London's Last True Scoundrel (19 page)

Ah, but he was edgy, out of sorts. He needed to get this matter of Honey’s debut settled and move on to the far more stimulating task of seducing her.

He’d talk Rosamund into chaperoning Honey; he had no doubt that he’d succeed with his softhearted cousin. There was the tricky question of persuading Honey’s guardian to go along with the scheme, but Davenport was confident that if he presented his plans as a fait accompli, deVere would have no choice but to acquiesce.

He’d be a fool not to. Honey was of no use to her guardian moldering away at the Grange. With a London season, she’d have the chance to make an alliance that would do credit to her family and take her off her brothers’ hands into the bargain.

DeVere might be rough around the edges, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d see the advantages of having Rosamund present the girl.

Before he knew it, Davenport was standing in the corridor near Jacqueline’s bedchamber, where he’d heard the housekeeper mention she was taking Honey.

Poor little thing. She was exhausted. She’d be asleep by now, no doubt.

He wouldn’t wake her. He’d just see …

With a quick glance around, he turned the handle of her door and slipped into the silent chamber.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Davenport eased the door shut. The room was dim, lit only by the fire, and he waited a moment or two for his eyes to adjust.

Silence greeted him, save for the tick of the mantel clock. He couldn’t hear her soft, even breathing the way he’d heard it last night. For a moment, he thought he must have the wrong room, but then he realized the curtains around the tester bed were drawn.

He moved softly to the bed and eased open the velvet drapes.

There she was, sound asleep. He couldn’t make out the particulars of her body in the darkness. She was just an amorphous mass of bedclothes. All covered up, wrapped in the sleep of the innocent.

He knew from experience how deeply she slept. Last night, he’d lifted her from the chair, carried her over to the bed, and laid her on her side so he could get at those corset laces. To preserve her sense of modesty, he’d even done it blind, with his hands sliding up underneath the borrowed night rail she wore.

That wasn’t to say he hadn’t enjoyed touching her, nor that he’d been able to resist certain “accidental” touches that weren’t strictly necessary for the removal of a lady’s corset. His body warmed at the memory.

Sliding the unlaced stays out from under her sleeping form had been the trickiest part. He’d been convinced she’d wake. She hadn’t. But she’d spent an extremely trying and tiring day, after all.

Davenport took a taper from the spill jar on the mantel and touched it to the fire, then lit a candle with it. He carried the candle over to the bed, confident that a herd of elephants wouldn’t wake her. If, by chance, she did wake … would that be a bad thing? They ought to plan their strategy for tomorrow.

And if that led to something more interesting, who was he to complain?

She’d omitted to braid her hair, he noticed. The soft golden glow from the candle picked highlights from her tumbling dark gold locks. In sleep, with her expression serene, her lips parted slightly in the faintest hint of a smile, she looked ravishingly fresh, and somehow very dear.

The breath caught in his chest.

He wanted her to wake up so he could talk to her about her future, about what had happened in the ballroom tonight. He wanted—burned—to awaken her in the metaphorical sense, too. When had innocence been so alluring, so compelling?

Yet it wasn’t her innocence alone that drew him. It was her courage in pursuing what she wanted so doggedly, her ability to see through his banter and his rakish façade. The adorable way she became so utterly befuddled by her own desire. She probably didn’t even realize that all of those heated flutterings inside her were the product of good old-fashioned lust.

Yes, the upright Miss deVere was capable of great passion. Her temper alone told him that. What a pity it would be if she married some dull dog who didn’t know how to kindle that passion to life.

He believed devoutly in the right of every woman to her own pleasure. He’d bedded enough married women to know they wouldn’t seek him out if their husbands satisfied them in the bedchamber. What a crime to keep them all so ignorant. Most didn’t even know what they were missing.

Suddenly he wondered if he was doing the right thing, aiding Honey in her quest for a husband. Knowing how much she disapproved of him, her brothers, and all their ilk, he could imagine the kind of dry old sobersides she’d favor as a spouse. Someone like Beckenham, for pity’s sake.

He blinked. Beckenham would be utterly perfect for her.

