A Scandalous Lady Page 21

  His jaw tightened at Mile’s reference to Faith. He’d seen her only once in the last week, and the moment had been so brief it might never have happened. Aye, Devon had kept her busy, but he knew she was also avoiding him.

  He didn’t know what to do about her. He’d offered her what he could, and it hadn’t been enough. He’d tried to take care of her, and it hadn’t been enough. He’d shown her how much he desired her, and still, it hadn’t been enough.

  What the hell did she want from him?

  “I told Devon about Radcliff.”

  “That must have gone over well.”

  “Just don’t rub it in her face, Miles. I’d hate to have to kill you.”

  With more serious subjects said and out of the way, the pair spent the next hour standing outside the stables catching up on politics and current news, who was gambling away his father’s money, who had escaped the matrimonial noose, and who had succumbed to it, before Miles claimed weariness and adjourned to his room.

  Troyce then spent the remainder of the day greeting new arrivals, some being neighbors he hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. Every carriage held at least one bell-skirted, hair-powdered, parasol-toting maiden of marriageable age who began assessing himself and his holdings the minute she stepped onto Westborough soil.

  By dusk, all their guests were accounted for and Troyce could put off his doom no longer.

  “Good heavens, West, you don’t plan to attend supper in that?” Devon whispered in horror when he walked into the house.

  Troyce glanced down at himself. His boots were muddy, his trousers spattered, and his shirt soiled. He couldn’t resist. “I thought this was a country ball? Do I not look country enough?”

  “This is no time for jesting.”

  “There’s always time for jesting.” He popped a kiss on her cheek. “You look beautiful, Devon.” Her glossy black hair was piled high on her head, ringlets had been artfully arranged to frame her face, and the red in her dress brought out the roses in her cheeks. “None of the men here tonight will be able to keep their eyes off you. Shall I don my cutlass in the event I’m needed to avenge your honor?”

  She blushed, and for the second time in as many weeks, her eyes sparkled. “You are such a rogue. Now, please do something with your attire before our guests arrive.”

  He could have told her that their guests had been arriving all afternoon, but decided not to encourage her flustered nerves.

  Instead, he mounted the stairs to his room, trailing his hand along the banister. With each step, the image of Faith he’d tried to hold at bay formed in acute clarity. A slow smile spread across his face at the memory of her covered in feathers.

  Like an angel. A bold, vibrant angel, tossed from heaven to give him hell.

  Troyce sighed, suddenly tired. Someone had set up a bath in his room, and though he was tempted to spend the evening soaking away his sore muscles in the steaming water, he knew that Devon was expecting him to help her greet their guests. So he scrubbed quickly and after towel-drying his hair, donned the clothes that had been laid out for him on his bed.

  Though he admitted that it was quite pleasant being waited on hand and foot, he didn’t think he’d ever get used to it. Having someone decide what you would wear, when you would dine, whom you would marry . . .

  Jesus.

  He sat on the bed and rubbed both hands over his face. Could he really go through with this? Sell himself to a woman? Let his grandfather choose his life-mate? The mother of his children?

  Did he have any other choice?

  Sighing more deeply, he rose from the bed and crossed the room. He stood in front of the full-length cheval mirror, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, trying not to think of how empty his life would be, when he spotted Faith’s reflection watching him from the doorway. She looked neat, tidy, her formal black maid’s gown crisp and pressed, her wild curls tamed beneath a mobcap. And still, so beautiful she took his breath away. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough to see that you’ve no idea how to button your shirt.”

  He grinned wryly and held out his arms. His unbound sleeves drooped from his wrists. “It seems I am in need of some assistance.”

  “Where’s your man?”

  “Chadwick has taken ill—quite inconveniently, I might add. I’m having a devil of a time with all these fasteners. I fear I cannot manage these on my own.”

  She snorted. “Leave it to the gentry not to be able to dress themselves.”

