“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to talk to you like that.”
“You have no right,” Henry shot back. “I never expected to see him again. I was too surprised to behave better.”
“Henry, I’m not criticizing your behavior. I just…” Richard clenched his jaw again. “Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t.”
“But Sam Shaw—”
“I told you about him, Richard.”
“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You never mentioned anything about—”
“I
told
you about him. Remember?” Henry held Richard’s gaze intently, pleading with him. He did not think he could bear to repeat it all.
Richard continued to look incredulous; then slowly his expression fell, and his shoulders slumped. “The story you told me. You and Shaw… You attended school together?”
“Yes,” Henry whispered.
“The boy, your friend that you rejected and ran away from?”
“Yes.”
It was all coming back to Henry, the entire event that he had spent years forgetting. On the surface it sounded like a terrible story, but one that would easily be brushed off with time. Were boys not routinely horrible to one another? He could name half a dozen pranks and hazing incidents from his school days that anyone would think atrocious by comparison, and yet he had never been able to forget it. He had never been able to forget the sight of Sam’s emerald-green eyes glazed over with tears…
Richard, who had been staring at the floor in thought, finally muttered, “He hates you.”
“He was not subtle, was he?” Henry made an attempt at a bitter smile. “I’m such a fool. How did I think I could come here and not see him eventually?”
“Forget about Shaw.” Richard cringed. “He is a libertine and a heartless bastard. Consider yourself lucky to have escaped him early.”
Henry could not help being dumbfounded. How could that be? Sam? Playful Sam who had liked to sneak up behind him and cover his eyes when they were alone? The same Sam who had wept openly in front of him over the lines of a Blake poem, and who had been reprimanded more than once for sneaking injured animals into the school dormitory?
“He wasn’t always like that, then.” Henry sighed. “But please, I don’t want to talk about Sam. I don’t want to talk about anything. I am going to marry Anne and fulfill my obligations. I have dependents, people counting on me.”
His voice had risen steadily as he spoke, growing in firmness.
Richard shook his head. “And the sky will come crashing down on every head in Lancaster if you don’t produce an heir?” He dropped his hands from Henry’s face but otherwise did not move. “Who is your heir? This cousin who is so terrible that you have to ruin your life to keep the title from him.”
“That is none of your concern. Damn it!” Henry stepped back, away from the enticing circle of Richard’s arms. Frustration was creating what seemed like a constant throbbing in his head. How could everything have fallen apart so quickly? Not only was Richard interfering with the plan that had guided Henry’s life for more than six years, but his greatest secret was a secret no longer. Sam knew, and Henry was not foolish enough to think that Julian fellow could have remained so calm in the card room without understanding a few things. Dear God! Would either one of them tell anyone?
“You are
not
going to marry Anne!” Richard threw up his hands in exasperation. “It isn’t going to happen, Henry! Accept it.”
“How are you going to stop me?” Henry countered, desperate. “What are you going to do?”
Silence fell. Henry held Richard’s gaze until Richard finally closed his eyes. Henry felt a wave of triumph, for Richard must be realizing that there was nothing he could do. Culfrey supported the match, and it had not taken Henry long to see that the duke was an arrogant and intractable man. He was unlikely to change his mind for any reason other than the truth, and Henry could not think Richard would do that.
“I’m leaving now,” Henry said, his voice soft. “Please don’t try to interfere anymore.”
“Just a moment,
my lord
.” Richard snapped his eyes open. “I haven’t answered your question yet.”
“Question?” Henry didn’t like the determination he saw.
“You asked what I am going to do. Well, I’ll tell you.” Richard took another step forward.
Henry backed up until he bumped into a narrow sideboard. He gripped the edge of the table surface behind him as Richard raised his arms and placed them on the wall behind Henry, caging him in. Henry was barely two inches shorter than Richard and not much smaller in build, yet in that moment Henry felt totally engulfed.
“What I am going to do is simple,” Richard continued. “I am going to win you.”
“W-what?” Henry balked.
