Kasey Michaels (31 page)

Bobbit, lightly stroking his new watch fob, entered the study and announced that Baron Lorimar had come to call.

“Tell him I’ve died,” Bramwell said without raising his eyes from the empty glass he was studying. “It was a putrid fever. Terrible, but mercifully swift. Tell him the services were extremely moving, but that he missed the funeral.”

“Pity. I would have enjoyed speaking the eulogy,” Baron Lorimar drawled, sliding his long frame into the leather chair across from the desk. “Odd. I just passed Wally in the foyer, and he was sober as I’ve ever seen him, while you look to be doing your best to drown yourself in wine before noon. He seemed happy; you look sadder than your cousin Samuel. Wally’s going off for an afternoon with the most delicious morsel in all of London; you’re sitting here, alone. I don’t suppose you’d care to explain any of that?”

“I had a single glass of wine, Lorrie. One. Only an idiot bent on self-destruction would drink water in this city.”

“Don’t interrupt, please,” Lorimar said, smiling. “I think I’m unraveling a conundrum. And the answer to this puzzle is—Miss Sophie Winstead. Am I correct?”

Bramwell glared at his friend, briefly considering the pleasure he might take in leaping across the desk and hitting him. Hitting someone. Hitting something. “I may have made an idiot out of myself with her last night,” he said, deciding hitting someone wouldn’t do him much good. Unless he could kick himself.

“You did? Well, good for you,” Lorimar shot back, crossing his legs at the ankle as he slouched, in the chair. “About time you figured you weren’t cut out for a life of starched collars and full conformity. Was this a private or a public idiocy? You score two more points if you made an idiot of yourself in public, you know.”

Bramwell felt a smile beginning to tickle at the corners of his mouth. He and Lorimar understood each other so well. There was no need for long explanations with Lorimar, for sordid confessions. The Baron knew he had kissed Sophie, or done something similarly reckless. And he knew that Bramwell was caught somewhere between hating himself for what he’d done and wanting to shout what he’d done from the highest rooftops in the city. “No, not in public, Lorrie. But I’m giving it some serious consideration. If she’ll have me.”

“If she’ll have you? Well, good for you all over again, and doubled! I’d begun to wonder if blood still flowed through your veins, you’d resisted for so long. I doubt Bobbit has yet to make a single groat on you—although you probably owe him a king’s ransom this morning. But wait a moment. This would also mean you’d have
two
young ladies in your life, Bram. I don’t think that’s allowed. Unless,” he continued, his voice taking on a sharp edge, “you’re sitting here thinking of marrying the Waverley and keeping The Winstead on the side? I certainly hope not, my friend. Because I couldn’t allow that. I really couldn’t.”

“And you think I could?” Bramwell felt his blood growing hot, fueling his temper once more. “My God, Lorrie, how far must I go to prove that I’m not my father?”

“You never were, Bram,” the Baron said evenly. “In fact, you were very much your own man all of your life—up until the moment your father executed that none-too-graceful leap from Buxley’s balcony and straight into legend. It was only then that you lost your way, Bram, trying to be what you were not. Taking up the title with both hands and a heavy, sober heart, turning your back on any hint of nonsense, bracketing yourself to a woman you would never have taken a second look at before your father’s death and your humiliation? No, you would have done none of that if you’d come into the dukedom in the usual way. Is your family’s good name worth such sacrifice? The sacrifice of your own happiness? Of Miss Waverley’s chance for happiness?”

He pushed himself to his feet. “I’d drink another glass of that wine if I were you, Bram, really I would. Maybe the whole bottle, and another one as well. Get yourself very, very drunk, then take a good look at yourself. Look at your life before the balcony scene, your life since that day—your life as it stretches in front of you now. Examine the choices that are yours and yours alone. You’ll end up with a bruiser of a headache, but I think you might also end up the wiser for the pain.”

