Gareth: Lord of Rakes (15 page)

Or perhaps, of starting a family.

Felicity leaned into his embrace, and he settled his chin on her crown. They remained thus for long moments, the only sound the ticking of an ormolu clock on the mantel nearby, and the slap of the rain against the window.

Felicity pulled away first, feeling as if this day—with its biological inconveniences and petty domestic drama, somehow drew her closer to Gareth than all of their erotic nonsense, and that was not necessarily a good thing.

“I hope you feel better.”

“I shall.” Bodily, in any case. “Assuming the solicitors will give us more time, what will you want of me in the intervening weeks? I have learned much of what Callista wanted me to know, and I have certainly become acquainted with her books, her customers, her—”

His finger pressed against her lips.

“I have considered this while we’ve talked. I want you to hear me out before you pass judgment on my idea.” He stepped away before continuing. “I should use the next few weeks to give credence to the fiction I am interested in you socially.”

“Why? When a month from now, sooner, in fact—” They would be done with each other.

“Consider, Felicity, that I bear the title, am considered remiss in my duty for not having sired a few heirs. You are wellborn enough to aspire to a good match, and if rumors do crop up that we might be having illicit dealings, then the best way to combat them is to appear as a legitimate couple.”

“Look at me, Gareth,” Felicity said, matching his cool tones, because he was reasoning with her, using the same nearly bored voice in which he’d challenged her into tasting far too much wine and parting with far too many confidences.

He complied with about as much visible enthusiasm as if she were a one-woman firing squad.

“What aren’t you telling me, sir?”

“That this is the best I can come up with, to prevent your modesty from resurging where I’m concerned, address potential rumor, and assure the solicitors you are not blowing full retreat.”

He was improvising, telling her half-truths, which strongly suggested the rumors had already started, and he could not bear to tell her so.

“Very well. I trust you, and we’ll handle this as you choose.” Though how she’d endure another four weeks in his constant presence was a mystery not easily solved.

Gareth accepted her capitulation with a smile that, to Felicity, looked suspiciously more relieved than pleased.

To be seventeen was to suffer, and to be treated like a child when one was old enough to marry, bear children, or run a household.

Astrid did not intend to suffer in silence.

“I hate him, Felicity, and don’t try to wheedle and reason with me,” Astrid warned. “Heathgate is officious, overbearing, pompous, and just plain mean.”

Astrid had waited until the officious, overbearing, pompous man had quit the premises, because what needed to be said was
private
. She confronted her sister in the third floor schoolroom to ensure even the Crabbles wouldn’t overhear.

“I agree, Astrid, his lordship can be all those things, as can you or I.” Felicity took a seat on a window bench, though in her dressing gown and robe, even wearing an odd pair of thick wool stockings, she had to be cold.

“Except you’re not mean, Felicity. You’re decent and kind, and when you scold me, I know it’s because you truly do care. He scolded me simply because he could, the wretch. And you let him.”

That last part was what truly hurt, that Felicity had abdicated her authority to a man who ought not to be under their roof at all.

Felicity looked troubled, but not contrite. “We have been living here since Father’s death without the guidance or protection of any man, Astrid, and you are simply unused to the fact that most men, most good men, believe a scolding or even a thrashing is their duty when those they care about err. And,” she added, standing and facing Astrid, “you were imprudent.”

Felicity was not just an older sibling, she was a good six inches taller than Astrid, and that she’d try to use her height in this argument was dirty tactics.

“I was
not
imprudent, Felicity! How can you say that? I have been introduced to Mr. Holbrook. He was most proper and well behaved in my presence. We were in public at all times, and we quickly parted. I went nowhere private with him, I did not allow him to inappropriately touch my person, and I
will
not
tolerate chiding from the Marquess of Heathgate, of all people, on the propriety of my manners.”

It felt good to state her position, and it felt even better to do so without raising her voice.

Felicity glanced at the closed door, but Crabbie’s bad knees meant no adult reinforcements would be arriving, and Astrid had stopped lighting a fire up here months ago, in any case.

“What is the matter with you, Astrid? Heathgate was only imparting the same message I’m sure Mr. Holbrook tried to convey more gently.”

This was the outside of too much. “What is the matter with
me
? Felicity, you were sitting alone with the man in your bedroom, with the door all but closed, in your dressing gown.
What
is
the
matter
with
you?
That man is compromising you. I know it. I just know it in my bones.”

Astrid let the rest hang between them unsaid: Felicity disappeared to the marquess’s town house unchaperoned for hours at a time. She came home distracted, her hair occasionally arranged in a different style than when she’d left. She hadn’t given Mr. Holbrook a second glance, when he was both handsome and dashing, and worst of all, she wasn’t railing against Astrid’s accusations.

