Lessons From a Scarlet Lady (15 page)
By God, Brianna looked gorgeous this evening. Dressed in a simple gown of blue silk, her upswept golden hair gilded by the candlelight, her flawless pale skin glowing, she was femininity personified as she gave him a brilliant smile and sank down in a whisper of sweet, tantalizing perfume.
Later, he promised himself, he would take great pleasure in removing that gown and loosening her lustrous hair. Then he would take her to bed and hear her make those small, arousing sounds that signaled she liked every single thing he did to her and wanted more.
“Are you going to sit?”
Her question, asked so delicately, made him realize he was still standing there by her chair, gaping at his wife like a fool.
And fantasizing about making love to her in front of his entire family, including his grandmother, no less.
Brianna had that kind of unsettling effect on him.
“Sorry. I just remembered something I forgot to do before we left. No matter, my solicitor can deal with it,” Colton lied and quickly took the chair at the head of the table, feeling like an idiot. The minute he sat down a footman moved forward to pour the wine and Colton picked up his glass gratefully, trying to ignore the slight smirk on Robert’s face. Whether or not anyone else had noticed his moment of temporary absorption with his wife, his brother certainly had. In petty retaliation to Robert’s irritating expression, Colton asked coolly, “So, do tell me, my dear, are any single young ladies invited to this soiree?”
Brianna smiled mischievously, a delightful dimple appearing in one cheek. “How could I not invite a few with two of the most eligible bachelors in England in attendance?”
Damien looked comically alarmed. Robert gave an audible groan. His grandmother cracked a laugh. The Dowager Duchess said with asperity, “Good for you, child. I’d like to see the lot of them married off before I leave this earth.”
“I have always wanted you to live forever, Grandmama.” Robert lifted his glass in a small toast. “That comment reinforces my sentiment.”
“Amen,” Damien muttered.
“I was only making a jest,” Brianna told them, her lovely eyes full of amusement. “The guest list is fairly limited. Besides the Earl and Countess of Bonham, there are the Marstons, Lord Bishop and his daughter, Mrs. Newman, Lords Knightly and Emerson, and the Campbell sisters with their parents. That is the extent of it. My sister and her husband were unfortunately unable to attend.”
“The extent of it? It includes five unmarried young ladies.” Robert turned positively green.
“Five bachelors as well.” Brianna sipped her wine with serene grace and furrowed her brow. “One cannot throw a party like this and not match the gentlemen to the ladies evenly. Your grandmother told me so, and I arranged the guest list accordingly. Besides, you are used to being present at entertainments with unmarried young women.”
“Not five of them at once and not for five days of their constant company.”
“Good God.” Damien already had the look of a hunted man.
“Oh, don’t make it sound so horrible. I promise you they are all perfectly agreeable or I would never have invited them.”
Colton had the feeling his wife was laughing behind that composed façade as he watched her expression.
He found it quite fascinating, actually. How the devil had she persuaded him to agree to this, and more perplexing, how did she maneuver his stalwartly detached brothers into a similar situation?
“You’ll enjoy yourselves immensely, I’m sure,” he murmured. “We all will.”
Robert, who was aware Colton hadn’t wanted the party at all, shot him a sardonic look. Damien grimaced and gestured for more wine, as he’d just drained his glass. His grandmother watched them all with avid interest, and Brianna reached over and touched Colton’s hand.
A touch. Just a brush of her fingertips. Yet his body tingled. Her blue eyes were misty. “I am so glad you just said that, darling. I have worried so over this idea.”
Darling.
Normally he would not have appreciated an endearment in public, even if it was only in front of his family. But her expression caught him somehow and rendered him helpless to even summon a frown. Irrationally, he found himself casting back to recall if she’d ever called him darling before. No, he thought not.
Normally he would not have appreciated an endearment in public, even if it was only in front of his family. But her expression caught him somehow and rendered him helpless to even summon a frown. Irrationally, he found himself casting back to recall if she’d ever called him darling before. No, he thought not.
I have worried so. . . .