Bramwell ran a hand through his hair as he looked up at his friend. “How long were you going to let me continue to make a bloody fool of myself, Lorrie?” he asked. “If Sophie hadn’t unexpectedly come into my life—how long would it have been before you tapped me ungently on my brick-stupid head and waked me up to what I was doing?”

“I had considered that, if my first idea didn’t show promise. Lorimar smiled, his usually unreadable gray eyes twinkling. “You know, Bram, for an intelligent man...” he said, his voice drifting off into suggestive nothingness before he ended, “well, let’s just say it might be time you had a long talk with Sophie’s maid, my friend,
n’est-ce pas
?”

Man was born imperfect. He lived and he died, still flawed, still imperfect. But, by damn, he should bloody well learn
something
along the way!

That was the conclusion a few hours of thought and a bottle of very good wine had brought to Bramwell Seaton, Ninth Duke of Selbourne.

He had been born into one of England’s finest families, one of its premier titles, one of its largest fortunes. All of that hadn’t given him what he really wanted. He had never felt his mother’s love, known his father’s pride.

But he’d grown up, grown into a man, begun to travel his own road. He’d found friends, his own life, his own happiness.

Or so he’d thought.

All it had taken to change that life had been his father’s disgrace. The ridicule his father had brought to the family name. If Bramwell hadn’t had loving parents, he’d at least always had his heritage to cling to, to make him feel, if not loved, at least respected. Cecil Seaton had destroyed all of that. His usually more discreet mother, the late duchess, very indiscreetly succumbing to a plateful of bad fish while in the company of her latest lover, had finished what his father had started.

And Bramwell, now cursing himself for being stupid, stupid,
stupid
, had let his life be changed.

Why?

Because he had been happy, if still relatively young and a bit of a rascal, had he suddenly believed himself cursed with what he began to see as a Seaton family failing? Was enjoying life a sin?

Conversely, was striving these past three years to rebuild his family’s name a sin?

“Anything, if taken to excess, is a sin,” Bramwell said as he mounted the stairs to Sophie’s bedchamber. “At least I think that’s how it goes. But somewhere, by God, there has to be a
happy
medium.”

He turned down the hallway, a fresh bottle and two glasses in his hands, following the sound of Desiree’s voice raised in song. The woman sounded carefree, without a worry in the world.

Well, that wouldn’t last for long!

He stopped just in the doorway of Sophie’s bedchamber and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, his hands crossed against his chest—the bottle dangling from one hand, the glasses from the other—his pose purposely relaxed. “
Mademoiselle
? A moment of your time,
s’il vows plaît
?” he drawled in imitation of the day the maid had cornered him in his own dressing room.

Desiree seemed to freeze in the act of placing a tapestry pillow in the center of the freshly made-up bed “
Monseigneur
?” she said, slowly turning to watch with gimlet eyes as Bramwell strolled fully into the large guest chamber, set down his burdens of bottle and glasses, and took up a seat on a pink-and-white striped chaise longue. “There is something wrong,
oui
? Or, perhaps, something to celebrate?”

Bramwell knew his grin bordered on evil. “That would depend, Desiree,” he said, pulling a cheroot out of his pocket and sticking it, unlit, into the corner of his mouth. His smile widened as the maid raced to find a striking match before dumping hairpins from a small china plate, probably thinking to use it to hold the ashes. “It would depend, you see, on how truthful you are in the next, oh, five minutes?”

“Truthful,
monseigneur
?” Desiree repeated, swallowing down hard as she pulled a small table close beside the chaise longue and placed the china dish on its surface. She leaned forward to light his cheroot. “In what way?”

Bramwell puffed several times on the cheroot, drawing the smoke into his lungs. “In every way,
mademoiselle
,” he purred, exhaling a ribbon of fragrant blue smoke, “but I think we should perhaps begin with the Baron Marshall Lorimar’s visit to Wimbledon. That would have been some months ago,
oui
?”

Desiree, a woman Bramwell already knew was not the sort to stand on ceremony in any case, immediately plopped her voluptuous frame down beside him on the chaise longue, staring at him goggle-eyed. “
Mon Dieu
! I am undone!”

