A Beginner's Guide to Rakes (23 page)

“Suit yourself. You may have men wondering if you’re available, but there are scores of women who wonder the same about me.”

“Are you trying to make me jealous?” she asked, then favored him with an amused grin. “Because it’s not working.”

That bucket of icy water cooled his ardor and cleared his mind, at least. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he retorted. “I’m merely offering advance warning. Men seek you out, and women seek me out. And now that The Tantalus Club is open and attracting even more interest, you may also find yourself the object of … censure.”

“I fully expect to be insulted, both behind my back and to my face. I have no problem with that, though if I find anyone too petty or small-minded I shan’t invite him—or her—to darken my doorstep.”

“Very pragmatic of you. You’re going to hold a ladies’ night, then?”

“Yes. I was thinking of something like the first and third Tuesday of every month.”

Oliver nodded. “Parliament has an early session most Wednesday mornings, so you would likely have fewer men in attendance on Tuesday evenings, anyway.”

“Yes, I know.”

Of course she knew that; she’d clearly done a great deal of research to learn every aspect of owning a gentlemen’s club and dragged him in to supply her with blunt and the one or two bits of information she hadn’t been able to obtain elsewhere.

She did like her facts. It was the other areas, the ones that called for her to use her feelings, where the ground beneath her feet wasn’t nearly as firm. The question was how best to use that knowledge and how to discover precisely what it was he wanted from her. Because he didn’t think sex would be enough to satisfy him any longer.

“Stop being so quiet,” she said abruptly. “It makes me think you’re plotting something which can’t possibly benefit me.”

“I was considering where you could find male croupiers for two days a month. Because the ladies won’t want your scandalous chits walking among them.”

She flipped a hand at him. “Don’t blame their snobbery on my club. If all of my ‘chits,’ as you call them, were employed as governesses and companions, they would be just as frowned upon.”

“I don’t want to debate degrees of frowning, but there’s a difference between being seen as socially inferior and being avoided. Governesses and companions may not all be asked to dance, but they are allowed to enter good households.”

“And yet not all well-educated women find themselves in the position to net more … acceptable employment. What are they supposed to do, become whores?”

Oliver swallowed the cynical comment he’d been about to make. She’d actually asked him for advice earlier, and he didn’t want to lose ground. “You’re beginning to sound protective of your employees,” he said instead. “That makes you a rare flower, Diane.”

She actually blinked. “Don’t compliment me in the middle of an argument. It won’t make me stammer or blush, and it just makes you look desperate.”

Folding his arms across his chest, he gazed at her for a long moment. “And what I think,” he commented slowly, hoping she didn’t have another pistol strapped to her thigh, “is that whenever I say something complimentary, you snap back with an insult because you feel uncomfortable. Because you
like
when I compliment you.”

“Rubbish.” She scooted to one side of the seat and peered out the window. “Good. We’re here.”

“Coward.”

“Ha. Just remember that your character was questionable long before I succumbed to pragmatism.” The coach stopped. “And another thing,” she continued, standing as the driver flipped down the trio of steps and opened the carriage door. “I may enjoy a compliment, but you’ll never see one turning my head.”

Hm.
That felt very much like progress. In a dirty, clawing battle like this one was turning out to be, it was nearly a victory.

Chapter Fourteen

Attending the Drury Lane theater was exactly as Diane had expected. Murmured conversations and sideways glances surrounded them, and even an offended gasp or two sounded behind them as she and Oliver made their way through the large lobby.

She kept her fingers wrapped lightly around the gray sleeve of his superfine jacket and listened and watched. Another female, one concerned with propriety or her standing among the social elite, would have been mortified. Diane, however, was not that female. Not any longer.

In a sense it was freeing to have lost everything. At the least it had broadened and altered her perspective on what was truly important. Her necessities were enough wealth to be able to live comfortably and the ability to determine the course of her own future. Those things were important. Being looked at in askance or having some marchioness turn her back—that was not worth losing even a single night’s sleep over.

