A Beginner's Guide to Rakes (11 page)

Astute gray eyes met and held hers. “Likewise,” he finally said, and motioned for her to continue forward.

Little as she liked having him behind her, the sooner they could find him appropriate clothing, the sooner she could have a moment or two on her own to think. The way he lived his life, this most likely wasn’t even the first time he’d been shot. It was, however, her first time shooting someone.

“Are you going to open The Tantalus with a grand party, or simply invite prospective members to stop by?”

“None of your business.”

Silence. “I’m not suggesting anything,” he finally commented. “I’m only asking a question.”

“Very well. A party. And don’t give me your opinion of that.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

“Good.” She turned into the small bedchamber where most of Frederick’s remaining things seemed to have accumulated since her return to London. “The jackets are in there,” she said, gesturing at a half-open wardrobe. “A shirt or two as well, I think, though the quality isn’t as fine as yours.”

Favoring his left arm, Oliver began shuffling through drawers. After a moment he lifted out a lime-and-olive-colored jacket and held it by the collar with his fingertips. “Truly?” he asked.

Memory flashed through her, images of her thin, stern-faced husband remarking that when Prinny wore something it immediately became fashion and that fashion bespoke confidence and competence. And then him returning after a night in his fashionable attire a hundred pounds lighter in the pockets and forbidding her to speak of either.

“Diane?”

She shook herself, turning away from the brown-haired devil and his lifted eyebrow. “Just choose something and get back to your classroom.”

With a noncommittal grunt he returned to digging. “If anyone sees me in this I’ll be ruined,” he finally said, and she faced him again.

The brown of the jacket was a fairly close, if less rich-looking, match to the one he’d worn to visit The Tantalus. The problem was the way his own shirtsleeves—sleeve—ended at his wrist while the jacket’s extended somewhat short of that. And he couldn’t have buttoned the thing if his life depended on it. “You two were of a height. I thought it would fit.”

With a grimace he shrugged out of it again. “He didn’t have much meat on his bones, did he?”

Diane frowned. “No.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to be attired more casually. I can only hope your prospective employees don’t all throw themselves at me and leave you without assistance.” Looking down, he began unbuttoning his waistcoat.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting on a fresh shirt,” he said, hanging his tan-colored waistcoat over one of the wardrobe’s doors and then pulling his one-sleeved shirt off over his head. “With the sleeves rolled up, I would presume.”

Memory touched her again, this one much more pleasant. Those same arms and shoulders, that fit, muscled abdomen, golden with firelight and settling over her in what had only a fortnight previously been her husband’s bed. Belatedly she turned half around to find a small pile of clean cravats.

“You aren’t being bashful, are you?” he drawled. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“Precisely.” Pulling a cravat free, she intentionally walked over and draped it with the waistcoat. “And I’m afraid the detriments of your character far outweigh the benefits of your body.”

“You didn’t think that then.”

“I was stupid and lonely. Now I am neither. Get dressed. I want you out of my private rooms.”

“I’ll leave your rooms,” he agreed. “For now. But I’ll wager everything I own that I won’t be leaving your thoughts.”

Arrogant man.
“No, both you and the rats in the cellar have my attention. Jenny will bring the ladies up in a moment. Be there waiting.”

With that she slipped out of the room and down the hallway to her own bedchamber. It was the largest one in Adam House and had been Frederick’s. Now it and its sturdy lock were hers.

For a minute she fought the urge to collapse on the bed. Instead she concentrated on easing the shake of her fingers as she paced to the window and back. Generally these days she was far beyond panic and hysterics. They had no place in her life any longer.

What Oliver had said made a surprising amount of sense. Not that silliness about them being even, but the bit about which of them presently deserved the blame for today’s fiasco. She’d demanded that he be involved in all this, had thoroughly sought about for weaknesses, and then had shot him when she’d found one that had also turned out to be hers. Her mind might still mistrust him keenly, but her body was rather more forgiving.

*   *   *

“You’re leaving?” Manderlin opened the lid of the nearest trunk and peered inside. Then he moved a step over to the next one and repeated the action. “And you’re taking that Prussian beer stein with you? I rather like that one myself.”

