Some Like It Wicked

  Eddingham froze a few steps from the doorway, then slowly turned, all the color draining from his face.

  “Oh, Simon told me all about your poor fiancée’s unfortunate accident. What a terrible tragedy that must have been! She was so young, so beautiful…so very devoted to you.”

  The marquess didn’t say another word. He simply turned and stalked from the room, the tails of his coat flapping behind him.

  Catriona’s knees didn’t betray her until she heard the distant slam of the front door. She collapsed into the chair and clapped a hand over her mouth, torn between laughing and crying.

  “Oh, Simon,” she whispered. “How you would have enjoyed that!”

  Simon hadn’t enjoyed anything for a very long while.

  Oh, he went through the motions—prowling through the gambling hells in Pall Mall and off of St. James’s until the wee hours of the morning, laughing at the ribald jokes made at his expense, and accepting the toasts to his legendary prowess with a lusty grin and a round of drinks for the house.

  As for himself, he hadn’t had more than a few sips of wine since his drunkenness had nearly cost Catriona her life. As long as he had remained deep in his cups, the jokes had been hilarious, the women beautiful, the games thrilling. Without the glowing haze of intoxication to soften its seedy edges, he felt like a stranger in his own life—an actor portraying the role of incorrigible rakehell to please his adoring audience.

  In a perverse twist of fate, he couldn’t seem to stop winning at the tables. He’d paid off all of his creditors and still managed to parlay what was left of Catriona’s dowry into a small fortune. The Simon Wescott of old already would have squandered most of it at the tailor’s or purchased some gaudy bauble to woo a woman into his bed. But less than a week ago, he had found himself lingering outside the barred windows of a banking establishment. Before he had even realized what he was going to do, there was an account with his name on it and a rapidly growing balance.

  Although no one would have guessed it from his suave demeanor, he was in a particularly savage temper on the night he strolled into one of his favorite haunts in Pickering Place.

  I should be celebrating, he thought as he wended his way through the haze of stale cigar smoke that hung over the room, his eye on the faro table. In just a few days, the bishop would grant Catriona her annulment. He would be a free man once again. Free to gamble all night, free to swill liquor until dawn, free to take any woman he wanted to his bed.

  Any woman but his wife.

  He inhaled a choking lungful of the smoke, suddenly feeling as if someone had strapped an iron band around his chest. He would have sworn he hadn’t taken a single decent breath since returning from the Highlands. He was too conscious of the black clouds of soot belching from chimneys and hovering over the city, the hint of sewage whenever he passed a narrow alleyway, the cloying perfumes of the women who flocked around him every time he walked into a room.

  As Catriona had so aptly predicted, her ridiculous accusation had only enhanced his reputation. Everywhere he went, he was besieged by women only too eager to prove her a liar.

  One of those women was heading his way at that very moment. He slid into a chair at the faro table, giving the other men gathered around it a curt nod. He recognized the approaching woman as a randy courtesan with a fondness for whist and the dangerous habit of settling her debts with her sexual favors. As she slipped up behind him and twined her pale, powdered arms around his neck, he could still smell the scent of the last man she had taken to her bed.

  “Hullo, Simon. I was hoping you’d be here tonight. I’ve missed you terribly and I’m in the mood for some deep play,” she purred, imbuing the innocent words with a meaning never intended by the wide-eyed dealer.

  As the man popped a card from the faro box and flipped it onto the felt-lined table, Simon said, “I’m afraid the only play I’m interested in tonight is right here at this table.”

  “You’re just trying to make me beg, aren’t you?” She touched the tip of her tongue to his earlobe, her hands wandering farther south with each word. “I remember how much you always liked it when I begged.”

  As her small, greedy hand cupped his crotch, his body reacted reflexively to her touch. But instead of the familiar rush of lust, all he felt was mild distaste tinged with pity.

  Shooting the dealer a sheepish look, he caught her wrist and gently disengaged her. “Now, don’t be naughty, Angela. You know very well that I’m a married man.”

