Lady Belling's Secret (21 page)

“I’m really sorry, old man.” Thomas guided him to the matching chair and dumped him unceremoniously into it. “I doubt you need it, but have a drink. I know I need one.”

Dalton sat in the chair, laboring to breathe. A glass appeared in his hand, so he gulped it down.

“Now that that little bit of necessary nastiness is over,” Thomas said as he refilled Dalton’s glass and then his own, “I don’t blame you for it. I’d have reacted the same way if the situation had been reversed.”

He took another sip and glared at Thomas over his glass. He was breathing easier but still not sitting totally upright. “What the hell are you taking about?”

“If I had walked in on that little scene tonight and it had been you nuzzling up with Francesca… Although, I probably would have killed you on the spot,” Thomas admitted. “I appreciate you not making a scene and embarrassing my future countess.”

“Now just a bloody minute, Harrington.” God, but the man was infuriating. “I fully intend to marry that chit. Her brother and I have signed contracts, and the lady is amenable. In fact, I like her quite a bit.”

“Even after tonight? You’d still marry her?” Harrington asked.

“I wouldn’t care to embarrass her or her family.”

Harrington looked at him for a long moment. “You’re a damn good man, Dalton. Better than me. Certainly better mannered. I’m sorry to have to do this to you.”

Dalton took another deep drink and glared at the other man across the room, trying to keep his focus clear. “Do what? I
will
marry her in less than a week.”

“Things have changed.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

Chapter Twenty

“I’m the love of her life.” This wasn’t a moment for gloating, and Thomas was doing his very best not to. Not when the man in front of him was obviously drunk and itching for a fight—and Thomas was certainly due a beating. In fact, Dalton would be well within his rights to call him out and settle this on a dueling field in the morning. But Thomas was still too sore and bruised from their previous boxing bout to want to egg the man on to soothe his own guilt.

“You’re too late.” Dalton screwed up his face in thought. “Haven’t we already had this discussion?”

“Yes. We aren’t covering any new ground here.” Thomas reached over and filled Dalton’s glass again.

“So what are we going to do about your propensity for groping my fiancée?”

“She won’t marry you.”

“Oh. Why is that, then?” Dalton asked, cocky, a man fairly sure of his position.

“Because she doesn’t love you.”

Dalton flinched. “Oh and I suppose you think she really loves you then?”

Thomas looked him right in the eye. “Yes. She does.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Because she told me,” Thomas confessed. “Ever since she was six.”

Dalton was quiet. He drained his glass and stared into the fire. “Do you love her?”

“Yes,” Thomas answered truthfully. “Since I’ve been back I’ve not slept. I’ve been drinking, and I’ve now been in two fistfights, and all of it over a woman I can’t stop thinking about. Wholly unlike me.”

“Francesca does that to a man,” Dalton replied.

“How about you?” Thomas asked. “Are you in love with her?”

“I know I have a great deal of respect for her. I care about her.” Dalton swallowed again. “I sure as hell lust for her.”

“Well, I suggest you curb that particular sensation immediately!” Thomas threatened, preparing to rise out of his chair and commence the thrashing that had been cut short earlier.

“Don’t forget, she’s still, at this moment, my fiancée. I haven’t released her from her promise. I can still sue for breach of contract or some other such nonsense. I can make one hell of a mess for you and her family if I’m so inclined.”

“Will you? Step aside that is?”

“I don’t know.” Dalton eyed him from over the glass. “I can’t believe I’m asking this question about a lady, especially one I’m planning to marry. Based on what I’ve walked in on this evening, just how far have…” Dalton didn’t complete the sentence.

“Far enough that I’m not going to answer your question.” And that was as much as Thomas wanted to discuss on the matter of his intended’s reputation.

“I see.”

Thomas was pretty sure Dalton did see.

They sat in silence for another long moment, both of them drinking and presumably thinking about the same woman. Thomas knew their lives, Francesca’s reputation, and the love and respect of his adopted family were tenuous, their fates held in the hands of the drunken, angry Marquess who was well within his rights to ruin them all. He stretched out a long leg and scratched the rump of the puppy nearest him. He waited, stealing glances at the other man as he drank and considered. Thomas took another sip of brandy and tried desperately to figure out what had gone so wrong this evening.

