In Bed with a Rogue (8 page)

He released her and led her into the promenade. At the end of the line, he lifted her hand to his lips. Eyes that reminded him of the blue-green waters off the Spanish coast regarded him warily. The same optimism that had overtaken him as he’d stood on the sands as a younger man and viewed the vast sea filled him again in that moment. It was irrational. Unexpected. Marvelous.

“Thank you for the pleasure of your company, my lady, but I must bid you farewell. For now.”

A slight frown turned down the corners of her mouth.

As he sauntered away, he could feel her eyes on him and he smiled.

Seven

Sebastian headed toward the card room to put distance between him and Lady Prestwick. If he stayed in the ballroom, he feared he would be unable to ignore her, and he didn’t want anyone speculating about his association with her. From the snippets of conversation he had overheard while waiting for Ellis and Gabrielle to take their leave, Lady Prestwick was well thought of by the
ton
at large, and he didn’t wish her any harm.

Her connection with Lady Eldridge afforded her some advantage, but her participation in the Mayfair Ladies Charitable Society had secured her place among the ranks. Apparently, the ladies found her quite demure and amenable. The footpad she’d unmanned would probably disagree. He chuckled, finding he liked that she was more than she seemed to be.

Sebastian’s jovial mood carried over to the card room and improved even more when an old schoolmate waved him over to join a game of loo. With his mind preoccupied by his coming meeting with the intriguing Lady Prestwick, he lost several rounds, but even parting with his money didn’t put a damper on his mood.

The Earl of Ellis’s arrival, however, did the trick.

The last time Sebastian had laid eyes on Ellis, they both had been bloody messes from fighting over Gabrielle. His temper flared as the entire affair came back in vivid detail. Sebastian’s fiancée staying with his longtime rival and onetime friend. Gabrielle as bare as the day she was born underneath her cloak. Her hand linked with Ellis’s as she declared her intentions to stay with him. It was too much to forgive and forget.

As Ellis neared the table, Sebastian snatched his stack of money and pushed to his feet.

“Where are you going?” one of his competitors asked in a harassed tone.

“Away.” He ignored the protests, brushed past Ellis, and stalked from the card room. He made it halfway down the corridor when a door closed behind him.

“Thorne, I would like a word.” It was Ellis.

Sebastian came to a halt, his fingers curling into a fist. The sounds of muffled music and laughter beyond the double doors at the end of the corridor reached him. He should keep moving. If they came to blows at a ball, Sebastian would only make things worse for Eve and Mother. Instead, he turned to face his adversary.

“Lying. Traitorous. Jackass.” Sebastian bit out each insult. “There are three words for you. I think they all fit.”

The muscles in Ellis’s jaw bulged and fire flared in his eyes, but the earl doused the flames. His smile was grim and forced. “I could say those words fit you as well, but I promised Gabby I would mindmy manners.”

“What do you want?”

Ellis took a step toward him, his footfall silent on the thick Turkish carpet. “My wife suggested we try to make amends.”

“Has your bollocks in hand, does she?”

The earl’s brows dipped low and he crossed his arms. “I refuse to exchange insults. I only meant to tell you I didn’t intend for matters to end badly for you.”

“Are you trying to say you are sorry?”

“For doing what I did?
Never
. I need Gabby as much as the air I breathe.”

Sebastian scoffed. “The chit has turned you into a sap.” He continued toward the ballroom, dismissing Ellis.

“I’m sorry for what my actions did to you, my friend.”

Sebastian paused with his hand on the door handle. The word
friend
was bittersweet. In all his years of competing with Ellis, Sebastian had never realized the earl was the only real friend he’d ever had. Now there was nothing but anger in Sebastian’s heart.

“I want to help,” the earl said.

“I never needed your help, and I don’t need it now.”

Ellis’s assistance had made his life hell years ago at Eton. When the earl had intervened in a fight between Sebastian and three older boys who had been tormenting Sebastian since his arrival at the school, he thought he’d made a lifelong friend. Then Ellis hadn’t arrived at the stables the next morning to ride with him as planned. The bullies had ambushed him. Their leader had taunted him.
Where
is
your
wet
nurse, Thorne?

