The Heart of a Scoundrel (12 page)

*

God help him. She was a pawn; nothing more than a tool to guide him into the graces of the woman he would bind himself to. Phoebe had never been more than another person to be used to exact his revenge upon the one woman, nay the only person, who’d never paid the price for betraying him and shaming him before all. The numb muscles of his upper thigh from that long ago duel fought for the right to the lady’s heart, throbbed in a mocking remembrance. And yet, where was the vitriol? Where was the hungering for revenge? Instead, desire burned inside him for this innocent slip of a woman with hope in her eyes and a dream on her lips. Panic squeezed the air from his lungs.

Then she stepped away, putting the distance he himself should have between them and he breathed again. She wandered past the shelving, touching the cluttered tables with artifacts he cared not a jot about, and then she crooked a finger. Drawn to her like a moth to flame, Edmund followed after her, forgetting every lesson he’d learned about the perils of fire.

She stopped in the corner of the shop and then tossed a glance over her shoulder back at him. Did she think he’d not wander down whatever path she led him on? How could the lady not know her own appeal? She had a more potent hold upon him than the sirens drawing those poor fools out to sea. An encouraging smile on her lips, she crooked her finger again, urging him the remainder of the way. No, the lady did not know her allure. He stopped beside her with a deliberate closeness so his thigh crushed the fabric of her skirts.

Her smile dipped, the muscles of her throat working. “It is magnificent.”

He ran his gaze along the crown of her silky, auburn tresses and the delicate planes of her heart-shaped face. “Yes, magnificent.”

“Though my heart breaks for him,” she said, not taking her eyes from the smooth, black panther stuffed for his efforts—frozen in his last furious state of battle.

Edmund’s gaze caught the golden-yellow of the beast’s stare. The snarling creature jeered at him for having dared to forget for even one moment that he was no different than the cold, emotionless creature on display before them. “Your heart would break for a beast with no heart,” he said, his tone coolly dispassionate.

With a frown, she raised her eyes to his. “He once lived, and knew freedom and joy—”

“He is an animal,” he bit out, tired of her naiveté, for with every honest smile and wide-eyed glance, pricks of something a more human, worthy man might have construed as guilt dug at his skin.

Her smile deepened and she studied the stuffed creature with greater attention. “Perhaps,” she murmured to herself. “But I prefer to think of him as he once was.”

“There you are.”

Phoebe started and spun around, a guilty flush on her cheeks. Edmund followed her stare and took in with a lazy interest the blonde-haired, plump young lady with blue eyes. The young lady couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen. She smiled—Phoebe’s smile.

The sister.

“Justina,” Phoebe said and stepped away from him.

The wide-eyed girl looked back and forth between them and then her smile grew, dimpling her cheeks. “Oh, hello.” She loosened the strings of a ridiculously large, garish, purple bonnet then lowered it.

Splotches of red slapped Phoebe’s cheeks.

When it became apparent Phoebe intended to say nothing further, Edmund filled the silence. He threw his arms wide and sketched a respectful bow. “The Marquess of Rutland. It is a pleasure.”

A merry light twinkled in the girl’s eyes. This one would be ruined with far more swiftness than her sister had managed. The young lady dropped a curtsy. “My lord.” She looked to Phoebe and cleared her throat.

“Oh, er…yes…my lord, this is my sister, Miss Justina Barrett.”

“Miss Barrett, how do you do?”

A tittering giggle bubbled past her lips. “Very well.”

Phoebe’s blue eyes darkened and she frowned at the both of them. Ah, the lady was jealous. Her sister. In his mind, he mentally ticked off another of the lady’s weaknesses.

The young Miss Barrett sidled closer to her sister and slipped her arm through Phoebe’s, interlocking them at the elbows. “Is he the one?” she whispered loudly.

“Justina,” Phoebe bit out. The color of her cheeks deepened to the shade of a crimson berry and he suddenly had a taste for the sweet, summer fruit.

