All Afternoon with a Scandalous Marquess (5 page)

There was a muffled thump on the wall, and an exasperated Abram said, “Lord Sainthill, if you refuse to respect the rules of this establishment, I will be obliged to escort you to the front door!”

Mina murmured something in a feeble attempt to calm both men.

“Unhand me,” Saint ordered, so close that Catherine started at his proximity. “I am finished here. Tell your mistress that I never thought her a coward until now.”

He slammed his fist against the wall. Catherine brought her hand to her mouth to silence any noise that might have escaped her lips.

Sainthill was right. She was a coward.

Chapter Five

June 15, 1824, London

The back of Vane’s head connected against the wooden surface with a cringe-worthy
whap
as Rainecourt’s grip on the man’s evening coat slipped.

“Damn you, Reign, are you trying to addle me?” Vane growled at his friend while Sin, Frost, and Dare watched with amusement.

Because they had been friends since long before they could grow hair on their chins, they were too close to bother with formality, especially when Reign, Sin, Frost, and Dare were attempting to crack open his skull on a lark. Truth be told, no one would be surprised. He and his friends, seven in all when he included Hunter and Saint, had been dubbed by the
ton
as the Lords of Vice.

Sin, the first of their merry group of bachelors to marry, shook his head with disappointment. “Reign, you didn’t manage the last two times. Let one of us take a turn.”

“Not yet,” Reign said, readjusting his grip on Vane’s coat. “I’ll get it right this time.”

Dare, their host this evening, leaned over and had to brace his hand on the dining table to steady his stance. “Fifty guineas Reign’s toss has Vane clearing only half the length.”

“Seventy-five Vane’s head reaches the end,” Sin said, getting into the spirit of things.

Frost chuckled. “Hell, Reign, I’ll pay you two hundred to drop Vane on his head again. I thought I broke a rib laughing after that last pass.”

“Black-hearted devil,” Vane said, but his laughter spoiled his angry outburst. “I’m nominating you to take my place.”

“I’ll second it,” Dare said, flashing his teeth in Frost’s direction. “I will enjoy tossing you on your arse.”

Frost’s turquoise-blue gaze gleamed with a challenging light. “You can try, my friend.”

The two men were related by marriage since Dare had married Frost’s younger sister, Regan. While the marriage appeared to be a good match, Dare and Frost had not quite adjusted to the changes in their relationship.

“Enough,” Reign said, his fists pressing into Vane’s chest. “Let us finish this before the ladies—”

“Return?” Regan finished the sentence for him as she entered the dining room. As her skirt swayed, the men could see telltale signs of the babe she carried in her womb. “Now, why would you gentlemen be concerned about us stumbling across your latest bout of lunacy?”

Unfortunately Dare’s wife was not alone. Vane noticed that Sin’s wife, Juliana, and Reign’s wife, Sophia, had followed in her wake. He cursed under his breath when his own wife, Isabel, stepped in front of Juliana and gasped.

“Good heavens! What have you done to my husband?” Isabel asked as she rushed to his side.

“Not a thing,” Sin protested. “He volunteered.”

Vane scowled in disbelief. Bloody traitor! “Yes, this would be a good time to toss me at the lions and save your damn hides.”

Reign had the good sense to release his grip on Vane’s evening coat and step away. Vane’s expression softened at his wife’s touch. His beautiful Isabel was fiercely protective of those she loved, he thought rather smugly, his heart filling with so much love for this woman he forgot about his sore head.

Isabel slipped her arm around him and encouraged Vane to sit. “Were you fighting?” she asked, casting wary glances at Reign and Frost.

“If we were fighting, we would have taken it out of the house,” Frost said, rolling his eyes in disgust as Vane leaned against his wife and savored her tender inspection of his feigned injuries. “Past incidents have proven that you ladies are awfully protective of your furniture.”

“And our husbands,” Sophia said, using her walking stick and the scattered chairs to navigate the room. “Reign, exactly what were you planning to do with Vane?”

Vane pressed a kiss against the smooth flesh above the line of Isabel’s bodice to conceal his smile as his friend gave his wife a sheepish look and struggled to explain himself. As a young child, Sophia had been attacked, and her injuries had left her partially blind. At first glance, most people viewed the Countess of Rainecourt as a helpless, fragile lady who needed protection from the cruelties of the world.

