Again, My Lord: A Twist Series Novel (2 page)

He had never had siblings, nor close cousins, and though he’d gone to school, he had spent most of his life with his parents, whom he adored and who adored him. It had been a quiet life, but he’d liked it well. Enormously well. It was difficult now to watch the three siblings’ deep affection without the dull ache of loneliness crawling into his chest. Surrounded by servants and comfortable with his friends, he had more than enough companionship. Yet he did not now have that special, profound companionship he had known for two dozen years of his life.

At these moments, occasionally, Lady Calista would catch him staring. Then her lips that he’d been thinking were probably too kissable would curve into a grin, then split into a smile. Her teeth would shine and he would be reminded of his original purpose in this county, which he still believed was sheer lunacy. And he would once again lose the easy use of his tongue.

Then her eyes would flash and she would laugh at him until her cheeks glowed, and she would run away. Literally. Across a field or down the street. He watched her skirts flutter and wondered what they felt like, that light, insubstantial fabric. And the girl beneath the fabric.

Nights in his room at the inn he lay awake for hours, recalling the days. Her laughter. Her taunts. Her smiles. All of it designed to at once shock and charm.

But perhaps her smiles and charm were
not
designed after all, rather merely in her nature: audacious, vital, and desperately testing life. He recalled the pleasure in her eyes on those occasions when he parried her light jabs.

Each night when he slept he dreamed of her, vivid dreams that seemed like reality. And each morning when he awoke he took himself in hand and allowed the dreams to continue until he was groaning her name.

Within a fortnight he was infatuated.

Within a month he was besotted.

On the thirtieth day since he had called at Dashbourne, he arose early and dressed in his finest coat, with the Dare insignia pinned in gold discreetly in his neckcloth. This time when he called on the Earl of Chance, he would insist upon being seen.

Just as he prepared to depart the inn, she appeared in the doorway.

“Good day, my lord,” she said as though unescorted maidens met lords in the doorways of roadside inns every day of the week.

He bowed. “My lady,” he murmured. The fantasy he’d had less than an hour earlier had involved the generous application of her lips to his skin, and he was having trouble dragging his mind into reality now. He glanced behind her, pretending to search for her brother and sister, but mostly to look away from those tempting lips. The street was empty of Chance siblings. “Have Master Gregory and Lady Evelina remained at home today?”

His blood pounded. In the absence of her brother and sister, today he might take her hand. Kiss her enticing lips. Tell her what had come to be in his heart. At least until he’d driven her home. He could not allow her to remain here, alone. He was not actually a ravisher. He wanted her with a desperate sort of ache he had never felt before. But he wanted her validly and licitly before he actually
had
her.

“I have come before them,” she said breathlessly, her eyes very bright. “You see, I am running away and I don’t want them to know.”

His tongue fumbled for words, his throat for sound. “Running away?”

“Yes. Isn’t it marvelous? What an adventure!” She took a step closer to him. “But you see, I haven’t a horse or carriage or even any money,” she said more quietly and cast a glance over his shoulder. “I wonder if you might help me.” Her sudden smile blinded. “Would you drive me away from here? Today? Now? Please? I—” She placed a slender hand on his forearm. “I simply
must
leave today. At once.” After a brief silence she said, “I would be so very … grateful. I— I have— That is— I have missed London so— so dreadfully. Please, my lord?”

With a movement of deadened economy, he removed her hand from his arm and released it as his insides crumbled into pieces of dried clay.

“I regret, my lady, that unfortunately I cannot aid you in this.”

She stepped closer and Tacitus’s battered heart did a painful turn about in his chest.

“But you simply must,” she said, her speech now a silvery plea. “I beg of you.”

He wanted both to retreat a pace and to grab her up and demand that she retract her words. But he stood his ground and it was the most difficult thing he had ever done except for burying his parents.

“Lady Calista,” he said, “you must go home now.”

He had never seen her eyes wider. “Are you refusing me?” She looked surprised and Tacitus knew he really had become an absolute fool, ensnared by a girl who was, however, not ensnared by him. Not only had she not come to like him enough to wed, but she now hoped to use him to convey her to more appealing company.