“I am going to win you. Convince you.” Henry shuddered as Richard leaned against him, his warm lips grazing over Henry’s ear. “I am going to court you, Lord Brenleigh.”
Henry gasped as raw desire pooled deep in his gut.
Oh, God, Richard…
He twisted out of Richard’s arms and stumbled a few steps away. He faced Richard, aghast. “You’re mad!”
“Mad? Not even remotely,” Richard said calmly.
“The devil you aren’t! Court me? You’re speaking to me as if…as if you
care
about me. You hardly know me.” Henry clenched his eyes shut and forced, willed, his most cynical thoughts to his lips. “I’m just a conquest to you. This is nothing more to you than an obsession to have me in your bed again, or at the very least a…a despicable ruse to distract me long enough for Anne to marry someone else.”
“That is not true. None of it,” Richard countered. “Henry, I…I do care about you.”
“You
don’t know me
!” Henry’s voice cracked with frustration. He was no fool. How could someone have feelings for a stranger?
“For God’s sake! Do I need to be one of your neighbors for a decade? Read your correspondence, have dinner with you three times a week? I could do all those things and more and easily not
know
you any better. I don’t know the details of your life, that’s true, but I know enough.” He crossed the distance between them and grabbed Henry’s hand, holding it tight between his when Henry tried to pull away.
“I know that you are brave and determined. How else could you have taken such a leap as to go to Dorlet’s that night? I never would have been able to do that. I know that you’re faithful and put others before yourself, because you’re trying to sacrifice your happiness for the sake of your estate and everyone who depends on it.”
Henry was almost trembling now, for Richard’s face had softened to a look of genuine affection. Henry opened his mouth to object, but Richard hushed him.
“No. Listen. And I know you have a kind heart and empathy. The story you told me about Shaw more than proves that. Other men would have forgotten about it or twisted their memories to make themselves blameless.” Here Richard made a saucy, crooked smile and said, “Add to all that the fact that you are one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen and I can’t stop thinking about you, and I am lost.”
Henry stood paralyzed. Was Richard telling the truth? Did he mean these things? A delicious warmth spread through Henry’s chest and down his limbs, making his fingers ache to reach for Richard’s face. But he was still afraid. His path with Lady Anne, the path he had known for so long, was well lit and navigable. The path with Richard was… There wasn’t even a path. It was a blind stumble through the woods.
“I think I have had enough of the ball for this evening,” Richard said suddenly, his smile calm. “If you would like to come with me, I’m sure Mr. Cayson would be happy to fill in for you on Anne’s dance card.”
Henry scowled.
“No?” Richard sighed. “Very well, but don’t forget what I said. I plan to win you. And I lied when I said I was a poor gambler. I always win.”
“You sound very confident in your charms,
sir
!” Henry snapped with frustration.
Richard shrugged his broad shoulders. “I am. Good night,
sir
. I will see you tomorrow.”
“Not if I can help it,” Henry shot back petulantly.
Richard gave one last look when he pulled the door open, a look of steely determination that left Henry breathless. When the door closed, Henry shuffled to a chair and fell into it, trying to order his warring thoughts into something manageable. When he finally forced himself to rise nearly a half hour later, he was no closer to any kind of solution than when he started.
Chapter Eight
Dancing Attendance
As the marchioness’s guests made their way home in the small hours of the morning, a whipping wind was already setting up shop in the streets of London. By daybreak, when virtually all the guests were tucked soundly in their beds, the city was in the grip of a full-blown gale. The clouds were dark and heavy, and even the sturdiest homes seemed to creak under the onslaught of wind and rain. It was the kind of day that members of the ton would malign for weeks, as if the weather were an actual person whose reputation could be harmed by the criticism. In truth, there were few members of society who did not greet the day with a sigh of relief. The Season, with all its calls and invitations and appointments to the various tailors and dressmakers, was a hell that each person suffered, loved, and happily inflicted on others.