Had she? He’d been annoyed over the idea and she had fretted over it. Colton felt like an ass, especially when he caught his grandmother’s glare.
Well, how the hell was he supposed to know how a married man should act? He’d had as little practice as Brianna, after all. “I don’t know why you would worry.”
His two younger brothers both exchanged glances and it irritated the devil out of him. Robert said, “Perhaps she thought you’d be reluctant to leave London and spend one moment of your time relaxing? I can’t for the life of me imagine why she’d get the impression.”
Colton leveled a chilly stare at his youngest sibling. “Sarcasm is unwelcome at the table, Robbie.”
“Was I being sarcastic?” Feigned innocence gave Robert’s features an angelic cast, though he was the farthest thing removed from an angel—unless it was a fallen one.
The arrival of the first course saved Colton from having to reply. He studiously turned his attention to his soup. To a certain measure he understood his brothers’ objections to the atmosphere of the gathering, but then again, the young ladies invited were Brianna’s friends, and if they wanted to avoid entanglements with eligible young misses, they could simply be polite for five days and be done with it. In his opinion, it wasn’t much to ask. He was the head of the family. He could demand more.
Hell, maybe even one of them would find a wife, he thought as he watched Brianna dip her spoon into the creamy soup and take a delicate taste.
God help them.
Chapter Eight
The primary conflict between males and females doesn’t result from the games we play with each other so much as the different rules. We have one set, they have another.
From the chapter titled: “The Whys and Wherefores”
I
t wasn’t until Brianna pounced on him that Robbie realized she was anxious. He’d no more than stepped into the central hall before he found himself amidst a bevy of footmen carrying massive vases of flowers in from the conservatory and a slim hand clamped with surprising strength around his forearm.
t wasn’t until Brianna pounced on him that Robbie realized she was anxious. He’d no more than stepped into the central hall before he found himself amidst a bevy of footmen carrying massive vases of flowers in from the conservatory and a slim hand clamped with surprising strength around his forearm.
“I need help.” His sister-in-law practically dragged him toward an Italian marble fireplace near a grouping of velvet chairs. “The guests are starting to arrive and tea will be served in less than an hour. What do you think of the roses right here?”
A brilliant spray of bloodred blooms set a dramatic note against the white stone, so he said reasonably, “I think they look lovely.”
Imploring blue eyes looked into his and there was an actual smudge of something yellow on her porcelain cheek. “You’re sure?”
He removed his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the substance, which looked suspiciously like pollen, away. “I’m quite sure.”
The flush in her cheeks and the nervous clutch of her hand reminded him she was barely twenty years old, and though she usually looked remarkably self-possessed, not at all used to her new position as the Duchess of Rolthven. Her level of experience with this sort of thing was limited. “Mrs. Finnegan, the housekeeper,” he said as tactfully as possible, “has been in our family’s service for thirty years, and she would know exactly where to place the roses for the best effect. She’s managed house parties often enough before. My mother would have shamelessly stolen her away to Italy if she could have persuaded her to go. I think Finnie would be delighted if you gave over some of these decisions to her.”
Brianna said with endearing earnestness, “I do so want this to be perfect. I rather thrust this affair upon Colton, and if it is a social disaster, I will not only have wasted his time but caused him embarrassment.”
For one brief moment, as Robert looked into her lovely face and saw the sincerity in her eyes, he envied his brother his wife. Not Brianna specifically, though she was beautiful in every way a woman could be and he admired her spirit and wit, but the idea that she had gone to the trouble of planning this party. Not that his older brother would even notice the roses, much less where they were placed, but above all she obviously wished to make Colton happy.
What a notion. Robert was more than well acquainted with ladies who wished for
him
to make
them
happy. They craved the pleasure he could bring them in bed, the prestige of dallying with the younger brother of a duke, the expected jewelry and other expensive gifts.
him
to make
them
happy. They craved the pleasure he could bring them in bed, the prestige of dallying with the younger brother of a duke, the expected jewelry and other expensive gifts.
