Gareth: Lord of Rakes (13 page)

Felicity forced herself to remain relaxed, to breathe evenly, to
not
whip around and stare at Gareth for what he’d just said. His voice held no irony, only a kind of unhappy bewilderment.

“Why are you upset?” Felicity asked with as much indifference as she could feign.

“Felicity, you just allowed me good old-fashioned humping,” he began, anger creeping into his voice. “It wasn’t well done of me. The lady’s pleasure always comes first.”

The whore’s pleasure was supposed to come when she got paid. Felicity did not share this observation, because, God bless the man, Gareth did not see her in that role. “Did you enjoy it?”

“You were supposed to be the one enjoying herself. I was going to win the chess match.”

Whatever that had to do with anything. “You sound resentful.”

And why shouldn’t he? Brenner was probably waiting below with another five hours of paperwork.

Gareth was silent for so long Felicity was certain he’d fallen asleep, in which case she might have a chance to study him in slumber.

“I don’t resent you. I
desire
you.”

Her patience with him and his moods gave up. “You don’t have to be polite, Gareth.”

He cuddled closer, a big, hot, naked weight of male moods and passion Felicity could not read at all. “Are you fishing for compliments, Felicity?”

“I am trying to delicately state the obvious,” she replied with studied calm. “I am a virgin of little skill. You can amuse yourself with my body because you do know what you’re doing—Callista likely chose you for that, after all. I don’t flatter myself I have much at all to do with your pleasure, when all’s said and done.”

She was learning to read his body. He did not allow himself to tense, but in the careful stillness of his limbs and muscles against her, Felicity felt him considering her words.

“You’re wrong, you know,” he said. “Wrong again.” He hitched his leg over her hips, as if she’d scamper away from him. “You haven’t the experience to understand, Felicity, but the trust you show me, and the openness with which you respond to my caresses, they have as much to do with the pleasure I feel as any naughty toys or novel positions. I am not enjoying only myself, you see, I am also enjoying
you
.”

Which probably bothered him, because in his world, such emotions were messy. Felicity did not like messes, but she very much liked him. The notion surprised her, though it seemed all her revelations regarding him were tinged with sadness.

He kissed her nape. She loved it when he kissed her nape, all scratchy beard and soft lips.

“Your family died almost a decade ago, Gareth. Why are you still so alone? You are charming, handsome, and intelligent. You are loftily titled, well to do, and in possession of all of your considerable faculties. I don’t think, though, that you are particularly happy, and I can’t see why you keep yourself so apart.”

His cock against her bum suggested he was recovering from their latest bout of passion, and she expected him to start back in with the lectures on arousal and positions and all his silly whatnot. In the alternative, he might climb out of bed and tell her the hour grew late, when he had plans for the evening.

He kissed her nape again, so tenderly she shivered.

“While your good opinion of me is… cheering, Felicity, it is not shared by all and sundry. No man with wealth and a title can afford to trust others easily. I am alone, as you put it, unencumbered by friendships, because I have grown… prudent.”

He arranged her, wrestling her so she straddled him, then pulled her down onto his chest. His handling of her was so matter-of-fact, she might have been swathed in her grandmother’s winter nightgown, and yet to cuddle with him skin to skin was lovely.

“You want to see me with a wife, fat babies on my knee, and a lordling or three in the nursery, studying to be my heirs. You think I should dance attendance upon my aging mother and donate conspicuously to charities—is that it?”

He did dance attendance on his mother, and he did donate to charities, though not conspicuously. Felicity had seen both his calendar and enough of the correspondence piled on his estate desk to know this.

“I want to see you happy, Gareth.” She wanted this badly. “I have known you more than two months, and I’ve never yet seen you laugh for pure joy. Do you resent the title that much?”

Another silence, while Felicity wondered how a man could go for years with no one to simply talk to. Rain started up against the windows, and off to the south, thunder rumbled. Gareth’s hands on her back drew patterns that felt like vines and flowers.

