The Wicked Games of a Gentleman, page 13
Grayson looked up defensively. “He was crying when I came in. I was afraid he’d hurt himself.”
“In the cradle?” Drake asked blankly. “How?”
“Well, he might have fallen out.”
“He can’t sit up yet, can he?”
Grayson laid his large hand against the child’s cheek. The baby arched his back in agitation. Drake wasn’t sure, but he might have broken wind. He hoped it wasn’t Grayson. “Devon climbed out of his cradle almost every night.”
“Before he could crawl?” That didn’t sound quite right to Drake.
“I don’t know,” Grayson said, throwing his large body into a chair. He had exhausted himself.
Drake leaned over the cradle and loosened the three swaddling blankets that imprisoned Rowan. The baby kicked furiously, expelled a fart, and stopped fussing, his blue eyes wide and curious. Drake touched his cheek. “He doesn’t feel hot to me. I think he had a fart.”
“A fart?” Grayson said, rising in relief. “Are you certain?”
“Well, that’s what it sounded like. Anyway, I’d feel hot, too, if you smothered me in all these blankets.”
Grayson scooped the infant in his arms and snuggled him to his shoulder as the door behind him flew open and his wife, Jane, the Marchioness of Sedgecroft, burst into the nursery. She looked elegant if visibly upset in her lemon yellow watered silk evening gown, a diamond choker on her slender white throat.
Her parents, Lord and Lady Belshire, crowded in behind her. Hot on their heels followed the Scottish physician, an herbalist, the apothecary, and the indignant Irish nursemaid. Everyone seemed to be talking at once.
Drake had never felt so out of place or useless in his entire life. A child had caused all this chaos and concern. A human being who had not even existed a year ago. An unplanned product of love and passion and God knew what else thrown into the pot. The intensity of emotion in the room staggered him.
Jane wrested the infant from her husband’s arms. “What have you done to my son?”
“I saved his life, Jane,” Grayson said, as arrogant as ever now that the crisis had apparently passed.
She scattered kisses over the baby’s bald head, his fat cheeks, his neck. “What was wrong with him?”
Grayson blew out a sigh. “He had the stomach grippe and a raging fever.”
Jane narrowed her eyes, suddenly noticing Drake standing in the corner. “My brother summoned you here because Rowan was ill? What did he expect you to do?”
“I’m not convinced, actually, that Rowan was really—” Drake broke off as Jane’s mother, Athena, jostled him aside to fuss over her recovered grandson. Jane’s father, Howard, had spotted the bottle of sherry on the windowsill and was looking around for a glass.
Jane gasped. “You didn’t give him sherry, did you, Grayson?”
“That was for me, Jane,” Grayson said defensively. “I needed it to help our son fight his illness.”
“Why did you send Mrs. O’Brien from the house?” she demanded.
“Because her infernal lullabies disturbed the boy.”
“They calm him down, Grayson.” Jane shook her elegantly coiffed head in maternal disapproval, passing the child to her mother’s care.
Jane’s sisters, Miranda and Caroline, burst into the room, tears of emotion in their eyes. Clearly they had been told the situation was dire. Drake expected his own sisters, Chloe and Emma, to arrive at any moment.
“There’s a crowd gathering in the streets,” Caroline said from the window. “They’re looking very sober. One would think the life of a crown prince were in peril.”
“Wave to them, Grayson,” Jane said, her voice softening as she glanced at her husband. “Let them know all is well.”
Grayson strode to the window and waved one of his son’s nappies. The small crowd cheered. Then, as if suddenly recovering his wits, he pivoted and gave his attention to Drake, a reserved witness to this family crisis.
“My God,” he said, and walked to where Drake stood. “You did not come all the way here for nothing. Did you wish to talk to me? Is something wrong?”
“No, Grayson. It can wait.” Drake felt quite exhausted himself from all the drama.