He gave a crooked grin and reclined against the bookshelf, taking in the exchange with renewed interest. The one? The lady had been speaking to her sister of him, only confirming the supposition he’d come to yesterday morn—he’d fully ensnared Phoebe in his trap. This oddly light sensation in his chest felt a good deal different than the rush of victory he was accustomed to. Perhaps when she served her ultimate purpose and he ingratiated himself into Miss Honoria Fairfax’s graces and thoroughly ruined Margaret’s beloved niece—then there would be the sense of triumph. As it was, there was an otherwise inexplicable thrill in knowing she spoke of him to her sister. “Have you spoken of me, Miss Barrett?” he asked of Phoebe. And then, rusty from ill-use, the muscles of his mouth quirked up in a grin.

The ladies responded as one. “No.”

Justina Barrett leaned closer. “She just has the look.”

“The look?” he spoke over Phoebe’s protestations, interested to know more about this look the younger sister spoke of, particularly as it pertained to Phoebe.

“The longin—ouch.” She swung a wounded, accusatory gaze at Phoebe. “Did you pinch me?”

Phoebe darted out the pink tip of her tongue and trailed it over her lips. Another surge of lust slammed into him; once again filling him with a desire to lay claim to that mouth and more. She cleared her throat. “Er…yes…but only because I’d meant to ask whether you’d seen the display of Captain Cook’s hats at the back of the shop?”

Joy lit the young woman’s eyes and she jammed her bonnet onto her head. “Indeed? I do not know how I missed such a thing.” Likely because there was no such display. He said nothing on that score as he was eager to be rid of the other Barrett sister. “I’ve been wandering around this infernal shop, but haven’t seen anything of remote interest, to me that is.”

He winced as the young woman prattled on and on. This was his punishment for involving the Barrett sisters in his plans for revenge. This young woman and her infernal jabbering.

“Oh, yes,” Phoebe said, her features schooled in a mask. “It was several rows back, down the bookshelf.” He eyed her. All creatures practiced deception. Even she. Only some, however, were skilled in matters of treachery and untruthfulness.

“I shall go have another search.” Justina Barrett dropped another curtsy. “It was a pleasure, my lord.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” he said with the same trace of the charming gentleman he’d demonstrated years ago.

The young lady skipped off, leaving him and Phoebe alone—yet again. When he returned his gaze to her, he found her staring after her sister. She troubled the flesh of her lower lip, lost in thought. “I fear the day she makes her entrance into Society,” she said quietly, more to herself. “With her beauty and…” She gave her head a brusque shake, remembering herself, and likely remembering too late that, but for a handful of carefully orchestrated meetings, he was little more than a stranger to her. “Forgive me,” she apologized, clasping her hands together.

Odd, she should worry after her own sister’s naiveté and fail to realize she was nothing more than a pawn in his scheme for revenge.
Is she
…? He forcibly thrust back the fool question. Of course, she was. If there had been no betrayal by Miss Margaret Dunn, there would have been no duel, and humiliation and moment of weakness in caring for anyone other than himself. Then there would have been no Miss Fairfax. He dipped his gaze down Phoebe’s lean frame, lingering on the generous swell of her breasts, and then raising it to meet her eyes. And there would have been no Phoebe.
What a travesty that would have been.

He wandered closer. “There is nothing to forgive.” Not where she was concerned. Edmund lowered his lips to her ear. He inhaled, drawing in the fragrant scent of lilies that clung to her skin, the innocent scent crisp and clean, putting him in mind of things long forgotten—lush countrysides and pure, blue skies, the shade of her eyes. What madness was this? With their bodies’ nearness, he detected the faint tremble of her frame. “I wish to see you again, Phoebe. Not in stolen corners of establishments and museums in meetings of happenstance. Will you permit me to call upon you?”

