Sophie cast one look at his face and instantly looked away, a flush as delicate as the pink champagne she held in her hand creeping up her cheeks. Braddon had cast himself down on the rug and was eagerly rearranging the backgammon pieces, enchanted to learn that his future wife knew how to play the game. Sophie forced herself to smile at him.
From the shadowed high back of the armchair Quill had watched the charming Lady Sophie freeze and then break into frail gaiety; he twisted about to see who had caused her to transform from an engaging damsel to a glassy society woman.
So a lean brown hand emerged from the armchair and a sardonic voice drawled, “Patrick, my man, come and greet me.”
“Quill!”
In an instant Patrick’s long legs had brought him in front of the armchair, his black eyes alight with pleasure. “My God, man, I thought you were bedridden!”
“Well, so I was, until a few months ago.”
“You look splendid.”
“I’m alive,” Quill said simply.
Patrick squatted before the chair. “I thought of you when I was in India and a maharajah threatened to have me decapitated if I didn’t kneel before his little idol. It reminded me of your tyranny at school.”
Sophie could hardly bear it. Sitting back on his heels, Patrick was at her level as she sat on the stool. He was just at her shoulder. Her eyes instinctively drifted down his body and saw tight pantaloons stretched over hard-muscled thighs. She jerked her head away, nervous as a rabbit in high grass, but it was too late. Sophie swallowed hard and pulled slightly to the other side of the tufted stool.
Patrick, who had discovered that the ambitious little chit still had the capacity to wake his body, was beginning to feel uncomfortable. A soft fragrance came drifting to his nostrils from just beyond his right shoulder, a sweet, innocent odor like that of cherry blossoms. It inflamed his senses. He wanted to throw Sophie over his shoulder and take her to a bedchamber.
Patrick jerked upright, his expression suddenly forbidding. When he glanced down at the stool, his eyes were bright, sardonic.
“Lady Sophie, your servant.” He bowed politely. “I must apologize; I didn’t see you earlier.”
Sophie flushed again. Of course he had seen her. His glance had reduced her to an immobile lump. She inclined her chin just as courteously, not trusting her voice.
He was just as beautiful as he had been a month ago, although his eyes had turned from entrancement to mockery. His hair was unruly, even when shaken into the careless elegance favored by London gentlemen. But Patrick’s hair spoke eloquently not of pomades and hair oils but of windswept rides and fresh air. It was as black as ebony, as jet, except for the wild silver streaks that made it look moonlight-tipped.
Sophie took a firm grasp on herself. She was wilting like a Bath miss under the mocking gaze of an accomplished rake. And Viscountess Dewland was looking distinctly restless, still chatting to Sylvester Bredbeck.
Sophie straightened, coming gracefully to her feet. She smiled at Quill, a real smile that lighted her eyes and trembled on her mouth. Quill rose to his feet with a small lurch, bracing himself on the armrest of his chair.
Sophie dropped a deep curtsy. “Please, be seated.”
Quill’s mouth was twisted with pain but shatteringly sympathetic. “Lady Sophie, I would be most honored to meet you again. Perhaps we could have a rematch of our game when I am feeling more lucky.”
“I should enjoy that,” Sophie said.
She turned to Quill’s brother, Peter, and gave him a twinkling smile. Her eyes slid coolly past Patrick and toward her betrothed, towering above her. She moved toward Braddon.
“My lord.”
Braddon held out his arm and she took it, walking across the Persian carpet, the silver tips of her slippers pressing down on glowing ruby and crimson flowers. She was very conscious of the two men who watched her go—Quill, still on his feet, smiling a sympathetic half-smile that made her feel weepy, and Patrick with his mocking half-smile that made her want to throw a vase at him. I will not look back at that—that unreliable seducer, she thought. And she didn’t.
For his part, Patrick watched Sophie walk toward the announcement of her engagement to Braddon Chatwin with a surge of wrath that sent a gathering wave of heat over his body. He had a horrifying urge to lunge across the room and bend her over his arms, to destroy the self-assured sway of her hips when she walked away with Braddon.