“I did resent the title that much. I never wanted it, and then to have people accuse me of murdering five of my own family members along with passengers, crew, and—” His hands paused, then a moment later resumed their caresses. “Some believed I would wipe out my family and my good name for a title. I thought the world was a basically fair, pleasant place, Felicity, where family loved you, and friends were honest to your face. When I became the Marquess of Heathgate, I realized that world, if it had ever existed, was no longer mine.”

What had he left unsaid? What else had that wretched accident cost him? Whatever the loss, he was reconciled to it, for his heartbeat was soft and steady, like the rain on the windows. “And now?”

“And now I am older and wiser and worlds more cynical. Coping with the aftereffects of misplaced devotion or betrayed trust is too much effort. I simply do not traffic in those commodities any longer.”

Oh, but he did. “I wish your heart had not been broken, Gareth. I wish you had not had to suffer so.”

She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face at his throat, wishing she had more comfort to offer him, any comfort at all.

***

Michael Brenner experienced a rare moment of optimism, because he’d been closeted with the marquess for almost an hour and had seen no sign of the Eyebrow. In fact, his lordship seemed oddly complacent, distracted to the point of appearing uninterested in their dealings.

Brenner was not deceived. His lordship was merely contemplating one problem while discussing another.

“So, Brenner”—the mild tone nonetheless riveted Brenner’s attention—“what else have you managed to uncover about our friend, Mr. Holbrook?”

Brenner had known the calm was too good to last.

“Precious little, your lordship. I can tell you he owns property in Kent—good farmland, a commodious manor house, grazing, a mill, a dairy, that sort of thing. Typical prosperous country holding. His correspondence goes there, but also to Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, Scotland, the Continent, the Americas. He is a man of varied interests, one would conjecture.”

Conjecture was not the best word for the moment. The marquess’s polished riding boots dropped from a corner of the desk to the floor. “Who are his people? If he’s that much of a businessman, I should have heard of him.”

“Well you should ask, your lordship. He appears to have no family. He lives quietly in the country, keeps no mistress whom we’ve been able to locate, does not socialize with the titles in his area. He’s well liked by the tradesmen, pays his bills scrupulously on time, takes excellent care of his staff, and supports the local living generously.”

“Why would he do that? Kent is thick with earls and viscounts and old families with plenty of funds.”

His lordship had the knack of seizing on small details that could unravel complicated patterns. Brenner both marveled at and dreaded his employer for this instinct.

“Not in his little corner, it appears. He bought the estate almost a decade ago from some earl or other who’d won it in a card game and was short of funds—the property wasn’t entailed—and he’s managed it well since coming into possession of it. Can’t find anybody to say much about him, your lordship, but nobody who does know of him says anything unflattering.”

“What is such a virtuous yeoman doing in London, Brenner? It makes no sense.”

Brenner sent up a prayer to St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes, because his lordship was going to conclude this interview where he had the last one: bring me better information.

“Holbrook has gone out a very few times while we’ve had an eye on him, your lordship. Twice to meet with solicitors, and we’re working on the clerks to see if we can’t loosen a tongue or two in that office. Occasionally, he’ll still lurk at the park, and he hacks out in the early morning when the weather is fine. He did visit a brothel once when first we began to keep track of him, but he didn’t stay long, and he hasn’t gone back since.”

“Which brothel?”

“I’ll have to inquire of our man, your lordship. I did not think to ask.”

The Eyebrow went to about half-mast. Any single gentleman of means, recently up from the country, might make a brief stop at a brothel upon arriving in Town.

A discreet scratching on the door interrupted the discussion.

“Come in,” Heathgate commanded.

“A note from the Worthington household, your lordship.” The footman bowed and withdrew, leaving a silver salver on the desk.

His lordship regarded the simple white epistle warily. If it had been an emergency, a threat to life or limb, one of the men would have come directly. His lordship opened the letter without asking Brenner to leave him, which was in itself more an indication of worry than of indifference to Brenner’s presence.

A single, Anglo-Saxon curse erupted through clenched teeth in such a vicious undertone Brenner wished himself Anywhere Else.

“Brenner, excuse me, and have my horse brought round immediately on your way out, please.”