He deserved to be used. All fools did.

But he was not a fool by nature. Only by inclination at present. He had fallen in love swiftly. He would endeavor to fall out of love swiftly too.

“I cannot drive you to London, nor indeed anywhere except to your father’s house.”

Her lashes swept down and up. Three times. More slowly with each sweep. Then she said simply, “Very well, my lord.”

And that was that. He drove her home, deposited her with her mother, and in a blind haze drove away. Back to London where there were young ladies who would recognize the appeal of a man of wealth and position and accept his suit. None of them would probably have glimmering blue eyes. Or if they did, they wouldn’t have sparkling white smiles. Or even if they had those they probably wouldn’t have maddeningly kissable lips. Or perfect pert noses. Or laughter like sunshine and sin at once. Or hips curved so roundly and delectably that they begged a man to wrap his hands around them and drag her close. They probably would not throw their arms around their siblings and declare, “You are the most sublimely wonderful sister a girl could ever have!” and “I will love you, little brother, until the day I die and beyond!” or to Tacitus’s face, “But I am
Dare
” in a deep voice, then dissolve into laughter that sounded like a brook in springtime. And they probably would not make him fall head over ears in love with them with the determined tilt of their chins.

But he did not go to London. He went home to Dare Castle. Amidst the memories of affection that surrounded him, he stared at the walls and was unreasonably cross with his staff.

Soon his old school chum Peyton Stark, the Viscount Mallory, appeared on his doorstep with a sixteen-year-old bottle of whiskey and eyes full of deviltry.

“What are you doing all shut up in this old pile, Tass?” he demanded and thrust a full tumbler into Tacitus’s hand.

“It is not a pile,” he grumbled. “It is a castle.” A very nice one, at that.

“Your mourning period is long since over.” Peyton sprawled his muscular frame into one of the library chairs and surveyed Tacitus from beneath brows black as Hades. His face had something of the look of Lucifer about it, angelically handsome in an arrogant, wicked fashion. “You are far too young to molder away in this house for the rest of your life.”

“What would you have me do instead? Paint the town every shade of red as you do?”

“Works wonders for chasing away the goblins.” His friend lifted a single, aristocratic brow. “Why the devil not?”

Why the devil not?

Tacitus had never been a gambler or cardplayer or womanizer or any other sort of rowdy. He had enjoyed the company of his parents and hadn’t seen any need to gallivant about town getting into scrapes. He had been very, very happy.

Now he was not. Now the knot in his gut that had settled there upon their deaths had ascended to his chest and acquired a fiery patina. Now when the memory of Calista Chance’s face hovered before his closed eyes—which it pretty much always did—he did not feel the twist of confusion and pleasure as he had in her company, but the stabbing pain of loss he recognized all too well; he had felt it when each of his parents had died.

He was grieving now. Again. This time over her.

It was ridiculous. She was a spoiled girl of little discretion who disrespected her parents enough to wish to run away from them. And she hadn’t cared that he was falling in love with her. Nor had she fallen in love with him in return, which damned her twice over.

It hurt. A hell of a lot. A
hell
of a hell of a lot.

Because after weeks in her company he had thought she was more than that. He’d thought she was full of life and joy and affection. He’d thought she was clever and warm, and damnably alluring. And he’d thought perhaps that, despite their differences, she liked him.

Obviously he had been wrong.

He sipped the whiskey. It burned going down, momentarily masking the pain in his chest. The next sip burned less, but masked just as well. The third masked even better; it downright coated the pain.

“What say you, old friend?” Peyton’s glass was nearly empty too. “Have a mind to paint the town with me before settling down to rickety old age here?”

Rickety old age at twenty-five? Tacitus looked around the library, his favorite room in the house. It held no comfort for him now. His chest ached fiercely.

He held out his glass to be refilled.

Peyton gave him a scoundrel’s grin. “I thought you’d never ask.”

They drank until dawn, at which point they called for their curricles and raced quite irresponsibly half the distance to London. Peyton won, but Tacitus vowed to beat him the next time.

