“Smile too much. Good Lord.” Richard laughed. “If you become one of those haughty misses and begin pretending that everything under the sun bores you, I will no longer speak to you, Lady Anne Avery.”
“He was to come over and speak with Tom for a moment before the next set. He should be along any moment. Come and meet him.” Anne took Richard’s arm and pulled him back toward the parlor arch.
“Hey, there’s Avery,” said a jovial voice.
Richard turned around to see Lord Darnish, who was standing with a group of fellow rakes and sportish dandies. The man, as always, was male perfection personified. And as always, Richard entertained a brief second of disappointment over his solid reputation with the fairer sex. Richard gave him a hearty greeting, and they quickly exchanged a few meaningless pleasantries. Darnish swore that the day would come when Richard would finally sell him his prize-matching sets of grays. Richard assured him that the Thames would boil first, which brought a satisfied laugh.
What happened next was the stuff of just a second, hardly more, and yet later Richard would swear it had taken a lifetime. Anne gripped his arm tighter and called him to turn and meet their guest. Richard gave Darnish a final nod and turned around to face a pair of very wide and very startled blue eyes. Henry stared at him like death itself.
Dear God.
“Ah…yes. Of course,” Richard choked out. He pulled himself together like his life depended on it and extended his hand. “You must be Kenly.”
Culfrey made a grunt of disapproval from his place near the door but said nothing.
“Eh…yes,” Henry said. His voice was barely audible. “That is, Kenly is one of my lower titles, yes. I’m Brenleigh.”
“As in the Earl of,” Culfrey added. “You must forgive Lord Richard. Young men these days have better things to do than study their Debrett’s Peerage. Apparently.”
Richard shifted his gaze, brought it back to Henry, then shifted it again. He did not know what to do. Damn hell, he did not know what to do!
“I was just telling Richard what a fine dancer you are,” Anne said, blushing. “Richard, Lord Brenleigh has engaged me for the dance after supper too.”
“Yes. Just, eh…just don’t squash the poor man’s toes. You know what a terrible bungler you are.” Richard spoke the playful words, but his tone was all wrong. Luckily, Anne did not seem to notice.
“Oh!” Anne laughed and flushed even more. “That’s not true, and you know it.”
“Lady Anne is the picture of grace. If you will excuse me, Your…Grace.” Henry’s voice shook slightly as he nodded to Culfrey.
Good manners and general understanding dictated that when someone wished to be excused and gave no reason, it meant they were going to the privy.
Anne frowned with genuine distress. “Are you all right, my lord? You have become quite peaked.”
Henry’s face had indeed turned a bizarre combination of white and red, as if his cheeks had leached all the blood from the rest of his body. His brow was glistening with sweat.
“I’m sure I will be fine, Lady Anne, thank you. I shall collect you for our dance. D-do not fear.”
Richard watched, still dazed, as Henry forced a painful-looking smile, then turned away. He did not run, but his body looked like a coiled spring as he disappeared through the crowd.
“Damned odd, that,” Culfrey muttered. “I hope the man isn’t sickly.”
“There are so many people here. He probably just got overheated.” Anne bit her lower lip anxiously. “Oh, should I not have said anything, Tom? Was I wrong to mention that he looked ill? Oh!”
“Calm yourself, my dear.” Culfrey sighed. “Not a person could make an objection to your behavior. Richard…Richard! What is wrong with you?”
Richard shook his head, for he had been staring off after Henry, feeling progressively anxious. How could this be happening? What on earth was he going to do now? He looked down at his sister and her sweet, concerned face, and his resolve strengthened.
No.
“If you will excuse me, I am engaged for this set,” Richard said shortly. He didn’t care that it was a lie and a bad one. He rounded back into the parlor and picked up his speed as soon as he was out of sight of his siblings. He darted along the main corridor as fast as he dared and cut across the card room to the withdrawing room. Henry was not there.
He passed through the room and opened the door to the dim corridor beyond. Moonlight streamed through the French doors at the end of the hall, giving a perfect view of Henry. He was walking fast toward the doors. Richard followed just as Henry burst through them and out onto the garden terrace.