  She snorted. “I wish your wife was here right now. I’d like to give her a piece of my mind. Then she could come upstairs with us and I’d show the lying little baggage how a real woman pleasures her man.”

  Simon turned to look at her, something in his frank gaze making her take a step away from the table.

  “Well,” she said, while patting her upswept cinnamon-colored curls, “I’ll leave you to your game for now. If you change your mind, I’ll be over at the whist table.”

  When Simon glanced over at the whist table a few minutes later, she was already licking another man’s ear.

  He slid a slender cigar out of his waistcoat pocket and allowed the dealer to light it. If he was going to be stuck breathing the stuff all night, it might as well be fresh.

  He was just beginning to settle into the rhythms of the game when a man’s shadow fell over the table.

  Simon glanced up, blowing a stream of smoke from his nostrils. “Philo Wilcox,” he drawled. “The last time I saw you, you were running across a meadow after I shot you in the arse for cheating at this very table.”

  Philo settled himself gingerly into the chair next to him, still favoring his left buttock. “I couldn’t sit down for months. That was rather unsporting of you, don’t you think?”

  “No more unsporting than you sprinting for the trees in the middle of a duel. Would you have preferred I shot you in the head?”

  Philo sniffed, his long face growing even longer. “It might have spared me the indignity of being labeled a cheater and a coward.”

  “But you were a cheater and a coward,” Simon pointed out, flicking a bead of ash off his cigar.

  “And now, thanks to you, everyone knows it.” Philo cast a furtive look over his shoulder. “If the proprietor catches me in here, he’ll have me tossed out on my ear.”

  “Then I suggest you take your leave before I’m forced to call him over.”

  Philo’s pout shifted to a horsey grin. He clapped Simon on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t be that way, old friend. I was hoping you might help me turn my luck around.”

  “How? By offering you a pillow to sit on?”

  “Well, you see—it’s like this. Me and some other young bucks have made a wager in the book over at White’s on which one of us will be the first to bed your bride after you bust out of her leg shackles.”

  The cigar dangled from Simon’s lips, completely forgotten.

  Lowering his voice, Philo leaned closer. “No matter what she claims, we know you broke her in right and proper. After the appropriate amount of time has passed—maybe a fortnight—we thought she’d be eager for some more saddle-play. Since I put all my money on me, I was hoping I might be able to coax you into arranging a little introduction. If she’s still speaking to you, that is.”

  One minute Philo was smirking at Simon. The next he was flat on his back on the floor with blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and Simon standing over him, fists clenched and the knuckles of his right hand still stinging.

  “Hey! That wasn’t very sporting of you either!” Rubbing his jaw, Philo started to get up, but when Simon snarled and raised his fists again, he settled back on the floor, plainly deciding it was the wisest course of action.

  Through the roaring in his ears Simon could hear the echo of Catriona’s voice: Is there anything worth fighting for in your eyes? Anything worth dying for? Anything noble enough or dear enough to justify risking your precious neck?

  He’d been searching his entire life for that
very thing, only to turn his back and walk away when he’d finally found it. He had been afraid to believe, never realizing that Catriona had enough courage and faith for the both of them, enough love in her beautiful, generous heart for even a scoundrel like him.

  As Simon’s lips curved in an exultant grin, Philo whimpered and lifted his hands to block his face. But Simon simply turned on his heel and started for the door, determined to fight for what he wanted for the first time in his life.

  His path was blocked by a massive bull of a man. The hulking fellow was so blistered he was already swaying on his feet. “Hey, you! What’d you do to Philo? He’s my friend!”

  Simon’s eyes widened as they traveled up, up, up to the man’s gargantuan head. Apparently God, with His delicious sense of irony, was going to give him a chance to prove his devotion to Catriona by dying while defending her honor right here on the floor of this seedy gambling haunt.

  As the man swung one ham-handed fist at his head, Simon ducked, thinking what a damn shame it was that she would never know of his sacrifice.