He would swear he hadn’t intended for them to get caught, and he even thought it was true, but the minute she’d accused him of planning the whole thing, he began to question himself and his motives. He’d behaved abominably throughout this entire affair. He’d turned out exactly how his father had repeatedly predicted. He should never have kissed her, much less bedded her, but he wasn’t sorry he had. Discovering Francesca still loved him after all this time had been a balm to his soul after coming home from the war to a heap of intimidating responsibilities and unwanted feelings about a dead family that would never be resolved. After a lifetime of being unworthy of his family’s love, he didn’t think he could bear it if he proved unworthy of her love, too. All he could do was cling to it like a drowning man and fight for her like he’d never fought for anything before.

Thomas looked up from his thoughts to see Dalton eyeing him. “What?” he asked and swallowed the last of the amber liquor in his glass. Where the hell was Masters with the extra bottle of brandy?

Dalton also drained his glass. “Why the devil are you here?”

“I live here.”

“I know that, you great drunken ass. I meant why aren’t you with her? Obviously I interrupted something rather intimate tonight, and if she loves you like you think she does, why are you sitting here in the dark getting drunk instead of with the lady?”

Thomas rubbed his hands vigorously across his face and then through his hair. “Several reasons actually. My best friend has banished me from the house. Even worse, and I am sure that this would please you to no end, but I messed it up tonight.” His sigh was heavy, and he felt weary. “I don’t know how, but I did, and she stormed out.”

“Well, I must admit that does provide me some sort of perverse pleasure.” Dalton chuckled. “Just out of curiosity, what did you say so that I don’t make the same mistake?”

“Where the hell is that man with the brandy?” Thomas leaned his head back in his chair and hollered, “Masters!”

At that very instant the heavy paneled door opened and the butler walked in with the bottle. “My lord.” His voice was dry and even. The servant left the bottle on the far side of the room, his quiet little version of rebellion. “Will there be anything else? Fine then, good night, my lords.” He turned on his heel and left the library before Thomas had a chance to respond to the question, shutting the door behind him with a stern-sounding click.

Thomas snorted. “Well, I suspect I’ll be punished for that. The man is quite creative when it comes to putting me in my place.” He dragged himself from the fine leather chair and crossed the room to the bottle. He grabbed it by the neck and returned, stopping to fill Dalton’s glass before his own, and then slumped back in the seat.

Dalton lifted his glass in salute before sipping. “So let me get this straight. The plan then is to sit here in your admittedly comfortable library, drink expensive and splendid brandy with a romantic rival who hasn’t yet decided if he’s going to shoot you at dawn, anger your servants, and brood?”

“I think so. At least I don’t have any other ideas,” Thomas admitted.

“May I ask another question?”

“Certainly.”

“Why do you keep bears in your house?”

Thomas roared with laughter, awakening the
bears
, who trotted over to their master with curiosity shining in their black eyes. “They’re not bears. Remember the dogs from the park that day? They’re puppies.”

“You own two of those hellhounds?” Dalton asked, eyes wide with astonishment. “Why?”

“I bought them for her.”

“Is that why she’s not speaking to you? Now that I could understand.”

“No. She doesn’t know I bought them.”

“Oh.” Dalton studied the beasts for a minute before hanging a hand over the side of the chair to entice one of the pups over. He sank his hand in the dog’s long, silky hair and scratched. The puppy sat down heavily on Dalton’s foot and leaned into his leg. “Well, they do have a certain appeal.”

Thomas grunted into his glass, his attention concentrated on the fire. The evening that had started so contentiously settled into a companionable silence as both men drank from their brandy and petted a sleepy dog.

“Are we allowed to talk during this brooding session?” Dalton asked.

Thomas didn’t answer. He simply looked at Dalton with unspoken permission.

“Why aren’t you with her now?” Dalton repeated his earlier question.

“I hoped you had forgotten that question. You want to know what I did wrong? I told her she couldn’t leave with you because she was mine. Then she stormed out.”

Dalton started laughing, deep belly laughs that caused him to throw his head against the back of the chair. Thomas sat there and glared at him. And the bastard kept laughing.

Finally Dalton got a hold of himself enough to squeak out, “Really?”