It was a chilly evening, and every surface glistened from the rain that had stopped a short time ago. Henry stopped on the terrace for a second, then bounded down the steps and across the garden. Richard waited and watched him disappear along a short gravel path that led into a copse of hedges and a stone gazebo beyond. He followed.
In the depths of the garden, lit only by filtered moonlight, Henry stood with one hand braced against a stone pillar. His other hand gripped the gazebo banister. Richard stopped on the path a few yards away, uncertain.
“Oh, God…oh, God…” Henry gasped. Richard opened his mouth to speak when Henry lurched forward and vomited over the edge of the banister.
Bloody hell!
Richard took hold of Henry’s shoulders. He heaved twice more but was not sick again.
“It’s all right. Here.” Richard pressed his handkerchief into Henry’s trembling hand.
“I can’t believe this,” Henry said quietly. The night was silent, and the stone gazebo echoed their every word. He wiped at his mouth with the handkerchief and turned around.
“Believe it.” Richard released Henry's shoulders. The urge to wrap his arms around Henry and tell him that everything was fine was so out of place that Richard’s conscious mind did not recognize it. He continued, “So you are Viscount Kenly’s son? Leave it to my brother to not mention that Kenly eventually inherited and became Lord Brenleigh. Not that it would have made much difference in knowing.”
“No. And leave it to your brother to not even mention that he
had
a younger brother. That was your sister’s doing.” Henry ran his hands through his damp hair. He seemed unable to look Richard in the eye.
All at once Richard saw a vision of Henry in a similar state, body slick with sweat and his blood racing. He saw his own hands running over the curves of Henry’s bare shoulders, his fingers running through golden hair. And then he saw very different hands, slim feminine hands moving over Henry, up the arms and to the shoulders. Richard imagined Henry holding a beautiful woman in his arms. A woman who looked disturbingly similar to Anne.
“What am I going to do?” Henry muttered to himself as he rested his head in his hands.
“I can tell you what you are not going to do,” Richard said, his voice full of steel. “You are not going to marry my sister. I’ll be damned first!”
HENRY CRINGED AND stepped back. To his eyes, Richard’s face had become a mask of disgust and rage. The moonlight cast angry shadows across him, and he was clenching his fists at his sides. It was as if Henry had been punched in the stomach for a second time. All his daydreams and sweet reminiscences, which had sustained him during the past week and were to have sustained him for much longer than that, were violently dashed.
“I…” Henry struggled to speak. “My father arranged everything years ago. I have to marry.”
“No!” Richard snapped.
Henry put his hands up, and that look of disdain that Henry was sure he saw seemed to strengthen. “Don’t! Don’t look at me like that!” he shouted.
“Like what?”
“Like I disgust you. Like I’m some…some
whore
who showed up on your doorstep.” Henry pushed himself away from the banister, his misery and fear transformed into a far more useful anger. He was the Earl of Brenleigh. His title went back more than two centuries. Had not his father always pounded it into his head?
“Know who you are! Do not disgrace your family! Nothing comes before duty!”
“No!” Richard cried, grabbing his shoulder. “That is not—”
“Stay away from me!” Henry twisted away from Richard’s grasp, sure that he meant to silence him by force. “You will not look down your nose at me. We…we are
both
what we are.”
Richard’s expression was horrified at this turn, but the moonlight and the shadows put a very different image into Henry’s mind. Rather than horror, he saw disgust. Henry bolted from the gazebo and did not look back as his evening shoes dug into the gravel path. He crossed the rain-slicked lawn and passed the terrace steps. He could not go back into the ballroom. He knew he would never be able to present an appropriate front.
To think I kissed him! To think I let him
use
me!
He saw a narrow, plain door under the terrace and went for it. Kitchen maids and footmen balked at the entrance of a stately lord into their domain, but the look on Henry’s face must have put them immediately on alert. He bade them to call his carriage around quickly and to make his most profuse apologies to their master.