“You’re being quiet,” the tall, lean devil at her side commented, turning his head to gaze at her with those mesmerizing gray eyes.

“I’m busy being noticed,” she returned, finally admitting to herself that he was one of the reasons she could hold her head high tonight. Before they’d met, she’d known nothing about how to survive or how to stand her ground against men like him. “Keep walking.”

“Yes, my lady.” They continued toward the stairs leading to his private box. “If any of this nonsense troubles you, I’m happy to go tackle Manderlin and make a scene.”

“If they’re talking about me, then it’s not nonsense; it’s good business.”

“But not terribly amusing for you, I would imagine.”

Oh, this was too much. First she couldn’t seem to keep herself from thinking about him more kindly, and now he was being solicitous. She stopped, fixing a look of amazement on her face so plain that even he would be able to make it out. “Are you having a sympathetic thought for someone other than yourself? Do you wish to lie down?”

“Ordinarily I would take that as an invitation and ask you to join me,” he returned smoothly, “but since you first appeared tonight I’ve begun to suspect that you want me to collect on the remaining eight hours of our agreement and … get it over with.”

Drat.
“What makes you assume that, other than your own inflated sense of self-importance?”

He leaned closer. “It’s not my self-importance that’s inflated, my dear,” he murmured, “but I’ll collect what’s owed me when
I
choose to do so.”

Clearly he either had no idea that thinking about another interlude with him was keeping her awake nights, or he did realize that he unsettled her and he simply didn’t care. More than likely it was the latter.

“So you actually intend to sit for three hours and watch
King Lear.
”

With a slight grin he maneuvered her around a trio of gawking overdressed fops who were
never
going to be granted membership at The Tantalus Club. “I imagine I’ll enjoy it well enough.” He sent her a sideways glance. “I lied, by the way.”

It took some effort to keep the frown from her face. As far as she knew, he’d only lied to her once, and that hadn’t turned out well for her. “Could you be more specific?”

“Very amusing. We’re not here to see
King Lear.
”

“Then what are we here for?”

“To see a different play.” Oliver pulled back the curtain at the back of his large box and gestured for her to precede him.
“The Taming of the Shrew.”

If most of the audience seated below them hadn’t already been looking in their direction, she would have hit him. “If you’re implying that I’m a shrew, Haybury, then I have sorely overestimated your intelligence and insight. And furthermore, if I
were
a chit who needed to be tamed,
you
are not the man to do it.” Sniffing, she plunked herself down in one of the chairs at the box’s front. “Such a man doesn’t exist.”

He took the seat beside her. “I don’t feel the slightest need or inclination to tame you, Diane,” he said in a voice so low she could barely hear it over the noise of the audience filling the theater. “I happen to like you as you are.”

“Stop attempting to flatter me,” she snapped back, keeping an expression of vague amusement on her face for the benefit of their growing audience. “Why go to the bother of lying to me about the play if you don’t see me as a shrew?”

“Because we would have had this argument in private and I would have lost—and I wanted to see the play.”

“Does one of your mistresses happen to be an actress?”

As soon as Diane asked the question, she had the oddest desire to clap her hands over her ears to avoid hearing the answer. Which was absurd, because she didn’t care what his answer might be.

“Oddly enough, no.” He brushed the edge of her skirt with one finger. “Did I tell you that you look stunning this evening? If I were less jaded and cynical, I would call you breathtaking.”

Well, that was unexpected. And the part of her that was still eighteen years old and wished she’d been wooed rather than bargained for was pleased that he thought so. And that he’d noticed. That silly girl, though, had never had her heart broken—by this same man. No doubt he expected her to bite back at him again, as she’d done every other time he’d attempted to compliment her. Diane took a slow breath. “Thank you.”

Oliver gazed at her. “That’s it?”

Shrugging, Diane sent a glance at the box opposite theirs. “It was a nice compliment.”

“As was my aim.”

She looked at the opposite box once more. “Who is that staring at me through his opera glasses?”

“Everyone’s been looking at you. Why point
him
out?”

