she could say anything, her brother held up his hands as if to ward off a blow.
“Was this some sort of wager?” he asked.
She stiffened. “And if I say it was?”
He shrugged. “It’s rather clever. Either way, he’s the one who got stuck with paying the bill.”
Lucy’s hands went to her hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What did you stand to lose either way?” he countered.
She considered the query. “My reputation, if you must know, which is about to be in tatters the very moment Lady Pettigrew begins paying her calls today.”
Christopher merely grinned in response.
“He’s the one who wanted to kiss me,” she argued.
He continued to grin. “Says the girl who willingly joined him in the gardens.”
Lucy huffed out a breath. “I admit I was... flattered,” she murmured.
“And?” he prompted.
Her eyes darted to the side before she whispered. “It was quite lovely.” Lucy had a thought she had never seen her brother’s eyebrows climb so high on his forehead before. “Well, it was,” she added lamely.
“So… you would do it again? With Marcus Higgins?”
She sighed contentedly and nodded. “Was it like that for you? Kissing Maria, I mean?”
Christopher inhaled, and his up-until-then paleness was quickly replaced with a good deal of color. “That’s none of your concern.”
Scoffing, she argued, “That’s not fair. You must have kissed your betrothed.”
For a moment, she wished she hadn’t mentioned the word “betrothed,” for whenever the topic of Christopher’s choice for a bride came up, his face shuttered and he refused to speak. If their mother had been in the room, she would have made sure to put voice to her distrust of the Spanish aristocrat’s daughter he had gifted with a ring the year before.
So Lucy was surprised when her brother responded.
“Of course I have kissed Maria,” he claimed. “However, I’m not about to kiss and tell. At least, not to anyone else. And neither should you. Not even Marianne,” he warned.
Lucy inhaled to respond but quickly realized he was right. Well, except for Marianne. Lucy had every intention of telling Marianne because, well, Lady Pettigrew had probably shared her news from last night with her lady’s maid and everyone else in her household and would continue doing so in every parlor she paid a call on that afternoon.
How many parlors could that be? Two? Three? Ten?
He reached out and chucked her chin. “I almost feel sorry for you.”
“Why?” she countered in surprise.
“Lucy,” he said in his most serious voice. “You’re about to experience the worst Season of your life. Once words gets out, you’ll be lucky to receive any invitations to parlors let alone offers to dance at balls,” he explained. “I never thought I’d say this about you, but you’re about to become a… a wallflower.”
Lucy swallowed. Hard. She blinked, not realizing she did so to stave off tears. “How can you say that? How can you be so cruel?”
He furrowed his brows and gave his head a shake. “I’m older than you. I’ve seen it happen to the very best of young ladies.” He sighed and suddenly lifted his head.
When he didn’t say anything else for a time, Lucy finally asked, “What is it?”
“My heartburn. It’s gone,” he claimed as a smile split his lips. “Thanks to you, I think,” he added with a grin.
Lucy pulled one of the pillows from behind him and hit him with it. She might have continued doing so, but she no longer had the energy to do so.
She took her leave of her brother’s bedchamber as the tears began to fall.
Christopher watched her go, his momentary humor replaced with the melancholy he had been experiencing ever since his return from the Continent the year before.
Why hadn’t he heard from Maria? He was sure they had parted on good terms. She wore his ring. She had a copy of their marriage certificate. Her father should have brought her back to England once the war with France was over.
Ten months have passed, he thought in dismay. The last time he had seen her was the day before he was dispatched to the Continent. A day that had him assuming his duties as a captain in the British Army. A week later, he and his troops were assigned to one of the coalition armies that would eventually end Napoleon’s reign as emperor of France.
He winced at the thought that the brandy he and his father had shared the night before his departure had been their last together. Only a few days later, Christopher Fitzsimmons, first Viscount Reardon, succumbed to a sudden fever, dying as his wife and daughter stood by his bedside.
Meanwhile, the final battle against Napoleon at Waterloo had nearly been the end of Christopher.
He absently rubbed the area where a bullet had penetrated his mid-section, the wound still giving him trouble on occasion. He couldn’t be too upset with his mother’s overreaction to his heartburn, although Fortnum’s insistence he swallow laudanum wasn’t welcome.
At least his heartburn was gone, though.
His thoughts once again went to Maria.
Lady Maria Paloma Silvestri y Arístegui de Benavides.
He chuckled softly at the memory of how long it had taken him to learn how to say her entire name. How when he had first made love to her, he had recited it twice before he took her virtue.
Where are you, Maria?
He was sure she was looking forward to a life with him when she and her father, the Conde of Albacete, said their farewells. He had married her, after all. She had even whispered a vow that she would love him forever, her gloved hand cupping his ear as her lips spoke the words that had sustained him for months while he recovered from his wound.
So why hadn’t she responded to any of his letters?
Knowing his mother had not been pleased at the prospect of him taking a Spanish nobleman’s daughter to wife, he had suspected she might be intercepting his correspondence. However, Peters had assured him nothing had come for him from Spain or anywhere else on the Continent.
One of his recent missives to her had been returned, a note in Spanish indicating no one lived at the address he had written on the envelope. If she and her father had taken up residence somewhere else besides in Madrid, he had no way of knowing where that might be.
He was fairly sure there was someone who might know of her whereabouts, but Christopher would have to pay a call at his uncle’s office to learn more.
“Peters!” he called out, rising from his bed.
The butler appeared at the bedchamber’s door a moment later. “My lord?”
“Have the town coach made ready,” he ordered. “I need to go to Whitehall.”
“Right away, my lord.”
Christopher watched him go and then hurried to dress. Surely Matthew Fitzsimmons, Viscount Chamberlain and the head of the Foreign Office, would know the whereabouts of a certain spy he employed.