The Greatest Lover Ever (2 page)

Brighton, England, six years later …

Beckenham arrived at his cousin Xavier’s Brighton villa travel-weary and famished. After the journey from his estate in Gloucestershire, he craved a bath and a meal and a glass of wine—not necessarily in that order.

He abhorred the hard gaiety of Brighton in the summertime. That was when the Ton descended on the seaside town. By its nature as a holiday resort, the society here was looser, less structured than the London season. Such a laissez-faire attitude was anathema to him, dangerous in its unpredictability.

He wouldn’t stay longer than he had to. After dealing with his immediate needs, he’d conduct a pressing matter of business with his cousin tonight and leave first thing in the morning.

From the moment his carriage turned into the villa’s drive, he knew that would be impossible.

The flambeaux along the avenue illuminated a scene that caused Beckenham’s hopes of a quiet evening to die a quick death. A throng of guests in fancy ball dress strolled down the drive, threading through a mass of vehicles and sedan chairs. All of them with the same destination as Beckenham.

Xavier, Marquis of Steyne, was hosting one of his infamous parties, damn him.

Beckenham sat back against the velvet squabs of his traveling chaise, closed his eyes in resigned exasperation. For several seconds, he contemplated ordering his coachman to turn around and drive all the way back to Gloucestershire.

He found little to entertain him at Xavier’s parties and much to alarm and disgust. Masquerades thrown by the Marquis of Steyne were everything that was decadent, subversive, outrageous. It amused Xavier to shock people. Particularly his sober cousin Beckenham.

Oh, yes, Beckenham would give odds that this entire show had been laid on for his benefit. Xavier was being difficult because Beckenham had expressed his intention to take a wife and he wanted his cousin’s advice.

An odd choice of counsel when Beckenham’s former guardian was the Duke of Montford, famed for making brilliant matches for the members of his large extended family, the Westruthers.

The duke had certainly engineered alliances for Jane, Rosamund, and Cecily to everyone’s satisfaction. Not only were they advantageous in every material respect, the parties to the matches seemed covered in bliss.

Beckenham was happy for them. But much as he knew it was his duty to wed and create heirs, he did not wish for that kind of marriage. He wanted a countess who would do her duty without fuss, who was prepared to lead her own life without expecting him to dance attendance on her. A wife who would create no dramas. A wife who would leave him in peace.

Strange as it might seem, Xavier was the only one whose advice he desired in the matter of choosing a suitable countess. Beckenham had sworn off society events in London since Georgie ripped his pride to shreds and stomped on it; the one exception had been to attend Cecily’s come-out ball. He did not wish to waste time becoming acquainted with this year’s crop of debutantes.

Xavier was both an excellent judge of character and the font of an astonishing depth of knowledge about the Ton and its members. And Xavier would not have any agenda. It would not occur to him to try to make a love match for Beckenham as their female relatives would undoubtedly do. Nor would he attempt to thrust him into a politically advantageous alliance without considering his personal contentment, as Montford would.

Xavier might not have any interest in the subject of Beckenham’s marriage, and Beckenham didn’t expect him to exert himself unduly. He merely desired Xavier’s opinion on which five or so ladies might be best suited for the role of Beckenham’s countess.

Beckenham had written letter after letter to Xavier on the subject. All his careful missives had been ignored.

The only way to get his cousin to put his mind to the business was to land on his doorstep and refuse to budge until Xavier bent his considerable intellect to the issue.

So Beckenham didn’t turn back. When his vehicle’s pace slowed to a crawl, he rapped on the roof for his coachman to stop. He alighted from the chaise and strode through the
carnivale
of guests, a black bat cutting through a bright flock of butterflies.

He did not allow any of the revelers to accost him or deflect him from his purpose. He had no time for such ridiculous fripperies. He wondered that Xavier did, with all the wealth and property under his command.

They’d grown up together as wards of the powerful Duke of Montford, and Beckenham knew the Marquis of Steyne as well as anyone did. But of all the six cousins who had shared their unusual upbringing under Montford’s roof, Xavier was the one over whom Beckenham held the least influence. Convincing Xavier to help him would not be easy.