It was an erroneous impression that the lady was more than happy to correct.

“Yes, Reign, what were you planning to do with me?” Vane echoed Sophia’s question, earning scowls from all his friends.

“Quit your tomfoolery,” Dare ordered. “Else the ladies will believe you were not a willing participant in our little contest.”

Sin tapped his finger against his left temple, calling attention to one of the several bruises he had collected this evening. “Or that we were beating you.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Frost chimed in, the evil glint in his gaze hinting that he was not jesting. “Though we might want to wait until we return to Nox. Less fuss about the blood.”

Noting Frost’s devilish expression, Reign could not resist adding, “And we will spare you the humiliation of allowing the ladies to hear your womanly shrieks from all the pummeling.”

How had it become his fault that the women had caught them? “Aw, now you’re being cruel,” Vane said, letting his arm fall away from Isabel’s waist as he slid so his legs dangled over the edge of the table. “There will be enough of such talk or next it will be your arse gliding across the damn table.”

Juliana made an odd sniffing noise, and he suspected she was attempting not to laugh. A quick side-glance at Isabel and Sophia confirmed that the ladies were highly amused by the exchange.

Striving to hold on to a shred of decorum, Juliana turned to address her husband. “When you did not return to the drawing room, I thought Hunter and Saint might have joined you.”

According to Dare, Hunter, known formally as His Grace, the Duke of Huntsley, had volunteered to collect Saint for the evening. The Marquess of Sainthill had been increasingly absent from Nox and the gatherings that had originated with Sin and Juliana’s marriage.

While Vane had been blessed with an abundance of relatives, many of his friends were alone, or chose to be alone. The Lords of Vice had become much like a family, complete with rivalries and petty arguments. Juliana, Sophia, Regan, and, more recently, his lovely Isabel had increased their numbers. And then there were the children. Sin and Juliana’s eighteen-month-old son, Henry Alexius, the new Earl of Crossington, already had the makings of a future rake with his mother’s green eyes and his father’s easy smile. Reign and Sophia’s Lily Grace was a beautiful, albeit occasionally temperamental, two-year-old, and, in the months to come, Regan would be giving them a new niece or nephew to spoil. Even so, some of the unmarried members of their club were not quick to embrace the changes that marriage and pressing responsibilities had wrought in their lives.

In hindsight, sending Hunter after Saint had not been a wise decision. Hunter had been fleeing from his destiny since his twelfth birthday. Saint, on the other hand, did not seem to be running at all. In fact, he seemed to be waiting for something. For what, no one knew. The enigmatic bastard had become rather closemouthed about his private life.

“A servant arrived with a note from Hunter. He sends his apologies for being unable to join us. Something required his immediate attention,” Sin explained as he toyed with the pearl necklace his wife wore. It had been a gift, and though none of the Lords of Vice mentioned it, their friend had a fondness for pearls. No doubt, Juliana was quite aware of that fact as well.

“If Hunter has any sense, that
something
is blond and naked in his bed,” Frost quipped.

Regan rolled her eyes at her brother. “Must you always be so vulgar?”

Without any hesitation, Frost replied, “Why shouldn’t I when I excel at it?”

“If Hunter was detained,” Sophia said, before Regan could offer a tart reply to her brother, “then what happened to Saint?”

It was a question all of them silently mulled over during the rest of their evening together.

Chapter Six

“So this is where you have been spending your evenings,” Hunter said, entering one of the many small galleries that overlooked the main ballroom at the Golden Pearl. A footman suddenly appeared as if summoned and presented His Grace with a glass of his favorite brandy on a silver salver.

No one could fault the hospitality at the Golden Pearl. Madame Venna had clearly instructed her staff on the personal preferences of her favorite clients. Saint wondered if she kept a ledger on each gentleman’s likes and dislikes.

More important, what had she written under his name?

Instead of sitting at the small table, Hunter joined him at the balustrade. He took a sip of his brandy. “Do the others know?”

Saint’s gaze did not waver from the masked woman wearing a dark blue evening dress. “What?”