For the fraction of a moment, he wanted her to say no. Wanted her to study him with the jaded cynicism he was deserving of. But for an equally terrifying moment, he wanted her to say yes. A panicky viselike pressure squeezed the breath from his lungs at his own apparent weakness for the innocent Miss Phoebe Barrett.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Edmund claimed her lips in a quick, hard kiss. He wrapped his arm about her waist and tugged her against him, aching to worship every curve of her glorious form with his mouth. She whimpered and he swallowed that breathless entreaty with his lips.

“Phoebe?” Her sister called from somewhere within the shop.

He swallowed back a curse and set her aside, placing three deliberate steps between them. Edmund yanked out a nearby book and thrust it into her shaking fingers. She eyed it in confusion just as her sister turned the corner.

“There you are,” she said with that same silly smile. “I cannot find the hats. Would you please help me?” The youngest Miss Barrett dropped her voice to a low whisper. “The shopkeeper is quite the curmudgeon.”

“Of course, sweet,” she said and then handed the book over to him, her hands far steadier than he would have imagined. “Thank you, my lord. It was a pleasure.” She spoke with a sincerity that ran ragged through him. No one welcomed his presence, nor desired his company. Within the depths of her unjaded eyes, however, there was warmth and a genuine desire for more than his body or the material things he might give—which was all he
had
to give. It drew him, more powerful than a serpent’s venom.

“The same, Miss Barrett.” He accepted the book with a murmur of thanks, deliberately brushing his fingers against hers.

Phoebe hesitated a moment, and then without a backward glance, hurried after her sister.

T
he whole of the carriage ride home, Justina’s excited chattering filled the quiet and saved Phoebe from contributing to the discussion, that wasn’t really much of a discussion, about the shops they’d visited that morn. All the while, her mind raced to meet the speed of her thundering heart. He wanted to court her. The Marquess of Rutland, unkindly whispered about by all, desired more than just their fateful meetings. With that honorable request, so went all the reservations she’d carried after Honoria’s warning.

Yet, for all the harsh words spoken by her friends and gossips, she knew Edmund to be more—a man who, for all of the
tons’
ill-opinion, believed in fate and dreamed of a life beyond their glittering, cruel Society. Their shared love of Captain Cook and the wonders of the world united them, just as their position as gossiped-about figures of the peerage bound them.

A smile pulled at her lips. The carriage drew to a stop and she looked with some surprise to the window, realizing they’d arrived home.

“We’re home.” Justina clapped her hands together. “I cannot wait to tell Mama of all the bonnets and hats we saw at the milliner.”

Roger, the liveried footman who accompanied them on their travels, pulled the door open and helped Justina down first, and then reached a hand up. “Thank you,” Phoebe said. She trailed along at a slower pace behind her excited sister.

The butler pulled the door open and greeted them both with a grin on his wizened cheeks. “Hullo, Manfred.” Justina tugged at her bonnet strings and handed the revered item over to the ancient servant, a testament to her faith in his care. She didn’t trust her hats with just anyone.

“Miss Barrett, Miss Justina.” A twinkle gleamed in his eyes. “Master Andrew is—”

Justina’s eager shriek cut into his announcement and she went tearing down the hall that would have sent more staid mamas into histrionics. Mindful of appearances where her younger sister still was not, Phoebe followed along at a more sedate, though still quickened, pace.

Andrew was home. Two years younger than Phoebe, with his keen wit and brotherly devotion these years, he was everything their father had never been. The loud squeals of her sister’s laughter stirred emotion in Phoebe’s chest and, damning propriety, she raced the remainder of the way. She stepped inside the parlor.

He spun Justina around in a flurry of white skirts and then over her shoulder caught Phoebe in the doorway. “Ah, my sensible, protective, elder sister,” he said by way of greeting and set down Justina.

The youngest Barrett sibling slapped him on the arm. “Oh, do hush.”

“Andrew, it is ever so good to see you.” Skirts snapping noisily, she rushed over and flung her arms about him. But for her mother and sister, there was no one she loved more than her brother. For as horrid an existence they’d known as the children to the shameful Viscount Waters, they’d had one another, and the love shared had made everything else bearable.