Oliver walked back into the morning room where most of the full crates and trunks had ended up to wait for transport. “I’ve decided not to renew my lease here,” he commented, closing the lids Jonathan had opened. “When I expire you may have the stein. For now, it’s going with me.” And so was the nude woman painted on the outside of the mug, along with her head—which lifted off when the thing was opened.

“Are you finally purchasing a place, then? I heard that Simwell House was going on the market.”

“I’m moving into one of the rooms above The Tantalus Club.”

“You’re bamming me.”

Oliver glanced at his friend as Jonathan seated himself on a crate of books destined for storage. “I nearly moved into the Society last year. And who can resist a club stocked with pretty chits?”

“I can’t decide if I should point out that the book at White’s has The Tantalus at eight-to-one odds to close within ten weeks of opening, or if I should fall on my knees and worship you.”

“I prefer the worship.”

“That’s an awfully close association with a near-certain failure, Oliver. Not the way you generally do business.”

“It’s not going to fail.”

“Hm.” The viscount slapped his hands on his thighs and stood again. “Purchase me luncheon at White’s and we’ll chat about your connection with Lady Cameron then, why don’t we? And don’t tell me you don’t gossip when you’ve been supplying the wags with half their fodder for years.”

“I’ll keep my own counsel, thank you very much.”

“That’s damned selfish of you, Oliver.” Jonathan strolled to the door, then stopped. After a brief hesitation, he closed it and turned around again. “I’ve known you for a long time, if you’ll recall. I know, for instance, that your uncle cut you off five years ago because you called him a horse’s ass. I know that—”

“No, I called him a poor excuse for a horse’s ass.” Oliver looked at his friend. Jonathan was sober, interested, and genuinely concerned. Over him. And however reticent he generally was to speak of his own situation, the viscount could be trusted—if the secrets had been Oliver’s to share. “What do you want to know, Jonathan?”

“You met Lady Cameron in Vienna, didn’t you?”

“Well, clearly I met her somewhere. Vienna does seem like the most likely place.”

“And now you’re moving into her house. Not a very subtle way to begin a scandal.”

Oliver forced a grin. “I’m not moving into her house.
That
place practically has steel walls separating it from the club. On the other hand, The Tantalus Club boasts two private apartments above its main dining and gaming rooms. I’m taking one of them. Perhaps both of them. I haven’t decided yet.” In fact, he just that moment had, but he wasn’t idiotic enough to announce it publicly before he did so to Diane. He had no wish to be shot again this month.

“When do I get a look at your new residence, then?”

Manderlin still had his doubts about what Oliver was up to with Diane Benchley. Considering how long they’d been friends and the sort of behavior Jonathan was used to from him, that wasn’t much of a surprise. “How about today?” he decided. Diane’s obsession with mystery was one thing, but mistrust from a good friend was quite another. And Oliver had few enough friends that he wasn’t willing to set this one aside because of that damned woman. “After I purchase you luncheon at White’s.”

“Well, that’s a generous offer. Thank you, Haybury.”

“Half-wit.”

Over the next two hours he learned that most of London seemed to know he’d been calling on Adam House almost daily and staying for hours at a time. Apparently everyone believed that he and Diane had a … connection, as Manderlin put it, and that Oliver was one of the reasons she’d chosen to open her club in London.

The speculation over the precise nature of The Tantalus Club was even more varied, but he refused to either add to or quell the flames. That was Diane’s grand experiment. Not his. He was there only to share his expertise and to add to the spectacle.

As he listened and continued to turn away or misdirect questions from Jonathan and everyone else in earshot of his table, it occurred to him that so far Diane was accomplishing exactly what she intended. The Tantalus Club would open in one week, and no one—none of the men, at least—wanted to speak of anything else.

“Good afternoon, my lord,” the senior Adam House groom greeted Oliver as he and Manderlin reached the front drive.

“Clark. How many men in residence today?”

The grizzled groom snorted. “More’n her ladyship likes, and that’s for damn certain. I’ve two new lads myself.” As he took Brash’s reins and stepped over to collect Manderlin’s Phoenix, he lowered his voice. “Just so you know, she hired on two large fellows this morning. From the docks, I think.”