The notion made him want to punch something. Preferably his cousin’s granite-like jaw.

But no. With relief, he remembered that although the Earl of Beckenham did his duty by sitting in the Lords whenever Parliament was in session, he never took part in the season. Besides, Becks would probably turn his nose up at the idea of marrying a deVere. Davenport refused to see her married to a man who despised her family. That would be even worse than wedding the aforementioned dull dog.

Hot wax dripped onto his gloved hand. He hurriedly set it down in the candlestick on the bedside table with a click.

On a restless murmur, Honey turned her head toward the light, as if seeking something. A prolonged flutter of eyelids and she opened her eyes, squinting against the candle’s glow.

“Don’t be alarmed; it’s me,” he said softly. “Davenport.”

“Hmm?” She wasn’t really awake or she’d set up a screech.

He smiled, laughing at himself. He was randy as a spotted youth, yet she was totally oblivious. Here was one female quite capable of resisting his fabled charm. And just what did he think he was doing, waking her in the middle of the night after a hard day’s travel? He ought to know better.

A pity the cock-stand in his trousers wasn’t as reasonable and logical as his brain.

“Go back to sleep,” he told her with a wry twist to his mouth.

“Mmm.” She sighed and closed her eyes again.

He pulled the coverlet over her shoulder and collected his candle. With a silent prayer for strength, he made himself back away from the bed.

A brief, furtive reconnaissance told him the dimly lit corridor was empty. He emerged from the bedchamber, turned, and slowly eased the door closed with as little noise as possible.

His fingers had just left the doorknob when Rosamund rounded the corner toward him. “Jonathon! I might have known.”

Damnation.
A litany of curses ran through his mind as he desperately tried to come up with a plausible excuse for being there.

He’d faced cutthroats and bullies and ruffians, not to mention his own cousins, but he’d feared none of them as much as he feared the fury on this beautiful pregnant lady’s face.

Her guinea gold tendrils bobbed emphatically as she marched up to him, a look of bloody murder in her celestial blue eyes.

He held up his hands in the gesture of surrender. “Rosie, I can explain.”

Her hand clamped on his wrist. In an emphatic whisper, she said, “I want that girl out of here this instant.”

He laid a hand on hers. “No, Rosie, you don’t understand. I didn’t touch her. She’s had a long journey and she’s among strangers. I only came up to see if she needed anything.”

“You should have inquired of the housekeeper,” hissed Rosamund, tightening her grip. “
Gentlemen
do not enter ladies’ bedchambers at any time for any reason. Certainly not in my house.”

She wrenched open the door, no doubt expecting to behold a scene of debauchery. He held the candle up to illuminate the darkened room. Anyone could see Hilary was fast asleep. Not a sign of frenzied lovemaking anywhere.

Recalling what he’d left undone, he moved to the bed and carefully tugged the drapes shut so the morning sunshine wouldn’t wake her.

Then he stepped back and turned, to see Rosamund gazing at him oddly.

With a finger to his lips, he took his cousin’s hand and led her from the room.

“She’s worn to the bone,” he said. “Let her sleep.”

Outside again, with the door shut, Rosamund said in a low voice, “I accept that nothing happened between you tonight, but I do
not
like it, Jonathon. That you think you have license to enter that girl’s bedchamber tells me one of two things: she is your mistress—”

“I told you she’s n—”

“—
Or
,” said Rosamund with a frown at him for interrupting her, “she is a virtuous girl who is in grave danger of being corrupted by you. What if Mrs. Faithful or one of the maids had seen you? You’d be obliged to marry the girl, and a pretty mess that would make.”

An odd twist in the region of his chest made anger spark. “You were not always so starched up, Rosie. I seem to recall you mentioning one or two exploits—”

“They were with
Griffin,
you dolt! We were in love. We were betrothed, and now we’re
married
.” She threw up her hands. “What does it take to get it through that thick head of yours that you cannot go around trifling with women in this thoughtless, selfish manner? Particularly women of
that
family.”

Her face set. “I’m sending for Lord deVere in the morning.”