Fear, acrid and bitter, seeped up from Astrid’s middle to clutch at her lungs.

“Astrid, I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t deny it.” And for the first time in Astrid’s life, Felicity sounded afraid. “Why, Felicity? It isn’t worth your virtue, whatever he’s paying you. We can sell this house and find a cottage, take in laundry and mending, put in a larger garden. We could manage.”

Brave words, though Astrid knew well Felicity had been managing for years, and she also knew why. Felicity could make a competent governess or companion, but Astrid wouldn’t last until sundown in service.

“I have underestimated you, Astrid,” Felicity said at length. “Will you sit with me?”

She held out a hand and led Astrid to the window bench, her fingers cold in Astrid’s grip. Astrid had learned to love books, reading on that bench, learned a lot of useless Latin, and had learned lately that the only subject she was interested in sketching was Lord Andrew Alexander. Now, she saw a spider’s web occupied a high corner, though the spider was mercifully not in residence.

“This is complicated,” Felicity said.

A ferocious wave of protectiveness toward her only sibling threatened Astrid’s composure. “You are my sister. No complication on this earth is going to affect that one whit, not even if it’s a compromising sort of complication.”

“Thank you. I am not yet compromised, but it is imminent, and if you are willing to listen, then I think you are ready to hear the explanation.”

The explanation was that Felicity had to support her younger sister. Misery joined fear and despair in Astrid’s vitals as a gust of wind came moaning down the chimney. “I am listening, Felicity.”

Felicity had pretty, graceful hands, and they were clenched in her lap like a martyr’s might be in anticipation of an inquisition. Astrid wanted to haul Lord Heathgate into the schoolroom and make him listen to what was to follow.

“Callista Hemmings owned a very high-class brothel—do you know what a brothel is?”

“I know exactly what a brothel is, and that they’re thick on the ground in some of the best neighborhoods.”

Felicity gave her a look, but that look had lost its power to daunt six months ago.

“Well, I do, and you asked, so please go on.”

“Callista left the brothel to us—the assets of the brothel, the legalities being somewhat complicated—on the condition that I learn to manage it, and that I learn to perform the services procured there. She further provided my instruction should be in Heathgate’s hands, and that I may not sell the business for one year following her death. There are other stipulations, mostly intended to see I don’t try to avoid the conditions I just described.”

Astrid did not doubt those other stipulations were onerous, and yet she could not bear to make Felicity recite them. She took out her handkerchief, the one sporting silver edging on a border of purple crocuses, and passed the linen to her sister. “I’m listening.”

“Heathgate could have turned his back on me, in which case I would have been relegated to the tutelage of Viscount Riverton, a wastrel whom you may recall as a former associate of Papa’s. Heathgate offered me a position on one of his estates as a housekeeper, but I declined.”

This was bad. This was very, very bad, because Lord Pomposity was not the author of Felicity’s impending downfall; some wretched relation Astrid had never met deserved that honor. “You are trying to convince me Heathgate’s role in all this is virtuous.”

“I am trying to explain to you that all of my options are bleak, Astrid, and I don’t want you to hate me for the one I have chosen. The path I’m on is not… honorable, but it offers the only hope I could find of ending matters respectably, eventually.”

Felicity started blinking, and Astrid wondered if there was a special circle of hell for ungrateful little sisters.

“Oh, Lissy…” Astrid slipped an arm around her sister’s waist. “I could just kill Papa. Kill him and kill him again. This is so unfair to you. He could have done more, but he simply didn’t care. I hate him more than I hate Heathgate.”

This earned her a wan smile.

“Gareth has been as decent as I’ve allowed him to be, Astrid, and he really is a kind man.”

“His variety of kindness leaves me unimpressed.” Though the night of the fire, even Astrid had been glad to see him—and to meet Lord Andrew. She’d been very glad about that.

“And as such,” Felicity went on, “he’s convinced the fellow in the park on the runaway horse, and the fire we nearly had, could be somebody’s efforts to do us mischief. If we inherit Callista’s business, we will be well set up. Someone might not be happy about that.”

Astrid would not be happy about it if it cost Felicity her self-respect.

She squeezed her older sister’s hand. “If it becomes known we have inherited that business, we are both quite ruined, though if Heathgate’s suspicions have any merit, then somebody already knows. I gather he suspects Mr. Holbrook?”

“Dear God…” Felicity got up and paced to the empty hearth, then turned to march back across the room. “Astrid, you could be right, and yes, I suppose Gareth is suspicious of Holbrook. His lordship is not a very trusting man.”

More and more, Astrid wanted a word with His Lordship—or
Gareth
. “I don’t think Mr. Holbrook is going to do us much mischief by handing me my bonnet or plucking you from the path of a galloping horse, Felicity. Why is Heathgate such an untrusting person?”