  Enraged by the near-miss, the behemoth grabbed Simon by the cravat and jerked him off his feet like a rag doll. He was drawing back his colossal fist for a blow that probably would have dislodged every tooth in Simon’s head when Angela sprang up from the whist table and flung herself on his back with a feline yowl.

  Yanking at the fellow’s hair with both hands, she shrieked, “Don’t you hit his pretty face or I’ll tear your ugly mug right off with my fingernails!”

  Another fellow jumped up from the hazard table. “You there! Don’t you dare hit a lady!”

  Simon was too busy trying to choke in a strangled breath to point out that Angela was neither a lady nor in any danger of being hit. On the contrary, it was his attacker who appeared to be in imminent danger as she wrapped one arm around his thick neck and sank her sharp little teeth into his ear.

  He roared with pain and released his death grip on Simon’s cravat. All hell broke loose.

  Tables, dice and cards went spilling over as the club erupted in a full-out brawl. It no longer mattered whose side anyone was on. There was only the primitive joy of fists meeting flesh, chairs and bodies flying through the air and the satisfying crunch of bone against bone.

  Simon ducked a flying chair. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Philo scurrying toward the door on hands and knees. Unable to resist the temptation, he ducked through the melee, arriving at the front door just in time to give Philo a sharp kick in the rear. He went sailing out the door with a girlish squeal.

  Simon was dusting off his hands when a man jerked him around by the sleeve of his coat and drew back a beefy fist.

  Simon held up both hands. “Not the face, please.”

  The man nodded politely, then buried his fist in Simon’s stomach.

  Simon doubled over with a pained grunt. “Thank you,” he wheezed out before ramming the top of his head into the man’s chin. He followed that with a wicked right-left combination he’d perfected while sparring at Gentleman Jackson’s, laying his opponent out flat.

  Before he had time to savor that triumph, a chair came down across the back of his head, splintering beneath the force. He dropped to his knees, a shower of stars exploding in his vision. He was still trying to shake them away when a wiry, sun-bronzed hand appeared in front of him.

  Wary of any offer of help, he squinted suspiciously up at his potential savior. Kieran Kincaid’s rawboned visage slowly came into focus.

  He blinked. He must have taken a much harder blow to the skull than he realized. But if he had to hallucinate, why couldn’t it have been a smiling Catriona bending over him instead of her surly clansman?

  Kieran wrapped a hand around his arm and hauled him to his feet with surprising strength.

  Rubbing the back of his head, Simon scowled at him. “Where in the bloody hell did you come from?”

  “Scotland,” Kieran replied shortly. “Before that, me mum said I was just a twinkle in me da’s eye.”

  “How did you find me?”

  Kieran shrugged. “To be honest, it wasn’t much of a challenge. All we had to do was visit every brothel, alehouse and hellhole in London. It’s been real rough on me and the lads.”

  As a freckled boy in a grubby tunic went sailing headfirst out the door, Simon realized that Kieran hadn’t come alone. At least a dozen of the Kincaid clan had slipped into the club and gleefully joined the fray.

  “I heard ye were lettin’ Catriona give ye the boot.” Kieran shook his head in disgust. “And I thought she was daft. Ye’re a bluidy fool, Wescott, to lose a lass so fine.”

  Simon jerked his cravat straight. “You’re one to point fingers. You were fool enough to let her go too.”

  “I know I did. That’s why I’m here. To get her back.”

  The two men eyed each other thoughtfully, realizing they just might have more in common than they realized.

  “I’ve been thinkin’ of her more as a sister or a cousin, but if ye don’t want her,” Kieran added casually, “I just might ask her to be my bride.”

  Before he even realized he was going to do it, Simon had grabbed Kieran by the front of his tunic and slammed him up against the nearest wall.

  The Highlander’s lips curved in a rare grin. “I allus did want me a sister.”

  Chapter 21

  “If you’ll wait here, I’ll inform your father of your arrival,” the aged butler said stiffly, disapproval all but oozing from his pores.