He did indeed win the next time, and many times after that. Like the whiskey, racing dulled the pain. Peyton, who had lost two adored siblings some years earlier, assured him that he had not truly grieved until he’d done something very stupid, so why not keep on grieving and have some fun? Tacitus did not mention that he had in fact done something very stupid, which had only compounded the grief. But he went along with his friend’s plan anyway.

When drunken carriage racing grew tiresome, Peyton took him to several disreputable hells and some very fine clubs too, and to any number of society fetes. At these venues they drank more and occasionally gamed, and Peyton flirted with every female he encountered, from common molls to the crusty old Duchess of Hammershire. He was a dashing fellow, scion of one of the finest, oldest families in Britain, and charming. The ladies loved him.

They seemed to like Tacitus too. It wasn’t to be wondered at. He was a marquess and plump in the pockets. And Dare Castle wasn’t anything to sniff at.

“Don’t be an idiot, Tass. It’s not only the trappings that attract them,” Peyton said over tankards of ale at a pub they particularly liked. It reminded Tacitus of the taproom at the inn at the village of Dashbourne where he had treated the Chance siblings to lunch for a month. He had not mentioned that to Peyton of course, or even acknowledged it to himself except when he was very drunk and muttering unintelligibly into his cup. Like he was at present.

“M’not an idiot.” He was slurring now. Best to head home soon. Too much ale spoiled … well … everything really.

“Clara,” Peyton called to the barmaid. “Come over here. Now there’s a good girl.”

The barmaid planted her behind on Peyton’s knee and gave his chest a vigorous rub with the palm of her hand.

“You be wantin’ a bit o’ Clara tonight, milord?”

Peyton smiled. “Actually I’ve got a question for you.”

“It’s a game you’re playing, then?” She gave his chest another rub. “I like games.”

“Look at my friend Dare here. What do you think of him?”

She gave Tacitus the sort of perusal he’d gotten a lot of since he’d been going about town with the Viscount Mallory.

“I think I could lick him like a spoon that’s been in the pudding, milord,” Clara said, and dragged her tongue across her lips as though to demonstrate.

Peyton chuckled. “If he didn’t have a penny to his name, or a title, or those fine clothes and gold signet ring, would you still lick him like a spoon?”

“Every day of the week and twice on Sundays,” Clara replied with a wink at Tacitus.

Tacitus stood. He bowed. “Thank you, Miss …?”

“Clara, sweetness. But if you’ve a mind to come on upstairs for a tumble, you can call me anything you like.” She jumped off Peyton’s lap and moved to Tacitus, her hand outstretched, presumably for the chest rub she intended to give him.

He backed away. “I appreciate the offer, Clara. But I’ve got to be going.” His head reeled. His mouth was a cavern of hopelessness. And he had to walk off his erection before he got home and descended into dreams of a girl he should by now have entirely forgotten.

Peyton followed him to his feet. “All right, my lord,” he drawled. “I’ve got your back.”

As it turned out, Peyton was obliged to make good on that statement. Two blocks from the pub they encountered a lady of delicate years and her aged grandmother in the midst of cutpurses. Tacitus and Peyton beat the thieves to the ground. In the fray, Tacitus caught a knife’s blade upon his jaw. But in the end they bested the blackguards entirely.

The next day everyone in town seemed to know about the scuffle. Nursing his wound at home with a glass of brandy and a book, Tacitus instructed his butler to turn away callers. When he finally left his library, he discovered a stack of calling cards in his foyer.

“It is remarkable, Claude,” he said to his valet the next morning as the Frenchman carefully shaved around the wound, then applied salve to it. “I don’t recall ever having gotten so much attention before this silly skirmish.”

“The ladies, they will always flock to the men who display the acts of honor. And the violence,” Claude said with a sage nod. “Eh, they adore the scars.”

After the bandage came off, Tacitus attended a few balls, a handful of musical evenings, a picnic or two, and occasionally dined with friends at his club. Most often, though, he found himself at Westminster, where he appeared to pay close attention to the debates. But often, when some grizzled old lord in a wig was prosing on and on, he daydreamed. Of a girl. Months later already, and that damn girl was still in his head.