Henry, like the rest of London, was just happy to have a free day for which he did not have to give some excuse. The raging storm also made it possible to pretend that he wasn’t hiding. He tried to spend the day catching up on some reading in front of the crackling fire, but more than once he found himself staring into the flames while his book lay forgotten across his chest. More worrying still, his persistent thoughts had little to do with securing Lady Anne’s hand, and much more to do with reliving every sweet second spent in Madam Dorlet’s brothel.
Eventually he forced himself to do something more mentally engaging and decided to catch up on his correspondence. He had allowed the post to build up for nearly a week, save the typical society invitations, which his secretary was always sure to separate and arrange by date. As he sat down in the comfort of his shirtsleeves and a particularly worn pair of breeches, he thumbed through the letters and landed on one that instantly caught his eye. The fine ivory paper was addressed in a bold hand:
Mr. Franklin P. Cortland, Kingsmead Square, Bath.
Henry grunted and scowled. Franklin Cortland was his cousin, the only son of his late uncle Charles. He was also Henry’s heir, despite being ten years older. Henry dropped the letter and sat back in his chair, wondering with unaccountable disgust why the man could possibly be writing. Did he need money? Were creditors hounding his doorstep? All this supposition was unaccountable because Henry had never met Franklin Cortland. In fact, he was not certain that he had ever met anyone who had met Franklin Cortland. The only way he knew the man was through his father’s lengthy and damning descriptions.
“He gambles outrageously and doesn’t even have the good sense to economize for his vice,”
the late Lord Brenleigh had said.
“He keeps a house far beyond his means and turns out the staff whenever he can’t pay them. When he has a turn of good luck, he hires new staff to put on airs and then turns them out as well when his luck changes. The man is a leech and a reprobate! Mark my words, Henry. He would suck the blood from the earldom until there was nothing left, and then what would happen to the tenants, the servants? What would happen to your grandmother and Aunt Cynthia after he gambled away their allowances and the very roofs over their heads?”
Henry’s response to those warning sermons had always been the same, repeated so many times that it had become like a nodding reflex.
“That won’t happen, Papa. I’m going to marry and have sons. He won’t get to anything.”
With a snort of ingrained disapproval, Henry reached for his letter opener and placed it next to the red wax seal. Before he sliced the wax away, however, he stopped. If there was anything else his father had driven into him relentlessly, besides Franklin’s gambling, it was that the man was smooth as a snake.
“You are to cut him, Henry. Do you understand me? Have nothing to do with him. You are a clever boy, but that libertine charmer could convince a street urchin to give
him
money. He will play on your Christian sentiments, my boy. Don’t let him.”
The spark of genuine curiosity that had flickered in Henry’s mind was immediately snuffed out. He had more than enough problems to contend with; he did not need the oily pleas of a degenerate gamester added to them. He tossed the letter into one of the leather boxes on his desk and moved on to the next.
Over the next several hours, he was able to keep his mind focused enough to reply to some family letters and points of approval from his solicitor. His steward had written to tell him that the neighboring estate to his own in Lancaster had come out of probate, and the new owner was looking to sell it. Since the land was good and the house a fine manor to be sure, Henry instructed his man to make a moderate offer. He wanted it, but not badly enough to pay a ransom.
By the time he looked up to the gilt clock on the mantel, it was half past six, and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. It was no matter, though, for the city would be waterlogged, and he doubted any of the evening invitations would still be standing.
A scratch at the door drew his attention. Henry called his approval, and the butler appeared. “My lord, a parcel has arrived for you by private messenger.”
Henry regarded the small wrapped box in his hands and wondered what it could be. He had ordered several articles of clothing from his tailor, but nothing that would fit in such a small bundle. He took it back to his desk after the butler left to see about dinner, and set to cutting the string. There was no writing on the paper wrapping and no card. He pulled the paper back to reveal a beautifully inlaid wooden box, square and polished to such an immaculate rosewood shine that he could see the faint outline of his reflection on its surface. He opened the box and gasped. Nestled in a bed of blue velvet was a gold watch, heavily engraved with a detailed country scene.