He knew, knew, it would take only one instant to return Sophie to the flushed and trembling woman he’d held in his arms, the woman whose confusion looked so touchingly real that if he hadn’t known that she was a sophisticated wanton, a minx who had shared her kisses far and wide among the London beau monde, he might have … He might have what?
As Peter made his apologies and trotted back toward the ballroom, Patrick made no move to follow.
He plumped down on the stool Sophie had deserted, his large brown hands tidily sorting the backgammon pieces. Patrick finally looked up to find Quill’s cool gaze on him.
Quill had always been blessed with iron restraint, even when they were all boys at school, suffering the indignities of communal life. Patrick would erupt into feverish anger, jumping on his twin brother, Alex, and trying desperately to pound his head into the floor; Quill expressed himself by spare words.
Now he leaned his head back against the deep brown leather and closed his eyes. When he spoke his voice lacked all innuendo.
“Don’t I remember Braddon taking another of your women—a redhaired actress?”
“Arabella Calhoun. He still has her. She’s been his mistress since last summer.” Patrick’s hard eyes skimmed the calm surface of Quill’s impenetrable face. “Lady Sophie,” he added savagely, “was never ‘one of my women.’ She turned me down flat.”
At that, Quill’s eyes opened. “You did the pretty?”
In the face of Quill’s amused gaze, Patrick’s mouth finally relaxed, quirked up.
“Quite a shock,” he admitted.
“Yes, after all those women chasing you in the past year …” Quill waved a lazy hand. “Peter keeps me abreast of the London gossip. Since your brother married, what, a year or two ago, you’ve become something of a society darling, wouldn’t you say?”
“No.”
“Fleeing from the attentions of marriageable mamas, having made yourself too vulgarly rich for words over in India,” Quill added wickedly.
“Shall we play?”
“Dished up by the lovely Sophie York! I must ask Mother to invite her to tea.”
“She’ll be busy in the near future,” Patrick said, his voice indifferent. “I expect they’re out there now, accepting congratulations.”
Quill paused. “Gone that far, has it?”
“Quite. She’s no fool, Quill,” said Patrick, inadvertently quoting Sophie’s own self-assessment. “She’s gone for the title.”
“Unfortunately, Braddon is a muttonhead. He’ll drive her insane within a month.” Quill’s deep-set eyes watched his childhood friend with seeming carelessness.
“Shall we play?” Patrick repeated, his voice roughly impatient.
“Right.”
Through thick walnut doors, the faint ebb and roar of a ton party continued. But the library quieted to the pinking sting of dice hitting a highly polished surface. A marble bust of Shakespeare looked down silently on the men’s bent heads.
After the third game, Patrick suddenly broke the web cast by Quill’s calm presence and the flicking firelight.
He looked at Quill, his face lit with self-mockery. “Should I go congratulate the happy couple?”
Quill’s hooded eyes betrayed nothing. Finally he drawled, “I shall go to bed. You’ve worn me out with your emotions.” He pulled himself to his feet and then paused, leaning on the high back of the leather armchair.
“I’m glad you made it back from the Orient, Patrick.”
“I’m sorry about that damned horse.”
Quill chuckled. “It was m
y riding that did it. I shall see you soon, I hope.”
They left the library together, one man’s body a fluid symphony of muscled grace, masked only slightly by the skin-tight pantaloons of a London gentleman. The other man’s body was equally muscled, but the muscles knotted and pulled, refusing to obey their master’s commands. Iron self-control moved Quill across the Persian carpet toward the welcome shaded recesses of a curtained bed; controlled passion moved Patrick in the other direction, toward the sun-shot wanton curls of a woman whom he desired with a ferocity that disgusted him.
Chapter 4
Footmen, liveried in a dismal shade of puce, were still standing stiffly in the marble entry as Patrick walked down the stairs from the library. But the Dewland mansion was emptying. Patrick could hear the end of the ball in the ringing tones of his boots hitting marble. The walls sent the noise back to him now, whereas when he had climbed the stairs an hour or so ago the air had been plump and warm with the clatter of feet, voices, and stringed instruments.