  She entered the room, brushed his hands away, and plucked his father’s silver button links from a velvet-lined box. “You smell nice.”

  Her artless candor surprised and delighted Troyce. “I’m pleased you think so.”

  “Are you wearing cologne?”

  “No.”

  “Then it must just be you.”

  “And what does ‘just’ me smell like?”

  “The wind. The sea. The forests at midnight.”

  He watched her lips move as she talked. God she had a beautiful mouth. Full. Ripe. The taste of her, sweet as summer fruit, still haunted him. “I’ve not seen much of you these past two weeks,” he said gruffly. “You look beautiful, Faith.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  She pointedly ignored his compliment, but the rising color in her cheeks told him she’d heard it. “Aye, I’ve seen you with the village lasses, teaching them their duties. It has been a great help to Millie, and much of a relief, I’m sure.”

  “It’s too soon for Millie to be exerting herself,” she said.

  “Too soon after what?”

  Faith’s fingers stilled against his chest. Then she sighed. “She has been ill for some time.”

  Troyce stared at her in dismay. “Why was I not told of this?”

  “She made me promise. She feared that you or Lady Brayton would retire her.”

  “Why would I retire the most loyal housekeeper I’ve ever known?”

  “Then you wouldn’t?”

  “Of course not. And I’m disappointed that either of you would consider me so heartless.”

  Faith lowered her gaze, then her chin. “You’re right, milord. I was wrong not to tell you. I would have if she hadn’t made me promise not to.”

  Would she? “Have you made any other promises that I should know about?”

  “Only to myself.”

  Troyce wanted to ask what that promise was, but something in her shuttered eyes told him she’d not reveal it to him, so he didn’t bother. Instead, he lifted his vest off the arm of a nearby chair and slipped into it. A glance at Faith’s dubious expression in the mirror made him frown. “What?”

  “May I speak freely, milord?”

  “Since when have you required my permission?” he teased her.

  “You look like a Robin in that waistcoat.”

  “A Robin?”

  “Bow Street Runner.” She moved to his wardrobe and rifled through his clothes as if she’d been born to the task. “Here, try the silver. It will bring out the color of your eyes.”

  Troyce laughed. “My eyes aren’t silver.”

  “They certainly are. When the sun hits them just right, they glitter like rich ore.”

  That she would make such a personal observation put a knot in his throat and sent heat shooting straight to his groin. He couldn’t remember any woman commenting on his eyes before. “What does a Bow Street Runner do?” he asked, turning around as much to don the vest she held up to him as to hide his unwelcome arousal.

  “Well, they spent a lot of time making my life miserable,” she grinned.

  “No thanks to Gentleman Jack Swift, I’ll wager. How did you ever get involved with a fellow like him anyway?”

  “I wasn’t involved with him. I worked for him. There’s a difference.”

  “I would think you of all people would have more sense than to work for a man like him.”

  “Life doesn’t always give a person such choices,” she countered in her own defense.
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  That was true, Troyce silently agreed. Look at him? He hadn’t chosen to be the heir of Westborough. The responsibility had been imposed on him the day of his birth, and all because he’d had the misfortune of being the firstborn son of a nobleman.

  “So how did you become . . . associated with him?”

  She shrugged, and Troyce wondered what she would do if he suddenly tore the mobcap off her head, buried his hands in her hair, and kissed her senseless.

  Knock him on his arse with a pillow?

  “It’s a long story, one I’m sure would not interest you.”

  The longer the better, he thought. “Humor me.”

  “Well, do you remember when I told you about the blo—the man that caught me stealing from the pastry shop?”

  It took every ounce of concentration Troyce could must to focus on her story and not on the hands brushing his rib cage as she buttoned his vest. “I remember.”

  “It was Jack. He told me that talent like mine shouldn’t be wasted, and he put me to work. I’d been selling matches on the street corners at the time to make extra coin, but go hungry a few nights and see how desperate you get.”

  He’d been hungry for months, and he was past desperate.