Reaching the circular drive in front of the house, Beckenham weaved his way through the crawling procession of vehicles and guests. Narrowly, he escaped being set alight by some idiot who had appropriated a flaming torch from its sconce. But he sidestepped that disaster only to be splashed by a gaggle of water nymphs cavorting in and around the fountain.

Polite but firm, he resisted their coquettish attempts to pull him in to join them, and removed their grasping hands from his person with a decided shake of his head. Brushing droplets of water from his sleeve, he ascended the villa steps.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, color and sound assaulted his senses. Music and movement, the blaze of candlelight, silks, velvet, feathers and lace, tinkling glasses, shrieks and guffaws. The scent of a hundred warring perfumes, of beeswax and wine and smoke from men’s cheroots.

He glanced about him, wishing very much that he was at home in his library by the fire with a glass of brandy by his side and a book in his hand. The night was young and behavior had yet to reach its inevitable extreme—everyone was still fully clothed, for one thing. Except the nymphs, of course. He suspected those were ladies of the night Xavier had hired for the purpose, so they didn’t count.

Xavier’s redoubtable majordomo—a sober individual who kept his opinions of his master’s habits strictly to himself—greeted Beckenham with an almost imperceptible softening of his black eyes.

“Would you care for refreshment, my lord?”

“Perhaps later, Martin.” Beckenham stripped off his gloves and dropped them into his hat before handing the collection to the majordomo. “I want to see my cousin before he becomes otherwise occupied.”

Even though Xavier had guests, he might be in one of his retiring moods, eschewing the party for the solitude of his library. One never knew. Xavier could be at his most intellectual and ascetic when hosting an orgy.

The majordomo bowed. “You will find Lord Steyne in the drawing room, my lord.”

Not in a retiring mood, then. Beckenham reconsidered. “On second thoughts, would you tell his lordship I’m waiting for him in the library and send some bread and cheese there and a bottle of wine?”

Beckenham preferred not to join the festivities, particularly in Xavier’s company. If Xavier was in one of his difficult tempers—and when was he not?—he would be sure to go out of his way to embarrass his sober cousin. He’d invite Beckenham to eat a grape from a naked lady’s navel or foist on him some elegant whore whom he’d feel obliged to entertain for the evening so as not to hurt her feelings.

Xavier could be quite diabolically irritating in that way.

It wasn’t that Beckenham had no interest in the fair sex. He was a man of strong sexual appetites—and rare skill, if his mistresses were to be believed. Quite how he’d gained the reputation of being an extraordinarily accomplished lover, he didn’t know. Perhaps his lovers had been indiscreet. He preferred, however, to bed women of his own choosing, and to do so in private.

With an understanding gleam in his eye, the majordomo bowed again. “Very good, my lord. I shall inquire.”

*   *   *

Georgiana Black wondered, not for the first time, how she came to be saddled with such an arrant fool for a stepmother. Papa must have been thinking with the contents of his trousers when he’d wed the woman.

Lady Black was very pretty once, but a life of indolence and spite had thickened the widow’s figure and pinched her milkmaid looks. She’d never produced the longed-for male heir, but she had given Sir Donald one more daughter, Violet, who was now seventeen.

Papa had died a little over a year ago, leaving his vast fortune divided equally between his two daughters. Giving in to his wife’s urgings, tantrums, and vapors, he’d altered his will, bequeathing his unentailed property in Gloucestershire to Violet alone. A fitting punishment for Georgie, who’d possessed the unmitigated temerity to jilt the Earl of Beckenham and refused every eligible marriage offer since.

The loss of Cloverleigh Manor had been a knife to Georgie’s heart on top of the grief attending her father’s death. But at least she wouldn’t be obliged to live virtually next door to her erstwhile fiancé. She must be grateful for that.

Papa hadn’t disinherited her. Indeed, he’d been scrupulously fair in the division of his fortune. A large sum invested in the funds would be Georgie’s on her twenty-fifth birthday. Or upon her marriage, whichever came sooner.

While she itched to leave the cloying, vulgar ways of her stepmother behind her, she was inordinately fond of her half sister. She was determined Violet should not suffer through Lady Black’s folly. Georgie’s twenty-fifth birthday was mere months away, but she meant to delay setting up her own household long enough to see her sister settled and happy.

