Reforming a Rake (13 page)

“It’s wonderful,” Alexandra agreed. “Remember not to show too much excitement, though. They are the ones who should be pleased at being allowed to spend time with you.”

“Good God,” Lucien enunciated in an exasperated tone, resuming his seat a few feet away. “I should shoot Robert for wagging his damned tongue. They’re like a damned roving pack of hounds, scenting blood.”

“Surely you realized that news of a wealthy earl’s willingness to marry would spark all sorts of interest,” Alexandra said, tucking her wrap closer around her shoulders.

“No, not really. I’m not a pleasant person.”

At least he seemed to have gotten over his anger of the afternoon. She wasn’t certain why she’d been so insistent, except that she wanted him to know his intoxicating kisses hadn’t swayed her from her decision, or her duties. Now she had to think of somewhere to spend the entire day on Monday.

“They don’t know you, Lucien,” Fiona said.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Meaning they’ll eventually realize my unpleasant nature?”

“Of course not.”

“A pity. For a moment I thought you’d made a point, Aunt.”

Fiona glared at him, then took her daughter’s note card and examined it. “You have a quadrille left, dear one. Perhaps your cousin might wish it?”

“Why would I wish that?”

Rose’s eyes filled with tears, and Alexandra grimaced. They’d gone for three days without crying, and she’d hoped to extend that dry spell at least through the weekend.

“Dancing with your cousin will indicate that you support and approve her willingness to marry,” she pointed out.

The earl eyed her, his expression disdainful. Finally he snatched the card from his aunt’s fingers, scrawled his name on it, and returned it and the pencil to his cousin.

“Oh, how splendid,” Fiona gushed, clapping.

Alexandra felt like applauding as well, and turned to view the fireworks so she could hide her smile. Whether he had done it to help his own cause or Rose’s, the earl had finally made a positive step toward his cousin.

“Well, well, well,” a male voice said from the shadows beside the box. “Alexandra Beatrice Gallant, in London.”

The blood drained from her face. For a moment she allowed herself to indulge in the absurd fantasy that if she didn’t look, he wouldn’t be there.

“And who might you be?” Kilcairn’s low voice demanded.

He almost sounded jealous, but that was ridiculous—for both of them. Lucien had no reason to be jealous, and she had no right to think anyone would protect her but herself.

“Lord Virgil Retting,” the voice replied, while Alexandra stared, sightless, at the dark and flashes of exploding light and tried to regain her wits. “Aren’t you going to introduce me, Alexandra?”

She lifted her chin and faced him. “I’m not inclined to, no.”

He’d gained weight since she’d last seen him. His square face had rounded, and his neck pushed out against his high, starched collar. The only place he’d lost anything was the top of his head; his brown hair had thinned across the top, and he’d let it grow longer to try to hide his shiny pate.

Lucien was watching her, his muscles tense despite his relaxed pose. A leopard, ready to defend his next meal, except Virgil Retting wasn’t interested in the kill—just in mauling her a bit, and leaving her for the buzzards.

“Terribly rude, for an etiquette governess,” Lord Virgil chided. “That is how you’re earning money these days, isn’t it?”

“To repeat myself, Lord Virgil,” Kilcairn broke in, “who are you?”

Virgil shrugged. “Guess I’ll have to do it myself, then. I’m just in town from Shropshire. My father’s the Duke of Monmouth.” He smiled, teeth gleaming in the dim lamplight. “Alexandra here is my cousin.”

“Not by choice,” she said, wishing she could turn and escape.

Lucien touched her shoulder, forcing her to look at him. “You are niece to the Duke of Monmouth?”

She couldn’t tell whether his tone was more accusatory, shocked, or curious. “Again, not by choice.”

“Ha,” Lord Virgil broke in, “how do you think
we
feel? A governess in the family? And now she’s tramping about London as if she thought she belonged, trying to embarrass those of us who actually have homes here.”

Tittering came out of the darkness, and Alexandra realized the box was still surrounded by members of the
ton
trying to catch Kilcairn’s attention and favor.

Slowly Lucien stood, leaning his hands on the outside of the box. “Lord Virgil Retting, you’re a buffoon.”

For a moment Alexandra had forgotten that catching Kilcairn’s attention could be a two-edged sword. She looked from him to Virgil, startled.