  “It was simple,” she went on, unaware of his salacious thoughts. “Lift a few watches. Weed a few wallets. My fingers were small and deft. I have a dim memory of a piano, and think I once played. In any case, I was a very good pickpocket. I had my own block by the time I was eleven, a full neighborhood at twelve, and by the time I was thirteen I was teaching the tyros how to bilk. We gave the money over to Jack, and he saw that I had food in my mouth, clothes on my back, and a roof over my head.”

  She sounded so proud, and in a sense, he supposed she had a right to be. She’d done what she had to and survived. “What he did is against the law, Faith. You could have turned him in.”

  “And where would that have left the band? Jack wasn’t the kindest man in the world, but he took care of us; and at the time, he was all I had.”

  The last thing Troyce wanted to do was make Faith defend her actions, yet it seemed he’d done it anyway. “What of your father, Faith? If he’d known—”

  “He wouldn’t have cared,” she interrupted in a tone of hard-edged steel.

  Though Troyce had been witness to Faith’s temper a time or two, the bitterness she carried toward her family surprised even him. “Why do you think he sent you away, Faith?”

  She didn’t answer for a long time, and just when Troyce thought she’d ignore the question all together, she answered, “I wish I knew.”

  And there was something so deeply painful in those four little words that it wrenched his heart.

  She shook her head as if to clear her mind of a past she didn’t want to remember. “He might still come after me, you know. There’s still that chance.”

  “Your father?”

  “Jack.”

  Troyce’s lips flattened, and as he stared into the mirror at the lovely young creature beside him, he wished he hadn’t stopped with breaking Swift’s nose. “Let him try.”

  He’d not let anyone take what belonged to him.

  Chapter 15

  The ballroom looked like Faith’s every image of a fairyland. The chandelier glittered like stars in a midnight sky. The wooden floor gleamed with a high sheen of wax. A four-piece orchestra composed of piano, violin, cello, and harp provided lovely music by composers Faith had never of but admired nonetheless. Ladies, wearing gowns of every color of the rainbow shimmered and shined, were escorted into the room by gentlemen in evening dress decorated with everything from red-and-yellow epaulets on their shoulders to frilly cravats up to their chins. Servants in black livery moved discreetly among the guests bearing silver trays of canapés that Millie and the kitchen staff had spent three days preparing.

  Lady Brayton had outdone herself, for a more perfect vision Faith had never seen.

  Except she could have done without the roses.

  They were everywhere. Roses in every shade and state of bloom—among the candles and delicate lamps, in vases, in wreaths, in bowls . . . petals had even been strewn across the tablecloths. They were inside: in the entrance hall, the staircase, the balconies. They were outside: in the courtyard, on the terrace, even in the necessary located beyond the gardens.

  Oh, yes, the gardens. No expense had been spared there either. Climbing roses, creeping roses, tea roses, and long-stems. Roses, roses, roses, everywhere.

  Faith desperately would have loved to watch the gala from one of the balconies in the ballroom like a few of the other servants did, as it was quite unlikely that she’d ever get the chance to see such a glorious display again. But even there, one could not escape the powerful scent, for like heat it seemed to rise.

  Within a half hour, Faith’s eyes were nearly swollen shut and watery, as if she’d been crying for a month, and her nose hurt from sneezing so much. She was absolutely, completely, and utterly miserable. And she couldn’t help but wonder if somehow, Lady Brayton had chosen this particular form of torture to keep her from wringing even a moment’s enjoyment from a night she had worked so hard to help make perfect for the baron.

  So she kept to her rooms for the greater part of the night, since the tower room had been converted to a guest chamber, and listened to the sweet, soulful music echo down the stone halls. Never had she felt so alone.

  Or so lonely.

  No doubt, her prince of dreams was down there among the brightly colored socialites, lathering them with genteel flattery, humoring them with his wit. Faith rolled over on her mattress and pounded the pillow beneath her head while the strains of a waltz formed a halo about her ears. No doubt he was dancing with them, as well. Holding one of those twittering gems in his arms, swirling them about the floor, flashing his charming dimple.