  “Thank you,” Simon replied solemnly. “I’ll try not to steal anything.”

  The servant gave him a withering look before shuffling from the room. Unable to resist the childish urge, Simon poked his tongue out at the man’s bony back.

  He sighed, knowing he would have ample time to rob his father blind if he were so inclined. The duke had always delighted in keeping his inferiors waiting, considering it a privilege of his rank.

  The butler would have been surprised to learn that his greatest temptation wasn’t to pocket one of his father’s silver candle snuffers but to bolt for the door. After attending his brother’s burial, he had hoped never to set foot in this house again. He’d never excelled at swallowing his pride to please his father, much preferring to take a beating at some footman’s beefy hands.

  Linking his hands at the small of his back, he took a turn around the room. It had been many years since he’d been allowed into the sanctuary of his father’s library.

  Everything was much as he remembered. The imposing octagonal room had floors of gleaming rose marble imported directly from Italy. A priceless Aubusson carpet that was dragged outside for a daily beating rested in the center of the floor. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be found on any of the marble busts or objets d’art displayed proudly throughout the room. The only items that showed signs of neglect were the books that lined the mahogany shelves.

  His father’s massive desk, where discipline and punishment had been meted out with equal zeal, still dominated the chamber. Simon had been summoned there on many an occasion—for lectures, scoldings, stern dressing-downs, and for the occasional caning when his father’s temper got the best of him. In truth, those were the only times his father ever really looked at him. As long as Simon was misbehaving, the duke couldn’t ignore his existence. But he also couldn’t be bothered to beat Simon himself and would order one of the servants to do it for him.

  A huge gilt-framed portrait of Richard—resplendent in his scarlet army uniform—hung over the mantel. Simon knew he wouldn’t find even so much as a miniature of himself tucked away in some forgotten corner of a bookshelf.

  Despite Richard’s petty—and unfounded—jealousy of him, Simon had always looked up to him. Richard was older, stronger, the apple of their father’s eye. But as he gazed up at the portrait, he frowned. It was almost as if he were seeing his brother for the first time. Why had he never noticed the rounded slope of Richard’s shoulders, the weakness of his chin, the squinty hint of cruelty in his pale b
rown eyes?

  “A remarkable likeness, is it not?” his father said from somewhere behind him.

  “Indeed. I almost feel as if he could reach out and box my ears.”

  Simon turned to face his father. Although they hadn’t seen each other in over three years, he was still shocked by how much his father had aged. His handsome mane of white hair was beginning to thin at the brow and crown. His gout must have worsened as well because he was using a cane to hobble around the desk.

  “I trust this won’t take long,” his father said, sinking into his thronelike chair. Once it had added to his regal stature; now it seemed to dwarf him. “I’m assuming you need money to pay off some overzealous creditor or pregnant doxy. I was hoping your little stint in Newgate might do you some good. Build character and all that rot. Then I heard you’d run off with that mad Scots girl. I’m not surprised that ended in disaster. Everyone knows the Scots are a notoriously depraved and untrustworthy lot.”

  He opened a drawer and drew out a leather-bound box. Flipping open the lid, he asked, “So how much do you need? A hundred pounds? Five hundred?”

  Simon reached over and closed the lid, gently but firmly. “I don’t want your money. You know very well that I’ve never asked you for so much as a farthing. I’ve always made my own way in this world.”

  “I did purchase you a commission in the navy,” his father reminded him.

  “To get me out from under your feet and to keep me from tarnishing your good name any more than I already had.”

  “It didn’t work on either count, did it?”

  Simon reached into his coat, drew out a folded sheet of stationery and handed it to his father.

  His father snapped it open, scanned it quickly, then glanced back at Simon, hiking one snowy white eyebrow. “Do you really expect me to do this?”

  Simon leaned over, planting both palms on the desk. “It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. If you do it, you’ll never have to lay eyes on me again.”