“I beg your pardon?” her cousin sputtered.

“That’s not necessary,” the earl replied, his voice dripping with kindness. “Most buffoons simply can’t help themselves. Clearly you’re one of those.”

“You’re…Kilcairn, aren’t you?” Virgil said, his voice tight.

“Good for you, Lord Virgil. Anything else?”

The tittering had begun again, but this time Alexandra found it gratifying. So many times she’d wanted to slay her cousin in just such a way, and she hadn’t dared.

“I insist that you not insult me again in that way, sir. It is completely inappropriate.”

Lucien leaned down on one elbow, to bring himself eye to eye with Virgil. “All right. How about if I just say you’re fat and stupid, then?”

“I…I will not tolerate this abuse!” Alexandra’s cousin spat.

“What’s wrong? You came here for the purpose of insulting us, and you didn’t expect that we might return
the favor? Good evening, sir. Go away before I let you drown in your muddy puddle of wits.”

Virgil turned to glare at Alexandra, his eyes full of humiliated anger. “My father will hear of this,” he snarled.

“And so will the rest of London,” Lucien said calmly. “Good-bye.”

Alexandra’s cousin opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and stalked off into the night.

With a yawn, Lucien seated himself again. “Fetch us some Madeira,” he ordered one of his footmen, standing just outside the box.

“Yes, my lord.”

With a shudder, Alexandra began breathing again. “I’d really like to leave,” she muttered, her voice shaking.

“Thompkinson!” Lucien called.

The disappearing servant stopped in his tracks. “My lord?”

“Fetch the carriage.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Alexandra said, yanking her wrap as closely around her shoulders as she could manage.

“No. Thank you,” he returned. “I don’t think I can stand this bootlicking and toadeating for another minute.”

Fiona patted her arm. “Yes, dear. What a horrid man. Are you really the Duke of Monmouth’s niece?”

“Mama,” Rose chastised with uncharacteristic sensitivity. “She’ll tell us later. Come along. I’m cold, too.”

Kilcairn didn’t say another word until they arrived back at Balfour House and disembarked from the coach. As his aunt and Rose made their way upstairs, he clamped warm fingers around Alexandra’s arm. “Wim
bole, Miss Gallant and I will be in the garden for a moment.”

“Yes, my lord.” The butler returned Alexandra’s wrap to her shoulders. The earl hadn’t shed his greatcoat, and the heavy cloth rustled against his legs as he followed her outside and down the front steps.

“You want to know why I didn’t mention my relations when you hired me,” Alexandra said, walking down the rose-lined path. “I have nothing to do with them, and they have nothing to do with me.”

“So all the while you were browbeating me about being kind to my relations, you were busily detesting yours. A bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

“No. It’s not the same at all. Now, please, I’m very tired, and I don’t wish to discuss it any further.”

“But I do.”

She hadn’t thought he would give in. And after he’d insulted Virgil so splendidly, he did deserve some kind of explanation. Her breath fogged in the night air as she sighed. “What do you want to know, then?”

“Your Lord Virgil Retting is obviously a pompous ass,” he said flatly, “but there is an older brother, is there not? What of him and your uncle?”

“Thomas, the Marquis of Croyden, is my other cousin. He spends most of his time in Scotland, and I don’t know him very well. My…uncle, I have nothing to do with, and we’re both perfectly happy that way.”

“So I see. Why this animosity?”

“Why your animosity toward your relations?”

He sat on the stone bench that stood to one side of the path. “Are we playing tit for tat now? Sit.”

Hesitantly she joined him on the bench. Heat radiated from him, and she couldn’t help edging a little closer to his dark, solid form. “If you’re just being kind, I really
have no need to unburden myself to you.”

“You think I’m being kind? How unusual for both of us.”

She glanced up at him. In the near darkness his gray eyes twinkled, like distant starlight. “You drove my cousin away. That was exceedingly kind.”

“That reminds me of another question I have for you. Your tongue is as sharp edged as mine; I’ve felt its effects. Why didn’t you flay Virgil Retting with it? He made a damned easy target.”

Alexandra stood and paced a circle around him. “These are
my
troubles. I’ve dealt with them on my own to this point, and I am perfectly capable of continuing to do so.”