He turned into the ballroom. Candles still burned brightly in sconces around the room. But the candles in the huge central candelabra were guttering and faltering, having been lit hours ago. The center of the huge ballroom had taken on a cavernous feel, long shadows fingering out toward the lighted walls. Here and there little groups of brightly gowned ladies and dimly grayish gentlemen still flocked, obstinate lovers of the dawn, those who counted the evening a failure if they arrived home before six in the morning.
She was gone, of course. Lady Sophie York would never find herself among the dregs of a party. It wouldn’t be fashionable. Better to leave before anyone yawns, better to leave before one’s beaux grow unbecomingly intoxicated. But Braddon … Braddon never knew when to leave, poor duffer.
Patrick found him easily. Braddon was plumped into a chair in the corner, talking to someone Patrick couldn’t see, his view blocked by Braddon’s waving hands. He was talking nineteen to the dozen. Discussing horses, Patrick thought with an unwilling pang of affection. Good old Braddon. It was a pity that life in England was so small that women had to be parceled out among men who’d known one another since they were six or seven, when they were thrown together in the cold hallways of Eton.
But his stride quickened as he realized to whom Braddon was talking. “Alex!” The word echoed leadenly in the growing emptiness of the room.
His twin looked up, a smile lighting his black eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you, quite a chore. Braddon’s in one of his starts.”
Patrick sat down next to his brother, feeling tension drain out of him.
Braddon leaned forward, his eyes shining, his wide chin trembling with excitement.
“Not a start, Patrick—this is the real thing! My life is settled, complete, bound up.” He smiled, lacing his hands together over his embroidered waistcoat.
“Congratulations,” Patrick said softly.
Braddon seemed not to have heard the controlled menace in Patrick’s tone and rushed on. “My God, she’s gorgeous. The most beautiful curved little bottom I’ve ever seen, and her breasts—they’re like—like …” Braddon’s imagination failed, not for the first time in his life. “Well, they’re big, beautiful, big for a small girl like herself.”
Ice crept down Patrick’s backbone and his hands trembled. He was going to have to hit the son of a bitch. The blood was pulsing in his head.
“I caught her against the stable door,” Braddon continued, blissfully unaware of Patrick’s expression. “I kind of caught up against her and grabbed her from behind and just gave her a little tweak, and my God I have never felt—”
His voice broke off as a hand lunged from the chair opposite and grabbed his neck cloth, twisting violently. The cloth cut off his windpipe. Braddon froze, his mouth agape, making no effort to free himself.
Actually they both froze for an instant as Patrick realized he had no right, no right at all, to admonish a man for pinching his future wife. He threw Braddon back into the chair, which creaked ominously as some two hundred fifty pounds crashed back into its velvet arms.
Alex’s cool tones fell into the silence, a silence that had drifted through the whole room. The few people left at the ball were galvanized by the protesting chair, alerted like hounds at the whiff of a deer. Something was happening, something more interesting than the stale fragments of gossip being served up at that late hour.
“Braddon,” Alex remarked, “has found himself a new mistress, Patrick.”
Braddon gaped at Patrick, his puppy eyes confused. “I thought you didn’t give a damn about Arabella,” he said, his voice aggrieved. “You could have told me earlier if you were affronted when I took on Arabella.”
Patrick sat back in his chair, deliberately making his body relax. “Next time, ask me before you poach,” he drawled.
The little group on the other side of the ballroom turned back into a circle, their voices purring with interest. Everyone knew about Foakes’s ex-mistress, the actress Arabella Calhoun, and her move to the protection of the Earl of Slaslow. Fascinating, though. No one thought that Foakes gave a damn.
Why, the story had been that Foakes extended her lease for six months and then sent a copy of the bill over to Slaslow with a scrawled note of compliment. Fascinating. When curious glances cast toward Slaslow and the Foakes brothers promised no further excitement that night, the last little band of fashionable folk began to inch toward the door. Best to go on to a club and have a last brandy before heading home.
Braddon felt unpleasantly shaken, sitting with Patrick’s disturbing eyes narrowed on him.