Oliver nodded. Though he ordinarily didn’t make a habit of conversing with the help, Clark seemed to consider him an ally in a household where he was very much outnumbered. The information with which the groom supplied him had on occasion been quite useful.

The front door opened as he and Manderlin topped the steps. “Langtree,” Oliver said, moving forward.

The chit stepped up at the same time, blocking the doorway. “Lady Cameron isn’t entertaining callers today,” she stated, with a pointed glance at the viscount.

“We’re not calling on her,” Oliver returned, reflecting that where he might have been willing to set an uncooperative butler on his arse, he wasn’t so certain he wished to do that to a butleress. “We’re viewing my new apartment.”

With a nod she shifted sideways. “The secondary staircase was finished just this morning. Be careful of the bannister; I’m not certain the varnish has set.”

He meant to ask Diane whether the new staircase at the very front of the house was for anyone wishing to reach the club’s upper rooms or if it had been installed solely to keep him out of the main part of the house. The question would have to wait until he didn’t have Manderlin tagging along, however; Oliver preferred to hear his landlord reply candidly—even when firearms were involved.

“I was in Adam House once eight or nine years ago,” Jonathan commented as they ascended the new staircase, set at ninety degrees from the main one. “I don’t recognize anything but the outside walls.”

Oliver nodded. “She’s been busy.” A walkway along the right ran to the upstairs gaming and sitting rooms, while two doors stood on the left-hand side of the landing. He pulled out the key Diane had very reluctantly given him yesterday and unlocked the right-hand door.

Everything still smelled of fresh construction, but he’d become more than accustomed to that particular scent over the past five weeks. The door opened into a large, comfortable sitting room, with two bedchambers, a library, and an office all branching off from a short hallway just beyond it.

“This is rather ingenious,” Jonathan commented as they walked the rooms. “Larger than the apartments at the Society by a good deal. What about servants?”

“The Adam House maids will clean, I’ve use of the club kitchen staff, and Langtree answers the door. I’m only bringing along Myles and Hubert, and they’ll reside in the attic.”

“If you weren’t Beelzebub himself, I would say you’d found a room in heaven, Haybury.”

Oliver grinned. “I doubt heaven has gaming tables and a billiards room or is populated solely by pretty chits.”

“What are you doing up here?”

At Diane’s sharp tone he turned around. She stood just inside his door, at her shoulder a pretty girl with ash-blond hair. “I’m showing Lord Manderlin my new residence,” he stated, squelching the abrupt feeling that he was back in university and the headmaster had just caught him with a chit in his rooms. “What are you doing here?”

A muscle in her jaw jumped. “You know how I dislike having surprises spoiled, Oliver,” she continued in a much more sensual voice, gliding forward.

Good God, he remembered that tone. His cock jumped, and he shifted. “Then you have nothing to fear. Manderlin is very nearly the soul of discretion.”

“Thank you for very nearly complimenting me,” Jonathan put in, his gaze shifting from the advancing Lady Cameron to the tall chit behind her. “I beg your pardon, but you’re Lady Camille Pryce, aren’t you? Does Fenton— Are you … working here?”

The chit paled. Before Oliver could get a closer look at her, Diane stepped between them. “You’ll have to join The Tantalus Club if you wish to find that out, Lord Manderlin.”

The viscount sketched a bow. “Yes, my lady. If I may say, what little I’ve seen of The Tantalus Club is very impressive.”

“Thank you, Lord Manderlin. When you have a moment, Oliver, the main room is finished. As long as you’re here, you and Lord Manderlin may have a closer look, if you wish.”

As soon as she and her companion left the room, closing the apartment door behind them, Oliver turned on Manderlin. “What were you stammering about? Who’s Camille Pryce?”

“You haven’t heard?” Jonathan returned, raising both eyebrows. “I know something you don’t? Hold a moment. I need to jot this down for my memoirs.”

Clearly he’d been spending too much time at Adam House, if he’d missed out on gossip about the aristocracy. “It’ll be your obituary if you don’t tell me.”

Manderlin eyed him. “You may be terrifying, but I’m going to take a stand here. You tell me what the devil is between you and Lady Cameron, and I’ll tell you who Camille Pryce is.”