The dark form on the bench remained immobile. “I didn’t say I meant to do anything about them; I just want to know what they are.”

Growling with frustration and knowing he wouldn’t let up until she surrendered. Alexandra planted herself directly in front of him. “You first, then.”

“Impertinent chit. You know once you begin bargaining with me, you will lose.”

She shivered again as a tingling warmth ran down her spine. “I’m not saying anything until you do so.”

For a long moment he kept silent, the clouding of his breath the only sign that he wasn’t some dark garden sculpture. “I don’t want to marry,” he finally said, his voice low and subdued.

“What a surprise,” she said dryly, shivering again.

He opened his coat, exposing his cravat and lighter jacket beneath. “Sit down before you freeze standing there.”

She was becoming frightfully chilled, but she wasn’t a fool. Alexandra sat on the bench again, as far from
him as she could, then gasped as he reached across her thighs, scooped a hand under her bottom, and dragged her close up against him. With a warm rustle, his arm and one side of his greatcoat enfolded her.

“Do you know anything about my father?” he asked, tucking her up against his broad, solid shoulder.

“Only that he had…several mistresses, and that he died nearly fifteen years ago.”

“My father had more than several mistresses. Lecherous behavior and gambling were his favorite pastimes, I believe. He and my mother lived under the same roof for three months, until I was conceived. He then retired her to Lowdham, a small Balfour estate in Nottingham. There she gave birth to me, and then spent the next eleven years complaining about how much she missed London and her friends and her life, though she made no noticeable attempt to reclaim any of them. I saw my father a total of six times, including the viewing at his funeral services.”

“Oh, my,” Alexandra said softly.

“I’ve been informed on numerous occasions, usually by commitment-minded females, that the combination of viewing my mother’s abject helplessness and misery and the state of my parents’ marriage left me with a distaste for the whole bloody procedure. I’m inclined to agree.”

“But now you do intend to marry, despite your distaste.”

He paused again. “I’d drawn up papers to have my cousin James and his offspring inherit the Balfour lands and titles. He died in Belgium last year when a wagon carrying gunpowder exploded in the middle of his encampment. I’m not actually certain it was his body I buried. There wasn’t much of him left.”

He spoke calmly, but Alexandra felt the tension in the
muscles of his arm and thigh. Almost without thinking, she laid her head against his shoulder, and he relaxed a little. “You miss him,” she said.

“I miss him. Anyway, dear Uncle Oscar became the only other living male in my family tree. He went next, which means—”

“Which means if you produce no heirs, Rose’s children will inherit your fortune and your title.”

“And she’s nearly of age, so here we are, in our own little pit of hell and horror.”

“You might let her family inherit.”

Lucien snorted. “I don’t dislike my ancestors that much. Besides, it would deny me the opportunity to turn out like my father. I seem to have followed him in nearly every other aspect of my life.”

“I doubt that.” Though she’d heard wild, scandalous stories, she couldn’t imagine him being intentionally cruel—not to someone who didn’t somehow deserve it.

“Any other commentary?” he asked, shifting on the cold stone. “You’ve read my book, then. Now open yours for me, Alexandra.”

She’d hoped he had forgotten her side of the bargain. “Compared with yours, it’s fairly simple.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I don’t expect it to soften your heart toward me or my so-called plight.”

“I don’t have a heart. Speak.”

Alexandra tried to edge away from him, but she might as well have been attempting to move iron. His grip wasn’t tight, but it was firm and infinitely sure of itself. “Very well. My mother, Margaret Retting, fell in love with and married a painter. His grandfather was an earl, but he had no pretensions of living among the peerage or of being able to afford that life. My uncle had already
inherited the dukedom, and as far as he was concerned, Christopher Gallant was a nonperson. He disowned my mother on the spot.”

Lucien stroked his finger along the back of her hand. “Continue.”

“Both of my parents insisted that I be well educated, as my birthright obviously wasn’t going to keep me fed. Two years after they enrolled me in Miss Grenville’s Academy, they both died of influenza. It…cost me everything I had to bury them and settle their few debts.” Her throat tightened, as it did whenever she remembered selling off her mother’s jewelry and her father’s beautiful paintings for a fraction of their worth.

“And your uncle was unwilling to assist you financially.”