The question “why” had ever been one Astrid’s favorites, and something about the man was allowing Felicity—the soul of gentility—to break every rule of decorum.

Felicity resumed her place beside Astrid on the chilly window seat.

“I don’t know all the details, but it has something to do with how he assumed the title. He was fifth in line for the marquessate, behind his older brother, father, uncle, and cousin, when they all perished in a yachting accident, and for all I know, that’s not the worst of what transpired. Gareth was the subject of unkind speculation when he became the marquess. At the time, his mother and brother weren’t in any condition to help him either assume his duties or deal with his grief and guilt. It’s a wonder he has gotten on as well as he has.”

Beyond doubt, that dark, taciturn, interfering man had Felicity’s sympathies, which was puzzling.

“He has everything a man could want, Lissy. He’s dashing—if a bit long in the tooth—rich, titled, landed, and not bad looking. What is so difficult about that?”

Felicity drew her knees up, looking to Astrid more like a younger sister still in the schoolroom than an older sister on the verge of ruin. “He was a plain mister, Astrid, one of his grandfather’s lowly men of business, and then overnight, he became wealthy and powerful. From that point forward, his friends were not his friends, and abruptly, for reasons that aren’t reasons, he had enemies, and his private business became grist for the gossip mill. Gareth is not a man who enjoyed having his life thrown into turmoil.”

Gareth. Felicity called him Gareth, and he’d marched into their smoky kitchen at midnight and wrapped himself around Astrid’s sister with every evidence of terrified relief.

“I certainly haven’t enjoyed having my life thrown into turmoil,” Astrid conceded. “And I am a nobody. Why don’t you marry him?”

The question had to be asked, mostly because if Heathgate had offered and Felicity had refused, some shrieking on the part of a certain younger sister was directly in order.

“I don’t want to be married, Astrid,” Felicity said. “More to the point, he hasn’t asked. And if he did, I would not accept.”

“Whyever not?” Though Astrid would have turned him down flat, Felicity clearly favored the man, and she was a far better bargain than
he
deserved.

“Because I am not suited to being a marchioness, for one thing, and because Gareth does not love me. I don’t think he is capable of loving a wife the way I would need to be loved.”

And yet, at midnight, he’d come at a dead gallop and been prepared to do murder most foul to protect this woman he wasn’t capable of loving.

“Then make him capable. He’s overbearing, but he isn’t stupid. He could be taught to love just as he is teaching you… other things.”

“Oh, Astrid…” Felicity sounded torn between amusement and heartache. “I hope this situation works out, so we can sell the business and get you properly—and I do mean properly—launched. You are going to be an Original, and I will be so proud of you.”

The chances of such a scenario were between nil and nothing, and yet Astrid gave her sister a smile. “I shall be. You may depend upon it. But you should bring Heathgate up to scratch, Felicity. My prospects would improve, you know.”

“I could not be happy married on his terms. He is not a man who tolerates much sentiment in himself. His attachments are few and carefully guarded, and a wife would not be among them. I’d be miserable.”

As if one could be happy when ruined?

“How much longer must you suffer Heathgate’s company, Felicity, and why must he come around this house? The footmen and gardeners and grooms he’s sent over are all very nice, but your good name will not be long preserved if it’s known he visits you in your bedroom.”

“That was a mistake, Astrid. I canceled an appointment with him at the last minute, and he was concerned. Mrs. Crabble knew he was in the house, and the door was not shut.”

Heathgate’s most recent version of concern needed some significant refinement, which thought Astrid kept to herself.

“Heathgate has proposed that our best strategy to combat any rumors of illicit doings is to appear to be a legitimate social couple,” Felicity explained.

“He’s going to
court
you?”

“He’s going to appear to court me, or appear to think about courting me. He should be courting someone,” she added, frowning. “It will be for only a few more weeks.”

The daft man should be courting Felicity.

“Astrid?”

“Yes, Lissy?”

“I don’t believe we are in any danger, but Heathgate is not similarly convinced. Would you be offended if I asked you not to go to the park without me, or to market and so on?”

She was asking, sincerely asking, and while that was flattering, it was also vaguely upsetting. Outside, the wind picked up, and a cold draft swirled into the schoolroom, making the little spider’s web strain its moorings.

“For the next few weeks I can agree to limit my outings, but, Lissy, why doesn’t Heathgate simply ask Mr. Holbrook what his interest in us—if any—is?”

“I will put that question to him, Astrid, and suggest that in the future, if he wants to scold you for your manners, he do it somewhere besides my bedroom, hmm?”

“See that you do, and you may also tell him that if Lord Andrew accompanied him on the occasional call, I would contrive to be on my best behavior.”

***