No one else had been in the building. Not even a groom could be found. The biggest one had smacked a riding crop against his meaty palm.
Ellis
won’t be here to save you today. He has better ways to spend his time.

Sebastian took a beating like he’d never known that day, and the attacks increased in intensity and duration over the next few weeks. He had lain in bed at night with the taste of his own blood feeding his desperation. He couldn’t stop fighting back. If he had, he would have always been seen as a victim in need of rescue from the heroic Anthony Keaton. Sebastian’s only hope had been to become better than Ellis.

At fisticuffs. At riding. At anything and everything.

Eventually, Sebastian established a reputation for fighting like the devil’s spawn, and the other boys began to give him wide berth and grudging respect. By the time he no longer needed to prove his superiority over Ellis, challenging the earl had become a game. One Sebastian enjoyed playing and winning until Gabrielle.

He met his former friend’s shuttered gaze. The sting of betrayal was as sharp as the moment Sebastian learned Ellis had run away with Gabrielle. As hurtful as the day the earl hadn’t come to the stables as promised.

Sebastian would be a fool to trust the man ever again. “Bugger off.”

Eight

Helena was ashamed to admit she was hiding from Lord Thorne. In the ladies’ retiring room, of all places. It was the one place she felt certain she wouldn’t bump into him again.

Unfortunately, one could only do so much primping before earning curious stares from the retiring room attendant. Helena glanced up to catch the young woman goggling her in the looking glass for the third time. The attendant averted her gaze.

Helena swallowed a resigned sigh. Hiding was pointless given he would be standing in her drawing room before the night was over. Carefully, she replaced the lid on her lip rouge, slid it into her beaded reticule, then slowly gained her feet.

The retiring room door swung open and Celeste, Baroness Lovelace, entered. Her step faltered when she spotted Helena, but she covered her hesitation with a pretty smile. “Lady Prestwick, I thought you had gone.”

“I will be leaving soon.” Helena avoided looking in the mirror. If she didn’t see the blood rushing to her cheeks, she could deny she was blushing. She had definitely spent too long loitering in the retiring room if a mere acquaintance had noticed her absence.

Lady Lovelace strode to the dressing table, and Helena shuffled out of her way. The widow’s regal bearing caused a sick tumble inside Helena. Even though she knew Society saw her as one of them, she couldn’t help from time to time still seeing herself as the common girl her father had cast away.

She rolled her shoulders and held her head high. Her dealings with Wickie had taught her never to show weakness.
It’s like blood in a shark-filled ocean
, he’d said when she asked to come to London
. The
ton
will
pick
your
flesh
from
their
teeth.

Her experiences so far suggested her husband had held a skewed view of Society. The ladies of Mayfair extended many kindnesses to her, but she was always cautious, never speaking of anything controversial and keeping her opinions to herself. Her aim was survival.

“I saw you dancing with Lord Thorne.” Lady Lovelace plopped onto the tufted stool and smoothed a hand over her hair. “If you’ve a rendezvous with Sebastian, you will not regret it.”

Helena’s breath hitched.

The widow’s eyes gleamed in the looking glass. “Just as I suspected. He is worth the risk, so long as no one else finds out. Most every lady desires him in her bed, but she would be mortified if others knew she’d been bedded by a Bedlamite.”

She twittered at her joke, but Helena didn’t find her amusing in the least.

“Forgive me, my lady, but you are mistaken about Lord Thorne and me.” Helena headed for the retiring room door, brushing past the attendant who wasn’t even bothering to pretend she wasn’t eavesdropping. Her owl-like eyes blinked several times at Helena.

“Oh?” The widow swiveled on the seat. “You haven’t succumbed to his charms yet? You would be the only woman whose skirts he has chased but failed to lift.”

“I don’t know what you are babbling on about.” Helena stalked from the retiring room. But she did know what the widow meant.

Obviously, Lady Lovelace had been Lord Thorne’s lover at some point—perhaps even now he paid her visits—and she thought Helena would be his next conquest.