Grayson lowered his voice and placed his arm around Drake’s shoulders to walk him to the door. “You do not weaken in a crisis, and such strength was exactly what I needed to see me through. Thank you. Now let me return the favor. What is it you needed of me?”
“Nothing.” Drake shook his head and backed into the hallway. “It’s all right, really. I understand.”
“Do you?” Grayson followed him, looking completely helpless. “I gave way to panic. I never panic, but when I thought I might lose him—Do you understand? It was Brandon’s birthday last week. I believe that remembering him, and what it feels like to lose someone you love, undid me.”
Drake felt a sense of unwelcome heaviness steal over him. Brandon’s death had left a scar on the heart of the family. For better or worse, and it was often the latter, the Boscastles were a fiercely close band who loved and lived hard, and mourned with a passion that few of their friends understood.
“I had not forgotten,” he said quietly, and wondered, not for the first time, if his own unresolved anger over Brandon’s murder had not contributed at least in part to his recent emotional unrest.
“I could lose my son,” Grayson said, his voice raw with imagined grief. “I would rather die a thousand deaths by torture than lose him or Jane. Love is horrible, Drake. Horrible. Don’t let it happen to you. Why did I let it happen? How did I let it happen?”
Grayson stood in the doorway, his powerful figure framed in the blazing candlelight of the room behind him.
“I don’t know how it happened.” Drake retreated deeper into the darkness of the hallway. This was anything but the calm advice he had sought. “But you haven’t lost them.”
“I know.” Grayson closed his eyes. He drew an enormous breath and his great body shuddered as he exhaled. “I was wrong. Don’t listen to me. Love is a wonderful thing. I hope that one day you—”
He opened his eyes. Drake had disappeared. He turned to find his wife standing beside him, their baby active and content in her arms. Her long honey-colored hair had come unbound in a bewitching tumble down her back.
“What was your brother doing here, Grayson?” she asked quietly. “Was something else wrong besides your falling apart the moment I left you?”
He slanted her a sharp look in return. “I never fall apart, and, to be honest, I’m not sure what Drake wanted.”
“Then perhaps you should have found out instead of the commotion you caused in the nursery,” she said lightly.
“He did seem troubled,” Grayson admitted.
Jane gave him a reluctant smile. “Perhaps it’s time to find out why.”
“Yes, perhaps.” He was gazing down in fierce tenderness at his son. “Damn little devil scared me to death.”
“I do love you, Grayson,” she said ruefully. “But I will never leave you to watch our son again.”
Drake hurried down the stairs of Grayson’s mansion, nearly colliding with the lanky, familiar figure coming the other way. “Am I too late?” Devon asked, his cloak spangled with mist. “I got here as fast as I could.”
Drake shook his head. He wanted to escape from this house, to escape his own emotions if the truth be told. He needed a bottle of brandy, and a bracing walk in the night air. “It’s all over. Everything is fine.”
“What happened?” Devon asked, handing his gloves to a maidservant who had just come up behind him.
“Nothing. Grayson thought the baby had the stomach grippe. He had gas. It was the usual family pageant.” He made to move down the stairs.
“Are you saying all this fuss was over a fart?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in that case, do you want to go to the club?”
“No.” Drake heard the impatience in his voice. “Not tonight.”
“You’re in a mood, aren’t you?” Devon asked, staring at him.
“What if I am?”
“Nothing.” Devon shrugged, never one to provoke an argument. “I was merely pointing out that you seem to be in a bad humor. Is there anything wrong? Does it involve Eloise Goodwin?”
“Stop it,” Drake said with an irritated scowl.
Devon shook his head. “Stop what?”
“Stop being so damned annoying.”
“I didn’t mean to be annoying. I asked about a woman. How was that annoying?”
Drake glanced away. “It annoyed me, that’s all.”
Devon looked mystified. “I ask you questions all the time, and they have never seemed to annoy you. Well, not this much, at least. You’ve always acted as if you didn’t care. Unless—” A knowing gleam kindled in his eyes. “Unless—”
“Unless what, you idiot?” Drake asked, leaning back against the railing.