He groaned. “Don’t do that, Rosie, not yet. Not until you get to know her. She’s—”

“Clearly, you don’t yet understand how society works,” said Rosamund with terrible patience. “If you ruin the girl in my household, everyone will hold me to blame, and they’d be right.”

Her eyes grew suspiciously moist. “I trusted you, Jonathon. When you told me she was not your fancy-piece—”

“She’s
not
my—”

“But you want her to be,” she said bluntly. “You would never take this trouble out of altruism. No man would.” She thought for a moment. “Except, perhaps, Beckenham.”

“Oh, yes, Becks is the model of propriety, isn’t he?” He all but snarled the words, causing Rosamund to step back.

He didn’t care. She had to listen. “I brought Miss deVere to you because she has been oppressed all her life by her male relatives, forced to grub for her living as a governess. She’s never had a season like other girls of her station. The school didn’t want her anymore because she’s a deVere, and she was forced to go home. Rosie, her brother’s house stinks like the kennels and when we arrived there the place was full of whores. It was clear as day those louts had no intention of changing their ways simply because their sister was in the house. Can you imagine yourself or Cecily in such a situation?”

She flinched.

“But go ahead,” he said bitterly. “Send her back there. Hilary deVere is as much of an innocent as any of you girls were when you debuted. She was so desperate to get out of that place, she accepted
my
escort, and you may be sure that she had my measure from the outset.
I
was the lesser of two evils.”

Rosamund blinked. Some of the tautness left her frame. Suddenly her eyes widened. She stared at him as if a novel thought had occurred to her.

That look gave him hope until she seemed to shake off whatever notion had entered her brain. “It is out of the question. I cannot keep her here without informing her guardian, no matter how innocent she might be.”

He ran his hand through his hair and turned away so she wouldn’t see the disappointment in his face. He was care-for-nothing Davenport. He ought to brush this off with no more than a shrug of regret for the lost opportunity of bedding a woman he was hot for. But he couldn’t bear the thought of Honey back there in that hovel, subjected to all kinds of indignities, with no means of escape.

He blew out a breath. He’d never wanted to shake a woman before, but he was coming close to it with Rosamund. He couldn’t look at her but gazed up at the plasterwork on the corridor ceiling. “It was all for nothing, then.”

He must think of something. He couldn’t let Honey go back there.

There was a long pause before Rosamund spoke. “If—
if
—I find the girl to be all you say, I shall invite her to stay with me for the season. And I shall prevail upon Montford to use his influence with her guardian to agree.”

He turned back, eager as a damned puppy and unable to hide it. “You will?”

“Y-yes.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, Jonathon. I will.”

“Thank you, Rosie.” Grinning, he caught her hands up in his, pulled her to him, and gave her a big, smacking kiss, full on the lips.

Laughing, blushing, she pushed him away. “Good Heavens, if Griffin saw us, he’d cut out your liver. Now we must go down. I’ve been away from my guests too long already.”

*   *   *

Hilary woke to the panicked sensation of not knowing where she was. The curtains around her bed were drawn, blocking out the light as well as any detail that might have oriented her.

Even more bewildering, the bed beneath her back was soft as a cloud. The linen smelled of lavender and rare, precious sunshine and the coverlet gave a luxurious, papery rustle whenever she moved. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the draperies surrounding her were made of rich swags of sumptuous velvet.

Recollection flooded back. Good gracious! What time was it?

Hilary hauled back the heavy drapes and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

Sunlight filtered through another set of drapes at the window. These were fashioned of silk taffeta, fine as a lady’s ball gown.

Not wishing anyone to see her from below, she opened the curtains a crack and peeked out.

London!

Outside, there was bustle, even at this hour: maids and errand boys, men delivering all manner of provisions to the grand houses in the street.

She glanced at the clock and realized the hour was far more advanced than she’d guessed. Eleven o’clock and no one had come to wake her.

She must dress, but she couldn’t find her clothes. Had the housekeeper murmured something about sending a maid to unpack for her? She’d been too fatigued to raise any kind of protest.

She flushed. By now, the entire household would know how meager her wardrobe was, how worn with laundering her undergarments were.