A low, delicious shiver went through Diane. If they hadn’t just finished a discussion about jealousy, she would have asked him why his tone seemed so sharp. “Not a friend of yours then, I assume?” she asked him instead.

“Adam Baswich, the Duke of Greaves. He was in York for your grand opening, I believe. Must’ve just returned.”

“And you dislike him because…”

“I don’t dislike him.”

“Then which word would you use?” she pursued. Anyone who upended Oliver Warren was worth knowing about, at the least.

“You’re more damned single-minded than a dog after a bone, aren’t you? Leave it be. The curtain’s opening.”

Oh, this was far too interesting to let go. Diane sat silently as Christopher Sly and the Hostess took the stage and the audience’s attention moved to the front of the theater. Once everyone had settled, Diane edged closer to the formidable man seated beside her. “Is your disagreement with Greaves over a woman?” she whispered.

The muscles around Oliver’s eye twitched. “Not yet.”

“A horse?”

“No.”

“Land?”

“No. Shut up.”

“A wager?”

Silence.
Ah.
At the least, she seemed to be closer to the target. His expression, of course, hadn’t altered a whit—at least not in her view of his profile as he faced the stage.

“He’s lost money to you,” she pressed, then frowned. That would account for Greaves’s dislike, but not for Oliver’s … reserve. “You lost to
him,
” she amended.

“Technically.” Finally he glanced sideways at her. “I have my doubts.”

“Oh.” Diane sat up straighter. “You think he cheated. I see this as somewhat ironic, considering you—”

“Enough,” he growled, standing and yanking her to her feet in the same motion. The ease with which he did so left her a little breathless.

“Unhand m—”

Changing his grip to her left wrist, he yanked her to the back of the box and through the curtain into the rear corridor. Before she could even look around he pushed her back against the wall and pinned her there with a forearm. Diane lifted her head, trying to conjure what insulting thing she would say in response to his kiss—but the gray eyes glaring at her snapped with fury, not passion.

“Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” he said very quietly, “that I am at your service for one reason only. If you discuss that event or even mention it within the hearing of anyone else, I will have no further grounds to assist you and every reason to cause you pain. Is that clear?”

She met his gaze. “You have already caused me pain, Lord Haybury. If you think you can deal me anything worse than what you’ve already put me through, you are sadly mistaken.” Her voice broke, but that didn’t signify. He was not going to best her in a battle of wills. Or anything else.

He didn’t move a muscle. For a long moment, while her heart pounded inside her chest, they simply stared at each other. Then, his jaw muscles clenching, he reached out one hand and brushed a finger along her cheek. It came away wet.

“I am not crying,” she stated. If he disagreed with that, she would kick him. And she knew precisely where.

“I know,” he returned.

Leaning down, he very softly touched his lips to hers. Diane closed her eyes at the warm, electric contact. Heat spiraled through her from inside her chest to the tips of her fingers. He’d never kissed her like that before. Nothing about Oliver Warren had ever been gentle.

As he finally lifted his head an inch or two away from her, Diane realized that she had one hand around his shoulders and the other splayed over his heart. The rapid thud drummed against her fingertips. His gaze searched hers, though for once she had no idea what to think. And he looked at least as baffled.

Oliver cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I lied again.”

At least he’d changed the subject. “What now?”

“That letter of yours isn’t the only reason I’m here.” He took her hand, rubbing his fingers against her wrist where he had grabbed her. “And yes, I believe Greaves cheated me. I can’t prove it, but it cost me a friendship.”

“You and Greaves were friends?” she asked, far more comfortable discussing Oliver’s wagering than what his true reason for lending his money and expertise to her and The Tantalus Club might be and if that reason had something to do with regret for hurting her.

“I thought we were. Evidently I was mistaken. It was quite a blow to my pride.” Brushing her cheek once more, he reached past her to hold open the curtain at the rear of the box. “I count my … blindness to his true nature to be one of the two greatest mistakes of my life. Now. Shall we return to the play?”