Devon lifted his shoulders. “Unless, well, nothing.”
Drake’s face darkened. “Unless what, dammit?”
“Well.” Devon stared down at his boots, mumbling, “Unless you do care.”
Drake pinned him with a long, lethal stare. “Unless I care about what?”
“About whom,” Devon said under his breath.
“Are you suggesting—” Drake pushed himself off the railing, glaring at his brother, who by refusing to meet his gaze rendered the glare infuriatingly ineffective. “I hope to God that you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
Devon lifted his gaze. “I’m not suggesting anything, really. Far be it from me to suggest that you might be a little touchy on the subject.”
Drake’s eyes smoldered like coals. “And the subject is?”
“I believe,” Devon said, quite bravely meeting his older brother’s regard, “that the subject is that rather fetching woman you introduced me to earlier today.”
“It isn’t true,” Drake said quickly.
“What? That she is the subject, or that you’re touchy about her?”
Drake put his hand over his eyes. “I’m going to count to five, and if you’re still standing here when I’m finished, I’m throwing you headfirst over the railing.”
He counted to five. When he opened his eyes, Devon was gone. And if Drake had not been in a dark mood before, he found himself caught under a veritable eclipse now.
He went downstairs into Grayson’s study and found a bottle of French brandy on the sideboard. He had visited this room often as a boy, hoping to receive a word of approval from his father. It had never come. Not a crumb. Not a smile, nor pat on the shoulder.
He’d always known that he was his father’s least favorite child; they had fought constantly, and Drake had been forever in trouble for fighting or disobeying. He still remembered his mother whispering to him after a particularly shaming scolding from his father, “He punishes you because you are so alike. He struggled all his life with his private demons. I think he means to exorcise them from you.”
“It didn’t work,” he said, opening his eyes. “The demons survived.”
His father, Royden Boscastle, had been passionate and moody, protective and tyrannical at once. To this day Drake felt that he had never known the man, or understood him any better than he understood himself. But they had been alike. Everyone in the family said so. It wasn’t an encouraging thought.
He left the house.
He supposed he ought to visit Maribella St. Ives this evening. He’d planned to tell her face-to-face that he did not wish to pursue a relationship. Not long ago he would have pursued her, if only to dispel his depressive state with the distraction of sex. The prospect of seeing her made him feel even worse.
Still, if he visited Maribella, then perhaps Eloise would be safe from damnation. Grayson’s words echoed in the back of his mind.
You don’t care about anyone. Drinking, whoring, war. That’s your life, isn’t it? Do you want to die alone?
He walked without stopping to the Hill Street house. Rain glistened on the cobbles. A lone carriage rumbled past. He hadn’t meant to come here, and perhaps if he hadn’t seen the light in the parlor, he would not have stopped.
He knocked at the front door of the unassuming house. He hadn’t decided what he would do if someone other than Eloise answered. He didn’t even know how he would explain visiting her this late at night when he had promised he would await her decision. Oh, what the hell. He’d just make up an excuse.
“Who is it?” a soft voice asked cautiously from inside the house. Her voice. Thank God. Her. It was her.
“It’s me. It’s Drake.”
She opened the door and stared up into his face. Again he sensed that she could see beyond the superficial. She did not even look surprised that he had come.
She stood in darkness, the pearls he had sent her glistening with promise at her throat, a book in her hand. “Is something wrong?” she asked hesitantly.
“May I come in?
She glanced around as if considering her answer. There was no one in the hall behind her. “Yes.”
He followed her into the parlor. He shrugged out of his coat and stared at her, not bothering to disguise his restless thoughts with polite conversation. He saw her eyes lift again to his in question. She might as well know what he was from the start. If he was to be her lover, she would have to accept his darkness, his restless moods, the whole damned mess of him.