“Damme it, man, Arabella came under my protection ages ago! You can’t have expected that I’d keep the woman forever.” He worked up a wisp of indignation. “I paid her lease for the next six months, and I sent over a rope of emeralds. What did you expect me to do, Patrick? Marry her, for God’s sake?”
Patrick opened his mouth and clapped it shut again.
Alex’s dispassionate voice broke in. “I’d like to hear about your Madeleine. Where did you find her?”
Braddon’s eyes shifted uneasily to Alex. Then back to Patrick, and a flash of true anger straightened his backbone. “You don’t know Madeleine, do you? She’s mine, Foakes, mine!”
At that, Patrick’s mouth unwillingly quirked up. “Lord, Braddon, we’ve shared enough, don’t you think?”
“Well, Arabella was one thing.” Braddon’s eyes were burning now. “But Madeleine is different. She’s going to be mine and mine alone, forever.”
“An unusual arrangement,” Alex observed.
Braddon swung belligerently over to Alex, for all the world like a bulldog trying to answer two masters. “Not at all. My own father kept one mistress for thirty-six years. Lord knows I’m still paying her bills. Not that I mind. She’s a good old thing, and kind. She was beautiful too, not like m’mother. I go and have tea with her sometimes, talk about m’father.”
Alex stated the obvious: “Your wife … your future wife … is a very beautiful woman.”
“It’s not the same.” Braddon was deadly serious now, trying to explain something that he had painstakingly worked out in the years since his father had first introduced him to Mrs. Burns. The former Earl of Slaslow had demanded complete respect from his heir and had sent him a look that shook Braddon to his bones when he didn’t immediately bow. And so Braddon had bowed, as deeply as if Mrs. Burns were King George himself.
And then they had sat down to tea, he and his father and Mrs. Burns, and he’d looked with fascination at the beautifully furnished house, the elegant gardens visible through wide Venetian windows. Finally at the picture of a child on the piano—his brother! Only to find out from Mrs. Burns that the brother had died, dead at age seven. His father had moved a bit creakily over to Mrs. Burns and held her shoulders tightly after she said that.
And Braddon understood, without rancor, that his father had loved that boy more than he loved Braddon himself, or his sisters. And that he loved Mrs. Burns, and n
ot his wife.
It had taken hard thinking, something Braddon wasn’t good at. But he knew that that, what his father had with Mrs. Burns, that was something he wanted for himself too. So when his father was dying, a huge mound of flesh in the master bedchamber, he bribed his father’s valet to keep everyone out of the room for an hour. And then he smuggled in Mrs. Burns.
Before he left the room he saw her sit on the bed and lean over, and his father, who hadn’t spoken for two days, whispered “beloved.” When the old Earl of Slaslow died that night, without saying another word, Braddon’s mind was made up.
Ay, he’d get married as his witch of a mother kept demanding. And he would have the children required, as many as necessary till a boy sprouted from the pile. So far he’d asked three gentlewomen to marry him; the third had finally taken the lure. So that part of his life was taken care of. But he wanted to have a Mrs. Burns too, a Mrs. Burns of his own.
The miracle of it was that suddenly he had found a Mrs. Burns.
“Her name is Madeleine, Miss Madeleine Garnier,” he said, his jaw stiff in case Patrick tried to make some prior claim. “Do you know her?”
Patrick’s eyes were twinkling now and Braddon relaxed.
“Never heard of her in my life. No poaching, word of honor.” If Patrick added hastily to himself, “at least, not on Madeleine,” there was no need to say it out loud. But his brother looked at him keenly. Alex sensed the ellipse, the unspoken words. One of the disadvantages of having a twin was invariable detection of silent lies.
Patrick cleared his throat. “Have you known Madeleine long?”
Braddon’s mouth tightened again. “ ‘Miss Garnier’ to you.” Then he blinked, hearing how foolish he sounded.
“I met her a few weeks ago. That’s what I was telling Alex when you showed up. It’s providence; has to be. I finally got myself a proper wife—my mother’s up in the clouds about it—and I met Madeleine, all in the same week.