Did they ever think about
him
? Not the Lord Robert Northfield with his generous inheritance and exalted connections. Not whether or not they found him handsome and a skillful lover. But about his life and his thoughts and aspirations?
him
? Not the Lord Robert Northfield with his generous inheritance and exalted connections. Not whether or not they found him handsome and a skillful lover. But about his life and his thoughts and aspirations?
Never, he had a feeling, did it occur to any of the women he bedded to ponder over his state of happiness. It was his fault, too, he realized as he stood there staring at Brianna, breathing in the scent of hothouse flowers that filled the air. He deliberately chose companions who desired nothing but casual sexual liaisons without emotional involvement. He seduced a specific kind of woman and they enjoyed his attentions immensely.
But was it enough? No woman ever looked at him the way Brianna looked at his brother.
Colton too, in unguarded moments when he wasn’t locked away, shutting out the world in favor of shipping contracts and letters to estate managers, looked at his wife with a singular softness in his eyes Robert suspected his older brother didn’t even know was there.
It was astonishing that at the age of twenty-six, with his level of experience with women, Robert had never contemplated the possibility of falling in love with anything but derision.
“You are nothing but a credit to him in every way, and I don’t just mean his title.” Robert patted the hand still holding his sleeve, listening to the hoarseness in his voice with disbelief. He wasn’t sentimental . . . at least, he didn’t think he was. “Now, let me go find Mrs. Finnegan for you, shall I? Then I suppose I need to go change. I’ve been out riding most of the day.”
“Thank you.” Brianna released his sleeve with a rueful smile. “I would actually be grateful for her help.”
“My pleasure, Madame de la Duchesse.” He bowed with exaggerated courtesy, which made her laugh, and then went in search of the ever efficient Finnie (as he’d called her since he was old enough to talk), explained that Colton’s bride could use some guidance, and went upstairs to change.
All the time cognizant that he’d experienced some kind of a profound moment.
As he adjusted his cravat in the mirror, a grim-faced image looked back at him, very unlike his usual devil-may-care expression.
A knock on the door made him turn. He said curtly, “Yes?”
Damien opened the door to his bedchamber and strolled in. “I thought we might go down to tea together to present a united bachelor front.”
Robert forced a grin, trying to shake off this unprecedented contemplative mood. “Have you been plotting how to survive this?”
“I’m a military advisor.” His brother shrugged. “It seems like a clever strategy to me, though I admit I’m more accustomed to gauging the movement of French forces than eager young ladies and their motivations.”
“Perhaps we are flattering ourselves,” Robert said dryly. “It’s possible none of the young women Brianna invited are interested in either one of us.”
Damien’s expression was resigned. “I haven’t been about in society for a while, but I think you are being optimistic. We’re Northfields, Robbie—we could be the most boorish men in all of England and we would still be considered eligible bachelors.”
Robert thought so too. “You’re probably right,” he admitted. “At least Miss Marston is charming.” Though it was ill-advised, he added because he was thinking about her specifically, “And beautiful.”
And where the devil had
that
comment come from? It was disconcerting to think seeing the young lady again was in the back of his mind.
that
comment come from? It was disconcerting to think seeing the young lady again was in the back of his mind.
His brother’s brows lifted. “Miss Marston? As in the daughter of Sir Benedict Marston?”
“Yes.” The reply was clipped. Robert hadn’t told Damien about his disagreement with the man in question.
“We’ve had some communication.” Damien’s face took on the neutral expression it always did when discussing his profession. “He has the ear of the War Minister and of Liverpool. Odd, when Brianna mentioned it last night, I didn’t make the connection immediately.”
“She’s quite good friends with Rebecca.”
“Rebecca, is it? You are familiar enough with the lady to use her first name?”
Robert thought of a moonlit garden and the brush of his mouth against the corner of soft, tempting, rose-colored lips. “No. It’s a liberty I wouldn’t take in her presence. We barely know each other.”
Except he remembered the pliant fullness of her breasts against his chest and the delicate, haunting essence of her scent. . . .
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