Chapter Sixteen
Eloise took his coat from his hands. He caught her by the waist before she could turn around. The dark angles of his face were shadowed with an intensity that made her heart falter. He pulled her against him. She went, his coat slipping from her fingers to the floor. His arm tightened around her as if he sensed that she welcomed his embrace, that she had thought of nothing but him since their last meeting.
His lips slanted over hers in a demanding kiss. She strained against him and felt his body harden in response. His tongue slipped inside her mouth and sent a heated shiver dancing over her from head to bottom. “What is it?” she whispered. “Why are you here so late at night?”
“For you. No other reason.”
“Where have you been?”
“To my brother Grayson’s house.” A reluctant smile eased the tension on his face. “He thought his infant son was dying.”
“Dying?” she said in alarm. “Is he all right now?”
“There was nothing wrong with him but gas in the first place.” He shook his head in amusement. “I should not laugh at my brother except that both of us were behaving like a pair of helpless idiots until his wife came home.”
“You thought the baby would die of gas?” she asked gently.
“Frightened to death until he farted,” he admitted. “What do I know of babies? Will you let me stay awhile?” he asked. “Although be warned, I may be bad company tonight.”
She’d known the instant she’d opened the door that something had upset him—he had been worried about his nephew. And he’d come to her. That meant more to her than pearls or promises.
“Do you want something to drink?”
“No, I’ve already—” He lifted his fingers to her throat, his eyes warming in victory. “You’re wearing the pearls I sent you. Does that mean you’ve decided to be my lover?”
Her lover and protector. She drew a breath at the weakening desire that swept over her, then shook her head in chagrin. “What it means is that the clasp wouldn’t come undone.”
His mouth quirked into a smile. “Really, Eloise, you don’t expect me to believe that.”
“It’s true,” she said, a blush rising to her cheeks.
His eyes glowed with laughter. “Then it’s fate, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s—” She tilted her head back to look at him. “Did you have the clasp designed to lock like this?”
He moved one hand idly down her back. “Darling, that would make me too devious, don’t you think?”
“Devious or determined,” she said with a rueful smile, aware that he was making a leisurely exploration of her backside beneath her dress.
“I might be both.” He smiled back at her rather wickedly. “Of course I am compelled to point out that you put the pearls on in the first place.”
Eloise did not reply. She really couldn’t think of a way to deny it.
“And trying on pearls might be construed as an acceptance of my offer.” He cleared his throat. “Or not. Do you mind if we sit down?”
His hand drifted across her bottom. She felt a wicked trail of warmth burn in the wake of his touch. His quiet exhalation of breath brushed a tendril of hair at her temple. “If you like,” she said, thinking that her legs probably wouldn’t hold out much longer, anyway. At least if she sat down he wouldn’t be able to tell how badly she was trembling.
Of course, once they reached the sofa, she realized that she hadn’t solved the problem at all. He leaned into her, his long, lean-muscled body overshadowing hers, and her knees still trembled.
“What were you reading?” he asked casually, his thumb rubbing across her knuckles.
“Reading? Just a book of country cures.”
His fingers raised little flames across her wrist. Before she knew it, he had walked a path up her arm until he stopped to flirt with the undercurve of her breast. “It’s a shame you weren’t with me earlier in the evening when I visited Grayson. I’ll bet as a governess you’ve had a lot of experience dealing with sick babies.”
“Mostly with ill-behaved young boys,” she said unthinkingly, distracted as his hand caressed the shape of her breast through her dress. How could he talk so calmly when he was arousing this wild desire inside her?
“And men?” he asked curiously, lifting his face to hers. “Have you had much experience with men?”
She was drawn into the dark eroticism of his eyes. “No,” she said faintly.
He murmured, “Good,” and kissed her again, sliding one arm around her shoulder to position her to his advantage.
Her eyes drifted shut. He was brushing his fingers rhythmically back and forth across her nipples until she moaned in melting arousal against his arm. Shudders of raw sensation traveled from her shoulders into the base of her spine.