Time seemed to stand still, and so he was surprised when he was finally led to his carriage by a footman and deposited into its velvet interior. He rested his head against the soft squabs. It was ruined. Everything was ruined! His sustaining memories of Richard were dashed, for how would he ever remember them beyond that angry look of disgust, as if he had intruded on Richard’s world like a plague? Even worse, what was he to do now about Lady Anne? His father had arranged everything, had made it all so easy. What would he do now?
“The earldom is your duty. You have people counting on you, Henry. Can’t leave it all to that lowborn cousin of yours. The estates would be gambled away to nothing in a year!”
“Damn it all!” He let his head fall into his hands. Something soft and scented touched his cheek. It was only then that he realized he still held Richard’s handkerchief. He cursed an oath and unlatched the window. Reaching through the window, he was prepared to toss the handkerchief away and hope it landed in a pile of manure, but his grip remained firm. Several seconds passed, but he did nothing.
“Pathetic…” he murmured. He pulled his hand back into the carriage and rebolted the window before shoving the crumpled square of cloth deep into his coat pocket. As if the whole evening could not get any worse, he remembered that he had promised Lady Anne during their dance that he would call on her personally tomorrow afternoon.
Chapter Six
Duty
The next day was a living hell, accentuated by ruddy skin, a dry throat, and a pounding headache. It was only after drinking half a bottle of brandy that Richard had been able to sleep through the night. Although he was not sure if sleep and passed-out drunk were the same thing.
He had paced his study for an hour with a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other, wondering if he should set out for Cortland House—for it was no mystery where any titled member of the ton resided—and force an interview with Henry. Richard had wanted to chase him, to tell him that he misunderstood and had everything wrong. When Henry had shouted those painful words—
“like some whore who showed up on your doorstep!”
—Richard had felt the very earth beneath his feet open up.
But none of his stupid wishes had come to pass, thank God. He had kept his senses, despite the brandy, and had passed out on a settee rather than go banging on Henry’s door like a madman. And even if he had done such an unspeakably stupid thing, what would he have said? What
could
he say? Henry had misunderstood and had fled with the most horrible thoughts in his mind, but Richard
had
told him that he would not marry his sister. He
had
been cold and commanding. The thought of Henry marrying his sister had enraged him.
The thought of Henry marrying anyone had enraged him.
No. No. He reminded himself forcefully that this was about Anne. He had to think of his little sister and not some man he barely knew.
But I want to know him.
His thoughts were thus pulled in two directions at once as he made his way to his brother’s home. He had been summoned again, this time with a terse note delivered by a reluctant footman who knew his master had passed out drunk the night before. Richard had cursed the air blue and ordered his valet to produce the most dilapidated suit of riding clothes he could find. It was petty, but the only defenses he had against his brother were petty.
He was not surprised in the least when he arrived in his brother’s library and was immediately cursed for a reprobate and a duty-blind cur.
“What sort of man leaves his own sister’s come-out ball before supper has even been served?” Culfrey railed. “Where did you go? What possible excuse could you have?”
“It is none of your business,” Richard said haughtily.
“Ran off to see some
beau
, Richie?” Culfrey sneered. “As if Brenleigh coming down ill and leaving without another appearance weren’t bad enough, but you embarrassed me and Her Grace
and
our sister!”
“Do not overexaggerate, Tom. You make a terrible stage actor,” Richard said through clenched teeth. He was in such a bad temper that he was finding it difficult to maintain his usual careless front.
“You think this amusing, then!” Culfrey slammed his fists on his desk. “Lady Bridgette may be a disappointing frump of a girl, but that does not mean her family looks kindly on her being brushed off after you signed her dance card! You should not lead the chit on, anyway. She told half the young ladies in the room she was to dance with you, so of course your desertion could not possibly be ignored.”
Richard pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He was genuinely sorry. He had forgotten all about Lady Bridgette, and failing to collect a lady for a dance set was no laughing matter in the world of the ton.
“I am sorry for that,” he said flatly. “I will call on her and submit my apologies. I will also speak to Anne.”
“You will speak to Anne, but you will certainly
not
call on Lady Bridgette. That girl’s mother is so desperate to have her married I would not put it past them to view a polite call as an overture.”