Bramwell couldn’t help himself. He deliberately smiled around the cheroot still clamped between his teeth, deliberately wrinkled up his nose as he did so. God, but he felt alive! More alive than he had in—when? Three years? He was Bram Seaton again. Naval officer, gentleman, and a man who knew pleasure and laughter and the occasional bout of ridiculousness—and damn well enjoyed them. “Yes, you could say that, couldn’t you?”

Desiree quickly recovered her composure. “It was the baron, of course. He gave it away.” She shook her head. “I should have known better than to trust a man,
oui
? They are always the downfall of desperate, trusting women. What did he tell you?”

In truth, Lorimar had told Bramwell next to nothing, but he wasn’t about to admit that to this clever woman. “He told me his side of the story, of course, men being endlessly perfidious. But I thought it only fair to allow you to tell me
your
side of things before I had you tossed out on your ambitious ear.”

“And Sophie along with me? Oh, no,
monseigneur
, you wouldn’t do that,” Desiree said, visibly relaxing. “But,” she went on, gifting him with an eloquent Gallic shrug, “I suppose it is time for some small truths,
oui
?”

“Small, middle-sized, large. Complete and total, as a matter of fact.” Bramwell pulled the cheroot from his mouth and rose to his feet, beginning to pace. “Did I mention that I’m not by nature a patient man?”

“I could make you more impatient than you have ever known. Were I younger, not so devoted to pastries. Were your interests not already involved elsewhere,” Desiree said, shrugging once more. “Ah, well, that time is past for me, and unlamented. And, since I have gotten what I want—you would not have troubled to come to me if I hadn’t—I suppose the truth is owed,
oui
?” She looked at him intently. “You do love her,
monseigneur
. She would not have come back to this bed last night still a virgin, did you not love her.”

Bramwell crushed out the cheroot in the china dish, leaning toward Desiree as he did so. “We’re here for your confession,
mademoiselle
, not mine,” he reminded her coldly.

Desiree laughed in sheer delight, which was surprising to Bramwell, for he had thought he’d just leveled the woman with his most fierce scowl, his most threatening voice. “I have lived long enough to see a miracle,
monseigneur
. God is indeed good,
oui
? The Baron Lorimar, he was right. All the heart of your father,
monseigneur
, all the heat, the fire, the delicious nonsense. Hidden for years, but always there, always ready, waiting. But with a steadfastness never seen in the father. You are perfect for my little Sophie. Perfect!”

“And betrothed to marry another,” Bramwell put in facetiously, rising and going to the table, picking up the already uncorked bottle, pouring each of them a glass of wine.

“Bah! That is nothing,
monseigneur
,” Desiree said, accepting a glass. “A mere
bagatelle
, a nuisance soon forgotten. Trust Sophie in this,
monseigneur
. In her zeal to make everyone happy, the little minx is already well on the way to most comfortably settling
Mademoiselle
Waverley, unaware that she is also helping herself to her own happiness. Life is so interesting when one is in Society,
oui
? The dance, the whirl, the excitement. My Sophie was born for all of it—to be the happy, laughing queen of all of it!”

Bramwell’s head was beginning to spin, and he knew it had little to do with no breakfast and a bellyful of wine. “I prefer to let the subject of my soon-to-be-broken engagement to Miss Waverley lie for the moment,
mademoiselle
. We were discussing Baron Lorimar, I believe? That is why I’m here, remember?”

Desiree took a deep drink of the wine, then nodded her head as she swallowed. “Of course, of course.
Certainement
. We will discuss the Baron Lorimar. He came to me in Wimbledon early last winter, entirely unexpected, and with a sad tale to tell. His good friend, he said, was in danger of losing himself to dullness. He needed to be awakened, brought to realize that life was more than playing a role be believed was his duty. He needed some fun, some excitement, some
joie de vivre
. There was a daughter of Constance Winstead,
oui
? The Baron had thought he was right in believing this, remembering this. And he had an idea. What had brought joy to the father...”