“Of course, your lordship.” Brenner bowed, only too happy to leave the room, and the house. His lordship had received disconcerting news from the Worthington household. It wasn’t Brenner’s place to wonder what could have prompted that oath from the lips of a man whom he had never, ever known to use it in the past.

***

The door to Felicity’s bedroom swung open quietly, and she stifled a sigh of relief. Gareth was here now, and they could discuss matters and be done with it.

“His lordship, Miss Felicity, to see how you’re getting on,” Mrs. Crabble explained unnecessarily. “Right kind of him to come,” she added with a worried frown.

For him to be in Felicity’s bedroom was right indecent of him, and all three of them knew it—though only Crabbie ought to have been dismayed by it.

“Crabbie, if you would fetch us some tea?” Felicity noted that Crabbie left the door open a few inches—a scant few inches.

Gareth stared down at her, looking about eight feet tall in his boots and riding attire, his expression unreadable.

For her part, Felicity was glad he hadn’t caught her in bed—that would not have done at all. In fact, Mrs. Crabble would probably have insisted on staying—until Gareth, oozing charm and sweet reason, threw her out.

He came over to the chaise where Felicity had been using the natural window light to read. She swung her legs to the side, thinking to stand, but he called her bluff and took a seat beside her.

“I rode here, temper blazing, ready to verbally thrash you for this clumsy maneuver, Felicity,” he began quietly. To her surprise, though, he took her hand. “And I am still prepared to do that, should it be necessary. Except on the way here, it occurred to me that, in the first place, you would stoop to only an
elegant
subterfuge to gain your ends, and second, you probably would prefer to have today’s… scheduled dealings concluded as much as I would.”

Scheduled dealings. Thus a man of the world referred to relieving a spinster of her virginity.

That he probably wasn’t going to thrash her, verbally or otherwise, was a relief, but that he admitted to wanting to conclude his
dealings
with her, well, that hurt a bit.

More than a bit.

“You look pale,” he commented, smoothing her hair back from her face. “And tired. Do you really have a headache?” he said, clearly ready to believe her if she replied in the affirmative. “You might be suffering overwrought nerves, you know.”

She hated seeing him unsure. “Your arrogance is deserting you, Gareth. Why would I be nervous when I can anticipate only the greatest of care and expertise at your hands?”

Which sally provoked him to frowning more fiercely. “Because once we do this, you will never, ever, under any but the most unusual circumstances and calling upon the greatest possible good luck, be able to contemplate the life of a respectable wife and mother. I had hoped I could find you a way around this, Felicity, but I don’t believe I tried hard enough.” He treated her to a ferocious scowl. “I must want too badly to sin with you.”

“At last,” Felicity said, “a compliment, I think.” Though one that left her sad and him in a temper.

At the sound of Mrs. Crabble’s ponderous tread on the stairs, Gareth stood and moved off a couple of paces. He kept a polite distance while Crabbie set down a tea tray laden with the service, sandwiches, and crumb cake.

“Mrs. Crabble, you shouldn’t have gone to such trouble,” he said as he pulled a chair over from the hearth to the low table beside the chaise.

“It tweren’t no trouble, your lordship. Since you sent over those lads to help out, I’ve finally had some proper appetites to cook for. The larder is stocked, and my kitchen is busy again.”

She beamed at him, apparently ready to nominate him for sainthood—which he would loathe.

He winked at her. “No doubt they’ll all come back into my employ two stone heavier and complaining about my cook.”

When Crabbie had gone blushing and beaming on her way, Felicity let the tea steep rather than have Gareth know she had, by virtue of forced economies, acquired a preference for drinking it weak.

He all but closed the door after Mrs. Crabble then resumed his place beside Felicity. “What is this indisposition you referred to in your note?”

Her body betrayed her. A blush crept up her neck, and Gareth’s brows drew down then up.

“Got your menses early, did you?” he asked, sounding if anything amused.

Felicity gave a small nod. “You aren’t angry with me?”

“How could I be angry with you? These things are mysterious, even to the medical experts. I had in my employ at one time a woman who never bled, not once in her adult life, if her husband was to be believed. She was the mother of five healthy children. You do not control this, and nor, it appears, does the Marquess of Heathgate.”