  She buried her face in her pillow and screamed. She could not take this! She had to know, even if it blew her to kingdom come. She had to see for herself if he looked as dashing on the ballroom floor as she’d so often imagined he would be. She had to know what he was doing—and aye, who he was doing it with.

  Slipping a large square of linen into her apron pocket, Faith slid her mobcap over her hair and marched out of her room. She paused half a dozen times in the hallway to sneeze before she finally reached a section of the house where, not only was she awarded a surprisingly clear view of the ballroom, but there wasn’t a single, solitary, bloody rose in sight.

  Beneath the west branch of the staircase.

  Slowly, cautiously, she crept toward a slatted partition separating her from the open doors of the ballroom. She searched the crowd, seeking one dark head among many, one blinding smile among dozens. She spotted the duchess, standing near a patterned vase, surveying her creation with a small, pleased smile. Wait—wasn’t she wearing . . . she was! She was wearing the bloomin’ red dress she’d accused Faith of stealing!

  Why that—

  “Faith?”

  She spun around so fast she nearly fell over. “Baron?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing, Milord.” He stood in a small wedge of moonlight that shone brightly from one of the many windows set high in the castle walls. The space was small, barely four feet square, and it seemed to have shrunk to half that size. It wasn’t exactly a place that could be found unless someone was looking. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I was on my way outside, hoping for a breath of fresh air when I heard the strangest noise coming down the hall. Achoo. Achoo.” He smiled.

  Faith felt her stomach sink to her toes and the blood rush into her face. Why . . . oh why, oh why, oh why . . . did this man always catch her at her very worst? Suddenly reminded of how she must look, with her swollen eyes and cherry red nose, she made a mad dash past him, knowing if he saw her thus, on tonight of all nights, she would simply curl up and die of mortification.

  “Wait, Faith—don’t leave. You have every right to admire your handiwork.”


  His hand burned on her arm. “You don’t understand, Baron.”

  He tipped her chin and she slammed her eyes shut. “Have you been weeping?”

  “No, milord.”

  “Your eyes are puffy—oh. Oh, no.” The chuckle started low in his chest. “Oh, Faith, open your eyes.”

  She shook her head adamantly. “Come now, open your eyes.”

  She lifted her lashes a margin. Her gaze lit on his chin first, which carried the merest shadow of whiskers in spite of being shaved only hours before. Then on his mouth, with that crooked smile that warmed her down to her toes. Then to his eyes, hooded and secretive, a spray of creases at the corners.

  “Is it the flowers?”

  “Please, don’t laugh at me, milord.”

  “I’m not laughing. All right, I am, but not at you. The scent is cloying enough for me, I can only imagine how miserable it must be making you. Is that why you’re hiding here under the stairwell?”

  “I’m not hiding, it’s the only place I could find that didn’t reek.”

  “Well, then by all means, Faith, take advantage of the clean air.” Gently he turned her around so that she faced the slats she’d been peering through. The heat of him remained at her back, and the scent of him—of fresh winds and cut grasses and his own male essence—settled around her like a protective embrace. She watched the dancing, and tried to ignore him.

  But he wouldn’t let her forget his presence. As if she could.

  “They’re dancing a quadrille,” he said beside her ear.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  She felt him shrug. “I suppose it is. I don’t think I’ve ever considered dancing beautiful, though.”

  “That’s because you’re a man.”

  “I consider you beautiful.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. Beautiful was hardly a term she’d ever apply to herself, but she couldn’t deny that when he said it, she could almost believe it. “I used to dream of being a princess.”

  “Not a queen?”

  “You’re mocking me.” Why had she made such a confession, anyway? He probably thought her a silly twit. Not that she cared what he thought . . . oh, who was she trying to fool? She did care what he thought. She cared too much.