“Of your latest fancy?” Hunter swallowed his brandy, then gestured with his glass. “Madame Venna.”

Saint chuckled softly. “Madame Venna is not a new fancy, Hunter,” he replied, amused that he was telling the truth for once. The proprietress of the Golden Pearl still lingered in his private thoughts even though six years had passed since that single night of shared passion.

He doubted Madame Venna would be pleased with his admission. Neither would Hunter, or any of his friends.

“Good,” Hunter said, pleased with Saint’s answer. “For a whore, Madame V has managed to place herself above her betters. Most of the gentlemen in this ballroom would sacrifice their firstborn to gain her favor—and she knows it. She has turned lust into a very profitable business. It’s quite admirable, really.”

“Madame Venna is many things, but she is not a whore,” Saint said with a not-so-subtle menace in his voice that had Hunter’s brows lifting in surprise. He could not recall the last time he had threatened his friend over a woman.

Considering her profession, it was a weak defense, especially when everything about the woman proved him wrong—or worse, a lovesick fool. From the balcony, he observed the woman who had been twisting his gut into knots for six agonizing years. She touched Lord Mulcaster on the forearm and laughed at something he had said to the group of sycophants surrounding them.

“The Golden Pearl has been a thriving establishment since it opened its doors seven years ago. It’s patronized by only the highest officials, foreign royalty, and a respectable showing from the
ton,
even though most of them would vehemently deny it,” Saint said, his eyes narrowing on Lord Kearns. He wondered if Lady Kearns was aware of her husband’s whereabouts this evening.

Hunter gave him a questioning glance. “Your point?”

“If Madame Venna were a man, you would be praising her keen business sense. Instead, you diminish her achievements by calling her a whore. A man would have called you out for less.”

Perhaps he should have kept his mouth shut. Saint grimaced and silently lashed himself with recriminations. Madame Venna did not need him to defend her, nor would she be grateful for it.

His friend stared at him. Perhaps he was attempting to deduce if Saint was serious or simply jesting. “I meant no insult and simply thought I was pointing out the obvious. Do not allow our expensive surroundings to deceive you. The woman owns a brothel,” Hunter said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Something tells me that she sold her honor along with her virginity long before she opened the Golden Pearl. If she is untroubled by her choices in life, why are you?”

Saint glanced away, allowing his gaze to settle on the lady they were discussing. He could not work up much outrage over Hunter’s observations. The night Madame Venna had her servants escort him from her bedchamber with orders that he was not permitted to return to the private wing, he had described the woman in less flattering terms. For a full year, he had despised her. When she began sending some of her girls to Nox—perhaps atonement for her cruelty—he had bedded each one of them to prove that she had meant nothing to him.

And yet, six years later, he was watching her from afar as he once again pondered what sin he had committed to earn banishment from her bed and her polite indifference. Hunter was correct. Why did he care? There had been other women in his life. Some of his mistresses had managed to keep his interest for months before he moved on to another bewitching beauty. Why did he still yearn for a woman so elusive, she refused to reveal even her face to the world? Was it merely because she was the one woman he could not have?

“Not everyone has the freedom to choose their fate,” Saint said in a contemplative tone. “Sometimes our course is set for us.”

Hunter stiffened, and belatedly, Saint recalled that the flirtatious women below were not the only ones trapped by their circumstances. When his friend was still a lad, his grandmother had bound the young duke to a girl barely out of swaddling clothes to strengthen the family’s wealth and noble bloodlines. The arranged marriage was to take place before the girl’s twenty-first birthday. If Hunter failed to honor his promise, he would not only lose his little heiress’s lands, but also lose the property that was bequeathed to him by his grandmother. While neither loss would beggar Hunter, his friend refused to lose his inheritance to his greedy cousin. Time was running out for Hunter. Soon he would have to collect his heiress and marry the chit.

“See here, I—” Saint began, feeling he owed his friend an apology.

Hunter waved his empty glass in a dismissive gesture. “No. You’re right. Not all of us have the luxury of charting our own course. I have no business looking down on a lady who took her grim circumstances and used them to build her fortune. In some ways, I envy her.” He saluted Madame Venna with his glass.