Thomas squinted his eyes at Dalton and nodded. That set off a whole new bout of hilarity. Thomas didn’t know what was so bloody funny. What the hell was this jackass laughing at? And Dalton went right on laughing, great bellowing guffaws. It turned out they were catching. Before he knew it, Thomas was laughing along with him. He still didn’t know what was funny, but the relief felt wonderful.

After several minutes the laughing subsided to manly snickers and deep giggles. Dalton wiped his eyes and exhaled a funny, contented sigh that concludes a great round of laughing.

“I still don’t know what was so funny,” Thomas admitted.

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Do you think it was because she was so terrified of the look of you after I gave you that beating yesterday?”

Thomas exhaled through his teeth. “You look far worse than I do.”

Dalton let out a drunken giggle but then turned serious. “How well do you know Miss Belling? For that matter, how well do you know women?”

“I know women just fine, thank you very much,” he said defensively. “And I’ve known Francesca since she was six or so.”

“Just because you’ve known many women, doesn’t mean you
know
women.” Dalton shook his head. “I mean, how well do you know the woman Frankie has become?”

“I know her better than you ever will.” Thomas didn’t gloat when he said this. He was simply stating fact. Whatever the problem was with him and Francesca, he would figure it out and fix it. He had to.

“Yes, well, we’ll see,” Dalton noted dryly. “And you know damn good and well that isn’t what I meant. How well do you know her personally?”

“I know that she is intelligent and witty. She is strong and brave. She loves children and dogs, even enormous, slobbery dogs, and she is very patient with both.”

“Look, the fact of the matter is I really do like Frankie, and I certainly lust after her.” Dalton extended a calming hand. “But I don’t love her. I will certainly survive a little ego bruising, but I doubt your liver will survive botching this up any worse than you already have. Someone needs to help you, you giant ignoramus, before you lose her to me completely.”

Thomas listened to Dalton’s speech with a fuzzy head, and after a moment he offered a non sequitur. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”

Dalton raised his eyebrows, rested his glass on his knee, and stared at Thomas. “You are hopelessly besotted with her,” Dalton declared.

“Yes, ridiculously so.” Thomas rose from the chair and stalked over to the fireplace. “This is about what’s wrong with Francesca, not about what’s wrong with me.”

Dalton leaned back in his chair and crossed one long leg over the other, one ankle on the opposite knee. He nodded at Thomas across the room. “All right, if that’s what you think,” said Dalton dismissively. “Have you told her this?”

“That I love her? Yes. In a thousand ways.”

“So let me get this straight. You informed Francesca that she wasn’t allowed to do something because you owned her?”

“That’s the gist of it.” He had the good sense to be embarrassed. The truth hit him like a ton of bricks. He stood at the mantle, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, and then pinched the bridge of his nose, all while shaking his head at his own unbelievable stupidity. “Oh dear God.”

Dalton chuckled heartily. “What we need, my good man, is a plan. And just so you know, I can’t plan on an empty stomach.”

The gentlemen, followed by two sleepy puppies, adjourned to the kitchen. The entire staff was asleep so they helped themselves to the larder. Their new camaraderie flourished under the auspices of more good brandy, thickly sliced ham and Cook’s fantastic bread. They ate sandwiches and spicy mustard. They opened several containers of peaches and at least three different jars of jams and pickles as well. The baked goods were plundered, and they happily made dents in several good wheels of cheese.

Initially, Thomas was leery of Dalton’s goodwill, but finally the man admitted he wasn’t a glutton for punishment and that he liked and respected Francesca enough to bow out of the race. Besides, he told him around a mouth full of apple pie, he wasn’t too keen to marry a woman in love with another man.

When Thomas asked later for Dalton’s opinion of love, Dalton humored him. Dalton said something about leading a horse so far to the water before he drowned himself in his own stupidity. Or something like that. He was pretty drunk. Then they toasted to feelings. They also toasted to dogs, bears, excellent pickles, and the state of the last horse auction at Tattersall’s. They talked and toasted long into the night about deep and meaningful things as only the exceedingly intoxicated can. And of course they cleaned up nothing. When the cook came in the kitchen in the morning, she nearly had a heart attack.