“Violet is but eighteen, ma’am,” said Georgie now, with careful restraint. “You
cannot
have consented to her jaunting about Brighton with those dreadful Makepeaces. Please tell me you did not.”

Lady Black stiffened, her hand splayed on the chaise longue as if she’d spring up from her supine position. “Those
dreadful Makepeaces,
as you call them, happen to be dear friends of mine, miss! Yes, and if it weren’t for my poor nerves which have held me prostrate on this couch for weeks, I should have gone with them myself. I could do with a bit of gaiety.”

Georgie did not doubt her stepmother would have gone if she’d felt equal to the outing. Brighton was England’s most fashionable summer resort. The tone of the seaside town was looser, more egalitarian, and certainly more raffish than the rarefied atmosphere of Mayfair. It was the perfect milieu for a wealthy widow who was none too particular about the company she kept.

One thing was certain: Brighton was not a place for a young lady with no one more sensible to guide her than Mrs. Makepeace and her rackety young brother-in-law. Particularly when that young lady was an heiress.

Georgie couldn’t believe her stepmother would show such little sense. “Please, ma’am, you must fetch Violet back again. Do you have any idea what trouble the silly girl will find for herself here in Brighton?”

Lady Black’s face pinked. “Violet is
my
daughter, and I’ll thank you to remember it! She’s had no amusement at all since her dear papa died, poor pet.”

“Mourning does tend to hamper one’s social life,” muttered Georgie. She tried again. “Violet is not even out yet.”

“All the more reason for her to attend a couple of parties before she makes her debut.”

Georgie paced the floor, gripping her hands together. “If it were a case of a few private parties in Bath under appropriate chaperonage, I’d agree with you. But Brighton, ma’am! She’ll be ruined before she ever gets to London.”

Why couldn’t her stepmother see this? Or was it simply because Georgie was the one to point it out that she remained steadfastly blind?

“Violet has a shrewd head on her shoulders,” said Lady Black. “She won’t do anything she oughtn’t.”

With careful tact, Georgie said, “Of course not, ma’am. I am more concerned that she will fall prey to someone unscrupulous. She is an heiress, after all.”

Her stepmother’s eyes narrowed. “Well! If I may be so bold,
you
are scarcely one to cast stones, my dear girl!”

Georgie stiffened.

“Don’t think just because you’ve turned into Miss Prunes and Prisms now that anyone forgets what happened when you were that age. Threw over an
earl,
for Heaven’s sake. And look at you now. Four-and-twenty and still a spinster.”

“At least I still have my reputation, ma’am,” Georgie said quietly.

“By the skin of your teeth!”

“If it becomes known that Violet went to Lord Steyne’s masquerade tonight, you may be sure she’ll need more than the skin of her teeth to save her,” snapped Georgie.

Her stepmother’s accusations stung a wound that was still raw. But whatever mistakes Georgie had made in her ignorant, impulsive youth, she’d paid the price. The Earl of Beckenham would never be hers.

She couldn’t dwell on that now. She had Violet to think of. Meanwhile, Lady Black fingered her lace handkerchief in a manner that threatened hysterics or palpitations or both.

Trying to head off the anticipated tantrum at the pass, Georgie knelt next to the lady. She hesitated, then made herself press her stepmother’s hand. “
Please,
ma’am. No good can come of this.”

For a scant instant, she thought Lady Black might relent. Then her entire body shuddered, racked by an enormous sob. She buried her face in the scrap of lace she held.

“I told you, my nerves won’t stand it,” she wailed. “You are heartless indeed, expecting me to drag myself from my sickbed to go on a fool’s errand.”

Georgie rose to her feet. “If you do not intend to go, I will.”

Her stepmother threw up her hands. “Go, then! I’m sure I’m not stopping you.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Georgie, dropping a curtsy. “I’ll do my best to bring her home safely.”

As she turned to leave, her stepmother called after her, “Just make sure it’s only Violet that needs rescuing, my girl. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Georgie raised one eyebrow. “And you would be the angel in that aphorism, I suppose?”

Before her stepmother could fully grasp the irony, Georgie murmured, “Excuse me, ma’am. I must dress.”