God help her, she wished her association with the man was as simple as that, but Lord Thorne wanted something more than a tumble between the sheets. What that was, exactly, she didn’t know. Money? A special favor? She could pay for his silence, but the true cost would be surrendering her pride. She’d vowed never to be at a man’s mercy again, and Sebastian Thorne had her at a decided disadvantage.

***

Sebastian searched for Lady Prestwick inside the crowded ballroom. The Countess of Eldridge’s theme for the evening was “excess.” Rivers of lavender silk flooded the great room, and there were enough white gardenias to choke a man. The concentrated aroma clawed at his throat. He covered a cough with his fist as he circled the dance floor.

Lady Prestwick wasn’t with her kin or among the ladies gossiping together. She wasn’t visiting with Gabrielle either, who stood surrounded by her brothers’ wives, the current Duchess of Foxhaven, Lady Phoebe, and Lady Lana. He had little doubt his former betrothed would recover from scandal no worse for the experience, thanks to the support of her kinswomen.

He felt a pinch in his chest. That was what his sister lacked, a powerful circle of women to protect her. A man could only do so much. Eve could have had that if he hadn’t failed in his bid for Gabrielle’s hand.

When he was certain Lady Prestwick had taken her leave, he sent a footman to call for his carriage. Lady Lovelace, an attractive widow he’d spent a few entertaining nights with early in the Season, was standing in the foyer with her prim and very respectable mother-in-law. He understood the widow’s reluctance to let on they knew one another and didn’t expect her to acknowledge him, but she surprised him.

“It’s rather stifling in the ballroom, is it not, Lord Thorne?”

He returned her polite smile with a bemused one. “Er. Yes, it is.”

The elder Lady Lovelace peered at him through her quizzing glass. “You danced with Lady Prestwick this evening.”

“The lady was kind enough to grant me the privilege,” he said, expecting the conversation had run its course.

She nodded. “She is a lovely young woman with a generous heart.”

Is
she
implying
dancing
with
me
is
an
act
of
charity?

“I didn’t realize you were friendly with Lady Prestwick,” Celeste said. The sardonic twist of her mouth left no doubts what
she
was implying.

“The lady is friendly with my sister,” he lied, although it wasn’t a complete fabrication. She had been friendly with Eve outside St. Saviour’s.

The older woman’s drawn-on brows rose on her wrinkled forehead. “Mercy. I had no idea Lady Prestwick and Miss Thorne are close friends. I must speak with Lady Eldridge and insist she invite your sister to the next charitable society gathering. Lady Eldridge is hosting next week.”

Sebastian blinked, certain he had misheard her. Eve never received invitations to anything.

The footman entered the foyer from outside. “Ladies, your carriage has arrived.”

The younger Lady Lovelace ushered her mother-in-law toward the door but stopped at the threshold to peer back at him. Her gaze traveled the length of his body and she tossed a smile in his direction. “It has been a long time, Lord Thorne. I hope our paths cross again very soon.” She mouthed the word
Tonight
.

He was tempted. This type of unwritten invitation hadn’t been extended to him in quite a while, but he’d already agreed to meet Lady Prestwick this evening. And her invitation proved most intriguing.

Nine

Helena had changed into a comfortable day gown and requested the lamps lit in the drawing room in preparation for Lord Thorne’s arrival. She glanced around the small space with a nagging sense something was missing. Her gaze landed on the empty fireplace. Perhaps a little ambiance would be nice, but it was too warm for a fire.

“Oh bother!” She made a dismissive flick of her wrist, disgusted with herself. Ambiance would be nice if the baron were set on seduction, not blackmail, which, now that she’d had more time to think about it, seemed like the most logical scenario.

Many gentlemen with titles and entailed estates needed money. The baron probably saw her as an easy target. The question she had been asking herself since the ball was would anyone believe him?

She’d heard the gossip about Lord Thorne tonight. The words “insane” and “family trait” had circled the room more times than the dancers. Only she didn’t believe for one second he was unbalanced. His eyes were too clear and sharp. He was intelligent.
Cunning
. And he would make a formidable foe if she crossed swords with him.